In Her Wake Read online

  PRAISE FOR IN HER WAKE

  ‘Hauntingly beautiful’ Clare Mackintosh

  ‘In Her Wake is a beautifully observed portrait of one woman’s quest for identity, family and the truth about her past. Thoughtful, atmospheric and deeply immersive, it wields an almost mesmeric power over the reader from the first page to the last. As a story about the love and hope between sisters, parents and children it’s both wise, sensitive and intelligently drawn. I loved it’ Hannah Beckerman

  ‘A haunting and compelling read, charged with perfectly observed emotion and a poetic gift for language’ Iona Grey

  ‘In Her Wake is one of those novels that you know is going to stay with you for a very long time after you finish it. Bella is a brilliantly flawed protagonist, but you root for her all the way and travel with her on every step of her journey for answers. This is credit to Amanda Jennings’ excellent writing – gripping, moving and mature – everything you want in a good read. Loved it’ Louise Voss

  ‘Gripping and emotional, with enough twists and turns to give you whiplash, In Her Wake is a finely drawn exploration of identity and memory, and one woman’s journey through her own shocking past’ Tammy Cohen

  ‘Delicately weaves loss and grief with threads of hope in a very human story with a strong heart’ Sarah Hilary

  ‘Amanda Jennings really hits her stride with this one. In Her Wake is an assured, evocative, rites of passage tale that will captivate readers of psychological suspense’ Mari Hannah

  ‘Captivating and beautifully written, In Her Wake explores a truly devastating and disturbing subject, yet somehow manages to leave the reader with hope. This is a subtle type of psychological thriller, a compelling tale of a shattered family interwoven with a spattering of expertly timed twists and turns. I absolutely loved it’ SJI Holliday

  ‘Jennings drops you into a dark, twisted and tortured world and then pulls you out again, page by page, until you find yourself in something completely beautiful and evocative’ Amanda Keats, Novelicious

  ‘In Her Wake is psychologically chilling, but it is also a beautifully observed story of a journey of self-discovery. Amanda Jennings’ words are alluring, persuasive and so incredibly elegant, the reader is carried along effortlessly into Bella’s world. Her characters scream with realism, her settings are well observed and precise and the insight into the human mind and the power of family relationships is both unsettling and convincing … a powerful page-turner from an author who goes from strength to strength’ Random Things Through My Letterbox

  ‘I’m every so slightly speechless. This is an utterly compelling, completely addictive read that is extremely beautifully written. There are several books that are being heralded as “psychological thriller of the year” and I’ve read these books … In Her Wake blows all of them out of the water. This, people, is the psychological thriller of 2016’ Reading Room with a View

  ‘In Her Wake is an outstanding novel, a triumphantly tense and spellbinding story of what makes a family and how those secrets you try so desperately to keep always find their way out, sometimes with the most tragic of consequences. Full of sharply observed emotions, complex characters and an exquisitely depicted Cornwall setting, this is easily one of the best and most powerful books I’ve ever had the honour of reading’ Reviewed the Book

  ‘In Her Wake is beautifully written, an emotionally stunning story that envelops you in a kind of reading madness, as you follow Bella down the rabbit hole. Distinctive, descriptive and psychologically chilling, this is bound to be one of the standouts of the year’ Liz Loves Books

  ‘Amanda Jennings has raised the bar and cleared it effortlessly. A truly captivating, gripping read that touched my heart. The hurt, pain and raw emotions were so vivid I could feel my chest tighten with emotion at every page turn. A book I devoured, but the story still resonated a week later’ Crooks on Books

  ‘In Her Wake is a stunning, beautifully written psychological thriller, and I can’t praise it highly enough. Highly thought-provoking and emotional, with a captivating Cornwall setting and a deep and tragic plot, this is definitely going to be one of my top reads of 2016’ Off-the-Shelf Books

  In Her Wake

  Amanda Jennings

  To my gran, who sadly passed away while I was writing this book. Cornwall was your home for nearly one hundred years. It was your true love, your passion, and this love lives on in the hearts of your family.

  Thank you for inspiring me.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  SIXTY-ONE

  SIXTY-TWO

  SIXTY-THREE

  SIXTY-FOUR

  SIXTY-FIVE

  SIXTY-SIX

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  SIXTY-NINE

  SEVENTY

  SEVENTY-ONE

  SEVENTY-TWO

  SEVENTY-THREE

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  SEVENTY-SIX

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  I dreamt vividly the night she died. I’ve had this dream before. In it I am running. Always running. My heart thumps in my ears. My breath comes in short, painful gasps. It is dark and cold and the trees reach out to grab at me, as if they are alive, as if they are trying to capture me with their long, twiggy fingers. Their roots are thick and hidden and I trip repeatedly. I think my feet must hurt. I look down to see that I am wearing only one slipper.

  When did I lose the other?

  Fear has taken hold of me now. A rising panic fills me and I begin to struggle for breath. My chest is tight, like a giant’s hand is squeezing and squeezing, making each gasp impossible. It is getting darker. I must keep running. And then, just when I think it’s all over, there it is, a glorious sunrise appears ahead and forces back the darkness. She is sitting, as she always does, in the pool of light on the forest floor. A little girl in a white nightie, soft, golden curls framing her pale face. I run to her and she lifts her head. When she sees me, she smiles. I wave and she waves back and then I laugh because she is wearing my othe
r slipper. We both have one bare foot and one slipper. How funny! As soon as I laugh, the light begins to fade and so does she. I scream so loudly my lungs feel as if they might split open. I have to reach her before she melts away. But it’s always too late. As I stretch my fingers out to touch her, she vanishes. My hand grasps at nothing, like catching smoke.

  Then everything turns black and the ground beneath me disappears. I am falling through a void, into a pit with windowless walls that stretch up for miles, walls that are slippery with darkness and impossible to climb. I am lost forever.

  This is what I dreamt the night she died.

  ONE

  ‘You should stay in the car and let me speak to him first.’

  I don’t reply; it isn’t a question, so requires no response.

  I stare out of the half-lowered window at the countryside we’re passing through, the sun flickering through the trees, throwing long, dappled shadows across the single-track lane and the unruly hedgerows. I draw in deep breaths of the air I grew up with, air still scented with rain-dampened grass, a hint of the farmyard a few miles beyond, the pungent cow parsley that swamps the verges. A feeling of foreboding gathers inside me as we round the familiar bends in the road and I wait for the tick tick tick of the indicator that will mean we’ve arrived.

  The car slows and turns, then draws to a halt. I wait for The Old Vicarage to appear though the parting gates. But seeing the house is too much and I quickly drop my head to focus instead on my wringing hands. David reaches over and pats my knee, a brief and perfunctory gesture designed to remind me to hold myself together. I lean against his shoulder, wondering for a moment if he might take it upon himself to turn the car around and take me away from it all.

  ‘I always forget how beautiful it is,’ he says, as he drives slowly through the gates. ‘Your mother might have been nuts, but she was bloody good in the garden.’

  I want to tell him not to be mean about her, not today, not with tomorrow still to get through. But I don’t. Instead I say, ‘Yes, she loved the garden.’

  He’s right, of course. It’s a beautiful house. A perfectly proportioned grey stone rectory, thickly clad with ivy the colour of wine bottles, set in the middle of a magnificent garden enclosed by a high brick wall. Wild roses clamber around the front door. A Virginia creeper, now green and vibrant, but which glows a fiery red as autumn takes hold, pushes its tendrils into the eaves and guttering. There’s a shabby charm about the peeling paint on the window frames and the weeds that grow between moss-patched pavers on the terrace. Inside are floorboards that have creaked forever and windows that rattle in the mildest of winds. It is a place of heady memories, memories of intense love, of bolted doors and claustrophobic loneliness, and as I reluctantly lift my head to look at it, I’m hit with wave after wave of rolling emotion. The house without her, I can’t begin to imagine it.

  Gravel crunches beneath the tyres as we pull up on the driveway. The trees around us seem to bow a disconsolate greeting. I see us then, me with my mother, wandering between them, my hand gripped in hers, as she taught me their names. I glance down towards the pond, at the weeping willow, its delicate branches trailing sadly in the murky water as if in mourning. The trees will miss her too.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ David says, tucking the hair that has fallen over my face behind my ear and brushing something off my shoulder. ‘I’m here for you.’

  I nod but don’t say anything. My attention is taken by the front door, which has begun to open. My stomach churns as my father walks onto the doorstep. He stands, slightly stooped, arms limp at his sides. As we stare at each other through the windscreen, it strikes me how old he’s become. When did this happen, this dramatic ageing? Was it a slow creep over decades, each day a fraction frailer, a fraction more withered? Or has it happened suddenly, in the last ten days, in the time passed since he greeted me in the hospital waiting room with nothing more than a solemn shake of his head.

  I notice his maroon cardigan is pulled together on the wrong buttons. It sits skewed on his shoulders and my heart lurches. If I’d needed proof she was gone his badly fastened cardigan was it. Had she been alive, heart beating, it would have been rebuttoned with an impatient tut and a sigh as she neatened him for our arrival.

  David climbs out of the car and I watch him approach the front door. He clasps my father’s reedy hand between both of his and shakes it. He speaks a few words. My father gives a small, tight smile, nods, says a few words in reply. They both glance back towards me and I look away.

  I’m not ready, I silently cry. I’m not ready to bury my mother.

  When I look back at them, David beckons me to come, as if coaxing a timid animal from a cage. I take a breath and open the car door.

  ‘Hello, Bella.’

  My father sounds beaten. He lifts his arms towards me but then drops them. Maybe he sees my hesitation. Up close he is painfully frail. It shocks me. His eyes are faded, a pale liquid blue, the deep-purple puffiness beneath them like a pair of matching bruises. His face is gaunt and wan. My mother’s death has clearly ravaged him. Neither of us speaks and I am aware of David staring at us, aware of him judging our relationship as he always does, our lack of affection, the emotional chasm between us. I force myself a step closer to my father. I should embrace him, that’s the right thing to do, so in spite of my reluctance, I reach out and open my arms. For a moment or two he doesn’t do anything and a self-conscious awkwardness creeps over me; but then, in one swift movement, he steps forward and grabs at me, pulls me into his body, holds me so tightly I grow rigid with alarm. He hangs on and as he does my anxiety seems to ease and I hold him back, clutch at the soft cashmere of his imperfectly buttoned cardigan, breathe him in, his musty bookish study mixed with Imperial Leather soap, the soap he’s used forever. My mother and I use a different brand. Pears Glycerine. I take a kick to my stomach as I remember she’s gone and that now it’s just me who carries the scent of that soap.

  As my father and I hold on to each other, everything else fades to nothing – the desolate willow tree, the house that looms over us, even David’s silent judgement – all of it pales as the smell and touch of my father envelop me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, his breath warm on my neck. Then his body stiffens and that rare moment of closeness is over. He steps backwards and gives a curt nod. ‘Please, both of you, do come in.’

  I hesitate for a moment or two, bracing myself for the eerie quiet that pervades the space held by the grey stone walls.

  Inside, the house is cool and smells of stale air and furniture polish. I feel her all around me, in the worn flagstone floor, in the reproduction oil paintings that hang on the walls, in the absence of flowers on the console table. There was never a day when there weren’t flowers in the house; she’d have hated that he’s forgotten to cut some, and her stern disapproval eddies around us.

  David and I walk through to the kitchen as my father locks the front door, first the Chubb, then the chain, then the top and bottom bolts, which clunk loud and familiar as he slides them home. I can hear the house whispering, blaming me for her death.

  I couldn’t have stopped it, I want to shout. Even if I’d stayed, she’d still be dead.

  It’s not my fault.

  The kitchen curtains are open. My stomach clenches. I should like that, I know, but I don’t. It feels wrong, as if my father is somehow being disloyal. I resist the urge to close them and sit at the table. I pass the flat of my hand over the grainy wood, pausing to scratch at an ancient mark from a felt-tip pen. This is where I did my schoolwork, every day, in this very spot, moving only for maths and science, the lessons I had with Henry in his fusty, book-filled study. My mother would sit next to me, her face serious, pencil in hand, using it to point at passages in various text books, her voice calm and firm. I loved learning. I never told her I preferred Henry’s science lessons, of course. She’d have been terribly hurt. She was a good teacher, I think, and nothing gave me a greater thrill than making her so pleased
with my work that she’d stick a shiny gold star to the bottom of the page.

  I look over at my father as he comes into the room. There is still a part of me that half expects him to break into a wide smile and say, Guess what? It’s only a little joke of mine. Your mother isn’t dead at all, just a bit poorly. Don’t worry yourself. She’ll be down in a jiffy. But he doesn’t. Instead he takes the kettle over to the tap and I watch as he fills it. I want to tell him he’s filling it too full, that it will take an age to boil, but the effort needed to muster the words is too great.

  ‘All set for tomorrow, Henry?’ asks David. ‘Any last-minute things you need me to help with?’

  My father’s eyes stay fixed on the kettle. ‘Oh, that’s kind, David. But I think I’m more or less there. You’ve been so helpful already. She wouldn’t have wanted a large affair. I’ve kept it simple.’

  ‘Well, I’m here if you need anything. In a way it’s good you’ve managed to sort it all so quickly. I think it’s helpful to get these things over with and not let them drag on.’

  Get these things over with? Did he mean to say that? I glance nervously at my father, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed my husband’s tactless choice of words; he merely nods and sets about making the tea.

  Watching my father try to perform this simple task is painful. He appears hopeless as he stands in front of the pine dresser. He scans the shelves, then reaches hesitantly for a cup, which he walks to the table and deposits. Then he heads back for another. And again for a third. With three cups on the table in front of him he appears to run out of steam. I watch his confusion grow, hear him mumble that something is missing, that it looks different when she does it. A moment later a flicker of recognition crosses his face and he wanders back to the dresser, returning with a small stack of saucers, which one by one are paired with a cup. There’s an extra saucer left in his hand, which apparently throws him. The kettle starts to boil noisily, spluttering steam and water all over the worktop. He turns to look at it in mild shock, then returns his gaze to his hand, perhaps hoping the redundant saucer might offer salvation of some kind.