occasionally, when the pain was at its worst, berating her for impatience and presumptions when none had been made.
Often she was too exhausted by her treatments to talk, or even to get out of bed to enjoy her visitors, but in between times she’d do her best to join in whatever was going on. If Jamie was around, and he and his family usually were, she spent many nostalgic hours showing him photographs of his father as a young boy. She didn’t have a natural way with the children, often regarding them as if she’d forgotten who they were, but for some reason they found her fascinating and she certainly seemed to enjoy watching them romping through the meadow down to the beach. She liked to watch them wrestling with their father too, and when her gift for grim and ghoulish stories was discovered her rapt audience of two begged her to take over the bedtime routine. If she was well enough she usually obliged, but only if she wasn’t in the tower writing, though exactly what she was writing nobody knew.
‘I’m not going to get better,’ she croaked, gazing out towards the sea and cliffs dazzled into a blur by the afternoon sunshine, ‘so it’s time for you all to stop pretending I will. I’ve already refused further treatment – it’s doing no good so I received no resistance from the doctors. Marianne knows this, and now I’m telling you because I have a final request to make of you.’
Joely inwardly balked at the use of final; of course she knew Freda was dying, but she hadn’t been prepared for her to bring it up like this.
She waited, certain the request was going to be in some way related to the memoir – or perhaps it was connected to whatever Freda had been writing these past few months. They could be one and the same thing.
Freda’s profile remained turned away, sharp-boned and papery thin skin against a backdrop of the grey granite rocks rising up behind her. ‘I want you to help me on my way should it be necessary,’ she said, the words coming out as simply as if she were asking for a lift into town.
Joely told herself she hadn’t heard right.
Freda turned and eyed her darkly. ‘You didn’t see that coming?’ she challenged as if she’d just bowled an LBW.
Joely really hadn’t.
Appearing pleased with herself, Freda nodded an urge to respond further.
‘But I can’t,’ Joely protested, ‘I’m not even a relative …’
‘You’re my ghost, I think that makes us even closer than relatives.’
Not at all sure how she’d worked that out, actually not really wanting to know, Joely said, ‘I ghosted a story that wasn’t even yours.’
Freda clearly found that amusing. ‘You had no idea, did you, that it was your mother’s?’
‘You know I didn’t.’
‘Have you read it yet with your mother, aged fifteen, in mind?’
‘I don’t need to. I can picture her in all the scenarios you described, and since she’s admitted that most of them are true … What are you going to do with it now? Is that what you’ve been working on in the writing room?’
Freda raised a shaky hand and fluttered it through the air like a broken wing, following it with a small puff that had no sound. ‘The memoir is my gift to you and your mother,’ she said. ‘My only interest in it was to clear my brother’s name, but as we know it didn’t work out quite the way I’d expected.’ She gave a small sigh. ‘Life’s like that, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I believe it happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.’
‘John Lennon,’ Joely stated.
Freda nodded. ‘“Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)”. It was written for his son, Sean, but I expect you know that.’
Joely did. ‘I think the memoir,’ she said boldly, ‘was as much about punishing my mother as it was about clearing your brother’s name.’
Freda nodded slowly, absorbing the accusation and not disputing it. ‘That didn’t really work out either, did it?’ she admitted. She dabbed a tissue to her lips and let her veiny hand fall back to her lap. ‘I wanted to meet her,’ she said, her voice staging a ragged break through the hoarseness into clarity. ‘I hated her for what had happened to my family, but was fascinated by her as well. I wanted to find out what was so special about her, what it is that draws people to her, what she has that I don’t, and look