The Damage Done Read online

  The Damage Done

  Linda Newbery

  ≈SH≈

  First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2001

  Revised Kindle edition, Seaton House Books 2011

  © Linda Newbery, 2001 and 2011

  The right of Linda Newbery to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  *

  For Kathleen Peyton, who made me want to try

  Also by Linda Newbery:

  Missing Rose

  Set in Stone

  The Shell House

  Sisterland

  “Newbery writes wonderfully” – The Financial Times

  “Newbery tells her story of a young woman’s self-discovery with a quiet authority in a book that is always a page-turner but feels measured and adult as it grapples with Kirsty’s insecurity.” The Guardian

  “Linda Newbery quietly gets under the skin of her teenage characters with her unshowy, insightful prose.” Dinah Hall, The Sunday Telegraph

  “Linda Newbery is an author who never lets her readers down.” Nicholas Tucker, The Independent

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the author

  Chapter One

  One night before Easter, when the air smelled of earth and spring rain, the fear came back.

  She thought she’d beaten them, her night fears. They belonged to the long nights of winter, to the dark, timeless hours when her own bedroom turned against her and became hostile. Now, again, she was hurled into wakefulness by a harsh, single image that thrust itself into her brain. A cry snagged in her throat as she lurched upright, her pulse thumping against her ears.

  A dream.

  The silence of the night sidled up to her, prickled her skin. She sat on the edge of her bed and concentrated on breathing. A flick of the light switch threw the room into bright, unnatural normality. Her watch said it was half-past one. Four, four-and-a-half hours of darkness to come; she wouldn't sleep now.

  Kirsty fumbled her feet into her slippers and stood up.

  Along the landing, she saw the crack of light under the door of her father's study. Faintly, she smelled cigarette smoke. He said he didn't smoke any more, but she knew he did, late at night when he was working. She didn't need to catch him doing it. The dead-ash smell hung in the air, in the curtains, even though he opened the windows wide every morning. She could hear the faint clacking of his keyboard; that meant he was working, not just staring into space.

  She couldn't disturb him. For most of the day he prowled about, restless and irritable, waiting for these few productive hours.

  She went to the loo, washed her face and briefly looked at herself in the mirror. Only briefly. It was when she looked at her reflection more intently, caught her own gaze, that the fears started taking hold - stupid fears, that seemed ridiculous in daylight.

  The house seemed so empty now. The floorboards creaked as she went back to her own room, past the open door of Jay's room. Her feet were cold. Getting quickly back into bed, she reached for her i-pod, pulled the duvet up around her shoulders, and thought about reading. In winter, she'd always kept a pile of books on her bedside table - mostly the pastel-shaded chick-lit favoured by her friend Lottie. Nothing at all demanding, certainly nothing disturbing. She'd given them back now. Dad had shelves piled with books, but they were in his study, and she couldn't go in there while he was working.

  There was no one she could talk to.

  That day she met Dally.

  *

  Out in the April-fresh morning, the anxiety of her wakeful night slipped out of Kirsty's thoughts. She walked back to the house from the stables, seeing the lawn dew-wet and glistening; she saw a blackbird's darting run across the grass, and the trees' first haze of leaf. She walked slowly, deeply content. This was her reward for having endured the winter, for the months of getting up while it was still dark, breaking the ice on the water-troughs, shivering her feet into wellingtons to go out and check the horses last thing at night. Reassured by the day of work ahead, she thought of breakfast, then Mrs Hendy's and the shopping, the feed order and the bills. Her day, safe and ordinary.

  The kitchen door was open, and both cats were sunning themselves on the mat, waiting for breakfast. The house, Bramblings, was now divided into two, and the originally large garden had been halved by a fence and high trellis. The Richmonds, who lived on the other side, had designer gravel and architectural plants and a pagoda; Kirsty's and her father's half was much as it had always been, mainly grass and shrubs, with a swathe of daffodils, just past flowering and in need of dead-heading. Kirsty preferred it this way, just as she preferred their own half of the house, shabby and cluttered, to the rather austere elegance beyond the dividing wall. The Richmonds, who both worked in London and were often away throughout the week, were just playing at living in the country, according to Kirsty's friend Lottie. They both had brand-new green wellies for their Sunday walks, and Christian had a Barbour hat that made him look like a hunt supporter. They sometimes came down to look at the horses, but complained when the wind blew the smell of the dung heap into their garden. Kirsty had offered them free manure to make up for it, forgetting that they only grew Mediterranean plants that preferred dry gravel. Fiona had thought they might try riding lessons, and had been surprised when Kirsty told them that there were no horses for them to ride. Of the seven horses and ponies, five were liveries; the other, owned by Kirsty's brother Jay, was a neurotic thoroughbred recovering from a tendon injury.

  “You'll get disgustingly horsey,” Kirsty's other friend, Tatjana, had complained when Kirsty decided not to stay on into the sixth form. “You won't have anything to talk about except Badminton and the price of hay.”

  But Kirsty didn't think of herself as particularly horsey. She had no horse of her own; she only rode out when one of the liveries needed exercising, and then it was only quietly by herself or sometimes with Lottie. Jay was the horsey one in the family, or what was left of the family: he was the one who’d started it all. At first a few liveries; now he had ambitions to turn Bramblings into an upmarket livery yard and training centre. But he’d taken himself off to Connecticut, and meanwhile Kirsty was running the stables. Running the house, too, because it suited her father, and because it suited her - not having to make the effort to do anything else.

  Kirsty kicked off her boots outside the back door and went inside, tripping over cats. She forked out cat food from a tin, then put coffee in the filter and filled the machine with water. She made the coffee strong, the way her father liked it. Coffee, she wrote on the shopping list, and looked in the money jar. Only five pound coins; not enough for everything on her list.

  The phone rang while she was eating her toast. She waited a few seconds to see if her father was going to answer it upstairs; then, when he didn't, she picked up. Her mother's voice said briskly, “Darling, I thought I'd catch you. Isn't Graham there?”

  “Haven't seen him this morning, yet,” Kirsty said. “Do you want him?”

  “No, it's you I want to talk to. I thought we might see each other over Easter. How about coming to stay for a couple of
nights? Phil and I think you could do with a break. Graham can look after things there, can't he?”

  Kirsty saw London streets thick with taxis and buses and crowds; she pictured herself trapped in a tube train, with the doors closing. Panic tightened her throat.

  “What's it got to do with Phil?” she said. “Anyway, I can't. There's too much to do here.” Her mother had no idea, if she thought it possible to abandon the place for a couple of days. As for her father looking after the horses - he was far too clueless and impractical. “Anyway,” she added, “there's a mare due to foal any day now - ”

  “But darling, I hardly see you, these days. Is it really essential for you to be there full-time?”

  “Yes! Something might go wrong. Besides, there's a pony on full livery now - the owner's really fussy. I've got to be here !”

  “Well, in that case,” Kirsty's mother said crisply, “Phil and I will have to come over. We'll take you out to lunch. You don't object to that, I hope?”

  Kirsty looked around at the comforting clutter of the kitchen: the cork noticeboard with multi-layered leaflets and postcards, a jug of primroses on the window-sill, the tailless cloth mouse on the floor by the cat basket. She pictured her mother's and Phil's kitchen as hi-tech, with gleaming surfaces and cooking utensils hanging in place as precisely as surgeon's implements.

  “I'll think about it and ring you back, shall I?” she stalled.

  “No, let's sort it out now. Saturday?”

  “It's always busy here at weekends - ”

  “Saturday,” her mother said firmly. “We'll see you about half-past twelve. Graham can stand in for an hour or two - that's hardly too much to expect of him. Is he working?”

  “What, now, you mean? I shouldn't think so. It’s early for him.”

  “I don't mean now. I mean is he actually doing any work?”

  “Oh yes. He works every night. At least, he's in his study every night.”

  Kirsty heard her mother's scornful exhalation. “That's hardly the same thing. Surfing the web, more likely.”

  “No, he does work,” Kirsty said, though she had little idea.

  She waited for her mother to say, in her barbed tone, “And is he drinking?” but the question remained unasked.

  “Anyway, Mum, I've got to go.” With the phone wedged between her neck and shoulder, Kirsty poured her father's coffee: black, with sugar. “Look, I'll phone you back later about coming down, shall I - ”

  Her mother wouldn't be put off. “See you on Saturday. Half-past twelve. And wear something decent.” Her tone softened. “Bye then, darling. I'll look forward to it. We both will.”

  One of the cats, Moth, was twining himself around Kirsty's legs. She replaced the phone and picked him up, holding his plump warm body close, so that the throb of his purring seemed part of her. Saturday. Out for lunch. She thought of the village pub, close and unthreatening, and then of the sort of place her mother would prefer - smart, expensive, probably involving a car journey. She saw herself captive in the back of Phil's Jaguar.

  The cat struggled to be put down. Kirsty took her father's coffee upstairs, finding him in the study. He was still in his dressing-gown, tousle-haired and unshaven: not working, but surfing the net, just as Ursula had said.

  “Hi, love. Was that the phone just now?”

  “Yes, it was Mum.” Kirsty put the coffee-mug next to his mouse mat, noticing a manilla folder with scribbled notes spilling out. THE DAMAGE DONE, he had written on the folder, in his bold black writing with great swooping capital Ds. “How's it going?” she asked casually.

  He looked at the folder. “OK. Yes, OK, I think. There's one or two things you might help me with later. What did Ursula want?”

  “She wanted me to go and stay with her for Easter, at the flat. I said no. But she's coming here on Saturday to take me out for lunch. With Phil.”

  “Oh, God.” Her father yawned and pushed a hand back through his hair, making a tuft of it stand up. “We'd better have a bit of a tidy-up, then.”

  We meant Kirsty. Her father never did any tidying-up, apart from pushing his books and papers into a heap.

  “I don't suppose she'll come in,” she told him. “I need some money for shopping. But I’m going to Mrs Hendy’s, first.”

  “My wallet. There's a tenner in there. That enough?”

  “Thanks.”

  Kirsty found the jacket slung on a chair in her father's bedroom, and took out the note. Then he called her back.

  “Oh - Saturday, did you say? I'll be out, most of the day.”

  Kirsty knew what that meant.

  “To Clare's, you mean?”

  Graham nodded. “Adam's home from university. It's his birthday - she's doing a special lunch. You could probably come if you wanted. You haven't met Adam, have you? Clare wouldn't mind.” He looked at her from under his eyebrows. “He's quite a hunk, apparently. Clare says. You might like to check for yourself.”

  “Clare's his Mum. She’s biased.”

  “D'you want me to ask if you can come?”

  Kirsty shook her head. All this eating, she thought; all this lunch. Why do people make such a fuss? It's only food. A bowl of soup and a piece of cheese in the kitchen would do just as well. Briefly, she wondered whether she could use Clare's special lunch as a reason to put off her mother; but no, better to get it over with. One outing now might stop Mum from pestering her to go to London.

  “I'm off, then,” she told Graham. “See you later.”

  She pushed the ten-pound note into her jeans pocket with the coins, and went downstairs for the shopping list.She used the village shop for odd items like bread during the week, cycling there and carrying the stuff back in her rucksack; her father did the main shopping at the big Sainsbury's on the edge of Newington, eight miles away. Today, she was going to Ravenswood first, then the shop.

  Ravenswood, on the other edge of the village, was an imposing stone house, set well back from the lane and approached by a gravel drive between yew hedges. It was early eighteenth-century, her father said, and must once have needed a whole squad of servants to run it. Now, it was the home of one elderly woman, Mrs Hendy, looked after by a daily housekeeper/companion, Mrs Bishop, who must be only a few years younger. She, too, lived alone, in a cottage next to the old forge.

  That's what I am, Kirsty thought, cycling past the cottage. A housekeeper/companion, for Dad. Mrs Bishop had been at Ravenswood for years, greying and fading. Eventually Mrs Hendy, who must be in her eighties, would die, and then Mrs Bishop would have nothing to do. What about me, Kirsty thought? What’s going to happen to me?

  Her tyres crunched on gravel as she reached Ravenswood’s driveway. Rounding the curve of the yew tunnel, she looked at the austere stone frontage of the house, its entrance portico flanked by rows of windows. It was an enormous house for one person. Before he left, Jay had brought her round to meet Mrs Hendy, who looked forbidding - frail, stooped with age, but with a beaky nose and imperious, darting eyes. She had invited them in for sherry, into a sitting-room that looked to Kirsty as comfortless as a stately home, with huge framed portraits and three identical sofas, velvet, with scrolled armrests, placed squarely round a fireplace. Jay, when he'd been the one to look after the horse, had been invited in for sherry or coffee every Friday – he’d told Kirsty that Mrs Hendy, who didn't see many people, looked forward to it, a social occasion. But Jay was seven years older than Kirsty, and Mrs Hendy thought Kirsty was a child. She had said so, quite bluntly: “You don't look old enough to have left school!” and had looked her up and down with haughty eyes. Jay pointed out that Kirsty was seventeen, and perfectly capable of taking care of one old horse.

  Now Kirsty had the keys to the feed-room and harness-room, and there was no reason to see Mrs Hendy. She went up to the house only at the end of each week, to collect her money from Mrs Bishop in the kitchen.

  She turned away down the smaller gravelled track that led round the side of the house to the stables and outbuildings. The gard
ens at the rear were magnificent, sloping down to a lake. There was an immense sweep of lawn, with a specimen cedar spreading inky branches. The borders nearer the house were bright with spring bulbs; on the opposite side from the stables there was a separate walled garden, through whose entrance Kirsty glimpsed a length of straight border and a topiary peacock. Beyond the lake was meadowland, grazed by cattle, with an alder-fringed stream running through. Who looked after all this splendour just for one old lady, who, from her appearance - neat skirt, court shoes, pearl necklace – rarely went outside. The garden was opened to the public once a year, but apart from that it was kept hidden and private. I could come here, Kirsty thought, at dawn, and walk across the lawn and stand by the lake. No one would know, unless Mrs Hendy gets up very early. I could swim here, by myself, when it first gets light. She imagined taking off her clothes in the trailing canopy of the willows, and slipping into the cool water. Like Ophelia, in the painting Tatjana had on her bedroom wall. But Ophelia had kept her clothes on, and had drowned herself. Tat was doing Hamlet for English AS-Level; she and Kirsty had watched the video, the one with Helena Bonham-Carter as poor mad Ophelia.

  There was only one horse at Ravenswood, an old chestnut hunter called Prince, who belonged to Mrs Hendy's son and was now retired. Like Mrs Hendy, he lived in splendid isolation, in a stableyard that must have once housed a whole family's horses and a carriage besides. All the stable doors except one were closed and padlocked - a terrible waste, Jay had said, with ideas of leasing them for an extension of his livery business. Prince, staring slack-lipped at the pigeons that pecked on the gravel, brightened when he saw Kirsty and pawed at the floor of his stable. He must be bored, she thought, without horse company; he’d be happier if she took him home to Bramblings, where he could rough it with the others. Instead, he spent each day out by himself in the post-and-railed paddock, grazing and dozing, thinking whatever a horse thought.