Danielle Cahill

Trad Wives

Prologue

The body was caught beneath the sodden tendrils of the willow tree, where the river curved to the left, shadowed by the crumbling walls of the ruined Abbey. It was said that, centuries ago, two hundred men had been put to death in that same spot, their blood running in rivulets through the Abbey grounds and dying the river scarlet. After yesterday’s rain, the torrent had pushed his lean frame up through the algae to the surface. The choking reeds lining the bank concealed the pale limbs.

At this rate, he might never be discovered.

In the thin morning mist, I crept as close to the spot as I dared. The fallen stones were uneven underfoot and slippery with moss. I couldn’t afford to twist my ankle, so I had slipped off my heels and put them in my handbag before picking my way through the grassy patches between the masonry. The dew-lapped blades felt deliciously cool beneath my bare feet as I walked towards the riverbank.

From my vantage point, screened by the ruined stone wall, I spotted his left hand sticking out of the water. If I squinted in the gloomy dawn, I thought I could make out his glinting wedding ring. He had lain there for a whole week. Fermenting. Was he still handsome, despite everything? I couldn’t resist. I crept closer to make sure. His face was staring up through the cloudy eddies; the hawklike nose and pointed chin I had so often traced with my fingertips. Now, his skin was tinged green: beginning to disintegrate.

A sharp bark sounded from around the bend in the river, then it stopped. I waited, holding my breath. My heart pounded in the silence. There was only the soft susurrus of the water, and I let out an answering sigh.

The bark came again, louder this time. Too close for comfort.

My pulse thumped in my ears, panic twisting in my chest. I had to move. Ducking behind a fallen gargoyle whose gaping mouth was letting out a silent scream, I ran into the scrubby trees that straggled around the edges of the field, doubling back to reach the safety of the public footpath.

I put my shoes back on, becoming just another woman out for an early morning stroll.

As I walked, a smile was playing around the corners of my mouth. Someone had to find him soon. It was only a matter of time.

Chapter One

Olivia

The taxi rattled over potholes, as we rounded the corner to Grandma Mae’s cottage. There were more houses than I remembered. They were grand structures set well back from the road and built with the usual sandy Cotswold stone, which made it hard to identify the new from the old. But as the taxi slowed, I spotted the house I had been staring at on Google Maps for weeks in the middle of the night, when I hoped the blue light would not wake my baby daughter.

Of course, Georgia’s house was the largest. I could see the lights on the top floor blazing, but the lower ones were screened by thick foliage. It was frustrating.

But, moments later, came a gap in the trees, and I caught a glimpse into a country-style kitchen.

A woman stood by the kitchen island, pouring herself a glass of wine. Her streaked hair was caught up in a top knot, and she was barefoot. Was it Georgia? It had to be her. Even though her hair was much lighter than it used to be. I craned my neck, trying to get a better look, but the greenery obscured her once more.

The car bounced over another hole. The judder ran through me, and I put out a hand to check the strap on the car seat. Ada’s face crumpled, but then she relaxed, and I let out the breath I had been holding. If only the peace would last. The quiet of the taxi was bliss after the nightmare of the packed railway carriage.

My daughter had cried most of the two-hour train journey – her first one – and I sang every song I knew in an effort to soothe her, from nursery rhymes to Taylor Swift, and I recited every scrap of Shakespeare I remembered from my finals. Admittedly, I could only manage fragments of soliloquies, spliced together with lines I made up that held the spirit of the original but definitely not the form. I tried everything to keep her quiet, and to keep us safe.

When we reached Oxford station, a dark-haired man got into our carriage. I bent my head over Ada, curling her into my shoulder and shielding her face from view. As he passed us without a word, I felt a shiver of relief pass over my skin. It wasn’t him.

By the time we arrived at Marshford, the nearest station to Chorley-on-the Water, it was six o’clock – The Witching Hour – when Ada would normally wail inconsolably until seven. She wasn’t hungry, tired or gassy, she was simply heartbreakingly miserable. The taxi driver had been treated to a few minutes of desperate sobbing. He had been kindly at the beginning – helping me fold the buggy that I couldn’t collapse, and telling me about his own lads who were six and nine – but that quickly fell away. I kept catching his eye in the rear-view mirror, as Ada’s cries ratcheted up, and I wanted to scream, ‘All babies cry sometimes. She’s not a robot!’ But I didn’t fancy being put out onto the verge in the middle of nowhere, so I concentrated on singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for what felt like the millionth time.

The taxi slowed and stuttered into stillness. I looked out of the window at the wildness of the dark branches, whipping in the wind. From memory, there had been a small thicket that partially shielded Grandma Mae’s cottage from the elements, like the other houses we had passed, but there were only a few birches left, framing the boundaries of the front garden. From what I could see, the outside of the cottage had not changed much in the twenty years since I was last there. It was a little more weathered, perhaps, with a couple of slates missing from the grey roof, and the warmth of the Cotswold stone was obscured by ivy, which meandered its way around the latticed windows. I wondered whether it would be damp inside or far too cold for Ada.

The driver coughed.

I hastily took out my purse, paying in cash and tipping him a few pounds extra for his willingness to sit in silence with me whilst I worried, then I collected our things. When all the luggage was piled inside the front gate, I lifted Ada’s car seat out and fumbled in my pocket for my grandma’s keys, which were hanging from a glittering silver St. Christopher: a relic of a long-abandoned religion.

‘Thanks,’ I croaked, straining under the weight of the car seat.

The cab driver raised his hand from the wheel in a half-wave, then he spun the vehicle around in a practised turn, neatly avoiding a grassy ditch on the other side of the road, and he sped off around the bend.

I shifted the car seat into both hands, trying to spread the weight, and I looked down at the pale smudge of Ada’s face in the darkness. A shiver ran through me. She was unusually calm. Was she too still?

I paused, watching her, willing her to move.

When her left hand twitched, I let out a small laugh. The rational part of me knew that the rising panic threatening to engulf me was completely out of proportion, but I felt powerless to stop it. I had been trusted with this tiny, living being. And she didn’t come with an instruction manual.

I picked my way up Grandma Mae’s front path, avoiding the straggling weeds and the missing paving stones a few paces from the door. The cottage was inhospitably dark, but I comforted myself that soon I would have the lights beaming out across the garden with all the curtains open, as Grandma Mae used to, and the place would feel much more welcoming.

Gently placing Ada on the doorstep, I inserted the key into the lock. After a few jiggles, I heard a click. As I pushed open the door, it caught on a pile of letters, garden magazines and Aran sweater catalogues: a year’s worth of post that my grandmother would never read.

A rush of stale air hit me, and I leapt backwards. I pulled the letters out of the way, and pushed the door open wider.

‘As soon as we get in, we’ll open all the windows,’ I said to Ada. She didn’t stir as I picked up the car seat and took her inside.

Flicking on the hall light, I looked around.

Dust coated the letters, and Grandma Mae’s knickknacks on the hall table: the Dresden shepherdess with one missing hand and the glass fish next to it, an ornamental cat-shaped teapot, and a crystal faceted sphere which had memorised me as child when I held it to the light, watching the faces turn from rose pink to aquamarine and then bottle green. I rubbed the downy layer away from the crystal ball, then put it back in its place and walked down the hall.

I went into the “good” sitting room, which I had never seen Grandma Mae use, and then into the snug beyond. It was more or less how I remembered it: the faded curtains covered with red poppies and a worn but comfortable sofa tucked in next to the fireplace. The snug felt much less grubby than the other rooms, so I put Ada’s car seat down. She was still sleeping peacefully. There was something about this house. I had slept so well here when I was young too: enveloped in the quiet and calm.

My hand hovered over Ada’s mouth, checking her breathing.

She snuffled slightly. Her fingers curled more tightly around her favourite toy – a monkey-shaped comforter called Lucky. Fearful of losing him, I had stowed two backup monkeys in my bag. We were currently on Lucky Number Two for this trip. Lucky One had disappeared in our mad dash to Paddington Station, and he was probably, even now, riding the Circle Line.

After making sure the blanket was tucked well away from her face, I braved the kitchen. It was covered in a thick layer of grease and grime.

I went to the cupboard under the sink and grabbed a jumble of cleaning products. I swept them into a blue plastic bowl and dampened a crispy dishcloth that was hanging over the edge of the sink. These would have to do.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that the cottage was a mess; Grandma Mae had been fiercely disinterested in cleaning. I remembered it was something my mother had criticised whenever she visited my grandmother and me, making jibes about the “state of the place”.

I scrubbed the floor with a broken mop-head. Sluicing water over the tiles, I soaked up the dirt as best I could. The small of my back was aching from my contortions. How could Grandma Mae have managed to mop anything without a handle? Although, I guess she probably chose not to try.

A wave of missing her flooded through me.

I imagined, if my grandmother had been here, she would have ushered us into the snug and cuddled Ada whilst simultaneously lecturing me about the need to fight the insidious pull of “the pram in the hall” and its disastrous effect on creativity, just as she had done.

But I would have told her that Ada could never be a nuisance to me.

A noise came from the snug – not a cry but a small bleat – and I ran towards it.

Ada’s tiny mouth was forming the shape of a cry, and I swooped to pick her up and offer her a bottle. She settled into my embrace, and I curled up on the sofa with her in the crook of my left arm, snuggling back into the dip where Grandma Mae used to sit. As she fed, I traced my fingers around her delicate ears and the thin scar running down her right cheek, as she gradually fell asleep. Slowly, I felt my eyelids drooping too, and I shook myself awake.

All the baby books I had read lectured about how dangerous it was to pass out sitting up on a sofa because the baby could easily slip and be crushed under the mother’s weight. I forced myself to keep my eyes open. But I could not face going upstairs to assess the state of the bedrooms, suspecting it might take more than a mop head to make them vaguely habitable.

Instead, I leaned my head against the arm of the sofa and watched Ada’s chest rising and falling. Hypnotised by the gentle movement, the seduction of slumber slowly enmeshed me once more.

My eyes flicked open.

I had betrayed myself. I must have been dreaming – in a semi-trance – because I had felt Julian’s powerful fingers gripping my shoulder, tight enough to leave scarlet marks on my skin. My heart leapt in my chest.

I listened.

The place was too quiet. Stifling. There were no cars on the road, no buses powering along outside, no passers-by heckling one another on the way to the nearest pub, and – most importantly of all – no Julian. This was the countryside. We would be safe here. We had to be.

‘I promise he won’t find us,’ I whispered to Ada in the darkness.

I gathered her closer to me, willing myself to believe what I said was true.

Chapter Two

Celia

There is a small orchard next to the stream that cuts through my garden and marks the beginning of Georgia’s land. Most of the trees are on her side of the brook, but there are a few on mine. Their branches stretch over the water, knotting round one another until you can’t tell one tree from the other. Behind the canopy of leaves, which are burnished scarlet, umber and copper in the brightness of the afternoon, the stone of Elbury Manor glows in the sunshine.

The apples in Georgia’s orchard are small and tart. They are not much good for eating, although that doesn’t stop Archie from scrumping any time he is on her side of the water. Despite the taste, Georgia is determined to go one better than her rival Trad Wife influencers over in America, who are posting autumnal content like it’s going out of fashion: from photos of their babies laughing in pumpkin patches, to baking videos featuring apple pies. She wants to be seen transforming her inedible fruit into healthy lunchbox snacks, and we are here – mothers and children – to help with the content.

I’ve borrowed Eoin’s Nikon Z5. He barely uses it anymore, since he had to go back to work for his dad, so I don’t think he will miss it for the afternoon, and it takes the best pictures. I only have my mobile for the baking videos that Georgia wants later on, but they usually turn out fine after a bit of editing.

I feel safer behind the camera.

Georgia is busy marshalling the Sisterhood into position. The women are dotted through the trees, a few up wooden ladders picking the ripest fruit, and others carrying wicker trugs to collect the harvest. They are all sporting maxi-dresses, specially ordered for the day in a spectrum of jewel colours from ruby, through to citrine and amethyst. Even though I’m not in the pictures, Georgia got one for me too. It’s emerald.

In the Sisterhood, you have to look the part.

I glance over at Sarah, who is swaying from her ladder, trying to grab the apples on the highest branch. Beneath her, Violet puts a steady hand on her to stop her falling. Violet is matter of fact, sporting and with a bossy “head girl” quality to her, which means she inevitably clashes with Georgia. Although Violet has only been in the village for a few years, she has boundless confidence and will talk to anyone, so she probably knows more people than I do. Sarah, on the other hand, is much quieter. She used to tag along with our group at school, never saying much but she worshipped Georgia. When she went to London to music college we lost touch for a few years, but I would see her in the programme for the Royal Festival Hall that Eoin gets delivered each month as she played flute with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. But she came back when she had her son, and she works part time teaching the recorder at the local school.

Georgia keeps Sarah close now. We all do. We have to be kind to Sarah because of everything she is going through.

The wind catches Sarah’s sapphire dress, and it billows out like a bell around her ankles, a beautiful contrast against the dark wood of the ladder: an image I long to capture. Both women are cutting across my line of sight to Georgia, so I look at the sky as if I am checking for the best light, and I slide past them.

I find a gap in the foliage, where I can lean against an oak tree.

From my vantage point, I have a view straight through the trees to where Georgia is standing. She is wearing a white maxi-dress with floaty sleeves, and across the waist it is adorned with lace flowers. On anyone else it might look like a Victorian nightgown, but with her hair pulled back into a chignon and dewy makeup, she looks perfect.