Free The Secret by the Lake by Louise Douglas Page A

that I was thinking of taking Vivi up to the churchyard to put some flowers on her grandparents’ grave. I said I thought it might help to demystify death and be a starting point for conversations about Alain.
    ‘Vivi needs to be encouraged to talk about her feelings,’ I said, with some confidence.
    Julia was unconvinced. She did not want to accompany us because the cold weather was exacerbating the pain in her hip and she said she could not even contemplate the walk uphill. However, she did not oppose the idea. I suggested the outing casually to Viviane who thought it over for a while, and then agreed.
    We cut some holly and ivy for the grave, took the dog with us and walked in silence through the woods past a line of silver birch where little spade-shaped leaves of pale green and yellow were fallen like confetti and heaped wetly around the feet of the trunks. Viviane peeled a strip of bark the colour of mother-of-pearl and then broke it into smaller pieces which she dropped behind her, as if she were a child in a story who might need to find her way home. I tried a couple of times to persuade her to talk about her father, but she would not humour me.
    When we reached the churchyard, I hooked Bess’s lead over the gatepost and Viviane and I wandered in, through nettles browned and dead, all caught with threads of spider silk that shimmered in the grey light. The ground was hard beneath our feet. Beyond, the lake shone green and glassy, perfectly still save for where the waterbirds rippled at its edges, frilling the surface.
    Caroline must have known this path; she must have seen the lake in all its myriad moods, and Daniel’s mother must have done so too. All the people who came and went to the church, who were born and lived and died in Blackwater – they must have felt what I was feeling now; they must have known their time would be measured but the lake would remain, changing all the time but always there.
    I looked back. Viviane was trailing behind me with her hands in the pocket of her duffel coat.
    I went back to her. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘Really it is. There’s nothing to fear in graveyards. See how peaceful it is here? Listen – how quiet it is. How calm. It will be the same where your papa lies.’
    ‘It’s not the same,’ Vivi said. ‘Where he is, there are buildings all around, and traffic and people cutting through the pathways to get to the station. People go into the cemetery to eat their lunch. They walk their dogs and meet their girlfriends and do business and have arguments. It’s not quiet at all. And don’t,’ she said angrily, ‘tell me next that that’s good because Papa didn’t like being on his own. Don’t keep trying to say things to make it better because nothing can make it better!’
    I reached out to take her hand but she stalked past me, went ahead around some ancient, tilting headstones. I looked up towards the church tower and then felt dizzy, as if there was too much oxygen in my blood. The tower loomed above me and for a moment the ground seemed to shift and tilt. I felt a rush of panic. Viviane had stopped ahead of me. She was staring down at a grave. I walked over to where she stood. The headstone, plain and modest, marked the final resting-place of Julia’s parents,
Beinon Cummings, loving husband of Cora and father of Julia. Also Cora, his devoted wife.
An urn full of carnations sat in the centre of the chippings. I crouched down to place the holly and ivy on the grave.
    Viviane ran her finger around the letters carved into the stone.
    ‘Who put the flowers on the grave?’ she asked.
    ‘I’ve seen Mrs Croucher walking this way with flowers in her basket.’
    ‘Do you think anyone is putting flowers on Papa’s grave?’
    ‘Of course! He has so many friends.’
    ‘Had,’ said Vivi. ‘He
had
friends. When he was alive.’ She picked a flower out of the urn and pulled the petals out one by one. I didn’t ask her to stop. ‘Why isn’t