Midlife Dawn: Druid Heir, #1

1

Istood under fluorescent lighting in the hallway of the community centre. I knew better than to take a call in the middle of teaching, but it wasn’t every day a detective called to discuss the suspicious circumstances of your mum’s death.

She was killed last week, on the eve of her retirement, and my heart had broken into a thousand pieces.

Stifled chatter came from the other side of the classroom door. My students had obviously decided to abandon the comprehension I’d tasked them with and snoop on me instead. You’d think they were of nursery school age, not adults attending a night class.

My phone burned hot against my ear as I processed the detective’s words. What do you mean her car had flowers growing from the metal? Flowers don’t grow out of metal, Detective.

It was as if they’d grown to cushion her. And the flowers aren’t the only anomalies we’ve discovered, said the detective.

I blocked out the sound of the class as my pulse raced. What kind of anomalies?

Your mother was driving at a perfectly respectable speed. There were no other vehicles involved. It could be she saw a fox and made an evasive manoeuvre that went wrong. It wouldn’t have been the first time. But the crime scene report showed an electrical fault. It raised question marks, given your mother’s car had just been serviced.

They’d found her upside down, still dangling from her seatbelt. What I couldn’t work out was how someone who drove at a snail’s pace could crash on a quiet, lamp-lit road. That’s odd. I arranged the service myself. I trust the mechanic.

Nothing to worry about, I’m sure, but I’d rather cover all angles. The sound of shuffling papers reached my ears through the phone line. Was your mother worried about anything? Did her behaviour change prior to her death?

I frowned, both at his questions and the ruckus still coming from the classroom. She’d been working longer hours, I suppose. It’s nothing she couldn’t handle.

You know she was reprimanded at work for releasing lab animals?

That’s impossible. I opened the classroom door.

Four eavesdroppers fell out, righted themselves and gave me sheepish grins.

I shooed them back to their seats before retreating into the corridor again.

In my line of work, you soon learn that nothing is impossible, said the detective. Sometimes, we don’t know the people we love best.

Wasn’t that the truth?

It had only taken me over a decade to accept that my ex, Alex, was a prize jerk.

I didn’t intend to end up in a dead-end marriage, but it just happened. Too many meals in front of the television, too few adventures together, too many differing expectations. The last straw was when the loan sharks came knocking. He’d gambled away our life savings, and I hadn’t even known. I thought he’d said no to our dream house and travelling abroad because he was being sensible.

Turned out he really liked fruit machines. The arsehole.

Detective Jameson, was it? Can we pick this up another time, please? I have to get back to my class.

Not a problem, Mrs Verma. I’m sure we’ll be talking again. He hung up.

It’s Ms Verma, actually, I muttered, making my way back into the classroom.

Pages fluttered as the ten students in my night class pretended to pore over the text I’d asked them to read.

I plastered on a smile and sneaked a look at the top drawer of my desk, tempted to grab another painkiller. I’d been swallowing them like sweets all day. After the week I’d had, nothing was going to take the edge off my headache except possibly a rewind button. For now, I pushed aside the discussion with the detective. Right, you lot. I take it you know the text back to front now. I’ll take eavesdropper number one first. You’re up, Marek. When was the Great Fire of London?

1966? said Marek with a glimmer of hope, although he was almost always wrong.

No, afraid not. Scan the text and try again using a full sentence.

I taught English and survival skills to immigrants in godforsaken London, where the streets were mean and job opportunities were scarce. The council paid me a decent wage and didn’t pay much attention to the curriculum. I focussed on a mix of English grammar, vocabulary and deciphering texts. I also included cultural norms, like introducing my students to the pub and sweaty gigs and a sprinkling of literature. The balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet could be a great icebreaker.

Mum had been a big reader too.

I didn’t want to talk about Mum in the past tense. I wanted to hear her voice and watch her pottering in the garden during her retirement. It wasn’t any consolation that she’d lived a full life. I mean, her work as a scientist changed lives, her marriage to Dad was a fairy tale, and her grown children had long flown the nest.

I just wanted her here with us. Were you ever old enough to lose your mother?

Forty-year-old me needed her still, what with my messy divorce and a stagnant career.

Instead, I found myself teaching my third night class of the week at a community centre in South London, pretending everything was okay, just like all the other middle-aged, multitasking women I knew.

Smiling on the outside. Screaming on the inside.

Of course, Mum’s death had left me spinning, but I’d been a hot mess long before. Somewhere along the way from radiant fiancée to escapee from a combusting marriage, I’d lost my spark. That’s not even including midlife woes like not being able to go braless and needing afternoon naps just to get through the day.

Miss, Marek has got his hand up, said Tomás, one of my Portuguese students.

I grimaced. Sorry, Marek, I didn’t see you there.

He’s right in front of you, said Nita, my youngest student.

I gave my best encouraging smile and crossed my fingers behind my back. Go ahead, Marek.

He scrunched up his brow in concentration. The Great Fire of London is in 1669.

The class groaned. By now, most of them had worked out the answer.

"Not quite. The Great Fire of London was in 1666. You’ll get there."

Fei Yen and Faeza, two middle-aged Chinese women, put their hands up, eerily in sync with each other as always. They spoke perfect English but enjoyed the social side of the night class.

Yes, Fei Yen?

I think Marek would do better if we were reading about Princess Diana. Everyone likes to read about her.

Or the Black Death, said Faeza.

Or Jack the Ripper. Santiago’s ruddy face betrayed the beer he’d consumed before class.

I shook my head. Let’s just focus on what we have in front of us. How about you next, Santiago? I looked down at the page. Sorry, I’ve lost my train of thought. Just give me a minute.

Are you okay, miss? said Nita.

Of course, she’s not okay. We read it in the cards, Fei Yen and Faeza said in unison. They ran a tea and occult shop called Shanghai Moon around the corner from my flat and were always spouting nonsense about horoscopes and tarot cards and whatnot.

I’m fine. Except, I wasn’t fine. I couldn’t tell my class that, obviously. My job was to build them up and send them out into the world, not to burden them with my troubles. I could go home and eat chocolate instead. I’d been working out hard in the gym as an up-yours to Alex, but one giant bar of Cadburys wouldn’t hurt. Not that my waistline would thank me.

There was no easy way to lose a loved one, but I’d royally messed things up. After forty years of being the good child—the one who accompanied my parents to the doctor, arranged for their car to be serviced and always came home for celebration days—I’d lost it with Mum on the day she died. Worse still, our last conversation had been about my ex-husband. Hell, if I could rewind to that day, I’d replace that conversation with anything but him: the time I had worms as a kid, saggy boobs, or the best drain cleaners for unclogging pipes. Anything would have been better than wasting our last conversation on him.

I’d already given Alex twelve years of my life. He didn’t need to hijack my last conversation with Mum too.

For twelve long years, I was stuck in a rented house with his dirty pants and socks piling up on the floor. Like he’d ever lift a finger. Still, I’d thought he loved me. Why else would he insist we keep trying for a baby? I tried to enjoy Fridays and Sundays, I promise, but some days I had to think of Chris Hemsworth or Chris Pine to get through it. Any Chris would have done, really. I felt bad, of course.

Even after the divorce, he could have just driven off into the sunset and married the next gullible fool. Instead, he stuck around and tried to win custody of my cat—the beautiful Bengal cat, which had been mine since childhood.

What kind of man did that?

Someone who deserved a kick in the jingle bells, that’s who.

Still, as soon as I hit forty, I decided to live my life for me and embrace my weirdness. If you’re still contorting yourself for other people when you hit middle age, when will you learn to embrace your chin hairs and soar to new heights? I drew a line through my sorry relationship with Alex and moved into a new, smaller flat with my cat. Just your friendly neighbourhood cat lady, that’s me. Thank my lucky stars I hadn’t taken his name. I could just pretend he never existed.

Only Mum hadn’t seen it that way.

Now she was gone, I couldn’t tell her that it didn’t matter about him. I would take on all the arseholes in the world if it meant one more day with her.

Earth to Ms Verma, said Nita.

I tuned back into the class. Right, class, copy down the questions from the board. Reread the text and answer the questions in full sentences. Use a dictionary. You’ve worked so hard tonight that we’re finishing twenty minutes early.

Okay, so it was a lie. We’d not even hit a third of my lesson plan, but a small lie never hurt anyone. It was the whoppers that floored you.

Nita piped up. But Ms Verma, we thought you could teach us the back kick again.

I shook my head. Sorry, not tonight.

Adding kickboxing to my curriculum really helped with student motivation. I taught them a few moves if they impressed me with their learning. London was a city of strays. Its inhabitants needed to know how to be quick with their fists and boots to survive the streets.

We’ll practice next time, I promise. Don’t forget to do your homework. No excuses. My body sagged with relief when my students scattered into the moonlit night.

I’d taken a big long hard look at myself when I turned forty and wasn’t sure I liked what I saw. Sure, my body had weathered the years just fine. My long, dark hair was a little wild but as thick as it had been at university. My mixed-race skin had a glow that offset the incoming crow’s feet. I might never have carried a baby in my belly, but I had more flexibility than your average forty-year-old. Still, I’d hardly changed the world. Not even my small corner of it, unless you counted conjugating verbs and teaching cockney rhyming slang to my students.

It was nearing ten o’clock by the time I tucked in the last chairs, switched off the lights and locked up the community centre. I zipped up my coat, pulled my hood up against silver arrows of rain and set off home through the grubby car park, passing high-rise blocks, chimney stacks and asphalt marked with chewing gum and dog mess. Reaching home took a good twenty-minute walk to my flat on the other side of Balham or a ten-minute jog across a couple of grimy estates. The sorts of places that stank of piss in dank corners and A-class drugs swapped hands under cover of darkness.

I kept my eyes open and my keys in my hand as a weapon against any unwanted attention. Every Londoner worth their salt knew to keep their wits about them late at night. It was easy to underestimate a forty-year-old woman, but I could handle myself. Years of yoga and kickboxing had seen to that.

Mum had always insisted I be able to look after myself. London was a jungle compared to her native Brittany. The funny thing was, darting shadows and slinking shapes seemed a breath away since her death.

At the top of my road, something brushed my shoulder. Not a branch but a hand.

Without missing a beat, I held the palm in both hands, twisted under the arm and pushed my attacker into a kneeling position. I raised my leg to kick him in the face, but a gust of wind came from nowhere and knocked him off balance. He flew three feet and landed in a heap on the rain-slicked pavement.

Anger, hot and blazing. Get lost, arsehole.

I had the upper hand, so I backed away, my fists ready to take him on. I hoped I didn’t have to flip him again because my back was sore, but I had no doubt I could handle it. My flat was minutes away, but I didn’t want a random knowing where I lived.

Grey eyes, longish hair, low-slung jeans. In any other setting, I’d have given him a second look, but he had no business creeping up on women late at night.

The man gritted his teeth in pain. He opened the palm of his hand. You dropped your keys.

Embarrassment made my cheeks flush hot. My boss would have skinned me if I’d lost the community centre keys. Oh, sorry about that. Can’t be too careful.

He sprang to his feet, light-footed despite the rain, dusted himself off and tossed me the keys.

I caught them, stuffed them into my pocket and made a show of buttoning it shut.

Quite the reflexes you have there. The cut of his jaw and the glint in his eyes told me he was dangerous.

I eyed him warily. Yeah, well, thanks again.

Don’t mention it. He definitely had a wet bum, judging by his stiffness as he walked away.

I waited until he disappeared from sight before pushing on towards my tree-lined road, where headlights flashed over the yellow bricks and mortar of the buildings. I unlocked the door of my building and walked through the Victorian-tiled hallway to my ground-floor flat, half expecting to trip over the cat.

Echo? I called once inside, slipping my shoes and coat off.

Still no sign of him.

Usually, he was my shadow. He threaded through my legs when I came in the door and even followed me to bed. He was a mean fighting machine, but he’d been missing since Mum’s funeral, and I was starting to get worried. I’d even put out scrambled eggs for him.

If Alex was behind Echo’s disappearance, maybe I’d get a chance to kick him in the nuts after all.

I headed for the back bedroom, where I’d left the window open for him. It wasn’t like I had anything to steal. The landlord didn’t strictly allow pets, but turned a blind eye as long as the other tenants didn’t complain.

I checked the living room, hoping to find Echo curled on the sofa. In the kitchen, the scrambled eggs had dried into a rubbery mess in his bowl. I scraped them into the bin and put out some kibble instead, not that the fusspot ate that willingly. My empty fridge hummed in the corner.

Bed it is then. I downed a glass of water and made myself a hot water bottle. Then I padded to my bedroom and flicked on the light. What on earth? You’ve got to be kidding me.

That was not how I’d left my flat that morning. An enormous imprint flattened the centre of the bed as if a rhino had lain there. Patches of dirt marred the white cotton sheets. Even the freshly fluffed pillow had been compressed. I’d only just changed the sheets. The bed should have smelled of lavender, not muck.

Had Echo been back and brought a harem of cats with him? It wouldn’t have been the first time.

It’s not my day. Actually, scrap that. I need a reset button for the past week. I dusted off the sheets and then burrowed under the duvet as storms swirled outside, wondering why Mum would release animals from her laboratory and how on earth flowers could grow from the chassis of a crushed car.

2

The next afternoon, I made my way to Balham tube under clouds as dark as iron filaments. I stuck missing cat flyers for Echo on trees, gritting my teeth at the sight of my phone number on display for all to see.

Since the divorce, all sorts of whackos had been calling to ask me out. Meddling Indian grannies at our temple had spread the rumour I was a free agent again. I knew because they texting me hair-raising pictures of their unattached offspring. I might have been flattered, but it was the swan song of my ovaries they were after, not me.

I rode the escalator down towards the platform.

Alex had claimed the car in the divorce, and I let him think he won that round. Car insurance cost an arm and a leg, and London’s sprawling public transport system meant I could just as easily get around without one. A few minutes later, I was aboard the rattling northern line tube towards Elephant & Castle in a carriage with open windows, enjoying the gusts of underground breeze. My best friend Marina always said the air down here was grim—moist and full of germs—but I liked it. It blew away the cobwebs in my head.

I needed that today if I was going to be in any fit state at Mum’s memorial.

I hopped off the tube and met Dad and my brother outside Mum’s former workplace, a grey concrete high-rise with milky windows a stone’s throw away from the monstrous roundabout at Elephant & Castle. They were dressed in suits. My brother’s gave off distinct Saville Row vibes, which made Dad look even more of a mess in his moth-balled, crumpled offering. A smear of indigo paint sat just beneath Dad’s chin like he’d missed the canvas with his paintbrush. When he was in the middle of a piece, no one else existed.

You scrub up well. I hugged them and wiped the paint off Dad’s face.

Dad’s haunted eyes stared at me. He’d lost his soulmate, after all. What would I do without you?

You’d be right as rain, I said, though I knew Mum had been the strong one.

Has Echo turned up yet? I can help look for him.

Let’s just get through this first, shall we? said my brother, Sahil. At two years my senior, he was a successful businessman with a portfolio of rental houses and a penthouse apartment next to St. Paul’s that dripped in luxury.

It’s not a memorial if there are no prayers, is it? said Dad. It’s not like they’ll be praying for Rosalie’s soul here. I should have stayed home and prayed at our shrine.

Mum had been Christian, but she hadn’t been a churchgoer. She liked Christmas Eve carols and Norwegian Christmas trees, but that was about it. Dad only went to temple for the social side. I couldn’t remember the last time he knelt at our Ganesha shrine. Hardly anyone prayed nowadays: Christian, Hindu, Muslim, you name it. These days, most people worshipped mobile phones or Netflix instead.

Sahil looked at his watch, his mouth in a grim line. I have to hurry, sis. I have a meeting I have to get back for.

I thought the plan was to go through Mum’s things with Dad?

He raised a well-groomed eyebrow. News to me.

Fair to say, my brother wasn’t my favourite person. He showed up on his terms and rarely softened unless it was for one of his boob tube-wearing or whiskey-drinking friends. Every time I decided to try to like him for the sake of our parents, he pushed my buttons again.

Let’s go. I propelled them towards the revolving door, feeling more like a jailer than a family member.

Inside the lobby, a receptionist in chopstick-thin heels handed out name labels to stick on our chests and ushered us past security. Together, we rode the elevator to the fourth floor and exited past laboratories where centrifuges whirred and employees huddled over microscopes and Petri dishes.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. How many times had Mum and Dad debated whether microscopes or telescopes were better? Whether the greater miracles were cells or stars?

We’ve arranged for finger sandwiches, teas and coffees, and of course, the CEO will be here to say a few words. The receptionist led us into a conference room, where rows of chairs had been set out in front of a lectern.

With only a dozen people in attendance, most chairs stood empty.

The receptionist showed us to reserved seats in the front row. Would you like me to introduce you to everyone?

Dad and I exchanged looks.

No, thank you, he said.

We sat down just as the big boss, Michael, entered the room, his bald head gleaming under the spotlights. A hush descended over those gathered as he strode over to us.

A bald head behind a vast desk, Mum had said.

Joshi, he said to Dad. How awful to see you in such circumstances. Please accept my condolences.

Michael, thanks for arranging this. Dad shook his hand. You really shouldn’t have.

He nodded at us all. What a tragic loss. Shall we get started? He extricated himself and moved over to the lectern. Thank you all for coming. We’re here to commemorate the life of Dr Rosalie Verma, who was taken from us so suddenly last week. As many of you know, Rosalie may have been French, but she was also a Londoner through and through. She loved her city, and she loved EvolveTech. Why else would she have stayed here for almost two decades?

The crowd murmured politely.

My mind flashed to the graveyard with the mound of fresh soil.

Rosalie was a diligent, popular employee. She cared deeply about her work. She was also a wife and mother, and she leaves behind a grieving family and friends. Her work on Parkinson’s, MS, dementia and, most recently, on cell regeneration can’t be underestimated. The boss’s eyes narrowed.

I followed his gaze to the back of the room.

There stood a woman with a cherubic face, though she must have been in her seventies. Her plump frame was wrapped in a green sari. Despite the rainy forecast, she wore flat, gold sandals, and her thick, black hair was plaited over one shoulder. Rosy cheeks, bright eyes and a soft mouth softened her wrinkly face. She was the most interesting person in the room by far—a spark of colour in a sea of black suits and white lab coats—flanked by two disgruntled security guards.

Michael tore his eyes away from the disruption and smiled at a friend of Mum’s sitting in the congregation. Melissa, as Rosalie’s closest friend here, perhaps you’d like to say a few words?

He waited for her to reach him, then strode to the back of the room.

I gave Melissa an encouraging smile as she approached the lectern. Behind me, a scuffle erupted that made my sense of injustice prickle. I’d had just about enough of men pushing women around. Yes, I might have been a little sensitive after Alex and the loan sharks, but I wasn’t going to sit back and watch a little old lady be manhandled.

Where are you going? whispered Dad as I slipped out of my seat.

I’ll be right back. I grabbed my jacket.

I arrived just as the security guards shoved the old lady back into the elevator, closely followed by Michael.

We’re not sure how she evaded security, sir, the ginger security guard huffed. We caught her on CCTV in Dr Verma’s lab. By the time we got there, she’d snuck into the memorial service.

I’m quicker than you. The old lady grinned.

This sounds like a police matter, said Michael. Unless you want to tell us why you’re here?

I came here to pay my respects, said the old lady. It’s not often that someone as old as me finds inspiration in mortals.

She’s off her trolley, said the ginger security guard.

I’d heard enough. I reached out, blocking the doors from shuddering shut and plucking the train of the old lady’s sari from being swallowed by the doors. No need for the police or to be so rough.