Owl Song at Dawn

By Emma Claire Sweeney

“Tender and unflinching, a beautifully observed novel about familial love and stoicism in the face of heartbreak.”—Carys Bray, award-winning author of The Museum of You
 
Maeve Maloney is a force to be reckoned with. Despite nearing 80, she keeps Sea View Lodge just as her parents did during Morecambe’s 1950s heyday. But now only her employees and regular guests recognize the tenderness and heartbreak hidden beneath her spikiness. Until, that is, Vincent shows up. Vincent is the last person Maeve wants to see. He is the only man alive to have known her twin sister, Edie. The nightingale to Maeve’s crow, the dawn to Maeve’s dusk, Edie would have set her sights on the stage—all things being equal. But, from birth, things never were. If only Maeve could confront the secret past she shares with Vincent, she might finally see what it means to love and be loved—a lesson that her exuberant yet inexplicable twin may have been trying to teach her all along.
 
Stylist Magazine Top “Books to Read on a Staycation”
 
“Funny, heartbreaking and truly remarkable.”—Susan Barker, New York Times bestselling author

“I found the novel most poignant and tender in its depiction of disability, without a whiff of sentimentality . . . it crept under my skill and will stay there for a long time.”—Emma Henderson, Orange Prize-shortlisted author of Grace Williams Says It Loud

“Amazing: fierce, intelligent, compassionate and deeply moving . . . an important and very beautiful book.”—Edward Hogan, Desmond Elliot Prize-winning author of Blackmoor 
 
“Fresh, poignant and unlike anything else.”—Jill Dawson, Whitbread and Orange Prize-shortlisted author of The Crime Writer 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781785079665

Book preview

PART

ONE

CHAPTER ONE

I was in the Honeysuckle Room, doling out extra bedding, the day Vincent Roper returned. The most familiar of details seem so important now: the barbershop band rehearsing in our lounge; the pale yellow of the blanket; the airing cupboard scents of lavender bags, copper pipes, that smell of warm wool like a pint of milk about to turn; the toll the task had taken on my back.

Perhaps I was getting too old for all this. Maybe Zenka had a point when she mithered me about leaving all the housework to her. But, as usual, she’d shown up to clean Sea View Lodge in stilettos and a miniskirt so I’d set her to work in the kitchen, out of sight of our guests.

I allowed myself a breather since the Honeysuckle Room afforded a magnificent view of Morecambe Bay: the pigeon-grey sands stretching out for miles until they reached the charcoal waves; the sky the shade of smalls gone through the dark cycle by mistake.

When I spotted an elderly gentleman heading up our front path, I thought at first that he might be a Frenchman: something about the cut of his jacket, the loose coil of his scarf, the rectangular shape of his glasses. But the high polish of his cane and the way he bowed his head to the wind with an air in between defiance and defeat – these things were unmistakably English.

He paused for a long while, taking in Sea View Lodge, his hand on our front gate. Perhaps he’d noticed that our masonry could do with a lick of paint or that the gutters needed repairing.

When the man looked straight up at the Honeysuckle Room, a memory broke into my mind: a girl holding her sister above the waves, letting the water lap at the little one’s toes; the child’s elfin face all wonder as a wave-froth caught in her curls.

I froze, there at the window, Vincent Roper staring up at me, his blue eyes appearing even brighter now that his hair had turned white as a gull.

‘Steph!’ I called out. ‘Len!’ And then, shaking my head to rid myself of the memory, and trying to quell the panic in my voice, I added: ‘Would one of you come in here?’

Steph arrived at the doorway, panting – the mauve quilt for the Lilac Room folded across her chest. ‘Problem?’ she asked, her hand clenching and flexing as it always did when she was distracted or distressed.

‘I’m sorry, love,’ I said, as she gazed up at me – her face full of concern. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’

Len bounded into the room, just as our doorbell rang.

‘Would you tell our visitor that I’m not in?’

‘You are in, Maeve!’ she insisted.

‘Remember how we run through it in front of the mirror, my love?’ I said, trying to hide my panic.

Steph nodded and stood up tall. ‘Welcome to Sea View Lodge. How may I help you?’

‘That’s right, my love. Hop to it.’

Len beamed at her. ‘You are the best receptionist in the whole wide world!’

‘You are indeed, my dear,’ I put in. ‘If the gentleman asks to see me, you’re to tell him I’m out.’

‘You’re out?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Oh no, you’re not!’ she exclaimed, as if we were rehearsing for a panto.

‘Now’s no time for honesty,’ I snapped. Folk with Down’s syndrome – the term of choice nowadays – don’t tend to go in for white lies.

Len studied his reflection in the mirror, pulling up the sleeve of his garish Christmas jumper to reveal his flexed muscle. ‘I can carry the suitcases!’ he proclaimed. ‘I’m a fine figure of a man!’

‘You’re not to let the gentleman stick around, do you hear me? He’s not to darken the door.’

Steph’s chubby hand began clenching and flexing again, making me feel shabby for having snapped.

The doorbell rang for a second time. Vincent Roper had obviously become impatient in his old age.

‘You’d be doing me a good turn,’ I said, trying to sound calm, ‘if you’d tell him that I’m not to be disturbed.’

As Steph and Len toddled off, I had to sit down.

The barbershop band started up an impromptu rehearsal in our lounge, so I waited there in the Honeysuckle Room for what felt like an age, unable to make out a word from downstairs. I kept my eyes trained on our front path, jumping each time the bass’s voice rang out the high notes in their rendition of ‘Auld Lang Syne’. And I girded myself all the while for Vincent Roper’s knock on the bedroom door.

That memory crashed over me again: it was your elfin face that I saw, Edie – a face that, God forgive me, I’d managed to block out for some time. The suitcase out in the shed contained a photograph of me dangling you over the sea, capturing a time before you grew fearful of water. You looked about five in that picture but, judging from my height, we must have been at least ten.

When I saw Vincent Roper heading out of Sea View Lodge, his body braced against the storm, my own body seemed to collapse – sweat springing to my palms, my pulse rushing to my ears, a sigh escaping from my lungs – as if everything had held itself taut until I was sure that Vincent Roper had left Sea View Lodge once more.

*

Dear Maeve,

Forgive me for showing up unannounced but, ever since I learnt of Frank’s death, you’ve been very much on my mind.

How wonderful to find Sea View Lodge unchanged and still going strong with you still at the helm. I returned, I must admit, with some trepidation.

I’ve taken the liberty of booking in for a week. Steph has kindly allowed me to leave my case, although she tells me that check-in isn’t until four. I’ll head into town for a mosey around, and perhaps catch Mass at St Mary’s. I’ll keep out of your way until early evening, but I look forward to seeing you later.

With all good wishes from your old friend,

Vince

*

The wind thrashed around my face and billowed through my coat, but I forced myself out of Sea View Lodge. Vincent Roper was only by the Alhambra. I’d catch up with him in no time.

The lead singer from Aspy Fella A Cappella followed me onto the doorstep. ‘Excuse me, Maeve,’ he said in that robotic voice of his. ‘Forgive me for keeping you.’

‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ I called over my shoulder as I made my way down the front path. ‘We’ll chat when I get back.’

Although Vincent Roper needed a stick, he was going great guns up Marine Road West. I couldn’t afford to lose track of him now. By the time I reached the promenade, he’d almost got to the bowling alley and he increased his lead with every step. Who would have guessed that he’d end up the fittest survivor of our class? My own strides must have been fuelled by fury because I wouldn’t usually have been capable of such unexpected exertion: I’d already climbed up and down the stairs like a yo-yo today, thirty-three steps each way; I’d already hauled five quilts and seven blankets out of our airing cupboard.

Vincent Roper paused by the Midland Hotel, which was all trussed up with Christmas lights. On the odd occasions I left Sea View Lodge, I always passed by the Midland. But today an image of our outfits sneaked up on me: my ocean-blue dress and your peachy blouse; the silk underwear from Wood’s; that brooch studded with mermaid-coloured gems.

The memory powered my stampede until I got waylaid by the chap from the Coffee Pot, who was pushing a twin buggy along the prom. ‘Good morning, Miss Maloney,’ he said. ‘It’s nice to see you getting out and about.’

Unlike some of our neighbours, he was a decent sort, but I would have to give him short shrift: I was almost within shouting distance of Vincent Roper now.

‘I was going to pop in,’ the chap said, detaining me, ‘to introduce you to my granddaughters.’

He was beaming with such pride that I could hardly dash off without stopping for a moment to admire the babies. His daughter, so I’d heard, had been trying for years. Before I peered into the pram, I stole another glance up the promenade. Vincent Roper had paused by the Midland Hotel.

‘This one here is Diza,’ the chap told me. ‘See that dimple on her right cheek? That’s how I tell them apart.’

To me, the baby girls looked identical in every way: their wisps of dark hair, their large black eyes, their tiny lips, and the creases at their chins.

‘And this one’s Dorra,’ he went on.

Vincent Roper was still ambling around by the Midland. He’d no doubt take shelter from the vicious wind in the Rotunda Bar, where he’d buy a criminally overpriced coffee. He’d be that type now – what with having gone to Cambridge, and having conducted that choir in Paris. His father had crowed about him from Blackpool to Barrow.

‘In my wife’s country,’ the chap explained. ‘Diza means gift and Dorra means joy.’

The babies’ skin and hair and eyes all carried a hint of their grandmother’s home – a land they would perhaps never see. I’m not one for cooing over children, but I found myself wishing that I could hold Diza and Dorra, feel their warmth and weight in my arms.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed that Vincent Roper had started walking again, so I made my apologies and then hurried up towards the Midland. ‘Mr Roper!’ I called out, but he continued to walk and the wind whipped my words out to sea.

As I crossed the road, he turned onto Pedder Street. I pursued him right into the red-light district – an area I hadn’t visited for a good while. Frank, so I heard, cavorted with some of the women around here. Pictures of buxom girls used to litter these streets, but now it was riddled with craft shops and curio stores.

Vincent Roper was still marching ahead at quite a pace and, try as I might, I couldn’t seem to reduce the distance between us.

‘Vince!’ I shouted, my hand springing to my mouth as if I could stuff the word back in. I could have sworn that he’d heard, but he continued to stride on ahead and I hadn’t a clue what I would have said next. How dare he come back after all these years, calling himself an old friend? Above me a window screeched open, and a red-headed girl leant onto the ledge, her skin blue-white like skimmed milk. Although she looked straight down at me, her hair blowing around her face, she hardly seemed to notice I was there. She glanced back inside for a moment and said something I couldn’t quite catch. Doubtless she had a man in her bed although it was just past noon.

Once darkness fell, cars would still inch along here, no doubt, and women like that redhead would emerge from the alleyways – all bones and stilettos and miniskirts. Nothing much would have changed, except they’d be from Romania and Latvia and God knows where. Zenka’s get-up would be better suited to a brothel. Lord knows what Steph’s dad saw in her. When she’d applied for the manager’s post, I’d taken pity on this woman, down on her luck and far from home. She’d relied on me to translate many an episode of Coronation Street and I’d shared with her my recipes for shepherd’s pie and Victoria sponge. But she was right as rain now, living with Dave and behaving as if she were Steph’s mum.

That redhead brought back my own youth, when my own hair was as red and as full as hers, and she filled me with a lingering sense of unease – like the aftermath of a conversation that’s trailed off too soon.

When I took my eyes off her, I caught sight of Vincent Roper heading down the alley in the direction of St Mary’s.

I had to tell him that he couldn’t stay in Sea View Lodge, that I’d meant it all those decades ago when I’d told him never to return. But I just stood there, deflated, incapable even now of following him into the church.

*

The priest who presents the Radio Mass waffles on about the ‘mentally subnormal’, and the ‘Grace of God’, while we stand in St Mary’s choir stalls with Vince, waiting for the crew to signal that it’s time for you to sing.

While the priest interviews Vince’s father about the role of choirmaster and how he has trained your voice, you keep tugging at the sleeve of Vince’s Scouting shirt: ‘What noise does an Edie make?’ you say over and over. And every single time you ask, Vince whispers in response: ‘Edie Maloney sings like a star!’

Mum and Dad lean forwards in their pews, as if at any moment they might come up to fetch you.

‘Come on, Edie, change the record,’ I whisper, adopting one of Dad’s favourite phrases.

Vince attempts to hush you by circling your palm in a silent ‘round and round the garden’. But you pull your hand free. ‘Bye bye, priest,’ you call out, waving at him. ‘Song now!’

One of the radio crew guffaws from the back of the church, but the choirmaster and the priest pretend not to have heard. Mum is giving you a hard stare, willing you to keep quiet, but Dad’s shoulders are heaving. I have to look away or else he’ll set me off too.

When it eventually comes to your duet, the whole congregation is silent in anticipation.

Vince sings the first verse. His voice, which broke some years ago now, is all hot buttered crumpets and Mirabelle jam. No one would have guessed that he had been called upon to step in just minutes before the start of the broadcast.

But when it is time for you to sing the chorus, you stand there, mute, your lips pursed.

The church is so quiet that it is as if no one dares breathe.

I try to elbow you into action, but your lips remain pursed.

I pray in my head to the Virgin Mary: please Our Lady, please make Edie sing.

But the organist reaches the end of the chorus and Vince has to launch into the next verse without you having sung a word.

Dad squeezes Mum’s hand, and both of them stare at the floor. He will be swallowing back tears, and she will be blinking hard, determined not to let her make-up smear. Que sera sera, she’ll say when we get out of Mass.

As Vince reaches the end of the second verse, the back door of the church cracks open: Frank Bryson stands there – his hair windswept, a cigarette raised to his lips – watching as if he couldn’t care less.

I sense Vince willing you on. The church fills with the rustle of hymnals as he nudges you and clears his throat.

It’s then that I feel your chest rise with a deep intake of breath, and your mouth opens in song:

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee

For those in peril on the sea

Your eyes are fixed on Mum and Dad as Vince sings the next verse and, when it comes to your turn, you hit each note spot on, enunciating each word as clearly as your floppy tongue can manage:

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee

For those in peril on the sea

Even the oldest and most fastidious of the congregation stand stock still, holding their breath, as if this will help you to complete your solo without faltering. Mum and Dad look like statues of Mary and Joseph. They don’t even seem to blink.

Thus evermore shall rise to Thee

Glad hymns of praise from land to sea

As your last note fades into silence, your face lights up with the widest of smiles. ‘Edie Maloney sings like a star!’ you exclaim, and the congregation breaks into applause.

*

Edie Maloney sings like a star. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder where you are. Where’s your tummy? Down, down. That’s right! Where are your toes? This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home. What noise does a pig make? Neigh! Stop teasing, Edie. You know. Oink, oink! That’s right! We’re very impressed with you. Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix. Congratulations! Hip, hip, hooray. Maeve and Edie, the cleverest twins in the seven seas.

*

Edith Maloney’s parents report her abnormal floppiness and failure to reach developmental milestones. Mother suffered no illness during pregnancy but she was an elderly primigravida (at thirty-one years of age) and the twins were born slightly premature (at thirty-five weeks). Edith takes twice as long to feed as her twin sister, Maeve, and, unlike her sibling, has yet to crawl or walk. Although parents were cautioned against comparing their daughters, Edith’s uncontrolled tongue movements, tightly furled fists and toes, and underdeveloped reflexes point towards spasticity. She will likely remain immobile, mute, and doubly incontinent.

Referred to orthopaedic department. Ophthalmologist and otolaryngologist referral for diagnosis of possible vision and auditory range deficiencies. Next appointment scheduled in six months’ time for continued observation, in particular with relation to mental subnormality.

Parents were advised to institutionalise.

Signed: Doctor A. Rosenthal, February 3, 1935

*

Vincent Roper still hadn’t returned although it was nigh on six o’clock. I tried to distract myself by emptying the dishwasher and then laying the tables for tomorrow’s breakfasts, although these were usually Zenka’s early morning chores. She wouldn’t thank me for my efforts: I was all fingers and thumbs, chipping one of the side plates and spilling a vase of white roses.

The barbershop band was at a loose end so I roped them into helping Steph and me with the first of the decorations. The lead singer held the ladder steady as the bass pinned tinsel into the cornice. I made a start on our Christmas cards, although I kept making mistakes, and Steph and the other two singers sat around making paper chains with the care worker from Wirral Autistic Society, who always accompanied the band. All the while the blokes were singing ‘I’ll be Home for Christmas’ and ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Auld Lang Syne’, and the rest of us hummed along.

I’d just be allowing myself to relax when the security light would switch on or a car would pull up outside. Then I’d remember all over again that Vincent Roper was coming. Apologies for the confusion, I braced myself to say. I wouldn’t let him step across the threshold.

‘Vincent Roper is a dear old friend, isn’t he, Maeve?’ announced Steph. ‘A bit like me and Len.’

‘I don’t know where you got that idea from, my love,’ I replied, aware of the care worker glancing up from her paper chain.

‘That’s what he said.’

‘Well, he couldn’t be more wrong.’ But I found myself reaching into my pocket, as if my hand needed a reminder that Vincent Roper’s note was still there.

‘Is Vincent Roper a bad man?’ asked Steph.

I had been surrounded by shards of sherry glasses and china teacups the last time Vince set foot in Sea View Lodge – my ocean-blue dress flung across my case.

‘Is Vincent Roper your enemy?’

If the truth be known, Vince and I had once been a bit like Steph and Len: he’d shoulder my satchel on the walk from school; we’d guess what concoctions you and Mum would have cooling for us on the side: potato scones, beetroot puddings, carrots covered in toffee; we’d sit at the kitchen table doing our homework or playing with you until his father returned from the office.

‘Let’s not be melodramatic, my love,’ I said, aware of the care worker and all the band members looking at me now. ‘It’s just that he caused a lot of breakages last time he was here.’

Oh, Edie, if Vince hadn’t walked out of St Mary’s, you and I could have grown old together. Our skin might have sagged at just the same rate, the backs of our hands becoming crêpey and veined. Our hair might have silvered over just the same years, its copper gradually giving way. We did share the same hair, the same eyes. Dad claimed that we would have been identical, all things being equal. But, of course, things never were.

Just then, the security light illuminated our front lawn. Vincent Roper stood at our gate, making no move to open it.

The thought of facing him made my stomach turn. His footsteps approached up our path until, eventually, a knock sounded.

I forced myself into the hall, and made myself open the door.

There he was: standing at the entrance of Sea View Lodge. Now that Frank lay cold in his coffin, Vincent Roper was the only man alive to have known me at both my best and my worst.

And yet I did not know this man: this man who wore brushed leather shoes, a cable-knit scarf, a hat that might pass for a beret; this old man still full of vigour, his gestures confident and purposeful.

‘Maeve,’ he said.

He sounded just like his father.

I remained there in the hallway, chill and numb as if I’d been swept up by a wave.

And Vincent Roper just stood there, battered by the wind, smiling and expecting me to invite him in.

‘Mr Roper, I’m a—’

He leant down to kiss my cheek – his movement easy – the sandpaper rub of his face against mine. Anyone would think we were on the set of an old French film, not at a guest-house on the front in Morecambe. He smelled of cedar and bergamot. To think he’d become the kind of man to wear aftershave on a common-or-garden weekday. Dad owned one bottle of cologne that he eked out over nigh on a decade, wearing it only on special occasions: midnight Mass, their wedding anniversary, our birthday celebration.

Vincent Roper’s scent made me wish that I’d put on my best blouse, or even my button-down dress – something that emphasised my bust a little more and drew attention from my waist. At least I’d touched up my make-up.

‘Vince, please,’ he replied, propping his cane beneath the coat hooks. Then he paused and smiled – a smile that failed to mask the strangeness of his reappearance after all these long years.

I refused to meet his eye.

‘It’s been a lifetime, I know, but do still call me Vince.’

‘Mr Roper, I’m terribly sorry to disappoint you—’

He cocked his head slightly as if he might be a little deaf in one ear, the angle of his face making him look so vulnerable that I had to pull myself tall and inhale deeply: ‘I’m afraid there’s been some confusion,’ I explained, trying to ignore his look of deflation. ‘We don’t have any vacancies.’

‘Oh yes we do!’ piped up Steph, who’d appeared in the doorway of the lounge along with the barbershop’s bass. ‘Welcome to Sea View Lodge,’ she intoned, snapping back into work mode.

‘And who are you?’ asked the bass. ‘I don’t mean to be rude. You’re supposed to introduce yourself first, aren’t you? I’m a bass in Aspy Fella A Cappella.’

To his credit, Vincent Roper didn’t bat an eyelid about being greeted by a singer with Asperger’s and a receptionist with a floppy tongue and feline eyes. Steph could almost be mistaken for one of those poor Chinese cockle-pickers who perished on our sands. But, not long after her birth, her mum and dad had been on the verge of tears when I’d called Steph a Mongoloid. I’d taken care never again to say it out loud although I still found it a lovely word – full of horses journeying across the steppes. I couldn’t think why the likes of Trish and Dave preferred to lumber their child with a syndrome; why they preferred to honour Doctor Down, who shut people away in an asylum.

The bass patted Vincent Roper on the back and welcomed him to Sea View Lodge. ‘You’ll have a bloody good time here,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean to be rude. You shouldn’t swear, should you?’ He couldn’t have been more different from the lead singer, that one, what with his swearing and his tendency to hug and shake hands and pat folk on the back.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Steph put in, not to be outdone by the bass.

‘Pleased to meet you again too,’ laughed Vincent Roper.

‘Let me show you to your room,’ she continued, picking up his case. ‘Len usually carries the bags, but he’s only here in the day.’

And Vincent Roper just stood there, not knowing what to do.

‘Steph, my dear,’ I put in, ‘you’ve made a mistake. We have no vacancies.’

‘What about the Crocus Room?’

At this, the bass broke into song: ‘She’s made her way up through the frozen dark below, and there’s a crocus in the snow.’

The carpet in the Crocus Room was wearing awfully thin. ‘I appreciate that it’s getting rather late,’ I said above the hullabaloo. ‘Shall I call the Balmoral? They’re bound to have space.’

Vincent Roper cleared his throat. And that was all it took to bring you back again, raising yourself tall beside him, your chest rising, your mouth opening in song.

‘Aunty Maeve?’ said Steph, her hand waving in front of my face and her voice shouting above the bass’s tune.

‘What was that, my dear?’

‘Shall I take Mr Roper to the Crocus Room?’

He continued to stand there, waiting for my reply, and the bass continued to sing.

‘It’s not at all suitable, I’m afraid, Mr Roper. There’s not even an en-suite.’

‘That sort of thing doesn’t bother me one bit,’ he said. Then, trying to catch my eye, he added: ‘It’s wonderful to find Sea View Lodge still full of song.’

‘Some things never change,’ I said, letting myself smile. We still gathered around the piano at every opportunity just like the old days with Dad and Vince and you. I made sure Zenka mopped the parquet each morning, cleaned the glass lampshades every Friday and laundered the chintz on the first Monday of the month – just like Mum used to do.

‘I think I mentioned in my last Christmas card,’ said Vincent Roper, leaning towards me, as if to catch my response with his good ear, ‘that my son and his family have moved to the States?’

I had felt for him when I read that note in his card, but I failed to see what it had got to do with the price of fish. And yet I breathed in his cedar scent and waited for him to go on.

‘And that I moved to a retirement complex.’

His kindnesses came back to me then: the way he’d cheered when you first learnt to walk, your body pitching from side to side as you made your way, all skew-whiff, along the church drive; the way he’d helped you in and out of the choir stalls each week; the way he’d poured your milk into a sherry glass so that you could join in the toast.

‘We’re neither of us getting any younger,’ he said, fiddling with his hearing aid, his gaze pausing on Mum’s old statue of the Madonna and child. He looked at me sadly then, as if he could tell that my life had stalled. ‘Maeve Maloney,’ he added, lowering his voice: ‘it would mean so much to me to make our peace.’

CHAPTER TWO

Sounds from downstairs woke me before the sun had even begun to rise, so I crept from bed, listening out for more noise. I was beginning to think I’d dreamed it when I heard another thump, and then I was assaulted by the recollection that Vincent Roper had returned.

A tap was running, footsteps crossed from the kitchen to the dining room, a door opened and then closed. No doubt it was him, snooping around.

Just as I was heading down the stairs, I heard a great clatter of crockery, and then shushing sounds and laughter, and Steph telling Len to keep the noise down.

What an old fool I must have looked: seventy-nine years of age, my nightie wafting around my ankles, and preparing to give Vincent Roper a dressing-down. Thank goodness none of the singers were up.

I continued to the hall and called into the kitchen: ‘What’s this racket about?’

Steph darted out.

‘What on earth is Len doing here at this ungodly hour? He’s not due in till this afternoon.’

Steph clenched and flexed her fist, and then looked from me to the kitchen door. ‘Len’s not here,’ Steph said, just as Len called out, ‘Morning, Maeve!’

In the fifteen years that she’d worked here, I’d never once known Steph to tell a fib.

‘You scared me witless.’

I barged towards the kitchen but, just before I reached the door, she blocked my way.

‘This is not the kind of behaviour I expect from my goddaughter,’ I began, but then, through the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a vase of snowdrops that had been set on one of the dining room tables. It must be some kind of occasion for Len to countenance fresh cuttings of the rare early-flowering variety.

Steph snapped into action: ‘Please, take a seat,’ she said, gesturing towards the table just as she did with our guests.

‘What’s all this in aid of?’

The expression on Steph’s face could have turned just as easily into laughter or tears.

‘Listen, love, I can’t have you and Len messing around in the kitchen unsupervised. Anything could happen to you in there.’

Although Steph’s top lip was trembling, and she was gesturing again for me to take a seat, I made my way into the kitchen. I wouldn’t have been doing the right thing by them or their parents if I left them to it. Besides, we couldn’t afford any more breakages: during the band’s stay, we’d already suffered a smashed cafetière and a chipped side plate.

Just then, I caught Len pouring boiling water into the teapot. ‘Stop that this instant! You might scald yourself.’

‘Hello, my dear,’ he called out. ‘What are you doing in here?’

‘I might ask you the same question, young man.’

The teaspoon clinked against

Reviews for Owl Song at Dawn

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5 Maeve is nearing eighty and except for her time in college has never lived anywhere else but in Sea View Lodge. A Lodge that caters to the mentally and physically disadvantage, and where two young people with Downs syndrome live and work. This is now her life now, but she once had a twin sister, Edie, a sister who was born mentally and physically handicapped, a sister she loved very much. A sister her mother and father kept at home despite pressure from the doctors and social services to institutionalize her, a sister whose eventual fate causes her unending grief and guilt. Then a friend from the past arrives and just maybe she can come to terms with her past.This book was inspired by the Author's own sister and it is a emotional but worthy read. The pressure in the fifties and sixties to sterilize these unfortunate children, to institutionalize them and basically to forget about them and concentrate on their remaining family members, heartbreaking. Maeve's story as she tries to live her own life, while always including her sister, was just full of lobe and hope. Things don't turn out as planned for her but she makes the most of what she has left by catering to and helping others less fortunate. The present story and the past story were equally compelling, something that I very rarely find in books that skip back and forth in time. I enjoyed these characters, and in between we hear from Edie herself, in the special way she thinks and feels. Added a personal touch and insight as well. All in all a very good and heartfelt story.ARC from Netgalley.