A Half Forgotten Song

CHAPTER THREE

In the dark and quiet of the spout lantern, Zach sat alone in the bar, lit only by the ghostly glow of his laptop. Pete Murray had kindly given him the password to his wireless broadband, and the bar was the best place to pick up a signal. It was one o’clock in the morning, and Ali was supposed to have called by now so that he could tell Elise a bedtime story. As the minutes ticked by, he got more and more nervous, that same odd stage fright as when they’d first brought her home from the hospital, and he’d felt as though all eyes were on him, waiting for him to mess up. Without a book to help, his mind suddenly emptied of stories. He’d read all her favorites enough times, over the years; he’d thought that they would be ingrained in his memory. But perhaps he’d been reading them in a haze of boredom, the words going from eyes to mouth without passing through brain. Back when he thought things would always be that way, when it never occurred to him that everything could change, overnight, and he would be powerless to stop it. Seven minutes passed. He took a short, angry breath and held it, suddenly bone-weary. Head in hands, he thought about Dimity Hatcher. About the improbability of him being the first Aubrey fan to find her; and he’d done it without even trying. It had to be the new angle his book had been waiting for.

The ringtone, when it came, seemed impossibly loud in the deep quiet. Zach fumbled to accept the call, and in a heartbeat Ali appeared, her hair held back in a neat ponytail, wearing tight jeans and a fitted white shirt. Looking elegant, looking lovely. There was still sunshine over there, coming in through a nearby window and covering her in gold. It looked like a different world. In a small corner of the screen Zach could see himself-a pale wraith lit by computer light, with bags under his eyes and holes at the neck of his T-shirt. He might have laughed, if he hadn’t felt so wretched.

“Zach, how are you? You look… where the hell are you?” Ali said, accepting a cup of something that steamed from a hand that came briefly into shot. So Lowell was right there in the room with her, waiting on her. Listening. No privacy with his wife anymore, not even on a phone call. Ex-wife.

“I’m in Dorset, in a pub. It’s one in the morning, and it’s been a long day. How are you? How’s it going over there?”

“Oh, great. We’re really starting to settle in. Elise… she loves it here. Why are you in Dorset? In a pub? In the dark?”

“I’m in the dark because… I couldn’t find the light switch. Don’t laugh. And everyone else has gone to bed. I’m in a pub because I needed somewhere to stay, and I’m in Dorset because I’ve come down here to finish my book.”

“What book?” She frowned, only half paying attention, blowing the steam from her drink and sipping it carefully. He shouldn’t expect her to care anymore, and yet it always hurt to be reminded that she didn’t.

“Never mind. It’s not important.”

“The Aubrey book, you mean? You’re finally going to finish it? That’s great, Zach. And about time!” She smiled. He nodded, and tried to look resolute. The task still reared up in front of him like a vertical cliff face, Dimity Hatcher or no Dimity Hatcher. “So you’re in Blacknowle? You’re going to do some digging about your granddad as well?”

“I don’t know… maybe. Probably not.” Zach shook his head. What he wanted to find, what he needed to find, was too amorphous, too fragile, to explain. “So, where’s Elise? Is she ready for her story?”

“Zach-I’m really sorry. We were out all day today and she was just shattered. She went to bed an hour ago. I only just remembered to call now and let you know. I’m sorry.”

Zach felt all his nerves dissolve into a wash of disappointment.

“And so it begins,” he said, a tightness in his chest making his voice sound strained.

“Hey-it’s not like that. She was wiped out-what was I supposed to do?”

“Text me and tell me to get online an hour earlier?”

“Yes, well, I didn’t think of it. I said I was sorry. I didn’t get to tell her a story either, you know. She was out before she hit the pillow.”

“Yes, but you get to put her to bed and kiss her good night and be with her all day. Don’t you?” he said, not caring how childish he sounded.

“Look, I’m tired too. I don’t want to argue.” Her shoulders were braced against the chair back behind her. She flicked her eyes away from the screen, a look of appeal, of exasperation. To Lowell, of course, the hidden listener. Zach was at least grateful that he wasn’t watching the screen, so he couldn’t see how shabby Zach looked. He sighed.

“Fine. Tomorrow night then. For the story, not the argument.”

“Tomorrow night she has a sleepover… Sunday night?”

“Okay. Same time. Please-” He wasn’t sure what he’d been about to ask. Or beg. That weariness again. He shut his eyes and rubbed the lids with his thumb and fingers until red blooms spangled across his vision.

“Sunday night. I promise,” Ali said, nodding emphatically, as if to reassure a child.

“Good night, Ali.” He cut the call before she could respond, but it was a pathetic gesture and gave him no satisfaction. He switched off the computer and stumbled up to his room in darkness.

Ali had always been in control, right from the very beginning. Zach could see it now, in a way he hadn’t at the time, blinded by love, and by wishful thinking. When he proposed, she took forty-eight hours to decide. He’d waited in a state of almost unbearable anticipation, knowing that she must say yes, because he loved her so much-because they loved each other-but at the same time plagued by the underlying notion that she might say no. When she finally accepted, he was too happy to reflect on this long hiatus, but now he saw that she really had been of two minds, that she really had needed all that time to weigh up the pros and cons and decide he was worth the risk. He had vowed to reward this trust of hers, this gamble. He had vowed to make her happy, to be the perfect husband and father, but once Elise was born, there were a thousand tiny comments, a thousand fleeting frowns to let him know he was falling short. Give her to me, he heard again and again, when he couldn’t get Elise to sleep, or get her arms into her cardigan sleeves, or stop her crying. Give her to me, in a tone of stifled exasperation.

It was around that time that they began to talk about moving out of London, about moving to the West Country to see if Zach could make a better go of a gallery there. For a year, they both resolutely pitched this plan as a step forwards, as an expansion of their lives, not as a step away, a contraction, a last chance. Only once or twice, as they were shown around disappointingly small apartments, did he catch her looking at him with something like contempt in her eyes-gone when she blinked but shocking enough to chill him. Bath didn’t suit Ali. She missed her law firm in London, and their social life there, and when Zach’s falling income meant she had to return to work to support the three of them, she found the work stultifying and dull. Zach suspected that Ali made up her mind a long time before she finally decided to leave him. He suspected that she made the decision calmly, rationally, and chose her moment with as much care as she had chosen to marry him in the first place.

First thing in the morning he took the car into Swanage, one of two small towns nearby that he guessed would have a butcher. It was a bright morning; the sun was warm but the light seemed paler than even a week ago as the turning season stretched it thinner, sapping its strength away. The dusty gorse bushes lining the road were more gray than green; all spines and shriveled yellow flowers. Swanage nestled around its sandy beach and harbor, the streets still busy with late holidaymakers; but without any children, now that the schools had gone back, all the bright little shops seemed somehow bereft. Zach found a popular butcher’s shop, the stock of meat in the chiller disappearing rapidly and leaving only its bloody tang to hang in the air.

“How old are your hearts?” he asked when he got to the front of the queue.

“Oh, everything’s perfectly fresh, sir,” said the young man behind the counter.

“No, I mean-I’m sure it is. But I need a…” He paused, feeling foolish. “I need a bullock’s heart no more than a day old.”

“Right,” the butcher said with a smile, and if he thought to ask why, he thought better of it. “Well, all the hearts we have are from bullocks, generally, so no need to worry about that. As for less than a day old… well, these came in to us yesterday morning, so they’ll have been slaughtered the day before, probably. So more like thirty-six hours rather than less than twenty-four. But really-they’re perfectly fresh. I don’t see how you’d tell the difference. Have a sniff if you like.” He picked one up in his gloved hand and hefted it a couple of times before holding it out to Zach.

“No, thanks, I’ll take your word for it,” Zach said, recoiling. The heart nestled perfectly in the palm of the butcher’s hand. He was suddenly sure that Dimity Hatcher didn’t want it for culinary purposes, and if it wasn’t food then it was… what? Entrails. He swallowed.

“Do you ever get any in less than a day old?” he asked, aware that he was beginning to sound weird. But the young man smiled affably. Perhaps he was used to even odder requests.

“Well… let me think. Tuesday’s probably your best bet. I can keep one back for you, if you like? If you come in first thing it’ll still be less than a day old.”

“Tuesday? That’s longer than I wanted to wait.” Zach eyed the heart still sitting in the butcher’s hand. “I’ll take that one. Like you say, I’m sure it’ll be fine even if it’s a bit over the time limit.” The butcher wrapped it up with the hint of a smile on his lips. Zach decided that the damage was done, and to go all out with the weirdness. “Is there a haberdashery near here? Somewhere I can buy pins?”

He found the shop, thanks to the butcher’s directions, and after being briefly bewildered by the range of pins a person could buy, he picked plain old-fashioned ones. All steel, no plastic heads, no fancy sizes. As he came out of the sewing shop, he saw a small stationer on the opposite side of the street, and he paused. He was reluctant to attempt to paint or draw anything, in case it turned out every bit as flat and disappointing as his last efforts. He felt a kind of dread, in case that hadn’t been a blip, or a lack of inspiration at the time. In case he really had spent whatever talent he’d once possessed. It was over a year now, since he’d tried. He went in just to see what they had, and came out with two large sketchpads, some chalks, some inks, pencils, a tin of watercolors with a mixing tray in the lid, and a couple of brushes, one fine and one as thick as the tip of his little finger. He hadn’t meant to spend so much, but being in possession of such fundamental tools felt like seeing old friends. Like remaking a childhood acquaintance. He drove back to Blacknowle with the underlying excitement of having a present to unwrap, waiting for when he arrived.

But the first present wasn’t for him, it was for Dimity Hatcher. He parked at the pub and walked down to her cottage, not trusting his car to make it along the rutted, stony track. As he reached The Watch, he looked down the hill to Southern Farm, eyes searching for a dark-haired figure, moving quickly, precisely. Strange that the way she walked had already embedded itself so firmly into his memory. But there was no sign of life, other than a scattering of beige sheep in the big field behind the house, so he knocked loudly on the door of The Watch.

When Dimity Hatcher opened the door, she peeped out through the crack just as she had previously, and every bit as suspiciously, as though they’d never met before. Zach’s heart sank. Her hair was loose again, hanging down around her face. A loose blue dress, almost like a caftan, and those same fingerless red mittens.

“It’s Zach, Miss Hatcher. I came to see you before, remember? You asked me to come back and bring you some things… and maybe to talk about Charles Aubrey a bit more?”

“Of course I remember. It was yesterday,” she said, after a pause.

“Oh, great. Yes, of course.” Zach smiled.

“Did you bring it? What I asked for?” she said. Zach fumbled in his bag for the well-wrapped heart, and held it out to her.

“I wrapped it in newspaper, to keep it cool until I got here.”

“Good, good. Can’t have it gone bad,” she said, almost to herself, and then murmured under her breath as she unwrapped it, wordless sounds that might have been a tune. As soon as the heart was unwrapped, she sniffed it. Not a quick, cautious sniff like Zach would have given it, but a long, deep inhale. The sniff of a connoisseur, like an expert would sniff wine. Zach fidgeted a little, uneasy in his deception. Dimity poked the heart with her index finger and watched the flesh return slowly, refilling the dimple she’d made. Then she stuffed the paper bundle back into Zach’s hands with a shake of her head. No irritation, just something like disappointment. “No more than a day old,” she said, and shut the door.

Speechless, Zach knocked on the door again, but Dimity clearly had no intention of opening it. Cursing, he went to the window and put his face up to it with his hands on either side to block out the light. He was well aware that this was unlikely to aid his case.

“Miss Hatcher? Dimity? I brought the pins you asked for, and I can get you a… newer heart, on Tuesday the butcher said. I’ll bring it to you then, shall I? Would you like the pins now, though? Miss Hatcher?” He peered into the gloom within and was sure he saw movement. As a last-ditch attempt, he pulled a copy of Burlington Magazine-a glossy art-world periodical-out of his bag, opened it to a drawing of Dimity and Delphine together, and held it up to the glass. “I was going to ask you about this picture, Dimity. If you remembered when it was drawn, and what game you were playing? And what Aubrey’s daughter Delphine was like?” He thought of the drawing of Delphine, hanging in his gallery, and all the long hours he’d spent gazing at it. Again came that frisson, that sense of the unreal, that here was someone who had seen his idol made flesh. Had touched her skin, held her hand. But there was no sound from within, no further movement. Zach dropped his hands and stepped back from the window, defeated. In the glass he was a black reflection, an outline, and behind him the sea and the sky were shining.

He walked past the cottage and down to the cliff top, where he sat cross-legged and squinted out at the water. The breeze moving over the sea made the surface smooth and then puckered; alternately matte and then incandescent with light. There were great swells on it, seeming to rise up from beneath the surface; long trails, which might have been the ghostly wakes of boats that had moved out of sight or the telltale sign of a current pulling away from the land, all unseen. Imagining its strength, the inescapable pull of all that water, gave Zach a shiver. Faintly, just behind his eyes, came the urge to try to paint the dazzling scene in front of him, but then a flash of something pale and moving caught his eye. Hannah Brock had appeared on the beach below him. He couldn’t see how she’d got down there, since she certainly hadn’t come past The Watch and there didn’t seem to be any other way into the little cove below. But there she was, and as he watched, she stripped off her jeans and shirt and picked her way to the water’s edge in a faded red bikini. Her hair, free of the green scarf this time, flew about in the wind, and she was soon up to her ankles in the water. Zach saw her fingers extend, spread wide, and then clench into fists. It must be cold. He smiled slightly. Hannah propped her fists on her narrow hips and stared out to sea, just as he had done a moment before. Such a long, flat horizon always drew the eye; it was irresistible. Zach hunkered down as low as he could, and shuffled as far back from the edge as possible while still being able to see her. To be caught looking again would be the death of it, he warned himself seriously. No coming back from that. The thought caught him off guard-the death of what?

Eventually, Hannah turned to her right and moved along to the edge of the cove. Her skin was light brown, not the ghastly white Zach knew was hiding under his own clothes. Her spare frame looked pared down, with nothing superfluous. Flat breasts and thin arms, only a narrowing at the waist to stop her being boyish. But at the same time she seemed as far from frail as was possible. Every inch of her looked poised and vital. Poised for a fight, perhaps. He remembered the challenge in her eyes when she’d spoken to him in the pub. What do you want with her? She climbed up onto the rocks at the far edge of the beach, and walked along them where they jutted out into the sea. When she got to what looked like the edge, she kept going for another fifty feet or so, wading through lapping water up to her knees. Zach watched, fascinated. There must be a shelf under the water, a rock flat enough and wide enough to walk along even if the water meant you couldn’t see your footing clearly. She paused at the end for a second, tensed, and dived in with one clean movement.

She didn’t come up for a long time. Zach had a horrible vision of concealed rocks, and an undertow, but of course she must know the beach, and the water, far better than he. She surfaced a long way east of where she’d gone in, virtually opposite Zach as he perched on the cliff. She raked her hair back from her face, trod water for a moment, and then, with a splash, was gone again. For fifteen minutes or so she swam, over the water and under it, sculling idly on her back, and Zach stopped worrying about her spotting him, since it seemed she wasn’t going to. When she climbed out, her shoulders were high and tense, and he could see she was cold in the breeze. He wanted to go down to the beach and meet her, just then. With her hair streaming water and a drip hanging from her chin, and goose bumps all over her body. She would taste of salt. She dressed quickly, pulling her clothes over her wet skin with careless ferocity, and then she vanished from view, too close to the cliff for him to see where she went.

He was down by the cliff edge a long time. Dimity could see him from the kitchen window, and she returned to check every few minutes. Technically, it was her land; technically, he was trespassing on it. Valentina wouldn’t have had it-she’d have been out in a flash to chase him off with her violent eyes and that voice of hers that could carry a half mile if she wanted it to. She hesitated at the window for a while, wondering if she should have asked him in after all, wondering if she still should. But she had been so hoping to make the hearth charm today, so hoping to stop any more unwanted visitors getting in. And maybe to get rid of one who’d already come back and let herself in. She peered out at him again. That fleeting first resemblance he’d borne to Charles had gone completely. This man’s hands and head were still instead of moving, glancing, switching fast like Charles’s had. He had none of the fire, none of the energy. The young man on the cliffs looked more like someone walking in their sleep, and she was half afraid he might fall forwards and tumble over the edge.

In her head was a simple tune, circling itself again and again. A tune from childhood, beating a rhythm she couldn’t shake off. A sailor went to sea sea sea, to see what he could see see see, and all that he could see see see, was the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea… At first she thought it was the drip of the kitchen tap that had conjured up the ghost of this song; the steady plink of water onto the chipped porcelain. She stood in the kitchen and shut her eyes, and at once the smell of the place grew stronger-a stale smell of bread crumbs and milk, the tang of burning on the hob, the sickly smell of a century of greasy food remains, hiding in cupboards and in the cracks in the floor. A flash of Valentina’s perfume, the violet water she dabbed behind her ears when a guest was due to arrive. If she opened her eyes, she might see the woman, Dimity thought. Catch her standing close to her daughter, smiling. Mitzy, my girl, you’ve a fortune waiting to be made. Tucking Dimity’s bronze hair behind her shoulders for her, woozy and affectionate with wine on her breath and her eyes half closed.

Dimity kept her eyes shut, pressed her teeth tight together so the violet smell wouldn’t get on her tongue. The tune hummed itself in her throat, more of a chant than a song. See see see, sea sea sea, the beat bouncing, irresistible. It was the sound of hands clapping, of skin striking skin, taut across the palms of young hands. That picture he had held up to the windowpane. She’d only caught a glimpse of it, small, from a distance, but she knew it at once. The first time she met him, the first time he sketched her-sketched her before she even knew he was there, before she’d ever set eyes on him. Made her into a figure on a page; took her inside him and then re-created her, possessed her. That was how she felt, when she saw the drawing afterwards. Possessed.

The house was called Littlecombe. It stood in an overgrown garden at the far eastern edge of Blacknowle, along a driveway that jutted out towards the sea. Like an echo of The Watch, like its mirror but not quite: Littlecombe was closer to the village and still a part of it, just about. Not as cut off, but still separate. From it you could walk out across pasture to the cliffs, just as you could from The Watch, and then join the path west towards Tyneham. At the back of the house a small stream cut a miniature ravine into the earth, then descended to the sea as a constant splatter of water down the cliff face, muddy and brown after heavy rain. It was one of the best places to pick cress and catch crayfish, and since the house had stood empty for three years, Dimity felt free to do so.

Before that, an old man called Fitch had lived there all his life, as far as anybody knew. Fitch seemed to have no other name. He creaked and crawled his way to the Spout Lantern every night but Sunday, coughing between puffs on a thin, unfiltered cigarette. The smoke had carved deep, stained creases into his face, and his right hand was fixed in a claw shape-index finger and thumb set a fraction apart, always ready to grip the next fag. When he didn’t turn up at the pub one Saturday night, the people of Blacknowle knew what it meant. They went along to Littlecombe with a stretcher all ready, and found him in his chair, stiff and cold, with a bedraggled dog-end still hanging from his lip. Dimity could have told them he was dead, but she wasn’t allowed into the pub, and people tended not to talk to her if they could help it, so, partly out of nerves and partly out of spite, she’d not told anyone what she knew. That when she had gone to fish that morning, in the stream behind the house, the black windows had screamed out at her and there was a gaping emptiness that made her skin crawl, where once she would have felt the presence of a living thing within the walls. His death was like a strange scent in the air, or the sudden ceasing of a noise you hadn’t realized you could hear.

And so it had stayed for three years, empty, passed on to an estranged cousin who showed no sign of wanting to do anything with it. A few slates slipped from the roof and smashed into the flower beds, beheading the rampant dandelions there. Thistles grew up to brush the ground-floor windowsills, and in winter a water pipe burst, painting a sparkling swath of ice all down one wall. It was a square brick box of a house, three rooms up and three rooms down. Victorian, functional, not charmless but certainly not pretty. Then one morning Dimity was halfway across one of Southern Farm’s fields to it when she stopped. A thin trail of smoke rose straight up from the chimney into the crystalline air. It was early summer, the mornings still cool. She suddenly felt like a spotlight was on her, and braced her feet apart, ready to turn and flee. She hadn’t heard anything about new owners in the village gossip, which she eavesdropped by loitering near the shop or the bus stop. New owners might not like her in the stream. Might see her harvesting as thieving. They might have a dog, and let it chase her, like Wilf Coulson’s mother did when she went up to the door one time, dry-mouthed at her own audacity, to see if he could come out to play.

But just as she was about to retreat, she saw somebody watching her. And it wasn’t a scowling man or an angry woman with a dog, it was a little girl. Younger than Dimity, maybe eleven or twelve, medium height, narrow, square at the shoulders. Feet buckled into tan leather shoes, white socks pulled up to her knees, and her body wrapped in a canary-yellow cardigan. She stood at the rickety gate to the little garden in front of Littlecombe, and they considered each other for a minute. Then the girl came out and walked towards her. When she got up close, Dimity saw she had brown eyes, very frank, and a lot of rebellious hair escaping from the glossy brown plaits at either side of her head. Dimity’s pulse raced as she waited to discover how she would be spoken to, but after a long pause the girl smiled and held out her hand.

“I’m Delphine Madeleine Anne Aubrey, but you can just call me Delphine. How do you do?” Her hand was smooth and cool, the nails scrubbed clean. Dimity had been out since dawn, checking the snares, mucking out the chicken coop, and picking greens, and her own nails were stained and had earth underneath them. Earth and worse. She shook Delphine’s hand cautiously.

“Mitzy,” she managed to say.

“Pleased to meet you, Mitzy. Do you live on the farm?” Delphine asked, pointing past her and down the hill to Southern Farm. Dimity shook her head. “Where do you live, then? We’re living here for the summer. My sister, Élodie, too, but you’ll never see her out this early. She’s a lazy stay-abed.”

“For the summer?” said Dimity, puzzled. She was bowled over by the girl, by her calm, friendly introduction. Strangers, she thought. Strangers from far, far away who didn’t know to hate the Hatchers yet. She’d never heard of people who lived somewhere only for the summer-like the swallows, like the swifts. She wondered where they wintered, but thought it might be rude to ask.

“Your accent’s really funny! In a good way-I mean, I like it. I’m twelve, by the way. How old are you?” Delphine asked.

“Fourteen.”

“Gosh, lucky you! I can’t wait to be fourteen-when I’m fourteen Mummy says I can have my ears pierced, even though Daddy says that’s still too young and we should concentrate on being children and not want to grow up so quickly. But that’s stupid, don’t you think? You can hardly do anything when you’re a child.”

“Yes,” Dimity agreed cautiously, still unsure how to behave in the face of such overt friendliness. Delphine folded her arms and seemed to consider her new acquaintance carefully.

“What are you going to put in your basket? There’s nothing in it, and there’s not much point carrying an empty basket if you don’t plan to put something in it,” she said.

So Dimity led her around behind the house, from which the sound of pots and pans and movement was emanating, as was the smell of fresh bread, and showed her the stream and the watercress beds, and which rocks to lift to find the crayfish hiding underneath. At first Delphine didn’t want to get her shoes muddy or her hands wet, snatching her fingers back from the water and wiping them hurriedly on the skirt of her pinafore, but she grew bolder as time passed. She squealed and scrambled backwards when Dimity held up a big crayfish, which waved its claws angrily at the world. Dimity tried to reassure her that it was quite safe, but Delphine wouldn’t come near again until Dimity had thrown it farther downstream. She stared after it regretfully.

“It’s all those legs! They’re disgusting! Ugh! I don’t know how you can bear to eat them!” Delphine said.

“It’s no different to eating crab or prawns,” Dimity told her. “My mother wanted some for later. She’s making soup for dinner.”

“Oh, no! Will you get in trouble for letting that one go?”

“I don’t always find them-there aren’t that many. I’ll just tell her there weren’t any today.” Dimity shrugged, a show of carelessness that she didn’t feel. The snares had been empty, too. She would have to find something else, or hope that a visitor came and brought them some bacon or a rabbit; or there would be nothing in the soup except barley and greens. Even at the thought of such poor fare, her stomach rumbled loudly. Delphine glanced at her and laughed.

“Haven’t you had breakfast? Come on-let’s go in and have something.”

But Dimity wouldn’t go inside; she could hardly bring herself to pass the little gate into the garden, it felt so alien. Delphine accepted this with a quizzical tilt of her head, and didn’t press her for an explanation. She darted into the house and came out with two thick slices of bread, smothered in honey. Dimity devoured her slice in seconds, and they sat on the damp grass in the morning sunshine, licking their sticky fingers. Delphine polished the mud from her shoes with a dock leaf, and glanced out at the glittering spread of the sea.

“Did you know that the sea is only blue because it reflects the color of the sky? So it’s not really blue at all?” she said. And Dimity nodded. It stood to reason, though she had never really thought about it before. She pictured it on a stormy day, as gray and chalky-white as the clouds. “The Mediterranean is a different color altogether, so I suppose the sky must be a different blue. Which seems odd, since it’s the same sun and all. But it must be different air or something. Or do you think it depends what’s under the water, too? I mean, what’s on the bottom?” she asked. Dimity thought about it for a moment. She had never heard of the Mediterranean, and was careful not to reveal this to her new friend.

“Doubt it,” she said at last. “A short way out it’s too deep to see down to the bottom, isn’t it?”

“The bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea,” said Delphine. “You’ve got hay in your hair,” she added, reaching out and picking the stalk from Dimity’s head. Then she clambered to her feet. “Come on-stand up. Let’s do the clapping song.” So she taught Dimity the song about the bottom of the deep blue sea, and Dimity, who’d never done clapping before, kept getting it wrong. She concentrated hard, trying to keep up as Delphine’s hands moved faster and faster, and decided that it wasn’t as much fun as Delphine seemed to think it was. But she persevered, to please the strange, talkative girl, and as she did, she felt the prickling weight of being watched. At first she thought it was just her imagination, just the fear of always being the first one to miss a clap and get it wrong, but after twenty minutes or so, a man emerged from the house, carrying a large, flat book.

He was tall and thin, dressed in close-fitting gray trousers and the oddest shirt Dimity had ever seen a man wear-long and loose, and open at the neck to show a sliver of the hairy, tanned skin of his chest. It was almost like the smocks the dairymaids wore for milking, but cut from coarser fabric, some kind of heavy linen. His hair was a deep reddish-brown, thick and wavy. It was parted in the middle of his scalp and grew down over his ears to brush his collar at the back. Dimity stopped clapping at once, took several steps backwards, and lowered her gaze defensively. She expected to be shouted at, told to go. She was so used to it that when she glanced up at him, her eyes were full of venom. The man recoiled slightly, and then smiled.

“Who’s this, Delphine?”

“This is Mitzy. She lives… nearby. This is my father,” Delphine said, grabbing Dimity’s hand and pulling her closer to the man. He held out his hand to her. A grown-up had never, ever done that before. Bewildered, Mitzy took it; felt him grip her hand firmly. His hand was large and rough, the skin dry and speckled with paint. Ridged knuckles and short, blunt nails. He held on to her fingers a second longer than she could stand, and she pulled them away, flicking another glance up at his face as she did so. The sun was shining in his eyes, turning them the rich, lustrous brown of newly shelled conkers.

“Charles Aubrey,” he said; his voice rumbled slightly, smooth and deep.

“Are you going out sketching?” Delphine asked. He shook his head.

“I have been already. I drew the two of you, playing your game. Do you want to see?” And although it was Delphine who said yes and leaned over the book in his hands, it seemed to Dimity that he had really been speaking to her. The drawing was light, fluid; the background sketched in roughly-just hints of the land and the sky. The girls’ feet and legs disappeared into long grasses described with swift, ragged pencil lines. But their faces and hands, their eyes, were alive. Delphine smiled widely, obviously pleased.

“I think it’s excellent, Daddy,” she said, in a serious, grown-up tone of voice.

“And you, Mitzy? Do you like it?” he asked, turning the drawing right around so she could see it clearly.

It felt strange, and maybe even wrong. Dimity couldn’t tell. The air seemed to fill her lungs too quickly, and she couldn’t breathe all the way out. She didn’t trust herself to speak; had no idea what the right thing to say would be. Clearly, Delphine saw nothing improper about it, but then, she was his daughter. He had captured the shape of Dimity’s body, underneath her clothes; caught the sun shining on the line of her jaw and cheek beneath the translucent veil of her hair. To have caught them so accurately he must have looked very hard. Looked harder than anybody had ever looked at her-she who was used to being invisible to the people of Blacknowle. She felt desperately exposed. Color flooded her cheeks, and with no warning there was a tickle at the top of her nose, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, don’t be upset! It’s all right, Mitzy… really. Daddy-you should have asked her first!” said Delphine. Unable to stand it, Dimity turned quickly and walked away down the hill, towards The Watch. She tried to think what Valentina would say about a strange man drawing pictures of her, even if it wasn’t her fault, and as clear as day the woman’s sneer curled across her mind’s eye. “Do come again, Mitzy! He’s sorry!” Delphine called after her. Then the man spoke as well.

“Ask your parents if they’ll let you sit for me!”

Dimity ignored them both, and got home in time to see the door opened, and a visitor ushered inside. She didn’t see who it was, and therefore didn’t know how long he would stay, so she went around the back and sat in the sty with the old sow, Molly, putting up with the stink for the animal’s warmth and amiable company. She wondered what sitting for Delphine’s father would involve. She thought hard, and could come up with no answer that didn’t make her uneasy. She scrubbed angrily at her eyes, where her few brief tears had made the skin itchy and stiff, and felt an unexpected pang of sorrow at the thought of not going back, and not seeing Delphine again.

The gates to Southern Farm had once been white, but most of the paint had flaked off to show the gray, aging wood underneath. They sagged on their hinges, drooping into the long grass that had grown up around them. It was a blustery day and the wind was cooler than before; Zach thrust his hands into his pockets as he walked into the yard. A sign at the top of the lane had said there were eggs for sale, and though he didn’t actually need any eggs, it seemed as good a reason as any to pay an uninvited visit. Zach wanted to see the standoffish Hannah Brock again, feeling an interest in her that went beyond the fact that she knew Dimity Hatcher. The yard was quiet and deserted. He thought about knocking at the door of the farmhouse itself, but it looked very shut, and unwelcoming. Farm buildings sat at either side of the concrete yard, and Zach walked to the nearest one, a low structure with crumbling stone walls and a corrugated tin roof. From the darkness within came a shuffling of straw as he approached, and he was greeted by the pebble-eyed stares of six light brown sheep, puffing curiously at him through their noses. The stink of them was sweet and pungent.

The next barn was much bigger, and housed a large stack of hay bales and an ancient piece of farm machinery with vicious-looking spikes and wheels and moving parts. It was rusty and festooned with cobwebs. The wind moaned through a hole in the roof, and beneath that bright patch of watching sky, nettles and chickweed were growing in a patch of moldy straw. Behind the sound of the wind was a silence that Zach suddenly found unnerving. Even the far-off cry of a sheep couldn’t change the fact that the place felt dead, forgotten, like the relic of something been and gone.

“I help you?” A man’s voice behind him made Zach jump.

“Jesus! You scared the hell out of me!” he said. He smiled, but the man standing behind him didn’t return the expression. He examined Zach with a steady, measuring gaze that put him on his guard.

“This is private,” said the man, with a wave of his hand to indicate the barn. He was medium height, shorter than Zach but stockier, with burly shoulders. His face was drawn, the cheeks a little hollow, but Zach still thought the man might be slightly younger than he was, maybe in his early thirties. Black eyes watched from beneath a fringe of straight black hair. His skin was dark, dark enough that Zach would have guessed him to be foreign, perhaps Mediterranean, even if he hadn’t spoken with such a thick, guttural accent.

“Yes, I know-sorry. I didn’t mean to… I was looking for the eggs. The eggs for sale?” said Zach, struggling to regain his composure in the face of such open suspicion. The man studied him a moment longer, then nodded and turned to walk away. Zach supposed he was expected to follow.

They crossed the ridged concrete yard to a low building, stone built with a wooden stable door that was black with age and bitumen paint. Inside, the cobbled floor had been scrubbed and a shop counter had been improvised at one end-a trestle table with a metal strongbox and a thick ledger upon it. There was also a large cardboard tray for eggs, in which five were sitting. The man eyed the tray with a look of irritation.

“There are more. Not picked yet. How many?” he said.

“Six, please,” said Zach. The dark-eyed man gazed at him with a neutral expression, and Zach fought the urge to smile. “Five is fine, actually,” he relented, but the man shrugged.

“I get it. Wait.” He left Zach alone in the small room, which Zach guessed had once been a stable. As the sun leaped momentarily out from behind a cloud, the whitewashed walls shone brightly. There were little pictures hanging all around, the biggest no more than twelve inches wide and eight high. A mixture of landscapes and sheep portraits, done in chalks on different-colored papers. Modest prices had been stickered onto their simple pine frames-sixty pounds for the biggest one, a flat-backed sheep standing in silhouette on a near horizon, against a sky aglow with a pink dawn. They were good, all of them. A local artist, Zach assumed. He couldn’t help thinking they’d have more luck in a small gallery in Swanage than here, in a farm shop that had five eggs for sale and no customers other than him.

He stood and looked at them, and wondered who the dark-haired man might be. Hannah Brock’s husband? Her boyfriend? Or just somebody who worked at the farm? The latter seemed unlikely-the farm hardly looked as though it would support one person, let alone an employee as well. That only left husband or boyfriend, though, and he found he didn’t like either idea. There were footsteps behind him and he turned, expecting to see the man return, but it was Hannah Brock who came into the stable. She pulled up short when she saw him, and he smiled as casually as he could.

“Good morning,” he said. “We meet again.”

“Yes, fancy that,” she said drily. She crossed to stand behind the table and flipped open the ledger, gazing down at it with a distracted frown. “Can I help you with something?”

“No, no. Your… that is… the man who was here…”

“Ilir?”

“Yes, Ilir. He’s just fetching me some eggs. Well, one extra egg, to be exact.” He gestured at the five already in the tray.

“Eggs?” She glanced up at him with half a smile. “Aren’t you staying at the pub?”

“Yes. They’re for… They’re for Dimity.” He smiled at her, and watched her reaction carefully.

“Mitzy has half a dozen hens of her own out the back. All of them good layers, as far as I know.”

“Yes. Well.” Zach shrugged. Hannah eyed him and seemed in no rush to speak, and Zach found the silence hard to bear. “Mitzy. So, you know who she is, then?” he said.

“And I’m guessing from your barely contained curiosity that you do, too,” Hannah replied.

“I’m an expert on Charles Aubrey. Well, when I say an expert… what I mean is, I know a lot about him. About his work and his life…”

“You don’t know anything compared to what Mitzy knows,” Hannah said quietly, with a shake of her head. She seemed to regret her words at once, and scowled.

“Exactly. I mean, it’s incredible that nobody has come to interview her before. The stories she must have about him… the insights into all the drawings-”

“Interview her?” Hannah interrupted. “What do you mean, interview her? Interview her for what?”

“I’m… well, I’m writing a book about him. About Charles Aubrey.” Hannah raised an eyebrow skeptically. “It’s coming out to coincide with the National Portrait Gallery’s retrospective, next summer,” he said, with a touch of defiance.

“And you’ve told Mitzy that, and she’s happy to help you?”

“I may not have mentioned the book, actually. I said I was interested in Aubrey, and she seemed really keen to talk about him…” He trailed off under Hannah’s ferocious glare.

“Going back up there soon, are you? So am I. And if you’ve not told her about the book, then I will. Clear? It changes everything, and you know it.”

“Of course I’ll tell her. I meant to. Look, you seem to have got the wrong impression of me. I’m not some kind of…” He waved his hand in the air, searching for the word.

“Snoop?” Hannah supplied for him. She folded her arms; an aggressive pose undermined by another blaze of sunshine, pouring through the window and setting her dark curls alight with shades of deep red. She waited for his reply.

“Right. I’m not a snoop, or some predator out to trick her. I’m a genuine Aubrey fan. I just want to get some kind of new insight into his life and work…”

“Well, maybe that insight isn’t yours to get. Mitzy’s memories are her own. There’s no reason she should have to share them with you, after what she suffered…”

“What she suffered? What do you mean?”

“She-” Hannah broke off, seemed to change her mind about what she was about to say. “Look, she loved him, okay? She’s still grieving for him…”

“After seventy-odd years?”

“Yes, after seventy-odd years! If she’s spoken to you about him already I’m sure you noticed how… fresh the memories of her time with him are. She’s very easy to upset.”

“I’m not trying to upset her, and of course her memories are her own. But if she’s happy to share them with me, then I don’t see that I’m doing anything wrong. And Aubrey is a public figure. He’s one of our greatest modern artists-his work is in public galleries all over the country… people have a right to know…”

“No, they don’t. They don’t have a right to know everything. I hate that idea,” Hannah muttered.

“Why do you care so much? I’ll tell her I’m working on a book about him, I promise. And if she’s still happy to talk to me, then that should be fine by you as well, shouldn’t it?” he said.

Hannah seemed to consider this. She flipped the ledger closed again, having not written anything new in it. Behind Zach, Ilir returned with a plastic bucket full of eggs. He made up a box of the five on the desk and one from the bucket.

“Still warm,” he said, closing his hand briefly around the egg.

“Thank you,” said Zach.

“One seventy-five,” Ilir told him. Zach looked up in surprise, and Hannah bridled.

“They’re organic and free-range. Not certified organic, but that’s just a question of bloody paperwork… I’m working on it. But they are organic,” she said.

“I’m sure they’ll be delicious,” said Zach, wondering what he would do with them. Give them to Pete to use in the pub kitchen, he supposed. “I like the sheep pictures,” he said, as he turned to go. “Local artist?”

“Very local. Want to buy one?” she said laconically.

“You did them? They’re really good. Maybe next time.” He shrugged apologetically, and wished he did have sixty pounds to spend on one of them. “I paint as well. And draw. Well, I used to. I have a gallery now, in Bath. It’s shut at the moment, though. Because I’m… here.” He looked back at the pair of them. Ilir was hovering near Hannah, putting the fresh eggs one by one into the tray. Hannah was watching Zach with that resolute silence of hers. “Well, I should probably get going,” said Zach. “I can see you’re busy. Okay. Bye. Thanks for the eggs. Bye.” He turned to go, and as he did, a smile flickered over Hannah’s face, quick like the sunshine that day.

On Tuesday he was at the butcher’s first thing, before it was even open. He bought the brand-new heart and went straight down to The Watch, not thinking that Dimity might not be up yet until he’d banged on the door and it was too late. When she opened it, he held the heart out to her.

“The butcher told me this bullock was slaughtered yesterday afternoon. It couldn’t be any fresher unless I’d gone to the abattoir and caught it as it dropped out,” he said with a smile. Dimity took the heart and unwrapped it, and held it in her hand. Zach noticed with a faint shudder that it smeared blood on her mittens, and that a dark clot was oozing from one of the vessels hanging from it. He caught the nauseating tang of iron in his nostrils, and tried not to inhale too deeply. Dimity performed the same tests on this heart as she had the first, then flashed Zach a small, pleased smile. With a flurry of long hair and skirts, she turned and vanished into the house, leaving the door open behind her.

Zach peered through into the hallway. “Miss Hatcher?”

“The pins?” Her voice drifted through from the kitchen. Zach stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

“Right here,” he said, handing them to her. She was sitting at the small table in the kitchen, and took the box of pins from Zach without another word. She seemed entirely focused on the heart and what she planned to do with it, and Zach sank quietly into the chair opposite her, fascinated. With a single deft movement, the old woman slit the heart open down one side with a paring knife, the blade of which looked wicked sharp. She wiped away the clots of blood inside it with her fingertips, and then opened the box of pins, covering it with rusty fingerprints. Under each of her nails was a dark red crescent. Humming softly, she pierced the wall of the heart from the inside with a pin, pushing until its head was flush to the meat. Mesmerized, Zach watched and didn’t dare to ask. Snatches of the song she sang were audible, and decipherable, but most of it was a wordless mumble of her buzzing s sounds and drawled vowels. Zach leaned closer, struggling to hear.

“Bless this house, and keep it whole… bless this house… keep thatch, keep stone…”

She finished when she ran out of pins. Taking a needle and thread from the pocket of her apron, she quickly stitched up the cut she’d made, patting the heart back into shape as best she could between its new armor of pins. It looked like a horrific surrealist rendering of a hedgehog; almost the kind of thing Zach might have created during his college years at Goldsmiths, when he’d fought his every natural urge to draw and paint, to produce figurative art. He’d wanted to shock, to be avant-garde.

“What’s it for?” he asked tentatively. Dimity looked up, startled, and had clearly forgotten he was there. She chewed on the inside of her mouth for a second, then leaned towards him.

“Keeps the nasties out,” she whispered, and looked past him as though something had caught her eye. Zach glanced over his shoulder. In the hall mirror, his reflection glanced back at him.

“The nasties?”

“The ones you don’t want.” She stood up, then paused and looked down at him. “Good long arms,” she murmured. “Come on and help with it.”

Obediently, Zach rose and followed her into the sitting room. Under Dimity’s direction, he ducked into the inglenook fireplace and stood up cautiously, noting as he did that the morning had taken a strange turn. His shoulders brushed the sooty stone on either side, and when he looked up, a shower of smuts sifted into his eyes. Cursing, he rubbed at them, only to find that his fingers were gritty, too. The sharp stink of ash filled his nostrils, and up above his head the sky was a small, dazzling square. How did I come to be in a chimney? he wondered, with a bemused smile for the dark space around him.

“Feel up above your head-as far as you can. There’s a nail there for it. Can you find it?” Dimity called from the sitting room. Looking down, Zach could see her feet in their ugly leather boots, shuffling anxiously to and fro. He reached up and felt about with his fingers, loosening more soot that pattered down into his hair. He tried to shake it off and kept searching until his fingers brushed against the sharp spike of a rusty nail.

“I’ve got it!”

“Take this then-take it.” Her arm reached into the flue and handed him the heart pincushion, hanging it from his finger with a loop in the thread that she’d stitched it with. “Hang it on the nail, but as you do you have to sing part of the song.”

“What song?” Zach asked, carefully lifting the heart so that it wouldn’t touch him. The flue narrowed at his head height, though, and it brushed against his cheek. A cold touch of metal that left a thin scratch. He shuddered. “What song?” he repeated, rattled.

“Bless this house, keep it whole…” The line was sung in a quavering voice, thin and high.

“Bless this house,” Zach echoed tunelessly. He hung the thing on the nail and a sudden updraft carried his words away like smoke. A rush of air that whispered angrily in his ears. He got out of the inglenook as fast as he could, and stood there brushing pointlessly at his hair and clothes with filthy hands. When he looked up at Dimity, her hands were clasped in front of her mouth, the fingers meshed tightly together, and her eyes were bright. With a quiet, joyous sound she threw her arms around Zach, who could only stand in silent amazement.

When she let go and stepped away, she seemed embarrassed, and looked down at her stained fingers as they fiddled with a loose thread on her apron. It didn’t seem to bother her that her hands were covered in blood. As if she was used to it. Zach rubbed his own filthy palms together again.

“Could I use your bathroom to get cleaned up a bit?” he said. Dimity nodded, still without looking at him, and pointed out to the hallway.

“Through the door to the back,” she said quietly. Zach went out past the stairs and pulled open the door, which was swollen and stiff. He had a sudden idea of the wooden skeleton of the house being bloated with damp and brittle with age. Experimentally, he gouged his thumbnail into one of the thick beams wriggling through the wall. It was as hard as iron.

Through the door was a tiny utility area, the back door of the cottage, and the door to the bathroom. The ceiling was close enough to brush Zach’s hair, sloping away from the back wall of the house. The temperature dropped noticeably, and Zach realized that the bathroom had just been tacked on hastily-a flimsy lean-to, no doubt thrown together to replace an old garden privy. He peered out through the glass in the outer door. The backyard was shaded and bare of plants. Just trampled, mossy earth and cracked paving slabs slimed with green algae. A variety of old sheds and outbuildings stood here and there, with their doors shut tight, secretive. One of them was indeed a chicken coop, where six brown hens were pecking and preening. Beyond the yard the trees that marked the edge of the ravine heaved their branches in the wind. Zach scrubbed his hands as best he could in the tiny bathroom basin, and tried to forget the way the updraft in the chimney had sounded, for a second, like a voice.

Dimity was making tea, humming contentedly as she set out cups and saucers. No chipped mugs this time, Zach noted. He had come up in the world. She ushered him through to sit in the living room, as pleased and adamant as a child playing house. In the end, the cup she passed him had no handle, but she obviously hadn’t noticed, so he didn’t mention it. A smile hovered around her mouth, waxing and waning as hidden thoughts came and went. Now seemed to be as good a time as any for a confession, Zach thought.

“Miss Hatcher-”

“Oh, do call me Dimity. I can’t be doing with all the Miss Hatcher this and Miss Hatcher that!” she said gaily.

“Dimity,” he said. “I, uh, I met your neighbor, Hannah Brock. She seems nice.”

“Nice, yes. Hannah’s a good girl. A good neighbor. I’ve known her since she was a baby, you know. That family… that family have always been good folk. Keep themselves to themselves, mind. Been at Southern Farm a full century, the Brocks have, as far as I know. How frightened she is of losing it! Poor girl. Always working so hard, and getting nothing back for it. Almost like a curse on the place but that can’t be right. No, I can’t think who’d have done that…” She trailed off, staring into the distance and seeming to consider who might have set a curse on the farm.

“I think I met her… husband, too. I went down to buy some eggs yesterday. A dark-haired man?”

“Her husband? Oh, no. Couldn’t have been. Her husband’s dead. Dead and gone to the bottom of the sea.” She shook her head sadly. “So many of them down there. My own father, too.”

“He drowned? She’s a widow?” Zach asked.

“A widow, yes. These past seven years or so. Drowned, gone, lost at sea. I never liked him, mind you. He was too clever for his own good. Thought he was, anyway. No understanding of the land. But honest and of good heart for all that, I suppose.” She looked around the room quickly, as if expecting the man’s vengeful ghost to have heard her malign him. Zach tried to shape Hannah into the role of widow in his head. It was a poor fit. Widows were old and tearful, or else brassy and rich.

“I was married, you know. We got a divorce. Well, in truth, she left me. Ali. I have a daughter, called Elise. She’s six now. Would you like to see a picture?” Dimity gave a vague nod, looking puzzled, so Zach persevered and handed her the picture from his wallet. Elise grinning, holding a cloud of cotton candy bigger than her head. She’d been so excited she couldn’t keep a straight face. Then afterwards the sugar gave her a headache, and she was vile to everyone and ruined the day. But in the picture her eyes were bright and her hair was shiny, and she radiated the simple joy of being in possession of something wonderful to eat.

“Is she happy, your little girl? Is her mother kind to her?” asked Dimity, and Zach was shocked to see that her face had fallen into lines of sadness, and her voice had grown hoarse.

“Yes, Ali’s always been great with her. She adores Elise.”

“And you?”

“I adore her too. She’s a very adorable girl. I try to be a good dad, but I suppose that’s something that time will tell.”

“Why did your wife leave you?”

“She fell out of love with me. I guess that happened first; and then, after that she could suddenly see all the many ways in which I was lacking.”

“You don’t seem that bad to me.”

“Ali has… high standards, I suppose. Now she’s met somebody who matches up to them better than I ever could.” Zach smiled briefly. “It’s funny-you know what people say about first impressions? I think that’s what our problem was. Mine and Ali’s. We met at an exhibition of twentieth-century drawings-an exhibition that I had curated. I was able to tell her at great length what made each piece so great; what made the artists so great. I suppose I came across as deeply insightful, passionate… high-minded, successful, and going places. I think it was all downhill from there, as far as Ali was concerned.”

Dimity seemed to consider this for a while.

“People’s hearts… other people’s hearts seem to fill with love and empty again, like the tide filling the bay. I’ve never understood it. Mine has never changed. It filled, and it stayed full. Stays full even now… even now,” she said fiercely.

“Well, mine did too, for a long time after she left. It felt like the world was ending.” Zach smiled sadly. “Suddenly there didn’t seem a lot of point to anything I did, or was trying to do. You know?”

“Yes. Yes I do.” Dimity nodded intently. Zach shrugged.

“But gradually, it’s… faded, I suppose. There’s only so long you can spend wishing things were different. Wishing you were different. Then you have to move on.”

“And have you now?”

“Moved on? I’m not sure. I’m trying to, but it’s easier said than done, I suppose. But that’s kind of why I’m here… in Blacknowle. I’ve been meaning to tell you, actually-I’m writing a book, about Charles Aubrey.” Dimity looked up when he said this, her eyes widening fearfully. “I don’t… I won’t put anything in it that you don’t want me to, I promise. I just want to write the truth about him…”

“The truth? The truth? What do you mean?” Dimity struggled out of her chair and stood in front of him, shifting her weight. She suddenly looked very afraid.

“No-please. Look. I don’t want to intrude on your memories of him. Really. And even if we talk and you tell me things you remember, but you don’t want me to write them down or record them, I won’t, I promise,” he said intently.

“What’s the use of it, then? What do you want from me?” she said.

Zach considered his answer carefully. “I just… I just want to know him. Nobody really seems to know him. Only the public figure, the things everybody saw. But you knew him, Dimity. Knew and loved him. Even if I don’t write down anything specific that you tell me, you can still help me to get to know him. Please. You can tell me about the Charles you knew.” In the pause after he spoke, Dimity twisted the ends of her hair and then sat down again.

“I knew him better than anybody,” she said at last.

“Yes,” Zach said, relieved.

“Can I see that picture? The one you held up to the window before?” She colored up as though she’d been in the wrong on that occasion, ignoring him while he behaved so rudely outside. Zach grinned.

“I’m sorry about that. I was so keen to speak to you I forgot my manners. Here it is. It belongs to a collector who lives up in Newcastle, but he loaned it to a gallery for this exhibition.” He dug out the magazine and passed it to her. She stared at it intently, ran her fingers over the glossy paper, and sighed slightly.

“Delphine,” she whispered.

“You remember her?” Zach asked, and Dimity shot him a withering glance. “Right, sorry.”

“She was such a lovely girl. She was my first friend. First proper friend, that is. They were such town mice, when they first arrived! Not used to getting her shoes muddy. But she changed. She wanted to be a bit like me, I suppose-a bit wild. She wanted to learn how to cook and how to gather from the hedgerows. And I suppose I wanted to be more like her-she was so friendly, so easy to talk to. So much loved by her family. And she knew so much! I thought her the wisest person I knew. Even later, when she went up off to boarding school, and she got more interested in fashion and boys, and going to the flicks… she was still my good friend. She wrote to me sometimes, during the winters when they weren’t here. Told me all about this teacher or that boy, or this row she’d had with some other girl… I did miss her, afterwards. I did miss her.”

“Afterwards? Do you know what happened to Delphine? She sort of vanishes from the public eye-not that she was ever really in it. Aubrey was very protective of his family. But after he was killed in the war, no mention is ever made of her again in any of the books…” Zach paused at the look on Dimity’s face. Her eyes were focused on things he couldn’t see, and her mouth made tiny movements, as though there were words inside not strong enough to come out. She looked for a moment as though she could see terrible, terrible things.

“Dimity? Do you know what happened to her?” Zach pressed gently.

“Delphine… she… No,” she said at last. “No, I don’t know.” Her voice was unsteady, but when she blinked and looked back at the magazine, a tiny smile lit her face once more. Zach had the strongest feeling that she was lying.

“May I?” He took the magazine from her and flicked forward a few pages, to the first picture of Dennis that had surfaced for sale, about six years ago. “What about this one? The date would suggest that the drawing was done here in Blacknowle. Did you ever know this man, Dennis? Do you remember him at all?” He passed the magazine back to the old woman. She took it, but reluctantly, and barely glanced at the picture. Two spots of color appeared in her cheeks, and a mottling started to rise, staining her neck. A blush of guilt, or anger, or shame… Zach couldn’t tell. She took a quick, shallow breath, and then another.

“No,” she said again, sharply, holding the magazine away from her as if she couldn’t bear to look. Her breathing stayed high and fast in her chest, clearly audible, and her fingers shook slightly as she flicked back to the picture of her and Delphine. “No, I never knew him.”

Careful not to put her off talking at all, Zach let her return to the earlier picture without asking any more questions about Dennis, or the fate of Delphine. He realized he was every bit as keen to know about Delphine, the girl he had spent so long trying to know from her portrait, as he was about her father, but he saw that it would have to wait, and be tackled gently. For now he was happy to sit and listen as Dimity talked about the first time she met the Aubrey family, and the house they took for the summer in 1937, and how she was careful to keep her acquaintance with them hidden from her mother for as long as she could.

“You think your mother would have disapproved of them? I know that some people in the village thought the setup was far too liberal…” he said, and then wished he hadn’t. Dimity scowled at the interruption, and sat silent for some moments as she seemed to digest his words, which were obviously wrong in some way. In the end she ignored the question and carried on with her tale.

The second time she met them was four days later. She’d been torn between her desire to go back and see Delphine again, and her uncertainty-one that bordered on fear. Fear of not understanding them, not behaving the right way, of what Valentina might say if she ever found out about the drawing; that sketch that had seemed to capture a little bit of her soul, trapping it forever on the paper. At fourteen, Dimity no longer had the body of a child. She had breasts, still growing, that felt bruised all the time. Valentina pinched them sometimes, grinning, amused by them for some reason, and the unusual pain made Dimity feel sick in the pit of her stomach. Her hips had spread-so quickly that rose-colored marks appeared in the skin, and then faded to leave faint silvery stripes. She walked with a sway that slowed her rapid gait, so that some heads that had once turned away when she went into the village now turned towards her instead. In some ways, Dimity found that worse. She was not ready to be looked at the way their visitors sometimes looked at her mother, when they arrived at The Watch with their hair slicked down and their boots pulled on hastily, not laced properly. Soon to be kicked off again.

She made her way to the wide beach that lay along the coast, west from Blacknowle; taking the long route inland because a group of boys were hanging about on the cliff path. They still threw things and called her names, but they made other suggestions now, too. They grabbed at her, tried to pull up her skirt or blouse; unbuttoned their trousers and came swaggering over with the floppy lengths of their dicks waggling to and fro, or sometimes poking up, stiff as an accusatory finger. She was still taller than most of them; could hit just as hard and run as fast. But the time would come when that would change, she guessed, and on instinct she avoided them more than ever before. Wilf Coulson was with them that time. He saw her from a distance, but he didn’t wave or call out, or alert the others. He was still as thin as a lath, still a boy, still plagued by his sinuses. When he saw her, he stuffed his skinny hands into his pockets and turned his back; deliberately didn’t look or draw attention to her as she quickly widened her route and dipped out of sight behind a fold in the land. She would give him something for this loyalty, when she saw him next. She was always mixing up new treatments for his nose, or things to help him grow, but what he wanted more often than not was a kiss.

It was low tide-the full moon had just passed, towing the water far out from the shore to reveal a narrow arch of dark brown sand. With a bucket looped on one arm, Dimity made her way along the water’s edge, barefoot, setting her feet down as carefully and gently as she could so as not to startle her prey. It was a still day, warm and bright. Through the shallow water, her feet were luminous white; and the sand, carved into hard ridges by the water, felt good on her soles. There was no sound but the wheeling cries of gulls overhead, and the gentle slosh of her stealthy steps; the water was sparkling. Where the sun warmed the sand, it smelled glassy and clean. The holes she was looking for were no more than an inch or so across. If they felt the vibration of her approach, the razor clams, with a contemptuous squirt of water, dug themselves deeper into the sand, out of reach. In her right hand Dimity carried an old, thin-bladed carving knife, bent into a crook at its tip. When she spotted a hole, she placed her feet on either side of it, softly, softly, crouched down, and, with a quick stab and twist, pulled the clam from the sand before it could escape. The creatures hung disconsolately out of their shells, bubbling and reaching, trying to find something to cling to, to pull themselves to safety. She had ten in her bucket already when she heard people coming, and knew that the harvest was ruined.

Four figures-two large, two smaller-walking towards her from the opposite end of the beach. The children were squealing, running in crisscross patterns around their parents. Feet thumping into the hard sand, splashing the water high onto their dresses. Dimity could feel the vibrations through her own feet as they got nearer, and when she looked down, a few telltale puffs of sand and water marked the retreat of the clams. With a flash of annoyance, she looked up again, and then remembered that Delphine had said she had a sister. She realized who they were. Irritation became confusion and caused her cheeks to flare. There was no way she could turn away, nowhere to hide. In that instant Delphine recognized her, and ran ahead of the others to meet her. Half happy, half awkward, Dimity raised her hand in greeting.

“Hi, Mitzy! I thought it was you. How are you? What are you doing?” the girl said breathlessly, splashing to a stop in front of her. The hem of her dress was soaked six inches above her knees with water. The dress was light blue with yellow flowers and a neat, scalloped collar; and the cardigan she wore over it had pretty pearl buttons. Dimity noticed them enviously, and was relieved that there was a good excuse, this time, for her being barefooted.

“I was catching razor clams. Only… they live in the sand, and if they hear you coming they run and hide, so I won’t catch any more,” she said, proffering the bucket where her ten clams lay helpless.

“You think they heard you? Oh, no!” Delphine covered her mouth with one hand in realization. “It was us, wasn’t it? Last time I made you throw away your crayfish, and now we’ve scared the clams!” She seemed to think for a moment, chewing her lip in consternation.

“It’s no bother,” said Dimity, embarrassed by her concern. “I’ve got a good few-”

“You’ll have to come to lunch. It’s the only answer-and the best one! Let me just ask!”

“Oh, I can’t-” But Delphine had turned back to her approaching family, and called out to them.

“Mitzy can come for lunch, can’t she? We’ve scared off all the clams by being noisy!”

Her sister was the first one to reach them. Younger than Delphine by several years, more lightly built, and darker. Darker skin, dark brown hair, and matching eyebrows that gave her face a serious cast. Her expression was one of natural suspicion. She had intent black eyes that moved swiftly over Dimity, assessing with an assuredness beyond her years.

“You’re the one Daddy drew,” she said. “Delphine said you’d never done a clapping song before. How come? What do they do at your school, then?”

“I’ve seen other girls do it, I just never…” Dimity shrugged. The girl she assumed was Élodie kinked her eyebrows into a contemptuous shape.

“Couldn’t you learn it? It’s easy,” she said.

“Élodie, do be quiet,” said Delphine, giving her sister a censorious nudge. By now the girls’ parents had reached them, and Dimity, thinking to avoid embarrassment, looked at the woman instead of the man. She caught her breath in an audible gasp. The girls’ mother was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen in her life. More beautiful than the woman in the Ovaltine poster taped up in the shop window. More beautiful than the postcard of Lupe Vélez that had once been passed around among the village boys-Dimity had caught a glimpse of it during its brief sojourn in Wilf’s pocket. “This is our mother, Celeste,” Delphine said, smiling, clearly pleased by Dimity’s reaction.

Celeste had an oval face with a delicate lower jaw, full lips in a perfect bow, and black hair hanging down, thick and straight, around her shoulders. Her skin was a pale golden brown, flawless, but most arresting of all were her eyes. In spite of her dark coloring, and the dense, sooty lashes around them, her eyes were a pale blue-green, huge and clear. They were almond-shaped, and seemed to shine from her face with their own unearthly light, brighter even than the summer sky above her. Dimity stared.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mitzy. I have never heard the name Mitzy before. Is it a local name?” Celeste’s voice was deep and accented-not an accent that Dimity had heard before, or could place.

“Dimity. Short for Dimity,” she managed to say, still terrified and fascinated by the woman.

“Dimity? That’s a silly name!” said Élodie, clearly nonplussed that somebody else should be the center of attention.

“Élodie! You will mind your manners,” said Charles Aubrey, the first time he’d spoken. The little girl scowled resentfully, and Dimity felt gratified.

“I liked Charles’s picture of you and my Delphine. So pretty, playing together like that. You are most welcome to come and eat lunch with us. I hope you will? To make up for him not asking your permission,” said Celeste. She shot Aubrey a mildly chastening look, but he merely smiled.

“If I’d asked, the moment would have been lost,” he said.

“There are worse things, my love. Well, then. Let us walk on and leave this young girl to her hunt. You know the way to the house, of course? Come at midday and eat with us. I insist.” She looped her hand through Charles’s arm and they walked on, before Dimity could collect herself sufficiently to speak. Valentina might have a visitor, she thought desperately, or one of the moods that made her drink herself to sleep in the afternoon. She might get away without being questioned, if she was lucky.

“See you later, Mitzy.” Delphine waved. Élodie turned up her nose and moved away, stepping delicately now, as though to show superiority through decorum. Too late, Dimity realized that the front of her blouse was wet and sandy from the clam picking, and was sticking to her midriff. Too late she remembered that she hadn’t brushed her hair that morning. She raked her fingers through it in agitation, and stared after the figures moving along the beach. Celeste had slim arms and a tiny waist above broad hips; she moved like deep water-smoothly, gracefully. Her beauty caused a pang of some unidentifiable emotion in Dimity, and as she stood there, admiring her and fiddling with her own ragged appearance, the artist man looked back at her. A long, deliberate look over his shoulder, much more than a glance; too far away by then for her to guess at his expression.

Dimity lingered on the beach for a while. There was no point carrying on, since all the clams would have gone deep, but she didn’t want to follow the family, either. She went farther up the beach, hitched her skirt higher, and sat down where the sand was dry enough. With a hand to shield her eyes from the glare, she watched Delphine and her family until they were tiny, and she could just make them out as they turned and began to climb up to the path. The artist put his hand in the small of Celeste’s back to guide her, then reached out for Élodie’s hand, and held on to it as they picked their way over the rocks. This was a new kind of father. Kind and strong, not like Wilf Coulson’s dad, and lots of the other dads in the village, who were often sour and glowering. This was how her own father might have been. She tried to imagine what it would have been like to be Élodie’s age and have a man like Charles Aubrey reach out to take her hand when the ground got rough.

As noon approached, no visitors arrived at The Watch. Dimity combed her hair as best she could-it was almost impossible without washing the salt out of it first. She put on a clean blouse and tried to keep out of her mother’s way. Valentina was in the kitchen with a pair of newly skinned rabbits, scraping the underside of the skins with vicious strokes of the knife, ready for curing. Her face was red and sweaty, tendrils of damp hair falling into her eyes. When immersed in a task like this, she worked with a frightening intensity and a dull, angry light in her eyes. It was a bad time to bother her, to be seen, or dare to ask anything. Dimity happened to peek around the doorjamb just as Valentina paused, straightening up to stretch her back and push her hair behind her ears. The room stank of dead meat, and Valentina’s flat glare caught her.

“You’d better have done what I asked you, and not have been mooning about all morning. You’d better have finished digging those spuds out or I swear, I’ll skin you next of all,” she said, biting out the words.

“I have, Ma. It’s all done.”

Without a word, Valentina went back to her scraping, and Dimity thought about taking her leave, or perhaps making up some errand. In the end she just slipped away, since Valentina was caught up in thoughts that had nothing to do with her.

The front door of Littlecombe was wide-open, and as Dimity approached, she saw that the back door, opposite it along the hall, was open, too. Air surged through the house, creating a moving tunnel that seemed to draw her on when she hesitated on the threshold. She still wasn’t sure that the invitation to lunch was real. There were voices from the kitchen, and laughter, and when she knocked, Celeste’s lovely face appeared around the doorway, smiling.

“Come in, come in!” she said. She was drying her hands on a cloth, and the wind picked up her hair and floated it in front of her eyes. With a chuckle, she brushed it away. “I love to feel the air moving like this, right through the building. You English always have such stuffy houses! I hate that.”

Not sure if she was being reprimanded, Dimity followed Celeste into the kitchen, where the table was set for five and a bottle of wine was already open. Dimity had never had wine before-not poured from a bottle, into a glass. Wine was what her mother drank when a visitor had brought some with him-and that was rare. Dimity far preferred the cider they made from the apples of the gnarled tree beside the cottage. Popping open their skins because there was so much juice inside them. She fought the wasps for them every day from August through to September, brushing away their drunken belligerence as they staggered from fruit to bubbling fruit.

She thought about The Watch, with its heavy thatch, thick walls, and small windows. This was a different place indeed. Light poured in through wide sash windows, and the walls had fresh white paint on them, not yellowed with age or dirt. The floor was laid with red clay tiles; the lower portion of the walls clad in wainscoting painted a soft green color. It was the first time Dimity had ever been inside somebody else’s house. She knew their back doors well; their front steps; their rooflines from a distance. But never before had she been invited inside.

Élodie had decided to play the hostess. She made Dimity sit down, and complimented her on her blouse, and fussed around her and brought her a glass of water, all with only the merest hint of disdain. Delphine had an apron tied neatly over her sundress, and was standing on a small stool at the stove, stirring something that steamed and smelled good. She turned and smiled at Dimity.

“Come and taste this-I made it! It’s pea and ham.”

“My budding cook. So good, you are,” said Celeste, putting her arm around Delphine’s hips and squeezing her. Dimity obediently sipped some soup from a spoon. She thought it would be much improved by adding fresh bay leaf, and by having used the water in which the ham was boiled as a base. But she smiled, and agreed that it was good.

“I can cook too, you know,” Élodie interjected. “I made cheese biscuits the other day. Daddy said they were the best ones he’d ever tasted.”

“Yes, yes. They were excellent. I am lucky to have such talented daughters,” Celeste said soothingly. She stroked Élodie’s black hair back from her forehead and planted a kiss on it. “Now, stop showing off and fetch the bowls for the soup.” She said it lightly, but Élodie scowled as she did as she was told. Dimity sipped her water, perching on the edge of her chair with the alert, uneasy feeling that she should be doing something to help. But when she tried, she was pushed back into the chair by Celeste’s long, elegant hands.

“Be still. You are the guest here! All you have to do is eat and enjoy,” she said, in her heavy accent. Dimity longed to ask her where she was from. It might be as far away as Cornwall, or even Scotland.

Charles came in from outside just as the soup was put on the table. He was windswept, his cheeks pink and the bridge of his nose scorched to match. Hair in disarray. He put down the canvas bag he was carrying and slipped into a seat with a distracted air. A glance passed between Celeste and Delphine, which Dimity couldn’t read. When he looked up at them, it was, for a second, as if he didn’t know them. There was a pause. He blinked, and then he smiled.

“What a bevy of beauties,” he murmured. “What more could any man wish to come back to?” His daughters smiled, but Celeste watched him carefully for another second, her expression intent.

“What more indeed?” she said quietly, then picked up the ladle and started to serve the soup. Aubrey’s eyes lit upon Dimity.

“Ah! Mitzy. So good of you to join us. I hope your parents didn’t mind sparing you for a couple of hours?” Dimity shook her head, wondering if she should mention that she had only a mother.

“My father was lost at sea,” she blurted out, and was then horribly embarrassed to see Celeste’s expression cloud with dismay.

“You poor child! What tragedy for one so young! You must miss him terribly, and your poor mother, too,” she said, leaning forward and gripping Dimity’s arm, staring at her fiercely with those glorious eyes. Dimity had hardly expected such a reaction. Lost at sea, for all I care. She nodded mutely, and said nothing of Valentina’s anger whenever she mentioned him. “How does your mother cope? Oh, it must be hard, living in a backwater like this, just a woman alone with a child to support. No wonder we see you always looking so-” She cut herself off. “Well. Tell us instead about your mother. What is she called?”

“Valentina,” Dimity said woodenly.

She could think of nothing she wanted to speak about less, and nothing else to say about her mother. But there was a long, significant silence, and she felt her throat go dry with nerves, felt herself teetering on the brink of failure. “She’s a Gypsy, her people were, originally. From far, far away. She makes medicines and charms from herbs and all sorts, and she teaches me how. The people in the village, they pretend not to believe her, but they all come sooner or later, to buy something, or ask something. My mother is very special,” she said, and even though none of it was lies she still felt the deceit hanging heavy around her, like thick clouds; thought at the same time how wonderful it would be if the real Valentina matched this portrayal.

“A hedge witch,” said Charles, staring at her. She was acutely aware of the sun from the window shining on her face, making it impossible to hide. “Fascinating… I’ve never met a real one. I must go and introduce myself.”

“Oh, no! Don’t!” Dimity gasped, before she could stop herself.

“Why on earth not?” he said with a smile. Dimity couldn’t think of anything she could reply, so she sat and stared miserably at her soup, and jumped when his hand settled on her forearm, the fingers thick and strong. They squeezed, and a shiver ran through her. “Don’t worry, Mitzy,” he said softly. “I don’t shock easily.”

“What do you mean, Daddy?” said Élodie. She spoke quickly, keenly, and looked a little crestfallen when Charles ignored her.

After the soup, Celeste fetched a round pastry pie from the oven, cutting it open to reveal spiced minced lamb and whole almonds. The pastry was sweet, thin, and crispy, and Dimity had never eaten anything as delicious, and when she said so, Celeste laughed.

“You and your people are the masters of herbs, maybe, but my people are the masters of spices. This is a pastilla. In here you can taste cinnamon, ground coriander seed, nutmeg, and ginger. It is very Moroccan. Very typical of my country,” she said proudly. She cut another slice and held out her hand for Dimity’s plate.

“Where is Morr… Mocc… your country?” she asked, and jumped when Élodie snorted with laughter, almost choking on her mouthful.

“That will teach you, hmm?” said Charles mildly.

“Don’t you know where Morocco is? We’ve been three times! It’s amazing,” said Élodie. Celeste smiled fondly at the child.

“It is good to be proud of your heritage, Élodie,” she said. “Morocco is in North Africa. It is a country where the desert blooms. The most beautiful place. My mother is of the Berber people, from the mountains of the High Atlas, where the air is so clear you can see right up into heaven. My father is French. An administrator for the colonial government in Fez.”

“Are all Berber women as beautiful as you?” said Dimity meekly, trying desperately to hold on to all the foreign names as they began to slip at once from her head. Celeste laughed, and Charles joined in, and Delphine smiled around a mouthful of pie.

“Such a sweet girl,” Celeste said warmly. “It is a long time since I was paid a compliment so sincere.” She flashed a challenging look at Charles, then held out her hand for his plate. As she did so, Dimity noticed there was no wedding ring on her finger, or on his. She swallowed, and said nothing, trying to picture those mountains Celeste had mentioned, where the people shone their beauty back up at the sky.

After lunch, Delphine was excused the washing-up because she’d helped to cook, and she interrupted Dimity’s stuttering thanks to pull her friend outside. Dimity took a deep breath once they were out in the garden. However fascinating the house had been, and the food, and the people and the feeling of being a guest, they had been bewildering, too, and she felt as though some vast pressure was released once the clouds were high above her head again. Delphine showed her the vegetable patch, where a few stunted radishes and lettuces were growing.

“Look! More droppings! The rabbits keep eating everything I grow!” she lamented. Dimity nodded, crouching alongside her to examine the evidence.

“You need wire to keep them out,” she said. “Or some snares to catch them.”

“Oh, poor bunnies! I don’t want to hurt them… Why don’t you want Daddy to go and say hello to your mother?” Delphine asked curiously. Dimity picked up a couple of the telltale rabbit pellets, rolled them around in her palm, and didn’t know how to answer. “It’s okay,” Delphine said at last. “You don’t have to say.” She stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Come on. We’ll find a crayfish to make up for the one you lost, and the scaredy-cat clams that got away!”

Delphine was brave enough to touch the crayfish this time, letting a droplet of water from the tip of her finger wash over one of its black eyes as it flexed its legs and curled its tail protectively. But she still couldn’t bear for Dimity to keep it, since it had waved its feelers at her just so, and she decided to name it Lawrence. Bemused, Dimity returned the creature to the stream, and instead showed Delphine how to tell watercress from marsh marigold, since there was so much of it growing nearby and the rabbits had so decimated her crop of salad leaves. The skinny girl was an apt pupil, and as the days passed, the lessons ranged farther from Littlecombe, along the cliffs and inland to the woods, always skirting the village and steering clear of The Watch. Soon Delphine, with Mitzy to guide her, was adding wild fennel, fat-hen, marjoram, horseradish roots, and lime blossoms to Celeste’s kitchen supplies, the latter of which caused Celeste to exclaim with delight, holding the flowers up to her nose and breathing deeply. Ah! Tilleul! She sighed appreciatively, putting the kettle on to boil.

One morning, Dimity arrived to find Élodie on the front lawn, standing with her arms rigid at her sides and her face frozen in fear because a huge bumblebee, with a dusting of yellow pollen on its jet-black fur, was buzzing around her legs. Delphine was standing nearby with her arms folded.

“Dumbledore won’t hurt you, Élodie. He’s got no stinger. It’s only the honeybees that might,” Dimity said.

“That’s what I said, but she doesn’t believe me,” said Delphine patiently. “What did you call it?”

“Dumbledore. That’s how they’re called, isn’t it?” Dimity shrugged.

“Not in London, or in Sussex. Tell us some other Dorset names for things.” They all turned to watch as the bee gave up on Élodie, rose into the air, and let the bass rumble of its flight carry it away. With a small cry of relief, Élodie flew into her sister’s arms and hugged her tightly. “There you go, Élodie. Safe now,” said Delphine, patting her shoulders. Then they passed a contented hour as Dimity named as many things around them as she could, and the two younger girls leaped delightedly upon those they’d never heard before. Want-heave for molehill; palmer for caterpillar; emmet butt for ant hill; vuzzen for gorse; scrump for apple; tiddy for potato.

They called in at Southern Farm one day, and Dimity shyly introduced Delphine to the farmer’s wife, Mrs. Brock, who was friendlier than most and sometimes gave her lemonade or a slice of bread, if she wasn’t too busy. The Brocks were both in their fifties and had steel hair, lined faces. After a lifetime of farming, their hands were creased and brown, the nails thick and stained, hard as animal horn. They had two grown-up children: a daughter who had married and moved away; and a son called Christopher, who worked on the farm with his father. The one who clubbed the rats, and was never without a terrier at his heels. A tall, silent young man with a thatch of ruddy hair and soft, steadfast eyes. Christopher came into the kitchen while Delphine was telling Mrs. Brock all about her Moroccan mother and her famous father. Dimity had been marveling at her boldness, the way she hid nothing about herself, and when she looked at Christopher, she read a kind of muted marvel on his face, too-or perhaps it was just curiosity. As if here was a puzzle he might have to solve at some point.

Often, as she approached or played near Littlecombe, Dimity was aware of being watched. Sometimes she caught sight of a far-off figure standing on the cliffs while she and Delphine were on the beach; or a shadow at a window in the house if they were in the garden. Once, by the stream, with her sleeves pushed up and her skirt rolled around its waistband to raise it-not foraging for once but playing with Élodie, trying to keep the younger girl occupied because Celeste had a migraine-Dimity looked up and saw him leaning on the doorjamb, smoking and watching her with his eyes half shut against the sunshine. So intent, so lost in thought that he showed no sign of having noticed he’d been spotted. Dimity colored and looked away quickly, and saw that Delphine had noticed him, too. Delphine tipped her head to one side and considered her friend for a moment.

“He wants to draw you again. I heard him telling Mummy so, but she says he can’t if you don’t want him to, and definitely not without asking your mother first. He says you’re a true rustic. I heard him,” she said in a low tone.

“What’s that mean?” Dimity asked. Delphine shrugged.

“I don’t know. But Daddy only draws nice things, so it can’t mean anything bad.”

“I don’t see what’s so special about her,” Élodie complained to her sister. “I don’t see why Daddy should want to draw her at all.”

“Don’t be so mean, Élodie. I think Mitzy’s very pretty. Mummy was angry because he’s meant to be working on a big painting-he’s meant to be painting the portrait of some famous poet in time for it to go on the front of his new book of poems. But there isn’t much time left and all Daddy wants to do is draw your picture instead,” Delphine said to Dimity. Élodie sulked and Delphine swirled a stick to and fro in the water, and there was a long pause in which Dimity digested all this information.

“Do you really think I’m pretty?” she asked at length.

“Of course. I love your hair. It’s like a lion’s mane!” said Delphine, and Dimity smiled.

“You are, too,” she said gallantly.

“When I grow up, I shall be as beautiful as Mummy,” said Élodie.

“Nobody is as beautiful as Mummy,” Delphine pointed out patiently.

“Well, I will be. She told me so herself.”

“Well, aren’t you the lucky one, then? Eh, Smelly Élodie?” Delphine sank her fingers into her sister’s ribs, and they squealed and squirmed for a moment before collapsing, giggling helplessly, onto the grassy bank.

While the two sisters tussled, Dimity cast a quick glance back at the house, where the girls’ father still stood, lean and watchful, thinking and puffing out mouthfuls of blue smoke. After a while, she found she didn’t mind his eyes on her as much as she had at first. His face was inscrutable, a pattern of planes and angles she couldn’t read. He only draws nice things. She felt herself stand a little straighter, felt her face relax, the blush recede from her cheeks. Nice and pretty, two words she’d never heard used to describe herself, now used within seconds of each other. She hoped that both were true, and that all the other words hurled at her before now had been the wrong ones. The thought made the blood seem to tingle in her veins, made her suddenly want to smile, when really there was no reason to. Not with her feet going numb in the stream, and Valentina’s knife of a tongue to go home to later.

“Maybe I don’t mind so much. If he wants to draw my picture again,” she said at last. Delphine smiled encouragingly.

“You really don’t mind?”

“No. He’s a very good and famous artist, isn’t he? That’s what you told me. So I suppose I… I should be honored.”

“I’ll tell him. He’ll be very happy.”

“You should feel humbled that he wants to draw you,” Élodie corrected her. But Delphine merely rolled her eyes, so Dimity ignored the remark.

Two days later, the thing that Dimity had been most dreading occurred. She was upstairs in her bedroom, getting changed for breakfast after feeding the pig and the chickens, collecting the eggs, and emptying the chamber pots down the privy. Her bedroom had a small window facing north, over the approach along the lane, and as she arranged her hair into a twist at the back of her head, stabbing it with pins to hold it, she saw Charles Aubrey approaching the cottage. He had on his close-fitting dark trousers and a blue shirt with a waistcoat done up against the early morning cool. With her heart hammering, Dimity put her face up to the window glass and craned her neck to watch as he came right up to the door. What had Valentina been wearing? She tried desperately to think; hoping she wasn’t still in her robe, the diaphanous green one that swirled dangerously and let the outline of her body show through, with all its shadows and patterns. She debated whether she should run down herself, get to the door first and make some excuse to send him away. The kitchen table was strewn with dead frogs. She pictured it, and shut her eyes in horror. Dead frogs with their soft bellies slit open and their guts scooped out into a bowl; bodies cast aside with filmed, sightless eyes and webbed feet dangling. Valentina had two charms to make: one to break a curse, one to keep a new baby safe. The pink-and-gray entrails would be packed into glass jars and sealed up with wax; sprigs of rosemary wound around the tops as if the herb could hide the death inside.

Too late. Dimity heard him knock, heard her mother at the door almost at once, and then their voices rising muffled through the floor. His a deep rumble, soft like the hum of a breeze; Valentina’s low and hard, challenging. Dimity inched to her bedroom door and cracked it open as softly as she could, just in time to hear the front door close, and two sets of footsteps move into the sitting room. With that door shut, there was no way she could hear what they were saying. The Watch had walls of solid stone, walls that had absorbed centuries of words, and kept hold of them. Five minutes or so later, she heard him leave. She waited as long as she could force herself to and then went downstairs, wearing her trepidation like a garland.

Valentina was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette with one hand and picking up odd fragments of entrails with the other, flinging them into the bowl.

“So,” she said heavily. “That’s where you’ve been running off to, when you should have been helping me. Tarting yourself around with posh incomers.” Dimity knew better than to try to defend herself. It only made Valentina more angry, more vicious. Cautiously, she pulled out the chair opposite her mother and sank into it. Valentina was wearing the green robe, but at least there was an old apron tied over it, smeared with blood and stains. Dirty, but opaque. Her rough yellow hair was tied back with a piece of twine, and her eyelids were still smudged with last night’s green eye shadow. “There was I, thinking you were out finding us useful things. Wondering what was taking you so long on every errand. Now I know!” Her voice rose to a bark.

“I was, Ma! I swear it-only Delphine’s been helping me-she’s learning all the plants and helping me… that’s Mr. Aubrey’s daughter…”

“Oh, I know all about her, about all of them. He’s been telling me all about it, though I never asked to be told. Peering into every corner, curious as a cat. I had to shut the sitting room door, because I couldn’t stand his roving eyes no more! He had no business coming here, and you had no business telling him he could.”

“I didn’t, Ma. I swear I never did!”

“Oh, you’ll swear to anything, won’t you? I see that now. I won’t know from one minute to the next if you’re telling me the truth from now on, will I? Shut up!” she snapped when Dimity tried to speak. They sat in silence for a minute, and Dimity looked at her hands and heard her pulse thump in her ears while Valentina took long, aggressive pulls on her cigarette. Then, like a snake, she struck, reaching forwards and grabbing Dimity by the wrist. She pulled her arm onto the tabletop, the soft underside uppermost; held her glowing cigarette an inch from the skin.

“No, Ma! Don’t do it! I’m sorry-I said I was!” Dimity cried. “Please! Don’t!”

“What else have you not told me? What have you been doing up there with them?” Valentina asked, with her eyes screwed up suspiciously and her breasts swaying behind the apron as Dimity fought to pull her arm away. Her grip was like iron. “Stop pulling at me or I’ll cut your bloody arm clean off!” Valentina snapped. Dimity went still, her body slack with fear even as her heart rose up in her chest, perilously high. She didn’t think her mother would go that far, but she couldn’t swear to it. Sweat broke out across her brow, chilly and slick. A glowing ember came loose from the cigarette and landed on her skin, where it sank in and smoked. At once a blister began to form, a white bubble at the center of a bright red ring. Still Dimity did not flinch, too frightened to move even though the pain of it was shocking. Tears blurred her eyes and she had to swallow several times before she could speak.

“It was just as I said, Ma,” she said frantically. “I was playing with the little girl, and teaching her the plants. That was all.” Valentina glared at her a moment longer, then released her.

“Playing? You’re not a baby anymore, Mitzy. There’s no time for playing. Well then,” she said, putting the cigarette back between her lips. “Some good may come of your lies after all. He wants to draw you. Reckons he’s an artist. So I told him he’d have to pay for the privilege.” The thought seemed to raise her spirits, and after a while she got up and put her arms above her head to stretch; then she wandered off towards the stairs, ruffling her fingers through Dimity’s hair as she passed. “Finish those charms while I’m resting,” she said. Only once she had left the room did Dimity dare to blow the ash from her arm. Her chest was so tight it was hard to draw the breath to do so. She turned the blister to the light, saw the way the surface shone. She waited, careful not to disturb her mother with the sound of her crying. Then she got up and went to find witch-hazel ointment to smear onto the burn.

So how did your mother react when Aubrey came to ask if he could draw you? I suppose that’s the kind of thing that not everybody would be keen on. Especially with you only being, what, fourteen, was it?” The young man opposite was talking, asking more questions. He had a way of leaning forwards and steepling his fingers between his knees that put her on edge. Overeager. But his face was kind, only ever kind. Her left arm was itching, and she rubbed her thumb along it, pressing the pad into her slack flesh until she found the scar standing proud of the skin. A small, smooth bobble of hardened tissue the exact size and shape of the blister it replaced. She’d kept knocking the scab off inadvertently, kept losing the plasters Delphine stuck over it. I was frying liver and the fat spat. Underneath the scab the wound was deep and angry. The silence in the room was profound, and suddenly she sensed more ears than the young man’s waiting for her to answer him.

“Oh,” she began, then had to pause, clear her throat. “She was pleased, of course. She was quite a cultural woman, my mother. And free-spirited. She didn’t hold with all the whispers about Charles and his family, passing round the village. She was happy to have such a famous artist draw her daughter.”

“I see. She sounds like a very liberal woman…”

“Well, when you’re something of an outcast yourself, you’re drawn to others in the same boat. That’s how it was with her.”

“Yes, I see. Tell me, did Charles ever give you any of his drawings of you? Or of anything? As a present, or to say thank you for posing for him?”

“Posing for him? Oh no, I hardly ever posed. He didn’t want drawings like that, not normally. He was always just watching and waiting, and when everything seemed right to him, he would start. Sometimes I wasn’t even aware of it. Sometimes I was. He would ask me to stop, sometimes.” Mitzy, don’t move. Stay exactly as you are.

Once, when she had been stretching, standing up to look at the sunset after hours of shelling peas. She had been thinking of going home, and how much she didn’t want to. After being at Littlecombe, with all the company and the laughter and the clean smells, The Watch seemed dark and damp and unwelcoming. Her own home. Don’t move, Mitzy. So she’d stood for over half an hour with her arms on her head, crossed over her hair, the blood running out of them until at first they tingled, then went numb, and by the end felt like they were made of stone, and no longer belonged to her. But she didn’t move a muscle until his pencil went quiet. This always marked the end-for a while his hand kept moving, making sweeping gestures over the page, but the pencil no longer touched-it simply moved, like a third eye, inspecting. Then at last his hand stopped, too, and he frowned, and it was done; and Dimity felt that cold, tumbling feeling inside each time-the feeling of something wonderful ceasing, and the longing for it to resume. She’d had no inkling then, of what was to come. She hadn’t seen the darkness gathering; hadn’t been prepared for the violence that lay in wait.