A Half Forgotten Song

CHAPTER NINE

There was rain dripping down the chimney, making little puffs in the cold ash piled in the hearth and shiny black splotches on the grate. Rare for that to happen-normally the rain came in off the sea, blown at an angle over the land, and was whisked over the cottage roof. Such straight, resolute, constant rain came only a few times in the year. Dimity stared at the drops as they landed, heard a dull note as each one struck; not a tune but a syllable, she realized. She strained her ears, waited fearfully. Three more came, closer together this time; unmistakable. Él-o-die. She held her breath, hoping she was wrong and hadn’t heard it. A single drip fell, all alone, and hope flared in her chest. But then three again. Él-o-die. With a cry Dimity turned abruptly away from the hearth, spinning around fast enough to see a shadow against the living room wall. Upside down; doing a handstand.

“Élodie?” she whispered, pulling her eyes from left to right, searching every corner of the room. Quick, sharp, clever Élodie. A wonder she hadn’t come back before; a wonder she’d never found a way, until now. The charm in a chimney stack was no match for a determined child, one not easily fooled. A frown on a young, soft forehead, a daisy tucked into black hair. A pouting lower lip, a will to fight, to argue, to challenge.

Dimity fled from her. The shadow kicked its legs away from the wall, righted itself, came after her on light, careless feet. “It wasn’t me!” Dimity said, hurrying into the kitchen, casting the words over her shoulder. She was certain of this, and yet not. The words sounded right, sounded true, but underneath them Valentina was laughing, and there was a knowing look in her eye. And worse than that, far worse: a look of something like respect. A grudging, unvoiced respect. But it wasn’t me! She flicked the switch on the kitchen wall, but the darkness stayed; the bulb, covered in dust and spider dirt, was wholly lifeless at the end of its wire. Dimity caught her breath, fear shaking her fingers, turning her gut to water.

There she stood, in darkness, pressed up against the kitchen countertop with nowhere else to go, except outside. But out there, the storm and the cliffs and the sea were waiting. She stared out through the window at a night as dark as Élodie’s hair. Faint white streaks of troubled water along the shore; rain clouds smothering the moon and stars. She saw headlights lancing down to Southern Farm, saw lights come on inside the house and then, not long afterwards, saw the car leave again. There were people close by, there was life, but it was another world, one where she did not belong. Outsiders always wanted to come farther in than you invited them. They wanted to come all the way in, see everything, know everything. Spreading themselves into every corner like a smell. Like Zach, who’d brought memories of Charles with him. She’d risked everything to revel in them for a while, but that world was not hers anymore. She’d left it a long time ago, for a prison of her own making-The Watch. But that prison had been a haven, for a very long time. A place filled with love, once Valentina had gone. You’re so stupid, Dimity! said Élodie, using the patter of rain on the window for a voice. It wasn’t me, Dimity told her silently. A half-forgotten song crept into her throat, from a time and a place a lifetime ago. One she did not understand, one she never had; the tune as elusive as a warm desert breeze. Allahu akbar… Allahu akbar… This waking dream kept hold of her, all through the night.

Zach set off for the watch slowly. He had been doing everything slowly since his visit to Annie Langton, from driving to eating to thinking, because everything was smothered, half asphyxiated, by what he now knew. That Hannah was the one who had been selling the pictures of Dennis; that she had known about them all along, and lied to him. He thought of the sheep pictures of hers that he’d seen in her tiny, bare shop. They were good, but the Dennis portraits were something else. Was she good enough to pass a drawing off as an Aubrey? He shook his head impatiently. But what, then? Where was she getting them? With a seasick feeling inside, he thought about James Horne, and the boat Hannah had been watching; her knowledge of the coastline and its waters. Something occurred to him then, as he thought about the payment he’d seen Hannah making to James the same day she’d settled up her bar tab with Pete Murray. He took out his phone and checked the date, then stopped walking before he’d descended any farther towards the sea, where mobile phone signal disappeared entirely. The Christie’s sale had been four days ago. He texted Paul Gibbons at the auction house.

Did Dennis sell? Mind telling me how much for? Funds all paid and cleared without hitch? He waited impatiently for a reply, sitting on a bench that looked out over the cliffs and listening to his thoughts churn like the distant waves. Ten minutes later, his phone beeped. V curious about all the sudden interest. Yes, sold-six point five. Buyer in Wales, all funds cleared. Paul. Six and a half thousand pounds. Zach wanted to feel angry with her, because she had played him for a fool. But instead he felt betrayed. He had thought that he knew her. He had been falling for her. Now everything had changed, and it cut him to the quick.

Dimity Hatcher seemed too distracted to notice his distress, however. She was so agitated that he made the tea himself again, while she paced and sat and rose again, her skinny elbows waving as her fingers fiddled constantly, picking dirt from under her nails, picking at dead skin, scratching. In the end, even lost in thought, Zach couldn’t ignore it.

“Dimity, are you all right? What’s wrong? You seem… nervous today.”

“Nervous? Maybe, maybe,” she muttered. “Check that hearth charm, would you?”

“What do you mean?”

“The one you hung up for me… I can’t check it. I can’t touch it-it was you that hung it, you that cast it. Just see if it’s still there, see that it’s safe,” she pleaded.

“All right.” He ducked into the inglenook and peered up the flue, where the misshapen heart was hanging. He wrinkled his nose. “It doesn’t smell too good, but it’s there.”

“That don’t matter, the smoke’ll see to that before long. Just as long as it’s there?”

“It’s there.”

Dimity frowned and chewed her lip for a moment. “Then… she can’t mean me no harm, can she?” she said quietly, sounding puzzled. “She can’t have come in anger, or that’d keep her out, wouldn’t it?”

“Who can’t have come, Dimity?” said Zach.

“The little one. She came back. She was here…”

“The little one?” Zach tried to think who she might mean. “Do you mean Élodie?” At the mention of her name, Dimity froze. She stared at Zach with an intense expression that made him suddenly uneasy. “I’ll get the tea, shall I?” he said. He tried to walk past her to the kitchen, but she caught his hands in hers, digging her thumbnails into the palms of his hands. He could feel the stiff, filthy wool of her red mittens, and his skin crawled away from them. A long strand of white hair fell across her eyes, but she ignored it.

“She’d dead. Élodie’s dead,” she whispered. Zach swallowed, and for a second, he almost thought he heard a question in the words, a plea for confirmation.

“Yes. I know,” he said. Dimity nodded quickly, and seemed to shrink back from him. She let go of his hand, and let both of her own fall lifelessly to her sides.

Zach escaped into the kitchen and took a deep, steadying breath as he poured the tea into two mugs. For the first time, he had the unsettling feeling that Dimity Hatcher was not quite in the same room as him. Not quite in the same world. There had been other times, earlier on, that he’d been sure she was lying to him. Just now, he’d also begun to doubt the things she clearly believed to be true. He shook the feeling off. Finding out about Hannah’s duplicity had made him doubt everything and everyone in Blacknowle. He tried to smile as he went back into the sitting room.

“We’d have wed, if that little girl hadn’t died. We’d have wed if she’d lived, I know it,” Dimity said, ignoring the tea he put beside her.

“Élodie’s death… put everything on hold, did it? It must have been a very hard time for Charles… From what you’ve told me, and from what I’ve read, he was a devoted father. Loving, if slightly absent at times. Was it simply because of Élodie’s death that he went off to war, in the end?” There was a long silence after Zach spoke, and then he thought he could hear a faint tune, the quietest of hummed songs, a wordless lament, coming from Dimity. “It must have been… very upsetting,” he said. “I know I’ve read somewhere how she died… was it flu? I can’t remember now. Did children still die of flu in the 1930s?” he muttered, almost to himself, since Dimity’s attention was still elsewhere.

“Flu?” she said, turning back towards him. “No, it was…” She shut her mouth abruptly, moistened her lips with a quick flick of her tongue. “Flu. Yes. That was it. Her stomach-gastric flu. Poor girl, poor girl; carried off…” She shook her head in dismay and sat still for a moment. “She was sometimes cruel to me, was Élodie. She didn’t like the fact that her father loved me. She was a jealous child, very jealous,” she said. “Celeste’s favorite, oh yes. A mother shouldn’t have one, but she did. She did. Élodie took after her, you see. She was the spitting image of her mother. She would have been very beautiful, if she’d lived…” Dimity’s voice trailed into the faintest of whispers, and Zach had to lean forwards to hear her.

“Is that why Celeste disappeared, after her death? Where did she go?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows. She blew away, on the breeze… he asked me, too; thought I might know. But I didn’t-I don’t. I don’t!”

“All right, it’s all right,” Zach said soothingly. Dimity’s eyes roamed the room, her mouth made the shape of unspoken words. Zach paused before speaking. “How did Delphine cope? Were they close, the two sisters?” Dimity’s eyes came to rest upon him, and they were awash with tears.

“Close?” she said hoarsely. “Close as only sisters can be.”

They were both silent for a long moment, and Zach pictured his portrait of Delphine, hanging next to her mother and Mitzy on the wall of his gallery. He had found one of the three alive and well, but the other two were still lost in the past, vanished like mist. He sighed. Blacknowle suddenly seemed deep and distant and full of secrets, and however much he wanted to solve its riddles, it didn’t seem fair to harry an old lady to do so.

“You’ve known Hannah a long time, haven’t you?” he said carefully.

“Hannah?” Dimity cocked her head to one side, and then smiled suddenly, a knowing, almost cheeky smile. “I’ve seen the pair of you together. Down on the beach, down at the farm,” she said. Zach felt the wintery edge to his own smile.

“I like her. That is… I thought I knew her, but…” He shrugged one shoulder, wondering how much he should say, what he should ask-if anything. But it was weighing too heavily on him, and he had to talk to somebody.

“I’ve known her since she was a child. Not well, not as friends exactly… but as neighbors. She’s a good neighbor. She’s a good girl.”

“Is she?”

“Yes. Why? What has she said to you?” Suddenly, Dimity sounded worried.

“Said to me? Nothing-that’s the problem. I found out… I found out that she’s been lying to me. About something very important.”

“Lying? No. I’ve never known her to do that.”

“Well, she has. Believe me,” said Zach miserably.

“Not telling is not the same as lying, you know. Not the same at all,” Dimity said intently.

“I found out that… Do you remember those pictures by Charles that I showed you, of a young man called Dennis?” Dimity clamped her mouth shut and nodded convulsively. “Well, I found out that it’s Hannah who’s been selling them. It’s Hannah who… has them. Or is producing them,” he muttered. “Or is fencing them,” he added, rubbing his thumb and forefinger across his tired eyes until spots danced across his vision. “She’s known all along that I was trying to find out about them-she knew all along. I must have sounded like such an idiot, with all my theories…”

After a moment, he realized that Dimity still hadn’t spoken. He’d been expecting her to defend her neighbor, or to be outraged that works by Aubrey were being sold in secret, under her nose. He looked up and frowned. Dimity sat perfectly still, her face a blank mask, her mouth still firmly shut. “Dimity? Are you all right?” Zach asked.

“Yes.” She forced the word out; it crawled from between her reluctant lips. Zach took a deep breath.

“Dimity, did you… did you know about this?”

“No! And I’m sure you’re wrong! Hannah’s a good girl. She would never do anything that was wrong… or against the law. She wouldn’t. I’ve known her since she was tiny… Known her family since before either of you were born!”

“Well, I’m sorry. But she has been selling them, and I can’t think why she’d keep it so secret unless she knew she shouldn’t be doing it! I always knew there was something not right about those drawings. At least now I know who to ask.” He broke off and looked at Dimity again, but she merely sat with a helpless look on her face, as if she had nothing else for him. “I’ve got to go,” he said, getting to his feet. Dimity rose as well, and as she did there was a thump overhead and a fluttering sound, like a newspaper dropped onto bare floor. Dimity froze, and kept her eyes down as if determined not to react. Zach waited for another noise but the silence in the house was profound. The skin between his shoulder blades tingled, as though somebody was standing right behind him, close enough to feel them breathing.

“Dimity,” he said softly. “Who’s upstairs?”

“Nobody.” The look in her eyes was firm, but underneath that was a plea he couldn’t understand. “Just rats in the thatch,” she said. Zach waited awhile, but knew that he’d get nothing more.

Dimity followed him to the door, stood on the threshold as he stepped out into the light. There was a large bunch of dried seaweed hanging on a nail outside the door. It had long, thick fingers growing from a central stalk, and it rustled like soft paper when Dimity touched it, running her fingers down it.

“Rain later today,” she said, then saw Zach’s quizzical expression and nodded. “Sea belt. When rain’s coming it draws in water from the air and goes limp, like this.” Her smile faded away. “Storm’s coming. Be careful,” she said. Zach blinked, wondering if it was a warning, or a threat. “Will you leave me the picture of Morocco? Will you leave that one with me?” she suddenly asked, catching his sleeve as he turned to go.

“Of course.” He took the printout from his bag and handed it to her, and she snatched it, eager as a child. Zach squeezed her arm briefly in farewell.

Halfway back along the track to the village, movement ahead caught Zach’s eye and he looked up to see Wilf Coulson’s bent and wizened figure retreating, turning away from him around the bend. Zach jogged until he’d caught up with the old man.

“Hello, Mr. Coulson. Were you coming down to visit Dimity?” he said.

“That’s none of your business,” Wilf Coulson pointed out. He was wearing a tweed waistcoat buttoned up beneath his old jacket, which was patched at the elbows; his hair was combed neatly to one side. Zach almost smiled.

“Spruced yourself up a bit for her, I see?” he said. Wilf paused for a second to glare at him.

“Like I said, it’s no business of yours, what I do or she does or anybody else for that matter…”

“Yes, you’re right. But that’s the trouble with people, isn’t it? We can’t stand not knowing. Ignorance is intolerable.”

“Bliss for some people, or so I’ve heard,” said the old man pointedly. “What you been asking her?”

“Ah-you see, Mr. Coulson? You have questions, too.”

“The difference being it’s at least partly my concern to know the answers.” The old man marched on slowly, and Zach fell into step beside him.

“I know. Mr. Coulson, do you remember how Élodie Aubrey died? The youngest Aubrey daughter?”

“They kept themselves to themselves. Nobody went asking.”

“Really? A nine-year-old girl dies, in a village this size, and nobody’s interested?”

“Flu, the doctor said. Stomach flu, or some such thing. Natural causes, though there were some that said otherwise. But there wasn’t an inquest, no questions asked, you see. People knew when to leave well alone, back in them days.”

“Who said otherwise? What did they say?” Zach asked, but the old man set his jaw, and didn’t answer. “And that was why Celeste left, and Charles Aubrey joined the army?” Zach went on.

“How should I know that? Can I see into people’s hearts now?”

“No, of course not. But you were going down to see her, weren’t you? I mentioned to Dimity last week that I’d met you… She said you were a good man.” The old man glanced at Zach.

“She said that about me?” His voice was low and sad.

“Yes. I think… I think she’d like to see you again, even though she made it sound very complicated. Water doesn’t travel under the bridge very quickly around here, does it?”

“No. I suppose it doesn’t, at that.” Wilf paused, turning to look back at The Watch with a frown.

“I’ve sometimes got the feeling, talking to Dimity, that… she’s not giving me the full picture,” Zach said carefully. At this, Wilf turned a scornful expression on him.

“I’m sure she’s told you more than you’ve a right to know, young man. Take it and be satisfied, would be my advice.”

“You’re very loyal to a woman you knew so long ago and haven’t seen in decades.”

“If you like.”

“Tell me, Mr. Coulson-please. Just tell me-is Dimity Hatcher a… good person?” said Zach. They stopped walking, and Wilf turned to look out to sea, where a heavy bank of cloud was building.

“Just as much sinned against as sinning, was Mitzy,” he said at last. “That’s what people never seemed to see, even though I tried telling them often enough. It weren’t her fault, how things turned out. And I’d have wed her still, after all of it. If she’d have had me. I’d have wed her still. But she wouldn’t. She only had room in her heart for one man, and that man was Charles Aubrey, whether he was worthy of it or not. But he never loved her like I did. How could he have? I knew the bones of that girl; I knew where she came from. But she would not have me. So, there. That’s all I’ll tell you. Don’t ask me anything more, for you’ll get nothing.”

“All right,” Zach agreed. Wilf nodded briefly. “But don’t let the fact that I’ve seen you stop you… if you were going down to see her. I think she’s lonely, down there. It’s not good for a person, to be alone so much of the time.”

“No more it is, but it’s her choice,” Wilf said sadly. “I have tried to see her, though not for a long time. Tried and been turned away. So, no. I think now is not the time, either.”

They carried on in silence to the top of the track, where Wilf turned off and took his leave with a faint nod of his head. Zach watched until he was just a distant, lonely figure; a dark shape against the narrow road, bent with the weight of all his memories. Zach carried on towards the pub, feeling lost and uneasy after his conversation with Dimity. At the door to the Spout Lantern, his phone buzzed, surprising him. He took it from his pocket and saw one rare bar of signal. The text was from Hannah, and the sight of her name startled him. Pub later? Lambing all done. He pressed reply, and then paused. The prospect of seeing her caused him a bewildering mixture of feelings. It had been three days since he last had, and he missed her, but he couldn’t ignore what he knew. He knew she wouldn’t answer his questions, and would be angry and intractable when he confronted her. He wanted to take her into his arms and hold her tightly, and at the same time shake her until some answers fell out. Sure, he replied, and left it at that for the time being.

Dusk came very early that evening. A veil of glowering clouds settled over the coast, and as Zach came down to the bar the first heavy drops of rain began to fall, just as Dimity had said they would. Zach had already finished his first pint when Hannah and Ilir arrived, leaving their wet, muddy boots by the door and padding over to him in thick socks. The sight of Hannah’s small, strong face, her carefully controlled expression, gave Zach an uncomfortable ache, like despair. But with Ilir beside her, there could be no question of starting a row. Zach couldn’t air his feelings so freely. Hannah bought them all a drink and sat down, smiling. She looked tired and preoccupied, but highly alert. That same underlying current of nerves that he’d noticed before. There was a strained pause before any of them spoke.

“So, how’s everything? Any trouble with the ewes?” Zach asked. The pair of them shook their heads, and Zach thought he saw Hannah relax minutely.

“No trouble,” said Ilir, running his hands through the thick, damp thatch of his hair. The deep color of his skin seemed to soak up the low light. “Twins to finish with-two sets of twins. No wonder the sheep did not want to give birth. Hard work for them.”

“But that’s good, isn’t it? Two lambs for the price of one?”

“Sort of. You have to keep an eye on them, though. One is always bigger than the other, and the littlest never does as well, or gets as fat,” said Hannah.

“But that’s lambing done now, right? At least now you can get some sleep,” said Zach. Hannah and Ilir exchanged a quick, almost furtive look, and then agreed with him. Zach smiled with gritted teeth and raised his glass. “To the new generation of Southern Farm Portlands,” he toasted.

“And to new beginnings,” Hannah added. They drank, and Zach glanced at Ilir in time to see a fleeting look of something near panic cross his face, a spasm of desperation that gripped him, and then passed.

“New beginnings,” Ilir echoed heavily. Hannah put her hand on his arm for a second, and a sudden flash of intuition made Zach ask:

“Do you get homesick, Ilir?”

The Roma man looked up at him appraisingly, and waited a heartbeat before answering. “Yes, of course.” He shrugged. “Some days more than others. Where you are born is always your home, even if it is not such a good place.”

“What’s Kosovo like? I’ve never been… I mean, I don’t think I even know anyone who’s ever been. I suppose it’s not really on the tourist map just yet,” Zach said apologetically.

“Of course, for years people only hear of it because of the war. It is a young country with a very old heart. Great beauty there, but also great hardship. Troubles, still. Not enough work to go around. Not enough money, sometimes not enough electricity, even. And the people still fight each other. We are meant to be one nation, but it does not feel that way.”

“It sounds like a tough place to live,” said Zach.

“Tough compared to Dorset, for sure. And I would not want to go back, it is true. But I have left much behind to come here. I left many precious things behind.” For a second, Ilir’s sorrow hung all around them, almost palpable.

“But it was the right decision,” said Hannah staunchly.

“Yes. For my people, life there is even more hard. There are more problems, even less money, even less work. The Roma are not loved. England is a good country. A good place to live. I listen to the news here and sometimes I think you do not know how good it is.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. But people will always find something to complain about. That’s what my father used to say, and he was one of life’s great optimists. Although I think now that he might have been mostly talking about my mother. He used to say that if she went up to heaven, she’d be the first to let God know that the clouds were too soft.” Zach smiled weakly, and Ilir nodded.

“I think your mother and mine would find much to talk about,” he said.

“Come on, enough of the doom and gloom. Drink,” Hannah commanded them, knocking the base of her glass against each of theirs.

Much later, when Ilir had pushed his way through the throng and gone up to the bar, Zach leaned over and kissed Hannah, holding her head in one hand in case she should pull away. She didn’t, and he pressed his forehead against hers, shutting his eyes, enjoying the smell of her. Warm and earthy and richly animal. The beer was mixing with his tiredness, producing a languor that made it hard to think. When he let her go, she was smiling, warily.

“What is this, Hannah?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Is this just sex, to you? Am I just… a holiday fling?” She leaned back from him and took a long swig of beer before answering.

“I’m not on holiday,” she said.

“You know what I mean. What happens when I leave here? Is that it, over?”

“Are you leaving?” she said. The question caught him off balance, and he realized he’d given no thought as to when or whether he might be finished in Blacknowle.

“Well, I can’t stay here in a room above a pub forever, can I?”

“I really don’t know, Zach,” she said, and he wasn’t sure which of his questions she was answering. He drew his finger through several drops of beer on the tabletop, linking them up into a shape like a starfish.

“I know you’re keeping secrets,” he said quietly. Beside him, Hannah went very still in her seat. “I know you’re involved in… something.”

“I thought you were here to research Charles Aubrey, not me?” she said, her voice turning hard.

“I was. I am… and I think you know, the two have… closer links than we’ve discussed yet.” They locked eyes; Hannah didn’t blink. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” said Zach, eventually. Hannah looked down at her hands, and gouged a strip of dirt out from under one thumbnail. She frowned.

“Don’t push it, Zach,” she murmured.

“Don’t push it?” he echoed incredulously. “That’s all you’ve got to say to me?”

“Zach, I like you. I do. But… you have no idea what I’m involved in-”

“I might have more idea than you think-”

“No.” She shook her head. “Whatever you think you know, you don’t know the full story. And I can’t tell you, Zach. I can’t. So don’t push it, because if we can’t be together without you having to know, then we can’t be together. Do you understand?” She stared into his eyes, and her expression was sad, but tempered with steel. The flare of anger Zach had felt died down to nothing, melted into confusion.

“How can we be together if you won’t let me in? Are you saying this is over?”

“I’m saying… trust me, if you can. Try to forget about it.”

“And if I can’t?” he said, and in reply she only watched him with that adamant expression.

The sound of raised male voices from the bar interrupted them, and Hannah looked away with visible relief. One voice in particular, loud and aggressive, was rising above the rest. Hannah got to her feet.

“No, I’ll be bloody well damned if I’ll wait while you serve this piece of shit before me!” The man’s voice had a note of outrage that carried throughout the room. Gradually, all other conversations in the pub quieted. “I live here, mate-I belong here. Where the hell do you belong?”

“Oh, good. Our favorite xenophobic tosser has decided to drop by,” Hannah said, as loudly as she could. Zach cursed inwardly as she strode towards the bar. She was almost a foot shorter than all the men, but walked ten feet tall. They parted before her just like her flock of sheep did.

“Now, Hannah, there’s no need for you to come wading in, making things worse,” said Pete Murray.

“Why don’t you keep that rough tongue of yours still for once? I got here first and this Polish stooge of yours tried to barge me out of the way. Personally, I don’t think he should be served in here at all.” The man speaking was about fifty years old, tall and bald with a soft, wide belly hanging over worn jeans. His skin and eyes were pink, his blood rising with alcohol and anger.

“Well, luckily nobody in here gives a shit what you think, Ed,” Hannah said sweetly. Ilir was glowering at the other man, his face black with fury. He muttered something in his own language and Ed recoiled from him, and from the anger in the words.

“Hear that? I know a threat when I hear one, even if it comes from a monkey who can’t even speak the language. Are you going to throw him out, Murray, or am I going to have to do it myself?”

Pete Murray looked from Hannah’s livid face to Ed’s; then he said to Ilir, unhappily, “Perhaps you’d better call it a night, mate. Not worth the bother, eh?”

“No! Why should he have to go just because this drunken idiot says so?” said Hannah.

“Oh, hark at her, calling me a drunk! Go on, run back to the barn, dog.” The bald man waved his fingers at Ilir, oblivious to the hostile expressions aimed at him from around the room. There was a short, loaded silence. Zach thought about putting a placatory hand on Hannah’s shoulder, but she was trembling with anger and he half suspected she might turn around and hit him. When nobody moved, Ed looked at Ilir again with spite and feigned surprise. “Are you still here? Go on, get out before I call immigration.” The effect these words had on Ilir was visible. Blood rushed into his face, and his eyes widened. Zach heard Hannah take a sharp inward breath, and a wide smile broke out over Ed’s ruddy face. “Oh, really?” he said gleefully.

Ed cast a staggering, unfocused glance around the pub, looking from face to face, trying to mark them. “You all saw that, didn’t you? Hit a nerve, did I? Is it possible that if PC Plod paid you a visit, your papers might not all be in order? Eh, sunshine?” He tapped Ilir on the chest with one finger, and Zach realized just how drunk he must be, to be so oblivious to the murderous look on the Roma man’s face.

“Of course his papers are in order, you arsehole.” Hannah ground the words out.

“Well, then there won’t be a problem if I give the fuzz a quick bell tomorrow and tell them to check, will there?” Ed’s face was alight with triumph.

“Now, Ed, why not forget it and enjoy your drink? What goes around, comes around. No sense causing trouble for folk…” Pete said weakly, putting a fresh pint on the bar for him. Ed grinned up at Ilir, snide and happy.

“You’d better pack your things tonight. I understand they don’t give you much time before they whiz you off back home.” He turned away, picked up his glass, and tried to drink without spilling it; and in the next second, Ilir flew at him.

The first punch glanced from the side of Ed’s head, and did little more than make him lurch and drop his pint. The beer exploded into a cloud of froth and glass splinters on the floor. Ilir stepped forwards and grabbed Ed by his shirt, pushing him back against the bar, teeth bared in pure fury. Zach heard Hannah gasp, and while he stared, dumbstruck, she rushed forwards and tried to pull Ilir away. Ed was the drunker, but he was taller than Ilir and had a longer reach, and he managed to drive his fist into the Roma man’s eye before Ilir hit him again, a short-range punch to the stomach that forced the air from Ed’s lungs but wasn’t hard enough to double him up, or stop him.

“Ilir! Don’t!” Hannah shouted. Several men came forward to grasp Ilir’s arms, and then Ed’s, too, as he came after his assailant, chin thrust out and eyes bloodshot, all clumsy belligerence. Ilir looked like he could kill the man, and as Zach stepped forward to stand beside Hannah, between the two of them, he was glad that their arms were being firmly held.

“Hannah!” Pete Murray shouted, leaning his hands on the bar, arms straight, as though he might vault over it and get involved.

“Yes! We’re going!” said Hannah tersely. A reddish bruise was blooming on Ed’s cheek where the first punch had glanced from the bone.

“You all saw that! You all saw! He attacked me! Don’t think I won’t press charges, you illiterate shit! I’ve got witnesses!” Ed’s voice was shrill with outrage.

“Now, just calm down, Ed. All sorts of things happen in the heat of the moment. I’m sure we’re all too confused to remember who swung first, aren’t we?” The landlord looked around at a few of his regulars, and got some curt nods in reply. Ed sneered, gasping for breath.

“You’re pathetic! All of you!”

“Lucy, call a taxi for Ed, would you. He looks a bit under the weather. And you”-Pete jabbed a finger at Ilir-“let it go, and get off home. Right now.” Ilir swore at length in his own language, pulled his arms free from the men holding them, and stalked to the door, grabbing his boots as he passed. “You too, Hannah. I think that’s enough for one night.”

“Fine by me,” said Hannah. She glared at Ed, eyes snapping.

“Right, well… Night, all,” said Zach, following her out of the door.

Ilir was walking away up the middle of the lane, in the wrong direction for the farm, weaving slightly and with his boots on the wrong feet, crumpled awkwardly at the ankle.

“Ilir! Wait!” Hannah struggled with her own boots under the covered porch of the pub. The rain was coming down in gray waves. Ilir had nothing on his head, and in the wan glow of the streetlight his hair was shiny and slick. “Ilir!” She ran after him, caught him up and gently took his arm. Zach watched, unsure what to do, hunching his shoulders against the damp night air. He could hear Hannah talking to the man, but couldn’t tell what she was saying; and then, to his surprise, Ilir sank to his knees in the road. “Zach!” Hannah called to him. With a curse, Zach jogged out into the rain. There was blood seeping from the corner of Ilir’s right eye, mixing with the rain to drizzle down his face. The eye was closing, the lid swelling shut.

“Jesus-does that need stitches?” he said. There was rain on Hannah’s hands as she cradled the man’s face, examining it. Ilir shut his other eye. He was breathing hard and kept swallowing convulsively.

“No, just… help me get him up, will you? Ed must have hit him harder than I thought.” They each took an arm, hauled Ilir to his feet, but his steps were spongy, legs like jelly.

“I’ll get the car. Hold on.”

“Wait-how drunk are you?” said Hannah.

“Stone-cold bloody sober after that little incident. And I’d be pretty unlucky to get Breathalyzed between here and the farm. Or would you rather try and walk him home like that?”

“All right, go on,” she said, as Ilir sat down again, putting his hands over his head in pitiful supplication. Hannah crouched down and put her arms around him, rested her chin against his streaming hair. A tender gesture unlike any Zach had seen her make before, and in spite of himself he felt jealousy needling him.

They managed to coax Ilir into the backseat of Zach’s car; then Hannah climbed into the front, and Zach pulled away, the steering wheel slipping through his wet hands. Focusing his eyes through the sheeting rain was difficult, and he was glad when they turned off the road onto the farm lane, and there was no chance of meeting any other traffic.

He pulled the car as close to the farmhouse as he could, but they still got drenched as they helped a shaky Ilir out again. The rain was implacable. Between them, Hannah and Zach half carried him through the kitchen and upstairs to his room, dodging piles of detritus and abandoned furniture. Opening the door was like walking into another house altogether. Ilir’s room was spotlessly clean and tidy. The bed was neatly made up with sheets and blankets tucked in tightly; the curtains were laundered and drawn to; no clothes or shoes lay around on the floor; a bottle of deodorant and a comb sat unobtrusively on the mantelpiece below the wall mirror, and the carpet was immaculately vacuumed. Hannah caught Zach’s incredulous gaze.

“I know.” She threw up her hands, let them fall. “Believe me, I told him he was welcome to tackle the rest of the house, but he says only this room is his, and the rest is not for him to interfere with.”

“I don’t blame him.”

“No, he didn’t mean it like that. He was being considerate. Tactful.” She sat down on the edge of the bed beside Ilir and wrapped the bottom of the blanket over his feet.

“I am not dead. Do not speak like I have gone,” Ilir muttered. Hannah smiled.

“Of course you haven’t gone. We thought you’d passed out.” Gingerly, Ilir sat up a bit straighter and touched his fingers to the cut above his eye, which was still oozing blood.

“I will pass out if I do not have coffee,” he said.

“I’ll make us some,” said Zach.

“And I’ll get some cotton wool and wash that eye.”

“Don’t nurse me, Hannah. I am not a baby.”

“Then don’t act like one, and take your medicine,” she said flatly.

Down in the kitchen Zach put the kettle on and watched Hannah digging around in cupboards and drawers for a glass bowl, salt, cotton wool.

“Is Ilir here… illegally?” he asked. Hannah scowled, and didn’t look up.

“Technically. Maybe. But does he have a right to be here? You bet he does.”

“Can’t he get a visa or something?”

“Oh, gee, Zach, we hadn’t thought of that. Look, if there was a quick and easy way to get the paperwork sorted out, we’d have done it, okay? He doesn’t even have a passport.”

“Jesus, Hannah-what if that Ed bloke really does call the police? You could get in trouble, couldn’t you?”

“I could get in trouble?” She turned, squared up to him fiercely. “Ilir used to live in the Roma Mahalla in Mitrovica. His whole community was persecuted out of their homes after the war, and forced to live in refugee camps. The one where he was put was built on the spoil heaps of a lead mine. A lead mine, Zach. Cesmin Lug, it was called. It’s shut now, but they left them living there for years. It killed his parents. The children there grow up with lead poisoning. Now the UN has rebuilt some of their homes in Mitrovica and is trying to move them back-to a city where they will still be discriminated against, and live in fear of racist attacks. To a city none of them have called home for a generation. And you’re saying I could get in trouble, if he’s sent back?” She shook her head incredulously.

“I just meant… Well, you can get a huge fine for employing an illegal.”

“An illegal? Doesn’t he have a name anymore?”

“That came out wrong… I didn’t mean-”

“What are all our little fears, compared to what he faces if he gets deported?” she said. “What does the price of my lambs matter, or you finishing your book, or putting a name to this relationship? How big is any of that, compared to what he’d have to live with?”

“Did he get you into it? Into whatever you’re involved in? Smuggling… selling fake pictures… I guess he must have more contacts in that world than you would.” Hannah stared at him, dumbstruck for a moment, and then anger made her eyes blaze.

“Drop it, or leave right now. I mean it.” She raised her arm and pointed to the door, and Zach saw that the finger at the end of that arm was not quite steady. It trembled.

“All right,” he said softly. “All right. I’m just… I’m worried for you.” Hannah let her arm drop, gathered up the cotton wool and salt water.

“Don’t be. I’m fine.” She turned and went back upstairs.

For a moment, Zach considered walking out. Setting off into the pounding rain, alone, thwarted. He tried to picture Hannah running after him, the way she ran after Ilir, but he knew it was far more likely that she’d let him go. He searched the kitchen for a pot of instant coffee, made three mugs, and dumped sugar into each one when he couldn’t find any milk he’d be willing to use. Was it just that he knew she was keeping secrets from him? Was that all that made him stay? In which case, he should leave. He should have nothing more to do with her, because to publicly pursue the authenticity of the Dennis pictures would be to expose Hannah. But then he pictured her, standing at the end of the stone jetty, staring out at the empty spread of the sea, all alone. The resolute set of her shoulders, the way she faced the world head-on, with her jaw set, while at home, in private, everything was chaos and neglect. His head was aching, but he knew with total clarity that he didn’t want to leave her. He shut his eyes for a moment, cursed, then took a swig of one coffee and picked up the other two, walking carefully back towards Ilir’s room.

He heard their voices from about halfway up the stairs, low but distinct. The stairs didn’t creak, didn’t give him away. Unbidden, his feet slowed. He took one more step up and then froze, listening, hating himself.

“I haven’t told him anything, I promise,” Hannah said. Zach’s jaw clenched in protest.

“I know, I know. But what if the police come, Hannah? What if Ed calls them, like he said he would?”

“That pig was so drunk tonight he could barely stand… he won’t even remember what went on tonight, or what he said.”

“But what if he does?”

“If he does… well. We just have to hang on till next Tuesday. That’s all. Three more days, Ilir, then it’s done! You can disappear… If the police come, you can hide. I’ll say you ran away after what happened in the pub. I’ll say I don’t know where you are.”

“You can get in trouble for this, Hannah. You would do this for me?”

“Of course I would. We’ve come this far, haven’t we?”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Everything will work out, you’ll see. Three more days, Ilir. Three! That’s no time at all.”

“I am sorry for before. For the pub. I should not have got angry. I should not have provoked him.”

“Hey-I never want to hear you apologize for punching Ed Lynch, okay? Every blow that man takes is a service to society.” Zach could hear a smile shaping Hannah’s words.

“What will you tell Zach, when it is done?” said Ilir. Not wanting to hear more, Zach took three steps up, to stand in the doorway. Two sets of eyes swiveled to look at him.

“Yes, what will you tell me?” he said woodenly. He suddenly felt cold and exhausted. A muscle twitched in Ilir’s jaw, and the silence in the room resounded. He saw Hannah shrink slightly, as if surrendering to something inevitable. “What’s happening next Tuesday?” he said.

“Zach,” she said, but added nothing to that. A statement of his name, loaded with all the awkward weight of unspoken things, and with it Zach realized that it was impossible, that he had never had her, never truly known her. With the exaggerated care of someone unsure of their feet, he went back downstairs and left without another word.

Dimity slept fitfully, with Charles’s picture of her in the desert beside her. She had wanted that image to inhabit her dreams; had wanted to open her inner eyes and be that maiden, that beautiful creature that Charles had created. But what came were visceral memories, not visions of lost beauty. The intoxicating press of Charles’s body, his mouth against hers, the taste of him and the feel of his arms around her in the precious seconds before he pushed her away. The pain that blossomed in her head when she hit it on Celeste’s dressing table, the way her face had burned, as if the woman’s slap had been venomous, a scorpion’s sting. She was at the mercy of these truths, as she slept, and a drawn-out refrain repeated itself over and over, and seemed to mock her. Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!

The muezzin was singing, calling, high above her head. She looked up at the dizzying height of a minaret, a short way off and dazzling green against the bright sky. There was sweat running down her face, into her eyes, stinging; the dry air wheezed into her lungs. She had run for a long time. Blinking furiously, she sat down on a dusty doorstep, leaned back against the ancient wood, and waited to catch her breath. The memory of Celeste’s anger gave her a sick, unsteady feeling. The woman’s fierce blue eyes, the quick, hard movements of her hands as she tugged at the scarf, the necklace. She had heard Dimity practicing her wedding vows. Practicing her pledge to Charles. It was only a game-that was what she would have to say. But it wasn’t true, and Celeste knew it wasn’t true-only that could explain her fury. Dimity could not face seeing her again, trying to apologize. The thought was unbearable and yet she could think of no way to avoid it. If she didn’t go back to the guesthouse, then they couldn’t take her back with them, could not force her back to Blacknowle, but what use that, if Charles departed with them? Tears were hot on her face, hotter even than the sultry afternoon sun.

For a while she drowsed, drifting into dreams where Charles came searching for her, took her into his arms and kissed away her fears. The images made her ache inside. Voices startled her awake. Two women were standing in front of her, one draped in ashen robes, with only her eyes peering out, like coals; the other with that deep black skin that so fascinated Dimity, her teeth when she spoke as white as the crest of a wave at night. The black woman smiled; added soft, muttered comments to the stream of words coming from the veiled woman. Dimity could not tell if the veiled woman also smiled, or if she was angry, or inquisitive. She was anonymous, blankly threatening. Dimity had no idea what they were saying, so she sat, and did not answer or move. Her heart began to thump. The women exchanged a glance, then the black one reached out, put her broad hand on Dimity’s arm and pulled gently, beckoning to her to rise, to go with them. Dimity shook her head violently, all of Delphine’s stories of white slaves suddenly coming back to her. The black woman tugged again, and Dimity lurched to her feet, yanked her arm away, and fled, stumbling in her urgency, expecting to feel their hands on her again at any second.

She ran until her chest ached and she couldn’t run anymore. Her dragging feet kicked up sprays of dust and rubbish and she tripped over the cobbles from time to time. To either side of her, the buildings of Fez were tall and unadorned, plaster crumbling from reddish walls. The windows were hidden by weathered shutters; no balconies here, no bustling people. Slowly, Dimity stopped, and a new fear crowded in on her. She had absolutely no idea where she was, or how to get back to the guesthouse, or even how to find the city gates, the edge of the maze. She turned in a slow circle, breathing hard. Don’t wander off on your own, will you, Mitzy? The doors opening onto the street were huge and forbidding; the wood carved into ornate designs that trapped the desert sand and the street dust in their filigreed patterns. For a second, Dimity considered knocking on one, and asking the way, as if a familiar face might answer it, someone she knew from home. As if she would have been able to name the guesthouse, or the street it was on, and would understand the reply. Her legs were heavy with fatigue, and the heat dragged at her like an anchor. She could no longer hear the muezzin, and she hummed the only words of his song she had learned, as though this would draw her back to the green tower, which she knew wasn’t far from the riad. Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar…

Beside her, a door creaked open and a thin man squinted out, eyes sharp with curiosity. Dimity gasped, stopped singing, shook her head at the startling barrage of words the man aimed at her. She turned again, walking back the way she had come, and when she looked over her shoulder the man was standing in the street, watching her every move. There was dust in her shoes, rubbing the skin raw around her heels and toes. She wiped the sweat from her face and felt sand on her fingertips, gritty against her eyelids. On she hurried, and with every step her panic grew, beating its wings in her chest, in her head, until she could hardly think. A labyrinth, Charles had called the Old City, and even Dimity knew that meant it was a place you never escaped from, a place designed to trap you and drive you mad. A place with blind turns, and dead ends, and monsters at its heart.

She marched for hours. She tried walking in a straight line, never turning, thinking that she would eventually reach the desert, but the city was never-ending. She tried taking all the turnings to the right that she could, but ended up returning to the same small square again and again, where a starveling dog eyed her distrustfully. She tried turning alternately left and then right, zigzagging from one direction to the other, but she never saw a building she recognized, or a street she had been in before. She tried to remember which way she had come, but when she retraced her steps she always found herself somewhere different, as if the city was one of black magic and imps who moved the buildings and the walls when her back was turned. Her heart ached with fear and fatigue like the rest of her.

She came to a bustling bazaar, and hope flared until she realized it was far smaller than the central medina Charles had taken her to, and from there she returned to empty streets. She felt watched, as though something malevolent was just waiting, biding its time until she collapsed. Eventually she came to the foot of a steep flight of stone steps. She paused to catch her breath and then climbed, dragging at her heavy legs, hoping to reach some vantage point, to be able to see a landmark she might recognize. But the steps ended in a high stone wall that she could not see over and yet another arched door that she could not go through. Helplessly, she banged on the door, finally deciding to throw herself on the mercy of whoever happened to live there. A kind woman, perhaps, who might give her something to drink and make inquiries on her behalf. She knocked for a long time, but nobody answered the door. Still she knocked, until she skinned her knuckles and they started to bleed, and she could not keep from sobbing as she slumped down against the heedless wall.

Her throat was parched. She had never been so thirsty in all her life, nor so lost or afraid. The sun was sinking slightly in the sky, but it was still so bright that it seemed to scorch her eyes, and made her head pound. She had no idea how long she waited at the top of the steps, but eventually she found the strength to rise and go back down them. Back into the labyrinth of streets and alleys, the endless twists and turns and archways and doors. She walked until her legs shook with every step, weak with exhaustion, and, eventually, she returned to streets where there were shops and people, hurrying along or standing together, deep in conversation.

This was at once a relief and an added worry. Dimity wished she had swaths of gray cloth to throw over her head, over her face, to shield her from the stares of passing men. Perhaps this was why the women veiled themselves, she thought, because the watching eyes were hard and thoughtful; hostile; questioning. Even if she had spoken their language, she would have been too afraid to ask for their help. She was lost forever, to wander the narrow streets like a ghost, a wraith. She fought hard not to show her panic, her vulnerability. Then she rounded a corner and came upon an elaborately tiled fountain, with water splashing down into a stone trough. With a cry of relief she stumbled towards it and drank messily from the brass spout, filling her cupped hands, easing her parched throat; so much water that her belly swelled. She rinsed her hands and wiped them across her filthy face and when she was done she turned, and found that a small semicircle of men had gathered behind her. Dimity froze. Their faces were expressionless, unreadable, mouths closed into flat lines, eyes simply watchful, arms hanging loosely at their sides. Don’t wander off on your own, will you, Mitzy? Charles’s words came back to her again; the subtle warning in them. What would happen if a Christian were to go inside? It might be best not to find out. She realized that they were blocking her from getting away, each man no more than an arm-span from the man beside him. Dimity thought of cows. Of Barton’s cattle, back in Blacknowle, who the previous summer had circled a tourist walking her dog through their field. Just circled her and held her there, watching like this. And when she tried to move away, they closed ranks. Trampled her, broke her leg and her ribs, killed the dog.

Dimity’s throat went dry again. Her stomach twisted, and she fought to keep the water she had just drunk from spewing back out of her mouth. She looked for an escape route in the other direction-past the fountain to the empty street behind it. There was a wooden barrier across it, but it was only a single bar and she realized that she could easily duck beneath it. In the massive wall farther up the street was a set of huge, beautiful gates. High above, the green tower of the Karaouine Mosque blazed in the sun, watching it all. Dimity waited for as long as she could, fearing that if she moved, her legs would give way and she would not be able to run. Then she took a fluttering breath, stepped down from the fountain, and bolted towards the barrier. At once there was uproar behind her, a sudden clamor of voices and scuffling feet. Dimity whimpered in terror. She got to the barrier and bent to duck beneath it, but her hair was in her face and she misjudged it, hit her head hard on the beam and was knocked from her feet, sent sprawling to the ground. She struggled to get up, but the world spun around her and white flecks of light spangled across her vision, and a wave of nausea rose in her throat. The men closed around her in a circle, all talking at once; some angrily, waving their hands at her, some agitated, some almost anxious. All she could see were their faces, closing over her like stormy water, their voices blurring and booming in her ears. Something dribbled from her forehead into her eyes, and she blinked, and the world turned red. She thought again of the cows, of the trampled dog, and knew that she would die if she did not get up. She got to her hands and knees and began to crawl towards the empty street behind the barrier, but before she had gone even a yard she felt hands grasp her.

Dimity screamed. The men held her around her ankles and wrists; around her shoulders and upper arms; around her calves. She was lifted up, carried away from that empty street, from the freedom it seemed to promise. She struggled as hard as she could, twisting and turning her body until her joints flared red-hot with pain and her muscles began to tear. She waited to feel hands on her mouth, on her throat, waited for them to choke the life from her, but then she realized that they did not mean to kill her, but to take her for their own use, for whatever wicked purposes they might have. A slave not only made to work but used for sport, for gratification, for ruination. Through the red smear marring her vision she saw the sky, a bright and heedless stripe overhead, all but crowded out by the grimacing faces of her captors. She screamed for Charles, as their fingers dug into her skin and bruised her, and her head boomed with pain and terror, and in the last moments she even screamed for Valentina. Then the world shimmered into darkness, and she could not fight anymore.

When she woke up she struggled to rise, but as she opened her eyes the sun lanced into them, impossibly bright, and it felt like a knife stabbing her skull. She shut them again and sank back with a groan.

“Mitzy? You’re awake! How do you feel?” She felt a small, soft hand clasp her own, and with a surge of relief that was almost violent, she recognized Delphine. She tried to think what had happened, how she had got back to the riad, and why her head was so painful, but the room was spinning sickeningly and her stomach roiled.

“I’m going to be sick,” she said weakly.

“Here. I’ve got a basin. To your left,” said Delphine, and Dimity felt the cold touch of china to her chin. She lifted her shoulders a little, turned her head, and threw up. “It’s the knock on the head, most probably. I came off my pony a couple of years ago and hit my head, and that made me sick, too,” said Delphine. “Here-have some water.” Still with her eyes shut, Dimity felt a glass lifted to her lips, and she grasped at it clumsily. “Just sip it-don’t gulp, or it’ll all come up again.”

“It’s so bright in here,” she protested, her voice a croak. She heard a rustle as Delphine stood, and then the clonk of the shutters closing. Dimity opened her eyes cautiously, and in the softer light saw Delphine, kneeling down beside the mattress. She had plaited her hair into two braids, which hung forwards over her shoulders, thick and shiny.

“Welcome back,” she said with a smile. “Did you get lost? We were all really worried about you… we thought you might have been kidnapped!”

“Lost… yes. I thought I was… how did I get back here?”

“Daddy found you. He brought you back here. Hang on, actually-I better go and tell them you’re awake. The doctor said if you didn’t wake up by this evening we had to call him back again, so I’d better. You’ll be all right, just for a moment?” she said. Dimity nodded mutely, and Delphine smiled again. “You’re safe now. But you’ve quite a bump on your head!” She got up and left the room, taking the basin of vomit with her.

Dimity had never felt so ill in all her life. Her head was pounding; her body felt battered, bruised; weak as a kitten’s. The room was still spinning and lurching, and though the hot, dry air prickled her throat, she still shivered as if with cold. Her skin felt raw. There was a light knock at the door, and a creak as it opened. When she saw Charles, Dimity struggled to sit up, though the effort made her grimace.

“No, don’t get up, Mitzy,” he said, coming to stand at the foot of her bed. Dimity moved gingerly to sit with her back against the wall. She looked down in dismay, and saw that she was still wearing her bloodied and dusty clothes. “How are you feeling?”

“I think… I think I might be dying,” she whispered miserably, as the movement of sitting up caused her brain to swill around like soup. Charles laughed softly and came to sit beside her.

“You gave us quite a scare. Why on earth did you run off like that?”

“I… Celeste…” She gave up, could find no way to explain. Charles’s face seemed to loom towards her, close enough to kiss her, and then recede again, swelling and shrinking like waves. “How did you find me?” she said. She had dreamed that he would rescue her, and that dream had come true.

“With a great deal of difficulty, as it happens. I walked in circles around the house, getting farther and farther away each time. I’d been looking for hours, and then I heard all the hullaballoo…”

“I… I got lost,” she said, and looked up at him shyly. “Were you worried about me?”

“Of course I was bloody worried! How did you cut your head? Nobody hit you, did they?”

“Oh, those men!” she gasped, remembering. “I was trying to go underneath the barrier, to get away from those awful men, and I hit my head…”

“You tried to cross the barrier? Into the mosque?” Charles frowned.

“Well, I… I just wanted to get away… they were all shouting at me, and trying to catch me!”

“They were telling you that you shouldn’t have been there, silly girl! And that street behind the barrier is completely forbidden to non-Muslims. Well, at this time of day it’s forbidden to women, too, let alone unveiled ones. So you just about took the biscuit, little Mitzy!” Charles sighed, and then smiled a little. “No wonder they were in such uproar about it.”

“I didn’t mean to! I didn’t know!” Dimity cried. “I thought they wanted to kill me!”

“Hush, hush, of course they didn’t want to kill you, only to keep you from blaspheming. A misunderstanding, then, but it must have been very frightening, I can see that.” Dimity bit her lip and tears welled in her eyes. She didn’t try to hide them.

“I’m sorry to be such a bother. I’m sorry to have worried you.”

“Never mind that now. We’re all just pleased you’re back with us, safe and sound. Celeste and the girls were so worried as well…”

At the mention of Celeste, Dimity sank inside. She looked down at her filthy hands in her filthy lap. Charles cleared his throat diffidently. “Mitzy, please tell me what happened. What was the row about?” he said.

“Hasn’t Celeste said, then?”

“No. She won’t tell me. She says it’s between the two of you and I wouldn’t understand.” Dimity considered this, and was at once happy that Celeste hadn’t told Charles and suspicious of her decision not to. As though a secret kept gave her more power.

“I was… I was trying on some of her things. In… your room. Her jewelry… and a scarf. She came back and found me in there. Maybe she thought I was stealing… but I wasn’t! I swear it! I didn’t mean no harm!”

“That’s all? She caught you trying on some of her things, and that was enough to send her into a rage?” Charles frowned as if he couldn’t quite believe it. Dimity swallowed.

“I thought she was going to kill me,” she said meekly.

“Now, don’t be ridiculous. Celeste loves you.”

“Do you love me?”

“I-” Charles broke off and looked at her again, seriously, as if suddenly uncertain of something. Dimity held her breath. “Yes, of course I do.” His voice was odd, strained. “Like my own daughter, Mitzy. Black-and-blue as you are. It’s coming up a treat, you know-it’ll be purple by the morning. Feel.” He took her fingers and guided them gently to the egg-shaped swelling on her skull. She winced. “Even Élodie will be impressed,” he said.

“I do doubt it.”

“Oh-damn. We’ve made it ooze. Here.” Charles took out his handkerchief and dabbed at the bloody cut on her head, gently cupping her chin with one hand to hold her head steady. Dimity leaned into his touch, could feel his breath on her skin, and caught the scent of his body, his sweat. Tentatively, she put one hand on his forearm, the arm that was holding her face. Charles was looking at the cut, but at her touch his eyes flickered down to meet hers, and gradually they widened, as if seeing danger of some kind. He stopped dabbing at the cut and for a second, for a wonderful second, Dimity thought he was going to kiss her again. She could picture it perfectly-his head dipping forwards, the touch of his mouth. The speed of her heart made pain bloom in her head like scarlet roses, but she didn’t care.

“Is it all right?” she said softly.

“Is what all right?” Charles asked uneasily, moving away from her.

“My head.”

“Oh, yes. We had the doctor come and look at you, just in case, but he says you just need to rest. Mind you,” Charles paused, and laid the backs of his fingers against her forehead, “you do feel very hot. Have you caught a fever?”

“I don’t know… I wasn’t feeling well this morning, before Celeste…”

“Yes-look at you, you’re shivering! Lie back down. You must rest, Mitzy,” Charles said, and Dimity obeyed him, feeling the sweetness of his concern like warm honey on her tongue.

Do you love me? Yes, of course I do. Dimity heard this, over and over, after he’d gone, the words like a charm that made the whole world sparkle. She fancied she could still feel him holding her, carrying her back to safety; could feel his fingers pressing into her ribs, the protective cage of his embrace as they went; and it felt completely right, completely perfect. But the pain in her head could not be ignored, and when she raised her fingers gingerly to the cut again, they also found a bump on her temple, from where Celeste had knocked her off the stool earlier on. Unbidden, the woman’s fiery eyes flashed into her memory, and she cowered back against her pillow, trying to escape their all-seeing glare.

She was already dozing fitfully when Delphine came back into the room. The sun was sinking, darkening outside, and though Dimity knew Delphine was speaking, she didn’t heed the words until she heard:

“Soon we’ll be back home in England and all this will be forgotten.” And if Delphine had sought to comfort her friend, her words had the opposite effect. Cold, bleak despair engulfed Dimity, and she shook her head vehemently.

“No! I’ll never forget it here, as long as I live. I want to stay forever,” she said desperately.

“You can’t mean that! I mean… it’s nice to go on holiday, of course, but it’s not like this is home, is it?” said Delphine, sitting beside her in her pajamas, arms wrapped around her knees. Behind her, Élodie’s dark eyes were watching from her own bed, hard and glossy as bottle glass.

“It’s better than home,” said Dimity. Delphine gave her a quizzical look, but Dimity couldn’t speak anymore, the effort was too great. She lay still and tried to think only of Charles, and of him saying, Of course I do. But thoughts of him were hard to hold on to, and time and again she slipped into a nightmare from which she could not wake; a black terror made up of grasping hands and flashing blue eyes, of running, and falling, and being lost forever. On and on the images came, rolling like sea swell as her body shivered and burned. Once, in the night, she thought someone was leaning over her and caught a trace of Celeste’s perfume in her nostrils, deep and floral; she was surprised by the spike of fear it gave her, and by the flare of rage that followed.

The journey back passed in a blur of feverish lassitude for Dimity. She was aware only of movement, of being uncomfortable and exhausted. A sweep of desert landscape; the fresh touch of a sea breeze at the coast; the sickening motion of the boat again. She was too weak to despair even as she realized that Morocco was receding behind her, but she could feel the knowledge of it, lying in wait inside her. It was a thing like the dead creatures that sometimes washed up on the beaches of Blacknowle. Black and cold; misshapen, foul. It waited there for her to be well enough to mourn. She was delivered back to The Watch, and into Valentina’s rough care, and she had no idea how long she had lain there, in her childhood bed, when she finally awoke with a clear head.

The angle of the sun told her it was afternoon, not morning, and for a while after she awoke she couldn’t imagine why Valentina hadn’t roused her sooner. She sat up, and though every muscle ached, and every bone seemed soft and fragile, her vision was steady and she had control of her body. She could smell a sickly, stale smell coming from herself, and her hair hung in greasy ropes around her face. She rubbed her hands over her face, and saw that there was dirt under her nails. Red-brown dirt; desert sand. There was a wrenching feeling in her gut, like it was tearing, and she clasped at it helplessly.

Dimity went downstairs slowly, and found Valentina in the kitchen, gutting mackerel into a bowl on the counter.

“Back in the land of the living then, and about time, too,” she said.

“How long have I been here?” Dimity asked.

“Three days, doing naught but sweating and mumbling nonsense.” Valentina wiped her hands roughly on her apron and came over to her daughter. She grabbed a fistful of Dimity’s hair and pulled it back to examine the cut on her forehead. The wound was a straight dark line by then, the lump much reduced, the bruising faded to yellow and brown.

“Who gave you this?” she asked, poking it with her index finger so that Dimity winced.

“Nobody. I banged my head.”

“Well, that was a stupid thing to do, wasn’t it?” said her mother. She looked Dimity in the eye, and for a second there was something there, something that made her pause. An echo of something unsaid, a trace of relief. Then she pressed her lips together and went back to the fish.

“Is there food? I’m starving,” said Dimity. Valentina flicked her eyes at her daughter, and scowled for a second before relenting.

“Bread in the crock, and Mr. Brown brought us some of his wife’s damson jam, over there.” She gestured with her bloodied knife. “So, how was this far-off land you went to see?” The question was loaded with scorn, so loaded that Dimity wondered if it was a mask. As mask for what, she couldn’t quite tell. Not envy, surely?

“It was…” She stopped. She didn’t know which words to use. How to convey that life had been so sweet, so rich with color and discovery and Charles and ease and new things that the same old words she’d always used to describe things before were utterly inadequate for the job. “It was very hot,” she said in the end.

“Oh, well, sounds wonderful,” said Valentina. “Did you make any extra money?” Dimity blinked. “Did he try to touch you?”

“No,” she said at once, and then swallowed, because the urge to blurt out what had happened, the need to make it real, suddenly produced a huge lump in her throat. Valentina grunted.

“Pity. I was almost sure he would. Away from home, all bets off and all that. Well, you obviously didn’t try hard enough. Or perhaps you’re just not his type, eh?” She smiled unkindly. Dimity took hold of the memory of their kiss, and his touch, and hugged it tightly to her. Used it as a shield against such barbs. He would have made love to me, she wanted to shout. But for Celeste, he would have. He is not free to, that’s what he said. But he would, he wanted to. He will. The power of this thought surprised her; almost put a smile on her face.

“I suppose not,” she said, calmly enough.

“When you’ve eaten, go and wash. You smell like old milk.”

Dimity tired easily in the first two days after her fever broke. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she moved cautiously, like an old woman. She wanted to be beautiful, the next time she saw Charles. She wanted to look as she must have done in the alleyway in Fez, with the sun’s glow on her skin and her eyes sparkling. So she waited, and noticed that Blacknowle was small and damp and dreary and pathetic. It had always been damp and dreary, in fact, but never before had she realized how inconsequential a place it was. What pitiful lives its people led, toiling and drudging with each day the same. No time or chance to lean over a balcony and feel the hot sun on the top of their heads, while an ancient city buzzed and breathed beneath them. Walking with their eyes on their own feet because there were no apricot-colored mountains to see, no vast stretch of desert around to pull the eye, to dazzle and frighten and tempt them with a hot, thirsty breeze. Blacknowle was monochrome. It was still summer, but the colors looked dead. Like a newspaper photograph, with a sea mist to blur the outlines and nothing but shadow and shades of gray to show the shape of things. When Dimity shut her eyes, she saw a river of scarlet blood running down a cobbled alleyway; she saw bright blue goatskins pegged out on a hillside; she saw a lemon-yellow scarf fluttering around a woman’s ebony neck; and children like fancy little birds dressed in turquoise, and azure, and aquamarine. She saw herself, in a caftan the bright pink of bougainvillea blossoms, standing in a shaft of copper sunshine that made her hair flame.

Then, a week after she had been delivered back to The Watch, Dimity decided she looked well enough to go up to Littlecombe and see Charles. She did not dwell on the fact that nobody had been to seek her out. Not Charles, not Delphine. That was down to Valentina, she decided. Any respectable person who’d encountered her mother gave the cottage a wide berth thereafter. It was Valentina’s fault, so Dimity didn’t tell her that she’d be leaving soon. That when he left Blacknowle this time, Charles Aubrey would be taking her with him. I’ll do my best for you, Mitzy. She walked slowly to Littlecombe, in spite of her eagerness, because she did not want to arrive sweating or out of breath. There were no signs of activity within the house, but the blue car was parked in the driveway, and the sight of it brought a smile to Dimity’s face, which stayed, irrepressible, as she knocked on the door with her spirits high and joyous inside her.

There was a long pause, and Dimity thought she heard movement inside, thought she saw a shadowy face in the darkness behind the kitchen window glass. Then Celeste opened the door, and Dimity’s smile faltered, sinking away into nothing. The two women faced each other across the threshold, and neither spoke. Celeste looked tired and strained. Her expression was flat and steady.

“You’re well again, I see,” she said at last.

“I think so,” said Dimity. The woman’s baleful gaze was scattering her thoughts into fragments, confusing her.

“Well, I am glad. Whatever has passed between us, I would wish you no harm.” Celeste crossed her arms, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders. She seemed taller, somehow; harder, like she was made of stone. Dimity could no longer stand to look Celeste in the eye, so she looked down at the ground between them. A yard of flagstone garden path, but suddenly that distance was wider than the Channel. She teetered slightly, as if she might lose her balance. Her hands shook.

“Can I come in?” she said breathlessly. Celeste shook her head gravely.

“It gives me no pleasure to say so, but you are not welcome here anymore, Mitzy. I have explained it to my girls as best I can, and I have explained it to Charles. You and I, we both know the reason. Sometimes, things do not stay as they began. They change, and we must change with them. It would be better if you did not come here again.” Dimity’s heart stuttered in her chest; a little hiccup, a momentary stoppage.

“I want… I want to see Charles,” she said. She had meant to say Delphine, but the truth, just then, fought its way out. Celeste leaned towards her, her cheeks flushing with anger. She seemed huge, terrifying. She seemed the stuff of nightmares.

“That is why you will come here no more. Now, go. We will not be coming back next year-not if I have any say in our plans. Go away, Mitzy. You have ruined everything.” As Celeste turned away, there was a sparkle in her blue-green eyes, the shine of unshed tears.

Dimity had no idea how long she stood without moving, staring at the patchy paint and wood grain of Littlecombe’s door. Time didn’t seem to matter, didn’t seem to move as it should; like she was still in the grip of some fever, and only half alive. She was shivering, though the day was mild, and when she eventually turned to go, the ground seemed treacherous. Her feet caught in invisible snares, and she had to hold on to the gatepost for support. She felt eyes upon her, and thought at once that Charles was there, that he had come out to see her. But when she turned, searching for him, she saw only Delphine, standing at one of the upstairs windows. A shadowy figure with a sad face who raised one hand to wave at her forlornly. Dimity did not wave back.

For three days, she looked everywhere for Charles. Everywhere but Littlecombe. She looked in the village, at the pub and the grocer’s; she looked on the beach and the cliff path, and up at the ruined chapel on the hill. But she did not see him. Valentina noticed that her daughter had stopped bringing money back from her outings, and cornered her one day.

“Has he lost interest, then? You don’t take his fancy no more?” She jerked her chin up aggressively as she spoke, and for a blinding second, Dimity hated her utterly.

“He loves me! He told me so himself!” she said.

“Oh, does he, now?” Valentina chuckled. “Well, we’ve all heard that one before, my girl. Believe me. You tell him from me, it all costs. Love or no love. You hear?” Dimity fought to pull her arm free. “And you, Mitzy-you need to bring in a wage. You’re old enough, now. If he’ll not pay for the privilege, then I know several that will. We could get enough for your maidenhead to see us right through the winter.” Her voice was as bleak as her face, and her words made Mitzy think of the men in Fez, with their dark faces and angry eyes, and their open mouths above her, hard hands holding her down, poised to take everything. She wanted to run from her mother, just as she had wanted to run from them. Like in a nightmare, she wanted to run with every ounce of her will, but she couldn’t. She had nowhere to run to.

Dimity fantasized that Charles would come knocking on the door of The Watch with that hungry look in his eye that she’d seen, just for a second, in a narrow alley a whole world away. She conjured it so carefully, so intensely, it was almost a spell. She pictured going to London with him when he left; pictured Charles finding a flat for her, or letting her live in his studio, where she could be his model, his lover. Perhaps she would not even have to stay hidden away like this-perhaps he would marry her and introduce her to everybody as his wife, kissing her hand and looking at her with such a fire in his eyes that nobody could mistake it for anything but the most powerful devotion. His artist friends, whom she pictured as bearded men with beetling brows and mad habits, would be jealous of him for having such a young and lovely wife, and he would be proud of her, so proud, and the thirst of having to be decorous in public would only heighten the passion with which he would ravish her once they were back behind closed doors. In the night, these images kept her awake, aching with longing; made her hand reach down between her legs, desperate for release.

But it was Wilf Coulson she saw, not Charles. She saw him outside the Spout Lantern where, now aged sixteen, he had taken to drinking with the other men at the end of the working day. He came after her once or twice, walking behind her like he had in the past, so that she would know he was there and could lead him somewhere private where they could talk. Lead him to Barton’s barn to lie close in the straw and touch each other amid the stench of cattle. But this time she turned around and gave him such a furious look that he stopped in his tracks, bewildered. She did not want his fumbling attention, his gifts, his boyish kisses. So after a while he came to The Watch to look for her, and the knock at the door set her alight because she thought it might be Charles. When she saw Wilf, her face fell; when he saw this, so did his.

“Will you walk out for a while, Mitzy?” he said, dipping his chin into his chest and scowling.

“I’ve the chores to do,” she said numbly. Wilf looked up at her then with such hurt and anger in his eyes that it startled her. “All right, then. Just for a little while.”

She led him down the steep path over the cliff edge and onto the stony beach below The Watch, walking always slightly ahead of him, hands clenched, picking her way expertly between the rocks. A fitful breeze pushed at them, and the sea was a deep, glistening gray. A desert of a different kind, rolling into the far distance. Dimity kept walking right to the far end of the beach, then climbed up onto the rock jetty and walked along it until it began to slide beneath the water. She looked down at her battered leather shoes, and thought about continuing in spite of them.

“Mitzy, stop!” said Wilf, still behind her. Dimity looked back at him, and saw that his eyes were red and shining. “What’s happened, Mitzy? Why don’t you want to know me no more? What did I do?” He sounded so stricken that Dimity felt little prickles of guilt, and turned around to face him.

“You didn’t do anything, Wilf.”

“What is it then? Aren’t we even friends now?”

“Course,” she said grudgingly. She doubted she would see Wilf again, once she’d gone to London with Charles. No more Wilf, no more Valentina. Or perhaps she might visit her mother sometimes-drive down to The Watch in a shiny motorcar, wearing a silk scarf over her hair and high-heeled shoes and stockings with the seams perfectly straight, running up the backs of her calves. Wilf broke into this pleasant fantasy.

“I missed you, when you were gone. It wasn’t the same without you about. I even think your ma missed you-she had to come up to the village a couple of times, for this and that. Walked around with such a look in her eye that nobody dared go near her!” He smiled slightly, but stopped in the face of her silence. “So… what was it like, where you went?” He seemed desperate for something to say, some way to make her talk.

“It was the best place I’ve ever been. Charles said he’ll take me back there sometime. Next year, probably. We might take a holiday there every year.” She smiled vaguely.

“Charles? You mean Mr. Aubrey?” Wilf screwed up his face in confusion. “What do you mean, take a holiday?”

“Well, what do you think it means?” she snapped.

“You can’t mean that you and he… that you’re… with him now?”

“Can’t I?”

“But… he’s twice your age, Mitzy! More than twice… and he’s got a wife!”

“No he hasn’t! She’s not his wife, they’re not married!” She turned again to look out to sea. “He’s going to marry me. I’m going to be his wife.”

“Then why are you still at The Watch with your ma, while he’s packing up Littlecombe with his family, ready to go back to London?”

“What?” His words physically rocked her, made the jetty seem to pitch like the deck of a ship. Something came bulging up in her throat and she thought for a second that she might scream. “What?” she said again, and instead of a scream it was a whisper, half lost in the breeze. Wilf blurred in front of her, smearing out of focus to become a part of the sea, a part of the shore behind him.

“I heard him talking about it in the pub not half an hour ago, settling up his bill. Mitzy,” he said, stepping forwards to take her by her upper arms. She looked up, only now realizing how tall he’d grown, how his shoulders had fanned out above his narrow hips, how his jaw was stronger and firmer. “Mitzy, listen to me. He doesn’t love you. Not like I do. I love you, Mitzy!”

“No.”

“Yes, I do! I love you like no other. Marry me, Mitzy. I’d be good to you… we’d have a good life, I swear it! We can even leave Blacknowle, if that’s what you want. My uncle in Bristol has a job waiting for me, if I want it. At the shipping company where he works. You’d never have to see Blacknowle or The Watch or your ma again, if that’s what you want. We could have a baby straightaway, if you like. And we could take our honeymoon anywhere you wanted… Wales, or St. Ives, or wherever!” He gave her a little shake and Dimity blinked. But she was too lost in her own misery to realize that he had been dreaming all this, just as she’d been dreaming life in London with Charles. That thoughts of her had been what kept him awake at night, what made his hand stray down low beneath the blankets. She pulled her arms away from him.

“Get off me!”

“Mitzy? Haven’t you heard what I’ve said?”

“I heard you,” she said dully. “Wales? St. Ives? Is that how big you think the world is? Is that as far as you can imagine?”

Wilf frowned. “No. But it’s as far as I can afford to travel just yet. I’m not stupid, Mitzy. And I know I’m not as exciting to you as… some others might seem. But this is real, not some impossible dream. This is a real life I’m offering you. We can save up… I can start saving and take you overseas, too. It don’t cost too much to cross the Channel…”

“No.”

“No?”

“That’s my answer, Wilf. I won’t marry you. I don’t want you.”

Wilf was silent for a while; put his hands in his pockets and seemed ready to wait, as if waiting might make her change her mind. Eventually he took a long, heavy breath.

“He won’t marry you, Mitzy. I can promise you that an’ all.”

“What do you know about it? You’re just like everyone here! Watching and chattering and thinking you know my business!” she said, anger flaring at his words.

“I know enough to know he won’t marry you. He can’t. He-”

“Just shut up! You know nothing about it! Nothing!” The words were ragged, savage; put tears in Wilf’s eyes as he looked at her.

“I know enough. I love you, Mitzy. I could make you happy…”

“You could not.” She turned away from him and folded her arms, and for a long time she could sense him there, standing behind her, waiting. She heard him sniffle a bit, blow his nose, clear his throat. At some point she realized that he’d gone, and could not say for sure when he’d left. She glanced over her shoulder and couldn’t see him on the beach or on the path up through Southern Farm. For a second she felt panic grip her, but she ignored it, and took the inland path towards the village.

Wilf had said Charles was in the pub, so that was where she went. She walked right up to the window, nervous excitement making her teeth chatter. She caught the tip of her tongue between them, and tasted blood. The inside of the pub was shady and dim, but she could see that it was almost empty. Two men were seated at the bar, but neither one was Charles. She walked across to the village stores and peered inside; then walked a short distance along each of the little lanes that made up the village center. She could not think where else to look, could not think why Charles had not come to find her, to reassure her. She knew he must have some plan; some scheme by which they would soon be together. But she wished, how intensely she wished, that she could find him and hear what it was. Her need to see him was giving her a pain behind her eyes, a pain that built all the time. She gave up on the steep track that led to Northern Farm, and came back down it into the village past the rear elevation of the pub. And then she saw him.

He was in one of the pub’s upstairs rooms, she could see him through the little window, half buried in the tiled eaves. The view was restricted-through the cramped pane she could see his arm and shoulder, his lower jaw. Charles! Dimity wasn’t sure if she had shouted aloud in elation, or if her throat was too tight to make a sound. She waved her arms above her head, but then she stopped and let them fall. Charles was not alone. He was talking to somebody-she could see his mouth moving. And then that somebody stepped into view, and it was the tourist woman. The one who has to touch herself each time she sees you. Celeste’s voice was so clear that Dimity whirled around in confusion, looking for her. Milksop skin. The words were in the hiss of the breeze. The woman appeared to be crying; she dabbed at her eyes with the cuff of her blouse. Dimity stared at her, tried to make her not exist. A vast, bottomless chasm had opened at her feet, and she saw no way that she would not fall. There was nothing to save her. Charles took the woman’s hand and raised it to his mouth, pressing a lingering kiss onto the skin. Have you ever seen them together? Celeste whispered in her ear, and the pain in Dimity’s skull spiked unbearably. She clasped her hands to the sides of her head, whimpering in agony; then, with a cry, she fled from the Spout Lantern.

She walked blindly, as the crow flies, across fields and tracks, through the coppice of beech and oak on top of the ridge and down the other side. She soaked her feet in runnels of water, splashed her trousers with reddish mud, got covered in sticky buds, burrs, and gnat bites. She picked as she went, using her shawl as a sling; gathering familiar plants almost without thinking. Sorrel for salad; nettles for tea and kidney tonics, and to feed the blood; milk thistles and pig nuts for stewing; fern to kill tapeworms, dandelion for rheumatism, chicory for a bladder infection. The task was so familiar, had such a natural rhythm that it hypnotized her, silencing the turmoil inside her head.

She passed by the watery ditch at the edge of the woods, where a thick patch of water hemlock grew. Cowbane, it was also called, since it killed the cows that browsed it by mistake. She crouched down amid the tall, deadly plants, surrounded by their innocent-looking umbrellas of white flowers. Their roots wound down into the sandy soil at the bottom of the ditch; long, serrated leaves with the tempting smell of parsley. Water fleas scudded around her feet and a banded demoiselle flew in wide arcs above her head, watching curiously. Dimity wrapped her hand around one woody stem and pulled gently, careful not to bruise it, until the tuberous root came free from the ground. It would taste almost sweet, like parsnip, if eaten. She rinsed it off and laid the plant carefully in the sling, away from the others. Kept apart, reviled, not to be trusted. Separate from all the rest, just as she had always been. Dimity took a slow breath; her mind was quite empty. She went back to pull another stem.

Hours later, with her shawl heavy and cutting into her shoulder, Dimity was still walking. Her legs felt too long, and though everything she saw was familiar to her, still she felt as though she didn’t know it, didn’t belong to it. On the beach she kept bruising her toes and shins by walking into rocks, and could not work out why. Some way farther along the shore she stopped walking altogether, and realized that it was nighttime. She could not see to walk, because the sky was as black as the inside of her mind, without a moon to light it. If this darkness was natural, or because the light had gone out of the whole world, she could not tell. She sat down where she’d been standing, feeling the stones prod her, cool and damp, through her clothes. There she stayed, in the dark, not hearing the waves, because her own crying drowned them out; sobs tearing at her, convulsing her. And all the time she felt like she was falling, like she had stepped into that fathomless chasm and would never reach the surface again. She did not sleep.

In the cold light of the morning, the rising tide roused her, lapping at her feet with icy little ripples. Dimity scratched at her face, itchy with salt, and stood up shakily. She started walking again, with little idea where she would go; just following her feet like before until eventually they brought her to the top of Littlecombe’s driveway. There she paused and stared down at the regular, compact shape of it. There was no sign of the car in the driveway, no sign of anybody in the garden; the windows were all shut. Charles was there. This was where she had first seen him; where he had first drawn her. This was where he slept, where he ate. This was where he had to be. Dimity felt hollow, insubstantial, and a sudden lightness washed through her head, the lightness of joy tempered with something else. Something nameless and bleak; something that had come up from the depths of the chasm to be with her. She stumbled on her bruised feet as she walked down to the kitchen door.

She knocked loudly, with conviction. Charles would open the door and gather her up; slide his arms around her waist like he had in the alleyway in Fez, and she would feel the firm touch of his mouth and the hardness of him, and she would taste him and fold into him and everything would be right. Nobody else would exist. When Celeste opened the door, frowning and wiping her hands on a towel, Dimity blinked, bewildered, and Celeste’s face darkened.

“Dimity. Why have you come? Why do you persist?” she said. Dimity opened her mouth but there were no words within it. The air whistled in and out of her throat. “Tell me, do you honestly think he would leave his daughters to be with you? Do you think that?”

Her voice was flat and angry. Dimity stayed silent. She felt faint, hazy; not quite real. “He’s not here, if that’s what you were hoping. He’s gone with the girls to Swanage, to ride the donkeys on the beach and to shop and play on the amusements.”

“I wanted to…” Dimity started to say, but she didn’t know what it was that she had wanted. The woman in front of her was the sum of everything she would never have. In a hindquarter of her brain, Dimity gazed at Celeste and despised her. “I brought these for you. For all of you,” she said, putting a hand on the plants she had collected.

“There is no need.” Celeste tapped her toe against a basket on the doorstep, already full of leafy plants. “Delphine went early this morning. Without you. She left me these herbs to make a soup for my lunch.”

“Oh.” Dimity struggled to focus her eyes, struggled to think. There was a shrill humming sound in her ears, and Celeste’s voice seemed to come from a long way away. She squinted up at the Moroccan woman and wondered how she had ever thought her beautiful. Celeste was shadowy and cruel, a figure to be feared and loathed. A stubborn blight, an open sore that refused to heal.

“Now listen to me. No more of this.” Celeste sighed abruptly, through her nose. “Leave us alone,” she said, and closed the door.

Dimity rocked slightly on her heels. The ground was a queasy blur at her feet and a sudden sickness filled her throat with a foul, acid taste. If he was free, he would be with me. She shut her eyes and pictured Charles rescuing her, saving her, as she lay on the ground, ready to be torn apart by wild men in Fez; she thought of his kiss in the alleyway, the touch of his hand as he helped her up; the flowers like a wedding bower arching over them as they had sat together at the Merenid Tombs. That desert place where everything had been as perfect and glorious as a dream. Dimity opened her eyes and looked down at Delphine’s basket. She saw wild garlic and parsley; celery, lovage, and caraway. It was a good forage, the leaves all young and tender, nothing picked that might have gone woody or bitter. And caraway was a rare find, a delicious one. Delphine had been an attentive pupil. Dimity stood and stared down at the herbs for a long time. She looked at her own collection, in the sling hanging at the end of her numb arm. The weight of it was suddenly too much and she set it down at her feet, bending low over it. Garlic, parsley, celery, lovage, caraway. The blood thumped in Dimity’s head, painful and insistent. The greenery swam in front of her eyes, half hidden by her own trailing hair. Garlic, parsley… There was the water hemlock, the cowbane, in her own pile. Carefully kept apart, carefully bunched together; leaves, stems, sweet thick roots. Dimity could hardly breathe for the pain behind her eyes. She stood up at last and walked away with jerky, wobbling steps. And somehow the cowbane was no longer in her sling. It was in Delphine’s basket.