A Half Forgotten Song

CHAPTER TWELVE

Morning woke Zach, who had been dozing with his head on Dimity’s kitchen table. Sharp sunlight needled his eyes, and he lifted his head cautiously. It was thick with lack of sleep and the weight of his thoughts. His skull felt like an eggshell, liable to crack with all the new things crammed into it in the past twenty-four hours. He was alone in the kitchen, surrounded by cold, sticky mugs that stank of sour milk and brandy. He filled the kettle and put it on, drank a whole pint of water, and then went through to the living room. When he’d last seen Hannah, she’d been asleep in an armchair, curled up opposite the Sabris with her sweater pulled down over her hands and her mouth pursed so sweetly that he’d fought the urge to kiss it. Now the room was empty. Zach scrubbed at his eyes and tried to wake up.

“Hannah? Ilir?” he called up the stairs, but there was no reply. Then he heard a noise outside and opened the front door.

Hannah’s jeep was sitting in front of the cottage with its engine running and the doors open. Rozafa and Bekim were already in the backseat, and Hannah was swinging two canvas holdalls into the trunk. “Hey! What’s going on?” said Zach, shivering with fatigue in the cool of the early morning. Hannah looked over at him with a momentary flash of alarm.

“I’m taking them to the station. I didn’t want to wake you,” she said, dropping the bags into the trunk and striding over to him with her hands in her pockets. Zach raised a hand to shade his eyes.

“Is it safe to? Won’t the police still be watching?”

“I don’t think so. I spoke to James. They searched his place last night, too, and came away with nothing. He doesn’t think they’re still hanging around. They even apologized to me, last night. Apologized profusely, when they didn’t find anything.” She flashed him a quick smile.

“Will you be long?”

“No. We’re just going to the station at Wareham. Ilir is taking them north, to Newcastle. He has friends there-well, somebody he knows from home, anyway. Someone who can give them a place to stay and help get them settled, and my brother-in-law is a doctor there. He’s going to help with the asylum application, and start Bekim’s chelation treatment…”

“His what?”

“Look, there’s no time to explain it all now, we have to catch a train in forty minutes. They were going to stay with me for a few days’ rest before moving on, but after last night we thought it better not to wait,” she said. Zach took her hand, held it open in his, and studied it. Small and scarred, the nails broken off short and grubby at the cuticles, calluses on her palms, at the base of each finger. Tough, outdoor hands; hands that inhabited an entirely different world from his.

“Do you want me to come with you?” he said.

“No, there’s no need. Stay with Dimity. Look at the pictures,” she said in an odd tone of voice.

“Okay. See you when you get back, then.”

“I’ll be back as soon as they’re away. An hour and a half or so. We’ll talk then.” She turned and walked back to the car, and Ilir appeared in front of him.

Zach waited nervously to hear what the Roma man would say. His jaw still ached from the punch he’d been given the night before. Instinctively, he put up his hand to rub it, and felt how tender the bruise was. Ilir smiled slightly.

“I’m sorry for punching you, Zach,” he said. “But you understand, I was very afraid.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“No, I must. You have helped us… I am grateful.” Ilir’s face was tired and bruised, but he looked happier than Zach had ever seen him. A radiant kind of inner peace, as though the absence of his wife and child had always gnawed at him; a nagging pain that was now gone, in spite of the precariousness of their situation.

“Please. It was the least I could… I’m glad they’re safe.” He offered his hand to shake and Ilir took it and pulled him into a brief, rough embrace. They’d had no time to wash or change, and the man still wore the stink of last night’s stress and turmoil.

“Ilir, come on. We haven’t got time,” Hannah called from the car.

“Be kind to her,” said Ilir, in a low voice. “Now I am gone… she seems strong but she needs people. More than she will admit. She will need your friendship now I am gone. She is difficult sometimes, but she is a good woman.”

“I know,” said Zach. “Good luck.” Ilir clapped him on the shoulder, nodded, then turned and climbed into the passenger seat. With a cough of blue diesel smoke, they were gone.

Zach waited on the step for a while, sweeping his gaze to take in the view from the watery horizon to the green swell of the ridge inland. Part of him was desperate to go back upstairs and look through all the pictures again; start making some notes on subject and tone. But he hesitated, startled to find that it didn’t feel right to, not with Hannah gone and Dimity so upset. The pictures, however intently he had hunted them down, did not belong to him. And there was something else on his mind, something that Hannah’s revelation about her grandmother had made him think about. He waited for a while, chewing his lip as he thought, trying to tell himself it didn’t matter. But it did, there was no denying it. He went upstairs on soft feet.

“Dimity?” he called. He’d last seen her the night before, huddled by the doorway of the small empty bedroom where Charles Aubrey had lived, but she wasn’t there now. Zach knocked gently on the door of the other bedroom and peeped through it. “Are you awake?” he said softly. There was no answer from the small figure curled on the bed. Her knees were pulled up in front of her, her hands clasped to her stomach in their grubby red mittens. Seeing them, Zach felt a sudden tug of affection for the old woman, and admiration, too. Few people could have protected a secret with such steady faith, and such success, for so many years. He thought back over all the hours he’d spent talking to Dimity, studiously recording her tales of Charles Aubrey from the 1930s, when all the time she’d been guarding this huge and unimaginable truth. She’d always seemed to be holding something back; always seemed half afraid of letting something slip, or giving away too many clues. It must have loomed large in her mind. Dimity didn’t answer his call, and her breathing was soft and even, but as Zach retreated he had the strongest feeling that she was not sleeping.

Zach avoided talking to Pete Murray as much as he could, even though the publican was keen to gossip about the police presence in the village the night before. Zach shrugged and denied all knowledge. He was impatient to be moving, to see the one person who could settle something that was clamoring for his attention, louder all the time. On the two-hour drive north, he fought to concentrate on the road. He rehearsed in his head what he would say, how he would finally find out, once and for all, a truth that had been deliberately veiled all his life.

His grandmother lived in a tiny Victorian almshouse in a market town near Oxford. Neat little brick and flint cottages, joined together in a U-shape around an immaculate lawn carefully fenced from wandering feet. The last of the late-season roses showed their faded colors in the borders. Zach gave his name to the warden and made his way to the middle of the terrace. He knocked and opened the door, to save his grandma the trouble of getting up.

“Hello, Granny,” he said, and she stared at him with a small frown, smiling only when he bent to kiss her cheek.

“Dear boy,” she said, clearing her throat. “How sweet of you to come. Which one are you?”

“I’m Zach, Granny. I’m your grandson. David’s son.” At the mention of his father’s name, his grandma smiled with more conviction.

“Of course you are. You look just like him. Sit down, sit down. I’ll make some tea.” She began to struggle out of her chair, her thin arms wobbling as they deployed two walking canes.

“I’ll get it, Granny. You stay put.”

From the tiny kitchenette, Zach studied his grandma. It had been four months since he’d seen her last, and she seemed less substantial every time. A wisp of a woman, her hair like the ghost of the curls she’d once had, her body the bare bones of what was once a neat, vigorous figure. Here she was, fading by degrees every day, and he had been too caught up in his own troubles to notice. With a prickle of guilt, he realized that he should have brought Elise to visit before she went to America. He vowed to do so, without fail, the next time his daughter was in the U.K. He could only hope that his grandma would be alive to see her, but it seemed highly likely. She was frail, but her eyes were bright. Zach took in the tea, and they chatted about family and his work for ten minutes or more.

“Well, go on and ask me,” she said, after a silence had fallen between them. Zach glanced up at her.

“Ask you what, Granny?” She fixed him with those bright eyes and looked amused.

“Whatever it is you’re so desperate to ask. I can see it hanging over you like a cloud.” She smiled at his guilty expression. “Don’t worry, dear. I don’t mind why you’ve come to visit, it’s just lovely that you have.”

“I’m sorry about this, Granny. But I need to ask about… about Charles Aubrey.” He’d thought she might smile, or blush, or get that happy, secretive look in her eye, like she’d always used to, but instead she sat farther back in her chair, and seemed to sink slightly, to retreat from him.

“Ah,” she said.

“You see, when I was little, it always seemed to be hinted at… to be suggested that perhaps… Charles Aubrey was actually my grandfather.” Zach’s pulse quickened. Putting this long-thought but never spoken thing into words felt outrageous.

“Yes, I know,” was all she said. Her expression was troubled, and Zach wondered about that. Her husband, Zach’s grandfather, had died eleven years previously. The truth could no longer hurt him.

“Well, I’ve been down in Blacknowle these past few weeks-”

“Blacknowle? You’ve been in Blacknowle?” she interrupted him.

“Yes. I’ve been trying to find out more about Aubrey’s life and work there.”

“And have you?” She leaned forwards in her chair, eagerly.

“Oh, yes. That is…” Zach hesitated. He’d been about to blurt out everything he’d found. But he couldn’t, he knew. The secret that Dimity had kept so carefully for a whole lifetime could not be so casually betrayed. Not even to another woman who’d loved Aubrey all her life. “I’ve found something down there. Something that makes it very important for me to know… to know whether or not I am actually a descendant of Charles Aubrey. Whether I am his grandson, or not.”

The old woman sat back again, and crimped her lips together. Her bony hands clasped the arms of her chair, and in the overheated room Zach felt sweat prickling under his arms. He waited, and for a while it seemed like he wasn’t going to get an answer. His grandmother’s eyes were looking into the past, just like Dimity Hatcher’s did, but eventually she spoke.

“Charles Aubrey. Oh, he was wonderful. There’s no way you can know, now, how wonderful he was.”

“I can see how wonderful his pictures were,” said Zach.

“Any fool can see that. But you would have to have met him, to have known him, to really know-”

“But don’t you see,” said Zach, feeling a sudden rush of irritation. “Don’t you see what that did to Grandpa? And to my dad?” His grandma blinked, and frowned at him a little. “My father, your son David, grew up with a father who didn’t love him, because he didn’t think he was his father!”

“Any decent kind of man would have loved the boy regardless,” she snapped. “I offered to leave him. I offered to take my son and set him free. He wouldn’t have it. The scandal, he said. Always so concerned with what other people thought, he was. Too concerned that we should be respectable to care if we were happy.”

“And were you?”

“Were we what, dear?”

“Were you respectable? Was your husband the father of your son, or was my dad an illegitimate… love child?” At this, his grandmother laughed.

“Oh, dear boy! You sound just like your grandpa! So pompous.” She patted his hand. “But I’m impressed that someone, after all these years, has finally got up the courage to actually ask me. But what does it matter, now? Try not to dwell on it. Everyone is allowed secrets, especially a woman…”

“I have a right to know,” Zach insisted.

“No, you don’t. You grew up with a caring father, and you were well loved and looked after. Why go digging around for something less than that? For something worse than that?”

“Because… Because my father didn’t grow up with a loving father, did he? He grew up knowing he was never quite good enough. Never quite what was wanted. He grew up as a disappointment, under the shadow of Charles Aubrey!” Zach took a steadying breath. “But that’s not the point. Well, it is the point, but it’s not why I’m here. I’ve met a woman, down in Blacknowle, who is related to Aubrey. She’s his great-granddaughter. The granddaughter of Aubrey’s daughter Delphine. Remember her?”

“Delphine? The older girl?” His grandma tipped her head to one side. “I saw them, briefly, from time to time. But I never spoke to them, really. Not to either of his daughters, or to the other one.”

“What other one?”

“The little village girl who used to follow them everywhere.”

“Dimity Hatcher?”

“Was that her name? Quite a beauty, but always dressed in rags and hiding behind her hair. I wondered if she was simple.”

“She wasn’t simple. And she’s still alive,” Zach said, before he could stop himself. “She’s been telling me all about the summers that the Aubreys spent there…”

“Has she really? Well, then, you hardly need me to-”

“Granny, please. I have to know. This woman that I’ve met… Aubrey’s great-granddaughter. It’s… very important that I know whether or not we’re related. Whether or not I’m actually Aubrey’s grandson. Please, just tell me. No more hints and shrugs.”

“You mean the pair of you are courting?” she said, with keen intuition. Zach nodded. His grandma’s fingers patted the arms of the chair in agitation. She grasped and released, grasped and released, and her face reflected a powerful dilemma. Zach took a deep breath.

“Well?” he said. The old woman scowled at him.

“Well. If you demand to know, then I shall tell you. And perhaps we shall both be the poorer for it. The answer is no. No. Your grandpa was your grandpa. I never had a love affair with Charles Aubrey.”

“You never even had an affair with him? It was all made up?” Zach was incredulous, and a storm of relief and disappointment blew through him.

“I did not make anything up, young man! We had… a liaison. And I loved him. I loved him from the first moment I set eyes on him. And perhaps I would have betrayed your grandpa… but Charles wouldn’t have me.” She pressed her lips together again, as if she’d stung herself. “There. I’ve said it, so I hope you’re happy.”

“He… turned you down?”

“Yes. He was the more honorable one, in the end. He came and found me in the room above the pub where we’d been staying. I thought he’d come to seduce me! But he’d come to break it off with me. Not that it had really started; just… the possibility. Just the enchantment. But he broke it off instead, and broke my heart into the bargain.” She laid her fingertips lightly on her chest, and sighed. “He said that… he wasn’t free to take what he wanted. To do what he wanted. He said he’d got into trouble already that summer, for doing just that, and that he had a family to think of.”

“Celeste and the girls… and he must have meant Dimity. He must have meant Dimity, when he said he’d been in trouble already. They had an affair, that summer.”

“Dimity? The little village girl? But she was only a child! I can hardly believe he would…”

“Perhaps that’s what he meant by ‘trouble.’ ”

“But are you sure, Zach? Are you sure they had an affair?”

“She certainly insists that they did,” he said, and his grandma smiled sadly.

“Ah, but don’t you see? So did I. Until today, so did I.”

Zach left the almshouses a short while later, promising to return again soon. His grandmother’s words echoed in his head. So did I. What did it mean, then? That Dimity hadn’t been having an affair with him, either? But something must have happened for Aubrey to tell his grandmother about it. Trouble. That was how he described the love affair that Dimity had been reminiscing about all these weeks? But then, when he went AWOL during the war, it was Dimity he sought out, Dimity he stayed with, all the long years afterwards. Or was it just that Dimity was the only person left? The only person there when Charles got back, damaged and vulnerable and in need of shelter. And then Delphine had come back to live less than a mile away, thinking all the while that her father had been killed in action. Zach’s head ached. Dimity had kept her enormous secret, even from Delphine, the man’s own child. That had been a terrible thing to do. Zach drove with the knuckles of one hand pressed into his lips. And his own family, his father, his grandfather, had lived with a ghost of Aubrey that was only that. A ghost. Nothing real, nothing substantial. Had Aubrey really been so powerful that even the suggestion of him could live on like that? Clearly he had. And Zach’s artistic streak was a quirk of fate, not an inheritance. He felt something slip away from him then, something he’d been holding on to, carefully, for many years. He thought he would miss it, but instead he felt lighter.

Zach drove straight down to The Watch. It was getting late in the afternoon, and when there was no answer to his knock, he tried the door. It was unlocked, and he let himself in uneasily. Dimity locked it, normally. He’d always heard the rattle of bolts before she opened it. For the second time that day, he went upstairs calling her name, with a head so full of thoughts he was having trouble addressing any one of them clearly. He knew only that he had things he wanted to ask her; accusations, almost. Dimity hadn’t moved. She still lay on her side on the bed, and this time Zach rushed over to her with a jittery feeling, sighing with relief when he heard her breathing. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing. She blinked when Zach crouched down beside her. He gave her a gentle shake.

“Dimity, what’s wrong? Are you all right?” Without a word, Dimity swallowed, and struggled to rise. Zach helped her sit up. Her legs, as he guided them over the edge of the bed, were bone-thin. “Should I call a doctor?”

“No!” she said suddenly, and then coughed. “No doctor. I’m only tired.”

“It was a strange night,” said Zach, carefully. She nodded and looked down at the floor, her expression desolate. “I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t know quite how to explain what he was sorry for. For discovering her secret, when she’d kept it so long. For taking it from her, he supposed.

“He was dead these past six years. I knew, but I… I dreamed that I didn’t know. I wished it,” she said. Tears swelled in her eyes and splashed onto her cheeks.

“You really did love him, didn’t you?” Zach murmured. Dimity looked up at him, and the pain in her eyes was tangible. One by one, the questions in Zach’s mind came loose and drifted away. She owed him nothing.

“More than life,” she said. She took a deep breath. “And I’d have done anything for him. Done anything to make it up to him.”

“To make what up to him, Dimity?” Zach frowned. Two more tears dropped onto her clasped hands.

“What I did,” she breathed, so quietly that he hardly heard her. “What I did.” She shook as a sob ran through her. Zach waited to hear more, but she was silent. Something Wilf Coulson had said to him came into his mind. “Now everyone will know. People will come, and they’ll know he was here. They’ll know I hid him. Won’t they?” She looked at him again, grief and fear scoring her face. Zach shook his head.

“They don’t have to, Dimity. If you don’t want me to tell anyone, I won’t. I promise.” Disbelief made her eyes grow wide.

“Do you mean it? Do you swear it?” she whispered.

“I swear it,” said Zach, feeling the weight of the promise circle his heart tightly. “The secret you and Charles kept is still yours to keep. And the pictures are Hannah’s property. She hasn’t betrayed you for them yet, and I’m sure she won’t now,” he said. Dimity nodded and shut her eyes.

“I’m so tired,” she said, lying back down on the faded sheets.

“Rest then. I’ll… come back and see you tomorrow.”

“Rest? Yes, perhaps. But they’ll be coming for me, you know,” she said, her voice small and fearful.

“Who will, Dimity?” Zach frowned.

“All of them,” she whispered, and then her face went slack in sleep. Zach pulled the blanket up over her, and touched his fingers to one grubby red mitten in brief farewell.

Troubled, and still of two minds as to whether or not he should call a doctor to visit Dimity, Zach drove into the village and was about to take the lane to Southern Farm when he saw a familiar figure, sitting on a bench with a small dog at his feet, and looking out to sea. Zach pulled up alongside and lowered his window.

“Hello, Mr. Coulson, are you well?” he said. Wilf Coulson clasped his hands around the whippet’s lead, and nodded with the minimum of good manners. “I know you told me not to ask you anything else about Dimity…”

“That’s right. I did,” said the old man warily.

“I’ve just been down to see her and she said something… Well, it reminded me of something you’d said and I wanted to ask you about it? Please?” Wilf Coulson gave him a complicated look-curiosity mixed with sadness and belligerence.

“What, then?”

“I asked you what little Élodie Aubrey died of, and you said natural causes but that there were some that said otherwise. I was wondering… what you might have meant by that?”

“Was it unclear?”

“No… but, who were these people? And what did they say? I won’t use this information, you understand. I mean, not for my book. I’m just trying to understand what Dimity’s going through… Will you tell me what you meant?” Wilf seemed to consider this, his jaw working slightly, cheeks moving in and out. But in the end he wanted to talk, Zach could see. He wanted to unburden himself.

“The doctor came into the pub, a couple of nights after it happened. Dr. Marsh, who’d been at the hospital with them. I was there, too, so I heard him talking. He reckoned she’d got gastric flu, but the day it happened Aubrey himself ran about saying they’d eaten the wrong thing and been poisoned. The older girl was often out picking things from the hedges, with Dimity.”

“The older girl? Delphine?”

“That’s her, that married the Brocks’ boy in the end. The doctor talked about the symptoms and I saw some looks exchanged, over his head. Aubrey had mentioned other symptoms too, and there were plenty in there that knew what it sounded like.”

“And what was that?”

“Cowbane,” Wilf said shortly. “Hemlock.”

“Jesus… you mean, Delphine picked it by mistake, and… and Élodie ate some?”

“Either that or…”

“Or what?”

“It’s hard to come by. Water hemlock. Farmers pull it up wherever they find it, since it’ll kill livestock. She’d have to have gone a long way and get damned unlucky to find any.”

“So… what are you saying? That it was deliberate?”

“No. I’m not saying that. Why would the one sister poison the other? And risk poisoning the whole house? Why would she profit from it?”

“Well, she wouldn’t…” Zach trailed off, because a chill had slid down his spine. He looked down towards The Watch. “Delphine wouldn’t profit from it,” he murmured.

“Dimity weren’t herself late on that summer. When they came back from Africa. And what were they doing, taking a girl like Mitzy to Africa, anyway? What good can it have done? She weren’t herself. I tried talking to her, but she weren’t her right self.” Wilf clamped his lips together, and shook his head angrily. “There, now. Let that be enough for you. Let it lie,” he said gravely. Zach noticed that the old man’s knuckles had gone white, gripping the lead so hard. Zach paused for a moment, and understood his fear.

“I won’t tell her that you’ve told me. I give you my word,” he said. Wilf Coulson sat back a little, though his expression did not change.

“I’d have married her still, after all of it,” he said, in a strained voice. “I’d have married her still, but she would not have me.” He took out a threadbare handkerchief and blotted his eyes, and Zach’s heart ached for him. He wished he could tell Wilf why Dimity wouldn’t have him-why she couldn’t. She’d had Charles to think about, and to love, and to hide. And to redeem herself to.

“Thank you, Mr. Coulson. Thank you for talking to me. I think… I think Dimity is getting rather tired. I think… that if you did want to visit her, then sooner rather than later might be best.” Wilf gave him a quick, startled glance, and then nodded.

“I understand you, boy,” he said. “Now leave me be.”

Hannah let him in, wearing an expression that Zach couldn’t read. There were shadows under her eyes, and her lips were pale.

“You’ve started to clear up,” said Zach as he sat down at the long kitchen table. There were gaps in the detritus on the worktops, and the paperwork on the table seemed to be shifting into piles, into some kind of order. Two bulging black trash bags sat near the door, ready to be taken out. Hannah nodded.

“I… suddenly felt like it. It felt like the end of an era, with Ilir gone.”

“Did they make it to Newcastle okay?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes, they’re fine. Well… as fine as they can be. Bekim needs to start treatment for lead poisoning as soon as possible…”

“That’s the chelation you were talking about?”

“Yes. To draw the lead out of his system.”

“Is it really that bad, then? I mean, I noticed that he was groggy, but I thought he was just exhausted…”

“It’s worse than you know. He’ll be living with the effects for the rest of his life. How old would you say he is?”

“I don’t know-a bit older than Elise. Seven or eight?”

“He’s ten. Coming up eleven. The lead stunts growth and development…”

“Christ. Poor kid,” said Zach. “I understand… I understand why you wanted to help them. Give them a new start.”

“Of course.” She busied herself at the counter, with the kettle and mugs and teabags. She seemed unwilling to meet his eye. “I thought you’d gone,” she said eventually.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you got what you came for.” She turned around to face him, folding her arms defensively. “You found out where the Aubrey pictures were coming from. You found out what happened to Delphine, and who Dennis was.”

Zach studied her for a while, and noticed that though her voice was angry, her eyes looked fearful. He shook his head, stood up, and walked over to her.

“So you thought I’d just take off, with all this newfound knowledge? And do what with it?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Write a book. Break the story. Cause a splash.”

“Wow. You really don’t have much faith in people, do you?” He smiled, and put up one hand to brush her cheek. Hannah knocked it away impatiently.

“Don’t play games with me, Zach. I need to know… I need to know what you’re going to do.”

“I’m not going to do anything,” he said.

“Nothing at all?” she said incredulously. She shook her head and went back to making tea. “So, where did you go?”

“I went to see my grandma.”

“Oh? Spur of the moment?”

“Yes. I finally got her to admit whether or not she had an affair with Aubrey. Whether or not I am actually Aubrey’s grandson.”

Hannah paused and took a deep breath. “Because if you are, then all those pictures belong to you,” she said stonily. Zach blinked.

“I hadn’t even thought of that. But yes, that would be the case, wouldn’t it?”

“It would, yes,” she said scathingly.

“Hannah, come on. I swear that’s not why I went. I went because if I am his grandson, then you and I would be related. I’d be your great-uncle, or something.”

“Second cousin.”

“What?”

“If you were his grandson, we’d be second cousins. But only half, because I’m descended from Celeste, and you from your grandmother.”

“Half second cousins? You worked it out already?” Zach smiled at her, and Hannah’s cheeks colored, ever so slightly.

“Weeks ago,” she said. “When we first slept together. You’d already told me about your family rumor. So, what’s the verdict? Are we kissing cousins? Are you Aubrey’s heir?”

“No,” Zach said, still smiling. “No, not at all. My grandpa was my grandpa. Granny let us think otherwise all these years because… well, because she’d married a man she didn’t love, and she wanted it to be true, I guess.” Hannah stopped what she was doing and hung her head for a moment, shutting her eyes.

“Good,” she said, at last. Zach gave her a quizzical look. “It would have made things very complicated, if you’d suddenly wanted to claim your inheritance. All those pictures.”

“No. Those are your pictures. Your inheritance.”

“Mine to do what I like with.”

“Yes.”

“And if what I want is to leave them there, with Mitzy?” she challenged him.

“Then so be it,” said Zach. Hannah blinked, taken aback.

“You mean you’re fine with that? You don’t mind? You can keep a secret like that?”

“I just swore to Dimity that I would. And I will.”

“Well,” she said, and turned away again. She put her hand on the kettle as if to make tea, but she’d forgotten to put it on to boil. She paused, and said nothing more. Zach took her by the shoulders and gently turned her to face him. There were tears in her eyes, which she blinked away angrily.

“What is it?” he said.

“Nothing. I’m fine. I just thought… I thought…”

“You thought you had another battle on your hands. With me,” said Zach. Hannah nodded.

“It’s been a… a stressful few months. You know?” She blew her nose messily on a piece of newspaper, leaving a smudge of newsprint on her top lip.

“I only want to help you,” Zach said gently. “You must know that by now?”

They finished making the tea, and once they’d drunk it, Hannah went out of the room for a moment. She came back with a small envelope in her hand.

“What’s this?” Zach asked as she handed it to him. Hannah sat down opposite him.

“Open it.” Zach frowned at the front of the letter. The address was written in extravagant handwriting, all loops and lazy slopes, and quite hard to decipher; the addressee was Delphine Aubrey. Zach glanced up at Hannah. “I found it in my grandma’s things, after she died. It was the only one. The only letter from Celeste, that is. She kept it all those years. I thought it might… interest you,” said Hannah.

“Oh, my God,” Zach murmured. He brushed his thumb reverently over her name. Delphine. Abruptly, Hannah stood up.

“I’m going for a swim. I need to… clear my head. Come and find me, once you’ve read it.” Zach nodded his head distractedly, already opening the letter and starting to read.

Delphine, chérie, my daughter. I miss you so much. I hope you do not miss me as much, but this is a pointless thing to hope. You were always loving, and loyal. You were always a good child, and a good sister to Élodie. Help me-writing her name is like cutting myself. My poor Delphine, how can you know? How can you know the pain I feel? It hurts you to lose her, to lose your sister, but to lose a child is more than a person can stand. It is more than I can stand. Your father will look after you, I know it. His heart is like a cloud in the summer sky. It drifts and is blown about, it chases the wind, and the sun. It is inconstant, in some ways. But love for a child does not lie in the heart-it is in the soul, it is in every bone of your body. He cannot be inconstant to you. You are part of him, as you are part of me. And Élodie was a part of us, too, and since she died I am no longer whole. I will never be whole. I am like a child again myself, no longer a mother. I don’t know how to live anymore. I am with my mother, and she cares for me.

When I started to write this letter, it was to tell you to come to me, here, when the war is over. If you wanted to. But the thought of seeing you fills me with fear. A terrible, terrible fear. When I think of seeing you, I think only of not seeing Élodie. Of that gap by your side, of that gap in all our lives. And it is not fair and it is cruel and unjust, and it was not meant to be so. But still, I fear it, and I cannot bear it. So instead I say: do not come. Please do not. And do not tell your father where I am. Though I will always love him, I am trying every day to cut that love from my heart. It does no good, to love a man like Charles. And I see Élodie in him, of course. I see her there, too. I see her everywhere, even in my father’s eyes, which were passed on to her. How can it be that she is dead? Nothing makes sense to me now.

You more than anybody did not deserve this fate, Delphine. Try to be happy. Try to start a new life. Try to forget about me. Try to forget what you did. My life is over, I am nothing but shadows. But there is time for you, perhaps. You are young enough to start again, and to forget. Try to forget, my Delphine. Tell yourself that your mother is dead, for the best of me surely is. Your heart is good. Your heart was always good, ma chérie. Be happy if you can. I will not write again. C.

Zach read the letter three times, and tried to imagine how much it must have hurt Delphine. For a second he caught a glimpse, and sadness came like dark clouds. His throat was painfully dry, and he swallowed as he folded the paper and slid it back into its envelope. He sat for fifteen minutes or more with his head in his hands and his heart breaking for a girl he had never met. Try to forget what you did. The line repeated itself in his head, and he thought about what Wilf Coulson had told him earlier that day. Suddenly, he was flooded with dread, as though the truth would spill out, unbidden. He thought of Dimity, of her face full of fear and tears in her eyes. He thought of the way she’d looked at the ceiling when they’d heard sounds above. Full of desperate hope, he saw it now. He swallowed again, and vowed that he would never share his suspicions about Élodie’s death with anybody. Perhaps not even with Hannah, and certainly not in his book. The thought caught him off guard. Was there still a book? He could not publish it in Dimity’s lifetime, that much he knew. Zach stood up and ran his hands through his hair. He thought about what he would do next, about what mattered, and it was suddenly brilliantly simple, perfectly obvious. The future wasn’t a brick wall, it was a blank page.

Zach jogged down the track to the beach, and saw her straightaway. The pale glow of her skin against the dark blue water, her red bikini on, curly hair shifting in the wind. Standing at the end of the jetty with the waves coming up to her knees and her arms loose at her sides, as if the sea was the only thing keeping her there, the only thing to curb her. Zach kicked off his shoes, rolled his jeans above his knees, and set out towards her, splashing impatiently. She heard him coming; turned and folded her arms across her ribs. Still defensive, still unsure of him. In that instant, Zach knew that he loved her. It was as clear as the sky that day.

“Poor Delphine,” he said, after they’d exchanged a long look. Hannah nodded. “Of all the futures, of all the lives I imagined for her, standing in front of her portrait, I never imagined she’d had to deal with such pain.”

“Yes.”

“And you still think it was better that she never knew her father was alive?”

“I don’t know. Who can know? But perhaps it… did help her to forget. To move on in life. Perhaps a dead father, a memory to treasure, was better than a lifetime with a broken father.”

“But she didn’t forget. How could she have? And she kept that letter her whole life.”

“Yes. I saw her reading it, from time to time. When I was little, and we’d been out all day on the farm, and she’d been in the house by herself. I would come in and find her reading it, all alone. She would try not to let me see that she’d been crying.” Hannah wiped at her eyes again, and shook her head. “Do you see, now? Do you see that it’s not just about pictures by a famous artist? These are people’s lives. These are the things they have lived through.”

“Yes, I do see. But I want to say… if, some time in the future, perhaps when Dimity’s… gone. If you ever do decide to exhibit the pictures, I want to be the one to help you. We could even exhibit them here-turn one of the barns into a gallery. And I do want to write this story. I think I will write it, now, because it feels too big to keep in. But I won’t do anything with it until I have your permission. I promise.”

“Won’t revealing all those new works devalue them, anyway? I thought scarcity was part of what put an artist’s prices up?”

“Theoretically, yes. But in a case like this? No way.” Zach shook his head. “The provenance, the story… it’s like nothing people have seen or heard before. If you wanted to, you could make a lot of money. If you wanted to.”

“I want to make money as a sheep farmer, not by selling my inheritance.”

“I thought you might say that,” said Zach with a smile.

“What will you do now?” Hannah asked.

“Close the gallery. Formally close it, I mean. It’s been closed all these weeks; I just… didn’t want to admit it. I’ll sell all the stock, and my pictures of Celeste and Dimity. That should pay back the book advance and give me something to live on for a while. But I won’t sell Delphine. I’ll always keep my drawing of your grandmother.”

“I’d like to see it,” said Hannah.

“Of course you’ll see it. I’ll bring it here.”

“Here?” She frowned.

“Closing the gallery rather makes me homeless, you see. The lease is for the whole building, and if I’m not open for business, then I can’t afford to keep it. I was thinking I might… stay in Blacknowle. For a while.”

“Zach…” Hannah shook her head, and looked troubled.

“Don’t panic. I’m not suggesting I move in with you. But… I want to keep seeing you. I want to help you, if I can. Maybe you could give me a job on the farm.” He grinned.

“And spoil those lovely soft hands of yours? Never.”

“Hannah. When I came here I thought I was looking for Charles Aubrey. I thought I was looking for… for the reason my life had gone the way it had. The reason my marriage had ended, and my business was failing. I thought I was looking for a paycheck, and for answers. But now I know I was wrong about all of that. I think that when I came here, I was looking for you.”

“What are you trying to say? That you’re in love with me?”

“Yes! I think I am. Or I could be, if you gave me half a chance. And I know that… after the way you lost Toby it might seem a lot safer to be by yourself, and to have nothing to lose. But I know you’re braver than that.”

“Zach-” She splayed the fingers of one hand, let them drift up in front of her eyes.

“No, let me finish. I don’t know what will happen next. I’ll get a job of some kind, and I’ll do sketches on the weekends to send to my daughter. But I want… I want to do that here. With you. That’s what I’m trying to say. The only thing I want right now is to be where you are, Hannah.”

Hannah kept watching him, steadily. The breeze lifted a few locks of her hair and brushed them into her eyes, and the sunshine made her squint. She was as hard to read as ever, and Zach wanted to take her face in his hands, keep it still until he could decipher what was written there. After a long silence he realized that she wasn’t going to answer him. That she probably couldn’t answer him; not with words. So he battled on, stepped forwards, and bent to kiss her. There was salt on her lips, and on her skin, and her mouth was warm. She stood still, as taut as a bowstring, but she didn’t step away. And then he let go of her, and he waited. The light and shade of the sky was fleet across her face. He longed to draw her.

“I…” She broke off, cleared her throat. “I was about to swim, if you fancy it.” Zach looked down at himself and smiled.

“But… my clothes…”

“Diddums,” she said, and smiled. “They will dry again, you know, city boy.”

“City boy, still? Am I always going to have that hanging over my head?”

“Probably,” she told him airily.

“All right then. Clothes and all.” Hannah took his hand, and there was conviction in her fingers as they laced through his and held on tightly. A grip that would survive the pull of the water, of the tide. They moved forwards, felt for the edge of the jetty with their feet and then dived in, headfirst, together.

Dimity watched them from the cliff top. They were so caught up in each other, so riveted, that they didn’t look up to notice her. She was tired, but she had wanted to come out onto the cliffs, wanted to look down at the sea. At the place where Charles was, somewhere. His bones were in the white crests of the waves; there were traces of his skin in the sand. He had been taken in, made a part of it. She watched Zach and Hannah dive in together, and she was jealous. She wanted to swim in him, too. She wanted to feel his spectral touch; a hand on her midriff, holding her afloat. Instead the wind circled her gently, uncaringly, and made her eyes sting. Below her, the beach blurred, and she blinked furiously to see again. There were figures on the beach, and she knew, before she could see them properly, who was there. She knew, and the next breath she took felt like glass splinters in her chest.

Delphine and Élodie were playing on the sand. Delphine was standing, neat and decorous, with her yellow cardigan buttoned up and her hair in plaits, conducting her sister in a wild dance. Élodie leaped and spun, her footprints making a circle in the sand around Delphine; long strips of kelp in her hands that she twirled like streamers. The wind lifted up from the shore, and carried the sound of their voices to her. Élodie laughing, high and gleeful; Delphine instructing her, patiently, kindly. Letting her play, letting her be a child. Always a child. The voice was close to her ear and she turned to find Celeste standing beside her, looking down at her daughters with a smile of pride and love. Celeste, with her glorious eyes and her beauty shining like light all around her; no trace of a tremor in her body, no trace of grief in her face. The kelp in Élodie’s hands fluttered and snapped like pennants. Dimity struggled to breathe. There was a pain in her side, in her heart; more than she could bear. She gasped like a landed fish, clasping her right hand to the left side of her ribs, to the wound she felt there, gaping, letting in the cold wind. She wanted to stay with them, with Élodie and Delphine. She wanted to see their faces bright with smiles; the faces of children who were loved, and whole, and carelessly happy. She wanted to see Élodie’s black hair flying out all around her. But they faded. The water swept in and washed away their footsteps. Delphine! She called out, but no sound came from her mouth. Celeste studied her gravely, staying on the cliffs as Dimity turned and walked back to The Watch on slow, unsteady feet.

The Watch was crowded-far too crowded, because they followed her there. Élodie was lying on the sofa, kicking up her heels, and Delphine sat next to her. They were different now. They weren’t happy anymore, these shades. They were waiting. Celeste was walking in wide circles around the house, trying to find a way in, and Valentina scrutinized her every move with narrowed eyes. There were accusations in their eyes; echoes of things so secret that Dimity could barely remember them now. Things so secret she had made herself forget. But the Aubrey girls hadn’t forgotten, and neither had Celeste, or Valentina. Dimity searched the house desperately, the pain in her chest getting worse, but Charles was not there. The one she wanted to see, the one she longed for. Of him there was no sign. She stumbled to the foot of the stairs and started to climb.

His room was lit by the afternoon sun, and the door had been left open. So carelessly, so thoughtlessly. It had never once stood open like that, not since he’d come back to her. He liked it to be closed; liked that security, that privacy. Sometimes, he looked up sharply when she came in, checking to be sure it was her. That instant of fear in his eyes before he recognized her-it had made her heart ache for him, every time. Other times he hadn’t seemed to notice she was there. Now, she went over to his bed, the bed that had been hers in childhood, and gazed down at it as though he might still be lying there. Her fingers trembled. She could almost feel the soft texture of his hair, the hard bars of his ribs. Old maid, Valentina whispered spitefully in her ear. And it was true. Charles couldn’t stand her being too close to him. It seemed as though her touch almost hurt him. The times she’d tried to lie down next to him he’d got a confused, panicked look in his eyes and she’d quickly relented. Sometimes she stole kisses when he slept; just the lightest touch of her lips to his, too soft to wake him. She was ashamed of herself, but could not help herself, either, because in those moments she was a girl again, and they were in the alleyway in Fez where he had put his arms around her and kissed her deeply and the world had been bright and complete and startlingly wonderful.

This was Charles’s room, the one place she might still find him. She put her hand on his pillow, just where his head had lain, and felt her heart slow in response, in recognition. She hadn’t stood by his bed since the night they took him out, and now it felt like that night again. The six years since had been a frightening, fitful dream; now it was time to wake up. To follow him, like she should have done all along. She lay down on the bed, careful not to disturb the sheets. She wanted everything to be as he had left it, as he had last touched it. Wanted her body to touch each place his had touched. She put her head into the hollow in the pillow and crossed her arms over her middle, just as he had done. Lying in the last space he had lain, and yearning to feel him there. Come back to me, my love. Come back and take me with you this time. She breathed as slowly, as quietly as she could, and she waited. Waited to feel him take her hand and show her which way. And soon, softly, he came. She caught her breath in a gasp as she felt it. Just him, just them, alone in the little room where for more than sixty years he had dwelt, and she had loved him, and lived only for him. The others slipped away through the walls-she felt them go. Élodie, Delphine, Celeste, Valentina. Finally, they all let her be. They left her alone with Charles, which was all she had ever wanted. Her heartbeat was slow and tired; she felt so cold and heavy that she didn’t think she would ever get up from that bed again. She didn’t ever want to. And then he was there. She heard him clearly; and the joy of it was a vivid pain right through her, so sweet, so sharp. Mitzy, don’t move. And she didn’t. Not even to breathe.