The Distant Hours

Milderhurst Castle was almost lost to the Sisters Blythe in 1952. The castle needed urgent repair, the Blythe family finances were dire, and the National Trust was keen to acquire the property and begin its restoration. It seemed that the sisters had little choice but to move somewhere smaller, sell the estate to strangers, or sign it over to the Trust so they might get on with ‘preserving the crowning glory of the building and gardens’. Only they did none of those things. Percy Blythe opened the castle to visitors instead, sold a few parcels of surrounding farmland, and somehow managed to scrape together sufficient funds to keep the old place standing.

I know this because I spent the better part of a sunny weekend in August trawling through the local library’s micro- film records of the Milderhurst Mercury. In retrospect, telling my dad that the origin of The True History of the Mud Man was a great literary mystery was a little like putting a box of chocolates on the floor beside a toddler and expecting him not to touch it. He’s rather results-based, my dad, and he liked the idea that he might be able to solve a mystery that had plagued academics for decades. He had his theory: the real-life kidnapping of a long-ago child lay at the novel’s gothic heart; all he needed to do was prove it and the fame, the glory, the personal satisfaction, would be his. Confinement to bed, however, is no friend to the sleuth, so an agent was necessarily enlisted and dispatched in his place. Which was where I figured. I humoured him for three reasons: partly because he was recuperating from a heart attack, partly because his theory wasn’t completely ridiculous, but most of all because reading my mother’s letters had stretched my fascination with Milderhurst to pathological proportions.

I started my enquiries, as I usually do, by asking Herbert whether he knew anything about unsolved kidnapping cases from the early part of the century. One of my hands-down favourite things about Herbert – and the list is long – is his ability to find precisely the information he’s after in the face of apparent chaos. His house is tall and skinny to start with, four one-time flats patched back together: our office and printing press takes up the first two levels, the attic’s been sacrificed to storage, and the basement flat is where he lives with Jess. Every wall of every room is lined with books: old books, new books, first editions, signed editions, twenty-third editions, stacked together on mismatched, improvised sets of shelves, in a glorious, healthy disregard for display. And yet the entire collection is catalogued in his brain, his very own reference library, so that he has every reading experience of his life at his fingertips. To see him home in on a target is a thing of beauty: first, his impressive brow furrows as he takes in the query, then a single finger, delicate and smooth as a candlestick, raises and he hobbles, wordlessly, to a distant wall of books where the finger is given free reign to hover, as if magnetized, above the spines, leading him, finally, to slide the perfect book from its place.

Asking Herbert about the kidnapping was a lazy long shot, so I wasn’t really surprised when it yielded little of use. I told him not to feel bad and headed to the library, where I befriended a delightful old lady in the basement who’d apparently been waiting there all her life on the off-chance I’d show up. ‘Just sign in over here, my dear,’ she said eagerly, pointing to a clipboard and biro, and shadowing me closely as I filled in the requisite columns. ‘Oh, Billing & Brown, how lovely. My dear old friend, may he rest in peace, published his memoirs with B &B some thirty years ago.’

There weren’t many other folk spending that gorgeous summer’s day in the bowels of the library, so I was easily able to co-opt Miss Yeats to my purpose. We passed a lovely time together, trawling through the archives, turning up three unsolved kidnapping cases in and around Kent during the Victorian and Edwardian periods, then plenty of newspaper reports concerning the Blythe family of Milderhurst Castle. There was a charming, semi-regular column of housekeeping advice written by Saffy Blythe throughout the fifties and sixties; numerous articles about Raymond Blythe’s literary success; and some headlining reports of the family’s near loss of Milderhurst in 1952. At the time Percy Blythe had given an interview in which she made an emphatic case: ‘A place is more than the sum of its physical parts; it’s a repository for memories, a record and retainer of all that has happened within its boundaries. This castle belongs to my family. It belonged to my ancestors for centuries before I was born, and I won’t see it passed into the hands of people who wish to plant conifers in its ancient woods.’

A rather pernickety representative of the National Trust had also been interviewed for the article, lamenting the lost opportunity for their new Garden Scheme to restore the property to its former glory: ‘It’s a tragedy,’ he began, ‘to think that the great properties of our nation will be lost to us over the coming decades, through the sheer bloody-mindedness of those who cannot see that in these lean and austere times, individual residence in such national treasures is tantamount to sacrilege.’ When asked about the Trust’s plans for Milderhurst Castle, he outlined a programme of works including, ‘the structural repair of the castle itself, and a complete garden restoration’. An aim, I’d have thought, that was very much in line with Percy Blythe’s wishes for her family estate.

‘There was a lot of ambivalence about the Trust at the time,’ said Miss Yeats, when I ventured as much. ‘The fifties were a difficult period: the cherry trees were taken out at Hidcote, the avenue at Wimpole was cut down, all in the service of a sort of all-purpose historical prettiness.’

The two examples meant little to me, but all-purpose historical prettiness certainly didn’t sound like much of a match for the Percy Blythe I’d met. As I read further, matters became clearer still. ‘It says here that the Trust planned to restore the moat.’ I looked up at Miss Yeats, who inclined her head, awaiting explanation. ‘Raymond Blythe had the moat filled in after the twins’ mother’s death: a sort of symbolic memorial. They wouldn’t have been happy with the Trust’s plans to dig it out again.’ I leaned back in my chair, stretching my lower back. ‘What I don’t understand is how they could’ve hit such hard times in the first place. The Mud Man is a classic, a bestseller, even today. Surely the royalties would have been enough to keep them out of trouble?’

‘One would think so,’ Miss Yeats agreed. Then she frowned and turned her attention to the rather large stack of printouts on the table before us. ‘You know, I’m sure I…’ She shuffled the pages back and forth until one was chosen and held right by her nose. ‘Yes! Here it is.’ She handed me the newspaper article dated May 13th, 1941, and peered over the top of her half-moon glasses. ‘Apparently Raymond Blythe left a couple of large bequests when he died.’

The article was entitled: ‘Generous Gift from Literary Patron Saves Institute’, and was accompanied by a picture of a grinning, dungaree-clad woman clutching a copy of the Mud Man. I scanned the text and saw that Miss Yeats was right: the majority of the royalties were divided after Raymond Blythe’s death between the Catholic Church and another group. ‘The Pembroke Farm Institute,’ I read slowly. ‘It says here that they’re a conservation group based in Sussex. Committed to the promotion of sound ecological practice.’

‘Rather ahead of their time,’ said Miss Yeats.

I nodded.

‘Shall we check the reference files upstairs? See what else we can find?’

Miss Yeats was so buoyed by the prospect of a new research tangent that her cheeks had taken on a rosy sheen and I felt really rather cruel when I said, ‘Not today, no. I’m afraid I haven’t the time.’ She looked crestfallen, so I added, ‘I’m so sorry. But my dad’s expecting a report on my research.’

Which was true, and yet I didn’t go straight home. When I said there were three reasons I was happy to give up my weekend to my dad’s library task, I’m afraid I was a little disingenuous. I wasn’t lying, they were all true, however there was also the small matter of a fourth and more pressing reason. I was avoiding my mother. It was all the fault of those letters, more accurately, of my inability to leave the damned shoebox closed once Rita had given it to me.

I read them all, you see. The night of Sam’s hen party, I took them home and devoured them, one by one, beginning with Mum’s arrival at the castle. I endured with her the freezing early months of 1940, witnessed the Battle of Britain raging above my head, the nights spent shivering in the Anderson shelter. Over the course of eighteen months, the handwriting grew neater, the expression more mature, until finally, in the wee hours, I reached the last letter, the one sent home just before her father came to fetch her back to London. It was dated February 17th, 1941, and read as follows.

Dear Mum and Dad,

I’m sorry that we argued on the telephone. I was so pleased to hear from you both and I feel terrible about the way it ended. I don’t think I explained myself very well at all. What I meant to say is that I understand that you just want the best for me, and I’m grateful, Dad, that you’ve been to speak with Mr Solley on my behalf. I can’t agree, however, that my coming home and finding typing work with him is ‘best’.

Rita is different from me. She hated it here in the country and has always known what she wanted to do and be. For my entire life I’ve felt that there was something wrong with me, that I was ‘other’ in some important way I couldn’t explain; that I couldn’t even understand myself. I love to read books, I love to watch people, I love to capture the things I see and feel by arranging words on paper. Ridiculous, I know! Can you imagine what an odd, black sheep I’ve felt my entire life?

Here, though, I’ve met people who enjoy these things, too; and I realize that there are others who see the world as I do. Saffy believes that when the war ends, which it must do soon, I have a good chance of getting a place at one of the grammar schools, after that – who knows? Perhaps even university?! I must keep up with my schooling though, if I am to stand a chance of transferring to grammar school.

So I beg you – please don’t make me come home! The Blythes are happy for me to stay and you know that I’m well cared for here. You haven’t ‘lost’ me, Mum; I wish you wouldn’t put it like that. I’m your daughter – you couldn’t lose me if you tried. Please, though, please let me stay.

With much love and heaps of hope,

Your daughter, Meredith

I dreamed of Milderhurst that night. I was a girl again, dressed in a school uniform I didn’t recognize, and standing at the tall iron gates at the bottom of the driveway. They were locked and far too high to scale; so high that when I looked up at where their tops should be they seemed to disappear into the swirling clouds above. I tried to climb them but my feet kept slipping, they’d gone all jelly-like, the way they often do in dreams: the iron was icy beneath my hands, yet I was filled with a deep longing, a fierce desire to know what lay beyond.

I looked down and saw that a large key, rusting around the edges, lay across my palm. Next thing I knew, I was beyond the gates and sitting in a carriage on the other side. In a scene borrowed directly from the Mud Man, I was being drawn up the long and winding drive, past the dark and shivering woods, across the bridges, until finally the castle loomed above me at the top of the hill.

And then, somehow, I was inside. The whole place felt abandoned. Dust coated the corridor floors, the paintings hung crooked on the walls, the curtains had all faded, but it was more than just the way it looked. The air was stale, cloying, and I felt as if I’d been locked within a box inside a dark and musty attic.

A noise then, a whispery, rustling sound, and the merest suggestion of movement. At the end of the hall was Juniper, dressed in the same silky dress she’d been wearing when I visited the castle. I was aware of a strange sense within me, the dream’s pervasive mood of profound and troubled longing. I knew, although she didn’t say a word, that this was October 1941 and she was waiting for Thomas Cavill to arrive. A door appeared behind her, the entrance to the good parlour. There was music, a tune I felt I knew.

I followed her into the room where a table had been set. The room was thick with anticipation, and I drifted around the table, counting the places, knowing, though I’m not sure how, that one was set for me and another for my mum. Juniper was saying something then, that is, her lips were moving but I couldn’t make out any words.

Then, suddenly, I was at the parlour window, only, in a strange dream twist of logic, it was my mother’s kitchen window too, and I was staring at the glass pane. I looked outside and it was stormy and I realized there was a glistening, black moat. Movement and a dark figure began to emerge; my heart struck like a bell. I knew it was the Mud Man and I was frozen where I stood. My feet had become one with the floor, but just when I was about to scream, my fear suddenly disappeared. I was filled instead with a flood of yearning and sorrow and, quite unexpectedly, desire.

I woke with a start, catching my dream in the process of dissolving. Tattered fancies hung like ghosts in the room’s corners and I lay very still for a time, willing them not to dissipate. It seemed to me that even the slightest movement, the merest hint of morning sunlight, would burn the imprints off like fog. And I didn’t want to lose them yet. The dream had been so vivid, the heaviness of longing so real that when I pressed my hand against my chest I half-expected to find the skin bruised. After a time, the sun rose high enough to slide across the rooftop of Singer & Sons and pry through the gaps in my curtains and the dream’s spell was broken. I sat up with a sigh and noticed Gran’s shoebox on the end of the bed. At the sight of all those envelopes addressed to Elephant and Castle, details of the night before came rushing back and I was hit by the sudden, clear-light-of-day guilt of someone who’d glutted on a feast of fat and sugar and someone else’s secrets. No matter how glad I was to have acquired the voice, the pictures, the small sense of my mum, and no matter how convincing my justifications (the letters were written long ago; they were intended for an audience; she’d never have to know), I couldn’t erase the expression on Rita’s face as she’d given me the box and told me to have a good old read; the hint of triumph, as if we two shared a secret now, a bond, a connection that excluded her sister. The warm feeling of holding the little girl’s hand had gone, leaving only the sneak’s remorse in its place.

I would have to confess my crime, that much was certain, but I made a deal with myself. If I managed to leave the house without running into Mum, I could have a day’s grace to consider how best to do it. On the other hand, if I ran into her before I reached the door, I would confess all, then and there. I dressed quickly and quietly, took stealthy care of all additional grooming needs, rescued my tote from the lounge – all was going brilliantly until I reached the kitchen. Mum was standing by the kettle, robe fastened around her middle, a little higher than it should be, giving her an odd snowman-like shape.

‘Morning, Edie,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder.

Too late to backtrack. ‘Morning, Mum.’

‘Sleep well?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

I was rustling up an excuse for skipping breakfast when she put a cup of tea on the table in front of me and said, ‘And how was Samantha’s party?’

‘Colourful. Noisy.’ I gave her a quick smile. ‘You know Sam.’

‘I didn’t hear you come in last night. I left you some supper.’

‘Oh…’

‘I wasn’t sure, but I see you didn’t-’

‘I was pretty tired-’

‘Of course.’

Oh, but I felt like a heel! And the unfortunate pudding effect of Mum’s robe made her seem more vulnerable than ever, which made me feel even worse. I sat where she’d put the tea, drew a decisive breath and said, ‘Mum, there’s something I need to-’

‘Ah!’ She winced, sucked her finger then shook it quickly. ‘Steam,’ she said, blowing lightly across her fingertip. ‘It’s this silly new kettle.’

‘Can I fetch you some ice?’

‘I’ll just run it under cold water.’ She turned on the tap. ‘It’s something in the shape of the spout. I don’t know why they keep redesigning things that work perfectly well already.’

I took another breath, but let it out again as she continued talking.

‘I wish they’d just focus their attention on something useful. A cure for cancer, perhaps.’ She turned off the tap.

‘Mum, there’s something I really need-’

‘I’ll be right back, Edie; let me take your father his tea lest the bell begin to toll.’

She disappeared upstairs and I waited, wondering what I was going to say, how I was going to say it, whether it was possible to phrase my sin in such a way that she might understand. A fond hope, but I dismissed it swiftly. There is no kind way of telling someone you’ve been peeking through the keyhole at them.

I could hear the edges of the low conversation Mum was having with Dad, then his door closing, then footsteps. I stood quickly. What was I thinking? I needed more time; it was foolish just to rush in; a little thought would make all the difference – but then she was in the kitchen saying, ‘That ought to keep His Nibs happy for the next fifteen minutes,’ and I was still standing somewhat awkwardly behind my chair, as natural as a bad actor in a play.

‘You’re off already?’ she said, surprised. ‘You haven’t even had your tea.’

‘I, ah…’

‘You were saying something, weren’t you?’

I picked up my teacup and studied the contents closely. ‘I…’

‘Well?’ She tightened the belt of her robe, waiting for me, the merest hint of concern narrowing her eyes. ‘What is it?’

Who was I kidding? More thought, a few additional hours: none of it was going to change the facts. I let out a sigh of resignation. ‘I have something for you.’

I went back up to my room and collected the letters from beneath my bed.

Mum watched my return, a slight crease in her brow, and I laid the box on the table between us.

‘Slippers?’ She frowned lightly, first at her slipper-clad feet, then at me. ‘Well, thank you, Edie. One can never have too many pairs.’

‘No, but you see, they’re not-’

‘Your gran.’ She smiled suddenly, a distant memory firing. ‘Your gran used to wear this type.’ And the look she gave me then was so unguarded, so unexpectedly pleased, that it was all I could do not to seize the lid from the box and declare myself the ghastly traitor that I was. ‘Did you know that, Edie? Is that why you bought them? It’s a wonder you could still find the old-’

‘They’re not slippers, Mum. Open the box; please, just open it.’

‘Edie?’ An uncertain smile as she sat in the nearest chair and pulled the box towards her. She offered me a last wavering glance before turning her attention to the lid, lifting it and frowning at the pile of discoloured envelopes within.

My blood ran hot and thin, like petrol beneath my skin, as I watched the emotions flit across her face. Confusion, suspicion, then the intake of breath heralding recognition. Later, as I ran the memory over in my mind, I could pinpoint the precise instant at which the scrawled handwriting on the top envelope metamorphosed into a lived experience. I saw her face change, her features adopting, once more, those of the almost-thirteen-year-old girl who’d written the first letter to her parents, telling them about the castle in which she’d found herself; she was there again, caught in the original moment of composition.

Mum’s fingers rested on her lips, her cheek, then hovered above the soft indentation at the base of her throat, until finally, after what seemed an age, she reached tentatively into the box, withdrew the pile of envelopes and sat holding them in both hands. Hands that were shaking. She spoke without meeting my eyes. ‘Where did you…?’

‘Rita.’

She released a slow sigh, nodded as if she’d been given the answer to something she should have guessed. ‘How did she come by them? Did she say?’

‘They were with Gran’s things, after she died.’

A noise that might have been the start of a laugh, wistful, surprised, a little bit sad. ‘I can’t believe she kept them.’

‘You wrote them,’ I said softly. ‘Of course she kept them.’

Mum was shaking her head. ‘But it wasn’t like that… my mother and I, we weren’t like that.’

I thought of The Book of Magical Wet Animals. My mother and I weren’t like that either, or so I’d thought. ‘I suppose that’s what parents do.’

Mum fumbled envelopes from the pile, fanning them out in her hands. ‘Things from the past,’ she said, more to herself than to me. ‘Things I’d worked so hard to put behind me.’ Her fingers lightly traced the drift of envelopes. ‘Now it seems no matter where I turn…’

My heart had begun to race at the promise of revelation. ‘Why do you want to forget the past, Mum?’

But she didn’t answer, not right then. The photograph, smaller than the letters, had fallen loose from the pile, just as it had the night before, slipping onto the table. She inhaled, before lifting it higher, rubbing her thumb across its surface; the expression on her face was vulnerable, pained. ‘Such a long time ago, yet sometimes…’

She seemed to remember then that I was there. Made a show of tucking the photograph back amongst the letters, casually, as if it meant little to her. She looked directly at me. ‘Your gran and I… it was never easy. We were very different people, we always had been, but my evacuation brought certain things to the fore. We fought and she never forgave me.’

‘Because you wanted to transfer to grammar school?’

Everything seemed to freeze then, even the natural circulations in the air stopped their swirling.

Mum looked as if she’d been struck. She spoke quietly, a quaver in her voice: ‘You read them? You read my letters?’

I swallowed; nodded jerkily.

‘How could you, Edith? These are private.’

All my earlier justifications dissolved like flecks of tissue in the rain. Shame made my eyes water so that everything seemed bleached, including Mum’s face. Colour had dissolved from her skin, leaving only a splatter of small freckles across her nose so that she looked like her thirteen-year-old self. ‘I just… I wanted to know.’

‘It’s none of your business to know,’ Mum hissed. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you.’ She seized the box, clutched it tightly to her chest, and after a moment’s indecision hurried towards the door.

‘But it does,’ I said to myself, then louder, my voice trembling, ‘you lied to me.’

A stumble in her step -

‘About Juniper’s letter, about Milderhurst, about everything; we did go back – ’

The slightest hesitation in the doorway, but she didn’t turn and she didn’t stop.

‘ – I remember it.’

And I was alone again, surrounded by that peculiar glassy silence that follows when something fragile has been broken. At the top of the stairs a door slammed shut.

A fortnight had passed since then, and even by our standards relations were icy. We’d maintained a ghastly civility, for Dad’s sake as much as because it was our style, nodding and smiling but never speaking a word that wasn’t of the ‘Please pass the salt’ variety. I felt guilty and self-righteous in turn; proud and interested in the girl who loved books as much as I did, angry and hurt by the woman who refused to share the merest part of herself with me.

Most of all though, I regretted having told her about the letters. I cursed whoever it was that said honesty was the best policy, turned a keen eye back to the letting pages, and fed our cold war by making sure I was barely around. It wasn’t difficult: the edits for Ghosts of Romney Marsh were under way so I had a perfectly valid reason for putting in long hours at the office. Herbert, for his part, was pleased to have the company. My industry, he said, reminded him of the ‘good old days’ when the war had finally ended, England was getting back on its feet, and he and Mr Brown were rushing about acquiring manuscripts and filling orders.

So it was, on the Saturday of the library visit, when I tucked my file of newspaper printouts beneath my arm, checked my watch and realized it had only just gone one, I didn’t head for home. Dad was sweating on his kidnapping research, but he’d wait until our Mud Man session that evening. I started for Notting Hill instead. Swept along by the promise of good company, welcome distraction, and maybe even a little something for lunch.

The Plot Becomes Rather Thick

I had forgotten that Herbert was away for the weekend, delivering the keynote address at the Annual Meeting of the Bookbinders Association. The shades at Billing & Brown were down and the office was sombre and lifeless. As I stepped across the threshold and was met by utter stillness, I felt a deflation out of all proportion.

‘Jess?’ I called hopefully. ‘Jessie girl?’

There came no grateful padding, no laboured clamber up the stairs from the basement, just ripples of silence rolling towards me. There is something deeply disquieting about a beloved place relieved of its rightful occupants, and at that moment I’d never been so eager to jostle with Jess for room on the sofa.

‘Jessie?’ Still nothing. Which meant that she had gone to Shrewsbury, too, and I really was alone.

Never mind, I jollied myself along, there was plenty of work to keep me busy all afternoon. Ghosts of Romney Marsh was going to proof on Monday and although circumstances had already gifted it my close attention, there was always room for improvement. I lifted the blinds, switched on my desk lamp, making as much incidental noise as I could, then sat down and leafed through the manuscript pages. I shifted commas, I put them back again. I vacillated over the merits of using ‘however’ in place of ‘but’ without drawing any conclusion and marked the spot for further thought. I similarly failed to reach a firm decision on the next five stylistic queries before deciding it had been madness to attempt concentration on an empty stomach.

Herbert had been cooking and there was fresh pumpkin lasagne in the fridge. I removed a slice, heated it up, and took my plate back to my desk. It felt wrong to eat over the ghost whisperer’s manuscript, so I slid across my file of Milderhurst Mercury printouts instead. I read bits and pieces, but most of all I looked at the pictures. There’s something deeply nostalgic about black-and-white photographs, the absence of colour a visual rendering of the deepening funnel of time. There were lots of shots taken of the castle itself at various periods, some of the estate, a very old one of Raymond Blythe and his twin daughters on the occasion of the publication of the Mud Man. Photos of Percy Blythe looking stiff and uncomfortable at the wedding of a local couple called Harold and Lucy Rogers, Percy Blythe cutting the ribbon at the opening of a community centre, Percy Blythe presenting a signed copy of the Mud Man to the winner of a poetry competition.

I flicked back through the pages: Saffy was in none of them, and the fact struck me as rather unusual. Juniper’s absence I could understand, but where was Saffy? I picked up an article celebrating the end of the Second World War, highlighting the involvement of various villagers. Yet another photograph of Percy Blythe, this time in ambulance uniform. I stared at it thoughtfully. It was possible, of course, that Saffy didn’t like having her photo taken. It was possible, too, that she was staunchly opposed to involvement in the wider community. More likely, though, I felt certain, having seen the pair in action, she was a twin who knew her place. With a sister like Percy, filled with the steel of resolution and a fierce commitment to her family’s good name, what hope had poor Saffy of getting her smile in the newspaper?

It was not a good photograph, very unflattering. Percy was in the foreground and the photo had been taken from below, no doubt in order to capture the castle behind her. The angle was unfortunate, making Percy seem looming and rather severe; the fact that she wasn’t smiling didn’t help matters.

I looked closer. There was something in the background that I hadn’t noticed before, just beyond Percy’s tightly cropped hair. I dug in Herbert’s drawer until I found the magnifying glass, held it over the photograph and squinted. Drew back in amazement. It was just as I had thought. There was someone on the castle roof. Sitting on a ridge by one of the peaks, a figure in a long white dress. I knew at once that it must be Juniper. Poor sad, mad Juniper.

As I looked at the tiny speck of white up by the attic window, I was overcome by a wave of indignant sadness. Anger, too. My feeling that Thomas Cavill was the root of all evil reawakened and I let myself sink once more into my imaginings of the fateful October night on which he’d broken Juniper’s heart and ruined her life. The fantasy was well developed, I’m afraid; I’d been there many times before, and it played like a familiar film, moody soundtrack and all. I was with the sisters in that perfectly set parlour, listening as they wondered what could be keeping him so long, watching as Juniper began to fall victim to the madness that would consume her, when something happened. Something that had never happened before.

I’m not sure why or how, only that clarity, when it came, was sudden and fevered. The dream soundtrack screeched to a halt and the vision dissolved leaving only one fact behind: there was more to this story than met the eye. There had to be. For people didn’t go mad simply because their lover stood them up, did they? Even if they did have a history of anxiety or depression or whatever Mrs Bird had meant when she spoke of Juniper’s episodes.

I let the Mercury drop and sat up very straight. I’d taken the sad story of Juniper Blythe at face value because Mum was right: I’m terribly fanciful and tragic tales are my favourite type. But this wasn’t fiction, this was real life, and I needed to look at the situation more critically. I’m an editor, it’s my job to examine narratives for plausibility, and this one was lacking in some way. It was over-simplified. Love affairs disintegrate, people betray one another, lovers part. Human experience is littered with such personal tragedies; ghastly, but surely, in the greater scheme, minor? She went mad: the words rolled off the tongue well enough, but the reality seemed thin, like something out of a penny dreadful. Why, I had been replaced in similar fashion myself recently and had not gone mad. Not even skirted close.

My heart had started to tick along rather quickly and I was already reaching for my bag, shoving my newspaper file back inside, gathering my dirty plate and cutlery for the kitchen. I needed to find Thomas Cavill. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Mum wasn’t going to talk to me, Juniper couldn’t; he was the key, the answer to everything lay at his feet and I needed to know more about him.

I switched off the lamp, dropped the blinds and locked the front door behind me. I’m a book person, not a people person, so it didn’t occur to me to do it any other way: with a skip in my step, I hurried back in the direction of the library.

Miss Yeats was delighted to see me. ‘Back so soon,’ she said, with the sort of enthusiasm you might expect from a long-lost friend. ‘But you’re all wet! Don’t tell me the weather’s come in again.’

I hadn’t even noticed. ‘I don’t have an umbrella,’ I said.

‘Well, never mind. You’ll dry off soon enough, and I’m very glad you’ve come.’ She gathered a thin pile of papers from her desk and brought it to me with a reverence befitting transportation of the holy grail itself. ‘I know you said you hadn’t time, but I did a little sleuthing anyway – the Pembroke Farm Institute,’ she said, having noticed, perhaps, that I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. ‘Raymond Blythe’s bequest?’

‘Oh,’ I said, remembering. The morning seemed an awfully long time ago. ‘Terrific. Thanks.’

‘I’ve printed out everything I could find. I was going to ring you at work and let you know, but now you’re here!’

I thanked her again and gave the documents a cursory glance, flicking through pages detailing the institute’s history of conservation, making a small show of considering the information, before tucking them inside my bag. ‘I’m really looking forward to exploring them properly,’ I said, ‘but there’s something I need to do first.’ And I explained then that I was looking for information about a man. ‘Thomas Cavill is his name. He was a soldier during the Second World War and a teacher before that. He lived and worked near Elephant and Castle.’

She was nodding. ‘Is there anything in particular you were hoping to uncover?’

Why he failed to arrive at Milderhurst Castle for dinner in October 1941, why Juniper Blythe was plunged into a madness from which she never recovered, why my mother refused to talk to me about any aspect of her past. ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Whatever I can find.’

Miss Yeats was a wizard. While I battled the microfilm machine solo, cursing the dial which refused to perform small incremental shifts and flew instead through weeks at a time, she darted about the library accumulating odd bits of paper from here and there. When we reconvened after half an hour, I brought a worse-for-wear newsreel and a crushing headache to the table, while she’d assembled a small but decent dossier of information.

There wasn’t much, certainly nowhere near the reams of local press concerning the Blythe family and their castle, but it was a start. There was a small birth notice from a 1916 Bermondsey Gazette, that read, CAVILL – Feb 22, at Henshaw St, the wife of Thomas Cavill of a son, Thomas, an effusive report in the Southwark Star from 1937, entitled ‘Local Teacher Wins Poetry Prize,’ and another from 1939 with a similarly unambiguous title, ‘Local Teacher Joins War Effort’. The second article contained a small photograph labelled ‘Mr Thomas Cavill’, but the copy was of such poor quality that I could tell little more about him than that he was a young man with a head, shoulders and a British army uniform. It seemed rather a small collection of public information to show for a man’s life and I was extremely disappointed to see that there was nothing at all from after 1939.

‘That’s it,’ I said, trying to sound philosophical rather than ungrateful.

‘Almost.’ Miss Yeats handed me another clutch of papers.

They were advertisements, all dated March 1981, all taken from the bottom corner of The Times, Guardian and Daily Telegraph classifieds. Each one bore the same message:

Would Thomas Cavill, once of Elephant and Castle, please telephone Theo on the following number as a matter of urgency: (01) 394 7521

‘Well,’ I said.

‘Well,’ Miss Yeats concurred. ‘Rather curious, wouldn’t you agree? Whatever could they mean?’

I shook my head. I had no idea. ‘One thing’s certain: this Theo, whoever he might be, was pretty keen to get in touch with Thomas.’

‘May I ask, dear – I mean, I certainly don’t like to pry, but is there anything here that helps you with your project?’

I took another look at the classifieds, pushed my hair behind my ears. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Because you know, if it’s his service record you’re interested in, the Imperial War Museum has a wonderful archive collection. Or else there’s the General Register Office for births, deaths and marriages. And I’m sure with just a little more time I could… oh dear,’ she said, flushing as she glanced at her watch, ‘but what a shame. It’s almost closing time. And right when we were getting somewhere. I don’t suppose there’s anything more I could do to help before they lock us in?’

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘there is one little thing. Do you think I could use your telephone?’

It had been eleven years since the advertisements were placed so I’m not sure what I expected, I know only what I hoped: that a fellow by the name of Theo would pick up at the other end and happily fill me in on the past fifty years of Thomas Cavill’s life. Needless to say, it’s not what happened. My first attempt was met by the rude insistence of a disconnection tone and I was so utterly frustrated that I couldn’t help but stamp my foot like a spoiled Victorian child. Miss Yeats was kind enough to ignore the tantrum, reminding me gently to convert the area code to 071 in line with the recent changes, then hovering very closely as I dialled the number. Under scrutiny I grew clumsy and had to try a second time, but finally – success!

I gave the receiver a quick tap to signal that the number had begun to ring; touched Miss Yeats’s shoulder excitedly when the line picked up. It was answered by a kindly lady who told me, when I asked for Theo, that she’d bought the house from an elderly man by that name the year before. ‘Theodore Cavill,’ she said, ‘that’s who you’re after, isn’t it?’

I could barely contain myself. Theodore Cavill. A relative, then. ‘That’s him.’

Beneath my nose, Miss Yeats clapped the heels of her hands like a seal.

‘He went to live in a nursing home in Putney,’ said the lady on the phone, ‘right by the river. He was very happy about that, I remember. Said he used to teach at a school across the way.’

I went to visit him. I went that very evening.

There were five nursing homes in Putney, only one of which was on the river, and I found it easily. The drizzle had blown away and the evening was warm and clear; I stood at the front like someone in a dream, comparing the address of the plain brick building before me to that in my notepad.

As soon as I set foot inside the foyer, I was accosted by the nurse on duty, a young woman with a pixie haircut and a way of smiling so that one side of her mouth rose higher than the other. I told her who I’d come to see and she grinned.

‘Oh, how lovely! He’s one of our sweetest is Theo.’

I felt my first pang of doubt then and returned her smile a little queasily. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now, beneath the stark fluorescent light of the hallway we were fast approaching, I wasn’t so sure. There was something not terribly likeable about a person prepared to impose upon an unsuspecting old gentleman, one of the nursing home’s sweetest. An arrant stranger with designs on the fellow’s family history. I considered backing out, but my guide was surprisingly invested in my visit and had already railroaded me through the foyer with breathtaking efficiency.

‘It’s lonely for them when they get near the end,’ she was saying, ‘especially if they never married. No kids or grand-kids to think about.’

I agreed and smiled and trailed her at a skip along the wide, white corridor. Door after door, the spaces between punctuated by wall-hung vases. Purple flowers, just this side of fresh, poked their heads over the top, and I wondered absently whose job it was to change them. I didn’t ask, though, and we didn’t stop, continuing right down the corridor until we reached a door at the very end. Through its glass panel, I could see that a neat garden lay on the other side. The nurse held open the door and tilted her head, indicating that I should go first, then followed closely on my heel.

‘Theo,’ she said, in a louder-than-normal voice, though to whom she spoke I couldn’t tell. ‘Someone here to see you. I’m sorry – ’ she turned to me – ‘I don’t remember your name.’

‘Edie. Edie Burchill.’

‘Edie Burchill’s here to visit, Theo.’

I saw then an iron bench seat just beyond a low hedge, and an old man standing. It was evident from the way he stooped, the hand holding the back of the seat, that he’d been sitting until the moment we arrived, that he’d clambered to his feet out of habit, a vestige of the old-fashioned manners he’d no doubt been using all his life. He blinked through bottle-thick glasses. ‘Hello there,’ he said. ‘Join me, won’t you?’

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said the nurse. ‘I’m just inside. Give me a yell if there’s anything you need.’ She bobbed her head, crossed her arms, and disappeared sprucely back along the red-brick path. The door closed behind her and Theo and I were left alone in the garden.

He was tiny, five foot tall if he was lucky, with the sort of portly body you might draw, if you were so inclined, by starting with a rough aubergine shape and strapping a belt across the widest point. He gestured away from me with a tufted head. ‘I’ve been sitting here watching the river. It never stops, you know.’

I liked his voice. Something in its warm timbre reminded me of being a very little child, of sitting cross-legged on a dusty carpet while a blurry-faced grown-up intoned reassuringly and my mind took leave to wander. I was aware suddenly that I had no idea how to begin speaking with this old man. That coming here had been an enormous mistake and I needed to leave immediately. I’d opened my mouth to tell him so when he said, ‘I’ve been stalling. I’m afraid I can’t place you. Forgive me, it’s my memory…’

‘It’s quite all right. We haven’t met before.’

‘Oh?’ He was silent and his lips moved slowly around his thoughts. ‘I see… well, never mind, you’re here now, and I don’t have a lot of visitors… I’m terribly sorry, I’ve forgotten your name already. I know Jean said it, but…’

Run, said my brain. ‘I’m Edie,’ said my mouth. ‘I’ve come about your advertisements.’

‘My…?’ He cupped his ear as if he might have misheard. ‘Advertisements, did you say? I’m sorry, but I think you might’ve confused me with someone else.’

I reached inside my bag and found the printout page from The Times. ‘I’ve come about Thomas Cavill,’ I said, holding it so he could see.

He wasn’t looking at the paper though. I’d startled him and his whole face changed, confusion swept aside by delight. ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said eagerly. ‘Come, sit down, sit down. Who are you with then, the police? The military police?’

The police? It was my turn for confusion. I shook my head.

He’d become agitated, clasping his small hands together and speaking very quickly: ‘I knew if I just lasted long enough, someone, someday would show a bit of interest in my brother. Come.’ He waved impatiently. ‘Sit down, please. Tell me – what is it? What have you found?’

I was utterly flummoxed; I had no idea what he meant. I went closer and spoke gently. ‘Mr Cavill, I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding. I haven’t found anything and I’m not with the police. Or with the military for that matter. I’ve come because I’m trying to find your brother – to find Thomas – and I thought you might be able to help.’

His head inclined. ‘You thought I might… That I could help you…?’ Realization drained the colour from his cheeks. He held the back of the seat for support and nodded with a bitter dignity that made me ache, even though I didn’t understand its cause. ‘I see…’ A faint smile. ‘I see.’

I’d upset him and although I’d no idea how, or what the police might have to do with Thomas Cavill, I knew I had to say something to explain my presence. ‘Your brother was my mother’s teacher, back before the war. We were talking the other day, she and I, and she was telling me what an inspiration he was. That she was sorry to have lost contact with him.’ I swallowed, surprised and disturbed in equal measure by how easy it was for me to lie like this. ‘She was wondering what became of him, whether he kept teaching after the war, whether he got married.’

As I spoke, his attention had drifted back towards the river, but I could tell by the glaze of his eyes that he wasn’t seeing anything. Nothing that was there, at any rate; not the people strolling across the bridge, or the small boats bobbing on the distant bank, or the ferry-load of tourists with pointed cameras. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t have any idea what happened to Tom.’

Theo sat down, easing his back against the iron rails and picking up his story. ‘My brother disappeared in 1941. The middle of the war. First we knew was a knock at my mum’s door and the local bobby standing there. Wartime reserve policeman, he was – friend of my dad’s when he was alive, fought alongside him in the Great War. Ah – ’ Theo flapped his hand as if he were swatting a fly, ‘he was embarrassed, poor fellow. Must’ve hated delivering that sort of news.’

‘What sort of news?’

‘Tom hadn’t reported for duty and the bobby’d come to bring him in.’ Theo sighed with the memory. ‘Poor old Mum. What could she do? She told the fellow the truth: that Tom wasn’t there and she had no idea where he was staying, that he’d taken to living alone since he was wounded. Couldn’t settle back into the family home after Dunkirk.’

‘He was evacuated?’

Theo nodded. ‘Almost didn’t make it. He spent weeks in hospital afterwards; his leg mended up all right, but my sisters said he came out different to when he went in. He’d laugh in all the same places but there’d be a pause beforehand. Like he was reading lines from a script.’

A child had begun to cry nearby and Theo’s attention flickered in the direction of the river path; he smiled faintly. ‘Ice cream dropped,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t be a Saturday in Putney if some poor kid didn’t lose his ice cream on that path.’

I waited for him to continue and when he didn’t, prompted him as gently as I could. ‘And what happened? What did your mother do?’

He was still watching the path, but he tapped his fingers on the back of the seat and said, in a quiet voice, ‘Tom was absent without leave in the middle of a war. The bobby’s hands were tied. He was a good man though, showed some leniency out of respect for Dad; gave Mum twenty-four hours to find Tom and have him report for duty before it all went official.’

‘But she didn’t? She didn’t find him.’

He shook his head. ‘Needle in a haystack. Mum and my sisters went to pieces. They searched everywhere they could think but…’ He shrugged weakly. ‘I was no help, I wasn’t there at the time – I’ve never forgiven myself for that. I was up north, training with my regiment. First I knew was when Mum’s letter arrived. By then it was too late. Tom was on the absconders’ list.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘He’s on it to this day.’ His eyes met mine and I was dismayed to see that they were glassy with tears. He straightened his thick spectacles, hooked the arms over his ears. ‘I’ve checked every year since because they told me once that some old fellows turn up decades later. Front up at the guardroom with their tail between their legs and a string of bad decisions behind them. Throw themselves on the mercy of the officer on duty.’ He lifted a hand and let it fall, helplessly, back to his knee. ‘I only check because I’m desperate. I know in my heart that Tom won’t be showing up at any guardroom.’ He met my concern, searched my eyes and said, ‘Dishonourable bloody discharge.’

There was chatter behind us and I glanced over my shoulder to see a young man helping an elderly woman through the door and into the garden. The woman laughed at something he’d said as they walked together slowly to look at the roses.

Theo had seen them, too, and he lowered his voice. ‘Tom was an honourable man.’ Each word was a struggle and, as he held his lips tight against the quiver of strong emotion, I could see how much he needed me to believe the best of his brother. ‘He never would’ve done what they said, run away like that. Never. I told them so, the military police. No one would listen. It broke my mother’s heart. The shame, the worry, wondering what had really happened to him. Whether he was out there somewhere, lost and alone. Whether he’d come to some harm, forgotten who he was and where he belonged – ’ He broke off, rubbed at his bowed brow as if abashed, and I understood that these were heartbreaking theories for which he’d been castigated in the past. ‘Whatever the case,’ he said, ‘she never got over it. He was her favourite, though she’d never have admitted such a thing. She didn’t have to: he was everybody’s favourite, Tom.’

Silence fell and I watched as two rooks twirled across the sky. The rose couple’s stroll brought them close and I waited for them to reach the riverbank before turning to Theo and saying, ‘Why wouldn’t the police listen? Why were they so sure that Tom had run away?’

‘There was a letter.’ A nerve in his jaw flickered. ‘Early 1942 it arrived, a few months after Tom went missing. Typed and very short, saying only that he’d met someone and run off to get married. That he was lying low, but would make contact later. Once the police saw that, they weren’t interested in Tom or us. There was a war on, didn’t we know? There wasn’t time to be looking for a fellow who’d deserted his nation.’

His hurt was still so raw, fifty years later. I could only imagine what it must have been like at the time. To be missing a loved one and unable to convince anyone else to help in the search. And yet. In Milderhurst village I’d been told that Thomas Cavill failed to show up at the castle because he’d eloped with another woman. Was it only family pride and loyalty that made Theo so certain the elopement was a lie? ‘You don’t believe the letter?’

‘Not for a second.’ His vehemence was a knife. ‘It’s true that he’d met a girl and fallen in love. He told me that himself, wrote long letters about her – how beautiful she was, how she made everything right with the world, how he was going to marry her. But he wasn’t about to elope – he couldn’t wait to introduce her to the family.’

‘You didn’t meet her?’

He shook his head. ‘None of us did. It was something to do with her family and keeping it secret until they’d broken the news to them. I got the feeling her people were rather grand.’

My heart had started to race as Theo’s story overlay so neatly with the cast of my own. ‘Do you remember the girl’s name?’

‘He never told me.’

The frustration winded me.

‘He was adamant that he had to meet her family first. I can’t tell you how it’s plagued me over the years,’ he said. ‘If I’d only known who she was, I might’ve had a place to start searching. What if she went missing too? What if the pair of them were in an accident together? What if her family has information that might help?’

It was on the tip of my tongue then to tell him about Juniper, but I thought better of it at the last. I couldn’t see that there was any point in raising his hopes when the Blythes had no additional information on the whereabouts of Thomas Cavill; when they were as convinced as the police that he’d eloped with another woman. ‘The letter,’ I said suddenly, ‘who do you think sent it, if it wasn’t Tom? And why? Why would somebody else do such a thing?’

‘I don’t know, but I’ll tell you something. Tom didn’t marry anyone. I checked with the Register Office. I checked the death records, too; I still do. Every year or so, just in case. There’s nothing. No record of him after 1941. It’s like he just disappeared into thin air.’

‘But people don’t just disappear.’

‘No,’ he said, with a weary smile. ‘No, they don’t. And I’ve spent my whole life trying to find him. I even hired a fellow some decades ago. Waste of money that was. Thousands of quid just to have some idiot tell me that wartime London was an excellent place for a man who wanted to go missing.’ He sighed roughly. ‘No one seems to care that Tom didn’t want to go missing.’

‘And the advertisements?’ I gestured to the printout, still on the seat between us.

‘I ran those when our little brother Joey took his turn for the worse. I figured it was worth a shot, just in case I’d been wrong all along and Tom was out there somewhere, looking for a reason to come back to us. Joey was simple, poor kid, but he adored Tom. Would’ve meant the world to him to see him one more time.’

‘You didn’t hear anything though.’

‘Nothing but some lads making prank calls.’

The sun had slipped from the sky and early dusk was sheer and pink. A breeze brushed my arms and I realized we were alone again in the garden; remembered that Theo was an old man who ought to be inside contemplating a plate of roast beef and not the sorrows of his past. ‘It’s getting cool,’ I said. ‘Shall we go in?’

He nodded and tried to smile a little, but as we stood I could tell that the wind had left his sails. ‘I’m not stupid, Edie,’ he said as we reached the door. I pulled it open, but he insisted on holding it for me to pass through first. ‘I know I won’t be seeing Tom again. The ads, checking the records each year, the file of family photographs and other odds and sods I keep to show him, just in case – I do all that because it’s habit, and because it helps to fill the absence.’

I knew exactly what he meant.

There was noise coming from the dining room – chairs scraping, cutlery clanging, the mumbles of congenial conversation – but he stopped in the middle of the corridor. A purple flower wilted behind him, a humming came from the fluorescent tube above, and I saw what I hadn’t outside. His cheeks shone with the spill of old tears. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t know how it is you chose today to come, Edie, but I’m glad you did. I’ve been blue all day – some are like that – and it’s good to talk about him. I’m the only one left now: my brothers and sisters are in here.’ He pressed a palm against his heart. ‘I miss them all, but there’s no way to describe Tom’s loss. The guilt – ’ his bottom lip quivered and he fought to wrest it back under control – ‘knowing that I failed him. That something terrible happened and no one knows it; the world, history, considers him a traitor because I couldn’t prove them wrong.’

Every atom of my being ached to make things right for him. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t bring news of Tom.’

He shook his head, smiled a little. ‘It’s all right. Hope’s one thing, expectation’s quite another. I’m not a fool. Deep down I know I’ll go to my grave without setting Tom to rest.’

‘I wish there were something I could do.’

‘Come back and visit me some afternoon,’ he said. ‘That’d be marvellous. I’ll tell you some more about Tom. Happier days next time, I promise.’

ONE

Milderhurst Castle Gardens, September 14th, 1939

There was a war on and he had a job to be doing, but the way the sun beat hard and round in the sky, the silver dazzle of the water, the hot stretch of tree limbs above him; well, Tom figured it would’ve been wrong in some indescribable way not to stop for a moment and take a plunge. The pool was circular and handsomely made, with stones rimming the outside and a wooden swing suspended from an enormous branch, and he couldn’t help laughing as he dropped his satchel onto the ground. What a find! He unstrapped his wristwatch and laid it carefully on the smooth leather bag he’d bought the year before, his pride and joy, kicked off his shoes and started unbuttoning his shirt.

When was the last time he’d been swimming? Not through all of the summer, that was certain; a group of friends had borrowed a car and taken off for the sea, a week in Devon during the hottest August any of them could remember, and he’d been all set to join them until Joey took his fall and the nightmares started and the poor kid wouldn’t go to sleep unless Tom sat by the bed and made up stories about the Underground. He’d lain in his own narrow bed afterwards, heat thickening in the room’s corners as he dreamed of the sea, but he hadn’t minded; not really, not for long. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for Joey – poor kid, with his big man’s body turning to flab and his little boy laugh; the cruel music of that laugh made Tom ache and knot inside for the kid Joey’d been, the man he ought to have become.

He shrugged out of his shirtsleeves and slipped his belt free, shed the sad old thoughts, then his trousers too. A big black bird coughed above him and Tom stood for a moment, craned to glimpse the clear blue sky. The sun blazed and he squinted, following the bird as it glided in graceful silhouette towards a distant wood. The air was sweet with the scent of something he stood no chance of recognizing but knew he liked. Flowers, birds, the distant burble of water scooting over stones; pastoral smells and sounds straight from the pages of Hardy, and Tom was high on the knowledge that they were real and he was amongst them. That this was life and he was in it. He laid a hand flat on his chest, fingers spread; the sun was warm on his bare skin, everything was ahead of him, and it felt good to be young and strong and here and now. He wasn’t religious, but this moment certainly was.

Tom checked over his shoulder, but lazily and without expectation. He wasn’t a rule breaker by nature; he was a teacher, he owed his students an example, and he took himself seriously enough to attempt to set them one. But the day, the weather, the newly arrived war, the smell he couldn’t name that sat on the breeze like that, all of it made him bold. He was a young man, after all, and it didn’t take much for a young man to find himself infused with a fine, free sense that the earth and its pleasures were his to be taken where found; that rules of possession and prevention, though well intentioned, were theoretical dictates that belonged only in books and on ledgers and in the conversations of dithering white-bearded lawyers at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

Trees encircled the clearing, a changing room stood silent nearby, and the hint of a stone staircase led somewhere beyond. Across it all lay a spill of sunlight and birdsong. With a deep, contented sigh, Tom decided the time was upon him. There was a diving board and the sun had warmed the wood so that as he stepped onto it his feet burned; he stood for a moment, enjoying the pain, letting his shoulders bake, the skin tighten, until finally he could stand it no longer and took off with a grin, jumping at the end, drawing his arms back and launching, cutting like an arrow through the water. The cold was a vice around his chest and he gasped as he came to the surface, his lungs as grateful for air as a baby’s on drawing first breath.

He swam for some minutes, dived deeply, emerged again and again, then he lay on his back and let his limbs drift out from his body to form a star. This, he thought, is it, perfection. The moment Wordsworth and Coleridge and Shelley were on about: the sublime. If he were to die right now, Tom was sure, he would die content. Not that he wanted to die, not for at least seventy years. Tom calculated quickly: the year 2009, that would do nicely. An old man living on the moon. He laughed, backstroked idly, then resumed his floating, closed his eyes so that his lids warmed. The world was orange and star-shot, and within it he saw his future glowing.

He would be in uniform soon; the war was waiting for him and Thomas Cavill couldn’t wait to meet it. He wasn’t naive, his own father had lost a leg and parts of his mind in France and he entertained no illusions as to heroics or glory; he knew war was a serious matter, a dangerous one. Neither was he one of those fellows keen to escape his present situation, quite the opposite: as far as Tom could see, the war offered a perfect opportunity for him to better himself, as a man and as a teacher.

He’d wanted to be a teacher ever since he realized he’d grow up one day to be an adult, and had dreamed about working in his old London neighbourhood. Tom believed he could open the eyes and minds of kids like he’d once been, to a world far beyond the grimy bricks and laden laundry lines of their daily experience. The goal had sustained him right through teacher-training college and into the first years of Prac until finally, through some silver-tongued talking and good old-fashioned luck, he’d arrived exactly where he wanted to be.

As soon as it had become clear that war was coming, Tom had known he’d sign up. Teachers were needed at home, it was a reserved occupation, but what sort of an example would that set? And his reasoning was more selfish too. John Keats had said that nothing became real until it was experienced and Tom knew that to be true. More than that, he knew it was precisely what he was missing. Empathy was all well and good, but when Tom spoke of history and sacrifice and nationality, when he read to his students the battle cry of Henry V, he scraped against the shallow floor of his own limited experience. War, he knew, would give him the depth of understanding he craved, which was why as soon as he was sure his evacuees were safely settled with their families he was heading back to London; he’d signed up with the 1st Battalion of the East Surrey regiment and with any luck he’d be in France by October.

He turned his fingers idly in the warm surface water and sighed so deeply that he sank a little lower. Perhaps it was the awareness that he would be in uniform next week that made this day somehow more vivid, more real than those that fanned out on either side. For there was definitely some unreal force at work. It wasn’t a simple matter of the warmth or the breeze itself, or the smell he couldn’t name, but a strange blend of condition, climate and circumstance; and although he was keen to line up and take his turn, although his legs ached sometimes at night with impatience, right now, at this very moment, he wished only for time to slow, that he might remain here floating like this forever…

‘How’s the water?’ The voice when it came was startling. Perfect solitude, shattered like a golden eggshell.

Later, on the many occasions he was to replay the memory of their first meeting, it was her eyes he would remember clearest of all. And the way she moved – be honest: the way her hair hung long and messy around her shoulders, the curve of her small breasts, the shape of her legs, oh God, those legs. But before and above all those, it was the light in her eyes; those cat’s eyes. Eyes that knew things and thought things that they shouldn’t. In the long days and nights that were to come, and when he finally reached the end, it was her eyes he would see when he closed his own.

She was sitting on the swing, bare feet on the ground, watching him. A girl – a woman? He wasn’t sure; not at first – dressed in a simple white sundress, watching him while he floated in the pool. Any number of casual rejoinders came to mind, but something in the quality of her expression tied his tongue and all he managed was, ‘Warm. Perfect. Blue.’ Her eyes were blue, almond-shaped, a little too far apart, and they widened slightly when he uttered his three words. No doubt wondering what sort of simpleton she’d stumbled across making free with her pool.

He paddled awkwardly, waited for her to ask him who he was, what he was doing, what business he had swimming there at all, but she didn’t, she asked none of those questions, merely pushed off lazily so the swing travelled in a shallow arc across the edge of the pool and back. Keen to establish himself as a man of more than three words, he answered them anyway: ‘I’m Thomas,’ he said, ‘Thomas Cavill. Sorry to use your pool like this but the day was so hot. I couldn’t help myself.’ He grinned up at her and she leaned her head against the rope, and he half wondered whether she might be trespassing as well. Something in the way she looked, a cut-out quality as if she and the environment in which he found her were not natural companions. He wondered vaguely where it was she might fit, a girl like this, but he drew a blank.

Wordlessly she stopped swinging, stood and let go of the seat. The ropes slackened and it lassoed back and forth. He saw that she was rather tall. She sat then on the stone edge, gathered her knees close to her chest so that her dress bunched high around her legs, and dipped in her toes, peering over the tops of her knees to watch the ripples as they ran away from her.

Tom felt the rise of indignation in his chest. He’d trespassed but he hadn’t done any real harm; nothing to earn this sort of silent treatment. She was behaving now as if he weren’t there at all; though she was sitting right by him, her face was fixed in an attitude of deep, distracted thought. He decided she must be playing some sort of game, one of those games that girls – that women – liked to play, the sort that confused men and thereby, in some strange counteractive fashion, kept them in line. What other reason had she for ignoring him? Unless she was shy. Perhaps that was it; she was young, there was every chance she found his boldness, his maleness, his – let’s face it – near nakedness confronting. He felt sorry then – he’d not intended anything like that, had only fancied a swim after all – and he adopted his most casual, friendly tone: ‘Look here. I’m sorry to surprise you like this; I don’t mean any harm. My name’s Thomas Cavill. I’ve come to-’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I heard you.’ She looked at him then as if he were a gnat. Wearily, mildly annoyed, but otherwise unaffected. ‘There’s really no need to trumpet on and on about it.’

‘Now hang on a minute. I was only trying to assure you that…’

But Tom let his assurances trail off. For one thing, it was evident that this strange person was no longer listening, for another he was far too distracted. She’d stood up while he was speaking and was now lifting her dress to reveal a swimsuit beneath. Just like that. Not a glance his way, no peeping beneath her eyelashes or giggling at her own forwardness. She tossed her dress behind her, a small pile of discarded cotton, and stretched like a sun-warmed cat, yawned a little, bothering herself with none of the female fripperies of covering her mouth or excusing herself or blushing in his direction.

With no fanfare at all she dived from the side and as she hit the water Tom hurried to climb out. Her boldness, if that’s what it was, alarmed him in some way. His alarm frightened him and his fear was compelling. It made her compelling.

Tom hadn’t a towel, of course, nor any other way of drying himself quickly enough to get dressed so he stood out in a sunny patch and tried to look as if he were relaxed about doing so. It was no mean feat. His ease had deserted him and he knew now what it was to be one of his bumbling friends who fell to shuffling their feet and confusing their words when faced with a pretty woman. A pretty woman who had swum to the pool’s surface and was floating lazily on her back, long wet hair fanning out like seaweed from her face, unalarmed, unaffected, seemingly unaware of his intrusion.

Tom tried to find some dignity, decided trousers would help and pulled them over his wet shorts. He aimed for authority, tried not to let nervousness tip him over into cockiness. He was a teacher, for God’s sake, he was a man about to become a soldier; it shouldn’t be so hard. Professionalism, though, wasn’t an easy thing to exude when one was standing bare-foot and semi-naked in someone else’s garden. All earlier epiphanies regarding the foolishness of property law were revealed now as crude, if not delusional, and he swallowed before saying as calmly as he could, ‘My name is Thomas Cavill. I’m a teacher. I’ve come here to check on a pupil of mine I believe has been evacuated here.’ He was dripping water, a rivulet ran warm down the centre of his stomach, and he winced when he added, ‘I’m her teacher.’ Which, of course, he’d already said.

She’d rolled over and was watching him now from the centre of the pool, studying him as if she might be making mental notes. She swam beneath the water, a silvery streak, and emerged at the edge, pressed her arms flat against the stones, one hand on top of the other, and rested her chin on them. ‘Meredith.’

‘Yes.’ A sigh of relief. At last. ‘Yes, Meredith Baker. I’m here to see how she’s doing. To check that she’s all right.’

Those wide-apart eyes were on him, her feelings impossible to read. Then she smiled and her face was transformed in some transcendent way and he drew breath as she said, ‘I suppose you’d better ask her that yourself. She’ll be along soon. My sister’s measuring her for dresses.’

‘Good then. That’s good.’ Purpose was his life raft and he clung to it with gratitude and a total lack of shame. He put his arms back through his shirtsleeves and sat down on the end of a nearby sun lounger; pulling the folder and its checklist from his satchel. With a pretence of composure he performed great interest in its information, never mind that he could have recited it if pressed. It was as well to read it through again: he wanted to be sure that when any of his pupils’ parents saw him back in London, he’d be able to answer their questions with honesty and certainty. Most of his kids had been accommodated in the village, two with the vicar at the vicarage, another at a farmhouse down the way; Meredith, he thought, glancing over his shoulder at the army of chimney pots above the distant trees, had scattered the furthest. A castle, according to the address on his checklist. He’d hoped to see inside, not just to see but to explore a little; so far the local ladies had been very welcoming, asking him in for tea and cake, fussing over whether he’d had enough.

He risked another glance at the creature in the pool and figured that an invitation here was decidedly unlikely. Her attention was elsewhere, so he let his focus rest on her a while. This girl was perplexing: she seemed blind to him and blind to his charm. He felt ordinary next to her and that was something he wasn’t used to. From this distance, however, and with his pride somewhat smoothed, he was able to put his vanity aside long enough to wonder who she was. The officious lady from the local WVS had told him that the castle was owned by one Mr Raymond Blythe, a writer (‘The True History of the Mud Man - why, surely you’ve read it?’) who was old now and unwell, but that Meredith would be in good hands with his twin daughters, a pair of spinsters perfectly suited to the care of a poor, homeless child. No other occupant had been mentioned and he had assumed, if indeed he’d given it much thought at all, that Mr Blythe and the twin spinsters would be the full complement at Milderhurst Castle. He certainly hadn’t expected this girl, this woman, this young and ungraspable woman who was certainly no spinster. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt incredibly urgent all of a sudden that he know more about her.

She splashed and he looked away, shook his head and smiled at his own regrettable conceit; Tom knew enough of himself to realize that his interest in her was in direct proportion to her lack of interest in him. Even as a child he’d been driven by that most senseless of all motivators: the desire to possess precisely what he couldn’t. He needed to let it go. She was just a girl. An eccentric girl at that.

A rustle then and a bonny Labrador charged honey-blond through the foliage, chasing its wagging tongue; Meredith appeared on its heels, a smile on her face that told him all he needed to know about her condition. Tom was so pleased to see her, a little piece of normality in spectacles, that he grinned and stood, almost tripping over himself in his hurry to greet her. ‘Hey there, kiddo. How’s tricks?’

She stopped dead, blinked at him, confounded, he realized, to see him so decidedly out of context. As the dog ran circles around her and the blush in her cheeks spread to her neck, she shuffled her plimsolls and said, ‘Hello, Mr Cavill.’

‘I’ve come to see how things are going.’

‘Things are going well, Mr Cavill. I’m staying in a castle.’

He smiled. She was a sweet kid, timid but clever with it. A quick mind and excellent skills of observation, a habit of noticing hidden details that made for surprising and original descriptions. She had little to no belief in herself unfortunately, and it wasn’t hard to see why: her parents had looked at Tom as if he’d lost his mind when he suggested she might sit the grammar school entry a year or two back. Tom was working on it though. ‘A castle! That’s a piece of luck. I don’t think I’ve ever been inside a castle.’

‘It’s very large and very dark, with a funny smell of mud and lots and lots of staircases.’

‘Have you climbed them all yet?’

‘Some, but not the stairs that lead to the tower.’

‘No?’

‘I’m not allowed up there. That’s where Mr Blythe works. He’s a writer, a real one.’

‘A real writer. He might offer you some tips if you’re lucky.’ Tom reached to give the side of her shoulder a playful tap.

She smiled, shy but pleased. ‘Maybe.’

‘Are you still writing your journal?’

‘Every day. There’s a lot to write about.’ She sneaked a glance at the pool and Tom followed it. Long legs drifted out behind the girl as she held onto the edge. A quote came unexpectedly into his head: Dostoevsky, ‘Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible.’ Tom cleared his throat. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s good then. The more you practise, the better you’ll become. Don’t let yourself settle for less than your best.’

‘I won’t.’

He smiled at her and nodded at his clipboard. ‘I can mark down that you’re happy then? Everything’s all right?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘You’re not missing your mum and dad too much?’

‘I’m writing them letters,’ said Meredith. ‘I know where the post office is and I’ve already sent them the postcard with my new address. The nearest school is in Tenterden, but there’s a bus that goes.’

‘And your brother and sister, they’re near the village too, aren’t they?’

Meredith nodded.

He laid his palm on her head; the hair on top was hot from the sun. ‘You’re going to be all right, kiddo.’

‘Mr Cavill?’

‘Yes?’

‘You should see the books inside. There’s a room just filled, every wall lined with shelves, all the way to the ceiling.’

He smiled broadly. ‘Well, I feel a whole lot better knowing that.’

‘Me too.’ She nodded at the figure in the water. ‘Juniper said I could read any of them that I wanted.’

Juniper. Her name was Juniper.

‘I’m already three-quarters through The Woman in White and then I’m going to read Wuthering Heights.’

‘Are you coming in, Merry?’ Juniper had swum back to the side and was beckoning to the younger girl. ‘The water’s lovely. Warm. Perfect. Blue.’

Something about his words on her lips made Tom shiver. Beside him Meredith shook her head as if the question had caught her off guard. ‘I don’t know how to swim.’

Juniper climbed out, slipped her white dress over her head so that it stuck to her wet legs. ‘We’ll have to do something about that while you’re here.’ She pulled her wet hair into a messy ponytail and tossed it over her shoulder. ‘Is there anything else?’ she said to him.

‘Well, I thought I might…’ He exhaled, collected himself and started again. ‘Perhaps I ought to come up with you and meet the other members of your household?’

‘No,’ said Juniper without flinching. ‘That’s not a good idea.’

He felt unreasonably affronted.

‘My sister doesn’t like strangers, particularly male strangers.’

‘I’m not a stranger, am I, Merry?’

Meredith smiled. Juniper did not. She said, ‘It isn’t personal. She’s funny that way.’

‘I see.’

She was standing close to him, drips sliding into her lashes as her eyes met his; he read no interest in them yet his pulse quickened. ‘Well then,’ she said.

‘Well then.’

‘If that’s it?’

‘That’s it.’

She lifted her chin and considered him a moment longer before nodding. A short flick that ended their interaction absolutely.

‘Goodbye, Mr Cavill,’ said Meredith.

He smiled, reached out to shake her hand. ‘Goodbye, kiddo. You take care now. Keep up your writing.’

And he watched them go, the two of them disappearing into the greenery, heading towards the castle. Long blonde hair dripping down her back, shoulder blades that sat like hesitant wings on either side. She reached out an arm and put it lightly around Meredith’s shoulders and hugged her close and, although Tom lost sight of them then, he thought he heard a giggle as they continued up the hillside.

Over a year would pass before he saw her again, before they met again quite by chance on a London street. He would be a different person by then, inexorably altered, quieter, less cocksure, as damaged as the city around him. He would have survived France, dragged his injured leg to Bray Dune, been evacuated from Dunkirk; he would have watched friends die in his arms, survived a bout of dysentery, and he would know that while John Keats was correct, that experience was indeed truth, there were some things it was as well not to know first-hand.

And the new Thomas Cavill would fall in love with Juniper Blythe for precisely the same reasons he’d found her so odd in that clearing, in that pool. In a world that had been greyed by ash and sadness, she would now seem wonderful to him; those magical unmarked aspects that remained quite separate from reality would enchant him, and in one fell swoop she would save him. He would love her with a passion that both frightened and revived him, a desperation that made a mockery of his neat dreams for the future.

But he knew none of that then. He knew only that he could check the last of his students off his list, that Meredith Baker was in safe hands, that she was happy and well cared for, that he was free now to hitch a ride back to London and get on with his education, his life’s plan. And although he wasn’t yet dry he buttoned up his shirt, sat to tie his shoelaces, and whistled to himself as he left the pool behind him, lily pads still bobbing over the ripples she’d left in the surface, that strange girl with the unearthly eyes. He started back down the hill, walking along the shallow brook that would lead him towards the road, away from Juniper Blythe and Milderhurst Castle, never – or so he thought – to see either one of them again.

TWO

Oh – but things were never to be the same afterwards! How could they be? Nothing in the thousand books she’d read, nothing she’d imagined, or dreamed, or written, could have prepared Juniper Blythe for the meeting by the pool with Thomas Cavill. When first she’d come upon him in the clearing, glimpsed him floating on the water’s surface, she’d presumed she must have conjured him herself. It had been some time since her last ‘visitor’, and it was true there’d been no thrumming in her head, no strange, displaced ocean whooshing in her ears to warn her; but there was a familiar aspect to the sunshine, an artificial, glittering quality that made the scene less real than the one she’d just left. She’d stared up at the canopy of trees and when the uppermost leaves moved with the wind, it appeared that flakes of gold were falling down to earth.

She’d sat on the pool swing because it was the safest thing to do when a visit was upon her. Sit somewhere quiet, hold something firmly, wait for it to pass: the three golden rules that Saffy had devised when Juniper was small. She’d lifted Juniper onto the table in the kitchen to tend her latest bleeding knee, and said very softly that the visitors were indeed a gift, just as Daddy said, but nonetheless she must learn to be careful.

‘But I love to play with them,’ Juniper had said. ‘They’re my friends. And they tell me such interesting things.’

‘I know, darling, and that’s wonderful. All I ask is that you remember that you’re not one of them. You are a little girl with skin, and blood beneath it, and bones that could break, and two big sisters who very much want to see you reach adulthood!’

‘And a daddy.’

‘Of course. And a daddy.’

‘But not a mother.’

‘No.’

‘But a puppy.’

‘Emerson, yes.’

‘And a patch on my knee.’

Saffy had laughed then, and given her a hug that smelled like talcum and jasmine and ink, and set her back down on the kitchen tiles. And Juniper had been very careful not to make eye contact with the figment at the window that was beckoning her outside to play.

Juniper didn’t know where the visitors came from. All she knew was that her earliest memories were of figures in the streams of light around her crib. They’d been there before she’d understood that others couldn’t see them. She had been called fey and mad, wicked and gifted; she’d driven away countless nannies who wouldn’t abide imaginary friends. ‘They’re not imaginary,’ Juniper had explained, over and over again, with as reasonable a tone as she could muster; but it seemed there were no English nannies prepared to accept this assertion as truth. One by one they’d packed their bags and demanded an audience with Daddy; from her hiding spot in the castle’s veins, the little nook by the gap in the stones, Juniper had cloaked herself in a whole new set of descriptions: ‘She’s impertinent…’, ‘She’s obstinate…’, and even, once, ‘Possessed!’

Everybody had a theory about the visitors. Dr Finley believed them to be ‘fibres of longing and curiosity’, projected from her own mind and linked in some way to her faulty heart; Dr Heinstein argued they were symptoms of psychosis and had provided a raft of pills he promised would end them; Daddy said they were the voices of her ancestors and that she had been chosen specially to hear them; Saffy insisted she was perfect as she was, and Percy didn’t mind much either way. She said that everyone was different and why on earth must things be categorized, people labelled normal or otherwise?

Anyway. Juniper had not really sat on the swing seat because it was the safest thing to do. She’d sat there because it afforded her the best view of the figment in the pool. She was curious and he was beautiful. The smoothness of his skin, the rise and fall of muscles on his bare chest as he breathed, his arms. If she had conjured him herself, then she had done a bloody brilliant job; he was exotic and lovely and she wanted to observe for as long as it took him to turn back into dappled light and leaves before her eyes.

Only that wasn’t what had happened. As she sat with her head resting against the swing’s rope, he’d opened his eyes, met hers, and begun to speak.

This, of itself, was not unprecedented; the visitors had spoken to Juniper before, many times, but this was the first time they’d taken the shape of a young man. A young man with very little clothing on his body.

She’d answered him, but shortly. Truthfully, she’d been irritated; she hadn’t wanted him to speak; she’d wanted him just to close his eyes again, to float upon the shimmering surface, so she could play voyeur. So she could watch the dance of sunlight on his limbs, his long, long limbs, his quite beautiful face, and concentrate on the queer sensation, like a plucked string humming, way down deep within her belly.

She hadn’t known many men before. There was Daddy, of course – but he hardly counted; her godfather, Stephen; a few ancient gardeners who’d worked on the estate over the years; and Davies, who’d babied the Daimler.

But this was different.

Juniper had tried ignoring him, hopeful that he might get the idea and stop trying to make conversation, but he’d persisted. He’d told her his name, Thomas Cavill. They didn’t usually have names. Not normal ones.

She’d dived into the pool herself, and he had made a hasty exit. She’d noticed then that there were clothes on the sun bed; his clothes, which was very strange indeed.

And then, the most peculiar thing of all. Meredith had come – released at last from Saffy’s sewing room – and she and the man had begun to converse.

Juniper, watching them from the water, had almost drowned in shock, for one thing was certain, her visitors could not be seen by others.

Juniper had lived at Milderhurst Castle all her life. She had been born, like her father and her sisters before her, in a room on the second floor. She knew the castle and its woods as one might be expected to know the only world one had met. She was safe and loved and indulged. She read and she wrote and she played and she dreamed. Nothing was expected of her other than to be precisely as and who she was. Sometimes, more so.

‘You, my little one, are a creature of the castle,’ Daddy had told her often. ‘We are the same, you and I.’ And for a long time Juniper had been perfectly content with this description.

Lately, though, in ways she couldn’t properly explain, things had begun to change. She woke at night sometimes with an inexplicable tugging in her soul; a desire, like hunger, but for what she couldn’t say. Dissatisfaction, longing, a deep and yawning absence, but no idea of how to fill it. No idea of what it was she missed. She’d walked and she’d run; she’d written with speed and fury. Words, sounds, had pressed against her skull, demanding release, and to put them on paper was a relief; she didn’t agonize, she didn’t ponder, she never reread; it was enough just to free the words so that the voices in her head were stilled.

Then one day an urge had taken her to the village. She didn’t drive often, but she’d steered the big old Daimler into the High Street. As if in a dream, a character in someone else’s story, she’d parked it and gone inside the hall; a woman had spoken at her but by then Juniper had already seen Meredith.

Later, Saffy would ask her how she’d chosen, and Juniper would say: ‘I didn’t choose.’

‘I don’t like to disagree, lamb, but I’m quite sure it was you who brought her home.’

‘Yes, of course, but I didn’t choose. I just knew.’

Juniper had never had a friend before. Other people, Daddy’s pompous friends, visitors to the castle, just seemed to take up more air than they should. They squashed one with their blustering and their posturing and their constant talking. But Meredith was different. She was funny and she saw things her own way. She was a bookish person who’d never been exposed to books; she was gifted with astute powers of observation, but her thoughts and feelings weren’t filtered through those that she’d read, those that had been written before. She had a unique way of seeing the world and a manner of expressing herself that caught Juniper unawares and made her laugh and think and feel things anew.

Best of all, though, Meredith had come laden with stories of the outside world. Her arrival had made a small tear in the fabric of Milderhurst. A tiny, bright window to which Juniper could press her eye and glimpse what lay beyond.

And now just look what she had brought! A man, a real man of flesh and blood. A young man from the outside, the real world, had appeared in the pool. Light from the outside world had shone through the veil, brighter now that a second hole was torn, and Juniper knew that somehow she must see more.

He’d wanted to stay, to come with them up to the castle, but Juniper had told him no. The castle was all wrong. She wanted to watch him, to inspect him like a cat – carefully, slowly, unnoticed as she drifted past his skin; if she couldn’t have that, it was better to have nothing. He would remain that way a sunlit, silent moment; a breeze against her cheek as the swing tilted back and forth across the warming pool; a new, low pull within her stomach.

He went. And they stayed. And she draped her arm over Meredith’s shoulder and laughed as they returned up the hill; joked about Saffy’s habit of sticking pins into legs as well as fabrics; pointed out the old fountain, no longer working; paused a moment to inspect the stagnant green water sulking inside, the dragonflies hovering fitfully about its rim. But all the while her thoughts drew out behind her like a spider’s thread, following the man as he made his way towards the road.

She began to walk, faster now. It was hot, so hot, her hair was already drying, sticking to the sides of her face, her skin seemed tighter than usual. She felt oddly animated. Surely Meredith could hear her heart, hammering away against her ribs?

‘I have a grand idea,’ she said. ‘Have you ever wondered what France looks like?’ And she took her little friend’s hand and together they ran, up the stairs, through the briars, beneath the long row of tunnelled trees. Fleeting – the word came into her head and made her feel lighter, like a deer. Faster, faster, both of them laughing, and the wind tore at Juniper’s hair, and her feet rejoiced against the baking, hard earth, and joy ran with her. Finally, they reached the portico, tripped up the stairs, panting, both of them, through the open French doors and into the cool stillness of the library.

‘June? Is that you?’

It was Saffy, sitting at her writing desk. Dear Saffy, looking up from behind the typewriter in the way that was habit with her; always just a little bewildered, as if she’d been caught in the middle of a rose-petal, dew-drop dream and reality was a slightly dusty surprise.

Whether it was the sunlight, the pool, the man, the clear blue of the sky, Juniper couldn’t resist planting a kiss on the top of her sister’s head as they hurried by.

Saffy beamed. ‘Did Meredith – Oh yes, she did. Good. Oh, I see you’ve been swimming; be careful that Daddy…’

But whatever the warning, Juniper and Meredith had gone before it was finished. They ran along looming stone corridors, up narrow flights of stairs, level by level, until finally they reached the attic at the very top of the castle. Juniper went swiftly to the open window, eased herself onto the bookcase and swivelled so that her feet were on the roof outside. ‘Come,’ she said to Meredith, who was still standing by the door, a strange look on her face. ‘Quickly now.’

Meredith let out a tentative sigh, propped her spectacles back on the bridge of her nose, then followed; did exactly as Juniper had done. Inched her way along the steep roof until they came upon the ridge that pitched south like a ship’s prow.

‘There, see?’ said Juniper, when they were seated side by side, settled on the flat behind the edging tiles. She pointed, a scribble on the far horizon. ‘I told you. All the way to France.’

‘Really? That’s it?’

Juniper nodded, but she paid the coastline no more heed. Squinted instead at the wide field of long, yellow grass, skirting Cardarker Wood; scanning, scanning, hoping for just one final glimpse…

A jolt. She saw him then, a tiny figure, crossing the field by the first bridge. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows, she could tell that much, and he had his palms out flat beside him, brushing the tops of the long grass. He stopped as she watched, lifted and bent his arms so that his hands rested on the back of his head; seemed to embrace the sky. She realized he was turning; had turned. Was looking back now at the castle. She held her breath; wondered how it was that life could change so much in half an hour when nothing much had changed at all.

‘The castle wears a skirt.’ Meredith was pointing at the ground below.

He was walking again, and then he disappeared behind the fold of the hill and everything was still. Thomas Cavill had slipped through the crack and into the world beyond. The air around the castle seemed to know it.

‘Look,’ said Meredith, ‘just down there.’

Juniper took her cigarettes from her pocket. ‘There used to be a moat. Daddy had it filled in when his first wife died. We’re not supposed to swim in the pool either.’ She smiled as Meredith’s face became a study in anxiety. ‘Don’t look so worried, little Merry. No one’s going to be cross when I teach you to swim. Daddy doesn’t leave his tower, not any more, so he’s not to know whether we use the pool or not. Besides, when the day’s as warm as this it’s a crime not to have a swim.’

Warm, perfect, blue.

Juniper struck the match hard. With a long, drawing breath, she leaned a hand back against the sloping roof and squinted at the clear, blue sky. The ceiling of her dome. And words came into her head, not her own.

I, an old turtle,

Will wing me to some wither’d bough; and there

My mate, that’s never to be found again,

Lament till I am lost.

Ridiculous, of course. Utterly ridiculous. The man was not her mate; he was no one for her to lament till she was lost. And yet the words had come.

‘Did you like Mr Cavill?’

Juniper’s heart kicked; she burned with instant heat. She’d been discovered! Meredith had intuited the secret workings of her mind. She thumbed her damp dress strap back onto her shoulder; was stalling; returning the matches to her pocket when Meredith said, ‘I do.’

And by the pinkness on her cheeks, Juniper perceived that Meredith liked her teacher very much indeed. She was torn between relief that her own thoughts were still private, and a wild, crushing envy that her feelings should be shared. She looked at Meredith and the latter sensation passed as fast as it had flared. She strove for nonchalance. ‘Why? What do you like about him?’

Meredith didn’t answer at first. Juniper smoked and stared at the spot where the man had breached the Milderhurst dome.

‘He’s very clever,’ she said at last. ‘And handsome. And he’s kind, even to people who aren’t easy to be with. He has a simple brother, a great big fellow who acts like a baby, cries easily and shouts sometimes in the street, but you should see how patient and gentle Mr Cavill is with him. If you saw them together, you’d say he was having the best time of his life, and not in that overdone way that people have when they know they’re being watched. He’s the best teacher I’ve ever had. He gave me a journal as a present, a real one with a leather cover. He says that if I work hard I could stay at school longer, maybe even go to a grammar school or university, write properly one day: stories or poems, or articles for the newspaper – ’ there was a pause as she drew breath, then – ‘nobody ever thought I was good at anything before.’

Juniper leaned to bump shoulders with the skinny sapling beside her. ‘Well, that’s just madness, Merry,’ she said. ‘Mr Cavill is right, of course, you’re good at a great many things. I’ve only known you a matter of days and I can see that much – ’

She coughed against the back of her hand, unable to continue. She’d been overcome by an unfamiliar feeling as she’d listened to Meredith describe her teacher’s attributes, his kindnesses, as the girl spoke nervously of her own aspirations. A heat had started to build in her chest, growing until it could no longer be contained then spreading like treacle beneath her skin. When it reached her eyes it had grown points and threatened to turn to tears. She felt tender and protective and vulnerable, and as she saw the beginnings of a hopeful smile stir on the edges of the young girl’s mouth, she couldn’t help wrapping her arms around Merry and squeezing hard. The girl tensed beneath the embrace, gripping the shingles tight.

Juniper sat back. ‘What is it? Are you all right?’

‘Just a little frightened of heights, is all.’

‘Why – you didn’t say a word!’

Meredith shrugged, focused on her bare feet. ‘I’m frightened of a lot of things.’

‘Really?’

She nodded.

‘Well, I suppose that’s pretty normal.’

Meredity turned her head abruptly. ‘Do you ever feel frightened?’

‘Sure. Who doesn’t?’

‘What of?’

Juniper dipped her head, drew hard on her cigarette. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Not ghosts and scary things in the castle?’

‘No.’

‘Not heights?’

‘No.’

‘Drowning?’

‘No.’

‘Being unloved and alone forever?’

‘No.’

‘Having to do something you can’t stand for the rest of your life?’

Juniper pulled a face. ‘Ugh… no.’

And then Meredith had looked so downhearted that she couldn’t help saying, ‘There is one thing.’ Her pulse began to race, even though she had no intention of confessing her great, black fear to Meredith. Juniper had little experience with friendship, but she was quite sure telling a new and treasured acquaintance that you feared yourself capable of great violence was inadvisable. She smoked instead and remembered the wild rush of passion, the anger that had threatened to rip her apart from the inside. The way she’d charged towards him, picked up the spade without a second thought, and then -

– woken up in bed, her bed, Saffy by her side and Percy at the window.

Saffy had been smiling, but there’d been a moment, before she saw Juniper was awake, in which her features told a different story. An agonized expression, lips taut, brow creased, that belied her later assurances that all was well. That nothing untoward had happened – why, of course it hadn’t, dearest! Just a small case of lost time, no different than before.

They’d kept it from her out of love; they kept it from her still. She’d believed them at first; of course she had. What reason, after all, did they have to lie? She’d suffered lost time before. Why should this be any different?

Only it had been. Juniper had found out what it was they hid. They still didn’t know that she knew. In the end it had been a matter of pure chance. Mrs Simpson had come to the house to see Daddy, and Juniper had been following the brook by the bridge. The other woman had leaned over the railing and thrust a shaking finger, saying at her, ‘You!’ and Juniper had wondered what she meant. ‘You’re a wild thing. A danger to others. You ought to be locked away for what you did.’

Juniper hadn’t understood; hadn’t known what the woman was talking about.

‘My boy needed thirty stitches. Thirty! You’re an animal.’

An animal.

That had been the trigger. Juniper had flinched when she heard it and a memory had dislodged. A fragmented memory, ragged around the edges. An animal – Emerson – crying out in pain.

Though she’d tried her hardest, forced her mind to focus, the rest had refused to clarify. It remained hidden in the dark wardrobe of her mind. Wretched, faulty brain! How she despised it. She’d give up the other things in a flash – the writing, the giddy rush of inspiration, the joy of capturing abstract thought on a page; she’d even give up the visitors if it meant she could keep all her memories. She’d worked on her sisters, pleaded eventually, but neither would be drawn; and in the end Juniper had gone to Daddy. Up in his castle tower, he had told her the rest – what Billy Simpson had done to poor, ailing Emerson; the dear old dog who’d wanted little more than to while away his final days by the sunlit rhododendron – and what Juniper had done to Billy Simpson. And then he’d said that she wasn’t to worry. That it wasn’t her fault. ‘That boy was a bully. He deserved everything he got.’ And then he’d smiled, but behind his eyes the haunted look was lurking. ‘The rules,’ he’d said, ‘they’re different for people like you, Juniper. For people like us.’

‘Well?’ said Meredith. ‘What is it? What do you fear?’

‘I’m frightened, I suppose,’ said Juniper, examining the dark edge of Cardarker Wood, ‘that I’ll turn out like my father.’

‘How do you mean?’

There was no way to explain, no way that wouldn’t burden Merry with things she mustn’t know. The fear that held tight as elastic bands round Juniper’s heart; the horrid dread that she’d end her days a mad old lady, roaming the castle corridors, drowning in a sea of paper and cowering from the creatures of her very own pen. She shrugged; made light of her confession. ‘Oh, you know. That I’ll never escape this place.’

‘Why would you want to leave?’

‘My sisters smother me.’

‘Mine would like to smother me.’

Juniper smiled and tapped some ash in the gutter.

‘I’m serious. She hates me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m different. Because I don’t want to be like her even though its what everyone expects.’

Juniper drew long on her cigarette; tilted her head and watched the world beyond. ‘How can a person expect to escape their destiny, Merry? That is the question.’

A silence, then a small, practical voice. ‘There’s always the train, I guess.’

Juniper thought at first she’d misheard; she glanced at Meredith and realized that the child was completely serious.

‘I mean, there are buses, too, but I think the train would be faster. A smoother ride, as well.’

Juniper couldn’t help it; she started to laugh, a great hulking laugh that rose up from very, very deep within her.

Meredith smiled uncertainly and Juniper gave her an enormous hug. ‘Oh Merry,’ she said, ‘did you know you’re really, truly and utterly perfect?’

Meredith beamed and the two lay back against the roof tiles, watching as the afternoon stretched its film across the sky.

‘Tell me a story, Merry.’

‘What sort of story?’

‘Tell me more about your London. ’