The Legacy

Chapter 4

It’s cold as we walk down toward the woods on the longest night of the year. All three of us. Eddie pestered Beth into coming, and in the end she seemed almost curious. There’s a brisk, bitter breeze that finds its way inside our coats, so we walk quickly, on stiff limbs. In the clear dark our torch beams stagger haphazardly. The moon is bright and the flowing clouds make it seem to sail across the sky. A vixen shrieks as we get near the trees.

“What was that?” Eddie gasps.

“Werewolf,” I say, matter-of-fact.

“Ha, ha. Anyway, it’s not a full moon.”

“All right, then, it was a fox. You’re no fun any more, Edderino.” I am in high spirits. I feel unfettered, like my strings have been cut and I can float free. Bright, restless nights do this to me. There is something about a wind blowing in the dark. The way it brushes by, its nonchalance. It seems to say: I could pick you up; I could carry you away, if I wanted to. There is a promise to this evening.

We can hear music now, and raised voices, laughter; and now the glow of the bonfire shines at us between the trees. Beth hangs back. She folds her arms tightly across her chest. The firelight follows every anxious line of her face. If Eddie wasn’t with us I think she would stay here, in the sheltering woods, darting from shadow to shade and watching. I pull a flat bottle of whisky from my coat pocket, fight to open it with gloved hands. The three of us, in a circle, our breath pouring up into the sky.

“Swig. Go on. It’ll warm you up,” I tell her, and for once she doesn’t argue. She takes a long pull.

“Can I have some?” asks Eddie.

“Not on your life,” Beth replies, as she wipes her chin and coughs. She sounds so real, so there, so like Beth that I grin and take her hands.

“Come on. I’ll introduce you to Patrick. He’s super nice.” I take a drink myself, feel the fire in my throat, and then we move.

There’s a moment of nerves as we step into the firelight. The same as before, of being unsure of our welcome. But then Patrick finds us and introduces us to a myriad people, and I struggle to keep their names in my head. Sarah and Kip-long hair shining in the firelight, stripy knitted hats; Denise-a tiny woman with a deeply lined face and ink-black hair; Smurf-a huge man, hands like shovels, a gentle smile; Penny and Louise-Penny the more butch of the pair, her head shaved, her eyes fierce. Their clothes and hair are bright. They look like butterflies against the winter ground. There’s a sound system in the back of a pickup and vehicles parked all the way up the lane. Children too, dodging in and out of the crowd. Eddie vanishes and I see him a little while later with Harry, threading thick wads of dead leaves onto long twigs and thrusting them into the fire.

“Who’s that with Eddie?” Beth asks, a note of alarm in her voice.

“That’s Harry. I’ve met him, don’t worry. He’s a little bit on the slow side, you could say. Dinny says he’s always got on well with children. He seems totally harmless to me,” I tell her, speaking loudly, right into her ear. The fire has put a dew of sweat along our lips and brows.

“Oh,” Beth says, not quite convinced. I see Honey, moving across the clearing, preceded by her enormous bump. Her face is alive this evening, she’s smiling, and she is lovely. I feel a small prickle of despair.

“That’s Honey, there. The blonde,” I say to Beth, in defiance of myself. Watching expressions veer wildly across Honey’s face, I am sure of it-I have taught girls older than her: she is too young to be having that baby. I feel something close to anger, but I can’t tell who or what it’s aimed at.

Then Dinny appears beside Beth, smiling his guarded smile. His hair is unbound and it hangs around his jaw, messy and black. He stands half turned toward the fire, half away, so the light cuts him in two, throws his face into sharp relief. It stops a breath in my chest, holds it until it burns.

“Glad you came down to join in, Beth, Erica,” he says, and as he smiles again I see the faint blurring of alcohol about him-a true warmth, for the first time since I saw him again.

“Yes, well, thank you very much for having us,” Beth replies, looking around at the party and nodding as if we are at some society do.

“You’ve got lucky with the weather tonight, anyway. It’s been foul,” I say. Dinny gives me an amused look.

“I don’t believe in foul weather-it’s all just weather,” he says.

“No bad weather, only the wrong clothes?” I ask.

“Exactly! Have you tried my punch? It has a certain… punch. Don’t take any naked flames near it, whatever you do,” he smiles.

“I tend to avoid punch,” I say. “There was an incident with punch, I’m told. Although, they might be lying because I sure as hell don’t remember anything about it.”

“Beth, then? Can I tempt you?” Beth nods, lets herself be led away. She still looks slightly dazed, almost bewildered to be here. Dinny’s hand is on her elbow, guiding her. For a moment I am left alone as he pulls her away, and some emotion scuttles through me. A familiar old emotion, to be left behind by Beth and Dinny. I give myself a shake, find faces that I know and foist myself upon them.

I can feel the whisky heat in my blood and I know I should be careful. Eddie tears past me, grabs my sleeve and pulls me round.

“You haven’t seen me! Don’t tell them you’ve seen me!” he gasps, breathless, grinning.

“Tell who?” I ask, but he’s gone, and seconds later a small tangle of children, and Harry, scurry by in his wake. I take another long pull of whisky then pass the bottle to a pixie-faced girl with rings in her nose, who laughs and thanks me as she passes. The stars wheel over my head and the ground seems to vibrate. I can’t remember when I was last drunk. Months and months ago. I had forgotten how good it can feel. And I see Beth standing next to Dinny, in a knot of people, and even though she is not speaking, she looks almost relaxed. She is part of them, not locked up inside herself, and I am happy to see it. I dance with Smurf, who spins me until I feel a little sick.

“Don’t fall in love with her, Smurf. These Calcott girls don’t stick around,” Dinny shouts to him as we pass by. I am too slow to ask him what he means. I get as close to the fire as I dare, use a poker to rake a jacket potato from the ashes at the edge, then burn my tongue on it. It has the tang of the earth. I greet Honey, and even though her reply is stilted I don’t care. And I watch Dinny. It’s not even conscious after a while. Wherever I am I seem to know where he is. As if the fire lights him a little brighter than it does everybody else. The night spins out around the camp, dark and alive; then I see flashing blue lights, coming along the lane toward us.

The police have to park and walk down to the camp. Two cars, disgorging four officers. Marching in with an air of diligence, they start checking for drugs, asking people to turn out their pockets. The music goes quiet, voices fall away. A hung moment in which the fire snaps and roars.

“Is there a Dinsdale here?” a young officer asks. A pugnacious gleam in his eye. He is short, square, very tidy.

“Several!” Patrick calls back at him.

“Can I see some identification to that effect please, sir?” the policeman asks stiffly. Dinny waves Patrick back, dips quickly into his van and presents the officer with his driving license. “Well, even so I’m required to ask you all to disperse, as this is an illegal gathering in a public place. I have reason to believe that things may escalate, constituting an illegal rave. There have been several complaints-”

“This isn’t an illegal gathering in a public place. We have the right to camp here, as you well know. And we have the same right as the rest of the population to have a few friends around for a party,” Dinny says coldly.

“There have been complaints about the noise, Mr. Dinsdale-”

“Complaints from who? It’s only ten o’clock!”

“From people in the village, and at the manor house…”

“From the manor house? Really now?” Dinny asks, glancing over his shoulder at me. I go over, stand next to him. “Have you been complaining, Erica?”

“Not me. And I’m pretty sure Beth and Eddie haven’t either.”

“And who might you be, madam?” the officer asks me, somewhat dubiously.

“Erica Calcott, the owner of Storton Manor. And that’s my sister Beth, and since we’re the only people living at Storton Manor, I think we can safely say all residents there give this party their full endorsement. And who might you be?” The whisky makes me bold, but I am angry too.

“Sergeant Hoxteth, Ms… Lady… Calcott, and I…” I have flustered him. At the edge of my sight, I see Dinny’s eyes light up.

“It’s Miss Calcott. Are you any relation of Peter Hoxteth, the old bobby?” I interrupt.

“He’s my uncle, not that I think that has any relevance to-”

“Yes, well. I remember your uncle. He had better manners.”

“There have been complaints, nevertheless, and I am authorized to break up this gathering. I don’t wish for there to be any unpleasantness about it, however-”

“The Hartfords over at Ridge Farm have their summer ball every year, with twice this number of people and a live band with a massive amp. If I ring up and complain about that, will you go trooping in and break it up? Start searching for drugs?”

“I hardly think-”

“And anyway, this isn’t a public place. This is my land. Which, I suppose, makes this my party. My private party. To which you boys are not, I fear, invited.”

“Miss Calcott, surely you can understand-”

“We’ll turn the music down now, and off at midnight, which we were planning to do anyway. The kids need to get to bed,” Dinny interjects. “But if you want to send us all packing without making some arrests, you’d better come up with a better reason than made-up complaints from the manor house. Officer.”

Hoxteth bridles, his shoulders are high and tense. “It is our duty as police officers to investigate complaints-”

“Well, you’ve investigated. So piss off!” Honey chips in, waving her belly aggressively at the man. Dinny puts a restraining hand on her arm. Hoxteth’s eyes flicker over Honey’s youth, her beauty, the swell of her midriff. He flushes, knots forming at the corners of his jaw. He nods at his officers and they begin to file away.

“Music off. And everybody gone by midnight. We’ll be back to check,” he says, raising a warning finger. Honey raises a finger of her own, but Hoxteth has turned away.

“Tosser,” Patrick mutters. “Full of youthful zeal, that one,” he adds. Once the cars have pulled away, Dinny turns to me with a smile, an arched eyebrow.

“Your party, is it?” he asks, amused.

“Oh, come on. It did the trick,” I reply.

“That it did. I never had you down as the antiestablishment type,” he says wryly.

“Shows what you know. I even got arrested once-do I get some kudos for that?”

“Depends what you got arrested for.”

“I… I threw an egg at our MP,” I admit, reluctantly. “Not very anarchic.”

“Not very,” he says, flashing me a grin. “But it’s a start.”

“That was wicked,” Eddie tells me, appearing at my side, breathless. I put my arm around his shoulders and squeeze him before he can escape.

Beth is cooking something for lunch that’s filling the ground floor with garlic-scented steam. The windows cloud with it and rain cloaks the outside world so that the house feels like an island. Eddie’s gone off into the woods with Harry, and strains of Sibelius’s fifth come creeping up the stairs with the steam. Beth’s favorite. I take it as a good sign that she has looked it out in Meredith’s music collection, and is preparing food that she might even eat. I wonder what Dinny and Honey are doing. In such rain, on such a depressing day. No rooms to wander through, no rows and rows of books or music, no television. Their lifestyle is a matter of pure speculation for me. If it were me, I suppose I’d be in the village pub. For a second I consider seeking them out there, but my stomach gives a lurch of protest and I remember the hangover I’m nursing. Instead I head for the attic stairs.

I do remember Sergeant Hoxteth’s uncle. We would see him in the village sometimes, when we went for sweets or ice cream from the shop. He had a ready smile. And he came to the house, on more than one occasion. Either because Meredith had called him, or because the Dinsdales had. They have the right to camp there, just as Dinny said. There’s a legal deed or warrant or whatever, from the time of my great-grandfather, before he married Caroline. He and Private Dinsdale were in the army together, in Africa I think. The full story has been lost down the years, but when they came back Dinsdale wanted a place to park up, and Sir Henry Calcott gave it to him. And to all members of his family, in perpetuity. They have a copy of it, and our family lawyer holds a copy. It really got Meredith’s goat.

We’d see Sergeant Hoxteth standing in the hallway, waiting uncomfortably for Meredith to appear with her Gorgon glare. The time she made one of the farmers park a massive baler across the top of the track to keep the travelers out. The time she learnt that not all those at the camp were Dinsdales and wanted the hangers-on evicted. The time she saw someone drawing water from one of the estate troughs and wanted to press charges. The time food kept vanishing from the larder, and small articles from around the house, and Meredith insisted that it was the Dinsdales until it turned out that the housekeeper had an elderly mother to support. The time one of the travellers’ dogs got into the garden and she put the wind up it with a twelve-bore shotgun. People in the village thought that they were under attack. They will spread diseases to my animals, was Meredith’s clipped explanation.

We used to come up here to the attic sometimes, to root around in the junk. It always looked like there should be something exciting to discover, but it didn’t take long for us to tire of the packing crates, broken lamps, offcuts of carpet. The hot-water tank, gurgling and hissing like a sleeping dragon. On such a wet day it is dark up here, the far reaches of the space hung in shadow. The tiny dormer windows are few and far between and they are crusted up with water marks and algae. It is so quiet I can hear the soft breathing sounds of the house, the rain making a musical chuckle as it filters through the choked guttering. Unconsciously, I tiptoe.

The leather of the old red trunk is so dry and brittle that it feels sandy when I touch it, comes away as grit between my fingers. I strain my eyes to see inside, dragging it around to face the nearest window. It leaves the ghost of itself in the dust on the floor and I wonder when it was last moved. Inside are wads of papers; boxes; a small, dilapidated valise of some kind; a few mystery objects wrapped in yellowed newspaper pages; a leather writing case. It doesn’t look much, if this is all of Caroline’s personal things. Not much for a hundred years of life. But then, old houses like this come ready-made, I suppose. The lives within come and go, but most of the contents stay the same.

I search avidly through the papers. Invitations to various functions; a government leaflet about what to do in an air raid; Caroline’s telegram from the queen on the occasion of her one hundredth birthday; some prescriptions written out in a doctor’s hand so typically wild that I can’t make out the words. I unwrap a few of the paper parcels. There’s a gold face-powder compact and matching lipstick; an exquisite tortoiseshell fan, so fragile I hardly dare touch it; a silver dressing table set, inlaid with mother of pearl, the brushes silky soft, the mirror cracked across its face; a curious bone ring, satin smooth, with a silver bell hanging from it that tinkles, startling me in the stillness. I wonder what sets these objects apart, what made them wholly Caroline’s, what stopped Meredith selling them off like she did with so many of the other precious things. After a while, I notice it. They are all engraved, marked as hers. CC, drawn with a flourish into the metal. I turn the bone ring over in my fingers, looking for the same mark. The script, when I find it on the rim of the tarnished silver bell, is small and almost worn away, and it makes me pause. To a Fine Son, it reads.

I re-wrap these treasures and put them back in the trunk. I am not sure what will become of them. Technically, they belong to Beth and me now, but they don’t really, of course. Any more than they belonged to Meredith, which was why she stowed them away up here. The valise, which has a wide, hinged-opening top, is empty. It once had a pink silk lining, now just in tatters. I take out the writing case instead, which is so full that the laces struggle to tie around the bulge of it. Inside are her letters, many of them still in their envelopes. Compact, white envelopes, much smaller than are commonly used these days. I flick through, realize that most of them have been addressed in the same hand-a small, slanting script in black ink. Just slightly too cramped to be called elegant. I open one carefully and skip straight to the end. Most of these letters are from Meredith and have a Surrey postmark.

My heart gives a strange little twist. I turn back to the first page of the one I am holding, and read.

April 28th 1931.

Dear Mother,

I hope this letter finds you well, and less troubled by your rheumatism than of late? You will be pleased to hear that I am settling in well here, and am gradually becoming accustomed to running my own household-even though I do of course miss you, and Storton. Charles is rather relaxed about the arrangements-his only stipulation is that breakfast be served at eight and dinner at nine! An easy man to please, and I have had the freedom to find my own way of doing things. The house is so much smaller than Storton, you would doubtless be amused by how many and varied the instructions have been that I’ve needed to give the staff in order to bring things along! I fear they have grown rather too used to having a gentleman alone in the house, and one unlikely to pay much mind to the rotation of linen, the freshening of flowers or the airing of guest bedrooms.

It does seem rather unusual to be alone in the house all day whilst Charles is at his offices. There is a singular quiet in the afternoons here-I often look to my left to remark upon something to you, only to find the room empty! I suppose I ought to make the most of the peace and quiet before it is carried away by the patter of little feet… I find myself entirely pulled between two emotions: the thrill of anticipating the birth of your first grandchild, and utter dread of the same event! I remind myself daily that women have been giving birth successfully for a great many years, and that I am certain there can be nothing another woman might do that I might not. Were you afraid, when you were first expecting? I do hope you will come and visit, Mother-I should dearly love to have your advice. The house is smaller than you are used to, as I have said, but it is nevertheless quite comfortable. I have fitted out the largest guest bedroom with new drapes and bed linen-the existing ones were quite worn out-so it is every bit ready for your arrival. The garden is a riot of daffodils, which I know you like, and the countryside hereabouts is really very charming for a gentle walk. Write and let me know if you will come, and when you might like to. In anticipation of our happy event, Charles has sworn me off driving the motorcar, but I can arrange for our man Hepworth to collect you from the station at any time-it is a short drive, not at all arduous. Do come.

With much affection,

Meredith.

In 1931 Meredith would have been just twenty years old. Twenty years old, married and expecting a baby that she must have lost, because my mother was not born for some time after that. I read the letter again, try to re-imagine Caroline as a mother somebody loved, as somebody Meredith clearly missed. The letter makes me sad, and I have to read it again to work out why. It is such a lonely letter. From far below, I hear Beth calling me for lunch. I slip the letter back into the case and tuck it beneath my arm before going down to her.

The rain doesn’t stop until Tuesday afternoon, and I am itching to get outside. I envy Eddie, who comes back as it gets dark, hair in damp curls and mud up to the knees of his jeans. At what age do you start to notice the cold and the wet and the mud? About the same time you stop moving everywhere at a run, I suppose. In the nursery the gap where the linen press stood yawns at me from the wall. An imprint of dust and cobwebs and unfaded paint. I cross to the piles of cloth I evicted from it, start to go through them, putting cot sheets, lacy sleeping bags, tiny pillowcases and an exuberant christening gown to one side. A pile of muslin squares that I find tucked away, and a small feather eiderdown as well. I have no idea if any of it will be any use to Honey and her baby, when it comes. Will she even have a cot? But it is good, heavy linen, smooth to the touch. Luxurious. She might like that idea, perhaps: swathing the child in expensive bedding, even if the ambulance will be a more basic nursery. I catch sight of those pillowcases again, with the yellow stitched flowers. I make a mental note to look the flowers up, identify them, in case that will tell me why they tug at my subconscious so.

“Where are you going with that lot?” Beth asks, as I lug it down the stairs.

“I’m taking it over to Honey. It’s all baby stuff-I thought she could use it.” Beth frowns. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Erica, why are you trying to…”

“What?”

“You know. I don’t think you should be trying so hard to be friends with them again, that’s all.”

“Why not? Anyway, I’m not trying that hard. They are our neighbors, though. You seemed happy enough to chat to Dinny at the party the other night.”

“Well, you made me go, you and Eddie. It would have been rude not to talk to him. But I… I don’t think we have much in common any more. In fact I’m not sure we ever knew him as well as we thought we did. And I don’t see what purpose it serves, trying to pretend everything is how it was before.”

“Of course we knew him! What’s that supposed to mean? And why shouldn’t things be how they were before, Beth?” I ask. She seals her lips, looks away from me. “If something happened between the two of you that I don’t know about…”

“Nothing happened that you don’t know about!”

“Well, I’m not so sure,” I say. “Besides, just because you don’t want to be friends with him any more, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be,” I mutter, dragging the bag to the door and pulling on my coat.

“Erica, wait!” Beth comes across the hall to me. I turn, search her face for clues. Troubled blue eyes, closely guarded. “We can’t go back to the way things were. Too much has happened. Too much time has passed! It’s far better to just… move on. Leave the past alone,” she says, her eyes sliding away from mine. I think of Dinny’s hand, its gentle, proprietorial grip on her elbow.

“It sounds to me,” I say, steadily, “that you don’t want him any more, but you don’t want me to have him either.”

“Have him? What is that supposed to mean?” she says sharply. I feel color flare in my cheeks and I say nothing. Beth draws in a deep, uneven breath. “It’s hard enough being back here as it is, Erica, without you acting like an eight-year-old again. Can’t you just stay away, for once? We’re supposed to be spending time here together. Now Eddie is off with that Harry all day long, and you’d rather chase after Dinny than… I don’t have to stay, you know. I could take Eddie and go back to Esher for Christmas…”

“Well, that’s a great idea, Beth. Just the kind of unpredictable behavior that Maxwell is always looking out for!” I regret this as soon as I say it. Beth recoils from me. “I’m sorry,” I say quickly.

“How can you say things like that to me?” she asks softly, her eyes growing bright, blurred. She turns and walks away.

Outside, I take a deep breath, listen to the muted calls of the rooks, the gentle dripping and unfurling of soaked foliage. A living sound, a living smell in the middle of winter. I’ve never really noticed it before. I drop the bag of linens, suddenly unsure of myself, and sit down on a rusting metal bench at the edge of the lawn; feel the dead cold of it bite through my jeans. Perhaps I will take it down later. I can hear voices coming from the stream beyond the eastern edge of the garden. I make my way over, through the little gate at the side of the lawn and down across the scrubby slope. After the rain the ground is heavy with water. It squeezes up around my feet as I walk.

Eddie and Harry are in the stream, the water swirling perilously close to the tops of their wellies. All the rain of late has made the water fast, and even faster in the center, channelled deep because Eddie and Harry have built a dam of flints and sticks reaching out from each bank. Harry’s trousers are wet all the way up to his hips, and I know how cold the water must be.

“Rick! Check it out! We almost got it right the way across a moment ago, but then part of it collapsed,” Eddie calls, excited, as I reach them. “But before it did the water got really high! That’s when we got soaked, actually…”

“I can see that. Boys, you must be freezing!” I smile at Harry, who smiles back and points at a rock by my feet. I bend down and pass it to him gingerly, slipping on the muddy bank, and he adds it to the dam.

“Thanks,” Eddie says absently, unconsciously speaking for his friend. “It’s not that cold once you get used to it,” he shrugs.

“Really?”

“No, not really-my feet are bloody freezing!” he grins.

“Language,” I say, automatically and without conviction. “It’s a good dam, I have to admit,” I continue, standing in the mud with hands on hips. “What are you going to do if you manage to finish it? It’ll make a huge lake.”

“That’s the idea!”

“I see. God, Eddie, you are covered in mud!” It’s all up the sleeves of his sweater, where he has pushed them up with muddy hands; all up the legs of his cords where he’s wiped his hands. There’s a smear across his forehead, sticking his hair into clumps. “How have you managed to get so filthy? Look-Harry’s managed to stay clean!”

“He’s further from the ground than I am!” Eddie protests.

“True enough,” I concede.

Grabbing a fistful of Harry’s coat to steady himself, Eddie makes his way toward me, feet rocking over the stony stream bed.

“Is it lunch time yet? I’m starving,” he declares, losing his balance and bending forward to steady himself, hands in the freezing mud.

“Yes, almost. Come back and get cleaned up-you can always finish this later. Here.” I hold out my hand and Eddie grabs it, taking a huge stride out of the stream, heaving on my arm. “No-don’t pull, Eddie, I’ll slip!” I cry, but too late. My legs scoot from under me and I sit down abruptly, with an audible splash.

“Sorry!” Eddie gasps. Behind him Harry grins, makes an odd huffing noise, and I realize he is laughing.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” I ask, slithering back to my feet, wet mud seeping into my knickers. I pull my trousers up, leaving vast muddy smears across them in doing so. Eddie wobbles again, takes a sloshing step forward that kicks a wave of water over the tops of my boots. “Eddie!”

“Sorry!” he says again, but this time he can’t keep from smiling, and Harry laughs harder.

“You little buggers! It’s freezing! Here,” I find my muddiest finger, wipe it on Eddie’s nose. “Have some more!”

“Wow, thanks Rick! And here… here’s some for you! Happy Christmas!” Eddie scoops some mud into his hand, chucks it at me. It lands messily on the front of my sweater, which is pale gray. I gasp, peer down at it. Eddie freezes, as if suddenly afraid he’s gone too far. I scrape the worst of it off, weigh it in my palm.

“You. Are. Dead!” I say, lunging at him. With a yelp of laughter, Eddie darts past me, up the bank and into the scrub.

It takes me some distance to catch up with him and I have to discard the mud and swear a truce before he’ll let me near him. I put my arm around him, more to warm my own throbbing fingers than anything else. Behind us, Harry had been following but he stops, stares up into a hawthorn tree where two robins are cursing one another.

“Is he coming?” I ask. Eddie shrugs.

“He’s always stopping to watch birds and stuff like that. I’ll see you later, Harry!” he shouts, giving him a wave. We ought to go in through the scullery, but it’s locked and we have no choice but to use the front door. We discard our boots outside-a hollow gesture, since our socks are every bit as wet and muddy. Beth puts her head around the kitchen doorway.

“What on earth have you been doing?” she gasps. “Your clothes!” Eddie looks a little contrite, glances at me for support.

“Um, being eight years old again?” I venture, painting my face with innocence. Beth gives me a hard look, but she cannot hold it. The ghost of a smile twitches her mouth.

“Perhaps you might like to get changed, the pair of you, before we have lunch?” she says.

I phone my mum in the afternoon, to check that all is well, and ask what time they plan to arrive.

“How is it going there? How’s Beth?” Mum asks, in a casual tone that I recognize. The casual tone she uses to ask important things. I pause, listen for sounds of my sister close by.

“She’s OK, I think. A little bit up and down, I suppose.”

“Has she said anything? Anything about the house?”

“No-what kind of thing?”

“Oh, nothing in particular. I’m looking forward to seeing you both-and Eddie of course. Is he having fun there?”

“Are you kidding? He loves it! We hardly see him-he’s out playing in the woods all day. Mum-could you do me a favor?”

“Yes, of course, what is it?”

“Could you possibly dig out your copy of that family tree Mary drew up? And bring it along?”

“Yes, I think so. If I can find it. What do you want it for?”

“I just want to check something. Did you ever hear of Caroline having a baby before she was married to Lord Calcott?”

“No, I never did. I would doubt it very much-she was very young when she married him. What on earth makes you ask that?”

“It’s just this photo I found-I’ll show you when you get here.”

“Well, all right then. But you know any questions about family history really ought to be directed at Mary. She did all that research the other year, after all…”

“Yes, I suppose so. Well, I’d better crack on here-I’ll see you very soon.”

I can’t call my Aunt Mary-Henry’s mother. I can’t speak to her on the phone. I get a feeling that I can hardly bear, as if the air in my lungs is hardening. At Meredith’s funeral, I hid. To my shame. I actually hid from her behind a vast spray of lilies.

For bedtime reading, I prop Caroline’s writing case on my knees and read a few more of Meredith’s letters. Some of the earlier ones date from her time away at college and speak of a fierce deportment tutor, dormitory politics, shopping trips into town. Then the lonely letters from Surrey begin. I flick through a few more of them and then, tucked into one of the pockets of the case, I find an envelope addressed in quite a different hand. The paper inside is like dried leaves, and I touch it lightly, unfold it with consummate care. Just one page, with one paragraph of script. Far larger lettering than Meredith’s, written with emphatic pen pressure, as if in some urgency. The date given is the fifteenth of March, 1905.

Caroline

I received your letter this morning and with no slight concern. Your recent marriage and delicate condition are matters to be much celebrated, and no one could be more satisfied than I to see you settled and joined to a man such as Lord Calcott, who is well positioned to give you everything you require for a happy life. To put your current position in unnecessary jeopardy would be foolhardy in the extreme. Whatever it is that you feel you must confess, may I strongly urge you that all matters arising from your previous existence in America should by every means possible remain in America. No purpose can be served by revisiting such matters now. Be grateful for the new start you have been given, for the happy circumstance of your fortuitous marriage, and let that be the last word upon it between us. Should you bring embarrassment or infamy of any kind upon yourself or our family, I should have no other choice but to sever all ties with you, however it would grieve me.

Your Aunt,

B.

The scoring beneath the phrase remain in America has all but torn the paper. A heavy, violent strike. In the quiet after I read these ringing words, I see all the secrets within this house lying in drifts as deep as the dust and shadows in the corners of the room.

On Christmas Eve our parents arrive, and their familiar car pulling into the driveay seems a small miracle of some kind. Proof of an outside world, proof that this house, Beth and I, are part of it. I meant to keep Eddie in this morning-I suggested to Beth that we should-but he is up before us and gone. An empty bowl in the kitchen sink, cornflakes drying hard, and half a glass of Ribena on the table.

“We’ve lost your grandson, I fear,” I say, as I kiss Dad and take bags from the back of the car. Perhaps not the cleverest thing I could say. Mum hesitates.

“What’s happened to Eddie?” she asks.

“He’s got a friend-Harry. He camps here, just like… Well. They’re always off in the woods. We hardly see him these days,” Beth says, and we can hear that it bothers her. Just a little.

“Camping? You don’t mean…?”

“Dinny’s here. And his cousin, Patrick, and some others,” I say casually. But I can’t help smiling.

“Dinny? You’re kidding?” Mum says.

“Well, well!” Dad adds.

“Hmm, well, now you know how we used to feel, I suppose,” Mum says to Beth, kissing her on the cheek as she goes indoors. Beth and I share a look. This hadn’t ever occurred to us.

Beth looks like our mother. She always has, but it’s getting more pronounced the older she gets. They both have Meredith’s willowy figure, the delicate bones of her face, long artistic hands. Meredith cut her hair short and set it, but Mum has always left hers natural, and Beth’s is long, unchecked. And they have an air about them, which I lack. Grace, I suppose it is. I take more after our father. Shorter, broader, clumsier too. Dad and I stub our toes. We catch our sleeves on door handles, knock our wine glasses over, bruise ourselves on coffee table edges, chair legs, worktops. I have a huge affection for this trait, since it comes from him.

We drink coffee and admire the Christmas tree that came yesterday and now towers up into the stairwell. All the decorations we bought weren’t quite enough. They look a little lost on such vast branches. But the lights twinkle and the resinous smell of it reaches every corner of the house, a constant reminder of the season.

“Bit extravagant, isn’t it, love?” Dad asks Beth, who tips her eyebrows, dismissively.

“The house needed cheering up. For Eddie,” she says.

“Ah well, yes, fair enough,” Dad concedes. He’s wearing a red sweater; grey hair standing up in tufts just like Eddie’s does, and the hot coffee flushing his cheeks pink. He looks jovial, kind-just as he is.

There’s a thump on the door, which I open to find Eddie and Harry on the step, out of breath, as ever, and damp.

“Hi, Rick! I came to say hello to Grandma and Grandpa. And I told Harry he could come and see the tree. That’s OK, isn’t it?”

“Of course it’s OK, but kick those boots off before you take another step!”

Eddie is hugged, kissed, questioned. Dad proffers a hand to Harry for him to shake, but Harry just looks at it, bemused. He drifts over to the tree instead, crouches down to gaze up into it, as if trying to see it at its biggest, its most imposing. Dad shoots me a quizzical look and I mouth, I’ll tell you later. We decide to keep Eddie, since lunch is not far off, and send Harry home with a box of Beth’s mince pies, which he dips into even as he shambles off across the lawn.

“He seems a funny old thing,” Mum says mildly.

“He’s wicked. He knows all the best places to go in the woods-where to find mushrooms and badgers’ nests,” Eddie defends his friend.

“Badgers have setts, not nests, Eddie; and I hope you haven’t been playing with fungi-that’s really very dangerous!” Mum says. I see Eddie bridle.

“Harry knows which ones you can eat,” he mutters, defensively.

“I’m sure he does. It’s fine, Mum,” I say, to quieten her. “Old people don’t know that wicked means good,” I whisper to Eddie. He rolls his eyes, escapes up the stairs to get changed.

“It’s good for him, to have such an outdoor friend. He spends so much time cooped up at school,” Beth says firmly.

Mum raises a hand. “I meant no criticism! Lord knows you two spent enough time out in the woods with Dinny when you came to stay here.”

“You didn’t mind, though, did you?” Beth asks anxiously. She is all the more sensitive now to the slights of children against their parents. Mum and Dad exchange a glance, and Dad gives Mum a fond smile.

“No, not really, I suppose,” Mum says. “It might have been nice if you’d wanted to spend a bit more time with us…” In the shocked pause after she says this, Beth and I exchange a guilty look and Mum laughs. “It’s fine, girls! It was the beginnings of my empty nest syndrome, that’s all.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do when Eddie goes off to university. It’s bad enough now that he boards all week,” Beth murmurs, folding her arms.

“You’ll miss him like mad, you’ll spoil him rotten when he comes down, and you’ll find a new hobby-just like all mothers do, darling,” Mum tells her, putting an arm around her bony shoulders.

“It’s a long way off yet, anyway,” I remind her. “He’s only eleven, after all.”

“Yes, but five seconds ago he was a tiny baby!” Beth says.

“They grow up fast,” Dad nods. “And be happy about it, Beth! After six years of having a teenage boy around the house, I expect you’ll be thrilled to have him go off to study!”

“And just think of all the fun stages you’ve got before then-the arguments about curfews, and driving lessons, and first girlfriends staying over. Finding porno mags under his bed… peering into his dazed eyes in the morning and wondering what drugs he took the night before…”

“Erica! Really!” Mum admonishes me, as Beth’s eyes grow wide with horror.

“Sorry.” I smile.

“Rick, I think you’ve been teaching too long,” Dad chuckles. Beth raises her eyebrows at me.

“Smug aunt syndrome-that’s your problem. You get to watch me go through all of this and laugh into your sleeve as I get it all wrong and tear out my hair,” she says accusingly.

“Come on, Beth. I’m joking. You’ve never put a foot wrong as a mother,” I tell her, rushing on before a pause can form, before we all remember the huge wrong stride she took, not too long ago. “Come and have some mince pies-Beth’s outdone herself with them.”

Later on, I show Mum the photographs I’ve found for her. She identifies the people I didn’t recognize-more distant relatives, people now dead, faded away, leaving only their faces on paper and traces of their blood in our veins. I show her the one of Caroline, taken in New York with the baby cradled in her left arm. Mum frowns as she scrutinises it.

“Well, that’s definitely Caroline-such pale eyes! She was striking, wasn’t she?”

“But what was she doing in New York? And whose baby is it, if she only married Lord Calcott in 1904? Do you think they had one before they got married?”

“What do you mean, what was she doing in New York? She was from New York!”

“Caroline? She was American? How can nobody have told me that before?”

“Well, how can you not have realized? With that accent of hers…”

“Mum, I was five years old. How would I have noticed her accent? And she was ancient by then. She hardly spoke at all.”

“True, I suppose,” Mum nods.

“Well, that explains why she was in New York in 1904. So, who’s the baby?” I press. Mum takes a deep breath, inflates her cheeks.

“No idea,” she says. “There’s no way she could have had a child with Henry before they wed, even if that wouldn’t have caused a huge scandal. She only met him late in 1904, when she came over to London. They married in 1905, soon after they met.”

“Well, was she married before? Did she bring the baby over with her?”

“No, I don’t think so. You really would be better off asking Mary. As far as I know, Caroline came over from New York, a rich heiress at the age of around twenty-one or twenty-two, married a titled man at quite some speed, and that was that.”

I nod, oddly disappointed.

“Perhaps it was a friend’s baby. Perhaps she was its godmother. Who knows?” Mum says.

“Could have been,” I agree. I take the picture back, study it closely. My eyes seek out Caroline’s left hand, her ring finger, but it’s hidden in the folds of the ghostly child’s dress. “Do you mind if I keep this one? Just for a while?” I ask.

“Of course not, love.”

“I’ve… been reading some of her letters. Caroline’s letters,” I am strangely reluctant to confess this. Like reading somebody’s diary, even after they’re dead. “Have you got that family tree? There was a letter from an Aunt B.”

“Here you are. Caroline’s side of things is a bit sketchy, I’m afraid. I think Mary was more interested in the Calcott line-and all of Caroline’s family records would have been in America, of course.” There is nothing, in fact, on Caroline’s side, except the names of her parents. No aunts or uncles, a very small twig to one side before Caroline joined the main tree in 1905. Caroline Fitzpatrick, as she was then.

I study her name for some time, waiting, although I’m not sure what for.

“In this letter, her aunt-Aunt B-says that whatever happened in America should stay in America, and she shouldn’t do anything to mess up her marriage to Lord Calcott. Do you know anything about that?” I ask. Mum shakes her head.

“No. Nothing at all, I fear.”

“What if she did have a baby before she came over here and got married?”

“Well, for one thing she wouldn’t have managed to get married if she had! Well brought up girls did not just have babies out of wedlock back then. It would have been unthinkable.”

“But what if she did get married to someone else before Lord Calcott? I found something up in the loft-in the trunk where Meredith put all of Caroline’s stuff-and it says To a Fine Son on it,” I say.

Mum raises her eyebrows a little, considers. “It was probably Clifford’s. What kind of something?”

“I don’t know-it’s some kind of bell. I’ll fetch it down later and show you.”

We have drifted into the drawing room. Mum picks up each photo from the piano and studies it at length, her face hung between expressions. She runs her thumb over the glass of Charles and Meredith’s wedding portrait. A futile little caress.

“Do you miss her?” I ask. Normally a stupid question when somebody’s mother dies. But Meredith was different.

“Of course. Yes, I do. It would be hard not to miss somebody who knew how to fill a room quite the way my mother did.” Mum smiles, puts the photo down, wipes her fingermarks away with the soft cuff of her cardigan.

“Why was she like that? I mean, why was she so… angry?”

“Caroline was cruel to her,” Mum shrugs. “Not physically, or even verbally… perhaps not even deliberately; but who can say what damage is done when a child grows up unloved?”

“I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine how a mother could fail to love her child. But, how was she cruel to her?”

“Just in a thousand and one little ways,” Mum sighs, thinks for a moment. “For example, Caroline never brought her a present. Not once. Not on birthdays or at Christmas, even when Meredith was small. Not on her wedding day, not when I was born. Nothing at all. Can you imagine how something like that might… chip away at you?”

“But if she’d never had a present, perhaps she didn’t know to expect one?”

“Every child knows about birthday presents, Erica-you’ve only to read a storybook to learn about them. And the staff used to get her little things when she was small-Mother told me how much they meant to her. A rabbit-I remember her mentioning that. One year, the housekeeper gave her a pet rabbit.”

“That’s… really sad,” I say. “Didn’t Caroline believe in presents?”

“I just don’t think she was aware of the date, most of the time. I honestly don’t think she knew when Meredith’s birthday was. It was as though she hadn’t given birth to her at all.”

“But if Caroline was so awful, why was Meredith so devoted to her? Why did she move back here with you and Clifford when your father died?”

“Well, difficult or not, Caroline was her mother. Meredith loved her, and she was always trying to… prove herself to her.” Mum shrugs sadly, opens the piano lid and presses the top note. It floats out, fills the room, in perfect tune. “We were never allowed to play this piano. Not until we’d reached a certain standard. We had that battered old upright in the nursery to practice on instead. Clifford never did get good enough, but I did. Just before I went away to university.”

“There are lots of letters from Meredith in Caroline’s things. They all sound rather sad, as if she was always more or less by herself-even when she was married.”

“Well,” Mum sighs. “I don’t remember my father, so I don’t know how things were before he died. She loved him, very much I think. Perhaps too much. Caroline once said to me that losing love like that left a hole you could never fill. I remember it clearly because she so rarely spoke to me. Or to Clifford-she hardly seemed to notice us children at all. I’d been watching Mum out in the garden, and I jumped when she spoke because I hadn’t heard her sneak up behind me.”

“She could still walk, then?”

“Of course she could! She wasn’t always ancient.”

“But why didn’t Caroline love Meredith? I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I, dear. Your great-grandmother was a very strange woman. Very distant. Sometimes I would go and sit next to her and try to talk to her, but I soon realized she wasn’t listening to a word I said. She would just stare right through you, with those gray eyes of hers. No wonder Meredith married so soon-she must have been thrilled to find somebody who would listen to her!”

“It’s amazing how normal you are. What a great mother you are.”

“Thank you, Erica. Your father helped, of course. My knight in shining armor! If I’d moved back here after my degree, if I’d stayed here long enough to resent them both… who knows?”

“Perhaps not everyone is cut out for parenthood. I can’t imagine Meredith was the cuddliest…”

“No, but she was a good mother, for the most part. Strict, of course. But she wasn’t as… sharp when we were small, as she was after we’d been living back here for a few years. As Caroline grew frail, she needed a lot of looking after. I think Mother resented that. She did her best for us, but I don’t think she got over losing my father, or the disappointment of having life begin and end here-she and Caroline, cooped up in this old house. But we turned out OK, didn’t we? Clifford and I?” she asks me, her face shaped with sudden sadness. I cross the room, hug her.

“More than OK.”

“I’ve come to collect some kisses!” Dad announces, finding us, brandishing mistletoe and a grin.

After dinner we put all our presents under the tree. Eddie looks like a miniature gent in his navy blue monogrammed dressing gown, stripy pyjamas and red felt slippers. He checks the gift tags and positions each parcel carefully, according to some private scheme. We drink brandy, listen to carols. Outside the rain is lashing at the house in waves. It sounds like handfuls of gravel, thrown against the windowpanes. It makes me shiver.

Sometime around midnight the rain stops, the clouds roll away, and a bright moon bedazzles the night sky. It lights the green paper vines climbing the walls in my room, the single wardrobe, the arched window looking east over the driveway. There’s a rookery in the naked chestnut tree outside, the nests like clots in the twiggy branches. I can’t get to sleep. My brain scrambles to life each time I start to drift, sending up a starburst of faces and names and memories to confound me. Brandy does this to me sometimes. I have to unpick each thought from the knotted mess, work it loose from my mind and let it float away. I keep the memories of Dinny, though; I don’t let them go. New ones I’ve made, to add to the well-worn, sunshine ones. Now I know how he looks in winter light, in rain. I know how he looks in firelight. I know how alcohol takes him; I know how he makes a living, how he lives. I know how that wide, lazy childhood smile has grown up, changed, become a quick flash of teeth in the darkness of his face. I know he resents us, Beth and me. And soon, perhaps, I might begin to understand why.

Christmas morning passes in a rushed, comforting haze of food preparation, champagne and piles of torn shiny paper. Dad helps Eddie unpack his new games console, and they experiment with it on the inadequate television in the study while we women occupy the kitchen. The turkey barely fits into the Rayburn. We have to poke its legs in, and the tips of them blacken where they touch the sides.

“Never mind. Everyone prefers breast, anyway,” Mum says to Beth, who waves a nervous hand through the tendrils of smoke rising from the oven. It will take hours to roast and, pleading a slight headache, Beth retires to lie down. She shoots us a mute, angry glance as she goes. She knows we will talk about her now. I don’t know if she sleeps at such times or if she just lies there, reading wisdom in the cracks in the ceiling, watching spiders enmesh the light shade. I hope she sleeps.

Mum and I slide ourselves onto the kitchen benches, link hands across the table, our conversation hanging awkwardly around the urge to talk about Beth. I break the silence.

“I found a load of newspaper clippings in with the photos in one of Meredith’s drawers. About Henry,” I add, unnecessarily. Mum sighs, withdraws her hands from mine.

“Poor Henry,” she says, and strokes her fingers over her forehead, brushing back an imaginary hair.

“I know. I’ve been thinking about him a lot. About what happened-”

“What do you mean, about what happened?” Mum asks sharply. I look up from the thumbnail I was picking.

“Just, that he vanished. His disappearance,” I say.

“Oh.”

“Why? What do you think happened to him?”

“I don’t know! Of course I don’t know. I thought, for a while that… that perhaps you girls knew more than you were saying…”

“You think we had something to do with it?”

“No, of course not! I thought that, maybe, you were protecting somebody.”

“You mean Dinny.” Something flares inside me.

“Yes, all right then, Dinny. He had a temper, your young hero. But, Erica, Henry vanished! He was taken, I’m sure of it. Somebody took him, carried him off and that was the end of it. If anything had happened to him here on the estate, anything at all, then the police would have found some evidence of it. He was taken away, and that’s all there is to it,” she finishes, calm again. “It was a terrible, terrible thing, but nobody is to blame except the person who took him. There are just a few very dangerous people out there, and Henry was unlucky enough to meet one of them.”

“I suppose he was,” I say. None of this rings true to me. None of it convinces me. Eddie by the pond, throwing a stone; and that watery ache in my knees.

“Let’s not talk about it today, shall we?”

“OK, then.”

“How has Beth been?”

“Not great. A bit better now. We went to a party at the camp the other night, and she chatted to Dinny a bit; and she seemed to pick up a little. And now that you and Dad are here too…”

“You went to a party with Dinny?” Mum sounds incredulous.

“Yes. So what?”

“Well,” she shrugs, “it just seems so odd, after all these years. Taking up with him again…”

“We’re not taking up with him. But we are neighbors now. For the time being, anyway. He’s… well. He’s not really much different, and neither am I, so…” For a terrifying moment, I think I will blush.

“He was so in love with Beth, you know. Back when they were twelve,” Mum says, staring into the past and smiling. “They say you never forget your first love.”

I down the last of my champagne, get up to fetch the bottle. The heat of my blush remains, moves up to my nose, threatens to become tears. “Come on. These spuds won’t peel themselves!” I smile, proffering a paring knife at her.

“How long will Beth rest for?”

“A hour, perhaps. Long enough to dodge the potato peeling, that’s for certain.”

My eyes strain against the gathering dark. It’s not yet five o’clock but my feet are indistinct. They snag on tufts and twigs and roots that I can’t see. I’ve come to fetch Eddie. I make a pass of the camp but all is quiet. I am still not sure who each vehicle belongs to, and they look so tight, so closed up against the world that I am too afraid to go knocking on doors, asking for Harry. I cut into the woods but the darkness is even deeper here. I should have brought a torch. Night is coming fast; the light feels exhausted.

“Eddie!” I call, but it’s a pathetic sound. I can see the strict formations of the search teams, going through these woods twenty-three years ago. Five days after he vanished, but still they kept trying. Their faces grim; the dogs pulling at their leads. The crackle and click of CB radios. Henry! Their shouts were loud and clear but stilted even so, as if self-conscious, as if knowing the name was hurled in vain, would only reach their own ears. The weather was foul that weekend-it was the August bank holiday, after all. The tail end of Hurricane Charley, lashing Britain with wind and rain. “Eddie!” I try again, as loudly as I can. The quiet, when my clumsy feet go still, is astounding.

I come out of the woods beyond the dew pond. The barrow is a vague growth on the horizon. I skirt the edge of the field, along the fence, back toward the house, and slowly I see figures coming into being by the water. Two large, one small. I heave a lungful of air, feel a chill slide down my back. I had not known how afraid I was. Harry, Eddie, Dinny. They could be the three protagonists of a boy’s own story, and here they are, at the dew pond. Skimming stones in the near dark on Christmas Day.

“Who’s that?” Eddie says, when they notice me. His voice sounds high, childish.

“It’s me, you muppet,” I say, mocking my own fear at his expense.

“Oh, hi, Rick,” he says. Harry gives an odd hoot-the first real sound I have heard him make. He runs around the water’s edge to me-big clumsy strides. I hold my breath, wait for him to slip, stumble in, but he doesn’t. He presents me with a small stone, flat, almost triangular. I can just about see his smile.

“He wants you to have a go,” Dinny says. I walk carefully around to them. I turn the stone over in my hand. It is warm, smooth.

“I came to get Eddie. It’s time he was in-it’s pitch black out here,” I say to Dinny. I feel prickly, endangered. The water is nothing but a blackness at our feet.

“You just need to give your eyes time to adjust, that’s all,” Dinny tells me, as the others go back to their stones, the flat black water, the counting of white blooms in the gloaming.

“Still, we should go back. My parents are here…”

“Oh? Tell them hello from me.”

“Yes, I will.” I stand next to him, close enough for our sleeves to touch. I don’t care if I am crowding him. I need something near enough to catch, something to anchor me. I can hear him breathing, hear the shape he makes in the echoes from the pond.

“Aren’t you going to skim that stone?” He sounds wryly amused by the idea.

“I can hardly see the water.”

“So? You know it’s there.” He looks sideways at me. Just a silhouette, and I want to put my hands on his face, to feel if he’s smiling.

“Well, here goes.” I creep to the edge, find a firm footing. I crouch, swing my arm, and when I let go of the stone I follow it, toward the surface, toward the obsidian water. One, two, three… I count the splashes and then I stumble, my vision skids vertiginously, my feet slide over the edge of the bank and I gasp. What a place, I have sent that innocent stone to-what darkness.

“Three! Rubbish! Harry got a seven a little while ago!” Eddie calls to me. I feel Dinny’s hands under my arms, the reassuring weight of him pulling me to my feet. Panic fluttering in my chest.

“Not a great night for swimming, I think,” Dinny murmurs. I shake my head, glad he can’t see my face, the tears in my eyes.

“Come on, Eddie, we’re going in,” I say. A ragged edge to my voice.

“But I’ve just…”

“Now, Eddie!” He sighs, solemnly presents Harry with the rest of his stones. They make a warm, cheerful noise as they change palms. I walk away from the edge, back toward the house.

“Erica,” Dinny calls to me. I turn, and he hesitates. “Happy Christmas,” he says. I can tell this is not what he had intended to say, and even though I wonder, I don’t feel strong enough to ask right now.

“Happy Christmas, Dinny,” I reply.