The Legacy

Chapter 2

My mother’s brother, my Uncle Clifford, and his wife, Mary, want the old linen press from the nursery, the round Queen Anne table from the study and the collection of miniatures that live in a glass-topped display case at the foot of the stairs. I’m not sure if this is what Meredith meant when she said her children could take a keepsake, but I really don’t care. I dare say a few more things will find their way into Clifford’s lorry at the end of the week, and if Meredith would be outraged, I will not be. It’s a grand house, but it’s not Chatsworth. There are no museum pieces, apart from a couple of the paintings perhaps. Just a big, old house full of big, old things; valuable, perhaps, but also unloved. Our mother has asked only for any family photographs I can find. I love her for her decency, and her heart.

I hope Clifford is sending enough men. The linen press is enormous. It looms against the far wall of the nursery: acres of French mahogany with minarets and cornicing, a scaled-down temple to starch and mothballs. A set of wooden steps live behind it, and they creak and wobble beneath me. I pull stiff, solid piles of linens from the shelves and drop them to the floor. They are flat, weighty; their landings make the pictures shake. Dust flies and my nose prickles, and Beth appears in the doorway, rushing to discover what havoc I am wreaking. There is so much of it. Generations of bed sheets, worn enough to have been replaced, not worn enough to have been thrown out. It could be decades since some of these piles have been disturbed. I remember Meredith’s housekeeper puffing up the stairs with laden arms; her cracked red cheeks and her broad ugly hands.

Once I’ve emptied the press I am not sure what to do with all the piles of linen. It could go to charity, I suppose. But I’m not up to the task of black-bagging it all, heaving it down to the car, taking it in batches into Devizes. I pile it back up against the wall, and as I do my eyes catch on one pattern, one splash of weak color in all the white. Yellow flowers. Three pillowcases with yellow flowers, green stems, embroidered into each corner in silk thread that still catches the light. I run my thumb over the neat stitching, feel how years of use have made the fabric watery soft. There is something in the back of my mind, something I know I recognize but can’t remember. Have I seen them before? The flowers are ragged looking, wild. I can’t put a name to them. And there are only three. Four pillowcases with every other set but this one. I drop them back onto a pile, drop more linen on top. I find I am frowning and consciously unknit my brow.

Clifford and Mary are Henry’s parents. Were Henry’s parents. They were in Saint Tropez when he disappeared, which the press unfairly made a great deal out of. As if they had left him with strangers, as if they had left him home alone. Our parents did it too. We often came here for the whole of the school holidays, and for two weeks or even three, most years, Mum and Dad would go away without us. To Italy, for long walks; to the Caribbean to sail. I liked and feared having them gone. Liked it because Meredith never checked up on us much, never came outside in search of us when we’d been gone for hours. We felt liberated, we tore about like yahoos. But feared it because, inside the house, Meredith had sole charge of us. We had to be with her. Eat our dinner with her, answer her questions, think up lies. It never occurred to me that I didn’t like her, or that she was unpleasant. I was too young to think that way. But when Mum got back I flew to her, gathered clammy handfuls of her skirts.

Beth kept me extra close when our parents were away. If she walked ahead, it was with one hand held slightly behind her, long fingers spread, always waiting for me to take hold of them. And if I didn’t she would pause, glance over her shoulder, make sure that I was following. One year, Dinny built her a tree house in a tall beech on the far side of the wood. We’d hardly seen him for days and he’d forbidden us to spy on him. The weather had been fitful, wind dimpling the surface of the dew pond, too fresh to swim. We’d played dressing up in a spare bedroom; built castles of empty flowerpots in the orangery; made a den in the secret hollow center of the yew topiary globe on the top lawn. Then the sun came out again and we saw Dinny wave from the corner of the garden, and Beth smiled at me, her eyes alight.

“It’s ready,” he said, when we reached him.

“What is it?” I demanded. “Go on-tell us!”

“A surprise,” was all he would say, smiling shyly at Beth. We followed him through the trees, and I was telling him about the den in the topiary when I saw it and was silenced. One of the biggest beech trees, with a silvery smooth trunk and bark that wrinkled where its branches forked, like the crook of your elbow or the back of your knee. I’d seen Dinny climb it before, with a few practiced swings, to sit amidst the pale green leaves far above me. Now, high up where the tree began to spread, Dinny had built a broad platform of sturdy planks. The walls were made from old fertilizer bags, bright blue, nailed to a wooden frame and belling in and out like boat sails. The route up to this fortress was marked by knotted rope loops and chunks of scrap wood, nailed to the tree to form an intermittent ladder. In the hung silence I heard the enticing rush of the breeze, the rustling snap of the tree house walls.

“What do you think?” Dinny asked, folding his arms and squinting at us.

“It’s brilliant! It’s the best tree house ever!” I exclaimed, bouncing urgently from foot to foot.

“It’s great-did you build it all by yourself?” Beth asked, still smiling up at the blue house. Dinny nodded.

“Come up and see-it’s even better inside,” he told her, moving to the foot of the tree, reaching up for the first handhold.

“Come on, Beth!” I admonished her, when she hesitated.

“OK!” she laughed. “You go first, Erica-I’ll give you a boost to the first branch.”

“We should give it a name. You should name it, Dinny!” I chattered, hoisting up my skirt, tucking it into my knickers.

“What about the watch tower? Or the crow’s nest?” he said. Beth and I agreed-The Crow’s Nest it would be. Beth hoisted me onto the first branch, my sandals scuffing welts into the powdery green algae, but I could not reach the next handhold. My fingertips crooked over the rung Dinny had nailed into the tree, so close, but too far for me to hang on safely. Dinny joined me on the first branch, let me step on his bent knee until I could reach, but from there my leg would not stretch to the next rung.

“Come down, Erica,” Beth called at length, when I was red and cross and feeling close to tears.

“No! I want to go up!” I protested, but she shook her head.

“You’re too little! Come down!” she insisted. Dinny withdrew his knee, jumped down from the tree, and I had no choice but to obey. I slithered back to the ground and stared in sullen silence at my stupid, too-short legs. I had grazed my knee, but was too disheartened to be excited about the sticky worm of blood oozing down my shin.

“Beth, then? Are you coming up?” Dinny asked, and I sank inside, to be left out, to miss out on the wonderful tree house. But Beth shook her head.

“Not if Erica can’t,” she said. I glanced up at Dinny but looked away again quickly, squirming away from the disappointment in his eyes, the way his smile had vanished. He leant against the tree, folded his arms defensively. Beth hesitated for a while, as if unable to choose her next words. Then her hand reached out for me again. “Come on, Rick. We need to go and wash your leg.”

Two days later Dinny fetched us back again, and this time the trunk of the beech tree was riddled with rungs and ropes. Beth smiled calmly at Dinny and I flew to the bottom of this ramshackle staircase, staring up at the floating house as I started to climb.

“Go carefully!” Beth gasped, sucking the fingertips of one hand as I missed my footing, wobbled. She followed me up, frowning in concentration, careful not to look down. A loose curtain of bags marked the doorway. Inside, Dinny had arranged plastic sacks stuffed with straw. There was a wooden crate table, a bunch of cow parsley in a milk bottle, a pack of cards, some comics. It was quite simply the best place I had ever seen. We painted a sign, to put at the foot of the ladder. The Crow’s Nest. Trespassers will be Persecuted. Mum laughed when she read it. We spent hours up there, adrift in whispering green clouds with patches of bright sky sparkling overhead, eating picnics, far away from Meredith and Henry. I worried that Henry would ruin it when he came to stay. I worried that he would crash through our magical place, mock it, make it seem less magnificent. But by happy, happy chance, it turned out that Henry was afraid of heights.

In my head Henry is always bigger than me, older than me. Eleven when I was seven. It seemed an enormous gap at the time. He was a big boy. He was loud and bossy. He said I had to do what he told me. He buttered Meredith up-she always preferred boys to girls. He went along with her on the rare occasions she came out to the woods, and more than once helped her make a nasty scheme a reality. Henry: a fleshy neck with a receding chin; dark brown hair; clear blue eyes that he would narrow, make ugly; pale skin that burnt across the nose in summer. One of those children, I see him now, who is a grown-up in miniature rather than a child, who you can look at and know, at once, what they will look like as an adult. His features were already mapped; they would grow, but not develop. He wore himself in his face, I think, charmless, obvious. But this is unfair. He never got the chance to prove me wrong, after all.

Eddie still has the face of a child, and I love it. A nondescript boy’s face, sharp nose, tufty hair, kneecaps standing proud from skinny shanks in his school shorts. My nephew. He hugs Beth on the platform, a little sheepishly because some of his classmates are on the train behind him, banging on the glass, sticking up their fingers. I wait by the car for them, my hands puckered with cold, grinning as they draw near.

“Hey, Eddie Baby! Edderino! Eddius Maximus!” I call to him, putting my arms around him and squeezing, pulling his feet off the ground.

“Auntie Rick, it’s just Ed now,” he protests, with a hint of exasperation.

“ ’Course. Sorry. And you can’t call me Auntie-you make me feel a hundred years old! Sling your bag in the back and let’s get going,” I say, resisting the urge to tease him. He is eleven now. The same age Henry will always be, and old enough for teasing to matter. “How was your train ride?”

“Pretty boring. Except Absolom locked Marcus in the loo. He screamed the place down-quite funny really,” Eddie reports. He smells of school and it starts to fill the car, sharp and vinegary. Unwashed socks, pencil shavings, mud, ink, stale sandwiches.

“Pretty funny, indeed! I had to go in and see the head a fortnight ago because he’d shut his art teacher in her classroom. They pushed a block of lockers against her door!” Beth says, voice loud and bright, startling me.

“It wasn’t my idea, Mum!”

“You still helped,” Beth counters. “What if there’d been a fire or something? She was in there for hours!”

“Well… they shouldn’t have banned mobile phones then, should they?” Eddie says, smiling. I catch his eye in the rear-view mirror and wink.

“Edward Calcott Walker, I am appalled,” I say lightly. Beth glares at me. I must remember not to conspire with Eddie against her, not even over something tiny. It can’t be him and me against her, even for a second. She resents my help already.

“Is this a new car?”

“New-ish,” I tell him. “The old Beetle finally died on me. Wait until you see the house, Ed. It’s a monster.” But as we pull in and I look at him expectantly, he nods, raises his eyebrows, is not impressed. Then I think the manor might only be the size of one wing of his school-smaller than his friends’ houses, perhaps.

“I’m so glad it’s school holidays again, darling,” Beth says, taking Eddie’s bag from him. He smiles at her sidelong, slightly abashed. He will be taller than her eventually-he reaches her shoulder already.

I tour Eddie around the grounds while Beth settles down with his report card. I take him up to the barrow, skirt the dreary woods, arrive at the dew pond. He has found a long stick somewhere and swishes it, beheading the weeds and dead nettles. It’s warmer today, but damp. Flecks of drizzle in the breeze, and the empty branches knocking overhead.

“Why’s it called a dew pond? Isn’t it just a pond?” he asks, smacking the edge with his stick, crouching on supple, bony legs. Ripples fly out across the surface. The pockets of his jeans bulge with pilfered treasures. He’s like a magpie that way, but they are things nobody would miss. Old safety pins, conkers, bits of blue and white china from the soil.

“This is where the stream starts. It was dug out a long time ago, to make this pond as a kind of reservoir. And dew pond because it traps the dew as well, I suppose.”

“Can you swim in it?”

“We used to-Dinny and your mum and I. Actually, I don’t think your mum ever went all the way in. It was always pretty cold.”

“Jamie’s parents have got this wicked lake for swimming in-it’s a swimming pool, except it’s not all chlorine and tiles and all that. It’s got plants and everything. But it’s clean.”

“Sounds great. Not at this time of year, though, eh?”

“Guess not. Who’s Dinny?”

“Dinny… was a boy we used to play with. When we came here as kids. His family lived nearby. So…” I trail off. Why should talking about Dinny make me feel so conspicuous? Dinny. With his square hands so good at making things. Dark eyes smiling through his fringe, and his hair a thatch that I once stuck daisies into while he slept, my fingers trembling with suppressed mirth, with my audacity; to be so close and to touch him. “He was a real adventurer. He built a fabulous tree house one year…”

“Can we see it? Is it still there?” he asks.

“We can go and look, if you like,” I offer. Eddie grins, and jogs a few paces ahead, taking aim at a sapling, tackling it with a two-handed blow.

Eddie’s adult teeth haven’t sorted themselves out yet. They seem to jostle for position in his mouth. There are big gaps, and a pair that cross over. They’ll be clamped behind braces soon enough.

“What did I hear the other boys calling you from the train?” I call out to him.

He grimaces. “Pot Plant,” he admits, ruefully.

“Why on earth…?”

“Well, it’s kind of embarrassing… do I have to say?”

“Yeah, you do. No secrets between us.” I smile. Eddie sighs.

“Miss Wilton keeps a little plant on her desk-I’m not sure what it is. Mum has them too-dark purple flowers, with furry leaves?”

“Sounds like an African violet.”

“Whatever. Well, she left us in there on detention at lunchtime, and I said I was so hungry I could eat anything, so Ben bet me a fiver I wouldn’t eat her plant. So…”

“So you did?” I raise an eyebrow, folding my arms as we walk. Eddie shrugs, but he can’t help but look a little pleased.

“Not the whole thing. Just the flowers.”

“Eddie!”

“Don’t tell Mum!” he chortles, jogging on again. “What was your nickname at school?” he calls back to me.

“I didn’t really have one. Just Rick. I was always the youngest one, tagging along. Dinny called me ‘Pup,’ sometimes,” I tell him.

We are closer than many aunts and nephews, Eddie and I. I stayed with him for two months while Beth recovered, while she got help. It was a strained time, a time of keeping going and pretending, and being normal and not fussing. We didn’t have any big conversations. We didn’t bare our souls, pour out our hearts. Eddie was too young, and I am too impatient. But we shared a time of extreme awkwardness, of concentrated sadness and anger and confusion. We jarred along, the both of us feeling that way; and that’s what makes us close-the knowledge of that time. His father Maxwell and I holding hushed, strangled arguments behind closed doors, not wanting Eddie to hear his father call his mother unfit.

All that remains of the tree house are a few ragged planks, dark and green and slimy looking; like the rotten bones of a shipwreck.

“Well, I guess it’s kind of had its day,” I say, sadly.

“You could rebuild it. I’ll help, if you want?” Eddie says, keen to cheer me up.

I smile. “We could try. It’s more of a summer thing though-it’d be a bit cold and mucky up there now, I should think.”

“Why did you stop coming here? To visit Great-Grandma?” An innocent question, poor Eddie, to ease the moment. What a question for him to ask.

“Oh… you know. We just… went on holiday with our parents more as we got older. I don’t really remember.”

“But you always say you never forget the important things that happen when you’re a kid. That’s what you told me, when I won that prize for speech and drama.” I had meant it to be a positive thing when I said it. But he won the prize while I was staying with him for those two months, and what we both thought, at the same time, was that what he would always remember was coming home from school and finding Beth the way he did. I saw the thought fly across his face, shut my eyes, wished I could pull my words back out of the air.

“Well, that just goes to show that it can’t have been that big a thing, doesn’t it?” I say lightly. “Come on-there’s loads more to see.”

We head back toward the house, ducking into the orangery as it starts to pour with rain. From there, barely getting wet, we dodge from shed to shed, through the old stables to the coach house, which is congested with junk and spattered with bird shit. Above our heads we count the swallows’ nests, clinging to the beams like fungus. Eddie finds a small axe, the blade garish with rust.

“Awesome!” he breathes, brandishing it in a swooping arc. I grab his wrist, test the comprehensive bluntness of the axe with my thumb.

“Be extremely careful with it,” I say, fixing him in the eye. “And don’t bring it into the house.”

“I won’t,” he says, swooping it again, smiling at the thrum of severed air.

Outside, it grows darker and the rain falls faster. A stream of muddy water bubbles past the coach house door.

“Let’s go in, shall we? Your mum’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.”

“She should come out and see the tree house, see if she thinks we could rebuild it. Do you think she would?”

“I don’t know, Ed. You know how quickly she gets cold when the weather’s like this,” I say. Nothing between the core of her and the winter chill. No flesh, no muscle, no thick skin.

Beth is making mince pies again when we clatter into the kitchen. She’s rolling the pastry, cutting the shapes, filling them, baking them, bagging them. She started yesterday, in preparation for Eddie’s arrival, and shows no sign of stopping. The kitchen table is awash with flour and scraps, empty mincemeat jars. The smell is heavenly. Flushed, she brings another batch out from the Rayburn oven, slapping the trays down onto the scarred counter. She’s filled every tin and biscuit barrel. There are several bags in the ancient freezer in the cellar. I pick two up, pass one to Eddie. The filling scalds my tongue.

“These are fabulous, Beth,” I say, by way of a greeting. She shoots me a small smile, which broadens when it moves to her son. She crosses to kiss his cheek, leaving ghostly flour fingerprints on his sleeves.

“Well done, darling. All your teachers seem very pleased with you,” she tells him. I pick up the report card from the table, blow flour from it and flick through. “With the possible exception of Miss Wilton…” she qualifies. She of the African violet.

“What does she teach?” I ask him, as he squirms slightly.

“French,” Eddie mumbles, through a mouthful of pie.

“She says you aren’t trying nearly hard enough, and that when you do try you prove that you should be doing much better than you currently are,” Beth goes on, holding Eddie’s shoulders, not letting him escape. He shrugs ambiguously. “And-three detentions this term? What’s that all about?”

“French is just so boring!” he declares. “And Miss Wilton is so strict! She’s really unfair! One of those detentions I got was because Ben threw a note at me! It was hardly my fault!”

“Well, just try to pay a bit more attention, OK? French is really important-no, it is!” she insists, when Eddie rolls his eyes. “When I’m rich and I retire to the south of France, how are you going to cope if you can’t speak the language?”

“By shouting and pointing?” he ventures. Beth presses her lips together severely, but then she laughs, a rich, glowing sound I so rarely hear. She can’t help it, not with Eddie. “Can I have another mince pie?” he asks, sensing victory.

“Go on. Then go and get in the bath-you’re filthy!” Eddie grabs two pies and darts out of the kitchen.

“Take your bag up with you!” Beth calls after him.

“I’ve run out of hands!” Eddie calls back.

“Run out of inclination, is more like it,” Beth says to me, smiling ruefully.

Later, we watch a film; Beth curled with Eddie on the sofa with a huge bowl of popcorn wedged between them. When I glance at her I see that she’s hardly following the film. She turns her chin, rests it on the top of Eddie’s head, shuts her eyes contentedly, and I feel some of the knots inside me loosen, slipping away into the warmth of the open fire. The weekend passes quickly this way-a trip to the cinema in Devizes, school work at the kitchen table, mince pies; Eddie out in the coach house, or marauding through the deserted stables, wielding his axe. Beth is serene, if a little distracted. She stops baking when she runs out of flour, and stands for long moments, watching Eddie through the window with a faint, faraway smile.

“I might take him to France next summer,” she says to me, not breaking off this vigil as I pass her a cup of tea.

“I think he’d love it,” I say.

“The Dordogne, perhaps. Or the Lot Valley. We could go river swimming.” I love to hear her make plans. Future plans. I love to know she is thinking that far ahead. I rest my chin on her shoulder for a moment, follow her gaze out into the garden.

“I told you he’d have fun here,” I remark. “Christmas will be excellent.” Her hair smells faintly of mint and I pull it over her shoulder, smooth it flat against her sweater with a long sweep of my hand.

On Sunday afternoon, Maxwell arrives to collect his son. I shout for Beth as I open the door to him, and when she does not appear I give Maxwell a short tour of the ground floor and make him a coffee. Maxwell divorced Beth five years ago, when her depression seemed to be getting worse and her weight plummeted, and he said he just couldn’t cope and it was no way to raise a child. So he left her and remarried pretty much straight away-a short, plump, healthy-looking woman called Diane: white teeth, cashmere, perfect nails. Uncomplicated. Beth’s depression was very convenient for Maxwell, I’ve always thought. But he’s not all bad. He met her at a good time, that’s all, when she was all grace and demure beauty. She was like a swan then, like a lily. A fair-weather friend is what Maxwell turned out to be. Now his grey raincoat is dripping onto the flagstones, but the rain can’t spoil the sheen of wealth on hair, shoes, skin.

“Quite an impressive place,” he says, taking a gulp of the scalding hot coffee with a loud sound I don’t like.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” I agree, leaning against the Rayburn, folding my arms. I found it hard to warm to Maxwell when he was still my brother-in-law. Now, I find it near impossible.

“Needs a lot of work, of course. But huge potential,” he declares. He made his money in property, and I wonder, with a touch of spite, how the credit crunch is working out for him. Huge potential. He said that about the cottage Beth bought near Esher, after the divorce. He sees everything with a developer’s eye, but Beth kept the swollen wooden doors, the fireplaces that only draw when the windows are open. She likes it half broken. “Have you decided what you’re going to do with it?”

“No, not yet. Beth and I haven’t really talked about it,” I say. A flash of irritation crosses his face. He never did like diffidence getting in the way of good sense.

“Well, this legacy could make the pair of you very wealthy women-”

“We’d have to stay here, though. Live here. I’m not sure that’s what either of us wants.”

“But you needn’t rattle around in the whole house. Have you thought about converting it into flats? You’d need planning, of course, but that shouldn’t be a problem. You could keep an apartment and the freehold for yourselves, and sell the rest off with long leaseholds. You’d make an absolute killing, and keep to the terms of the will.”

“That would cost thousands and thousands…” I shake my head. “Besides, we’re having a recession, remember? I thought building and developing was at a standstill?”

“We may be in recession now, but in two years’ time, three? People will always need places to live, in the long term.” Maxwell tips his head, considering. “You’d need investors. I could help you with that. I might even be interested myself…” I see him look around the room with renewed attention, as if drawing up plans, measuring. It gives me a spasm of distaste.

“Thanks. I’ll mention it to Beth.” My tone is final. Maxwell looks at me with a stern eye but says nothing for a while.

He fixes his eyes on a painting of fruit on the opposite wall, and at length he clears his throat slightly, so I know what he will ask next.

“And how is Beth?”

“She’s fine,” I shrug, deliberately vague. Again, irritation shimmers across his features, puckers his forehead into a deeper frown.

“Come on, Erica. When I saw her last week she was looking very thin again. Is she eating? Has she been acting up at all?” I try not to think about the mince pies. About the hundreds of mince pies.

“Not that I’ve noticed,” I lie. It’s a big lie. She’s getting worse again, and though I don’t exactly know why, I do know when it started-when she peaked, and started to fall again: it was when Meredith died. When, by dying, she brought this place back into our lives.

“So where is she?”

“I’ve no idea. Probably in the bathroom,” I shrug.

“Keep an eye on her,” he mutters. “I don’t want Eddie spending Christmas here if she’s going to have one of her episodes. It’s just not fair on him.”

“She’s not going to have an episode. Not unless you try to keep Eddie away from her,” I snap.

“It’s not a question of keeping Eddie away from her. It’s about doing what’s best for my son, and-”

“What’s best for him is that he gets to spend time with his mother. And it helps her so much to have him around. She’s always much better-”

“It shouldn’t be up to Edward to make his mother better!”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“I only agreed to Edward coming here at all because you would be here to keep an eye on things, Erica. Beth has already shown how unpredictable she can be, how unstable. Putting your head in the sand won’t help, you know.”

“I think I know my sister, Maxwell, and she is not unstable-”

“Look, I know you only want to stick up for her, Erica, and it’s admirable. But this isn’t a game. Seeing her at her worst is something that might affect Edward for the rest of his life, and I am not prepared to let that happen! Not again.”

“Keep your voice down, for God’s sake!”

“Look, I just want-”

“I know what you want, Maxwell, but you can’t change the fact that Beth is Eddie’s mother. People aren’t perfect-Beth’s not perfect. But she is a great mother, and she adores Eddie, and if you could just focus on that for a change, instead of watching and waiting and crying sole custody! every time she gets a little bit down…”

“A little bit down is something of an understatement, though, isn’t it Erica?” he says, and I can only glare at him because he is right. In the pause we hear a noise from outside the room, and exchange an accusatory glance. Eddie is in the hallway, swinging his kit bag awkwardly, left to right. It twists his skinny wrist. “Edward!” Maxwell calls, smiling broadly and crossing to engulf his son in a brief hug.

It takes me quite some time to find Beth. The house is dark today, like the world outside. A midwinter Sunday when the sun barely seemed to rise and is now fading again. I move from door to door, flinging them open, peering in, breathing the stale smell of rooms long shut. A few hours ago we all had a late breakfast, sitting at the long table in the kitchen. Beth was bright and shiny; she made hot chocolate and warmed croissants in the Rayburn for us all. Too bright and shiny, I realize now. I didn’t see her slip away. I flick at light switches as I go but a lot of the bulbs have blown. I find her at last, wedged onto the window sill in one of the top floor bedrooms. From there she can see the silver car in the driveway, streaked and scattered by the rain on the dirty window.

“Maxwell’s here,” I say, pointlessly. Beth ignores me. She catches her bottom lip in two fingers, pushes it against her teeth, bites it hard. “Eddie’s going, Beth. You have to come down and see him off. Come on. And Maxwell wants to speak to you.”

“I don’t want to speak to him. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want Eddie to go.”

“I know. But it’s just for a while. And you can’t let Eddie go without saying goodbye.” She rolls her head to glare at me. So tired, she looks. So tired and sad. “Please, Beth. They’re waiting… we have to go down.” Beth draws in a breath, unfolds herself from the sill-a slow, deliberate, underwater movement.

“Found her!” My cheerful announcement is too loud. “This place is big enough to get lost in.” Beth and Maxwell ignore me, but Eddie smiles, at a loss. I wish Beth would put on a better act sometimes. Would show that she copes. I could shake her for not showing Maxwell a better front right now. She stands before him with her arms folded, lost inside a shapeless cardigan. She didn’t fight when he left. They settled amicably-that was the word both families bandied about. Amicable. There is nothing amicable about Beth as she stands there now, gray-faced, raw looking. They do not touch.

“Good to see you, Beth. You look well,” Max lies.

“So do you.”

“Look, do you mind if we drop Eddie back next Saturday, rather than the Friday? Only it’s Melissa’s school carol concert on the Friday night and we’d all like to go together, wouldn’t we, Ed?” Eddie shrugs a shoulder and nods at the same time. The poor boy could teach diplomacy. Beth’s mouth pinches, her jaw knots. How she hates any mention of Max’s new family, any extra second of time Eddie spends with them. But the request is reasonable, and she strives to be reasonable too.

“Of course. Of course it’s no problem,” she says.

“Great,” Maxwell smiles, a quick, businesslike smile. There’s a quiet pause, just the scuff scuff scuff of Eddie’s bag, swinging to and fro. “Have you got much planned for the week?” Maxwell asks.

“Not a lot-sorting through some of the old girl’s junk, getting ready for Christmas,” I say lightly. Beth adds nothing to this summary.

“Right, well, let’s get on, shall we, Ed?” Maxwell ushers his son toward the door. “We’ll see you on Saturday. Have a good week, the pair of you.”

“Wait! Eddie…” Beth rushes over to him and hugs him too tightly. She would go with him if she could. Keep hold of him, not let him forget her, not let him love Diane and Melissa too much. When the door is shut behind them I turn to Beth, but she won’t meet my eye.

“I wish you wouldn’t always be so quiet in front of Maxwell!” I burst out. “Can’t you be more…” I trail off, at a loss. Beth flings her arms up.

“No, I can’t! I know he wants to take Eddie away from me. I can’t pretend I don’t know, or don’t mind!” she cries.

“I know, I know,” I soothe her. She puts her hands through her messy hair. “Eddie will be back soon,” I add. “You know how much he loves being with you, Beth-he just adores you, and nothing Maxwell ever does will change that.” I grip her shoulders gently, try to coax a smile from her. Beth sighs, folds her arms.

“I know. I just… I’m going for a shower,” she says, and turns away from me.

With Eddie gone, the house is just big and empty again. By silent consensus we have stopped sorting through Meredith’s things for now. The task is just too huge and seems pointless. The contents of this house have been here so long they’ve corroded in place. It would be an impossible task to remove it all now. They will have to use force, maybe bulldozers-I picture that, a metal-toothed bucket scraping through layers of fabric and carpet and paper and wood and dust. Hard work, like trying to scoop balls from an unripe melon. It will be a terrible act of violence. All the little traces of so many lives.

“I never thought, before, about what happens to a person’s things when they die,” I say as we eat supper. The larder was full of Heinz tinned soups when we arrived but we’re getting through them. I’ll have to venture out into the village sometime soon.

“What do you mean?”

“Well… just that, I’ve never known anybody to die before. I’ve never had to deal with the aftermath, to…”

“Deal with the aftermath? You make it sound like a selfish thing to do, dying. Is that what you think?” Beth’s voice is low and intense. Such a change in her, now that Eddie has left.

“No! Of course not. That wasn’t what I was saying at all. I just meant that it’s not something you think about, until it happens… who’ll sort everything out. Where things will go. I mean, what will happen to Meredith’s nighties? Her stockings? The food in the larder?” I am struggling; the conversation was meant to be flippant.

“What does it matter, Erica?” Beth snaps at me. I stop talking, break off a piece of bread, crumble it between my fingers.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. Sometimes I feel very lonely with Beth.

I never used to, not when we were younger, not before. We didn’t antagonize each other much, or argue. Perhaps the age gap between us was big enough. Perhaps it was because we had a common enemy. Not even when we were shut inside for two whole days, two long sunny days, did we turn on each other. That was Henry’s doing, and Meredith’s. Meredith forbade us playing with Dinny from the word go; told us not to talk to any of his family, not to go near them, after we had innocently announced our new friendship to her at teatime.

We met him at the dew pond, where he was swimming. The day was warm but not hot. Early in the summer, I think it was; the landscape still fresh and green. A cool breeze blowing, so that when we first saw him, soaking wet, we shivered. His clothes were in a pile on the bank. All of his clothes. Beth took my hand, but we did not run away. Straight away, we were fascinated. Straight away, we wanted to know him-a thin, dark, naked boy with wet hair clinging to his neck, swimming and diving, all by himself. How old was I? I’m not sure. Four or five, no more than that.

“Who are you?” he asked, treading water. I shuffled closer to Beth, held her hand tighter.

“That’s our grandmother’s house,” Beth explained, pointing back at the manor. Dinny paddled a bit closer.

“But who are you?” he smiled, teeth and eyes gleaming.

“Beth!” I whispered urgently. “He’s got no clothes on!”

“Shh!” Beth hushed me, but it was a funny little sound, made buoyant by a giggle.

“Beth, then. And you?” Dinny looked at me. I lifted my chin a little.

“I’m Erica,” I announced, with all the composure I could muster. Just then a brown and white Jack Russell terrier burst from the woods and bounded over to us, yapping and wagging.

“I’m Nathan Dinsdale and that’s Arthur.” He nodded to the dog. After that, I would have followed him anywhere. I longed for a pet-a proper pet, not the goldfish that was all we had room for at home. I was so busy playing with the dog that I don’t remember how Dinny got out of the pond without Beth seeing him naked. I suspect that he did not.

We kept seeing him, of course, in spite of Meredith’s ban, and we usually managed to keep it secret by giving Henry the slip before going down to the camp where Dinny lived with his family, at the edge of the manor’s grounds. Henry usually steered clear of it anyway. He didn’t want to disobey Meredith, and instead absorbed her contempt for the travellers, nurtured it, let it grow into a hatred of his own. The time she shut us in our parents had gone away for the weekend. We went into the village with Dinny, to buy sweets and Coke at the shop. I turned and saw Henry. He ducked behind the phone box, but not quickly enough, and I had a prickling feeling between my shoulder blades as we walked back to the house. Dinny said goodbye and wandered off through the trees, giving the house a wide berth.

Meredith was waiting for us on the step when we got back; Henry nowhere to be seen. But I knew how she knew. She grabbed our arms, nails cutting in, bent down, put her livid face close to ours. “If you play with dogs, you will catch fleas,” she said, the words clipped and bitten. We were towed upstairs, made to bath in water so hot our skin turned red and angry and I wailed and wailed. Beth was silent, furious.

Afterwards, as I lay in bed and snivelled, Beth coached me in a low voice. “She wants to punish us, by keeping us indoors, so we have to show that we don’t care. That we don’t mind. Do you understand, Erica? Please don’t cry!” she whispered, stroking my hair back with fingers that shook with rage. I nodded, I think, but I was too upset to pay attention to her. It was still broad daylight outside. I could hear Henry playing with one of the dogs on the lawn, hear Clifford’s voice, blurring through the floorboards. A wide August afternoon and we had been put to bed. Confined for the whole weekend.

When our parents got back we told them everything. Dad said, “This is too much, Laura. I mean it this time.” I felt a flare of joy, of love for him.

Mum said, “I’ll talk to her.”

At teatime, I overheard them in the kitchen. Mum and Meredith.

“He seems like a nice enough boy. Quite sensible. I really don’t see the harm in it, Mother,” Mum said.

“Don’t see the harm? Do you want the girls to start using that dreadful Wiltshire slang? Do you want them to learn how to steal, and to swear? Do you want them to come home lousy and degraded? If so, then indeed, there can be no harm,” Meredith replied, coldly.

“My girls would never steal,” Mum told her firmly. “And I think degraded is overdoing it, really.”

“I don’t, Laura. Perhaps you’ve forgotten how much trouble those people have caused us over the years?”

“How could I forget?” Mum sighed.

“Well, they are your children…”

“Yes, they are.”

“But if you want them to live under my roof, and in my care, then they will have to abide by my rules,” Meredith snapped.

Mum took a deep breath. “If I hear that they have been locked up inside again, then they won’t come here at all any more, and neither will David and I,” she said quietly, but I could hear the tension. Nearly a tremor. Meredith did not reply. I heard her footsteps coming toward me and I bolted out of sight. With the coast clear I went in to my mother, found her washing up with a quiet intensity, eyes bright. I put my arms around her legs, squeezed her tight. Meredith was never any less averse to us playing with Dinny, but we were never shut in our room again. Mum won on that point, at least.

Monday morning is leaden and wet. The tips of my fingers and toes were chilled when I woke up, and have stayed that way; and now the end of my nose too. I can’t remember when I was last this cold. In London it just doesn’t happen. There’s the clammy warmth of the underground, the buffeting heat of shops and cafés. A hundred and one places to hide from any dip in the outside temperature. I’m in the orangery, on the south side of the house, overlooking a small lawn ringed with gnarled fruit trees. When we were playing too loudly, when we were trying Meredith’s patience, we would be sent here, to the small lawn, while the grown-ups sat on the west-facing terrace at a white iron table, drinking iced tea and vodka. My companions in here are the skeletal remains of some tomato plants and a toad, sitting plump by the tap that drips verdigris water onto a bright green swathe of duckweed. I had forgotten the quiet of the countryside, and it unnerves me.

It’s earthy and damp in here; a fecund smell, in spite of the season. One of my earliest memories of Henry, who would have been eight or nine: on the small lawn when I was five or so; a hot August day during one of those summers that seemed to last for ever; the grass baked blonde, crisping under the onslaught; the terrace stones too hot for bare feet; the dogs too fagged to play; my nose peeling and freckles on Beth’s arms. They set up one of those giant paddling pools for us on the small lawn. So big that there were steps to climb over the side and an expanse of blue plastic sheet inside, so enticing even before the water went in. I can still smell that hot plastic. It was set up, smoothed out; an illicit hosepipe threaded over to it. The water from the hose came straight from the mains and it was icy on our toasted skin. Deliciously numbing. I fidgeted about in my red swimsuit, desperate for it to fill faster.

Henry climbed in straight away, with grass on his feet that floated away. He picked up the hosepipe and waved it at us, now that the grown-ups had retreated. He sprayed us and would not let us come near. I remember being so desperate to get in, to get my feet wet. But on my terms. I did not want to be splashed. Feet first, then the rest, gradually. Every time I got near, he sprayed me. The water was at his anklebones, his feet white and rippling. His body was white too, soft looking, nipples pouting slightly, turned down. Then he stopped, and he swore to me-he promised. He swore an oath that I could enter safely, that he had finished spraying. I made him put the hose down before I climbed in carefully. A second of ecstatic cold on my feet then Henry grabbed me, put my head under his arm, pushed the hose right into my face. Water up my nose, in my eyes, freezing, choking; Beth shouting at him from ringside. I coughed and howled until Mum came looking.

I wish Beth would come out of the house. I read somewhere that the great outdoors is just the thing for depression. A bracing walk, a communion with nature. As if depression is like a bout of indigestion, to be worked out of the system. I am not sure if it will work at this time of year, when the wind can blow right through your soul, but it has to be better than haunting that house. On the work bench I find a trug and some secateurs, and I head out toward the woods.

I walk in a loop via the dew pond. I do this most days. I can’t seem to stay away. Standing on the steep edge of it, kicking over chalk and flints. Hints of something return to me when I stand here. Wherever I stand around Storton Manor, hints return to me-little snapshots that go with a view, or a smell, or a room. A ribbon tied behind a bed. Yellow flowers stitched on a pillowcase. Every step is an aide-memoire. Here at the pond there is something I should remember, something more than playing, than swimming, than the thrill of the forbidden. I shut my eyes and crouch down, hug my knees. I concentrate on the smell of the water and the ground, on the sound of the trees overhead. I can hear a dog barking, a long way off, in the village perhaps. There is definitely something, something I am trying to know. I put blind fingers forward until they touch the surface. The water bites, cold to the bone. I picture it thickening, ice crystals spinning hard threads through it. For one second I feel the old fear of being sucked down into it. For if water could come up from the bottom of it, from nowhere, like magic, then surely things could go the other way as well? A giant plughole. I would think this when I swam, sometimes. A delicious frisson, like swimming in the sea and suddenly thinking of sharks.

At the edge of the downs, where the trees disappear, the ground drops into a steep, round hollow. A giant scooping out of the earth, packed with hawthorn, blackthorn and elder, all bound up with old man’s beard. The frost sets deeper here, lasts longer. I set my sights on a holly bush, right in the center of it all, its bright berries like jewels in the colorless tangle, but I don’t get far. I descend, slipping on the tussocky grass, and when I reach the thicket I can see no way in. The air is still, noticeably colder. My breath steams in front of my face as I make my way around, looking for a way in. No view but the slope up and away, the lip where it meets the sky. One attempt to force a way through and I retreat, badly scratched.

I head back into the woods, nothing in my trug so far but some tendrils of stripy ivy from the garden. These aren’t public woods; they aren’t managed, or criss-crossed with paths. The estate’s pasture land is all leased or sold to local farmers these days, and I wonder if any of them ever come in here-take wood, raise pheasants, snare rabbits. I can see no sign of anything like that. The ground is choked with leaf fall and brambles, splintered logs mouldering into nothing. Unseen things move away from me with small rustling sounds and no other trace. Acorns, beech masts; around one tree a carpet of tiny yellow apples, rotting. I have to watch my feet to keep from stumbling and there are no birds singing above my head. Just a quiet breathing sound, as the wind sneaks through the naked branches.

I’m not watching where I’m going and I nearly step on a crouching person. I yelp in surprise. A young man with long dreadlocks and bright, mismatched clothes.

“Sorry! Hello,” I gasp. He stands up, far taller than me, and I see a large bracket fungus by his feet. Yellow and ugly. He was examining it, his nose virtually touching it. “I… I don’t think you can eat those,” I add, smiling briefly. The man faces me and says nothing. He is lean and rangy. His arms just hang by his sides as he stands there, watching me, and I feel the pull of unease towing me away from him. Some instinct, perhaps, or something missing from behind his eyes, tells me that all is not as it should be. I take a step back and turn left. He steps to his right to block me. I turn the other way and he follows. My heart beats harder. His silence is unsettling, he is somehow threatening even though he makes no move to reach out for me. He has a spicy smell about him, slightly sharp. I wonder if he’s stoned. I turn left again and he smiles, a gummy smile that spreads across his face.

“Look, just get out of the bloody way, will you!” I snap, tensely. But he takes a step toward me and I try to step away but my heel catches in a web of brambles and I fall awkwardly, onto my side, feeling thorns punch into the heels of my hands and the air rush out of my lungs. Leaves fly up around me, the rotting smell of them everywhere. I turn my head and the tall man is leaning over me, blocking out the sky. I fight to free my foot from the undergrowth, but my movements are jerky and I make it worse. I think about shouting but the house is far behind me and there’s no way Beth would hear me. She does not know I am out here. Nobody does. Panic makes me shake, makes the air hard to breathe. Then strong, heavy hands close tightly on my arms.

“Let go! Get off me! Get off!” I shout out wildly.

I hear a second voice and the hands release me, dropping me unceremoniously back into the mulch.

“Harry’s no bother. You didn’t mean to be a bother, did you, Harry?” the newcomer says, clapping the tall man on the shoulder. I peer up at them from the ground. Harry shakes his head and I see now that he is downcast, troubled; not fierce or lascivious in the slightest. “He was just trying to help you up,” the other man says, with a hint of rebuke. Harry returns to his close scrutiny of the yellow fungus.

“He just… I was just… looking for greenery. For the house,” I say, still rattled. “I thought… Well. Nothing really,” I finish. My heart slows slightly and I feel ridiculous. The stranger puts out a hand, pulls me to my feet. “Thanks,” I mutter. There’s an air rifle angled over his forearm, a dull gleam on the barrel. I kick the brambles back from around my feet and examine my stinging hands. Beads of blood are scattered there. I wipe them on the seat of my jeans and glance at my rescuer with a small, embarrassed smile. I find him watching me with an unsettling intensity, and then he smiles.

“Erica?”

“How did you… I’m sorry, do I know you?” I say.

“Don’t you recognize me?” he says. I look again-a dark mess of hair, held back at the nape of his neck, a broad chest, a slight hook in the nose, straight forehead, straight brows, mouth a straight, determined line. Black eyes that shine. And then the world tips slightly, skews; features fall into place, and something stunningly familiar coalesces.

“Dinny? Is that you?” I gasp, my ribs squeezing in on themselves.

“Nobody’s called me Dinny in a long time. It’s Nathan, these days.” His smile is not quite sure of itself: pleased, as curious as I am to meet a figure from the past, yet guarded, held back. But his eyes never leave my face. Their gaze is like a spotlight on my every move.

“I can’t believe it’s really you! How… how are you? What the hell are you doing here?” I am amazed. It never occurred to me that Dinny grew up too, that he lived another life, that he would ever come back to Barrow Storton. “You look so different!” My cheeks are burning, as if I have been caught out somehow. I can feel my pulse in my fingertips.

“But you look just the same, Erica. I saw a bit in the paper-about Lady Calcott dying. It made me think of… this place. We haven’t been back here since my dad died. But suddenly I wanted to come…”

“Oh, no… I’m so sorry to hear that. About your dad.” Dinny’s father, Mickey. Beth and I loved him. He had a huge grin, huge hands, always gave us a penny or a sweet-pulled it out from behind our ears. Mum met him, once or twice. Checking up, politely, since we spent so much time with them. And Dinny’s mum, Maureen, always called Mo. Mickey and Mo. Our code name, to be used whenever Meredith might hear, was that we were going to visit Mickey Mouse.

“It was eight years ago. He went quickly, and he didn’t see it coming. I suppose that’s the best way to go,” Dinny says calmly.

“I suppose so.”

“What got Lady Calcott in the end?” I notice his tone, a slight bitterness, and that he doesn’t commiserate with me on my loss.

“A stroke. She was ninety-nine-and must have been very disappointed.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were a long line of centenarians, the Calcott women. My great-grandmother lived to be a hundred and two. Meredith was always determined to outlive the queen. Good breeding stock, we are,” I say, and instantly regret it. Any mention of stock, of bloodlines, of breed.

There’s a vibrant silence. I have so much to say to him I can’t think where to start. He breaks off his intent gaze, looks away through the trees toward the house, and a shadow falls over his features.

“Look, I’m sorry I swore. At… Harry. He startled me, that’s all,” I say quietly.

“You don’t need to be afraid of him, he’s harmless,” Dinny assures me. We both look down at the motley figure, crouching in the leaf mould. Dinny, standing so close to me that I could touch him. Dinny, real and right here again when he was almost a myth, just minutes ago. I almost don’t believe it.

“Is he… is there something wrong with him?” I ask.

“He’s gentle and friendly and he doesn’t like to talk. If that means there’s something wrong with him, then yes.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it. Anything bad.” My voice is too high. I take a deep breath, let it out.

“And you were looking for… holly?”

“Yes-or mistletoe. Or some good ivy with berries. To decorate the house.” I smile.

“Come on, Harry. Let’s show Erica the big holly tree,” Dinny says. He pulls Harry up, gently propels him into a languid walk.

“Thanks,” I say again. My breathing is still too fast. Dinny turns ahead of me and I notice a brace of gray squirrels, tied by their tails with string, slung over his back. Their black eyes are half closed, drying out. Dark, matted patches in the fur on their sides.

“What are the squirrels for?” I ask.

“Dinner,” Dinny replies calmly. He looks around, sees the horror fleet across my face and smiles half a smile. “I guess squirrel hasn’t reached the menus of smart London restaurants yet?”

“Well, some of them, perhaps. Not the ones I eat in, though. How did you know I lived in London?” He turns again, glances at my smart boots, dark jeans, soft, voluminous wool coat. The sharp ends of my fringe.

“Wild guess,” he murmurs.

“Don’t you like London?” I ask.

“I’ve only been once,” Dinny remarks, over his shoulder. “But generally, no. I don’t like cities. I like the horizon to be more than ten meters away.”

“Well, I like having things to look at,” I shrug. Dinny doesn’t smile, but falls back to walk beside me, his silence almost companionable. I search for ways to fill it. He is not much taller than me, about the same height as Beth. I can see the tie in his hair, a dark red length of leather bootlace, snapped off, knotted tightly. His jeans are muddied at the hems; he wears a T-shirt and a loose cotton sweater. I see the wind circle his bare neck and I shiver, even though I am bundled beneath layers and he does not seem to notice the cold. We walk up a shallow rise, my steps by far the loudest. Their feet don’t seem to find as many snags as mine.

“Over there,” Dinny says, pointing. I look ahead, see a dark holly tree, twisted and old. Harry has picked up a fallen sprig of it, is pressing the prickles into the pad of his thumb and then wincing, shaking his hand, doing it again.

I set about cutting some branches-those with the spikiest leaves, the fattest sprays of berries. One springs away from me, snagging my face. A thin scratch under my eye that stings. Dinny watches me again, his expression inscrutable.

“How’s your mother? Is she here with you?” I ask. I want to hear him talk, I want to hear everything he’s done since I saw him last, I want him to be real again, to still be a friend. But I remember now-his silences. They never made me uncomfortable before. A child is unperturbed by something as harmless as a silence, oddly patient in that way.

“She’s well, thanks. She doesn’t travel with us any more. When Dad died she gave it up-she said she was getting too old for it, but I think she’d just had enough of the road. She would never have told Dad, of course. But when he died, she quit. She’s hitched to a plumber called Keith. They live in West Hatch, just over the way.”

“Oh, well. Give her my best, when you see her next.” At this he frowns slightly and I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing. He has one of those faces that can be rendered so grim, so hawkish by the slightest scowl. At twelve it made him look studious, serious. I felt as silly as thistledown then and I feel it again now.

With my trug full of holly, we walk back through the woods to the clearing where they always camped before. A broad space at the western edge of the copse, surrounded by sheltering trees on three sides, with open fields to the west and a rutted green lane that takes you back to the road. The ground here is not well drained. It squelches as we get near. In summer it’s such a green place; long grasses with satin stems, the ground cracked hard and safe beneath. Harry drifts along behind us, his attention flitting from one thing to another.

“And you? Are you living here now?” Dinny asks, at length.

“Oh, no. I don’t know. Probably not. For the time being; for Christmas, anyway. We’ve inherited the house, Beth and I…” How pompous I sound.

“Beth’s here?” Dinny interrupts, turning to face me.

“Yes, but… yes, she’s here.” I was going to say but she’s different, but she won’t come out. “You should come up to the house and say hello,” I say, knowing that he won’t.

There are six vehicles in the camp-more than there used to be. Two minibuses, two campervans, a big old horse hauler and a converted army ambulance, which Dinny says is his. Coils of smoke shred away from chimney pipes, and circles of cold ash scatter the ground. Harry strides ahead to sit on a stump of wood, picking something up from the ground and setting to work intently upon it. As we approach, three dogs race over to us, barking in apparent savagery. I know this drill. I stand still, let my arms hang, wait for them to reach us, to sniff me, to see me not run.

“Yours?”

“Only two of them-the black and tan belongs to my cousin Patrick. This is Blot,” Dinny scuffs the ears of a vicious-looking black mongrel, toothy and scarred, “and this is Popeye.” A smaller, gentler dog; a rough brown coat and kind eyes. Popeye licks the fingers Dinny offers to him.

“So… um, are you working around here? What do you do?” I fall back on a party stalwart, and Dinny shrugs. For a second I think that perhaps he draws endless benefits, that he steals, sells drugs. But these are Meredith’s thoughts, and I’m ashamed to have them.

“Nothing right now. We follow work around the country for most of the year. Farm work, bar work, festivals. This time of year is pretty dead.”

“That must be hard.”

Dinny gives me a quick glance. “It’s fine, Erica,” he tells me mildly. He doesn’t ask me what I do. In the short walk to the camp I seem to have used up all the credit a childhood acquaintance afforded me.

“I like your ambulance,” I say, desperate. As I speak, the ambulance door bangs open and a girl climbs awkwardly out. She puts her hands in the small of her back, stretches with a grimace. I recognize her at once-the pregnant girl from the barrow. But she can only be fifteen, sixteen. Dinny is the same age as Beth: thirty-five. I look at the girl again and try to make her eighteen, maybe nineteen, but I can’t.

The girl with the bubble-curls, a bright natural blonde that you rarely see these days. Her skin is pale and there are blue smudges under her eyes. In a tight, stripy jersey it is very clear how close to term she is. She sees me standing with Dinny and she comes across to us, scowling. I try to smile, to seem comfortable there. She looks fiercer than Blot.

“Who’s this?” she demands, hands on hips. She talks to Dinny, not to me.

“Erica, this is Honey. Honey, Erica.”

“Honey? Pleased to meet you. I’m sorry for scaring you, up at the barrow the other day,” I say, in a cheery tone I secretly, horrified, think is my teaching voice.

Honey gazes at me with flat, tired eyes. “That was you? You didn’t scare me.” A noticeable Wiltshire burr to her speech.

“No, well. Not scare, but…” I shrug. She looks at me for a long moment. Such hard scrutiny from one so young. Palpable relief when she dismisses me, looks back at Dinny.

“The stove’s not drawing right,” she says.

Dinny sighs, crouches down to put his hands through Popeye’s coat. The first drops of rain land on our hands and faces.

“I’ll see to it in a minute,” he tells her, soothingly. She stares at him then turns away, goes back inside without another glance. I am momentarily dumbstruck by her.

“So… when’s the due date? Must be soon?” I ask awkwardly, hoping she won’t hear me from inside.

“A little after Christmas,” Dinny says, looking away across the clearing.

“So close! You must be very excited. Has she got her overnight bag ready and everything? For the hospital?” Dinny shakes his head.

“No hospital. She wants to have it here, she says.” At this Dinny pauses, stands up and turns to me. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea. Do you know anything about babies?” he sounds anxious.

“Me? No, not really. I’ve never… But the government are always on about the merits of home births these days. Every woman’s right, apparently. Have you got a good midwife?”

“No midwife, no home birth-she wants to have it out there, in the woods.”

“In the woods? But… it’s December! Is she mad?”

“I know it’s December, Erica. But it’s her right to choose, as you say,” he says flatly. There’s a hint of exasperation there, beneath the surface. “She’s taking the idea of a natural birth about as far as she possibly can.”

“Well, you have a right to choose, too. The father has a right too. First babies can take their time, you know. Beth was in labor for thirty-six hours with Eddie…”

“Beth has a baby?”

“Had a baby. He’s eleven now. He’s coming for Christmas, so you’ll probably meet him… Eddie. He’s a fantastic kid.”

“So she’s married?”

“Was married. Not married now,” I say shortly. He has questions about Beth, but none about me.

The rain is coming down harder again. I hunch, push my hands deeper into my pockets, but Dinny doesn’t seem to notice it. I think about offering to talk to Honey, then I remember her hard eyes and I hope Dinny won’t ask me to. A compromise, then.

“Well, if Honey wants to talk to somebody about it, maybe she could talk to Beth? Her experience could be a good cautionary tale.”

“She won’t talk to anybody about it. She’s… strong willed,” Dinny sighs.

“So I noticed,” I murmur. I can’t stand another silence. I want to ask him about Christmas. About names for the baby. I want to ask about his travels, his life, our past. “Well, I should be getting back. Getting out of this rain,” is all I can say. “It was really good to see you again, Dinny. I’m glad you’re back. And nice to meet Honey, too. I’ll… well, we’re up at the house, if you need anything…”

“It’s good to see you too, Erica.” Dinny looks at me with his head on one side, but his eyes are troubled, not glad.

“OK. Well, bye.” I go, as casually as I can.

I don’t tell Beth about Dinny when I find her, watching TV in the study. I’m not sure why not. There will be a reaction, I think, when I tell her. And I am not sure what it will be. I am agitated suddenly. I feel like we’re no longer alone. I can feel Dinny’s presence out there, beyond the trees. Like a niggling something in the corner of my eye. The third corner of our triangle. I switch off the TV, throw open the curtains.

“Come on. We’re going out,” I tell her.

“I don’t want to go out. Go where?”

“Shopping. I’m sick to death of canned soup. Plus, it’s about to be Christmas. Mum and Dad are coming for lunch, and what are you going to feed Eddie on Christmas day? Meredith’s old Hovis crackers?” Beth considers this for a moment, then stands up quickly, puts her hands on her hips.

“God, you’re right. You’re right!”

“I know.”

“We need lots of things… turkey, sausages, potatoes, puddings…” she counts items off on her long fingers. Christmas is ten days away yet-we have plenty of time. But I don’t say that. I make the most of her sudden animation, point to the door. “And decorations!” she cries.

“Come on. You can make a list in the car.”

Devizes is prettied up for Christmas. Little fir trees lean out from the sides of shops and hotels along the High Street, strung with white lights; there’s a brass band playing, and a man roasting chestnuts, plumes of acrid smoke rising from his cart. I wonder what he does for the rest of the year. Here, the darkness and the sleet draw us in, make us part of the huddled crowd. We wrap our scarves around our ears and window-shop, basking in the warm yellow light. Back in the world, the pair of us, after the solitude of the manor. It feels good, exciting, and I miss London. Inside each shop, Beth hums along to the taped carols, and as we walk I loop my arm through hers, holding her tight.

Several hours later and Beth has gone into Christmas overdrive. We have eight different cheeses, a huge ham, chipolatas, crackers-edible and the ones you pull-a turkey I struggle to carry to the car, and a cake that cost a ridiculous amount of money. We cram it all into the trunk, go back for glittering baubles, strings of beads, gold paint, glass icicles, little straw angels with dresses of white muslin. There’s a farm two minutes from the manor selling Christmas trees-we call in on the way back, arrange to have a tree four meters high delivered and erected on December the twenty-third.

“It can go in the hallway-they can wire it to the banister,” Beth says decisively.

Perhaps I should not let her spend when she is troubled, like now. I daren’t put all the receipts together, add it all up. But Beth has money-money from Maxwell, money from her translating work. More money than I have, certainly, but it’s something we never discuss. She lives small, most of the time. She squirrels it away unless Eddie needs something. All mine is absorbed by London, in getting to work, in rent, in living. Now we have enough food for ten people, when we will be five; but Beth looks happier, her face is less drawn. Retail therapy. But that’s not it-she likes to be able to give. I leave her threading garlands along the mantelpiece, with a slight frown of concentration while I put the kettle on, feeling pleased and sleepy.

There’s a message from my agency on my mobile phone, about some supply work at a school in Ealing, starting on January the twelfth. My thumb hovers over the redial button, but I am strangely reluctant to press it, to have real life intrude upon me. But money must be earned, I suppose; life must resume. Literature must be crammed between deaf ears. Unless it doesn’t. Unless I live here, of course. No more rent. Just the upkeep, although that would probably cost more than my rent does now. Would it be worth it for five years, even ten? Trying to live here-just long enough for the legacy to stand. Then we could sell up, retire at the age of forty, once property prices are back up. But if living here makes Beth ill? And if I will always have this feeling of something stealing up behind me? I wish I could turn and look at it, I wish I could make it out. I remember everything else that happened that summer, except what happened to Henry.

We came here the two summers after that year, and our mother watched us closely. Not to protect us, not to keep us from harm; but to assess, to see how we would react. I don’t know if I was different. A little quieter, perhaps. And we stayed in the garden; we didn’t want to venture further any more. Mum kept us away from Meredith, who was unpredictable by then; who flew into storms of cursing and accusation. But Beth drew further and further into herself. Our mother saw and she told our father, and he frowned. And we stopped coming.

Outside, the sun sets orange and coldly pink on the horizon. I spray the holly gold, the paint burnishing the dark leaves. It looks delicious. The fumes make me dizzy, euphoric. I am hanging it from the banisters and laying it along window sills when Beth comes downstairs, arms folded, face creased with sleep. She moves from place to place where I have hung it, touching it lightly, testing the paint with her fingertips.

“Do you approve?” I ask her, smiling. I’ve tuned the radio to Classic FM. They’re playing “Good King Wenceslas.” Beth nods, yawns. I sing: “Silly bugger, he fell out; on a red hot cinder!” I’ve no kind of singing voice.

“You’re chirpy,” Beth tells me. She comes over to the window sill I am strewing with sprigs, puts my hair behind my ear for me, touches the scratch under my eye. So rare, her touches. I smile.

“Well…” I say. The words teeter in my mouth. I am so tempted to say them, still so unsure if they’re right or wrong.

“Well, what?”

“Well, Dinny’s here,” I tell her.