‘I’m so cold,’ she cries quietly into her knees, as she rocks back and forth. ‘I feel like I’m going to die.’
It’s enough to try the patience of a saint. Virginia, conscious of being no saint, grinds her stick against the hard earth. ‘Then you’d better come inside and warm up.’
There’s nothing gracious about the offer; it’s a calculation, pure and simple. Which will be the worse distraction? Watching the child down a mug of tea in the kitchen while she texts her parents and waits to be fetched? Or glimpsing her body from every front-room window, hunched on the flint wall and turning bluer by the second? Virginia can’t think of a third option. She feels she’s been cornered, and the injustice of it creates a hollow feeling in her chest.
‘Come on then, hurry up. You’re not the only one.’
In fact, the girl is trying to obey, but it takes some effort to uncurl her frozen limbs and slide down from the wall. For a moment, Virginia fears that the short walk to the front door will prove impossible, and that she’s going to have to phone Joe for help (damn the girl, damn her), but it’s not so. The girl winces and hobbles a few steps, but that’s all it takes to get her young blood flowing, and her body supple. They walk to the house arm in arm, though it’s not quite clear who’s supporting whom. The girl isn’t carrying anything – no bag, no purse, no coat – but there’s a flat rectangle wedged inside the pocket of her jeans, so at least she has a phone. There’s some reassurance in that. It proves she hasn’t simply dropped from the sky, or crawled out of the marsh. She’s not a changeling child, without connections to the real world.
‘D’you have a name?’ Virginia asks, because it’s instinctive to want to know, but she regrets the question as soon as it’s left her mouth. She shouldn’t be asking things like that today. Today is for snapping links, not forging new ones.
‘Sophie,’ the girl replies, her voice brimming with tears and shivers. Virginia wonders what she can offer, other than tea. Brandy would be the thing, but there isn’t any brandy in the house. There might be some whisky. She remembers drinking whisky a few Christmases back, and not liking it much.
They find the hall floor a mess, flecked with snow and sand and bits of dry grass, and Virginia moves the umbrella stand aside so that the door can swing shut behind them. The gusty, whistling noises fade, but they don’t disappear; Salt Winds is not – has never been – one of those cocoon-like houses that shield you from sight or sound of the bleak outdoors. There are too many draughts about the place; too many empty fireplaces; too many rattly windows. It’s not a house that welcomes guests, though Virginia hasn’t worried about that for a long time. Nobody calls round any more, except Joe, and he doesn’t count.
Not that she’s going to start worrying about it now. Why should she? The girl – Sophie – is standing by the hall table looking lost and otherworldly, like an unattended princess. She’s too absorbed by her own troubles to pay attention to Salt Winds, or its owner. Virginia is tempted to poke her with the stick; give her bare ankles a thwack; surprise her out of herself. Instead, she straightens out the crumpled rug for fear the child will trip. Those slip-on shoes are thinner than ballet slippers; they’re so thin that you can make out the shapes of the girl’s feet, the curves of heel and instep, the delicate struts of the toe bones. Their soles are peeling off too, which is hardly surprising when you consider she’s walked down the lane all the way from Tollbury Point, if not further.
‘Come and sit.’ Virginia takes Sophie by the elbow and steers her into the kitchen. In Mrs Hill’s time the range would have been glowing and the black kettle would have been simmering on top, and there’d have been no better place to warm someone up. These days, the kitchen is probably the coldest room in the house. The microwave sees plenty of use, as does the electric kettle, but the range hasn’t been lit in years – decades, probably – and in winter time, the big window is always wet with condensation. Mrs Hill would have hated that.
Virginia’s winter coat is hanging over the back of one of the chairs, and she shakes it out and tucks it round the girl’s shoulders. After that, there’s the kettle to fill and teabags to find. Oh, she shouldn’t be doing this; it’s all wrong. Back to front and inside out. She’s supposed to be putting things away this morning, switching the electrics off, emptying the fridge, wiping round. She stops a moment and holds on to the back of a chair, ready to weep with frustration. Sophie slumps into a seat, her eyes lightly closed.
She’s pretty. Or perhaps she’s just young? At Virginia’s age, youth and beauty look like much the same thing, though Sophie herself would doubtless disagree. She probably thinks she’s fatally blemished because she has a long nose and a little rash of spots on her forehead. The old woman has an urge to reach out and brush the wet tangle of hair from the child’s face, but she resists.
Virginia finds the whisky bottle on its side at the back of a cupboard, behind a tin of baked beans and a packet of powdered soup. It’s three-quarters full – perhaps a bit more – and over the years it’s acquired a greasy coating of dust. Virginia’s arthritic fingers twist and scrabble at the cork for some time before it comes loose, and when she sniffs at the opening the fumes tickle the back of her nostrils like hot smoke. Goodness knows if it’s within its sell-by date or not, but even if it makes the child sick, it’ll surely warm her up. Virginia pours a good couple of inches into a teacup and tops it up with hot water from the kettle. On second thought, she pours one for herself as well. The taste is better than she remembered, and she likes the way it scorches her insides; perhaps she’ll drink some more tonight before she leaves the house for good.
‘Drink that,’ she says. Sophie opens her eyes and wraps her fingers round the cup. Her hands are small and white, and thick with rings. Virginia has never seen anyone with such bedecked hands, so the tiny flash inside her brain that feels like recognition can’t be anything of the sort, and she ignores her unease.
‘Come on, drink up,’ she says, and Sophie pretends to take a sip, but Virginia isn’t fooled. The silly child will never get warm at this rate. Look at her, quaking beneath that big bundle of a coat, with its goose-down lining and furry hood. She’s not even trying. She’s got to try, or the day will be gone.
Virginia comes into the big sitting room to fetch the halogen heater, but having unplugged it she’s distracted by memories and stops to look around. Perhaps now is the time to say farewell to this room: to the straight-backed sofas and tea tables, to Lorna’s piano and Clem’s bird books. Farewell to the sagging armchair where Max Deering sat one January afternoon, near the beginning of the war, when he brought his children to tea and ate scones off a porcelain plate.
Seventy-odd years have passed, and heaven knows this sitting room’s been used since, but as Virginia stands in the doorway for the last time, it’s the only image she can summon. Max Deering, sunk deep in his chair, a languid hand outstretched.
Ah ha, Miss Wrathmell. We meet again.
Oh, My Enemy. I wish we could meet again. I wish I could stand and face you, one last time.
Virginia’s fingers spasm and she drops the heater, startled by the fierceness of her desire. Over the last few years the wound has begun to close, just a little. She’s managed to persuade herself that events as old as these are practically fictive; that the people involved were never quite real.
It’s the bird’s skull that’s concertinaed time and made everything true again. The curlew has reminded her how to hate.
September 1940
THE SECOND WORLD war came home to Salt Winds on a hot September afternoon in 1940. Up until then it had meant next to nothing: a murmuring of voices on the wireless, a gas mask gathering dust in the hall, a shortage of butter. Someone had broken the post-office window after it was rumoured that the postmistress had a German-sounding maiden name (‘I forget what it is,’ Mrs Hill had confided, ‘but it ends in “-cht”’) and Clem had spotted a couple of enemy planes through his binoculars, but even these events felt remote. The nearest dogfigh
t had taken place a long way south of Tollbury Point.
There was something ominous about that September day, even before Mrs Hill came puffing up from the village full to bursting with her dreadful news. The weather was hot and heavy, and the wind had dropped for once, leaving a silence that felt like expectation. The birds didn’t call across the marsh; the washing didn’t stir on the line; the house didn’t creak or sigh. Bracken lay on his side in the shade, and only twitched his ears if someone said his name or stooped to pat him.
Virginia had spent the morning making a den in the back garden, propping the clotheshorse against the flint wall and covering it in old curtains. After lunch she went and sat inside it, cross-legged, with a book and an apple, and tried to persuade herself she was having fun. In the dim and musty heat her eyes were as heavy as lead, and she stopped trying to read before the end of the first page. She felt sticky all over, especially at the backs of her knees where her skin was sore, and the smell of her sweat mingled with the fruity stink of seaweed that had been drifting off the marsh for days, ever since the weather turned warm.
Clem had done a couple of hours’ writing after lunch, and he’d just come outdoors for a breather. Virginia could see him through a gap in the curtains, sitting on the bench by the back door with his head tilted back and his eyes closed. Lorna sat beside him with a handkerchief balled in one hand, frowning the way she did when she had a headache coming on.
‘Would you like some water?’ Lorna asked her husband, unfastening the top button on her blouse and mopping at her throat with the handkerchief. ‘Or a cup of tea?’
‘I’ll get it,’ Clem murmured, without opening his eyes. ‘You have a sit down.’
‘No, you’re all right. You’ve been working.’
Virginia liked it when they discussed everyday things: pots of tea and food prices and what needed doing in the garden. It made them sound peaceful and close. Anything bigger or more personal and they were on edge, like a couple of cats. The various scraps Virginia had overheard (I wish you’d just say it outright … The thing you seem incapable of understanding … I know exactly what you think I am …) made her anxious. She tried to tell herself they didn’t happen often.
Despite their thoughtful overtures, neither seemed inclined to move. Clem kept his eyes closed and Lorna stared, dull-eyed, at the new vegetable patch under the scraggy hedge.
‘I met Mr Rosenthal this morning,’ she said, ‘pushing his trike through the village.’
Clem yawned. ‘Oh yes?’
‘Apparently he’s still got your shears. He took them away for mending absolutely ages ago.’ Lorna dabbed her glistening neck with the handkerchief again. ‘He was terribly apologetic about it; said he’d drop by before Monday.’
‘Righto.’ Clem yawned again, stretching his arms wide, as a ship’s horn sounded miles away, beyond the hazy horizon. Lorna dragged herself to her feet and disappeared into the kitchen. Virginia crawled halfway out of the den and flopped on to her stomach with a weary groan.
‘Hello there,’ said Clem.
‘I’m hot,’ she complained, pressing her cheek against the hard earth and plucking at the grass.
‘Well, if you will spend all morning constructing an oven, and the entire afternoon sitting inside it …’
Virginia rolled on to her back and tried not to laugh as she looked at him upside down. ‘It’s not an oven, it’s a den,’ she began, but before she could go on Mrs Hill appeared round the side of the house. Virginia scrambled to her feet and Clem stood up slowly.
There was something unnatural about seeing Mrs Hill at Salt Winds on a Saturday, her big body trussed up in a flowery dress instead of the usual gingham housecoat. It was even more peculiar to see her running. They stared in confusion as she halted on the grass, red-faced and breathless, her hands pressed hard against her chest. After a moment, Clem took her by the elbow and led her to the bench, setting her down gently as if she were a fragile object.
‘Oh Clemmy,’ she said softly, as she must have done when he was a little boy, and when he made to remove his hands from hers she clung to them, so he sat down beside her. Virginia glanced away, frowning at the oddness of it all. As soon as Mrs Hill had taken the weight off her feet, her whole body seemed to sag. Even her hair hung in sad strands around her ears, though Virginia knew for a fact it’d had a wash and set on Thursday evening.
Virginia didn’t dare ask what had happened and Clem was too patient. He sat still, with his hands trapped, while Mrs Hill caught her breath and began to cry. Virginia twisted on one foot and wished she’d stayed inside her den.
‘Vi will fetch you some water,’ Clem suggested. ‘Or maybe something stronger?’
‘No, no, just water.’ Mrs Hill released Clem’s hands in order to dry her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I’m all right. I don’t know why it’s so …’
Lorna emerged from the dark kitchen with a jug of water and a tray of glasses, and her eyes widened.
‘I thought it was your voice!’ she exclaimed. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’ She set the tray down on the end of the bench and straightened up, drying her hands on the sides of her skirt. Nobody answered and she looked rapidly from face to face. ‘Clem? What is it? What’s happened?’
Clem poured a glass of water. He did it very slowly, as if he relished the suspense, and placed it in Mrs Hill’s quivery hands.
‘Drink that,’ he said, with a warning glance for his wife, ‘and take your time.’
Mrs Hill gulped the water, and it was as though she was feeding a reservoir of tears, because by the time she lowered the empty glass her cheeks were streaming. Lorna fished in her sleeve for her handkerchief and handed it over without a word.
‘I don’t know why it’s affected me like this,’ Mrs Hill wept. ‘She’s not the first to die in this dreadful war and she won’t be the last, and it’s not as if I knew her, not really, but she was part of the village all the same. And she was such a nice-looking little thing – the image of her poor mother, God rest her soul – and so terribly young, not yet fifteen. That’s the worst of it. I’m only glad her poor mother isn’t alive …’
‘Who?’ pleaded Lorna. ‘Who are you talking about?’ But Virginia had guessed, and so had Clem. His shoulders had sunk, and his gaze was turning inwards.
‘Juliet Deering!’ Mrs Hill was indignant, as though Lorna was being deliberately obtuse. ‘Max’s eldest! It’s all over the village.’
‘But …’ Lorna knelt down on the paving at Mrs Hill’s feet. ‘When? How?’
‘Yesterday evening.’ Mrs Hill leaned forwards, twisting the handkerchief around in her hands, her sorrow laced with storyteller’s relish. ‘She was on her way back to school, you see, for the start of the new term, and Max had just waved her off at Waterloo. This is straight from the housekeeper up at Thorney Grange, by the way, so practically first hand. Well, according to Mrs Bellamy, Juliet’s train was just pulling away from the platform when the sirens started up, and a few seconds later the planes were swarming all over and before you know it, bang.’ She smacked her hands against her knees. ‘A direct hit.’
Lorna placed her hands flat against her cheeks.
‘Juliet’s carriage took the worst of it. Completely obliterated. Nothing left at all. No remains to speak of.’
Clem frowned and shook his head slowly from side to side.
‘It’s wicked,’ Lorna whispered through her fingers. ‘Wicked.’
Mrs Hill wiped her eyes and sighed. ‘Dust we all are, and unto dust we shall return,’ she observed impressively.
Virginia crawled back inside her den and pulled the curtains shut.
Virginia went to bed early that night because there was an aching lack of anything to say. She tried to help with the drying-up after supper, but Clem took the tea towel off her and kissed her on the forehead.
‘Up to bed now, go on,’ he said. ‘Things’ll look brighter in the morning.’
Lorna, up to her elbows in soap suds, shrugged slightly when he said that,
as if shaking off a fly, and didn’t turn round to say goodnight.
The bedroom glowed pink in the evening light, and Virginia knew she’d never sleep. She put her pyjamas on and flung the covers back, but there was no point lying down, so she paced the rug instead, following the winding patterns in and out, remembering how she’d jumped out of bed that morning, full of plans for building a den and reading Black Beauty and finishing her picture of Bracken.
A den. What a pointless thing to have built. What a very childish way to spend an afternoon.
She yanked her hair ribbons out and loosened her plaits. Black Beauty was lying on her bedside table, and the horse on the dust jacket watched as she began to brush her hair. She’d always thought he had a gentle eye, but now she looked more closely, she saw how mean and glinting his expression really was. When she opened the book and tried to read, a mocking voice echoed every phrase and turned it into a weird chant inside her head, so she pushed it to the back of her bedside drawer before resuming her brushing.
The lovely evening – the apricot sky, the birdsong, the scent of coolness – was similarly strange. There was something unreal about it, which made Virginia feel menaced. This wasn’t what the world should look like after someone had been blown to smithereens. Thunder would make sense, or a solar eclipse, or a roof-shattering hailstorm, but not tranquillity. Not pleasantness. When the curlews whistled across the marsh, it seemed as though there was an irony in what they said – a malice – which she’d never noticed before.
She didn’t cry for Juliet Deering. It wasn’t like that. She’d seen Juliet in passing during the school holidays – four or five times in the village, perhaps, and once at the summer fête – but it wasn’t as if they were friends. They hadn’t even acted like acquaintances, unless they were with their parents, in which case they just about managed a distant ‘hello’. Like the war, the Deerings had become a low-level hum at the back of Virginia’s mind. She hadn’t thought about them much since their visit at the start of the year.
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