by Kate Morton
‘That’s my room now,’ said Juliet with a smile.
‘Then you can picture how crowded it was with shelves lining the walls and objects covering every available surface.’
‘I can,’ said Juliet, retrieving her notebook, which was never far from hand. ‘And I love the notion that a single house has had so many different incarnations; in fact, it’s given me an idea.’
She jotted down a note, explaining as she did so about ‘Letters from the Laneway’, to which description Mrs Hammett couldn’t resist adding, ‘My ladies and I are already featured, Dr Lovegrove – the debut article, no less! You will make sure we have copies, won’t you, Mrs Wright?’
‘I’ve instructed my editor especially, Mrs Hammett. They’ll be in the post on Monday morning.’
‘Wonderful! The ladies are so excited. Now, if you write about Lucy, you’ll have to remember to mention that she was the sister of Edward Radcliffe.’
Juliet frowned lightly; the name was vaguely familiar.
‘The artist. One of those Magenta Brotherhood they talk about. He died young, so he isn’t as famous as the others, but it was he who bought the house there on the river. Something of a scandal, there was. He and his friends were staying at the house one summer – a long time ago, back when my mother was just a girl, but she remembered it to her dying day. A beautiful young heiress was killed. She and Radcliffe were supposed to be married, but after she died his heart was broken and he never returned. It came to Lucy in his will.’
The door opened and Mr Hammett arrived, fresh from his duties behind the bar, shepherding in a young kitchen maid with an anxious expression on her face and a tray of steaming plates in her hands. ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Hammett, beaming, ‘dinner is served. Just you wait to see what our cook can do with a steamed sausage roll!’
What their cook could do, it turned out, was nothing short of a miracle. Steamed end-cuts had never been among Juliet’s favourites, but served beneath a gravy of better-not-to-ask, the roll proved delicious. Equally pleasing, the children brought their most charming selves to the table, replying to every question with answers that were engaging if perhaps a little frank for some tastes, even returning a few interesting queries of their own. Tip had managed to stick his little fingers in the waxy pools of each candle, leaving a smattering of small fossilised prints, but they remembered to say thank you when they were finished, no one blew his or her nose on the tablecloth, and when Bea asked whether they might please be excused to continue their game of cards in the entrance hall, Juliet was glad to say yes.
‘Are your children enjoying Birchwood Manor?’ Ada asked as Mrs Hammett’s kitchen maid worried over the pouring of tea and coffee. ‘It must be quite a change after London.’
‘Thankfully the change seems to agree with them.’
‘But of course: the country offers so much for children,’ said Mrs Hammett. ‘It would be a strange child indeed who didn’t delight in our part of the world.’
Ada laughed. ‘I was always a strange child.’
‘You didn’t enjoy it here?’
‘Eventually. Not at first. I was born in India and very happy there until I was packed off to school. I was not disposed to like it and I didn’t: I found the countryside insipid and polite. Unfamiliar, to put it in the best light.’
‘How long did you spend at the school?’
‘Just over two years. It closed when I was ten and I was sent on to a bigger school outside Oxford.’
‘There was a terrible accident,’ said Mrs Hammett. ‘A girl drowned during a summer picnic. The school only lasted a few years after that.’ She frowned at Ada. ‘Then, Dr Lovegrove, you must have been there when it happened.’
‘I was,’ said Ada, taking her glasses off to clean a lens.
‘Did you know the girl?’
‘Not well. She was older than I was.’
The other two women continued to talk, but Juliet had fallen to thinking of Tip. He had told her that a girl drowned in the river and now she wondered whether he’d heard something in the village to that effect. But he had mentioned the fact to her on their first morning at Birchwood, so there hadn’t been time for any of that. It was possible, she supposed, that the nervy young man from the AHA had whispered to him about it. Now that she thought about it, there’d been something a bit sly-looking about him.
But then, Tip might merely have been voicing his own deepest fears. Wasn’t she always warning him – especially him – to be careful? Alan would say he’d told her so: she was turning them into scaredy-cats with her maternal worry. And perhaps Tip had simply made a good guess: people drowned in rivers; it was a safe bet that over time someone had drowned at just about any point along the Thames. She was only finding things to worry about, because she always worried about Tip.
‘Mrs Wright?’
Juliet blinked. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hammett. I was a million miles away.’
‘Everything’s all right, I hope? Would you like some more coffee?’
Juliet slid her cup across the table with a smile and, as so often happened when one had been struggling with a prevailing worry alone, found herself explaining to the other women about Tip and his imaginary friend.
‘The poor little mite,’ said Mrs Hammett. ‘Not surprising after all the changes. He’ll come good, you’ll see. One of these days you’ll realise that he hasn’t mentioned his “friend” in a week.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Juliet. ‘I never had one myself, you see, and it just seems such a remarkable thing to conjure an entire person from thin air.’
‘Does his imaginary friend make him do naughty things?’
‘No, thank goodness, Mrs Hammett. I’m pleased to say that she’s been rather a good influence.’
‘Small mercies!’ said their host with a clap. ‘Is she with us tonight? I’ve never had an imaginary guest.’
‘Happily, no. She stayed in for the night.’
‘Well, that’s something. Perhaps it’s a good sign that he only needs her sometimes?’
‘Perhaps. Although he did say that he’d asked her to come. Apparently, she told him she couldn’t walk that far.’
‘An invalid? How intriguing. Has he told you any other details about the child?’
‘She’s not a child, to begin with. She’s a lady. I don’t know what that says about me, that he’s chosen to create an adult woman to spend time with.’
‘Perhaps she’s another version of you,’ said Mrs Hammett.
‘No, not so. From what he tells me, she’s almost my direct opposite. Long red hair, a long white dress. He’s been quite specific in his description.’
Ada, who had been quiet to this point, said, ‘Have you considered that he is being truthful?’
There was a momentary silence, and then: ‘Why, Dr Lovegrove,’ said Mrs Hammett with a nervous laugh, ‘you are a tease. But Mrs Wright is worried.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry,’ said Ada. ‘I’m sure it means nothing more than that your little boy is a creative spirit who’s invented his own way to cope with the changes in his life.’
‘You sound like my husband,’ said Juliet with a smile. ‘And no doubt you’re right.’
As Mrs Hammett began to talk about seeing what had happened to the pudding, Ada excused herself to ‘take some fresh air’ and Juliet took the opportunity to check on the children. Red and Bea were easy enough to find, ensconced as they were within the pleasantly dim space beneath the stairs, engaged in a boisterous round of gin rummy.
Juliet scanned the hallway for Tip. ‘Where’s your brother?’
Neither looked up from their fan of cards.
‘Don’t know.’
‘Somewhere.’
Juliet stood for a moment with her hand on the post at the bottom of the stairs, surveying the hall. As her gaze swept up the carpeted flight, for a split second she saw Alan standing at the top, that infernal pipe in his mouth.
It was the same staircase she’d raced up that day to find him waiting
for her inside the room, armed and ready to resume their argument.
She couldn’t resist climbing it now.
The bannister felt familiar beneath her hand and Juliet closed her eyes as she neared the top, imagining herself back to that instant in time. An echo of the memory charged the air around her. Alan was so close, she could smell him. But when she opened her eyes, he, with his smile of lopsided irony, was gone.
The first-floor landing was exactly as she remembered. Clean and neat, with little details that showed care if not au courant artistry. Fresh flowers in the porcelain vase on the hall table, small framed paintings of local landmarks along the wall, imprints from the carpet sweeper on the mottled runner. There was the same smell, too, of laundry soap and wood polish and, underlying it, the faint, comforting hint of day-old ale.
No sign, though, of a small fleet-footed boy.
As she came back down, Juliet heard a familiar voice drifting in from outside the pub. She had noticed a bench seat beneath the window when they arrived, and went closer now, leaning to peer through the crack in the blackout curtains and over the edge of the sill. There he was, some of his prized sticks and stones in hand, and beside him Ada, the two of them deep in conversation.
Juliet smiled to herself and stepped back quietly, careful not to disturb them. Whatever it was they were discussing, Tip’s face was interested and engaged.
‘There you are, Mrs Wright.’
It was Mrs Hammett, bustling behind the kitchen maid who was struggling beneath another heavily laden tray. ‘Ready for some pudding? I’m pleased to say it’s eggless sponge with strawberry jelly!’
On Sunday morning, for the first time since they’d arrived, Juliet woke before the children. Her legs were as restless as her mind, so she threw on some clothing and headed out for a walk. She didn’t go to the river, following the lane back into the village instead. As she neared the corner with the church, she noticed that people were filing in for the early service. Mrs Hammett saw her and waved, and Juliet smiled back.
The children were at home, so she didn’t go inside but listened for a time from the bench beneath the porch as the minister spoke about loss and love and the indomitable human spirit when it walked hand in hand with God. It was a thoughtful sermon and he a fine speaker, but Juliet feared there would be many more sermons like that before the war was over.
Her gaze roamed the pretty churchyard. It was a peaceful place. Lots of spilling ivy and slumbering souls. Headstones that told of age and youth and death’s blind justice. A forlorn, beautiful angel bowed her head over an open book, her stone hair, darkened with age, tumbling onto the cold page. There was a quality to the silence in such places that inspired reverence.
To strains of Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’, Juliet wandered the perimeter observing the mottled headstones and contemplating the names and dates, the loving messages of eternity and rest. How remarkable that the human race valued the lives of its individual members sufficiently to commemorate each one’s brief time on the ancient earth; and yet, at once, could engage in slaughter of the most meaningless and general kind.
At the bottom of the churchyard, Juliet stopped in front of a grave bearing a familiar name. Lucy Eliza Radcliffe, 1849–1939. Beside it was an older headstone belonging to the brother Mrs Hammett had mentioned at dinner, Edward. Written beneath Lucy’s name were the words, All past is present, a phrase that gave Juliet pause, for it was somehow out of step with the usual sentiments expressed.
Past, present, future – what did any of it mean, anyway? One could aim to do their best with the circumstances dealt them in the time given. That was all.
Juliet left the churchyard, walking back along the grass-lined laneway towards home. The rising sun had burned off any hint of overnight cool, and the sky was clarifying to a spectacular blue. There would be more requests for boating today, that much was clear. Perhaps they would all have lunch by the river.
The house had the look of wakeful inhabitants even from a distance: strange, the way one could somehow tell. Sure enough, even before Juliet had reached the coach way, she was met with the sound of Bea’s recorder.
Mrs Hammett had sent them home with four lovely hens’ eggs, and Juliet was looking forward to soft-boiling them; she even planned to use real butter on the soldiers. First, though, she ducked upstairs to put her hat back in her room. She looked in on the children on the way and found Bea sitting cross-legged on her bed like a snake-charmer, playing her recorder. Freddy was lying across his mattress on his back, his head touching the ground. He appeared to be holding his breath. There was no sign of Tip.
‘Where’s your brother?’ she said.
Beatrice lifted her shoulders without missing a note.
Red, on a hot exhalation: ‘Upstairs?’
There was an unmistakable air of altercation in the room, and Juliet knew better than to get involved. Fights between siblings, she had learned, were like smoke on the wind: blinding one moment, gone the next.
‘Breakfast in ten minutes,’ was her retreating statement.
She tossed her hat onto her bed and ducked her head around the corner of the old sitting room at the end of the hall. They hadn’t been using the room as a matter of course; it was filled with sheet-draped furniture and rather dusty, but such places were a lure for children.
Tip wasn’t there, either, but Red had thought he might be in the attic. She jogged up the stairs, calling his name as she went. ‘Breakfast, Tip, love. Come and help me make the soldiers?’
Nothing.
‘Tip?’ She searched each corner of the various attic rooms and then stood at the window that overlooked the field towards the river.
The river.
Tip was not a wanderer. He was timid by nature; he wouldn’t have gone that far without her.
She was not calmed. He was a child. He was distractible. Children drowned in rivers.
‘Tip!’ Juliet’s voice was unmistakably worried now, and she started quickly down the stairs. She almost missed the muffled ‘Mummy!’ as she hurried along the hall.
Juliet stopped and listened. It was not easy to hear over her own panic. ‘Tip?’
‘In here.’
It was as if the wall were speaking: as if it had eaten Tip and he were now trapped within its skin.
And then, before her eyes, a crack appeared in the surface and a panel was revealed.
It was a hidden door, and behind it Tip was smiling at her.
Juliet grabbed him and pressed him hard against her chest; she knew she must be hurting him, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘Tippy. Oh, Tippy, my love.’
‘I was hiding.’
‘I see that.’
‘Ada told me how to find the hidey-hole.’
‘Did she?’
He nodded. ‘It’s a secret.’
‘And a jolly good one. Thank you for sharing it with me.’ Remarkable how calm she could make her voice sound when her heart was still pummelling her ribs. Juliet was faint. ‘Sit with me a minute, Tippy Toes?’
She lifted him down and the sliding door shut seamlessly behind him.
‘Ada liked my stones. She said that she used to collect stones, too; and fossils. And now she’s an arkay—’
‘—ologist. An archaeologist.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘One of those.’
Juliet took Tip with her to the top step and sat him on her lap. She had her arms around him and her cheek resting on the top of his warm head. Of all of her children, Tip was the most willing to accept these occasional bouts of excessive parental love. Only when she felt that she was straining even his unending patience did she say, ‘Right. Breakfast. And time, I think, to find out what your brother and sister are fighting about.’
‘Bea said that Daddy wouldn’t be able to find us here when he comes home.’
‘Did she?’
‘And Red said that Daddy was a magician and that he could find us no matter where we were.’
‘I see.’
‘And I came
upstairs because I didn’t want to tell them.’
‘Tell them what?’
‘That Daddy isn’t coming home.’
Juliet felt light-headed. ‘What do you mean?’
He didn’t answer but instead reached his little hand up to press lightly on her cheek. His small heart-shaped face was solemn and Juliet could see at once that he knew.
She was aware of the letter in her pocket, the last that she’d received from Alan. She had carried it with her everywhere since it had arrived. That was the only reason she still had it. The black-rimmed telegram from the War Office that had arrived the same day was gone now. Juliet had planned to burn it herself, but in the end she hadn’t needed to. One of Hitler’s men had taken care of things for her, dropping his bomb when he was directly above Queen’s Head Street, Islington, destroying their house and everything in it.
She had meant to tell the children. Of course she had. The problem was – and Juliet had thought of little else – there was simply no acceptable way to tell her children that their wonderful, funny, forgetful, silly father had been killed.
‘Mummy?’ Tip slipped his hand into Juliet’s. ‘What will happen now?’
There was a lot that Juliet would have liked to say. It was one of those occasions that came rarely, in which a parent recognised that what she said next would remain with her child forever. She so wanted to be equal to it. She was a writer and yet the right words would not come. Every explanation that she considered and discarded put another beat of silence between the perfect moment for response and the moment that she was now in. Life really was a great big pot of glue, just like Alan had always said. A jar of flour and water in which they were all just trying to tread water as elegantly as they could.
‘I’m not entirely sure, Tippy,’ she said, which was neither reassuring nor wise, but truthful, which was at least something. ‘But I do know that we’re going to be all right.’