by Rachel Hore
When the girls were safely out of earshot, playing some ball game in the garden, and Claire had brought in two mugs of tea, Jude laid the two pieces of the horoscope on the coffee table between them and said, “What do you make of this?” She explained where she’d found it, and when she mentioned that Euan had been there, too, Claire glowered in silence. But the chart interested her.
She sat hunched over it for some time, then said, “I’m not totally sure. It’s different from any chart I’ve seen. How old did you think it is?”
“It’s 1760-something. Look, it says there.”
“We can look at some of my books, if you like. There’s one that has some historical stuff in it.”
Jude went over to the narrow bookcase. A great many of the books were on cookery and gardening and interior design, she saw, but the top shelf contained a guide to the night sky, the first of Euan’s books, and several paperbacks, mostly popular ones, about astrology. She picked out the one serious hardback on the subject, a history of astrology, and ran a finger down the contents page. “Astrology since 1700” was the title of one chapter.
“This one, I take it?” she said, holding it up for Claire.
“Yes. Dad gave it to me.”
“Did he? I’d forgotten.” Jude turned to the title page where was penned “To darling Claire on her birthday, September 1996” in his dear sloping capitals. “Good old Dad.”
“Pass it over. Thanks. He was good old Dad. I think he secretly thought it all rubbish. But he still gave me the book because he knew I’d like it.”
“I still miss him dreadfully,” Jude said, her voice dull.
“So do I.” Claire turned her head to look out at Summer and Emily, who were now bouncing on the trampoline. “The other day I drove past that nightclub in Norwich where I used to work and remembered how I’d call and he would always come down in the car to collect me, sometimes at one or two in the morning. Just to make sure I got home safely. It was horrible when he died.”
Jude tried to remember that first awful time, before the other time following Mark’s death. When their father had his fatal heart attack, she and Mark were about to get married; there was so much still to be thankful for in life. But Claire, Claire had been as aimless as ever, drifting between jobs and men and now left in too-close proximity to a mother who wasn’t coping, irritating the hell out of one another.
Jude waited for Claire to continue. They rarely talked like this—about deep feelings. Claire more often threw out barbed tendrils of the “Mum talks to you more than me” variety rather than calmly discussing her anxieties. And so their conversations frequently got tangled up in guilt and accusation. Jude couldn’t remember a time when Claire hadn’t been a tight little ball of anger and frustration. The spiky child had turned into a pretty and wayward teenager, envious of Jude’s solid successes yet disdainful of them, too. Now they both realized how much of an anchor their father had been in Claire’s life; he was a kind, patient man who’d steadied this wild pony, but never tried to break her. No one had ever wanted to do that. Claire had finally learned how to govern herself by having the responsibility of a child of her own.
Jude could never have predicted then that Mark would die, leaving her alone; that she and Claire would sit as they did now in the sunlit living room of a little cottage watching Claire’s precious daughter, for whom they both felt such fierce love …
Just then, Summer rushed inside with her friend, announcing, “We’re going to play upstairs.”
“Fifteen minutes,” Claire called to them. “Then it’s bedtime.” She was flicking through the astrology book and found a page of illustrations. “There are some charts here that might be useful. Would you like me to have a closer look later?”
“Yes, please,” Jude said. “Anything you can work out would be useful.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I ought to go soon,” Jude said. “Thanks very much for supper.”
“You’re welcome,” Claire said.
“I’ll go up and say good-bye,” Jude said, standing up.
She walked slowly up the stairs, admiring Euan’s pictures on the way. They weren’t great art, she had to admit, but they were attractive. He’d used the shimmering white bark so cleverly that it looked like a couple of trees, the moon and stars picked out in gold and silver ink between their winter branches on a gorgeous dark cobalt sky. She wondered which book he’d used them in.
“Oh no, how dreadful…” Summer’s voice drifted down to her. Jude was immediately alert. She relaxed. Summer seemed to be telling some story, something about an accident. Jude walked up the last few steps and peeped around the door. Emily lay on the bed, turning the pages of a picture book, but Summer was sitting on the floor by her doll’s house. She’d got the Jude doll and the Claire doll positioned by something on the carpet.
“Poor Thomas,” Summer was saying, her voice almost sobbing. “He’s dead. How can I live without him?”
Jude pushed open the door to see better.
Summer looked up, distress clear on her face. And then Jude saw what the dolls were standing over. It was the black-and-white cat, Pandora, stretched out on the floor.
She quickly collected her thoughts. Summer couldn’t have said Thomas; that was the name of Esther’s cat. Her mind was playing tricks.
“What’s happened here?” she asked Summer gently, pointing to the little scene.
“A fox has caught the girl’s cat and killed it,” Summer said. “The other girl is going to help her bury it.”
“Oh Summer, what a sad story,” Jude stuttered. This had got to be some extraordinary coincidence. Summer couldn’t know the story of Esther’s cat. Had she mentioned it to Claire? Or to Euan? Maybe to Euan. That was it, and Euan had told Claire or Summer. She tried to remember if she’d told Euan about the latest installment of Esther’s memoir, but her brain seemed to have frozen.
“It’s all right,” Summer said, misreading her aunt’s distress. “She’s going to get another cat so she’ll be happy again.”
“But where did you get this awful story?”
“I just woke up with it in my head,” Summer answered.
“She’s always telling stories,” Emily said, without lifting her eyes from her book. “She’s such a liar.”
“No, I’m not,” cried Summer, indignant. “I just wake up and know they’ve happened.”
“Know they’ve happened,” Jude echoed, her alarm growing.
“Yes, they’ve happened.” Summer stuck out her lower lip.
Jude moved some soft toys from the bedroom chair and sat down, suddenly weary.
“Is everything OK?” Claire stood in the doorway, arms folded, one eyebrow raised.
“Of course,” Jude said, glancing at Summer, who had now brought Pandora back to life to jump up and play. The little girl certainly didn’t seem upset in any way.
“Claire, can I have a word?”
“Sure.”
Jude followed her downstairs and drew her sister into the garden. They sat together on a bench under a buddleia bush brimming with purple flowers. Earlier the butterflies had been poring over it. It was a peaceful golden evening, the air rich with flowery scents, an evening on which it was almost possible to think everything was all right. But it wasn’t all right. Jude felt the knowledge like a weight in her chest.
“What’s wrong?” Claire was looking worried now.
“Maybe nothing. It’s just … Well, you know Summer’s dream?”
“Yes. In fact I meant to tell you. I’ve made another doctor’s appointment for her. Tomorrow. They have a surgery on Saturday mornings. I’ll have to drop Emily off home, then go into work late.”
“Have you? I’m sure that’s a good thing.” What would a doctor make of this new development though? Jude took a deep breath.
“Claire, I think she’s dreaming about things that happened in the past. Not her past, I mean someone else’s. Esther’s. Things I’ve read about in this journal I found at Starbr
ough Hall.”
“Esther? You mean the stargazer’s daughter? But that’s nonsense. What’s Summer got to do with Esther? That was a couple of hundred years ago.”
“I know. It does sound like nonsense. Listen, though. She was acting something out just now, something that I’d read in Esther’s memoir. It was about a cat that died and a gypsy girl came to help her. And Summer said she woke up knowing the story. Where could she have learned it, Claire?”
“If that’s all it is,” Claire said briskly, brushing a petal off her cotton trousers, “you must have told it to her. Or she read something like it. Her head’s full of stories, and that one doesn’t sound very unusual.”
Jude knew Summer to be a very truthful child. She must think these dream-things weren’t just stories, but that they’d really happened.
“Will you let me talk to her about it?”
Claire looked upset now. “And put more silly ideas into her head? What are you trying to say, Jude? That she’s possessed by something, or has lived before? That’s too weird and I won’t believe it.”
Considering all the other things you seem to believe, what’s wrong with one more? Jude almost said, but didn’t.
Instead, she sighed. “I know. It’s usually me telling you to be rational.”
“And now it’s the other way around? But this is Summer we’re talking about, Jude. Your niece, remember? It’s no joking matter.”
Claire’s face was pink, her eyes shiny. How did we get to this stupid place? Jude thought, alarmed.
“Of course it isn’t,” she said, trying to make things right. “That’s why it’s important. That’s why I care so much.” But it was too late.
“You come here with your stuff about dreams and secrets from the past and stir everything up. You can’t let me alone, can you? Summer’s all I’ve got. I’ve made my own life, finally. I’m happy, and now you come and mess it up by coming out with all these ridiculous things.”
“I haven’t messed it up,” Jude said helplessly, but Claire in this mood was unstoppable.
“You have,” she almost yelled. “You always do. Everything’s always gone right for you.” How many times in their childhood had Claire said that and in just that whiny tone of voice. She seemed to realize it, for she stopped and whispered, “I’m sorry. Of course it hasn’t.”
Mark.
“That’s another thing I’m sick of, Jude. You’ve got to stop wringing your hands about Mark.”
“I can’t,” Jude whispered. “I don’t know why but I can’t. I’ve tried, you know.”
“Jude, I told you, Mark wasn’t that perfect. He was a man. There are others.”
“He was pretty much perfect,” Jude mumbled. “For me, anyway.”
Claire shook her head and said softly, “No, he wasn’t. He was just an ordinary bloke with all the ordinary faults.”
Jude looked at her sister and again there was that flutter of a curtain in her memory. Then it was gone.
“Come on,” Claire sighed, standing up. “I must get those two into bed. You can talk to Summer sometime if you like, but there are no-go areas. I’ve read about that past life regression stuff in that magazine I get. It’s not good, Jude. Too often the therapists put ideas in patients’ heads by giving them biased questions. You can seriously mess someone up like that.”
“I know,” Jude said humbly. “And I won’t let that happen to Summer. Seeing the doctor’s a good idea. Let me know what he says.” She followed Claire inside and picked up her handbag. “I’m shattered, Claire. And I feel awful that we’ve quarreled.”
“Don’t worry,” Claire said, giving her a quick hug, but there was no warmth in it. “Girls, Jude’s going now,” she called upstairs.
Jude hardly noticed her surroundings on the drive home, so wrapped up was she in this new worry. Everything that was happening swirled around and around in her head. Esther. Gran. Summer. Tamsin. The folly. Euan. She drove past Euan’s house, forcing herself not to give it a glance.
CHAPTER 22
On Saturday morning, Jude felt tired, listless and worried. She noticed Gran’s necklace in her top drawer when she pulled out her makeup bag and felt guilty that she hadn’t done anything about Tamsin. Following Claire’s throwaway suggestion, she asked Alexia if she could borrow the Hall’s phone directories and looked up Lovall. As predicted, there were dozens of them. It was likely that Tamsin, even if she were still alive, had married and changed her name, but to show willing she rang the three “T” Lovalls in the north Norfolk directory, one by one. It wasn’t an edifying experience. The first Lovall who answered was a woman married to a Mr. Timothy Lovall. She thought Jude was trying to sell something and hung up. The second was rather deaf and clearly believed Jude to be a bit mad, and the third, a gentle-sounding Tom Lovall with a country accent, considered Jude’s question but admitted himself at a loss to answer it. Dispirited, she gave up. Just to see what happened she tapped “Tamsin Lovall” into an Internet search engine and came up with an Australian volleyball star, an unlikely lead for an eighty-five-year-old woman, she thought, giggling to herself. She tried to broaden her line of inquiry by thinking of who else who might have known Tamsin might still be alive. Gran was the only one of the Bennett children still living. Perhaps there was a school friend who’d be of some use. Gran had mentioned someone the other day—a boy. Who was it?
She dialed Gran’s number. The phone rang and rang, and Jude was about to give up when a shaky, faraway voice answered, “Hello?”
“Gran, it’s Jude. How are you? You sound a bit faint.”
“No, no, I’m fine.” Gran did sound a little dazed.
“Not still dizzy?”
“I seem to be all right today. What can I do for you?”
“I found your hideaway in the folly. It was behind two bricks, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, clever girl!” Gran sounded delighted. “Was there anything in it?”
“A piece of oilskin.”
“Oh, I remember that. We left it there.”
“It had an astrological chart in it, Gran, did you know?”
“Did it, dear?”
A piece of oilskin had obviously not seemed interesting to two young girls. Jude changed tack.
“I’m not getting very far with the question of Tamsin.” She explained about the calls she’d made. “Do you know of anyone else still alive who might have known her? Anyone from school for instance?”
There was a short silence. “I can’t think of anybody. I lost touch with a lot of them, you see, when I married. Betty Morton is dead, and so’s Joan … she was my bridesmaid.”
“There was a boy you started to talk about the other day.”
“Did I? Who might that have been?”
“Yes, someone who’d been unkind.”
There came another pause.
“Dicky Edwards,” Gran whispered. “I don’t think Dicky … I wouldn’t want to meet him, Judith. I don’t think he’d be any use.”
“Gran?” It was difficult to gauge on the phone, but Jude guessed that she’d touched some nerve. She looked at her watch. It was only eleven o’clock and she wasn’t doing anything much for the rest of the day. “Gran, if you’re not busy this afternoon, would you like me to come over and see you?”
* * *
Gran remained there gripping the receiver long after Jude had rung off. Dicky. He’d been a sort of dark shadow at the back of her mind for years, not one she’d wanted to give form to or a name. But talking to Jude about Tamsin the other day had brought him back in a flash of memory, and now she saw him clearly in her mind’s eye. He had always been a big lad, tall for his age, and chubby, but when he turned thirteen or fourteen and helped his dad with the farm work the fat turned to muscle. Farmer Edwards was notorious as a shouter and a swaggerer. No surprises that his wife always looked cowed and fragile, and that his sons became bullies.
She fitted the receiver back into its cradle and sank into the nearest chair. It was all coming back to her now,
in a rush of painful images. And the veil between past and present was too thin not to let them in.
Jessie was in her fourteenth year in 1937 when Tamsin returned to school after months of absence; she just appeared unannounced in the playground one misty February morning, standing shyly by herself. She’d changed. The girl was taller now, graceful as a doe, her liquid brown eyes large in a finely molded face. Jessie, still small and flat-chested, envied her high pointed breasts, her delicate wrists and ankles. Tamsin was growing up. Jessie’s schoolmates, turning for the most part into gawky adolescents with greasy skin, noticed it, too, and treated her with the respect children often have for beauty. Dicky, already broad-shouldered and with a man’s voice, stared more than anyone, a troubling mixture of dislike and desire in his face.
This time, at the end of the day, Jessie felt confident enough to allow Tamsin to walk back with her, the pair of them loitering off down the lane together behind Jessie’s brother and sister.
“Tell Ma I’m at a friend’s,” she called to Sarah, swinging her satchel to her sister over the garden gate, then she walked with Tamsin up the hill to the gypsy camp. They didn’t know that they were being followed.
Tamsin’s family gave her a warm welcome: Nadya and the great-grandmother and the four men, one now with a pregnant wife, Kezia, in tow. Nadya pinched Jessie’s cheek affectionately, and fed the girls tea and cake, and they petted the tethered horses and teased a fox cub that Tamsin’s youngest uncle had caught and tied to a tree, from where it made hungry forays at the scraggy chickens that scratched the ground for insects just out of reach of the rope.
“What’s he going to do with it?” she asked Tamsin, who shrugged and said, “I don’t know. He says he caught it scavenging. Jacko,” she cried out to the young man, who was whittling a piece of wood, “you must let it go or it’ll draw the vixen, and she’ll kill the channi for sure,” but Jacko merely swiped at the nearest chicken with his foot and gave a careless laugh.
At twilight they all sat down around the fire and shared a rich, dark stew that Nadya ladled from a big billycan, with a kind of flat bread to dunk in it. The men talked of who-knew-what in their guttural accents, and laughed and scowled, and Nadya sang quietly to herself. Nobody asked Jessie anything about her life, but she didn’t mind. She sat close to Tamsin, and they shared her English textbook together by firelight, whispered to one another and listened to the men, Jessie mesmerized by the strangeness, feeling a part of it all and yet not a part, trying to ignore her conscience, which told her to go home.