Juliet didn’t cry, not as a rule; she hadn’t since she was six years old, when her father died and her mother told her they were leaving London to live with Granny in Sheffield. Now, though, the heat of her anger, her frustration that Alan could possibly see things so wrong-headedly – that he should think she was going to give up her work, stay home each day while he went out to make a living as a … a what? A shoe salesman? – caused everything to spin away from her, as if she were being pulled apart like wisps of smoke on the breeze.
Before she knew it, Juliet had reached the trees and, seized by a sudden urge to disappear from sight, ploughed directly into the grove. There was a narrow path of flattened grass, the sort made by repeated footfalls, and it was leading away from the river. She’d supposed that it would bring her full circle to arrive on the other side of the village, back near The Swan, but Juliet had never been great with directions. Deeper and deeper she went, her thoughts thundering, and when she finally reemerged into the sunlit day, she hadn’t been on the edge of the village at all. She’d no idea whatsoever where she was. To add insult to injury, she’d been hit with a wave of nausea so strong she’d needed to grab the nearest tree and be sick—
‘Wheeeeee!’
Juliet jumped as Red soared towards her, arms outstretched. ‘Mummy, I’m a Spitfire and you’re a Junker.’
On instinct, she swerved her body to avoid collision.
‘Mummy,’ he said crossly, ‘that’s not very patriotic of you.’
‘Sorry, Red,’ she began, but her apology was lost in his wake as he zoomed away.
Bea, she noticed, was already well ahead, almost at the copse of trees.
Juliet was disappointed: the jetty had been part of their family story for over a decade and she’d looked forward to bringing her daughter back here one day to see it. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected – not reverence, not really, but something.
‘Are you sad, Mummy?’
Tip was next to her, looking up with his searching eyes.
Juliet smiled. ‘With you in the room? Never.’
‘We’re not in a room.’
‘No. You’re quite right. Silly me.’
He slipped his small hand into hers and together they started walking again towards the others. It never ceased to amaze Juliet how perfectly the hands of her children fitted within her own and how warming she found the simple gesture.
On the other side of the river, a field of barley glimmered yellow. It was hard to believe, as the Thames tripped freshly and bees sought clover in the grass, that a war was being fought. There were signs in the village, of course: the street names were all gone, windows were criss-crossed with tape, and Juliet had seen a poster on a phone box reminding passers-by that they should all be digging for victory. They’d even covered the Uffington White Horse, lest it prove useful to enemy pilots seeking the way home. But here, now, on this gentle bend of the river, it seemed almost impossible to believe.
Tip let out a small sigh beside her and it occurred to Juliet that he was quieter than usual. The dark smudges from the night before were still under his eyes, too.
‘Sleep all right, little mouse?’
A nod.
‘It’s always a bit tricky in a new bed.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes, but only at first.’
He seemed to think about this. ‘Is it tricky for you, too, Mummy?’
‘Oh, yes. Because I’m a big person and everything is always tricky for us.’
‘But only at first?’
‘Yes.’
Tip seemed to take some relief at this, which was sweet but also a little disconcerting. Juliet hadn’t supposed her comfort played much on his mind. She glanced at her older two striding away into the distance. She was quite sure neither one of them had ever enquired as to whether she’d slept well at night.
‘A pooh stick!’ Tip slipped his hand free and picked up a slim silver branch, almost hidden in the grass.
‘Oh, yes. What a find. Isn’t it lovely?’
‘Very smooth.’
‘It’s willow, I think. Maybe birch.’
‘I’m going to see if it floats.’
‘Careful not to go too close to the river’s edge,’ she said, ruffling his hair.
‘I know. I won’t. It’s deep in there.’
‘It certainly is.’
‘That’s where the girl drowned.’
Juliet was taken aback. ‘Darling, no.’
‘Yes, Mummy.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘It is. She fell from a boat.’
‘Who did? How do you know?’
‘Birdie told me.’ And then he smiled, his worrying, solemn little-boy smile and, with a quicksilver change of heart, ran off instead to where his brother and sister were fighting over a pair of long sticks, brandishing his own victoriously above his head.
Juliet watched him go.
She caught herself biting a snag from her fingernail.
She didn’t know what was more alarming: his talk of dead girls or the fact that the news had been delivered to him by a feathered friend.
‘He just has a vivid imagination,’ came Alan’s voice in her head.
‘He’s talking to birds,’ Juliet replied beneath her breath.
She rubbed her eyes, her forehead, her temple. Her head was still thumping from the night before, and she’d have given anything to curl up and go back to sleep for a few more hours; a few more days.
With a long, slow sigh, she decided to set the worry aside. There would be time to ruminate later. Tip had caught up to the others and he was laughing now as Red chased him around the field, glancing over his shoulder in raptures of delight while his brother pretended to hunt him. Just like a normal boy. (‘He is a normal boy,’ said Alan.)
Juliet looked at her watch and saw that it was almost eight. Giving her shoulders a light shake, she headed towards the children, who were all waiting for her now by the copse.
When she reached them, she waved her arm, signalling that they should follow her into the trees; and as they continued their gambolling game of swords and knights, Juliet thought again of Alan and the day twelve years before when she’d stormed away from him and followed this path for the first time …
She wasn’t in the centre of the village, that much was clear; she was, instead, standing on the edge of a field with big round hay bales set at intervals across it. Beyond, on the far side of a second field, was a stone barn; further yet she could make out the pitch of a roof. A twin-gabled roof possessing an embarrassment of chimneys.
With a sigh, because the sun was very high and very hot, and the initial fire of her rage had reduced to a pile of smouldering coals that now sat uncomfortably in her belly, Juliet started trudging through the grass towards it.
To think that Alan could so misunderstand her; that he could imagine, even for a second, that she would give up her job. Writing wasn’t something she did; it was who she was. How could he not realise that, the man with whom she’d pledged to spend her life, into whose ear she’d whispered her deepest secrets?
She had made a mistake. It was all so obvious. Marriage was a mistake, and now there was going to be a baby, hers and Alan’s, and it would be small and helpless and probably noisy, not welcome in theatres, and she was going to end up just like her mother after all, a woman whose grand dreams had withered to form a net that contained her.
Perhaps it was not too late to have the whole thing cancelled? It had only been a day. Barely twenty-four little hours. Maybe there was still time, if they went straight back to London this afternoon, to catch up with the official who’d married them and beg back the certificate before he even had time to file it with the register office. It would be as if it had never happened.
Sensing, perhaps, the precariousness of its future, the tiny life inside her sent another wave of nausea: Here I am!
And it was right. It was here. He or she, a little person, was growing and one day in the not too distant future would be born. Being un-married to Alan would not change that fact.
Juliet reached the end of the first field and opened a simple wooden gate to enter the next. She was thirsty; she wished she’d thought to bring the thermos with her.