‘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—’