William entered, wild, damp and gaunt, and full of life. ‘Hello again, young Lacey,’ he was saying to her. ‘You’ve had a shearing, I see. I’ll bet that’s Mrs Parr’s doing. Ah, I thought I could smell metal polish. No, Lady Brock, I don’t want a sit-down. Let me at that armour.’ He took his jacket off and kneeled with us on the floor and began work. I watched Penny observing the grips and squeezes of his ruined hand. He glanced up at her face from time to time, tranquilly, without disapprobation. She was unaware of these glances.
He gave his report on the state of Upton Hall. ‘The basements are drying out now. There’s two generators up there, and the electrics will be back on tonight, they say. Esther – that’s Mrs Staveley to you, Penny, your cook – she’s lost a roomful of stores, so you girls will be having soup in packets.’
‘Cup-a-Soups,’ said Penny.
‘Cups o’soup. That describes them fairly. Lord.’ He gave a high yipping laugh. ‘We could have done with them! Oh yes! They’d have gone down a treat in Plugstreet Wood!’
‘Were you camping in the wood, Mr Kennet?’
‘We were not, my dear.’ Courteously he turned to her. ‘We were fighting. Or waiting to fight.’
She smiled. ‘Cup-a-Soups would have been perfect, then. Just boil the kettle and there you are. You could pounce on the enemy while they were still heating up their old tinned stuff.’
‘Yes, indeed.’
When all the pieces of armour were equally shining, William got up, flexed his knees. ‘Let’s put the old chap together again. After that I’m off up to the kennels. See George about some snares.’
‘I am shutting my ears,’ announced Lady Brock.
‘Can I come?’ Penny blurted. ‘I could read to Mr Horne again and have some Bourbon biscuits.’
‘You were the one,’ I said, as it dawned on me. ‘Who drew on his plaster. You’re PL.’
She nodded. ‘I thought it was sad that no one had written a message.’
‘Go on, William,’ said Lady Brock. ‘Take her with you. She’s going to be bolted up in the Hall by tonight.’
I clambered to my feet, making a business of pulling my skirt straight, hanging my head so that no one would see the fast-rising tide of ridiculous disappointment that was flushing my face and making my eyes burn. I cleared my throat. ‘Yes, go, dear. I’ll pop home and start collecting your things together.’
Penny sounded uncertain. ‘Is it OK, Mrs Parr?’
‘Of course!’ I manufactured a cheery smile. ‘Why on earth not?’
‘You said something about this afternoon.’
‘No, it wasn’t anything. You go on, dear.’
William raised his good hand, judge-like. ‘We’ll go up the kennels, but we won’t be long. She’ll have had enough spoiling by then, skiving off all this time. Mrs Dennis will be wanting her back in the fold.’
Without speaking I passed Penny and William the pieces of armour for them to hang on the frame. Soon the knight stood whole and shining, his metal fists fielding beams of light and bouncing them onto the walls. ‘Behold the High Middle Ages,’ crowed Lady Brock, and Penny lifted his visor and looked inside, and I bade goodbye to no one in particular, and received a flurry of distracted goodbyes in return, and in no time I was outside, getting back on the bicycle again alone. The air was sharp and the road more slippery than it had seemed earlier. I was lighter now, of course, spinning along on my pumped-up tyres.
Her belongings were dropped and scattered everywhere. I started to pick them up. What was it with children? Did those young fingers suddenly become nerveless, lose their grip? How could one girl strew so many things across a bedroom floor? Trousers, hairbrush, slippers, rabbit, hat. I performed the bendings and straightenings, dip and up, just like before, each time with another small object in my hand, a child’s garment or toy. Years of such gleaning. My body began to insist, to push and nudge. You don’t fool me. You remember.
In sudden anger I tossed the clothes and hairbrush into the suitcase, banged down the lid and snapped the catches shut. I didn’t have to be a maid to this child.
I stood, breathing hard. The counterpane of my bed was thrown back and the bottom sheet bore the imprint of her curled body, a comma-shaped trough. Without thinking I lay down there, and stared at the ceiling with smarting eyes.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ I said aloud, and got up again.
Opening the case, I took everything out and repacked it, one garment after another, folding and tucking. Vests, knickers, small mud-stained socks. A Viyella blouse, the yoke narrow for narrow shoulders. A pair of sad cotton trousers, thinner even than the ones she was wearing. The case was blue, eggshell on the outside, grimy and battered at the corners, the inside a slightly darker dusty blue, an old-fashioned colour, with interior straps to hold everything in place. I fastened the straps and then tightened the gilt buckles with care.
When the knock came at the front door I brought the suitcase downstairs and met Penny on the doorstep. William was waiting by the Land Rover, transfixed by Venus hanging aglow among the lower branches of the ash tree. The jangle of my keys awoke him from his reverie.
They both sat in the back, passing a few words to each other, something inconsequential about the kennels. Beacon Hill rose against the darkening sky.
‘Gosh,’ Penny said. ‘Look at that beautiful hill.’
‘That’s Beacon Hill. You can see the sea from the top. The sea, and Southampton.’ I glanced in the rear-view mirror. Her light-brown eyes were wistful.
‘Southampton’s a major global port, you know,’ she said. ‘Mrs Dennis told us. You can get a ship to anywhere in the world.’
‘Mrs Dennis is right,’ said William. ‘Mrs Parr’s brother did that very thing. He ended up in the Far East. He’s had some great adventures.’
‘And he carves birds.’
‘That he does.’
‘That would be my best job. Bird carver and adventurer.’
At Upton Hall I came to a halt on the gravel and got out along with my passengers. Two minibuses were disgorging pupils and luggage. William sketched a wave and hastened away to the mews and his quarters. Penny stood facing me, shivering in the wind, away across the gravel from the horde of pupils, her teeth clenched with cold and distress, and I saw again the girl I had carried through the flood.
‘Don’t worry, Penny,’ I said. ‘You’ve come back with lovely hair, remember. If they say nasty things, just – just take no notice.’
She lunged forward and hugged me, binding my arms to my body, her head hard against the join of my ribs.
‘Bye-bye, darling,’ I heard myself say. She had pinned my arms so tightly to my sides, I couldn’t hug her back. ‘Come back and see me again.’
‘Bye, Mrs Parr.’ Her voice was muffled against my belly. Then she tore herself away, leaving me without words, able only to stand and watch her dragging her suitcase towards the throng of children.
The Olivetti was on the table in my bedroom where it had been since I’d given up the mill. In the drawer beneath it, a stack of folded messages tied together with darning wool, navy ink on sky-blue Basildon Bond. The envelopes bore cobalt Irish stamps depicting a young man casting grain. I hadn’t read them for years. There was no need. Occasionally I simply held the small parcel in my hands.
I pulled the drawer wider and extracted another set of letters, these typewritten on foolscap. Phrases jumped out as I shuffled through them. Bareheaded under the Lion Gate. Glittering, drooping under dewdrops. A pencil stub at the back of a desk drawer, the end chewed by milk teeth. Years of babble and persiflage. I could toss the lot onto the fire and it would flare and char in twenty seconds and I would have lost nothing. I brought the stool close, sat down, inserted a fresh sheet of paper into the roller of the typewriter, and let the words rattle off the keys.
Pamela, there’s been a flood. Did it wash you back here, little girl? I thought I saw you in the mirror, my darling
Once, twice
But when I looked again it was only Penny
‘Stupid.’ I tore the paper out of the machine and crumpled it up. ‘Stupid, stupid fool.’ I threw the ball of paper across the room, and it hit the skirting board and flew under the bed.
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