‘Both.’
‘I think you know what I’m going to say next.’
A long, long silence.
‘Peas, please.’
‘That’s better. Now, do you know how to play rummy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s have a game. Then supper.’
We sat cross-legged in front of the fire. She was lively even when sitting. Blowing her cheeks out like a goldfish when her cards were bad, chuckling when they pleased her.
Later she had a bath and went to bed in the old dressing room. I turned on my bedside light and extinguished hers so that the darkness was not absolute. As before, I didn’t want her to wake and be alarmed.
‘Goodnight, sweetheart.’
She was already asleep. Lying on her side with her lips parted as if blowing or making the sound ‘O’.
When she was younger I would stroke the hair back while her eyes were still shut, and the net of hair would have left an impression on the dense fine grain of her skin. And she would breathe in through her nose, a stertorous sniff, fling out a fist, an arm, and her eyelids would part to show a sliver of white, but she was still claimed by sleep. Sometimes I had to do as Mrs Berrow had done, when I needed to wake her: stand her on her feet and blow into her face, blow so her eyelashes were ruffled by my breath, and she fell forward, sack-like, into my arms. It almost swayed me off my feet, the desire to kneel by the bed and gather her to me and kiss her sleeping face.
*
I woke to a shaft of light falling on the bed from a chink in the curtains. I was on one side of the light, lying with my eyes barely open, and she was on the other, kneeling on the floor in her pyjamas at the edge of the bed. She seemed far away from me in a dim colourless world, her face as grave as a stone angel, utterly precious. Was it any wonder that I had grieved? Look at what I had lost, and I had lost her. She had been taken from me as abruptly as if by death. Was it any wonder that I was in bliss?
She sighed, and tiny motes in the light spun and scurried.
‘What is it, darling?’
‘My Patience. It’s not coming out.’
I propped my head on my hand and considered the columns of playing cards laid out in front of her on the counterpane. ‘That black six, dear. Put it on your red seven.’
‘Ooh!’ Her fingers flew over the cards. ‘Look, now it’s coming. Nearly there!’ More fluttering of cards, and then she clapped her hands. ‘Ta-daa! I’ve done it!’
‘Didn’t I help you, at all?’
‘You might have speeded it up,’ she said airily.
I burst out laughing. ‘You’re incorrigible. Draw the curtains please.’
She did what I said. The angel was banished to another world. She kneeled on the deep windowsill. ‘I can’t see a single cloud. The spiders have been busy. The hedge is covered in webs. Look how rich we are, Ellen.’
‘Rich?’
‘All those diamonds.’
I yawned and sat up. ‘We’d better not try and put them in our pockets.’
‘I read a story about a woman who cried diamonds that turned back into tears after a year and a day.’ She wriggled round on the windowsill, the better to tell me. ‘But this lady had a heart of stone and the saddest stories had no effect on her whatsoever. In the end a young knight came and told her a hilarious joke instead, and she got completely beside herself guffawing and the diamonds came popping out of her eyes. So he put them in a bag and used them to pay a cruel king so he could marry the king’s daughter and take her away.’ She lifted an emphatic finger. ‘Obviously, the cruel king didn’t know what kind of diamonds they were.’
‘Obviously.’
Her hair was haloed by the sun, and I could hardly see her face.
‘And so the knight and the princess galloped off on a horse, and by the time the diamonds melted they were far, far away. Isn’t that brilliant?’
‘Yes, it is. It’s a terrific story.’ I got out of bed. ‘Now, I thought we’d pop into Waltham and get some supplies. I didn’t go before, because I didn’t know what you’d like. You don’t have to come, of course.’
She shook her head. ‘Can I stay here? It’s so lovely and cosy. I want to do another Patience and finish Prince Caspian. Please can you get some Frosties and Cup-a-Soups? And a Curly Wurly?’
‘Anything,’ I said, ‘as long as I don’t have to eat it.’
She stood in the hen run in her wellingtons, casting grain in wide sweeps like before, as if sowing a field. I watched her, holding my shopping bag and list.
‘That’s the way,’ I said. ‘And they can have these peelings too.’
‘You know when I prayed that I could stay here?’ She spoke matter-of-factly, her eyes on the hens as they stalked and grumbled. ‘When I was kneeling on that chair in the hall? Well, I wasn’t the least bit joking. I could stay here for ever. I’d feed the hens. I could do the washing, too. I’m good at washing socks and things. And isn’t there another school in the village? I could go to that one instead of bloody Upton Hall. And Mummy could lie on the sofa all she wanted, and Daddy could come and visit me from Ireland.’
I looked out to the east, to the smaller hills and the valley. A tractor ploughed a distant field, a flock of seagulls in its wake. Somewhere a church bell rang, and the whole flock rose into the air. I felt as light as the gulls, as if my feet too were lifting off the ground.
‘Ellen?’ I heard her say. ‘Isn’t that a terrific plan?’
Yes. The bell sounded through the crystal air. Yes. The gulls pealed as they settled once more on the plough. ‘Yes.’ An easy little word. I whispered it. Any louder and I might break the hope that nestled inside an eggshell so thin it was almost transparent in this strong light.
‘Sweetheart,’ I said. ‘I’ll go shopping and come back. Straight back. I won’t stay away a minute longer than I have to. I’ll see you very soon.’
I kissed the top of her head and left.
The town was beautiful today in this clear light, every brick clean and shining in the low sun. The air itself was brimming with something that I tried to call joy, but joy was a pale paltry little word for this sustained bright silent force. I went into the supermarket, busied myself among the aisles, locating the desired foods. I caught sight of myself in the plate glass of a cabinet containing frozen fish. A tall, presentable person in her fifties. Perhaps rather severe. I put my hands to my bun. I’d worn my hair in the same style since I was eighteen. Selwyn had liked it, the way it tumbled down when I unclipped it. But maybe it was time for a change.
‘Good morning, Ellen.’
Behind me in the reflection stood the Reverend James Acton, smiling, holding a wire basket.
I whirled round. ‘Good morning!’ I felt the blush rising. ‘I was just thinking about my hair …’
How foolish I sounded. Not that I minded my own foolishness today. It was nothing compared to what was inside me.
‘You’re permitted.’ The smile grew wider. ‘I was thinking only about supper. I was after some fish.’
‘And I’m standing in your way.’ I shifted smartly. ‘I’m getting a few things for a young girl I’m looking after.’ I glanced down at my own basket. ‘She likes things in packets.’
‘So do I. My son gives me frequent tellings-off.’
‘You have a son!’
What an imbecile I was. I could have laughed out loud.
He nodded, unperturbed. ‘He’s studying Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. He’s against packets, on the whole. He’s staying with me just now, so I’m going to feed him a large piece of haddock.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Perhaps you’d join me one evening next week for a glass of sherry. Tuesday, say? Parishioners permitting.’
My smile could not be quashed. ‘That would be lovely.’ I rummaged in my bag for paper and pen. ‘I haven’t got your phone number …’
‘Ask Althea.’