Property of a Lady

‘You were looking at those decanters for Liz and Jack,’ said Nell. ‘If you do decide to get them as a house-warming present, I’d let you have them for what I paid. I don’t mean that to sound like a hard sell.’


‘It’s not much of a hard sell if you’re offering them at cost,’ said Michael. ‘I’d already decided to get them, but I’ll pay full price.’

‘I mean it. There wasn’t much of a markup anyway.’

He saw she was not going to change her mind, so he said, ‘All right. But on condition I buy the sampler at its full price, as well.’

‘That’s supposed to be local work,’ said Nell. ‘It’d be nice to think it’s from Charect, but I don’t think it is.’

‘No, but there’s a cat worked into it – in one corner. So I’d like to get it for Ellie’s room.’

‘Wilberforce,’ said Nell and smiled. ‘OK, that’s a deal. D’you want to take them now? I can wrap them up fairly quickly.’

To his own surprise, Michael said, ‘I thought about coming back next weekend to check progress for Jack. Can you keep them until then? I could call around lunchtime.’

The smile came again. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, do that.’

Michael had no idea why he had made that tentative arrangement to see Nell West again. He could easily have taken the decanters and the sampler with him. He had, in fact, meant to remain firmly in Oxford for the rest of the Michaelmas term, but as he drove back he found he was looking forward to seeing Nell and the small Beth again.

It was curious that Beth seemed to be having the same nightmare as Ellie. A man with no eyes, Beth had said. And Ellie, thousands of miles away, had talked about a man with holes where his eyes should be. Michael had only just stopped himself from blurting it out to Nell West. It was just a macabre coincidence, of course. Something to do with insecurity, maybe – Beth had lost her father a short time ago, and despite Nell’s conviction that she had not known about the injuries in the car crash, children had a way of picking up things their parents did not realize.

But Ellie, suffering what sounded to be the same nightmare, had not lost her father. Ellie was surrounded by love and stability, and she had two eminently sane parents who had a happy marriage. She was probably one of the best-adjusted children on the planet. Or was she? Who knew what darknesses existed in any child’s mind?

He reached Oriel College on Saturday evening to find that Wilberforce had got into the buttery and eaten an entire cream trifle intended for the weekend visit of a second-year’s parents, after which Wilberforce had apparently been sick on a pile of essays about Swinburne. Michael apologized to everyone he could think of, told the second-year to buy another trifle from the pastry shop in the High at his expense, and cleaned up the Swinburne essays as well as he could. After this he sat down to send the photos of the unrepentant Wilberforce to Beth West, with an email for Nell saying he would see her next weekend.

He surveyed the Swinburne essays with distaste and, instead of reading them, sat down at the computer to record Wilberforce’s adventures in the buttery before he forgot it. He would send it to Ellie later. He might send it to Beth as well.

Nell hoped she had not been too pushy with Michael Flint over the decanters, but he had definitely said he was intending to buy them. He had been great with Beth. She and Beth had talked about Wilberforce over their supper, and Beth had asked if they could invite Ellie Harper to tea one day, did Mum think that was a good idea?

‘Terrific,’ said Nell, so grateful for Beth’s apparent return to normality that she would have agreed to the entire population of Marston Lacy coming to tea.