Maria was trying to find a photograph of Josiah, although that was proving difficult, with photography having been in its infancy at the time. Still, there might be a painting somewhere–one of those municipal portraits in a library or something. Dundreary whiskers and a large stomach, like Edward VII, most likely.
She was also on the track of a man called George Lincoln, whom Josiah had employed as his miller towards the end of the nineteenth century. George, it seemed, had been a man of some substance. One had not known that millers were so highly regarded, but there were records of him having owned quite a big house with servants, so there you were, you could never tell who might be prosperous from one century to the next. She was going to spend the day at the nearby archive office, to see what she could find out about George and his family.
‘Your father’s going to drive me straight there after breakfast, aren’t you, Jim? It’ll be quite a long day, so we’ll have lunch out somewhere and get home around mid-afternoon. Are you two sure you won’t come with us?’
‘Quite sure,’ said Don, who had bought several new CDs in Chester the previous day, and was planning to lie on his bed and listen to them.
Maria thought this very antisocial of him, and would have started an argument, but their father interrupted, saying, ‘Oh leave the boy alone, my dear, he’s probably got girl problems, I know I had them at his age.’ Maria retorted that she did not see how having girl problems gave Don an excuse for sulks and moods. This, as Donna could have told them, had the effect of sending Don flouncing from the breakfast table, stumping crossly up the stairs to his bedroom and slamming the door so hard that the crockery on the dresser jiggled.
‘Typical teenager,’ said Donna’s father resignedly, and her mother suggested they leave Don to his romantic sulks, and that Donna came with them.
But Donna did not feel like chasing millers across half of Cheshire, and her mother would expect her to act as assistant and make masses of tedious notes. So she said she would stay at the cottage, and perhaps walk down to Amberwood later. She could look round the little art gallery–they’d some quite good jewellery last summer. She was into chunky modern jewellery at the moment, said Donna. Don might come with her if he could be torn away from his CDs, but she did not care if he did not. Whatever they did they would be perfectly all right. Yes, they would prepare a meal for tonight.
After her parents left, Donna wandered around the cottage, trying to summon up the energy to walk down to Amberwood. Girl problems, their father had said. Girl problems…Donna had not known about any girl in Don’s life. Who was she, this unknown girl, who might be the cause of his flouncing tantrums? Probably she did not exist. But if she did, how old was she? Don’s age? Younger–fourteen or so? That was not too young for sexual adventures these days–Donna knew that perfectly well. Had Don been to bed with this girl?
The thumping of a CD was filling the little house, and it seemed to insinuate itself inside Donna’s head. It was a hard, rhythmic pounding, and the longer it went on, the more it drummed up all kinds of images…
One of those images was of Don lying on his bed upstairs, his hair tousled against the pillows so that it looked like polished tow…He wore his hair a bit longer than was currently fashionable, but Donna rather liked that. It gave him a romantic soulful look. Like a poet. You could not imagine Byron or Keats having a convict-type haircut.
Had he stripped off his shirt to listen to his music? It was high summer and it got quite hot under the roof. Was he lying on the bed wearing only cotton jeans or shorts? His hair and his skin glowed from the sun, and his body was lean and supple from playing games at school. He was good at games, although at the moment he was pretending to find them too exhausting for words.