Joss turned and stared at him. ‘Boys?’ she repeated in a whisper. He wasn’t talking about Tom and Ned.
‘All the lost boys.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Like Pe’er Pan. I didn’t like the house. My dad said I might get taken too, but Mam had to caretake here some times for Mrs Duncan before she packed up and went to live in Paris, and I had to come too then.’
Joss’s mouth was dry. She wanted to turn and run, but, pinned by his sly gaze, she was suddenly rooted to the spot.
‘Did you ever see them?’ she managed to whisper at last.
He shook his head. ‘Our Nat saw them though.’
‘Nat?’ Joss could feel the tightness in her throat increasing.
‘My sister. She liked it up here. Mam used to clean for Mrs D and she often brought us to play in the garden while she was working. Nat would play with the boys.’ His face darkened. ‘She thought I was a wimp because I didn’t want to. I thought she was loopy. I wouldn’t stay. I’d go and hide in the kitchen and get under Mam’s feet or if she got cross I’d nip through the hedge and go home. No matter how often she tanned my backside I wouldn’t stay.’
He looked remarkably cheerful about it now.
‘But your sister liked it here?’
He nodded. ‘Well, she would, wouldn’t she,’ he said cryptically. He reached for a soft cloth and began buffing the huge head lamps.
‘You don’t mind working here now, though?’ Joss said thoughtfully.
He grinned. ‘Na, I don’t believe in that stuff any more.’
‘But you think I do?’
He winked. ‘I heard them talking about you. I didn’t think it was fair. After all, it’s not just you, is it. Loads of people have seen the boys.’
And the tin man without a heart?
Joss wiped the palms of her hands across the front of her shirt. ‘Does your sister still live in the village, Jim?’
He shook his head. ‘She got a job in Cambridge.’
She felt a sharp pang of disappointment. ‘But she comes back? On visits?’
He didn’t look too sure. With a shrug he rubbed at an almost invisible speck of rust. ‘Not often.’
‘And your mother?’
He shook his head. ‘When Mam and Dad split up, Mam went to live in Kesgrave.’
‘Does your Dad remember this house in my mother’s time?’
Jim shrugged. ‘I doubt it. He wouldn’t set foot in the place.’ He looked up at her and again she saw the narrow, calculating look. ‘He didn’t want me to take this job.’
‘I see.’ She supposed she didn’t need to ask why. Too many local tradesmen had explained with a shudder why they would not want to live here themselves.
She sighed. ‘Well Jimbo, if you see Luke tell him I was looking for him, OK?’
‘OK, Mrs Grant.’ He was smiling. As she turned away she felt rather than saw him straighten up from the lamp and stand watching her as she retraced her steps across the courtyard.
The French doors in the study were open onto the terrace. Standing just outside on the cool stone she surveyed the rather motley collection of garden furniture they had assembled from the outhouses round the courtyard. There were two Edwardian recliners – a little rotten, but remarkably solid considering their age. Two wicker chairs, chewed by mice, but again just about serviceable, and a couple of decidedly dodgy deck chairs both within days of the ultimate split which would deposit their occupiers unceremoniously onto the ground with total lack of dignity. She smiled involuntarily as she always did when she looked at them. Enough to make the owner of an upmarket garden centre go prematurely grey. To sit at this moment in one of those long, Edwardian recliners, which smelled of damp and age and lichen, even though they had cooked for weeks now on the terrace would be heaven. With a cup of tea. Just for a few minutes. Till the others came back.
She turned back into the study. She ought to take the opportunity to write, while the house was quiet. She looked guiltily at the pile of neatly printed pages on the desk. It was nearly three weeks since she had touched it. Picking up the last few pages she glanced at them. Richard – the hero of her story, the son of the house whose tale came so easily to her pen that she wondered sometimes if it were being dictated to her – had he been one of the lost boys? Were there generations of boys like George and Sam haunting the attics of the house? She shuddered. Had Richard in real life not survived his adventures to live happily ever after as he was going to in her story, but fallen prey like her brothers to another of the accidents and illnesses which plagued the sons of Belheddon? ‘Please, God, keep Tom and Ned safe.’ Throwing down the pages she went back to the doors. Geoffrey and Elizabeth had appeared on the far side of the lawn. Behind them she could see Joe and Alice with the pram just coming through the gate. They must have all walked across the fields and down to the low red cliffs above the estuary. Mat had appeared now, with Tom Tom sitting on his shoulders, and Lyn beside him and last of all, Luke. They were all laughing and talking and for a moment she felt a wave of utter loneliness, strangely excluded from the group, even though they were of all the people in the world those closest to her.
She watched as they approached her across the grass.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Luke greeted her with a kiss.
She nodded. She stooped and lifted Ned from the pram. He was fast asleep, oblivious to the world. Hugging him against her she felt the ache in her breasts, the need to feed him. She glanced at Lyn. ‘Shall we have tea soon?’
‘Sure.’ Lyn was relaxed and smiling. Her tee-shirt had slipped off one tanned shoulder; her legs, long and slim, were dusted with sand beneath the frayed, cut-off jeans.
‘You all went on the beach?’ she asked.