They had three hens in the hutch in the garden, and Christian had named them Anna, Emily and Charlotte.  The girls had wanted to call them Keisha, Mutya and Heidi, but the girls weren’t the ones paying for their feed every week.

“Can we leave some of the eggs?” asked Saffron, who Christian had talked into holding the basket while he risked his hand with the sharp breaks and talons, “I want to see if any of them hatch into chicks.”

“Not much chance of that, I’m afraid,” said Christian, handing her the last egg and then wiping his fingers on his handkerchief, “There eggs are unfertilised.  We’d need a rooster.”

A strange expression crossed Saffron’s face, and Christiaan wondered if he’d said the wrong thing.  Eventually she said, “How long would It take for them to hatch if they were?”

“Around three weeks, I should think.”

“So… not months and months, like with a human?”

Christian paused.  Something was clearly bothering her, even if it wasn’t the thing he’d assumed.  He’d been worried that she’d go further into why they’d need a rooster for the eggs to be fertilised, and eventually they’d get to a point where the line they’d taught her and Amber when they’d started school (“Every family is different- some people have a mum and dad, but you have a mum and an Uncle Christian”) wouldn’t be as effective as it had once been.  Instead, she’d fixed on the idea of pregnancy.  “Is there something on your mind, darling?”

“Well…”  Saffron didn’t meet his eyes.  “Faye in my class says in takes nine months to have a baby, and Amber’s only five months older than me.  So she says we can’t really be sisters.”

Christian nodded.  He supposed he’d always known that the girls would work it out sooner or later, but wasn’t it just his luck that it would come up while Octavia was away?  “Saffron,” he said, crouching down and bracing her arms in his hands, “You and Amber are sisters.  And your mother and I love you both equally.”

Her frown deepened.  “Yeah, but… is one of us adopted?”

“What would it mean to you is you were?  Would it really make a difference?”

He should have known he wouldn’t be able to dodge the question that easily.  Not with one of Octavia Lambton’s daughters.  “Am I, though?”

Christian sighed.  Octavia had told him that, if the girls ever asked him the awkward questions while she wasn’t around, he should be as honest as possible.  Still, he wished she’d been there for this.  He couldn’t help but feel that he was gossiping about her behind her back.  “No, you’re not.  Your father was a man your mother met at work.  His name was Tom, I believe.”  He’d only met the man once, but he’d seemed nice enough.  “They lost touch when he moved to America.  Your mother didn’t find out she was having you until after he’d left.”  And it was around that time, over the course of one frightened phone call, that Christian had more or less insisted that Octavia move back in with him, at least for a while.  And then, a month or two later, Octavia’s stepmother had shown up.

“What about Amber?” asked Saffron… but she’d relaxed a little by now, so Christian felt it was safe to use his Get Out of Jail card.

“It’s Amber’s story- I can’t tell it to you behind her back.  I’ll tell it when she asks, and not a moment sooner.”  He knew he didn’t have to worry about Saffron badgering Amber into asking him.  He’d seen how much strain it had put on her just to raise the subject at all.

(To be continued)

For at least an hour, Octavia and Tamsin had been sat in the living room, chatting away as they planned the ceremony, while Russel sat in the corner, observing them.  But the moment Tamsin left the room to go and check on the baby, Russel got up and moved across the room.

“Thought I should apologise for Tamsin,” he said, as he sat down in the seat his wife had just vacated.

“What do you mean?”

“Showing off that bag.  I warned her.”

The bag was a little black one that Tamsin had bought from Miss Selfridge at the weekend.  She had been eager to show it off… an hour ago, when Octavia had first arrived.  Since then, they’d been so preoccupied with musicians and caterers that Octavia had forgotten all about it until now.

“Piece of cheap tat.”  Russel looked up at the ceiling, as if trying to work out whether Tamsin was directly above their heads or not.  “Buys some plastic crap off the high street and thinks that makes her a trendsetter.”

Apparently Russel had declared all-out war on Tamsin’s bag, and he badly wanted Octavia on his side.  “It looks alright to me.”

“Oh, come on.  Some of your clients must spend thousands of pounds on designer bags.  That thing barely cost a tenner.”

“Some of my clients spend thousands of pounds on bags that don’t look half as nice as Tamsin’s.  I once knew a woman who paid a designer a quarter of a million to superglue diamonds all over her bags and belts, and they still fell off in the wash.”

Russel didn’t seem to have heard this.  “The trouble with Tamsin is, she’s immature.”

That strikes me as something you should have thought of before you married a woman thirty years younger than you, Octavia didn’t say.  There was such a thing as tact.

“She reads things in magazines, and suddenly it’s the gospel truth.  That’s what this whole vow-renewal thing is about- she read that Beyonce or someone had done it, and suddenly she’s got her heart set on it.”  Russel caught Octavia’s eye and smirked.  “It’s no wonder- look at her parents.  Father’s a miserable druggie- spends all his time doped up to the eyeballs.  As for her mother…”  He chuckled.  “I’ll tell you something about her mother.  First time Tamsin introduced us, she was offering me a threesome by the end of the night.  God’s honest truth!  With her own daughter!”

Octavia wondered if Tamsin had been in the room when that conversation had been going on.  She also wondered exactly how old Tamsin had been at the time.

“Anyway.  Point is, the ceremony’s what she wants, so I’ll indulge her.  We’ll let her have her way with the fairytales and that, eh?”  He winked.  “But just keep in mind, it’s not her money we’re spending.  Alright?”

At that point, the stairs creaked- Tamsin was on her way down.  Russel got up and went back to his original seat, and no more was said.

(To be continued)

Saffron and Amber were both in Year Five, but they’d been put into different classes so that they’d get a break from each other. They usually played together at break and lunchtime, though, and today they and a few friends were sitting in a corner beside the benches at the back of the playground, trying to decide whether they were going to play “It” like Bethany wanted, or some other game that Amber had made up and wanted to try out. Saffron didn’t mind which one they picked. She was just glad that Amber was keeping her promise about the wall.

They sat in a circle on the concrete, and Lily counted them out, one by one. “Ip-dip-sky-blue-who’s-it-not-you.” (Saffron knew four or five other versions of that, including a rude one that some of the older kids played but that she and her friends didn’t because they were too scared of getting caught.)

“We’re going to go to Finch’s first thing in the morning,” said Amber, interrupting the rhyme so that Lily had to start again, “We might even have breakfast there.”

“We’re not having breakfast there,” said Saffron, “They only have burgers and chips at Finch’s. Uncle Christian would never let us have burgers and chips for breakfast.”

Amber rolled her eyes. “Alright, fine- we’ll go there right after breakfast. You guys can all come, right?” She looked around at Lily, Bethany and Harley, who all nodded. “It’s going to be amazing. You know they’ve got that new rollercoaster? Mum says we can go on it.”

“Is it Saffron’s birthday, too?” asked Harley, who hadn’t known them as long as the others had.

“No,” said Amber, “I’m five months older.”

Harley looked confused, which made Saffron’s stomach turn upside down, because she thought Harley was going to say the same thing Faye Jackson had said a few weeks ago. Faye had said that it took nine months to have a baby, so Amber couldn’t be five months older than Saffron. Not if they were really sisters.

Saffron had worried all day about how to tell Amber what Faye had said, but when she did, Amber hadn’t been bothered. She’d said that it didn’t always take nine months to have a baby. Sometimes they were born early, like Bethany’s little brother had been. And that made sense… but Saffron was still worried. Even though she’d told Amber, she didn’t dare tell Mum or Uncle Christian, in case they said something different.

Anyway, Saffron needn’t have worried about Harley. She just asked Amber about the new rollercoaster- whether you needed an adult to go with you or you could go on your own.

“I don’t know,” said Amber, “But you’ll be able to go on it either way- our mum will go on it with you.” By now, they’d all basically forgotten about the “ip-dip” rhyme and whatever it was meant to decide. Amber was moving some sticks around to make an assault course for the ants who lived in the cracks at the bottom of the wall.

“Really?” asked Harley, “My mum never goes on rollercoasters.”

“Our mum does,” said Amber, “Arranging parties is actually her job. That’s why mine and Saffron’s parties are always so great.”

(Saffron didn’t disagree with Amber out loud, but she’d never thought that their parties were that much different to any of their friends’. Maybe there was something she’d missed, like when Uncle Christian said that advent calendar chocolate was the cheap nasty kind even though it clearly tasted the best out of all of them.)

“That can’t be her job,” said Bethany, “Arranging parties isn’t a job.”

“Yes it is,” replied Amber, “I’ll bring in one of her business cards if you don’t believe me.” One thing Saffron had always been jealous of was how Amber always sounded so sure that she was right. She never worried as much as Saffron did.

*

No matter how many times she’d learned not to get attached to anything, that it would always be taken away the next time their mood changed, some things still stayed, some things still made her light up, and she found herself walking to her music teacher’s house almost by accident.

*

Octavia had dropped by Jonathan’s house to see how Denny was doing. Apparently he was doing so well that he wasn’t even in when she got there.

“Judith and Rosalyn have taken him to a meeting,” Jonathan told her, the beginnings of a smile flickering around the corners of his mouth.

“A meeting?” asked Octavia. They were sitting in the living room, because it was too chilly to stay in the garden. Octavia started to worry about Amber’s birthday again.

“Some political thing at the university. Students against bad housing, or something like that.” He was full-on smiling now, as if Rosalyn and Judith being against bad housing was one of the most adorable things he’d ever heard of. “I told him to ask for a prospectus while he was there. If there’s a subject he’s interested in, it’s not too early to make enquiries for next year.”

“And they won’t mind that he didn’t do his A-levels?”

Jonathan waved a hand. “There’s things he can do to make that up. Not everyone follows the same path to higher education.” (He’ll have picked that phrase up from something he’s read, thought Octavia.) “Oh, Niamh sends her love, by the way. It’s a shame you missed her.”

“Yes, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.” Actually, Octavia had been semi-consciously avoiding Niamh. Things had been a lot better between them since they’d talked it all out last year, but there was still some distrust there. Or maybe not as severe as that- maybe just awkwardness. Either way, it wasn’t something you could resolve all in one go. “There’ll be another time.”

“Speaking of which,” said Jonathan, stretching his arms out to cover the back of the sofa, “I was on the phone with Mother for more than a hour yesterday. You’re heard about the trial, right?”

“The Oakmen thing? Has it started yet?”

“Not yet. But they’re gathering potential witnesses- they’ll probably want to talk to us about Denny- and she’s already furious at the prospect of Natalie Clements smearing her name in court.” He grinned. “I told her that Natalie wouldn’t be their first priority- she wasn’t even there when the attack happened- but she just won’t hear it.”

“If she does smear her name, it’ll be no more than she deserves,” said Octavia. Roger and Sarah Clements had come dangerously close to suing them last spring, and both Jonathan and Octavia suspected that Natalie had been the one to talk them out of it. Octavia wouldn’t have blamed Natalie for deciding to go for the jugular, but she probably hadn’t want to upset Denny. “And it’ll be no more than Mum would have done if there positions were reversed. You remember how they talked about them.” Octavia imitated their mother’s airy drawl. “How dare they question me? They went to comprehensive schools and they shop at Sainsburys- they’re practically a different species!”

Jonathan didn’t react to this. “How long has it been since you went to visit her?”

Octavia stiffened. “About eighteen months. And I only went last time as a favour to you.”

Jonathan’s eyes went big and sad. “She’s a lonely old woman…”

“Yes, and there’s a good reason for that!” Octavia hadn’t meant to snap. It had just come out that way.

“Octavia…”

“Look what happened when you tried to do something nice for her! You hired someone to help her with her old press cuttings, and she smashed her phone for no reason!”

Jonathan sighed and looked put-upon, and Octavia came dangerously close to telling him that that exact expression had probably been half the reason that Jeannie had left him. Bad enough to have your mother-in-law constantly browbeating you without your husband giving you that look whenever you complain. “You can’t hold a grudge forever,” he told her.

Octavia gave him a harsh, mirthless smile, the kind that showed off too many teeth. “Watch me.”

(To be continued)

When he was young, Christian Ashley had assumed he’d never have children.  And indeed he hadn’t, not in the usual way, but he’d become a kind of foster parent a dozen times over.  They began to turn up on his doorstep one day, kids of about sixteen or seventeen whose parents hadn’t wanted them around anymore, and, one by one, they’d slept in his spare room for a while.  He’d done what he could for them, keeping them safe and insisting that they completed their schooling (even when they tried to insist, as Octavia had done, on getting a full-time job so that they could contribute to the household).  Amber and Saffron were the first children he’d raised from infancy, but at this point, he liked to think he knew what he was doing.

This morning the sun was shining through the window and onto Octavia’s side of the breakfast table, and it made her look serene, like a saint in a Renaissance painting.  Christian always felt better when Octavia was at home, and not just because the girls missed her.  He just hated to think of her being on her own.

“You’re not going to find it,” Saffron said to Amber, who was fishing about in the cereal box, “We already got it a few days ago, remember?”

Amber glowered at her.  “No we didn’t.”

“We did.  It was the Maggie Simpson ring again, remember?”

This seemed to spark something in Amber’s memory, and she gave a disappointed huff and poured the cereal into her bowl.

Usually, Christian dropped the girls off at school (where most of the other children’s parents assumed he was their grandfather until told otherwise), but today Octavia had said she could take them on her way to the clinic.  She volunteered there three days a week.  Christian couldn’t have been prouder of her- he’d known a lot of people who’d had trouble fighting their demons, especially when he’d lived in London.  If they could only offer her a paid position so that she could work there full-time, it would be perfect.

“Amber, listen,” said Octavia, “I don’t want you climbing the fence again, alright?  Your teachers are going spare.”

“OK,” said Amber, in a bored drone.

“I’m serious.  I’ve seen that fence- it’s about four metres high.  If you fell, you’d hit your head on the concrete.  No more climbing.  Not there.”

“Fine.”

Saffron’s face brightened.  “Can we listen to the Temptations in the car?”

Christian couldn’t help but smile.  The Temptations CD was his, and he was honestly delighted that Saffron liked it so much,

Amber groaned.  “I’m sick of the Temptations!  Why can’t we listen to Lily Allen?”

Octavia put a hand on each girl’s shoulder.  “We’ll compromise.  Cliff Richard.”

“No!” wailed both girls in unison.

“Octavia, we do not speak that name in this house,” Christian told her primly.

Octavia laughed.  “OK, here’s what we’ll do- we’ll listen to Lily Allen until we get to the big garage- that’s halfway, right?- and then we’ll listen to the Temptations the rest of the way.  Divide it up equally.”

The girls mumbled their agreement, and went back to their cereal.

“And what are you going to do today?” Octavia asked Christian.

He smiled.  “Nothing much.  I’ll probably feed the chickens, then go into town to see if the book I’ve ordered is in yet.”

“Perfect,” said Octavia, “Wish I was doing that.”

*

You could never hide.  You could never find other things to occupy your thoughts- they wouldn’t allow it.  They wanted to be your only source of solace, because otherwise it wouldn’t hurt as much when they refused to give you any.

*

Octavia thought that some of Tamsin’s ideas for the ceremony had a lot of potential.  When she’d mentioned fairy tales, Octavia had worried that she’d meant a pink sparkly princess vibe, but Tamsin wanted the venue decked out in cloudy mirrors, red apples, and the thorniest rose bushes anyone could find.  With Tamsin herself in a silver dress that shone like the moon.

“And as for music,” she said, a little breathless, “I thought maybe…”

Russel, who’d been watching this whole thing with an amused look on his face, picked this moment to interrupt.  “Have you ever been married yourself?”

“I was once,” Octavia replied, “But unfortunately my husband died a long time ago.”  Hopefully that would stop him from asking what the ceremony had been like.  If she told him that it had been a basic registry office do followed by a trip to the pub, he might start asking why he was shelling out for rose bushes and moon dresses.

“Oh my God,” said Tamsin, her voice softening at the end of each word, “That’s awful.”

Octavia gave her a reassuring smile.  “I was prepared.  I knew he was dying when I met him.”  In fact, it was the whole reason she’d decided to marry him in the first place.  If she was Pete’s next of kin, then his parents didn’t get to arrange his funeral or decide who was and wasn’t allowed into his hospital room.  “Anyway, you wanted to say something about music?”

A big grin spread across Tamsin’s face.  “Oh, yeah.  I thought maybe Russ could get in touch with someone.”

Russel raised his eyebrows.

“There’s people you’re still in touch with from your TV days, right?  So you know people, and they know people…  If we do it right, we could actually get a performance from someone famous!”

Russel made a sound as if he was pretending to spit on the floor in disgust.  “You must be joking.  I wouldn’t get in touch with that lot if they were the last people on Earth.  I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.”

“Oh, please!”  Tamsin clasped her hands together.  “For me?”

Russel sat up, probably just so he could project his voice better.  “You want people like that involved?  People who stabbed me in the back?  Just so you can get up on stage with Girls Aloud?”

Tamsin shrank back, chastened. 

“I guarantee you, if you did get on stage with them, you’d hate them by the end of it.  Showbusiness is toxic.  Everyone involved is mentally ill.”

Russel had just used a lot of words to say, ‘I don’t actually know anyone you’ve heard of,’ but Octavia was on the clock, so she smiled and nodded.  She’d heard bigger lies in her line of work, mostly things like, ‘Our brand’s lifestyle culture will change the world,’ and ‘This detox routine is totally safe.’  She’d once encouraged a feud between two rival fashion houses (which had resulted in them trying to outdo each other with ever more extravagant events, each one organised by Octavia), just by agreeing with the ridiculous things they all came out with.

“Good, clean entertainment,” Russel continued, “That’s what we tried to give people.  But people just aren’t interested in that anymore.  If you’re not a disabled lesbian, you can forget about it.”

Octavia gave him a thin smile.  “My mother says exactly the same thing.”

(To be continued)

Amber and Saffron had put a blanket over the table in the back room, so they could pretend it was a tent.  That way, they could imagine they were camping out in the middle of the thunderstorm.  They could be daring adventurers in the deep dark woods, with only a thin bit of canvas protecting them from the typhoon outside.

“What do you think would happen if the house got struck by lightning?” asked Saffron, her eyes still on the window.

Amber felt a pang of annoyance- they were supposed to be pretending they weren’t in a house- but answered her sister as quickly as possible, because she knew Saffron worried a lot about things.  “That wouldn’t happen.  There are too many trees around.”

“What difference does that make?”

“The lightning wants to strike the trees instead.  That way, it gets down to the ground quicker.  The roof’s made out of stone- the lightning would just bounce off.”  The lightning didn’t fork and zigzag the way it did in pictures.  Mostly, it just looked as if the clouds had little lightbulbs inside of them and somebody was turning to switch on and off.  As if God had a great big celestial circuit-breaker in His hand.  “Hey, how much do you think it would have to rain before the whole town flooded?”

Saffron shrugged her bony little shoulders.  Amber was pretty certain that Saffron was the smallest girl in Year Five.  In fact, she was pretty certain that there were girls in Year Three and Four who were bigger than Saffron.

Amber looked back at the rain, splattering against the window, and imagined having to row a boat to school, or hop between rooftops to avoid the churning waves.  She didn’t know why she loved that idea so much, but she did.  Sometimes she thought she might join the navy as soon as she left school, just so she could go and have adventures on the wide, endless water.

The door creaked open behind them, and they heard Mum’s voice say, “Time for bed.”

Amber’s reply was almost an instinct at this point.  “Awww.  Can we have five more minutes?  Pleeease?”  Sometimes it worked.  Or at least, sometimes it worked on Mum.  On nights when she stayed up in London, Uncle Christian couldn’t be budged- the second the clock struck nine, he was hovering over their shoulders and making them brush their teeth.  “Early to bed, early to rise,” he said.  Sometimes it felt like they lived in the Victorian times.

Anyway, today it didn’t work on Mum, either.  “You can watch the storm just as easily in your bedrooms.”  The clouds lit up again, and a few seconds later, there was a rumbling sound.  Mum glanced at the window, looking thoughtful.  “Five seconds.  That means the storm’s about a mile away.”

Amber nodded.  Uncle Christian had told them about how you could work out how far away lightning was by how long the thunder took.  Maybe he’d told Mum that too, when she was a little girl.  “How far away is a mile?”

“Well, your school is two miles away, so…. what’s halfway between here and there?”

“Um…  The big garage, I think?”  Amber didn’t spend much thought on this, because she’d just had an idea.  “So, wait, if it was two miles away, could the lightning hit the school?”

Mum laughed.  “The school building has lightning conductors.  You’re not going to get a day off because of a storm.”

“What about if it flooded?  Like, if it carried on raining for days and days…”

“It’s a tough old building, Amber.  It can withstand the elements.”  Mum hadn’t crouched down to talk to them like she sometimes did when they were sitting down.  From here on the floor, she looked as tall as a skyscraper.  “Anyway, you like school.  All your friends are there.”

“Yeah, but there’s teachers there, too,” Amber muttered.  If she was honest, it wasn’t so much that she didn’t like school; more that she liked being in other places a whole lot more.  For instance, her friends’ houses also had her friends in them, and nobody ever made her do a Maths worksheet there.

“I like school,” said Saffron, just to suck up.

Mum seemed to remember where she was.  “Anyway, speaking of school, you need to go there tomorrow morning, so off to bed.”  Mum pointed out into the hallway, in the direction of their rooms.  Amber grumbled a little, but did as she was told.  As she did, she thought about something Mum had told her once.  Mum had always liked school when she was a little girl.  But that was mainly because she hadn’t liked being at home much.

Amber remembered Mum’s stories about the strict boarding school she’d gone to when she was twelve.  Mum said it had been freezing cold, there were spooky creaking sounds all night, and half the teachers acted like they wanted to murder you.  But Mum had even had fun there, because she got to pretend that she was in a horror movie.  Amber didn’t think she’d be able to do that, if she ever got sent to a boarding school.  She loved imagining things, but it would be terrible to know you couldn’t stop.

(To be continued)

“Get out of my sight,” she said, and Octavia did, because she couldn’t control her mouth and couldn’t control her behaviour, despite every effort that had been made for her, despite every opportunity she’d had, she seemed to think she didn’t have to try.

*

LeFay Gems referred to themselves as a “jewellery powerhouse,” and from the way they all talked, you’d think they held the fate of the world in their hands.  Their upcoming product launch had been described as “a watershed moment” and “an epoch-defining event.”  They weren’t just drumming up interest in their new line of bracelets, they were “ushering in a new era of beauty and class.”  And if that was the case, Octavia thought, then they really ought to get around to spending some money on it.

“It’s the caterers, mainly,” Octavia explained to the CEO, a beefy little git with no neck to speak of, “They don’t want the whole fee paid up front, but they do want a deposit putting down.  And the same’s probably going to be true for the musicians.”

The CEO, sitting at the opposite end of the long glass table, raised his chin, as if he was willing himself to grow taller so that he could tower over Octavia.  “Maybe you should impress upon them how much LeFay Gems values loyalty.  How grateful we’d be for their services.  We don’t forget the people who go the extra mile for us.”

Yeah, that’s what I’ll tell them.  “You should take this job because then the guy who’s too stingy to pay a deposit will owe you a favour.”  “And they will go the extra mile, but you need to do your part first.”

The CEO’s nostrils flared.  George Chandler, his name was, and he’d made his first million by the age of forty (after his parents had already lent him ten million or so to get his company started).  “Miss Lambton, I’m sure that if you told them how important this event is to us, they’d be able to work something out.”

“You might have to convince them that it’s important to them, too.”

You’d think she’d just kicked him in the balls.  “Convince them?”

“They need to eat,” said Octavia, “They can’t pay their rent with gratitude.”

“Let me explain something to you,” said Mr Chandler through gritted teeth, “There are catering companies who would jump at the chance to work for us.  It wouldn’t even occur to them to ask about the deposit.  If you were willing to spend five minutes of your time looking around, you’d have found that out already.”

“Well, feel free to get in touch with one of those companies yourself,” Octavia said breezily, “but the ones I work with like to be paid on time.” 

He stood up, his chair legs audibly scraping against the floor as he pushed it backwards.  “You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?”

Octavia smoothed down her skirt.  “Sort of assumed that you thought that as well.  Otherwise you wouldn’t have hired me.”  There was a chance that that was exactly what he wanted to hear, but only a small one.  Men like him said they valued ingenuity and frankness, but most of the time they only valued it in themselves.

“I took a chance on you,” Mr Chandler spat, “I thought, young woman, little company, why not give her a chance to prove herself?”

In other words, I was cheaper than the others, thought Octavia.  Maybe LeFay Gems was going through some money troubles that hadn’t been made public yet.  Or maybe Mr Chandler had his hand in the till.

“But you’re an amateur.  A complete amateur.  You’re like a little girl trying to play with the grown-ups.  I don’t know what you were doing before, but maybe you should go back to that.”

Octavia rose from her seat, picking up her files from the table.  “I think we’re done here,” she said with a smile.

“People are going to hear about this!” he called after her as she left the office.  But by then, Octavia was thinking about something else.

A man who’d try to get out of giving caterers the deposit they’d asked for would probably have tried to get out of a few other things in his time.  If Octavia got in touch with some of LeFay Gems’ suppliers and ex-employees, she’d probably hear a few stories about being paid in gratitude from them, too.   If the papers got hold of that, George Chandler would be in for an uncomfortable couple of weeks, especially if her hunch about embezzlement turned out to be true.

It was a shame she wouldn’t actually get to plan the event, although she relished the idea of Mr Chandler having to sweat a bit to put something together at short notice.  This sort of thing happened sometimes- it was a side-effect of working with people who found it impossible to process the idea of not getting their way.  And in some ways, the look on their faces when you stopped sucking up to them was more satisfying than anything they could pay you.

*

Octavia wandered the streets, her eyes and cheeks and nose sore enough to bleed, the rain from earlier soaking into her shoes, the wind blowing through her as if she was barely there at all, because she had nowhere to go, no place in the world that wasn’t a constant reminder of how wrong she was, how she’d been OK when she was born but had let herself be degraded a little more every day since, how it was terrible to imagine how she’d be if she lived to twenty.

*

Mr Ashley’s house was a little way outside of Torquay, in a tiny cul-de-sac surrounded by trees.  The house was old and somehow kindly-looking, but it was possible that Octavia only thought that because she associated it with Mr Ashley himself.

Two decades ago, Mr Ashley (first name Christian, but Octavia had never been able to bring herself to use it) had been Octavia’s music teacher.  Sometimes it seemed as if all the adults who’d had a positive influence on Octavia’s childhood had been paid to be there.

This afternoon, she got to the house before the girls had finished school, which meant that she and Mr Ashley got to sit in the kitchen for an hour, drinking tea.  Octavia didn’t know why the tea Mr Ashley made tasted so much better than any other kind, but it did.

“Amber’s been in a bit of trouble at school,” he told her.  For a man in his sixties, Mr Ashley was remarkably fresh-faced.  There were faint creases around his eyes and mouth, but that was all.  “Apparently she kept trying to climb the fence at breaktime.  She apologised, for what it’s worth.  She said she wasn’t trying to escape.  Apparently, the fence was just calling to her.”

Octavia sighed.  “She’s her mother’s daughter, alright.  I’ll talk to her.”  The kitchen was decorated in warm browns and yellows, and probably hadn’t been updated much since the Seventies.  Definitely not since they’d bought the house, and that had been over a decade ago.  “Speaking of Amber, have you thought any more about what we’re going to do for her birthday?”

“She mentioned Finch’s Amusements, but I don’t know if the weather will be nice enough.”

“Have to get her to come up with a backup plan, yes.”  She pretended to shudder.  “Just not a disco this time, alright?”  That had been what they’d done for Saffron’s birthday back in March, and it had been a nightmare.  Sixteen nine-year-olds bouncing up and down to three hours of the most irritating songs they could find, while Octavia and Mr Ashley had nervously eyed the dangerous-looking power cables attached to the equipment the “MCs” had brought.  To make matters worse, Octavia got the impression that Saffron would have been just as happy with a trip to Pizza Hut.  Next time, she’d suggest that first.

If Octavia’s mother knew that her only two grandchildren so far were named Amber and Saffron, she’d have kittens.  She considered herself an authority on what names people should and shouldn’t give to their children.  “Classless,” she’d proclaim upon hearing that someone she knew had had the gall to name their new baby Samantha or Nicola (as opposed to her own name, Josette, which her parents had given her in one of many attempts to trick people into thinking they were French and therefore cultured.)

Amber and Saffron’s last name was Zane, which was Octavia’s married name.  Her late husband hadn’t been the father of either of them (for one thing, he’d died about seven years before they were born, and for another, he and Octavia had never had sex), but out of the two names she could have passed down to them, she thought it was best to pick the one that wasn’t shared by her parents.  It had seemed cruel to shackle two children to the Lambton family before they could even walk.

(To Be Continued)

(From On the Trail of Kelpie and Silkie by Rosalyn Pepper, published 2012)

We were in luck.  Raymond Underhill was not just still alive (aged 84), but still living in Coney Park.  He and his wife Frances had a little white house a few roads back from the high street, and when we called on them, they told us they’d be happy for us to drop by.

All three of us were taken aback by just how pleasant they were- a good-natured, sprightly old couple who seemed genuinely excited to talk to us.  Frances rushed off to make tea for everyone, while Raymond sat us down in the living room and chatted enthusiastically about his old newspaper days.  In the two hours we spent talking to him, I didn’t see a trace of the man who’d written that article fifty years earlier.  As the afternoon went on, though, I began to see why that was.

“There was a work-release programme, you see,” he told us, “A lot of the Elm Gates girls went to work at some of the local shops.  ‘Working their way back into society,’ the higher-ups said.”

“Which shops were these?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re all gone now.  The general store.  Pinkerton’s Haberdashery.”  (I started at that, but tried not to show it.)  “The Lakeside Cafe.  Not in the pub, though- people thought it best to keep them away from temptation.”  He chuckled.  “Didn’t want anyone falling off the wagon!  But around this time, a few of the girls started complaining.”

“What about?”

“Er… Well, in general, not being treated properly.  Starvation rations, being bullied by other staff members, that sort of thing.  I didn’t necessarily believe it- it all sounded a bit too much like Oliver Twist to me- but it wasn’t my idea to write that article.  Back then, you had to toe the editorial line if you wanted to keep your job.”

“Whose editorial line?” I asked, “I mean, who was your boss?”

“Peter Devereaux was the editor in those days.  He made out that he was angry that the Elm Gates girls had slandered the shopkeepers, when we all knew them and they were good, charitable people…  But honestly, I think he’d have taken any excuse to be angry.  He was one of those people who are never happier than when they’re looking down their nose at someone.”

I nodded.  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask about Siobhan McCluskey… but I didn’t.  He hadn’t mentioned her on his own, and I didn’t want to lead him.  Instead, I showed him the picture on my phone.  “The reason we started looking into Coney Park’s history is that it’s mentioned in this piece of writing.  Apparently, it’s been there since the 1970s.”

Raymond squinted at the phone.  “Can’t read anything from a screen that small.  Can you read it out to me?”

I did.  “Do you know what it might be referring to?”

Raymond sat back in his chair, looking thoughtful.  “Well, if it’s been there since the Seventies, then my guess is that it’s about that tourist girl who drowned.  Alison Winters.”

I think my mouth might have actually swung open in shock.  “I’ve read about her!”

Raymond smiled.  “But I bet you didn’t read about the things her friends said afterwards, did you?”

I shook my head.

“No.  ‘Course you didn’t.  The paper didn’t want to give them ‘the oxygen of publicity’- that was how they put it.  But her friends said that the lifeguards took a lot longer to come to their rescue than they should have.  And when they did come, they didn’t realise how badly Alison was hurt at first.  They told them off for ‘clowning around’ when they should have been helping her.”

I thought about the guy in the newsagent.  And of course they just got a slap on the wrist for it.  Life’s just not fair.  “Do you think that’s what happened?”

Raymond shrugged.  “Well, I wasn’t there… but it might have been.  Those lifeguards work long hours, and they‘ve never had much patience with the tourists.”  He tutted.  “But it never went anywhere.  The lifeguards all denied it, and nothing could be proved.  Besides, the coroner said she’d have drowned almost immediately- they wouldn’t have had much of a chance of saving her either way.”

I could imagine one of Alison Winters’ friends, in a fit of rage and grief, writing the message on the railway bridge.  But I could also imagine one of the girls from Elm Gates doing the same.  Or somebody who knew Siobhan McCluskey.  Maybe even Bernard French’s wife and daughter, if Ben Sugar was wrong about how long the graffiti had been there.

Later that afternoon, probably an hour or two before sunset, I was standing by the lake with Judith, and I finally asked her the question that had been playing on my mind for most of the last two weeks.  “How did you end up going to live with your aunt and uncle?”

As soon as I said it, I worried that it had been a rude question, but Judith answered it without hesitating for a moment.  “Well, our mother had substance abuse issues- has substance abuse issues, unfortunately- so it was decided that Harriet and me would be safer elsewhere.”  She leaned forward on the fence, looking out over the water.  “I think they did a good job.  Honestly, in some ways they really spoilt us.  Did you know, your friend Isaac guessed that I used to have riding lessons?  I must just have that aura.”

I laughed, less at what she’d said and more at how wrong I’d been.  I’d almost convinced myself that Judith’s leg-in-the-fireplace story had been the real story of what had happened to her and her sister.  It must have been the last few weeks catching up with me- there were so many stories floating around, and it was impossible to tell which ones I should pay attention to.

“Three more days,” I told Judith.

“Mm.”  She turned sideways, still hanging onto the fence.  “What are you going to do when you get back?”

“Um… there’s a few more weeks until university starts up again.  I’ll probably have time to look up some of Alison Winters’ friends, see if I can find out anything else.”  Maybe I shouldn’t have paid attention to any of the stories.  Maybe the person who’d written the graffiti had just been mucking about.  But if I’d come this far, then I might as well see it through to the end.  “Shame we have to go back, though.”

“Sorry,” said Judith with a wry smile, because in her head, we were only going home at the end of the week because her job needed her back.  It wasn’t true, though- my parents and Denny’s brother and sister would also start getting impatient soon.  “I am glad we came.  I’ve seen the effect it’s had on Denny, for a start.”

(Denny had hung back to get something from the shops.  It didn’t occur to me until that exact moment that he might have deliberately left me and Judith alone together.)

“He seems like he’s relaxing a lot more, yeah,” I said, “I was worried it might get too much for him, being in an unfamiliar place, but he doesn’t seem to have any problems.  None that he’s let me see, anyway.”  Jonathan and Octavia had run through a few worst-case scenarios before we left, but so far, I hadn’t needed to remember what they’d said.

Judith’s face was pointed into the wind, with her hair blowing out behind her like a flag or a banner.  I hadn’t really thought about it until then, but she looked a lot like Bronwen, the girl I’d met in Cornwall as a child.  The same long dark hair, the same long athletic limbs.  The same willingness to accommodate other people’s strange plans.

I moved over to her side, gripping the fence next to her.  “Keep a look out,” she told me, “I’m not completely sure, but I think I’ve just seen a couple of otters on the banks.  If we keep quiet, they might swim out so we can see them properly.”           

I moved closer to her, staring at the lake and waiting for the otters to appear.

(The End)

(I haven’t finished the final part of “Rosalyn and the Origins” yet, so I thought I’d put this up as a stopgap.)

*

Autumn 2006

Octavia Lambton’s parents had been an actor and a society hostess, but they’d periodically declared themselves experts in other career paths, too.  Whenever somebody annoyed them, Robert and Josette Lambton would make much of their connections in that person’s field, be it catering, charity, politics, teaching, or anything else.  You name it, they knew somebody with power over it.  “They wouldn’t give you the time of day,” they’d say, “In fact, I rather think they’d call security.”

It had been overwhelming to think of their power.  No matter what you chose to do in life, they could ruin you with a single word in the right place.  It would have been impossible to stand against them.  All you could do was try to stay invisible and hope that they attacked someone else instead.

Octavia must have been around thirteen or fourteen when she first noticed the looks people sometimes gave her parents.  People rolling their eyes when they talked, and stifling giggles when they turned their backs.  It took a while to work out what that meant, and a lot longer to believe it, but as soon as she did, it felt as if the whole world had been turned upside-down.

She’d learned a lot more over the years.  When she was younger, she’d worked admin in a few prominent corporate firms, where she noticed that people tended to waffle a lot about “brand loyalty” and “customer-centric strategies” when they didn’t really know what was going on.  Later on, she’d branched out into her mother’s old line of work, except Octavia actually got people to pay for it.  Goldemar Event Planning, book us and watch your party stock rise.  You wouldn’t have thought that people would fall so easily for the ‘I’ve heard so much about how extravagant and tasteful you are’ approach, but they did, and in huge numbers.  Deep down, nobody knew what they were doing.  And they were all terrified of getting caught.

It was Goldemar Event Planning that had led her to Tamsin Doggett’s door.  Octavia knew, logically, that Tamsin was probably somewhere in her mid-twenties, but between the nervous smile, the weird little lisp, and the way she was flicking her hair around, she could have been mistaken for thirteen.

“I knew it had to be you,” she told Octavia, sitting opposite her in her cramped living room, “Isaac was just telling me how he worked for your brother last year, and then I saw an ad for your company in the paper.  It was like fate.”

Octavia grinned.  “I love it when these things come together.”  Tamsin, this is a bad idea.

Tamsin sat up straight, and seemed to narrow her body as she did it, bringing her knees and wrists closer together like a book closing.  “It’s going to be a vow renewal ceremony.  We’ve been through so much, and I want us to take a moment to celebrate what we mean to each other.”

“Sounds lovely.”  Tamsin, I’m not the person you want for this.  “What time of year were you thinking?”

“Definitely summer.  I know you’ve got to plan.  And who wants to renew their vows when the weather’s miserable?”  She gave a snuffly little laugh.

“Oh, there’s ways to plan around it… but if summer’s what you want, I’d go for July.  Just after term ends.”  Tamsin, I only started this business to fleece horrible rich people, and you’re not rich and barely horrible at all.  Reconsider this.  “That way, any parents you invite can just bring their kids along instead of having to dither for weeks about schedules.”

“That sounds amazing,” said Tamsin, stretching out that last word as far as it would go.  “I’m thinking of a fairy tale theme- children will love that.  So I want them to be there.”

Octavia clasped her hands together.  “Tamsin?  If it’s not a rude question… what made you want to hire an event planner in the first place?  You know what you want, and you’ve got plenty of ideas already…”

It took Tamsin a moment or two to answer.  “I want this party to be special.”  She shrugged.  “And I don’t know how any of these things work.”

Octavia smiled, and leaned forward.  “Let me let you in on a secret, Tamsin- deep down, nobody knows how anything works.  You probably have just as much of an idea as me.”

Tamsin laughed.  “Then can you give me a discount?  Mates’ rates?”

Ah well.  She’d been as honest as she could.  “I don’t see why not.”

(To be continued)

Denny heard the mattress army marching up towards him, and settled into listening to it before he was even fully awake.  It felt right.  As long as he was here, listening to them, he knew he wasn’t causing any trouble.

But then there was another noise.  Little, scurrying steps from up above him.  A duck?  A squirrel?  Denny listened to the steps and tried to work it out.  Ducks didn’t run that fast, did they?  If they wanted to move fast, they flew.  At least, that’s what he assumed.

He got up, opened the window and tilted his head so he cold see up onto the roof.  Maybe if they came back this way, he’d be able to see what they were.

*

(From “On the Trail of Kelpie and Silkie” by Rosalyn Pepper, published 2012)

The story Judith had told us somehow found its way into my thoughts about Kelpie and Silkie.  The two little girls hearing voices from the fireplace and seeing their mother’s leg hanging down from the chimney.  It made me think of another story I’d read, about the man who’d promised his daughter to the water spirits, only to have her stab herself to death before he could hand her over.  There’s a common theme there, of fathers selling out their daughters for their own benefit.  The whole thing made me think of Bernard French again.

(It also made me think of something Natalie had told me, about fathers in America who took their daughters to “purity balls” where they dressed in white and pledged to stay virgins until marriage.  That whole tradition of parents treating their children like property.)

According to the story, when the girl stabbed herself, her blood turned all the waterlilies in the area red.  I hadn’t had a chance to check the plants around this lake yet.

*

They’d started watching a film over breakfast, and now they were engrossed.  It was one of those corny American films they showed on TV sometimes, where there was always a big game tomorrow and gentle wind instruments swelled whenever two characters had a heart-to-heart.  This was the first holiday Judith had been on without family, but they were all settling into the same routines as usual.  It was as if nothing was different.

There had been a time- not long after they’d gone to live with their uncle- when Judith wouldn’t have dreamt of spending a night away from her sister.  She’d been anxious when Harriet so much as stayed out late on an evening.  It had taken a while to break her out of that mindset, but at least Harriet had been understanding.  She hadn’t liked to be away from Judith for too long, either.

Harriet had moved up to Cambridge last winter.  It had been a bit of a wrench, but it had to be done.  They couldn’t spend the rest of their lives in each other’s pockets.

Judith reached out and put her arm around Rosalyn’s shoulders, and felt Rosalyn reach up and hold it in place.

*

(From “On the Trail of Kelpie and Silkie” by Rosalyn Pepper, published 2012)

Two weeks into our stay, I found something interesting.  While I was looking through the newspaper archives in the library, I found Bernard French (October 1993- ‘Questions raised over local man’s drowning death’) and Alison Winters (August 1972- ‘Girl killed in lake tragedy’).  But while I was trying to track down Siobhan McCluskey, I came across an editorial.  It was from March 1958 (a month after Siobhan’s death, as it turned out), and the title was “Elm Gates Staff should clean their own house before lambasting others.”

_{For five years, this community has lived with the knowledge that criminals were being housed within a few miles of our homes.  Despite this, we did not grumble.  We continued to live our lives, as honest and unafraid as we had before.  Some local businesses even offered work-placement schemes, giving dozens of troubled girls the opportunity to pay their debt to society.}

_{And how has the Elm Gates Reform School thanked us for our kindness?  With accusations, threats and bitterness.}

_{The staff at Elm Gates would do well to remember that their residents are in their care because they have stolen, lied, cheated and even attempted to kill their fellow human beings.  They are there because society has given up on them.  If somebody is generous enough to offer them a second chance, one would think that their reaction would be one of sheer gratitude.  Clearly, though, this is too much to expect.}

The article was credited to a reporter named Raymond Underhill.  I looked through the rest of the issues that month, and I couldn’t find any indication of what he was talking about.  There was no other mention of Elm Gates Reform School.

I also didn’t have any evidence that this was connected to Siobhan McCluskey.  But I couldn’t help wondering.

*

“It reminded me of a few things Pinder used to say to me,” Denny told Judith.  They were walking by the banks of the lake- after spending so long hearing stories about it, it seemed high time they actually took a look at the damn thing.  “You know- ‘How dare you complain?  How dare you be ungrateful?  Don’t you know you’re lower than dirt?’”

Judith nodded.  “And what sort of things were you complaining about?”

Denny shrugged.  “Not being fed.  Having to sleep on the floor when everyone else at least got a mattress.”  He gave a harsh laugh.  “Apparently I should have been grateful for being taught a lesson.”

Judith nodded.  It was alarming to hear his voice so full of anger- so full it practically shook with it- but she knew it helped to talk about it.  Denny needed to be brought out of himself.

The lake looked pleasant, cool and calm under the oppressive August sun, but it was hard to trust it after everything they’d heard.  Maybe it hadn’t finished giving up its dead.  Still, Rosalyn was like a dog with a done, checking every plant and every piece of litter floating in the shallows as if it might be a vital clue.  She glowed with purpose.  It was impossible not to admire her.

There wasn’t much information about the Elm Gates Reform School online- just that it had existed, and done so from 1953 to 1962.  Rosalyn hadn’t let that put her off.  If they didn’t find anything here, their next move would be to try and track down the man who’d written that article.

“Do they know whether Pinder will be put on trial yet?” Judith asked Denny.

“No-one’s said anything.  I don’t think they can work out what to charge him with.”  He looked sideways at the bright, silvery water, a couple of feet away.  “No-one’s mentioned the bombs.”

“Are you going to?”

“No.  That’d get Alex in trouble.  That’s the last thing he needs, on top of everything else.”

Judith didn’t like it much, but she accepted Denny’s logic.  “What about everything he did to you?”

Denny laughed.  “I don’t know if any of that even counts as a crime.”

“Well, if it doesn’t, it should.”  Judith looked at Rosalyn, a few yards ahead of her on the path, and felt something loosen in her chest.  It felt like putting a burden down at the end of the day.

They’d been staying in the same house for two weeks now.  If Judith was a man, she’d call it “being a gentleman.”  Deep down, she wondered if she was just too scared to say anything.

(To be concluded)

They did start with a candle.  There was a little tealight in the idle of the picnic table on the patio, and after they’d cleared away their dinner things, they lit it and got out the marshmallows. 

They’d been the last customers in the chip shop before it closed.  By the time their food was halfway done, the staff had already begun to stack the chairs and turn off the machines.

“They used to say that there was something evil in the air at night,” said Denny, “I don’t know the details, but they thought night air was different from day air, somehow.  There was something corrupting in it.”

Rosalyn nodded.  “Night air definitely smells different to day air.  It’s sharper.  I don’t know how else to describe it.”           

“Things cooling down, I think,” said Judith, turning her marshmallow around on the end of a cocktail stick, “After the sun’s gone.”

The moon was full, or nearly there.  It shone through the trees and onto the stream nearby, giving everything a silver tint.  There weren’t any electric lights here, except the ones in the cottage, so the stars looked close enough to touch.

“I saw an advert for a bat walk, while we were in town,” said Judith, “I wonder if we’ll see any out here?”  She looked backwards at the trees, scrutinising them for any wildlife.

The moonlight shone through the trees, lighting up occasional bits of bark and branch, but beyond that, it was dark.  It was the huge, black forest you read about in fairy tales, hiding all manner of wolves, witches and trolls.  Hiding all manner of crimes.  Enter it and you might never come out at all.

“Do you know any good ghost stories?” Rosalyn asked Judith.  It seemed like the night for them.

“Hmm.  Ghost stories around the campfire?”  An angular smile appeared on Judith’s face.  “They used to tell a lot of them at school, but I expect you’ve heard most of them…”  She made a humming sound.  “What about the story of the chimney?”

Rosalyn shook her head.  “I don’t know that one.”

“Me neither,” said Denny.

“Well,” said Judith, “Once upon a time, a man married his daughter off to his apprentice.  He wouldn’t have been her first choice, but her father insisted.”  She held the cocktail stick between her hands, as if she was trying to decide what to do with it.  “The apprentice then spent his life navigating between what the father wanted and what the daughter wanted.  They were both strong-willed people- stronger-willed than him, anyway- and they rarely agreed with each other.  The apprentice was constantly on the wrong side of one or the other.  And that was probably why he was so receptive when the father began to drip poison into his ear.”

The woods were quiet.  A rustle here and there, but that was it- nocturnal animals didn’t seem to make as much noise as diurnal ones.  Or maybe they just had enough sense to avoid humans.

“The father told him there was something wrong with his daughter.  It wasn’t natural for a woman to be so angry all the time.  It wasn’t natural for her to take such glee in causing strife for her husband and children.  He suspected she was under a curse, or maybe even possessed by an evil spirit.  And his apprentice looked at him with wide eyes, and he asked what they should do.”

*

(From ‘On the Trail of Kelpie and Silkie’ by Rosalyn Pepper, published 2012)

There are other supernatural creatures associated with the water.  For instance, there are the rusalki (plural of ‘rusalka’), which sounds enough like ‘silkie’ to get my attention.  These are the vengeful spirits of abused or jilted women who drown themselves in Norwegian lakes.  Maybe in the Coney Park lake, too, if the man in the antique shop was to be believed.

There are sirens, who lure sailors to their doom.  There’s Peg Powler, who drags children into the river, and the shellycoat, which tricks people into getting lost.  There are the grindylows, which might be related to Grendel from Beowulf, and the nixies, who will teach you to play the violin if you drop three drops of blood into their pond.

June Shepherd, at the tourist information centre, said that there had been three people drowned in the lake within the last hundred years.  Siobhan McCluskey in 1958, Alison Winters in 1972, and Bernard French in 1993.

Alison Winters’ case was more straightforward than the other two, just because there were so many witnesses.  She and some friends were on a rowing boar, and they went out further than they were supposed to.  Somehow, the boat overbalanced and tipped everyone into the water.  Luckily there were people on hand to go and rescue them, but Alison hit her head on the side of the boat as it tipped over, and she was knocked unconscious and trapped underwater.  By the time the rescuers got to her, it was too late.

Siobhan McCluskey was ruled a suicide.  By all accounts, she was a lonely young woman, new to the town, who had no friends or family that anybody knew of.  She’d been seen walking along the banks of the lake for several nights before her body was found.  Apparently she’d lost her job in a haberdashery a few weeks previously.  I couldn’t help but think about the man in the antiques shop again.

Bernard French was the most recent, and the most complicated.  Neighbours said he’d been having violent arguments with his wife and teenage daughter for weeks beforehand.  They finally moved out of town on the morning before his body was found, and were never seen again.  Which would suggest another suicide, if not for the fact that, according to pathologists, Bernard’s body had been in the lake for more than twenty-four hours when it was found.

As I said, Bernard French’s wife and daughter were never seen again.  They were sought for questioning, but they’d completely vanished.  Apparently, one of the things they’d argued about was a boy the daughter had been seen with, but no-one was able to track him down, either.

Maybe it was a suicide.  Maybe the people who said they’d seen Bernard’s wife and daughter leave were mistaken, and Bernard just weighed their bodies down a lot more completely than he did his own.  But maybe not.  Maybe they’re still around.

*

In the woods, about twenty minutes’ walk from their cottage, there was a little wooden bridge.  It was in a neatly-carved semicircle over the stream, like an illustration in a children’s book.

“Did you ever play Pooh Sticks when you were a kid?” asked Rosalyn, looking over the side.

Denny shrugged.  “I suppose I must have done.  I don’t really remember doing it, though.”

“My dad would get my brother and me to play it whenever we went to Chelmsford.”  She let go of the railing and caught up with him.  “The trouble was, the bridge was too high for us to be able to tell the sticks apart when they came out the other side, so Dad always said he’d won, and we could never prove he hadn’t.” 

Denny had been quite young when his father had died, but he managed to summon up a memory or two.  “My dad used to quiz me on the Kings and Queens of England since 1066.  I can still manage Henry the Seventh to George the Fourth, but anything before or after that is a bit hazy.”  He looked around at the trees and bushes around the path.  A few days ago, they’d seen a monkjack bounce across the path in front of them, and there was always the hope that they’d see one again.

It was a hot summer day, the kind where your clothes got damp after two minutes of walking, and it was a relief to have the trees around casting shadows for miles around.  Rosalyn had heard there was a café around the edges of the wood, somewhere they could have cold drinks on the benches outside.  No matter what they did, there would be a voice in Denny’s head telling him that it was just a pointless distraction from unpleasant truths, but sometimes he ended up enjoying himself anyway. 

Judith was wearing a skirt that looked as if it had been made out of a massive sail.  Every time a breeze blew, it fluttered in the wind and seemed to grow bigger and bigger.  “My uncle used to make us memorise poetry.  I have no idea why.”

Rosalyn slowed down and nodded backwards.  “Do you want to go back to the stream and dip our feet in for a bit?”

Denny thought about it.  “Is it alright if we do that on the way back?  I’m looking forward to getting to this café.”

“Fair enough,” said Rosalyn.  She kicked a pebble a little way up the road.  She was wearing neat brown shoes that looked as if they were made out of leather straps, a sort of cross between sandals and ballet flats. The toes didn’t look as if they’d provide much protection if one of the pebbles turned out to be bigger than expected.  “Wait, can you hear that?”

Denny listened out.  Somewhere in the distance, there was music playing.  Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine… 

“That’ll be the café, won’t it?” he asked.

“Probably, yeah.  Which way is it coming from?”

Denny had a mental image of them getting hold of a dowsing stick and following it in the direction of the music.  Instead, he just listened for a bit, and pointed vaguely northwest.  “Over there, I think.”

(To be continued)