A Greater World by Clare Flynn Page A

continued to hold her eyes with his.
    'I killed me brother.'
    Elizabeth gasped. 'My God! Why? What happened?'
    'We were shooting rabbits and I were reckless. I didn't take enough care of him. I let meself get distracted and I shot Danny by mistake. I were trusted with his care and I abused that trust and now he's dead. He were only fourteen.'
    Elizabeth reached for his hands and grasped them tightly.
    'It wasn't your fault. It was an accident. You didn't mean to kill him.'
    'If I live to be a hundred, not a day'll pass when I won't think of Danny and what I did to him. What I've done to me parents. It's destroyed me mother. I don't deserve to be happy meself. I came here to escape the look in me mam's eyes. That makes me a coward as well as a killer. I thought running away would at least give me some peace, but now you'll think ill of me too. I thought I knew what I were giving up when I left England and I didn't care. But now that I've met you... we've just met but I feel, I feel...'
    'I feel it too'. She took his hand in hers and placed it against her cheek.
    'You mean you still want to know me after what I've done?'
    'Yes'. As she spoke, she leaned into his chest and raised her head to seek his mouth again. He kissed her slowly and tenderly and she let herself be consumed by his kiss. She drank in the smell of him, the taste of him and let out a little involuntary moan, which made him kiss her harder and she felt his body press itself into hers. Her arms gripped him tightly, squeezing, hanging onto him as though she were drowning and he her only hope of salvation. Here she was in the middle of a public place, kissing a man as she had never been kissed before, returning his kiss and wanting it to go on for ever. She wanted to cry out 'I love you' but a wave of rational responsibility washed over her. First she must sort matters out with her father and Jack Kidd, then she would be free to be with Michael.
    'I have to go now' she said as she eased herself away.
    'Tomorrow afternoon. Twelve o'clock.'
    Then she left, and he stood watching her move quickly through the trees, her shape lit up in the last rays of the afternoon sun.
     

Chapter Six – A Funeral
     
     
    The church was empty when Elizabeth took her place alongside Mrs Little and her husband, in the front pew behind the coffin. She had not been allowed to look at her father's body: the lid was already nailed shut and the undertaker told her it would be too distressing for her to see him after five days in the water. The mysterious Mr Kidd had identified him by his clothing and fob-watch, his features having been unrecognisable.
    She buried her head in her hands and leaned forward, trying to make herself pray. But prayer eluded her. In just a few weeks, her life had transformed - she made a mental inventory of what had happened. Against this grim sequence of events she had now met a man with whom she was falling in love, despite the brevity of their acquaintance. Embarking on a relationship with Michael might bring more problems, more pain and sadness, as he was clearly a troubled man. She shivered in the chill of the church, then the organ broke her reveries with its sombre dirge as she remembered she was here to bury her father. It was hard not to hope that this was a strange and terrible dream and she would soon wake up.
    Her hold on religious faith had always been shaky, with what little belief she held stretched by the war and Stephen's death, and now by everything that had befallen her and her family. Yet she wanted to believe in an eternal life for her parents, even if that was more of an abstract concept than a vision of them hand in hand in front of an all-redeeming creator. Her father had been unhappy since her mother's death. He had stumbled along, searching for a meaning to life without her, but unable to find one. Elizabeth wondered what it would be like to love someone as much as that? So much that their loss took all meaning from living.
    She thought