her sudden transforming smiles. It was impossible not to smile in return, and John stood watching the needle slip through the button and the fabric in a deft practised rhythm. Then she said, ‘ You’ll look after them for me, won’t you, dear John?’ and this time mischief tugged at her smile, so that he felt irresistibly drawn into a conspiracy.
‘I’m going outside now,’ he said, ‘to brave the sun.’ The needle flashed through the cloth, and he imagined she was sewing not a faded shirt, but a fine net that drew them all together. As he put his hand to the door, she called after him: ‘When you see Alex, will you tell him I found the book he asked me for, and left it in the dining room, where he always sits?’
When he found Alex on the terrace picking moss from the lead face of the sundial, he passed on the message word for word with the accuracy of a clever schoolboy. The younger man frowned, scratching at an insect bite at the rim of the shadow-mark on his arm. ‘A book?’ He shook his head. ‘But I don’t remember any…’ Then he shrugged. ‘Oh well – so often I forget what I’ve done and said, and if I didn’t have Hester to remind me…’ He grinned ruefully, and patting John’s shoulder in thanks stepped through the glass doors and into the dining room behind.
Later still Clare came and sat beside him in the long shadow of the dying elm. She’d covered her swimming costume with a dark green dress that reached to her ankles, its hem splashed with mud from another season. Sweat had darkened the roots of her hair, and she was smeared with cream that lay on her skin like the marks on an animal’s pelt. The lotion smelt a little of honey, and had begun to attract tiny black flies. ‘Thunderbugs,’ said John, lifting one from the back of her hand with his thumbnail. ‘It means the storm’s coming soon.’
‘I don’t think I want to go swimming,’ she said. The cat had broken the string of beads, and she tossed them between her hands.
‘Why – aren’t you hot? Won’t the water cool you?’ He picked up a bead from where it had fallen, and put it in her palm.
‘I went up there just now and there was something under the water, like hair or clothes. Alex says it’s a plastic bag but a plastic bag would float, wouldn’t it?’
‘Aren’t you going to the seaside tomorrow? Then you can swim in the sea.’
‘That would be even deeper, though. Do you like swimming?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘I can’t remember.’ This was true – there must have been swimming, he thought, on those short bed-and-breakfast holidays in Suffolk and Kent, but he was too dazed with heat to remember. He felt sweat collect where the girl’s shoulder rested against his, and moving away from her lowered himself onto the grass. She spread the beads in her lap and began to sort them, chatting idly to him without pausing for breath or answer.
Her undemanding presence soothed him until he lay half-asleep, now and then caught by a word or phrase: ‘The beads are pretty aren’t they, blue like bits of a broken plate – are they glass?… I tried to make him wear them but he wouldn’t – he said they smelt like the skin of the dead man who’d been wearing them but I can’t smell anything, can you?… I remember someone at St Jude’s had beads just like this on her wrist with a bird hanging from it and when she lost the bird I found it for her… oh yes, it’s hot but we mustn’t complain Hester says; it wasn’t like this last year when it rained and rained and Eve was unhappy then and wouldn’t play the piano, and the keys got dusty… well, of course that was before Walker got here but I don’t know why that would cheer her up; she’s always hated him and I heard him call her bitch once when he thought no-one was listening. Bitch , I said, that’s terrible, you can’t say that ! and he laughed and said Well, she’s more like a cat really, a dog’s a faithful thing , and kissed
‘I’m going outside now,’ he said, ‘to brave the sun.’ The needle flashed through the cloth, and he imagined she was sewing not a faded shirt, but a fine net that drew them all together. As he put his hand to the door, she called after him: ‘When you see Alex, will you tell him I found the book he asked me for, and left it in the dining room, where he always sits?’
When he found Alex on the terrace picking moss from the lead face of the sundial, he passed on the message word for word with the accuracy of a clever schoolboy. The younger man frowned, scratching at an insect bite at the rim of the shadow-mark on his arm. ‘A book?’ He shook his head. ‘But I don’t remember any…’ Then he shrugged. ‘Oh well – so often I forget what I’ve done and said, and if I didn’t have Hester to remind me…’ He grinned ruefully, and patting John’s shoulder in thanks stepped through the glass doors and into the dining room behind.
Later still Clare came and sat beside him in the long shadow of the dying elm. She’d covered her swimming costume with a dark green dress that reached to her ankles, its hem splashed with mud from another season. Sweat had darkened the roots of her hair, and she was smeared with cream that lay on her skin like the marks on an animal’s pelt. The lotion smelt a little of honey, and had begun to attract tiny black flies. ‘Thunderbugs,’ said John, lifting one from the back of her hand with his thumbnail. ‘It means the storm’s coming soon.’
‘I don’t think I want to go swimming,’ she said. The cat had broken the string of beads, and she tossed them between her hands.
‘Why – aren’t you hot? Won’t the water cool you?’ He picked up a bead from where it had fallen, and put it in her palm.
‘I went up there just now and there was something under the water, like hair or clothes. Alex says it’s a plastic bag but a plastic bag would float, wouldn’t it?’
‘Aren’t you going to the seaside tomorrow? Then you can swim in the sea.’
‘That would be even deeper, though. Do you like swimming?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘I can’t remember.’ This was true – there must have been swimming, he thought, on those short bed-and-breakfast holidays in Suffolk and Kent, but he was too dazed with heat to remember. He felt sweat collect where the girl’s shoulder rested against his, and moving away from her lowered himself onto the grass. She spread the beads in her lap and began to sort them, chatting idly to him without pausing for breath or answer.
Her undemanding presence soothed him until he lay half-asleep, now and then caught by a word or phrase: ‘The beads are pretty aren’t they, blue like bits of a broken plate – are they glass?… I tried to make him wear them but he wouldn’t – he said they smelt like the skin of the dead man who’d been wearing them but I can’t smell anything, can you?… I remember someone at St Jude’s had beads just like this on her wrist with a bird hanging from it and when she lost the bird I found it for her… oh yes, it’s hot but we mustn’t complain Hester says; it wasn’t like this last year when it rained and rained and Eve was unhappy then and wouldn’t play the piano, and the keys got dusty… well, of course that was before Walker got here but I don’t know why that would cheer her up; she’s always hated him and I heard him call her bitch once when he thought no-one was listening. Bitch , I said, that’s terrible, you can’t say that ! and he laughed and said Well, she’s more like a cat really, a dog’s a faithful thing , and kissed
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