Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan Page B

received a letter from London.
    After she re-lit the fire and carried out her morning chores, she sat to sew a button on Wil’s best shirt for the following day, and it occurred to her that she could re-use one of the envelopes in her sewing box in which her dressmaking patterns had come from London. She chose the tidiest of them, which housed a shirt pattern, removed the old stamp and replaced it with two penny ha’penny ones just in case one was not sufficient for such a large envelope, wrote at the bottom of her letter to Angela,
P.S. I enclose an envelope with stamps on it for your reply
, and folded it all up together into a smaller envelope onto which she wrote the address at the top of Angela’s letter to Davey. This way, she thought, she should be able to receive a reply from Angela without arousing any curiosity whatsoever in anyone. No one paid attention to clothes patterns; that was women’s work.
    Now, as she listens to the train wheels singing their way overthe rails, she thinks, I have become good at subterfuge, all that work with the herbs in the War, and Owen – I must put things to rest with Owen – and now this, which will probably lead to more subterfuge. It occurs to her again that she is, though in different ways, as changed from the Non that married Davey as Davey is from the man she had married. She wonders if Davey has remarked the change in her. She realises that Wil has spoken to her and she has not heard what he said.
    This is an important day for him and time to stop thinking about her own troubles. ‘Sorry, Wil,’ she says. ‘I was far away. What did you say?’
    â€˜It was only, did Osian show you this little carving he gave me?’ Wil holds out his cupped hand in which rests a carved head and shoulders. ‘I think he thought I was going away today and not coming back. I did try to tell him but he just gave me his blank look. You know.’
    Non peers at the carving and with a jolt of recognition realises that she is seeing herself. She takes it from Wil’s palm. Osian has made it from the block of lime that Davey gave him. As she studies the head her own fierce eyes stare back at her – with no sign of the timidity she sometimes catches in them when she sees herself in the looking glass – the slight frown of concentration between them etched here for ever.
    â€˜How does he do it, Non?’ Wil says. ‘Just look, it’s absolutely perfect, he’s got you just right – and, you know, it’s not just how you look, is it?’ He takes the head back from her and draws his forefinger down her carved face. ‘It’s how you are, somehow.’
    â€˜He’s a bit of an enigma, little Osian, that’s for sure,’ Non says. ‘You know, you were only a year older than he is now when he came to us. He seems such a baby in many ways compared with the way you were. And yet he produces a thing like this. Andthere was that soldier he carved that upset you father. That was perfect, too.’
    â€˜I didn’t get a look at that,’ Wil says. ‘He’s got dozens of crows he’s done – all Herman, I suppose – under his bed. I’ve never seen him make anything like this before.’ He turns the head around in his hands.
    â€˜So you think this is the essence of Non Davies?’ She makes a melancholy face at him. ‘It scares me.’
    Wil laughs at her and stuffs the carving into his jacket pocket. ‘Maybe I can find him a good picture of a ship, and he could make a carving of that. It’s funny to think he’s never seen a ship, Non.’
    â€˜It’s a bit hard to take him anywhere when he won’t let you hold on to him,’ Non says. ‘Imagine me with him in Barmouth or Port harbour trying to stop him falling into the water and him screaming his head off because I’m touching him!’
    Wil smiles at her, and she can see from his smile that he