in the area all his life and he taught Rupert how to make eel traps out of willow. The pair of them would explore the canals and drainage ditches in a flat-bottomed boat that slid through the water almost silently.
âThe landscapeâs beautiful, Moll. Itâs like itâs waiting to be discovered,â Rupert said, and she was glad that he seemed happier. Her own happiness she didnât allow herself to consider. Every time she thought about her relationship with her husband her mind skittered away to hide in a shopping list or in how she was going to collect enough glass jars for everyone in her class at school to germinate beans. She thought that if she didnât dwell on it perhaps it would right itself like those drawings of Maxâs on plastic that you put in the oven that seemed, as they shrank, to bend in on themselves, to spoil, but which smoothed out miraculously when you stopped looking through the oven door.
Rupert seemed to be making a real effort to spend time with Max. At weekends he would sometimes take his son out and let him take pictures with his camera. Every evening after Maxâs bath he would read to him. Maxâs favourite was the poem âThe Highwaymanâ by Alfred Noyes and he made Rupert read it over and over again. She could hear them saying the words together, relishing the gore and the tragedy.
â
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
Iâll come to thee by moonlight,
though hell should bar the way!â
Chapter Fifteen
Jen was unnaturally quiet the day after her date. No amount of wheedling on Carrieâs part could establish anything other than the rudiments of what had happened. Even strategic wafting of rose-flavoured macaroons failed to elicit a reaction. This was such uncharacteristic behaviour that Carrie suspected things had gone very wrong indeed the night before.
âWhat was he like then?â asked Carrie. âBit boring â¦? B.O.? Lives with his mum â¦? Obsessed with his collection of railway station signs â¦? Kept his small change in a flowery coin purse â¦?â
Jen shook her head pityingly at Carrieâs blatant attempts to get a rise out of her, and carried on restocking the carousel with cards stitched with small silver charms to put into Christmas puddings. Carrie was concerned about the fact that Jen must have come into the shop at the crack of dawn â indicating either a disappointingly early night at home or a hasty first thing in the morning, pre-shower escape from his house. There was evidence of Jenâs labours everywhere; she had filled a huge glass vase with berry-laden branches of holly and red and silver feathers, had built a teetering pyramid of bath cubes and had colour coordinated the rail of cashmere jumpers so that they now ran neatly from cream and the palest pink to chocolate brown and black via lilac, blue and burnt orange. Most worryingly of all, there were no signs of breakfast crumbs on the wooden floor that was redolent with lavender wax polish.
Giving up her attempts to get Jen to talk, Carrie decided to take advantage of all this silent industry and go into town and do some Christmas shopping of her own. Pam had indicated that she would grace them with her presence in the shop for a few hours and although all she ever did was fiddle with the merchandise as if she was in her own personal playroom, at least it meant that with someone else there the other person could go and replenish the stock or go to the toilet without leaving the shop empty. It only took Carrie twenty minutes to walk into the centre of Cambridge. The market square was illuminated by the somewhat sparse curtain of lights hanging down the front of the Guildhall and there was a seasonal smell of roasting chestnuts, pine-sap and urine. Two men who had hit Christmas early, or who possibly were simply drinking to forget the whole blasted thing, had settled on the step around the fountain and were
âThe landscapeâs beautiful, Moll. Itâs like itâs waiting to be discovered,â Rupert said, and she was glad that he seemed happier. Her own happiness she didnât allow herself to consider. Every time she thought about her relationship with her husband her mind skittered away to hide in a shopping list or in how she was going to collect enough glass jars for everyone in her class at school to germinate beans. She thought that if she didnât dwell on it perhaps it would right itself like those drawings of Maxâs on plastic that you put in the oven that seemed, as they shrank, to bend in on themselves, to spoil, but which smoothed out miraculously when you stopped looking through the oven door.
Rupert seemed to be making a real effort to spend time with Max. At weekends he would sometimes take his son out and let him take pictures with his camera. Every evening after Maxâs bath he would read to him. Maxâs favourite was the poem âThe Highwaymanâ by Alfred Noyes and he made Rupert read it over and over again. She could hear them saying the words together, relishing the gore and the tragedy.
â
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
Iâll come to thee by moonlight,
though hell should bar the way!â
Chapter Fifteen
Jen was unnaturally quiet the day after her date. No amount of wheedling on Carrieâs part could establish anything other than the rudiments of what had happened. Even strategic wafting of rose-flavoured macaroons failed to elicit a reaction. This was such uncharacteristic behaviour that Carrie suspected things had gone very wrong indeed the night before.
âWhat was he like then?â asked Carrie. âBit boring â¦? B.O.? Lives with his mum â¦? Obsessed with his collection of railway station signs â¦? Kept his small change in a flowery coin purse â¦?â
Jen shook her head pityingly at Carrieâs blatant attempts to get a rise out of her, and carried on restocking the carousel with cards stitched with small silver charms to put into Christmas puddings. Carrie was concerned about the fact that Jen must have come into the shop at the crack of dawn â indicating either a disappointingly early night at home or a hasty first thing in the morning, pre-shower escape from his house. There was evidence of Jenâs labours everywhere; she had filled a huge glass vase with berry-laden branches of holly and red and silver feathers, had built a teetering pyramid of bath cubes and had colour coordinated the rail of cashmere jumpers so that they now ran neatly from cream and the palest pink to chocolate brown and black via lilac, blue and burnt orange. Most worryingly of all, there were no signs of breakfast crumbs on the wooden floor that was redolent with lavender wax polish.
Giving up her attempts to get Jen to talk, Carrie decided to take advantage of all this silent industry and go into town and do some Christmas shopping of her own. Pam had indicated that she would grace them with her presence in the shop for a few hours and although all she ever did was fiddle with the merchandise as if she was in her own personal playroom, at least it meant that with someone else there the other person could go and replenish the stock or go to the toilet without leaving the shop empty. It only took Carrie twenty minutes to walk into the centre of Cambridge. The market square was illuminated by the somewhat sparse curtain of lights hanging down the front of the Guildhall and there was a seasonal smell of roasting chestnuts, pine-sap and urine. Two men who had hit Christmas early, or who possibly were simply drinking to forget the whole blasted thing, had settled on the step around the fountain and were
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