moat: from a distance, the creamy headstones, stalwart on thick green lawn, looked like a stubby little village huddling under the trees. At Gavin’s insistence they had crossed to go in and she had posed for a photo at the foot of the Cross of Sacrifice. The air was sharp with chrysanthemum scent which rose like thin smoke from the ragged clumps planted at each grave; sombre in their funeral purples and golds, the flowers sighed out the bitterness of the dying days of autumn and the finish of things. Patrick’s grave was open and ready to receive him. And she was here to learn at last what he wanted.
The nights at Inverash were full of sound: the water lapped and the trees sighed and the owl in the woods to the rear of the house hooted mournfully. There were whispers too, boys’ whispers, as they slipped out of the back door and into the woods, looking for badgers, or going down to swim in the dark, which was strictly forbidden but Mum and Dad slept deeply. Rowan was always pleased when Kate told her she’d heard them, and disappointed when Kate was sure there were only two.
They used to sit in the evening and read the letters, which were carefully stored in a square metal biscuit tin. Charlie’s and Alex’s were short, hoping everyone was as well at home as they were in France and Flanders, and please to send some tobacco; but Patrick, the clever one, wrote often and at length:
Kate had told the English teacher about the jokes and laughing when they were studying Wilfred Owen, but the teacher felt that Patrick had rather missed the point if he wasn’t doom-laden and star-crossed. Kate thought the teacher had missed the point.
There were letters too from hospitals all over the country in response to the family’s enquiries about a soldier who might have lost his memory, or been too ill to know who he was, a Scottish soldier, five foot six, dark-haired, blue-eyed.
“She wrote to hospitals for years. She never gave up hope,” Rowan said. “The day he disappeared, there was an advance into autumn mist and gun fog. One minute he was there and the next not and no one saw what happened. So he might have been picked up or captured or lying bleeding in the mud. She was tormented for years by the thought that he might be somewhere. Because living or dead, he must be somewhere. Somewhere.”
One night Kate and Rowan sat on the front step looking over the loch – it was too warm for bed or to sit inside – and shared dreams about what might have happened to Patrick. All the endings were happy until the realization that in life they hadn’t been silenced them.
“We can only hope it was a clean shot,” Rowan said, and went to bed first. Kate looked across at the winking silver coins on the rowan tree. Patrick’s looked duller than the other two. She stared – no, it was shining as brightly – then, no it wasn’t. It was duller. Then brighter. Then dull again. A shadow? She glanced up at the sky, but it was clear of clouds and full of stars. She stared harder at the coin and it was as if the still air was gathering round it, not darker but thicker. She watched as the sixpence was gradually obscured by air as thick as syrup. She watched and then leaped to her feet and ran inside, locking the door behind her. In seconds she was in her room with the curtains drawn and the light on, but she could not shut out the sound of whispers and low laughter. The boys were on the path to the gate, scuffling, and then someone slapped the tree, and then someone else. And then a third. She flicked back the curtain, but there was nothing to see, only the coins twinkling and showers of blossom falling lightly and silently on to the grass.
Next day, she could hardly bear the eager flare of hope in Rowan’s eyes when she was told the story, or the mischief in the eyes of the lost soldier on the mantelpiece.
“Kate!”
Gavin. Impatient. She wondered how long she had been standing here.
“Kate. Aren’t you coming back inside? It’s cold out here.”
“Just getting a breath of fresh air.”
“You were rather rude to that man, you know.”
He was in the doorway with the light behind him, a bulky faceless shadow with a peevish voice which grated. She turned to face him.
“Was I? They’re a bit much sometimes.”
“You could show a polite interest.”
“You laughed hard enough at the one who’s dug a replica trench, complete with sandbags, in his allotment.” She paused. “When we got back to the hotel anyway. But I’ll allow you were polite and interested to his face.”
They were spared an argument by the creak of the door set in the yard wall, then footsteps and the rustle of fallen leaves. Another shadow appeared out of the darkness. She froze. It was in uniform, complete with puttees and soup-plate tin hat, carrying a rifle. The squirming in her stomach was like live eels and she gasped.
“Sorry, hen. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
A thick Scottish accent, a broad face with a smile like the one on a Hallowe’en lantern. She stood unable to move or speak until he had passed by into the cafe.
“Kate, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Patrick? His name dropped into her mind like an envelope falling on the mat. Was that Patrick? But no, Patrick was finer-featured, smaller. Gavin was beside her now, patting at her arm.
“Come inside. That was one of the re-enactors. They’re here for a sing-song round the piano. Songs of the Great War.”
Re-enactors. Of course. After the Armistice Day parade, they were going to march out of Ieper and follow the route the troops took to Messines, living on tins of bully beef and plum jam. They were mad as hatters.
“Their uniforms are exact replicas,” Gavin said. He laughed. “Gave you quite a turn, didn’t he? Now come inside and join the party. There’s a little surprise for you.”
He pulled her gently inside, towed her right up to the bar, and stood expectantly, pointing to a place above the gantry. Patrick. The photo from Rowan’s mantelpiece, black-framed with a scarlet poppy stuck to one corner.
“I had it copied,” he said, “so that Patrick could take his place with the others.”
He was waiting for thanks, she knew, but she could not find the words, not when her stomach was heaving and her mouth dry. Patrick stared down at her impishly, the dimple at the end of his grin deeper than she remembered. She could not look away from the face she had avoided for years. Was she imagining a knowing triumph in the clear light gaze? Was she imagining the colour creeping into the face? The blue light flooding the eyes, the pink flushing the skin, the deep black sweeping into the thick dense hair? He was in from the cold, warming up.
Words rattled round inside her skull like raindrops spattering on window glass:
“Go away,” she muttered. The dimple deepened and the eyes held her gaze. “Go,” she said louder, but the piano player was thumping out crashing chords and no one heard her. And Patrick wouldn’t go away anyway.
Voices roared into song. “
