Dreaming Of The Bones

and closed her eyes. It would do her good to watch the children play in the tub, and to hold their warm and slippery bodies as she toweled them dry.

The thought of hugging Toby brought with it the image she’d been resisting all day—Vic standing on her porch, laughing, with her arm round her son’s shoulders—and with it the fear that Gemma hated to acknowledge even to herself. What would happen to Toby if she died? His father, like Kit’s, was out of the picture, and just as well, for he’d certainly shown no aptitude for parenting, nor any interest in his son. She supposed her parents would take Toby, and that he would be loved and cared for, but it would not be the same. Or did she just want to think she was irreplaceable?

Hazel reached over and patted her arm. “Tell me about it.”

“Oh, sorry,” Gemma said, startled. “I was just thinking.”

“Obviously. Your eyebrows were about to meet.”

Gemma smiled at that, but then asked slowly, “Are we really indispensable to our children, Hazel? Or do they go on quite happily without us, once the initial grief has passed?”

Hazel gave her a swift glance before answering. “Child psychology experts will tell you all sorts of complicated things about bereaved children suffering from an inability to trust or form relationships, but to tell you the truth, I just don’t know. Some do perfectly well, and some don’t. It depends on the mother, and the child, and the caretakers, and those are just too many variables to allow one to make accurate predictions.” She took a sip of her drink and added, “You’re worrying about Vic’s son, aren’t you?”

“What’s happened to him is so dreadful it just doesn’t bear thinking of, but I keep thinking of it.”

“And I take it today’s news is not good?” said Hazel.

Gemma shook her head. “No. It looks as though she was poisoned.” She went on to tell Hazel about Kincaid’s decision to take a leave of absence, and of her fears for him. “He won’t listen to me, Hazel. He’s so stubborn, and so angry. He’s even angry with me, and I don’t know what I’ve done or how I can reach him.”

“If I were you, I’d give him a day or two, let him start sorting it out on his own. And I suspect that his anger is due to more than the circumstances of Vic’s death. Men often substitute anger for grief, because anger is the only emotion they’re taught it’s acceptable to feel. I don’t know what else you can do, love, because I doubt very much you’re going to change his mind about this.”

“The awful thing is that I understand how he feels, because I feel responsible, too,” said Gemma. “I thought Vic had legitimate cause to be uneasy about Lydia Brooke’s death, but I didn’t encourage Duncan to look into it any further.” She made a grimace of disgust, adding, “I didn’t want it to take his time away from me.”

“And you think that Vic’s death must be connected to her suspicions about Lydia’s death?” asked Hazel.

Shrugging, Gemma said, “It’s certainly possible. Unless someone knew enough about what Vic was doing to take advantage of it as camouflage.” She shivered. It was now almost fully dark, and the temperature in the garden had dropped. “But Lydia is as good a place to start as any. I wish I’d had a look at those things of Vic’s …”

“Didn’t you tell me that Lydia was fascinated with Rupert Brooke?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid I don’t know much about him, other than the golden young Edwardian poet stuff, and, ‘If I should die, think only this of me …’ We had to memorize it at school, and I remember thinking it was bloody stupid.” Gemma looked at the children, who had moved to the edge of the flagstones and were giggling while doing something unspeakable to one of Holly’s dolls. “I hope Toby will have more sense.”

“Men,” said Hazel, and they smiled at each other in tacit understanding. “Well, if you’re interested in Rupert Brooke, I’ve somethings you might like to see. Because you’re not going to let Duncan do this on his own, are you, love?”

Gemma hadn’t made a conscious decision, but as soon as Hazel spoke she knew it to be true, and inevitable. “No,” she said. “I suppose I’m not.”

After the children had been bathed, and Gemma had sat down to a vegetable lasagna with Tim and Hazel, Hazel left Tim with the dishes and led Gemma into the sitting room. Glass-fronted bookcases lined the walls either side of the fireplace, and Hazel studied them for a minute, her finger against her nose, before going to the right- hand case.

“I think I put them all together, but it’s been ages since I’ve looked at them, and the children will get into the books.” Hazel opened the case and bent down to survey the spines. “Ah, here they are.” Removing a few volumes, she carried them to the sofa, and Gemma sat down beside her. “I had rather a thing for Rupert myself at one time, so I can sympathize with Lydia’s infatuation. Rupert Chawner Brooke, born 1887, son of a Rugby master,” Hazel recited from memory, grinning.

She handed the first book to Gemma. “I’ve only a paperback of Marsh’s Memoir, I’m afraid, picked up at an Oxfam bookshop, but the contemporary introduction is worth reading, and it does contain all the poems.” Frowning, she added, “But these others Lydia wouldn’t have known when she was at college. The Hassall biography was published in 1964, the Letters in sixty-eight. And the collection of his love letters to Noel Olivier was only released a few years ago. Vic would have been familiar with all of these, though, I’m sure.”

“Who was Noel Olivier?” asked Gemma. “Any relation to Laurence?”

“The youngest of the four Olivier sisters, and I think they were cousins to Laurence,” explained Hazel. “Rupert met her when she was fifteen and he was twenty, and he was smitten with her for years. They remained friends and correspondents until he died.”

Accepting each volume as Hazel handed it across, Gemma wondered what she had got herself into. She studied the black-and-white photo of Brooke on the cover of the Memoir, with his tumbled hair and penetrating gaze. “He was quite stunningly beautiful, wasn’t he? I wondered why everyone was so besotted with him.”

“Yes, his looks were rather spectacular,” Hazel admitted. “But I doubt his looks alone would have generated such interest decades after his death. To me, he represents a slaughtered generation, a loss of innocence of a magnitude unimaginable before the Great War.”

“He was killed in the war, wasn’t he?”

“That’s the ironic thing,” said Hazel. “He never saw battle at all. He died in 1915, on the Greek island of Skyros,