‘You think so too?’
Spreading marmalade on his toast, Rob shrugged and shook his head slowly. ‘I can’t think of any other explanation.’
‘But you don’t believe in ghosts.’
‘I know.’ He grinned.
‘Does it scare you?’
‘No.’ He reached for his coffee. ‘It sounded like a child. Worried. Lost. Frightened but not frightening. I think this is one of those places where events have been recorded in the house walls. Like a video. It plays the same sequence again and again.’
‘But there must have been a reason for it to have recorded that bit. He has lost someone. He is desperate to find her.’
The girl on the swing.
She sat down opposite him. ‘Poor boy. I wish we could help.’
‘Videos don’t need help.’ He began to tap his egg.
‘I suppose not.’ She wasn’t convinced.
He glanced up. ‘This isn’t going to spoil the holiday for you?’
She shook her head and smiled. ‘After last night? After all, he brought us back together.’
‘He did, didn’t he?’ He lifted the top off his egg neatly. ‘What shall we do today?’
She didn’t answer. When he glanced up again he saw that she was smiling.
Later that morning they strolled along the lane to the village shop. It was the old man in the queue for the tiny post office counter who recognised them. ‘You the folks from Lilac Cottage?’
Rob nodded.
‘I thought so. You seen young Matilda yet?’
Behind them Rob heard Charlotte’s quick intake of breath.
‘Who’s Matilda?’ he asked.
‘Now, Bill Forrest, don’t you go scaring folk!’ The post mistress leaned forward and tapped the glass partition between them sharply. ‘Take no notice of him, my dears. He’s an old fool.’
‘No.’ Charlotte stepped forward. ‘No, wait. Tell us please.’
The old man glanced at her. His eyes were hazy blue, but they were very keen. ‘You seen her, then?’
‘On the swing. Yes.’
‘Matilda Drew, that was. Her brother, he unfastened the swing for a prank. Thought it would dump her on the grass, he did, poor lad. Never occurred to him that a fall could kill her.’
‘Oh God, that’s awful.’ Charlotte stared at him.
‘When did this happen?’ Rob put his arm round Charlotte’s shoulder.
‘Years ago. Long before my time.’ The old man tucked his pension deep into his pocket. ‘You go and look in the churchyard if you want to know about them. The grave is there, near the gate.’
They pushed open the lych gate on the way back to the cottage. The old stone, covered in moss, had leaned over slightly. The words were badly weathered.
There was a picture of a dove beneath the words, then under that again a smaller, less ornate inscription said simply:
Rob frowned. ‘That can’t be right. That means she was in her seventies when she died and he was over ninety. It must be the wrong grave.’
‘No, it means John changed his mind. He got there in time.’ Charlotte ran a finger over the rough lettering. She glanced at him. ‘That’s what I think happened. He realised what he had done and he ran out into the garden as she began to swing and he saved her.’ Somehow she knew she was right.
‘And his panic was so great that the house has remembered it all these years?’ Rob nodded. ‘They must have been very close, to be buried together like this. Neither of them married.’
‘Do you think they were happy in the house?’
‘Of course they were.’ Rob grinned at her. ‘I think there is a lesson here somewhere, don’t you? Even if it does come right in the end one can still regret a mistake for eternity.’ He pulled her against him gently and kissed her, then, stepping away, he leaned across to pick a wild rose from the hedge. Laying it at the foot of the headstone he stood for a moment in silence, then he turned and reached out again for Charlotte’s hand. ‘Come on, he said. ‘Let’s go home.’
An Afternoon at the Museum
For a few blessed moments the gallery was quiet. Too quiet. Stephanie glanced over her shoulder towards the doorway. The Egyptian rooms at the British Museum were usually packed with children at this time of day. Neat groups walking two by two in uniform speaking in hushed, respectful voices or chaotic hordes, rushing about uncontrolled, screaming; either way, this was one of the places they headed for first. And they all looked at the mummies. The ghoulish fascination exerted by a real dead body passed none of them by, from the most repressed scholar to the loudest, most rebellious thug.
She noticed one of the museum attendants standing near her. He had folded his arms and was watching the doorway, a quizzical expression on his face. He too was waiting for the next noisy flood of children. With a grin she turned back to her sketchbook. She had better make the most of the peace while it lasted. The magazine wanted the illustrations by tonight, 6 pm latest. She would deliver them by hand as soon as they were finished and then she would go home to the empty flat. She sighed. She couldn’t even remember how the row had started, but it had been bad enough for Dan to leave. And not come back.
She glanced down at the neat black pen and ink sketch on her page and frowned. She had been working for about twenty minutes in the gallery, producing a series of sketches – a mummy case, a bandaged body, artefacts from the tombs, an intricate necklace of gold and lapis. This sketch was the last, the mummy of a child, impossibly moving in its poignancy, and she found it hard to concentrate on it. Taking a deep breath she gripped her pen more tightly and began to draw again.
Behind her the noise levels were building once more. She could hear the excited shouts, the thud of thirty pairs of trainers heading her way. On the page, the Egyptian child too was running. His head thrown back, a lock of hair flying loose behind one shoulder, long straight limbs rejoicing in the sun.
With an exclamation of annoyance she stared at what she had drawn. She had been doodling without realising it, wasting precious time. And now she remembered what the quarrel had been about. Having children. Dan wanted them to get married. He had been hinting for months. It had come to a head when she said she didn’t want a baby. Didn’t even like them. He had stared at her as if she had said she was planning a murder and from then on things had gone from bad to worse.
‘What you drawing, miss?’ The voice at her shoulder was breathless, cheeky. ‘It don’t look like no mummy to me.’
She glanced at the boy. Perhaps eight years old, or ten – with no experience of children herself, and few friends who had them, she found it hard to tell their ages. He had a grubby, freckled face, intensely blue eyes, an almost- shaven head and trouble oozed out of every pore. It was a reflex action to check her bag was closed and safe.
‘You see that mummy there?’ She pointed. ‘That was a child. A boy like this.’
Like you.
