We drive in silence for a time, until Ursula says, ‘You know, there’s one thing that’s always niggled me.’
‘Mmm?’
‘The Hartford sisters saw him do it, right?’ She sneaks a sideways glance at me. ‘But what were they doing down by the lake when they should have been up at the party?’
I do not answer and she glances at me again, wondering if perhaps I have not heard.
‘What did you decide?’ I say. ‘What happens in the film?’
‘They see him disappear, follow him to the lake and try to stop him.’ She shrugs. ‘I looked everywhere but I couldn’t find police interviews with either Emmeline or Hannah, so I had to sort of guess. It made the most sense.’
I nod.
‘Besides, the producers thought it more suspenseful than if they stumbled on him accidentally.’
I nod.
‘You can judge for yourself,’ she says. ‘When you see the film.’
I had once thought to attend the film’s premiere, but somehow I know it is beyond me now. Ursula seems to know too.
‘I’ll bring you a copy on video as soon as I can,’ she says.
‘I’d like that.’
She turns the car into the Heathview entrance. ‘Uh-oh,’ she says, eyes widening. She places a hand on mine. ‘Ready to face the music?’
Ruth is standing there, waiting. I expect to see her mouth sucked tight around her disapproval. But it isn’t. She is smiling. Fifty years dissolve and I see her as a girl. Before life had a chance to disappoint her. She is holding something; waving it. It is a letter, I realise. And I know who it is from.
SLIPPING OUT OF TIME
He is here. Marcus has come home. In the past week he’s been to see me every day. Sometimes Ruth comes with him; sometimes it’s just the two of us. We don’t always talk. Often he just sits beside me and holds my hand while I doze. I like him to hold my hand. It is the most companionable of gestures: a comfort from infancy to old age.
I am beginning to die. Nobody has told me, but I see it in their faces. The pleasant, soft expressions, the sad, smiling eyes, the kind whispers and glances that pass between them. And I feel it myself.
A quickening.
I am slipping out of time. The demarcations I’ve observed for a lifetime are suddenly meaningless: seconds, minutes, hours, days. Mere words. All I have are moments.
Marcus brings a photograph. He hands it to me and I know before my eyes focus which one it is. It was a favourite of mine, is a favourite of mine, taken on an archaeological dig many years before. ‘Where did you find this?’ I say.
‘I’ve had it with me,’ he says sheepishly, running a hand through longish sun-lightened hair. ‘All the time I was away. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘I’m glad,’ I say.
‘I wanted a photo of you,’ he says. ‘I always loved this one, when I was a kid. You look so happy.’
‘I was. The very happiest.’ I look at the photo some more, then hand it back. He positions it on my bedside table so that I can see it whenever I care to look.
I wake from dozing and Marcus is by the window, looking out over the heath. At first I think Ruth is in the room with us, but she is not. The dark figure by the curtains is someone else. Something else. She appeared a little while ago. Has been here ever since. No one else can see her. She is waiting for me, I know, and I am almost ready. Early this morning I taped the last for Marcus. It is all done now and all said. The promise I made is broken and he will learn my secret.
Marcus senses I have woken. He turns. Smiles. His glorious broad smile. ‘Grace.’ He comes away from the window, stands by me. ‘Would you like something? A glass of water?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
I watch him: his lean shape housed in loose clothing. Jeans and a T- shirt, the uniform of today’s youth. In his face I see the boy he was, the child who followed me from room to room, asking questions, demanding stories: about the places I’d been, the artefacts I’d unearthed, the big old house on the hill and the children with their game. I see the young man who delighted me when he said he wanted to be a writer. Asked me to read some of his work, tell him what I thought. I see the grown man, caught in grief’s web, helpless. Unwilling to be helped.
I shift slightly, clear my throat. There is something I need to ask him. ‘Marcus,’ I say.
He looks sideways from beneath a lock of brown hair. ‘Grace?’
I study his eyes, hoping, I suppose, for the truth. ‘How are you?’
To his credit he doesn’t dismiss me. He sits, props me against my pillows, smooths my hair and hands me a cup of water. ‘I think I’m going to be all right,’ he says.
There is so much I would like to say, to reassure him. But I am too weak. Too tired. I can only nod my head.
•
Ursula comes. She kisses my cheek. I want to open my eyes; to thank her for caring about the Hartfords, for remembering them, but I can’t. Marcus looks after things. I hear him, accepting the video tape, thanking her, assuring her I’ll be glad to see it. That I’ve spoken highly of her. He asks if the premiere went well.
‘It was great,’ she says. ‘I was nervous as anything but it went off without a hitch. Even had a good review or two.’
‘I saw that,’ says Marcus. ‘A
‘Thank you,’ says Ursula, and I can picture her shy, pleased smile.
‘Grace was sorry she couldn’t make it.’
‘I know,’ says Ursula. ‘So was I. I’d have loved her to be there.’ Her voice brightens. ‘My own grandmother came though. All the way from America.’
‘Wow,’ says Marcus. ‘That’s dedication.’
‘Poetic actually,’ says Ursula. ‘She’s the one who got me interested in the story. She’s a distant relation to the Hartford sisters. A second cousin, I think. She was born in England but her mother moved them to the States when she was little, after her father died in the First World War.’
‘That’s great she was able to come and see what she inspired.’
‘Couldn’t have stopped her if I’d wanted to,’ says Ursula, laughing. ‘Grandma Florence has never taken no for an answer.’
Ursula comes near. I sense her. She picks up the photograph on my bedside table. ‘I haven’t seen this before. Doesn’t Grace look beautiful? Who’s this with her?’
Marcus smiles; I hear it in his voice. ‘That’s Alfred.’
There is a pause.
‘My grandmother is not a conventional woman,’ says Marcus, fondness in his voice. ‘Much to my mother’s disapproval, at the grand age of sixty-five she took a lover. Evidently she’d known
