Ditte removed a bundle, and I felt my heart beat. ‘I’m not supposed to touch the slips without Da,’ I said.
‘Well, I think if we’re very careful, no one will know.’ Ditte gave me a secret smile, and my heart beat faster. She flicked through the slips until she came to an odd one, larger than the rest. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘it’s written on the back of a letter – see, the paper is the same colour as your bluebells.’
‘What does the letter say?’
Ditte read what she could. ‘It’s just a fragment, but I think it might have been a love letter.’
‘Why would someone cut up a love letter?’
‘I can only assume the sentiment was not returned.’
She put the slips back in their pigeon-hole and there was nothing to show that they had ever been removed.
‘These are my birthday words,’ I said, moving along to the oldest pigeon-holes where all the words for A to Ant were stored. Ditte raised an eyebrow. ‘They’re the words Da was working on before I was born. Usually, I’ll pick one out on my birthday and Da will help me understand it,’ I said, and Ditte nodded. ‘And this is the sorting table,’ I continued. ‘Da sits right here, and Mr Balk sits here, and Mr Maling sits next to him. Bonan matenon.’ I looked to see Ditte’s reaction.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Bonan matenon. That’s how Mr Maling says hello. It’s Speranto.’
‘Esperanto.’
‘That’s right. And Mr Worrell sits there, and Mr Mitchell usually sits there, but he likes to move around. Do you know he always wears odd socks?’
‘How would you know that?’
I giggled again. ‘Because my place is under here.’ I got on my hands and knees and crawled under the sorting table. I peeked out.
‘Is it, indeed?’
I almost invited her to sit with me, then thought better of it. ‘You’d need a trim to fit under here,’ I said.
She laughed and held out her hand to help me out. ‘Let’s sit in your father’s chair, shall we?’
Every year, Ditte would give me two gifts on my birthday: a book and a story. The book was always a grown-up one with interesting words that children never used. Once I’d learned to read, she would insist I read aloud until I came to a word I didn’t know. Only then would she begin the story.
I unwrapped the book.
‘On – the – Origin – of – Species,’ Ditte said the last word very slowly and underlined it with her finger.
‘What is it about?’ I turned the pages looking for pictures.
‘Animals.’
‘I like animals,’ I said. Then I turned to the introduction and began to read. ‘When on board H.M.S Beagle …’ I looked at Ditte. ‘Is it about a dog?’
She laughed. ‘No. H.M.S. Beagle was a ship.’
I continued ‘… as a …’ I stopped and pointed to the next word.
‘Naturalist,’ Ditte said, then sounded it out slowly. ‘Someone who studies the natural world. Animals and plants.’
‘Naturalist,’ I said, trying it out. I closed the book. ‘Will you tell me the story now?’
‘What story would that be?’ Ditte said, looking bewildered, but smiling.
‘You know.’
Ditte shifted her weight in the chair, and I manoeuvred myself into the soft sling between her lap and shoulder.
‘You’re longer than last year,’ she said.
‘But I still fit.’ I leaned back, and she wrapped her arms around me.
‘The first time I saw Lily, she was making cucumber-and-watercress soup.’
I closed my eyes and imagined my mother stirring a pot of soup. I tried to dress her in ordinary clothes, but she refused to take off the bridal veil she wore in the photograph by Da’s bed. I loved that picture more than all the others because Da was looking at her and she was looking straight at me. The veil will end up in the soup, I thought, and smiled.
‘She was under the instruction of her aunt, Miss Fernley,’ Ditte continued, ‘a very tall and very capable woman who was not only secretary of our tennis club, where this story takes place, but headmistress of a small private ladies’ college. Lily was a student at her aunt’s school, and the cucumber-and-watercress soup was apparently on the syllabus.’
‘What is syllabus?’ I asked.
‘It is the list of subjects you learn about at school.’
‘Do I have a syllabus at St Barnabas?’
‘You’ve only just started, so reading and writing are all that’s on your syllabus. They’ll add subjects as you get older.’
‘What will they add?’
‘Hopefully something less domestic than cucumber-and-watercress soup. Now, may I continue?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Miss Fernley had insisted that Lily make the soup for our club lunch. It was awful; everyone thought so, and some even said it out loud. I’m afraid Lily may have overheard, because she retreated to the club-house and busied herself with wiping tables that didn’t need wiping.
‘Poor Lily,’ I said.
‘Well, you might not think so when you hear the rest of the story. If it wasn’t for that awful soup, you might never have been born.’
I knew what was coming and held my breath to hear it.
‘Somehow, your father managed to empty his bowl. I was dumbfounded, but then I watched him take that bowl into the kitchen and ask Lily for a second helping.’
‘Did he eat that too?’
‘He did. And between mouthfuls, he asked Lily question after question, and her face went from that of a shy and awkward girl to a confident young woman in the space of fifteen minutes.’
‘What did he ask her?’
‘That I can’t tell you, but by the time he’d finished eating, it was as if they had known each other all their lives.’
‘Did you know they would get married?’
‘Well, I remember thinking how fortunate it was that Harry
