had started to feel a niggle of concern; the road from town was a notorious accident black spot. But he arrived before that could develop into serious anxiety and relief made her affectionate. She took him into her arms and kissed his neck and his eyelids and followed him upstairs, sitting on the bed while he changed. Then they heard cars on the drive and she had to run down to greet their guests and the hall was suddenly full of male voices and laughter. She was pleased Peter had friends. There was nobody at the university he met socially. And she had always liked the boys, the courteous Samuel, the shy Clive, the lecherous Gary. She liked the taut bodies, fit from walking over the hills, and the way they admired her. She knew they thought Peter was lucky to have her. Clive especially adored her. She was flattered when he followed her around the room with his eyes. She liked to see him flush when she paid him attention. Yet when the four of them were together she couldn’t help feeling excluded. The men had nothing in common except an interest in natural history, but that passion was all- consuming and she couldn’t share it.
They were very polite to her. Samuel had brought her the script of his latest short story. ‘I thought you’d be interested. You know I value your opinion.’ She kissed them all in turn, enjoying the momentary touch of her hand on a muscular shoulder, a strong back. When Samuel’s dry lips touched her cheek she had a shiver of excitement.
‘Go through to the garden,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you tea.’
But Peter, who was in an excitable mood, said they didn’t want tea. They wanted beer, and they all followed her into the kitchen to fetch it, getting in her way when she wanted to prepare the meal. Peter was loving every minute of it. Felicity wasn’t sure about Samuel – it was hard sometimes to tell what he was thinking – but the rest of them
At that point she sent them on to the lighthouse ahead of her. She felt trapped by them, that she couldn’t breathe. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘I’ll just lay the table and I’ll catch you up.’ Usually she could cope with them en masse like this, enjoyed having them in the house, but today it was too much for her.
Samuel offered to help, but she refused him too and stood at the kitchen door to wave them off, a straggling, laughing line, her son bouncing around them like an untrained puppy. She watched until they’d climbed the stile and were out of sight and she was sure she had got rid of them.
She laid the table on the terrace, taking her time, polishing the glasses with a tea towel when she took them from the tray, though they were straight from the dishwasher and there was no need. The sun was still warm, but the light was softer now. She poured a large glass of white wine from the bottle left in the cooler, chose one of the chairs at the long table and looked out over the garden.
At last she felt she should join them. She had promised. But she wouldn’t follow them over the stile and along the edge of the cornfield. After collecting James from school, she’d changed into a simple linen dress. It was sleeveless and full length. Slit down one side, it allowed her to walk but not to climb with dignity over fences. She would take the path through the meadow, along the bank of the stream. It would take a little longer, but she knew they wouldn’t return immediately from the lighthouse. James would want to poke around in the rock pools for crabs. The adults would humour him and then they would sit in the soft evening light and talk. By the time she reached them they would only just be ready to leave.
She set off towards the meadow then returned and checked that she had locked the house. Beyond the cottage the field dipped towards the burn. In winter, the land here was marshy and occasionally it flooded. A public footpath ran along the opposite bank and there was a simple plank bridge to join it. As she passed the cottage she checked the door. She still couldn’t quite convince herself that she’d imagined the intruder in the house. It was locked. It occurred to her that this might have been another argument in her campaign to persuade Peter to let Lily live there; it would be a deterrent to thieves to have the place occupied. Close to the burn the grass was shorter in irregular patches. It looked as if someone had taken a scythe to it, but she couldn’t imagine why anyone would. She stood for a moment in the middle of the bridge, looking down at the water. She’d heard that otters were back in the area and, though she had no idea what signs she should watch out for, she always stopped here, hoping to catch a glimpse.
Here, the burn was freshwater still, and very placid. There were cows in the field, released from evening milking. They’d softened the bank and she left the footpath briefly to avoid the mud. There was a small wrought- iron gate with a drop latch, and beyond that the character of the landscape changed. The grass was cropped by rabbits. There were scratchy bushes of buckthorn and bramble. The bed of the burn was sandy and it was shallow and wide and smelled of salt. The lighthouse was straight ahead of her. Although she couldn’t see the others she fancied she heard them, a burst of laughter which could have been Gary, James shouting for attention. She looked at her watch. Already it was eight-thirty. Peter usually hated eating late, but he wouldn’t mind so much tonight. She knew he would be enjoying himself.
She found them in the watch tower, which stood on the seaward side of the lighthouse. Once it had been a coastguard lookout. Now birdwatchers used it to watch for seabirds. They were sitting on the bench in a row, looking out over the bay. Although it was the wrong time of the year for seabirds, the watch tower pulled them in. Other men relaxed in the pub, but this was where they felt most at home. As she climbed the wooden steps she heard desultory conversation. She waited, silent, listening.
‘What is it with sea watching?’ Gary said. ‘I mean can anything be more chilled? It’s like Zen, or something.’
Felicity smiled to herself. What would Gary know about Zen? He knew about sound systems and rock music and acoustics. But Zen?
For a moment nobody answered. Clive leaned forward, his attention caught by something on the horizon. He had an old pair of binoculars which his mother had bought for him when he was about twelve, but his vision was legendary.
Then Peter spoke. Pedantic, as if he was in front of a class of students. Weighing every word.
‘It’s about possibility, isn’t it? Possibility and chance. The random nature of the universe. We can sit here for four hours and see nothing but a few Manx shearwaters. Then the wind changes. A weather front shifts. And suddenly there are more birds than we can count.’
Clive moved in his seat. He lowered his binoculars. Felicity thought he was going to say something profound. Sometimes he did. But he just called two puffins going north and went back to staring out to sea.
Felicity climbed on into the tower. James jumped off the bench and came up to her, pulling a face. She could tell he was bored and restless.
‘Can we go home now?’
‘Go and have a look at the rock pools. As long as you don’t go too far…’
Samuel stood up too. ‘Why don’t we all start back? It must be dinner time.’
She smiled at him. He could be such a kind man. ‘It’s a lovely evening. And Peter’s birthday. Let’s enjoy it for a while.’
When James started screaming her first thought was that the noise would make Peter irritated and he was in such a pleasant mood that that was the last thing she wanted. James did like drama. He’d probably found a live crab or a jellyfish stranded by the tide.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll sort him out. And then perhaps we should start back.’
When the screaming continued she found herself panicking, imagining a dreadful accident, that he’d slipped and cut himself on a sharp rock, broken a limb. At first she couldn’t see him. The noise was disembodied. It was as if her son had disappeared into thin air and that only added to her panic. She scrambled across the rocks, felt the seam of her dress rip as she slipped. Then she came upon him, found herself looking down on him. There was a deep gully with a shallow pool at the base and he was standing there, apparently unharmed.
Felicity saw the flowers first. They were scattered across the surface of the water close to the edge where her son stood, mouth open, rigid. There were poppies and buttercups, ox-eye daisies and pink clover. Someone must have waded in and placed them carefully on the surface. That, at least, was how it seemed to her. There was no breeze. She didn’t think the blossoms could have drifted so far if they’d been thrown from the bank. They formed an irregular circle. Then she saw, in the middle of them, the blue cloth of the skirt and the corn-coloured hair. The pool was so shallow that the body lay just under the surface, and the water lifted the flimsy fabric and
