“It’s all those legs! They’re disgusting! Ugh! I don’t know how you can bear to eat them!” Delphine said.
“It’s no different to eating crab or prawns,” Dimity told her. “My mother wanted some for later. She’s making soup for dinner.”
“Oh, no! Will you get in trouble for letting that one go?”
“I don’t always find them-there aren’t that many. I’ll just tell her there weren’t any today.” Dimity shrugged, a show of carelessness that she didn’t feel. The snares had been empty, too. She would have to find something else, or hope that a visitor came and brought them some bacon or a rabbit; or there would be nothing in the soup except barley and greens. Even at the thought of such poor fare, her stomach rumbled loudly. Delphine glanced at her and laughed.
“Haven’t you had breakfast? Come on-let’s go in and have something.”
But Dimity wouldn’t go inside; she could hardly bring herself to pass the little gate into the garden, it felt so alien. Delphine accepted this with a quizzical tilt of her head, and didn’t press her for an explanation. She darted into the house and came out with two thick slices of bread, smothered in honey. Dimity devoured her slice in seconds, and they sat on the damp grass in the morning sunshine, licking their sticky fingers. Delphine polished the mud from her shoes with a dock leaf, and glanced out at the glittering spread of the sea.
“Did you know that the sea is only blue because it reflects the color of the sky? So it’s not really blue at all?” she said. And Dimity nodded. It stood to reason, though she had never really thought about it before. She pictured it on a stormy day, as gray and chalky-white as the clouds. “The Mediterranean is a different color altogether, so I suppose the sky must be a different blue. Which seems odd, since it’s the same sun and all. But it must be different air or something. Or do you think it depends what’s under the water, too? I mean, what’s on the bottom?” she asked. Dimity thought about it for a moment. She had never heard of the Mediterranean, and was careful not to reveal this to her new friend.
“Doubt it,” she said at last. “A short way out it’s too deep to see down to the bottom, isn’t it?”
“The bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea,” said Delphine. “You’ve got hay in your hair,” she added, reaching out and picking the stalk from Dimity’s head. Then she clambered to her feet. “Come on-stand up. Let’s do the clapping song.” So she taught Dimity the song about the bottom of the deep blue sea, and Dimity, who’d never done clapping before, kept getting it wrong. She concentrated hard, trying to keep up as Delphine’s hands moved faster and faster, and decided that it wasn’t as much fun as Delphine seemed to think it was. But she persevered, to please the strange, talkative girl, and as she did, she felt the prickling weight of being watched. At first she thought it was just her imagination, just the fear of always being the first one to miss a clap and get it wrong, but after twenty minutes or so, a man emerged from the house, carrying a large, flat book.
He was tall and thin, dressed in close-fitting gray trousers and the oddest shirt Dimity had ever seen a man wear-long and loose, and open at the neck to show a sliver of the hairy, tanned skin of his chest. It was almost like the smocks the dairymaids wore for milking, but cut from coarser fabric, some kind of heavy linen. His hair was a deep reddish-brown, thick and wavy. It was parted in the middle of his scalp and grew down over his ears to brush his collar at the back. Dimity stopped clapping at once, took several steps backwards, and lowered her gaze defensively. She expected to be shouted at, told to go. She was so used to it that when she glanced up at him, her eyes were full of venom. The man recoiled slightly, and then smiled.
“Who’s this, Delphine?”
“This is Mitzy. She lives… nearby. This is my father,” Delphine said, grabbing Dimity’s hand and pulling her closer to the man. He held out his hand to her. A grown-up had never, ever done that before. Bewildered, Mitzy took it; felt him grip her hand firmly. His hand was large and rough, the skin dry and speckled with paint. Ridged knuckles and short, blunt nails. He held on to her fingers a second longer than she could stand, and she pulled them away, flicking another glance up at his face as she did so. The sun was shining in his eyes, turning them the rich, lustrous brown of newly shelled conkers.
“Charles Aubrey,” he said; his voice rumbled slightly, smooth and deep.
“Are you going out sketching?” Delphine asked. He shook his head.
“I have been already. I drew the two of you, playing your game. Do you want to see?” And although it was Delphine who said yes and leaned over the book in his hands, it seemed to Dimity that he had really been speaking to her. The drawing was light, fluid; the background sketched in roughly-just hints of the land and the sky. The girls’ feet and legs disappeared into long grasses described with swift, ragged pencil lines. But their faces and hands, their eyes, were alive. Delphine smiled widely, obviously pleased.
“I think it’s excellent, Daddy,” she said, in a serious, grown-up tone of voice.
“And you, Mitzy? Do you like it?” he asked, turning the drawing right around so she could see it clearly.
It felt strange, and maybe even wrong. Dimity couldn’t tell. The air seemed to fill her lungs too quickly, and she couldn’t breathe all the way out. She didn’t trust herself to speak; had no idea what the right thing to say would be. Clearly, Delphine saw nothing improper about it, but then, she was his daughter. He had captured the shape of Dimity’s body, underneath her clothes; caught the sun shining on the line of her jaw and cheek beneath the translucent veil of her hair. To have caught them so accurately he must have looked very hard. Looked harder than anybody had ever looked at her-she who was used to being invisible to the people of Blacknowle. She felt desperately exposed. Color flooded her cheeks, and with no warning there was a tickle at the top of her nose, and her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, don’t be upset! It’s all right, Mitzy… really. Daddy-you should have asked her first!” said Delphine. Unable to stand it, Dimity turned quickly and walked away down the hill, towards The Watch. She tried to think what Valentina would say about a strange man drawing pictures of her, even if it wasn’t her fault, and as clear as day the woman’s sneer curled across her mind’s eye. “Do come again, Mitzy! He’s sorry!” Delphine called after her. Then the man spoke as well.
“Ask your parents if they’ll let you sit for me!”
Dimity ignored them both, and got home in time to see the door opened, and a visitor ushered inside. She didn’t see who it was, and therefore didn’t know how long he would stay, so she went around the back and sat in the sty with the old sow, Molly, putting up with the stink for the animal’s warmth and amiable company. She wondered what sitting for Delphine’s father would involve. She thought hard, and could come up with no answer that didn’t make her uneasy. She scrubbed angrily at her eyes, where her few brief tears had made the skin itchy and stiff, and felt an unexpected pang of sorrow at the thought of not going back, and not seeing Delphine again.
The gates to Southern Farm had once been white, but most of the paint had flaked off to show the gray, aging wood underneath. They sagged on their hinges, drooping into the long grass that had grown up around them. It was a blustery day and the wind was cooler than before; Zach thrust his hands into his pockets as he walked into the yard. A sign at the top of the lane had said there were eggs for sale, and though he didn’t actually need any eggs, it seemed as good a reason as any to pay an uninvited visit. Zach wanted to see the standoffish Hannah Brock again, feeling an interest in her that went beyond the fact that she knew Dimity Hatcher. The yard was quiet and deserted. He thought about knocking at the door of the farmhouse itself, but it looked very shut, and unwelcoming. Farm buildings sat at either side of the concrete yard, and Zach walked to the nearest one, a low structure with crumbling stone walls and a corrugated tin roof. From the darkness within came a shuffling of straw as he approached, and he was greeted by the pebble-eyed stares of six light brown sheep, puffing curiously at him through their noses. The stink of them was sweet and pungent.