She wanted to go upstairs to the closed room, she wanted to throw open the door and lie down and be comforted, but something stopped her. When she surrendered to that yearning, it would be for the last time. It would be an unrepeatable thing, the one final time, and after that she would be truly alone. It was instinct that told her this; intuition rather than rational thought. She could not face it; would not do it, not yet. She got halfway up the stairs at one point, to escape the black thing, but she made herself stop and go no farther. Valentina was up in her room now, asleep, keeping out of it, leaving Dimity to face the thing alone. Earlier she had cocked an eyebrow at her daughter, just like she had in the summer of 1939. That was a stroke of luck then, wasn’t it? she’d said savagely. Now, as then, Dimity had no words to answer her. Valentina was never moved by tears; never once, not even when Dimity was tiny. Not even the time when she was five years old and she tripped over her feet and fell into a hollow packed with furze and nettles and bees, to emerge stung and scratched and howling. Life’s going to throw worse at you than that, my girl, so stop that racket. And life had thrown worse at her. Valentina had been right about that.
There was a knocking at the door, loud and insistent, and Dimity stared at it in shock. It was almost dark outside. She waited until she was no longer sure she’d heard anything at all, and then the knocking came again, for longer this time. She thought it could be a trick; it could be anyone, anything, waiting to be let in. Her heart fluttered like a moth. She crossed to the door and hesitantly laid her ear to it. All the voices of The Watch sounded louder that way, coming through the walls and the wood like the sea whispering through the caverns of a shell. Mutterings, accusations, laughter; the rough voices of Valentina’s many, many visitors.
“Dimity? Are you there?” A voice so loud it made her yell and scuttle back from the door.
“Who is that?” she said, and found her eyes full of frightened tears.
“It’s Zach. I’ve just come down to say hello.”
“Zach?” Dimity echoed, thinking hard.
“Zach Gilchrist-you know me. Are you all right?” She did know him, of course. The one with all the pictures, whose voice had now joined all the others in The Watch, asking his incessant questions. Her first thought was to not let him in. She couldn’t remember why she didn’t want to, and only knew that she didn’t; but he could be no worse than the black thing already inside with her, she decided. Perhaps he might make it subside for a while, might make it bide its time. Tentatively, Dimity opened the door.
Zach watched Dimity with consternation as she moved around the kitchen, ostensibly making them tea. She twitched and dithered, her eyes darting around the room as if searching for something. Her attention flitted like a mayfly, never quite alighting. She moved the mugs from one countertop to the next, poured the water from the kettle down the sink before it had boiled, and refilled it. At one point, as Zach was telling her about the fight at the pub, she whirled around with a cry and put her hand to her mouth. He thought for a moment that he had shocked her with the violence of the story, but then he saw that she was staring straight past him, at the kitchen window. He turned to look but there was nothing there, nothing outside, just the green hill, rolling down to the sea.
“What is it, Dimity? What’s the matter?” he said. She flicked her eyes at him and shook her head, and Zach saw how quick and shallow her breathing had become. He stood up, took her hands, and drew her towards a chair. “Come and sit down, please. Something’s upset you.”
“They won’t leave me alone!” the old woman cried as she sank into one of the rickety kitchen chairs.
“Who won’t, Dimity?”
“All of them…” She passed her hand in front of her eyes again, and took a deep breath. “Ghosts. Just ghosts, that’s all. Just an old woman’s fancy.” She looked up and tried to smile, but it was a tremulous, unconvincing thing.
“You… see them, do you?” Zach asked cautiously.
“I… I don’t know. I think… sometimes… that I do. They want answers from me, just like you do.” She gazed at him, steady and desperate, and Zach sensed some vast sorrow inside her.
“Well… I won’t ask you for any more answers. Not if you don’t want to give them,” he said.
Dimity shook her head, and tears dropped into her lap. “I saw them together. I didn’t tell you… but perhaps you’ve a right to know.”
“Saw who, Dimity?”
“My Charles, and your… grandma. I saw them kiss.” There was a note of despair in her voice, and Zach had an odd feeling, like something falling into place. Or perhaps out of place.
“So, you think he could have been-”
“I don’t know!” Dimity cried abruptly. “I don’t know! But I saw them together, and I never told. I never told… Charles. Never told Celeste.”
“Jesus.” Zach leaned back in his chair, absorbing her words. Somehow he had always thought, deep down, that the rumor was just that-a rumor. He’d been quite prepared to believe Dimity before, when she’d denied any affair between them. Now, it seemed, he wasn’t quite prepared to be told that there had been one. “So he… he betrayed you?” he said softly. Dimity broke into sobs and Zach took hold of her hands. “I’m sorry, Dimity. I really am.”
For a while, Dimity allowed herself to be comforted, but then she gripped his hands fiercely.
“Why are you here? Are you one of them? Have I dreamed you?” she said.
“No, Dimity.” Zach swallowed uneasily. “You haven’t dreamed me. I’m real.”
“Why are you here?” she said again.
“I came… well, I suppose I came to say good-bye.” He hadn’t realized it until he said it. He took a deep breath, and looked hard into Dimity’s eyes. “Is there anything else… anything else, you can tell me about that summer? About Dennis, or why Charles went off to war? About what happened to Delphine and Celeste?” For a hung moment, neither of them breathed. Their eyes stayed locked together, and the moment seemed to spread out, to pause unnaturally. It was so still that Zach couldn’t hear his watch ticking, or the kettle coming to the boil; he couldn’t hear Dimity’s labored breathing, or the background song of the sea. For a second, he thought he heard a fretful wind, blowing through the dank little kitchen. A hot, dry wind, carrying strange perfumes. For a second he thought he heard the sound of hands clapping, and the voices of children, chanting along in time. He thought he heard the scratch of a pencil on paper and a man’s chuckle, deep and energetic; captivating, infectious. Then he blinked, and it was all gone.
“No,” said Dimity, and for a second Zach could not remember what he’d asked. “No. There is nothing more I can tell you.” Her voice was desolate.
“I want to ask you one more thing.”
“What?”
“May I draw you?”
To draw the same subject that Aubrey had once drawn-it was yet another pilgrimage, of a kind. Zach had no doubt that his would be poor work in comparison, but the fascination remained and he was no longer afraid to try. He had still never sketched Hannah. He wondered if he’d missed his chance now, and whether he’d have been able to draw everything that was wonderful and infuriating about her; from her toothy, wolfish smile to her hardheadedness; from her unabashed sensuality to the barriers she put up between herself and the world. Between herself and Zach. He wondered if he’d have been able to capture that nagging familiarity he sometimes saw, when she turned her head just so. Thoughts of her brought a cocktail of lust, anger, tenderness, and frustration, so he tried determinedly to dispel them. He focused on his sitter instead, wearing a frown of concentration, and began.