“I suppose if Caroline had had a son, he’d be buried here, wouldn’t he?” I ask, breaking the silence. Beth sighs sharply and walks away, over to where Eddie is climbing the gabled lychgate.
“I suppose so. Probably. But, who knows? If he was very tiny, perhaps they’d have given him an infant’s grave instead,” Mum replies.
“What would that look like?”
“Just like a grave with a smaller stone, usually with an angel on it somewhere-or a cherub,” she says. Dad looks at me sidelong.
“I have to say, you’re taking a pretty keen interest in this all of a sudden,” he says.
“No, I just… you know. I never could stand an unsolved mystery,” I shrug.
“Then I fear you were born into the wrong family.”
“Hey, Eddie!” I call to him. “Look for small gravestones with angels on them, and the name Calcott!” Eddie rips me a smart salute, begins to trot up and down the rows of stones. Beth folds her arms and glares at me.
“Can we please stop looking for dead babies!” she shouts, the wind pulling at her voice.
“Give me five minutes!” I call back.
“Perhaps we should get on, Erica?” Mum says diffidently.
“Five minutes,” I say again.
I run my eyes along the ranks of stones, in the opposite direction to which Eddie has gone, but they all seem to be of regular size.
“Sometimes there’s a special area for the infant graves…” Mum sets her gaze to the far corner of the churchyard. “Try over there-do you see? Under that beech tree.” I walk quickly to where the wind is seething through the naked beech, sounding like the sea. There are perhaps fifteen or twenty graves here. On the older graves are little cherubs, their features blurred with lichen, chubby arms wrapped forlornly around the stones. There are a couple of newer stones too, carved with teddy bears instead; less celestial guardians which seem somehow out of place. But then that’s the point, I suppose. An infant has no place in a churchyard. Lives that had no chance to start, losses that must have torn their parents’ souls. All those broken hearts are buried here too, alongside the tiny bodies that broke them. It’s a melancholy sight and I scan the names and dates hurriedly, walk away from the sad little party with a shiver.
I have never before found graveyards eerie, or particularly depressing. I like the expressions of love on the stones, the quiet declarations of people having existed, of having mattered. Who knows what secret feelings lie behind the carved lists of offspring, siblings and surviving spouses-or if the memories they had were truly loving. But there is the hope, always, that each transient life meant something to those left behind; cast a vapor trail of influence and emotion to fade gradually across the years.
“Anything?” I ask Eddie.
“Nope. There’s an angel over there, but the lady was seventy-three and called Iris Bateman.”
“Can we go, now?” Beth says impatiently. “If you’re that desperate to know if she had a son, go and look it up in the births, marriages and deaths register. It’s all online now.”
“Perhaps she was married before, in America,” Mum says, taking my arm in a conciliatory manner. “Perhaps the baby in the photograph died there, before she came over.”
To the north of the village is a web of farm tracks and bridleways, dodging through the drab winter fields. We take a circular route, at a brisk pace, falling into pairs to pass along the narrow pathways. Eddie drops back to walk beside me. He is leaving later on today. I look at his sharp face, his scruffy hair, and feel a pull of affection. It gives me such an odd, desperate feeling for a second that I pause to consider how Beth must be feeling. As if reading my mind, Eddie speaks.
“Is Mum going to be OK?” A carefully neutral tone he is too young to have developed.
“Yes, of course,” I tell him, with as much certainty as I can find.
“It’s just… when Dad came to pick me up last time, before Christmas, she seemed… really unhappy about it. She’s getting thin again. And, like, today, just now, she was really snappy with you…”
“Sisters always snap at each other, Eddie. That’s nothing out of the ordinary!” I find a fake laugh and Eddie gives me an accusing look. I drop the bravado. “Sorry,” I say. “Look, it’s just… it’s hard for your mum, being back at the manor house. Has she told you about your great-grandma’s will? That we can only keep the house if we both come and live in it?” He nods. “Well, that’s why we’ve come to stay. To see if we would like to come and live here.”
“Why does she hate it so much? Because your cousin was kidnapped-and she misses him?”
“Possibly… possibly it’s to do with Henry. And the fact that, well, this place is in our past now, and sometimes it can feel wrong to try and live in the past. To be honest, I don’t think we’ll come to live here, but I’m going to try to make your mum stay for a bit longer at least; even if she doesn’t really want to.”
“But why?”
“Well…” I struggle for a way to explain. “Do you remember that time your finger swelled up to the size of a sausage and it was so sore you wouldn’t let us look at it properly, but it wouldn’t heal up so finally we did look and you had a splinter of metal in it?”
“Yeah, I remember. It looked like it was going to explode,” he grimaces.
“Once we got the splinter out it healed, right?” Eddie nods. “Well, I think your mum won’t… heal because she has a splinter. Not of metal, and not in her finger, but she’s got a kind of splinter inside her and that’s why she can’t get better. I’m going to get the splinter out. I’m going to… find out what it is and get rid of it.” I hope I sound calm, confident in this purpose; when what I feel is desperate. If I believed in God, I would be striking all kinds of fervent bargains right now. Make Beth well. Make her happy.
“How? Why do you have to be here to do it?”
“Because… I think this is where she got the splinter in the first place,” I say.
Eddie considers this in silence for a while, his face marked by worried lines I hate to see. “I hope you do. I hope you can find out what it is,” he says, eventually. “You will find out, won’t you? And she will get better?”
“I promise you, Ed,” I say. And now I must not fail. I cannot let us come away from here without a resolution of some kind. The weight of my promise settles onto me like chains.
Our parents leave soon after lunch, and by teatime Maxwell has come for Eddie as well. Maxwell is grouchy, blotches of overindulgence on his cheeks. He looks mealy-mouthed. I load carrier bags of presents into the trunk, Beth watching me blackly as if I am colluding in the theft of her son.
“See you, Edderino,” I say.
“Bye then, Auntie Rick,” he says, and climbs into the back. He is calm, resigned. He goes from one place of welcome to the next; he is practical, does not fret. He lets himself be ferried, and pretends not to notice Beth’s anguish. There’s the smallest hint of cruelty in this, as if he means to say, you made this situation, you set it up this way.
“Did you tell Harry you were going today?” I ask, leaning into the car.
“Yes, but you might have to tell him again, if you see him around. I’m not sure how much attention he was paying.”
“OK. Call your mum later on, won’t you?” I keep my voice low.
“ ’Course,” he mutters, looking at his hands.