“I know. I just… I miss him so much, Rick. I don’t really see what the point of me is, when I don’t have him to look after,” she says forlornly.
“The point of you is to be his mother, whether he’s in the room or not. And to be my big sister. And, more importantly right now, your purpose is to drink whisky with me, because I don’t intend to be the only one starting the new year with a headache,” I say.
“Bottoms up, then,” Beth says gravely, tipping the entire contents of her glass down her throat, spluttering and laughing as it burns her nose.
“Now, that’s more like it!” I laugh.
It’s bitter outside. The air bites right through our clothes, and the glow of the alcohol; makes our eyes stream, our lips crack. We walk quickly with gritted teeth, hunched and inelegant. It’s clear; the sky is inky, torn across by the unrelenting wind. There are lights on all through the village, warding off the lonely night, and the heat and humanity of the White Horse crashes out like a wave when I pull the door open. It’s cheek by jowl. We breathe in the breath of others, swim through it; the heavy, happy stink of alcohol and bodies. Voices so loud, so close. I am sure the silence at the heart of Beth will be battered into submission. I thread us a path to the bar, searching the crowd for Patrick or Dinny, or anybody else I recognize. It’s Harry’s dreadlocks that I spot, in the snug room at the back of the pub. I buy two whisky and waters, tip my head and smile at Beth to follow me.
“Hi!” I shout, arriving next to the table. I recognize faces from the solstice party, faces I have seen coming and going around the camp. Denise, Sarah and Kip. Dinny and Patrick, of course. Patrick grins at me, and Dinny smiles, his eyes widening with surprise as they alight on Beth. A second later I wonder if it was Beth he was smiling at, not me, but I can’t be sure.
“It’s the ladies of the manor! Come join us, ladies!” Patrick calls, waving a magnanimous arm over the group. His cheeks are pink, eyes bright. Harry pats my arm and on impulse I bend to him, kiss his cheek, feel the brush of his whiskers. Dinny stares. There’s a shuffling, a bunching together along the horseshoe-shaped bench, and room is made for Beth and me at either end.
“I’ve never actually been in here before,” I shout. “We weren’t old enough the last time we came to stay!”
“That’s a crime! Well, this is your local now, so let’s get you acquainted with it. Cheers!” Patrick clatters our glasses together. Cold liquid see-saws out, catches the back of Dinny’s hand.
“Sorry,” I say, and he shrugs.
“No problem.” He sucks the whisky from his skin, grimacing. “I don’t know how you can drink that poison.”
“After the fourth or fifth nip you get used to it,” I reply jovially. “So, how are you getting used to being an uncle?”
“I’m not! I still can’t believe she’s had a baby-five seconds ago she was a baby herself, you know?” Dinny tips his head wryly.
“Make the most of her when she’s tiny,” Beth tells him, her words struggling to rise above of the mash of voices. “They grow so quickly! You won’t believe how quickly,” she tries again, louder now.
“Well, I do have the best of both worlds, I suppose. I get to have fun with the kid and then give her back when she stinks or starts howling,” Dinny smiles.
“That’s always been my favorite part of being an aunt,” I say, smiling at Beth. And so just like that we chat. We sit and talk like neighbors, like nearly friends. I try not to think about it, how miraculous it is; I don’t want to break the spell.
“How’s your family research going?” Dinny asks me a while later when my body is warm, my face slightly numb. I peer at him.
“You mean our family history?” I ask.
“Do I? What do you mean?”
“Well, what I’ve found out, basically, is that we’re cousins,” I say, smiling widely. Beth frowns at me, Dinny gives that quizzical look of his.
“Rick, what are you talking about?” Beth asks.
“Quite distant-half cousins, twice removed, or thereabouts. Seriously!” I add, when I am met with skepticism all around.
“Let’s hear it, then,” says Patrick, folding his arms.
“Right. We know that Caroline had a baby boy before she married Lord Calcott in 1904. There’s a photograph, and she kept hold of the kid’s teething ring for the rest of her life-”
“A baby boy who more than likely never came over the water with her, or she would have had trouble remarrying as a spinster, which she apparently did not,” Beth interjects.
“Just hear me out. Then there’s a pillowcase missing from one of the antique sets in the house-a pillowcase with yellow marsh flags stitched onto it. Now, Dinny, your grandpa himself told me the story of how he got his name, and your mum reminded me the other day, when I was over there. But I think some of the finer details have got scrambled over the years-Mo said Flag was found in a patch of marsh flags and got the name that way, here, in the Barrow Storton woods which slope and are pretty well drained and aren’t really good ground for marsh flags to grow in. I’m sure I remember Grandpa Flag telling me himself that he was found in a blanket with yellow flowers on it. It has to be the pillowcase-it has to be!” I insist, as Patrick scoffs and Dinny looks even more sceptical. “And today, I met George Hathaway-”
“The bloke who used to run the garage on the main road?” Patrick asks.
“That’s him. His mother worked at the manor house when Caroline first arrived there. She was sacked-ostensibly for stealing, but she insisted, George says, that she was sent away because she knew there had been a baby in the house-right at the time the Dinsdales found Flag. There was a baby in the house and then it vanished. Your grandpa was my great-grandmother’s son. I’m sure of it,” I finish, jabbing a tipsy finger at Dinny. He studies me, rubs his chin, considers this.
“That’s…” Beth gropes for the word. “Ridiculous!” she finishes.
“Why is it?” I demand. “It would explain Caroline’s hostility to the Dinsdales-she dumps the kid, wants rid of him, and they pick him up and raise him right on her doorstep. Every time they came back here, they brought that baby with them. It must have driven her mad. That was why she hated them so much.”
“Answer this, then,” Dinny says. “She brings the baby over with her. She has him with her while she remarries-for some reason her previous marriage is not recorded, but there’s no way she’d have wound up marrying a lord if the baby was illegitimate. So, she keeps the baby until she gets here, to Barrow Storton, and then she dumps it in the woods. My question would be why? Why did she do that?”
“Because…” I trail off, study my drink. “I don’t know,” I admit. I think hard. “Was your grandpa disabled in any way?”
“Fit as a fiddle, sharp as a tack,” Dinny shakes his head.
“Maybe Lord Calcott wouldn’t let her keep another man’s son?”
“Then he would have just not married her, surely, if he minded that much?”
“Isn’t it possible,” Patrick begins, “and indeed rather more plausible, that Caroline’s baby died in the States, one of the servants at the manor got herself in trouble-perhaps Hathaway’s mum-took a pillowcase from the house in a moment of desperation, and got rid of her illegitimate baby? It would hardly be surprising if she lied about it, or got fired for it,” he suggests cheerfully.
“He has a point,” Beth tells me. I shake my head.
“No. I know it was the baby in the picture. It has to be,” I insist.
“And as for her attitude toward me and mine,” Patrick goes on with a shrug, “she was just a product of her time. God knows we come up against enough prejudice these days, let alone a hundred years ago! Vagrancy used to be an actual crime, you know.”