I did a terrible thing, Corin. An unforgivable thing. I ran away from it but I could not undo it, and it has followed me through all the years since. My only consolation has been that I never forgave myself, and that surely this life I have endured has been punishment enough? But no, there could never be punishment enough for what I did. I pray that you do not know of it, for if you did, you would not love me any more and I simply could not bear that. I pray that there is no God, and no heaven or hell, so that you cannot have been looking down, cannot have seen what crimes I committed. And I can never join you in heaven, if that is where you are. Surely, my soul belongs in hell when I die. But how could you not go to heaven, my love? You were an angel already, even on earth. Being with you was the one time in my whole life that I was happy, that I was glad to be alive, and everything since then has been ashes and dust to me. How long you have lain under that empty prairie? It is eons since I saw you. The whole world could have been born and died again in the vast age since we touched.
I wish I could see you one more time, before I die. Part of me believes that there would be some justice in this-that if the world was a fair place, I would be allowed just a second of your embrace, to make up for losing you. No matter what I did in the madness of grief, no matter how I compounded my mistake or how much worse I have made it-have made myself-ever since. I would gladly give myself up to an eternity of torment just to see you one more time. But it cannot be. I will die, and be forgot, just as you died. But I never forgot you, my Corin, my husband. Whatever else I did, I never forgot you, and I loved you always.
Caroline.
I read and re-read this letter in the weeks after I found it. Until I knew it by rote, and each word broke my heart a little. Such a vast depth of regret and sorrow that it could cloud a sunny day. When I feel it take hold of me, when I feel I have absorbed too much of it, I remember Beth. Her crime will not follow her any more. She will not compound it, or let the regret tear at her for ever. The chain has been broken, and I helped to break it. I remember that, and I let it cheer me, fill me up with hope. I will never know what Caroline did. Why she took her baby and ran to England, why she then abandoned him. One thing I do notice, though, from my many readings of this letter: she does not mention her son. If the child was hers, and Corin his father, why doesn’t she mention him? Why doesn’t she tell her Corin about his son? Try to explain why she abandoned him? This may well be the crime she hopes he never saw, but surely that must have come before her flight from America? And this abandonment seems inexplicable, really unbelievable, when matched to the love she professes for the child’s father. I remember the dark young girl at the summer party-the girl whom Caroline called Magpie. Her hair, as black as Dinny’s. I will never know for sure, but this omission from the letter hints at a crime indeed, and makes me doubt the claim of kinship I made to Dinny.
Beth came to stay a couple of weeks ago. She wishes, I think, that I’d settled in a different village, but she’s getting used to the idea. She doesn’t shy away from this place any more.
“Doesn’t it bother you, seeing the house over there?” she asked. Expressions fly across her face these days. They rise and jostle like balloons. Something tethered her features before and now it’s gone. And I may well settle somewhere else, sometime; soon, or eventually. I’m not waiting, but I need to be where he can find me. Just until the next time he does. And he’s got reasons to come back here, after all. More to pull him here than just me, and my desire for him. A mother, a sister, a niece. I think Honey would tell me, if he’d been back.
My happiness at seeing Beth improve bubbles up whenever I set eyes on her. No miracle cure, of course, but she’s better. She can split the blame for what happened with Dinny now; she no longer has to think that she and she alone dealt fate to Henry Calcott. The truth of it, the right and wrong, is more diffuse now. She didn’t take a life, she just changed one. There’s even a fragment of leeway, just a hint of gray as to whether the change was for the better or worse. So no miracle cure, but she talks to me about it now-she’ll talk about what happened, and because she’s turned around and looked at it, it’s not dogging her steps like it used to. I can see the improvement and so can Eddie, although he hasn’t asked me about it. I don’t think he cares what’s changed, he’s just pleased that it has.
It takes a while to see somebody differently when for years you’ve seen them in a particular way, or not seen them at all. I still saw Harry, when Dinny told me to see Henry. And I still saw Dinny as I had always seen him, always loved him. I tell myself that he needs time to see me differently, to see me as I am now and not see a child, or a nuisance, or Beth’s little sister, or whatever else it is he sees. Perhaps the time is not now; but it will come, I believe. There was a legal wrangle over the plot of land where the Dinsdales are allowed to camp. The developer didn’t want a load of travelers parking up in the communal gardens of his new flats. In the end that piece of ground, along with the rest of the woods and pasture, was sold to the farmer whose land adjoins it, and he has known the Dinsdales for years. So it’s still there, waiting for them. Waiting for him. A beautiful place to camp in the summer, green and sheltered, and unmolested now.
I’m hoping for a hot summer. Weather to bake the bones and excuse this languid life I’ve adopted. Weather to give Honey freckles, and to make ice pops from lemon squash with Susan and Paul’s girls, and to darken Dinny’s skin. Weather to sneak to the dew pond, to paddle, to swim, to chase its ghosts away. And today a small parcel came in the post for me. Inside, crumbling, was a piece of tree bark with patterns scratched into it. Nothing I could distinguish in the designs, except the name at the bottom-HARRY-in crooked, angular, almost unreadable letters. A declaration, I take it to be, of who he is now, of who he wants to be. And an unspoken message from Dinny, who wrapped it up and posted it. That he knows where I am, and that he thinks of me. For now, I find I am quite happy with that.
Acknowledgments
My love and thanks to Alison and Charlotte Webb for their reading, critiquing and endless enthusiasm over the years; and to John Webb for never suggesting that I get a proper job!
Thanks to the members of WordWatchers in Newbury for all their support, comments and cake.
Finally, my thanks also to Edward Smith and the members of youwriteon.com for getting the book read, reviewed and noticed; and to Sara and Natalie at Orion for taking it the rest of the way.
About the Author
KATHERINEWEBB was born in 1977 and grew up in ruralHampshire, England. She studied history at Durham University, has spent timeliving in London and Venice, and now lives in Berkshire, England. Having workedas a waitress, au pair, personal assistant, potter, bookbinder, libraryassistant, and formal housekeeper at a manor house, she now writesfull-time.
