It’s the same Viking guy with the scar who brought them at the beginning of the week, but he’s driving a people carrier this time, which strikes Richard as odd because they always seem permanently attached to one vehicle, like centaurs. Everyone apart from Benjy and Melissa turns to one another, trying to gauge the expected warmth of the parting, but it’s Louisa who breaks the spell and hugs Daisy and says, We’re going to visit you, both of us, soon. It’s obvious to everyone that she hasn’t mentioned this to Richard and equally obvious that she doesn’t need to.
The hug takes Angela by surprise. A little jag of shame, though she is glad that Daisy and Louisa can act as deputies for each family, displaying the familiarity that she and Richard do not feel and probably never will. She shakes Richard’s hand, clasping it between both of hers to prevent the gesture seeming too formal. Thanks. It was really generous of you. It sounds like an apology, which it is, of course.
Alex tries to catch Melissa’s eye but she is staring adamantly elsewhere. He wants someone else to know what happened last night, someone who knows Melissa, someone who understands how extraordinary it was. He wonders whether he can tell Daisy.
Goodbye, Benjamin. Richard squeezes his shoulder, but he has never had children of his own and doesn’t understand that vacant look in Benjy’s eyes, the way he disengages while adults do their tricky dances of arrival and departure.
Benjy? Dad is looking at him with raised eyebrows.
He returns briefly to the moment. Thank you, Uncle Richard. The vinegar rocket was really good. Then he is gone again.
You’re welcome.
So… Dominic blows into his hands as if he’s cold.
Two, three, seconds of discomfort then some silent signal releases them. They climb in to the taxi, into the Mercedes. Doors slide and thunk shut. The taxi does a four-point turn and bumps through the gate onto the rutted stony mud of the track, the Mercedes in its wake. A single pane of glass rattles. The brief scent of exhaust, the noise of engines fading as they circle the house and head towards the main road.
So little of them left, the faintest smell of cocoa butter, dirty sheets and pillowcases, muddy towels, a purple GoGo behind the radiator in the dining room, a yellow GoGo under the fridge, the makeshift circlip behind the washing machine. I liked walking up the hill. The burnt and cracked head of a china doll in the ashes of the stove.
Cloud moving in from the east and thickening. Specks of rain. A red Datsun making its way up from Longtown. Joan and her daughter, Kelly, who come every Friday to clean the house during the holiday season and make it ready for the next guests who will arrive later in the afternoon, though Kelly will spend most of the time sitting in the little window seat in the kitchen, rocking gently back and forth, tapping her chin with her fist and singing a song that has no words.
Framed watercolours of mallow and campion. Secrets of the Night. A Sparrow Falls. The banknote. The brass spoons. Brother, my Lungs are not Goode. The pattern of ancient paths. Hay Bluff, Lord Hereford’s Knob. Heather and purple moor-grass and little craters of rippling peaty water. High up, a red kite weaving its way through the holes in the wind.
EOF