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‘For ever and ever. It sucks,’ says Tamsin.
‘That’s not a very nice thing for a little girl to say.’
‘What, that school sucks, you mean? Summer says it.’
She sits down on the boards and leans against May’s legs. The pressure is comforting at first, but is soon painful. May grits her dentures. ‘Summer says quite a lot of things that you shouldn’t copy, it seems to me. Anyway, you can’t just stop going to school, Tam. You’ve only done a year so far. It goes on for a lot longer than that, as a rule.’
‘Dad can’t make me go,’ says the little girl, sticking out her bottom lip. Tamsin’s eyes are even darker than Andy’s, and she’s inherited the shaggy curls from him too. May knows there’s a regular morning battle to get a ponytail in place. She’s heard the screams. Tamsin’s already ditched her scrunchy for the day and her blue cardigan with the crest has disappeared as well, probably under a bush somewhere.
‘Why don’t you like school? Has something happened today? You were fine yesterday when you came round.’ May often keeps an eye on Tamsin until Andy comes home, if he’s not expecting to be long. She’s never been keen on children but this one is different. This one has a mind of her own.
‘It’s just boys,’ says Tamsin. ‘Why do we have to have boys?’
‘Well …’
‘They’re stinky, and they push in front of us when we line up.’
‘Hmm. But some girls push too, and boys often grow up to be grand men like your dad and Tristram, don’t they?’
‘S’pose so.’
The cat stands up, stretches, and makes his way over to Tamsin. His black fur is slightly dusty due to his habit of rolling in the flowerbeds. Tamsin looks at him doubtfully.
‘Dad said I mustn’t touch Fossil any more,’ she says.
‘Did he? When was that?’
‘Yesterday. I kept sneezing, and he said it was either hay fever or cats. Like my mum used to get, he said. But I love Fossil. He doesn’t even smell that bad today, does he? Not like boys do.’
May thinks Tamsin might be going to cry. Tears are May’s least favourite thing. An idea strikes her as she sees a red dot appear on the shoreline. ‘Would you do a little job for me, my bird?’ she says, in what she hopes is a winning tone.
Tamsin frowns even harder. ‘What do I get?’
‘Get? You don’t get anything. Young people are supposed to help older ones. Don’t they teach you anything at school?’
Tamsin shrugs.
‘Would you just pop down to the beach and pick up that ball over there?’
‘But it’ll be all wet and slimy. Why do you want a ball, May? You haven’t got a dog and Fossil doesn’t play with stuff any more.’
‘Well … I …’ May tries to think of a plausible answer but her mind has gone blank. There’s no easy way to say that the reason she’s managed to live to a hundred and ten is that she has been appropriating her neighbours’ memories for years. She’s always told herself it’s a form of borrowing, but that’s not true, because once she’s got them, she’s never quite worked out how to give them back.
Now that she’s living at the bottom of Memory Lane and can’t visit people in the village any more, May has no way of collecting their treasured objects so that she can do what she terms her thought harvesting. But she couldn’t stay in that rambling old family house once her legs started to get creaky. She was lucky to be able to keep it going for so long. Leaving Seagulls was hard, but this cottage is so much easier to live in, apart from the sad lack of new memory sources. The vibrations from her collecting missions have fed her mentally for a long time now, but she’s bled them all dry.
Tamsin prods May gently, still waiting for an answer. She’s right, in a way. A soggy toy won’t do much good. But at least it’ll have something inside it – some scrap of love and dog-type warmth buried in its depths. And May is desperate.
‘Just for me, poppet, please?’ she says, putting her head on one side and smiling in what she hopes is a sweet old lady way.
Tamsin shrugs again then potters off down the path, over the last of the cobblestones and onto the shingle at the top of the beach. When she reaches the sand, she slips off her shoes and socks and begins to twirl and bounce towards the lapping waves. Her solid little body is transformed when she dances, making her almost fairy-like. May watches. The child knows the beach completely and she wouldn’t stray far from sight anyway. There’s no need to worry, even if May was the worrying kind. She never has been until now. But unless she can find a new bank of memories, May won’t reach the fabulous age of one hundred and eleven. It’s been her dream to reach that milestone ever since childhood. All those lovely ones in a row, like a strong gate: 111. Her father, gazing at a particularly wonderful sunset over the bay, once exclaimed, ‘If I live until I’m a hundred and eleven I’ll never see anything as splendid as that sight.’ Why that number? May thought, but the idea stuck, like a lucky charm.
After a few minutes, Tamsin hops back into the garden and drops the ball on May’s knee.
‘It’s yucky,’ she says, pulling a face. ‘Told you it would be. Have you got any cake?’
May gestures towards the open kitchen door, and as Tamsin skips away (does that child ever walk anywhere?) she conquers her revulsion and clutches the ball tightly to her chest. But even squeezing it hard with both hands and her eyes tight shut doesn’t release more than a tiny buzz of memory, and that seems to be mainly a dog’s woolly thoughts about his dinner.
It’s no good. I’m done for, thinks May, throwing the ball as hard as she can towards the shrubbery.
‘May, why did you go and do that? I fetched it specially.’ Tamsin appears with a large plate containing four slabs of angel cake and a bag of Maltesers.
‘You were right, dear. It was very slimy,’ says May, sadly.
Tamsin looks up as she hears the click of the latch on the front gate next door. ‘Dad’s home,’ she says. ‘I’ll go and get him to make us a nice hot drink, shall I?’
She’s back in five minutes or so, followed by a long, lean man with a serious expression. May wishes he’d smile more, but she supposes he’s had a lot to make him melancholy since his wife died. Andy is an out-in-all-weathers kind of person, pure Cornish from head to toe. Tanned and healthy-looking, he’s wearing faded denim shorts, heavy boots and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up – his usual gardener’s uniform. He’s very grubby. May looks at his well-muscled legs and forearms approvingly. Even at one hundred and ten she can still appreciate a vision like this.
Andy puts a mug down next to May and hands Tamsin a glass of warm blackcurrant juice.
‘Oh, bless you, love. Aren’t you having one with us?’
‘No time. Tam needs to get ready for a birthday party. It starts in half an hour but she looks as if she needs a good wash first.’
Tamsin moans to herself and slurps her drink, spilling some of it down her front, then lies down again next to May, adding some soil to the stains on her school skirt.
‘Where have you been today?’ May asks. ‘You look as if you’ve been working hard.’
‘Just across the road at number sixty, trying to get Julia’s place straight,’ he says. ‘It’s gone wild since Don died.’
‘It was bound to, really. Julia doesn’t like gardening, does she? Probably hasn’t got the right clothes,’ May sniffs. She has no time for Julia Lovell, even though she’s known her for many years and often shared the church kitchen with her when they were drafted in to cater for village events. Keeps herself to herself, that one, May thinks. Pretty much everybody knows what it’s like to lose somebody but we don’t all turn reclusive, do we? Drama queen. And why does she always have to be so dressed up? Her hair can’t be natural. There’s not a single grey hair amongst all that black. And straight as a die. Never bothers with curlers. Well, I suppose there’s not enough of it to curl.
‘Maybe not. I used to go round every few weeks and give Don a hand when he got past doing the rough digging and so on,’ says Andy, ‘but she hasn’t felt like bothering with it lately.’
‘No. She wouldn’t.’
‘What have you got against the poor woman? She always asks after you.’
‘Oh, you don’t want to hear me harping on about old grudges. Water under the bridge. I just wish she wouldn’t pretend to like me, that’s all.’
‘I don’t think Julia’s got anything against you, May.’
‘Ha! Why does she give me those frosty looks then?’
‘You’re imagining it.’
‘Whatever,’ says May. She’s learned that one from Tamsin and it comes in handy.
Andy laughs. ‘Anyway, you’ll never guess what Julia’s found today.’
May looks at her neighbour without much interest and raises her eyebrows. He carries on. ‘When she was clearing out Don’s den …’
‘His old shed, you mean?’
‘Well, yes, OK – his shed … she found a massive sack of letters.’
Tamsin rolls over onto her back and stares at her dad. ‘Why did the man over the road have a sack of lettuce?’ she mumbles, through the last of the cake.
‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, sweetheart,’ Andy says, ‘and I said letters.’
‘Oh.’ Tamsin doesn’t much care for things you have to read so she crawls under a nearby bush to make a hide-out, but May is all ears.
‘Letters to whom?’ she says. No need to let the grammar slip.
‘Not to whom, more like from whom. He hoarded every single thing his family in the Midlands ever wrote to the two of them. They’re incredible. Julia showed me a few.’
May digests this information in silence. Her heart is fluttering now. She hopes she isn’t going to have some sort of seizure and pop her clogs just when hope is at hand.
‘May? What’s the matter? You look a bit wobbly today,’ Andy says.
May stares out to sea, as the tide turns and the gulls wheel and cry. A sackful of memories, there for the taking. But however is she going to get her hands on them?
Chapter Two (#u5c696aef-bbf8-5483-b853-bbe19d0e2f17)
… so the opal ring’s definitely missing. I don’t know what to do, Don. Mother’s blaming each of us in turn and we’ve turned the house upside down looking for it. Nothing.
Putting down the letter in her hand for a moment, Julia gazes out of the window, past the trailing clematis that climbs over the remains of an oak tree, and the wisteria taking over the shed roof, trailing its feathery lilac fronds so low every summer that Don had to stoop under it every time he retreated there.
What possessed Don to keep all these letters, and what in heaven’s name is she meant to do with them now he’s gone? If she hadn’t finally made herself go into his den she’d have still been in blissful ignorance of the contents of the wooden chest.
She remembers the day he rediscovered the disgusting old chest. She was mystified as to why anyone would want to keep such a thing.
‘You do know that piece of junk’s riddled with woodworm?’ she said, as he dragged it across the yard from the garage. ‘I was going to put it out ready for Andy to take to the tip, or to sling on his next bonfire.’
‘Not infested any more, love,’ Don said, straightening up and rubbing his back. ‘Didn’t you see me out here yesterday with that can of stuff I found in the cupboard under the stairs? I’ve zapped the little devils. Those worms are history!’ He laughed joyfully and patted the oak chest as if it were a faithful dog.
‘But what are you going to do with it?’ Julia asked. ‘It smells disgusting.’ She wrinkled her nose at the eye-watering chemical fumes still coming from the wood.
‘It’ll cancel out the stink of my pipe tobacco then. I’m having a sort out in the den. The drawers in my desk are stuffed. I can’t even open them properly. This’ll be perfect to store everything in.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to throw something away?’ Julia knew she was wasting her breath as she said this. Don didn’t believe in getting rid of anything unless he had absolutely no choice.
Julia’s eyes prickle again as she conjures up the smile he gave her as he struggled on towards the shed with his prize. The oak chest left deep scuff marks on the path. She can still see them if she looks closely. As he heaved it through the door, he cheered and gave her a victory salute.
If only she’d taken a photograph of that moment. Such a charmer, was that man, but somehow so innocent with it. Their granddaughter, Emily, has the same wide blue eyes and twinkly smile.
With a pang, Julia wishes Emily were here, and not working abroad. New York is much too far away. These thoughts of Don are unbearably sad to cope with on her own. How is she going to get through the rest of her days without him?
Sighing, Julia forces herself to pick up the letter again. Don kept every bit of correspondence they ever received, it seems, and never bothered to sort them into any kind of order. This one is from the younger of his two sisters, Elsie. Like most of the family, Elsie adored the Cornish village where Don and Julia made their home, and visited it regularly. Ever since Julia married Don back in the spring of 1959, when he was fresh from the air force and so handsome he could have had his pick of any girl around, her summers were spoken for. She spent them changing beds, washing sheets, planning menus and thinking up suggestions for trips so the guests might take themselves off to give her a few hours of the solitude that she craved.
She didn’t mind the visitors coming. Well, not much. Don was so hospitable she’d have felt mean to say she needed a break. Anyway, in those days they had their old caravan down the coast to escape to when the season was over. And boy, they certainly enjoyed being alone again. Julia blushes at the memories. She reads on, rubbing her tired eyes as Elsie’s voice speaks to her down the years.
Anyway, other than the crisis with the ring, my most important news is that I’ve managed to change my holiday week, and so has Kathryn. Will can’t come with us this time but he sends his love. He’s been a bit peaky lately, moping around like a dog that’s lost its bone. I wish he’d get himself a girlfriend. Mother thinks he’s just waiting for the right one to come along.
Never in a month of Sundays, thinks Julia. Don’s younger brother, Will, wasn’t remotely interested in finding a girl, and now he’s a retired priest in the wilds of County Kerry. The baby of the family, Will has an ethereal charm, but a large part of his charisma is his fun-loving impulsiveness. Moping around sounds unlike him, although he sometimes was annoyingly moody. Julia casts her mind back. The ancient ink, almost invisible in places, brings that summer vividly to mind.
Elsie and Kathryn tottered off the train as dawn broke, crumpled and sticky but wildly excited at the thought of their week in Cornwall. Julia, heavily pregnant with Felix, plastered on her best welcoming smile. Oh God, here we go again, she thought. Sometimes she felt like the owner of a rather cramped B&B instead of a woman with a new and very large extended family who all loved the seaside. The big double bed had only just been changed after her mother- and father-in-law’s visit. It was good that Don’s sisters never minded sharing a bed – it meant less laundry, and they’d only be in and out of each other’s rooms half the night if not. They never seemed to stop talking, those two. The whole family was the same. What did they find to say? Julia wonders. Did they never just simply run out of words?
She rereads the last line. What was it that was bothering Will that time? Julia vaguely remembers the youngest of the family being paler than usual on his next visit, but nothing was ever said. To be fair, Julia’s thoughts were preoccupied with her own exhaustion and how she was going to cope with a newborn when she’d never even changed a nappy before. Will was almost fragile in looks – a beautiful blond boy, with high cheekbones and such narrow hips that he always had to wear braces to stop his trousers ending up around his ankles. Kathryn and Elsie were much tougher cookies.
She drops the letter and picks up another one. Elsie again, rattling on from earlier the same year, that January so long ago. Julia just began to suspect she was having a baby around then. She was twenty-six by that time, but so ridiculously naïve that she had to ask her neighbour to reassure her that the signs she noticed weren’t the beginnings of some horrible disease. She longed for her mother, or some other homely body to run to, but her parents had decided to settle in India after her father’s retirement from the army. Don had just started his new job, and they scraped together enough cash for the deposit on 60 Memory Lane. It was a shabby place – borderline derelict in parts – but they fell in love with it. The pregnancy wasn’t expected. Neither of them had much idea about family planning.
Elsie’s letter is starting to put together a picture in Julia’s mind. She reads on.
Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that Mother has finally come around to your way of thinking, and her precious opal engagement ring is going to be passed to Julia. I expect you’re right and I hope it brings her luck, as it has for Mother and Grandma, or so they insist. I’d have loved to have it, of course I would, and so would Kathryn, but with two sisters, I guess there had to be a fair way. Even Will has had his eye on it but I don’t know who he’s planning to give it to! Still no girl on the scene.
Reading about that ring has stirred up feelings she would rather have left buried. Don, usually the least cynical of men, was very suspicious about its disappearance, just when it was about to be delivered to him for his new wife.
Ruffled, Julia shakes herself and flexes stiff shoulders. She’s been sitting still too long. It’s time for a cup of tea and maybe a piece of the fruitcake she’s made from her mother’s favourite recipe. She doesn’t bake much nowadays because she has to go by instinct. She’s had to ever since the old cookery book, handwritten and full of the neat, sloping writing Julia loved, disappeared a couple of years ago. She’s searched high and low but it’s never turned up. Good job she’s still got her marbles at eighty-five, and can remember a handful of the best recipes, although the sticky lemon cake has never turned out quite the same without the book to guide her.
The door knocker clatters, followed almost immediately by the bell ringing. Julia mutters under her breath, words her mother definitely wouldn’t have approved of. She gets to her feet and makes her way to the front door, still grumbling. It’s no good pretending she isn’t at home. The trademark knock and ring tells her that the woman out there won’t give up easily.
‘Hello, Julia,’ says Ida, as Julia opens the door. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting your tea?’
Julia forces her mouth into something resembling a smile. Ida Carnell, standing sturdily on the step, has an in-built radar for the moment when the kettle is going to be switched on and the cake tin’s about to appear.
‘No, of course not, Ida,’ she says. ‘Come in and join me for a cuppa.’
‘Oh, well, so long as I’m not being a bother.’
Ida follows Julia to the kitchen, talking all the way. Really, thinks Julia wearily, this woman is almost as bad as Elsie and Kathryn in their heyday. Granted, Ida’s a pillar of the local Methodist Church and has got a heart of … well, if not pure gold, something fairly close, but does she ever shut up?
‘… and so I didn’t think you’d mind me calling on you. It’s very important. I’ve got a favour to ask. It’s about my new plan.’
Oh, no. The last time Ida had a plan, Julia had been roped into making scones for a hundred and fifty people. Not another fund-raising tea … oh, please not? But Ida is still talking.
‘Have you heard of the Adopt-a-Granny scheme? A lot of local churches are trialling it, since we had a memo from Age UK reminding us how many old people are lonely and housebound.’
A cold feeling creeps up Julia’s spine. She’s got a hunch she won’t like this, whatever it is.
‘No? I thought you might have seen my article in the parish magazine? Anyway, I’ve made a list.’ Ida gets out a large ring-bound notepad and a pen. ‘Can I put you down for May?’
‘Why? What happened in May? It’s June already; I think last month passed me by.’
‘No, I didn’t mean that. Your neighbour, May. At number fifty-nine? Shangri-La? I’m really worried about her.’
‘You want me to adopt May? As my granny?’
Ida laughs. ‘Not exactly. She’s only about twenty years older than you, isn’t she?’
