A burst of hard wind from the sea set the windowpanes rattling as I moved further in, stirring dust from the floorboards with each careful step. No one knew I was in here. The door to the passage was closed; I’d come through the connecting door from my own bedroom, with Ann Butler’s flowered gown bunched in my arms.
This was the second of her gowns that I had taken from the time where it belonged, and it seemed right somehow to bring it here to hide, inside this room that had been hers.
Against the far wall, in the space below the attic stairs, a sloping built-in cupboard held the out-of-season clothes. that no one needed till the winter. Shoving the mass of woven sleeves and woolly things aside, I tugged a hanger free and slipped the flowered gown onto it carefully, then slid the hanger back in place behind the other clothing where the faded blue gown and the banyan hung already, quietly concealed.
My fingers lightly brushed the silk of Daniel’s banyan, and I closed my eyes. I felt his presence here more strongly than I had before, so strongly that it almost seemed that if I were to close my eyes and wish with all my heart, then maybe … maybe …
‘So you’re back.’ Claire’s voice, approving. Coming through the open doorway from my bedroom she asked, ‘Did you have a nice walk?’
I closed the cupboard door as nonchalantly as I could and turned, my eardrums buzzing from the sudden surge of guilty blood pressure. I gave a nod and told Claire, ‘Yes, I went up to the church.’ It seemed an age ago, to me. I cleared my throat and added, ‘Mr Teague was there. He hasn’t changed.’
Claire smiled. ‘He never will, you know. I’ve no doubt when he finally passes over he’ll keep walking through that churchyard every day in spirit, keeping things in order. Was he pleased to see you? I expect he was. He likes a bit of company, does Mr Teague.’ Her keen glance swept the little room. ‘God, look at all this dust. I must have words with Mark and Susan’s cleaner when she comes. I’m sure that cupboard wants a clearing out as well.’
I forced a shrug. ‘You’re better off to leave that till the winter, aren’t you? When you take the coats out and put all the summer things away.’
‘Well, I suppose.’ She turned her gaze on me instead. ‘I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you with your hair up, Eva. What a lovely way to do it.’
I was taken by surprise. I had forgotten. In my hurry to get safely back inside the house before somebody saw me, and to change into my proper clothes, I’d overlooked my hair. Reaching up to make certain, I fingered a hairpin and said, ‘It’s a little bit fussy …’
‘No, leave it up. You’ll want to look your best for lunch.’ She smiled. ‘You have a visitor.’
Following Claire through the door to the kitchen I heard a knife’s blade striking on the cutting board and thought at first, Oh, Fergal’s cooking something, and for that brief moment following, while my mind adjusted to the modern room instead, I felt a bit off balance. Out of step.
Mark was sitting at the table writing idly in a notebook while Susan, standing near the sink, chopped vegetables for one of her trademark huge salads. Her attention, though, appeared to be on Oliver, who lounged against the worktop not too far from her, still in his biking shorts and fitted shirt that showed the muscles of his arms and chest in perfect definition. The wind had dried his hair so that only the bits near his temples were still slightly damp from the effort of cycling the hilly road back from St Non’s.
He grinned as I came in. ‘I’m back.’
‘Like a bad penny,’ Claire said with affection, giving him a once-over. ‘Does your mother know you’re dressed like that?’
‘My mother bought the outfit,’ he returned, his wit as quick as ever, but Susan didn’t let him get away with it.
She smiled her teasing smile and asked, ‘No, really. Are you on the pull, or something? Trying to look all manly and athletic?’
Mark, from his seat at the table, drily commented that wearing Lycra shorts was not the best way to look manly.
‘That, dear brother,’ Susan told him, ‘is a matter of opinion.’
Their brief exchange of banter had been all the time I’d needed to shake off my momentary sense of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. In Oliver’s defence I said, ‘He’s cycled over to St Non’s and back this morning.’
Mark glanced up at his friend and asked, ‘Crisis with one of the cottages, was it?’
‘Burst pipe,’ said Oliver. ‘Oh, and it was Susan’s plumber,’ he told me.
She looked at him, reddening slightly. ‘My plumber?’
‘Paul, from Andrews & Son. Had the pipe fixed in no time,’ said Oliver. ‘So I thought I’d just drop round on my way back—’
‘Conveniently at lunchtime.’ Claire met the full charm of his boyish smile with motherly indulgence. She asked Susan, ‘I suppose we can feed him?’
Susan thought it possible.
Oliver tried to look indignant. ‘I am answering a summons, as it happens.’
Claire glanced at me. ‘Oh, yes?’
‘I’m here to see Mark’s knife.’
Mark raised his head. ‘My what?’
‘Felicity said you had some old knife …’
‘Oh.’ The fog cleared. ‘That one. Hang on, I’ll get it.’
He rose and left us for a moment while Claire counted out the cutlery for five of us and started setting places at the table. ‘Oliver, what will you drink?’