When he’d finished, he wandered down the drive, ready to run if need be—his months of clambering around the ruined capital had given him a quick eye and a fleet foot, as well as a sense of danger.
There was a house behind a circular driveway. Low, quiet, tucked against the hill. Toffee-colored stone and leaded windows on the first floor, soaring giant wooden clapboard gables on the second, a moss-tiled roof. Purple flowers scrambling along the golden exterior, the windows glinting in the late afternoon sun. A riot of pink, red, yellow flowers—Jem would know their names—hugging either side of the house, and behind to the right side he could see rows of vegetables. Like Peter Rabbit, then, he thought he might die if he didn’t taste one of the lettuces, cool and green in the black earth. He could hear laughter, shouts of glee inside the house.
David did not know why, but he kept on walking toward the front door. He lifted the knocker. It was a great big owl. It made him smile; he knocked, hard.
A lady answered, gray hair dressed in a bun, a lace-covered blouse, a stiff back, and a battered straw hat. She stared at him inquiringly.
“May I help you?” Her hazel eyes were huge, flecked with blue and brown.
“Ma’am, I apologize for disturbing you,” said David. “I’ve walked all day and I’m afraid I’m extremely thirsty. Could I trouble you for some water?”
She opened the door wide. “Of course. That hill does tire one out, I know. I’m Violet Heron.” She held out her hand and he shook it, a little stunned. “Please, come in.”
He followed her into the hall. Someone was screaming with pleasure, and he looked to his left to see two children wrestling on the floor, one a young girl in a torn pinafore, the other a boy whose shorts were covered in some kind of black creosote-like substance.
“Is that Em?” one of them yelled. “Where is she? She said she’d come and play with us!”
“Ignore my embarrassing grandchildren. I do apologize,” said the lady, but she didn’t look embarrassed.
“Where is Em, do you know, Grandmother?” the girl asked.
“She’s upstairs, reading. She said she’d be down soon. Don’t be so loud.” She turned to David. “One of our old evacuees from London has been visiting us.”
She opened a door, which led into the kitchen. A red-faced woman stood tackling something in a brown earthenware bowl. “Dorcas,” said Mrs. Heron, “this young man wants some water.”
Dorcas heaved a mound of glistening, rubbery dough onto the marble surface and pushed her hands down on it. She glanced him over appraisingly. “From the looks of him, he’ll be needing a lot more than water. You want some bread and stew?”
David nodded mutely. He stared out the kitchen window at the valley. He’d never been anywhere so beautiful in his life.
“They say on a clear night, when the bombs were coming down over Bath, you could hear the bells over at Wells Cathedral in the opposite direction, in the silence.” Mrs. Heron shrugged. “I don’t believe it, but it’s comforting to think it, somehow.” She watched him for a moment, then stood up again. “Dorcas, bring the tray out onto the terrace, would you?” She gestured to David. “Follow me.”
As they opened the door, the afternoon sun hit them in the eyes, and Violet put her hat on. She gestured to a stone terrace, beyond which the garden ran riot, turning into woods. “Sit down.”
David sat. The sun seemed to be bleaching his bones, and a great feeling of peace stole over him. Time seemed to stand still. The only noise was the hum of bees, birds singing in the woods ahead, and occasionally, the screams of children echoing inside the house. It was like being in a dream. He still didn’t really know why he was here. He couldn’t explain why he’d walked down that drive.
“Their father went missing at Monte Cassino,” Mrs. Heron said suddenly. “They still believe he’s coming back.”
David sat up. “I am so sorry. Where—where’s their mother?”
Mrs. Heron looked across the valley. She said flatly, “She died in London. One of the last bombing raids.”
David wanted to say, Mine too, but the words wouldn’t come. Dorcas appeared with a tray of bread, cold stew, and water, and he thanked her, resisting the urge to gulp it all down. The stew was thin and more like soup—meat was scarce still—but to David it was the most delicious meal he’d ever had. He felt as though he’d been away from London for months. With every step out of the train station, he had walked away from the war, from the sound of his father’s threats, his sister’s howls, his mother’s dying scream.
Mrs. Heron crossed her hands neatly in her lap while he ate, and when he had finished she said, “So what do you do?”
“Nothing, at the moment,” said David. “But I’m going to art school next month. The Slade,” he added proudly.
“Goodness, you look older than that. Where are your people from?”
“Islington.” David didn’t elaborate.
“I grew up in Bloomsbury, very near the Slade,” she said. “I miss the shops. And the buildings.”
He gave her a big smile. “How can you miss anything, in a place like this?”
“Oh, you miss some things.” She smiled at him. “But you’re probably right. I don’t, really.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Fifty years. As long as the house.”
David scooped up the last of the stew with his bread. “You . . . you built this?”
“My husband built it for me. Winterfold was my wedding present. He died ten years ago. I’m glad he didn’t live through the war, it would have broken him. He’d fought in the Great War and . . .” She trailed off and looked away, and David saw that the beautiful hazel eyes were brimming with tears. “Everything must go on.”
He changed the subject. “Winterfold? That’s the name of the house?”
“Yes. The village is Winter Stoke, and we are here in the fold of the hill. It’s a fine name, I think.”
His mother’s maiden name had been Winter. He sat up. “It is a fine name.”
“What’s your name, my dear?” Mrs. Heron said kindly.
“It’s David,” he said, and his youth betrayed him. “David Winter.”
Her mouth twitched. “Is it, now.”
David’s father had fought in the Great War, too. He’d come back with a hand that didn’t quite work, screaming nightmares, and an iron strength he deployed nearly every day in some way. He could have told Violet Heron that. He could have given her his name, been a real person, one whom she could trace if she’d wanted to. His father’s son. His father who, the previous week, had beaten his new girlfriend, Sally from the butcher’s, so hard she’d been put in the hospital. His father who, when he found David’s cloth-backed folder crammed full of drawings of London children, of bombed-out houses, of rubble and decay and hope and experience, had kneed him against the wall, forced his arm across David’s neck, and pinned him down while he ripped every piece of paper into precise, inch-wide ribbons that fell on the floor into nests of color.
“Yes. My name’s David Winter,” he said. “For my mother. It was her maiden name.” He stuck his chin out and tipped his head back, because he didn’t want to cry. “Don’t believe me if you don’t want to.”
She nodded, her eyes kind. “Of course I believe you.”
He regretted it now, and felt young, stupid. He’d told this woman too much, and he shouldn’t have come here. David fished his handkerchief, still in knots, out of his pocket. He was suddenly uneasy.
“Thank you for your kindness. I should probably leave now. I have a long journey back.” He wanted to go right away. He felt embarrassed, as if coming here had released something within him, felt that he shouldn’t have knocked on the door, should merely have stared at the outside and turned back down the hill. They walked around to the front of the house in silence. “Well, thank you again,” he said. “Good-bye.”
It was battered, frayed around the edges, the straw soft to the touch and pliable. “That’s very kind of you. It’s more than I deserve. I—” He stopped, unable to speak. “I mean it.”
Then a voice called out, “Mrs. Heron! I’m going now. I have to make that train.”
And a girl appeared, flying limbs, cramming a hat on her sleek head. She was his age, or maybe a year younger. “Thank you so much, it’s been absolutely lovely—oh.” She stopped, and stared at him. “Sorry. I didn’t know I was interrupting.”
Her voice was husky; South London, he thought. Mrs. Heron turned to her. “You’re not interrupting, my dear. The children were looking for you. I hope they didn’t spoil your work.”
“It’s fine. I have everything I need, I think. Thank you so much. Hello. Who are you?”
She held out her hand to him, and he took it, gazing at her.
“I’m David Winter,” he said, and it sounded perfectly, totally right and normal when he said it. “That is my name.”
What an idiot, why did I say that then?
She looked at him as though he were a simpleton. “Right, then.”
“Em was evacuated here during the war,” Mrs. Heron said, putting her arm around the girl. “Five lovely years. We do miss her terribly. She’s come back for the weekend to see us.”
Em looked uncomfortable, but pleased. She slid a sketchbook into her bag and ran a hand over her gleaming bobbed hair. “Bye, Mrs. Heron,” she said gruffly. “I’ll see you soon, I hope.”
“You’ll pay us a visit in the autumn?”
“I don’t know about my classes yet. I’ll write to you.” Her smile grew warm as she kissed the older woman’s cheek. “Thank you again, for everything.”
She was so self-possessed; how had she learned to be like that? He wiggled a finger through the hole in his stinking, grubby trousers, aware as never before that day how dirty and ragged they were. She must think he was a tramp.
“Anytime it suits you, please come and stay, my dear girl.” Mrs. Heron smiled at her. “We do miss you.”
“I miss you. And I miss Winterfold. How could I not?” She turned to David. “It was my home, you know. Only home I wish I’d ever known.”
He wanted to give it to her then, to pluck it out of the land like a wizard, shrink it down, hold it out to her in the palm of his hand. Here.
“Look, I have to make this train and I’m walking to the station. So I’d better go.”
“I’m going to the station too, yes,” he said, hearing his own voice, shrill and silly. “Where are you going? Bath?”
“Yeah,” she said, squeezing Mrs. Heron’s hand and setting off at a pace down the drive. “Well?” she added over her shoulder. “You coming or not?”
He ran after her, waving good-bye to Mrs. Heron, who called after them, “Good-bye, dears, good-bye. . . .”
He pulled on the worn hat. It fitted like a glove, the weave cool against his forehead. David looked back and smiled at her, tipped the brim in a comic fashion, and she nodded, pleased.
He never saw her again, but he never forgot her. The large, looping wave she gave them, as they turned the corner and she disappeared from sight.
• • •
When they reached the top of the lane, by the sign that said WINTERFOLD, the girl stopped and faced him. “What’s your name again?”
“David,” he said.
“Ah. Well, I’m Martha. That’s my name, but I like to be called Em for short. Just want to be clear in case you attack me and I have to report you to the police.”
He wasn’t sure if she was joking. He was unused to any kind of lighthearted conversation, much less flirting. “I wouldn’t—it’s not—”
“I’m just being funny. Don’t look so alarmed,” she said, smiling at him. “It’s a nice place here, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s lovely. Didn’t know there were . . . places like this in real life. I want to sketch it.”
“You like drawing too, then?” she asked curiously, as if registering him for the first time.
“I do. You?”
“I love it,” she said, clutching the bag with the sketchbook. “I’m going to try for a scholarship next year. Chelsea School of Art, or the Slade. I’m going to be a famous artist, I reckon. Paint anything you want, have a stand set up on Sundays in Hyde Park, and make all my money in one afternoon. I can copy all sorts, see? I copied this last month.”
She pulled out a picture. “That’s Bubbles!” David was amazed. “Right there! You did that? Is it pastels? Where’d you get them from?”
“Joint birthday and Christmas present. My dad saved up for ages. My birthday’s in November, you see. Early birthday present.” She rolled the sketch back up. “Told you I was good. You any good?”
“Not like that,” he said. “More . . . I don’t know.” He shrugged. “S’difficult to talk about.”
“Oh, he’s a proper artist.” She walked alongside him, head bowed, lip drooping, in imitation. “Oh, he’s too good for all that. He can’t talk about his art!” She laughed. “Dearie me.”
He stopped and smiled, pushing the hat back off his face. “Oh, get off. Don’t really talk to other people much about it.” About anything. About anything at all.
“All right, I get it.” Somehow he knew she did, without having to say more. “I came down here to sketch. I love it. Get all the best ideas down here.”
He stared into her dancing eyes again, thinking that he’d never seen anyone so beautiful. “I can see why.”
“It suits you, that hat,” she said suddenly, and then added, “You’ll have to come back here one day too.”
“Yes, I think I will,” he replied, trying to sound nonchalant, though his heart was hammering. They walked on together, the afternoon heat shimmering in front of them, golden shafts of light falling on the hazy, leafy road that lay ahead.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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sp; * * *
Thanks to:
My friend Jo Roberts-Miller, who I miss and who I don’t see enough and who one day called me on the phone and with whom I had this epic conversation that led to the idea for A Place for Us. Thanks, dear Jo-Jo.
Chris, because without you I wouldn’t be able to do anything at all and nothing would be worth it. And Cora, my beautiful girl, you make my day every day.
Fred and Tugie for boyztalk. Maura Brickell for cultural information. Olivia Bishop for Italian chats and Victoria Watkins for French chats, though any mistakes are definitely my own. Very special thanks to Richard Danbury for talking me through the grislier legal aspects of the novel—no spoilers, but suffice it to say he totally saved me from being buried under a mountain of legalese, and I must once again make it very clear that any mistakes are very much mine.
Lucia Rae (Lucia for President of the World), Melissa Pimentel, and everyone at Curtis Brown. And Jonathan Lloyd, a massive thank-you for Everything, very much with a capital E, these last few months.
My beautiful Gallery Ladies and Gents on the Avenue of the Americas—thank you to everyone at Simon & Schuster. Karen! Alex! You left, but I still thank you! Paige! Becky too! Jen! Oh, Jen. Louise! I am a lucky English mutha. And a mighty thank-you to Kim and David at Inkwell for always being there, and for always being right.
Finally, thanks to everyone at Headline for your welcome energy, professionalism, and the fact that I wake up every morning so happy that I’m with you!!!! Oh, good times. Thanks to Jamie, Jane, Barbara, Viviane, Vicky, George, Elaine, Frankie, Liz, Frances, Louise, Justin—I wish I had space for everyone. Most of all, though, thank you to Mari Evans. Whatever happens I will never forget the faith you had in me when I had none in myself. I feel like a different person now, thanks to you. (Bit heavy to lay that on you, but there it is: deal with it.) I am completely in awe of your skills at editing slash publishing slash life.
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