by Rosie Thomas
It takes persistence to convince yourself that anything is or ever could be touched with glory.
‘But you are persistent, Barb,’ I hear Selwyn say in answer to that.
I don’t know what made me suddenly get out of bed and go to the window. At first I could only see the pearly pre-dawn light just washing the horizon, and the heavy darkness of clouds overhead. It must have rained torrents in the night, because the cobbles were glimmering with water and moisture seemed to flood the air. Maybe it was the rain or even thunder that had woken me. Then a movement of something white caught my eye. I leaned forward over the broad windowsill, and saw that the pale flutter was Polly’s nightdress showing under a long cardigan. She was standing a little way from the open door of the barn, her feet in wellingtons, holding up a box in front of her.
My first thought was that she must be sleepwalking. I pulled on my own dressing gown and ran down the stairs. By the time I had struggled into boots and dashed outside, she had gone. I ran to the door of the barn and looked inside, wanting to call her name, but some folk memory was warning me that sleepwalkers shouldn’t be abruptly woken. Then I saw her again. She was on the other side of the yard gate, looking back at me. The light was getting stronger. Her eyes were open, and I realized she was fully conscious.
‘Polly?’
‘Come on,’ she called to me. When I reached her side I saw that she was smiling, and the breadth of that smile coupled with sleep-tangled hair and assortment of day and night clothes made me afraid for her.
‘What are you doing?’
She held up the plain carton.
‘Come with me. Let’s do it together.’
I realized then what was in the box. It was the ashes.
‘I don’t want any more ceremony and sorrow and the children’s tears. Let’s you and me go and do it.’
‘Now? Are you sure?’ I asked, ridiculously.
Polly was already running, swishing through the grass, wobbling in her loose wellies. I started after her.
We plunged into the wood. Drops of water rained down on us, wet grass soaked our clothes, mud slithered underfoot. It seemed hot, almost steamy, and the jungly depth of the forest scent, loam and soaking vegetation and earth, came close to choking me. A minute later we burst out into the open. The eastern sky was streaked with broad ribbons of pink and lemon cloud.
The two marquees were standing empty, flat shapes in the dim light. Panting for breath, Polly tore the lid off the box and threw it aside. She dipped her fist and came up with a handful of ashes. Then she spun in an exuberant circle, and flung an arc of dust against the sky.
‘Here,’ she said to me.
I copied her, plunging my hand into the box, and another handful of Selwyn’s ashes sprayed into the air, pattering over the grass and wildflowers.
The wildness of the moment took hold of us both. We began running fast, and then faster, bumping into each other as we took it in turns to dig into the contents of the box and broadcast them, tripping over hummocks and trampling the daisies, jumping over clumps of dock, clumsy on our feet, our wet clothes flapping around our knees and our breath ragged with exertion. The zigzag path that Polly took brought us finally to the white ropes that still enclosed the bare earth of the burial site.
Her hand dropped to her side. With the rope at her ankles she turned the now-empty box upside down, and then let it fall. She bent over and rested her hands on her knees, sucking in air. The sky was lightening with every minute.
I was getting my own breath back. A little way from where I stood I could see a faint rime of dust clouding some leaves. With the first stirring of a breeze, it would disappear.
Selwyn was gone, but yet he seemed close to us. He was here after all, near at hand, just as Jake had been at the burial yesterday.
Polly knelt and touched a corner of the ground inside the ropes.
When she stood up again she turned in the opposite direction, with her back to me, and bent her head.
Even so I looked away. Tears burned my eyes.
With a sudden flash of green and gold, the sun came up. The grass was instantly gilded, and the trees, and the grey canvas of the deserted marquees turned to rosy pink.
Polly touched my arm. She looked chilled, but calm again.
‘Thank you for doing this with me,’ she whispered.
‘Let’s go home,’ I said.
She picked up the empty box, and we searched the grass for the discarded lid. Afterwards we walked back through the copse, to the gate in the yard wall. I opened it for her and she passed through. We were both shivering, our sweaty and rain-damp clothes sticking to cold skin.
‘I am going to bed now,’ Polly said simply.
We had both been lying awake. Perhaps sleep would come more easily to both of us, after yesterday and this morning.
I watched her go inside, and then came into my own house. I left my wellies in the passage behind the stairs, under the line of empty coats and dented hats hanging from the pegs, and walked barefoot up to my bedroom.
Mead seems very lovely in the light of this summer morning. If I listen hard enough, I can hear the place breathe.
I rest my forehead against the cold windowpane. I am thinking about magic, and The Tempest. Lack of sleep has stretched my imagination, making it swell and sway, then break loose and drift like a bubble. I can see the princess crossing the meadow in her gold necklace, dressed in skins, with her red-brown hair bound in twisted ropes, her cup-bearer pacing at her heels.
Then, from across the fields I hear the bell of Meddlett church strike six, and I am anchored again.
Acknowledgements
With particular thanks to Georgie Fogg.
By the same author:
Celebration
Follies
Sunrise
The White Dove
Strangers
Bad Girls, Good Women
A Woman of Our Times
All My Sins Remembered
Other People’s Marriages
A Simple Life
Every Woman Knows a Secret
Moon Island
White
The Potter’s House
If My Father Loved Me
Sun At Midnight
Iris and Ruby
Constance
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
Copyright © Rosie Thomas 2010
Rosie Thomas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Set in Sabon by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire
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EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-32151-3
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