A Place for Us (43 page)

“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.”

Violet Heron paused for a moment, as if wanting to say something, and then she took off her hat, gave it to him. “Take it. For the walk. It was my husband’s. I have my own and I’d like you to have it. It’ll fit you.”

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
W
INTERFOLD
,
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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