A Place of Secrets (3 page)

Safe back home now, she kicked off her shoes and went to fill the kettle, relaxed in her own company, though, in this pretty house, she never felt entirely alone. It
was the home that she and Mark had chosen together when they got engaged, where they’d lived together for the three short years of their marriage, and she still felt a strong sense of him, as though he’d walk back in at any moment. During the last couple of years, various people—her mother, her sister, Mark’s sister, Sophie—had begun to worry about this, suggesting she sell up, implying that it was
unhealthy to surround herself with all these memories; but apart from letting them sort out his clothes she did nothing. It reassured her to be among Mark’s things. The white-painted walls of the living room were still hung with the stunning photographs he’d taken—of the Patagonian wilderness, of Kilimanjaro and the Cairngorms—during climbing expeditions in the long holidays he’d enjoyed as a schoolteacher.
Some of their modern furniture, like the wrought-iron bedstead and the bright-patterned sofa, they’d picked together, but the Victorian oval mirror and the William de Morgan tiles in the fireplace were Jude’s choice. Mark liked new, Jude liked old. It was a joke between them. Whenever they went anywhere together—back home to Norfolk or for a day trip to the south coast—Jude would say,
“I’m just popping in here” and disappear into some mysterious emporium filled with fascinating treasures, leaving Mark to check out modern gizmos in the camping shop or the chandler’s. He’d laughed at some of her curios, particularly the small trio of Indian elephants, whose beady eyes had pleaded with her from a junk-shop window.

Drinking her coffee, she walked slowly around the living room,
stopping to turn the small antique globe on the sideboard and to pick up one of the ebony elephants, loving the warmth of the wood in her hand. “Elephants should always face the door or you’ll get bad luck,” she’d told Mark.

“Why the door?” he’d drawled, crossing his arms, the signal that he was putting on his skeptical-scientist act. That was another difference between them. She loved old legends
and superstitions; he was interested in debunking them. But they both enjoyed a lively discussion.

“It’s something Dad used to say. Perhaps they need to get out easily if there’s a fire or something.”

“I’ve never heard such a crazy idea,” Mark teased and they’d laughed.

They were so different from one another, but they were meant to be together. She’d always felt it. Ever since the first time
they met. So why had she been so cheated?

She dusted the little elephant and returned it carefully to its place.

The thought that today lay empty before her imparted a marvelous feeling. As she unpacked her shopping she considered what to do with the time. Walk up the hill to study the displays at the Royal Observatory, perhaps, and get herself into the mood for astronomy?

When she went to
stow the milk in the fridge her eye fell on a photograph of her niece, fastened to the door. Summer. The name suited the child’s fine honey-colored hair and blue eyes, her airy-fairy lightness. Extraordinary to think she’d be seven in August. It would be lovely if she could see her next weekend. She reached for the house phone and speed-dialed Claire’s work number.

“Star Bureau,” came her sister’s
brisk voice. Claire ran a small shop with a friend in the Norfolk market town of Holt. It sold gifts connected with stars and astrology. A nice sideline to this was a service enabling people to name a star. For a modest sum, they received a certificate giving the location and official serial number of the star and a framed poem she’d written called “Stardust,” which Jude thought didn’t quite
scan in the third line.

“It’s Jude. Are you madly busy?”

“Oh, it’s you! Just a moment … Linda, I’ll take this in the office … It’s my sister,” Jude heard her tell her business partner. Then, “I’d better be quick, Jude. The place is full of tourists. Hang on, move, cat.” Jude pictured Claire, small elfin face, whip thin, shooing Pandora, the black-and-white cat that accompanied her to work some
days. “I was going to ring you, Jude. Would you like to come and stay sometime? Summer’s been asking.” Summer, not Claire, Jude noted, then dismissed the thought as ungenerous.

“I was wondering about next weekend, actually. Are you likely to be around?”

“Now, let’s see. I’m in Dubai on Saturday with Piers and flying on to the Solomon Islands on Sunday with Rupert. Don’t be silly, of course I’m
around. When do I ever go anywhere?”

“Well, could I book myself in for Friday and Saturday nights? I’d have to leave early on Sunday.”

“Sure, it would be lovely to see you, if you don’t mind going in with Summer.”

“I love sleeping in Summer’s room. She doesn’t snore like you. How is my darling niece, by the way?”

“She’s all right.” Jude heard a slight catch in her sister’s voice. “She won
a magic star for her reading last week.”

“A
magic
star?”

“It’s when you get twenty-five ordinary stars.”

“Good old Summer.”

“Otherwise, oh, I don’t know, I’m a bit worried about her.”

“Oh no, why?”

“She’s not sleeping well. Keeps having bad dreams. I’m not sure you’ll want to sleep in with her, come to think of it.”

“What are the dreams about?”

“I’m not sure. All she tells me is, ‘I couldn’t
see you, Mummy.’”

A flash of childhood memory.
Where are you, Maman? I can’t see you
. Waking in a small London bedroom, streetlight shining through pale curtains and an insect buzzing away at the inside of the window.

She wrenched her attention back to what Claire was saying. “… the doctor couldn’t tell me. So I don’t know what to do now.”

“Sorry, what did the doctor say?”

“Nothing,” said
Claire irritably. “He said there was nothing wrong that he could see.”

“You
are
worried, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“Well, yes, of course I would.” She was used to Claire’s sharpness. There was no point taking offense. Claire was bringing up Summer on her own and sometimes the strain showed.

“Is she otherwise herself? She’s not ill or pining or anything?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. She
seems quite happy, in fact.”

“Perhaps it’s the stress of school, then,” said Jude doubtfully, not really knowing about these things, but Claire seemed satisfied with this idea.

“Maybe you’re right,” she agreed. “There’s an awful lot of tests and homework. And she’s the youngest in her year.”

“There’s so much pressure on them,” Jude added. “I was reading about the Swedish system where they don’t
even start school until they’re—”

“Jude, have you heard from Mum?”

“Not since she called last week to say they’d arrived in Malaga safely. You?”

“No,” said Claire bitterly, “but she wouldn’t ring me. I always have to ring her.”

“Don’t be daft,” Jude said wearily. Reassuring Claire that she was loved was one of her roles in the family—it always had been.

“Well it’s true. Look, I’d better go,
there’s a queue at the till.”

“Listen, quickly, how do you think Gran is? I’m going to stay with her on Thursday night.”

“Oh she’ll love that.” Claire’s voice softened. “She’s all right, Jude, a bit frail. Summer and I took her to buy shoes in Sheringham on Saturday. It was a bit of an ordeal. What are you doing down here in the middle of the week, then?”

“I know it’s a great coincidence, but
I’m visiting Starbrough Hall to value some stuff.”

“Starbrough Hall? Really? Well Gran will fill you in about that. Look, I’ve got to go.”

Jude put down the phone with the deep unsettling sense that there was something off-kilter.

And there was Summer to worry about. She couldn’t quite believe it yet, but she suspected her niece of having the same horrible dream that she had had as a child.

“Gran! Gran!” Someone was knocking. Jessie opened her eyes, for a moment confused. There was a face at the window. Not the wild girl. Little Judith. Jude, her granddaughter. She hadn’t been expecting her. “Yes, you had, Jessie, you silly old fool,” she muttered as she pushed herself up out of her chair. Jude had telephoned, said she was coming to stay on Thursday. Today was Thursday
and Mr. Lewis had brought her a nice bit of fish.

“Hello, I’m sorry to have woken you,” Jude said, when her grandmother opened the door. Peering through the window of the pretty flint cottage, she had worried for a moment seeing Gran slumped in a chair like that, mouth gaping in her wrinkled face, her thin hair coming down on all sides.

Inside, she put down her bags and kissed her grandmother’s
paper-dry cheek. Jessie stood at a loss for a moment, looking her granddaughter up and down with an expression of delighted wonder.

“Oh you do look lovely, dear. Very elegant.”

“Thank you,” said Jude, who was still in the smart linen skirt and jacket she’d worn for a business lunch.

She followed her grandmother into the kitchen, dismayed to see how bent over she was getting. Jessie was eighty-five
now—indeed the last time Jude had seen her was on her birthday in May, when the four generations of women—Gran, her mother, Valerie, Jude, Claire and little Summer—had all crowded into the living room for sandwiches and a lopsided birthday cake that Summer had helped bake and decorated herself. Later, Jessie had managed to hobble along the harbor on Jude’s arm. Now, seeing her grandmother
lean against the work surface for support as she fumbled with a battered tea caddy, she wondered for how much longer Gran would be able to leave her house unaided.

“Do let me help, Gran.”

Under Jessie’s instructions she poured boiling water into the familiar metal teapot, laid out Great-Granny’s porcelain teacups and carried the tray through to the living room.

Jessie lowered herself into her
easy chair with a little gasp. “I can’t get my breath sometimes,” she explained, seeing the concern in Jude’s face. “At least I’m not so dizzy today.”

“Dizzy? That doesn’t sound good.”

“Dr. Gable says it’s one of these viruses. Pass me that cushion, will you? He gave me some pills but I won’t take them.”

“Oh, Gran,” Jude chided as she helped her grandmother get comfortable.

“They make me feel
all peculiar. Raw egg with a bit of brandy in it—now that’s a good pick-me-up. Don’t worry, Jude, I’m just old bones, and there’s nothing can cure that. Now tell me all about yourself, dear. Much more interesting. Help yourself to a fondant fancy, won’t you? I know they’re your favorites.”

“Thank you,” Jude said, anxiously watching Gran wield the teapot. She sipped her tea and dutifully peeled
the paper off one of the gaudy cupcakes she’d loved when younger, but which as an adult she found sickly sweet. “I’m sorry I don’t get down here much. I’m crazily busy at work and then, well, the weekends fill themselves up. Seeing friends and so on,” she ended, feeling guilty.

“Anybody special?” Jessie looked shrewdly at her over the top of her teacup.

Jude hesitated, then smiled. “There is
a man on the scene, if that’s what you’re asking, Gran. It’s not serious, so don’t start hoping. I know what you and Mum are like.”

“Oh never mind us. Does he makes you happy, love?”

“I enjoy his company.”

“That’s not the same thing at all,” she said severely. “I worry about you, Jude.”

“I know you do, Gran. But you shouldn’t. I’m over the worst now.”

Gran contemplated her thoughtfully then
said, “These things aren’t easy to forget. Yet we must put them behind us and make the best of life. That’s something I’ve learned the hard way.”

Her grandmother had a faraway look in her eyes, as though distracted by something beyond the confines of the room.

“Gran?”

“Sorry, love. I was thinking of something.”

“From the past?”

“Yes. From long, long ago when I was little. I suppose, looking
at your old gran, you can’t believe she was little once, hey?”

Jude, seeing her grandmother’s wrinkled features transformed by a mischievous smile, said with spirit, “I certainly can.”

Gran looked delighted.

“Was it something sad or happy you were thinking about?” Jude pursued.

“It was both. Well, since you ask, I was remembering someone I used to know. You wouldn’t know her, Jude. It wouldn’t
mean anything to you.”

“It would, you know. Was this while you were living at Starbrough?”

“It was, yes. Once, when I was seven or eight, I met a girl in the forest near where I lived and we became friends.”

“Do tell me,” begged Jude.

“If you’ll have another of those cakes,” her grandmother said, and Jude meekly took one and bit into it.

“I didn’t know it then, but this girl was one of those
traveling folk, a proper Romany gypsy, so that’s why I’d see her for a few weeks or months and then not for a long while, a year maybe. Her name was Tamsin.”

She paused for breath and Jude said between mouthfuls, “What happened to her?”

“I was coming to that. One day when I was nine or ten she turned up at school. I went to school in Starbrough village, you know. We were all sitting there doing
our sums or whatever, and you could have blew me down when the door opened and the headmaster brought her in. Said she was a new pupil and, well, this was a red rag to a bull, he said she was a gypsy and we were to be kind to her.”

“Presumably you weren’t.” Jude noticed Gran’s country accent grew broader when she talked about the past.

“Some of them boys were the worst. It’s no surprise she
wasn’t very happy at school. Some of the other children thought her a fool. Called her names—said gypsies were thieves and the like. Got it from their parents probably, though I never heard that sort of nonsense at home. He had a word or two to say about poachers, my da, but he never blamed the gypsies more than any other. Anyway, I’m ashamed to say I was too frightened to be her friend at school.
I thought I’d get picked on too, you know how children can be. But sometimes in the holidays if your great-uncle Charlie and great-aunt Sarah and me went up to the folly I might see her and we often played together, happy as sandboys we’d be. It was like we had another sister. It didn’t seem to matter to her that we ignored her at school. I’ve often thought how unhappy we must have made her.”