Evie (24 page)

At Lower Post Stone Georgina enters her son’s bedroom. He is still sleeping, one arm flung across his pillow, an unravelling Piglet, knitted by Rose Crocker, is propped, as usual, against his bedhead. On his pinboard, amongst pictures of cricketers, footballers, several horses and a springer spaniel named Jim, is the snapshot of Evie.

Since Christopher has brought his wife and children back from New Zealand to occupy Lower Post Stone Farm, news of Evie and Giorgio, married at last and settled in his native Italy, has become infrequent, confined, as the years have passed, to a Christmas letter to Alice Bayliss. One of Giorgio’s younger brothers has been widowed, leaving two motherless babies whom Evie has lovingly absorbed into her life and is happily raising, within the heart of the huge, chaotic Zingaretti family. Alice has shown Georgina the latest photographs of what Evie calls ‘
meie bambini
,’ the small, dark-eyed boy and girl who sit, one on each of Evie’s knees, smiling into the camera lens while Giorgio looks on, approvingly. ‘Uncle’, they call him, ‘
Zio Giorgio
’ and Evie is ‘
Zia Eva
’, their aunt.

Georgina removes the snapshot of the twelve-year-old Evie from the board. Is it her imagination, or is it fading almost visibly as she holds it carefully in her hands? Is it possible, even probable, now that it is exposed again to
air, light and changing temperatures, that it will become brittle? Crumble into nothing? Cease to exist? It has already outlived its relevance. Its survival over the past twelve years, has depended, almost freakishly, on circumstances that have resulted in its preservation in a rotting leather wallet, inside Norman Clark’s mouldering, military kitbag, abandoned in the apex of an arched bridge across this tributary of the river Exe.

Georgina considers her options, trusting the same instincts and logic that have influenced all her decisions, to clarify and resolve this one.

She makes her way quietly through the familiar farmhouse, conscious of its echoes and of the shadows of those who have peopled it. She crosses the yard, the low sun warm on her skin.

Sitting on the parapet of the bridge, with the familiar, morning sounds reaching her from the yard and the valley beyond it, she accepts that this decision is not hers to make but simply to recognise. She will let the ceaseless passage of the stream, as it moves noisily away, along the valley floor, resolve this story. She looks for a while at the smudged blur that was, once upon a time, Evie. The quiet one. The one no one noticed.

The farmhouse is awake now. Pom emerges and makes for the barn, an egg basket in his hand. Jim, the springer, follows him, sees Georgina, stops, stretches elaborately, fore and aft and comes, wagging towards her. She hears the sound of the Land Rover approaching from the higher farm. Christo, arriving back for his breakfast.

Georgina leans out, over the low parapet of the bridge, the snapshot between finger and thumb. And lets it drop. Watching as it slides down the air, reaches the moving water, hesitates for a moment, like a fallen leaf, on the surface, before the current takes it, turns it, twists it briefly and then draws it down into deeper, fast-flowing water, where it will swiftly disintegrate amongst the river stones.

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J
ULIA
S
TONEHAM
began her career as a stage designer before moving into writing. She was a regular writer on
The House of Eliott
and her radio series,
The
Cinderella Service
, was nominated for a Sony Award. She is the author of three previous novels,
Muddy Boots & Silk Stockings, The Girl at the Farmhouse Gate
and
Alice’s Girls.

Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings

The Girl at the Farmhouse Gate

Alice’s Girls

Evie