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He held on. ‘Come home with me, Sarah.'

She pulled her hand away. ‘Look, I have to go.'

‘Please.'

‘Don't, Nicky.' She picked up her bag and began to leave.

Out on the pavement he caught up with her.

‘Nothing's changed, Sarah. I know what you've been through now, but nothing's changed. I love you just as much.'

She folded her head down on her chest, her eyes shut.

‘I love you, Sarah.'

She gave a sigh, a quiet sound of loss and tiredness.

‘Come home with me?'

He waited, nothing but the sound of the sea, the cold wind. Saw he might lose her, if she started walking away.

Then she nodded slightly. The faintest nod, just once. He moved closer and put his arms round her, relief flooding through his body. For a long time they stayed like that, leaning together on the pavement, swaying slightly.

‘Let's go home.'

They went back to her room to gather up her few things and then went out to the car parked in front of the curve of sand round the bay. He opened the door, but she didn't get in.

‘I think it will take time, Nicky. I think I'll need to talk to someone, and I don't want to hold you to something, if you think it's not working out.'

‘It's a new story, now. Not the old one. You get to write a new story. And I'll be there with you.' She thought about that. She put her hand on the curve of his cheek softly.

She slid into her seat. He ran round, got in, slammed the door, and they began the long drive home.

CHAPTER 35

Fourwinds, 1993

Alice was awake ridiculously early, as she often was now. But she felt well, her body cleared of last night's aches and nausea. The little canvas tent was full of sleep, the breath of the children mixed in with the smell of crushed grass. The sun through the canvas was too bright to let her doze off again.

She slid out of the sleeping bag, got her towel and then undid the nylon zip at the front of the tent, hoping its complaint would not wake the grandchildren, or Ralph who had found a night under canvas difficult, and was now out cold, his grey hair peeping grudgingly from a nest of sleeping bag.

Outside she zipped it up again carefully – they'd sleep for another hour or two – and then slid her legs into damp wellies, rolling her pyjama bottoms over the top. The air was cold on her bare scalp, the sun spreading carmine and orange over her hands, lighting up the dewfall, everything delineated with the clear intensity of a new morning.

Barely five o'clock, no one else about. She walked down through the paddock that ran along the side of Fourwinds. A low sun dazzled through the hedges, transforming the field of autumn grasses into a sea of light flecks, the tents here and there, rising up like small islands.

It was for the grandchildren that they'd agreed to spend the night under canvas. Ralph had cited what the doctor would have to say
about that, but Alice had said they were going to camp, even though they had a whole perfectly good house right there. And it wasn't cold, the summer lasting well into September, like a gift. All the same Ralph had insisted on collecting layers and layers of extra bedding for the tent and had dragged a foam mattress down from the loft.

The gathering of students who'd first sung together that weekend at the beginning of the war, had continued to meet each year at Yarnton. And after Daniel had passed away and the Yarnton estate was sold, the gathering moved to Fourwinds. Over time people began to bring children with them, and now grandchildren. This year it was going to be a work by Britten,
Noye's Fludde
, for the children.

She walked to the end of the paddock and down through a gap in the laurel hedge, into a small, secluded garden, the dark laurels and the sweet box hedges screening it on three sides. To the west a gap in the hedge looked out over the Dove plains, the hill falling steeply away beyond the fence.

And there it was, sunk down in the middle of the lawn, its rim level with the grass, two chrome taps standing up incongruous among the green. Nicky had installed the bath there a few months ago. She smiled to think of him lying out under the stars, a glass of wine in one hand no doubt. It was so like Nicky to do things his own way – and then make you wonder why no one had thought of it before.

It was the same with the barn that now stood in the lower paddock beyond the laurels; that had also been Nicky's idea. After the great storm had taken down several of the oaks along the top field, it was Nicky who'd suggested letting them dry out and then building with them. He'd constructed the barn in the old medieval way, entirely without nails; no one in England had built anything like it for a thousand years. Inside was the large, warm space where Nicky and Sarah now lived with the children.

Nicky and Sarah and Ralph had all raved to her about the bath
in the garden as something almost Zen; the night sky clear and sharp with stars; the quiet; the pool of candlelight in the middle of the lawn; the steam white mist against the darkness. She'd meant to try it. But then came the visits to the hospital, and no one had mentioned it as a good idea after that. She had started to think in terms of things she wouldn't do any more.

But awake so early and feeling perfectly well, she'd thought why not? Why shouldn't she? Today she would do something for the first time.

She had to swill a little mud from the bottom of the bath. The water was hot as she filled it, the steam rising. It would cool quickly. She pulled over a garden chair and folded her clothes and the towel on the seat. She stood shivering, the cool morning breeze slipping round her white skin, over the marble pucker of the scar across her chest. The laurels cast a long shade over the lawn, a burst of orange sunlight through the leaves. There was a line of sun on her arm, but failing to promise any real heat.

Holding on to the chair she stepped down into the bath, carefully lowered herself into the water and lay down, the grass at eye level. She stretched out, her head lying against the rim, her light frame buoyed up as if she might float away. She watched her white body lengthen and retreat like a mirage under the water, making strange bends where her arms and legs passed from air to water. She shut her eyes and let the warmth rock her until the momentum of her disturbance settled. She felt the stillness all around, the birds' watery song in the air, the smell of autumn leaf mould from the laurel hedge. She lay unmoving, her body long and white, the earth by her face, the tang of the soil in her nostrils. The sudden cry of a bird gunning through the hedges.

Someone was coming along the path. The crunch of gravel. Ralph was calling her name. She sat up with a sudden rush of water and the cold came in like a pressure. She gasped.

He helped her stand up, her skin running with rivulets, wrapped the towel round her pale, amorphous body.

‘I didn't know where you'd gone,' he said.

‘You shouldn't worry.'

‘I do,' a little angry now. ‘I do worry. If you'd fallen.'

‘Ralph. Darling, I'm fine. But what have you done with the children?'

‘Inside.' He nodded at the barn, its roof just visible beyond the laurel hedges. ‘Come on, old thing, I'm taking you in too, so you can get warmed up.'

When Ralph had woken and found Alice gone he'd struggled up, unbent his limbs after a night on the floor and walked round the tent outside to see if he could spot her returning. The noise had the children awake and up, asking where Granny Alice had gone, ready for the next adventure. He took them with him to the main house first, curtains still drawn, no one up, then decided to try the barn. No sign of her there either.

Feeling an undeniable anxiety now, a shadow of dread, he settled the children with bowls of cereal at the table. Where on earth could she be? And then, by some instinct, a feeling for the way Alice thought, he hurried out to the paddock. Alice lying motionless in the water. He'd lurched forward, a burst of relief to see her sit up in a rush of bathwater.

Ralph made sure she was safely installed on the red velvet sofa, a blanket tucked round her legs and a mug of hot coffee on the table nearby – still feeling a bit cross with her. She was looking drowsy now, her head wrapped in a bright scarf, leaning against the sofa's back.

Agnes and Ben in pyjamas and muddy wellies were singing and chattering with the energy of small children at half past six in the morning. The barn was filled with the light flooding through a wall
of windows, the living space busy with all the usual clutter that went with two children, bookshelves and toys and scattered clothes.

Nicky and Sarah's wedding had been a simple affair – three years after the wedding that never happened. Sarah had worn a shift dress sewn from a length of white Indian muslin bordered with small gold embroidery. Carrying roses and orange blossom from the garden, and with a beaming smile, she'd walked down the middle of the old church on Peter's arm. She and Nicky, facing each other, made promises learned by heart. Family and close friends walked to a small reception in the hall next to the church, sandwiches and quiches made by ladies in the village. Queenie, who now owned a teashop in Devon, had arrived with a two-layer chocolate wedding cake as her gift, made by the baking genius who did the scones and fairy cakes in her kitchens.

Sarah and Nicky had settled for a while in the US, but every so often they talked about coming home, perhaps to a village near Fourwinds. Then the storm and the oak trees, and the idea of the barn had taken root.

At one end, beyond the sofas, was the door through to Nicky's office where he ran his thriving architect business. Sarah was busy with the children most days, or travelled into town twice a week where she worked as a counsellor in a hospital clinic. You forgot what energy the young had. It had been a relief to hand on the running of the festival to the next generation, to the three boys and their wives. Especially now.

When Alice had finished her snooze, knocked out as she was by the hot water and the brisk morning air, they should walk over to Fourwinds and see how things were going with the rest of the family. And perhaps there'd be news. Perhaps Melissa would have called, left a message.

At the far end of the barn rows of masks of animals and birds were lined up on decorating trestles. Ralph took his coffee over and
picked up the red sequinned mask of a bird of paradise. Strands of red down curled from the ends like eyelashes. Agnes followed him and picked up a dove's mask. She put it on, her blue eyes looked out through the eye holes, her serious gaze among the feathers uncanny. He thought of angels.

Footsteps came down the wooden staircase from the loft area, Sarah in a striped dressing gown, her hair in a messy ponytail.

‘You're here, and up so early. Who woke who up?' She laughed and looked at Agnes in muddy wellies and a bird mask. Took the mask away and let Agnes rest her hand on her side as the child kicked off her boots. Agnes wanted to be picked up and Sarah carried her over to the sofa where Alice was opening her eyes.

‘I'm cooking bacon rolls. How does that sound?'

‘Lovely, darling.'

‘And for you, Ralph?'

He nodded. ‘Yes please. I'll lay the table. Want to help me, old man?' Ralph and Ben put out eight plates, bowls, cutlery.

Nicky came clattering down the stairs, and then Peter and Patricia. Patricia wore her hair as a short silver cap, half-spectacles on her nose. Agnes immediately brought a book over for her to read a story, having detected Patricia's weakness in that area as an off-duty headmistress, and the two of them sat turning the pages at the breakfast table, as orange juice, bacon rolls and ketchup circulated.

Sarah and Nicky studied the food roster, his hand resting on the small of her back in that easy way they had of being together, discussing deliveries of bread rolls and beef burgers for the evening meal – a giant barbeque on metal half-drums.

Ralph got up to fetch the coffee and more milk, but ended up standing at the window, looking up towards the shared drive.

Alice half opened her eyes. ‘Don't worry, she'll be here,' she murmured. Even with her eyes closed Alice had a rare talent for
knowing what he was thinking. ‘What time did she say she was arriving?'

‘She didn't give a time. Said as soon as she could get here.'

‘She'll be here.'

There were a lot of rehearsals in the morning. The children waited behind the barn in their costumes, ready for their cue to come running out. Kept getting it wrong. The woolly tights and jumpers they wore were too hot in the sunshine.

For the first time Alice wasn't playing her violin. You had to commit to the rehearsals, and the way things had been, well. But it was fine as Mark's wife, Parthivi, a doctor who also happened to be an excellent violinist, had stepped in. It was nice to just sit and listen. Ralph sat with her under the shade of the open-sided marquee that had been erected ready for the audience, half listening to God commanding Noah to do something, Noah complaining back in an aggrieved baritone. You had to concentrate to really follow the words. The text was a medieval mystery play as old as the church next door, the story older still by thousands of years. But the continuity felt soothing. He thought of Britten wading through his flooded house on the Suffolk coast, taking in the news of all the people who'd been lost the night before in the roaring sea tides, the first bars of the music coming to him as he slopped over to the piano. He'd included parts for beginner recorders for the children and the old sea hymns that were sung with such fervour in the churches along the coast. It was an opera the whole village could take part in.