Kate Morton - The Distant Hours

‘I don’t know. You’re pretty handy with the secateurs.’

There was a pause and she smiled sideways at me, but not completely naturally, and I had the feeling there was something more she wanted to say. I waited, but whatever it was, she decided against it, soon turning back to stare at the glass pane.

I made a half-hearted attempt to engage her in further conversation about her school days, hoping, I suppose, that it might lead to mention of Thomas Cavill, but she didn’t take the bait. She said only that she’d enjoyed school well enough and asked me whether I’d like a cup of tea.

The single virtue of Mum’s abstraction at that time, was that I was spared having to discuss my break-up with Jamie. Repression being something of a family hobby, Mum didn’t ask for details; neither did she drown me in platitudes. She kindly let us both cling to the myth that I’d made a purely selfless decision to come home and help her with Dad and the house.

The same, I’m afraid, could not be said of Rita. Bad news travels swiftly and my aunt is nothing if not a foul-weather friend, so I expect I shouldn’t have been surprised when I arrived at the Roxy Club for Sam’s hen night only to be accosted at the door. Rita tucked her arm through mine and said, ‘Darling, I’ve heard. Now don’t you worry; you’re not to think it means you’re old and unattractive and destined to be alone for the rest of your life.’

I waved to let the waiter know I was ready to place a rather stiff drink order and realized, with a vague sinking sensation, that I was actually envying my mother her evening at home with Dad and his bell.

‘Lots of people meet “the one” in their later years,’ she continued, ‘and they’re made very happy indeed. Just look at your cousin over there.’ Rita pointed at Sam, who was grinning at me past the G-string of a bronzed stranger. ‘Your turn will come.’

‘Thanks, Auntie Rita.’

‘Good girl.’ She nodded in approval. ‘You have a good time now and put it all behind you.’ And she was about to move on to spread her cheer elsewhere when she grabbed my arm. ‘Almost forgot,’ she said, ‘I’ve brought something for you.’ She dug inside her tote and pulled out a shoebox. The picture on the side was of an embroidered pump slipper, the sort my gran would have cherished, and although it seemed rather an unlikely gift, I had to admit they looked comfy. And not impractical: I was, after all, spending a lot of nights in these days.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘How kind.’ And then I lifted the lid and saw that the box didn’t contain slippers at all, but was half-filled with letters.

‘Your mum’s,’ said Auntie Rita with a devilish smile. ‘Just like I promised. You have a good old read of those, won’t you? Cheer yourself up.’

And although I was thrilled by the letters, I felt a curl of dislike for my Auntie Rita then, on behalf of the small girl whose handwriting swirled and looped in earnest lines across the fronts of the envelopes. The young girl whose older sister had deserted her during the evacuation, slinking off to be housed with a friend, leaving little Meredith to fend for herself.

I put the lid back on, anxious suddenly to get the letters out of that club. They didn’t belong there amidst the bump and grind; the unedited thoughts and dreams of a little girl from long ago; the same young girl who’d walked beside me in the corridors of Milderhurst; whom I hoped to know better one day. When the novelty straws appeared, I made my excuses and took the letters home to bed.

All was black as pitch when I arrived and I tiptoed carefully up the stairs, fearful of waking the sleeping bell-ringer. My desk lamp imparted a dusky glow, the house made queer nocturnal noises and I sat on the edge of the bed, shoebox on my lap. This was the moment, I suppose, when I might have done things differently. Two roads forked away from me and I could have followed either. After the merest hesitation, I lifted the lid and pulled the envelopes from within, noticing as I leafed through that they were arranged carefully by date. A photograph dropped loose onto my knees, two girls grinning at the camera. The smaller, darker one I recognized as my mother – earnest brown eyes, bony elbows, hair cut in the short, sensible style my gran favoured – the other, an older girl with long blonde hair. Juniper Blythe, of course. I remembered her from the book I’d bought in Milderhurst village; this was the child with the luminous eyes, all grown up. With a surge of determination, I put the photograph and letters safely back into the box, all except the first, which I unfolded. The letter was dated September 6th, 1939; neat printing in the top right-hand corner.

Dear Mum and Dad, it began, in large, rounded handwriting,

I miss you both lots and lots. Do you miss me? I’m in the country now and things are very different. There are cows for one thing – did you know they really do say ‘moo’? Very loudly. I almost jumped out of my skin, the first one I heard.

I am living in a castle, a real one, but it doesn’t look the way you might imagine. There is no drawbridge, but there is a tower, and three sisters and an old man who I don’t see, ever. I only know he’s there because the sisters talk about him. They call him Daddy and he’s a writer of books. Real ones, like in the lending library. The youngest sister is called Juniper, she’s seventeen and very pretty with big eyes. She’s the one who brought me to Milderhurst. Did you know that’s what gin is made from, by the way – juniper berries?

There is a telephone here, too, so maybe if you have the time and Mr Waterman at the shop doesn’t mind, you could…

I’d reached the end of the first page but didn’t turn it over. I sat motionless, as if I were listening very carefully to something. And I was, I suppose; for the little girl’s voice had drifted from the shoebox and was echoing now in the shadow-hung hollows of the room. I’m in the country now … they call him Daddy … there is a tower, and three sisters … Letters are special like that. Conversations waft away the moment they’ve been had, but the written word prevails. Those letters were little time travellers; fifty years they’d lain patiently in their box, waiting for me to find them.

The headlights from a car in the street outside threw slivers between my curtains, tinsel shards slid across the ceiling. Silence, dimness again. I turned the page and read on, and as I did so a pressure built behind my chest, as if a warm, firm object were being pushed hard from within against my ribs. The sensation was a little like relief and, oddly, the quenching of a strange sort of homesickness. Which made no sense, only that the girl’s voice was so familiar that reading the letters was a little like re-meeting an old friend. Someone I’d known a long time ago…

London, September 4th, 1939

Meredith had never seen her father cry. It wasn’t something fathers did, not hers certainly (and he wasn’t actually crying, not yet, but it was close), and that’s how she knew for sure that it was wrong what they’d been saying, that this was no adventure they were going on and it wouldn’t be over soon. That this train was waiting to take them away from London and everything was about to change. The sight of Dad’s big, square shoulders shaking, the strong face knotted queerly, his mouth pulled so tight that his lips threatened to disappear, and she wanted to wail just as hard as Mrs Paul’s baby when he needed feeding. But she didn’t, she couldn’t, not with Rita sitting right there at her side just waiting for another reason to pinch her. Instead, she lifted a hand and her father did the same, then she pretended someone was calling her and turned around so that she didn’t have to watch him any longer, so they could both stop being so horribly brave.