Diane Setterfield: The Thirteenth Tale

I followed him as he stepped off the central path and made his way into the maze of narrow borders between the graves. He stopped at a grave I had looked at before and laid down his flowers. The stone was a simple one.

JOAN MARY LOVE

NEVER FORGOTTEN

Poor Aurelius. He was so very weary. He hardly seemed to notice as I slipped my arm through his. But then he turned to face me fully. "Perhaps it's better not to have a story at all, rather than have one that keeps changing. I have spent my whole life chasing after my story and never quite catching it. Running after my story when I had Mrs. Love all along. She loved me, you know."

"I never doubted it." She had been a good mother to him. Better than either of the twins could have been. "Perhaps it's better not to know," I suggested.

He looked from the gravestone to the white sky. "Do you think so?"

"No."

"Then why suggest it?"

I slid my arm from his and tucked my cold hands under the arms of my coat. "It's what my mother would say. She thinks a weightless story is better than one that's too heavy." "So. My story is a heavy one." I said nothing, and when the silence grew long, I told him not his story but my own. "I had a sister," I began. "A twin." He turned to face me. His shoulders were solid and wide against the sky and he listened gravely to the story I poured out to him.

"We were joined. Here-" and I brushed my hand down my left side. "She couldn't live without me. She needed my heart to beat for her. But I couldn't live with her. She was draining my strength. They separated us, and she died."

My other hand joined the first over my scar, and I pressed hard. "My mother never told me. She thought it was better for me not to know." "A weightless story." "Yes." "But you do know." I pressed harder. "I found out by accident." "I am sorry," he said. I felt my hands taken by his, and he enclosed both of them into one great fist. Then, with his other arm, he drew me to him. Through layers of coats I felt the softness of his belly, and a rush of noise came to my ear. It is the beating of his heart, I thought. A human heart. By my side. So this is what it's like. I listened.

Then we drew apart.

"And is it better to know?" he asked me.

"I can't tell you. But once you know, it's impossible to go back."

"And you know my story."

"Yes."

"My true story."

"Yes."

He barely hesitated. Just took a breath and seemed to grow a little bigger.

"You had better tell me, then," he said.

I told. And while I told we walked, and when I finished telling we were standing at the place where the snowdrops were pointing through the whiteness of the snow.

With the casket in his hands, Aurelius hesitated. "I have a feeling this is against the rules."

I thought it was, too. "But what else can we do?"

"The rules don't work for this case, do they?"

"Nothing else would be right."

"Come on, then."

We used the cake knife to gouge a hollow in the frozen earth above the coffin of the woman I knew as Emmeline. Aurelius tipped the ashes into it, and we replaced the earth to cover them. Aurelius pressed down with all his weight, and then we rearranged the flowers to hide the disturbance.

"It will level out with the melting of the snow," he said. And he brushed the snow from his trouser legs.

"Aurelius, there is more to your story."

I led him to another part of the churchyard. "You know about your mother now. But you had a father, too." I indicated Ambrose's gravestone. "The A and the S on the piece of paper you showed me. It was his name. His bag, too. It was used for carrying game. That explains the feather."

I paused. It was a lot for Aurelius to take in. When after a long moment he nodded, I went on. "He was a good man. You are very like him."

Aurelius stared. Dazed. More knowledge. More loss. "He is dead. I see."

"That's not all," I said softly. He turned his eyes slowly to mine, and I read in them the fear that there was to be no end to the story of his abandonment.

I took his hand. I smiled at him.

"After you were born, Ambrose married. He had another child."

It took a moment for him to realize what it meant, and when he did, a jolt of excitement brought his frame to life. "You mean… I have… And she… he… she-"

"Yes! A sister!"

The smile grew broad on his face.

I went on. "And she has her own children in turn. A boy and a girl!"

"A niece! And a nephew!"

I took his hands into mine to stop them shaking. "h family, Aurelius.

Your family. You know them already. And they are expecting you."

I could hardly keep up with him as we passed through the lych-gate and strode down the avenue to the white gatehouse. Aurelius never looked back. Only at the gatehouse did we pause, and that was because of me.

"Aurelius! I almost forgot to give you this."

He took the white envelope and opened it, distracted by joy. He drew out the card and gave me a look. "What? Not really?" "Yes. Really." "Today?" "Today!" Something possessed me at that moment. I did something

I have never done in my life before and never expected to do, either. I opened my mouth and shouted at the top of my voice, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

I must have been a bit mad. In any case, I felt embarrassed. Not that Aurelius cared. He was standing motionless, arms stretched out on either side of him, eyes closed and face turned skyward. All the happiness in the world was falling on him with the snow.

In Karen's garden the snow bore the prints of chase games, small footprints and smaller ones following one another in broad circles. The children were nowhere to be seen, but as we got nearer we heard their voices coming from the niche in the yew tree. "Let's play Snow White." "That's a girls'story." "What story do you want to play?" "A story about rockets." "I don't want to be a rocket. Let's be boats." "We were boats yesterday." Hearing the latch of the gate, they peered out o( the tree, and with their hoods hiding their hair, you could hardly tell brother from sister. "It's the cake man!" Karen stepped out of the house and came across the lawn. "Shall I tell you who this is?" she asked the children as she smiled shyly at Aurelius. "This is your uncle."

Aurelius looked from Karen to the children and back to Karen, his eyes scarcely big enough to take in everything he wanted to. He was lost for words, but Karen reached out a tentative hand, and he took it in his.

"It's all a bit…" he began.

"Isn't it?" she agreed. "But we'll get used to it, won't we?"

He nodded.

The children were staring with curiosity at the adult scene.

"What are you playing?" Karen asked, to distract them.

"We don't know," the girl said.

"We can't decide," said her brother.

"Do you know any stories?" Emma asked Aurelius.

"Only one," he told her.

"Only one?" She was astounded. "Has it got any frogs in it?"

"No."

"Dinosaurs?"

"No."

"Secret passages?"

"No."

The children looked at each other. It wasn't much of a story, clearly.

"We know loads of stories," Tom said.

"Loads," she echoed dreamily. "Princesses, frogs, magic castles, fairy godmothers-" "Caterpillars, rabbits, elephants-" "All sorts of animals." "All sorts." They fell into silence, absorbed in shared contemplation of countless different worlds.

Aurelius watched them as though they were a miracle.

Then they returned to the real world. "Millions of stories," the boy said. "Shall I tellyou a story?" the girl asked. I thought perhaps Aurelius had had enough stories for one day, but he nodded his head.

She picked up an imaginary object and placed it in the palm of her right hand. With her left she mimed the opening of a book cover. She glanced up to be sure she had the full attention of her companions. Then her eyes returned to the book in her hand, and she began.