‘Good. I was worried about you on your own. Sorry I couldn’t get out of this appointment.’
‘Actually, it turns out I’m okay on my own here. It’s different to being back home. No memories of you know who and although Tasha and you and Rita think it’s haunted, there’s a real sense of peace here.’
‘We’re all ultra-sensitive girls!’
‘Did you know that Tasha senses figures under the willow tree sometimes?’
‘No, I didn’t. She’s obviously bonded with you.’
‘Wouldn’t it be nice to feel that you’re being watched over and protected?’
She paused and closed her eyes for a second.
‘I’ve never believed in all that stuff, but here it almost feels possible. My Mum would be thrilled. She’s adamant that Dad’s watching over us all. I’ve always thought she was deluding herself because she wanted it so badly, but here – and don’tlaugh because I know this sounds weird – but here it feels as if someone has put an arm around my shoulders and is whispering to me that everything is going to be all right. I sound completely flaky, don’t I?’
Carrie laughed.
‘No! I’m the flaky one, remember.’
‘And I’m really worried that I might be turning into my mother! I was even thinking of going for a walk this afternoon, up to the Longstone, which is exactly what she’d be doing.’
‘Jules, she’d have done that the moment she arrived here, so you’ve still got some catching up to do on that front.’
Jules wrinkled up her nose and felt a small smile tease the corners of her lips.
‘Don’t suppose you’re free, are you?’
‘Blissfully, which is one of the reasons I was ringing, to suggest the same thing, a walk of some sort and the Longstone is the perfect place because I can bring you back through the woods into The Manor gardens and we can have tea on the lawn like two ladies of leisure.’
Carrie stopped talking suddenly.
‘Or we can go back to the cottage if you don’t want to mingle.’
Jules leaned her head back against the chair and studied the beams on the ceiling with all of their knots and chips, bits shaved off here, other strengthening pieces added there. The main beam across the centre of the room had probably once been part of a ship, Guy had said. Maybe the mast, Jules thought, with beautiful linen sails unfurling from it and a fair wind blowing the boat in the right direction. Was that what was happening to her? By some quirk of fate, was her misfortune actually blowing her in the right direction, not one she would have chosen, but one which had been chosen for her by something or someone with more knowledge of what she needed. Goodness me, shewasturning into her mother. Outside the window a robin landed onthe sill and looked her in the eye. The day after her father died there had been three robins on the rockery at home.
‘I’ve never seen that before,’ Beulah had said. ‘It must be a sign.’
‘A sign of what, Mum?’ Jules had snapped back. ‘A sign that there’s a robin’s nest in the hedge?’
Her mother had looked hurt.
‘I know you want to lash out, Jules, and I understand that, but I believe that your father is still here with us. It might help if you could open yourself up to that possibility, too.’
And Jules had pushed Beulah away, so hard that she’d staggered back against the table and cut the back of her head. They had both stood there, Beulah’s hand smeared with blood from where she’d put her hand up to her crown. Jules hadn’t even said sorry. She’d just run out and up to her room and thrown herself on to the bed in a torrent of desperate tears, leaving her sister to sort out the wound. On the day of her father’s funeral a robin had swooped down and landed on his coffin just before it entered the crematorium.
‘Jules, look,’ her mother had said. ‘Didn’t I tell you he was still with us?’
Jules had shaken her head in disbelief, and the robin had flown away.
‘Jules, are you still there?’ Carrie asked.
‘Yes, sorry. Just thinking. I think mingling might do me good as long as I don’t have to talk to anyone for too long.’
‘I’ll have a bite to eat at home, nip in to see Guy’s gran and take her some shopping I’ve picked up and then I’ll be with you.’
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ Jules said.
She was in the garden, sketching, when Carrie arrived.
