She followed the lane, walking beside coppiced hedging cut back to encourage low growth, and noticing that the dips and hollows of the Cotswold countryside were at their best, gleaming in myriad shades of green. On the higher banks above the grassy verges, sheep were grazing in the patchwork of small green fields and above her the sky, with its mixture of blue, grey and white, glittered with moisture caught by the sun. She carried on up to the woods at the top of the hill behind the big house, where large trees marched across the horizon in a gloomy military manner. After passing through them she ran down the other side into the old bluebell woods, where as a child she would often roll in the beautiful sea of blue beneath a bright green canopy and where, later in the year, the smell of wild garlic drifted.
When she grew tired and her feet and legs ached from the exertion, she sat on a log and tried to imagine a future with Clifford. She still wanted to do so much more with her photography. Give a voice to the voiceless. That was the thing. In a more positive state of mind, she became brighter and remembered how her camera made her forget everything else. She decided she’d maybe walk to the valley on the other side of Cleeve Hill, and take pictures there, or follow the deep dark tree-lined road going down to Winchcombe, or perhaps even climb up to Belas Knap, the ancient long barrow that she had loved since childhood.
During the day walking soothed her brain; during daylight hours the present was manageable.
As May turned into June she was relieved that Anna had stopped drinking and seemed well enough to sit in the garden. One day as they sat out there with just a light breeze warranting a cardigan, she asked Anna about her stay in hospital.
Her mother gave a little laugh. ‘It was quite nice.’
She had spoken lightly, as if she’d been talking about a short visit to Weston-super-Mare.
Eliza had decided to probe a little further and touched her mother’s sleeve, as if to say, come on Mum, talk to me. ‘They dried you out, didn’t they?’
‘I suppose. I haven’t had a single drink since you came home.’
I wish this could have happened sooner, Eliza thought in the silence that followed. But now that her mother was more alert and at last confronting the truth there could be a chance of something, however small.
‘I’m pleased you’re a bit better,’ Eliza said. ‘Really pleased.’
‘It’s been lonely. I’ve been lonely.’
‘I’m here now.’
No more was said then, but Eliza glanced at her fragile mother and felt sad at heart.
Still she cared for her ailing mother solicitously, and Anna’s favourite occupation became sitting with Eliza and reminiscing about the old days.
‘Do you remember the wonderful early days in Delhi?’ Anna said one late afternoon when the shadows were lengthening.
Eliza thought about it. She remembered the monkeys everywhere, climbing on walls in the garden, scampering up trees and sometimes even coming into the kitchen to steal food. She had loved the monkeys.
‘And the garden?’ Anna said.
‘All those bright flowers?’
‘Yes, them.’
Eliza glanced at Anna and saw tears in her eyes.
‘It was good, Mum, India was good. Do you remember all the shops in Chandni Chowk?’
Anna smiled. ‘Selling everything.’
‘Yes. Snake oil, Dad used to say.’
‘He did.’
And so the days passed, but at night the loss of Jay disturbed her rest. Even her snatches of sleep were broken by dreams of explosions and she would see him covered from head to toe in black dust, sometimes dead, sometimes alive. At night she wrote letters. It was all she could do without waking her mother and she wrote many, many letters to Jay, that in the morning she tore up and stuffed into the old wood burner. When her mother complained of the smell she said, ‘Oh, it’s just the burner, just the burner getting old.’ She had to do something to rid herself of the hurt, had to find a way to escape her own mind, but the questions kept spinning. What would really happen when she married Clifford? What if she could not stop herself shrinking back?
The constriction in Eliza’s chest did not diminish.
But Gloucestershire’s rolling hills and valleys were lovely, as they always were at this time of year, with the hedgerows bursting and all the trees fresh and green. The blue sky was a comfort to Eliza, as were the gently moist air and mild sunshine, so different from Rajputana’s scorching heat and dry burning air. While her mother slept, she told herself over and over that it was for the best and that no matter how long it were to take she would stay with Anna.
As the dull, detached days passed, Jay’s words repeated in her head.I love you, Eliza.She told herself she would get over him. She would take beautiful photographs and that would heal her. She would be safe behind the camera lens. She would look out at a world that couldn’t look back. She decided, as she had done as a child, that pain was better withheld, untouched, controlled, and while she might never experience true happiness again, she had her memories.
Anna ate almost nothing, but when Eliza suggested her mother might like to accompany her on one of her walks, Anna gave a little nod and suggested a picnic. They left the house by way of a gate at the back of the small garden that led to a cobbled pathway, skirting one of James Langton’s orchards. As a child, one of Eliza’s favourite pastimes had been to climb the gnarled apple trees and sit in the branches munching on stolen fruit. It had given her a secret kind of pleasure but had come to an end when James found her there, ordering her down immediately. He didn’t approve of children climbing his precious apple trees. With a hammering heart she had scrambled down too fast and, though she had done it many times before, her foot had caught behind a branch and she had tipped out of the tree. Nothing broken, but she’d badly twisted an ankle and received a series of lectures about the evils of girls climbing trees.
Now, after a few hundred yards, the two of them veered off into the orchard and Eliza spread out an old tartan blanket for Anna to sit on. Eliza opened the lid of the small picnic basket.
