Catriona smiled in return. ‘Strong opinions weakly held, that’s me.’
‘Besides, you’re a veggie, but I bet you don’t go in for the rest of the stuff that Mum does. The meetings, the protest marches, the posters.’
‘No, I don’t have any interest in activism. I hadn’t realised that Flora did.’
‘Yeah, course. Green Party, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, CND, Animal Rights, you name it, she was into it. Out every evening at meetings some weeks she was.’ She paused, a bitter twist to her mouth and a surprisingly adult look of world-weariness on her face. ‘Sometimes I used to say to her that she was more keen on saving the planet than caring for her own daughter.’
‘And what did she reply?’
‘She got really mad. I told you how scary she can be. She said she had as much right to her own life as I did, and that I had everything anyone could possibly want. And besides, there were important issues in the world that needed people strong enough to fight for them. Well, she’s certainly strong, is my Mum. And a fighter. She even got arrested once. Did you know that?’
‘No, she never told me.’
‘No, I bet. It was a demo about GM crops which got ugly when they started trashing the field. Mum wouldn’t talk about it afterwards, but a boy at school said that his uncle, who’s a policeman, said that she was dead lucky not to get done for assault. She went for a copper with a spade, and it was only because he dodged quickly and wasn’t hurt, and she was a woman – and a good-looking one, not a battle-axe in a boiler-suit – so that he thought his mates would laugh at him, that she was let off with a caution.’
‘So she must have had friends, acquaintances in these various organisations?’
The girl shot her a swift and suspicious look. ‘What do you mean, friends?’
‘What do you think I mean? People with whom she shared common interests, people she liked, people she rated.’
Her niece was shaking her head. ‘Mum may be a bit loopy, but she isn’t so stupid as to think that the Stroud veggie and sandals community contains a single person within it with any more chance of saving the world than a crippled hamster. As for … well, she had a bit more taste there.’
‘More taste where?’
But Charlotte was, irritatingly, pretending she couldn’t hear. ‘Look, there’s a van over there. I could murder an ice-cream.’
The last night, Charlotte called in to say goodnight. The child’s body, which in daytime activity seemed so powerfully present and alive, seemed small and shrunken under the covering of the single sheet in the big bed.
‘Mum used to read me stories when I was little. About rabbits and hares and badgers and moles and water rats, living cosy little lives in burrows and hollow trees. And I’d imagine that my bed was a burrow, and I’d snuggle down, and I woke up to find it was morning before I ever realised I’d been asleep. I felt so warm and safe. Now I lie awake, and I know that there aren’t any burrows to hide in. The Wild Wood isn’t a place you can avoid. It’s everywhere.’
‘I’m afraid it is.’
‘That means that everywhere you go, there are things waiting to attack you. You can’t trust anybody, can you? Not even people you thought would never let you down?’
‘You’ve had a bad experience lately, one of the worst it’s possible for anyone to have. You feel let down, abandoned, betrayed. But there is still hope and trust to be found in the world. You have to believe that.’
‘Is there? Where do I start to find it? Can I trust you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you be someone I could always rely on, no matter what? Would you promise it? Would you promise as long as you live never to let me down?’
She hesitated before replying. ‘That kind of promise is very difficult to keep. A lifetime is, I hope, a long time. Circumstances might intervene. I might be too sick, or too old one day to help you.’
‘But if it were in your power?’
‘If it were in my power.’
‘Will you promise me then? That as long as you live, if it’s in your power, you’ll never let me down, that you’ll always be there for me?’ The child’s small hand grasped hers and she gave it an answering squeeze.
‘I promise.’ The words seemed to echo in the darkness of the room.
She remembered the night when she, hardly more than a child herself, had sworn never to have children, never to be a mother. And unlike so many solemn oaths uttered by children in the dead of night, Catriona had kept hers. Now here it was, broken in spirit.
The child sat up suddenly, threw her slim arms around her aunt’s neck, and pressed her full warm lips upon hers.
‘Sealed with a kiss. Thank you, dearest Cat.’ She sank back against the pillow, as if exhausted by the effort the forging of the new bond between them had cost. Drowsily, she continued, ‘I wish I’d made Mum promise, instead of just assuming. If I’d made her promise to send for me if she ever went away, then she would have had to. Instead of which she’s too busy to think of me. Too busy fucking Frank.’
It was as if a cold finger had touched her spine. ‘Who’s Frank, Charlotte?’ she asked as casually as she could.
‘Frank Churchill. He teaches some art classes at our school. His daughter is there, too, a couple of years ahead of me. That must be how Mum met him. A real poser. Everyone knows he has it off with just about every attractive woman he bumps into. And he’s a big-head about his sculpture. About how he’s received a new commission, which he’s working on in his studio. Sounds posh till you know it’s a poxy rat-hole. Actually, he spends most of his time drinking with a load of other layabouts in the Fleece in Stroud.’
‘And you think that he and your mother are …’
When the girl replied, her voice had become husky, as if she were going to cry. ‘Yeah, course. Don’t you know? Didn’t Mum ever tell you? Frank is definitely her boyfriend. She’s gone off with him, it’s obvious.’
‘But why do you think that? Did she tell you? Your mother never ever mentioned this Frank to me. What’s more, she never even hinted that she had a … that she was seeing someone.’
‘I found out by accident. One afternoon, our class was in Stroud doing a project on industrial archaeology. It was her day off, so I was surprised to see her. She seemed very much in a hurry, so she never saw me. She went into the old woollen mill off the High Street, the one that’s been turned into arty-farty workshops. She was using a key to unlock the door. That’s the same place that God’s gift to women Churchill has his studio in. When I asked her casually where she’d been that afternoon, she said she’d been shopping in Ciren. Why else would she be going into his studio, with her own key? And if that wasn’t the reason, why lie to me about it? So I wasn’t surprised at first when she skipped. I thought that after a bit, she’d want me to join her. But time’s gone on and she obviously doesn’t. I really miss her, Cat. If she loved me she’d miss me. If she loved me, she’d come back for me.’
Unlike the surrounding villages, such as Owlbury, gracefully unified by the famous yellow-grey Cotswold stone, Stroud had the air of being haphazardly put together from a box of bits left over from building various other places. There was a plate-glass fronted parade of shops from a nineteen-sixties new town, a Victorian pedimented assembly rooms from Glasgow or Leeds, a