‘Ah. Ah. Why. There will be lights in the Old Hall,’ he says. Then he nods as if someone or something has answered his question, and then he looks at me – not directly at me, but slightly to my right – and he smiles: a flash of surprised happiness. He smiles as if there is someone nice standing next to me, and then he goes back to his book. Reflexively, I snap my head right, to find the person who makes Jamie smile.
I am staring at the wall. At empty space.
Of course there’s no one there. It’s only me and him. So why did I turn my head?
Part of me, abruptly, wants to flee. To run away. To get in my car and drive as fast as possible to London. But this is ridiculous. I am merely spooked. The hare, and now this. It is unbalancing. I’m not going to be scared by an eight-year-old boy, a soulful stepson with traumas. If I leave the Drawing Room now I will be admitting defeat.
I must stay. And if we cannot talk we can at least sit in companionable silence. That would be something. I can read in here, as he is reading. Let stepson and stepmother read together.
Crossing to the bookcase on the further side of the Drawing Room, I check the shelves. Jamie turns the pages of his book, his back to me. I can hear him flick the pages, quickly quickly.
There is a section here of Nina’s books that I have not read: tall, authoritative books on historical furniture, silverware, embroideries.
I pull out one book, The Care and Repair of Antique Furniture, flick through it and replace it, not sure what information I am seeking. Then I try another: Regency Interiors: a Guidebook. Finally, I choose a third: The Victoria and Albert Catalogue of English Woodwork, Volume IV. But when I pull the book from the shelf, something very different comes with it, flapping to the floor.
A magazine.
It looks like a gossip magazine. Why would it be kept here? Amongst Nina’s books?
Jamie is still deep in his reading. His capacity for quiet concentration impresses me. He gets it from his father.
Sitting down in one of Nina’s beautifully reupholstered armchairs, I scan the cover of the magazine and my question is answered. The magazine is dated from eight years ago, and right there, at the very top, is a small box. With a photo of a glamorous couple. David and Nina.
My heartbeat quickens. I read the caption.
Nina Kerthen, eldest daughter of French banker, Sacha Valéry, proudly shows her new baby, with her husband, Cornish landowner, David Kerthen.
We take a look inside their historic home.
Briskly I flick through the pages. Find the relevant section.
The article’s prose is silly celebrity journalese, venerating David and Nina for simply being rich and good-looking, aristocratic and lucky. The world ‘elegant’ is employed in almost every paragraph. It is froth and nonsense.
So why did Nina keep it? She was highly intelligent: she wouldn’t usually read this stuff. My guess is that she kept it for the photos, which are good. The magazine got a proper professional to do the job. There are some night-time exteriors of Carnhallow, showing the house glowing in the dark nocturnal woods like a golden reliquary in a shadowy crypt.
The photos of David and Nina are also impressive. And one, in particular, compels. I pause as I look at it, biting my own hair, thinking, reflecting.
This photo shows Nina, in a summer dress, sitting in a satin armchair, in this very room – the Yellow Drawing Room – with angled knees pressed together. And in this one singular picture she is holding baby Jamie. This is the only photo where we see their son, despite the promise of the magazine cover.
At her side, David stands tall, slim, and dark, in a charcoal black suit, with a protective arm poised around his wife’s bare, suntanned shoulder.
The photo is mysteriously perfect. I feel a sudden and powerful twinge of jealousy. Nina’s shoulder is so beautiful and flawless. She is so immaculate, yet decorously sensuous. Suppressing my envy, I scrutinize the rest of the image. The baby is, for some reason, barely visible. You can only just tell that it is Jamie, lying in his mother’s suntanned arms. But you can very clearly see a tiny fist, reaching from white swaddling.
If my heartbeat was quickened before, now it beats faster still. Because I am getting the sense I am staring at a clue, maybe even a distressing or important clue. But a clue to what? Why should there be a clue at all? I have to fight down my bewilderment. Regain my rationality. There is no mystery, there is no reason for me to be frightened or jealous. Everything is explained. Jamie is getting better, albeit slowly. We had a good summer. I will get pregnant. I will make friends. We will be happy. The dead hare was a coincidence.
‘What’s that you’re reading?’
Jamie is standing beside me. I didn’t hear him move.
‘Oh,’ I say, with a flash of startled embarrassment, quickly shoving the magazine between two books. ‘Only a magazine. Nothing important. Have you finished with your book? Do you want something to eat?’
He looks unhappy. Did he see the magazine in my hands? See his mother? It was daft and wrong of me to read it in here, in front of him, the grieving child. I won’t do that again.
‘Tell you what, I’ll warm up some of that lasagne, from yesterday, remember? You said you liked it.’
He shrugs. I babble on, eager to make the most of this conversation, however staccato. I can make us all a family.
‘Then we can talk, talk properly. How about a holiday next year? Would you like that? We’ve had such a nice summer here, but maybe next year we could go abroad, somewhere like France?’
Now I pause.
Jamie is frowning intensely.
‘What’s wrong, Jamie?’
He stands there, black and white in his school uniform, looking at me, and I can see the deep emotion in his eyes, showing sadness, or worse.
And then he says, ‘Actually, Rachel, you should know something.’
‘What?’
‘I already went to France with Mummy. When I was small.’
‘Oh.’ Rising from the armchair, I chide myself, but I’m not sure why; there is no way I could have known about their holidays. ‘Well, it doesn’t have to be France, we could try Spain, or Portugal maybe, or—’
He shakes his head, interrupting. ‘I think she has been staying there. In France. But now she is coming back.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Mummy! I can hear her.’
He is obviously troubled: the terrible grief is resurfacing again. I respond, as softly as possible, trying to find the right words, ‘Jamie, don’t be silly. Your mummy is not coming back. Because, well, you know where she is. She passed away. We’ve all seen the grave, haven’t we? In Zennor.’
The boy looks at me long, and hard, his large eyes wet. He looks outright scared. I want to embrace him. Calm him.
Jamie shakes his head, raising his voice. ‘But she isn’t. She’s not there. She’s not in the coffin. Don’t you know that?’
A darkness opens.
‘But, Jamie—’
‘They never did. They never found the body.’ His voice trembles. ‘She isn’t in that grave. They never found her. Nobody has ever found my mummy. Ask Daddy. Ask him. She isn’t buried in Zennor.’
Before I can reply, he runs out of the room. I hear his footsteps down the hall, then the same light boyish steps, running up the Grand Staircase. To his bedroom, presumably. And I am left here alone, in the beautiful Yellow Drawing Room. Alone with the