After a few minutes, Tamsin hops back into the garden and drops the ball on May’s knee.
‘It’s yucky,’ she says, pulling a face. ‘Told you it would be. Have you got any cake?’
May gestures towards the open kitchen door, and as Tamsin skips away (does that child ever walk anywhere?) she conquers her revulsion and clutches the ball tightly to her chest. But even squeezing it hard with both hands and her eyes tight shut doesn’t release more than a tiny buzz of memory, and that seems to be mainly a dog’s woolly thoughts about his dinner.
It’s no good. I’m done for, thinks May, throwing the ball as hard as she can towards the shrubbery.
‘May, why did you go and do that? I fetched it specially.’ Tamsin appears with a large plate containing four slabs of angel cake and a bag of Maltesers.
‘You were right, dear. It was very slimy,’ says May, sadly.
Tamsin looks up as she hears the click of the latch on the front gate next door. ‘Dad’s home,’ she says. ‘I’ll go and get him to make us a nice hot drink, shall I?’
She’s back in five minutes or so, followed by a long, lean man with a serious expression. May wishes he’d smile more, but she supposes he’s had a lot to make him melancholy since his wife died. Andy is an out-in-all-weathers kind of person, pure Cornish from head to toe. Tanned and healthy-looking, he’s wearing faded denim shorts, heavy boots and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up – his usual gardener’s uniform. He’s very grubby. May looks at his well-muscled legs and forearms approvingly. Even at one hundred and ten she can still appreciate a vision like this.
Andy puts a mug down next to May and hands Tamsin a glass of warm blackcurrant juice.
‘Oh, bless you, love. Aren’t you having one with us?’
‘No time. Tam needs to get ready for a birthday party. It starts in half an hour but she looks as if she needs a good wash first.’
Tamsin moans to herself and slurps her drink, spilling some of it down her front, then lies down again next to May, adding some soil to the stains on her school skirt.
‘Where have you been today?’ May asks. ‘You look as if you’ve been working hard.’
‘Just across the road at number sixty, trying to get Julia’s place straight,’ he says. ‘It’s gone wild since Don died.’
‘It was bound to, really. Julia doesn’t like gardening, does she? Probably hasn’t got the right clothes,’ May sniffs. She has no time for Julia Lovell, even though she’s known her for many years and often shared the church kitchen with her when they were drafted in to cater for village events. Keeps herself to herself, that one, May thinks. Pretty much everybody knows what it’s like to lose somebody but we don’t all turn reclusive, do we? Drama queen. And why does she always have to be so dressed up? Her hair can’t be natural. There’s not a single grey hair amongst all that black. And straight as a die. Never bothers with curlers. Well, I suppose there’s not enough of it to curl.
‘Maybe not. I used to go round every few weeks and give Don a hand when he got past doing the rough digging and so on,’ says Andy, ‘but she hasn’t felt like bothering with it lately.’
‘No. She wouldn’t.’
‘What have you got against the poor woman? She always asks after you.’
‘Oh, you don’t want to hear me harping on about old grudges. Water under the bridge. I just wish she wouldn’t pretend to like me, that’s all.’
‘I don’t think Julia’s got anything against you, May.’
‘Ha! Why does she give me those frosty looks then?’
‘You’re imagining it.’
‘Whatever,’ says May. She’s learned that one from Tamsin and it comes in handy.
Andy laughs. ‘Anyway, you’ll never guess what Julia’s found today.’
May looks at her neighbour without much interest and raises her eyebrows. He carries on. ‘When she was clearing out Don’s den …’
‘His old shed, you mean?’
‘Well, yes, OK – his shed … she found a massive sack of letters.’
Tamsin rolls over onto her back and stares at her dad. ‘Why did the man over the road have a sack of lettuce?’ she mumbles, through the last of the cake.
‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, sweetheart,’ Andy says, ‘and I said letters.’
‘Oh.’ Tamsin doesn’t much care for things you have to read so she crawls under a nearby bush to make a hide-out, but May is all ears.
‘Letters to whom?’ she says. No need to let the grammar slip.
‘Not to whom, more like from whom. He hoarded every single thing his family in the Midlands ever wrote to the two of them. They’re incredible. Julia showed me a few.’
May digests this information in silence. Her heart is fluttering now. She hopes she isn’t going to have some sort of seizure and pop her clogs just when hope is at hand.
‘May? What’s the matter? You look a bit wobbly today,’ Andy says.
May stares out to sea, as the tide turns and the gulls wheel and cry. A sackful of memories, there for the taking. But however is she going to get her hands on them?
… so the opal ring’s definitely missing. I don’t know what to do, Don. Mother’s blaming each of us in turn and we’ve turned the house upside down looking for it. Nothing.
Putting down the letter in her hand for a moment, Julia gazes out of the window, past the trailing clematis that climbs over the remains of an oak tree, and the wisteria taking over the shed roof, trailing its feathery lilac fronds so low every summer that Don had to stoop under it every time he retreated there.
What possessed Don to keep all these letters, and what in heaven’s name is she meant to do with them now he’s gone? If she hadn’t finally made herself go into his den she’d have still been in blissful ignorance of the contents of the wooden chest.
She remembers the day he rediscovered the disgusting old chest. She was mystified as to why anyone would want to keep such a thing.
‘You do know that piece of junk’s riddled with woodworm?’ she said, as he dragged it across the yard from the garage. ‘I was going to put it out ready for Andy to take to the tip, or to sling on his next bonfire.’
‘Not infested any more, love,’ Don said, straightening up and rubbing his back. ‘Didn’t you see me out here yesterday with that can of stuff I found in the cupboard under the stairs? I’ve zapped the little devils. Those worms are history!’ He laughed joyfully and patted the oak chest as if it were a faithful dog.
‘But what are you going to do with it?’ Julia asked. ‘It smells disgusting.’ She wrinkled her nose at the eye-watering