Sands of Time (30 page)

Mattie, where are you?

The voice was further away now at the end of the garden. He sounded young and very sad.

‘Hello!’ Charlotte called.

She took a couple of steps forward. ‘Hello? Don’t be afraid.’

There was no answer. In the silence she found she was shivering.

Behind her in the cottage a light came on upstairs. She didn’t notice. She stepped further into the shadows. ‘Where are you?’

Above her the apple tree branches were dark.

In the cottage the light went out.

‘I know you’re there. Come out, so I can see you.’ It was dark all round her now. The ground was damp underfoot, the air suddenly cold and bitter with rotting leaves. She knew there was no one there. She could sense the emptiness of the night.

Suddenly frightened she turned back towards the house. The back door was half open as she had left it. In the living room one small lamp burned by the fireplace. There was no sign of Rob.

Climbing the stairs she glanced into his bedroom. His curtains were open. She could see him in the moonlight, lying on the bed.

‘Rob!’ she whispered.

He slept on.

In her own room the smell of lavender and roses drifted in through the open window. She dug in her case for her washing things and her nightdress and crept downstairs to the bathroom.

She woke suddenly a couple of hours later and lay looking up at the ceiling. The moon had gone and the room was dark. For a moment she didn’t move, then she stood up and went to the window. The moon was behind the house now and the garden was still bright with its glow. There was someone under the apple tree. She frowned, straining her eyes. A girl in a white dress. She was sitting on a swing, gently rocking herself backwards and forwards with one foot.

As Charlotte watched the girl swung higher. She grasped the chains more tightly as she pushed harder, her head back, her long hair tumbling behind her as the momentum of the swing carried her higher, and she was pointing her toes now, her white dress flying in the moonlight.

Mattie, where are you?

The boy’s voice was right behind Charlotte as though he too was looking out of the window.

Mattie, no!

Charlotte spun round, her heart thumping.

The room was empty.

‘Rob, did you hear that?’ Her voice was husky. She found she was shaking. Turning back to the window she glanced out. The garden was deserted. Under the apple tree the shadows were dark and empty.

‘Rob? Rob!’ Running across the landing Charlotte threw open his door. ‘Rob? Did you hear him?’

Rob groaned. Turning over onto his back he opened his eyes and blinked. ‘What time is it?’

‘I don’t know. Three-ish, I think. Rob, he was here, in my room.’

‘Who?’ Rob sat up. He was bare-chested, wearing only his shorts, and Charlotte was aware suddenly of how much she wanted him.

‘I don’t know who. The boy. The one we heard earlier. The one calling for Mattie.’ She broke off. The girl. The girl on the swing. Had that been Mattie?

But she had been a dream. Surely, she had been a dream.

‘Rob, I’m scared. Can I come in here with you?’

For a moment she wondered if he would refuse. He said nothing, looking at her, then he held out his arms.

‘Why did you go to bed on your own?’ she asked as she snuggled in beside him.

‘You disappeared. I thought maybe you felt it was too soon.’ He reached out and kissed her forehead gently. Then his arms slid round her waist and he drew her close. ‘I’m so sorry, Carla. I’ve missed you so much, my darling. I just didn’t dare hope that everything was going to be all right.’

* * *

‘I think the cottage is haunted.’ Spooning boiled eggs into egg cups, Charlotte set them on the table and reached for the toast rack. She was pink and scrubbed from the shower and glowing with happiness.

Rob nodded. ‘I wondered when you would finally come to that conclusion.’

‘You think so too?’

Spreading marmalade on his toast, Rob shrugged and shook his head slowly. ‘I can’t think of any other explanation.’

‘But you don’t believe in ghosts.’

‘I know.’ He grinned.

‘Does it scare you?’

‘No.’ He reached for his coffee. ‘It sounded like a child. Worried. Lost. Frightened but not frightening. I think this is one of those places where events have been recorded in the house walls. Like a video. It plays the same sequence again and again.’

‘But there must have been a reason for it to have recorded that bit. He has lost someone. He is desperate to find her.’

The girl on the swing.

She sat down opposite him. ‘Poor boy. I wish we could help.’

‘Videos don’t need help.’ He began to tap his egg.

‘I suppose not.’ She wasn’t convinced.

He glanced up. ‘This isn’t going to spoil the holiday for you?’

She shook her head and smiled. ‘After last night? After all, he brought us back together.’

‘He did, didn’t he?’ He lifted the top off his egg neatly. ‘What shall we do today?’

She didn’t answer. When he glanced up again he saw that she was smiling.

Later that morning they strolled along the lane to the village shop. It was the old man in the queue for the tiny post office counter who recognised them. ‘You the folks from Lilac Cottage?’

Rob nodded.

‘I thought so. You seen young Matilda yet?’

Behind them Rob heard Charlotte’s quick intake of breath.

‘Who’s Matilda?’ he asked.

‘Now, Bill Forrest, don’t you go scaring folk!’ The post mistress leaned forward and tapped the glass partition between them sharply. ‘Take no notice of him, my dears. He’s an old fool.’

‘No.’ Charlotte stepped forward. ‘No, wait. Tell us please.’

The old man glanced at her. His eyes were hazy blue, but they were very keen. ‘You seen her, then?’

‘On the swing. Yes.’

‘Matilda Drew, that was. Her brother, he unfastened the swing for a prank. Thought it would dump her on the grass, he did, poor lad. Never occurred to him that a fall could kill her.’

‘Oh God, that’s awful.’ Charlotte stared at him.

‘When did this happen?’ Rob put his arm round Charlotte’s shoulder.

‘Years ago. Long before my time.’ The old man tucked his pension deep into his pocket. ‘You go and look in the churchyard if you want to know about them. The grave is there, near the gate.’

* * *

They pushed open the lych gate on the way back to the cottage. The old stone, covered in moss, had leaned over slightly. The words were badly weathered.

Matilda Drew 
born 1753 died 1827 
May her spirit fly free as a bird on the wing

There was a picture of a dove beneath the words, then under that again a smaller, less ornate inscription said simply:

And here lies also her brother John 
born 1750 died 1841

Rob frowned. ‘That can’t be right. That means she was in her seventies when she died and he was over ninety. It must be the wrong grave.’

‘No, it means John changed his mind. He got there in time.’ Charlotte ran a finger over the rough lettering. She glanced at him. ‘That’s what I think happened. He realised what he had done and he ran out into the garden as she began to swing and he saved her.’ Somehow she knew she was right.

‘And his panic was so great that the house has remembered it all these years?’ Rob nodded. ‘They must have been very close, to be buried together like this. Neither of them married.’

‘Do you think they were happy in the house?’

‘Of course they were.’ Rob grinned at her. ‘I think there is a lesson here somewhere, don’t you? Even if it does come right in the end one can still regret a mistake for eternity.’ He pulled her against him gently and kissed her, then, stepping away, he leaned across to pick a wild rose from the hedge. Laying it at the foot of the headstone he stood for a moment in silence, then he turned and reached out again for Charlotte’s hand. ‘Come on, he said. ‘Let’s go home.’

An Afternoon at the Museum

For a few blessed moments the gallery was quiet. Too quiet. Stephanie glanced over her shoulder towards the doorway. The Egyptian rooms at the British Museum were usually packed with children at this time of day. Neat groups walking two by two in uniform speaking in hushed, respectful voices or chaotic hordes, rushing about uncontrolled, screaming; either way, this was one of the places they headed for first. And they all looked at the mummies. The ghoulish fascination exerted by a real dead body passed none of them by, from the most repressed scholar to the loudest, most rebellious thug.

She noticed one of the museum attendants standing near her. He had folded his arms and was watching the doorway, a quizzical expression on his face. He too was waiting for the next noisy flood of children. With a grin she turned back to her sketchbook. She had better make the most of the peace while it lasted. The magazine wanted the illustrations by tonight, 6 pm latest. She would deliver them by hand as soon as they were finished and then she would go home to the empty flat. She sighed. She couldn’t even remember how the row had started, but it had been bad enough for Dan to leave. And not come back.

She glanced down at the neat black pen and ink sketch on her page and frowned. She had been working for about twenty minutes in the gallery, producing a series of sketches – a mummy case, a bandaged body, artefacts from the tombs, an intricate necklace of gold and lapis. This sketch was the last, the mummy of a child, impossibly moving in its poignancy, and she found it hard to concentrate on it. Taking a deep breath she gripped her pen more tightly and began to draw again.

Behind her the noise levels were building once more. She could hear the excited shouts, the thud of thirty pairs of trainers heading her way. On the page, the Egyptian child too was running. His head thrown back, a lock of hair flying loose behind one shoulder, long straight limbs rejoicing in the sun.

With an exclamation of annoyance she stared at what she had drawn. She had been doodling without realising it, wasting precious time. And now she remembered what the quarrel had been about. Having children. Dan wanted them to get married. He had been hinting for months. It had come to a head when she said she didn’t want a baby. Didn’t even like them. He had stared at her as if she had said she was planning a murder and from then on things had gone from bad to worse.

‘What you drawing, miss?’ The voice at her shoulder was breathless, cheeky. ‘It don’t look like no mummy to me.’

She glanced at the boy. Perhaps eight years old, or ten – with no experience of children herself, and few friends who had them, she found it hard to tell their ages. He had a grubby, freckled face, intensely blue eyes, an almost-shaven head and trouble oozed out of every pore. It was a reflex action to check her bag was closed and safe.

‘You see that mummy there?’ She pointed. ‘That was a child. A boy like this.’

Like you.

She didn’t say it, but the age would have been about the same, now she came to think about it.

‘No chance!’ He wasn’t going to believe her. ‘They were old geezers, the mummies. Dead.’

She glanced at his face again and saw long sandy lashes, impossibly cherubic on the rounded cheeks, and felt her hostility diminish. ‘They mummified everything,’ she said with a grin. ‘Animals. Birds. Crocodiles. Old people. Young people. Even babies.’

‘Babies!’ He looked up at her. The cheeky combative tone was gone. She saw horror lurking there. ‘That boy –’ he stabbed at her pad with a filthy finger. ‘He is running about and playing, right? Football and that, right?’

She nodded, aware that the rest of the kids were moving on towards the far end of the gallery. ‘My picture is only pretend,’ she said gently. ‘I was wondering what he looked like before he – ’

Died. She was about to say it, but something in the blue eyes stopped her.

‘Where is your teacher?’ She found herself smiling at him again. ‘You don’t want to lose the others.’