The Lives She Left Behind (22 page)

‘Where was this?’ she asked.

‘Spiked on a stick, just there, right beside the road.’

‘How could it be for us?’ said Ali. ‘It must be kids again. They’re having some game of their own.’

‘It hasn’t been there long,’ Lucy objected. ‘It’s like brand new. I think it must be for us.’

‘I’ll put it back.’

However it had got there, it seemed to change things. Jo walked on and Lucy followed as they passed through the gap, seeing the old ramparts flanking them on either side, making a sweeping ring
out amongst the trees. Then the banks curved in on the road again, closing the circle at the far end of the old fort. They came out of the woodland to fields on the left of the road.

Ali saw it first. ‘There’s another message.’ She ran ahead and pulled it off the stick, but instead of running back she stood there, reading it, with a puzzled expression. Lucy
and Jo walked up to her.

‘It’s not kids,’ she said. ‘Kids wouldn’t write this. Listen to what it says. It says “We’re never quite old and we’re never quite young, you and
me.” That’s not kids, is it? Then underneath it says “Remember that?” with a question mark. It’s definitely not kids.’ She held it out to them.

‘It can’t be meant for us. Perhaps it’s a treasure hunt,’ suggested Lucy, ‘though it’s a funny sort of clue.’

‘It could be a quote from something,’ Ali suggested, ‘or a line from a song?’

The other two shook their heads and they walked on but as the landscape opened up, so Jo was suddenly less sure about that – much less sure. In the course of the next hundred footfalls,
those words began to seem as old as the bones of the ridge itself and as familiar as the palm of her hand, and they came with a tune attached to them. She tried to hum it, but she kept losing it,
then she thought back to the boy with the bicycle and twisted to look behind, feeling him close by, hoping he might be coming along after them. They passed a house on the right and a farm down a
drive to the left and she found there was nothing new there either, just deep familiarity. Someone else was close by too. Jo knew Gally was there in some new and startling way. She was the first to
see the final sheet of paper pinned to its stick, and she went to it with her heart beating like a bird. There were three words on the paper.

‘Welcome back, Gally’ was all it said.

Ferney had stood staring up until the scream from above broke the pull like snapped elastic and sent him reeling backwards, clutching at his bike for support. What he saw up
there cut through him: a girl, long hair dangling towards him, sliding impossibly far over the parapet on her way down to death. Knowing she must fall, he dropped the bike and ran towards the tower
in sick horror and in the slow motion of the worst of dreams, believing he had caused this, knowing it was hopeless. His feet caught a root, but his speed carried him leaping beyond the stumble.
The thought flashed through him, in the middle of his desperate sprint, that this was absurd – to find her and lose her again immediately. At the base of the wall he rocked back, eyes
searching up in fear, expecting to see gravity’s express rushing her down to him, to where her fall would kill them both. Better that way, he thought. Everything had stopped. She was still
there, halfway over the stonework, but hands were gripping her, hauling her back to safety, back out of his sight.

He walked backwards, a pace at a time, keeping his eyes on the top of the tower, as if he might have to rush to her rescue again. The girls had disappeared so he took his bicycle into the edge
of the woodland, crouching down in the green cover, eyes fixed on the doorway, too shaken to know clearly what he should do next.

He saw it over and over in his mind’s eye: long hair hanging down, surrounding and obscuring the face that craned towards the killing earth. It had been blonde hair. Lucy, the blonde Lucy
– it must have been. Whatever had leapt between him and the girls had pulled Lucy to him.

Three girls came quietly out of the tower’s doorway and down the steps. From a hundred yards away he could see her, Lucy, the tallest of them. The other two were supporting her. Ferney
crept forward as far as he could without showing himself. Gally was there, almost within reach and comfortably within the pull of the village – Gally who might be Lucy. He was desperate to
know for certain so that he could reveal himself to her and make sure he would not lose her again.

He stretched forward, studying each one to differentiate the overwhelming sense of Gally that was flooding from the three of them. It seemed absurd that he could not immediately tell. They
walked to the edge of the clearing and sat down. He moved through the trees, closer, but had to stop short where there was a wide gap. He must not be caught skulking, spying on them. He saw the
other two comforting Lucy with arms round her shoulders until time had passed and they all seemed calmer, then they studied a map, got to their feet and, to his intense pleasure, headed into the
woods straight towards the village.

He abandoned his bike and took to older paths, running to get ahead, looping well away from them in the shelter of the trees. They walked slowly and he raced further on as they neared the
junction where, as the first sign to Gally, he laid down an arrow of branches as they had each done before in their lives. They almost caught him. He picked up their chatter round the corner in
time to flatten himself behind a tree only feet away, so that he heard all their talk, drinking in their voices, trying to match them to invisible faces, trying to discern which one fuelled this
near-bursting passion inside him.

When they had gone on he cut across to the west, dropped down the slope and ran through the open trees along the lower terrace to gain ground. He stopped at the old ramparts – Kenny
Wilkins’ camp as they’d called it these past three hundred years, Cenwalch’s as it had been way back. He knew for sure that she would be afraid there. It was where their whole
long story had begun in blood and terror. In every new life she always had to pass through the fear it triggered until she remembered what had happened and recognised the root of that fear.

Knowing that, he reached into his bag, pulled out his pad and wrote her a message of love and reassurance. Skewering the note on a stick, he ran on ahead, fired by the idea that this was the
kindest way to bring her home and the best way to end his awful uncertainty by seeing her reaction.

He watched from the bushes as the three girls read the second note, ‘We’re never quite old and we’re never quite young.’ The line had been playing inside his head ever
since it first woke up there, prodding him to remember more, teasing him with the start of a tune. It had a power to it that felt both old and recent and he thought it must surely have the same
effect on her, but as he watched them read it he could not be sure. They all looked puzzled. Now they were walking towards where he hid, getting closer and closer, and for the first time since that
brief meeting at Montacute he had the opportunity to study their faces. The short one was the one with the map. Everything about the way she walked and talked showed she was bossy. She looked
young, not yet woken into womanhood. The taller, dark-haired girl was blank, restrained, a little removed from the other two, and he couldn’t get a sense of her at all. There was no sign of
any joy rising in her. That left the tall blonde Lucy who had so nearly fallen from the tower when their gazes met, just as if he had pulled her down with the force of their recognition. She
reminded him of his neighbour’s Afghan puppy, fine and floppy and endlessly playful. She was alive to everything around her. He looked at her, on the edge of her coming beauty, and thought he
could see how Gally’s purpose would blossom in her.

He backed carefully away into the thicker cover behind him, turned and raced on again, nearing the outskirts of the village, knowing that time and distance were running out together. The answer
came to him and it was so simple and he pinned it all on three plain words, ‘Welcome back Gally’, pegged into the ground. He held his breath as they came closer but he suddenly found he
already knew the answer. It was the quiet dark girl who went to it and he could see Gally’s animating spirit in the way she moved. He filled with love as he watched her read it. He thought
she would turn to show it to the others but instead she sank to the ground as she read the words. It was the quiet dark girl who began to cry and his heart went out to her.

Lucy and Ali walked up to where Jo was kneeling, still staring at the note in her hands.

‘Are you crying?’ Lucy asked. She reached out to take the sheet of paper but Jo wouldn’t let go.

Ali was craning over to see it. ‘It doesn’t mean anything, at least nothing worth crying about,’ she said. ‘I mean, who’s Gally? I don’t know anyone called
Gally, do you?’

‘Yes,’ said Jo, ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Who?’

‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Of course it is.’ She had never told them about her friend.

‘Oh, don’t be daft.’

‘It’s always been me,’ she said, ‘and all the time I thought it was somebody else.’ She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and stood up,
looking from one girl to the other with slight surprise, then she stared back into the woods and down the road ahead as if expecting to see somebody else.

‘You’re frightening me,’ Ali said quietly.

‘There’s no need. I’m fine. Come on.’

She strode off towards the village. The other two walked fast behind her, trying to catch up, exchanging looks and mouthing silent questions at each other.

They came to a scatter of houses where five lanes curved round the corners of fields to meet in a loose group of junctions. Jo was still walking fast, straight to a gate on the far side where
she stopped. They caught up to find her staring in through a graveyard at an old stone church with a squat tower.

‘What’s wrong?’ Ali asked, breathing hard.

‘Nothing at all. I told you.’ Jo turned to look at them with that same unsettling expression on her face as if they didn’t belong there with her.

‘You were crying.’

‘Was I? When?’

‘Just back there. A minute ago.’

‘Oh, I’m all right now. I’m more than all right. That . . . that was just a surprise.’

‘A surprise? What do you mean? It’s all nonsense, Jo – it was meant for someone else. The other ones too – all that stuff about being old and young.’

‘The song?’ said Jo from somewhere that was still some way away. ‘You know it, don’t you?’ She sang

‘No, I don’t know it,’ said Ali, ‘and I don’t understand any of it,’ but as she spoke, Ali found she was looking at a version of Jo she had
never seen before. It was as if the reserved, slightly hidden girl she knew had been turned inside out. This Jo smiled at her with a kind assurance, her face lit by something like serenity.

‘Well, never mind. Do you want to come with me?’ She went into the churchyard without waiting for an answer and they followed. They heard her say ‘Hello’ as she entered
the church porch as if she had met an old friend, but when they caught up she was standing alone, looking at the inner doorway. Above it was a stone lintel, a lamb carved in the centre flanked by
lions. Jutting out either side to support the lintel were two stone heads, carved in profile, gazing across at each other. Both wore crowns.

Jo was staring from one to the other and it seemed to Ali and Lucy that she had addressed her greeting to the two heads.

‘Who do you suppose they are?’ Lucy asked, because it seemed a safe question.

‘A king and queen,’ Jo answered.

‘Is that a queen? I thought they were both men.’

‘’Til Christmas falls on Candlemas . . .’ Jo replied, then stopped.

‘’Till what?’ demanded Lucy. ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a rhyme.’

‘You’re very full of songs and rhymes and things. If it’s a rhyme, what does it rhyme with?’

‘Oh . . .’ Jo frowned in thought. ‘’Til Christmas falls on Candlemas, the king . . . something . . .’ She looked at the heads again, raised her hand and touched the
face on the right. It had a sharper profile, with a hooked nose. ‘’Til Christmas falls on Candlemas, the king shall never kiss his lass.’

She stood gazing at them and both her friends thought she was shining with a happiness they had never seen in her before.

‘I like that,’ said Lucy. ‘The two of them staring across at each other and they can’t reach each other. When does Christmas fall on Candlemas? I hope it’s
soon.’

‘It’s not,’ Ali said. ‘It doesn’t happen, not ever. Candlemas is forty days after Christmas. I suppose it means the king never gets to kiss her. Have you been here
before, Jo?’ but Jo seemed to have lost interest in the church. She had gone back into the graveyard, staring over to the far corner where rows of more recent gravestones stood in neat lines.
She shivered.

The other two hung back. ‘This is awful,’ said Ali. ‘We’re going to be in such a lot of trouble.’

‘Us?’

‘Yes. Fleur’s going to ask about her tablets, isn’t she?’

‘Where are they?’

‘In the side pocket of my rucksack.’

‘Stand still.’

Lucy took them out, started to press one out of its bubble.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going to throw some of them away then Fleur will think she took them.’

‘Put them back. We can’t. Anyway, it might not be that. Maybe she just needs some food or something. I’m pretty hungry.’

‘So am I,’ Lucy said, putting the tablets in her pocket. She called to Jo. ‘Let’s go and find a shop. We need food. I’m not answering for my blood sugar level if I
don’t eat. Oh, she’s gone.’ Jo was striding across towards those further graves but as she got to them, they saw her check abruptly and stare at the rows of stones with an
intensity that stopped them in their tracks as if they should not intrude. She put her hand up to her mouth, doubled up, and her friends watched in horror as she vomited on the grass.