Epilogue
It was a warm, sunny day at Darraghfield with only the mildest breeze to ruffle the leaves; even the birds seemed to be lying low. Kitty popped on her sunglasses and looked out over the sweep of the glen. She was waiting to see Morgan and Missy, Olly and Victoria’s little ones, as they came across the slope on their ponies. They’d promised to stop and wave.
‘I hope they go easy on that ridge, it can be dangerous if the weather changes.’ Almost instinctively she rubbed the kink in her arm, a reminder of the night she had absolutely refused to do as she was told. Now that she was in her late sixties, her bones seemed to ache no matter what, her arm more so.
Theo placed the teacup back in its saucer and held up the postcard. ‘From Spud and Kumi!’
‘Yes, you’ve already read it to me!’ She tutted, knowing that this would not stop him doing so again. She kept a lookout for Morgan and Missy as he read aloud:
‘India! Who’d have thought it! It’s a whole new world of sights and sounds and I am savouring every one. Hotel grand. Weather hot. Only downside, not a plate of breaded scampi to be found anywhere, old friend, and you know how I love my scampi!’
He wheezed his laughter – ‘Scampi!’ – and flipped over the card to study the vast golden dome shining in the sun of Lucknow. ‘It seems that India is the place to be. Angus and his friend Rex are currently trekking in the foothills of the Himalayas. I don’t know how he does it. My creaking bloody hip means it’s a struggle to get up and down the stairs, let alone going trekking!’
‘And we now know your mum was born in India,’ Kitty reminded him.
‘Yes, she was.’ Theo smiled, and she knew he remembered her fondly.
‘Grampy, can we go and look in the hedge?’ a small voice called from behind him. He turned to find Sophie’s four-year-old daughter Amelie standing behind him in her jeans and pink sparkly T-shirt.
‘Of course we can!’ Placing his arms on the table, he pushed himself up and took a second to let the twinge in his hip settle.
Amelie rushed forward and placed her tiny hand inside his. ‘You come too, Grandma!’
‘Oh, righto!’ Kitty stood, as ever doing the bidding of her adorable baby granddaughter.
The three strolled slowly to the end of the lawn and came to a stop at the spiky hedgerow.
‘I can’t see any birdies!’ Amelie whispered, peering into the dark space, having been taught to only whisper so as not to alarm any chicks.
‘They might be asleep or not hatched yet?’ Theo suggested.
‘Shall we make them something for their nests?’ Amelie asked enthusiastically.
‘That’s a great idea.’ Theo kissed the top of his granddaughter’s head. ‘What do you think we should make, Grandma?’
‘Ooh, I don’t know, how about we put a few berries in to make them lunch?’ She straightened and looked out again over the glen. Still no sign of the kids on their ponies.
‘I know!’ Amelie gasped. ‘A cushion! Let’s make them a tiny cushion! So they don’t scratch their heads on the branches when they go to sleep!’ She clasped her little hands in excitement.
‘That is a very good idea. I might have some fabric and a bit of stuffing in the workshop, shall we go and see?’ Theo grasped his wife’s hand and they strolled back up towards the house.
‘Yes!’ Amelie skipped and ran ahead up the wide sweep of the front lawn.
Theo pushed on the stable door of his workshop and Kitty was surprised to find Elliott sitting reading in an old winged-back chair in the corner.
‘Hey, Elliot! It’s a lovely sunny day, you don’t want to be cooped up in here alone.’ She smiled at the handsome, bookish boy, Sophie’s middle child, a couple of years younger than Roseanna.
‘I’m not alone.’ He pointed to the floor, where Twitcher the grouchy bulldog dozed by his feet.
‘Ah, just so. You can help us if you like. Amelie, Grampy and I are going to make tiny cushions to go inside birds’ nests, so the birds don’t scratch their heads on the branches.’
Elliot rolled his eyes, reminding her that in a couple of years he would be reaching full-blown teenagehood.
‘Elliot was crying in the car,’ Amelie said.
‘Shut up, Amelie!’ Elliot slammed the book shut and jumped up.
‘Steady now, Elliot, Amelie is only worried for you.’ Theo ruffled the little girl’s hair. ‘Tell you what, Ami, can you go and have one more look in that hedge, we need you to count any nests you can see to make sure we make the right number of cushions. But remember, we mustn’t touch them or disturb them in any way, we can only look.’
‘Okay!’ She raced out of the workshop and back down the lawn. Kitty stood by the open door so she could watch her.
‘What’s going on, Elliot? What’s making you angry? It’s not like you to snap at your sister like that,’ Theo said gently.
‘Nothing.’ Elliot kicked the concrete floor.
‘Well, trust me when I tell you that a problem shared is a problem halved.’ Theo walked forward and leant on the workbench.
‘Grampy is right,’ Kitty said.
‘I just hate school. I don’t want to be a Vaizey boy!’ He briefly caught her eye.
‘You hate school or the people in it?’ Theo asked.
‘I just don’t want to go.’
‘I’m afraid it’s one of life’s necessary evils, but there are things you can do to get through it and make it easier.’
Elliot looked up at his grampy with such hope that Kitty’s heart flexed. ‘It’s okay for you, Grampy, you don’t have to go there every day.’
Theo smiled. ‘Trust me, I wasn’t that fond of school either.’
‘Everyone tells me how much everybody loved it, and I know that’s where you met Gran!’
‘Yes, I did and that was the one good thing. And I made a good friend, other than your gran.’ He closed his eyes briefly and Kitty knew he was picturing Mr Porter. ‘Is someone being mean to you?’
‘Not really. One or two of the sporty boys are horrible to me, they laugh at me because I’m rubbish at catching, but it’s not just me, they’re mean to everyone.’
‘Can you tell your housemaster?’ Kitty suggested.
Elliot shrugged as if that would be futile.
‘The thing is, Elliot, when people are mean, it’s usually not because they are bad people but probably because they are a bit sad inside. I used to have a boy be mean to me, his name was Wilson. And yet in the end we became quite good friends. It’s important to remember that you never know anyone’s story by looking at them; you never know what’s going on. They might be sad but making out to be happy, or angry or mean because they don’t know how to explain how sad they’re feeling.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And you are so lucky, you have all of us, who love you very much and who will always fight your corner.’ Kitty walked forward and embraced the boy she loved. ‘And you know, Elliot, you can talk to Mum and Dad any time.’ She decided to tell Sophie.
‘Have you heard about the alphabet game, Elliot?’ Theo asked.
The boy shook his head.
‘Well, here’s a neat trick that someone wonderful once told me all about, and I think it might help you.’
‘What is it?’ Elliot looked up at him.
‘If your thoughts are too loud, or you feel afraid or you just want to pass the time, you go through the alphabet and find things to match the letters and by the time you get to Z, things have usually calmed a little and you will have taken time to breathe.’
Kitty could see Elliot was confused. ‘So for example in here we could have A… armchair, B… bench.’
‘C… chisel,’ Theo chimed in.
‘D… dog!’ Elliot pointed at Twitcher.
‘Now you’ve got it!’ Theo beamed. ‘It might help.’
Elliot nodded. ‘I love you, Grampy, and I love you, Grandma.’
The boy nestled in, laying his small head on Kitty’s bony chest and linking his hands around her waist. She inhaled the scent of the boy, evocative of summer meadows, and she smiled. This contact, this love was the very essence of joy. She felt the usual flutter of happiness in her chest at hearing those words. ‘And I love you. Now then, how about we go and see if there’s any more tea in the pot?’
‘Okay.’ Elliot smiled. ‘Come on, Twitcher! E… easel. F… frame. G… golf club!’
Kitty winked at her husband.
Sophie had taken a seat at the table on the patio and was sipping tea while watching Amelie by the hedgerow.
‘My friend said you were very rich,’ Elliot announced as he sat on his mum’s lap and spoke to his grampy.
‘Did he now?’ Theo half chuckled and sat in his favourite chair.
‘He said you were in a magazine article about people who had zillions of pounds and his mum saw it.’
‘Sounds about right – I know the mother.’ Sophie pulled a face behind her son’s back.
‘Here’s the thing, Elliot. I don’t quite have zillions of pounds, but more importantly, I would swap every penny of it to spend days like this with you and your grandma. Waking up with her by my side makes me the richest man in the world.’
Kitty looked over at Theo and smiled at him from the wicker chair in which she reclined. The sight of him still sent a bolt of joy racing through her. It made her think of dear old Tizz, who had lost her battle with breast cancer only the year before and whom she still missed dearly. Ruraigh was still hiding away. Hamish and Flo were with him. She remembered Tizz telling her that she might have unrealistic notions about sex and that bodice-ripping and romance were overrated. Kitty had discovered that on this point Tizz was wrong.
‘Ignore your grampy, he’s an old fool.’ Kitty began cutting the Victoria sponge that sat on the tray in the centre of the table.
‘I might be an old fool, but I am your old fool.’
Kitty beamed at him.
‘Oh, please, you two!’ Sophie tutted.
‘Darling, I only hope that you and Greg get to laugh and love every day, even when you are old fools like us.’ She refilled Theo’s cup from the teapot and handed it to him.
‘Because it’s the small things that count, Soph.’ Theo nodded. ‘Small things, shared with the person you love. It’s all you need.’ He took a sip and waved to his granddaughter, who waved back from the hedgerow. ‘That’s happiness. At least it is for me.’
Me too, my darling man. Me too.
Kitty stood and shielded her eyes as she looked out over the deep glen and beyond to the rolling hills. ‘Where are those kids?’ She was getting anxious. It was late afternoon and the sky had begun to turn mackerel-coloured.
‘There they are!’ Theo called out, pointing to the distant hill opposite.
Kitty watched Missy weave her way across the slope with her two red plaits bouncing up and down. Morgan followed close behind, walking his pony across the field, where clumps of tall thistles and lichen-covered rocks littered the grass.
‘Go easy!’ she urged under her breath, knowing the terrain made the going a little tough along the sharp incline. Missy bent forward and patted her pony’s flank with the flat of her palm. At the top of the field, they both broke into a canter and cleared the ridge; it was now only a matter of time before they would make it round to the main bridleway and back home. She felt a wave of relief.
‘Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I think I fancy a swim.’ Theo placed his teacup on the table and went off to change.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Kitty called, never able to resist a dip.
*
The two flung their towels on the back of the faded steamer chair and trod the Roman steps cautiously as they slipped into the warm water.
Kitty swam lengths, pulling through the water until she was out of breath, then floating on her back. This pool was still her most treasured spot on the planet. She bit her lip and felt an unexpected wave of emotion. It happened on occasion, this jolt to her senses, as if time had been erased. It seemed like mere months since she was a young girl, swimming and lost to her watery world while Marjorie prepared food in the kitchen, her mum languished upstairs and her dad roamed the estate with Patrick and Champ by his side. Yet it wasn’t months; decades and decades had passed and she had to concentrate, wrinkling her nose, to figure out where all the time had gone.
Theo swam over and placed his arms under her back. ‘You look a little thoughtful, my love.’
She relaxed against him and let the water lap over her shoulders and ears. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that – minutes, an hour? Her hold on time was skewed, so lost was she to the water, the sunlight, and the sensation of being held, carried, weightless and fragile, in the arms of the man she loved, her Theo.
‘I used to think a lot about the girl who swam here, the girl Angus courted, the little girl who didn’t know how to help her mum or support her daddy. I wanted to go back in time and take her in my wise arms and rock her until the sadness had passed, until the shape of that boy had slipped back through the gap in the hedge and the world had returned to a simple, sunny, ordinary day…’
‘And now?’ Theo leant forward and kissed her cheek.
She smiled. ‘Now I want to go back and tell her to hang in there, that everything will turn out all right. That she will go on to meet a boy and she will like the look of him and he will like the look of her and they will fall in love and lead a simple life surrounded by the family they create.’
‘That sounds like a lovely way to live, Montrose.’ He spun her around in the water.
‘Oh it is, Montgomery. It really is.’
THE END
Thanks for reading!