Time's Echo (42 page)

It hadn’t been a dream, I knew that, but it was all over. Sometimes, it’s true, I felt guilty for the service of deliverance. Richard Makepeace had assured me that Hawise was at
rest, but how could she rest if she was still agonizing about her daughter? Then I would think about Hawise drowning in the Ouse, about Lucy drowning in the same place, and I would be glad that I
had called in Richard when I had.

The sale of Lucy’s house was going through without any problems. John Burnand dealt with most of it, thank goodness, and all I had to do was go in and sign papers occasionally. Gradually
the house emptied as I gave away as many of Lucy’s things as I could. Her friends took some of the smaller pictures and pieces, and the rest went to charity shops. I didn’t need any of
it. I liked to travel light.

In any case I was spending more and more time at Drew’s. Only late at night did I slip back into the house and climb into Lucy’s bed. I kept my suitcase open on the floor, to remind
myself that I was really going.

The weather was vile, a dark, lowering sky that meant you had to put the lights on in the morning, and sheets of rain, day after day after day. That made it easier to think about leaving. I
dreamt about a clear sky and sunlight on the sea and warmth on my shoulders.

I bought a ticket to Mexico City. One-way.

I booked it online, and the computer didn’t cut out on me halfway through. My server didn’t crash when I emailed Mel to tell her when I would be arriving. I watched almost in
disbelief as the message saying that it had been sent popped up on the screen.

Only then did I let myself believe that Hawise was really going to let me go.

‘This time it really
is
over,’ I told Vivien when I bumped into her in the street. It was the end of October and the air smelt of wet leaves. ‘Hawise has
gone.’

Vivien eyed me narrowly. ‘You certainly look better than you did.’ She lifted the hessian bag she was carrying with a faint smile. ‘Can you face apples yet?’

A tiny muscle jumped at the back of my throat, but I made myself smile. It was a test to see if I was better, and I was.

‘Sure.’ I said. ‘Why not?’

‘Then have some of these. They’re from my allotment, and I can’t give them away at the moment.’ She held out the bag. ‘Help yourself.’

‘Well . . . thank you . . . ’ I swallowed. I was braced for maggots and rotting flesh, but when I drew the apples out of the bag, they were firm and rosy.

I let out a breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding until then. ‘I’ll make Sophie an apple pie,’ I said as I took a few and put them in the plastic bag I was
carrying. ‘She likes her puddings.’

‘How is Sophie?’

‘She’s spending more time with us – with Drew,’ I corrected myself, flushing with vexation at the natural way that ‘us’ slipped out. ‘She’s
getting on better with her father, and I think she likes my cooking.’

Worried about Drew being alone when I left, I was doing what I could to encourage Sophie to stay home, but I didn’t tell Vivien that.

The fact that I was worrying stuck like a pip between my teeth, a constant, low-grade irritation that I could never quite dislodge.

‘So she’s not going to the Temple of the Waters any more?’ Vivien sounded surprised.

‘She is, I’m afraid, but Drew’s hoping it’s a good sign that she’s not quite as obsessive as she was before.’

I was sure that Ash was working hard to keep Sophie close, and I wished I hadn’t let him rile me that day I met him outside the Minster. I couldn’t shake the certainty that
he’d taken my hostility as a challenge. Drew said that was just me looking for something to feel guilty about, but he hadn’t seen the viciousness flash across Ash’s face.

‘Sophie may not be going to as many of their “gatherings” as she did, but sadly there’s no sign of her seeing Ash Vaughan for what he is,’ I told Vivien.
‘She’s still completely in thrall to him. I don’t suppose you’d like to cast a spell to bring her to her senses, would you?’

I wasn’t being serious, but Vivien looked thoughtful. ‘Sophie will have to make her own choices,’ she said. ‘But
you
could cast a protective spell for her, if it
would help you feel better.’

‘Me? I’m not a witch!’

‘You care about Sophie, though, don’t you?’

‘Of course I’m fond of her.’ Vivien’s eyes were very clear and very blue, and again I had the uncomfortable feeling that she could see right inside me. ‘And
I’m sorry for her,’ I said, my gaze sliding away from hers. ‘Sophie’s very insecure. She’s latched onto Ash, and she won’t let herself see him clearly, because
that would mean admitting that she was being naive and credulous.’

‘None of us like to look at ourselves clearly, do we?’

I looked at her sharply. The words were innocent enough, but I sensed they were meant for me. ‘I remember what it’s like to be fifteen and lonely,’ I said. ‘I just want
to help her if I can.’

‘The strongest spell is the power of your love,’ said Vivien. ‘As long as you are not afraid to give it,’ she added, leaving the question unspoken.

‘I’m not
afraid
,’ I said, irritated. ‘I’m
leaving
.’

‘So you’ve decided to go?’

I was sure I could detect disappointment in her voice, and I put my chin up. ‘I’m flying out at the end of November.’

Vivien nodded slowly. ‘I see. Well, good luck if I don’t see you before then.’

‘Thank you for all your help, Vivien,’ I said awkwardly. Something about her made me uneasy, but I owed her, I knew. ‘And for the apples, of course!’

‘You’re welcome,’ said Vivien. ‘Blessed be. Oh, and Grace?’ she added as I walked on, and I turned.

‘Yes?’

‘Tomorrow is Samhain.’

‘Samhain?’

‘Halloween,’ she said. ‘All Hallows’ Eve. It’s not just about pumpkins and trick-or-treating. It’s a time when the worlds of the living and the dead become as
one. You should take great care.’

I tackled the apples straight away. I knew that if I put them aside, I would worry about them rotting. I took them out of the bag and put them on the worktop in Drew’s
kitchen. There were seven of them. They were red and fresh and satisfyingly uneven, nothing like the tasteless, uniformly round apples I saw in the supermarkets. Apples that had come from a tree,
not a container shipped from the other side of the world.

I made myself pick them up and sniff them. They were fine. They didn’t smell of rage and despair.

I got out a bowl and started sifting flour for pastry. If I was going to make apple pie, I was going to do it properly. I was feeling ruffled after my encounter with Vivien, and cooking usually
calmed me down, but that day it took longer to shift my bad mood. The mention of Halloween had lodged a sliver of disquiet, needle-sharp, inside me.

Hawise had died on All Hallows’ Eve.

I tried to shrug it off, to think about something else, but then I kept replaying Vivien’s offhand remark about love.
As long as you are not afraid to give it
.

What did that mean, exactly? I wondered, crossly dicing butter and lard. The knife chinked against the plate, an edgy counterpoint to the grumble and whirr of the washing machine. I wasn’t
afraid
. There was just no point in loving Sophie if I was going to leave her, the way I was going to leave her father. I couldn’t pretend to love her. It would just hurt her even
more when I left. I was being
kind
, I was being honest. I
wasn’t
afraid.

Gradually the rhythm of pastry-making soothed me. I dipped my hands into the buttery flour and lifted them high, rubbed the mixture between my fingers then let it tumble back into the bowl. Dip,
lift, rub. Dip, lift, rub. I stopped glancing at the apples out of the corner of my eye, stopped waiting for them to sag and moulder before me. They were just apples.

I did everything properly. I let my pastry rest in the fridge. I found an eggcup and turned it upside down to act as a pie-funnel once I’d lined the pie plate with the pastry. I peeled and
cored the apples, and didn’t flinch once from handling them. I piled the slices high in the pastry and sprinkled over a little sugar.

Admiring my efforts, I adjusted the eggcup slightly and found myself thinking about my mother. She had had a special pie-funnel shaped like a blackbird, and memories of Sunday mornings at the
kitchen table crashed over me so suddenly that I caught my breath. It was almost a shock to remember my own mother instead of Hawise.

Mum always nestled three or four cloves into her apple pies. Subconsciously I had known something was missing. On an impulse I rootled through Drew’s motley collection of herbs and
spices.

Cloves – there they were! I pulled out the jar and shook a few into my cupped palm, breathing in the lovely, warm smell of them. They reminded me of Indonesia, and the men squatting in the
gangs
, the smoke from their
kreteks
curling through the heavy air.

I scoop up a handful of cloves from the sack and inhale. Next to rosemary, this is my favourite smell. To me, cloves are the scent of the East, of countries unseen and roads
untravelled, proof of a strange, exotic world that exists alongside mine, yet is forever out of reach.

I pick one from my palm and hold it between my thumb and forefinger, studying it as if I have never seen one before. It is hard and stubby, like a tiny piece of wood, with a bulbous end –
a peppercorn surrounded by four stiff little leaves. It is not quite a flower, not quite a nut. How does it grow? I wonder. On a tree? On a bush? Somebody far away in the Spice Islands has picked
it and someone has collected it, and it has been bought and sold across the seas until it arrived in Hamburg, where Ned’s agent, John Watson, bought two sacks and put them on a ship to
Hull.

The keelman sent word this morning that he is tied up at King’s Staith. Rob arranged for the carter to bring the sacks to our warehouse down by the river, and now we are checking that
everything is as it should be. The cloves have come a long way, and so have I. I am not just a woman, not just a widow. I am a merchant adventurer now.

It is over a year since the pestilence. A year since Ned died. A year since I was able to turn into him at night and press my cheek against his chest. A year since I felt steady, and certain.
And safe.

It is a year, too, since Jane saved Bess from the carter’s horse. Bess is nearly four now, and she does not remember that dark time, and I am glad of it. When I look back, I wonder how we
went from day to day, but we did. We all did.

Not long after they opened the city gates to strangers once more, the keelboats started to ply the river again between York and Hull, and one morning Ned’s apprentice, Rob Haxby, appeared
in the hall. He had done as Ned said and stayed in Hull to wait for the goods John had sent from Hamburg, stamped with Ned’s mark. John was once Ned’s apprentice, but now it is
Rob’s turn to learn how to merchant. He is a shy, gangly boy with huge hands and feet, and I saw something crumble in his face when I had to tell him that Ned was dead. I wanted to pull him
to me and let him weep, but we had a shipload of goods to unload, and store, and sell.

I knew how to run a household, but merchandising was men’s work. But I had no man, only a boy to help me, so I went down to Trinity Hall and found Mr Appleyard, the governor of the company
of merchant adventurers there, who had dined with Ned more than once. Mr Appleyard has pendulous cheeks and a red nose like my father’s, but his eyes are quick and shrewd. It was my right to
take over Ned’s adventuring, as he well knew. He didn’t like it, but he told me who I needed to see and what I needed to do, to keep the business going.

I remember standing in the warehouse with Rob by my side that first morning. We had a tun of wine, some pottery jugs packed into a barrel, three primers, beautifully painted, bales of ginger and
nutmeg and peppercorns and, when we untied the cords and unwrapped the canvas, a quantity of luxurious furs. So many beautiful things, and all I could wonder was who was left to want them.

We sold the wine first. I heard later that Mr Bowes chortled that he had it so cheap he would have bought ten times as many tuns if he could, but I set my jaw and I learnt. I drive a harder
bargain now, and my customers are more like to shake their heads and complain, but still they buy. This I have learnt. The world keeps turning and the money keeps going round and round. There will
always be someone to sell and someone to buy.

Before we had sold the last jug, John wrote from Hamburg. He could sell wool and lead, he said, and buy more furs if we thought we could shift them. I wrote back, a hard letter to write, and
told him that Ned was dead, but that if he stayed I would honour his contract and admit him to the merchants’ company as his master would have done.

And so I became a merchant. John has a nose for a deal, but mine is the risk, and we work well together. I have a feel for it, I think. I know how to take a chance on a shipment, and how to make
folk want just what it is that I have to sell.

Rob has stayed. Like Jane, he has nowhere else to go. We are a small household now, but we go on. What else is there to do? For a time we were numb with grief, but it fades. Alone in my great
bed, I roll over at night and Ned isn’t there, and his absence is a rusty knife twisting in my heart. Every morning, there is a moment between waking and opening my eyes when I tell myself
that it was just a bad dream. I will open my eyes and there Ned will be, yawning and scratching his fingers through his hair. I
will
it to be just a dream. But it isn’t, it is real,
and Ned is gone.

But yes, we go on. We are even content. I thought I would never laugh again, but we do. Bess is a mischievous child and a loving one. When she has been naughty, she has a way of peeping a look
at you that makes it hard indeed to keep a stern face. She loves Jane and Rob. We are a little family.

We are all outcasts of one kind or another, save Bess, of course, and Francis makes sure that everyone knows it. Francis’s devotion is even more conspicuous since the sickness. He took his
survival as a sign of God’s favour, and prays loudly and long. The neighbours are impressed by him, and they know I turned him and Agnes from my house in their time of need – or so
Francis tells it. In the battle for the good opinion of the street, Francis is the victor, and it makes a difference. I am a wealthy widow with a thriving business, a merchant in my own right, but
no one has approached me about marriage.