As he pulled out the rusted cans she shook her head. ‘Too dangerous,’ she said.
But they found a bottle of rum, unopened, and a sealed tin of hard-tack crackers. Lizzie looked at them critically. ‘That’s a sad excuse for a feast.’ She thought for a moment, then, ‘Come with me,’ she said.
In the little walled orchard not far from the house, the old stone walls basked in the winter sun. As Davy squeaked open the iron gate and stepped inside, he felt their warmth instantly embrace him. A faint apple smell sweetened the air. There were a few still clinging to the trees. They’d grown apples, pears, plums and berries, Lizzie told him. ‘We used to make all sorts – well, Mother did. Jams and preserves, pies and cobblers.’ There’d been a vegetable garden as well.
The apples were on the upper branches, too high to pick. He had to shake them down. George prudently retreated to the safety of the shore. While Davy went about jiggling the branches gently and collecting the best in his jacket, Lizzie searched around the edges for blackberries. In such a sheltered spot, warmed by the walls, ‘We’d often find plenty worth eating well into December,’ she said.
He realized she’d been saying we and our since arriving at the house. And he thought how every inch of it, inside and out, must be layered richly with those first years of her life.
Her next words confirmed that. ‘Will hated picking blackberries. He was so impatient, always stabbing his fingers on the thorns.’ It was the first time she’d said his name. She said it casually, as if Davy had known him.
Davy knew not to question her. Soon, he sensed, she would tell him more.
He took a bite of an apple. Small, a deep crimson in colour, its juicy flesh was intensely sweet. He clambered on to the wall to sit and eat it. He felt he must be in a dream with the warmth, the glittering sea, the hush of waves along the shore and the taste of apple on his lips. The air smelt of warm fruit and salt and dry grass. The sun kissed Lizzie’s golden hair as she leaned and crouched in her search for berries.
Davy had taken a sheet of drawing paper from her room. He unfolded it from his pocket and began to sketch her. Her thick plait kept falling forward, getting in the way, and she’d flip it back over her shoulder, impatiently. She’d taken off her jacket and shed her shoes and stockings to go barefoot.
And Davy realized that she’d become more substantial since they arrived at the house. As if she were somehow remaking herself from the memories stored in the place. And her character, so unforgiving, had been softer since the concert at the Rivoli. She caught his eye and smiled. ‘Are you drawing me?’
The song that Robert Craig sang, how did it go?
‘Oh have you seen My Lady out in the garden . . .’ Davy had no voice for singing.
‘Wrong tune, wrong words,’ called Lizzie. She sang in a clear girl’s voice, ‘Did you not hear My Lady go down the garden singing? Blackbird and thrush were silent to hear the alleys – Davy! Here! Blackberries!’
He hopped down from the wall and went to her. He picked the few she’d found and, like Will, got stabbed by the thorns. He tasted his first ever blackberry. It was deeply, darkly sweet.
‘Not bitter?’ she said.
He went to pop one in her mouth. She even opened her lips. Then they remembered. She couldn’t. For she was dead. But how could she be? She seemed more alive to Davy than anyone had ever been.
Her delight at the berries was gone. Her face shadowed. ‘What if we’re wrong?’ she said. ‘What if I shouldn’t be here? This place, Davy, it’s so strong. If I’m caught here, if I can’t go, that would be the worst, I think. To have to stay here, feeling like I do just now. Knowing that life is wonderful when it’s too late to live. I don’t understand. Why am I still here?’ Her voice was urgent, even angry. ‘Why don’t I disappear?’ she demanded.
Davy had no answer to give her.
Someone had left a green rowing boat on the beach, pulled high above the tideline so it wouldn’t drift away. Lizzie sat in it, looking lost. Once Davy had unloaded his fruit gleanings up at the house, he and George climbed in to join her.
‘It’s this waiting,’ she said, ‘this not knowing. I can’t stand it.’
‘Would it really be so bad? If you had to stay?’ Davy said. ‘We’d stay with you. Me and George. You wouldn’t have to be alone.’
She looked at him. ‘Oh, Davy,’ was all she said.
They held the wake on the rough grass lawn that sloped behind the house. The orchard fruits were arranged on a plate and the tin of crackers was unsealed. With an air of solemn occasion, Davy opened the bottle of rum.
Hard-tack crackers, Lizzie said, were an acquired taste. Davy had to agree. They were dust dry. He alternated bites of cracker with bites of apple to try and ease them down but it didn’t help much. Despite his hunger, he could only manage two. He finished his meal with some berries. ‘What comes next?’ he said. ‘Wait, I know. A toast to the dead.’
He went to splash rum into a mug but Lizzie stopped him.
‘Not so fast,’ she said. ‘May I remind you that you’re thirteen years old? That’s far too young for liquor. I can’t allow it.’
‘Are you forbidding me?’ He felt a smile begin to creep across his face.
‘Most certainly,’ she said, with primly folded arms.
She was way up on her high horse, positively oozing Miss Flint-style disapproval. Throughout the afternoon, her journey back into girlhood had continued. It was so gradual, so imperceptible, the shedding of years. In front of his eyes, without him noticing, she’d become a flat-chested, skinny child.
Davy began to laugh.
‘What?’ she said.
‘It’s funny. You talk like you’re still eighty but you can’t be more than ten.’
‘That’s as may be,’ she said. ‘Technically, I’ll always be your elder. And drinking in the day is just louche. You may have a sip.’
With a careless hand, Davy took a mouthful. Instantly he was coughing as the rum seared a fire path down his throat. Now it was Lizzie who was laughing. Once he’d recovered, Davy raised his mug and said, ‘To the memory of Miss Elizabeth Flint. Famous drinker of Manhattan cocktails, turkey rustler and all-round thief.’
She nodded in gracious acknowledgement.
‘What next?’ he said.
‘People take it in turns to talk about the deceased, sharing stories that show them in a good light,’ said Lizzie. ‘It’s customary to bend the truth or even lie outright. To praise virtues they never possessed in life. There’s none so admired as the recently deceased, none so charitable as the person worried what might be said of them when their time comes.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Should I go first?’
‘No.’ Her smile was gone. ‘I knew her best.’
Davy would always remember that. How Lizzie told her story as if it had happened to someone else. It must have been the only way she could bring herself to tell it. He saw her rolling back time to when everything stopped. He saw it in the flicker of her eyelids, the biting of her lip. She spoke the bare bones, that was all. In later years, when Davy had grown in the world, he would put flesh on those bones and understand so much more than she told him.
‘No lies. No bending the truth. Just a story,’ she said. She took a deep breath and began.
‘It was family tradition to sail around the point to the harbour on Christmas Day. That year, that day, there was some delay with their mother. They were forever having to wait for her, she never could keep to time. The two children had been bickering, about nothing in particular, as brothers and sisters are inclined to do. And Will had been badgering their mother to let him go out in the dinghy by himself.’ Lizzie paused for a moment, then continued. ‘He was only seven, but so strong willed. He’d never be told, especially by his sister. So, they ignored each other while they waited for her on the beach. Neither one willing to give ground, to be the one to make the first move back to friendly relations. Christmas Day. Lizzie never liked it, she thought it took everyone’s
attention from her birthday. You care deeply about things like that when you’re a child.’
She stopped. She’d rushed through some bits, picked her way slowly through others.
‘It’s OK,’ said Davy.
‘Must I go on?’ she whispered.
He nodded.
Lizzie stood, as if she had to be on her feet to tell the rest. She began to pace. ‘She saw what Will was doing. She saw him wade out and swim to the buoy where the boat was moored. She saw him climb in. She yelled to him that he wasn’t allowed, he’d be in trouble. But she knew him, knew what he was like. She knew very well he’d take that as a challenge. She should have gone and got their mother right away. She should have.’
‘How old were – how old was Lizzie?’ said Davy.
‘Ten. She was ten. Old enough to know the danger and not to bait him.’ She stopped again. ‘I can’t,’ she said.
‘Yes, you can. Go on,’ Davy said.
She took a shaky breath. ‘He was small for his age. It was an old boat, heavy wood with a heavy canvas sail, too much for Will. His friends were all older, bigger boys, much stronger. She knew, Lizzie knew how it stung his pride that he couldn’t sail out with them. The only wonder was he hadn’t tried it before. He managed to raise the sail but he wasn’t strong enough to hold it and tie it off. The sail came down – clattering – it fell so quickly. It knocked him overboard. Lizzie screamed for their mother and swam out. But they couldn’t find him. No one could.’
‘But they searched for him,’ said Davy.
‘For days,’ she said. ‘For weeks, up and down the coast. Word travelled quickly. People miles away searched. Everyone looked for him, by water, on foot. All the beaches and coves and caves, every little rocky island. At high tide and low tide. They went out every day, Lizzie and her mother. The sea turned wild that winter.’
‘He was never found,’ said Lizzie.
‘Then they left?’ said Davy.
‘He was gone, but he was everywhere. It was unbearable. After some months, they closed the shutters, locked the doors and moved away. They lived small, closed-in lives and blamed themselves, especially Lizzie. She was older than him. She was bigger. She could have stopped him.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Davy said. ‘You don’t know.’
She looked at him for the first time since she’d started speaking. ‘I called him a baby,’ she said. ‘I knew the mood he was in. The only thing I can say for myself is I made sure I could never make a mistake like that again.’ She began to walk towards the water. ‘The wake’s over.’
‘What about my turn?’ he called.
‘You don’t get one.’ She stood where the waves broke around her feet.
She’d never told anyone before. Davy didn’t know how he knew, he just did. And now he knew why she hadn’t married Robert Craig. Why she’d ended up caged in the closed museum.
Davy went to stand beside Lizzie, with his bare feet in the sea. Not to say anything to try and make things right, no words could do that. But he could stand with her, as a friend, so he did.
As Davy stood there, pondering what she’d said, something began to stir within him. ‘It happened when you were ten,’ he said slowly. ‘I’d say you’re ten now and you have been for a time.’ Then it hit him. ‘Lizzie,’ he said. ‘You’re not getting any younger. You’ve stopped.’
She stared at him. ‘You’re right.’ Her face brightened for a moment, then went dark. ‘So why am I still here?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
With a smothered cry, she turned and quickly walked away.
The sky was endless. The sea was vast. Davy was small and had no answers.
He and George walked down the beach a way. Davy picked up a stick and, without purpose, began to draw in the sand. When he realized the shape it was taking, his interest sharpened. He collected various sticks and stones and, using them and his hands, put a boy and a girl in the boat he’d drawn. He set it on water and made the sail billow with the wind. He put a dog in the boat for good measure. There were no angels looking down on them, no angels passing by. For wings, he put seagulls in the sky.
As he finished and stepped back, Lizzie came to look. ‘It’s the dog in your photograph,’ he said.
‘Angus,’ she said. ‘George reminds me of him.’
‘It’s for you. Happy birthday. Merry Christmas,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘It’s perfect,’ she said.
While they stood there, the wind was rising. It began to scatter his picture to the air. ‘Oh no, come back!’ Lizzie cried.
They chased the flying sand along the beach.
The sun was setting. Its firestorm blazed the horizon. Lizzie suddenly stopped and looked out to sea. She went very still.
‘What is it?’ Davy shaded his eyes, but the sun was blinding.
Then Lizzie began to run.
And Davy ran after her, yelling, ‘Lizzie! Wait! Wait for me!’
Lizzie ran to the green rowing boat pulled up on the shore and tried to haul it towards the water, forgetting that she couldn’t. When she shouted, ‘Help me, Davy!’ he was already there.
He dragged the boat down the sand, saying, ‘What, Lizzie? What? Is this it?’
‘I don’t know, all I know is you have to take me out there.’
She and George jumped in the moment they reached the water’s edge. Davy walked the boat out a little further, soaking his trousers and boots, then scrambled aboard.
‘There’s a life jacket under the seat. Put it on,’ Lizzie said.
He took up the oars as she told him and began to row. Awkward at first, clunking them and splashing water everywhere, he soon got the hang of how to hold the boat steady. He settled to a rhythm and set a course out to sea.
‘Faster,’ she said. ‘Faster. Put your back into it.’
He did, glancing over his shoulder. And he saw what she saw. A black outline against the red face of the sun. ‘Is that a boat?’
She didn’t answer. Her gaze was fixed on it. He rowed, his chest burning with the effort. He checked again. It was a sailboat, he could clearly see the outline.
‘Hurry,’ she kept saying. ‘Hurry, Davy.’
Rowing and rowing, he had to be closing the distance between them. And the sailboat didn’t seem to move. Yet it was as if he were rowing on the spot.
‘We’ll never reach it,’ said Lizzie.
Davy rested, breathing hard, nodding. His hands were stinging, blistering raw from the oars. ‘What should we do?’
‘I don’t know, how can I know? I’ve never done this before. Help me, Davy. Please.’ She began to cry.
He took up the oars again and began to row with all the strength he had, grunting with the effort, bracing his feet. They surged forward, slicing through the calm water.
‘It’s no good,’ she said at last. ‘We can’t reach it. We’ll never reach it.’
Davy stopped.
George was anxiously squirming between them, trying to lick them into happiness. ‘Oh, George,’ said Lizzie. ‘What will I do?’
They sat in silence. Davy bent over the oars. He could not bear to meet her eyes. After everything, at this last moment, he’d failed her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘It’s not your fault. You’ve done all you could and more.’ After a moment, she said, ‘I’m not meant to go, am I? Yes, that’s it. I’m meant to stay here and make atonement.’ She whispered the last word.
‘Atonement?’ said Davy.
‘Make amends for what I did.’
He thought. Then he said, ‘You didn’t let yourself really live. Seventy years. Doesn’t that count?’
They sat in silence, drifting. The water gently lapped at the boat. And suddenly Davy knew. He urgently knew. ‘Lizzie, if that’s Will out there, he’s come for you. Don’t you see? He doesn’t want you to stay. He doesn’t want your atonement, he doesn’t need it. You’re the one keeping yourself here. You, Lizzie. You’re the one.’
‘Me.’ She stare
d at him.
‘Wait for me, Will. I’m on my way. Say it, Lizzie.’
‘Wait for me, Will,’ she whispered. ‘I’m on my way.’
Davy picked up the oars and began to row again. ‘Louder,’ he said. ‘He has to hear you.’
‘Wait for me, Will. I’m on my way.’
‘Louder,’ he said. ‘Shout it out.’
‘Wait for me, Will,’ she shouted. ‘Wait for me. I’m on my way.’
‘That’s it.’ Davy rowed with renewed strength. He began to shout with her. ‘Wait for her, Will. She’s on her way.’
George added his voice, barking and barking.
‘There’s the boat,’ she yelled. ‘I can see it. There it is!’
And as the rowing boat surged forward, from beneath the water, all around them, great silver creatures began to leap. Their sleek bodies arced high into the air. ‘Look at those fish!’ Davy cried.
Lizzie was smiling. ‘Not fish,’ she said. ‘They’re dolphins. A pod of dolphins!’
There were five or six of them. They leaped around the boat, again and again, as if they were urging Davy on. He rowed, filled with a joy he’d never felt before, laughing for no reason he could think of. ‘What are they doing? Why are they here?’
George was under Davy’s seat, quivering with fright, looking with fascination.
Lizzie suddenly grabbed the sides of the boat. Her eyes were wide. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Davy, stop!’
He paused, panting.
‘They’re here for me,’ she said.
The sea was still as a pond. The dolphins frisked around the boat, surfacing and falling, blowing air through the holes in their heads.
‘I know what I have to do. I’m going with them.’ She smiled, trembling with eagerness.
Davy’s voice stuck in his throat. ‘I can’t say goodbye. Not to you.’
‘Then we won’t,’ she said. ‘No goodbyes. Just thank you.’
She hugged George. Then she hugged Davy. And her arms, as she hugged him, felt like a circling of the air. She smelt of sun and the sweetness of apples. He whispered that he’d remember her all his life.