‘When you’re dead, can you fly?’
Jemima had just finished explaining to Laura about the Duchy (Hugh had telephoned to tell her and said he would like it if all three of them went to Sussex, so she had thought it necessary to tell her before they went), and Laura had listened intently. She was six and Jemima thought that she was the most intelligent as well as the most beautiful child in the world – which she wrongly thought she concealed from everyone.
‘I don’t know, darling – I expect so.’
‘Cos I don’t see how she could get up there if she couldn’t.’
Laura’s only experience of death had been when they had had to put Hugh’s old spaniel down. Heaven had seemed the most comforting option and had therefore been carefully explained to her. ‘I suppose he grew wings,’ she had said, as the final tears made their way. She had cross-examined Hugh about Heaven, and he had elaborated – a place full of delicious bones, walks whenever Piper wanted them and endless rabbits to chase. All this was rather backfiring now.
‘I don’t think Duchy would like bones everywhere, or rabbits cos they ate her garden. Poor Duchy!’
Jemima battled weakly with her. Heaven was different for each person. For the Duchy there would be lovely gardens with flowers everywhere and, yes, of course, if she needed wings to get there, she would have them.
‘I would like wings now. Then I could fly up and see them both.’
‘It’s so difficult,’ she said to Hugh, over supper. ‘When we go down people are bound to be talking about the funeral and being buried and the poor little thing will be utterly confused.’
‘Well, we’ll just have to do a lot more explaining.’
‘I don’t know how to do that without telling her a pack of lies.’
‘You don’t believe in Heaven?’
She shook her head. ‘I just believe in now.’
‘Sweetheart. You don’t have to come with me.’
‘I want to.’
‘And I want you to.’
His relief washed over her: he needed her and she loved him.
In bed they reassured one another; it was comforting to him that Jemima had also loved the Duchy, who had received her into the family so kindly when she was still Jemima Leaf, had been good to her twins – the Leaflets – who wrote thank-you letters that were filled with lists of what they had most enjoyed during their visits: castle puddings, making a dam at the stream in the wood, having real cider with ginger ale, hardly ever having baths, driving the Brig’s old car, now relegated to a corner of the field where it was gracefully subsiding in a bed of nettles. These had been young letters; now they were thirteen the letters had become more stilted. The Duchy had made it plain that she approved of Jemima, though the same could not be said of Edward’s new wife, Diana. And Hugh, fiercely loyal to Villy, could not bring himself to be ever more than courteous to her.
‘Do you think he’ll bring her?’ he said.
‘Darling, I don’t know, but I guess not.’
‘Why do you guess that?’ He was sifting her straight silky hair between his fingers.
‘Because she won’t want to go. And I think she usually gets what she wants.’
‘So? I want you to get what you want.’
‘I want the same things as you.’
‘But you’d tell me if you didn’t, wouldn’t you? I don’t want you saying anything simply because you think I’d like to hear it. We made a pact, don’t you remember, the day we married?’
‘Oh dear! I was just going to say that you’re a lovely husband, an excellent father, a wonderful stepfather and a very good lover. What a pity!’
He put his arms round her bony shoulders. ‘I bask in your good opinion, you know I do. Couldn’t do without it. I hope you do a bit of basking yourself.’
‘From morning till night. And it’s night time now.’
She could tell from his face when he’d got back that evening that he’d had one of his awful headaches, but had learned long ago not to mention them. He simply needed a good long sleep.
‘I just need a good long sleep,’ she said.