37

Lauren, 2019

Click. Lauren takes a photo of the corn bird and sets it as a screen saver. She’s not losing sight of it again. Leaning over her desk, she starts to write quickly.

Dear G, Dad totally agrees your bird is the sort of detail an old master might paint, hinting at his tethered sitter’s yearning for flight. But it hasn’t flown anywhere! I don’t think it’s been exposed to UV in the last twenty years. The beak is bent – a crash landing in the kitchen, my bad – but the wicker is pliable and blond, as if woven last week …

In her mind’s eye, Gemma’s nimble fingers weaving, threading, working, the pink tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration.

Lauren looks up at the bird. In a box. All this time. She still can’t make sense of it. Did Granny, a woman who loved to show off her gewgaws, succumb to some sort of mad eclipse fever and hide it away? And when?

It also niggles that Flora didn’t tell her about its discovery immediately. Further proof, not that she needed any, that she’s viewed as a liability. This weekend, she’s felt her family’s guardedness, as if they believe they’re a blurted sentence away from eviscerating her. But all she wants now is to fill in the blanks, ‘the full story’ her mother talked about. It’s starting to feel as if the note-writer is the only person who might tell it, slip the truth into her pocket, like a shiny new coin. And if not the note-writer, then Jonah – unless they’re the same person.

Will she see him again? She hasn’t long. By tomorrow evening London will have closed around her, its sky slung like a sheet between tall buildings. And it will absorb her fully, drawing in her attention and energy: the crowds, the gallery, and the ongoing admin of her mother’s death. She grabs her woolly scarf.

Catching sight of herself in the dressing-table mirror as she opens the bedroom door, Lauren starts. Dixie. She looks like her mother today, and surprisingly radiant, as if uniting with the corn bird has restored a vital trace element she’s been missing.

‘Onions!’ Flora explains, not entirely convincingly, wiping her streaming eyes on a tea towel. ‘What’s with the coat, Lauren?’

‘Oh, I was popping out for some fresh air, unless you’d like me to help …’ Lauren begins.

‘No, no. It’s our last supper and it’s mine. All under control.’ Flora shakes her head and starts dicing again. ‘Well, it’s not actually. And it’ll be late. But who cares?’ she says, improbably.

From the conservatory, Bertha starts to chirp, ‘Mind your fingers, Raff!’ in Flora’s voice. ‘Do be careful!’

‘Shut your beak up,’ Flora yells back. ‘God, that bird. Maybe we all get the pet we deserve, eh?’

Walking closer to the conservatory’s glass doors, Lauren meets Bertha’s magisterial eye. The parrot slowly raises a bunched foot in greeting. ‘Hello, you,’ she replies, smiling. Bertha cocks her head, scrutinizing Lauren as if she were the wildlife, displayed and trapped.

‘Hang on, did you just talk to Bertha?’ Flora drops her knife to the board with a clatter.

It does feel like a shift, a tiny triumph. ‘God, I did.’

‘Maybe it was the bump on the head. Let me see.’ Flora’s oniony fingers root through Lauren’s fringe. ‘Gone. And where are your lines, for Heaven’s sake?’ She nods at Raff, lying, belly-down on the sofa, playing a game on the iPad, Granny’s fox-fur stole tucked under his arm. ‘The collagen thief.’

‘Why don’t I take him out?’ says Lauren. Flora does look kind of ragged, her eyes puffy. ‘Give you a break.’

‘Oh, no, don’t worry. He’s a handful, really. And …’ nodding at the window, Flora whispers ‘… we don’t know who’s out there, do we?’

Lauren’s mind flicks again to Jonah, like a compass needle to a magnetic north.

‘Svalbard north of the Tamar!’ Kat strides into the kitchen, her luggage wheels rattling on the flagstones. She’s smiling, not snarling, now: she and Flora must have sorted out their beef about the phone, which is a relief. When Lauren asked Flora what Kofi had said, she muttered something about getting the wrong end of the stick. Lauren’s glad of this too.

‘All flights tomorrow cancelled. Just as well I’ve got a seat this evening,’ Kat says. ‘Are you okay taking the maps back for me, Flo? I can’t shove them in here.’ She pats the side of her designer case and glances around the room, her expression wistful. ‘Funny to think this is the last time I’ll see the kitchen that time forgot. You know, I may have one last scoot around the house to see if there’s anything else I want.’

‘Do. Don’t forget the Post-its,’ says Flora. ‘If you must go tonight, Kat, and I wish you weren’t, I insist on driving you to the airport. You’ll come, Lauren? I need my co-pilot.’

‘Absolutely.’ Lauren grins, happy to be asked.

‘Great. Cancel the taxi, Kat.’ Flora glances at the door, lowers her voice. ‘But we still haven’t decided what to do about Angie, have we? The Las Vegas wedding … Are we even invited? I mean, he hasn’t made that terribly clear, has he? Or am I missing something?’

Lauren has been wondering the same thing. And how she’ll afford the airfare to Vegas, let alone a fancy hotel.

‘There’s a pattern of missing information,’ says Kat, and something about the way she says this brings a colder, sharper mood into the room.

As if to block it out, Flora turns back to the worktop and starts slicing a stick of celery.

‘On one level, Dad inviting us back here feels manipulative.’ Kat frowns. ‘Crafty even.’

Flora stops chopping. And something in Lauren seizes in recognition too.

‘On another, just muddled. As in maybe he really has got too many heavy metals in his brain, his veins bunged up with paint.’ Kat sits down on a chair, agitates one foot.

‘Or Daddy just wanted us here to have a lovely time,’ says Flora, determinedly, cutting again. ‘Can we agree this is actually possible?’

Lauren nods. She prefers this version.

‘I’d say the odds are very slightly stacked against it.’ Kat’s phone starts to vibrate. Lauren notices that her sister silences it quickly. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to get back to civilization.’

‘Do you fancy a last walk first?’ Lauren smiles hopefully. ‘Not far.’

Kat glances at her phone again, worry streaking across her face. ‘I can’t, sorry. I’ve got a few work things to straighten out.’

‘No problem,’ says Lauren, feeling slightly crushed. Stupid. It’s just a walk.

Raff launches off the sofa and wraps around her leg. ‘Take Raff!’

‘Lauren’s not taking you. How about you chop some fruit for Bertha?’ Flora picks an apple from the fruit bowl and offers it to Raff.

‘Want to go walk,’ says Raff, shaking his head.

‘I promise I won’t lose him,’ says Lauren. This is a chance to prove she’s a reliable loving aunt. Not a liability.

‘Going with Aunty Lauren.’ Raff tucks a sticky warm hand into hers and glances up, grinning, making Lauren’s heart swell.

‘The boy knows his mind, Flora.’ Kat looks up from her phone and winks at Raff. ‘A true Finch.’

Lauren watches opposing feelings fight it out on Flora’s face. The clock on the wall punches holes in the silence.

‘Oh, why not? He needs some fresh air. Long car journey tomorrow. But I warn you, Lauren, he’s the world’s slowest walker. You won’t get far.’ Flora kneels and holds his shoulders. ‘Little man, you behave, okay? No running off. No sharks. No tantrum. Promise me, Raff?’ She tucks a curl behind his ear. ‘Aunty Lauren is not used to tantrums.’

‘Raff is very, very good,’ he says.

Lauren squeezes his hand. She knows this is a big deal. ‘So, what do we need, eh? A coat and welly boots?’

‘A bit more than that!’ Flora says, looking staggered. ‘Gloves. Hat. Snacks. Tissues. Wet wipes. First-aid kit.’

‘Arctic expedition,’ mutters Kat. Lauren, terrified she’ll blow it, says nothing.

They’re already out of the drive when Lauren realizes she’s left her half-written letter to Gemma on the desk in her room. She pauses, wanting to turn back and put it away, but Raff tugs on her sleeve and points up at the windswept moor. ‘King of the castle,’ he says, with a big grin.

‘The moor?’ she says doubtfully. ‘You don’t want to go to the beach? Really? Well, we could walk to the stones, if you want.’ She points to a field gate further up the lane and taps the side of her nose. ‘Aunty Lauren has a short-cut.’

Raff stomps his wellies. ‘“And he marched them up …”’

They belt out the song. It’s the first time Lauren’s sung since the funeral, and it feels a bit like joy. ‘“And he marched them down again –”’ She stops abruptly.

In the distance, a man with a black dog, tail piped. Her heart skitters.

Has Jonah seen her? Possibly not. He carries on tramping across the field, then lifts a leg over a stile to the moor. It’s her last chance to speak to him before she returns to London. To ask if he knows anything about the notes: his expression will surely reveal the truth, even if he denies it. Would it be foolhardy? Irresponsible with Raff? There are other walkers around today. And if Jonah had wanted to hurt her, he’d have done it in the Heaps’ deserted cottage already. ‘Come on, little man, this way.’ The draw is physical, hard to resist. They head up, up, up, towards Jonah and the stones, unaware of the looming wall of charcoal cloud far out at sea, starting to rush towards them.