“Where are the others?”
Most of the tables in the cathedral café were full, but Jen couldn’t see Finn, Eg or Danny and Jules. Near the window a couple sat with a plate of scones and jam. They were wearing walking clothes. The woman wore a yellow hat.
“They’ve made themselves scarce so I can have a chat with you.”
A waitress arrived at their table with a pot of tea and two enormous chocolate chip cookies.
Jen grinned. “You remembered.”
When she came to live with them, Dorothy had kept biscuits in the cupboard by her bed. Chocolate chip cookies were Jen’s favourites.
Dorothy put her hand over Jen’s where it lay on the table.
“I’ve missed you,” she said.
“I’ve missed you too, Gran. It’s just sad at home. Your room, it’s still just like you left it. Danny’s too.”
“I understand that it was looking for Danny that brought you here.”
Jen picked up a cookie and broke a bit off. She shifted in her seat.
“Well, partly.”
“What else?”
“I couldn’t stay at home.”
“Your mother…”
“… she doesn’t care. Ever since you and Danny went. She’s been born again, and she’s a different person now. She’s been born as someone else. She only wants to know about Terence and the Church.”
“It’s been hard for you all.”
“At Easter when I went home, she’d got a lodger using my room. She doesn’t want me there.”
“Do you know where your mum has spent the last three months?”
“Scrubbing the church floors, on a pilgrimage, I don’t know.”
“She’s been sitting—”
“I don’t want to know.” The piece of cookie in Jen’s fingers disintegrated into crumbs. She held her grandmother’s gaze. “I don’t want to talk about her.”
Dorothy nodded once. She picked up the teapot and poured tea. Jen broke off another bit of biscuit and popped it in her mouth. She chewed, but it tasted like dust and didn’t seem to get any smaller. Dorothy offered her a napkin and she spat the chewed biscuit into it screwed it up into a ball.
“You have to make a decision,” Dorothy said.
“Why do I? Why can’t I just carry on like this?”
“Because you are neither one thing nor the other.”
“I want to be both.”
Dorothy smiled. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that.”
“But all these people, in this café, in the cathedral, in the streets – they aren’t all dead.”
“Most of them are. There are a few like you. And there are some amongst the living who can break through, but most of the people here are dead.”
Jen looked around. The café was full, people sitting at tables in groups, some couples, a few children and young people, but more older people. Wasn’t that normal for tourist places like this?
“Why aren’t there more then?” She looked back at Dorothy who was sipping her tea. “People have been dying for thousands of years. Why isn’t it more crowded?”
“People only stay as long as they are remembered. Once a person is forgotten, they fade away.”
“So remembering someone keeps them alive?”
“Not really, this isn’t…”
“I know. But still. Keeps them in existence.”
“I suppose.”
“And what if someone has been forgotten, then someone remembers them? Can they be brought back?”
“Possibly. I don’t know all of the answers.”
“So if I go home, as long as I remember you and Danny, then you will still be here?”
“We will always be with you, even though you may not see us. You won’t ever be alone.”
“And Ethie?”
“Ethie isn’t quite what you think she is.”
“She’s my cousin. She’s a princess and the bride of Christ.”
Dorothy shrugged and put her cup down in her saucer with a clatter.
“That’s what she is to you.”
“I need to find her. She’s been kidnapped.”
“The best thing you can do – for her as well as yourself – is to get better and return to your family. One day you will come to this world, but it doesn’t have to be now.”
“What about Danny? I can’t leave without seeing Danny.”
“He’s waiting for you. He and that girl – Julie, is it? – they’ve found a car and they’ll drive you home.”
“Do you think I should go?”
Dorothy took hold of Jen’s hand. “If you ever need me, stretch out your hand and I’ll take it.” Jen felt tears prick her eyes, and Dorothy swam out of sight until she blinked her back again. “And your mum…”
“What about her?”
“It’s been hard for her, since Danny died. She’s made mistakes.”
“She still had me. And Dad.”
“She’s been trying to make sense of it. And that Terence, he’s very convincing.”
“Only if you’re an idiot.”
Dorothy laughed out loud. “Go on, find Danny and let him take you home.”
“But…”
“I’ll walk with you.”
Danny and Jules were waiting at the front of the cathedral, next to a small red car.
“Where did you get that from?”
“The verger said we could borrow it.”
“I promised him all would be well,” said Jules.
Jen stared at her. “Are you…?”
“There have been many anchorites.”
“Yes, but they’re not all remembered.”
“Come on,” said Danny. “Hop in, it’s time to go.”
Jen turned to Dorothy who wrapped her in a big hug. She smelled of peppermints, just like she used to.
“Sorry about the bottle,” Jen said into the fabric of her gran’s cardigan. “Do you want the ship?”
She fished into the pocket of her jeans and pulled it out.
“I’m sorry about the bottle too,” said Dorothy, taking the broken ship and balancing it on her hand, “and the damage it caused. Now get going.”
“Say hello to Grandad for me.”
Dorothy smiled and Jen climbed into the back seat of the car. Danny and Jules got into the front and they set off.
***
The first they heard was that there had been an accident. The school phoned, the school that Danny had left a few weeks before, the school that ran the Duke of Edinburgh scheme that he was still involved in, even though he was off to Cambridge in the autumn. He was set to become a civil engineer. One of the best. He would build bridges one day.
“There’s been an accident,” the school secretary told Donna. “Two of the boys have been taken to hospital in Scarborough.” She didn’t have any more details.
“Should we come?” Donna asked. “We can set off straight away.”
“I’ll phone when there’s more news.”
So they waited in the hallway, the three of them, for the phone to ring. Donna paced up and down and Jen sat on her Dad’s lap. She was fifteen and she hadn’t sat on his lap for years.
“We should go,” said Donna.
“I’ll get the car,” said Steve.
“It might not be him. She said two boys. There’s ten of them on the trip, it might not be him.”
“OK, we’ll wait then.”
Jen felt as though her bones were made of wood, splintered at the ends, brittle, rotting. She sat as still as she could.
“Should we go?” asked Donna.
“It’s up to you, love,” said Steve.
“We should go,” said Jen.
They set off ten minutes later, Jen in the back and Donna in the passenger seat, phone in her hand, checking for messages every few seconds. It was early evening in July and the sun was still high in the sky. They drove west from Ely, towards Cambridge.
“It might not be him. It could be one of the others. It’s probably nothing.” Donna’s words hung in the air of the car. Steve concentrated on the road and Jen looked out at the sky. She would feel it if Danny were in danger. Danny who had always been there. Danny who took her camping, to London. Danny who taught her to play cricket and let her help him make a suspension bridge out of matches. If there was anything wrong, she would feel it in her heart.
Her heart was beating in her chest like a ball in a tin can. She clenched her fingers. She thought, if I prayed, I would pray.
They were on the A1 past Huntingdon when the phone rang. Donna answered it and listened.
She listened for two minutes and didn’t speak. Steve kept driving.
Eventually she said, “Thank you for letting me know.”
She said, “We’re on our way.”
She finished the call and she said to Steve, “Pull over.”
He couldn’t immediately, as it was a busy road, but two miles on there was a layby and he pulled in. Nobody spoke for those two miles. As soon as the car stopped, Donna jumped out and ran. Steve followed her. Jen watched them, her parents. She saw Donna’s face distorted in a scream, her arms and legs kicking out as Steve tried to hold her, to contain her. She saw the sobs that broke across her father’s face. She sat alone in the car as traffic sped by on the A1 and felt her wooden bones crumble away to dust.
It could have been anyone. A man driving his van through the village of Ravenscar had a heart attack at the wheel. He died instantly and the van hurtled down the road, into a crowd of walkers who had just come out of the visitors’ centre. Most of them got out of the way, but two of them weren’t quick enough. George Hartnell was clipped by the van and sent spinning to the ground. He had three broken ribs and a fractured arm. Danny Mathers was pinned by the van against an elm tree. His ribs cracked and pierced his heart. His lungs filled and he died by drowning in his own blood. The engine was still running, the dead driver hidden in the airbag.