Izzie had slipped into a routine during the past couple of weeks. She’d kiss Marcus good-bye in the morning, drop Charlie and Jess at school, go to the shops if there was anything she or Maddy needed, pick up a paper, then drive over to Maddy’s. She wasn’t sure how much Maddy registered her presence—that spaced-out calm of the first day was still pretty much in place, although it was occasionally punctuated with periods of stormy tears and furious resentment. But whenever Maddy had cursed Simon for leaving her in the lurch, calling him names that chilled Izzie to the bone, she would later be assailed with the bitterest guilt and grief. Once or twice Izzie had found her lying on her bed, curled in a fetal position, sobbing so hard that her whole body shook uncontrollably.
Izzie did what she could. The practical things were the easiest: loading and unloading laundry, stocking the fridge, helping Will with his homework, or playing with Pasco after Colette had to leave. Even answering Florence’s heartbreaking questions. This she could take in her stride.
It was how to be with Maddy that was worrying her. If they’d known each other for longer before this dreadful tragedy, she would have had a reference point. Up and down, calm and crazy, resigned and resentful—Izzie wasn’t sure which was the real Maddy. It was like trying to piece together a jigsaw without having seen the picture on the lid. She hadn’t even known Simon. All she had to go on were the photographs Maddy had shown her with such fervor. They revealed a big, confident man who was smiling in every one, from the glamorous wedding pictures, to the snaps of him buried in the sand with Will standing triumphantly beside him with a spade.
So she could give no feedback when Maddy spoke about him, speculating endlessly on what had gone wrong, on the signs she shouldn’t have missed, forensically combing through her memories of their last weeks together, reproaching herself for not being the wife he could have shared his problems with.
Izzie could only listen. She knew enough about bereavement to realize that Maddy didn’t want platitudes. The best gift she could give her was the space to feel what she was feeling and to take her as she was, day by day, hour by hour. Some instinct made Izzie believe that Maddy had an inner strength that she was only just testing, and that it would see her through in the long run. Some days, however, that belief was stretched to the limits.
It was a Wednesday when things came to a head. She had walked straight into the house, as usual, and tucked a couple of shepherd’s pies, made the night before, into the freezer. Maddy’s car—a Fiesta now—was parked at its customary rakish angle in the drive, but of Maddy there was no sign. Florence was at nursery, Pasco was grizzling, bored in his playpen in the kitchen, and the remains of his porridge were congealing on the high chair. Worried now, Izzie picked him up quickly and clutched him to her. Feeling the dampness from his nappy, she started rushing from room to room—no sign. Her heart was pounding in her chest when, from an upstairs window, she spotted a trail of footsteps on the dewy lawn. Almost crying herself, she followed the dark ribbon on the grass into the orchard, and there Maddy stood, barefoot and still in her pajamas, her hair wild and uncombed, looking up at the sky through the branches of the trees.
Mustering all the control she could, Izzie spoke quietly. “Maddy, come in now; you’ll get cold. I’ll put some coffee on for us both. Who took the children in today?”
Maddy turned, looking slightly irritated at having her reverie interrupted. “I did, of course.”
“In your pajamas?”
“I wore my dressing gown,” she replied defensively. “And it wasn’t cold.”
“Come in now,” Izzie reiterated more firmly. “It’s time to get dressed. And we’ve got work to do today. I’m going to put Pasco into his cot for a bit while we get you dressed.” Izzie cuddled him as they went upstairs together and changed his sodden nappy before settling him safely into the cot, surrounded by a ludicrous number of toys. He’ll be fine, thought Izzie, while I sort out his mother.
“Right, Maddy.” She steered her across the landing. “No more pajama mooching.”
Maddy allowed herself to be undressed and shoved under the warm jets of the power shower she had chosen with such care less than six weeks before. Izzie’s hand shot round the glass door to pass her shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel in rapid succession, and Maddy performed her usual routine bit by bit, waiting for the next command, then meekly responding.
Izzie, for her part, was struck by how similar it all was to getting Charlie to wash. “Rinse the shampoo out thoroughly, now. Have you done your feet? Don’t forget in between your toes. Is this the stuff you like?”
As Maddy let the water rinse off the shampoo, Izzie perched on the side of the bath and watched her for a moment as the water cascaded over her drooping head and down over her slim body, until the glass steamed up and obscured her view. She seemed almost childlike, passive and unresisting in her raw vulnerability. Izzie had to look away.
She scanned the room, so perfectly put together with its honey-colored walls and white and chrome fittings. Every tap, every plug, even the toothbrush mug yelled quality. No Buzz Lightyear bubble bath or foam alphabet letters here to ruin the effect. Beautifully lit glass shelves either side of the basins groaned under stylishly packaged jars of creams and lotions. Unbearably, one still held Simon’s shaving gear, silver shaving bowl and badger-hair brush; silver-backed hairbrushes; and discreet bottles of Penhaligon aftershave with rounded glass stoppers. His toothbrush stood forlorn and dry in a glass.
Unable to witness the desolation in the midst of this luxury any longer, Izzie reached into the shower to turn off the water and hand Maddy a towel. Dried and moisturized, she sat quietly on the bed and Izzie noticed, as she brushed the tangles out of her hair, the dark roots that would once have vexed Maddy beyond endurance. Izzie opened the wardrobe. Where to start? It was almost anal in its neatness. Like her mother, Maddy was clearly fascinated by clothes. T-shirts were piled by color; socks and tights rolled and placed in honeycomb drawer organizers; cashmere knitwear arranged by sleeve length and by tone from palest pink to deepest turquoise, like a paint palette.
“Is this the capsule wardrobe, hey, Maddy? More like a space shuttle!” Izzie laughed lightly in an attempt to lift the mood. “My cupboard’s just a lucky dip. What do you feel like wearing then?” Maddy shrugged and tugged distractedly at the tie on her toweling bathrobe. Eventually, Izzie laid out on the bed a pair of pale blue capri pants, a white long-sleeved T-shirt, and a cashmere V-neck in a deep sea green. On the smooth beech shelves, she found bras and knickers, carefully matched, and enough of them to last a month. Each one in shell pink or palest blue and more lacy and delicate than the last.
Suddenly Izzie felt overwhelmed by the intimacy of it all—she’d had to intrude too far. She went to check on Pasco, who was chewing his donkey’s ear.
She stroked his soft little head. “Fancy your mother taking Will and Florence to school in her pajamas. Just you wait—it’s the start of a trend. They’ll all be at it soon—ditching their new pastel loafers and going barefoot! I’d pay good money to see that.” Pasco gave her a gummy smile and bounced up and down on his bottom.
A puzzled exclamation had her racing back to Maddy, who was frowning in perplexity. “These trousers can’t be mine. They’re far too big.” She was right. They were hanging off her. And now that Izzie really looked, she could see that the bra was loose, and her ribs visible under the lightly tanned flesh. Maddy must have lost a stone at least.
Maddy let her head tilt right back, laughing slowly. “I’d have given anything to have lost this kind of weight six months ago. Look at me! I’ve found it! The weight-loss program that works. Roll up, ladies, it’s the bereavement and bankruptcy diet!”
Izzy had to head this off. “Come on,” she said briskly. “You’re not going to tell me that someone who loves accessories as much as you can’t find a belt! There—that’s a bit better. Now you’re the best-dressed scarecrow in the whole county. Right, come on. I’ve got big plans for us. Bring Pasco downstairs. He’s in for a real treat!”
Intrigued now, in spite of herself, Maddy obediently trotted downstairs, nuzzling Pasco’s soft neck. “What is it? What are we going to do? Are we going out?”
“Nope. Something far more innovative than that! We’re going to clean the kitchen. Now. Take me to your Mr Muscle. We’re going to get Marigolded up.”
Maddy looked around the kitchen as if for the first time. “You’ve got a point. One foot sticking to the floor, I can tolerate. But not both.”
Izzie was throwing open cupboard after cupboard. “Okay. I give in. Where’s the hoover?”
“I’ve no idea. Somewhere in the utility room, maybe?” Maddy peered inside and shook her head in wonder. “Look at all this stuff. I may not have any money, but it looks like I’ll never want for Toilet Duck!”
Brandishing brooms and dusters, they got stuck into the kitchen. First Maddy mopped the floor, then Izzie wiped down all the surfaces and covered the floor with crumbs again. Then Maddy carefully cleaned windows with the floor cloth, leaving them dirtier than before. Izzie struggled to empty the Dyson cylinder into the bin, but in banging it, created a mushroom cloud of dust. Pasco meanwhile was busily emptying pasta shapes and posting them into Izzie’s handbag. With a shriek of horrified laughter, Maddy scooped him up and spun round with him in her arms. Now they were all laughing as they looked around at the carnage. Every surface, as well as they themselves, was coated with fine gray dust.
“Well, you’ve got to admit it,” said Maddy at last, wiping tears of laughter from her grimy face, “we’ve made a big difference. It was pretty dirty when we started. Now it’s a complete shit heap.”
And they all started laughing again, Pasco delightedly sticking his grubby fingers into his mother’s mouth.
After a damage-limitation exercise that involved a cursory hoovering up—nothing they could mess up too much—Izzie went to tidy up the papers in the hall while Maddy took everything out of the fridge and wiped the shelves.
“I’ve only dropped one jar and I’ve found a yogurt that expired in September,” yelled Maddy from the kitchen. “Not bad, eh? Think I dare risk making a cup of coffee?”
“Live dangerously, girl,” replied Izzie, and tidied away some coats from a heap by the front door. Under them, she found a large wooden wine crate and, deciding it wasn’t her place to look inside, took it with her into the kitchen.
“I found this under some rubble. Is it something of yours?”
Maddy stared blankly for a moment, then seemed to remember. “Wow! I’d forgotten about that. It comes from my grandmother’s apartment. Let’s have a look.”
Izzie set the box on a chair and lifted Pasco out of his mother’s arms. Carefully Maddy placed the wine crate onto the table, treating it like some kind of exhibit at Sotheby’s. Izzie watched as she flexed her fingers, like a pianist about to perform a concerto, and ran her hands over the smooth mellow wood. “What have we here?”
With one hand, Izzie quickly piled up the detritus that covered the table, so Maddy could spread out her finds, and took off the kettle. This was important, an event that merited a plate of biscuits too. For the first time in weeks, Maddy seemed to be taking an interest in something; a vague flush of color tinged her cheeks, and Izzie didn’t want to destroy the fragile moment.
Maddy couldn’t be sure, but the box must have arrived in a packing case with the furniture sent over from Paris when Mémé had died three years ago. She’d obviously taken one look at the dusty, yellowing newspaper on top and condemned it to the loft with Simon’s old school trunk and the oddments she could find no place for in their house in London. Maddy had only been able to make a flying visit for her funeral—Florence had been very tiny—but Giselle had stayed behind in Paris with her sister, Claudette, who lived in Antibes (though was careful to stay out of the sun), and the two of them had gone through the ghastly process of clearing their mother’s bits and pieces.
Maddy had started halfheartedly to do the same with Simon’s, but she had stopped after lifting out an armful of his clothes from the wardrobe and burying her nose in them to take in the smell of his body. It was too soon and too final. Only yesterday Will had come plodding out of the cloakroom like Christopher Robin wearing Simon’s wellies, which came up to his thighs, but Maddy had snapped at him and told him to put them back straight away. Then, seeing his face begin to crumple in confusion, had relented.
As she now lifted off the paper from the top of the box—a front page from Le Figaro—it revealed a piece of Chantilly lace, folded and stiffened from being there so long.
“Oh that’s beautiful.” Izzie took the delicate filigree from Maddy’s hands and unfolded it carefully, keeping it out of Pasco’s reach. “This is the sort of thing you pay a fortune for in those brocantes places. I remember we went to one on a Sunday once when we were on holiday in Provence, oh eons ago . . .” Maddy could sense that, by her jabbering, Izzie was trying to encourage her to keep going through the box, and suddenly she loved her for her enthusiasm and interest.
“It’s funny really—Mémé wasn’t big on lace. She was incredibly elegant, in a fifties sort of way. Always dressed to the nines in case someone called unexpectedly—you can see where my mother got it from. She was all Chanel and pearls, and she smelled divine.” Maddy paused, but Izzie stayed silent and waited. “When I was little I used to fiddle the whole time with the things on her dressing table, trying on her rings and her necklaces. I’d prance about in her dressing gown and high heels, smother myself in Guerlain until I stank. She was such a lady—surprising really ’cos she wasn’t born to it.” Maddy stopped and put her hand back into the box.
“Really?” Izzie prompted. “I sort of imagined she was French aristocracy.”
“Oh no, no, no.” Maddy smiled, lifting out a pile of curled and faded papers. “Real peasant stock from further south.” She narrowed her eyes, thinking. “She went to Paris in the thirties to look for a job at a couturier—she was always mad about fashion. I think she was one of those girls who modeled the collection for the smart ladies who come for a private fashion show. All very Vogue.”
Maddy started browsing through the curling papers in her hand, the dust getting onto her fingers. They looked like old photographs. “Anyway, she met Grand-père when he came to the couturier with his mother to buy her some clothes—now he was top drawer. Really posh Parisian banking family—and it was a coup de foudre, la grande passion—apparently he came back and waited until she knocked off work that evening—Mémé used to tell me all this with glee, really playing up how smitten he was—the French are so fucking pleased with themselves—anyway the family was horrified and all that, but she charmed the pants off them . . . Oh look, here’s a picture.”
She handed Izzie a black-and-white photo of Mémé in a coat with a thick fur collar, her hair neat and bobbed, on the arm of a devastatingly handsome man whose chest was puffed out with pride. Izzie giggled. “They look so young but so sophisticated.”
“Here’s Mémé in about nineteen eighty—must have been in Nice or somewhere.” The photo, in color this time, showed an old woman in a wicker chair on some kind of terrace, and you could tell from the light it was taken beside the sea. She was wearing a large straw hat and a sort of greenish caftan.
Izzie gasped. “God, she’s the image of you! Your mum was right—better get off the fags if you want to look like that at fifty odd.”
“Oh don’t you bloody start.” Maddy laughed. “And anyway she smoked like a chimney with a long cigarette holder!” Suddenly she shrieked with laughter. “Look at this—oh my God! This is one of me in my teens—must have been about fifteen—when we went to stay with Aunt Claudette in Antibes.” A group of teenagers, nubile bodies in swimsuits, were all leaning against each other, laughing and holding up glasses of wine as if in a toast. Izzie took the picture from Maddy. “Your figure was great even then, you cow. You all look so bronzed and carefree.”
“And rich,” added Maddy wistfully. They had been spoiled. Villas, maids. It had been idyllic.
“Well, I didn’t want to say it. But money obviously didn’t do anything for your taste in haircuts. Look at you all! I had a boyfriend once with hair like this guy here—horribly early eighties and New Romantic. Didn’t that much hair gel cause an oil slick in the Med? Who is he?”
Maddy looked up from the other pictures, hearing the end of Izzie’s question. “Oh, that’s Philippe, my oldest cousin—he’s a surgeon. That’s Adèle, his younger sister—she eloped with the boy next door. She teaches English. They’ve just adopted a little girl from Senegal.” She hoped she wasn’t boring Izzie.
Izzie peered closer. “And who’s this skinny one? He’s cute too, in a callow kind of way.”
Maddy looked again at the photo. “Oh that’s Jean Luc, another cousin. He’s my aunt’s son and he runs a farm in the Cévennes now. Isn’t he lovely? He’s one of my favorite people. Thank goodness he’s shaved off that mustache though. He was doing the moody student thing—writing poetry, playing the guitar. I was madly in love with him in those days, but then so was half of Nice.”
She looked down again. “Look at this—here’s my mum and my dad.” The picture must have been taken soon after he and Giselle were married—they were both wearing sailing clothes and were holding onto each other as only newlyweds do; the wind had caught their hair and they were both laughing at the camera. For once her mother looked carefree and disheveled. Maddy’s eyes filled up with tears, but they didn’t feel like the tears she’d shed over the last few weeks. Not angry and desperate, just sad. The sort of tears that come when your memory’s been stirred and you realize how much you miss the time when life was perfect and uncomplicated.
Izzie looked closely at it. “I can see why she fell for him, but somehow I imagined someone dapper and distinctly Continental . . .” She paused. “Well, I don’t really know your mother but . . . no offense.”
Maddy sniffed and laughed. “None taken. Dad was very English. Almost aristocratic really, public school and all that. Can’t imagine how they were ever compatible. The rest of the pictures are of long-lost cousins.” Maddy made a pile on the table and then delved into the box for more. “Good grief, I remember this.” She pulled out an old clockwork toy, a monkey on a bicycle, and gently placed it on the table. As she turned the key, the monkey’s legs began to move up and down and its head clicked from side to side. Pasco clapped his hands with glee.
“Don’t touch, sweetheart,” said Izzie. “They’re quite valuable, you know. You ought to hang onto it for the children when they are older.”
“I don’t think it will quite compete with a PlayStation 3 for entertainment value, do you?” snorted Maddy.
“It’s so sad when old things just disappear out of your life.” Suddenly Izzie sounded deeply sad and, fleetingly, Maddy wondered why. “Jess thinks my Sasha doll is an antique.”
“God, I had one of those. I adored it! Used to brush her hair for hours.” Maddy delved into her box of delights again and gently pulled out something wrapped in white tissue paper. She looked at Izzie with hammed-up anticipation. “Oooh, treasure!”
“This could be it,” laughed Izzie, wide-eyed. “The Fabergé egg that your grandmother stashed away for you to discover and sell when you fell on hard times.”
Tantalizingly slowly, Maddy unwrapped the tissue. They both guffawed as Maddy revealed a hideous terra-cotta vase with little curly handles and black, decorative squiggles up the side. “Oh tragedy—it’s one of my mother’s few lapses in taste—ghastly. Chuck it quick!”
As Izzie lobbed the vase into the bin, Maddy had a final delve. “Nope, that’s all, no hidden family jewels or tiaras.” She lifted up the box and then put it down again and felt into the bottom. “Hang on, it’s too heavy to be empty. There must be something else under this paper.”
Pulling out another brittle, yellowed sheet from Le Figaro, Maddy revealed a thick leather-bound ledger, about the size of an A4 notebook, bulging with papers slipped between the pages. The cover was mottled brown and held closed with two pieces of ribbon shiny with age.
“What on earth is this?” said Maddy, as she carefully undid the knot and opened the cover. The spine creaked with age, and on the first page was handwritten in faded brown ink and in that distinctive loopy writing all French people seem to have, “Le journal de Luce Ménestrel 1847.”
“That’s a family name—I wonder who she was.” Maddy turned over the next page and, as Izzie looked over her shoulder, they both fell silent, feeling they had found something significant and grave.
The writing inside was minute and would have been hard to decipher in English, virtually impossible in old French. As Maddy continued to turn the pages, dried and faded flowers fell from between them, revealing the shadow they had left on the paper. The loose sheets that had been tucked inside seemed to be torn from other bigger bits of paper and had the odd word or numbers scrawled on them.
“How good’s your French, Maddy?” whispered Izzie, as if in reverence. “I can’t understand a word of this, but then I only managed a C in my exams.”
“I’m not quite sure. I can recognize the odd word . . . I think this says onagre, that’s evening primrose I think, cire d’abeille—that’s beeswax. Oh there it is again . . . and sauge, which is sage. Hang on . . . pétale . . .”
“Well, even I know what that is,” laughed Izzie.
Maddy read on only vaguely listening, lost in the effort of working out the fine script. “Lavande, la rose, jacobée, digitale, that must be foxglove . . .” Maddy struggled with the next word. “God knows what this means, centpertuis . . .”
“It seems to be a kind of gardening journal. Perhaps Luce was some early Vita Sackville-West,” Izzie wondered, “or the Charlie Dimmock of her day.”
“Maybe—do you think she used to wield a spade without her stays on? No, this seems to have lots of measurements next to the words, like ajouter deux tasses de lavande . . . add two cups full of lavender. It’s almost like a cookery book but with plants and herbs.” Maddy absentmindedly picked at the biscuits that Izzie had laid out on a plate on the table and started to nibble one. Just at that moment Pasco, who’d dropped off, started awake in Izzie’s arms and both women jumped in surprise.
“Christ, Izzie, look at the time, it’s five to three. We’ve got to get to school.” She hastily put the book back in the box, along with the other bits, and started to gather up their coffee cups from the table.
“I’ll have a look at it later and dig out my dictionary.” Suddenly, overcome with good feelings, she put down the cups, turned to Izzie, and gave her a huge hug. “I’ve loved today. You have been wonderful. I can’t thank you enough for putting up with me and all the shit that’s been going on. You are the best thing around here.” She had really meant it, but she could see Izzie look away almost with embarrassment yet with pleasure on her face. For a moment they were both a bit ill at ease, then Izzie grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
“I’ll speak to you tomorrow,” she said, adding, in her best Jean Brodie voice, “and make sure you have something to eat, young lady.”
Maddy drove to collect Florence at breakneck speed—or as fast as a five-year-old Fiesta would let her—but by the time she reached Will’s school, she was clearly late and he was the only child left in the classroom. He looked disconsolate and very small sitting at the table in his little gray cap and school coat.
“Mrs. Hoare,” said his form teacher quietly as Maddy entered the classroom, with Florence and Pasco, “can I have a quick word? We’ve had a rather bad day, I’m afraid,” she continued quietly. “William has been quite disruptive in lessons. Of course, I understand what he has been through and I have been really very lenient with him.” Maddy could feel the hurt well up inside her and a primeval desire to protect her poor little son. “But he’s been so rude,” continued the teacher. “To me and Mrs. Lovett, the classroom assistant, kicking and punching. He even poked Sam with a pencil, and they are usually such good friends. William is such a lovely boy”—you don’t have to tell me that, thought Maddy, suddenly desperate with loathing for this woman—“but we can’t tolerate that sort of behavior when it affects others in the class.”
Maddy gathered up her children, muttering something about talking to Will later, and left as fast as she could. She felt devastated and mortified. What had she been thinking of? She had been so enveloped in her own grief over the last few weeks, she had failed to see the effect it was having on the children. She’d assumed that so long as there had been someone there with them, so long as they had been fed and bathed, they’d be all right. How stupid and selfish she had been. Of course Will was hurting. He’d lost his father, and all she had done was withdraw inside herself. Something about today, the clearing up and the delving through the box and into the past, had made her wake up. She had to preserve herself and her sanity for the children, if not for herself.
For the first time in ages—if not ever—she let them help her make the supper. Florence put the sausages on the baking tray and Will broke the eggs for the pancake batter for pudding. Pasco completely emptied a cupboard of Tupperware all over the kitchen floor and for once she let him. Maddy dug out the unopened Mary Berry Aga cookbook someone had given her as an “essential for moving to the country,” and she created an enormous mess making Scotch pancakes. The children smeared them and each other with butter and jam, and ate them warm at the table. Leaving the debris, Maddy whisked them up for a bath, and they splashed and giggled as much with delight at the bubbles as at the fact that their mother was giggling with them.
They each picked a story, and they cuddled up on her bed to read them. When was the last time she had done this? She gently lifted the two sleepy little ones and tucked them into their beds, turned on their night lights and kissed their fragrant skin.
“Mum, can I stay in your bed tonight?” Will asked when she came back into her bedroom, lit softly by the bedside light.
“You’re a big boy—don’t you want to stay in your own bed?” She climbed in next to him and he snuggled up to her.
“But you must be lonely without Daddy.” His thumb went into his mouth.
“Yes, darling, I am lonely without Daddy. And you are too, aren’t you?”
“Is he happy where he’s gone? Will there be anyone else to play cricket with, now he’s not here?”
Maddy couldn’t bear it. Her face ached with the effort of not crying, but what the hell? What was the shame in showing her son that she missed Simon too. She let the tears fall.
“I hope he’s happy. I know he didn’t want to go there because he wanted to stay with us, but I’m sure it’s a very nice place. Like a beautiful garden where the sun always shines.” She almost began to believe it herself. “And I’ll play cricket with you.”
He traced her tears with his fingers. “But you’re hopeless. Daddy says you throw like a girl.”
“But I am a girl! Perhaps you could teach me? Then I could be as good as you.”
They cuddled a while longer until she felt Will’s body relax and his breathing become slow and regular. It was tempting just to fall asleep next to him, fully dressed, but she knew she’d feel foul in the morning, so she put on her pajamas, and feeling suddenly cold and tired, pulled out one of Simon’s fleeces from his wardrobe. It was her favorite—thick and soft—they had bought it for skiing in Colorado in the short gap before she was pregnant again with Florence.
Wrapping it around her, she pottered downstairs to tidy up and get a drink of water. There on the table was the wine box, and she idly pulled out the pictures to look at again. How fast time passes. It seemed such a short time ago that she had been twenty and lazy and convinced that everything would come to her without her having to try. There was a photo here of her and Simon, with Will aged about six months on her knee. She looked blooming and Simon so big and proud and capable. She hadn’t want to show it to Izzie. Not quite yet.
She looked again at the other things and then pulled out the journal, turning the pages once more and squinting at Luce’s script. She went to the sitting room and climbing up to the shelves, pulled down her dictionary, went to put on the kettle, and made herself a mug of tea.