Beaches

Part 8

Outside, Rosemary switched on a wind-up torch. The glare of it was almost painfully bright. "Be careful," he said.

She cocked her head to look at him with an expression which demanded an explanation.

"Someone might see," he said.

"Ah," she said and nodded wisely, but didn't turn off the light. "And who do you think might see?"

"I don't know. There might be anyone around here."

"I think we'll be okay," she said, and he didn't question her again. She had survived just as he had.

He followed her along the path that ran between the two rows of houses. Instead of going into her garden they went to the gate which led to the river and the fields where he'd spent many happy summers taunting sheep and cows. Rosemary held the gate open and he hesitated.

"It's not far," she said. "You need to see this."

Jacob thought he knew what she was taking him to see and didn't think it was necessary. Certainly, it was something that could wait until the morning. He looked at her, meaning to tell her that, but found he couldn't. If it was what he thought, then he should be grateful to her, the least he could do was play along.

He closed the gate quietly behind him and followed her up the verge to the path that had been worn into the grass. The river was to his left, slow moving and too low for him to see. They walked along the bank and turned right to cross at a small stone bridge. Jacob wondered how long it would be before it cracked and crumbled into the water.

Rosemary stopped in front of a tree which might have been five-hundred years old. She pointed her torch at the ground and he saw a large flat stone which had been crudely engraved. Even with the torch it wasn't possible to read it, but he didn't need to know the exact words to know what it said.

"I know your mother always liked this spot," Rosemary said.

Jacob nodded. Finally, here was his proof and if he wanted to, he could ask about Emma: Did she die first? Was she in distress? He thought that Rosemary would tell him the truth. Instead he said, "Why were you expecting me? Didn't you think I was dead as well?"

"No." He turned to ask why, but she shook her head sympathetically and the words escaped him. "Not here. Come back to my house. We'll talk there."

They walked back along the bank in silence. So much had happened so quickly that he was having trouble getting it clear in his mind.

She stopped at the front door and fished the key out of her pocket. Jacob wondered how she could be so confident about shining her torch around, but still paranoid enough to lock her front door.

Rosemary stopped in the hall and turned to him. She spoke in a whisper. "Ask me again how I knew you'd survived."

Jacob asked her, keeping his voice in the same whisper, wondering if all the death had made her mad. She wouldn't be the first person it had happened to, but she seemed normal enough.

"I've got a brother in Dorset. I never went to find him after people started dying. I didn't want to face it. He was older, always looked after me when we were little, I didn't want to watch him die, not after... then one day he came here, and wasn't he surprised to find out I was alive."

That must be why they were keeping their voices down, he thought. Her older brother must be asleep in one of the rooms upstairs.

"That's how I knew you'd survived," she said.

Jacob felt as if he was missing something. His thoughts were slow and clumsy. It didn't sound like an explanation to him. Or maybe a part of him did understand but wasn't eager to share the explanation for fear of being let down again.

"Come with me," Rosemary said.

Her house was a mirror of his grandfather's. He followed her along the hallway and they stopped at a door on the left. Rosemary turned towards him and put a finger to her lips. Jacob nodded, not sure what he was agreeing to, but feeling an almost overwhelming desire to tell her to stop, that he didn't want to know.

The door opened with a gentle shah as it rubbed across the carpet. Inside it was dark, but he could hear the small breaths that took him back to his earliest childhood, when he'd still shared a bedroom with his older sister. The sound of her breathing was as familiar to him as his own.

Tears stood in his eyes and he found himselfcrossing the room towards her cot. He wanted to see her, to smell her and knowthat this wasn't a trick. Rosemary's hand on his forearm held him back. Helooked at her and she shook her heard She turned and he followed her out of theroom.