Your Tom.

It felt embarrassingly good. To know Rose had spoken of me. To feel as if I belonged to her. It made me feel solid, real, as if the space I occupied was meant to be occupied by me.

‘Yes. Yes, it is.’ Rose blushed a little. Faint pink, like the morning clouds.

Mary nodded. Took it in. ‘He’s not there today. You and Grace will be pleased to hear this.’

‘Really?’ Rose seemed relieved.

‘He has a fever. Let’s hope it is the pox, eh?’

I was confused. ‘Who are we talking about?’

Mary shrank back a little, as if she had said something she shouldn’t have.

‘Just Mr Willow,’ Rose said. ‘The warden from the market.’

Mary was walking away. ‘I shall see you there later.’

‘You shall.’

As we carried on towards the cottage I asked Rose about Mr Willow.

‘Oh, don’t worry. He is a little strict, that’s all.’

And that was all she said. The next thing I knew she was talking about Mary. Rose said that she had come to the area a few years ago and was a very private person. She wouldn’t be drawn into talking about her past so there wasn’t much to tell.

‘She is a kind woman. But she is a mystery. Much as you are. But I will solve you. Tell me something I do not know. A small thing. A crumb.’

I could buy all the gold on the Strand and I would still rather be living in a small cottage on Well Lane if it meant living with you, I didn’t say.

‘I saw a boatman fall in the Thames just yesterday, right below Nonesuch House, with all the crowds there watching, and all I thought was how I wished you were there to see it too.’

‘My sense of amusement isn’t as cruel as yours.’

‘He lived, I believe.’

She gave a suspicious and cynical kind of look. I gave her something else.

‘I like the way you look after Grace. The way you know yourself. The way you have made a life, a good one, with a good home, when you have lost so much. You find beauty where there is none. You are the light that glimmers in a puddle.’

‘A puddle?’ she laughed. ‘I am sorry. Go on . . . I am starved of compliments. Feed me more.’

‘I like the way you think. I like the way you don’t just go through life unaware of its nature.’

‘I am not a pale theatre lady. I am a fruit picker. I am plain.’

‘You are the least plain thing I know.’

Her hand was on me. ‘My clothes are just rags with dreams.’

‘You may be better without them, then.’

‘Dreams?’

‘No.’

I was standing close to her now. And I held her gaze. There was no running away. I had no idea I had been looking for her, but now I had found her, I had no idea what would happen. I felt like I was spinning fast and out of control, like the seed of a sycamore, travelling on a changing wind.

‘Go,’ she said. ‘Save our pleasure. You will be late.’

We kissed and I closed my eyes and inhaled lavender and her, and I felt so terrified and so in love that I realised they – the terror, the love – were one and the same thing.

London, now

I remember how it feels, that dizzy spinning fusion of love and terror. I remember, as the bell rings. I remember the orchard scent of her hair, and still miss her so much it can burn.

Steady thyself.

I open my eyes, and see Anton sloping out of the room.

‘Anton,’ I say, ‘a minute.’

He looks scared. He has looked like that for the whole lesson. He is in the process of putting an earphone in his ear.

‘Do you like music?’

He seems confused by the question. He’d been expecting another one. Everything about him was playing it cool except his eyes. ‘Yeah. Yes, sir.’

‘Do you play?’

He nods. ‘Yeah, piano, a bit. My mum taught me when I was younger.’

‘You have to be careful with that. It can screw you up. Messes with your brain chemistry. The emotion.’

He looks at me quizzically.

I move on. ‘Does your mum know about your friends?’

He shrugs sheepishly.

‘Because you could do better.’

He knows he can’t sulk, but he almost does. Pouts a little. ‘Si isn’t my friend. He’s just the older brother of someone I know.’

‘Someone? A school someone? Someone from here?’

He shakes his head. ‘Used to be.’

‘Used to be?’

‘He got expelled.’

I nod. It made sense.

There is a pause. His face clenches, building up to something. ‘Did you mean what you said last night? About killing someone.’

‘Oh yes. Yes, I did. In a desert. Arizona. Quite a long time ago. I don’t advise it.’

He laughs, doesn’t quite know if it is a joke. (It isn’t.) ‘Did you ever get caught?’

‘No, not in the way you mean. No, I didn’t. But as you get older, Anton, you realise that you never get away with things. The human mind has its own. . . prisons. You don’t have a choice over everything in life.’

‘Yeah. I’ve worked that one out, sir.’