‘And what’s that, Klara?’

‘Rick and Josie still show kindness to each other. And yet, they’re now preparing such different futures.’

He turned towards the rise in the road, his hand playing with the Wreck’s wing mirror. ‘I think I follow you,’ he said. ‘I’m remembering that day, the second time we went over to the barn. How before we went, you became very serious and asked if our love was genuine. The love between me and Josie. And I think I told you it was real. Real and everlasting. So I’m guessing that’s what you’re now worrying about.’

‘Rick is correct. It brings me anxiety to see Rick and Josie with such separate plans.’

He gently prodded the loose stones before him with his foot. Then he said: ‘Look. I don’t want you to say anything to put Josie’s health at risk again. But let me say this much. When you passed it on that Josie and I really loved each other, that was the truth at the time. No one can claim you misled or tricked them. But now we’re no longer kids, we have to wish each other the best and go our different ways. It couldn’t have worked out, me going to college, trying to compete with all those lifted kids. I’ve got my own plans now, and that’s how it should be. But that was no lie, Klara. And in a funny way, it still isn’t a lie now.’

‘I wonder what Rick can mean by that?’

‘I suppose I’m saying Josie and I will always be together at some level, some deeper one, even if we go out there and don’t see each other any more. I can’t speak for her. But once I’m out there, I know I’ll always keep searching for someone just like her. At least like the Josie I once knew. So it wasn’t ever a deception, Klara. Whoever that was you were dealing with back then, if they could see right into my heart, and right into Josie’s, they’d know you weren’t trying to pull some fast one.’

After that we stood there on the loose stones, not talking for a little while. I thought at any moment he would straighten and get into the Wreck. But he asked, in a lighter voice:

‘Do you ever hear from Melania? Someone said she went to Indiana.’

‘We believe she’s now in California. When we last heard from her, she was hoping to be accepted by a community there.’

‘I used to be so afraid of that lady. But I got kind of used to her. I hope she’s okay. And that she finds somewhere safe. And what about you, Klara? Are you going to be okay? I mean, once Josie leaves for college.’

‘The Mother is always very kind to me.’

‘Look, if you ever need my help, you just say, okay?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

As I sit here on this hard ground, I have been thinking again about Rick’s words that morning and I’m sure he is correct. I no longer fear that the Sun will feel cheated or misled, or that he will consider retribution. In fact, it could be that even as I was making my plea to him, he already knew Josie and Rick were bound to go their separate ways, and yet understood that, despite everything, their love would last. When he’d posed his question – about children really understanding what it meant to love – I believe he was already sure of the answer and was simply raising the question for my benefit. I even think, at that moment, he may have been thinking about the Coffee Cup Lady and Raincoat Man – after all, we’d been talking about them the previous moment. Perhaps the Sun was supposing that after many years, and after many changes, Josie and Rick might once again meet as the Coffee Cup Lady and Raincoat Man had done.

* * *

—

As Josie’s college days drew closer, there were frequent visits to the house from other young adults. They were female, and mostly came one at a time, though occasionally in pairs. A hire driver might bring them, or sometimes they would come driving their own car, but the young adults were now never accompanied by parents. Two nights, sometimes three, was the average length of visit, and I would know when such a visit was expected because, a day or two beforehand, the New Housekeeper would move a futon or camping cot into Josie’s bedroom.

It was because of the young adult visitors that I discovered the Utility Room. Naturally there was not enough space during such visits for me to remain in the bedroom myself, and in any case, I understood that my presence wasn’t appropriate as it once had been. If Melania Housekeeper had still been with us, I believe she would have made a plan for where I might go, but as it was, I found the room myself, up on the top landing. ‘No one’s saying you have to hide,’ Josie had said, but she didn’t come up with any alternative plan, and so that’s how I came to occupy the Utility Room.

These were busy weeks, and even when Josie didn’t have a visitor, I would hear her moving hurriedly around the house, shouting at the Mother or the New Housekeeper. Then one afternoon, the door of the Utility Room opened and Josie was looking in with a smile.

‘So,’ she said. ‘This is where you’ve been hanging out. How are things?’

‘Everything is fine, thank you.’

Josie stretched out her arms, a hand resting on each vertical of the doorframe. She was looking into the room with a stoop, as if she feared she might accidentally hit her head on the sloping ceilings. Her gaze went quickly around the various stored items, then settled on the room’s one high small window.

‘Do you ever get to look out of that there?’ she asked.

‘Unfortunately it’s too high. Its purpose is to provide ventilation, not a view.’

‘We’ll see about that.’

Josie stepped further into the room, her head still stooped, her glance moving everywhere. Then she began to work, lifting one item, pushing another, creating new piles where none had existed. Once, failing to anticipate her rapid movements, I nearly collided with her, and she laughed loudly.

‘Klara! Just stay over there. Right over there. I’m trying to do something.’

Before long she’d cleared a space immediately beneath the high small window, then pushed a wooden trunk into the space. She next picked up and carried over a plastic crate with a tight-fitting lid and lowered it carefully on top of the trunk.

‘There you go.’ She stood back, pleased with what she’d done, though the rest of the room had become very untidy. ‘Give that a go, Klara. Just be careful. The second step’s quite high. Come on, I want you to try it.’

I came out of the corner and without difficulty negotiated the two steps she’d created, till I was standing on the lid of the plastic crate.

‘Don’t worry, those things are really strong,’ she said. ‘Just treat it like a floor. Trust me, it’s safe.’

She laughed again, and kept watching me, so I smiled, then looked out of the high small window. The view was similar to the old one from Josie’s rear window two floors below. Of course, the trajectory had altered, and a part of the roof was intruding into the right of my picture. But I could see the gray sky stretching over the cut fields all the way to Mr McBain’s barn.