Jubilee (20 page)

The first pages, those covering the years before Jessamy’s disappearance, seemed to relate to events long ago: maypole dancing on the green, agricultural shows, village fetes. I flicked
through to the later cuttings: Jessamy on her pony winning the egg-and-spoon race at the West Berkshire hunt gymkhana in 1975. Jessamy’s school netball team winning a local tournament.
Jessamy receiving a Parker fountain pen from the mayor of Wantage after she’d come second in a handwriting competition. Perfect, perfect Jessamy.

I found myself thinking about the shadow in the DVD film of Jessamy’s acrobatics on the lawn all those years ago. Who had cast that greyness over the grass? Again I thought of a shark in
dark waters, restless, prowling, constantly watching for prey. Probably the shadow had merely been cast by a neighbour visiting the farm to borrow a tool or by the vicar’s wife coming with
the flower-arranging rota. It might even have been my own shadow or that of my father, coming down here to drop me off for a weekend. He never stayed at Winter’s Copse himself. Nor did my
mother. I couldn’t ever remember them setting foot inside the house. Yet they’d been happy enough to deposit me here while they went off to look at holiday apartments in the south of
France or Majorca.

Evie and Dad had been close as children, cast off together during the war, finding a home here. They’d stayed on because their old family life in London had crumbled away, following the
death of my grandmother in a bombing raid and of my grandfather during the Great Floods of 1947 in East Anglia. The twins had been through a lot together. My father had never said much about his
time on the farm, intimating that he’d been relieved to grow up and carry out his National Service. I thought of the rectangular outline on the grass where the barn had once stood and
wondered whether Robert Winter’s awful death had prompted Dad’s desire to leave the farm. Or perhaps he’d just had enough of the grinding hard work: up early in the mornings
before school to help with the milking on days when the frost gripped the hillside like an iron hand.

I pulled a photo album towards me and found a picture of my father and Evie as small children in happier times, helping with the haymaking, each clasping a pitchfork and grinning at the camera.
This must have been taken before Robert had gone off to fight.

No shadows fell on this idyllic scene; I could almost hear the creak of the wheels of the hay wagon and the thump of the horses’ hooves as they moved forward, could almost feel the dust
tickling my nose. Nothing here, nothing at all to predict the tragedy of what happened to Robert and his brother in the war, and to Jessamy a generation later.

‘If only you could have stayed at Winter’s Copse,’ I whispered to the young man who’d died in that fire all those years ago. ‘If only you’d never had to go
away.’

Robert

Kanburi Camp, July 1943

Dear Evie,

Do you ever go into the chemist’s in Wantage? Do you breathe in that smell of eucalyptus, TCP and Dettol, so clean you can almost feel it killing the germs? Evie, I long for that scent,
for doctors in white coats, and nurses to help us.

I must get hold of Noi. Matthew won’t survive another night like the one he’s just had: he shivered and sweated by turns and called out to Mum and to Dad, as well, even though
Dad’s been dead for years. He didn’t recognize me. He was so strong before we came out here, we both were.

We need medicine. Quinine most urgently, but anything else Noi can find for us. Disinfectant. Aspirin. Surely those barges with their painted eyes must trade up and down the river? Anything
can be bought, they say, if you have the money.

Evie, if you think of us, say a prayer for us now.

Rachel

2003

I woke next morning to the rattle of a window. Dimly I remembered Freya’s warnings about the weather changing. As I went to close the catch I saw how grey clouds were
already bunching behind the medieval church tower.

I wanted to stay on another day. I felt ready to find Martha. Again I felt ashamed that I hadn’t already been to see her. Something had held me back. My relationship with Martha had never
been quite the same after Jess’s disappearance. If I saw her it was by chance, coming across her leaning over a gate and gazing downhill. Sometimes she’d rise from a hollow as I walked
up the hill, making me jump. Our conversation was limited to the barest basics: Martha would point to a ewe needing attention, or tell me to tell my aunt that there was a big dog fox hanging around
the sheep.

Evie had sensed disapproval on Martha’s part. ‘She thinks I was careless with my child,’ she’d told me on one occasion when I was staying with her as a teenager in the
early eighties. ‘Once she told me that I hadn’t looked after Jessamy properly. I don’t know why she said that, Rachel.’

Nor did I. ‘Why do you let her stay here?’ I’d asked. ‘That cottage of hers belongs to the farm, doesn’t it?’

‘Where would she go, dear? She’s known no other life than this and has no skills outside farming. Agricultural jobs are growing rarer and rarer.’

Remembering Martha’s comment still made me angry, even today. I remembered Evie’s vigilance. When she let us out to play she was careful to point out the limits of our freedom.
‘No further than the top of the hill . . . Don’t take the pony out of the field by yourselves, he’s still not good with cars. If you go to anyone’s house to play, you must
ring me and tell me where you are . . .’ Her warning words rang through my ears and made me think of my husband. He needed to know I wouldn’t be coming back today. I went to pull out my
mobile from my jeans pocket. It wasn’t there. I’d taken it out at Freya’s yesterday evening while we were talking. Then she’d laid the local newspaper on top of it to show
me the story about Evie presenting prizes at the flower and produce show.

I plugged my laptop into the landline socket. ‘I’m staying on till tomorrow. More to sort out than I thought yesterday,’ I emailed him. ‘Lots of love.’ Again I felt
like a guilty addict, denying a drink or drug problem. Then I grabbed my coat and went out.

As I climbed the lane to Martha’s cottage, Pilot at my heels, the wind caught my right cheek with a rasp. The sheep in the field were huddled in the hollows and there were no walkers out
this morning. It would have been so easy to turn round and return to the dreamy warmth of the kitchen at Winter’s Copse. But I’d promised myself that I’d see Martha. And I
would.

The curtains were half drawn over her front windows. I rapped on the door. No one in. Martha used to keep chickens, I remembered, so instead of letting myself escape I walked round to the back
of the house. Someone was sitting on the rough garden bench beside the chicken run. She stood up. Amy Jackson. I felt the familiar mixture of awkwardness and guilt I’d felt ever since the
Jacksons had been accused of taking Jess.

‘Er, hi.’ She brushed down her jeans, looking furtive. Presumably she was supposed to be at school, probably the big comprehensive in Wantage to where most of the children were
bussed. Like most of the traveller kids, she’d probably given up going to school once she’d finished at the village primary school. It was said that the travellers didn’t like
their children educated past the point of basic literacy.

Pilot tore over to her and rubbed his head against her jeans. ‘Hiya, boy!’ She patted his head. ‘I used to take him for walks if Mrs Winter was away for the day.’

‘Were you waiting for Martha, Amy?’

‘My mum wanted eggs.’ Amy shivered. ‘I hate coming up here. Martha’s out, anyway, and I can’t be bothered to wait any more. It’s cold.’ As though to
confirm this, the wind rattled the corrugated roof over the chicken house.

‘Let’s walk down together.’

The breeze blew her hair over her face. ‘I miss Mrs Winter. She gave me jobs to do.’

‘You used to see my aunt fairly regularly then?’

‘I’d do a few odd jobs, take her letters to be posted, help her pick fruit in the summer or rake leaves in the autumn.’ She slowed. ‘Why did you want to see
Martha?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry, that was nosy. I hate it when people ask me questions like why aren’t I at school.’ She gave me a sharp look.

I blushed.

‘I’m a diabetic,’ she said simply, brushing the hair from her face. ‘I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in about an hour so it wasn’t worth going in to
school first. Mum’ll drive me in later. She doesn’t like me missing lessons.’

We’d almost reached Winter’s Copse. I was still silent, sensing that the girl would talk, wanted to talk, but that too many questions would scare her off. I waited.

‘I looked in on Mrs Winter just before she died,’ she said as we reached the gate. ‘To see if I could take the dog out for her. I had another doctor’s appointment so I
wasn’t at school.’ She gave a scowl, as though to emphasize that she didn’t expect any praise or thanks for her visit. ‘She had someone with her.’

‘Was it Martha?’

‘No. Dunno who it was.’ She gave me a sidelong glance and I sensed there was something she wasn’t sure she should reveal. ‘Mrs Winter was shouting.’

I stopped. ‘What?’

‘Shouting. I was almost . . .’

‘What?’

‘Almost scared.’ Amy spoke the words as though she couldn’t quite believe them. ‘I didn’t bother knocking. I just left.’

‘And you didn’t see who was with my aunt?’

She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t make out the voice.’

‘Was it a man or a woman?’

She shrugged. ‘Sorry. I was so surprised to hear Mrs Winter raise her voice I wasn’t really paying attention. I kind of felt I shouldn’t be there. So I ran past the
house.’ We stood in silence for a moment. ‘Hope you find her, then.’ Amy started to walk on, suddenly halting, as she passed the drive and saw my convertible. She turned back.
‘By the way, nice car.’ There was a slightly mocking glint in her eyes. She was probably daring me to think the un-liberal and worry that one of her rougher cousins would creep up here
at night and steal the hub caps.

‘Thanks.’ I went inside and sat in the kitchen alone, suddenly longing for company, wishing I’d thought to ask Amy in for a quick cup of tea. It seemed as though the past was
very close this morning. I decided to drive into Wantage and restock the fridge and post the letters I’d written in my executor’s role. As I drove up to the main road which cut along
the edge of the Downs I thought of Jessamy aged ten, getting into a car. A stranger’s car? Perhaps someone had told her something needed collecting for the Jubilee party; Jessamy was an
obliging child when it suited her.

She’d have been anxious to get back to receive the longed-for Silver Jubilee mug and to watch the cake being cut.
Oh, we’ll be back in ten minutes, don’t worry about
that.
How long was it before it dawned on her that she wasn’t going back to the party? Was she speeding away in the car by then; hurtling along the
M4
, still quite
a new motorway back in 1977, having been opened just five years earlier?
Where are we going? You said you’d take me back to the party.
I pictured her rising panic and indignation as
she realized that she’d been tricked and I shuddered.
Let me go! I’ll scream until someone finds a policeman.
How had he – I was certain it was a he – silenced her
screams? I felt the old familiar terror grab me, so that it was almost as though I had been abducted, too. My skin felt damp and I took shallow breaths. This was the nightmare of my childhood.
Night after night I woke, heart pounding, convinced that the kidnapper stood in my room.

Just remember, Evie had once told me, Jessamy only went through this once. You keep on reliving it again and again for her. You don’t need to punish yourself like this, Rachel, it
won’t help Jessamy.

But in this savage mood I did indeed need to punish myself and I let the deep minor chord play over and over again in my imagination. I indulged all the fears I’d tried to keep bricked up
over the years. Perhaps my cousin had been intrigued by the thought of a secret getaway, a big adventure for which she’d been singled out. Perhaps she was pleased to have been taken off
somewhere where her cousin wouldn’t be
. Can we really have steak and chips in a Berni Inn? And go to the pictures afterwards? Just me?
Perhaps she resented my stays at the farm each
holiday.

I reached the supermarket car park, the poison of these thoughts still burning through my veins. Perhaps this was what was meant by a haunting: an inability to rid yourself of the sadness and
guilt of loss.

It was time to let it all go. Evie’s death should have drawn a line under the past. But my imagination was still grasping at small fragments of the past and trying to stick them together
to form a narrative. ‘It’s too long ago.’ I must have spoken aloud because a startled elderly man in the supermarket’s fruit aisle widened his eyes at me.

I pulled apples, bananas, bacon, bread and juice off shelves and forced myself to concentrate on choosing a piece of fish for my supper. When I’d finished buying the food I felt quite
peculiar: a strange taste in my mouth. Probably the taint of the past. I went into the chemist and had a word with the pharmacist. She told me that a stomach virus was doing the rounds. Just what I
needed. I was still thinking about Evie and Martha, how they’d spent all those years working together in polite dislike. I wasn’t really paying attention to the pharmacist as she
advised me to drink lots of fluids. I handed over my credit card and took the white paper bag. Then, as I was pushing the door open, I thought more clearly about my ailments, standing motionless in
the shop doorway until someone coughed politely behind me. ‘Sorry.’ I let an old lady through the door. Then I turned and went back into the chemist’s again.

At the house I opened the fridge to put the supplies in. Evie’s white glistening shelves stared back at me. I should eat but couldn’t face more than a banana. As I
ate it I read the white board on which Evie made shopping lists.
Bonios, washing powder, vitamin tablets, library books, order Churchill biography.
Death had come so unexpectedly that
morning.