a pot of wild flowers on it: and the Canon, an eagle of a man, turned up in his little Volkswagen, even bringing with him a Bishop from a neighbouring diocese—he had his crook with him and his gold embroidered over-vests, or whatever they’re called, in the back seat, and all those concerned and interested turned up, and a few journalists as well.
And the priests performed a service of reconciliation: and we sang a few quavery hymns, lost on the breeze—O God our help in ages past—then the table was folded, and the altar cloths, and we drifted off, and peace descended on the valley. All of a sudden it was a place like anywhere else.
Then Harrison and his team darted in like a team of vultures to take their pickings away, and their vans moved off. The JCBs surged down the hill to get to the part of the site they’d been denied, and a hundred cement mixers queued up on the new roads waiting to get in. Goodbye, marsh pippin, goodbye. The future knocks on the door, and if you don’t let it in, it simply batters it down.
But peace and prosperity has descended upon Rumer as if it were blessed: visitors come from all over the world to see the knitted patchwork tapestry, which won an international art prize and now hangs behind the altar, instead of being auctioned. To our relief the mall traffic was rerouted away from the village: a free bus service runs three times a week there and back for those without cars. Our flowers win at Chelsea: we grew a record carrot and its photograph was in the Mail. We keep the post office and the village store, and the little school was even reopened: the young stay instead of going off to the big city: why live away from paradise?
As for the mall itself, that prospered mightily. The fruit was always fresh and the bread stayed cheap. The charity shops were given concessions. The Internet cafée sopped up the alienated young and has given them purpose and achievement. Becky Horrocks took up computer studies. Matt was promoted to crime prevention officer and could work locally, to Susie’s pleasure. The mall even boasted a little museum, endowed by Riley’s and the University of Birmingham, where you could see photographs of the site, and the outline of the villa and the graveyard, and a replica of the Rumer Cross. I could not find out what happened to the original. It was probably bought by Bill Gates or Steven Spielberg to enrich their collections.
I married Carter Wainwright (in church, of course). My hands stay smooth and strong the better to continue to work. So do his. We are both employed these days doing restoration work, mostly for cathedrals. Carter replaces stolen silver plate (there’s a lot of that to do) and I forge, fashion and bake metal, stone and clay, making good whatever the weather undoes.
We don’t say it to each other, but we can both see in retrospect that what was going on at the site was miraculous, outside the normal order of things. It would not surprise me if it were indeed a sliver of the true cross I picked up that day and which Carter worked with: and that it leaves its blessed traces behind. I think we will be forgiven for our deceit: we were meant to do what we did.
I’m a summer person, and she’s a winter person. Her name is Jennifer, mine is Kate. She’s twenty-five and I’m twenty-four. She used to be my best friend. Now she’s my father’s girlfriend, and soon he’ll marry her, once he’s divorced my mother. Then she’ll be my stepmother. We’re all good friends. These things have to be done amicably, for the sake of the children: that is to say me. My mother and I are in therapy, and dealing with our negative emotions very well, but the other two don’t seem to need it.
Jennifer and I were at college together. We’ve known each other since we were fifteen. Now we both work at the same travel magazine, going all over the world trying out holiday destinations for our readers, which is a pretty terrific kind of job. We earn well and travel well, and we’re both ambitious: I even got promotion to deputy editor recently, and Jennifer was happy for me, or seemed to be. She is, was, my best friend.
When I say she’s a winter person I mean she’s very fair and delicate-skinned, and burns easily, and likes to stay out of the sun. If she’s in it too much she goes red in the face and sweats. She’s the Iceland expert at the magazine. She goes for the cold destinations whenever she can: mountains and glaciers: I go for the hot places, lying around on beaches. If a mosquito bites her neck her whole face swells up, and her eyes go tiny, red and puffy so she can hardly see out of them. She gets hay fever and sneezes a lot in the pollen season, and has to dose herself with so much histamine she hardly makes sense when she talks.
But she looks fantastic at a Christmas party, her skin pale and almost translucent, her eyes big and haunted, and the blonde bob fragrant and silky, and wearing cashmere so pale pink it’s almost white. Wrap her in a winter coat and she looks sexy and vulnerable.
Me, I bloom in the summer. I have an olive skin and tan easily and love lying in the sun. I am at home on a beach and have a bikini figure—long-waisted and athletic. My hair is very thick and curly, and at its best looking as if it’s just been dunked in the washbasin and left to dry in a hot wind, as befits Nature Girl. I shiver all winter and get goose-pimply, eat too much chocolate and get spots, and put me in a winter coat and I look like a sausage wrapped round the middle with a piece of string. I like high heels, but they’re not good on ice.
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