much as you do.’ When Hannah made no response he corrected himself, ‘Or almost as much. I wouldn’t do anything or sanction any development over there that was in any way unsuitable or intrusive. I’d like to build a small house for myself, one or at the most two others, well screened, to cover my own outlay…’ Spencer couldn’t help glancing at the coveted ground as he spoke. It was the tongue of headland that backed the southern end of Moon Island Beach, from the side of the Fennymores’ property to the curve of the bluff road as it wound towards Pittsharbor. It was prime seafront land, ripe for development. Aaron had acquired it from old man Swayne forty years ago.
‘No,’ Hannah repeated.
Spencer had been wheedling and cajoling about the land for a long time. He had tried a dozen different tacks and none of them had brought him any closer. But Aaron was tired now and his grip was loosening. ‘Why not, Mrs Fennymore? It’s just a piece of ground. It sits there. It could be utilised, put to work for you …’
‘No.’
Hannah was surprised at herself. Elizabeth was a part of all this, of course. The woman was probably lending her son the money for the deal. If she and Aaron gave way to what the Newtons wanted, a pincer movement would cut them off from the town and the space of the beach and the sea. There would be little grey shingled boxes and hammocks and barbecues under the trees, and their nearest neighbour on the town side would no longer be the shack that had turned into the Flying Fish.
The new Pittsharbor Aaron had seen this morning was swallowing up the old one and the greedy mouth of it was right here, mumbling against their own fences. Hannah saw it as only part of history’s pattern that the offensive should come in the shape of Elizabeth and her son, because Elizabeth had always been there like a shadow. For all her married life Hannah had soothed and protected and defended Aaron, but she had never succeeded in blotting out the past.
She threw up her hands and pressed the flat palms against Spencer’s crisp shirt-front. If all she had ever been able to do was defend her husband, then she wouldn’t give up the meagre role now. Her amazing strength propelled Spencer backwards, away from the house. He stumbled over his own polished loafers and his mouth gaped in an instant’s disbelief. ‘Go away. Go away right now, and don’t ever come back here.’
Spencer took two more steps backwards and raised his hands in a gesture of submission. ‘Yes. Of course not. I’m sorry you misunderstood me, I didn’t…’
‘It’s not a misunderstanding. I’ll say it again. Aaron won’t sell our land to you so’s you and your mother can build condos or whatever it is you’ve got planned. He may be ill but he won’t weaken and even if he does you still have me to contend with.’
The declaration gave Hannah a novel thrill of power. She squared her shoulders and watched Spencer continue his retreat, until he had skirted May’s tree and disappeared into the lane again.
When she turned round she saw that Aaron had come out on to the porch. He was leaning against one of the supports, steadying himself with one hand. He looked ill and very old. Hannah went to him at once.
‘What did he want?’
‘Nothing. Just giving me a message from Elizabeth about the bake stall.’
Alexander was sitting out on the deck reading Scott Turow. The glittering bay and the island were a perfect backdrop. He put his bookmark carefully in place when he saw Spencer. ‘What happened?’
Spencer shrugged. ‘Still a blank. But there’s plenty of time.’
‘Ah. Elizabeth was out here looking for you five minutes ago.’
‘Thanks. I’ll go and see what she wants.’
The house was cool with blinds drawn against the sun. The scent of baking led him to the kitchen where Elizabeth was setting out trays of blueberry muffins. She was wearing an apron over one of her old-fashioned afternoon dresses and a complex of associations made Spencer suddenly feel a child again. He stole a muffin from a corner of one of the trays and bit into it as his mother turned and asked him, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. Hannah and Aaron Fennymore still being obstructive about the sale.’ He made a wry, appealing face.
The instant’s unpeeling of the years affected Elizabeth too. She put down her oven glove and hugged Spencer as if he were a little boy again. They almost never touched each other nowadays and broke apart quickly, without speaking. ‘I wanted you to drive me and the muffins up to the green, so I won’t have to search for somewhere to park.’
‘Of course I will.’
‘Marian’s already gone, so we’ll have to be quick. I saw Leonie driving her.’
Spencer helped her out of her apron and folded it over a kitchen chair. ‘Leonie?’ he murmured, remembering something. ‘What’s going on there, I wonder?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Guess what I saw?’ He described the brief scene in the car-park. Spencer had an eye for telling details.
But instead of responding to the titbit of gossip Elizabeth only hesitated, frowning. ‘Poor child,’ she sighed in the end.
‘Child? If Leonie Beam’s not a grown woman I’m Bette Midler.’
‘I meant the daughter. John Duhane’s younger one.’
Spencer had barely noticed May’s existence. ‘Why would it be a problem for her? Didn’t you say Duhane’s wife was dead?’
Marian was presiding at the stall. The church green was already thronged with people although it wasn’t quite noon and the Reverend Leavitt hadn’t declared the fair officially open. There were families with young children and weighty, meandering older couples, most of them wearing bermudas and peaked caps against the bright sunshine. It was one of Pittsharbor’s rare, truly hot days when even the breeze off the sea was stilled. Most of the younger visitors and townspeople were missing. There was a softball tournament starting up and a three-mile fun run was under way from Deer Hill to the finish point at the harbour car-park.
But May was there.
She hung in Marian Beam’s shadow, watching without seeing as Marian briskly laid out the baked goods.
‘You sure you know the price of everything, May?’ A tray of moist, glazed blueberry pies from Hannah’s kitchen took centre place. ‘There’s a list here, see, so you can always check.’ Marian rattled a canister with a secure lid. ‘And you give change from here, we’ll be needing a heap of quarters since Elizabeth insisted on pricing the pies at two seventy-five. Good, here’s Marty at last.’
Marty and Lucas unloaded the gas barbecue from a borrowed pick-up and hauled it into position under Marian’s directions. Unable even to look at Lucas, May stared dully at the grass. It was pocked with dusty hollows and coarsened with weeds.
‘Hi.’ His bare feet were planted in front of her. There were tiny tufts of bleached hairs glinting on each of his toes.
The diary. With the whaling book in her hand the sets of numbers had slowly but obediently yielded their meaning. 66 7 10, He. 146 12 2, touched. 67 10 9, me.
Doone’s words about Lucas crept in May’s bloodstream – or not the words themselves
