be going to cry. Tears are May’s least favourite thing. An idea strikes her as she sees a red dot appear on the shoreline. ‘Would you do a little job for me, my bird?’ she says, in what she hopes is a winning tone.
Tamsin frowns even harder. ‘What do I get?’
‘Get? You don’t get anything. Young people are supposed to help older ones. Don’t they teach you anything at school?’
Tamsin shrugs.
‘Would you just pop down to the beach and pick up that ball over there?’
‘But it’ll be all wet and slimy. Why do you want a ball, May? You haven’t got a dog and Fossil doesn’t play with stuff any more.’
‘Well … I …’ May tries to think of a plausible answer but her mind has gone blank. There’s no easy way to say that the reason she’s managed to live to a hundred and ten is that she has been appropriating her neighbours’ memories for years. She’s always told herself it’s a form of borrowing, but that’s not true, because once she’s got them, she’s never quite worked out how to give them back.
Now that she’s living at the bottom of Memory Lane and can’t visit people in the village any more, May has no way of collecting their treasured objects so that she can do what she terms her thought harvesting. But she couldn’t stay in that rambling old family house once her legs started to get creaky. She was lucky to be able to keep it going for so long. Leaving Seagulls was hard, but this cottage is so much easier to live in, apart from the sad lack of new memory sources. The vibrations from her collecting missions have fed her mentally for a long time now, but she’s bled them all dry.
Tamsin prods May gently, still waiting for an answer. She’s right, in a way. A soggy toy won’t do much good. But at least it’ll have something inside it – some scrap of love and dog-type warmth buried in its depths. And May is desperate.
‘Just for me, poppet, please?’ she says, putting her head on one side and smiling in what she hopes is a sweet old lady way.
Tamsin shrugs again then potters off down the path, over the last of the cobblestones and onto the shingle at the top of the beach. When she reaches the sand, she slips off her shoes and socks and begins to twirl and bounce towards the lapping waves. Her solid little body is transformed when she dances, making her almost fairy-like. May watches. The child knows the beach completely and she wouldn’t stray far from sight anyway. There’s no need to worry, even if May was the worrying kind. She never has been until now. But unless she can find a new bank of memories, May won’t reach the fabulous age of one hundred and eleven. It’s been her dream to reach that milestone ever since childhood. All those lovely ones in a row, like a strong gate: 111. Her father, gazing at a particularly wonderful sunset over the bay, once exclaimed, ‘If I live until I’m a hundred and eleven I’ll never see anything as splendid as that sight.’ Why that number? May thought, but the idea stuck, like a lucky charm.
After a few minutes, Tamsin hops back into the garden and drops the ball on May’s knee.
‘It’s yucky,’ she says, pulling a face. ‘Told you it would be. Have you got any cake?’
May gestures towards the open kitchen door, and as Tamsin skips away (does that child ever walk anywhere?) she conquers her revulsion and clutches the ball tightly to her chest. But even squeezing it hard with both hands and her eyes tight shut doesn’t release more than a tiny buzz of memory, and that seems to be mainly a dog’s woolly thoughts about his dinner.
It’s no good. I’m done for, thinks May, throwing the ball as hard as she can towards the shrubbery.
‘May, why did you go and do that? I fetched it specially.’ Tamsin appears with a large plate containing four slabs of angel cake and a bag of Maltesers.
‘You were right, dear. It was very slimy,’ says May, sadly.
Tamsin looks up as she hears the click of the latch on the front gate next door. ‘Dad’s home,’ she says. ‘I’ll go and get him to make us a nice hot drink, shall I?’
She’s back in five minutes or so, followed by a long, lean man with a serious expression. May wishes he’d smile more, but she supposes he’s had a lot to make him melancholy since his wife died. Andy is an out-in-all-weathers kind of person, pure Cornish from head to toe. Tanned and healthy-looking, he’s wearing faded denim shorts, heavy boots and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up – his usual gardener’s uniform. He’s very grubby. May looks at his well-muscled legs and forearms approvingly. Even at one hundred and ten she can still appreciate a vision like this.
Andy puts a mug down next to May and hands Tamsin a glass of warm blackcurrant juice.
‘Oh, bless you, love. Aren’t you having one with us?’
‘No time. Tam needs to get ready for a birthday party. It starts in half an hour but she looks as if she needs a good wash first.’
Tamsin moans to herself and slurps her drink, spilling some of it down her front, then lies down again next to May, adding some soil to the stains on her school skirt.
‘Where have you been today?’ May asks. ‘You look as if you’ve been working hard.’
‘Just across the road at number sixty, trying to get Julia’s place straight,’ he says. ‘It’s gone wild since Don died.’
‘It was bound to, really. Julia doesn’t like gardening, does she? Probably hasn’t got the right clothes,’ May sniffs. She has no time for Julia Lovell, even though she’s known her for many years and often shared the church kitchen with her when they were drafted in to cater for village events. Keeps herself to herself, that one, May thinks. Pretty much everybody knows what it’s like to lose somebody but we don’t all turn reclusive, do we? Drama queen. And why does she always have to be so dressed up? Her hair can’t be natural. There’s not a single grey hair amongst all that black. And straight as a die. Never bothers with curlers. Well, I suppose there’s not enough of it to curl.
‘Maybe not. I used to go round every few weeks and give Don a hand when he got past doing the rough digging and so on,’ says Andy, ‘but she hasn’t felt like bothering with it lately.’
‘No. She wouldn’t.’
‘What have you got against the poor woman? She always asks after you.’
‘Oh, you don’t want to hear me harping on about old grudges. Water under the bridge. I just wish she wouldn’t pretend to like me, that’s all.’
‘I don’t think Julia’s got anything against you, May.’
‘Ha! Why does she give me those frosty looks then?’
‘You’re imagining it.’
‘Whatever,’ says May. She’s learned that one from Tamsin and it comes in handy.
Andy laughs. ‘Anyway, you’ll never guess what Julia’s found today.’
May looks at her neighbour without much interest and raises her eyebrows. He carries on. ‘When she was clearing out Don’s den …’
‘His old shed, you mean?’
‘Well, yes, OK – his shed … she found a massive sack of letters.’
