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And before I can even open my mouth to ask another question, there’s a creaking of a door, footsteps on gravel and a woman appears, emerging from the house. She’s in jeans and wellington boots, and she’s grinning from ear to ear. She has the sort of face that makes you like and trust her instantly. Round, happy, huge, long cow-like eyelashes. She must be Mum’s age, maybe a little older.
‘Hello, gorgeous,’ she says, holding out her arms to Jack. ‘Couldn’t believe it when Ken said you were coming. I even stayed up past eight for you, which is something.’
Jack grins and they both embrace. She’s short. About five one, and Jack, broad, six foot one, give or take, makes her look even tinier. She stretches her arms around his back, patting the black wool of his coat.
‘So lovely,’ she keeps saying. ‘So lovely to see you.’
‘Well, I’m honoured to be the reason you stayed up,’ says Jack. He pulls back and looks down at her. He puts his arm around his shoulder, and she puts a maternal hand on his tummy. ‘Eleanor, this is Millie. Millie, this is Eleanor Fitch. She owns this place. Stambourne Farm. And she’s also my mum’s best friend.’
‘Andyour godmother,’ she says with an eye roll. ‘What do I always say, you’re never too old for a godmother.’
‘A meaningless title, though,’ replies Jack with a grin. ‘I mean, let’s be honest, it is,’ and Eleanor smacks his arm gently and laughs.
‘Millie,’ says Eleanor, holding out a rough, chubby hand. ‘Very nice to meet you.’
‘And you too.’
She turns to Jack, a brass key held between her two fingers. ‘OK, and you remember the drill, Jack?’
‘Er. Sort of? Although, it’s been, like twenty years?’ He laughs.
‘It’s that one over there.’ She points to an arched outhouse, made of corrugated steel. It’s lit by a single square security light, above its door, that moths dance clumsily in the spotlight of. ‘Here’s the key. Take a candle each as you walk in. Stay as long as you like, and just make sure the door’s locked when you leave. But most of all.’ She looks at me, and wrinkles her small, round nose, affectionately. ‘Be good.’ She drops the key into Jack’s open palm and grins. ‘You’re still coming to see me before you leave? The country, I mean.’
Jack nods. ‘Mightbe OK,’ he says, and again, her eyes lift skyward.
‘Might,’ she says. ‘Just like your mother. Hard to nail down.’
And something twists then, in my chest. He is leaving. Jack is going to be leaving, and soon. A couple of weeks. Gone. In a whole different other country. And I’ll forget slowly, his smell, how his laugh sounds, how that deep c-shaped dimple looks when he smiles. I’ll forget how .?.?.thisfeels. Being with him.
Eleanor looks at me. ‘Bed calls. I have to be up at four.’
I nod, smile. ‘Lovely to meet you,’ I say, but now I’m back-tracking about what she said before.Acandle?She did say candle, didn’t she?
Eleanor turns, disappears down the drive, to the house.
Jack and I, again, are alone.
‘OK, so whatisthis place?’ I ask. ‘I mean, Eleanor seems lovely and everything, and I sort of want her to bemygodmother, but for all I know, I could be here to have my organs harvested.’
‘Ha.’
‘Seriously, when are you going to enlighten me?’
Jack smiles, and leans closer to me in the dark. ‘Spoken like the woman who hasn’t gained any enlightenment from me so far at all. I’m deeply offended.’
‘Where have you offered me enlightenment?’
‘Er, BackDonalds?’ he says, his voice low. You could hear a pin drop, out here. ‘That’s enlightenment. Right?’
‘True. OK, fine, you enlightened me on aburger level.’
Jack looks at me, cocks his head. ‘This way, Millie.’
We walk together across the hard, crunching ground. Well, it’s definitely a farm. That’s all I do know. And I feel buzzy, as if my blood is charged with something. Electricity. Stars. And I already don’t want this night to end. Even though I have absolutely no idea what this place is, or what we’re doing here, and it’s cold and wet and late, I know that I want all the clocks in the world to stop. Freeze us here.
We get to the door of the corrugated outhouse.
It’s thick, wooden, vertically slatted, and painted cornflower-blue, from what I can make out in the dark. Jack unlocks it, the key slotting in with a satisfying, deep knock. ‘Ready?’
