me - if we didn't make it a tragedy, she wouldn't see it that way."
"But she must ask."
"Sometimes. But at the end of the day, she's more interested in seeing the otters at the wildlife park, so we don't have to have much of a conversation about it. In time, I'll tell her some version of the story, but she'll be older then." Meredith shrugged, and Gina squeezed her hand.
They were sitting on the edge of the bed, in the dim light of a single bedside lamp. The house was silent aside from their whispers.
Gina said, "I expect you know you did the right thing, but it's not been easy for you, has it?"
Meredith shook her head. She found herself grateful for the understanding, for she knew that it looked to others as if it had been easy and she never spoke about it in any other way. She lived with her parents, after all, and they loved Cammie. Meredith's mum looked after the little girl while Meredith went off to work. What could be simpler? Many things, of course, as it turned out, and topping the list was being single, being free, and being in pursuit of the career she'd set off to London to have in the first place. That was gone now, but not forgotten.
Meredith blinked quickly as she realised how long it had been since she'd had a close friend of her own age. She said, "Ta," to Gina and then she considered what real friendship actually meant: confidences shared, no secrets kept. Yet she had one that she needed to part with.
She said, "Gina," and she took a deep breath, "I've got something of yours."
Gina looked puzzled. "Mine? What?"
Meredith fetched her bag from the top of the chest of drawers. She dumped its contents next to Gina, and she pawed through them till she had what she was looking for: the tiny packet she'd found beneath the basin in Gina's lodging. She held it in the palm of her hand and she extended it to Gina.
"I broke into your bed-sit." She could feel her face flush to pure red. "I was looking for something that would tell me ..." Meredith thought about it. What had she been looking for? She hadn't known then and she didn't know now. She said, "I don't know what I was looking for, but this is what I found, and I took it. I'm sorry. It was a terrible thing to do."
Gina looked at the little packet of folded paper, but she didn't take it. Her shapely eyebrows drew together. "What is it?"
Meredith hadn't for a moment considered that what she'd found might not actually belong to Gina. She'd discovered it in Gina's room; ergo, it was hers. She withdrew her hand and removed the wrapping from round the roughly shaped circle of gold. Again, she extended her hand to Gina and this time Gina picked the small piece of gold from Meredith's palm and held it in her own.
She said, "D'you think it's real, Meredith?"
"Real what?"
"Real gold." Gina peered at it closely. She said, "It's quite old, isn't it. Look how it's worn down. I c'n make out a head. And there're some letters as well." She looked up. "I think it's a coin. Or p'rhaps a medal, an award of some kind. Have you a magnifying glass?"
Meredith thought about this. Her mother used a small one to thread the needle of her sewing machine. She went to fetch it and handed it over. Gina used it to try to make out what was depicted on the object she held. She said, "Some bloke's head, all right. He's wearing one of those circlet crowns."
"Like a king would wear into battle, over his armour?"
Gina nodded. "There're words as well, but I can't make them out. Only they don't look like English."
Meredith thought. A coin or medal possibly fashioned from gold, a king, words in a foreign language. She thought also of where they lived, in the New Forest itself, a place long ago established as the hunting grounds for William the Conqueror. He didn't speak English. None of the court spoke English then. French was their language.
"Is it French?" she asked.
Gina said, "Can't tell. Have a look yourself. It's not easy to read."
It wasn't. The letters were blurred, likely with time and usage, which suggested the way any coin would become less easy to read, having been carried round, handled, and passed from one person to another.