said slowly. She was thinking of her own gift of psychometry. ‘There are plenty of things that are impossible to explain rationally,’ she said, ‘but that doesn’t mean we should assume they are fantasy.’
Avery’s bright blue eyes considered her. ‘That’s very sensible, Elizabeth,’ she said, after a moment. ‘It would be arrogance to think we can explain everything away logically.’ She sighed. ‘When I first set foot in Oakhangar Hall I knew there was something wrong about it; something awry. It was all the fault of the Third Earl Basing. When Cumnor Hall fell into disrepair in the early nineteenth century, he took the stone to build his new manor at Oakhangar and to repair the church there. Not that he was particularly mean with money,’ she added, with a twinkle in her eye. ‘The Basings were extravagant to a fault, but it was a common practice in the past to reuse the materials from old buildings. All those monasteries that Henry VIII destroyed! There are pieces of them in buildings all over the country, and bits of Roman villas too. We’re a magpie breed; we take what we want but sometimes, perhaps, we take more than we imagine.’
‘You mean that the stone retains a memory of the past in some way,’ Lizzie said hesitantly, ‘that certain buildings can contain the memory of events that had happened hundreds of years ago?’
Avery’s gaze was very direct and very clear. ‘I think that’s true,’ she said quietly. ‘A physical place can hold an emotional memory.’
Lizzie wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before. It was such a close match with psychometry; reading objects that had emotional memories attached was akin to reading the history of a place through its fabric. Perhaps she could do that too. She hadn’t made a habit of going around touching the walls of old buildings… A flash of memory came to her and she saw herself standing on the Thames Embankment, touching the blue plaque that marked the site of Baynard’s Castle. The vision she had seen then had not been an emotional memory, though. With the heat of the sun and the scent of the river, it had felt as though she was actually there.
She blinked, coming back to the sunlit kitchen and the bright chirruping of the birds outside. Avery was watching her and it felt as though she saw so much, knew so much, of what Lizzie was only starting to work out…
‘Be careful, Elizabeth dear,’ she said. ‘I know you are curious, but there has been enough hurt.’
She reached for her basket and unpacked more milk, butter, eggs, cheese, ham, lemonade, a loaf of granary bread, a sausage roll and three other brown paper bags. Her busy movements and averted gaze indicated that the subject had been very firmly changed. ‘These are just a few things to keep you going,’ she said. ‘Your grandmother would have wanted me to look after you, I’m sure.’ She passed Lizzie a copy of a magazine. ‘This is the local paper. It’s got a list of all the events and societies in Burford at the back so you can join in. This is a community,’ she added. ‘You’re one of us now.’
‘Thank you,’ Lizzie said, overwhelmed. She turned to the back of the magazine. A bewildering array of activities met her eye: badminton, crafting, horticulture, knitting, the soup and pudding club… There was yoga, but probably not the type of class she was accustomed to doing at the World’s End Studio in Camden, which was generally accepted to be London’s premier urban yoga experience.
‘Perhaps I could try something new,’ she said weakly. ‘The art society? I’m very poor at drawing.’
‘What an excellent idea.’ Avery smiled warmly. ‘Everyone wants to be a celebrity these days so it’s refreshing to meet a celebrity who wants to learn a new skill.’
‘I expect there’s a reality TV show already showing celebrities doing that,’ Lizzie said. ‘And if there isn’t, there soon will be.’
Avery kissed her cheek, gathered up the empty basket and gave her a little wave. ‘I’ll see you soon, my dear. Just call around if you need me.’
The air seemed to buzz and quiver before settling after her departure. In the sudden silence, Lizzie’s phone rang. When she saw that it was Bill her heart sank.
‘Lizzie! Where the hell are you?’ Bill sounded exactly the same, as though they had never had an almighty row, as though she hadn’t ever been arrested, as though she hadn’t dismissed the lawyers