Finders, Keepers - Sabine Durrant Page 0,26

details. I don’t know, for example, whether you need to be continually talking for the hour to count or whether companionable silence also works. Jail time, for example – those long stretches of enforced togetherness – would that be applicable?

It’s hard to know exactly how and when Ailsa and I clocked them up but I am confident that we did.

When I look back on this period, I think about greenery, the changing view out of my bedroom window, the houses that backed on to me obscured a little bit more every day. I think about white blossom, sudden bursts of perfume, and the birds – the air manic with different song, how I hadn’t noticed they were gone over winter, until now they were back. I think about her garden, too. I could see it if I craned my neck, through the crossed branches of my trees: the tips pushing up through the earth, blossom bursting against a blue sky, that pretty little bush she had planted on my side, the buds unfurling, deep pink and white flesh breaking out of their furry cases.

There were cold days, too; suddenly bitter days that looked the same through the window as the warm ones – the sky blue; the leaves acid green. It was only when you left the house bare-armed, the chill wind penetrating your cotton layers, that you discovered they were only pretending to be nice. Aggressive mimicry; you find it everywhere in nature. Spiders that look like the ants on which they feed, death’s-head hawkmoths that emit the smell of bees so they can sneak into the hive unnoticed and steal their honey, weeds that spring up next to almost identical cultured plants, strangling them and draining the goodness from the earth . . . The world is full of predators or parasites gaining advantage by their resemblance to a soften third party.

I continued to tutor every Wednesday, still unpaid, and sometimes I’d even do an extra session if Max had homework he found difficult. I should have mentioned money, but it was awkward. She talked so much about being broke and, while I clearly had less to live on than she did, I got by. At some point I told myself, she would press a thick envelope into my hand and in the meantime I was so much more than just a tutor – part of the family almost. We’d always have a coffee, or a Rooibes tea, and a chat after a session and she began to knock on my door, too. The first time was to ask again about the trees at the back: ‘Any movement on that?’ But the next time, she’d made a big batch of chocolate brownies, and really they didn’t need them all: Tom didn’t like too many sweet things in the house. Or she’d drop round an Amazon package they’d taken in for me – I got a lot of Amazon packages, didn’t I? Another book? Wow! – and while she was about it, had I walked the dog? She’d love an excuse to stretch her legs – and maybe grab a coffee. And I’d abandon my computer and put Maudie on the lead, and off we’d trot, regardless of whether I had already taken her out that day or not.

I know, looking back, that it seems an unlikely friendship. It’s hard not to wonder about her motives. Pity definitely came into it. I’d be deluded to think otherwise. She felt sorry for me and thought of herself as taking me under her wing. But she was used to being around misfits: she’d spent a lot of time in hospitals and, as I’ve said, her mother clearly had difficulties. But I also genuinely believe she enjoyed my company. I’m a good listener and she intrigued me: already at that first lunch our conversation had roved into interesting areas. It had an exponential effect, too. The more we hung out, the more relaxed she felt, and the more she was drawn back. It’s true of friendship in general: we all find security in the familiar.

I also think she was lonely.

I want to say we walked on hundreds of occasions, but it was probably five or six. It just seemed more: the novelty for me was dizzying. And walking can be oddly intense; the lack of eye contact often leads to easy disclosure. We talked a lot about Max. I’d fill her in on how I thought he was doing and she’d tell