The Winter Ghosts - By Kate Mosse Page 0,25

touching. I noticed how the gold ring she wore on her right thumb was too big for her. It rested on the knuckle, as though surprised to find itself there.

‘Talking doesn’t help.’

The space between her skin and mine crackled. I dared not move. Dared not let the tips of my fingers stray towards hers.

‘Talking did not help,’ I repeated, the words dry in my throat. I glanced at her. She was still smiling, not with pity, but with compassion, curiosity. I felt something crack inside me.

‘And could it be you talked only because others required it of you? Maybe? But it is different here. Things are different. Try.’

‘I did try,’ I snapped back, appalled at how immediately the sense of being unfairly judged returned. Mother had accused me of not wanting to get well, Father too. I could not bear it if Fabrissa thought the same. ‘No one believed me, but I did try.’

Whether by design or accident, her hand brushed against mine as she withdrew it from the table and placed it in her lap. So intense, so profound was the sensation, I felt as if I had been burnt.

‘I—’

‘Try again, Freddie,’ she said.

And in those three quiet words, three simple words, somehow there was a promise of an entire life to be lived if I could only take the chance.

I can still recall the sense of possibility that came over me then, a kind of lightness. Every sinew, every muscle, every vein in my body seemed suddenly to vibrate, to be alive. If I could find the courage to speak, she would listen. Fabrissa would listen.

I took a deep breath and then slowly, steadily, exhaled. Finally, I began to talk.

Stories of Remembrance and Loss

‘I remember everything about that day,’ I said. ‘Every tiny detail. The smell and the texture of it, every second before and after the knock at the door.

‘I was in the nursery toasting bread. Cross-legged on the floor, a slab of butter ready on an old green china plate. It was September, but with the promise of autumn to come. The purple leaves on the copper beech were turning and there was condensation on the inside of the windows in the early morning. The fire had been lit for the first time since the previous winter and there was the bitter, musty smell of singed dust in the chimney.

‘On the wall above my bed was pinned a hand-drawn map of Europe printed by the Manchester Guardian. It was covered with red crosses, my attempt to mark each place the Royal Sussex Regiment had been - at least, where I imagined my brother’s division might be. Where George might . . .’ I stopped, the stab of memory too sharp.

Fabrissa waited. She seemed to have no need to hurry me or require me to turn fragments into a single, clear narrative. Her patience rubbed off on me, and when I found it in me to continue, the sequence of events was clearer in my mind and the words I needed came, if not easily, then at least less hesitantly than before.

‘I didn’t hear the knock at the door. But I remember being aware of our maid’s footsteps on the flag-stones in the hall. Florence always did shuffle and fail to pick up her feet. I was aware of the door being opened and mumbled words, too faint for me to make out.

‘Even then, I think I knew. There was something in the quality of the silence which shouted out that this caller was unwelcome. I stopped what I was doing and listened, listened to the silence. Then my mother’s clear, shrill voice in the hall. At the door. Yes, yes, I am Mrs Watson. And, moments later, a single word, so much the worst for being spoken so softly: “No.”

‘The fork dropped from my hands. I can see it now, falling slowly down, metal clattering on the hearthstone, toe, heel, toe, like a tap dancer, before coming to rest. The bread, so perfectly burnt on one side and raw white on the other. I ran. Sending the door flying back against the wall, I ran down the nursery stairs in my stockinged feet. On the same old dangerous turn, I slipped and lost my footing, cracked my shin. Blood started to seep through my sock and, absurdly, I remember thinking how I would be scolded for being so clumsy.

‘Down to the first landing, along the passageway where the carpet began. From the hall below, a sound