LITMIR.BIZ

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down. Lucas Beam was reversing a pick-up truck too fast towards the grass. ‘Pittsharbor’s a mundane place. We spend muddled, ordinary times in it.’

      ‘Do you wish for something more than that?’

      ‘Yes, I do.’

      ‘Are you in love with him?’

      The question was so unlooked-for that Leonie found herself answering without calculation. ‘Perhaps. Or I could be if I let it happen, which I won’t.’

      Of course Spencer had passed on what he had seen in the car-park that day. How is it, Leonie wondered, that there are any secrets at all in a place as small as this?

      ‘It’s none of my business, I’m sorry.’

      ‘You’re right.’

      But Elizabeth was not deflected by the finality in Leonie’s voice. ‘Forgive an old woman’s intrusion. At my age there isn’t much to do but observe other people’s lives and make presumptuous conclusions about how they should handle them. You aren’t very happy, are you?’

      There was no point in attempting a denial. The children were much closer now, running past the fence that separated the graveyard from the green and Leonie tilted her head to watch them as Elizabeth talked.

      ‘Don’t pass up the chance of happiness, if you think it might be within your reach. When it’s gone you will never stop regretting its loss.’

      ‘It sounds as though you speak from experience.’

      ‘I do,’ Elizabeth said. Leonie waited with interest and the beginnings of sympathy, but the older woman didn’t say any more. Instead she added, ‘I saw the ghost too, when I was not much older than May. I asked who she was and my grandmother told me the story.’ Elizabeth’s hands opened as they lay in her lap. Her wedding and engagement rings were worn to thin gold hoops and they were loose on her finger. ‘It’s like a duty, a piece and a part of belonging to the beach, to hand on the history. Keeping the thread running.’

      ‘To hand it on to May and me? I don’t feel that I belong here. The opposite, in fact. I wouldn’t know about May.’

      ‘You remind me of each other. You’re alike.’

      The incongruity of the idea made Leonie hesitate, then suddenly she thought, yes. Maybe we are. Maybe that’s why we mistrust each other. ‘And you too,’ she said with conviction. The idea comforted her. ‘What do you think I should do, Elizabeth?’ Using her name was a token of friendship.

      ‘I can’t tell you what to do. All I know is that I didn’t take a chance, a gamble, a long time ago. I was sorry for it afterwards.’

      ‘I see. Thank you,’ Leonie said.

      Ivy and Lucas were with a crowd of young people at the Seafood Shack down on the harbour. Lucas had been playing softball all afternoon and Ivy was angry with him for neglecting her. She sat sideways at the table where Lucas was eating a double crab roll, with one smooth thigh touching the leg of Sam Deevey’s jeans. Sam was one of the locals and a bit of a hick, she thought, but not at all bad-looking in an Antonio Banderas kind of way.

      ‘You coming down to the beach tonight?’ Lucas asked her, his mouth full of crab and mayo.

      Ivy barely turned her head. ‘I’m going to watch the fireworks with Sam. Maybe afterwards.’

      ‘Sure,’ Lucas said uncertainly. He wasn’t used to rejection, even by someone as gorgeous as Ivy. The evening in prospect was uninviting without her.

      May waded out of the sea and shook the drops off her hair and skin like a dog. It had been so hot that for once the cold shock of the water was welcome and she was glad there was no one about to see her in her swimsuit. She stood with her back to the houses and the deserted beach, rubbing her chin with the corner of her towel. The sea was flat and milky pale, reflecting the mild early-evening sky. The island’s hunched back bristled against the colourless horizon. Then she heard confident footsteps treading the shingle behind her.

      ‘Hi,’ Marty called to her in his friendly way. Judith and he were younger than most of the other beach adults and he liked to make his social moves between the generations of parents and teenagers, seeming to belong with equal ease to both groups. ‘Are you all on your own? Want to come up and have a Coke or something with Judith and me?’

      ‘Okay,’ May said. She pulled a wrap over herself.

      There was baby stuff spread all over the Stiegels’ floor and Judith sitting in the middle of it with Justine on a diaper across her broad knees. May loitered awkwardly, wishing she hadn’t come, while Marty fetched drinks for them.

      ‘Are you having a good time up here?’ Judith asked. She was so big, with her solid shoulders and upper arms rounded like boulders on the beach.

      May knew she was a sculptor and thought she looked a bit like a sculpture herself. One of those massive, immovable pieces of work that sit on lawns outside public buildings. ‘Yes, thank you.’

      Once the baby was parcelled up in a stretchy sleeping suit Judith calmly hoisted her shirt and undid her bra. A vast white breast spilled out and Judith took the nipple between thumb and forefinger and pressed it to the baby’s mouth. Its gums clamped and it began noisily sucking. How disgusting, May thought giddily. Never. I’ll never do that.

      Marty came back and she gratefully took the Coke and drank with pretended thirst, not even asking if it was a Diet one. ‘Come through here.’ He beckoned.

      There was a small room off the main one, obviously used as a study. There were a desk and a laptop computer and a fax machine, and a scatter of folders and notepads. Marty busily opened an envelope file and May saw that it was bulging with black-and-white photographs.

      ‘You take a lot of pictures.’

      ‘Uh? Yeah. I’m lucky. My work is my hobby.’ She remembered now that he was a photographer in the city, taking the pictures for ads. ‘Here they are.’

      He fanned a handful of the photographs expertly in front of her. It was the volleyball day. There was Lucas, with his hair swinging up from his forehead. And Ivy and Gail, clapping hands. Marty found the shot he was looking for. May was leaping high in the air. All the picture’s huge energy was driving through her arm and clenched fist. Seeing it brought back to her the power and exhilaration of the moment. She looked like someone else, perhaps in a Nike ad, not herself at all. ‘Oh,’ she breathed. She turned her lit-up face to Marty. ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’

      He patted her shoulder. ‘I was pretty pleased with it. I’ll get you a copy.’

      The photograph gave May an unfamiliar feeling of warmth. She put it down with reluctance. ‘Thank you. I’d love that.’

      She cocked her head to one side to examine the other pictures in the sheaf. There was one of Elizabeth with Mrs Beam and Mrs Fennymore, standing at the top of some steps. The picture had been taken from an angle below them so they loomed grotesquely. Their contrasting features were sharply delineated, but something in the patina of old age made them seem three different versions of the same witchy old woman. Alarmed, May looked away quickly.

      ‘Marty?’ Judith called from the adjoining room. ‘She’s spat up. Can you pass me the towel from her bag?’

      He hurried away and May could hear them dealing with the baby emergency. Idly she poked at the concertina openings of the picture folder. One of the sections held a squared wad of pictures tied with a piece of braid. Without thinking May picked out the package and looked at the uppermost photograph.

      It was of a girl sitting on a rock. Her arms were wrapped around her drawn-up knees, but there was movement in all the lines of her body, as if the photographer had unexpectedly called her name and she had turned happily to see him. Her face was solemn but it was about to break into a delighted smile. Her eyes were locked straight into the lens.

      May was gazing at the picture when Marty came back. She fumbled and almost dropped

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