LITMIR.BIZ

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makes a note. That ball will probably be washed up later. It must have a whole lot of good memories buried inside it. Then reality hits, as it does several times a day. Her beach-combing days are over. Even if she happens to see it float in, she can’t get to it.

      It’s only a couple of hundred yards from May’s back porch to the tideline, but the beach might as well be on the moon. Being a hundred and ten years old tends to limit your orbit. May’s shoulders slump. This is a crisis. For weeks she’s been feeling less and less lively, and she knows the reason why. Her memory supplies have completely dried up.

      May looks down at the elderly cat curled up by her feet. ‘Well, Fossil, I’m just going to have to come up with a plan,’ she tells him.

      The cat blinks its yellow eyes and says nothing. May doesn’t really expect a reply. Although she has certain abilities, talking to animals isn’t one of them.

      ‘I need a new source of memories,’ she continues. Fossil yawns, and sticks out the tip of his tongue. ‘There’s no need to be rude,’ May says. ‘This is serious. If I don’t find a way to … acquire more of my treasures, I’m stuffed, as Andy would say.’

      Andy is May’s neighbour. His terraced house abuts her new home. May’s solid granite single-storey cottage at 59 Memory Lane was built to last. It was a tea shop up until last year and in its time has been extended to have five rooms plus a bathroom and a long conservatory with a stunning view of the bay. It’s too big for May really, but it’s private, and suits her well. There are any number of basking places for the days when it’s warm enough to sun-worship, a lawn around the house where the wooden benches and tables used to stand, and even a small car park that goes right up to the sea wall.

      May rents the parking spaces out to a few selected villagers. She doesn’t need the money – the sale of her house up on The Level has left her very comfortably off – but she likes the comings and goings and the friendly chit-chat when people drop off their cars at the end of the day. Loneliness has rather taken her by surprise since she moved, and the car park activity is a welcome distraction. Living alone has its benefits but she sometimes tires of talking to the cat. When she lived in the heart of the village, May knew everything that was going on, and kept a close eye on her neighbours’ affairs by dint of popping in and out of their houses on a variety of pretexts and by getting involved in the social life of the local Methodist Church. You don’t have to believe in God to make salmon sandwiches and dispense weak tea.

      May’s new home has weathered well, and looks as though it’s been there for ever, the newer sections blending in seamlessly, with ivy and wisteria covering the joins and close-growing shrubs hugging the walls. There is yellow lichen on the roof tiles and the door is painted almost the same colour. She has huge earthenware pots of succulents either side of the front step that take no looking after, and a quirky blue and yellow ceramic sign that spells out the name of the cottage in swirly letters – Shangri-La.

      Andy gardens for May whenever he has time, and does a few hours’ routine office work for a local garden centre when his landscaping business allows or the weather is awful. His six-year-old daughter, Tamsin, lives next door with him. May stirs, and groans slightly as she hears the pounding of small footsteps approaching on the wooden floor of the deck.

      ‘Hello, May,’ says Tamsin in a loud stage whisper. ‘Have you finished your nap?’

      ‘I wasn’t asleep.’ May lets her glasses slide to the end of her nose so that she can peer at the child. She looks angelic. Dark curls frame a round, rosy-cheeked face and her eyes are huge and brown with long lashes. Anyone might think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, as May’s mum used to say. They’d be wrong.

      Tamsin reaches the garden chair and slips her arm through May’s, head butting her shoulder. ‘I’ve done with school,’ she says.

      ‘For today,’ answers May, trying to look stern.

      ‘For ever and ever. It sucks,’ says Tamsin.

      ‘That’s not a very nice thing for a little girl to say.’

      ‘What, that school sucks, you mean? Summer says it.’

      She sits down on the boards and leans against May’s legs. The pressure is comforting at first, but is soon painful. May grits her dentures. ‘Summer says quite a lot of things that you shouldn’t copy, it seems to me. Anyway, you can’t just stop going to school, Tam. You’ve only done a year so far. It goes on for a lot longer than that, as a rule.’

      ‘Dad can’t make me go,’ says the little girl, sticking out her bottom lip. Tamsin’s eyes are even darker than Andy’s, and she’s inherited the shaggy curls from him too. May knows there’s a regular morning battle to get a ponytail in place. She’s heard the screams. Tamsin’s already ditched her scrunchy for the day and her blue cardigan with the crest has disappeared as well, probably under a bush somewhere.

      ‘Why don’t you like school? Has something happened today? You were fine yesterday when you came round.’ May often keeps an eye on Tamsin until Andy comes home, if he’s not expecting to be long. She’s never been keen on children but this one is different. This one has a mind of her own.

      ‘It’s just boys,’ says Tamsin. ‘Why do we have to have boys?’

      ‘Well …’

      ‘They’re stinky, and they push in front of us when we line up.’

      ‘Hmm. But some girls push too, and boys often grow up to be grand men like your dad and Tristram, don’t they?’

      ‘S’pose so.’

      The cat stands up, stretches, and makes his way over to Tamsin. His black fur is slightly dusty due to his habit of rolling in the flowerbeds. Tamsin looks at him doubtfully.

      ‘Dad said I mustn’t touch Fossil any more,’ she says.

      ‘Did he? When was that?’

      ‘Yesterday. I kept sneezing, and he said it was either hay fever or cats. Like my mum used to get, he said. But I love Fossil. He doesn’t even smell that bad today, does he? Not like boys do.’

      May thinks Tamsin might be going to cry. Tears are May’s least favourite thing. An idea strikes her as she sees a red dot appear on the shoreline. ‘Would you do a little job for me, my bird?’ she says, in what she hopes is a winning tone.

      Tamsin frowns even harder. ‘What do I get?’

      ‘Get? You don’t get anything. Young people are supposed to help older ones. Don’t they teach you anything at school?’

      Tamsin shrugs.

      ‘Would you just pop down to the beach and pick up that ball over there?’

      ‘But it’ll be all wet and slimy. Why do you want a ball, May? You haven’t got a dog and Fossil doesn’t play with stuff any more.’

      ‘Well … I …’ May tries to think of a plausible answer but her mind has gone blank. There’s no easy way to say that the reason she’s managed to live to a hundred and ten is that she has been appropriating her neighbours’ memories for years. She’s always told herself it’s a form of borrowing, but that’s not true, because once she’s got them, she’s never quite worked out how to give them back.

      Now that she’s living at the bottom of Memory Lane and can’t visit people in the village any more, May has no way of collecting their treasured objects so that she can do what she terms her thought harvesting. But she couldn’t stay in that rambling old family house once her legs started to get creaky. She was lucky to be able to keep it going for so long. Leaving Seagulls was hard, but this cottage is so much easier to live in, apart from the sad lack of new memory sources. The vibrations from her collecting missions have fed her mentally for a long time now, but she’s bled them all dry.

      Tamsin prods May gently, still waiting for an answer. She’s right, in a way. A soggy toy won’t do much good. But at least it’ll have something inside it – some scrap of love and dog-type warmth buried

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