There weren’t many beautiful things to buy Kathryn when she turned twenty-one. Everything was hard to get in the war, everything rationed. We had coupons for this, coupons for that, but just because you had a coupon it didn’t mean you would get your this or that. I canna mind now what gift I gave your mother. Probably something practical for her glory box. Don’t frown, lambsie—girls of your mother’s time always had a glory box. I remember I made a cake … aye, a marble cake, that’s right. I gave some coupons to someone who knew someone who could get powdered sugar and cochineal. Imagine how frivolous, using coupons for cochineal! We didn’t have a party, no, but that suited your mother. Never was she one for crowds of people. Well, you know this, lambsie, you know how she can be.

I wonder, would you have rather received a kist full of memories from your grunnie? Probably not. Ah well, you are young and that’s as it should be. But one day. One day, I hope.

I’ve had time on my hands, lambsie, too much of it. Time to dwell on things. All those months to wonder about what it is I’ve been doing. After what the doctors said, I didn’t think to be finishing what I’d started, but I am a tough one, aye, tougher than ever they thought. Well, they were not to know about the women of Roanhaven, were they? There is much yet to say, and it seems I am to be spared a while more to say it. But churning up the mud of the past, all the bones and stones buried there—is it fair? Some things are best left in the dark. So much sadness. I don’t know.

I will carry on, for now, while I can.

But I forget things, you know, lambsie. Kathryn is right: I do. Even more since all that business in hospital. If I tell you a thing once and then tell you again—well, you’ve just to put up with that.

They are different, you know, memory and memories. Memory is the way you know it’s Tuesday or what you ate for dinner last night, or that you’ve already bought a new pair of slippers so whyever would you go to town and buy another pair? But memories are the things that make you who you are, even the ones you are most afraid to look at square in the face. And the funny thing is, I am losing my memory but not my memories. If it was the other way round, you’d be getting a kist full of knitting yarn and last Thursday’s shopping list, which still I canna find.