Maude stopped, squatted and plunged her hands into the long grass. ‘Bricks,’ she said, ‘with a sort of a gap in them.’ A hole for a post.

‘Maude. I mean it.’

Maude looked at her, considering her next move. It was all very ordinary, the little patch of land, but then, somehow – not. Too high, too lonely, too cold; she felt trapped. Elder House, the whole yard, seemed very far away.

‘Please, Maudie.’

She stood up slowly, and wiped the soil off her hands; she was shivering and her heart thudded uncomfortably. But she wasn’t about to let Nell see there was anything wrong. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘I’m coming.’

*

Nell watched as Maude closed the little wooden gate behind her and made her way carefully down the bankside. She had a vague memory of once seeing photos of laundry being dried on the beach, so a drying ground in the yard, she supposed, must have been highly prized.

It didn’t feel like a communal space, though. It felt – private, isolated.

Elder House seemed to muffle any noise in the yard and the street beyond – and it was the sort of quiet that seemed to press in on you, once you noticed it. For a moment there it was again, that odd smell, damp and stale. She couldn’t tell if it was outside the house or in; maybe it was on her clothes, her skin. Maybe it was in the stones.

‘Are you OK?’

Maude was breathless, her cheeks were flushed. ‘I’m fine. Can I go up to my room now?’

Nell was struck once more by how far apart they had drifted; she couldn’t remember the last time Maude had offered to spend time alone with her, just the two of them, hanging out.

‘Sure,’ she said.

Chapter 6

6

Evie worked through the rest of the afternoon and early evening until she could no longer ignore the hunger pangs. She closed her laptop and wandered out onto the landing. As she passed by her parents’ room, she glanced inside.

Carolyn was sitting on the bed, her jewellery box in her lap. She was lost in thought, the top section with its neat little velvet compartments was on the duvet next to her and she was idly stirring through the contents of the base.

‘Mum?’

‘Hello, darling.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I can’t find the match to this, see?’ Carolyn tilted her head, the better to show off an earring, silver and studded with turquoise stones, which Evie recognised as one of mum’s good pieces, something expensive.

She sat on the bed beside her and picked up the discarded tray. ‘Are you going out?’ she asked, wondering if she might be allowed a takeaway if this was the case; a curry, curry and rice and naan bread. Just the thought of it made her stomach rumble.

‘No. I just – I haven’t worn them for a while, that’s all.’