‘Can I go out and look?’ he asked.

‘No. Of course you can’t.’ She shuddered. ‘It’s not safe. Back upstairs, Adam.’

‘I want to see!’

‘No, you don’t! There’s nothing to see, just… a lot of rubbish and mud.’

‘What’s that smell?’

He was right, there was another smell now permeating the house. It was sharper than the rotting mouldy stink that was everywhere, coming in on a light breeze to sting her nostrils. A tannery was on the flat plain on the other side of the river. What cocktail of poisons had been swirled into the deluge?

‘I’m sorry, Adey. Come with me.’ She took his hand and he clung to her in a way he hadn’t since he was a small boy. She hauled him and herself up the stairs. Harriet’s throat was dry, her tongue thick in her mouth, but there was no clean water to drink. Polly lay on the bed.

‘Has Walter gone to bring Alice home?’ she said.

‘Yes, Aunt.’ Her voice trembled. ‘He’s going to find her. Where are the boys?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘In their bedroom,’ said Adam. ‘They want breakfast. I’m hungry, too.’

Harriet focused on the burgundy flock that covered the wall behind the bed, a repeating pattern of frond-like swirls, and, yes, just there, was the section in which she had always seen an animalistic face, her eyes obeying the human instinct to find a face in random patterns. This one had always been a benign and comforting bear, with large dark holes for the eyes and a friendly snout. But the familiar pattern twisted to show her something different now. She was gazing at the empty eye sockets of a small skull.

Harriet looked away, her desperate eyes falling on Adam.

‘Adam, you must go and fetch us something to eat and drink from Stacey’s grocers at the top of the hill. Mr Stacey will supply us on credit. Off you go. And please be careful. Don’t go down to the river.’ She turned to Polly. ‘Aunt, I’m going to find you a warm shawl. You’re shivering.’

‘Alice will be very cold in her nightgown,’ Polly said. ‘I hope she does not end up with a chill. Do you remember that high fever she had in January?’

Harriet wrenched open the wardrobe door. The inside smelled of cigars and lavender with a slightly acrid undertone of sweat. Comforting enough to wrench a sob from deep within her, which brought fresh pain to her injured nose. She wanted to climb inside the dark recesses and close the heavy mahogany doors behind her. She would crouch in the corner on the dusty wardrobe floor, make room for herself among the shoes and boots, wrap her arms around her knees and rest her head on them.

Anything other than gaze on the scene arranged behind her, the child that wasn’t there, filling the house with her absence.

Chapter 14

It was a ruin.

Patchy early morning mist clung to the sides of the valley like sheep skein, but the air was sharp and the sky blue over what remained of his reservoir, as if nature was mocking him by showing him the clearest possible view of his failure.