“All right, we’re in Dancers Oak. I was going to tell you.” Before I could decide whether this was as true as I would have hoped, he said “It’s like your aunt wrote, just a housing estate with an old tree in the middle.”

“And what are you doing there?”

“You said you heard.”

I tried not to think Bella was changing him in ways I might dislike. “Tell me precisely.”

“What your aunt did.”

“And why, Roy, why.”

“Didn’t you ever want to see what she saw? I thought that was why you kept her journal.”

“I think we can see it in her paintings if it’s to be seen at all, and I wouldn’t—”

“We want to try going back to her way. It means a lot to Bell.”

“Going back how? What do you think digging up the place is likely to achieve?”

“We didn’t dig much. I shouldn’t think your aunt did.”

“I’m still asking what it’s supposed to do.”

“It kind of helps you meditate, doesn’t it, Bell?” However she responded, Roy said “You ought to try it, dad.”

“Did you dig up Drummer’s Meadow as well?”

“A little bit. There wasn’t anyone to mind, was there, Bell?”

“You didn’t see them, did you?”

“That’s because there wasn’t anyone to see.”

I had an odd sense of an embryonic argument, but I was more concerned to discover “How are you keeping these souvenirs of yours?”

“We’ve got jars for them. Bell calls them relics.”

I found this less important than establishing “What’s your mother going to think of all this?”

“Do you have to tell her?”

“You know I’m happy that you’re interested in Thelma and her work, but this is going further. Have you considered your mother at all?”

“She wouldn’t understand like you ought to. She might even try and stop me seeing Bell.”

I shouldn’t have let this influence me, but it did. “How much longer do you mean to carry on with this?”

“Seeing each other, do you mean?” Bella said.

“I’ve no problem with that. I’m not sure it’s up to me to have one. I’m asking how long you mean to visit places Thelma mentioned.”

“As long as it takes,” Roy said. “We’ve got weeks yet off school.”

“You’re saying you intend to go to all of them.”

“Just the ones we haven’t been to yet.”

“And when you reach the end—”

“Roy, there’s our train.”

I heard wheels whining distantly along a line. “We’ve got to run. Speak soon,” Roy said and left me with the progress of the train.