“Supposedly a witch. Real name Mary Hodge. The most recent of them on the map.” Since this brought no response, I turned to Roy and Bella. “Whoever’s planted somewhere around Halfway Halt liked to call himself Magister Stellarum,” I said. “Master of the stars, which he must have thought was more impressive than Harold Lambkin.”

I was hoping this would amuse my listeners – better still, strike them as pathetically absurd – but not even Julia smiled. “Names help to make us,” Bella said. “You’d have changed yours when you married, Julia.”

“And now I’ve changed it back.” Perhaps Julia felt this was unnecessarily insensitive at the wake. “What about yours, Bella?” she said as if to leave her remark well behind. “I don’t know the rest of your name.”

Roy laughed at Bella’s answer. “Bella Knowall?”

“That isn’t what I said, Roy. I wouldn’t take that name.”

“It sounds a bit like you sometimes.”

“Bella Noel,” Julia said to forestall any quarrel. “I’d call it musical.”

“Thank you, Julia. I’m glad it has some charm.”

“Does it mean you were born at Christmas?” Roy said.

“Something like that if you like.”

“Roy, you’re confusing us,” his mother said. “Her surname wasn’t changed, was it, Bella?”

“It’s the only one I’ve ever had.”

“I was sure it must be,” Julia said and handed me my phone, which had blotted out the atlas and was demanding identification. Apparently she thought her blank look was eloquent enough about the map. She didn’t speak again until she’d taken a sip of wine followed by a resolutely final one. “I really should be going, Patrick,” she said, and told Bella “I hope I’ll see you again soon.”

“We ought to be making tracks as well if Patrick doesn’t mind.”

I couldn’t very well expect my son to linger by himself. “Thanks for coming,” I said.

“I wouldn’t have felt right otherwise,” Bella said. “Could I ride part of the way with you, Julia?”

“Of course you can. We can start to get to know one another better.”

Outside the pub Julia gave me a terse loose hug, and Roy came up with an embrace that consisted mostly of slapping my back. Bella delivered an enveloping squeeze that lasted long enough for Julia to raise her eyebrows. “See you soon, dad,” Roy said, and Bella left a look that seemed to convey the same, while Julia’s touched upon the possibility. I watched them drive away, engrossed in a conversation I couldn’t hear. I had a sense of having missed an opportunity, and perhaps that distracted me from grasping how much else I’d missed.

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Someone on the Roof

“What can I do for you now, Patrick?”

“We didn’t really have a chance to talk much yesterday.”

“I’m sorry if we left before you wanted.”