His eyes dropped to the gramophone needle between his thumb and forefinger. Without a tremor he let it down onto the disc. He went back to his chair and picked up his book, and the Prokofiev concerto began to fill the room. I got up and bent over the back of his chair and put my arms around him. He leaned his head back against my breast with his eyes shut. I didn’t speak. I was coming to learn that when I spoke, it was always new James who answered. And I imagined that old James might be there underneath. I wanted him to be sure I was here and I loved him. New James might be keeping him in the dark.

Presently he took his head away and began reading once more. I sat back down. When Kapell moved on to the Khachaturian I went upstairs to bed and left him reading.

THIRTEEN

I can see a woman in a tree,” says Tom.

We’re on the roof of the vicarage, in the valley between the twin gables, mending the holes. The attic ladder leans against one side of the valley, and Tom is perched near the top, one hand on the ridge of the roof and the other holding my binoculars.

William Kennet is below, squinting up at us against the sun. Aghast at the thought of me on the roof, he’s come to supervise operations. I assured him it was only a few missing tiles, and I wouldn’t be clambering around the eaves and guttering. But Mr. Kennet shook his head. The long ladder, the one we’ve used to get up here, is the property of Upton Hall School. Therefore he, being the school caretaker, is obliged to stay. That’s his reasoning.

“Mr. Kennet,” I had protested, “do I look like the sort of idiot who would stumble off the edge of a roof?”

“No,” came his measured reply. “But you might be expecting the angels to catch you on the way down.”

Of course, Tom is here, but Tom isn’t good enough reason for Mr. Kennet to desert his post. I’ve sensed by his brief greeting that he’s rather wary of Tom. I don’t entirely blame him. Tom’s dark brown curls brush his shoulders, his sideburns reach his jawline, or almost, and he’s currently in a grubby sweatshirt and jeans gaping at the knees.

As it turns out, it’s not just a matter of filling in the gaps. A great many tiles are old and cracked, so we’re replacing them too. A local builder, Stan Rail—one of the many sons of the estimable Matilda Rail, whose front door I had sandbagged on the day of the flood—has supplied the tiles. “If the job gets too much for you, Vicar,” he told me, “give us a ring.”

“I’m sure it won’t be.”