the blue canvas bag and delved through piles of neatly folded clothes and small treasures. There, right at the bottom, his groping fingers touched what felt like a book. Gently, he slid the photograph album out of the bag and stroked it lovingly with his hands. With great care and reverence he opened it and turned the pages. This was a hallowed thing to him and Jennet and lately she had been withholding it from him.
There were his mother and father on their wedding day, smiling up out of the album, about to cut the cake. Another page and there they were on honeymoon in Wales. Ben’s father was a tall man with thick, dark hair and a broad grin. His mother, a petite blonde, had blinked at the wrong moment, and here she was, frozen into an eternal doze. The opposite page showed Jennet when she was a baby, sitting on her father’s lap.
Ben examined the photographs carefully. Here they were: images of his parents locked in happy events – birthdays and holidays sealed into the album forever. But the eyes staring out at him were unseeing. They were focused on the person taking the photograph and that had never been Ben. His mother and father were looking out at someone else, not him. He was confused. The memories of who they had been – everything they were – were now transferred to six inches by four of glossy paper.
He turned the last page. There was the photograph he sought above all. A younger version of himself sat astride a donkey on the sands of Rhyl and beside him were his mother and father. Jennet must have taken the picture. Try as he might, Ben had no memory of the occasion. He imagined sitting on a donkey and hearing his father’s voice, but no – there was nothing there. The photograph had been taken on the final day of their last holiday together. Six months later both his parents had been killed in a car accident.
Ben closed the album, then frowned and chewed his lip. He understood that his parents were dead. He and Jennet had gone to the funeral and watched the coffins lowered into that deep hole. He remembered that because he had worn those shoes that pinched and Jennet had cried a lot and had to be put to bed. Yes, his parents were dead; everyone told him that. So why was it that every now and then, in a mirror or at the end of his bed before he went to sleep, he could see his mother and father smiling at him?
‘I knew your dear mama’s aunt,’ said Miss Boston, above the buffeting wind.
Jennet sat on the tombstone and hugged her knees. ‘Great Aunt Connie?’
Miss Boston held on to her hat and nodded. ‘She was one of my pupils,’ she said. ‘A good student but never made any use of her education – shameful waste.’
‘And you say she wrote to you about Ben and me?’
‘Yes, over the years we have kept a correspondence going. She was very fond of your mama, you know, and when she heard about the accident, well . . .’
They had climbed the hundred and ninety-nine steps to the top of the East Cliff in order to see the abbey, only to find it was too late and the man in the office had gone home. Still, there was plenty to see. At the top of the steps was St Mary’s church, a solid building surrounded by ancient graves whose stones were nearly worn smooth. They had settled themselves on a large, mossy tomb while Ben ran off to play among the stones and lean into the strong wind.
There was a magnificent view of the town below. On the West Cliff, directly opposite, bedroom lights were flickering on and the glitter of the arcades was becoming more noticeable in the gathering dusk. Dark night clouds were moving in from the sea and the sun was pale and low, catching a last, weak glint from the tiled roofs before it set.
Miss Boston, wrapped in a tweed cloak, stared at the horizon and said, ‘Of course, if Constance had not been in that home she would have taken you and Benjamin in herself.’
Jennet spoke into the darkening sky, tilting her head back and sweeping the hair out of her eyes. ‘She couldn’t have coped with Ben and me, she’s too old.’
Miss Boston snorted. ‘Too old? My dear girl, Constance is a mere sapling compared to me.’
‘But Aunt Connie’s seventy and walks with a frame.’
Miss Boston puckered her face up and asked, ‘How old do you think I am, child?’
Jennet looked at the figure blanketed in sage-green tweed. Only the face was visible and it was difficult to put an age to it. Miss Boston’s skin was lined, yet one grin could banish the wrinkles. Only the tufts of white woolly hair poking out beneath the hat gave any real clue to her age.
‘Seventy-five?’ Jennet ventured uncertainly.
Miss Boston closed her eyes and raised her head. ‘I am ninety-two,’ she solemnly informed her. ‘Don’t be alarmed, dear – some of us do survive for that length of time.’
‘But you’re not frail or anything,’ Jennet declared in surprise.
‘As to that,’ Miss Boston lifted a finger to her nose in a gesture of secrecy, ‘I have little methods all my own. Old age is terribly unfair. Usually either the mind or the body succumbs. Hospitals and nursing homes are filled with shambling near cadavers who still possess all their marbles; intelligent people who can’t go to the bathroom by themselves or even get out of bed, in some cases. Then there is the other variety: the sprightly gibberers, I call them, senile but with perfectly healthy bodies. What a cruel joke old age is, to be sure.’
A flock of gulls soared out over the sea, spreading their wings and hanging on the air. Miss Boston followed their course with interest. ‘They’re not supposed to be able to fly over the abbey, you know,’ she told Jennet. ‘Legend says that if they try, they are overcome and fall to the ground. There they must pay homage to St Hilda, the founder of the abbey, until she releases them.’
‘That’s silly,’ said Jennet.
Miss Boston agreed. ‘I suppose so, but it is a lovely notion, don’t you think? St Hilda was a remarkable woman, after all.’
They sat in silence for some time, listening to the wind rushing through the grass and hearing Ben’s squawks as he chased the gulls.
‘Why now?’ asked Jennet, breaking the calm. ‘Why didn’t you send for us before? Why wait over two years?’
The old woman put her hand on Jennet’s and explained. ‘After the accident, Constance wrote to me and told me you had gone to stay with your father’s brother.’
‘Uncle Peter, yes – and Aunt Pat, his snotty wife.’
‘You were with them for just three months, were you not?’
Jennet stared at the ground and mumbled, ‘Aunt Pat said she couldn’t cope with . . . well, with us.’ She hesitated before adding, ‘Ben was having a bad time, and there were other things.’
‘I see.’ Miss Boston turned to watch Ben playing. ‘So they put you both into care.’
‘Yes, then we were put with another family who actually wanted to adopt Ben and me, until . . . well, it didn’t work out that way.’
‘No.’ Miss Boston narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. ‘Nor did it work out with three other families after that. You asked why I had not sent for you before now. My dear child, I was hoping that you would find a good home with a family who would care for you.’ She sighed loudly. ‘Alas, it was not to be, so I decided to enter the fray and applied a little pressure here, called in some old favours there. Well, here you are; stuck with a terrible old woman like me. I’m sorry, but I could not stand by and let you stay in that hostel until you were sixteen.’
Jennet shifted uncomfortably on the tombstone. This woman had no idea why they had been unable to fit in. She looked round for Ben and suddenly saw that he was dangerously near the cliff edge. ‘Will