Audrey stood very still and remembered. For the last time she recalled what it had felt like to dance in his arms in this very square. To feel the bristle of his skin tickling her forehead and temple, to hug him close and live in the moment. Not in the past or in the future but in the now. ‘Oh, Louis,’ she sighed out loud. ‘I will never stop loving you but in order to live I must let you go.’ There followed a heavy silence and then the elusive music of the tango began to play again. ‘Grace, can you hear the music?’ she asked her. Grace came skipping back and cocked her head to one side. She frowned.
‘What music?’
‘That music? Can’t you hear it?’
‘There’s no music playing, Mummy,’ said Grace and she laughed, skipping about the square once more, puffing like a train. Audrey smiled for she still heard it and later when she went to bed she heard it again. Only when she arrived in England did it stop and she knew an old life had ended and a new one begun. It was time to start again.
The moment Grace set foot in England she searched around the airport for spirits. She saw none and her heart stumbled. She was suddenly overcome with a pain she had never experienced before, panic. Like a dog chasing its tail Grace spun around and around desperate to see some sort of smoky being. She saw nothing but people with suitcases and they looked very real indeed. Cecil waved at Aunt Cicely who was waiting for them behind the barrier to drive them down to Dorset. Grace was now quite tearful. She blinked hard, trying to disguise her misery. She wished she had had the courage to ask them; at least then she would have been prepared. She would have had the opportunity to say goodbye.
‘Hello, Grace, I’m Aunt Cicely,’ said Cicely, bending down. The child extended her hand. Audrey frowned. It was most unlike Grace to look so sad.
‘Are you all right, my love?’ she asked in a concerned voice. Grace’s mouth turned down and she looked past Aunt Cicely and extended her hand to the man who was now smiling at her. Aunt Cicely looked beside her then back at Grace.
‘Pleased to meet you, Uncle Hugh,’ said Grace without smiling.
‘Hugh?’ Cicely gasped and looked at Cecil.
‘My dear, who are you greeting?’ Cecil asked. Suddenly Grace’s face was transformed into a wide, excited smile.
‘You’re a spirit!’ she exclaimed, laughing at Hugh. Hugh just smiled back then disappeared. Grace looked about her. ‘Totem!’ she cried, clapping her hands together. ‘Oh, Mummy, I thought I’d left them all behind. I’m so happy.’
Audrey put her arm around her daughter and smiled down at her. ‘I’ll explain later,’ she said, winking at her sister-in-law.
‘I think you had better,’ she replied, a little shaken. ‘If she’s seen Hugh I dread to think who else she’s going to see in my rickety old house.’
That night, Audrey kissed her youngest goodnight and ran a hand down her soft cheek. ‘We’ll move into our new house the moment it’s ready, my love, then you’ll have your own bedroom.’ She smiled tenderly at the little girl who had brought her so much happiness and felt her body glow with love.
‘I’m so glad the spirits have come with me,’ she said, grinning up at her mother.
‘But of course they have. They fly about the place with no difficulty at all, crossing an ocean is nothing for them.’
‘I know. But I still worried about it.’
‘You should have told me.’
‘I will next time I have a worry.’
‘Good, because that’s what I’m here for.’
‘I really love you, Mummy,’ she said suddenly, looking straight into her mother’s eyes. Audrey caught her breath for Grace wasn’t a sentimental child. She bent over and wrapped her little girl in her arms.
‘Oh darling, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said. I love you too, very much.’ They held each other for a moment while Audrey silently thanked God for the gift of Grace and Grace enjoyed the warm cocoon of her mother’s embrace. Then Grace laid her head back down upon the pillow.
‘I hope Isla kisses me goodnight too,’ she said. ‘You once had long hair like hers, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I did. But I’m too old for hair like that now.’
‘You’re beautiful.’
‘So are you. But you’ve got a rare gift, my love, because you’re even more beautiful on the inside.’ She hesitated a moment, remembering that that was what Cecil used to say to her.
When she left the room and closed the door she hovered a moment until she heard Grace’s voice greet her spirit friend. ‘I knew you’d come,’ she said. ‘Because you know I need you.’ She smiled to herself and sighed. She loved all her three children and yet, there was something about Grace that made her love her more intensely. Alicia and Leonora were young women now, but Grace was still a child and would always be childlike. That she had inherited from her father. She wasn’t made for the material world and Audrey felt it was her duty to protect her from it, for as long as she was able.