The Swallow and the Hummingbird(2)

‘That is a long time, isn’t it?’ said Max hopefully. Ever since he had first set eyes on Rita Fairweather he had been hopelessly in love. The infatuation of a child had slowly matured into something more profound, for Rita was three years older than him and her heart was no longer hers to give away.

‘In the Great War I didn’t see Denzil for four. Thought nothing of it.’

‘But you’re not like other people,’ teased Max. ‘You’re a witch.’

Mrs Megalith’s face softened and she smiled at him. Few dared tease the ‘Elvestree Witch’ and it was well known that she found most people intolerable. But Max was beyond reproach. Mrs Megalith could see what no one else saw, those dark and shadowy corners of his heart where he hid a great deal of suffering. She would never forget the day those two frightened little strays were brought into her care. She loved Max and Ruth intensely, more intensely than she loved her own privileged children who had never known fear. She was the closest they had to family and she cherished them on behalf of the mother and father who were no longer alive to give them what is every child’s right.

‘I might be a witch, Max dear, but I’m as human as the next woman and I missed Denzil. Of course I took lovers.’ Max raised an eyebrow. ‘You might laugh,’ she said, pointing a long finger at him. ‘But I was something of a looker in my day.’

‘Why don’t you go back to bed? You look tired,’ she said, getting up stiffly, leaning on her stick.

‘No point now. The day has begun. I might as well bury the dead,’ he replied, making for the back door.

‘Throw them into the bushes, dear boy.’ She waved a hand and her crystal rings glinted in the sunshine like boiled sweets. ‘I’m going outside to enjoy the early worm.’

Mrs Megalith’s house was a large white building, fine-looking in both proportion and symmetry. One half was covered in a delicate pink clematis, its petals fluttering in the wind like confetti, the other half in climbing roses and wisteria. The open windows revealed floral curtains and potted geraniums and the odd cat asleep in the sunshine. Mrs Megalith also kept two cows for milk, chickens for meat and eggs, and five white Aylesbury ducks for the sheer pleasure of watching them swim prettily on her pond. Foxes especially loved Aylesburies because they couldn’t fly so she kept a hurricane lamp alight all night long to scare them away. She was an avid gardener and planted without design, sowing wherever there was a space. With the help of Nestor, the ancient gardener, she had dug up half her lawn to scatter poppies, cornflowers and wild grasses, and under-planted the rose beds with forget-me-nots. These seeded themselves throughout the borders where she grew love-in-the-mist, campanulas and euphorbia. Hollyhocks were carried on the wind and by birds and thrived among the cracks in the York stone terrace and between the bricks in the wall that surrounded the garden. The air was filled with the sweet scent of cut grass and balsam poplar, and the rich smell of bluebells from the wood above the house drifted down on the breeze.

Elvestree House also had the advantage of overlooking the estuary, which was filled with every type of sea bird, from the soft grey herring gull to the black cormorant. Their clamour now resounded across the wide expanse of sand where the receding tide left sandworms and small crustaceans exposed in an enviable banquet. Mrs Megalith gazed into the mouth of the sea and to the horizon beyond and pondered on the dead cats and the omen that clouded an otherwise clear blue day. She knew that Rita was out on the beach, staring at the same view, willing George’s safe return from France and reflecting on her future and the realization of all her dreams.

Rita hadn’t slept. The anticipation was too much. In her hand she held the letter George had sent from France specifying the date and time of his arrival. It was transparent, the words nearly worn away by the gentle corrosion of love. She sat on the cliff top, gazing out over the sea that swelled below the circling of gulls – the same sea that had divided them for so long and was now bringing him home.

Today even the sunrise seemed lovelier. The sky paler, more translucent, and the sunlight like the gentle brush of a kiss. She loved more than anything to watch the sea, for the sea had moods like a person, one moment calm and serene, the next displaying the full force of its fury. But those waters were far deeper than a person could ever be. In spite of its mercurial nature the sea was constant and dependable and capable of filling Rita with a lightness of spirit unmatched by anything else in her life. The sight of that vast expanse of ocean touched her at the very core of her being. Sometimes at dusk, when the sky reflected the golds and reds of the dying sun and the sea lay flat and almost still, as if awed by the heavenly scene being played out above it, Rita felt sure there was a God. Not the remote God she learned about at school and in church, but her grandmother’s God: a God that was an integral part of the sea, the clouds, the trees, the flowers, the animals and the fish, and an integral part of her too. Sometimes Rita would close her eyes and imagine she was a bird soaring high above the earth, with the wind on her face and blowing through her hair.