bringing me back to life. But I’d better go. It’s not fair on you. You can’t be seen to be harbouring jailbait like me. But, yeah, thanks.’
He made up his mind. Bugger Raymond, bugger anyone else. He’d rather be an old fool than take the risk of ignoring his instinct. There was guilt in the equation, too. She had already honoured his secrets. She seemed to have forgotten what else she had seen on the night of the storm, forgotten the cellar through which she came, and she seemed to want nothing but to exist and learn.
‘You can stay as long as you like.’
She shook her head. ‘You’d be branded a nutcase, Thomas. They’d reckon you’d gone mad.’
‘I’m branded already,’ Thomas said. ‘I’m the freak, not you.’
‘That makes two of us, then,’ she said.
‘We’ll make it a job,’ he said. ‘You can be housekeeper. You can be my eyes. And if you’re the housekeeper, maybe wecan have the party. And if you’re here, maybe my daughters will bring the children … and, who knows?’
She was laughing at his excitement, feeling the infection of it, knowing it was hopeless. He stopped, breathless, smiling the smile that made him look like a boy. The man had such a capacity for joy, it was infectious, made everything possible.
‘You’re a Collector,’ he said. ‘That’s what you are. A natural born collector. Look, stay for a few weeks. See how it goes.’
She paused, trembling. He waited, holding his breath. Then she spun round.
‘Will you teach me, Thomas? Please, teach me.’ She banged her fist on his desk, making a startling sound. ‘I want to learn. I know what I love, but I don’t know WHY. I’ve gotta learn. But shit, if I could help make your children come back, that’d be something, wouldn’t it? Oh yeah. But I’ve gotta work, and you’ve gotta tell me stuff, ’cos I know nothing. And you know nothing about me.’
‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘You have eyes, you have a conscience, and you’re a Collector. You talk to paintings, as collectors do. I need help, and quite apart from anything else, I like you very much. That’s all I need to know.’
She turned on her heel and addressed the painting at the far end of the room, pointing at it. It was another loose sketch of a courtly man in evening dress, raising a glass towards Madame de Belleroche.
‘Did you hear that?’ she demanded of him. ‘Like
me?
Do you know what, no one’s ever said that to me before. You know this man here? He really is a freak.’
‘Recognise you, then,’ he said. ‘Like a true colour. A lake colour, made of dye, lets the other colours shine through.’
She stopped short. She wanted to cry, but Madame de Belleroche would not have approved of that.
‘Let’s go out,’ he said, understanding it. ‘Look at it from the outside in, again. Shall we go up to the bay?’
Di looked at him with shining eyes.
‘The sanctuary? Oh, yes, yes, yes. I know the names of the birds, I do. I like the sticky little waders with the flat feet. Only you mustn’t scare them, you gotta be quiet. It’s their place, no one’s but theirs, you gotta have respect.’
‘I never did know their names,’ Thomas said.
‘Well, I do. I’ll tell you. Hey? Something you don’t know? Works two ways this teaching business, I can tell you.’ She was grabbing her coat, and then she remembered and her face fell.
‘Someone’ll see us, Thomas. Someone will see.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘It should, it should to you. I’m the slag and the thief, and my mum’s dead and my Dad’s bad and I’m not what you call popular in this town.’
‘And I’m the old freak,’ he said. ‘I’m the Pervert. The child abuser.’
She laughed out loud.
‘Bollocks,’ she said. ‘Is that what people say? Oh screw it, then. We can go skinny dipping off the pier. And go bollock naked up the High Street. Go into Monica’s and get our hair done in the nude.’
‘A day of frivolity, then,’ he said. ‘And tomorrow, we