Sands of Time. Barbara Erskine
parents on what had up till then been a holiday of total happiness.
Almost as though the thought had conjured her out of the night Helen was aware suddenly of a small girl walking towards her across the grass.
‘Don’t be sad, Mummy.’ Polly slipped a small warm hand into her cold one. ‘Is it that house that makes you sad?’ The little face looked up at hers earnestly. ‘I don’t like it. The windows can’t see.’
So, Polly was aware of it too, with its blinds and its aura of unhappiness.
‘Someone has drawn the blinds, darling. That is why the windows can’t see. It is a sad house because someone has died.’
‘The man I saw kissing you?’
Dear God! What else has she seen.
‘He was an old friend, darling. From long ago.’
‘Why did he die?’
Helen frowned. Her mind was wheeling between times and she didn’t know how to answer. ‘He lived a long time ago, Polly, and he had to go to fight in the war.’
‘So he’s a ghost.’ The child was still staring up at her trustingly.
‘I suppose he is. Yes. At first I thought he must be a dream, but if you saw him too then he can’t be.’ Helen glanced back over Polly’s head towards the neighbouring garden and suddenly it was as it had been; the large house was gone. The great trees had vanished. In their place the line of small holiday bungalows with defining hedges and fences once more stretched away in the moonlight.
‘That’s better.’ Polly sounded more confident suddenly. ‘It’s all gone back to normal now. Silly dream.’ She reached out for Helen’s hand again. ‘I’ll tell Daddy and he won’t be cross any more.’
‘You think so?’ Helen smiled sadly. ‘I hope you’re right, darling.’ She glanced back over her shoulder in spite of herself. The garden was as it should be still.
When they walked back into the house Tim was standing just inside the front door. He appeared to be lost in thought.
‘Tim?’ Helen went over to him. Hesitantly she put her hand on his arm.
He frowned. ‘Where have you been?’
‘In the garden, Daddy.’ It was Polly who answered. She threw her arms around her father’s waist. ‘I saw the dream house where the ghost lived. It looked all strange in the moonlight. The man Mummy saw is dead. He’s gone now. He was a ghost!’
‘A –’ Tim stared at Helen.
‘I seem to have got mixed up in someone else’s tragedy, Tim; someone else’s life, long, long ago. You have to believe me at least about that one thing. It wasn’t real.’
For a long moment they stared at each other in silence, the little girl looking anxiously up first at one then the other.
‘We’re never going to understand what happened, Tim. It was a slip in time.’
Tim sighed. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to believe you.’ He shrugged. ‘Largely because I can’t bear the alternatives.’ He walked past her into the room and sat down. Putting his elbows on his knees he ran his fingers through his hair. ‘As I walked up and down that beach I realised I couldn’t live without you. You mean everything to me.’
Helen smiled uncertainly. Kneeling in front of him she reached up and put her arms around his neck. As she kissed him Polly jumped onto the sofa next to him and burrowed between them into the shelter of their arms.
Outside in the moonlight Charles stood on the lawn staring towards the lighted windows of the bungalow unseeing. In his own time he was standing under a spreading tree in the dark. Behind him the house of his dreams lay shuttered and empty. His wife and the children had gone. Only one person had ever made him feel loved and happy and in his cold, lost loneliness he drifted across the grass looking for her, the warm gentle kind woman he had found lying in the sunlight under the tree. He was resolved, if necessary, to search forever until he found her again.
How was she going to tell him? Rachel looked across the table at Alex, watching fondly as he poured out his breakfast cereal and reached for the milk jug. No children, they had said. Or not for years. Too busy. Too poor. Too stressed. Too soon.
He glanced up and grinned back at her. ‘OK?’
She nodded. ‘OK.’
How had it happened? Well, she knew that. Gastric flu. She’d puked up the pill. As simple as that. And now she was feeling sick again.
Alex stood up and, dropping a kiss on her head, made for the door. ‘You’ll be late for work, Rachel.’
She nodded. ‘Just going.’
The door closed behind him and she put her head in her hands. Perhaps it was a false alarm. Perhaps it was still the flu after all.
That Saturday was the second time Rachel went to the yoga class. Alex, seeing her tenseness, her strange, unaccustomed unhappiness, had suggested she go. Slowly and gently Eileen took her twelve pupils through the series of asanas and breathing exercises then, as before, at the end they all lay down on their mats, covered themselves with blankets and closed their eyes for a period of relaxation.
‘Picture yourself in your favourite place in the country.’ The deep, melodious voice seemed further away than the low stage of the hall. ‘Feel your bare feet in the grass, hear the birds, the wind in the trees, smell the flowers.’
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