Dreaming Of The Bones

Following Vic’s directions, Kincaid left the M11 at Junction 12, just before Cambridge, and took the Grantchester Road from the roundabout. The Cambridgeshire sky spread wide before him in a clear light, for the April day had dawned exceptionally mild. He’d tried to persuade Gemma to change her mind and come with him, but she’d been adamant, saying she’d planned to take Toby to her parents. They’d had their Sunday breakfast and tidied up, and she’d kissed him when he’d left her Islington flat, but he felt some discomfort between them. Well, he’d see what Vic wanted—it seemed the least he could do for courtesy’s sake, if nothing else—then that would be that.

He slowed as the first straggling houses appeared, then soon the road became a neatly tended village street. At the T-junction he turned right, into the High Street as Vic had told him, watching carefully for the house on his left. “You can’t miss it,” she’d said, a smile in her voice. “You’ll see.” And almost immediately he did, for it was a higgledy-piggledy tile-roofed house washed in bright Suffolk pink, surrounded by the new growth of roses.

Kincaid pulled into the graveled area in front of the detached garage, stopped the car, and got out, and it was only then that he realized he had absolutely no idea what he was going to say to her. He’d spent the journey remembering Vic as she’d been when he’d first known her. Her reserve had intrigued him—he’d taken it for shyness—and he’d found the seriousness with which she approached her studies endearing, even amusing. “Bloody arrogant, condescending idiot,” he said aloud, his mouth twisting with disgust. He’d assumed knowledge of her that he hadn’t earned, and had paid the consequences when she left him without a word. And now, more than ever, they were two strangers, made more so by the awkward history between them.

How had she changed, he wondered. Would he even recognize her?

Then the side door of the house opened and set his fears to rest, for her face was as familiar as his own. She came out to him, her plimsolled feet crunching on the gravel, and took his hand as easily as if they had parted on good terms only yesterday. “Duncan. Thanks so much for coming.” She tilted her head to one side, considering him as she kept hold of his hand. “I’d swear you haven’t changed a bit.”

Finding his tongue with an effort, Kincaid said, “Nor have you, Vic. You look wonderful.” She looked tired, he thought, and too thin, perhaps even a little unwell. A network of tiny lines had begun forming round her eyes, and the creases between her nose and the outer corners of her mouth stood out sharply. But her hair, though it fell now to her shoulders rather than the small of her back, was still flax fair, and if she wore more somber colors than the pastels he remembered, they gave her a dignity which suited her.

“It has been a long time,” she said, smiling, and he realized he’d been staring.

“Sorry. It’s just… I don’t quite know what to say and I think I’m making an utter fool of myself. Is there an etiquette manual for this sort of situation?” In the moment’s silence following his words, birdsong swelled from tree and thicket, a raucous chorus, and a coal tit whizzed past his head, scolding.

Vic laughed. “We could always invent one. Why don’t I start by inviting you in. Your car should be all right with the top down, at least for a bit.”

Kincaid remembered suddenly that his acquisition of the Midget had caused one of their final conflicts, but Vic had glanced at the car without any sign of recognition. He’d opened his mouth to offer to park it elsewhere when he saw a black-and-white flash and felt the hair stir on the top of his head as the coal tit flew another kamikaze run.

“Come on,” Vic said, turning towards the house. “You’d better dive for cover while you can.” Over her shoulder she added, “It’s such a lovely day, I’ve set lunch out in the garden. I hope you don’t mind.”

He followed her into the house and through a sitting room, where he had a fleeting impression of pale gold walls and faded chintzes, and of a grouping of silver-framed portraits on a side table; then she led him out through French doors onto a stone-flagged terrace. The garden sloped away from the house, and beyond the low wall at its end he could see a meadow, then a curving line of trees that looked as though it marked the course of a river.

“Grantchester gets its name from ‘Granta,’ the old name for the Cam,” Vic said, pointing towards the river.

“The garden’s lovely.” Dandelions and wild onions sprang up in the shaggy lawn, but there were recent signs of prep work in the beds, and against the low wall stood the garden’s crowning glory—an immense old crab apple tree, covered with bright pink blossoms.