1910

Terence held the chair steady as Theo tied the scarf over Jessica's eyes. He tied it very tight, so tight it pulled her hair and pushed her eyeballs down into their sockets, but Jessica did not protest. She gripped the chair's wicker arms as Terence wheeled her out to the middle of the lane.

'Cheese,' Theo said and she forced a grin. His camera clicked. She could feel the wind tugging at the loose ends of the scarf, the tumble of apprehension in her stomach. The lane was steep here, steep enough that the red-faced lady bicyclists who panted doggedly all the way up the gentle slope through the village had to get off their machines and push. It made their mother laugh to see them. Sometimes when they were motoring, Eleanor would tell Pritchard to drive right up behind them and sound the horn. Phyllis hated it when she did that but the sight of the bicycles wobbling into the verge only made Eleanor laugh harder. She told Phyllis and Jessica that she was performing a Public Service, that the red-faced ladies should be glad of the excitement.

The red-faced ladies pushed their bicycles downhill too. Father said it was because otherwise their bicycles might run away with them and Eleanor laughed and said it was the only thing that ever would, which made Father's lips go thin. Jessica could see the hill in her mind's eye: the bumpy grey lane dropping away like a laundry chute between the high banks of the hedgerows until at the bottom by the gate to Stream Farm it curved sharply right over the river. Theo said that the bath chair would go in a straight line when the road turned so that the worst that could happen was that the chair would tip over when it went into the thick grass beside the Stream Farm field and that was fine because grass was a soft landing. Jessica knew that was not the worst thing that could happen but there was no point in thinking about that. Nanny said it was thinking too much about bad things that made them happen in the first place.

'Ready?' Theo said and Jessica nodded and pushed the ends of her fingers hard into the basketwork of the chair to make herself feel braver. It was stupid to be afraid. Theo said that fear was the reason so many people lived small unhappy lives. Jessica was small for her age, Eleanor was always saying so, but she had no intention of ever being unhappy.

'You know what, Theo?' Terence Connolly said in his stretched-out American drawl. 'You've made your point.'

'Rules is rules. We said whoever drew the red match, right, Jess?'

Jessica nodded, biting hard on the inside of her lip. She wished Terence Connolly would just shut up so she could get the whole thing over with.

'So the kid's got guts,' Terence said. 'You don't have to make her spill them all over the roadside.'

'You're not being a pansy, are you, Connolly?' Theo said and he jerked the chair, letting it go and catching it again just as it began to roll. Jessica's stomach turned over. Behind her Marjorie giggled. It was all Jessica could do not to climb out and sock her. Marjorie Maxwell Brooks was always at Ellinghurst, because her mother wanted more than anything to be friends with Eleanor and traipsed around after her saying how much she had enjoyed the So-and-sos and where did she get her marvellous eye for colour. Marjorie had adenoids, which meant she breathed through her mouth and her words came out full of 'd's as though she had a permanent cold in the head.

She also had the biggest stupidest pash on Theo that Jessica had ever seen. She could not say a word to him without tittering or going red. Last Christmas, Theo dropped his handkerchief and Jessica saw Marjorie pick it up and press it to her face even though Theo had just blown his nose on it. Jessica had never seen anything more disgusting in her whole life. Marjorie was supposed to be Phyllis's friend because they were the same age but Marjorie just trailed behind Theo like Mary's little lamb and all Phyllis ever wanted to do was read books. When Phyllis died, Jessica thought, she would not want to be buried or even burned up to ashes like Grandfather Melville but squashed flat like a pressed flower inside a huge fat book and afterwards, when someone tried to read it, they would have to peer through the mush of her brain and scrape her dried brown guts from the gaps between the lines.

'You wouldn't have done it, would you, Marjorie?' Terence asked.

'Not for all the tea in China,' Marjorie said, still giggling.

'But I don't like tea,' Jessica said loftily and Theo laughed.

'That's my girl,' he said, squeezing her shoulder, and the rush of pride burned her throat almost like crying.

'Go,' she commanded, and with an almighty push she was flying, hurtling downhill with the wind whipping at the scarf and the bumps in the rough surface of the lane clattering her bones like she was a skeleton, and as her eyes filled with tears her chest tore open with a great white scream that was terror or triumph, she did not know which, and the darkness turned bright with flashing silver stars and she thought that this was what it must be like to be a bird, a bird or a motor racing car, and then quite suddenly there was an almighty jolt and the chair stopped dead and she was thrown, like a bird, through the air and for a moment time stopped and she wonderedwhat came next and how badly it would hurt, before she landed with a thump that knocked the breath out of her in a thick patch of nettles.

Nanny tutted as she rubbed calamine lotion on the nettle stings. She said that idle hands were the devil's playthings and that the stream was no place for a girl who should have been drawing or practising the piano. Then she tied up Jessica's hair again, smoothing the strands with her gnarled red hands. Jessica did not mention the bath chair. She had no intention of getting Theo into trouble. Not that he ever was in trouble, not properly. When Nanny told him off he only pulled silly faces and tickled her in the place on her side that made her go squirmy and said that he knew she was only pretending to be cross.

As for their parents, Theo could have burned the house down and Eleanor would have laughed and told him how pretty the flames were. It made Father furious when Eleanor stuck up for Theo but when Father shouted at him it only ended up in an argument and Theo always won. He had a way of smiling at Father when he was angry that made Father squeeze his hands into fists and walk out of the room.

When finally Nanny stopped fussing over her and let her leave the nursery Jessica ran downstairs and out into the garden but she could not see the others anywhere. Her skin was sore and horribly itchy, and the palms of her hands burned. She licked the hard white bumps, trying to soothe them. They tasted of calamine. She grimaced, wiping her tongue on her sleeve.

It had grown cool, fat clouds clotting the sky. Around the terrace, the roses shivered, their pale heads pressed close together, and the horse chestnuts waved their flat green hands up and down. Someone, Terence maybe, had left a cricket sweater on the wrought-iron bench by the oak tree. Jessica hoped it would rain and the sweater would get spoiled. She did not like Terence Connolly one bit. His mouth was too red and when he talked his voice was loud and American. He was the most awful boaster too. When Father had asked him if he played tennis he had gone on and on about the stupid tournaments he had won until she had wanted to scream. It baffled her that...