CODA

There was an interval of jarring pain, scourging cold and numbing heat. Ages long. After that, the world hardened in jolting stages to pale whiteness. And with it came sadness, such sadness. Polly found herself, shivering and for some reason dripping wet, sitting on the edge of the concrete trough. The grass round it was greyed with the first frost of winter, and greyed further by the rising sun. The grey was as bitter as Polly felt. Water pattered from her clothes and hair. More pattering came from Tom’s clothes. Polly could see him in the growing white light, sitting on the opposite edge of the trough, folded up and shivering under the clinging wreck of his suit, trying uselessly to dry his glasses with his soaking jacket.

“You meant that, didn’t you?” he said.

“Yes,” said Polly. And, thanks to Laurel, had to go on meaning it, or it would all be to do again. To love someone enough to let them go, you had to let them go forever or you did not love them that much. The jet of misery rose in Polly, far higher and stronger than it had ever been at Middleton Fair, but she made herself say, “It was true.”

“All right. I did use you. I admit,” Tom said, speaking in bursts, between shivers. “All I can say is that I did my best… not to hurt you… though there was probably no way not to. Are you quite determined… never to see me again?”

Polly, shaking all over with cold, held to being stony, and held down the jet of misery behind. “I told you.”

“All right. But I want to keep seeing you. I always wanted to keep seeing you.” Tom put his blurred glasses on, and took them off with an exclamation of disgust. “It may not work out—between us. But I want to try. At least I can ask now. Won’t you change your mind?”

Polly stood up. She saw Tom’s head tip to follow her face, trying to make out her reaction. Hunsdon House stood above the uncut lavender bushes, dead and shuttered against the grey-white sky. There were people coming among the bushes, which was probably just as well, or she and Tom would be dying of exposure. And what was her reaction? She looked down at Tom. She thought of Ivy once standing implacably blocking the hallway. She thought of all the things Tom might have said—which Seb would have said—just now to change her mind. It was the things not said that showed they might have a great deal in common. And Tom had spent so many years defying Laurel. One of the things he had to be saying, by not saying, was that there had to be some way to get round Laurel’s chilly logic. Perhaps there always was a way.

The jet of misery died away and became a warm welling of hope. “This is quite impossible,” Polly said carefully. “For you, the only way to behave well was to behave badly. For me, the only way to win was to lose. You weren’t to know me, and I wasn’t to remember you.” She saw Tom’s head tip again as he began to get her gist. “If two people can’t get together anywhere—”

“You think?” Tom said with a shivery laugh. “Nowhere?”

“Yes, and if it’s not true nowhere, it has to be somewhere.” Polly laughed and held out her hands. “We’ve got her, either way.”

Tom groped, gripped her hand awkwardly, and stood up. “Who’s coming? I can’t see a thing.”

“I think it’s the rest of the quartet,” Polly said. Sam burst out of the bushes as she said it, and turned to shout that he had found them. We’d better all go to Granny’s, Polly thought, gripping Tom’s icy hand. Ed followed Sam, carrying Tom’s cello, and Ann came behind with Leslie. Even in that early light Polly could tell Leslie had been crying his eyes out. But he had recovered enough to pretend to be normal.

“Hey!” he called out. “That car of yours is sat on top of the roses back there. Squashed them flat!”

Tom leaned his head against Polly’s to laugh. “Now, that is impossible!” he said.