The Ocean at the End of the Lane(10)

‘It’s new,’ she said, at last. ‘It says 1912 on it, but it didn’t exist yesterday.’

Lettie said, ‘I knew there was something funny about it.’

I looked up at old Mrs Hempstock. ‘How do you know?’

‘Good question, luvvie. It’s electron decay, mostly. You have to look at things closely to see the electrons. They’re the little dinky ones that look like tiny smiles. The neutrons are the grey ones that look like frowns. The electrons were all a bit too smiley for 1912, so then I checked the sides of the letters and the old King’s head, and everything was a tad too crisp and sharp. Even where they were worn, it was as if they’d been made to be worn.’

‘You must have very good eyesight,’ I told her. I was impressed. She gave me back the coin.

‘Not as good as it once was, but then, when you get to be my age, your eyesight won’t be as sharp as it once was, neither.’ And she let out a guffaw as if she had said something very funny.

‘How old is that?’

Lettie looked at me, and I was worried that I’d said something rude. Sometimes adults didn’t like to be asked their ages, and sometimes they did. In my experience, old people did. They were proud of their ages. Mrs Wollery was seventy-seven, and Mr Wollery was eighty-nine, and they liked telling us how old they were.

Old Mrs Hempstock went over to a cupboard, and took out several colourful vases. ‘Old enough,’ she said. ‘I remember when the moon was made.’

‘Hasn’t there always been a moon?’

‘Bless you. Not in the slightest. I remember the day the moon came. We looked up in the sky – it was all dirty brown and sooty grey here then, not green and blue …’ She half filled each of the vases at the sink. Then she took a pair of blackened kitchen scissors, and snipped off the bottom half-inch of stem from each of the daffodils.

I said, ‘Are you sure it’s not that man’s ghost doing this? Are you sure we aren’t being haunted?’

They both laughed then, the girl and the old woman, and I felt stupid. I said, ‘Sorry.’

‘Ghosts can’t make things,’ said Lettie. ‘They aren’t even good at moving things.’

Old Mrs Hempstock said, ‘Go and get your mother. She’s doing laundry.’ Then, to me, ‘You shall help me with the daffs.’

I helped her put the flowers into the vases, and she asked my opinion on where to put the vases in the kitchen. We placed them where I suggested, and I felt wonderfully important.

The daffodils sat like patches of sunlight, making that dark wooden kitchen even more cheerful. The floor was red flagstone. The walls were whitewashed.

The old woman gave me a lump of honeycomb, from the Hempstocks’ own beehive, on a chipped saucer, and poured a little cream over it from a jug. I ate it with a spoon, chewing the wax like gum, letting the honey flow into my mouth, sweet and sticky with an aftertaste of wild flowers.

I was scraping the last of the cream and honey from the saucer when Lettie and her mother came into the kitchen. Mrs Hempstock still had big wellington boots on, and she strode in as if she were in an enormous hurry. ‘Mother!’ she said. ‘Giving the boy honey. You’ll rot his teeth.’

Old Mrs Hempstock shrugged. ‘I’ll have a word with the wigglers in his mouth,’ she said. ‘Get them to leave his teeth alone.’

‘You can’t just boss bacteria around like that,’ said the younger Mrs Hempstock. ‘They don’t like it.’

‘Stuff and silliness,’ said the old lady. ‘You leave wigglers alone and they’ll be carrying on like anything. Show them who’s boss and they can’t do enough for you. You’ve tasted my cheese.’ She turned to me. ‘I’ve won medals for my cheese. Medals. Back in the old King’s day there were those who’d ride for a week to buy a round of my cheese. They said that the King himself had it with his bread, and his boys, Prince Dickon and Prince Geoffrey and even little Prince John, they swore it was the finest cheese they had ever tasted …’

‘Gran,’ said Lettie, and the old lady stopped, mid flow.

Lettie’s mother said, ‘You’ll be needing a hazel wand. And,’ she added, somewhat doubtfully, ‘I suppose you could take the lad. It’s his coin, and it’ll be easier to carry if he’s with you. Something she made.’

‘She?’ said Lettie. She was holding her horn-handled penknife, with the blade closed.

‘Tastes like a she,’ said Lettie’s mother. ‘I might be wrong, mind.’

‘Don’t take the boy,’ said Old Mrs Hempstock. ‘Asking for trouble, that is.’

I was disappointed.

‘We’ll be fine,’ said Lettie. ‘I’ll take care of him. Him and me. It’ll be an adventure. And he’ll be company. Please, Gran?’

I looked up at Old Mrs Hempstock with hope on my face, and waited.

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you, if it all goes wobbly,’ said Old Mrs Hempstock.

‘Thank you, Gran. I won’t. And I’ll be careful.’

Old Mrs Hempstock sniffed. ‘Now, don’t do anything stupid. Approach it with care. Bind it, close its ways, send it back to sleep.’

‘I know,’ said Lettie. ‘I know all that. Honestly. We’ll be fine.’