Dear James
 
It’s been a long time since I wrote to you and I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know whether I would see you again.
 
Growing up together on your father’s estate, we saw each other every day. We played together. We studied together until I had to go and work in the kitchen. We walked in the garden and talked. And then you went away to war. To France. When you left, we were just children, but when you came home you had become a man.
 
My father told me that I had to keep away from you. That we were both grown and we needed to have friends from our own class. I watched you out with your father from my window in the gatekeeper’s lodge, and you didn’t even look for me.
 
That night you found me. You said that you were sorry. And you kissed me. It was the first time I had ever been kissed. You told me stories of the front, and you cried in my arms.
 
The next day you went back to war.
 
I didn’t have a mother to explain what was happening to me. Your mother’s maid, a girl not much older than me, told me that I was having a child.
 
Your mother found out. Said that I wasn’t to tell anyone. Not even you. Told me that my father wouldn’t lose his job if I married the gardener’s boy and went up to live in Northumberland on your uncle’s estate. Albert is kind. He looks after me and will bring Matilda up as his own.
 
I am making a bodice for our baby daughter from a linen sheet and scraps of lace, and I have sewn your name inside a seam, where no-one will see it.
 
I am going to burn this letter. But I just wanted to have one last chance to write these words. To say, James, I love you. I am ever your Lizzie

You want to hear the story of that Pentecost? It's so many years ago now, but I'll tell you what I can remember. I was a little girl and my father had an inn in Jerusalem – he would grin at you and tell you that it was the best inn in the city. Every year there would be a stream of people who came in on foot and in carts from towns and villages far and wide for the Feast of Weeks, which is the other name for Pentecost. It's when we bring the first fruits of harvest to the temple.

The scriptures say to bring two loaves of yeasted bread made from the finest wheat flour, seven male lambs, one young bull and two rams as burnt offerings, and one male goat and two lambs as sacrifices. The people with money could sleep in an inn and leave their servants to tend the animals. The poor people had to sleep in the street, clutching the lamb or the flour and oil that was all they could afford to bring as an offering.

The main things I remember about the Feast of Weeks – well, the ones before – was the noise. People shouting, laughing, greeting old friends, animals bleating, mooing, sometimes running through the streets with a clatter of hooves. The mess. And the smells through the whole of the city. The mouthwatering smell of bread, the iron smell of blood, the reek of animal droppings, and the odour of burning meat and grain and oil that fell somewhere between delicious and bitter.

That year, we’d been planning since Passover – where people were to sleep in my father’s inn. What we could feed them. How we could make space for everyone. We managed it all, as we always did.

When it was time to go up to the temple, I watched my father disappear into the ribbon of men and animals heading up through the streets to the Mount of Moriah where the temple spread huge across the hillside. My father had told me that it was built on the foundation stone that was used to create the world, and when I was small, I imagined an enormous workbench like the potters and carpenters. I couldn't watch for long – my mother spotted me and pulled me back inside to help her to help her to sweep and clean and cook. I looked out of the window every chance I could, imagining what was going on inside the towering walls and gates, hearing the distant sound of the celebrations.

That was the day that everything changed. All of a sudden, people came running back down from the temple. They poured through the streets. It was hard to understand what they were saying. My mother and I clutched each other – it was all a bit frightening. Eventually my father pushed his way through the crowds. We had expected him to throw the doors open to start serving people, but instead he closed them behind him, shutting out the torrent of people.

He told us what he had seen in the Temple. That there had been a sound like a wind filling the place, and lights like flames of fire on the Galilean followers of the man he called Jesus, and that they started talking about their teacher. And though the temple was full of people from all places, from Mesopotamia, Judaea, even as far as Libya and Rome, they all heard the words in their own languages. One man shouted that they must be drunk, and my father laughed out loud – after all, an innkeeper knew what drunken people look like, and he said they were mothing of the kind.

A man called Peter, one of the Galileans, told them all about Jesus, about how he died at the hands of men and was resurrected, and how he was now the fulfilment of the prophesies and the Lord and Christ. Father said that that Pentecost used to be the first fruits of the harvest, and now it's the first fruits of the spirit. He hugged my mother and I and told us all about his baptism. At the time I didn't understand any of it, but I knew that I had never seen him so happy. And now, looking back, I realise that it was the start of something new.

​I never quite saw the point of swimming in the sea. And when I heard the story about Mr Landsen from my friend Jane, who'd read it in the paper that she gets from the butcher when she cleans his house – well, that just showed I was right.
 
My friend Jane knew the lady in the story – Mrs Olaf Landsen – May Jeffrey as was. Jane's family were Quakers in Scarborough and May was a Scarborough lady who had met Mr Landsen when she was on a walking holiday in Norway. Jane said that the lady played the piano and the violin most beautifully, and that she would play the violin to the trees and the birds as she walked. Can you imagine that? I wonder if the birds sang back to her.
 
Well, apparently May Jeffrey married this Olaf Landsen two years ago. Some kind of novelist, though I'm sure I've never seen his books at the subscription library in Whitby. Jane was there when they got wed – 1894, that would be. Lovely it was, Jane said – the bride in a white costume and Mr Landsen looking so fine. The Meeting House had been sold and the new one not yet built, so they married in the Registrar's office.
 
But that's not telling you the story, is it. Well, Mr Landsen had drowned, down at Stoupe Beck. It's a week ago now, because the butcher gets the newspaper from the baker, who gets it from the vicar, who gets it from the doctor. But news is still news when you've not heard it before. Jane came round with the paper, and we read the story together.
 
Mr and Mrs Landsen had been staying at Robin Hood's Bay for 12 months, so it said, and they went to the beach near Stoupe Beck to swim. It's pretty there, but the sea round here is as cold as cold, even on a summer's day. And the currents on that bit of the water are strong, so the fishermen say. I go down to the bay to collect the lobster pots for mending, and that's as close as I'm getting to the water. Why go in the sea when you've got a cosy kitchen and a sunny little yard.
 
Mr Landsen went into bathe. He was a good swimmer and went out some distance, but he got into trouble. As I said, the currents can be powerful around here. Jane said she'd heard from the Quakers that Mrs Landsen went in first and then she came out and gave her husband her bathing dress to swim in as they'd only bought one with them.
 
The paper said that there was a Mr Owen on the beach with two other men. He was from some place called Christchurch in Oxford. That's a long way to travel to see the sea, I think. Well, anyway, they heard Mrs Landsen shouting for help. Mr Owen was a strong swimmer, and he was the first to reach Mr Landsen, but the current meant that he couldn't rescue him, and they both sank under the waves. Mr George Hutton, who was driving his horse and cart on the sands, went in and pulled Mr Owen out unconscious, but couldn't get Mr Landsen. They had to give Mr Owen artificial respiration to get him breathing again. Poor Mrs Landsen – she wouldn't leave the beach because she really believed her husband had floated out to sea and reached some rocks, and was just waiting for rescue. I wonder if they've found his body yet.
 
Mr Hutton and Mr Owen were so brave. Not everyone round here can swim, you see. Some of the fishermen see it as bad luck – to be able to swim, that is – because they think it means your boat will sink one day. I think I will just stick to my kitchen and my sunny yard with its pots of lavender and rosemary and mint. And my cup of tea. 

Well. I'm so cross I don't know what to do with myself. You will never guess what that Mr Farsyde has done now. Look! Look at this handbill! He's gone and told the village that after next Thursday – 13 May 1864 that is – we have to ask his permission to dry our clothes at the drying grounds. I ask you.

You don't know what the drying grounds are? Well, you're a lucky one then. Got someone to do your washing for you have you? They do it different in the city I expect. It's where we dry our fishnets, and our washing. And he owns it. We've always used the drying grounds, but now he says it's an 'intolerable nuisance'. But where else can we dry our nets and our sheets? And the baby's tailclouts? Not in the house. There's not the space with me and Alfred and his mother and father. And the damp goes straight to his father's chest.

And if we don't get the special leave and licence he's asking for? He's just going to take all our drying things away. Our clothes, our nets and sails. Our washing lines and posts. Well, probably not him. He'll get someone as works for him to do it. And he says he'll auction what he takes away. Well, I can tell you something. He's not going to sell my drawers and my Alfred's nets. Over my dead body.

And the land where we take our ashes and our night soil – you know what night soil is, don't you?, Of course he owns that field too. We can carry on with that at least, as we've got a long lease on our cottage in Fisherhead. But some folk are going to have to ask now, and what will they do if he says no? Can you imagine.

​I was talking to Mrs Granger at the drying grounds – her brother's got a shop in the village – and she said that he rents from Mr Farsyde and the old bugger wants him to sign a new agreement. And new agreements are never good things. My Alfred said I shouldn’t talk like that about Mr Farsyde. He is Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant, and he owns our house and the drying grounds. So I should hush and do what he says. I don't know about that. But I do know that I don't expect Mr Farsyde ever had to do his own basket of washing. Or dry it neither. Perhaps if he did he might not be so particular.

I saw her as soon as I walked in. She sat at the corner table, the tiny one with the bench seat that barely seats two, and gives you the view of the whole room. She wore rust-coloured jeans, and her black hair had a dazzling russet splash running through her fringe. She had an owl amulet around her neck, and her hair hid her eyes. The table in front of her was covered with unfamiliar-looking cards, laid out in an intricate pattern. I was curious, but there wasn't any time to stop. I was on duty in just a few minutes.
 
I ran through the door marked Private, narrowly missing Doug, his coat in his hand.
 
'Hey, boss. Got to go. Need to pick Mary up from the day care centre. You said it was okay?'
 
'Of course. I said you could. Give your ma-in-law a hug from me. Everything going okay this afternoon?'
 
I kissed him on the cheek as I squeezed past. Doug was my oldest friend, and I couldn't run the place without him. I could handle the arguments about games rules, and balance the books, but only Doug could bake the best vegan brownies and the lightest scones in town. I checked in on Sarah, who was waiting tables, and put my head round the door of the kitchen. Doug's partner John was plating up the last couple of lunch orders.
 
'Jenny! Hi, gorgeous. Doug was fretting that you weren't going to make it,' he said.
 
'I'm sorry. The bus was late, and the traffic was all gnarly round the Three Oaks roundabout.'
 
'It's fine. Don't be daft. Drink your tea. It's there on the side.'
 
I blew him a kiss, chugged down the mug of builder's tea the colour of terracotta, just how I like it, and took the two bowls of seafood stew through to the café.
 
The Board Room was the first games café in town, and after a slow start we are doing okay. People come for the board games, from snakes and ladders to the fantasy tabletop role player games, and stay for Doug's incredible cooking. We have customers that come alone and get drawn into other people's play, and others that come in groups. We even had a proposal, with an engagement ring hung around a tiny orc's neck. There are kids on Saturday afternoons, and retirees during the week. I love it. The atmosphere is just amazing.
 
I scanned the room to see if anyone had an order, needed a table clearing, or wanted to ask an in-depth question about the finer rules of double word score in Scrabble. I picked up a tray and the woman in russet looked up at me. Just as she placed a card down on the table, I heard a crash in the kitchen. I thrust the tray into Sarah's hands and dashed through the door. The kitchen floor was covered in shards of glass. John looked puzzled, his hands in front of him as if he were still holding the bowl that was now in a million pieces across the floor. A single bead of blood dawdled across his palm. Sarah came in behind me, put the tray down on the side, and told me to go back into the cafe, she would help John clear up. I pasted my best smile on, opened the door and told everyone that it was all fine. There was still an odd pressure in the air, and people's voices seemed muffled. I thought I caught a half smile from Russet in the corner, who went back to her unfamiliar game of cards. I pinched the bridge of my nose, thinking that my sinuses must be playing up.
 
I didn't think I had looked away, but I must have, because there was now a second woman beside her, dressed in pale jeans and a shimmering grey silky top. Her hair rippled and shone like quicksilver. The monochrome was broken by a glorious splash of deep pink lipstick. Silver reached across, and picked up and laid down a card. My ears popped and the pressure lifted. I heard someone laugh, and another person call my name for a coffee refill.
 
Silver looked at me, her head tipped to one side. She held out her coffee cup. I realised I had the filter jug in my hand but no memory of picking it up, or putting a cup on the small table. I poured the coffee, and she topped it up with the jug of hot milk beside her. She smiled at me and it left me inexplicably happy. It was as if her smile were just for me. Russet pointed at her cup, a glossy dark mug that I didn't remember seeing before. I poured out coffee and she drank it straight off, black and scalding hot.
 
I waited at tables, sorted out an argument about how you spell sturgeon, and gave a teenager a spare ten-sided die, with a promise that if he lost another one, he would be washing up for a week.
 
I saw Russet lay down a card. She smiled at Silver, pleased with what she thought was a particularly clever move. Silver frowned a little and pursed pink-slicked lips.
 
Outside, the sun went behind a cloud, and I flicked the lights on. The air became heavy with humidity. The change in pressure started a headache. Behind me, an elderly woman knocked a cup off her table. It smashed to the ground and the sound sent a zig zag of pain through my head. I span round.
 
'Shit. What now?'
 
I never usually snap at customers, even in moments of stress. Even when they lose stuff and break stuff. Something was really getting to me today.
 
'I'm sorry, Mrs Ross. Got a headache coming. I think there is a storm brewing.' The quiet and normally unflappable Mrs Ross looked close to tears.
 
I put a fresh mug of tea on her table, and called for Sarah to bring a dustpan and brush. The sound levels in the café were rising, as if people were talking over music, but there was nothing playing. I could almost feel a baseline thump, like a band rehearsing in a room upstairs. There was an eye-wateringly bright flash of lightening, and all the lights went out. One of the Scrabble players screamed and knocked the board to the ground in an avalanche of plastic letters. Down on the edge of the water, the Greek statue that had been there as long as I remembered – the odd one with the tall plinth – toppled into the water. The lights came back on and rain fell outside, hard and deafening against the glass. The café was silent.
 
Russet stared hard at Silver, as if challenging her to something. As I walked towards them, the air seemed to crackle, and my hair tried to stand on end. Silver studied the cards, touching them with a pale finger tipped with a glossy metallic nail. She started to pick up one and then another, then set them both back down. Russet started to smile a smile that was beautiful but not quite nice. But then Silver grinned with almost childlike joy and picked up a card, slapping it down on the other side of the table.
 
The sun came back through the clouds, and Sarah slipped a piece of shortbread into Mrs Ross' hand with a grin, tapping her finger on the side of her nose.
 
Looking at me, Silver triumphantly gathered up all the cards and slipped them into her pocket. She drained her coffee, raising the cup in a salute. The door slammed, and they were both gone. I went over to clear the table and saw a piece of gold leaf stamped with an owl, and a silver rod with snakes twined around it. Doug came back through the door and looked at the table.
 
'That's a ghost coin version of Charon's obol. And a caduceus. They are beautiful. Where did they come from?'
 
We sat in the setting sun, looking over the water at Ferryman's Wharf. Behind us, John and Sarah cleared the tables and tidied up, the blue plaster on John's hand showing up in the gloom. And Doug told me the story of Charon, who took the souls across the water from the land of the living to the land of the dead in return for a coin, and Hermes or Mercury, the messenger of the gods who slipped between the worlds of the mortal and the divine.
 
I'm not sure who paid the ferryman today. But whoever it was took the ten-sided die with them.

It was a cold night, that Christmas eve night, as we walked back from the pub. Warmed from the fire and the food and the beer, we hunkered down inside hats and scarves and coats and boots, trying to hold onto the heat as we stepped out of the door. Every surface glittered like diamonds, reflecting the chill light of the distant stars. Behind the long snaking dry stone walls, sheep huddled together, and the night was so still and quiet we could hear them breathing. The hills rose up either side of us, crisp white with snow and bathed in the cold light of the full moon. Etched with the blue-black shadows of the winter trees and the footsteps of the fox.

As we dropped down into the village, the windows of the church glowed with the flickering gold of candlelight and the warmth of centuries-old stained glass. Around the edges of the door leaked light and sound, the sweet melancholy of In the Bleak Midwinter and the quiet rumble of prayer.
​
Tiny white and blue lights edged the trees, lighting our way as we walked through the streets, our footsteps muffled and creaking in the snow that had only stopped falling a few hours before. We tiptoed into the house, not wanting to break the mood of stillness, and stayed silent, arms around each other, bathed in the glow of the damped down fire and the lights of the tree. And as we stood there, the church bells pealed Christmas through the cold night air. 

This was her hourglass, and when I flip it over, I can hear her voice, bickering with me about how long to boil an egg. Telling me I've thought long enough, and it's time to put the Scrabble letters on the board. Asking me to tell her when the time's up so that she can pour the perfect four-minute cup of tea. Laughing as I time her putting up her waist length hair to go to work. Insisting that she was only going to be out in the garden for five minutes, and grinning when she came back to find me standing in the doorway, hourglass in hand.

It was in my pocket that night. I was home before her, and I was getting ready to make bread. I'd mixed the yeast and the warm water and the sugar. The timer was broken, so I'd decided to let the hourglass run through four times to give the mixture time to froth. It wasn't really necessary but watching the sand run through the glass in the sleepy warm afternoon sunshine was soothing, almost hypnotic. The sound of the crash took a moment to work its way into my befuddled head.

It was all done by the time I got to the garden gate. A man sat inside the deep red Jaguar, his hair falling forwards, his face blank and white. And tucked underneath the gleaming front bumper, her bicycle. She was face down, still and quiet, her tweed skirt rucked up around her knees, her white silk shirt growing pink. And a cascade of late cabbage roses and heady sweet peas scattered around her. When I close my eyes, all I can see is her pink lace slip, her favourite, almost frivolous under the hem of her sensible skirt.

The ambulance arrived in seconds, or in days, I'm not quite sure which, and I was shooed away by the capable and set-faced men in uniform. We didn't have a car, but Mr Jenkins, our neighbour, drove me over to the hospital.

They wouldn't let me in to see her. I was only her landlady, the spinster she shared a house with. I found the hourglass in my pocket – it must have been in my hand as I ran out of the door. It was wrapped tight in my fingers when I heard her voice, quiet, tense, asking for me. But still they wouldn't let me in. All they wanted to know from me was whether she had any family, and where they were. I told them what I knew.

They left me alone, and I turned the hourglass over and over, but I didn't hear her voice any more. I must have dozed in that hard wooden chair, because the next I heard was an auxiliary, rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the polished floor, with an elderly woman on her arm. Later, a frantic call for a nurse, running feet, and then a doctor, walking quietly, a man in no hurry. And I knew.

On the long, cold bus journey home, the hourglass turned and glinted under my fingers, under the early morning streetlights, and all I could think was at least she didn't die alone.

Her brother came to clear her things, and he treated me civilly, distantly. No discomfort, just the politeness reserved for staff. He told me about the funeral, and seemed surprised when I turned up. I sat at the back, looking at the grieving family in the front two rows. I said my silent goodbyes. And I never had another… tenant.

I've still got the hourglass, and now, watching the sand running though, it feels I'm seeing my future running through into my past.

I might give it to my niece, when she marries her girlfriend next weekend, in the registry office right next to the beautiful park. We will have a picnic in the sunshine, she said.

I might tell her what I have told no-one else, about the woman who, in a different life, could have been her aunt.

I think she might understand.

My baby Florence hated thunderstorms. She would come running home to me and hide herself in my skirts, pulling the cloth over her face so she couldn't hear the thunderclaps or see the flashes of lightning.

We get a lot of thunderstorms here in Natchez, and she would know when they were coming, even before the sky got dark. Her poppa called her his little weathervane, and would go and get the chickens in as soon as he saw her run to me. Even the dog – who hated thunderstorms almost as much as she did – knew to hide when he saw her clinging to my apron. The cat – well, you know cats. It was almost as if the cat would shrug and say, 'it don't bother me'. But in the worst of the storms, Poppy the cat would curl up with Florence and they would comfort each other.

Florence is my youngest. All the others, well, they were nearly grown up when she was born. I thought that there would be no more babies. That my time for that was past. And then along came Florence. She was the prettiest baby – hair so blonde it was almost white, and big wide blue eyes like a china doll. And she was so good. Slept right through from the beginning. Never needed telling off – well, not very often. She wasn't an angel after all. Just a lovely little girl. She charmed her big brothers and sisters. Loved her books. And she hardly ever cried, except in a thunderstorm.

Florence said that storms felt like the sky was shouting at her and the wind was chasing her. And the lightning made her eyes hurt. She was so brave about everything else. It was just storms that scared her.

That last time she came running to me, I thought there must be a storm coming. But the sky was a clear bright blue and there wasn't a sign of a cloud. Then I felt the heat of her skin right through my skirts. I looked at her. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were glassy. She said that her head hurt, and everything ached. And that she felt sick. My mouth went dry. I'd heard about the boats bringing in the slaves to pick the cotton. The boats with the dreaded butter-coloured flag that showed they had yellow jack on board.
Dr Parsons came over, and said he thought she might have yellow fever, but he doubted it. And even if she did, that she'd would get better in a few days. She was young and strong. I sat with her day and night, bathing her head with a cold flannel, and on the fifth night her fever broke. She woke up and smiled at me. I gave her a drink, and she drifted back to sleep, her forehead cool and her breathing regular.

I slept for what seemed like the first time in days, curled up in a chair in her room, and my husband must've come in, because when I woke up, I had a blanket tucked over me.

I looked over at Florence, and I saw straight away that the fever was back. She woke and whispered that her belly ached, it ached so much. When she opened her eyes, the whites were just tinged with a little bit of yellow, and I knew. That was the longest week of my life. Dr Parsons came and went. My husband tried to get me to go to bed, to sleep, to eat. I couldn't leave Florence's side. I tried to keep her cool, to get her to take sips of broth. I prayed to God until my knees were sore, not to take away my ten-year-old baby. I pleaded with her to get well. But whatever I did, her skin turned bronze and her eyes became bright yellow. And she slipped a little further away from me each day.

I knew the end was near when the cat, who never came upstairs, curled up at her side. As she took her last breath, I heard the first rumble of thunder.

I wept all night. Wept for my baby. Held her against the storm, just in case wherever she was, she was still afraid. And then in the morning, I wept all the more that I wouldn't be able to comfort her when she was in the ground. My husband held me tight.

I've always loved drawing. And I started to draw. A tiny coffin with a window in the side so that I could see her face. A stairway down to the grave, to a wall with a window. A set of doors at the top of the steps that would shield me from the storm. A headstone that read ' As bright and affectionate a Daughter as ever God with His Image blest'. And so, her grave was built. And I go down the stairs and read and sing to my baby Florence during every storm, like I always have.
​
I've just seen the clouds coming in. There's a storm on the way. I must go to Florence.