Chapter 1: Love In A Cold Climate

The clock struck five. It was now almost completely dark outside. It had been one of those days when it never really gets light. Dingy, wet and clinging.

Claire sighed. "Funny how funerals always make you weepy, even if you didn't really know the person who's died. I mean, Nanna was my great-grandmother. You never really know your great grandmother, do you?"

"I don't even know my grandmother all that well." Russ sat up amongst the rumpled sheets and hugged his knees. Claire was staring into the dressing table mirror from a distance of about three inches, attacking an invisible spot with two fingernails. Russ shivered.

Claire shifted her gaze to his reflection. "Cold, darling?"

"No, not really. Well, perhaps a bit. Still jet-lagged. And not acclimatised."

"I'd have turned the heating on if I'd known we were coming back to the house." She turned, her slender figure outlined in the lacy nightdress, spot-lit by the single lamp on the dressing table. "It is freezing in here." She ran a hand absently across her stiff nipples. "Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea, going to bed afterwards. I was too eager, I suppose. It has been a whole three months, after all. There you go, though, the best-laid schemes..."

"Scheming woman! I only arrived home this morning. Or was it this evening? The first thing you try to do is rape me."

"The second thing. The first was Nanna's funeral."

Russ got up and stretched. He could just touch the ceiling with his fingertips. Claire sneaked up behind and grabbed him round the middle. She rested her head against his shoulder and moulded her body against his back. "No wonder you're freezing, standing there without a stitch on."

"You ought to get dressed, too."

"Do they stick out as much as that?" Claire pulled away and her hand found her nipple again. "Gosh! Yes, they do. At least, they're a decent size, even if I don't have the family trademark titties."

"There you go again!"

"Don't pretend you wouldn't prefer them as big as my mother's. Or my baby sister's."

"Sally's are a bit extreme, dear!"

"It didn't stop you staring at them earlier."

"The way she was waggling them in my face, I could hardly do anything else but stare. At a funeral, too. Somebody ought to have a word with that girl."

Claire sniffed. "Black suits her."

"She looked like a silver service waitress in a Gentleman's Adult Club. I wasn't the only one staring."

"The vicar... !"

"The organist... !"

"The choirboys... !"

"Especially the choirboys. They'll all be having wet dreams tonight. You could practically hear them coming during the sermon. Sally sitting there in the front row like that..."

"Her nipples were closer to the choir than they were to her!" Claire bit her lip and flopped down on the dressing table stool. "If only my tits were half as big. Or even a quarter."

"I didn't ask you to marry me so I could get my filthy hands on your breasts, dear." Russ found his trousers and put them on, hopping around the bedroom until he could get both feet back on the floor. He stood behind her and caressed the soft shoulders, turning her round on the revolving stool to look at her in the mirror again. She rested her cheek on his hand.

"I'm sorry, love!"

"Sorry?" He rotated her through a further three hundred and sixty degrees.

"Wheeeee," she said softly. She looked up at him. "About earlier. It was my fault. I was too pushy. All I was thinking about was myself..."

"No. The old cliché is right. Love is never having to say..." His fingers toyed with the rich softness of her hair as it tumbled across her shoulders. In this light it was as much golden as brown. "Just think, darling. Next time, it could be even worse!" He bent to kiss her neck as she started to answer. Something about a cliché for all occasions. She discarded the reply and relaxed a little.

"It couldn't. Not much worse than that!" she goaded him gently.

"We get it right now and again and it's as if a choir of angels strikes up in the bedroom."

"Not a choir of choirboys?"

"If that's what turns you on, lover, I'll have a word with the vicar on Sunday. They might learn a thing or two. Come on. Let's get something to eat. Breakfast."

"It's half-past five in the afternoon!"

"Not in sunny Sydney, it's not. It's going to take me a week to get used to Greenwich Mean Time."

"Another lot coming down, lover. Mind the dust."

Russ lowered the box through the hatchway. Claire took it in her arms and dumped it with the others. She sneezed three times, a polite little noise.

"Is that the lot?"

He came down the step ladder, lowering the hatch into place. "Apart from a few odds and sods, old curtains and stuff. Christ, it's cold up there. It's a wonder the old dear's pipes haven't frozen solid."

"You're still feeling the cold after Australia. It's not too bad." She opened the last of the boxes and peered inside.

"Come on, you! Don't start looking through that lot now. Let's get it home and we can go through it all properly."

It took ten minutes to get all of the late contents of Nanna's attic into the back of the car. Then Russ locked the door of the cottage. "It's funny. It felt as if she was in there the whole time, watching us."

"Stop it! You're trying to give me the creeps."

He grabbed suddenly at her arm, making her jump. "Boo! No," he laughed. "It wasn't spooky at all. Just a sort of warm, friendly feeling. As if she would have like to have been there to give us a hand sorting through all her bits and pieces. I think she'd have enjoyed it, somehow."

"Nanna was ninety years old, love. I don't think she'd have enjoyed that sort of thing."

Russ pocketed the key and they both got into the car. Dusk was already softening the outline of Nanna's house. Not hers any more. It would be sold soon. Charming, desirable cottage with mature gardens to front and rear. Ripe for loving restoration, sympathetic extension, orgasmic desecration...

"No, whoever was watching over us wasn't ninety," Russ mused softly. "She was only a young girl..."

"All this stuff Nanna was keeping! What for? Look, here's a box of money!"

"Where?" Russ craned to see inside the small black enamelled tin box.

"It's nothing. Only pennies and stuff. Some shillings: what's this big thing? Half-crown. That might be worth something now."

"Probably less than twelve and a half pence. Here's another box of photos." He spilled them out on the table. They curled up slightly at the edges, the pile separating into individual snapshots.

"God, look at this one! Was that her? Look at that hat!"

"The height of fashion, probably. What about that car? That would be worth a fortune now."

"Here's another. And a boyfriend, too. Look at him." Claire held the photo closer to the light. "I quite fancy him, you know."

"Looks like me, does he?" Russ took the yellowing picture and stared at it. Spooky. No, not really spooky. And the sound of a girl laughing, like a mountain stream across pebbles. "Naah! He's not as handsome as me. No way."

"What's this one?"

Claire tugged at the big picture in a frame. It was wedged cornerways into the box, and didn't want to come out.

"It's caught, hang on. I'll get some of the other stuff out first."

But Claire wanted to see it. She pulled harder. The side of the box gave way suddenly, and the picture came out with a rush. It was heavier than she'd thought. She grabbed at it, but missed. "Oh, shit!"

The picture had hit the corner of the table with a sharp crack, and landed partly in Claire's lap.

"Careful, don't cut yourself." Russ rescued the picture and laid it on the table.

"Oh, look." Claire was close to tears. "I didn't mean to..."

"It's all right, love." Russ plucked the shards of dusty glass from the frame, placing them to one side. "Hey, look. It's quite a nice picture underneath. It will clean up. It's only the glass that's broken. The frame's not in bad condition."

Claire bent forward to see. "Who are they all?"

"One of those turn of the century family portraits. Three, maybe four generations."

"Is there a date on it anywhere?"

"Can't see one. Before the Great War, by the look of it." He turned the frame over. "It's local, though. Here's the photographer's address on the back."

"Old photos are so lovely. That brown colour..."

"It's really terrific quality. I bet it was a contact print from a plate camera negative. Eight by ten. Imagine it, all this bunch turning up at the studio to have their picture taken ... must be twenty of them."

"That grumpy old granny in the middle..."

"Those babies yelling their heads off..."

"I wonder who they all were." She did some calculations in her head. "Nanna was about ninety. If it was taken back then, Nanna could have been one of these babies. Imagine!" Claire stared closer. "She could be. Anyway, I'm sure it's our family."

"Why?"

"Look at the women. Even in these Edwardian dresses, you can see the family trademark. Look at that one there! And her! Sister Sally, eat your heart out!"

"That does it, then. I am definitely taking this to town tomorrow and getting the glass replaced. Perhaps get the frame cleaned up, a new mount. We can hang it on the wall in here."

"Where? Which room?"

"You're joking! With titties like those women have got, it has to go in the toilet!"

"Not the bathroom! I'm not having that lot looking at me with nothing on."

"The downstairs loo then. It will be a nice conversation piece."

"You're serious! You are actually going to get that thing repaired?"

"I do not jest on such matters, dear heart. Anything else we want from town while I'm there?"

"Not a lot. Something for dinner, if you like. Steak or something. Or fish. See what you fancy when you get there."

"Now, that's an offer I can't refuse! I'll bring her straight home, this fanciable woman?"

"S'long as you bring me a fanciable man, too. I'll be back from Mum's by the time you get back. Here, I remembered something." Claire hurried into the spare room. Her voice came through the doorway. "That overcoat that was mixed in with the first box of Nanna's clothes. There are dozens more we haven't even looked through yet. Anyway, try it on." She came back with the big dark coat, shaking it out. "It's a bit moth-bally, but it's not in bad condition. Hardly worn. It must have been great-grandad's."

"You want me walking round like something from a charity shop?" The coat was certainly capacious enough. Great-grandpop must have been a sizeable bloke. It was warm-looking, too. Russ shook his head. "I can't wear that!" Yet he found himself putting it on. "It fits, though. Feels quite nice. God, it could have been made to measure for me."

"Perfect for this weather, anyway. And it doesn't look too bad." Claire reached up for the lapels and made an adjustment. "There! All you want is a hat. One with a great big feather. They always say fashion goes in cycles." Claire decided. "Wear it! Go on. It doesn't smell too bad."

Russ had already decided to wear it. He wasn't going to take it off. He fastened the domed leather buttons and smoothed the soft woollen material. It would have cost a penny or two whenever it had been made. The picture in its frame was already in a carrier bag. He tucked it under his arm.

"See you later, pet."

"Love you. Don't get lost!"

Why was everyone shopping in town this morning of all mornings? And why did the gas company choose today of all days to dig up the road right in the centre of town. Russ sat in the queue of cars inching round the one-way system, shrouded in clouds of steamy exhaust, everyone looking for somewhere to park which would save a walk of more than ten yards. There was a deserted side street leading off to the left. Sharp left, up a steep little hill, and not really the right direction, but anything was better than this nose-to-tail shuffle. He twirled the wheel and turned off. Nobody followed him. In fifty yards, the street turned sharp right, parallel to the crawling main road and now on a level with the wet roofs and chimneys. The surface here was cobble stones, greasy and dank, making the suspension thump and clatter. He slowed to a leisurely crawl.

Over the rooftops to the right was the church tower. Not more than a hundred yards to walk to the shopping centre. Strange that nobody had parked up here. Deserted. He pulled in to the curb. Spidery trees dripped moisture. The houses were anonymous, dark-windowed. As he got out and locked the car, the picture tucked firmly under his arm, he felt a chill seep through to his bones, even in great-grandpop's overcoat. He set off at a brisk walk, up a narrow cobbled alley between two leaning walls of soft red brick.

Chapter 2 »