Our niece, Evelyn, was only thirteen when we sent her off for a fortnights holiday at her grandmothers cottage in the countryside. In the beginning, Evelyn took delight in her time with Grantheyd laugh together as they watched clouds drift by or made jam from raspberries still warm from the morning sun. But, as the years flickered by in the odd way time bends in dreams, Evelyn grew up, and the old village lost its shimmer for her. The longing for bustling friends, matinee shows at the cinema, and the bright swirl of daily life back in the city grew in Evelyns chest like a drowsy fog.
She was her grandmothers only granddaughter, and these visits carried a strange dutylike adding a drop of joy into her Grans quiet days.
One afternoon that felt both bright and heavy, Evelyns father drove her down the winding hedgerowed lanes to Grans cottage. Back home, her mother, Susan, was giving birth to her second child and the world felt tilted on its axis. The grown-ups decided Evelyn could breathe the crisp air and chatter with her grandmother, while the rest of the world rearranged itself. Her father slipped Gran a crisp £50 note to help with the cost of feeding a young girls appetite for sweets and odd knick-knacks during her staymoney fluttering in dreamlike fashion between their fingers.
At first, Gran asked for nothing in return for her company; it was enough to have Evelyn at the edge of the fireplace each evening as she poured tea and told stories that seemed to curl around the teacups like steam. But as days slipped by and the strangeness of dreams sharpened Evelyns wants, she began to expect morecomplaining about the plainness of the meals, asking for new books or pastries from the bakers van. She knew her father provided, and this knowledge weighed heavy between them like a raincloud in a patch of sun.
Trouble came one morning when someone ate Evelyns pain au chocolat, and she erupted in a storm of accusationthe cousin who lived with Gran became the target of her ire. The whole family seemed to stretch and warp with the tension, and soon Evelyns father had to drive through the misty lanes again, summoned to soothe the squabble over a missing pastry. Rows and upsets followed, echoing in the odd way arguments do in dreams, swelling and shrinking until it was decidedno more country visits for Evelyn.
Gran was left alone with her tea and stories, her hands folding into her lap, her heart quietly bruised. She longed for the laughter and the whir of Evelyns stories. Yet the seasons changed, the cottage sat in its quiet field, and those lively visitslike so many strange things you wish to hold onto after wakingsimply faded away.
