The Ivy Tree Read Free Page A

beside me. I ran a finger over its springy cushion of green, watching how the tiny rosettes sprang back into place as the finger was withdrawn. ‘You’re the owner? You and your sister?’
    â€˜I am.’ The words sounded curt, almost snapped off. He must have felt this himself, for he went on to explain in some detail.
    â€˜It’s more than a farm; it’s “the Winslow place”. We’ve been there for donkey’s ages . . . longer than the local gentry who’ve built their park round us, and tried to shift us, time out of mind. Whitescar’s a kind of enclave, older than the oldest tree in the park – about a quarter the age of that wall you’re sitting on. It gets its name, they say, from an old quarry up near the road, and nobody knows how old those workings are. Anyway, you can’t shift Whitescar. The Hall tried hard enough in the old days, and now the Hall’s gone, but we’re still here . . . You’re not listening.’
    â€˜I am. Go on. What happened to the Hall?’
    But he was off at a tangent, still obviously dwelling on my likeness to his cousin. ‘Have you ever lived on a farm?’
    â€˜Yes. In Canada. But it’s not my thing, I’m afraid.’
    â€˜What is?’
    â€˜Lord, I don’t know; that’s my trouble. Country life, certainly, but not farming. A house, gardening, cooking – I’ve spent the last few years living with a friend who had a house near Montreal, and looking after her. She’d had polio, and was crippled. I was very happy there, but she died six months ago. That was when I decided to come over here. But I’ve no training for anything, if that’s what you mean.’ I smiled. ‘I stayed at home too long. I know that’s not fashionable any more, but that’s the way it happened.’
    â€˜You ought to have married.’
    â€˜Perhaps.’
    â€˜Horses, now. Do you ride?’
    The question was so sudden and seemingly irrelevant that I must have looked and sounded almost startled. ‘Horses? Good heavens, no! Why?’
    â€˜Oh, just a hangover from your looking so like Annabel. That was her thing. She was a wizard, a witch I should say, with horses. She could whisper them.’
    â€˜She could what ?’
    â€˜You know, whisper to them like a gipsy, and then they’d do any blessed thing for her. If she’d been dark like me, instead of blond, she’d have been taken for a horse-thieving gipsy’s changeling.’
    â€˜Well,’ I said, ‘I do know one end of a horse from the other, and on principle I keep clear of both . . . You know, I wish you’d stop staring.’
    â€˜I’m sorry. But I – well, I can’t leave it alone, this likeness of yours to Annabel. It’s uncanny. I know you’re not her; it was absurd anyway ever to think she might have come back . . . if she’d been alive she’d have been here long since, she had too much to lose by staying away But what was I to think, seeing you sitting here, in the same place, with not a stone of it changed, and you only changed a little? It was like seeing the pages of a book turned back, or a film flashing back to where it was eight years ago.’
    â€˜Eight years is a long time.’
    â€˜Yes. She was nineteen when she ran away.’
    A pause. He looked at me, so obviously expectant that I laughed. ‘All right. You didn’t ask . . . quite. I’m twenty-seven. Nearly twenty-eight.’
    I heard him take in his breath. ‘I told you it was uncanny. Even sitting as close to you as this, and talking to you; even with that accent of yours . . . it’s not really an accent, just a sort of slur . . . rather nice. And she’d have changed, too, in eight years.’
    â€˜She might even have acquired the accent,’ I said cheerfully.
    â€˜Yes. She might.’ Some