"Can I help with unloading?" Kirsty offered.

"Lewton and M.B. are doing it," came Rory's reply.

"Oh."

"But I'd give an arm and a leg for a cup of tea."

"We haven't found the tea," Julia told him.

"Oh. Maybe a coffee, then?"

"Right," said Kirsty. "And for the other two?"

"They'd kill for a cup."

Kirsty went back to the kitchen, filled the small pan to near brimming, and set it back on the stove. From the hallway she heard Rory supervising the next unloading.

It was the bed, the bridal bed. Though she tried very hard to keep the thought of his embracing Julia out of her mind, she could not. As she stared into the water, and it simmered and steamed and finally boiled, the same painful images of their pleasure came back and back.

3

While the trio were away, gathering the fourth and final load of the day, Julia lost her temper with the unpacking. It was a disaster, she said; everything had been parceled up and put into the tea chests in the wrong order. She was having to disinter perfectly useless items to get access to the bare necessities.

Kirsty kept her silence, and her place in the kitchen, washing the soiled cups.

Cursing louder, Julia left the chaos and went out for a cigarette on the front step. She leaned against the open door, and breathed the pollen-gilded air. Already, though it was only the twenty-first of August, the afternoon was tinged with a smoky scent that heralded autumn.

She had lost track of how fast the day had gone, for as she stood there a bell began to ring for Evensong: the run of chimes rising and falling in lazy waves. The sound was reassuring. It made her think of her childhood, though not-that she could remember-of any particular day or place. Simply of being young, of mystery.