Page 48 of Little Wing
‘Harry?’
‘Florence’s Harry.’
‘I don’t know of a Harry.’
‘Oh – you know – Nell’s father?ThatHarry.’
Wendy looked shocked. Like a secret had seeped out. ‘But she never told anyone his name!’
Sylvie saw the frustration cloud down over Nell.
‘Scotland.’ Nell persevered. ‘Florence went to Scotland.’
Wendy turned to Sylvie, as if it had been she who had spoken. ‘She was the little one, Florence was. She was sent far away.’
‘Scotland,’ Nell said again.
‘Sent to Scotland.’ Wendy paused. She brought her finger against her lip. ‘Shh! Not to be spoken of.’ She glanced from the window back to Sylvie. ‘She wrote to me a couple of times. I suspect there were more letters, but I expect our mother intercepted them.’
Sylvie could sense Nell standing stock-still, desperate not to distract, desperate for more. ‘Letters, were they?’ Sylvie said. ‘Postcards?’
‘Letters.’
‘Lovely.’
‘And once, a photograph. With the baby. Just one. I kept the photograph in the flap of the pillowslip inside my pillowcase.’ Wendy smiled and cooed. ‘Scrumptious. Little cherub. Little beautiful blonde doll.’
‘Say Jimmy,’ Nell whispered to Sylvie.
Sylvie looked confused, then shrugged. ‘And Jimmy?’
But there was nothing from Wendy.
‘Say Harry,’ Nell said.
Sylvie nodded. She sat close to Wendy. ‘And Harry? How about Harry?’
But though Sylvie and Nell scrutinized Wendy’s expression from two different angles, there was nothing to see.
‘Scotland? Say Scotland. Nell? Say Nell. Florence? Say Florence.’
Nell’s whispers floating right over Wendy’s head while the three of them stayed as they were, quietly apart.
But then Wendy shifted. She shifted her shoulders a quarter-turn, away from Nell and straight on at Sylvie.
‘Sometimes I see her – Florence – sometimes she visits,’ Wendy told Sylvie conspiratorially. ‘And she asks all these questions and it’s like she’s forgotten that she has the answers.’
Nell sucked the sentences into her mind for later.
Wendy slumped a little, forlorn. ‘She died, my little sister. Up there. Where they sent her. She sent me a photograph of the little dolly baby, though. Ever so ever so pretty. Little plump pudding.’
‘Just ask who was the father, where is the father?’ Nell hushed over to Sylvie.
But Wendy gave her shoulders a little shake as if she’d intercepted the question and it wasn’t permitted to land.
‘Your little sister,’ Sylvie prompted.
‘Yes – Florence. Sometimes she’s here. Sometimes it’s confusing because Nell looks like her, looks so much like Florence. But you see, sometimes it really is Florence who is here. I know it is. Not Nell.’
