Chapter 43 HAPPY BIRTHDAY

I went home. To the bookshop. 'Miss Winter is dead," I told my father. 'And you? How are you?" he asked. 'Alive." He smiled. 'Tell me about Mum," I said to him. "Why is she the way she is?" He told me. “She was very ill when you were born. She never saw you before you were taken away. She never saw your sister. She nearly died. By the time she came around, your operation had already taken place and your sister ..." 'My sister had died." 'Yes. There was no knowing how it would go with you. I went from her bedside to yours... I thought I was going to lose all three of you. I prayed to every God I had ever heard of to save you. And my prayers were answered. In part. You survived. Your mother never really came back.”

There was one other thing I needed to know. 'Why didn't you tell me? About being a twin?" The face he turned to me was devastated. He swallowed, and when he spoke his voice was hoarse. “The story of your birth is a sad one Your mother thought it too heavy for a child to bear. At least that's what your mother said . I would have borne it for you, Margaret, if I could. I would have done anything to spare you." We sat in silence. I thought of all the other questions I might have asked, but now that the moment had come I didn't need to. I reached for my father's hand at the same moment as he reached for mine.

I attended three funerals in as many days. Miss Winter's mourners were many. The nation grieved for its favorite storyteller, and thousands of readers turned out to pay their respects. I came away as soon as I could, having said my good-byes already. The second was a quiet affair. There were only Judith, Maurice, the doctor and me to mourn the woman referred to throughout the service as Emmeline. Afterward we said brief farewells and parted. The third was lonelier still. In a crematorium in Banbury I was the only person in attendance when a bland-faced clergyman oversaw the passing into God's hands of a set of bones, identity unknown. Into God's hands, except that it was me who collected the urn later, “on behalf of the Angelfield family.”

There were snowdrops in Angelfield. At least the first signs of them, boring their way through the frozen ground and showing their points, green and fresh, above the snow. As I stood up I heard a sound. It was Aurelius, arriving at the lych-gate. Snow had settled on his shoulders and he was carrying flowers. 'Aurelius! " How could he have grown so sad? So pale? "You've changed," I said. 'I have worn myself out on a wild-goose chase." His eyes, always mild, had lightened to the same washed-out blue as the January sky; you could see straight through their transparency to his disappointed heart. "All my life I have wanted to find my family. I wanted to know who I was. And lately I have felt hopeful. I thought there might be some chance of restoration. Now I fear I was mistaken.”

We walked along the grass path between the graves and cleared the snow from the bench and sat down before more could fall. Aurelius delved into his pocket and unwrapped two pieces of cake. Absently he handed one to me and dug his teeth into the other. 'Is that what you have for me?" he asked, looking at the casket. "Is that the rest of my story?" I handed him the casket. 'Isn't it light? Light as air. And yet…” His hand veered to his heart; he sought a gesture to show how heavy his heart was; not finding it, he put down the casket and took another bite of cake.

When he had finished the last morsel he spoke. “If she was my mother, why was I not with her? Why did I not die with her, in this place? Why would she take me away to Mrs. Love's house and then come back here to a house on fire? Why? It doesn't make sense." I followed him as he stepped off the central path and made his way into the maze of narrow borders between the graves. He stopped at a grave I had looked at before and laid down his flowers. The stone was a simple one.