Free Dying in the Wool by Frances Brody

of any of the staff I don’t suppose?’
    I had to pull out my hanky to stop a sneeze. She had swept the floor and the dust would need to settle before I could develop photographs.
    ‘You’d make a very good subject, Becky.’
    She blushed and her eyes lit up. ‘My mam’d be that pleased to have a photo of me.’
    The evening was still light. We stepped out into the back courtyard where washing hung on the line. In the distance, a horse neighed in the stable. Beyond the fence, a couple of lambs bleated for a sheep that was trying to escape her responsibilities.
    Becky pushed a few stray strands of hair behind her ears. She wore a black dress, white cap and white apron – the colours of modern photography. To me, black and white symbolised past and present, hope and loss. Yet I couldn’t say which colour represented what. The two of them together touched me in some way, saying capture this moment, there might be no other.
    Doorways are a favourite of mine, a person framed in their doorway – with that sense of belonging to a place and time. The interior remains just out of view, forever a mystery.
    ‘Becky, I’ll take a photograph of you as if you’ve just come out of the door.’
    She was not a girl for staying still. I wanted to capture that sense of restless movement. I had left the Reflex upstairs but the VPK would do. It takes a tiny picture but is sharp enough to enlarge.
    ‘Unpeg that tablecloth from the line. Make as if you’re just about to shake it.’
    She stood in the doorway, clutching the cloth to her, biting her lip.
    ‘Look this way! Let the cloth loose.’
    I clicked the shutter. ‘I don’t suppose you remember Mr Braithwaite. You were probably too young.’
    She began to fold the cloth with deft movements. ‘I wasn’t working here, that’s true, but I do remember him. He sometimes read the lesson at the Chapel Sunday School, and gave out the prizes.’
    ‘Did you ever win a prize yourself?’
    ‘Oh no, thank goodness. I would have been too shy to go up for it.’
    ‘You’re not shy with me.’
    ‘You wouldn’t make a person feel all confused and out of place. To my childish way of looking at it, Mr Braithwaite seemed very stern. I’m sure if he had given me a prize book, I would have dropped it. I deliberately missed two Sundays, so as not to have full attendance.’
    She reached for a clothes basket.
    ‘When you heard what happened to Mr Braithwaite, were you old enough to understand what was going on?’
    ‘Oh aye. My brother, he was one of the boy scouts that found him.’
    I closed the camera and slipped it into my pocket.‘Indeed? That must have given him a jolt.’
    She put the tablecloth in the basket. ‘He was with two other lads, bigger than himself. They stayed and helped Mr Braithwaite out of the water. Our Nathan, being the youngest, he was sent to run for the scoutmaster.’
    ‘Did Nathan help in the search, when Mr Braithwaite went missing from the hospital?’
    ‘Oh no. Mam kept him well away. She didn’t want him finding a dead body and having nightmares the rest of his life.’
    We stood by the door in the evening sunlight, reluctant to go back into the dark house.
    ‘Was your mam surprised when Mr Braithwaite was never found?’
    ‘She didn’t know what to think. There’s lots of places round here a body could go missing. Caves, deep tarns, old mine shafts.’
    A few light drops of April rain began to fall.
    ‘So you believe he’s dead?’
    ‘It’s what they say. Lizzie Luck, she told Mam – in confidence like – that we wouldn’t see Mr Braithwaite again. Right or wrong, Mam took it to mean he’d passed over.’
    ‘Who’s Lizzie Luck?’
    ‘Lizzie can tell the future, and give messages from the other side.’
    ‘She lives in the village?’
    ‘Just beyond. Look over, you see’t mill?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Just down from that there’s the humpback bridge across beck. She’s in the little old cottage.’
    ‘I might just let her tell my