Free The Line Between Us by Kate Dunn

I would have felt your lashes move.
    “What, miss?”
    “Nothing.” Dimly I understood that saying my name proved your ownership of me, if it needed proving. My own small act of possession, holding you on my bike and almost in my arms as well, filled me with a kind of sad elation.
    At the top of the drive you slipped down from the crossbar, flinching as your foot touched the ground.
    “Will you be alright?”
    You nodded, bending a little stiffly to reach your trug, abandoned by the wayside. “It’s probably best if I go on ahead,” you said, watching the handful of berries roll from one end of the basket to the other. You picked one out, black and flagrantly ripe and held it between your fingers. For a strained, uncertain moment you looked as though you might slip it into my mouth. “That’s for you,” you said, dropping it into my palm.
    I took it and bit into it, fruit not really mine for the tasting. It made me bold, though. I leaned over and with pilgrim fingers which shook a little, I swept the fallen hank of hair from your shoulder and tucked it into place with the tortoiseshell comb which had worked loose. “There you are,” I said. “The Mistress will be none the wiser, now.”

 
     
    CHAPTER FIFTEEN
     
    I remembered watering the rhododendrons on Dancing Green in the late spring of the following year, making the spray from the hose play with the sunlight, passing the time by creating flashing prisms of colour, when I saw Mrs Brown heading towards me across the lawn.
    “Will you pick some cherries for me, Ifor?” She was a handsome woman in spite of her age – she must have been within spitting distance of fifty – only, the fact that she knew it somehow demanded acknowledgement from other people too. “If I don’t make my Brandy Cherries soon, they won’t be steeped in time for Christmas, see?” She watched me training the water into the impenetrable darkness beneath the rhododendrons, where the roots writhed blackly. “I’d do it myself …”
    “Oh, we can’t have that, Mrs Brown,” I said, tickled by the thought of her wobbling about at the top of a ladder.
    “You’re so tall now …” When her voice went all breathy, you could hear the Welsh in it. She’d been a girl from the valleys, once upon a time. “It’s a fine lad you’re growing into, Ifor Griffiths,” she murmured, so quiet I could barely hear her above the noise of the hose. “You’ll break a few hearts before you’re through.”
    I shrugged. This was a kind of grown-up sport I wasn’t used to, like being teased at school when you don’t know how to take it. “How many cherries, Mrs Brown?”
    “As many as you can pick, young man. I might even make a pie.” She smiled, allowing her gaze to travel the length of me, from the toes of my boots to my fingertips. “Bring them up to the kitchen for me, when lunch is over. Shall we say three o’clock?”
    Three o’clock came and I set off with a basket of cherries in each hand. The back door was ajar, so I walked in without knocking, just calling out, “Hello?”
    I hesitated, thinking of the kitchen at home, Ma a ghostly presence looming out of the steam – a wraith of the wash. I took a few steps, fearful of intruding, then collected myself and strode the rest of the way, poking my head into the kitchen. “Hello –?”
    With the range on full blast the room was baking hot, even though the windows were thrown up to the limit of their sashes. Mrs Brown had her sleeves pushed back and beneath her apron her blouse was undone I don’t know how many buttons. She was kneading something in an enormous bowl; a dusting of flour hung in the air, the atoms of it radiating out as if charged with energy.
    “Ifor!”
    “I’ve brought the cherries, Mrs Brown,” I said, hovering at the entrance.
    “Put them over by there, will you?” She wiped her sleeve across her forehead, leaving a streak of flour. I wondered if I should mention it. I set the baskets down where she