Free Jubilee by Eliza Graham Page B

wanting it
hard enough so that the atoms would rearrange themselves into her form. Time was supposed to be relative so perhaps Jessamy’s ten-year-old self was still actually here. If only she could call
out to her daughter, warn her not to leave the park . . .
    Enough.
    Pilot wagged his tail as her gaze fell on the park gate. Dogs weren’t allowed on this fenced-off section of the green. That had changed since the Silver Jubilee party, when spaniels and
Labradors had accompanied their families to celebrate the monarch’s twenty-five years. The dog caught Evie’s eye and his tail thumped against the grass. She longed for his silent
company, his warm head against her sandaled foot, his breath comforting on her bare skin. As a group of latecomers pushed the gate open he raised his head and pricked his ears. Did he, like her,
check to see whether Jessamy was with them? But of course he wouldn’t have a clue who Jessamy was. Once, foolishly, Evie had given Pilot the still-unwashed nightdress her daughter had worn
the night before the 1977 Jubilee party. He’d sniffed it with his usual gentlemanly politeness. ‘Find, Pilot!’ she’d urged him. ‘Find her for me!’ But traces of
Jessamy would long since have vanished. He’d given his tail a single wag and dropped his handsome black head to the flagstones, confusion obvious in his eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she’d
said. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’
    As though looking at herself from the outside she saw what others must see: a batty, ageing woman with foolish hopes, who held her grief behind a mask of control so that some probably considered
her reserved. She just couldn’t cry in front of anyone else, not even Freya.
    The wind seemed to sharpen its edge and Evie could feel her cheeks burning in its rasp. She lifted her head to see if clouds were massing on top of the down but the sky was still clear. In this
light the hill was etched sharply and it looked like a wave about to crash down upon them, wiping away the flags and balloons, the cake with the Queen’s head on it and the children running
races, sweeping them all away in a morass of red, blue and white. She should warn them of the calamity close at hand. They wouldn’t believe her. She wouldn’t have believed it either,
twenty-five years ago. Despite the cool air, she felt perspiration glow on her brow.
    Come back now, darling. Walk out of that tea tent with a plate of chocolate brownies or a scone and jam. It’s not too late. She closed her eyes and opened them again. Nothing.
    ‘Evie?’ Freya stood beside her. ‘How are you coping, my dear?’
    She managed a nod.
    ‘They were needing help in the tea tent. I said I’d find volunteers.’
    She rose; she’d be no worse off in the tent. Why wouldn’t Jessamy come and find her in there? It had, after all, been the last place she’d been sighted before her disappearance
at the previous Jubilee.
    Evie followed Freya across the field. Around them children whooped as they balanced eggs on spoons. Adults chatted. It all looked so innocent. Things in this village always did.
    The hedge beside the tea tent rustled. Evie caught a glimpse of eyes, blue, mocking: the gypsy children, travellers, they were called now, standing out in the lane. The two smallest were
Rosie’s. Just like their parents all those years ago they wouldn’t come into the park. Perhaps they’d always regard themselves as outsiders, not part of the pack. Who could blame
them? Some in Craven would always blame them for Jessamy’s disappearance although they’d been questioned again and again and their cars and caravans checked for her fingerprints. With
nothing found.
    Evie shivered again. Perhaps it would have been better to have stayed at home today. But it would have been cowardly. And part of her had been so sure something would happen here today;
she’d imbued the date with such significance, as though the celebration bunting and the gilded carriages in the Mall could magic