Free Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald

Cliff, not Elvis. And not Richard, he’s too obvious.’
    Martha licked her fingers.
    ‘He looks tired all the time now. I saw him taking Laura out to dinner yesterday evening. Straight away after he’d come back from work! Where’s the relaxation in that? What sort of life is that for a man to lead?’
    ‘What was she wearing?’
    ‘I couldn’t make out. She had her new coat on.’
    ‘But you saw the strain on his features?’
    ‘Oh, yes.’
    ‘Do you think Ma notices?’
    ‘Oh, everybody does.’
    When the light seemed about right, striking fire out of the broken bits of china and glass, they went to work. Tilda lay down full length on a baulk of timber. It was her job to do this, because Martha bruised so easily. A princess, unknown to all about her, she awaited the moment when these bruises would reveal her true heritage.
    Tilda stared fixedly. It was necessary to get your eye in.
    ‘There’s one!’
    She bounded off, as though over stepping stones, from one object to another that would scarcely hold, old tyres, old boots, the ribs of crates from which the seagulls were dislodged in resentment. Far beyond the point at which the mud became treacherous and from which Small Gains had never risen again, she stood poised on the handlebars of a sunken bicycle. How had the bicycle ever got there?
    ‘Mattie, it’s a Raleigh!’
    ‘If you’ve seen a tile, pick it up straight away and come back.’
    ‘I’ve seen two!’
    With a tile in each hand, balancing like a circus performer, Tilda returned. Under the garish lights of the Big Top, every man, woman and child rose to applaud. Who, they asked each other, was this newcomer, who had succeeded where so many others had failed?
    The nearest clean water was from the standpipe in the churchyard; they did not like to wash their finds there, because the water was for the flowers on the graves, but Martha fetched some in a bucket.
    As the mud cleared away from the face of the first tile, patches of ruby-red lustre, with the rich glow of a jewel’s heart, appeared inch by inch, then the outlines of a delicate grotesque silver bird, standing on one leg in a circle of blue-black leaves and berries, its beak of burnished copper.
    ‘Is it beautiful?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And the dragon?’
    The sinuous tail of a dragon, also in gold and jewel colours, wreathed itself like a border round the edge of the other tile.
    The reverse of both tiles was damaged, and on only one of them the letters NDS END could just be made out, but Martha could not be mistaken.
    ‘They’re de Morgans, Tilda. Two of them at one go, two of them in one morning.’
    ‘How much can we sell them for?’
    ‘Do you remember the old lady, Tilda?’
    ‘Did I see her?’
    ‘Tilda, I only took you three months ago. Mrs Stirling, I mean, in Battersea Old House. Her sister was married to William de Morgan, that had the pottery, and made these kind of tiles, that was in Victorian days, you must remember. She was in a wheelchair. We paid for tea, but the money went to the Red Cross. We were only supposed to have two scones each, otherwise the Red Cross couldn’t expect to make a profit. She explained, and she showed us all those tiles and bowls, and the brush and comb he used to do his beard with.’
    ‘How old was she?’
    ‘In 1965 she’ll be a hundred.’
    ‘What was her name?’
    ‘Mrs Wilhemina Stirling.’
    Tilda stared at the brilliant golden-beaked bird, about which there was something frightening.
    ‘We’d better wrap it up. Someone might want to steal it.’
    Sobered, like many seekers and finders, by the presence of the treasure itself, they wrapped the tiles in Tilda’s anorak, which immediately dimmed their lustre once again with a film of mud.
    ‘There’s Woodie!’
    Tilda began to jump up and down, like a cork on the tide.
    ‘What’s he doing?’
    ‘He’s getting his car out.’
    There were no garages near the boats and Woodie was obliged to keep his immaculate Austin Cambridge in