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Ava nodded. ‘Yes. He said that I needed something a bit different now that I’m older. I think it’s turned out pretty well.’
‘It’s very sophisticated. I like the curtains.’ A bold, confident pattern of yellow, purple and green, the shades somehow blending perfectly together.
‘It’s an old fifties print. We went up to town to look at some fabrics. Lucas said it was for the conservatory.’
‘And you fell for it.’ Thea grinned.
‘He’s good with surprises, he never lets on.’
‘No, he doesn’t, does he?’ The time that Lucas had started driving, saying that they were going out for a pub lunch, and hadn’t stopped until they’d reached the ferry for France. When they’d reached dry land again they’d driven all night and watched the sun come up over the bright, glittering waters of the Mediterranean.
That was the old Lucas. The one who would have taken such delight in planning a surprise like this. The one that Thea had told herself was lost for ever.
Ava was gazing down, out of the window, and opened it in response to something below. Lucas’s voice floated upwards, along with a puff of charcoal smoke.
‘Are you listening for the door, Ava?’
‘Yes.’ Ava shut the window again abruptly and Thea suppressed a smile. What was it Lucas used to say? If you want the right answers, you have to ask the right questions.
Maybe she should take that advice too. But if she wanted to know why Ava was living here and not with her parents, she should either wait for Ava to volunteer the information or ask Lucas.
‘That’s a great place to work.’ She pointed to the desk, which sat in deep bay window on the far side of the room.
‘Yeah. I think that was a hint.’ Ava grinned wryly.
‘Exams next year?’ Thea couldn’t remember whether Ava was fourteen or fifteen now.
‘No, two years. I’m choosing my GCSE subjects now.’
She must be fourteen, t
hen. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘History. I’m not sure about the rest, yet. I want to be an archaeologist.’
‘That sounds great.’
‘I’ve already been on a dig—last summer. They didn’t let us do much on our own, but it was pretty cool.’ Ava’s eyes lit up with enthusiasm. ‘Look.’
She grabbed Thea’s hand and led her over to the desk. Inside the alcove, a pinboard was fixed to the wall, covered in photographs. ‘That’s Lucas and me, with my find.’
Lucas had his arm around Ava’s shoulders and they were both pulling faces for the camera. Suddenly, seven years seemed like nothing. His hair looked as if it had been styled by the wind, and he was wearing a rock-band T-shirt that had seen better days. Longing reached into her stomach, gripped hard and then twisted.
‘That’s fabulous.’
‘Isn’t it? It’s Samian ware. That’s high-quality pottery from Italy or France that the Romans used to use.’
Thea dragged her eyes from Lucas’s face and focussed on the piece of broken pottery that Ava was holding up. ‘How interesting.’
‘Yeah. That piece of pottery came from something like that.’ Ava indicated a museum postcard of a glossy red bowl, with moulding around the base, pinned next to the photograph. ‘I saw it in one of the side trenches, where the settlement put all their rubbish, and they let me pick it up after it was photographed. I was the first person to touch it since it got thrown there. Can you imagine that?’
All that Thea could imagine at the moment was Lucas. ‘It must have been an amazing feeling.’ The board was like a memory board. Ava as she remembered her, a six-year-old with her parents. Then, growing up, with Lucas. Something must have happened and Thea dreaded to ask what that might have been.
‘There’s one of you here somewhere.’ Ava scanned the board and pointed to one at the top. Some older photos of Lucas, and in one of them he was sitting outside a tent, his arm around Thea.
‘Ah! I remember that. We were at Glastonbury.’ She’d looked so different then. It wasn’t just the hair or the clothes, she’d looked carefree. Thea wondered if Lucas found her as changed as she did him.
‘What did you do there? Lucas says you danced all night.’
