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cup towards me.
    ‘Our pa used to get us out of bed at night when there was a thunderstorm,’ he mused as I poured him more tea.‘He’d make all three of us – our ma, your dad and me – keep watch at separate windows in case the barn was struck by lightning. We thought that was stupid. We laughed at him, and he flew into a rage. But the only time he gave us a hiding was when he caught your dad and me lying down on the bleach field during a thunderstorm so we could watch the lightning. I can still see our pa in the doorway, giving us what for. Shaking his fists, swearing and yelling for us to come inside. And we just laughed. Until the nut tree about ten metres away from us split in two with a deafening crack. We ran back to the house as fast as we could. Worst hiding I ever had in my life.’
    He dipped a lump of sugar in his tea and held it between his lips to suck the sweetness.
    ‘Dead scared, he was. You don’t realise these things till later.’
    The whole time he was speaking I was stirring my spoon around in my empty cup.
    ‘Joris,’ Aunt sighed, ‘stop that please, it’s getting on my nerves.’
    ‘I want to go in the vault too,’ I said. ‘It’s not fair to leave me out.’
    They exchanged looks.
    Uncle Werner broke the silence. ‘Joris, my boy,’ he said with a smile, ‘whatever’s got into you? No sense in you worrying your head about that, you’ve got a while to go yet.’
    Even Aunt brightened at this. ‘He’s jealous,’ she chortled. ‘Did you hear that, Werner? The lad’s jealous.’
    ‘I’ve reason to be,’ I replied gruffly, although I was close to laughing myself. ‘I always have to sleep on my own, anyway.’
    ‘Your turn will come,’ said Aunt. ‘Just you wait, there’ll be plenty of times when you wish you could sleep alone.’
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ cried Uncle in feigned indignation. He leaned over the corner of the table to kiss her on the neck.
    She pushed him away, giggling. ‘Get off, you silly old goat.’
    Then, turning to me, she smiled and ran her fingers through my hair.
    For once I did not shrink away.

 
     
    THE COBBLED STREET WAS STREWN WITH BROKEN BRANCHES . Workmen disentangled a wayward sheet of plastic from a tree near the church and swept up the fallen leaves.
    Not a minute went by without the bell tinkling. It was Saturday, the busiest day of the week, because the shop would be closed on Monday, too.
    Uncle and Aunt were run off their feet. The breakfast table had not yet been cleared, the newspaper was spread out among the breadcrumbs.
    Aunt had left the breadbasket next to my plate, with a clean tea towel folded over it because of the flies, and a note for me: ‘Joris, you must call at Miss van Vooren’s before 11. Like I said. Remember to comb your hair.’
    ‘Like I said’ meant there was no point in trying to skive off. Trifling with Miss van Vooren would not go unpunished.
    ‘Ah, Miss van Vooren,’ Uncle used to say, ‘a spinster if ever there was one. Looks it too. To tell you the truth, I have never known anyone as spinsterish as her. Sour as a lemon, she is.’
    He never made such remarks in his wife’s hearing. Aunt was rather impressed by Miss van Vooren.
     
    Miss van Vooren lived on the outskirts of the village, near the dairy and the stream. Her house was surrounded by cedars which had shot up taller than the roof over the years, and which now plunged the paths at their feet into deep shade. It was a sturdy, brick building with narrow bay windows on either side, a dilapidated south-facing veranda and, over the front door, a wrought-iron balcony that had seen better days.
    Even in the freshness of that morning, the air above the garden path seemed to turn viscous as I approached the house. The sounds from the road were muffled by the trees, and the farther I walked the eerier I found the silence and the more ominous the crunch of my shoes on the gravel.
    When I pressed the brass doorbell, ornate but somewhat