Read The Fire Child for Free Online Page B

my tingling skin, and then his dark, muscled arms, turning me over.
    It’s been lovely. And for this reason I’ve stayed silent about my doubts. I haven’t mentioned Jamie’s odd behaviour, the staring, the silence, that odd dream about blood on my hands, and a hare. I haven’t wanted to fracture our summery happiness with some vague misgivings. The dream, I have decided, must have derived from Jamie’s traumas, his grief. The silences are the confusion of a child getting used to a new stepmother, such a painful transition. I want to share this pain, and so dilute it.
    Besides, all three of us have had a happy time this last fortnight. David’s continued presence has apparently calmed Jamie down. I have brilliant memories of David, Jamie and myself, these past two weeks, walking the coastal paths at Minack, watching the seabirds playing with the waves, or lying in the warm clifftop grass, sharing picnic sandwiches, admiring sea-pinks on the way home.
    Today, however, it’s me and David. Jamie’s friend Rollo has a birthday party. Cassie is picking him up later. I’ve got precious time alone with my husband, before he goes back to work. Before the perfect summer ends.
    We are still talking about language. I want to know more. ‘So did you ever try to learn Cornish?’
    ‘God, no,’ he says, striding along the stony path. ‘A dead language. What’s the point? If Cornishness survives as a culture it won’t be because they revive the language, it’ll be the people. Always the people.’ He gestures at the weathered scenery, the eroded boulders, the stunted trees. ‘You know these little paths were made by the miners? They would walk for hours over the moors, through the woods and heather.’ He is facing away from me now, talking into the cooling breeze. ‘Imagine that life: stumbling through the dark, walking to the mineshafts, across the cliffs. Then climbing down hundreds of fathoms, for an hour – then crawling for a mile under the sea, and digging the tin from the rocks all day.’ He shakes his head, like he is doubting it himself. ‘And all the time they could hear the ocean boulders rolling above them in the storms; and sometimes the seas would break through, pouring into the tunnels—’ He stares wildly, at the sky. ‘And then they would try to run, but the sea usually claimed them. Dragged them back, sucked them in. Hundreds of men, over hundreds of years. And all the time my people, the Kerthens, we sat in Carnhallow. Eating capons.’
    I gaze his way. Not sure what to say. He goes on:
    ‘And you want to know something else?’
    ‘Uhm. Yes?’
    ‘According to my mother, on really quiet summer evenings, when the stamps were silent, and the family was in the Yellow Drawing Room, sipping their claret, they could hear the picks of the miners half a mile beneath them. Working the tin that paid for the wine.’
    His face is shadowed by a passing cloud. I have that urge to heal him, as I want to heal his son. And perhaps I can try. Coming close, I stroke his face and kiss him, gently. He looks at me, and shrugs, as if to say:
What can I do?
    The answer, of course, is nothing.
    Clasping hands, we stride uphill, nearing the highest point of the moors. Here is another ruined mine, with noble arches, like a Norman church.
    Regaining my breath after the climb, I lean a hand on the fine brickwork of the Engine House. The view is magnificent. I can see much of West Cornwall: the dark vivid green of the woods surrounding Penzance, the grey road snaking to Marazion, and the dreaming mysteries of the Lizard. And of course the vast metallic dazzle of the sea around St Michael’s Mount. The tide is in.
    ‘Ding Dong mine,’ David says, slapping the sparkling granite wall. ‘Reputedly the oldest in Cornwall. It was said to have been worked by the Romans, and before them the Phoenicians. Or maybe the fairies. Shall we sit down, out of the wind? I’ve brought strawberries.’
    ‘Why thank you, Mr