I told her, as neutrally as I could, about how Tommy and I had come across it that day while she’d been gone with the others. She went on examining it, then said:

“So Tommy found it for you.”

“No. I found it. I saw it first.”

“Neither of you told me.” She shrugged. “At least, if you did, I never heard.”

“The Norfolk thing was true,” I said. “You know, about it being the lost corner of England.”

It did flash through my mind Ruth would pretend not to remember this reference, but she nodded thoughtfully.

“I should have remembered at the time,” she said. “I might have found my red scarf then.”

We both laughed and the uneasiness seemed to pass. But there was something about the way Ruth put the tape back without discussing it any further that made me think it wasn’t finished with yet.

I don’t know if the way the conversation went after that was something controlled by Ruth in the light of her discovery, or if we were headed that way anyway, and that it was only afterwards Ruth realised she could do with it what she did. We went back to discussing Lenny, in particular a lot of stuff about how he had sex, and we were laughing away again. At that point, I think I was just relieved she’d finally found the tape and not made a huge scene about it, and so maybe I wasn’t being as careful as I might have been. Because before long, we’d drifted from laughing about Lenny to laughing about Tommy. At first it had all felt good-natured enough, like we were just being affectionate towards him. But then we were laughing about his animals.

As I say, I’ve never been sure whether or not Ruth deliberately moved things round to this. To be fair, I can’t even say for certain she was the one who first mentioned the animals. And once we started, I was laughing just as much as she was—about how one of them looked like it was wearing underpants, how another had to have been inspired by a squashed hedgehog. I suppose I should have said in there somewhere that the animals were good, that he’d done really well to have got where he had with them. But I didn’t. That was partly because of the tape; and maybe, if I have to be honest, because I was pleased by the notion that Ruth wasn’t taking the animals seriously, and everything that implied. I think when we eventually broke up for the night, we felt as close as we’d ever done. She touched my cheek on her way out, saying: “It’s really good the way you always keep your spirits up, Kathy.”

So I wasn’t prepared at all for what happened at the churchyard several days later. Ruth had discovered that summer a lovely old church about half a mile from the Cottages, which had behind it rambling grounds with very old gravestones leaning in the grass. Everything was overgrown, but it was really peaceful and Ruth had taken to doing a lot of her reading there, near the back railings, on a bench under a big willow. I hadn’t at first been too keen on this development, remembering how the previous summer we’d all sat around together in the grass right outside the Cottages. All the same, if I was headed that way on one of my walks, and I knew Ruth was likely to be there, I’d find myself going through the low wooden gate and along the overgrown path past the gravestones. On that afternoon, it was warm and still, and I’d come down the path in a dreamy mood, reading off names on the stones, when I saw not only Ruth, but Tommy, on the bench under the willow.

Ruth was actually sitting on the bench, while Tommy was standing with one foot up on its rusty armrest, doing a kind of stretching exercise as they talked. It didn’t look like they were having any big conversation and I didn’t hesitate to go up to them. Maybe I should have picked up something in the way they greeted me, but I’m sure there wasn’t anything obvious. I had some gossip I was dying to tell them—something about one of the newcomers—and so for a while it was just me blabbing on while they nodded and asked the odd question. It was some time before it occurred to me something wasn’t right, and even then, when I paused and asked: “Did I interrupt something here?” it was in a jokey sort of way.

But then Ruth said: “Tommy’s been telling me about his big theory. He says he’s already told you. Ages ago. But now, very kindly, he’s allowing me to share in it too.”

Tommy gave a sigh and was about to say something, but Ruth said in a mock whisper: “Tommy’s big Gallery theory!”

Then they were both looking at me, like I was now in charge of everything and it was up to me what happened next.

“It’s not a bad theory,” I said. “It might be right, I don’t know. What do you think, Ruth?”

“I had to really dig it out of Sweet Boy here. Not very keen at all on letting me in on it, were you, sweety gums? It was only when I kept pressing him to tell me what was behind all this art.”

“I’m not doing it just for that,” Tommy said sulkily. His foot was still up on the armrest and he kept on with his stretching. “All I said was, if it was right, about the Gallery, then I could always try and put in the animals…”

“Tommy, sweety, don’t make a fool of yourself in front of our friend. Do it to me, that’s all right. But not in front of our dear Kathy.”

“I don’t see why it’s such a joke,” Tommy said. “It’s as good a theory as anyone else’s.”

“It’s not the theory people will find funny, sweety gums. They might well buy the theory, right enough. But the idea that you’ll swing it by showing Madame your little animals…” Ruth smiled and shook her head.

Tommy said nothing and continued with his stretching. I wanted to come to his defence and was trying to think of just the right thing that would make him feel better without making Ruth even more angry. But that was when Ruth said what she did. It felt bad enough at the time, but I had no idea in the churchyard that day how far-reaching the repercussions would be. What she said was:

“It’s not just me, sweety. Kathy here finds your animals a complete hoot.”

My first instinct was to deny it, then just to laugh. But there was a real authority about the way Ruth had spoken, and the three of us knew each other well enough to know there had to be something behind her words. So in the end I stayed silent, while my mind searched back frantically, and with a cold horror, settled on that night up in my room with our mugs of tea. Then Ruth said:

“As long as people think you’re doing those little creatures as a kind of joke, fine. But don’t give out you’re serious about it. Please.”

Tommy had stopped his stretching and was looking questioningly at me. Suddenly he was really child-like again, with no front whatsoever, and I could see too something dark and troubling gathering behind his eyes.

“Look, Tommy, you’ve got to understand,” Ruth went on. “If Kathy and I have a good laugh about you, it doesn’t really matter. Because that’s just us. But please, let’s not bring everyone else in on it.”

I’ve thought about those moments over and over. I should have found something to say. I could have just denied it, though Tommy probably wouldn’t have believed me. And to try to explain the thing truthfully would have been too complicated. But I could have done something. I could have challenged Ruth, told her she was twisting things, that even if I might have laughed, it wasn’t in the way she was implying. I could even have gone up to Tommy and hugged him, right there in front of Ruth. That’s something that came to me years later, and probably wasn’t a real option at the time, given the person I was, and the way the three of us were with each other. But that might have done it, where words would only have got us in deeper.

But I didn’t say or do anything. It was partly, I suppose, that I was so floored by the fact that Ruth would come out with such a trick. I remember a huge tiredness coming over me, a kind of lethargy in the face of the tangled mess before me. It was like being given a maths problem when your brain’s exhausted, and you know there’s some far-off solution, but you can’t work up the energy even to give it a go. Something in me just gave up. A voice went: “All right, let him think the absolute worst. Let him think it, let him think it.” And I suppose I looked at him with resignation, with a face that said: “Yes, it’s true, what else did you expect?” And I can recall now, as fresh as anything, Tommy’s own face, the anger receding for the moment, being replaced by an expression almost of wonder, like I was a rare butterfly he’d come across on a fence-post.