Page 15

Alma gazed at the photograph of her great-grandson and her chest suffered the usual stab of pain, for even though her mind knew that he had gone, her heart was resistant to the truth and, therefore, every time she contemplated his face, she experienced the same sense of disbelief and bewilderment that his death had at first aroused.

Joshua stared out with big brown eyes full of innocence and wonder.

The world had been new and exciting to him, the road ahead abundant with possibilities.

He could have been anyone, done anything.

He might have made something of his life or he might have squandered the opportunities, but he hadn’t been given the chance to find out.

He’d lived only five years, but in that short time he had shared more love than many shared in a lifetime.

He had touched the hearts of all those he met, with his courage, with his peculiar and baffling wisdom, with his joy and enthusiasm that shone even when his small body was weak and suffering.

Even then his love never dimmed and he still found more to give.

It had awoken Alma, as if from a deep slumber; igniting in her a light that she now recognised for what it was: love.

And she was sorry that it had taken nearly a century to discover it.

Alma had known loss, lots of it – her father had died when she was fifteen, her sister Esme had left the world thirty-five years ago, and Alma had buried two husbands, but none of those deaths had impacted her in the way that little Joshua’s had.

The power of her reaction astonished her, being as it was so visceral.

She grieved for her great-grandson with all her heart, and in so doing she grieved for the love she hadn’t given.

Because now she knew what love was. She regretted her failure to love her daughter and granddaughter, her husbands and her friends, in the manner that they’d deserved.

That’s not to say that she had never felt affection or tenderness; she had in her own way – cautiously, distantly – but the love she had felt for Joshua and the pain at losing that love had rendered all other shades of it inferior.

Joshua had inspired in her a deeper affection that was totally selfless.

For the first time in her life, she’d loved someone more than she loved herself, unconditionally, and it hurt.

Oh, how it hurt, right to the marrow of her bones. Real love hurt.

When she looked back to her own childhood, the memory that shone brighter than all the others was the one of her parents coming to kiss her goodnight.

She’d pretended she’d already been asleep and, believing that their daughter wouldn’t hear, her father had said to her mother, ‘What a tragedy it is that she was not born a boy.’

And her mother agreed. ‘I so longed for a boy,’ she said mournfully. ‘And now it is too late.’

Alma never cried. She had wrapped her heart in an iron shield to protect it from the ache of not feeling wanted and she had retreated into herself, growing selfish and inconsiderate of others.

She had never allowed herself to cry. But she had cried when Joshua had left the world and she had cried a lot since.

And she had tried to make sense of life and her purpose here on earth.

As she faced her own death, for surely it wasn’t far away, she scrabbled about in the dark for answers.

What was it all for? Would she be reunited with Joshua?

Would she be reunited with those who had loved her?

Would she be given the opportunity to say she was sorry; she just hadn’t known how to love and she hadn’t dared trust it when it was shown to her.

Joshua had been Alma’s only great-grandchild.

The moment Alma had looked into his crib and those misty eyes had stared back at her, a spark of recognition had ignited within her, like the striking of a match that had never before been lit.

The effect had been momentous. She’d known him.

Of course, that wasn’t possible. She couldn’t know someone she had never met before.

But she’d recognised him on a deeper level, in the love that had flooded her heart and filled it with something warm and sticky, like honey.

She had felt love like that once, she was sure of it, because it felt so familiar, but she couldn’t say when or for whom she had felt it.

Nevertheless, in that moment of recognition, a veil had been lifted and she had crossed into a world where love and pain walked hand in hand – for with the discovery of love came the fear of losing it.

As soon as Joshua could speak he called her Mamie, even though his mother had tried to give her the name Great-Granny Alma.

Joshua had invented a word that had been his alone and Alma had basked in the fact that it was special and unique, and created only for her.

She was his Mamie and that name seemed to have a touch of magic because every time he uttered it, the honey in her heart warmed and spread into every corner of her being.

Joshua hadn’t been more intelligent than other toddlers and he hadn’t been quicker to learn to speak or read or walk – in fact in those respects he’d been quite delayed.

He’d shown no signs of being especially brilliant.

But he’d had enormous charm and a strange, otherworldly wisdom that had revealed itself when he’d become sick with an aggressive brain tumour.

He’d only been four years old, a frail little thing in an oversized bed with his head bald and his skin as thin as tissue paper.

But he’d looked into his great-grandmother’s stricken face and smiled beatifically.

‘Don’t be sad, Mamie. I’m going home,’ he’d told her.

Alma had been so taken aback, she didn’t know what to say.

He added, squeezing her hand to comfort her, ‘I’ll wait for you there.

’ When Alma told Leona, her daughter thought she was making it up – no four-year-old child would ever say such a thing.

But Alma wasn’t making it up. And Joshua said many other strange things that belied his tender age and limited experience.

He was certain he was going home and very confident of what he would find there.

‘Do you know, Mamie, the colours are very different. There are colours you haven’t even seen before.

You wait. You won’t believe it.’ And those were not the words of a little boy, but a wise old man, and Alma believed herself in the presence of an angel.

She spent many hours at his hospital bedside, playing with the finger puppets he made, and precious moments stroking his brow and telling him stories when he was sent home to die; when the pain got too much, when it was so much bigger than him and he struggled to bear it.

Never once did he lose courage. Alma did.

Watching him suffer was torture and she wished that she could have borne it for him.

But Joshua endured it bravely and always managed to rally and surprise everyone with a smile.

In fact, the closer he got to leaving the world, the more light seemed to shine out of him.

The more serene he became, and expectant.

Indeed, he welcomed death like a familiar friend who was once again coming to escort him home.

‘I’m not scared of dying, Mamie. There’s nothing to be scared of.

You aren’t scared, are you, Mamie? Because I’m not.

’ And Alma didn’t share those words with Leona.

She kept them to herself and ruminated on them long and hard.

And she wanted to believe in heaven too.

In a place where she and Joshua would be reunited.

But a worry simmered in the pit of her conscience.

A worry she couldn’t articulate to anyone else, because she was too ashamed.

What if she didn’t deserve to go to heaven?

She wasn’t even sure she believed in God.

That’s why she needed to find the Potemkin Diamond.

She had a grand scheme, but she needed the money to pull it off.

It was her only hope. Her only hope of redemption.

The telephone rang. Alma put the photograph in its silver frame back on her bedside table and answered it. ‘Hello?’

‘Mrs Aldershoff …’

‘Mr Stirling? Have you news?’

‘Pixie Tate, the woman I was telling you about, has arrived and would like to meet you, if you’re able to come by.’

Alma’s heart gave a skip. ‘Oh, yes, I can come by.’

‘Perhaps tomorrow morning. Shall we say ten?’

‘That would be fine. Has she said anything? Has she communicated with Lester?’

Mr Stirling cleared his throat. ‘Only to say that it is, indeed, Lester Ravenglass who is haunting the hotel. I’m confident that she can see him off, but it would be helpful if you could come and tell her a bit about him.’

Alma didn’t have much information, but she would try to dig out a photograph. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you at ten.’

She turned her eyes to the photograph of Joshua and her thoughts focused once again on the Potemkin Diamond. She felt for the little key that hung about her neck and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Please,’ she whispered, thinking of her father. ‘Tell me where it is.’