The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel

Hempstock says that Lettie isn’t really dead,” I said. “But she looked dead. I think she is actually dead. I don’t think it’s true that she’s not dead.”
    Ginnie looked like she was going to say something about the nature of truth, but all she said was, “Lettie’s hurt. Very badly hurt. The ocean has taken her. Honestly, I don’t know if it will ever give her back. But we can hope, can’t we?”
    “Yes.” I squeezed my hands into fists, and I hoped as hard as I knew how.
    We bumped and jolted up the lane at fifteen miles per hour.
    I said, “Was she—is she—really your daughter?” I didn’t know, I still don’t know, why I asked her that. Perhaps I just wanted to know more about the girl who had saved my life, who had rescued me more than once. I didn’t know anything about her.
    “More or less,” said Ginnie. “The men Hempstocks, my brothers, they went out into the world, and they had babies who’ve had babies. There are Hempstock women out there in your world, and I’ll wager each of them is a wonder in her own way. But only Gran and me and Lettie are the pure thing.”
    “She didn’t have a daddy?” I asked.
    “No.”
    “Did you have a daddy?”
    “You’re all questions, aren’t you? No, love. We never went in for that sort of thing. You only need men if you want to breed more men.”
    I said, “You don’t have to take me home. I could stay with you. I could wait until Lettie comes back from the ocean. I could work on your farm, and carry stuff, and learn to drive a tractor.”
    She said, “No,” but she said it kindly. “You get on with your own life. Lettie gave it to you. You just have to grow up and try and be worth it.”
    A flash of resentment. It’s hard enough being alive, trying to survive in the world and find your place in it, to do the things you need to do to get by, without wondering if the thing you just did, whatever it was, was worth someone having… if not died, then having given up her life. It wasn’t fair .
    “Life’s not fair,” said Ginnie, as if I had spoken aloud.
    She turned into our driveway, pulled up outside the front door. I got out and she did too.
    “Better make it easier for you to go home,” she said.
    Mrs. Hempstock rang the doorbell, although the door was never locked, and industriously scraped the soles of her Wellington boots on the doormat until my mother opened the door. She was dressed for bed, and wearing her quilted pink dressing gown.
    “Here he is,” said Ginnie. “Safe and sound, the soldier back from the wars. He had a lovely time at our Lettie’s going-away party, but now it’s time for this young man to get his rest.”
    My mother looked blank—almost confused—and then the confusion was replaced by a smile, as if the world had just reconfigured itself into a form that made sense.
    “Oh, you didn’t have to bring him back,” said my mother. “One of us would have come and picked him up.” Then she looked down at me. “What do you say to Mrs. Hempstock, darling?”
    I said it automatically. “Thank-you-for-having-me.”
    My mother said, “Very good, dear.” Then, “Lettie’s going away?”
    “To Australia,” said Ginnie. “To be with her father. We’ll miss having this little fellow over to play, but, well, we’ll let you know when Lettie comes back. He can come over and play, then.”
    I was getting tired. The party had been fun, although I could not remember much about it. I knew that I would not visit the Hempstock farm again, though. Not unless Lettie was there.
    Australia was a long, long way away. I wondered how long it would be until she came back from Australia with her father. Years, I supposed. Australia was on the other side of the world, across the ocean…
    A small part of my mind remembered an alternate pattern of events and then lost it, as if I had woken from a comfortable sleep and looked around, pulled the bedclothes over me, and returned to my dream.
    Mrs. Hempstock got back into her ancient Land Rover, so bespattered with mud (I could now see, in the light above the front door) that there was almost no trace of the original paintwork visible, and she backed it up, down the drive, toward the lane.
    My mother seemed unbothered that I had returned home in fancy dress clothes at almost eleven at night. She said, “I have some bad news, dear.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Ursula’s had to leave. Family matters. Pressing family matters. She’s already left. I know how much