Laura

I know what Laura looks like. I can envisage her exactly. She's a tiny child, just like her older brother Thomas. When I see her she's running in a garden. It's winter in that garden and Laura is wearing a fitted navy blue woollen coat with a rounded velvet collar. Her hair is white-blonde and falls to her shoulders. She wears a navy blue beret on her head. She's running fast, one arm stretched forward and one leg raised. She's got thin legs and she wears woollen tights which wrinkle at the ankles. She's running so fast that the toe of that stretched-forward foot is pulled back towards her shin. Both of her feet are above the ground as she speeds forward. My image of her is blurred because of the speed at which she moves. Her face is serious - concentrating on what she is doing. She's in the garden at Mount Vernon but I don't know exactly where. Behind her there a flower bed with rose bushes in it. My feeling is that she's running on the front lawn of Mount Vernon but that can't be right because the bank there is too steep for any child to run. But she's definitely somewhere in that garden. Other children will grow up and they will change. Probably they will disappoint. Laura will never grow up. She'll be running in that garden forever. Even when I'm eighty she'll still be running in front of the rose bushes in her navy blue beret.