Author's note: this is a short imagining of what it might have been like on "Hallowday", the morning after Polly's confusing but heroic rescue of Tom. It takes the plot and the characters precisely nowhere (which is quite a propos), I wrote it simpy because I love the book and the characters so much that it's an agony every time I have to leave them. Polly's final line is of course a play on the famous vases and the ways they have found to be together despite Laurel's curse.

But the night is Hallowe'en, Janet

The morn is Hallowday - Tam

Tom and Polly, wet and bedraggled, squinted awkwardly at each other in the sharp cold sunlight coming through the faithful horse-car's windows. It was like waking up again after a series of formless and unsatisfactory dreams, Polly thought, peering at him through her curtain of hair as he drove them the short distance to Granny's. Even the sight of his damp and crumpled parka filled her with pleasure. How could she ever have thought, even for a second, that she'd made him up? He was the realest thing she'd ever seen.

Returning her gaze, or as much of it as he could through her hair, caused Tom to swerve wildly towards the hedges that lined the road.

"It'd be a shame to have gone through all of that and then die in a car accident," Polly remarked, lightly, smiling to herself at the way he was too tall for the car and sat hunched slightly over the steering wheel, like he did his cello.

"I know," Tom agreed in his mild, apologetic way. "I shall have to adapt my driving style now that I'm no longer under ... under their protection. It's just that I can't stop looking at you."

As if to prove his point, he took the bend down towards Granny's road far too widely and over-corrected so that they mounted the kerb briefly.

Tom turned to her again and smiled as he bumped the car back down onto the road: a broad, real smile, uninhibited by guilt. He looked so much younger and more carefree that Polly could see the boy from the photograph in him as she never had before.

Before either of them could speak, Tom realised he'd driven past Granny's house and reversed jerkily back towards it.

Polly thought later that however things had worked out - or were going to work out - with Tom, in fact it would all have been worth it for Granny's face when she opened the door to Polly and Tom on the doorstep.

Granny stared at them for a long second as if in a trance, and then reached shaking arms out to Polly. She really hadn't expected to ever see me again, Polly thought. Polly had to stoop to hug Granny these days and it was uncomfortable, but she would have stayed there forever. Nor did I ever expect to see her again, Polly realised with a sort of dull shock. Good heavens! Thank goodness I didn't realise how brave I was being whilst I was actually having to be it.

When at last she straightened up again, she saw that Granny's eyes had regained their usual sharpness.

"Soaking wet, the pair of you," Granny said, sensibly, nodding at Tom slightly warily and ushering them in. "Tea, toast and hot baths before much else is said."

"I'm afraid there are four more coming on foot, Mrs Whittaker," Tom said politely, "there was only room for us two and the instruments in the car."

"Yes, and I left your umbrella at the station," Polly added. "I'll go back later to - oh, Granny! Look!" Mintchoc was sidling ingratiatingly between Tom's legs, nuzzling him affectionately with her head. Granny and Polly beamed at one another.

"No doubt that he's free of her, then," Granny remarked, nodding at Mintchoc and bustling creakily into the kitchen to put the kettle on. "He really is your Mr Lynn now, Polly."

"No, he can't be that," Polly replied through the doorway, revelling in the relief of warm, dry carpet of the living room against her numb feet as she took off her soaking shoes and socks. "I wouldn't claim him, even if I could." She thought of Mum, and the way she clung on to people, and repressed a shudder. "But he can be his own."

Tom had followed Polly into the living room and he looked at her wonderingly. Before he could speak, the bell rang and the small house was full of people, all wet and cold (though not as much as Polly and Tom), exhausted and restless, sobered by the shock of what they had seen but giddy with relief that Tom was all right. Leslie was the soberest, naturally. Granny wisely put him straight to work frying bacon for sandwiches whilst Ed buttered bread.

Polly and then Tom were sent to hot baths and put into dry clothes afterwards. Polly had taken most of her clothes with her to Oxford, so had to make do with a pair of jeans with such rips in the knee that she'd been saving them to make them into shorts and her old blue school uniform jumper, rather tight, over one of Granny's blouses. If she hadn't been lulled by the ecstasy of the hot bath and the gentle rhythms of the chatter around her (most of it seemed to be good natured teasing of Sam for the quantity of sandwiches and tea he was putting away) she might have felt slightly foolish, until she saw the look on Tom's face as he in his turn emerged from Polly's room where Granny had sent him to dress. The clothes Granny had found for him were old fashioned - so much so that Polly thought they must have been her grandfather's, not her father's. She had never known that Granny had kept any of his things. They suited Tom. She met his gaze and smiled, and then lowered her eyes with a slight blush.

When the clock which stood on the mantelpiece struck eleven, Anne looked from Polly to Granny, who was sitting upright as ever but who looked very old, and stood up, talking about train times and engagements back in London. This broke the peaceful spell which had hung over the morning, the sense of being outside the operation of normal time - like between Christmas and new year, Polly thought. Sam, Anne and Ed had return tickets to London and realised they could make the 12.03 train from Middleton if they left shortly. Tom, of course, had not bought a return ticket.

"But I have the car," he said, cheerfully. "It'll save my cello another train journey, too, which it never enjoys. Leslie, where can I drop you?"

"Back to music college for me, I suppose, Tom," Leslie said, with a brave attempt to match Tom's cheerful tone. Polly reflected that it was probably too late for Leslie to start thinking of him as Uncle Tom, and that Tom would be the happier for it. "Though actually - since we're here... I suppose you could drop me off at Polly's friend Nina's house. I can tell you the way there. I owe her something of an apology, apart from anything else." Polly grinned. Leslie didn't appear to have lost his spirit irreparably and she wasn't sure that he only had apologising in mind.

Once they'd deposited an only slightly sheepish Leslie into Nina's embraces, Polly climbed from the back seat into the front to sit by Tom again, giving the car an affectionate stroke as she did so.

"I'm still learning how to drive in an unheroic way," Tom conceded as he pulled out in the path of an incoming car. He put the brakes on hurriedly as another turned out of a side road in front of him. "I'll have to go more slowly, I think. I'm afraid it'll take a lot longer."

"That's all right, Tom", Polly said, and the back of her hand brushed lightly against his as she adjusted her position in the car to curl her legs up under her. Rain was starting to slither down against the car windows as he steered them, more cautiously, towards the main road. "After all," she added, her soft smile spreading into an out and out grin of sheer happiness, "you and I, we're not going anywhere."