RICH IN MYTH, MYSTERY, WARMTH AND WIT — A TOUCHING NOVEL ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ALIVE.

When April Turner’s small son is killed by a car, she decides she is no longer entitled to anything but the barest existence. Five years on, she has shed everything and everyone she loves, and expects to be this way for ever. Then a letter arrives from an English solicitor, informing April that she is the last surviving heir to Empyrean, a long-abandoned country house.

At first, April resists. But with the letter comes a map full of tiny mysteries, and she is drawn all the way from New Zealand to the English countryside, and into a small but intriguing circle of people: musician Oran, who remains loyal to his faithless wife; Jack, who lives wild in the woods with a dog; and Sunny, Lady Day, approaching ninety but more vital than others half her age.

Sunny knew Empyrean in its prime, and her stories bring the past to life. But will April be prepared to give up her principles and start coming alive again herself?

Robertson’s previous books have been reviewed as ‘warm, laugh-out-loud, funny romantic’, ‘an earthy, authentic tale of love and loss’, ‘quirky, funny and unafraid’, ‘wry and endearing … humorous and evocative’, ‘wickedly funny, clever and well-written’, ‘poignant, warm and entertaining’, ‘a wonderful read’.

THE
HIDING
PLACES

CATHERINE
ROBERTSON

For my mother, who was never one for
unrestrained displays of emotion but
who I hope would have said she quite
enjoyed reading this book

I will bury something, so that in spring
I can dig it up again

— ‘SPELL FOR COLD WEATHER’, HELEN LEHNDORF

PROLOGUE

January, 1947

James lay in the snow, puzzled by the fact he felt hot. Only minutes before, the cold, like a marauding army, had breached the barricades of his coat and woollen layers and rioted through his body, robbing him of breath and strength, so that he’d had no choice but to collapse into the snow and lie there, staring upwards through a blur of branches at the grey-white sky. He’d felt the cold begin to shut him down, extinguish him bit by bit as a housemaid snuffs out candles. Then, suddenly, as if his internal forces had rallied, James’s body had heated up again, to the point where he was now uncomfortably, restlessly feverish.

If he could move, James thought, he would leap up, strip off jersey, coat and boots and launch himself naked into the snow, which would surely hiss and steam as it made contact with his burning skin.

But he was locked immobile, lying there flat on his back as if he’d fallen out of the sky. Even the tears that the cold wind had stung from his eyes had iced up and could not flow. If someone found him they would have to carry him. No hope that he could walk out of here on his own.

Who would come, though? No one knew where he was. The one person who might have found him, who knew these woods so well, was dead, and even if ghosts did walk, they could hardly bear a grown man’s weight.

Nor would that particular ghost want to. Even though he was the most forgiving person James had ever known.

Did James want forgiveness? It seemed selfish to pray to God for his own second chance when his selfishness had caused so much pain already. If he did send any words skywards, they should be for the people who were left, who’d been so damaged by his lies. They were the ones who deserved to behold the stars.

Or perhaps he would be better off sending his words down into the earth, to where the old spirits slept. He was closer to them than he was to God in Heaven, after all, lying here on this snow-blanketed ground. The old spirits cared nothing for morality or sin and only for the sap that rose and ebbed, the rain, wind, sun and snow, sex and birth and death. That said, chances were high they didn’t give two hoots about James, either. Maybe, though, if they wouldn’t save him, they’d send a robin to cover him with leaves.

Robin redbreast had covered the dead babes, abandoned in the woods by their avaricious uncle. The pretty babes were innocent, thought James, and they had not wanted to die in each other’s arms. James knew he was not innocent, but though ice was splintering his mind, he was fairly sure that dying had not been his intention when he’d set out earlier into the snow. Then again, he thought, it was entirely possible that whatever he’d intended was immaterial. God or Fate or whatever force was in charge of natural justice might well have already decided how it should be; his path had already been chosen. Celestial symmetry was at work and he was powerless to interrupt it. His eye must be taken. His punishment must fit his crime. The bad choices he’d made during his life were being accounted for now. His chickens were coming home to roost, every one of them having laid a sulphurous rotten egg.

He knew it was no good protesting that he couldn’t have helped it, because his nature was fundamentally bad, his mind diseased. James could remember with perfect clarity the moment he’d decided to act. He’d recognised the evil in his thoughts — why not, that darkness had been his companion all his life — but he could not say it had possessed him. His choices, his actions, had been of his own free will. And now, for that offence, the great axe would fall.

James had an urge to burrow, to make a cave in which he could curl up and sleep, but his fingers had abandoned him. Above, the only direction in which his eyes could look, the trees appeared to coalesce, and for a moment James thought they formed the shape of an antlered head. A stag. King of the forest. No, not a stag, he saw, as the head came closer. A man, framed by black winter branches.

You, thought James. Finally, you let me catch you.

The man above him sighed, but though their faces were only inches apart, James could not feel any waft of breath. He did not feel the warmth of the fingers, either, as their calloused tips rested gently on his eyelids and pressed them shut.

CHAPTER 1

early February

The man at the door did not look like a harbinger. He looked, April thought, like the kind of man sent by disgruntled business owners to collect overdue debts, which he would achieve by installing his overfed and unkempt presence in the debtor’s reception area until someone thrust a cheque at him to make him leave.

A harbinger. More than a messenger. One who forewarned. Centuries ago, April remembered from somewhere, harbingers rode ahead of a royal party and sought out lodgings. Not a room at The Fat Lady’s Arms but a large country estate belonging to a rich man who would be demonstrably less rich afterwards, royal parties being a lot like swarms of locusts, or the tiger in the children’s book, who came to tea and managed to eat and drink everything, even all the water from the tap. No wonder forewarning was required, thought April, because you certainly didn’t have the option to pretend you weren’t home. ‘Back in five minutes’ would not cut it when his or her glorious majesty was trotting up to the portcullis.

When she heard the man knock, April had considered pretending she wasn’t home. The only person who knocked on her door was her neighbour, Norman, keen to know if today might be the day she’d found God. April had learned through trial and error that the answer least likely to encourage Norman to rush back to his flat and gather up all his pamphlets was a simple ‘No’, followed by the firm closing of her door.

April did have a fuller answer in mind. The last time she’d had anything to do with God, He’d sent her a sign that she could not ignore. She had acted on it, had given Him his eye for an eye, and God had left her alone. When — if — God ever wanted her back, April assumed He would give her another sign, one (mysterious ways aside) unlikely to be delivered by Norman. But that would presuppose that God had only abandoned her temporarily. And April was not sure He’d been there for her in the first place.

Easiest, too, to keep that answer to herself. April had had enough of Norman’s pamphlets. She used them to stuff the cracks in her window frames, and prop up the shorter leg of her thrift shop table.

Today, the door-knock had not sounded like Norman’s eternally buoyant rap, which is why April had been less reluctant to answer. She wasn’t so sure now that less reluctance had been warranted. Because in the meanly lit corridor outside number 9 Circle Court, stood the man who looked like a debt collector, but who was really a harbinger. Except, if April understood him correctly, for one vital difference. He wasn’t seeking out a large country estate. He was offering one to her.

‘Wouldn’t blame you for thinking it’s like being the millionth lucky visitor, or Mr Obasanjo respectfully requesting your bank account so you can share in his good fortune,’ he said. ‘But it’s legit, and it’s all in here.’

He extracted an envelope from the pocket of a jacket that, stain-wise, rivalled an infant’s bib, and handed it to April.

‘But how can you be sure it’s for me?’ she said. ‘And how did you find me anyway?’

He grinned. There was a patch on his left cheek that the razor had missed. If he ever grew a beard, April saw, it would be ginger. There’d been the faintest possibility that Ben’s hair might have been ginger, but it had come out blond. His father had been so relieved.

‘Helpful contacts in various agencies of various governments, and Bob’s your uncle. Or in your case, it’s Wilfred, and he’s your great-great-grandfather on your mother’s side. Your father, of course, having immigrated to New Zealand in the 1950s, which is why you were able to obtain a UK passport. By the way, if you want to travel on it, it’s about to expire.’

‘It’s true then that the government spies on us?’ said April.

‘I’m a private individual,’ said the man. ‘And, personally, I’d be more worried about Google.’

Out of the pocket that had contained the letter, he now pulled a crushed pack of cigarettes. There was a policy of no smoking in the shared areas of Circle Court. The man would not be the first to ignore it.

‘Do you have a card?’ April had an urge to clutch at his arm. Don’t leave me with this, she wanted to say. Even if it’s nonsense, I don’t want to deal with it.

‘It’s all in the letter,’ said the man. ‘Who you need to call. I did a bit of research on him, too, if it’s any help. I like to know I’ll get my bills paid. Forty-eight. Never married. Owns two houses, no mortgage. Hasn’t been struck off.’

‘Do you know everything about everyone?’ April was both repelled and rather envious.

He slotted a cigarette into the right-hand corner of his mouth. It did not make him look like Bogart.

‘I probe what is knowable, and quietly revere what is unknowable.’ The cigarette bobbed on his lower lip. ‘Goethe, if you’re wondering.’

The least of my wonders, April thought. She shut the door behind him, and went and sat quietly on the couch. The envelope in her hand was white, with a weave — good-quality stationery, the sort these days you have to order from a specialist supplier. No, not a supplier — a purveyor. The letter inside would be on matching paper. April also anticipated a watermark, or some kind of embossing. Or perhaps just a neatly printed address in an old-fashioned typeface, the thin and careful kind, no flourishes.

April held the envelope in both hands. It felt heavier than it ought to, given that it held, physically at least, nothing but paper; she’d pressed her thumbs into it to make sure. Her nameless visitor — the private individual had not introduced himself — had given her a précis of the envelope’s contents. Assuming he had not lied (and why would he?), this meant April had already experienced surprise, so it followed that the contents of the envelope should now be inactive, inert. The blue wire of the device had been cut, the ticking halted. All that the envelope held was confirmation of what April already knew.

But that wasn’t true, thought April. She may know what it said, but she had no idea what it meant. Her life had been changed once before — suddenly, without warning. In one moment, she’d made a bad decision and lost everything, and she had continued to pay for that, as she knew she must, by reclaiming nothing.

But now — suddenly, without warning — it appeared someone wanted her to have more than nothing. Substantially something, in fact. A whole house.

She didn’t have to take it, though, did she? She couldn’t be forced to make any decision, good or bad.

April worked her index finger in under the flap, sealed, she was sure, not by spit but by one of those moistened sponges that sits in a small container. There was one in the office of the community education centre where she worked a few hours a week teaching English to immigrants. The centre also still had a Gestetner machine that was supposed to be used as a back-up when the printer failed, though April knew some of the staff actually preferred to roll off the warm sheets piquant with purple spirit ink.

The letter, as she’d expected, matched the envelope. The name in the upper right-hand corner was in a thin, careful serif typeface, no logo or symbol, and said, simply, Dunne and Hollander, Solicitors. Smaller print gave their location as the town of Kingsfield, which, April read, was in the English county of Buckinghamshire.

Scanning to the signature, April saw that the letter was from neither a Mr Dunne nor a Mr Hollander (instinct discounted the possibility of either being a Ms). It was from a Mr Gill. Edward V. Gill. Whom April now knew to be forty-eight, unwed and, if he weren’t in thrall to a blackmailer, a man of means.

He was still working as a solicitor, so unless he felt it to be some sort of divine calling, April decided, he could hardly be awash with cash. But mortgage-free on two houses put him safely in the financial category known as ‘rich’, in contrast to April’s own status, which hovered just above ‘breadline’. She could afford the rent on number 9 because Circle Court had been built for people who, in removed, bland officialese, ‘faced barriers in the mainstream rental market’. Circle Court housed those who were mentally ill, infirm or old, but not mentally ill, infirm or old enough to be eligible for subsidised care in an institution. April did not actually consider herself to be mentally ill — her choices had been made with a clear head — but that was not an opinion shared by the medical profession. They did allow that she was ‘functioning’ — a term April felt was as apt as any. She breathed, she ate, she slept and she did a small amount of unchallenging, very badly paid work. Those were functions and she performed them. Ergo she was functioning.

It was not much of a life, April knew, but she had chosen for it to be so. She had created it to replace her old life, which had ended when Ben died. When her five-year-old son had been struck by a car outside his school, his small, blond body punted clumsily sideways, like a football kicked by an amateur. The driver was not at fault. Ben had run straight from the school gate out onto the road. He was killed instantly. It was his second day.

April’s old life had ended then, but, unlike her beautiful boy, had taken time to die. She’d stayed in the house for a few weeks, stayed with her husband, with the stuffed bears, the dinosaur T-shirts, the photos and felt-pen drawings on the fridge. She’d heard what everyone had to say about grief and she’d known they were right, but also completely, utterly wrong. Then she’d left, taking nothing with her, and she’d created a new life more fit for purpose. More suited to who she needed to become.

Her new life required that she sever all ties, but, despite her best efforts, remnants of her old life had lingered for months — friends, her husband and his large family, Ben’s aunts, uncles, grandparents. April’s own parents were already dead; she had been an autumn-years child. She stopped regretting that they had never known their grandson.

Those remnants of her old life had been like ghosts, their attempts to catch hold of her always failing, each time their hands slipping through. Or perhaps I’d been the ghost, thought April. In either case, there was no way to reconnect. There was no song to be sung, no bargain to be made that would bring her back. Five years had passed. No one was reaching for her now.

Except, it seemed, for Edward V. Gill.

April had so far resisted reading the body of his letter. She had certainly not glanced at the other documents enclosed. It occurred to her that she could burn the lot. But something — the slant of the signature? — suggested to April that one letter from Edward Gill would be duly followed by another, which would be followed by a phone call (the private individual no doubt already had her number), and possibly by the presence of Mr Gill himself.

April wondered what he looked like. Gregory Peck, playing Atticus Finch, came to mind. Wishful thinking, April decided. At forty-eight, Mr Gill was undoubtedly on the inevitable slide towards the kind of desiccated stiffness that, thanks to Dickens, everyone always associated with English solicitors. Edward Gill would be dry and proper, and dedicated to duty. There would be no shaking him off.

A rap at the door. Norman. He knew she was home; she was always home at this time, so there was no escape. April moved to set the letter aside, then changed her mind and took it with her to the door, as if words written by the resolute Edward Gill would act as a talisman.

It wasn’t Norman. It was Stiff, from number 3. April had never asked what his real name was. For all she knew, that could be it.

Stiff was dressed in a leather kilt, black mesh singlet and boots with ten rows of buckles, a look he had sported since 1988. Back then, it had been intimidating but over the decades had lost its edge. Now, it was Stiff’s scowl and hunched, muttering stride that caused people to avoid him. Stiff had dyed black hair and, until recently, multiple body piercings. The holes were still there but the studs removed, owing to them being, Stiff had told her, receivers for radio waves that fed government propaganda directly into your brainstem. April had doubts that the brainstem was the primary source of cognitive control, but she kept those to herself.

Stiff did not often talk to April. He never knocked on her door. Obviously, this was a day for unexpected callers. April hoped Stiff’s news would be less unsettling, though instinct told her that was unlikely.

‘Jenny said to tell you she’s in hospital,’ said Stiff. His eyes rolled backwards a little, as if to retrieve the next message. ‘And you’re not to worry.’

Jenny, number 4, was in her early seventies. She had rheumatoid arthritis, which was contracting her hands into useless stubs. The list of household tasks she could manage was becoming shorter every week, but Jenny did not seem to think she needed help. Jenny did not seem to need anything. Though effectively a cripple, she was as buoyant as Norman, but without the wearisome zeal. It drew the other Circle Court-dwellers to her, drew them to overcome their natural preference to avoid others, to hide in the shadows. She inspired them to come to her like pilgrims, April felt. Inspired them to believe Jenny had a cure for their own particular affliction.

Jenny had cropped iron-grey hair, and wore navy blue polyester skirts and blouses buttoned up to the neck, all of which made her look like a retired nun. April had never noticed a cross or heard Jenny speak of God, so if she had indeed been a nun, she did not advertise it. Whatever it was that made Jenny strong, she was content to keep on the inside.

‘She’s in hospital?’ said April. ‘What happened?’

‘Spilled the jug. Burned herself.’

‘Crap.’ April hit her forehead lightly against the door.

‘She’ll be all right. Long as she stays away from the computers.’

‘Computers?’

‘Microsoft. Their systems launch genetically targeted viruses.’

That was a new one.

April had opened the door only halfway. Now, she began to inch it shut again.

‘Well, thank you for letting me know.’

‘What’s that?’ Stiff pointed to the letter.

‘Something I need to read now.’

‘For your work?’

Stiff had never been employed. Work for him held a mythic quality. Mind control and weaponised viruses were much more real.

‘Yes.’ It was easiest. ‘Goodbye.’

April shut the door.

The sudden quiet in her tiny flat felt ominous, as if each dim corner could be concealing a hostile intruder, or a clawed beast waiting to pounce.

A harbinger, thought April. Foreshadower of things to come.

She sat back down on the couch, reminding herself that the act of reading constituted no commitment. She would read only to discover what words of poetic power Mr Edward V. Gill, MA, LLB, might have set down on the page, as he invited her to stray from her chosen path and become the new owner of an old, abandoned country house.

CHAPTER 2

early February

‘You’re an heiress!’

Now there’s a word to conjure with, thought April. But for her the doves that flew out from under the handkerchief were women with large fortunes, aristocratic privileges and quicksilver names, like Consuelo Vanderbilt or Evelina de Rothschild. Not plain women with plain lives and workaday names like April Turner.

But the word, the idea, pleased Jenny, and Jenny certainly deserved a bit of pleasure. Jenny’s was not the worst kind of burn — she’d only stayed one night in hospital — but her hand was bandaged up tight. The fat wrappings, April observed, did not make her hand much less useless than it had been before.

An heiress. It was an attractive idea and, as such, April had an immediate need to make it less so. In this case, not so hard to do. Edward Gill had been honest in his assessment of her inheritance.

‘The house is almost a ruin,’ April said. ‘The Potts’s place has gone to pot.’

‘But there’s land?’

‘Not as much as there used to be. The farm was sold off in the 1940s. But yes, there’s some.’

‘Then you could develop it.’

April had to laugh. ‘Hark at you, Donald Trump. In theory, I suppose it could be done. In practice, I’d need big wads of cash and, as we speak, my cash position is strictly wad-less.’

‘What about your savings?’

Jenny’s bottle-lensed spectacles had a magnifying effect on her eyes. It was disconcerting, like being gazed at by a bush baby, but it did mean you were in no doubt about her kindliness or sincerity. Despite knowing Jenny was only being helpful, April regretted ever mentioning her savings. It made her uneasy and guilty, and not just because she knew Jenny had none of her own, subsisting only on a meagre pension. April, too, lived on a benefit, plus her tiny wage from the community education centre. If that had been all, she’d feel less guilty. But she also had money inherited from her parents, which they had earmarked in their will for any children April might have. It wasn’t much, a few thousand, but April now could not bring herself to touch it.

‘My savings still fall a good way short of a wad,’ said April.

‘Keep a little bit of the land for yourself, then,’ said Jenny, ‘and sell the rest to give you the money to build another house, a smaller one, a cottage, just for you. You might not even need to touch your savings.’

April wished Jenny would stop. Stop picturing a life for April that was not only so far beyond the bounds April had set but also so much better than Jenny’s own. April began to wish that Jenny were not kind and enthusiastic, but selfish, small-minded and gloomy. Every word Jenny spoke made the idea of owning this place sound real, and April knew that one idea gathered others to it, the way a flower gathered butterflies, and before you knew it there’d be a flock of them, fluttering their pretty wings and filling your mind with dangerous fancies. Even after five years, those butterfly ideas were still finding their way in. She had to snatch them out of the air before they got too far, and pin them dead.

‘I don’t want it,’ she said.

Jenny looked surprised. ‘You don’t want the responsibility?’

Responsibility. No gentle doves conjured by this word. This word was a correction. A lesson learned once and never forgotten.

When she’d closed her old life and opened a new one, April had been careful to fill it with as little as possible. There was no room for anything she would have to be responsible for. She could not be responsible. She’d proved that beyond doubt.

‘I don’t need a house,’ said April. ‘I don’t want anything I don’t need.’

Jenny reached down with her good hand — if you could call it that — and picked up her mug of tea. She did this by hooking her two middle fingers into the handle, the remaining two being crabbed almost flat against her palm on either side, and clamping down on the top of the handle with her thumb. The mug could only be filled halfway or it became too heavy for her to lift. Usually at this point, watching the mug rise from the table, April felt anxious. Today, the anxiety was tenfold, and April could not blame it all on Jenny’s accident.

Jenny rested the mug on her lap, propping it up with her bandaged hand. ‘Then sell it,’ she said, ‘and you won’t have to think about it again.’

Sell it. Of course. But even that meant accepting that the house was hers. Why couldn’t she just forget about it, ignore it?

‘I’d have to go to England,’ she said. ‘And I’ve just started teaching a new course. And I’d still need to pay my rent, so I might not be able to afford airfares or accommodation. And I don’t think the government’s keen on beneficiaries travelling. And my passport is about to expire. And—’

‘Is the lawyer you’re dealing with reputable?’

If April hadn’t known better, she’d have decided Jenny meant the question to act as a verbal slap. Either way, it had the same effect. April drew breath.

‘So I’ve been led to believe.’

‘Then I imagine he could execute your wishes without you being present. It would take longer, obviously, sending documents back and forth to be signed. But if he’s trustworthy, then there should be no difficulties.’

No difficulties. On the face of it, then, a simple decision. Make it and life would return to normal.

‘What would you do?’ April rather hated herself for asking.

‘I would sell it, and I would give the money to the church.’

‘Really?’

‘I wouldn’t be able to live in it, would I? If it’s almost a ruin?’

‘I suppose not,’ said April. ‘But — the church?’

‘I’d ask that they use it to help the poor,’ said Jenny. ‘If they chose not to, I’d never know, so no matter — we’d both be happy.’

‘What about spending it on yourself?’

It had occurred to April that she could give the money to Jenny. Jenny deserved it; April did not.

But Jenny said, with genuine bewilderment, ‘What would I buy?’

‘You could hire someone to help you around the flat.’

‘Oh, my dear,’ said Jenny. ‘I know it’s only a matter of time before I can no longer live alone. But this is New Zealand, not the third world, and we still have an adequate state-funded health system. I will be cared for, don’t you worry. Until then, though, I intend to press on living my life.’ She tilted her mug in salute. ‘And to drink tea right to the end.’

The corridor outside Jenny’s flat seemed more dingy and close than ever. April had a sudden craving for fresh air, so she headed for the stairs that led down to the garden. As she passed Norman’s front door, he opened it. April braced herself, then saw he was dressed in his street-preaching clothes — a neat suit and fedora hat, as if he’d time-warped from the 1950s. He would not stop for her. A thousand sinners would soon be trudging home from work, and their evening commute would not be complete without Norman on the corner, a pamphlet and smile for every last lost soul, oblivious to the fact that all who walked by thought he was the one past hope.

He tipped his hat as he passed April, and said, ‘Remember Jesus’ words: In my Father’s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.’

April wondered briefly if the private individual had met Norman on his way out, but dismissed the idea. Norman was the equivalent of a Biblical quotation fruit machine. Pull the lever and up they came — ching, ching, ching. He had hundreds of them; the fact he’d used that one was pure chance.

Besides, any God who’d decided she’d deserved to watch her son die would hardly throw open His front door to her, no matter how many rooms He had free. He’d treat her the way she treated Norman, with a polite but adamant shake of the head. Or, like most of those who passed Norman on the street, pretend He didn’t even see.

April sat in the Circle Court garden, mentally adding, as she did every time, inverted commas around the word. The garden was a concrete square that abutted the car park. The two cars in it belonged to the students in the rambling villa next door, most Circle Court residents being prevented from driving by their lack of means or, more commonly, the law. The villa was in exactly the right position to block the garden’s light most of the day, but then, April felt, there were parts you were grateful to have obscured. Bolted into the concrete were two wooden bench seats, worn from use and abuse, splintered cracks showing the strata of repainting, from muddy yellow to today’s mould-spore grey. The broad-leafed, dense, dark shrubs were the kind that make you inclined to give up as lost for good any cricket balls that roll underneath, rather than stick your hand in to search for them. Cigarette butts lay everywhere, as if they’d been shed like seed heads from a dying tree.

It was February. In New Zealand, summertime, though sitting here in the drear shadow of the Circle Court garden, you might not believe it. In England, April thought, it was winter. Proper snowy winter, as promised on the Christmas cards.

It rarely snowed in the city where April lived, and if it did, it was thin sleet, never enough to settle. But she had seen snow, been to the mountains, even tried skiing once with Ben’s father when they were first going out. April had spent a lot of time falling on her backside and being passed by small children, who all seemed to be able to swish down the powder like bite-size Olympic champions. Ben’s father was an excellent skier, so all April had seen of him was his back as he disappeared, and a flurry of snow as he whooshed to a stop beside her and asked her how she was doing. As April was very much in love with him, she replied each time that she was having a blast. Whereupon he would smile and shoot off again in the direction of the nearest vertical slope.

Money had been tight when they’d first had Ben, and he had been four years old before they took their first trip back up the mountain. April had half hoped he wouldn’t like the cold, so she could use him as an excuse to stay in the lodge by the fire and drink hot chocolate. But Ben had loved it, loved the snow, loved falling over into it, loved being cheered on by Daddy when he managed to stay upright and shuffle forward a few inches. April, not really minding that she was superfluous, had sat in the lodge anyway, and at five o’clock been ready with hot chocolate for two beaming, proud males, one of whom had fallen almost instantly asleep in his father’s lap.

They had been planning another ski trip the year Ben started school. April could not now recall much of that winter. It had been as if she, too, had been buried, but alive, in a place with no light and barely enough air. Those few weeks before she made the decision to leave behind her old life were blurred and dark, but she could recall the moment of that decision with perfect clarity, as a glass knife that had severed all ties with a single cut. The reality of the separation had not been so straightforward, but April had not wavered. In her mind, her old life was already gone.

That life had been full of possibility. Even though it had the usual constraints of income and time to get stuff done, it had felt expansive, the future opening out before them like arms spread wide in welcome.

Which is why she had designed her new life to be exactly the opposite. Her reasoning was that she had given up the rights to joy, love and a future when her son lost all of those along with his life. No one in her old life had ever seen the sense in this, but to April it was clear as day. Her life now was shrunk down and tightly wrapped, rationed and restricted. Her sole purpose these days was to follow the same thin, undeviating line for as long as she was required to — likely forever — and to stave off any temptation to stray.

April had read once about a monastery in Greece where the monks went to great lengths to make their world impregnable by temptation. Not only did they take a vow of silence and chastity, but they also allowed only male animals inside the walls. Even hens were banned; eggs were delivered by the local farmers. Not even Her Majesty the Queen had been allowed to visit. She’d had to wait in a boat until Philip returned.

In her new life, April had kept temptation outside her walls by having nothing within them that could beguile her into wanting more. However, she thought as she left the garden and took the stairs back to her flat, the outer world and the inner were two very different places. In April’s experience even the bleakest and most spartan of environments could not completely shut out those butterfly ideas. In fact, the duller the background, the more the cursed things seemed to glow.

Take this house. Even though Edward Gill had not described it past warning her that it was in bad repair, the idea of it had begun to form in April’s mind. Try as she might to contain them, images of it flickered like an old home movie, continuing the story Edward Gill had written to her.

He’d told her that the house had been built in the 1920s by a rich businessman, a Mr Lewis Potts, and abandoned in the ’60s when he’d died, his only son having predeceased him. Mr Potts had, according to Edward Gill, willed the care of the property to the gamekeeper at the time, for as long as the young man wanted to stay. The gamekeeper had stayed for over fifty years until last November when, aged seventy-one, he’d met a widow on the internet and emigrated to Canada. April fancied she could hear disapproval in Edward Gill’s tone. She’d already decided that Mr Gill would be cautious and considered, and would leave Canadian widows well alone.

The departure of the gamekeeper had forced Edward Gill, as executor of the estate, to make a decision about its future. Mr Potts had not expressed any wishes about selling; Edward Gill’s opinion was that, for all Mr Potts cared, it could be left to rot. Which, unless an heir could be found, was exactly what would happen. An heir would almost certainly want to sell — any restoration would be tricky and expensive — and the estate would then most likely be carved up for development. Or the buyer might be just the sort of person who liked a challenge, in which case the house could be returned to its full, non-architecturally significant glory. Either way, it would be more dignified than a sad decline into decay. That is if an heir could be found, which seemed unlikely when, for over fifty years, none had made themselves apparent (Edward Gill apologised for the pun). Unwilling to fall at the first hurdle, Mr Gill had obtained the services of a genealogist, who’d uncovered that Mr Potts had a younger brother, who had left at the end of the nineteenth century to farm sheep in Canterbury, in New Zealand’s South Island. He was April’s great-great-grandfather Wilfred, and, thanks to his family from then on doing considerably less breeding than their sheep, April was his sole living descendant, and (the genealogist had double-checked) the sole living heir of the late Mr Lewis Potts. Current address easily found by the private individual with contacts, whose services had also been obtained by Mr Gill.

April shut the door of her flat behind her. The envelope the private individual had delivered still sat on her table, still plump with documents April had not dared look at. But it was like murmurs heard through a half-closed door — your imagination creates the story for you, and though you know full well there’s a true story that’s much less exciting, yours becomes the one you believe. Hidden words were secret words, and secrets kept had power.

The envelope held only one other document. Edward Gill had enclosed a copy of a large old-fashioned pen and ink drawing of the property, an aerial view that showed only the outline of the house and where it sat on the land — woods behind, farmland to the side. There was a walled garden, April saw, as she opened the map out fold by fold, and what appeared to be a large lawn. There were outbuildings — a garage, stables and, on the edge of the woods, some distance from the main house, the gamekeeper’s cottage. The cottage alone, Mr Gill had explained in his letter, was the only building in liveable condition. A cottage, perhaps, with an apple tree and roses over the lintel …

April folded the map back up, hating Edward Gill for sending it to her.

April glanced around at her flat, at her external world. It was small and beige and sparsely furnished. There was nothing pretty in it, no flowers or paintings, no coloured cushions or rugs. Everything from the towels in the bathroom to the mismatched cutlery had been bought cheaply, second-hand, and chosen quite deliberately to be plain and thin. April’s clothes were the same, thin and beige, her face unmade and her brown hair washed out with grey and pulled back in a tight, shapeless ponytail. In her cupboards the food was also plain, her diet unvarying. She rarely cooked, never baked, and the flat held nothing else that smelled good, no scented candles or fancy soap. There were no books, no television, no radio — no moments of escape. There was nothing around April to feed the senses, or the soul. Nothing to beguile, or encourage fancies.

But even as she looked, her beige walls shimmered and faded, and images again filled her head. A wood-panelled room with a stag’s head above the fireplace, a polished black coal range and bright-bottomed copper pans, a lawn like green baize stretching out forever, fruit ripening against a warm brick wall, blackberries plump and glossy in a hedgerow, a carpet of bluebells in a cool, airy wood, a bee alighting on an ample pink rose, an owl with a snowy speckled chest and gold-brown wings soaring in the dusk. More images. Memories. A yellow dress, fuchsia pink lipstick, a shiny green bag …

April dug her fingernails into her palms and the film reel in her mind ticker-ticked to a scratchy halt. These ideas, these fancies were becoming dangerous. They were speaking to her of a life that could not — must not — be hers.

She couldn’t risk waiting any longer. She would write to Edward V. Gill today and instruct him to sell.

April picked up the map, ready to stuff it back in the envelope. But in her haste, she had made the folds uneven. The bottom right-hand corner was exposed, and on it April could read the artist’s initials — J.P.

Mr Potts himself? No, of course not — his name was Lewis. Perhaps Mrs Potts? The drawing had been made by a delicate hand with an eye for detail. Why had Edward Gill not mentioned her? Where had she gone — and when? Had the Potts’s marriage fallen apart when their son died, just as April’s had? How had their son died? How old had he been at the time?

April checked her watch and was startled to see that it was twenty to six. The course she taught began at six, and the community education centre was a fast fifteen minutes’ walk away.

She grabbed her bag, and put Edward Gill’s letter and the map into it. Once her course was finished, she would use the college’s computer to write her own letter, and mail it and the map far away, so she’d never be tempted to look at it or think of the house again.

CHAPTER 3

late February

Edward V. Gill did not look like Gregory Peck. But neither did he look like the Dickensian character April had imagined, a collection of dry bones encased in tweed, who crackled like dead leaves when he walked.

Edward Gill had a tall, slender elegance, emphasised by a dark blue suit cut to follow the line of his long legs and slim torso. He looked much younger than April had expected, but then, as she reminded herself, he was not the septuagenarian of her imagining. He was only thirteen years older than she was.

He did look a little weary, though, she thought. His face was handsome in an understated way, good bones and clear, fair skin, but slightly sunken around the cheeks and jaw, as if he had a habit of clasping his hands to his face and dragging downwards. His eyes were faded blue, his hair a greying pale brown, curling just below the nape but quite long on top so that it fell occasionally across his eyes and he had to push it back. To April, it was a very English look, bordering on foppish. But Edward Gill was too low-key to be a fop. So low-key, in fact, April had the impression that if she blinked for a fraction too long, when she opened her eyes again, he would be gone.

‘You had no difficulties getting here?’

Edward Gill had a lovely voice, low and well bred. He spoke with a hesitancy that was not quite a stammer. Another very English trait, thought April.

She took the chair he offered her, one of a modern design that went with his other furniture but not with the room itself. His office was the upstairs floor of what had once been a terrace house in the town’s high street. It was above a shop that sold American college-style clothing for young people: flannel shirts and letterman jackets, white T-shirts with bland slogans. Outside, above the door that led upstairs, was a blue oval plaque. In the late 1800s, the house had belonged to a famous artist, whose name April had not recognised. Edward Gill’s office did not look much changed from the late 1800s. There was a fireplace, with a mahogany mantelpiece and tiled surround. The carpet was heavily patterned and primarily dark red, the curtains likewise but in dark green, the wallpaper of acanthus leaves printed in a not-much-lighter green. All that was missing, thought April, was an aspidistra. The spare modernity of his desk, chairs, sideboard and low sofa in the corner suggested their previous location had sported a lot of white paint and pale wood. It was as if a Japanese Zen garden had been forced to co-habit with an overgrown herbaceous border.

‘Difficulties?’ said April. ‘Not at all, despite the fact I didn’t have satnav. The rental-car man at Heathrow was Russian, I think, and he was staggered that I didn’t want it: “Is like voice from God showing you way.” But I said I had an excellent sense of direction and besides I couldn’t afford it, so he shrugged and said I would be in God’s hands anyway if not under His actual spoken command. I didn’t dare tell him I wasn’t a believer. I had a moment of worry that the-God-I-don’t-believe-in had decided to punish me for hubris when I missed the correct lane for the M40, and was forced to do a detour through somewhere called Uxbridge. But after I pulled into a Little Chef and took a proper look at the map, I worked out that if I kept going I’d end up on the M40 anyway. After that, it was smooth sailing until I tried to find a place to park — is the town always this busy? Enjoyed the walk, though, even if I can’t feel my fingers any more. And I’m here now, safe and on time. So, no — no difficulties.’

Edward Gill nodded slowly. ‘Should I offer you coffee? Or would something less stimulating be of more use? Whisky, for instance? Or — though personally I think it tastes like it’s been strained through a shepherd’s sock — chamomile tea?’

‘No, thank you,’ said April. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t usually jibber-jabber like that. I’m still in shock that I’m here. I didn’t mean to be here at all. I’m not sure what happened.’

He cast a glance at the sleek sofa, which sat on the carpet about as comfortably as a nudist on an old wicker chair. ‘I rather know the feeling.’

‘Are you new in town?’

‘I came down from London around eighteen months ago.’

‘Down? Aren’t we northwest of London? Or did I get more lost than I thought?’

‘One always goes up to London and down to the country, no matter one’s starting point,’ said Edward Gill with an apologetic smile. ‘One of our many quaint and entirely irrational conventions.’

‘Were you tired of London?’

‘And thus tired of life?’ The smile alighted again briefly and flew away. ‘I’m sorry, did we decide on coffee or some sort of liquid sedative?’

‘Coffee would be wonderful,’ said April. ‘I’ve been travelling for over thirty hours and I’m not at all sure I’m actually awake. I may well be dreaming this.’

Edward Gill stood up. He was spare in his movements, a neat man, thought April. His desk was very tidy, the few items on it placed just so. There was no in-tray. The only sign of work was the one folder to his right, labelled in a cursive handwriting that seemed too faded and too old-fashioned to be Edward Gill’s. The label, April read upside down, said simply ‘Potts’, with a series of dates beneath it.

‘Excuse me while I ask Irene to make us coffee,’ he said. ‘I do actually possess a very good Italian espresso machine, but Irene considers it both foreign and vulgar and prefers to use the British-made Russell Hobbs electric percolator that her father bought in 1953. I feel duty bound to warn you that more than one of my clients refers to her coffee as The Black Death.’

April had met Irene when she arrived. Edward Gill’s secretary — for she could only be a secretary, the title ‘personal assistant’ being too redolent of modern impropriety — was in her late sixties. Like Jenny at home, Irene wore a blouse buttoned up to the neck, only Irene’s seemed to be silk not viscose, and her skirt was not navy polyester but tweed. Her grey hair was set in Her Majesty curls, and she wore pearls that April assumed had to be real, because on the third finger of her left hand she had a diamond of sugar-cube proportions, the largest April had ever seen outside photos of royal jewels. It surprised April that Irene was married, as she’d always imagined women of her kind to be perpetually single, their energy channelled into pug dogs or good works. She wondered if Mr Irene was still alive. April pictured him as the human equivalent of a pug dog — wheezy, with bulging eyes.

Edward Gill was speaking with Irene in the adjacent room that doubled as her office and the reception area. Irene’s own desk, and indeed Irene herself, did not look out of place in the Victorian décor. In his absence, April was tempted to open the folder marked Potts and find out more about her own inheritance. To find out more about her long-dead relatives. But that would be asking for trouble, so she did not.

April had not lied when she’d said she wasn’t sure how she came to be in England. That evening, less than three weeks ago now, she’d taught her course at the community education centre and afterwards, as planned, had sat down at one of the computers and written a reply to Edward Gill, instructing him to put the property up for sale. If a buyer could not be found within the next two years, April had written, then the house was to be boarded up and left — she almost added ‘to die’, but wrote instead ‘to its natural fate’. It sounded hard-hearted, but what other choice was there, if no one wanted it and there was no money for it to be restored?

She had printed out the letter and taken an envelope, being careful to put the right change in the petty cash tin. Then she’d taken the map out of her bag, intending to stuff it straight in the envelope. But it was as if the person who drew the map had whispered charmed words in her ear. She couldn’t help but open it up one last time.

April’s mother had been an amateur artist, her speciality quick sketches of babies and toddlers, made in whatever drawing material was at hand. Margaret’s sketches were delightful, and popped up everywhere in the Turner house, on paper napkins, in the phone book, on receipts, fleetingly on steamy bathroom mirrors. April had especially loved the sketches of herself as a tot, which her mother had continued to draw from memory, and had given to April randomly and always via intermediary means, tucked into the book she was reading or in her school lunchbox, and, after she’d left home, stuffed into parcels of old kitchen utensils and crockery that her mother no longer wanted but felt April must surely need in her flat. When Ben was born, April had regretted that her mother was not alive to draw him. Now, she was glad. A reminder connected to both her son and her mother would have been that much harder to throw away.

April had done her best to remove nostalgia, the ache for the past, from her life. But it seemed, as she looked at the map, that drawings of any kind still had a special power. Somebody drew this, she thought, perhaps somebody related to her. A person with a careful, controlled style. A person, it also seemed, who liked to hide things.

Looking closer, April had noticed tiny objects concealed within the drawing. An apple with a high metallic shine, so perhaps a golden one, in the garden, and close by it a beehive ringed with dot-sized bees. A lamb, small and white, lay apart in a field, and further away still, at the edge of the woods, stood a dog. It was black and its teeth were bared. A guard dog or a dangerous dog, one to keep away from? Maybe not a dog at all but a wolf?

A dog-wolf, an apple, a beehive and a lamb — if those four were symbols, April had no idea what they represented. The apple could mean temptation, and the lamb purity. The beehive could be industry. The wolf was an ancient animal, a shadow creature — a symbol of fear. But none of that helped much. None of it told April why they were there.

It was possible that they had no meaning at all. That the artist had simply drawn them for fun, embellishing the map with hidden objects for a child, perhaps, to search out. That could well be all they were: a game to test the keenness of your eye.

There was another detail April had missed the first time — a pennant inside the aerial outline of the house, with a name on it. In his letter, Edward Gill had referred only to ‘the Potts estate’. The house, April now saw for the first time, was called Empyrean. It was not a name she’d recognised, and she assumed it must be Biblical. It was a rather grandiose name for a house, April had felt, but if Mr Potts was a self-made man then perhaps he wanted the world to know that? Had Mr Potts been a 1920s Ozymandias? Nothing beside remains?

April had run her hand lightly over the map. The farm was gone now. But the house, colossal wreck though it may be, the garden, the woods — they were still there. And they belonged to her.

The instant that thought took hold, April’s intent had begun to unravel. The map-artist was no longer whispering but calling to her, hallooing her, inviting April to run with him or her, to run and run across fields, through woods, over fences. April could feel her feet thudding on the ground, the sweat sticking her shirt to her back, her heart pumping. She had no idea where they were going, or whether they would stop at all. For all she knew, they might run for all eternity.

The rattle of the college printer, as it obeyed some internal cue to readjust, had made April jump. She was in a small, dim office, hand pressed against a map, and breathing hard, just as if she really had been running.

She had to go, she knew then. She had to see it. She would not change her mind about selling it, but April had the strongest feeling that if she did not see the place in its true light, it would persist, lingering half formed in her imagination forever. If she saw it, she decided, any glamour would vanish. The story she’d created around it would be replaced by the dull, dead truth. The house itself would become an empty shell, the map an ordinary drawing, flat and powerless. The map-drawer would become a name on a grave, long gone into dust.

April had walked the next day into a travel agent and used her parents’ money to buy a return ticket to England. She’d renewed her UK passport. She’d made sure there was enough money in her account to cover her rent for the next month, though she intended to be away for only a week. She’d apologised to the community education centre, and suggested a temporary replacement to teach her course. She’d said goodbye to Jenny, who was thrilled she was going and was convinced, despite being shown the return date on April’s ticket, that she would never come back. She’d boarded an aeroplane thirty-one hours ago, and now she was sitting on a pale oak-finish Thonet bentwood chair belonging to a man who seemed to be half elsewhere, waiting to be brought coffee by a woman with a diamond as big as the Ritz. It would not surprise her if she were, indeed, dreaming.

‘I thought,’ said Edward Gill, as he re-entered his office, ‘that you might like to see the estate this afternoon. Where are you staying? You could drop your car and your, er, suitcase there first, and I’ll pick you up in, say, half an hour?’

‘I confess I haven’t booked anywhere yet,’ said April. ‘Everything the travel agent suggested seemed horribly expensive. I was hoping I could find a cheap B&B, or a backpackers’ hostel. Is there such a thing here?’

Irene came in, coffee in china cups on a silver tray. Edward Gill opened his mouth, as if intending to ask his secretary’s advice on cut-price accommodation, and clearly thought the better of it.

‘Thank you,’ he said instead, and received a gracious nod in return.

‘Has Irene been with you long?’ said April, when the door was safely closed.

‘She came with the practice.’ The cup he handed her clinked on its saucer. ‘Milk and sugar?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘I’m not sure she’s forgiven me yet for not being my predecessor.’

‘Mr Dunne-or-Hollander?’

‘Mr Dunne. Known as Over-Dunne. He could be somewhat pedantic.’ Edward Gill spooned two teaspoons of sugar into his cup. ‘Irene, a stickler herself, admired him for it. Despite my best efforts, she considers me shamefully lax by comparison.’

‘What happened to Mr Hollander?’ said April.

‘Met a Bluebell girl in Las Vegas in 1974. The pair eloped to Buenos Aires.’

‘I won’t ask what Irene thought of that.’

Edward Gill’s smile lasted a little longer this time. ‘Would you like to see the estate?’ he said. ‘Or are you about to drop from jet lag?’

‘I’d like to see it.’ It was not the whole truth, April knew. But it was what she had come all this way to do.

‘Look,’ he added, ‘if this seems presumptuous, I apologise. Though it is rather isolated and its amenities not exactly five-star, the gamekeeper’s cottage is perfectly habitable. Kit seems to have taken nothing with him to Canada except romantic intentions, so it’s fully furnished and equipped. It also has a relatively modern boiler, which, appearances to the contrary, I do know how to switch on. If you wanted to stay there…?’

What must he think of her, April wondered, this plain, drab, no-longer-young woman, arriving in his office with one battered suitcase and no money? He had not seemed surprised, which made her wonder if the private individual had provided a description along with confirmation of her identity. Then again, Edward Gill seemed very well bred. He would no doubt have been trained to be unfailingly courteous, no matter how unprepossessing the person opposite, or how sorry their circumstances. He might dust his bentwood chair with a handkerchief after she’d gone, but if he had such an urge, April would never know.

Not that she need bother about what he thought. Their acquaintance would be short and professional. Once her week here was up, April would never see him again.

‘That sounds ideal,’ she said. ‘I’m quite used to being on my own.’

CHAPTER 4

late February

The directions Edward Gill had given her led April out of the town and up into the hills that would eventually, according to her map, open out into countryside. There were still plenty of houses here. They looked to be owned by the well-to-do, with tidy stone-chip driveways and gardens that had been designed to have winter colour rather than retreat into a dormant mush of damp sticks and rotting leaves. A yellow sign for a school made April breathe harder for a moment, and she made a mental note not to travel down this road at the times the school might start or finish. April had become adept at defusing the charge of memory, but this one continued to leap forward, launching itself into her mind’s eye as if it had been waiting for her around a corner. Back home, there was a small inner-city primary school down the road from Circle Court, which April avoided at every hour, even though it meant walking an extra block on her way to the community education centre.

At the top of the hill the houses were fewer, replaced by trees. As April took the road, or lane, really, to the left, the woods were now on both sides, their branches a latticework canopy that added darkness to the already dimming winter light. Having long since lost track of the time, April checked the clock in her rental car. It was just after one, yet it felt as if the day was about to end. She hoped Edward Gill was right about the gamekeeper’s cottage; it would be no fun searching for accommodation in a strange town in the dark.

The lane dipped sharply, and when it rose again the woods had become fields, bordered by hedgerows, leafless, gaps in the weave like a poorly made basket. On the crest of the hill now, April could see that the fields in every direction ended in a blur of dark green. Woods again, or a denser forest. The fields were either all mud, or mud and patches of stubbly green and brown. April knew little about farming, but assumed it would be a couple of months before the crops or pasture reclaimed the ice-hardened winter ground.

A flash of red caught April’s eye, and she was surprised to see an old phone box, nestled in the lee of a tall hedgerow, and next to it what looked like a community notice board. She doubted the phone still worked; the box’s continued existence was probably due to the fact that everyone had forgotten it was there. There were only two notices pinned under the board’s plastic cover, and they were both yellowed and curling with age.

April had slowed down to get a better look at the phone box, and now a car was coming up behind her, so she pulled over onto the verge. But instead of passing her, the car drew alongside. The driver wound down his passenger window, so April wound down hers, and saw her breath cloud in the frosty air.

‘Are you lost?’ said Edward Gill.

Ben’s father had been very keen on classic cars, but their financial position had limited his indulgence to a monthly magazine subscription. While breastfeeding Ben, April, unable to concentrate on anything more demanding, had often flipped through these magazines, and it was down to this that she was able to identify Edward Gill’s car as an Alvis, British, from the 1960s. The Alvis’s stacked double headlights and tall oval grille gave it a slightly fish-faced look. It was ox-blood red, with well-shined wire wheels. Ben’s father would have admired it, April knew, but would have preferred a Mark II Jaguar.

‘Nice car,’ said April. ‘And no, I’m not lost. I was just bemused by the phone box.’

‘Ah, yes. The call of the wild. It does still work. If ever you’re stuck.’

Then he said, ‘Our turning is just up there. Follow me. I will be your guide.’

April did, past more fields, and a few small, sturdy houses that looked like they belonged to a farmer, or his workers, if such people were permanent these days, and were not brought in and out as the workload required, like they were on so many of the farms, orchards and vineyards in New Zealand.

The road proper ended suddenly, becoming a single gravel track that forked left, heading to what looked like a clump of barns. On the right, there was room for a single car to park, beside a stile and a green pointed sign for a public footpath. Edward Gill took the gravel track, then turned immediately again to the right, between what April could see as she passed were the stumps of long-gone iron gates.

She followed the Alvis, her rental car bouncing and gritting on the rutted surface. A line of trees appeared, the space between them occupied by winter-hardy weeds. April tried to picture how the entrance to the house had looked on the map. Had there been an avenue, or had these trees grown since? She could not recall. As the house had been built in the 1920s, any trees planted then would have only been saplings, not large enough, perhaps, to warrant being included.

On the right, the trees began to thicken and close in on those lining what April knew must be the drive. The woods on the map had seemed further away. They’ve moved. Birnam Wood is come to Dunsinane, she thought.

And then, there it was. Empyrean. For the second time that day, April erased the image in her mind (a near-derelict red-brick Victorian-style manor) and replaced it with reality, which appeared to be a compact version of a castle from a German fairytale. Out of her car now, looking upwards, April counted five turrets. The exterior white paint was badly faded and peeling, and a few windowpanes cracked and boarded up, but the part of the roof she could see had no missing slates, and none of the turrets was falling down.

April had expected a ruin, beyond saving. Here instead was a distressed gentlewoman, doing her best to keep up appearances, despite darned patches in her tights, and moth holes in her only cardigan. April felt a burst of sympathy, which she suppressed, annoyed. That was not the plan. Seeing the house in its true light was meant to flatten it into nothing, pack it away like an old cardboard box. It was not meant to give it even more shape, nor, Heaven forbid, a personality.

‘It doesn’t look too bad from the outside, does it?’

Edward Gill stood beside her, collar up on his coat, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

‘But let me warn you that it’s a mess inside,’ he went on. ‘Filthy, threadbare, nothing works. The plumbing and the electrics are shot. As there had always been the possibility of selling the place, my predecessor made an executive decision to keep the roof at least in good repair. Once the water gets in, that’s the end of it. So I’m afraid we have spent most of the money from the estate on scaffolding, slate tiles and men with no fear of heights.’

‘Didn’t the gamekeeper want the money?’

‘It wasn’t his to have. He had the right to live on the estate, nothing more.’

April took in again Empyrean’s turrets and arched windows.

‘It looks like the backdrop to a production of Swan Lake,’ she said.

‘Scottish baronial style,’ said Edward. ‘The late Mr Potts was a fan. Though I suspect, from what I’ve been told of him, that it was less the bartizans, machicolations and crow-stepped gables that he liked and more the style’s ability to wind people up. In the early twentieth century, this kind of house would have been considered rather … tasteless.’

‘Why did he want to wind people up?’ said April.

‘You have to know what it was like in the 1920s,’ said Edward. ‘Many long-established landowners had been crippled by the combination of a depressed farming economy and death duties. By the beginning of the decade a quarter of England had changed hands. What galled was that the buyers were not less unfortunate gentry but a whole new breed of landowners, trade millionaires, who’d made their fortunes in chemicals and tobacco and suchlike.’

‘The nouveau riche?’

‘That lot, yes. Despite Edward VII’s penchant for socialising with rich Americans, most of the English upper class still considered Mr Potts and his ilk beyond the pale. Lewis Potts was well aware of that, and from what I gather played up to it. Empyrean was designed deliberately to be showy and fake, to give perhaps the impression that Lewis Potts had built it on a whim and, should another whim take him, he would tear it down and build a completely different, and probably even more tasteless, house.’

‘It’s not that bad,’ April protested.

Edward Gill’s pleased smile made her regret not thinking before speaking. She did not want to give the impression that the house in any way appealed to her.

‘You’re quite right,’ he said. ‘It’s not at all. Personally, I’m very fond of the place. Vita Sackville-West put the Gothic revival down to boredom with the classical style, a rejection of the safe but dull. My taste tends unvaryingly to the safe and dull, which is why I appreciate that Lewis Potts was prepared to stick the snobs right in the eye with a dentated pinnacle. My only issue is with his insistence that the place appear so disposable. If he had gone all out, like Horace Walpole or Sir Walter Scott, then the National Trust might have been interested. But he built a teasing, temporary fake, furnished not with important antiques or modernist deco classics but with rooms ordered new-made from Harrods.’

‘Now you’re teasing,’ said April.

‘Not at all. At the time, one could order an entire Elizabethan manor house from Harrods. Waring and Gillow also, I believe, advertised all-new “old” interiors. The 1920s was an excellent period for fakery, legitimate and not.’

‘And none of the furniture’s left?’

‘A few scraps in the attic. The rest sold over the years. Or burned as firewood. In his latter years, Lewis Potts had no affection for his possessions.’

Edward tightened his scarf. ‘Dear God, it’s cold. I suggest a brisk walk to the cottage to see if I was lying about being able to operate the boiler. Then, if we haven’t succumbed to hypothermia, we can take a quick look around the house.’

There was no driveway to the cottage, only a path through the woods, which, as they walked, became steadily more dense and dark. April made a mental note to buy a torch. A patch of lighter green ahead opened up into a clearing, quite a large one, and in it lay a cottage that was, this time, exactly as April had imagined. Squat and square, of whitewashed brick, a green painted front door, with two windows on either side, and a chimney on one end. The style of house most usually seen drawn in crayon and stuck to a refrigerator with magnetic plastic letters.

The cottage had no lawn but the clearing, which had not been mown in some time. To one side of the house were a small shed and a vegetable plot filled now only with what looked like silverbeet gone to seed. The clearing was large enough for the woods around not to seem oppressive, though April wondered if that would change when the leaves returned. Probably not, she decided. The clearing would be filled with dappled light. On a sunny day, it would be glorious, and utterly private.

Stop it, April scolded herself.

‘What is that darker circle in the grass around that tree over there?’

‘The fairy ring?’ said Edward Gill. ‘Bluebells. They pop up around May.’

April was relieved. She would not be here to see them.

Edward Gill was turning a key in the front door, and switching on a light.

‘I’ve kept the power on,’ he said. ‘The line is old and can be a little erratic, so it would pay to stock up on candles. Unfortunately, a cut puts the boiler out as well, but no need to also stock up on firewood. Kit has left enough out the back for the next five generations, as far as I can tell.’

April followed him inside. A square of flagstones inside the door served as the place to drop your boots before you stepped straight into a living room that held two armchairs facing the fireplace and draped in coloured knitted blankets. Edward Gill did not stop, but walked through an open door at the rear of the room that led, April could see, to the kitchen.

Not modern but homey, April thought as she looked around, with the lingering warmth of a room that has been cared for and enjoyed. When she and Ben’s father bought their house, the real estate agent, an effervescent woman called Cynthia, had said that it had ‘a lovely family feel’. April had been eight months pregnant. The house was down forty steps, it had no garage, and its garden was large and mostly overgrown, but they’d bought it because Cynthia was quite right: it had a lovely feel. April wondered what the real estate agent who sold it for Ben’s father had said to the new buyers. Did a house keep its feel no matter what? Or did it absorb the emotions of its inhabitants, did grief and anger and despair seep into the walls and infect its atmosphere like a creeping black mould?

Kit’s kitchen had an old gas range, pitted but clean, wooden bench tops that looked hand-made, a blue check curtain on a wire that covered the shelves beneath a square ceramic sink, green lino tiles on the floor, scuffed to thread in places, two mismatched Windsor chairs, and a narrow wooden table — hand-made again? — set hard against the back wall.

Edward Gill was in a small pantry-sized room off to the side. April heard metal scrape and then the muffled thump of a pilot light igniting.

‘I will check the gas level on our way out,’ he said, as he stepped back into the kitchen. ‘There’s an eyesore of a tank hidden, thankfully, behind the cottage. I’m not sure how often Kit needed to replace it, but I imagine not often. He was a man who preferred a life of simple, solitary routine.’

‘Until he found the internet?’

‘Our public library system has a lot to answer for.’

He paused. ‘The boiler will take several hours to heat up. Would you prefer to find somewhere else to stay just for tonight? Please don’t feel that I’m forcing you into this.’

‘It’s perfect.’ April felt an anxious twinge as she said it. Because it wasn’t just perfect for a short stay, it was perfect full stop. She could not imagine a better place to live her own life of simple, solitary routine.

Her return ticket was booked, she reminded herself. The concrete certainty of that reassured her.

‘Well, if you’re quite sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you the bedroom and bathroom, but I suggest, for selfish reasons — i.e. I’m famished — that we leave the main house until tomorrow. So unless you feel an urge to forage for fern shoots, may I shout you a late lunch at The Oak and Rose?’

‘Was that the pub at the edge of the town?’

‘No. That one has two Michelin stars. In exchange for a large sack of money, they will cook you a duck-fat chip and a breast of quail the size of an acorn. It’s booked up months in advance.’

April’s appetite was on New Zealand time, where it was the small hours of the morning. But there was no food in the cottage, and she was starting to feel the black fuzz of jet lag. A meal that she did not have to prepare or pay for had enormous appeal. She could eat, drive back, and crash to sleep in Kit’s old bed, where she might very well dream strange dreams about women in Canada.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I gratefully accept.’

In The Oak and Rose the ceilings were beamed and low, the windows small and leaded. At a table in the corner, by the fire, a man in a Barbour jacket and green wellington boots sat reading a newspaper, his two setter dogs stretched out asleep at his feet.

‘Now, what will you have?’ Edward Gill scanned the menu chalked on a blackboard behind the bar. ‘The steak and kidney pie is very good. Not for the waistline, of course, but in every other respect.’

‘Soup, please.’ It was the plainest thing on the menu.

‘Beer, cider or house wine, which comes in the varieties known as “red” or “white”?’

‘Just water, thanks.’ April had not touched alcohol for five years. It was not that she was worried she might become dependent; it was more that it took the edge off, mellowed things, and April had vowed that her new life would have no softeners, no buffers, no means to hide.

Across the table, Edward Gill was closer to her than he had been in his office. He had the kind of face that had probably looked the same for years — boyish, smooth and fresh — and was only now, like a carefully stored apple, beginning to line. It was the kind of face that might stay as it was until he died, or it might do the opposite and slide swiftly into the wrinkles and wattles of old age.

Whereas her slide had already begun.

A flash of fuchsia pink lipstick, a yellow dress. April blinked them  away.

The woman from behind the bar placed two plates in front of them. Edward Gill’s plate was full, the pie proud and golden in the middle of mash and sautéed greens. April tried not to inhale the savoury, buttery steam.

‘Call me Falstaff and roll me home,’ said Edward, ‘larding the earth as I go.’

He poked the pie crust with his fork, but did not eat.

‘I feel like a bit of a fraud,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I know quite a lot about you, and it seems impolite not to confess that.’

‘Did the private individual spill the beans?’

‘The who? Oh, I see. Yes, he did. What did he look like? I rather pictured Peter Lorre in The Maltese Falcon. Small and shifty.’

‘More Sydney Greenstreet,’ said April. ‘Large. Untidy.’

Edward Gill’s fork now hovered above his greens. ‘He told me about your son. I am so very sorry.’

So sorry for your loss. The phrase and all its variations she had heard countless times, from now faceless, nameless people. After a while, with much effort, April had reduced its effect on her to that of empty words of courtesy, like ‘Nice to see you’ or ‘Have a good day’. But it had been years now since she’d last heard it, last prepared for it, and in that time it had refreshed itself, become plump again with meaning, and today hit April like a kick to the back.

The drill came back to her as if she were remembering the instructions for CPR. First, you must breathe in, regain control. Then you must deflect, turn the conversation away from you, and back on them.

April breathed in.

‘He told me about you, too,’ she said. ‘I know your age, the extent of your property portfolio and your marital status.’

Edward Gill smiled, not at all offended.

‘Not exactly a shock that last one, I imagine,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ April blinked. ‘Sorry, I hadn’t twigged.’

‘Actually, I’m leading you astray. My marital status has nothing to do my sexuality.’

‘Can’t commit?’

‘More a lack of — well, just an all-round lack, really,’ said Edward. ‘My last partner had more specific complaints, a long, clearly itemised list, in fact. But that’s what it boiled down to in the end.’

‘I’m sorry.’

April knew how hard broken relationships could be, even when it was you who’d done the breaking.

Edward’s face showed mild embarrassment mixed with irritation.

‘Don’t be,’ he said. ‘It’s the usual boring story of physical attraction being unable to compensate for fundamental incompatibility. Nothing special.’

‘How long were you together?’

‘Only three years.’

‘That’s long enough.’

‘In truth, it should have been over much earlier, except that I made the mistake of purchasing more than one old property and allowing my ex to take on the renovations as a project. He was so busy pointing and rendering and the like that he failed to notice we had nothing in common until he’d cleaned the last drop of Farrow and Ball from his brush.’

‘Were you not involved in the renovations? I thought you sounded very knowledgeable before, about old architecture.’

‘My involvement was a large part of the problem. I provided the architectural and stylistic guidance and he provided all the labour. That may not sound equitable, but it worked for us. We were a team. Until such time as we had no more projects to unite us.’

‘But you’ve kept the properties?’

Edward smiled thinly.

‘I may be lacking in many areas, but I’m not a fool. Those renovations almost doubled the houses’ value. I can now have my pick of tenants, all prepared to pay exorbitant sums, even by London standards.’

It occurred to April that she’d not had a proper conversation with anyone apart from Jenny for some years. Intentionally — she had no wish to connect. Jenny was the exception because Jenny could be trusted to keep any knowledge of April to herself. And she was never offended if April chose not to answer her questions, was quite happy to let April drink tea in silence if she preferred. Jenny had been an undemanding companion.

But this man was not Jenny. There was a steeliness about him. It had underlined his letter and now it spiked through his outward padding of self-deprecation and soft English courtesy. Edward Gill was indeed no fool, and April was wary of venturing deeper into conversation with him. But Edward Gill was no wizard king, either; he had no magic powers that could compel her to do anything against her will.

‘Why did you come to Kingsfield?’ she asked.

‘For the reason you suspect,’ he said. ‘I ran away. London is large but the circles one moves in tend not to be. I felt too many eyes upon me and I did not like it. I found out about this practice and I made an offer. My predecessor may have had his qualms but he was eager to retire, and he did not want to leave his clients in the lurch. Plus the only other offer had come from a solicitor whose offices were next door to the dog track in Romford.’

‘And do you like it here?’

‘I’ve met some interesting people,’ said Edward. ‘Occasionally, the work also becomes interesting. I have to admit to a small burst of actual excitement when the private individual, as he will now be forever known, telephoned to say he’d found you. And I’m most certainly intrigued to see how this story will now unfold.’

He raised a politely encouraging eyebrow. April felt momentary guilt that she would have to disappoint him. But there was no alternative.

‘I want to sell it,’ she said. ‘I’d like to put it on the market right away.’

Disappointed he was, though good manners forbade him from showing it for more than a moment. He swirled the last of the wine around in his glass, but did not drink. Instead, he regarded April in a way she found less than comfortable. She sensed he was forming a lawyerly argument in his head, and she readied herself for what might well be a battle.

‘Forgive me if this sounds impertinent,’ he said, ‘but the short time you’ve taken to make that decision suggests to me that you had no other in mind. Would that be fair?’

‘It would.’

‘Then — and you’ll have to forgive me a second time — why on earth did you come all this way? A phone call or letter would have been quicker, and considerably cheaper.’

April felt her face redden. She had no explanation, or at least none that didn’t make her sound mentally awry. But Edward was unlikely to let her get away with only a shrug of the shoulders.

‘I wanted to see it,’ she said. ‘Just once. In the flesh.’

‘To be absolutely sure?’

‘No, I was sure, but … I didn’t want to keep thinking about it. Didn’t want it to live on in my head.’ She offered an apologetic glance. ‘I know that sounds a bit odd.’

‘Not at all,’ said Edward. ‘The stories we tell ourselves are powerful. If they weren’t, there’d be no such thing as superstition. Possibly no such thing as religion, either.’

The barmaid came to clear the plates, and ask if they wanted coffee or dessert, which they did not. April, welcoming the interruption, hoped the end of lunch would bring an end to the conversation also.

It was not to be.

‘I must say, I thought you looked rather at home in Kit’s cottage,’ said Edward. ‘You could consider subdividing the land. Of course, you’d need to build a driveway, which isn’t cheap, but—’

‘No!’

The man in the Barbour was staring at her over the top of his newspaper. April lowered her voice.

‘No, I don’t want to do that. I have a home already. I need to go back to it.’

‘I can’t guarantee a quick sale,’ said Edward. ‘Or a decent price, for that matter.’

April breathed in. ‘That’s fine. The money is not important.’

Edward tapped his fingers on the table. Whatever line of argument he was forming now, April decided she would forestall. Firmly. Unequivocally.

‘I want to sell the whole estate,’ she said. ‘That’s the end of it.’

The tapping ceased. Edward nodded, slowly.

‘Understood,’ he said. ‘While you’re here, though,’ he added, ‘there is someone I would very much like you to meet.’

‘Oh, no,’ April demurred. ‘I really don’t—’

‘She’s invited us both to tea,’ said Edward. ‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow afternoon at three.’

CHAPTER 5

late February

The woman in the doorway had white hair piled up in a thick, loose bun, a phone clamped between her shoulder and her ear, and a wooden spoon in the hand she’d not used to open the door.

‘I do not give a tinker’s cuss what Tilly thinks,’ she was saying, as she ushered them in. She closed the door and waved the wooden spoon at them, to chivvy them down the hallway into the kitchen.

‘Our local library has a waiting list a mile long for Fifty Shades of Grey, and well-thumbed Mills and Boon are one of our consistent earners at the village fair. We are surrounded by pillars of the community with a pash for filthy books, Dilly. A local writer is — hell! My sauce is catching—’

She rushed up to a large pot on the Aga, and stirred it. The room filled with the warmth of cooked apples and a hint of allspice. April could not remember when she’d last smelled anything that good.

‘Saved by a tooth skin,’ she continued into the phone. ‘Of course Bramleys, what else? The woman is the perfect speaker for next month’s meeting, Dilly. Tilly’s a silly prig. Besides, she’s also the local curtain-hanger. No, not Tilly, you fool, the smut peddler! She’s been in everyone’s house, so I can only imagine she has something incriminatingly grubby on all of us. Where do you think she gets her ideas?’

She thrust a spoon of sauced apples at Edward’s face. ‘Does it need more sugar?’

He took a tiny, reluctant taste. ‘Possibly.’

‘I’m glad you agree.’ But she was talking to the phone. ‘Tilly can stay at home and fantasise about being in a clinch with the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Of course she’s keen on him! She hasn’t complained once that his name is Justin!’

A heaped tablespoon of sugar went into the pot.

‘No, I can’t. I have t’ai chi. Yes, that’s all in hand. Pigeon. Yes, I know. I must go, I have visitors. Edward. No, the other one. No, not that one, either. I’d forgotten all about him. Yes, definitely. Pigeon. Yes, I know. Goodbye.’

She dropped the phone onto the bench by the Aga, shifted the pot of apple sauce off the element and quickly tasted it.

‘Too sweet. Never mind. I’ll fob it off on the neighbours.’ She wiped her hands on a tea towel that April recognised as a much-faded souvenir of the Sydney Olympic Games, and bent forward to let Edward kiss her on both cheeks. ‘How are you, my dear?’

‘Enlightened,’ said Edward. ‘I now know Dilly is as silly as Tilly, and someone is having an affair with someone else called Pigeon.’

‘You do talk a lot of nonsense, don’t you?’

‘It’s a gift.’ Edward touched April’s shoulder to bring her forward. ‘Sunny, may I introduce April Turner. April, this is Sunny, Lady Day.’

‘Oh, don’t be so terrifyingly formal, Edward.’ The woman stuck out her hand. ‘Call me Sunny. You’re the Potts girl, I gather?’

‘Well …’

‘April is heir to the Potts estate, but she is not a Potts.’

‘I’m a bit Potts, obviously,’ said April. ‘Hence the inheritance.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ said Sunny. ‘Tea?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Edward. ‘And cake.’

‘I have shortbread, which you can take or leave.’

‘Tea and shortbread. Excellent.’

‘Would you like some help?’ said April.

She was waved away impatiently, in the direction of a small dining table at the far end of the kitchen. ‘If Fatso is sleeping there,’ Sunny called after them, ‘evict him.’

‘Not her husband,’ Edward whispered. ‘Sir Peregrine died nearly ten years ago.’

Fatso turned out to be a large Burmese cat the colour of a cinnamon stick, curled up asleep on one of the chairs.

‘I daren’t touch him,’ said Edward. ‘It would be safer to plunge my hand into a working waste disposal unit.’

Since entering the house — a large cottage, really — April had tried not to look around too much. She had very nearly refused to come in at all, because as soon as Edward’s Alvis had pulled up outside, April had felt her heart clutch. This was it, her perfect house, the one she’d pieced together from pictures in magazines, collaged in a scrapbook that she’d begun when she’d married Ben’s father. Pictures of the same brick and flint exterior clad in the winter-bare vines of wisteria and rose, the same bright white window frames and cornflower-blue front door, the same stone birdbath and clusters of terracotta pots filled with frost-hardy herbs. The same soft light that glowed around it like a halo.

This was the inspiration for the house she and Ben’s father had intended to create. April had seen how their new family home’s overgrown garden could be brought back, the old plum and apple trees given space to fruit, the japonica and crab apple, too, terraces built, one for a bench seat, a spot beside the scented viburnum for a birdbath. The nasty seventies-brown interior would be repainted in duck-egg blue and primrose and white. They would buy old furniture, strip it and paint it, or cover it with coloured throws. Nothing would match, but everything would go together. It would be beautiful.

Ben’s birth had put most plans on hold; there simply was no spare time. And afterwards — April assumed that Ben’s father would have thrown the scrapbook away. She, herself, had refused to give it another thought until Edward led her to the blue front door of Sunny’s home, and the arrow-jolt of recognition pinned her to the Alvis’s front seat.

Edward noticed. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Why am I here?’ April asked the question of herself as much as of Edward.

‘I thought it might interest you to meet someone who knew Empyrean in its heyday.’

April recognised the unmistakable signs of ulterior motive.

‘Why?’ she said. ‘So they can talk me into keeping it?’

Edward smiled, unapologetically. ‘I’m as transparent as a well-filleted fish, aren’t I?’

‘Who is this someone, anyway?’ April began to search for excuses. ‘They must be ancient. Are they compos? Or all doddery and dotty?’

‘Well, why don’t you come and find out?’

He meant it, albeit jokingly, as a challenge, but he had no idea, thought April, how much of a challenge it was for her. He had no idea how hard it would be for her to enter this house. This house — and she’d known it before she’d stepped through the front door — belonged to the world she’d left behind, the one that contained joy and pleasure and love. To go inside would be like sailing between the Sirens, and April could hardly ask Edward to tie her to the mast.

Edward tapped a light tattoo on the steering wheel. Time to make a decision.

Surely, after this long, April thought, she should be able to handle a test like this? It could even be good for her, make her stronger, prove she had the grit to stay the course.

‘Fine,’ April had said to Edward. ‘Let’s have tea. But I’m warning you that nothing your friend can say to me will make a jot of difference.’

Sitting at Sunny’s table, April regretted sounding arrogant. In her experience, there was no better way to tempt Fate. Or provoke Fate into tempting you.

Sunny’s house was just as perfect on the inside. April had tried not to look around, but, short of sitting there with her eyes closed, ignoring her surroundings was nigh on impossible. Gold-grey flagstones, soft-looking through wear, paved the floor in the hallway and kitchen. The kitchen and the space where they were sitting had obviously been two rooms knocked together into one, now light and airy. The kitchen walls were a blue-white, with broad white tiles behind a cherry-red Aga. Pots, kitchen implements and bound sprigs of dried thyme hung off a rack suspended from the white-painted beams. An old tea trolley with elegant curved legs was stacked with baking bowls and cake tins. A tall wooden cupboard held crockery and glassware. The table at which they sat was covered by a pink and white chintz-pattern floral cloth, on it a blue glass bud vase with a sprig of startlingly purple berries, a china robin, and a willow-pattern sugar bowl with a souvenir teaspoon from Pisa.

It occurred to April that Sunny’s cottage was not her idea of a house that belonged to someone titled. No paintings of horses or gun-dogs, no heavy antique furniture, no animal heads or shooting sticks in the hallway. April wondered if Sunny’s style had only come to the fore after her husband’s death. Or perhaps Sir Peregrine had resigned himself to feminine surroundings, all his sporting prints and stag heads banished to his study.

There were good pieces here, though — the watercolour of a young girl, the heavy silver frames around the photographs, the enamelled carriage clock beside them on the glass-fronted sideboard, the gilt-edged dinnerware stacked inside. April knew that a title in Britain did not guarantee wealth, unless one was a business tycoon or a rock star. Sunny, Lady Day, was certainly comfortably off, April decided, but not rich.

‘How did you two come to know each other?’ she asked Edward now.

‘When Sir Peregrine retired from the Foreign Office, he and Sunny moved back to Kingsfield and gave over the management of their affairs to my predecessor. I keep an eye on the family trust and am executor of Sunny’s will. Not that I expect to perform that duty; I’m quite convinced she’ll outlive me.’

‘Was Sir Peregrine knighted?’

‘No, he was a baronet. Due to the Days’ fortunes being much depleted, the family’s rather substantial seat was sold in the 1950s, so he did not inherit. Though I gather from Sunny’s description of its condition that that may have been a blessing.’ Edward smiled at her. ‘It would have been quite amusing had he been awarded his K, though, don’t you think? Turning Mr Day into a knight?’

‘More nonsense.’

Sunny placed a tray of tea things and biscuits on the table, and took a chair. April noted her wrists, blue veins through papery, translucent skin, and revised Sunny’s age upwards from her original guess of early seventies. It was her clothes that made her look younger. Sunny had on a pair of linen palazzo pants in charcoal grey and a tunic-style jumper in fine silver wool, their stylish elegance undiminished by shortbread dust. Around her neck hung a necklace of large flat beaten-silver loops, and in her ears, just visible under the weight of the white bun, were diamond studs. Not quite the rivals of Irene’s ring, thought April, but sizeable enough.

‘I’ve always meant to ask,’ said Edward, as Sunny began to parcel out the teacups and side plates, ‘did you become Sunny when you married a Day, or was that just a happy coincidence?’

‘I was born Sybil Una Northcote,’ Sunny said. ‘I suppose it might have been worse. I might have been Frances Una.’

‘Or Rebecca Una.’ Edward held out his cup as Sunny poured. ‘Hermione Una would have been tricky after the Great War.’

‘My father was a major.’ Sunny set down the teapot. ‘He would have had more sense. Though, admittedly, he was never the same after the gassing. A wonder I was conceived at all, really. Shortbread?’

‘Need you ask?’ said Edward.

April politely refused. It looked too delicious. Her mind engaged in a rapid mental calculation. If Sunny had been conceived after the first war, then she would be well past her seventies and into her eighties. Yes, those wrists and the neck could belong to an eighty-year-old, but look at her face! Rice-paper faint wrinkles, eyes still clear Wedgwood blue, skin only slightly sagging around excellent bones in a heart-shaped face. If she wore her hair like that when she was young, April thought, she would have looked like a Gainsborough.

‘Oh, well,’ said Edward, ‘I also belong to the unwanted nicknames club.’

‘Are you known as Edward Bear?’

‘That I could have lived with. No mine was The Fifth.’

‘As in Edward the Fifth? One of the murdered princes in the tower?’

‘My middle initial is V. My classmates, who watched too many American crime dramas, thought it was hilarious to hold me down and ask me to plead.’

‘Bullies have always had a notorious disregard for grammar.’

‘What does the V stand for?’ April asked him.

‘My mother’s maiden name — Vere,’ said Edward. ‘I’m glad my parents chose not to hyphenate their surnames. I’d become exhausted less than halfway through spelling it for people.’

‘James’s nickname was Jam, of course,’ said Sunny.

‘James?’ said April.

‘James Potts. Jam-pot. He didn’t much care for it. His father insisted on calling the pair of us Sunny-Jim. In hindsight, one of his nicer jokes.’

Edward, April noticed, was making a special effort not to catch her eye. The test was nigh, April thought. Time to stop up her ears with beeswax.

The phone pealed. April breathed out again.

‘It’s probably Tilly,’ said Edward, ‘offering to do her duty to the W.I. by thoroughly reviewing any potentially objectionable material beforehand.’

Sunny glanced at the carriage clock. ‘No, it’ll be Bertie, calling now that the children have gone to bed.’

‘Who’s Bertie?’ said April, when Sunny had picked up the phone in the kitchen. ‘And why does he send his children to bed in the afternoon?’

‘Bertie is her youngest son,’ said Edward. ‘He lives in Singapore.’

‘How many sons does she have?’

‘Four. And three daughters.’

‘Good grief.’

Edward indicated a photograph on the sideboard, which showed a large family group out on a lawn, adults and children, all of varying ages. Most of them were blond. All were strikingly good-looking.

‘That’s them,’ he said. ‘They’re scattered all over the place. The nearest is a daughter in London, and there’s a son in Leicester. The youngest daughter lives in Ireland, in a travellers’ caravan mostly located, I believe, near Sligo. The remaining four are dotted around the globe.’

What must it be like, April thought, to have so many children? To have had all that love and affection, noise and laughter for so many years?

‘Do they all get on?’ she asked, though it seemed impossible to her that they would not. Surely everyone understood how precious a family was?

‘I’ve no idea. I’ve spoken by telephone to Deborah, the daughter in London, but I’ve not met one of them in person.’

‘Why not? Don’t they visit?’

‘Not nearly often enough.’ Sunny was back. ‘The rotters.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said April, embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

‘Of course you did. Other people’s lives are fascinating.’

‘Except mine, of course,’ said Edward, helping himself to another piece of shortbread.

‘That’s your own fault,’ said Sunny. ‘You know perfectly well you could fix that if you put your mind to it.’

‘And there’s the rub. How is Bertie?’

‘Oh, his usual dull self. I love him dearly, but the height of excitement for Bertie is a sudden spike in rubber futures. He took until age forty-five to gird himself up for marriage. He was only on the phone as long as he was because he’s sowing the seeds for why he won’t be able to visit me in December.’

‘For Christmas?’

‘No!’ Spots of pink lit her cheeks. ‘For my birthday! You’d think the rotten swine would see turning ninety as a meaningful event! But it seems everyone is too busy, too poor or too infirm to bestir themselves and come down here. At this rate, Dilly and I will be sharing a lone party horn and a Waitrose individual spotted dick.’

‘Now there’s a vision,’ said Edward.

‘You’re going to be — ninety?’ April could not keep the incredulity from her voice.

‘Not that anyone cares. Rotten swine.’

‘How old are your children?’ April’s amazement overrode her natural caution around this subject.

‘The eldest rotter is sixty-six, the youngest fifty-three. I was a late starter, due to the war.’

‘Grandchildren?’

‘Oh, Lor …’ Sunny’s lips moved silently as she tallied. ‘Sixteen, and, I think, seven greats. Every generation seems to pop out fewer and fewer. I suppose that’s the done thing, these days, being mindful of our eco-footprints and whatnot.’

‘I suspect the prospect of a collapsed uterus might also act as a deterrent,’ said Edward.

‘Pish and tosh. No stamina, that’s the problem. Look at Charlie, only sixty-six and on pills for all sorts of ailments. Unlike his father, who was fit as a fiddle right until the moment he dropped dead. Curse him, too, for not being here.’

Sunny thrust out her hand towards the teapot, as if to slap it, but laid her palm only lightly on its side. ‘Tepid. I’ll make another.’

‘I’ll do it.’ Edward got to his feet and carried away the tray.

April turned from watching him go and was unnerved to meet a direct blue gaze.

‘I gather you spent the night in Kit’s cottage,’ said Sunny. ‘How did you find it?’

April considered her answer. The truth was she’d spent most of the night awake. Even though her excuse, jet lag, seemed reasonable, she did not want to attract an accusation that she lacked the stamina for a sustained night’s rest.

‘The cottage was tidy and warm,’ said April. ‘The night was alternately dead quiet and startlingly loud. I heard owls, I think, quite close, and that barking cry they always play during night-time scenes on Midsomer Murders.’

‘Fox. Nothing else?’

‘I’m not sure. What sort of thing?’

‘When we were children, we were strictly ordered to play only at the very edge of the woods. There was a rumour that an escaped criminal was living rough in there, though everyone was vague about his actual crime. Not that any crime would be worse than poaching in the eyes of Old Ted, the Potts’s gamekeeper. Not even murder. Ted was convinced the man existed; he hunted him for years. If he’d caught him, he would have shot him without hesitation.’

‘He never caught him, then, I assume?’

‘Well, I’m not sure he really knew where to look.’

‘He’d be long dead now, though, wouldn’t he? The escaped criminal? If you were just a child at the time?’

‘Oh, probably.’

Sunny’s tone became business-like. ‘Now, what do you intend to do with Empyrean, with the estate? You’re not going to sell it, are you?’

April steeled herself. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I have no need of it.’

Sunny bristled, fierce as a fighting mongoose. ‘You do know that it will be sold to developers? They’ll carve it up and put horrible twee chalets on it, or skimpy fake barn conversions. They’ll cut down all the trees to jam on the greatest number of properties. They’ll asphalt the driveways, plant “easy-care” gardens full of nothing but scratchy, nasty grasses. Then they’ll gate the whole thing and pretend it’s “exclusive”.’

‘I can’t help that,’ said April. ‘I’m sorry.’

She expected Sunny to renew the assault, but, to her surprise, the older woman’s shoulders sagged. The blue fire in her eyes went out.

‘I’ve no idea why I’m berating you. If James had been alive, he would have sold the place in a heartbeat.’

April felt the usual tug of internal struggle. To ask Sunny about James would be to pull on a thread that might start to unravel everything. But to know why he, too, her long-dead relative, did not want the house — could that make her feel better? Easier?

Edward had filled the teapot and was now turning it, three times clockwise, three times anticlockwise. A pointless waste of time, April had once been told. It made no difference to the tea at all.

Asking about James — that should make no difference, either. If April did not let it.

‘Why would James have sold the house?’

‘Because it was a reminder of — absence, I suppose. Loss.’

‘How—’ April hesitated, and for more reasons than tact. ‘How did he die?’

‘He died because he was a bloody idiot!’ Sunny pressed her fingertips to her mouth, as if remonstrating with it for its outburst.

‘A bloody fool,’ she said more calmly, and shook her head. ‘I miss him terribly, you know, even after how many years? Sixty? More? I loved that house when he was in it. That last visit, for his funeral, was so awful, I simply could not bear to go back.’

Edward was by the table, tea tray in his hands. He placed it down carefully, without a word.

April found herself filling the silence. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Tell me about you and James.’

CHAPTER 6

late February

‘We met at James’s sixth birthday party,’ said Sunny. ‘All the children from the village and the local farms were invited, as well as children like me, from the better families. That sounds terribly snobbish, doesn’t it, but that’s how it was in those days.’

‘Everyone knowing their proper stations,’ said Edward. ‘Bless them.’

‘We glimpsed each other, of course, at church, and at the various village fairs and festivals. May Day, for example. Not that my mother took me to church very often. She had taken against God at an early age.’

‘What had God done to her?’ said April.

‘Made her a girl! She told me the day that she realised she could never be a soldier or an Arctic explorer was the day she banished God from her heart. If He had not loved her enough to acknowledge her true nature when selecting her gender, she simply could not love Him. She settled for second best by marrying a major who’d once been to Greenland. Much good that it did her.’

‘You said your father had been gassed?’ said Edward.

‘He had. Although I suspect he used it as an excuse; by all accounts, he’d begun retreating from the world well before the war. When he returned, he shut himself in his study and never came out. I wasn’t born until my mother was the ripe old age of twenty-six. As I said, it was a wonder I was conceived at all. I guarantee that she insisted my father impregnate her.’

‘The romance of it all,’ said Edward.

‘My mother was desperately lonely,’ said Sunny, her blue gaze severe. ‘She would snatch at any excuse to be with people, to be out of our horrid house. She took me anywhere and everywhere, right from when I was barely a few days old. I grew up used to being in the thick of things, used to laughter and noise and busy-ness all around me. It’s why I had so many children. I wanted ten, you know,’ she added. ‘So people would say: “Where is she going with ten children?” But Perry drew the line at seven. He said if I had one more, there’d be no problem finding a spare bed, because his would have just become permanently vacant.’

Sunny touched two fingers to her mouth and placed a kiss on one of the silver-framed photos behind them, a portrait of a couple on their wedding day.

‘Dearest Perry. It was all bluff. He would have given me anything.’

In the photo, black and white, the young Sunny wore a long-sleeved fitted dress in plain satin, all the lace concentrated in a veil that sat back on her head in a smooth cap, fastened by a ring of flowers just above the nape, and cascaded from there down to the ground. Sir Peregrine, April saw, was blond and squarely handsome. The pair of them had mouths slightly pursed and eyes bright and large, as if they had been scolded for misbehaviour, and were trying very hard not to laugh.

‘How attractive you both were,’ said April.

‘Were being the operative word,’ said Sunny. ‘Every time I look in a mirror these days, I am appalled anew.’

‘My mother’s greatest fear about ageing is that her eyesight will become too poor to spot the hairs sprouting from her chin,’ said Edward. ‘She’s made me promise to let her know the instant she begins to resemble Brian Blessed.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ said Sunny.

‘Merely making conversation.’

‘You’ve made me lose my place,’ Sunny accused. ‘Where was I?’

‘James’s birthday,’ said April. ‘Was it held at Empyrean?’

‘On the lawn. I was only five, six months younger than James, and I thought I had been transported to a magic kingdom. There were jugglers, sword swallowers and conjurers, pirates and fairy queens, miniature ponies to ride, performing dogs, and a bright green parrot that whistled “Camptown Races”. There were presents for every child, a bag of sweets and a toy; mine was a celluloid Kewpie doll, the first shop-bought doll I’d ever owned. Tables covered with white cloth were laden with more food than I had ever seen in my life, everything fancy and delicious, and we could eat as much as we liked. There were machines spilling out ice cream and candyfloss. I recall there was also a brass band, but it was impossible to hear over the cacophony of children, who had all gone completely feral, a swirling stampede of miniature savages. The moment my mother let go of my hand, I was away, running fast as I could to join them.’

‘Quite a party,’ said Edward. ‘Mr Potts spared no expense.’

‘James was his only son, his golden boy,’ said Sunny. ‘That and the fact the Pottses had only recently moved into Empyrean. Lewis Potts wanted to make his mark. He wanted to show everyone what he was made of. He knew that families like mine considered him nothing but a jumped-up barrow boy. He also knew that most of us were on our uppers, and the prospect of a lavishly catered-for party would be irresistible. The gentry might harrumph about him behind one hand, but the other would be reaching, without hesitation, for a glass of his Pommery 1904.’

‘Is that why he invited all the local children?’ said April. ‘To force the posh people to hobnob with rat catchers and corn chandlers?’

‘Less a warrior against class distinction than an almighty show-off. Lewis Potts thrived in the limelight. He positively glittered in it.’

‘How did he make so much money?’ April said.

‘He patented a stain remover,’ said Edward, ‘one particularly effective at taking ink off fabric. However, I think its success was less to do with how well it worked and more to do with Lewis Potts’s consummate salesmanship. “Potts for Blots” was his slogan and everyone knew it. Just as Henry Ford dreamed of a Model T in every American garage, Lew Potts wanted his bottles in every British cleaning cupboard. I’d say he almost achieved it. He was a champion huckster.’

‘He was certainly charming,’ said Sunny. ‘But there was a whiff of the barbarian about him. It was said that when you shook hands with Lewis Potts, you always had the uneasy feeling that you’d committed to more than you intended.’

‘And James was his only son,’ said April. She felt a pang of empathy. All Lewis Potts’s money could not protect his boy.

‘His only child.’ Sunny compressed her lips. ‘Cora Potts’s reproductive capacity was merely one of the ways in which she fell short of her husband’s expectations.’

‘You didn’t like him much, did you? James’s father?’ said April.

‘Not much, no.’

‘Did James?’

Sunny hesitated, choosing her words. ‘He admired him. He hated disappointing him. He could be just like him at times — high-handed. But while Lewis Potts had no fear of speaking his mind, James was harder to read, harder to fully know. In that respect, he took after his mother. He looked like her, too. There—’ she indicated another photo on the sideboard, ‘—that’s James. At fifteen.’

The boy in the photo was dressed in old-fashioned white running gear and holding a trophy, a silver cup with deco-style wings. He was slim, fair-haired and handsome, and smiling with triumph, though April could detect a hint of arrogance there, too, of entitlement. James Potts did not look as if he liked, or expected, to lose.

‘When you met him at the party,’ said April, ‘did you like him straight away?’

‘I see you suspect I did not,’ said Sunny. ‘And you’re quite correct. To be fair, the day had rather gone to his head. How could it not have — all that fanfare, all those people, all for him? When you’ve only just turned six, that kind of attention would make you feel like a tiny emperor. When I caught sight of him, he was leading a pack of children around like dogs. Literally — he had made them tie streamers around their necks and walk on all fours behind him. Like a tyrannical Simon Says, he would stop every minute or so and order them to do doggy tricks — roll over, play dead, scratch their ears with their back feet. Each time, he’d reward them with a cake pulled out of a top hat he’d demanded from one of the conjurors.’

‘Why were they letting him?’ said April. ‘Why didn’t they tell him to sod off?’

‘He was the birthday boy. And he was rich, and the other children far from it. The cakes had come up from London, from a French patisserie. They were an unheard-of treat, and the children were gorging on them.’

‘I can’t imagine you were willing to play along?’ said Edward.

‘I was very keen on the cakes,’ said Sunny. ‘But I would not be ordered around by anyone, not even for a mille-feuilles with hazelnut mousseline, so I hung back and looked on. A little further off, I saw Rowan Holly doing the same. I knew Rowan by sight. He lived with his grandfather, Old Ted Holly, the Potts’s gamekeeper.’

‘What happened to Rowan’s parents?’ said April.

‘His mother died giving birth to him. And his father was unknown. Everyone always suspected he’d been a travelling Gypsy, Rowan being so dark, but no one ever dared ask Ted. He was a cantankerous old sod. Hated everyone.’

‘Is that why Mr Potts hired him? Another way to go against the grain?’

‘Most probably. That and Ted’s skill with a gun. Old Ted had been gamekeeper for the previous estate owner. In the mid-1800s that family had been one of the area’s wealthiest, but every succeeding generation was more idle and profligate than the last. It was strongly rumoured that Lewis Potts did not even pay for the land but won it gambling. In any case, he was happy to retain Old Ted. Lewis Potts was a great admirer of men who were skilled with weaponry. Old Ted was a crack shot, and, even at five, Rowan showed the same promise, which was no surprise to anyone who knew them. Old Ted drilled Rowan like a soldier and used him like a slave; often beat him, never showed him the least bit of affection. Most believed that was because Rowan reminded him of his dead daughter. In my opinion, that was no excuse for the appalling way he treated poor dear Rowan. The only good thing that came of it was that Rowan grew up to be a master woodsman and a brilliant marksman. He never caused a bird or animal a moment’s unnecessary suffering. One clean shot, and that was it. Every time.’

‘Rowan was probably wishing he had a gun at that moment,’ said Edward. ‘To pepper James’s backside.’

‘Rowan would never pick a fight,’ said Sunny. ‘But I could see he did not like the game. I assumed he was most worried about Lily Blythe. Her father was the Potts’s tenant farmer, and the Blythe house was a bit of a refuge for Rowan. I knew Lily a little. She was very pretty, but placid and compliant as a dairy cow. If any child would let herself be led around like a dog, it was Lily.’

Sunny’s face showed exasperation but also a hint of shame. Her feelings for Lily Blythe were mixed, April guessed.

‘As it turned out,’ Sunny continued, ‘it was I who lost my temper first. James’s next trick was to place the cakes in front of the children, and order them to eat them off the ground. I found the smirk on his face unbearable. I rushed up, shouting, “Stop! Stop!” and began beating on him with my fists. James fought back, too startled to register that I was a girl. It was only when Rowan grabbed us and pulled us apart that James realised. He was already red in the face, and now he went scarlet. I shouted at him some more. “How could you be so cruel?”

‘His whole face simply crumpled with shock. “Cruel?” he said. “What do you mean, cruel?” I pointed at the children, who’d finally clambered off their knees and were getting free of the streamers. “You made them do awful things!” I said. He stared at me, eyes huge. “But it was only a game,” he said. I could see he was genuinely distraught. “Why did they do it if they didn’t really want to?” He saw Rowan helping Lily brush grass from her dress, and went over to her. He was about to say he was sorry — and then it happened. The sun vanished.’

‘Vanished?’ said Edward. ‘Was it a conjuring trick? Done with mirrors?’

‘There was an eclipse.’ Sunny was pleased with her dramatic effect. ‘The first total eclipse of the sun in Britain for over two hundred years.’

‘I thought eclipses happened slowly.’ said April.

‘It did, but we children had been too busy to notice. We hadn’t even seen that the sky had changed colour — from bright summer blue to an eerie greyish-brown. But when the shadow of the moon covered the sun completely, everything hushed. No one spoke, the band laid down their instruments. Even more uncannily, every sheep on the farm stopped bleating, and every single bird stopped twittering. For several minutes, there was absolutely no sound at all.’

‘Eerie,’ said Edward.

‘Especially to a small child,’ said Sunny. ‘I was entranced, but then I caught a glimpse of James’s face. He was horrified, absolutely aghast. “Did I do that?” he whispered to me, and suddenly, I felt sorry for him. “Don’t be silly!” I said, and took his hand. Rowan was on my other side, so I grabbed his hand, too, and he took Lily’s. And we stood there, the four of us, hand in hand, until the birds started singing again and Mr Potts’s voice rang out across the lawn, telling everyone they’d just seen a wonder, his tone implying that the credit for it should be his.’

‘And that was the beginning of your friendship,’ said Edward.

‘Actually, no. That took quite a few more weeks to form. James was scared of me and I found him irritating. But then my mother became fast friends with Cora Potts, and James and I had to learn to get along because my mother and I spent so much time at Empyrean that in effect it became my second home.’

‘Where does that name come from?’ said April.

‘Dante,’ said Edward. ‘The Empyrean is the ultimate stage in his journey through Paradise.’

‘I thought Dante went to Hell?’

‘“Inferno” is only part one of the Divine Comedy,’ said Edward.

‘Who knew?’ April shrugged. ‘Certainly not ignorant me.’

‘Don’t believe that Mr Potts was any less ignorant,’ said Sunny. ‘He had a first edition of the Longfellow translation, the one with the Doré illustrations. He was quite taken by those, but I guarantee he read not a word of the text. He bought the book for his wife. The name was her idea. He agreed because it made the house sound grand.’

‘Grand it is no more,’ said Edward ‘And is unlikely to ever be again.’

April’s neck prickled a warning.

‘Don’t start,’ she said.

‘But why sell?’ said Sunny, undeterred. ‘Are you desperate for the money?’

‘No! Not at all!’

‘Then stay! Live in the cottage! What is preventing you?’

Edward must have let Sunny in on her situation, thought April. Sunny knew she was childless and alone.

‘I have a flat,’ said April. ‘And a job. I teach English to foreign students.’

‘You have a place to live here that’s rent-free,’ said Sunny. ‘And I’m sure you could find similar work if you felt compelled to.’

This is getting me nowhere, thought April. Time to put an end to it.

‘My decision is none of your business. I will sell the estate and that’s final.’

It was as if she’d tossed a match. The woman may have been nearly ninety but she blazed up like a bonfire. The whole room felt hot and dangerous.

‘Pish! Of course it’s my business! You’re a Potts! You’re James’s cousin! You’re a living connection which I thought I’d lost all those years back! I thought I had nothing left of him!’

April had learned that the best way to win an argument was simply not to argue. If you turned away long enough, your opponent usually gave up and went home. So she kept quiet, stared out the window. The sky was darkening, though it was only mid-afternoon. Outside Sunny’s house it was winter. Cold and grey, the colour of her life.

Inside, Sunny and Edward were waiting, and only Edward was doing so calmly. Sunny’s impatience and irritation buzzed like bees banging again and again against the windows that kept them trapped. Inwardly, April sighed. Most people, no matter how hurt or angry, preferred to avoid conflict. Sunny was not most people, that was clear. Sunny was Attila the Hun, in linen palazzo pants.

‘I have to live my life a certain way,’ April said to her. ‘It’s important to me.’

Sunny’s voice was gentle now. ‘Why? Are you doing penance? For what, my dear? What sin did you commit?’

Was carelessness a sin?

‘I see it more as reparation.’

‘But for what?’ Sunny was insistent.

April shook her head. She heard the older woman sigh.

‘I can’t pretend to understand. Of course, I have regrets, who does not? But in my view, it does no one any good to dwell too long in those dark places. They can make you forget how to see beauty. They can make you forget how to love.’

Exactly my aim, April almost said.

‘Does it matter where you carry out this sentence?’ said Edward. ‘Apologies for the choice of word, but it seems to me that’s what it is.’

‘Yes, it does matter,’ said April. ‘It can’t be anywhere nice. Anywhere comfortable. It can’t be anywhere I’d like to be.’

‘Oh, my dear.’ Sunny reached out and grasped April’s shoulder. Her fingers were warm, her grip remarkably firm. ‘You poor, poor girl.’

The heat was inside April now, rising up, burning as it went.

‘You know, I was fudging when I said my family were on their uppers,’ said Sunny. ‘We were, in fact, desperately poor. All we had of value was our family name and we could not eat that. We lived in a house that was so cold and full of rot and mould and vermin, I’ve no idea how I survived my infancy. When we finally left that house, I vowed I would never again live without warmth and good food, and beauty and generosity and love. No one deserves to be without those things. No one.’

April’s hands covered her face, palms stopping her mouth, fingers pressing her eyes shut so hard that she saw red bars of light.

‘Stay here.’ Sunny squeezed April’s shoulder. ‘Be kind to yourself.’

‘I can’t,’ April whispered through the gap between her hands. Her breath felt hot against her skin. ‘I can’t let that happen.’

‘Oh, my dear.’ Sunny’s grip went limp and released. ‘If that’s the case, then I don’t know how to help you.’

April let her hands slide down to her lap. ‘It’s my choice,’ she said, her voice as steady as she could make it. ‘No one’s forced me to make it.’

‘Oh, my dear.’

In that moment, Sunny did look ninety, April observed. Folded over, all the fiery air let right out of her. Then the older woman sat up straight again, blue eyes sparking once more.

‘Edward, what are you going to do about Empyrean?’ She spoke as if April were not there. ‘Surely there must be some way to save it? And don’t you dare shrug at me!’

‘It’s not mine to save!’ Edward protested. ‘I have been given my instructions and I am obliged to carry them out. All we can hope for is that the new owner has an affection for turrets and decides against demolition.’

‘Which is hardly likely given the state it’s in,’ said Sunny. ‘Could some work not be done on it, to make it more presentable? If we could hint at its potential, then surely we’d have at least some show of attracting a buyer who was not already on the phone to the wreckers.’

‘Well …’ Edward’s shoulders began to rise in a helpless shrug, but he resisted.

‘I realise the plumbing and electrics are probably a step too far,’ Sunny pressed on. ‘But how hard would it be it to give the place a good scrub and a lick of paint?’

‘Even a lick of paint costs money,’ said Edward. ‘A year or so back, I could have told you exactly how much to the penny. There is a bit of money left in the estate, but again, it’s not mine to spend.’

‘Oran would do it for a very reasonable rate,’ said Sunny.

‘Oh, is he out of jail?’

‘Two days ago. He came for dinner last night. He needs the work, Edward. The poor boy looks like the remains of a guy after it’s been on the bonfire.’

‘I do my best for him!’ said Edward. ‘He’s his own worst enemy.’

‘I know you believe I shouldn’t try to rescue Oran,’ Sunny accused, ‘just as I shouldn’t make a fuss about Empyrean. You’ve always decried my devotion to causes you believe are hopeless. There’s quite a cold streak in you, are you aware? It’s not an attractive quality.’

Edward mouthed silently, robbed for words by indignation. ‘I have never even hinted at any such—’

April took a deep breath and held up her hands.

‘Stop!’ she ordered.

They did.

‘I want the place sold,’ said April. ‘But if it helps, I don’t care if you sell it painted or unpainted. The money isn’t important; I may well ask you to donate all the sale proceeds to charity. If you want to pay this Oran person, then pay him.’

‘That’s settled then,’ said Sunny, and added quickly. ‘However, in that case it would be sensible to wait until the work is done before putting the house on the market. Wouldn’t it, Edward?’

He hesitated. ‘I predict that I will be dropped right in it no matter how I answer.’

‘Coward.’

‘Then I’ll answer,’ said April. ‘Put it on the market now. As you said, it might take weeks to get any bites. Your friend Oran should have enough work to keep the wolf from the door for a while at least.’

‘Thank you,’ said Edward. ‘That is most generous of you. Which is why I hate to turn lawyer on you and request that what we’ve just agreed is documented. Will that be acceptable?’

‘Of course,’ said April. ‘I’ll sign whatever you need.’

There was a moment’s silence. Fatso stretched and yawned, showing teeth as pointy as his claws. He plumped down from his chair and swaggered off towards the hall doorway.

‘Well,’ said Sunny, heavily. ‘I suppose that’s the best result I could have hoped for, unsatisfactory though it is.’

Edward stood up. ‘I’ll take you back to the cottage,’ he said to April. ‘We’ve kept you here against your will long enough.’

April rose, too, and was dismayed to find that her legs were wobbly. The floor seemed somehow to be on a lean. She’d been proud of how she’d regained her cool for the last and most testing part of the conversation, but clearly that effort had come at a cost. She steadied herself with one hand on the pretty table, before addressing her host.

‘Thank you,’ she said to Sunny. ‘For the tea and for — bothering. I’m sorry things can’t be different.’

‘Oh, well.’ Sunny waved a hand. ‘I can’t always have everything my own way.’

‘The documents will be ready tomorrow,’ Edward said to April. ‘You can come by and sign them after lunch, if that’s convenient?’

‘And that will be all I need to do?’ April wanted to make quite sure.

‘That’s all. You could go home a few days earlier. No need now to  stay.’

As Edward pulled out in the Alvis, April concentrated on the road ahead. She did not glance back to see if Sunny was still at the door.

She’d won. She’d passed the test. She should feel entirely satisfied.

But inside, she felt like cracks were starting to open, and through cracks might come the most dangerous thing of all — the light.

CHAPTER 7

late February

April made a second cup of tea and checked her watch. Five past ten in the morning.

Yesterday, at Edward’s office, she’d signed the various documents, and Edward had placed them in the manila folder labelled ‘Potts’.

‘I assume you don’t want the tour of the house after all,’ he said.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Well then, this is goodbye,’ he said, and shook her hand. ‘When is your flight home? You’ll be glad to get back to a New Zealand summer, I imagine.’

‘I fly out at the end of the week,’ she told him. ‘It would have cost me more money to change my ticket than I paid for it in the first place.’

‘There’s plenty of countryside to explore, which is quite beautiful, even in the depths of winter.’ He did not offer to explore it with her.

The moment April stepped out onto the high street, it had begun to pelt down. She’d dashed to the rental car and driven back to the cottage, headlights and wipers on full, which had improved her visibility by a measure of zero. Inside, soaked through, she’d made a fire and stood in front of it, wrapped in one of Kit’s towels, being gently steamed by the wet clothes she’d hung on the back of the kitchen chair. The countryside would not be explored today. She might have an excellent sense of direction, but in this kind of weather even the best navigators could get lost. April did not want to end up a second time in Uxbridge.

It had rained all night and this morning it was still raining. April checked her watch again. Seven minutes past ten on day four. She had three-and-a-bit more days here, and no idea how to fill them.

At home, she had a routine. She passed the hours by cleaning her flat, checking on Jenny, preparing for her evening classes, shopping for her short list of groceries and, most of all, walking. Walking up in the hills on the town belt, among the pines. Walking around the bays, often into a buffeting head wind. Walking the streets on the outskirts of the town centre, where there were no shops and no schools, just houses, most of them empty, locked up, silent, while their occupants were off at work.

Walking was a good thing in April’s book. If she’d walked that day instead of driving, she wouldn’t have had to park across the road from the school. If she’d not been wearing such a bright dress, she would not have been so obvious. If she hadn’t—

April’s tea was cold. She tipped it down the sink and sluiced it away. The tap squeaked as April turned it off, and rattled, a little loose on the wall. April felt guilty that, unlike Kit, she was sure, she did not know how to fix it. She empathised with the tap; without her routine, she was coming a little loose herself, as if adrift on a strange body of water and uneasy that its horizons were not visible. April felt restlessness flicker like a snake’s tongue. Restlessness, in her experience, led to dangerous thinking. She should go for a walk, let the rain and exertion drive it out of her system.

The thin coat she’d brought with her was next to useless but, by the boiler, Kit had left an old yellow mackintosh, the kind worn by trawler-men. Kit was a large man, tall and broad; it was like wearing a stiff yellow tent. April did not mind. The extra cover would be welcome.

She set off towards Empyrean, aiming to walk along the driveway and then down the lane. She’d prefer not to pass the house at all, but the only way to avoid it would be to go into the woods behind the cottage. They would be drier, which was an attraction, but they were also dark and unfamiliar. Dark woods were treacherous to navigate. She could find her way in, but not necessarily out again.

The rain spattered through the branches above and drummed on her coat. Drops ran like mercury along the edge of the mac’s hood. April kept her head down. It made it hard to see where she was going, but ensured the water dripped off and not in. The hood muffled the rain noise into a fuzzy constant roar, as if she had a seashell pressed to each ear. The squeak of the mac and the slap of her shoes added rhythmic punctuation, and a song began to play in April’s head, a ’50s rock-and-roll number that Ben had been mad for at bath time, and which his father had been happy to sing again and again, with actions that usually saw more water on the floor than left in the bath. Splish, splash—

April stopped walking, and stood still so she could drive the song from her head. After five years, she’d become expert at cutting off her memories, expelling them as soon as they threatened to take hold. Her aim was not to avoid pain. As time went on, memories hurt less and comforted more. April could not allow that.

It wasn’t working. She could still, ever so faintly, hear singing. But the song was not the same …

April flipped off her hood. The rain flattened her hair against her scalp but she could hear more clearly. The song was not in her mind. It was coming from the big house, which, now that she could also see more clearly, was approximately five metres to her left.

It was true that she did not want to even see the house again, let alone go inside. But now someone else, a singing stranger, was inside, and though it might not be her house for long, it was right at that moment, and April did not recall inviting anyone to drop by.

The front door was unlocked, which made April pause. The stranger had not broken in, so he must have a key. Was it Edward, then? He hadn’t struck her as a crooner.

April crossed the dingy entranceway and, following the sound of the voice, ventured further into the house. Edward hadn’t exaggerated. It was a mess. The rooms were bare of furniture and what was left of the carpet was threadbare. Floors and window frames were covered with a gummy dust, dried insect casings, rodent droppings, stray feathers and bird dirt. The few remaining curtains were falling off their rails, moth-eaten, shreds of fabric hanging.

Empyrean is dead, thought April. Well and truly. But as she walked across the filthy floors, she felt the air move around her and it was warm compared to the chill outside. The dust she disturbed rose and sparkled in the weak light that slanted in through the windows. For all Mr Potts’s purported desire for showiness, the rooms April passed seemed to have been decorated in a straightforwardly homey style. Perhaps Mrs Potts had held sway when it came to the practicality and taste of the interiors? On the wallpaper that was left she saw leaves, flowers and fruit; no spiky abstract patterns or brash colours. The carpet had been a greenish-grey, hard wearing, wouldn’t show the dirt too much. Ideal for a family …

The singing was loud and clear now. April did not recognise the song, a folksy number, but she had no trouble identifying that the voice was excellent. A warm, slightly husky baritone, with a resonant quality that, unexpectedly, travelled through April’s entire body.

A clatter of metal on metal cut off the song mid-note.

‘Bastard!’ said a voice that was definitely not Edward’s.

The stranger was behind a half-closed door, which April pushed cautiously open. The room was the kitchen, and it was in the worst state of all. The benches were smeared in greasy brown dust, the ceramic sinks crazed and rusty. Floorboards and cupboard doors were splintered, pipes torn off the wall. Taps dangled as if beheaded. Only fragments of the original paintwork had survived. Primrose yellow, April noted.

Squatting in front of an ancient Aga was a man, trying to re-affix one of its once-white cast-iron doors. Half on, it fell off again onto the floor with a clang.

‘Illegitimate shite!’

He had his back to her. April had no way to make her presence known without startling him, so she didn’t try.

‘Hello?’

He leapt straight up like a jack-in-the-box and, pressing his backside against the Aga, held the iron door in front of him like a shield.

‘Mother of—’

He stared wide-eyed at April, puffing out rapid breaths like a steam train.

‘Sorry,’ said April.

‘No problem.’ He lowered the iron door. ‘It’s good for my heart to be tested like that. Wouldn’t want it getting complacent.’

His accent was odd. Irish mashed up with West Country, April thought. Or perhaps that was how country folk around here spoke? Sunny’s speech patterns were hardly a guide to the local patois.

‘I’m guessing you’re April,’ he said. ‘And unless you nibbled on the wrong side of the mushroom earlier, I’m also guessing that’s not your coat.’

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘And no. Who are you?’

‘Oran,’ he said, with a smile. ‘Oran Feares.’ He shifted the iron door into one hand so he could extend the other.

Oran. The repairman. Not long out of jail.

April took his hand. It was warm, calloused and filthy. Everything about him, April observed, was filthy. He had on jeans torn at the knees and smeared with grease as if he were in the habit of wiping his hands down his thighs. His rough flannel shirt, frayed at collar and elbows, had possibly once been light blue but was now the colour of used dishwashing water. His hair was curly and in need of a trim. April had first thought it to be brown but now she saw it was very dark red, the colour of damp autumn leaves. His eyes were brown, and his stubble, not quite a beard, had a jester’s motley look about it, with patches of red, brown and dirty blond. He was around her age, April estimated, though his face was as weathered and salty as a tree branch washed up on the beach. Physically, he had the half-starved leanness of a stray dog, the kind that, no matter how much you kicked it away, would come back, eager to follow you anywhere. Oran Feares was one of life’s rebounders, April decided. Nothing would keep him down for long.

‘Why are you trying to fix the stove?’ April said.

‘The Aga!’ he said with enthusiasm. ‘An original, this is. My granddad grew up with one just like it. House got hit by a doodlebug during the war. Kitchen was reduced to rubble, he said, but the old stove stayed right in place, barely a scratch on it.’

‘But why are you fixing it? I thought you were only going to paint?’

‘He said my great-grandmother used it to warm her bosom. She’d lean over it if she’d been out in the cold. Granddad used to keep an eye on her through a crack in the kitchen door. She wasn’t a small woman, and he was worried she might topple over and singe herself on the hotplates. Be tricky explaining that to the local doctor.’

This is like a Beckett play, thought April. She resisted an urge to pinch the bridge of her nose.

‘Did Edward ask you to fix it?’

‘Don’t ever try to light it with petrol, will you? Granddad did that once, and blew the kitchen to rubble a second time. Lucky to get away with only losing his eyebrows.’

‘Oran, why are—?’

‘His mother’s old cat used to squeeze behind it. He said you always knew it was there because of the smell of burning cat hair.’

‘Oran!’

Her sharp tone made him blink. ‘What?’

‘Who told you to fix the Aga?’

‘Mr Gill,’ said Oran, as if it should be obvious.

‘Why? And do not say because it’s broken.’

Oran grinned. Given that overall he resembled a hobo, his teeth were surprisingly white and straight. He would be quite handsome were he not so grubby, thought April. Mind you, she was hardly one to throw stones.

April had not looked in a mirror for years. But she knew there was more grey now in her hair than brown, and that the ponytail she dragged it into was lank, its ends split and uneven. Her skin often felt dry and rough, and she knew that was most likely how it looked. She knew the bagginess of her clothes and their dull colours concealed her like camouflage. People — and not just men, everyone — no longer saw her. She was as invisible as a dead leaf in a gutter. As she intended.

Oran, though, was unlikely to judge her appearance. April was not sure whether she found that a relief or unsettling.

‘Mr Gill did mention that more extensive renovations than a quick wash and brush up had not been discussed in full with you,’ said Oran. ‘But then he added that what you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you.’

‘Mr Gill has been generous with information about me, I see.’

‘No need to huff,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if I know all your personal hootmalalie. Only that you’re the one who’s rejected numerous heartfelt appeals to keep this house.’

He glanced up and around, taking in the room. The rain outside had stopped, and a square of weak sunlight shone on the floor, made shimmery by the wet glass. Dust twinkled languidly in its beam.

‘I can see why you might baulk,’ he said. ‘It’s a project, right enough. But I feel it would be a pity to see the bulldozers crunch it all to bits. So I’m glad to do what I can to encourage some less heartless person to spare it.’

‘And of course you get paid to be noble.’

He grinned at her again. His eyes, she saw now, were streaked with amber, the same dark orange colour she’d always associated with owls’ eyes.

‘Mr Gill will take care of your loot, don’t you fret.’

April bridled. His ability to make her feel like the one in the wrong was galling.

‘Do you really think you can revive this?’ She gestured around the decrepit, dusty room. ‘It looks like a hopeless task to me.’

‘Where there’s life, there’s always hope,’ said Oran. ‘I’ll send you photos. I guarantee you’ll be amazed.’

Enough, thought April. No more house talk. Time to turn the subject around.

‘Why were you in jail?’ she said.

To her annoyance, Oran wasn’t in the least offended. But she should have known. Like cockroaches, rebounders such as Oran were impossible to destroy.

‘Oh, the usual,’ he said. ‘Some idiot kept heckling me to sing “Free Bird”, so I smacked him one.’

‘That’s usual?’

‘There’s always idiots.’

‘You’re a very good singer,’ said April, after a moment. ‘I heard you before.’

‘Yes, I am,’ he said, without a trace of egotism. ‘But I’m shite at performing. Sit me in a corner of a noisy pub and I’m right enough, but put me up on a stage in front of folks and I dry up like a nun’s hoo-ha.’

April pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. She did not want to encourage him.

‘I used to mind,’ Oran went on. ‘I used to rant at God, and curse Him for making me such a failure. Then I realised He could have chosen not to give me a gift at all, but instead He had and I should bloody well appreciate it. Worse to have a gift and not use it than to have none to begin with.’

‘Do you believe in God then?’

As soon as the question was out, April regretted it. Did she really want to know?

Oran was frowning, considering, hefting the Aga’s iron door from hand to hand.

‘I think God believes in me,’ he said, ‘which is the same thing but not quite.’

Something flashed through April, white-hot and as sharp as a knife. Anger — at the injustice of it. How was it that this man could feel like that and she could not? At that moment, she hated him like fury, wanted to crush and hurt him, though she knew he had done nothing to deserve it.

The coat was far too hot now. April ripped apart the snaps and pulled it off. It was as cumbersome to fold as a Zeppelin. By the time she had it tucked over her arm, she was breathing hard. Oran, she saw, was watching her with interest.

‘I have to go,’ she said.

‘So you do,’ he said, and added, ‘Come for a drink with me some time soon?’

April was floored. No one had asked her for a drink in decades. What flitted through her now felt uncomfortably like pleasure. She snatched it out of the air and pinned it dead.

‘I won’t be here,’ she said.

‘Heading home?’

‘That’s right.’

‘No time for a drink before you go?’

‘No.’

‘Your call.’

He smiled, unscathed. April realised with a start that she could grow to like Oran Feares. Just as well, then, that she would not get a chance to.

‘Good luck with the Aga,’ she said.

‘Ach.’ He kissed the iron door with a smack. ‘I’ll win her over. Or die trying.’

Outside, the brightness was such a contrast that April had to shield her eyes. Water was still heavy on the ground, but she was keen to get away, so she splashed straight through the puddles, not caring that she was soon sodden up to her knees.

It was a short walk back to the cottage — not far enough for April to work out of her system the restlessness that her meeting with Oran had provoked. She headed instead for the woods. It was light and sunny now. She would not get lost.

On the grassy outskirts, she noticed for the first time green spears topped with slim buds. She bent to look. The thin outer of the bud was green like the leaves, but inside April could see a gleam of yellow. Like a butterfly within a cocoon, she thought, wings cramped tight in those last moments before the casing splits, and it can fly free.

Daffodils, she realised. It was nearly spring. When all these buds flowered, April could see, there would be a whole swathe of yellow, the colour of butter and lemons and a favourite dress, worn long ago.

She was leaving not a moment too soon.

The woods were dappled and hushed, the only sound the soft plip-plop of the last raindrops falling from the tips of the branches and landing on the mulch of leaves below.

April slowed down and walked quietly, so she could enjoy the peace. But she did not walk as quietly as the animal that slid suddenly, pale and large, into the edge of her sight. She hadn’t heard it at all, but there it was, standing, watching her, tail up like a feathered flag.

A white dog. Like a setter, but with reddish spots instead of grey.

It did not look unfriendly. It did not look that friendly, either. The tail was upright but still. The dog’s mouth was closed, no lolling tongue. Its legs were angled, front and back, as if poised to move.

Then it did move. It bounded, leapt up and around, and sped off into the wood’s darkening heart.

April gasped. The suddenness of movement had been startling, but not what had surprised her most. Before the dog had leapt away, she’d heard a sound. A whistle. A man’s whistle.

She was sharing the woods with another. Who he was, what he looked like, April had no idea. But at the instant of his whistle, she had felt her own feet move, as if an instinct deep within her had heeded the call to run right to him.

CHAPTER 8

late February

‘I’ve been sent to fetch you,’ said Edward. ‘Sunny’s orders. She has something she wishes to show you before you leave.’

‘You two are shameless,’ said April.

‘Guilty.’ Edward’s smile suggested he felt entirely otherwise.

‘It won’t work,’ said April.

‘Of course not,’ he said. The Alvis’s wheels crunched on the driveway. ‘How could it?’

On Sunny’s table was an art folio, bound in worn black leather and fastened with a frayed black grosgrain ribbon. Beside it was a tray; a picture of Ben Nevis just visible beneath a plate piled with scones and dishes of jam and clotted cream.

April’s mother had been an erratic cook, mostly because she’d tended to get distracted by a need to draw. But one thing Margaret Turner had excelled at was baking scones, and early on she’d passed her secrets to her daughter. April, caught by culinary fever, had spent many hours on weekends and after school teaching herself to bake and cook. Ben, even when he could barely stand unaided, had loved to help her, and the truly staggering mess he made was more than compensated for by his enthusiasm and delight.

There was no baking in April’s life now, and she’d convinced herself she did not miss it. But Sunny’s scones were warm and light and plump with raisins. The jam looked like blackberry and was almost certainly home-made. Faced with the real thing and not a memory, April’s regret sounded a low hollow note, a cello groan, at the prospect of having to refuse.

Thankfully, Sunny did not push her. ‘Edward will have yours.’ She eyed his slender frame critically. ‘Though I’ve no idea where he puts it all.’

‘I have the metabolism of a boa constrictor,’ said Edward, spooning jam onto three halved scones. ‘Effective but requiring long periods of torpidity.’

‘Irene tells me you take afternoon naps in your office,’ said Sunny. ‘She nurtures fantasies about rousing you with a horse whip.’

‘A mental picture of Irene with a horse whip certainly rouses something,’ said Edward.

Sunny pushed the art folio in front of April, with a nod to indicate she should open it. April did not have to ask whose it was. The name James Potts was neatly pressed into the leather, traces of gold leaf still adhering.

The spine creaked as April lifted the cover. The first page was loose, tucked inside. It was the original, April saw, of the map Edward had sent her.

‘James drew this?’ said April.

‘He did,’ said Sunny, ‘some time before 1947. I had left England by then, gone abroad with Perry. I received it in the mail, along with these …’

She lifted an object off the Ben Nevis tray and held it up. A chain necklace, thin, made of gold, with two tiny brass keys, one plated in silver, one in gold, hanging from it. Sunny handed the chain to April, who took it with some reluctance.

‘What do they unlock?’ said April. ‘They’re so small.’

‘I have no idea. The whole thing is a mystery to me. There was no letter, no explanation — just the map and these keys. All I know is that the postmark was dated the day he died.’

‘It wasn’t, if I may be so blunt, a suicide note?’ said Edward. ‘A farewell gift to you?’

Sunny cradled her cup of tea in her hands. ‘Oh, curses,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve spent so long refusing to believe he took his life. The idea of it! That someone would prefer to die than to live, when life is so utterly magnificent! I used to be convinced that, if I willed it hard enough, I could live forever. But now …’

Sunny ran her finger over the rim of her cup. ‘Look.’ She showed them where her finger had stopped. ‘There’s a crack. Auden’s crack in the teacup — the one that opens the lane …’

‘You could live for years yet,’ said Edward. ‘There’s a woman in Japan who is a hundred and fifteen.’

‘And I sincerely hope I do!’ said Sunny. ‘But my point is that I’d always considered death to be my enemy. Yet now that so many people I’ve loved have died in ways I wouldn’t wish on an enemy, I can see why someone who was desperate and in pain might welcome death willingly, as a friend.’

‘Was James desperate?’ said Edward. ‘Desperate enough to walk out into the worst snowstorm in a hundred years?’

‘He might have been,’ said Sunny. ‘In his last phone call to me, he was — subdued. To be fair, he was dealing with a lot at the time.’

April hesitated. She was eager to find out more about the map, to find out whether or not the little pictures had meaning. But the map, it seemed, came yoked to the memory of its artist; and the subject of a son’s death, even though that son had been a grown man and not a child, was not one April cared to explore at all.

This was her last day, though, wasn’t it? Tomorrow the map, the house and Sunny’s memories would be left behind, and April would not revisit them, even in her thoughts. Nothing she asked today would linger.

‘I did wonder if the map could be some kind of message. Could the little pictures be symbols, or clues?’

Edward was interested. ‘A rebus, you think?’

‘A lamb, a black dog, a beehive and an apple.’ April looked at Sunny. ‘Do they mean anything to you?’

‘Not a thing.’ Sunny clicked her tongue, annoyed. ‘But as I said the other day, James was hard to read.’

She peered closer. ‘That apple is right where our apple tree used to be.’

‘Our?’ said Edward.

‘Empyrean had a walled garden. Vegetables were grown there, and fruit trees. Most of the trees were espaliered against the brick walls, but there was one apple tree in the far corner that had been left alone because it was so very old. It produced a variety of apple you don’t see these days, a yellow one, sweet to eat.’

‘Peasgood Nonsuch?’ said Edward. ‘I’ve always loved that name.’

‘Yellow Ingestrie, as I recall,’ said Sunny, ‘though the gardeners had other names for it: Early Pippin and Summer Golden Pippin, and my favourite — Little Golden Knob. It was a perfect climbing tree, and it had one large branch at the right height to attach a swing, which James’s father duly arranged. And that’s where, from the time we were all six years old, we would play — James and I, and Rowan and Lily.’

‘The four of you had become friends?’ said Edward, surprised. ‘Wasn’t that a little — socially daring?’

‘It was the early 1930s,’ said Sunny, tartly, ‘not the Victorian era. Besides, we were the only four children of our age nearby. James, Rowan and I had no brothers or sisters. Lily had two brothers, but they were so much older, she may as well have been an only child. All the others our age were in the village, which was a five-mile walk, or on farms even further away. James and I, once we’d become friends, first co-opted Rowan, and he insisted on bringing with him Miss Blythe. To a stranger, we might have looked like siblings,’ she added. ‘Rowan was dark, but James, Lily and I were all blue-eyed blonds. Though Lily was a beauty, even at that age, whereas I resembled more a wire-haired terrier.’

‘Last time we talked, I got the impression you didn’t have that much time for Lily Blythe,’ said April.

Again, exasperation and shame vied in Sunny’s face.

‘Lily was as lovely in person as she was to look at. The trouble was she was too lovely. She was always so very pliant and obliging that she brought out the imp in me. I would always insist she be the damsel in distress, so the boys and I could be knights and rescue her. I’d put an apple on her head so I could practise being William Tell with a toy bow and arrows. She complained only once, when I tied her to the tree trunk and left her there. I can’t remember why she needed to be tied up — perhaps we were re-creating one of The Perils of Pauline? Rowan found a fox cub that had strayed from its den and we became so intent on returning it safely that I forgot all about her. Farmer Blythe came that evening and had words with my mother.’

‘And were you soundly thrashed?’ said Edward.

‘My mother did her duty and scolded me,’ said Sunny, ‘but I could see her mouth twitching at the corners. She asked me what knot I’d used. I think she was impressed I’d managed to tie Lily up so securely. I was only seven and I did apologise. Lily, of course, had already forgiven me.’

April ran her finger over the map, the paper dry but soft to touch, and pressed down on the little apple.

‘You said “where our tree used to be”. Is it not there any more?’

‘No,’ said Sunny. ‘It died and was cut down.’

Her hand swooped impatiently and pushed the map to one side. ‘Come along. There are plenty of other drawings.’

April handled the pages carefully, as the paper was stiff with age and disuse. The drawings were in pen and ink, of rural landscapes and village scenes. They improved in execution as James grew older, April presumed.

‘Did James give you this sketchbook, too?’ April asked.

‘Lewis Potts gave it to me,’ Sunny replied. ‘After James’s funeral. Thrust it into my arms as if it contained something venomous, or explosive, that he had to be rid of immediately lest it injure him.’

‘He didn’t want a memento of his son?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Who wants to keep reminders of their own failure? Tidy everything away, that’s the trick. Then you can live on, in unruffled denial.’

‘I’m not sure “unruffled” is fair,’ said Edward. ‘Lewis Potts became a total recluse, his house crumbling around him. One has to have a little sympathy.’

‘No,’ said Sunny. ‘One does not.’

April kept looking through the folio. She had to turn the pages more carefully now. Not because the paper was brittle but because Fatso had just decided to jump up on her lap. He’d landed with a chirruping purr and a weight that surprised her. Her thighs were numbing already, but every time she shifted, Fatso’s claws would dig in, right through her jeans. It was like being tangled in barbed wire, bearable as long as you never again intended to move.

April kept her legs still and turned the pages. More hay ricks, more spires; the drawings were becoming repetitive.

But then …

‘Good Lord,’ said Sunny.

James had drawn a man, poised in a half-crouch, as if he had leapt up from the ground and was about to sprint away. He had on dark trousers and boots, a flat cap and a waistcoat over a loose shirt. Beneath his clothes, his figure was strapping, muscular, a man used to physical labour. You could not see his face. His head was turned away, the lines of his profile lost in a crosshatched, shadowed darkness.

Sunny tilted her head to one side, and then the other. ‘Can’t be, surely. Unless he drew from memory …’

Edward caught April’s eye.

‘Spill the beans,’ he said to Sunny. ‘Who was he?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Sunny. ‘I saw him no more than twice, and conversed with him not at all. My suspicion is that he lived in the woods.’

‘Not Old Ted’s fugitive criminal?’ said April.

Sunny shook her head. ‘Don’t forget, the woods were much, much larger in those days. Charcoal burners, Gypsies, coppice cutters — there were more people than you might imagine who lived amongst the trees, or made a living from them. There were poachers, too, more than Ted ever knew, certainly more than he could ever hope to catch by himself. Personally, I think Ted’s criminal was an invention, a single personification of every thieving bastard who had dared trespass on what Ted considered to be his territory.’

April stared at the drawing. ‘Whoever this man was, he wasn’t keen to hang around.’

‘We were forbidden, as children, to go beyond the edge of the woods,’ said Sunny. ‘An instruction we all, of course, ignored. We went everywhere, but we never once found any sign of him. If he was living there, he hid himself remarkably well.’

‘Then how did you see him?’

‘The first time? Ironically, because of Ted. Because the old sod refused to acknowledge that, on the estate at least, there was any law but his own. Because he set a man trap, and it slammed shut on little Billy Curry’s right leg.’

Both Edward and April gave a sharp intake of breath. Startled, Fatso shot off April’s lap, using all his claws as leverage. April stifled a curse, and rubbed her knees, half expecting to see spots of blood.

‘I suspect being caught in a man trap feels much the same,’ Edward said to her, having observed Fatso’s retreat. ‘Only less painful.’

‘I wouldn’t suggest you try to compare,’ said Sunny. ‘My abiding memory is of a great deal of screaming and gore. We had no idea what to do. The four of us were the oldest, but we were only eight years old. The others — there were another three, plus Billy — ranged, as I recall, from four to seven. We were supposed to be taking care of them while the adults were off shooting.’

‘Driving outlaws from the town?’ said Edward.

‘Pheasant, you fool. James’s father had insisted on there being game birds to shoot on the estate, so he made Ted set up a hatchery. Protecting those birds from predators and poachers became an obsession with Ted. Lord knows why — they’re the most brainless of birds, and every October the poor stupid creatures would be chivvied into the open, beaten into terrified flight, and brought immediately down by civilised people wielding shotguns. My mother included.’

‘Your mother?’

‘She was a crack shot. Wore plus-fours like the men. If she hadn’t been so attractive, I imagine she would have been shunned completely. As it was, there were enough resentful glances. She always shot twice as many as anyone else.’

‘I’m assuming a lack of adult supervision was the reason you children had gone astray?’ said Edward.

‘The servants were all in the kitchen, preparing for the influx of birds. We children were supposed to be on the lawn, playing quoits or something equally dull. I think it may have been my idea to sneak off and play Grandma’s Footsteps in the woods. I’d already scared little Billy into wetting his pants. It was not the best day for him, all told.’

‘I suppose none of you could open the trap?’ said April.

‘We tried until we were beside ourselves. Billy’s leg was such a mess. The trap was designed to shut on the shin of an adult, but because Billy was so small, it caught him around his lower thigh. The only mercy was that it missed his femoral artery. He would have been dead in minutes otherwise.’

Sunny picked up the last of her scone. As she lifted it to her mouth, a dark bead of jam dropped glistening onto the table. She smeared it off with a finger, and finished the scone in two rapid bites.

‘All of a sudden, there he was,’ she said. ‘I suppose we were too hysterical to have heard him approach, but he did seem to have appeared out of thin air. He didn’t speak, just got down on one knee and opened the trap. I have no idea how — it looked like sheer brute strength, but he must have known what to press to release it. He lifted Billy out — by then the poor boy was barely conscious — and laid him on the ground to examine the injury. I remember that he looked up to find us all wide-eyed and silent. Then he snapped his fingers at James, and said, “Shirt!” I suppose he deduced James could afford a new one. James didn’t argue. He removed his shirt and handed it over, and watched it being turned into a tourniquet.

‘The man picked Billy up, and held him, as if testing his weight. He said to James and Rowan, “I’ll take him to the edge and you lads can carry him from there.” And that’s exactly what happened. The man handed Billy over at the woods’ edge, and James and Rowan carried him fast as they could to the house. Where, as you can imagine, we had to bear more screaming from the silly housemaids. Fortunately, the cook was made of sterner stuff, kept her head and called the doctor. There was a tad more screaming later from Mrs Curry, but I’d taken myself off to bed by then, so it didn’t bother me.’

April waited, but Sunny apparently had finished.

‘Was Billy all right?’

‘Oh, yes. Well, he lost the leg, of course, but otherwise made a full recovery.’

Edward tapped the sketch. ‘So you think this could be him? The mysterious man in the woods?’

‘He wore a cap just like that. And boots. The waistcoat, I can’t recall.’

‘What did he look like? His face, I mean,’ said April.

‘You know, I’ve been trying to picture it,’ said Sunny, ‘but that seems to have gone, too. One of the many curses of old age. Dark, dark eyes, black as nightshade berries — that’s all I can remember.’

‘And unless he’s succeeded in outdoing that Japanese woman, he’ll be long dead now,’ said Edward. ‘At one with the forest floor under a cowslip’s bell, being sucked by bees.’

‘What nonsense,’ Sunny said.

Abruptly, though there were still drawings left unseen, she shut the folio with a dusty thump.

‘I want you to have this.’ Sunny thrust the folio at April. ‘And the chain, too. I want you to keep them both.’

Sunny picked up the chain from where April had placed it on the table, and plonked it down with some vehemence on top of the art folio. She pushed both closer to April, who drew back.

‘Oh, no …’

Sunny’s expression was pugnaciously determined. ‘If you won’t take the house, then have something of James’s, at least!’

‘I can’t,’ said April. ‘Please. I really can’t.’

Edward reached out and lifted the chain from the folio. He let it dangle from his fingers, the little keys chinking musically together.

‘Silver and gold,’ he said. ‘Another Dante reference, you know. The keys to Peter’s gate, the entrance to Purgatory. One is Remorse, the other Reconciliation. Both had to work or the gate would not open, and the soul would have no chance to ascend to Paradise.’

‘So who is at the gate to Purgatory?’ April asked him. ‘You or me?’

He smiled briefly. ‘I suspect I’m an Indecisive. A moral coward. Rejected by Heaven and ignored by Hell. Destined to languish on the shore of Acheron and be stung by flies and hornets.’

‘Pish,’ said Sunny. ‘You’re simply lazy.’

‘That doesn’t help, of course.’

Edward let the chain fall back on the art folio, where it slithered gently into a heap.

‘In Purgatory,’ he said, ‘there is at least the possibility of change. If you’re in Hell or Heaven, that’s it, you’re stuck. If it were me, I’d prefer to know that my options were still open.’

In the ensuing silence, Sunny pushed the folio an inch closer to April, who sighed, knowing she was beaten. The folio would barely fit in her suitcase. But she’d have to find a way; she had no choice. At least the chain was light. April picked it up, fastened it around her neck.

‘Thank you,’ she said to Sunny.

‘What time is your flight tomorrow?’ said Edward.

It wasn’t till late, but April did not want to risk another invitation. Who knows what else she’d be forced to take?

‘I leave first thing.’

‘You know, I was absolutely convinced that you’d stay,’ said Sunny. ‘Once I had the idea of you in the house, I couldn’t see how it could be otherwise.’

‘Life doesn’t always go to plan, does it?’ said Edward.

‘Balderdash!’ said Sunny. ‘If you bother to plan and to stick to it, life goes exactly the way you want it to!’

‘What about illness, or accident, or acts of God?’ said Edward, amused. ‘You can hardly plan for those.’

‘Of course you can! You can plan for how you’ll manage them. Far too many people leave it to others — and not only in times of crisis — to tell them how they should act or feel or even think. Take responsibility! Decide for yourself what kind of person you want to be.’

‘And what if I decide to be a terrible person?’ Edward was laughing now. ‘An evil mastermind? A murderer?’

‘Then do it! Make your choice and stick to it!’

Sunny began to gather up plates in a clash of crockery.

‘But don’t come crying to me,’ she said, ‘when it all goes wrong.’

CHAPTER 9

late February

April’s last day was the kind that tricks everyone into believing spring might have come early. The sky was a pellucid forget-me-not blue with only a faint haze at the horizon. The air was crisp but still, so that April’s cheeks felt nicely pink rather than slapped red and stinging by the freezing wind.

She’d made her last piece of toast, drunk her last cup of tea and washed the dishes. She’d packed her suitcase and swept and tidied Kit’s cottage and that was that, nothing more to do. April needed to leave at five to drive to Heathrow. She had eight hours to go. Time for one last walk.

She made a plain sandwich from the remaining bread and put it in her jacket pocket along with an old army-style water canteen — another find, this time in Kit’s shed. She closed the cottage door behind her and stood surveying the clearing, wondering which way to go.

Sun lit up the path to the house, silvering the leafless branches of the trees against the blue sky. April hesitated. Should she have one last, more thorough visit, entering the rooms she’d missed, exploring further the ones she’d only glimpsed in passing? No, she decided. What would be the point? The whole plan had been to remove it forever from her memory, from her mind. April was grateful that Sunny had not produced any photos of Empyrean in its heyday, or she would no doubt have foisted those on her, too. April did not want to picture the house filled with its Harrods furniture, its wallpaper and carpet bright and intact, servants bustling down corridors, women in the parlour chatting over tea, men in the study drinking port and smoking cigars, children dashing through the front door, small boots clattering and being ordered to stop running indoors.

Besides, Oran might be inside working, and April did not want to have to say goodbye to him, did not want to feel obliged to justify her actions. Though Oran did not seem the judgemental type, he’d not been shy about expressing his disappointment at her decision to sell. Where there’s life, there’s hope, he’d said. In principle, April agreed with him, but did not share his view of how to look at it. She saw no life in the house, therefore had no hope it could be revived. And even if the house had been in a less dire state, April knew no hope would be forthcoming. All her capacity for hope and joy had been extinguished along with Ben’s life. No life, no hope. No hope and no life for April.

Briefly, April wondered if Oran would notice that she had not said goodbye. Unlikely. They’d only had one short meeting. He’d probably forgotten all about her.

She turned away from the path to the house, and instead headed across the clearing to the woods. The ground was drying out on top but still moist underneath. April stepped carefully, so as not to end up ankle-deep in mud. The leaf mulch reminded her of Oran’s stubble, a patchwork of browns, dark, pale and reddish. Pushing through it were clusters of new green growth. April recognised the heart-shaped leaves of violets and the spears of snowdrops, the odd one dangling a tiny bell of white. There were nettle shoots and bramble twists and masses of low-growing ivy.

No rain meant April could now hear birds, but the gurgling trill of a blackbird was the only call she knew. Something rat-tat-tatted up high. Something else went tseep, tseep.

She knew the trees a little better. That was an oak, that a birch. That, she thought, was a beech, and that one might be an elm sapling. If she’d stayed here, she might have been tempted to buy a book. It would feel too much like a crime to be so ignorant.

No path to follow, except the spaces between the trees. April would not get lost. Ben’s father, against all gender stereotyping, had been the one with no sense of direction. If he went into a shop in an unfamiliar city, he would have no idea which way to turn when he got out. April always navigated. She could navigate while singing songs to entertain Ben in the back seat. The wheels on the bus — take the next right, no right — go round and round …

April paused to drink from the canteen. If she continued on, she would loop around the edge and come out on the other side of the house. If she turned, she would be heading inwards, into the darker depths.

She turned. She would walk into the woods for an hour, then head back the same way. And then she may as well hit the road early. Heathrow airport could cope with her presence for a few extra hours.

The gaps between the trees were no smaller, April decided, but the woods began to feel more dense and dark. There was mossy turf underfoot now as well as leaves. She tested the ground before each step. A moss-covered bulge could equally be a rotten branch, and she was not keen to travel thirty hours with a twisted ankle.

A crash of branches to her right. Something biggish, running. A deer, most likely. A pity it ran, April thought. She would like to have seen it. She’d like to have seen a fox, too, and a badger, if there were any. And a big owl with golden eyes and snowy white wings …

A gap, a clearing. A fraction the size of the one Kit’s cottage stood in, and shrouded by forest canopy. Over the far side was a big moss-covered trunk, a hollow tree. In front of it was a small bird, hopping about in the leaf mould, rooting for insects. It was grey-brown with a burnt orange chest. A robin.

April felt a pulse of delight. There were no robin redbreasts back home. The only ones she’d ever seen had been painted on Christmas cards, surrounded by glitter and sentiment. Seeing one real, live, was like seeing a fairy on a flower; April had been half convinced that robins were a figment.

She was quite close now, but the bird seemed unconcerned. She took a careful step forward, and it stopped, stood head tilted, registering her with one bead-black eye. Then it started to hop towards her.

Goodness, thought April. It was completely unafraid. And it probably expected her to feed it. She reached slowly for the sandwich in her pocket and broke off a bit of bread. Then she crouched, stretched out her hand, and waited.

The robin came within a foot of her fingers, but would hop no further. April tossed the bread to it. It pecked quickly, strewing crumbs, then opened its wings and took off, up into the branches. April watched it fly, regretfully.

‘If you’d waited longer, it would have come.’

The voice was quiet, but April shot upwards if she’d been yanked by the collar. She backed away towards the hollow tree, heart hammering in her throat.

The man stayed still, tilted his head to one side just like the robin. His eyes were the same bead-black, too, in a dark, firm-featured face. He was wearing a woollen hat, thick jacket and corduroy trousers, all in shades of brown. At his feet was a large white dog with reddish spots.

‘They’re naturally curious. Makes them act tame,’ he said. ‘If you’d waited, it would have hopped on your hand.’

‘Are you an escaped criminal?’ said April, breathlessly, her heart still battering her chest. She had not heard him approach at all.

April half hoped for a smile. He did not give her one.

‘Do you want me to be?’

‘Not really.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Just walking.’ She almost added: Is that all right?

‘Not many come this far in. Are you lost?’

‘No,’ said April. ‘I know my way back.’

The dog loped over and sniffed her leg.

‘I’ve met him before,’ said April.

‘He’s called Gabe. Short for Gabriel.’

April offered her hand for the dog to sniff, and gave his ears a quick fondle.

‘Hello, Gabe.’

The dog barked at her.

‘Hush,’ said the man. The dog hushed.

‘I’m April.’

She suspected she was being incautious, letting the man know her name. But she was intensely curious to know his. So there was no way around it.

‘Jack,’ he said, after a beat.

‘I’ve been staying in the gamekeeper’s cottage.’ April broke the  silence because it was clear he would not. ‘By the big house.’

She patted the dog’s head some more, worked her fingers down behind his ears. Gabe gave a little whine of pleasure but from his master no sound. April felt compelled to go on.

‘But I’m leaving. This is my last day.’

‘Leaving?’

April didn’t see him signal, but he must have because the dog left her side immediately and trotted back.

‘Yes. I’m going home.’

He tilted his head again, in that bird-like manner. The dog at his feet softly whined. April had the unnerving impression that all the trees were bending inwards, intent on overhearing.

‘Home,’ he said, ‘is exactly where you’re meant to be.’

CHAPTER 10

August, 1933

James’s new shoes scraped on the fallen tree as he vaulted it. Mama would want him to take his handkerchief and polish off the muck and moss right away, but he couldn’t stop running yet. He could still hear the crunch of dead sticks ahead, caused by feet landing, arms pushing through. James was quick and nimble, but he was a ten-year-old boy. The man was big and strong, and his legs were longer and covered more ground with every stride. James knew he was falling behind, losing him. But he wouldn’t give up. The man might trip and fall, and then James would catch him. He’d sit on the man’s back, bind his hands and lead him home, a bold hunter with a trophy that all would admire. A roaring lion, a spear-horned rhino, the Jabberwocky’s snicker-snacked-off head. Come to my arms, his father would say.

Besides, they could buy new shoes every week if they wanted to. His father had said so. But still, Mama would not be pleased. She had not grown up with money, James knew, and she preferred to make things last. She was a secret mender — socks, shirts, linen. His father had no idea, but James had seen her in her bedroom, chair by the window for light, needle glinting as it dashed in and out.

His mother had other secrets. She kept them in a box inlaid with ebony, no bigger than a carriage clock. It had been a tea caddy, she’d told him, back when tea was more expensive than gold. That’s why it had two little brass locks. To keep the servants from stealing it. Once or twice a year, she and James would sneak up to her bedroom and she would open it for him. Nothing of value was inside, but every item felt precious to James because no one got to see them except him and Mama. Mama would let him take them out one by one: the tiny blue robin’s egg, the dried four-leafed clover, the red nut from India filled with ivory elephants transparent and tiny as an infant’s fingernails, the enamel brooch Mama had made when she was young with a pomegranate spilling jewel-like orange seeds on a lapis background, and James’s favourite, the carved bone dog’s head that had once topped a walking stick. The dog looked friendly enough but it had a hinged bottom jaw, which dropped opened to reveal fierce teeth. Mama told him that the stick’s owner would have pushed a hidden button on the silver mount and made the dog snap and snarl. A trick, Mama said. To catch people by surprise.

When did secrets matter, James wondered, and when did they not? Mama’s box held nothing of importance, so how could it mean anything that he saw inside it? Sunny told him secrets, usually about grown-ups doing things to each other that James very much hoped she’d invented. They had to be true, though, because Sunny could never be bothered to tell lies. Where did she get her information? From her mother, most likely. As his father often said, Dimity Northcote had a mouth on her that would make a seasoned jack-tar blush. Those secrets weren’t important, either, James decided. They were like the dog’s head, designed purely to make you gasp and then, depending on what kind of person you were, burst out laughing.

The secrets that mattered, James thought, were the ones you never shared. Never, ever, not with anyone. Those dark thoughts and urges and wishes that you had to keep locked up because if you spoke them aloud, people would do more than gasp. They would back away in horror. These were the kind of secrets that snarled and snapped for real, like the three-headed dog in the book that was so oddly called a comedy, the demon guardian with its rapacious gullets and its flaying claws that rent spirits and quartered souls.

Even if you never acted on them, those secret thoughts and urges were the kind that sent you straight to Hell, James knew. His father laughed at his mother for going to church, but Mama went anyway and took James with her. Mama liked it better now that Reverend Brownlow had replaced Reverend Flynn. Reverend Brownlow was young and his sermons were about compassion and forgiveness, whereas Reverend Flynn’s favourite subjects had been mortal sin and eternal, fiery torment. He used to get very worked up about it, so much so that one day he’d keeled over in the pulpit and died. James assumed he was in Heaven now. It would be very unfair if he were not, after all that righteous anger.

It was from Reverend Flynn that James had learned what secrets God would punish you for. If you let them out, that is. Only if you let them out.

The crunch of sticks up ahead had been steadily fading. Now it was gone. All James could hear was the shift of pressure in his ears, louder then softer, in time with his pounding heart.

He’d lost him. The man knew the woods so much better; he knew how to properly hide in here. Was he hiding because he had to, James wondered, because he’d done something terrible? Or did he just want to be left alone?

Suddenly, James didn’t give a damn about the man. He hadn’t wanted to catch him that badly anyway, so who cared that he’d got away? Old Ted would find him sooner or later, and then he’d be punished, and rightly so! Bad people should be punished, like the wicked uncle who sent the babes into the wood to die.

James wished he hadn’t thought of that particular fairytale. He was lost himself now, had no idea where he was. He wished Rowan were with him. Rowan knew the woods so well that sometimes you could even fancy that the woods knew Rowan. The trees seemed to bend in and whisper to him, part and make way for him, reveal treasures for him, like fox cubs and wild raspberries and hidden pools.

But he was himself and not Rowan. He was an outsider in these woods just as Rowan was an outsider in James’s life. James had let him in because the closer you were to Rowan, the better you felt. When Rowan was at a distance, apart, you could sense the gap and it felt dangerous, as if you were being divided by some divine judge into good and bad, and there could be no doubt which side had Rowan on it. But when he was with you, alongside you as your friend, you felt the question mark hanging above you vanish. You weren’t under scrutiny any more; there was a tick beside your name because Rowan would never befriend a bad person. When you were with Rowan, you felt good. You felt safe.

In return, of course, Rowan got to spend time at James’s house, play with his toys, ride his bicycle, eat the wonderful teas that Cook made, and mess around in the apple tree with James and Lily and Sunny. And it wasn’t as if Rowan was good at everything. James was smarter at lessons, he could draw and he could beat Rowan in a running race every time. He could beat most boys at running, even older ones. His father had had a special cabinet made for James’s running trophies. It had only two in it so far, but they looked fine, shined up like the best pieces of silver.

James’s chest was tight with exertion, his legs beginning to shake. He should stop and rest — even the best runners couldn’t run forever. But the woods here were dark and the trees were bending in, not to whisper at him but to grab him. If he did stop, he’d surely die. He’d die like the babes, and the ground underneath would swallow him before robin redbreast even had a chance to cover him with leaves.

His eyes began to smart. He thought it was his own sweat, trickling. But then, light blazed right into them, and he ran blind, swiping away stinging tears, until his shoe caught another branch and he fell full length on the ground, the blow knocking the breath from him in a whoosh.

He had grass in his mouth. No, not grass — straw. He spat it out and scrambled to his feet. His knees had been grazed in the fall, which meant they were stinging now, as well as his eyes. That wasn’t his fault, though; his eyes had smoke in them. James had popped out of the woods like a cork from a toy gun and landed beside the hay fields where Farmer Blythe was burning his stubble.

There was a crunch on the ground beside him, and James leapt around, hoping, maybe, that his quarry might have given him a second chance. But the person there was no man.

‘What are you doing?’ said Lily. ‘Why are you so dirty?’

She, James saw, was neat and tidy, dressed in sky-blue cotton that matched her eyes, her blonde hair held back by a white Alice band.

‘I’ve been running,’ said James.

‘You should try walking,’ said Lily. ‘It doesn’t make you half so sticky.’

James saw she was holding a basket. He craned his neck to peer in, but it seemed to be empty.

‘Blackberries,’ she said, tipping it towards him so he could see the few rolling around at the bottom. ‘Mother sent me out to pick some. I’d have more if I didn’t keep eating them. But they’re so scrummy, I can’t help myself!’

She picked one out, and popped it in her mouth. Her lips were stained already with purple-red juice.

Lily fetched another berry from the basket. ‘Open up,’ she said. ‘This one’s for you.’

James took it. He did not even have to chew; it dissolved instantly, as if made of nothing but juice, sweet with one last quick snap of sour.

Lily laughed at his expression. ‘I know! So scrummy.’

James could hear Sunny in his head, on one of the days when Lily drove her mad. She’s like one of those baby dolls, Sunny was saying, with the blonde hair and the big blue eyes and the string you pull to make it talk. Mum-ma, all high and feeble, just like a baby. Mum-ma. Scrum-scrum.

‘Help me pick some more,’ said Lily. ‘If I don’t bring a full basket home, I’ll be in so much trouble.’

Helping the farmer’s daughter pick blackberries. It was not the heroic deed James had imagined.

But then Lily hooked her arm in his and grabbed his hand. ‘Come on, James,’ she urged. ‘I need you.’

He felt her warm, sticky fingers, the faint down of hair on her forearm. Through the smoke, he thought he caught a whiff of warm bread, the Blythe kitchen smell. Delicious.

A feeling stirred in James’s gut, a hollow tugging of need. Starvation, he thought. That’s what it was. Breakfast had been hours ago, and he’d run miles since then.

‘Very well,’ said James. ‘But in return, you’ll have to polish my shoes.’

CHAPTER 11

early March

‘It’s true, then?’ Oran came up behind her. ‘You haven’t left?’

April hefted the cardboard apple box that the stall owner had given her. It held mismatched cutlery, three plates, three bowls and three mugs. Kit had left one of everything in his cottage, which meant April could make tea for Edward when he popped round only if she herself had none.

The stall was not in Kingsfield, which, as April had discovered, was posh, pretty and bland. The shops that were not high-priced antique dealers or chi-chi boutiques were chains: WH Smith, Boots, Costa Coffee, Waitrose. There was one old-fashioned-looking sweet shop, but apparently it had only been open two months. It had replaced a genuinely old-fashioned general store that Edward had made sound like Arkwright’s in Open All Hours, the kind where you could still buy wooden clothes pegs, flour scooped from a barrel, and those plastic rain bonnets, favoured by little old ladies, that fold up into a square the size of a postage stamp. April regretted that she had come too late to see it.

Kingsfield was too posh for a thrift shop, so Edward had recommended April try the car boot sale that was held in the first village over the hill. The village pub had a large car park, which every second Sunday, weather permitting, became a patchwork quilt of tat, as sellers honest and conniving laid out their wares on folding tables, to be picked over by buyers, some astute, but most dreaming of Lowestoft milk jugs or Fabergé pins and therefore susceptible to paying pounds for something made last week in China and worth less than five pence.

April had come with only pence, which meant temptation was effectively bound and gagged. So far, she’d spent a pound all up — the seller had thrown in three teaspoons for free. The plates and bowls were plain, cream surfaces slightly crazed. Two of the mugs were painted with purple splodges that may have been violets, the third had a smudgy lithograph of a soaring bird and, in looping script, the maxim that begins, ‘If you love something, set it free …’

The last owner of the mug had set it free, thought April, and almost certainly hoped never to clap eyes on it again. But it would do for her.

‘If I had left,’ she said to Oran, ‘you’d hardly be talking to me, would you?’

April walked off. Oran jogged to catch up. ‘I could be imagining you,’ he said.

‘Could you?’

‘I ate a peyote button once. Saw a giant pink shrew.’

‘Do I look like a giant pink shrew?’ said April.

‘That’s exactly what the shrew said. I had no idea how to answer it.’

Oran did a little twirling leap and danced around her, arms out, in the manner of a court jester. ‘Why have you not left?’ he said.

April stopped short. ‘I meant to. I really, truly did.’

Oran gestured for her to hand him the apple box.

‘Come to the pub and tell me about it?’ he said.

‘I have no money.’

‘Snap,’ said Oran. ‘That’s all right. We can put it on Mr Gill’s tab.’

‘He has a tab?’

‘He will soon. Where’s your car?’

The publican added twenty pounds to the tab for the chair Oran had broken last time he was in.

‘Cracking the head of another heckler?’ said April.

‘Dancing on it. I was sober was the problem. I’m feather-footed when I’m drunk.’

Oran was cleaner today, April saw, but his clothes were even older and more ragged than hers. What must the pair of us look like, she thought. Tattercoats and her gooseherd, that queer, merry little chap with the magic music.

‘Are you teetotal?’ said Oran. ‘An Amish-type abstainer?’

He indicated her soda water, ordered because the publican had been reluctant enough to serve them, and April did not want to aggravate him further by asking for only tap water.

‘It’s barely lunchtime!’

‘You have the air of being half starved also,’ said Oran. ‘Are you depriving yourself for a reason?’

Even if it hadn’t been Oran who’d asked, April would not have answered.

‘You’re hardly Mr Lardy,’ she said instead. ‘You look like someone clothed a broomstick.’

‘I burn energy at a prodigiously high rate. I’m a human hummingbird. I need to ingest constantly to remain above ground.’

As if to demonstrate, Oran downed his beer in one go and threw a beseeching look towards the publican who, to April’s relief, slowly and emphatically shook his head.

‘He’ll miss me when I’m gone,’ said Oran. ‘He’ll hear my song come faint to him on the evening air and he’ll be filled with a terrible longing.’

April had to smile. ‘You’re quite odd, aren’t you?’

‘Everyone is odd,’ said Oran in earnest. ‘But most people choose to incarcerate their daftness in a little locked box, along with their nightmares and ungodly urges. Trouble is, they always leak out, like wisps of poison gas, and infect the mental air. Best to let them fly free, that’s my opinion.’

‘Even if they land you in jail?’

His eyes dulled then came clear again, a raincloud scudding across the sun. ‘There are many worse places to be.’

Then he beamed, as if recalling a long-forgotten idea and being delighted by it.

‘And you’re not meant to be in this place!’ he said. ‘What happened that you haven’t left?’

‘I should have,’ said April. ‘I really should have. I got to the airport in plenty of time, and checked in, and all was fine, but then there was a delay in boarding. Everyone was waiting, waiting, and then an announcement came that there was an engineering fault with the plane—’

‘Those are bad. Plummeting is usually the result.’

‘Well, we didn’t fly. We were bundled onto buses and driven to the local Travelodge and put up for the night. But no one slept because we were all waiting to see if we’d been booked on another flight. We spent the night in anxious clusters, lurking in the lobby, waiting to pounce on any airline person who appeared.’

‘Did they give you food and water?’

‘We hadn’t been kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army,’ said April. ‘Yes, they fed us, and they rebooked us all on new flights and bussed us back. But what they didn’t know was that during the night a volcano had erupted in Chile and the giant ash cloud had created a hazard and all flights were cancelled until it cleared.’

‘The plot has thickened like snow on the Andes.’

‘Everyone was very scratchy. There was a lot of shouting and demanding and pushy behaviour, which the airline people duly ignored. We all had to queue up and rebook once again. I was in a queue for two hours, and when I finally got to the rebooking person they couldn’t find my ticket.’

‘Were you not clutching it in your hand?’

‘I was. But that didn’t matter — the computer had lost it. All trace of my booking had disappeared, as if it had never existed.’

‘There’s an Orwellian nightmare quality to this story that is most compelling,’ said Oran. ‘First industry, then nature and now technology has conspired against you. What dark force will rise up next?’

‘Humanity,’ said April. ‘The rebooking person said I’d have to sort it out with the travel agent back home. So I paid extortionate sums for ten minutes of internet access only to discover that the travel agent had gone out of business. Leaving no trace, either.’

‘And at that moment,’ said Oran, ‘was the last sputtering flicker of your spirit extinguished? Did you throw your head back and howl?’

‘I don’t cry. But I did rest my head on the table for quite a while.’

‘You don’t cry?’ Oran was shocked. ‘Whyever not?’

April ignored him.

‘Then I got up and trundled my suitcase to catch the train — the slow one, not the express — into Paddington. Then I caught another train to Maidenhead and a third to Kingsfield, and trundled the mile and a half between the station and Edward’s office.’

‘Did he throw his arms around you and chortle in his joy?’

‘He wouldn’t stop laughing,’ said April. ‘Even when I threatened to stab him with his Georg Jensen letter opener.’

‘He was grinning like a cat when he told me you hadn’t left,’ said Oran. ‘Mind you, posh nobs often carry a slappable smirk about their mien. They can’t help it. It’s in the blood.’

‘I can’t slap him,’ said April. ‘He’s been too good to me.’

‘He’s just shouted you a soda water, for one.’

‘And that’s precisely the issue,’ said April. ‘I’m skint. I can stay in the cottage, so at least I have a roof over my head, but I have no money to live on, let alone enough to afford another ticket home until the house sells, which might be months. Edward did offer to advance me the ticket cost, but that would be his money I’d be borrowing and I couldn’t accept it. And the little money left in the estate is earmarked to pay you.’

‘You’re very kind,’ said Oran. ‘As you’ve guessed, I am, financially speaking, at least three levels below skint.’

‘However, he did insist that I accept a small advance from the estate money for living expenses.’

Oran shrugged. ‘Easy come, easy go.’

‘But I couldn’t accept that without giving something in return. So I’ve—’

April hesitated, unsure of how Oran would take the next bit.

‘Offered to be my lackey?’ said Oran. ‘My willing stooge in the sprucing up of the big house?’

‘Edward asked you if it was all right?’

‘No, he told me I could like it or lump it. He seemed quite determined that now you’d offered, you would have no reason to back down.’

April did not doubt that for a moment. She’d made the offer because she’d felt embarrassed; felt she did not deserve anyone’s kindness or generosity. Only afterwards did she realise what she’d committed to — days, possibly weeks, in the house. Oran’s presence she knew she could cope with. She would focus on the work at hand and speak to him only when necessary and about things that didn’t matter. The presence of the house was another matter. It would surround her, and she did not know how to guarantee that it would never feel comfortable.

‘I’ve never been the foreman before,’ said Oran. ‘Would you prefer me to bark instructions at you old-style, or write everything up on a whiteboard, as per the new order of health and safety?’

‘How about we discuss it very briefly and then shut up and knuckle down?’ April said. ‘But truly, is this all right with you? I feel I’m taking work that you could be paid for.’

‘Have you seen the size of the place?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Do you know anything about joinery, glazing, plumbing, plastering and the restoration of woodwork?’

‘Nothing,’ said April. ‘I can remove wallpaper, and I can wield a paintbrush. And a broom. If I must.’

‘There you are, then. We’re a team.’

He raised his beer glass and chinked it against hers.

‘It was meant to be.’

Meant to be.

In the cottage kitchen, April unloaded the apple box and considered that phrase. It implied that her situation was predestined, that no matter what plans she had made or how carefully, they were always going to be thwarted by a larger, more powerful force. God. Or that older and more universally believed-in controlling entity: Fate.

It would not be the first time, April thought. Ben’s death had been God or Fate at its cruellest. More than a twist — the total annihilation of her plans and dreams, the eradication of her life’s whole point and purpose. It was a sign that could not be ignored, and April had not done so. She had used it as a guide to rebuild her life, and that decision had seemed to satisfy — there had been no more signs from above, no more corrections. Despite everyone who’d cared about her telling her it was wrong, April had felt sure of her path.

But now, God or Fate was signalling again, letting her know that there was no going back to her previous life, at least not any time soon. Why, April knew there was no point in trying to guess. What she needed to do now was work out how to remake that life here, in an environment that offered exponentially more challenges than the last, so she could stay on her path, stay true to what she believed.

Staying true — that was more important now than ever. Only yesterday, April had found out how worryingly easy it was to stray, and not even be aware that you were doing so.

When establishing her new life, April had taken great care to reset the context — her surroundings and the people in them — to eliminate any sense of personal connection. She had chosen Circle Court because she did not want a place that felt like a home, or neighbours who might become friends. She had chosen to work at the community education centre because her interactions with the staff and students could be brief and never personal. Students came and went, and she need not make any effort to remember them.

Having no connections should have meant April had nothing to regret leaving. That was true enough with her flat. She could not afford to keep it, and it had taken only a brief phone call from Edward’s office to give notice and advise that someone would be in to clear it out. April suspected this last bit might be a lie; even the Salvation Army had standards. But she did not care what happened to her belongings. She owned nothing that mattered to her.

She made her next call to the community education centre, despite sensing through the closed door the disapproval of Irene, who knew that her employer was giving toll calls away for free rather than itemising them by the second on a bill.

April had expected this call to be as straightforward as the first. But they’d told her three students had dropped out of the course because the substitute was nowhere near as good, nowhere near as kind and patient. Was she sure she could not come back?

She had wanted to yell that the only reason she’d seemed kind and patient was because she had not cared enough to get het up. Her students had mistaken indifference for tolerance, detachment for serenity. How could they have done that, when the truth was so obvious? How could they have liked her when she had not even bothered to call them by name? When she’d just pointed and said ‘Yes’?

She did know them, though. The shy young Somali man with the hesitant suffix of a name, Ish. Lada, tall, blonde and Russian, named not after a make of car, but a word that meant soft and sweet. Cody, from China, born Ling Xiu, his new name found on a surfing website. Lalima, from India, whose English was perfect, but who was lonely and wanted to meet people. The others, too. April knew all about them. She had remembered, without even trying.

April had not asked the names of the three dropouts. And, no, she could not suggest another substitute who might be better liked. She’d studied the fluting on Edward’s ugly mahogany mantelpiece before making her last call to Jenny.

Stiff had answered. This had been a surprise. Stiff did not have a phone in his flat, believing them to be toxic and possibly sentient. The conversation had been tricky because Stiff did not like to hold the receiver too close to his head, but April had eventually extracted the key facts. Jenny was in hospital again. She had stumbled on the footpath outside Circle Court and her hands were of so little use in breaking her fall they may as well have been tied behind her. Jenny’s face had been badly cut and bruised, and her ribs cracked. While X-raying her, the doctors had found a shadow on her lung, and further tests had revealed more darkness around her spine and liver. Stiff had not been able to speak the name of the disease, and April sympathised. Evil entered through the faintest of cracks, if you were foolish enough to let it.

The doctors thought Jenny had less than a month to live. April could not be there for her, could not do anything more than send her best wishes via the medium of Stiff who may or may not have heard her request before he hung up, his tolerance for telephonic exposure at an end.

Connections. April had designed her life to be free of them yet there they were. They’d slipped in, distracting and seductive as the smell of grass clippings through an open window.

April knew about loss. She knew how it clung inside you, claws holding tight to everything vital, feeding on your despair. And that was how it should be. That clutching presence was a reminder of how she had to live. She needed it there, needed it to keep on fattening in the dark. That’s why connections were so dangerous. Anything that countered despair — good food, music, books, making things, growing things, love and friendship — starved that presence, weakened it, and weakened April, too.

April made a cup of tea and sat in Kit’s armchair, in front of the fire. Light it no later than four, Edward had said, or the cottage will refuse to heat up.

She’d been so careful. So how had Jenny, the language students, and even Stiff, God help him, connected without April being aware of how much? Was it because an external God or Fate wasn’t her real enemy after all, and in fact it was some part of her own self, some part buried deep, that was working in secret to betray her? The fancies, the restlessness, the images in her mind — was that her old self fighting to get free again, the way a chrysalis fights to free itself from the tight cocoon? Had that deeper part of her understood that this latest twist of God or Fate was a signal to change course, a message that she had indeed paid her dues, that her sentence, as Edward called it, had been served and she could now go free?

Would that be so bad? The thought flared up, a spark catching hold of kindling. Would it be so bad to let the butterflies flock, to bring joy back into her life, to throw open the shades and let in the light?

April screwed shut her eyes. The fire’s after-image glowed in the sudden blackness, but was quickly overtaken by pictures that, even after this long, were more vivid than any flame. A blond head, a round face lighting up, small sturdy legs running, and then—

Her fault. She knew that with all her broken heart.

No light for her. No light ever again.

CHAPTER 12

mid-March

‘Are you aware,’ Oran asked April, ‘of the bacon beetle?’

April was on her knees in Empyrean’s kitchen, scrubbing the newly swept floor. Oran was perched on top of the sink bench, flicking through a book that Edward had lent them, a National Trust guide to conserving old houses.

‘Can it light an Aga?’

‘Dermestes lardarius,’ he went on. ‘More commonly known as the larder beetle. It feeds on dried meat, skin, cartilage, even hair and feathers.’

‘Can you use it to light an Aga? It sounds flammable.’

‘They’re quite a danger to stuffed fish, apparently. And by “stuffed”, I do not mean in a culinary-type fashion, but by a taxidermist.’

April sat back on her heels. To be fair, Oran could not be accused of slacking. Thanks to him, all wonky shelving had been made firm; the Aga was intact and in working order, its black top and white doors cleaned and shined; the butler’s sink was now in place, the surface crazing lightened by vigorous scrubbing, and the taps with their jaunty winged handles and the slim, curved faucet had been reunited with the wall and polished to as much original chrome shininess as age and wear would allow. Thanks to their combined efforts, the floor and surfaces had been swept free of dust, dirt and insect parts. The plumbing was beyond Oran’s abilities, as were the electrics, the house’s wiring being a Gordian knot that needed a subtler touch than a sword through its centre. The Aga was old enough to be fuelled by coal, a bag of which Oran had scavenged from somewhere. The sun provided a pale light but no heat, so while floor scrubbing did raise a sweat, April was keen for the Aga to bring the temperature in the room to above freezing when she took a break. But Oran didn’t seem to feel the cold. Today he had on a fisherman’s-knit jersey that looked as if it had been salvaged from a shipwreck off the Hebridean coast. There were holes in it an elephant seal could swim through.

‘Do you even know how to light the Aga?’ said April.

‘I do,’ said Oran. ‘I also know how to stand well back, cross my fingers and pray.’

‘Are you saying there’s a chance it’ll spew coal dust all over my clean floor?’

‘There’s a chance it’ll blow us both to kingdom come.’

‘Why don’t you help me scrub the floor then?’

‘Why don’t I sing while you work?’ said Oran, with a smile.

Oran would sing no matter what, so April did not waste energy on a reply. It had troubled her at first, listening to him, because his voice was such a pleasure. But his songs suited her. They were from different times, different places, but all had in common the same themes of sadness and regret, sometimes keenly felt, the emotions raw, and other times resigned and melancholy, as if the songwriters had raged so long they had no more in them.

April did wonder why Oran chose these songs, which did not seem to suit his personality at all. He sang them so well, though, that it was hard to imagine it any differently. This song said it did not matter where the songwriter was buried. When they were dead, they’d be free, wherever they lay. All their tears would be washed away.

The dead are free, thought April. But they chain us to their  memories.

She resumed scrubbing. The old linoleum — another practical choice April assumed had been made by Mrs Potts, perhaps after consultation with the housekeeper — was never going to look as pristine as it had when first laid, but a time-honoured combination of sugar soap and elbow grease was bringing it up nicely. You could see the colours now: chambray blue and dove grey squares, with a charcoal edging. The last of the paint showed the kitchen walls had once been off-white, with blue and primrose-yellow accents that matched the cupboards and shelves. In its day, the room must have been as fresh and pretty as a china milkmaid.

The books Edward had lent them gave some idea of how it might have looked fully equipped, and Sunny had added in her recollections. She said that Mr Potts had been keen to acquire the latest appliances, which, when first released, would have been criminally expensive. Sunny’s memories were patchy now, but she remembered the Aga, upon which she’d cooked many a meal, and the refrigerator, which became a talking point for miles around as no one had ever seen its like. Not surprising, Edward had remarked. Even in the late 1940s, he informed them, only a tiny fraction of British households owned a refrigeration unit of any kind. Empyrean’s was a Frigidaire that Mr Potts had imported from America when James and Sunny were about eight years old. It had two doors side by side, a hydrator to keep vegetables crisp and, even more extraordinary, an ice maker that produced proper cubes in metal slide-out trays. It was probably powered by Freon, said Edward, which was less liable to explode than the original chlorofluorocarbons, but had not done the ozone layer any favours.

There’d been a copper electric kettle once, too, said Sunny, but that had expired when one of the housemaids had forgotten and placed it on the Aga. The toaster with the sides that opened had not been much liked either, as one tended to burn one’s fingers extracting the toast. It looked rather space-age, though, said Sunny. Circular and chrome. Edward expressed regret that the Hotpoint ‘El’ line of appliances had been a decade before Empyrean’s time. ‘El’ stood for ‘electric’, apparently, and the line included El Perco, an electric coffeepot; El Chafo, a chafing dish; El Boilo, an immersion heater; and an item called the El Eggo, which Edward was determined to one day track down.

Sitting back on her heels and looking around, April had a vision of Empyrean’s kitchen new and working and busy — the cook ordering around the housemaids and banishing the boot boy, the children taking advantage of her distraction to scoop cake mix from the bowl with a quick bent finger or picking at the fresh-cut bread loaf, stealing strawberries meant for the Victoria sponge.

James and Sunny — they’d been the children. And perhaps Rowan and Lily had been allowed in, too, if James, the young master of the house, had insisted.

But James had been dead for over sixty years. Rowan and Lily — they must be dead now too, surely? Few people lived as long as Sunny. Some did not even make it to their sixth birthday …

A quiet crackling announced that the Aga was alight.

‘Are you aware,’ said Oran, ‘that the first Agas were sold here in 1929, two years after this house was built? This one would have replaced what I can only imagine was a perfectly good, spanking new coal range.’

‘Sunny said Mr Potts was a man for the latest gadgets,’ said April. ‘And what he wanted he got, I suspect.’

‘I find it easier not to want,’ said Oran. ‘But sometimes it can’t be helped.’

April worked the scrubbing brush into a stubborn patch of grime. ‘And what can’t you help wanting, Oran?’

She spoke in the offhand dryly teasing tone that had become her norm when conversing with him. They worked in close quarters for several hours a day, and Oran was naturally chatty, so silence was not an option. But April’s plan had always been to avoid their conversations becoming intimate, so she kept him at bay with a mix of direct requests — ‘Hold this’, ‘Pass the broom’ — and mildly sarcastic ribbing and rejoinders. It worked. Oran enjoyed banter; taking it too far was part of what got him into trouble in pubs. As a result, they never discussed anything personal or particularly meaningful. April had expected that her question would be answered with a jest, most likely one referencing alcohol, and it was several seconds before she realised no response had been lobbed back over the net.

April stopped scrubbing, and looked up. Oran was facing away, towards the window, the edges of his lean form blurred by light and shadow so that he appeared only half-present, as if in the midst of being transported there from another time. His hands were propped on the bench, his shoulders pushed up into a shrug.

‘What am I wanting?’ he said.

No jest in his voice, but the same soft-burred resonance of his songs.

‘I’m wanting to go back,’ he said. ‘I’m wanting to do what I didn’t do, and not do what I did, so I can make it all turn out different.’

He clenched both fists and hit them once, lightly, on the bench. Turned back to April.

‘But when you get so very close and falter at the last,’ he said, ‘you know then you’ve blown it forever, that there’ll be no second chance. And no amount of wanting, wishing or even prayer will ever change that.’

Edward had lent Oran and April more than one book, and Oran had handed them to April for safekeeping. She had not read a book for years, had discarded them along with everything else that gave her joy. But these were not fiction, or even stories from real life. They were functional, providing matter-of-fact information that would be of practical use for the task of finding the quickest, cheapest way to make Empyrean more presentable. April saw little risk in browsing through them.

The most recent and informative was a substantial guide to British and American domestic architectural detail from the 1400s to the present. The bookmark ribbon was at the start of the section on the Modern movement. Edward’s taste, April knew. All clean lines and purity of form. No novelty turrets or ornate mouldings or schmaltzy Arts and Crafts pictorial tiles.

The founders of the Modern movement believed ornamentation to be degenerate, April read. The author of the next book, The House Beautiful and Useful, wasn’t too fussed on it, either. In the introduction, the author expressed his particular loathing for art nouveau. In no case, April read, is this ghastly riot of form more marked than in Germany and Austria, where ingenious fancy, a craze for novelty, and a certain morbid strain in Teutonic temperament have combined with the most unhappy result.

That was telling them, thought April. The book, she saw, had been published in 1907, so the author could hardly have known that the real lesson was soon to come through two world wars.

Did James fight in the second war? He would have been old enough. He had died soon after, which, if he had fought and survived, must have been a harder blow for his parents to bear.

The House Beautiful and Useful had a grey-green linen cover, and was printed on thick paper, edges softened by decades of thumbs. In front and back were old advertisements, for fittings and furniture, tiles and fabrics. One supplier offered Carriage Paid on orders over £2 to any Railway Station in England, another Details and Specifications of Dwellings actually built at costs ranging from £75 to £300.

If only, thought April. You could restore multiple Empyreans for that price, and have change left over to splash out on all seventy colours of that most artistic of wall coverings, Hall’s Sanitary Washable Distemper.

The National Trust guide had been published in the 1980s. It was not a large book but covered a multitude of issues that apparently affected old houses and their contents. Old houses, in this case, meaning ones considerably more venerable and stately than Empyrean. Houses with boulle work and ormolu, harp stands and decorative friezes. Houses with illuminated manuscripts and stuffed rhinoceroses, portrait miniatures, blunderbusses and spinets.

From the book, April learned that bronzes could become diseased. That you should never store pewter in oak drawers because the organic acids would make it unstable. That an International Wool Secretariat was researching the use of druggets on carpet. That you should never iron the cushions on a billiard table. And that stacking too many plates in one pile was simply asking for trouble.

When Edward had offered them the guide, April had expressed her doubt about how much application it would have to their work on Empyrean. But Oran had been very taken by the chapter on taxidermy, and added it to the pile.

The thought of Oran made her chest constrict, and she took measured breaths to ease it. That expression, when he’d turned — it was one April knew well. She’d seen it on the face of Ben’s father when she’d told him she was leaving, and at their last meeting, when he’d finally conceded defeat, and let her go with only the clothes she was wearing and the few items she needed to start a new life without him, without anything she’d ever held dear.

April had not asked Oran to explain. She did not want to know what memory had brought that look to his face. If her silence had disappointed him, he hadn’t shown it. He’d taken a screwdriver from his toolkit and set about tightening the hinges on the canting cupboard doors.

Last in the pile were three volumes, slightly smaller than The House Beautiful, and bound in brown leather. The title on the cover — The Popular Encyclopaedia of Gardening — was grass green. No date again, but judging from the clothing in the black and white photos, these books had been issued in the late 1920s, early ’30s.

Volume three was on top. April turned at random to a page near the back. Torch Lily, she read. Tortrix Moths. Tournefortia. Trachelium Caeruleum.

She turned carefully — the binding was flimsy — to a page before. Scorzonera. Scutellaria. Sea Buckthorn.

Like the words of some ancient incantation, April thought, chanted as you throw herbs, hair and goat’s blood into an iron cauldron.

The garden. That was another project entirely. The house might be a shabby mess but the garden had become a jungle, taken back by the wild, tameable only with a machete and, in some parts, the use of fire. Edward had not mentioned the garden, but he had loaded these three books into Oran’s arms along with the others, and April suspected his plan was to let the idea worm its way into her mind.

His plan would fail, April vowed. Working on the house was quite enough; she would not be starting on the garden, especially not now with spring around the corner. It was becoming harder every day she spent in the house to keep her distance from it, to keep pictures of how it had been out of her mind, to block out the voices from the past, particularly the children’s voices, their laughter and shouts. All imaginary, she knew, but still she heard them. Outside, even though it was still officially late winter, the new growth was already showing. When spring proper came, the garden would smell of blossom and new grass and perhaps even fruit. Real scents, not imagined. Even harder to ignore.

It was three o’clock. There was an hour or so of daylight left. April had intended to bring in more wood from Kit’s ample store, light the fire and make a cup of tea, and sit dreaming of nothing, resting arms that ached from a morning of scrubbing floors.

Instead, she put on her coat, scarf and gloves and went out for a walk. Once around the house, she decided, then back to the cottage.

The route she chose led her to the entrance of the walled garden. She was about to pass it by when the sound of a voice came to her. Only a murmur, a few words, but most definitely a human voice. Someone inside the garden walls.

Oran, April knew, had left for wherever it was he lived. He’d driven off in a Bedford van, borrowed he’d said, but not from whom. The van had been bright yellow once, in the early 1970s. You could still see the shadow of a sign on the side: McLuskey’s Radio and Television Repairs. The van’s old diesel engine rumbled like a combine harvester, and its exhaust popped and banged. April would have heard if Oran had returned.

Which meant this person, this stranger, was an intruder on property that was, at least for a while, her own. April hesitated — should she investigate? The voice had not sounded aggressive. It could be a local birdwatcher, who knew? April decided to brave it and find out.

The garden entrance was a brick arch smothered with climbing rose brambles, brown, knotted and thorny as a witch’s fingers. A new tendril had snaked right across the entrance, and April paused to push it aside, carefully, its budding thorns already sharp. Weeds, big and leafy, knocked at her shoes and dragged against her knees as she walked on in.

Inside now, April could see down to the derelict greenhouse. Was that a person crouched behind it, or an object, like an upturned wheelbarrow?

She saw the dog first, rounding the greenhouse corner, nose to the ground. Gabe’s tail went up as he spotted her. He gave a single bark.

April waited, but the dog stayed in place, tail wagging, so April walked to him. Gabe loped the last step to meet her, and shoved his nose in her hand. She fondled his ears, and plucked up the courage to peer around the corner.

The man was squatting, taking a pocketknife to a plant that looked to April like any of the weeds. He was trimming off the leaves. Putting them in an old leather satchel.

‘What’s that?’ she said.

He glanced up. Seemed unperturbed at being caught trespassing.

‘Poor man’s mustard,’ he said. ‘Or Jack-by-the-hedge.’

‘Any relation?’

He ignored the joke — quite rightly, thought April — shoved the last bit of green in the satchel, and stood up. He flipped shut the knife and put it in his jacket pocket. His dog sniffed at April’s shoes.

‘Is it edible?’ said April. ‘It looks like a weed.’

‘Lots of weeds you can eat.’

‘Does it taste nice?’

‘It’ll do.’

April knew she should not be interrogating him. It was growing dark and she could tell he was impatient to leave. But she’d only come upon him by accident. Who knew when she’d get another chance?

‘Where do you live?’ she said.

He jerked his head to the right. ‘Over there.’

‘Far?’

‘Far enough.’

‘I live in the gamekeeper’s cottage.’

‘So you said.’

‘Did Kit let you on the property?’ April said. ‘I’d feel bad going against his wishes.’

‘We had an understanding.’

April wasn’t sure that answered the question.

‘He emigrated to Canada, you know,’ said April. ‘To be with a woman.’

Astonishingly, he smiled. ‘That so?’ A slow, amused shake of his head. ‘Well, well.’

April spoke without thinking.

‘Do you want to come round some time? To the cottage? I can’t offer you much except a cup of tea.’

He stared at her, no smile now, but no hostility or wariness, either. His eyes were the black-brown of coffee. The sun, low now in the sky, was caught in the corners, whorls of tawny sparkling light. His face — was it handsome? Hard to tell. It was like looking at a stone on the bottom of a stream. You could see it clearly, knew exactly what it was, but no matter how long you stared, its image resisted a complete capture.

‘I don’t like walls,’ he said. ‘I’d like it better if you came to me.’

And he started to walk away, dog at his heels.

‘But I don’t know where you live!’ April had called.

His last words came to her on the air.

‘You’ll find me.’

CHAPTER 13

late March

April drove to Sunny’s in a car Edward had found for her. It was an old Volvo wagon, shaped like an air-raid bunker, and with room in the back to fit — April had calculated this while idling in the lane waiting for a farmer to drive his flock around her — four ewes and a medium-sized border collie.

Edward had overcome April’s objections by insisting that the car was not a gift but a temporary loan. It belonged to Irene’s youngest nephew, who was currently in Australia, working in a coalmine. According to Edward, the nephew was meant to have become an accountant like his father, but instead had chosen to leave school at sixteen and travel across Europe, adventuring and finding work as an itinerant labourer, sleeping when he had to in the back of the Volvo. Irene, Edward said, considered her nephew to be a black sheep, made even blacker now by the ironore of Pilbara, and April was welcome to have his car until such time as he saw sense and slunk back home. Which would be no time soon, was Edward’s prediction. The waves of familial disapproval, even as they spoke, were no doubt bouncing harmlessly off the dazzling red surface of the outback.

Sunny had issued April and Edward a standing invitation to come to tea every Sunday. April’s initial instinct had been to refuse, but a combination of her own waxing curiosity about the house’s past and Sunny’s inability to hear the word ‘No’ meant she had already spent two Sunday afternoons at Sunny’s house and was five minutes away from spending a third. The hardest thing, thought April, was refusing the food, which was consistently, delectably tempting. Edward usually ate her share as well as his, but not before he did his best to sway her.

Edward’s Alvis was already parked outside. He’d left Sunny’s front door ajar, so April pushed it open. Crouched in the alcove that held coats and boots was Fatso. He greeted her with a chirrup and a sinuously raised back, so April bent down to stroke him. The fur behind his ears was as soft as down and the top of his cinnamon-coloured head toasty warm, as if he’d been sleeping in front of a heater. Fatso closed his eyes and purred, butting his head against her hand. April had only intended a quick pat but she kept on, indulging in the rare feeling of another living being enjoying her touch.

Sunny and Edward were talking in the kitchen.

‘It’s a perfectly natural reaction to a trauma, I would have thought,’ said Sunny. ‘One either fights or flees, doesn’t one? Depending on one’s personality? My father was a fleer. Hid away, shut up tight as an oyster. Besides, must I point out that you’re a fine one to talk? When did you last make an attempt to meet someone? Surely, there are plenty of clubs. There were even in my day.’

‘I’m far too old for that scene now,’ said Edward. ‘And before you say “Pish”, it’s perfectly true. I could ride into a club naked on the back of a juggling bear, and the young things would blank me. I could self-immolate on the dance floor, and they might, if I were very lucky, light a Gauloise off me.’

‘That is a transparently feeble excuse. What about places for men your age? You can’t tell me those don’t exist. And what about the internet? According to Dilly, it’s not all serial killers and people who like to dress up as giant teddy bears. She says there are some very respectable matchmaking websites these days, though I refused to let her tell me how she knew.’

‘Has it occurred to you that I might be happy on my own?’ said Edward.

‘Nonsense!’ said Sunny. ‘Under that indolent exterior, you’re as red-blooded as the next male. There is no possibility that you could be at all happy hunkering down alone in an oyster shell for the rest of your life.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Edward. ‘I quite fancy having pearls for eyes.’

‘Foolishness,’ said Sunny. ‘But I suppose it’s fruitless to persuade you otherwise. You’re remarkably intransigent, you know. I despair of it quite often.’

April heard a cupboard door squeak open.

‘I should warn you,’ Sunny said, ‘that the walrus did eat my father in the end. And answer—’ the cupboard door slammed ‘—there was none.’

Fatso had tired of being stroked. He signalled this to April by sinking his teeth into the fleshy apple of her palm.

‘Ouch!’ April rubbed her hand with her other thumb. ‘You fickle sod!’

Sunny popped her head around the kitchen doorway.

‘Why are you lurking out there?’ she said to April. ‘Hang your coat and come in!’

On top of Ben Nevis today were small sandwiches and a large cake, dense with yellow marzipan and dried fruit.

‘Simnel cake,’ Sunny announced. ‘I haven’t made one for years, so I thought I’d better practise. It’s Mothering Sunday soon, and I intend to wallow in self-pity by celebrating it on my own.’

‘Did you know that these marzipan balls on top represent the eleven disciples?’ said Edward. ‘Eleven because Judas is excluded.’ He picked one off his piece of cake and ate it. ‘Judas, as his actions did rather prove, is ball-less.’

‘I’d planned to sugar some violets,’ Sunny said. ‘But the only decent flowers I could find smelled as if Fatso had peed on them. My self-pity falls short of outright masochism.’

‘Have you actually invited your children to your birthday?’ April said.

‘Of course not,’ said Sunny, irritably. ‘I don’t want them coming only because they feel guilty.’

‘Did they celebrate your eightieth?’

‘They did not,’ Sunny said. ‘But they did, at least, have a good reason that time. On my eightieth birthday, I buried my husband.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’

‘So was I, by God.’ Sunny brought a sandwich halfway to her mouth, before discarding it again on her plate. ‘He swore he would last, the swine. He promised to sing me happy birthday.’

She glanced at the wedding photo on the sideboard. ‘As it happens, I’ve never celebrated any significant birthday. I turned twenty-one during the war, and everyone was too busy dying then, too. On the morning of my thirtieth, I went into labour with son number three, Xandy. My fortieth was just after Kennedy’s assassination, so Perry was caught up in a bunch of diplomatic hoo-ha. Deborah, my middle daughter, crashed her car the evening before my fiftieth, so we spent the day in a hospital waiting room. What happened on my sixtieth? Oh, yes. Perry and I went to Spain on our own, and thanks to an off paella on our first night we spent my birthday jostling for the lavatory. And two days before my seventieth, my second son, Henry, fell ill with something dire while working in Java, and we were still waiting to hear whether he was alive or dead.’

‘And?’ April had to ask.

‘Oh, he was fine, of course. Knowing Henry, he probably didn’t even notice he was in hospital.’

‘What was he doing there? Holidaying?’

‘Zooologising. Studying some kind of giant rat.’

‘How giant?’ Edward said. ‘No, on second thoughts, don’t tell me. I’m intimidated enough by those balls of fluff that gather under the bed.’

‘So you can see,’ Sunny said, ignoring him, ‘that this is my last chance for a proper party.’

‘Well, we’ll certainly be there.’ Edward looked across the table. ‘Won’t we, Ms Turner?’

April was saved a reply by the phone.

Sunny tsk’d impatiently. ‘That will be Freya,’ she said, rising. ‘She invariably calls at times of maximum inconvenience.’

‘The cake is very good,’ said Edward to April, when Sunny was busy in conversation.

In a strange way, April appreciated that Edward made such little effort to disguise his tactics. It meant little effort in return on her part to disregard them.

‘I’m sure it is,’ she said.

‘The sandwiches,’ Edward pressed on, ‘are egg and cress. Which also are delicious but have the unfortunate effect of propelling me straight back to childhood, a place I was ready to leave many years before that was possible.’

Sunny had the phone clamped between her shoulder and her ear, her hands now engaged in refilling the kettle and setting it on the bright red Aga.

‘How are you finding working with Oran?’

Edward at least knows when not to pursue a subject, April thought. Though this new topic was only marginally better. Any talk of Oran led inevitably to the house, and April wished to keep the house’s intrusion on her thoughts to the barest minimum.

‘We get along fine.’

‘I must admit that during even a short conversation with him, I feel rather like I’m hurtling through a series of fun-fair rides. My head tends to spin.’

‘We don’t talk all that much. Mainly he sings.’

‘And he sings so very well, doesn’t he? When I first heard him, I was, unfairly perhaps, astonished.’

April shrugged. ‘Yes, he has a good voice.’

‘He was raised by his grandfather, you know. George Rose. He was the sexton of the Kingsfield church, and the local odd-job man. I’ve gathered from Sunny that there was nothing to which George couldn’t turn his hand. He taught Oran everything.’

This subject, April realised with dismay, was one that would not be relinquished so readily. She could not tell what Edward intended by pursuing it, but assumed he had some kind of agenda. He always did. Still, as always, she needn’t play the game. She needn’t ask the question she very much wanted to, which was: what had happened to Oran’s parents?

‘Oran’s mother was George’s only daughter. Marianne.’

It seemed Edward intended to tell her anyway.

‘George and his wife adopted her as a baby because they couldn’t have children of their own.’

In the background, April heard Sunny say the word ‘turnips’, declaratively, as if she’d just proved a point. April’s own wish at that point was for Sunny to end her call, come back to the table, and make Edward stop talking.

‘Sunny told me that Marianne was a blonde beauty with striking tawny eyes,’ said Edward. ‘Stunning, apparently, but a complete narcissist. Perhaps George and his wife lavished her with too much attention? Perhaps it was simply her nature, who knows? She had a string of lovers for years until, in her early thirties, she met another narcissist, Aidan Feares, a charming red-haired Irishman. They were sexually obsessed with each other from the minute they met, and never meant to have Oran. He got in the way, cramped their style, as they say. George’s wife had died by then and he was on his own. When Oran was only two months old, they dropped him on George’s doorstep and never came back.’

‘Well, not all people are cut out to be parents,’ said April.

Edward was undeterred. ‘Oran’s a good man. Eccentric, yes, and not entirely reliable, but a good man nonetheless.’

April hid her immediate reaction, which was one of pained incredulity. Surely that could not be his agenda?

‘I will work with Oran,’ she said to Edward, taking care to make every word clear. ‘Apart from that, I have no interest in him.’

‘Of course not,’ said Edward, blandly. ‘I quite understand.’

If Edward is indeed scheming, thought April, he’s out of luck. What she’d said was true. It was not Oran who occupied her mind too often for comfort. It was not Oran who had prompted April to pick up The Popular Encyclopaedia of Gardening and turn to the calendar at the back, which listed all the garden tasks month by month. The list for March seemed very long, and the month was already nearly over. Under the heading ‘Fruit Garden’, April had read Plant strawberries, but do not let them fruit this season … Remove big buds from blackcurrants and spray with lime-sulphur … In mild weather, when the sap is running freely, fruit trees may be grafted.

April had wondered how you would know when the sap was running freely. Did you see it go, like Wee Willie Winkie, or the Gingerbread Man? Would you have to run after it? Hunt it down?

You’ll find me, he’d said. But even if she did decide to look (which she would not), where on earth should she start?

Sunny said a terse goodbye. Footsteps clipped back across the flagstone floor. She sank into her chair.

‘Freya is WOOFing,’ she said.

‘Really?’ said Edward. ‘Is it hormonal?’

‘W-O-O-F. Workers on organic farms. She’s spreading slurry.’

‘Freya is your youngest?’ said April.

Sunny’s nod was reluctant. ‘Perry always called her our Shetland pony. Short, stroppy and inclined to bite. Our relationship has become only marginally less stormy over the years.’

‘Slurry in Sligo,’ said Edward. ‘I must say, I can’t quite picture a daughter of yours farming.’

Sunny’s eyes flashed. ‘I’ll have you know that I was extremely active on the Blythes’ farm! I milked cows regularly. I even ploughed fields with the tractor!’

She tutted, indignation rising. ‘It still makes me livid to think of what happened to them. So unfair. So unnecessary.’

Sunny pointed a finger at Edward. ‘You believe I should have more compassion for Lewis Potts.’

‘Well, I—’

‘He drove that family to ruin,’ said Sunny. ‘Because he refused to accept that anything he was associated with could fail.’

‘The farm failed?’ said April.

‘No, his business failed. He sacrificed the Blythes because he, Lewis Potts, needed the money to pay his debts. He could have sold Empyrean, but he sold the farm that had been tenanted by Blythes for generations, and he evicted them from the only home they’d ever known!’

Edward frowned. ‘Actually, that’s not true. I’ve seen the sale and purchase agreement for the farm — it’s in the files — and I am certain it makes provision for the Blythes to stay and run the farm for the new owner.’

‘But how could they?’ said Sunny. ‘They had no help! Ellis and Martha Blythe lost both their sons, Lily’s brothers, to the war, and decent farm labour during that time was almost impossible to come by. They were struggling enough to meet Mr Potts’s demands. A new owner would have made their lives impossible.’

‘So it was their choice, then, to leave,’ said Edward. ‘No one evicted them.’

‘If Lewis Potts had not sold the farm,’ insisted Sunny, ‘the Blythes would not have had to choose. He forced it on them!’

‘Yet you said they were struggling.’

‘Oh!’ Sunny did a little shimmy of outrage. ‘I do so detest when you become all lawyer-ish!’

‘Then I’ll refrain from pointing out the obvious — that your loathing for Lewis Potts may, on occasion, blinker you.’

Being lawyer-ish brought the steel to the fore in Edward, April observed. Instead of lounging, he sat upright. His voice was strong and clear. Even the bones of his face seemed to harden — no more expression of mildly bored amusement, that ‘slappable smirk’ so well described by Oran. Edward the lawyer, thought April, was a formidable opponent.

Sunny, however, would sooner cut off an arm than capitulate.

‘They had to go all the way to Wales to find work—’

‘Why?’ Edward said. ‘You just said decent farm labour was in high demand.’

‘Ellis had standards. He could not abide shoddy practices or lax attitudes to animal welfare.’

‘I find it hard to believe that Wales housed Britain’s only ethical farmer, but I won’t quibble. Ellis Blythe certainly chose Wales for a reason, whatever that reason might have been.’

‘The move killed him.’ Sunny, April noted, had opted for drama over logic. ‘Being forced to slave all God’s hours for a farm worker’s pittance drove Ellis Blythe to an early grave. Martha became ill from the grief. Lily, beautiful, loving Lily, stayed at home for years to care for her ailing mother, and died a lonely spinster, with no family of her own around her.’

‘And that is all very tragic, I grant you,’ said Edward, ‘but the evidence you’ve presented still suggests it’s very likely that Ellis Blythe’s reason for leaving Kingsfield had nothing to do with Lewis Potts, and that the sale of the farm merely provided a catalyst for him to act on a decision he’d already made.’

‘Ellis Blythe trusted Lewis Potts,’ said Sunny. ‘He believed Lewis Potts was on his side. He trusted him right up to the day he was betrayed. And no amount of your pettifogging chicanery can belie that.’

CHAPTER 14

April, 1936

Farmer Blythe picked James up by the collar of his jacket, carried him to the end of the lane and set him down behind the fence with no more effort than if James had been a bundle of cow parsley. James made no protest — Farmer Blythe would only grin in his easy way — but he had a renewed wish that the growth spurt his mother had hinted at would hurry up and happen. He was only two months off thirteen but no bigger than he’d been at twelve. Lily was now a whole head taller, and, more frustratingly, so was Rowan. Only Sunny was still shorter, though she acted as if she were the size of a champion bull. Farmer Blythe had carried her in his other hand, but while James had hung quietly, resigned, from the man’s huge fist, Sunny had struggled and yelled and kicked out at her abductor. Farmer Blythe had only held her farther out, and grinned.

‘You two stay there,’ he said, ‘out of the way. There’ll be more vehicles coming through, and maybe trees coming down. Don’t want you squashed under neither.’

‘I’m going to see the burning!’ Sunny demanded. ‘You can’t stop me!’

‘Burning’ll be later. You’ll get your chance to dance around the flames, missy. Don’t you fret.’

He ambled off, tall, broad and sun-gold as a stacked hayrick.

‘I don’t fret!’ Sunny yelled. ‘And my name is not Missy!’

‘Shut up, Sunny,’ said James. ‘Or he’ll tie us up in the dairy, with all the cow shit.’

He leaned his arms on the fence and watched as yet another tractor grumbled by, its driver heading up the lane to Holt Farm to join the protestors. They were hundreds coming, and all because of James’s father. As head of the local Tithe-Payers Association, he had received a telephone call at six-thirty that morning from Mr Jennings, owner of Holt Farm, in a panic because contractors for the authorities had turned up and started loading their lorries with Mr Jennings’s corn and carting it away.

James’s father had spent a further two hours on the telephone, rallying all the members of the association. He told them that the ecclesiastical authorities claimed that Mr Jennings owed them three hundred and eighty-five pounds in tithes, even though any blind halfwit could see from his farm books that he’d made a loss. He told them that the contractors, whose job it was to impound goods to the value of the defaulted tithes, had turned up at the crack of dawn, unannounced — an underhand surprise attack worthy of the Bolsheviks, he had added, with a hint of admiration. He reminded them that the authorities did not always stop at stock animals or corn, but in one case had gone so far as to seize furniture, including children’s beds, complete with pillows and blankets. He told them they could not underestimate the threat to their own livelihood and property, and if they sat back and let it happen to Fred Jennings, then they could expect no help when the church, grasping claws outstretched, came for them.

By midday, over two hundred sympathisers would be on the property, using every means to obstruct the authorities’ contractors. It was the largest agricultural protest ever staged.

James’s father’s final call had been to the newspapers. They should know of this public outrage, he’d said. It is a matter of national significance.

‘Don’t forget to make sure they accompany the article with a photograph of you holding up a really big bottle of Potts,’ Dimity Northcote had called after him. ‘Otherwise the public might think it was all about the farmers.’

She never shied from speaking plainly to James’s father, who, in return, would always smile, and in a way that implied she’d just proven he knew something she did not. It was a smile meant to goad, and it usually did. James knew that was because his father enjoyed a fight. He enjoyed provoking people to square up against him, for the simple reason that he’d always win. James had seen his father lose only once — last Christmas drinks, a newly appointed master to the local school had objected to Lewis Potts’s assertion that Adolph Hitler, now Führer, Chancellor and Supreme Commander of the German armed forces, was one of the few leaders with the guts to do what it took to restore honour to a beleaguered country. The schoolteacher’s rebuttal was well reasoned and impassioned, and within minutes all those who’d been murmuring and nodding at James’s father began to exclaim and gabble to each other, fired up against this threat to the freedom of tolerant, right-thinking people just like them. James saw his father bow his head briefly to the teacher, acknowledging that the young man had bested him. In March, the teacher left the school. Sunny said he’d been sacked for fiddling with boys. Playing the violin with them? James had asked, astonished. Sunny had rolled her eyes. Fiddling, she’d said and demonstrated, causing James to yelp with dismay and blush as red as a beet. He’d never get another job, Sunny had said. This September, the school would open the brand-new Potts Hall.

James sometimes worried about how Sunny’s mother spoke to his father. She and Sunny would be living off the church, his father often reminded everyone, were it not for the generosity of the Pottses. He allowed Sunny and her mother under his roof, he said, because they amused him. When that became no longer the case, they would have to beg for charity elsewhere.

Life would be very lonely without Sunny, thought James. Less anxiety-inducing, but lonely. James had to remind himself of this every time he overheard Sunny’s mother and his own whispering together. This was the one time James did think it would be nicer if the Northcotes weren’t around so much. He loathed when they whispered. It sounded like spies plotting and it made James hot with resentment that he was excluded.

James’s mother and Sunny’s had chosen to stay at home today. James could not understand why — who would want to miss all this excitement? The advantages of surprise and an early start had enabled the contractors to initially make good progress. But for the last two hours, they’d been impeded by vehicle after vehicle coming up the middle of the lane — tractors, cars and horse-drawn wagons. Up at the farm, before Farmer Blythe had carried them away, Sunny and James had seen men roping a tractor to a fowl house, readying to drag it to where it would cause maximum obstruction. From where they were now, they could see men digging a trench near the farmyard entrance, and others, one carrying a large double-handled saw, eyeing up the large elm at the spot where the lane joined the main road. Later, there’d be a bonfire, and on it they would place an effigy of the Archbishop of Canterbury. That’s why Sunny was here. She didn’t care two hoots about tithes or farmers. She had come along purely for the fun of seeing a straw churchman burn.

Six men were strolling up the lane, farm labourers by the looks of their tanned faces and muscular forearms. Been given the day off by a sympathetic employer, James guessed, and sent to join the fight. Tenant farmers like Ellis Blythe had not paid tithes for over forty years, when the legal responsibility had shifted to the landowners. But they remembered their fathers’ and grandfathers’ hostility towards the payment. And they knew that most landowners these days were not rich men but smallholders scraping a living in a time of economic depression, and thus no keener than the tenants had been to give the vicar his one in ten. James had seen Farmer Blythe shake his father’s hand, thanking him for this chance to avenge centuries of injustice dealt out to honest, hard-working, simple folk.

The fence under James’s arms creaked as Sunny began to hook her legs over it. Even though the day wasn’t that warm, she wore no tights, and her skirt was shorter than it should be, owing to it being last year’s. James saw the labourers glance their way and hoped Sunny was wearing underwear. He would not have been surprised if she weren’t. Sunny dressed impatiently, and if she couldn’t find an item, she would simply omit it. James had once seen her button a cardigan right up to hide the fact she had nothing under it but skin. She didn’t dislike clothes; James knew she enjoyed the few occasions when she could wear a pretty dress. But when potential excitement was beckoning, she begrudged every second that came between her and it.

‘He’ll only bring you back again,’ said James, as she landed on the grass. ‘Probably carry you by your feet this time, like a dead rabbit.’

‘I won’t miss the burning,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought stones specially, in my pocket.’

‘Hoy!’

The shout was accompanied by the thud of large hooves on firm earth. Up the lane came Rowan, on Ferdinand, Farmer Blythe’s former plough horse. A Clydesdale, seventeen hands and, now that he was retired, so wide in the girth it looked like Rowan was riding a bay-coloured hot-air balloon.

A swirl of blonde hair behind Rowan made James’s heart jump. Lily had her hands around Rowan’s waist, but only lightly, James saw, barely touching him. She was wearing a pink and white gingham dress, rosy tights and a pale pink cardigan. She looked so beautiful, he thought, like cherry blossoms. He longed to draw her, perhaps in pastels or chalk, but knew he would struggle to do her justice, and he would not be able to bear seeing her try to be polite. Lily had no skill with lying. Her face was like fresh snow; every emotion left its imprint.

James waited for Rowan to rein in Ferdinand, but the horse kept on walking past them.

‘I can’t stop.’ Rowan screwed up his face in apology. ‘If I do, he’ll never start again. Took me ages to get him going before.’

‘Keep up with us!’ Lily called back over her shoulder, laughing.

‘I could walk on my hands faster!’ said Sunny.

James knew she was envious that Lily and Rowan had arrived on horseback, when she and James had been given no choice but to walk. James’s father had taken his two-seater Lagonda. It was red, fast and loud and guaranteed he’d make an entrance. There were eight miles between Empyrean and Holt Farm. James hoped Farmer Blythe would reconsider, and give them a ride back on his tractor after all.

‘Come on!’ Sunny hit James on the arm. ‘Let’s beat them!’

James did not want to beat them. He wanted to show Rowan that you could stop that stupid horse, and lift Lily down and walk with her. But Sunny had grabbed his hand, and was pulling him along.

They overtook Ferdinand, and the farm labourers, who had moved to one side to let the big horse go by. James saw them staring at Lily, saw them nudge each other, one purse his lips in a silent whistle, and he was racked with anger. He wanted to confront them, avenge the insult with such force that they would grovel and cower. But they were men, seasoned and tough as bog oak, and he was not yet thirteen, and being led like a dog by a small, scrappy, twelve-year-old girl.

He shook his hand out of Sunny’s and watched her run on ahead, so intent on her goal she hadn’t noticed he was no longer with her.

As he stood there, Ferdinand passed by at a trot. It wasn’t fast, exactly, but his big legs meant he covered good ground.

‘He must smell carrots,’ said Rowan.

‘See you at the bonfire.’ Lily bent her fingers in a wave, as Ferdinand carried her away.

James trudged up to the farmyard, each footfall loosing a shaft of resentment that made him kick out at stones and dried crusts of mud. Why couldn’t he spend as much time with Lily as Rowan did? But even as the thought formed, James knew it was a vain one. They were growing up, the four of them, and they were growing apart.

Gone were the days of spending hours together messing about in the woods and the apple tree. Lily was expected to help out at home much more, and Rowan, too, worked longer hours for Old Ted, as well as doing odd jobs for Farmer Blythe, who was struggling to find good farm labour. Rowan often ate at the Blythes’, James knew. Last year, to say thank you, he’d carved them a nativity set out of oak, an odd present in James’s opinion, but Mrs Blythe had adored it and kept it out all year round, not just at Christmas, on the mantel above the kitchen fireplace, under Farmer Blythe’s shotgun. James liked the lamb best. One of its legs was crooked. Rowan wasn’t that good a carver, despite what everyone said.

When James had been small, Mrs Blythe had welcomed him into her kitchen and fed him fresh bread or warm cake and milk. Now he was older, she was more deferent. He was the master’s son, James supposed, and one day the Blythes would take orders from him. Whereas Rowan was an equal; they did not feel obliged to him.

And soon it would get worse. James was off to boarding school in September, while Rowan and Lily would stay at the village school, at least until they were fourteen. Sunny’s mother had decided to teach Sunny at home, which James’s father thought highly amusing. What would Sunny learn: the fine arts of illogical debate and foul language? James knew, though, that Sunny’s mother was a capable teacher and Sunny an even more capable pupil. Sunny was quicker at arithmetic than he was, and she could speak French quite fluently now, whereas his pronunciation made him sound like he’d received a blow to the head.

In a few months, James would hardly see Lily at all. Rowan would win her by default, by being the only candidate, not the best one. It galled James, but what could he do about it? That was how life was.

And did he even really want her? Sunny was so rude about her sometimes, and often James had to agree. Her mouth moved when she read, and she had to trace the lines with her finger to keep her place. You could tell her the most outlandish things and she’d believe you. Once Sunny had her convinced that she would be abducted by fairies unless she wore all her clothes inside out. It had taken a whole week for a frustrated Mrs Blythe to prise the truth from her daughter. Sunny had been admonished but had admitted no regret, though the next day she did bring the Blythes a cake that she’d baked, which Mrs Blythe had said was almost as good as one of her own.

But you could ignore the fact Lily was a bit dim at times, thought James, because she was so pretty. No wonder those men had admired her — she was the prettiest girl for miles, a real prize. James’s father had talked about using her to model for Potts in their advertising. He’d even offered to pay for a professional photographer to take her portrait, but the Blythes had politely declined. James’s father had told them he’d accept their decision only because he did agree that, at twelve, Lily was possibly too young. But her face could be her fortune — their fortune — and they’d be foolish to miss that chance. When she was thirteen, he’d said, they would talk again.

James’s father was in the middle of the farmyard, standing on the tailgate of a contractor’s defeated lorry, addressing a large audience in what James always thought of as his ringmaster’s voice. James’s father was tall and upright, with black hair parted in the middle and slicked into place. All he needed was a top hat and a whip, and a bright red gold-braided jacket. Step right up, folks, step right up. You won’t believe your eyes.

There were too many people for James to try to catch his father’s eye. He could hear him, though; his voice always carried. He was saying something about a victory, and being a step closer to the reversal of an ancient iniquity. There was cheering and applause. James’s father raised both his arms, and turned slowly, as if he were a pagan priest, thought James, showing his worshippers how he had captured for them the great and terrible power of the sun.

James knew his father loved this kind of attention. And why not? Why not fill your life with what makes you feel good? Why not go after what you want and not care all the time about what people might think? My father is a man who gets everything he wants, thought James, because he cannot see any good reason why he should not have it. If a prize were there for the taking, his father would take it. And he’d let no one stop him.

The crowd was moving. The bonfire was being lit. On top was a crude straw effigy of the archbishop. Already in the front row was Sunny, mouth set, hand pulled back with stones poised in her fingers, a blonde-curled miniature of Bernini’s David. James saw she needn’t have carried the stones all that way in her pocket. Someone had provided piles of old potatoes and chunks of carrot, for all those who felt like teaching a lesson to an ecclesiastical authority made of hay.

The effigy was ablaze. If James wanted to chuck a potato at it, this was his last chance. But the crowd that had kept him from his father was now between him and the fire. James could not find a gap to push through.

He made his way slowly around the wall of people’s backs, and saw Rowan and Lily standing a few yards off by the big bay horse. Rowan had Ferdinand’s reins in his hand and was feeding him chunks of carrot. He saw Rowan give Lily a carrot, saw her laugh as the horse’s rubbery lips mumbled at her palm. Her shoulder was pressed against Rowan’s. Her blonde head shone like a candle next to Rowan’s dirt-brown, scruffy curls.

Did he want her, or did he not want Rowan to have her? Was there any difference? His father thought Lily beautiful, a perfect specimen of girlhood, but that did not mean he wanted her for James. King Cophetua might marry a beggar maid, but Lewis Potts’s son was probably intended for better.

It’s all so complicated, thought James. Knowing what to feel, what to do, what was expected of you. And there was no one he could ask, because if anyone found out he had these worries, these feelings, they would surely think differently about him. Best to keep it to himself and hope that, one day, it would all become clear.

The archbishop had collapsed now, the last sprigs of straw vaporising like burned hair. James bent down and tightened his shoelaces. It was eight miles to home, but he could run that distance easily, and faster than anyone he knew.

He flexed his legs and set off, and imagined cresting the final slope before Empyrean, arms outstretched, all other competitors left behind him in the dust.

CHAPTER 15

mid-April

Spring was here now. April could ignore the passing of another birthday — a day like any other — but she could not ignore that her world was no longer brown and grey. The daffodils had been like the scouts of a floral army. They’d popped up, given the all-clear and launched the invasion, and now flowers occupied every stem and branch. The black and white photographs in The Popular Encyclopaedia of Gardening were of no help in identifying species that were not common back home, especially the wildflowers, like those starry red-pink blooms on tall vigorous stems. The garden plants were easier. The tulips, coming up in waxy candy shades, white and red, striped pink, mauve and orange. The low-growing yellow polyanthus. The lilacs that hung like bunches of grapes. They were still mostly green, but from the few that had burgeoned pink and purple came a sweet scent that would intrude unexpectedly and so briefly that April wondered if she’d imagined it.

In the woods, she recognised violets, but not the heavy-headed clumps of bright yellow-green, a match for the new leaves overhead, or the delicate white flowers with yellow centres that would droop and close up, April observed, if the temperature cooled. The bluebells were still green, but there were bud heads pushing up in the middle of the slender leaves. At least another three weeks, Oran had told her, before they’d flower. He said it would be a good time to mow Empyrean’s front lawn before the grass got too thick; he knew where he could get hold of a mower. The lawn had transformed from a slimy bog into a green sea foamy with daisies. April rather hoped he might forget.

And that is the danger of spring, right there, thought April. Things underground began to stir, began to intrude and insinuate like the scent of lilac. Winter, grey and dead, dulled your senses and stilled your memories, so that any unwanted voices were muffled, any wrongful desires kept down. In spring, surrounded by daisies and lilac and apple blossom, it was easy to be beguiled into the idea of a new start, of shedding your cocoon and emerging jewel-bright and ready again to fly.

It was spring, April was convinced, which had dialled up the restlessness that had been with her since she arrived. Where before, the sensation had been an occasional snake’s-tongue flicker, now it was more like a constant swarm of bees that made her mind hum and filled her limbs with a tingling, busy energy. In her old life, that energy had come from being with her son and her husband, from everything they did together that gave her joy. The tingle had been both in the experience and in the anticipation of that joy, and April had felt it like a circuit — she took energy in so she could put it out, into actions big and small that kept love alive, and made her heart sing. But this life allowed none of those pleasurable outlets for energy, and all recent attempts to will it into stillness had failed. April was at a loss.

During the week, she had the practical and acceptable release of working on the house. She and Oran had moved on from the kitchen to what Edward called the drawing room and Oran the parlour. They chose it because it had more light than the dining room, and moulded plasterwork still intact on the ceiling and walls that would need only new paint to bring it back to life. Oran and April had tossed a coin to see who would take on the white ceiling, and who the less neck-cricking walls, which unlike most of the other rooms had never been papered but painted a Wedgwood Jasperware green. April had lost the coin toss, but could not get Oran to admit that he’d used sleight of hand.

The drawing room fireplace had not been as lucky as the walls. Every part of it was dented, splintered or cracked. In its perfect state, it would have been imposing; Mr Potts’s taste, this time, April guessed. Very Baronial. It had a wooden lintel six feet wide and nearly a foot deep, once an oak beam, Oran said. On it, in low relief, had been carved two sinuous heraldic beasts, salamanders or dragons, their heads meeting at a shield bearing the head of a spiral-horned goat. The lintel rested on two solid pieces of marble, each shaped to look like a Roman column. The fireplace itself was exposed brick and the grate was cast iron that had once been polished black. The surround was tiled, dark green and white, and still had most of a brass rail. Oran thought he would be able to restore the woodwork, and do some repairs to the marble, enough to disguise the worst damage in any case. He would scout around for a replacement grate, tiles and railing; he didn’t feel they would be hard to come by.

The old fitted carpet, grey-green and dark brown on a pale background, was threadbare and would have to be pulled up. Edward had told them that fitted carpet post-dated the 1920s; he was hoping for wooden or even parquet floors beneath that they could polish. The green and gold silk curtains had rotted to shreds. Curtains and carpet would join the pile of rubbish Oran had stashed away in the disused garage. In a couple of weeks, he’d said, it would be May Day. Perfect time to light a bonfire. And he’d sung a song about a fire on a ship that did not end well.

But today was Saturday, and Oran did not work on the weekend, and there was not much April felt confident in tackling without him.

The idea of the garden came to her, and this time she did not push it immediately away. But the list for her namesake month in The Popular Encyclopaedia of Gardening was almost as long as the one for March, and most of the tasks outstretched her level of understanding or capability: Plant Gladioli, Montbretias and Tigridias … harden off early flowering Chrysanthemums … sow Long Beet, Salsify and Early Milan Turnip … in sunny weather, syringe peach trees at mid-day.

April could not visit Sunny because she was in Greece, visiting her middle daughter, Connie, who had married a rich Athenian merchant, and who lived — April had seen photographs — in a white villa on an island surrounded by azure sea. April imagined Sunny would be working on Connie right now. If she could get one of her children to agree to come for her birthday, then, like dominoes, the others should surely follow. Edward was in London, meeting with the estate agents who were managing the letting of his city properties — badly, according to Edward, hence the need for a meeting. He was staying overnight to catch a performance of Macbeth, featuring an actor who’d recently been beheaded on some fantasy television programme. Edward doubted the actor had the necessary range, but the ticket had been a gift from a client and, besides, the actor was very handsome, so with luck that would compensate.

No Oran, Sunny or Edward, thought April. No outlet in the house, and none in the garden.

There was nothing for it. She would have to go for a walk. One that would, if she judged it correctly, take her all day. She filled Kit’s old water canteen and packed a bread and butter sandwich in the pocket of a jacket she suspected she wouldn’t need. The mornings were still crisp but the sun heated the day quickly, and had shone steadily for the last week, which accounted for the surge in chlorophyll, all the greenery shooting upwards and new flowers showing their faces to the sky.

The woods were cool, if brighter than before, the light now being filtered through a fresh green canopy. More birdsong, tseeps, trills and tremolos. A little round brown bird flitted across above her, its tail dipping and slewing sideways.

April remembered the robin. Remembered the dark man telling her that if she’d waited, it would have come to her. Remembered also a singsong rhyme that Ben’s father used to recite, a game he’d play with his fingers, making the robin pop up and then fly away, delighting his small audience every time. Little robin redbreast, sat upon a tree, up went the pussycat, and down went he.

Ben’s father had an alternative rhyme that he swore was the original, from the seventeenth century, before the bowdlerising Victorians got hold of it. Little robin redbreast, sat upon a pole. Niddle, noddle went his head and poop went his hole.

Ben would laugh in that way only small children can — a gleeful deep gurgle that came right from his gut, so infectious that even the flintiest-hearted person would have to smile.

Memories. Over time they hurt less and comforted more. April walked faster, to make the crunch of her steps drown out the voices in her head.

She came upon a clearing. It took her a moment to recognise the hollow tree, and when she did, she cursed the memory trail of crumbs that had led her back there. Says little robin redbreast: ‘Catch me if you can.’

The clearing, though, was empty. No robin, no dog, no man. But what was that in the air? A smell, faint but distinct, of smoke.

April knew it was not a wildfire, because the smoke carried with it a hint of meatiness, as if someone was cooking on a campfire. It was hard to tell where it was coming from, but April decided the fire must be behind the hollow tree, deeper still into the woods. She walked on, in what she hoped was the right direction. She was curious — it was an unusual place for anyone to be making camp — but expected to find nothing more interesting than a forest ranger burning dead wood. After all, it was hardly likely to be a jolly swagman, left in peace this time to roast his jumbuck by troopers one, two and three.

The woods thickened, became treacherous underfoot. April was battling to find a path through. Just as she was about to give up and turn back, the trees thinned out again, and she found herself in another clearing. It was small, hemmed in by trees on three sides and on the fourth by a short scrubby knoll that led up to where the woods restarted. The campfire was to one side of the knoll. It was crackling away, a black, lidded pot suspended above it on an iron hook — a sight that made April revisit the possibility of the swagman, and which distracted her from the most interesting feature of the whole scene. When she did notice it, April thought she must be dreaming. There was a door in the knoll. It was made of bound branches and was rough and uneven, but undeniably a door. Surely, thought April, somebody couldn’t be living there?

The door opened. Somebody emerged. Stopped, stared, but did not look in the least surprised.

‘You found me,’ he said.

‘Where’s Gabe?’ was all April could think of to say.

The man looked past her, into the woods. Whistled. Seconds later, the dog bustled into the clearing, circled the fire, sat obediently at his master’s feet.

A log on the fire crackled. Whatever was in the pot quietly bubbled.

‘I could smell that all the way back by the hollow tree,’ said April. ‘If you’re hiding, it’s a bit of a giveaway.’

The man stepped over to the pot. Tugged a cloth from his waistband, wrapped his hand and lifted the lid. The contents bubbled louder, a waft of meaty steam rose. The lid was replaced with a gritty clunk.

‘I’m not hiding,’ he said.

‘What are you doing here, then?’

‘Living.’

‘How long?’

The man looked upwards, as if trying to remember.

‘Hard to say.’

‘But why?’ said April.

‘Because I choose to,’ he said.

April was overwhelmed by a sense of wrongness. Who believed they could live entirely free to do what they liked, immune to the laws of action and consequence?

‘Normal people,’ she said, ‘don’t live all alone in the woods.’

‘You do,’ he said. ‘You don’t even have a dog.’

He clicked his fingers. Gabe was to him in an instant.

‘I have people around me.’ She was unwilling to admit he had a  point.

He laid his hand on the dog’s head, smiled. ‘And who says I don’t?’

‘Name three.’

‘Puck, the Green Knight and Herne the Hunter.’ He wrapped the cloth around his fingers again, stepped back to the fire. ‘Want something to eat?’

‘What is it?’

‘Rabbit stew.’ He lifted the pot from the hook and placed it on the ground. ‘I thought you’d prefer it to weeds.’

‘You didn’t cook it for me. You didn’t even know I would come!’

He was crouching, his hand half lifting the lid, letting steam escape. ‘Do you want some or not?’

It smelled delicious. More delicious than a bread and butter sandwich. For that very reason, April should refuse. But he was offering to share the food he’d made when food for him must be hard to come by. It did not matter that she didn’t believe he’d cooked it for her. The offer was generous.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

They ate outside, sitting on a log that had been smoothed out on top for exactly that purpose. They ate from hand-carved wooden bowls, with forks that looked about the same vintage as the teaspoons April had bought from the car boot sale. Briefly, she wondered if they’d once been part of the same set before someone had split it up and sold it piece by piece.

There had not been much light in the garden when they’d last met. Here, in full sun, April could finally get a good look at him. His clothing — white, almost blousy, shirt and brown corduroy trousers — seemed very old-fashioned. April guessed he had acquired them from a thrift shop, probably been packed away for decades, pulled out and donated when their owner had died. His sleeves were rolled up, his forearms brown and sinewy. He had boots on, brown leather with leather thong laces, creased and scuffed with age but not overly dirty. His clothes looked clean, too, and he did not smell unwashed. April assumed there was a stream nearby. Kit’s cottage had hot and cold running water, a shower and an indoor lavatory. Once upon a time, and not that long ago, it would have had none of those. She was suddenly grateful to Kit for not being averse to modern comforts.

He did not seem to notice her studying him, mainly because he ate fast and intently, as if the food were about to leap out of the bowl and run away. So April stared some more, trying to capture him, seal his image in her mind. His profile was strong, his colouring dark. His origins could be Mediterranean, or Gypsy, or even Welsh. His accent was no help. No dialectic burr or twang to place him. It was not cultured but also neither common nor uneducated. He could have been from anywhere.

‘What’s your last name?’ said April.

He paused, swallowed. ‘Acomb.’

‘That’s not a common name. Not as common as Jack, anyway.’

‘No. It’s Old English, I think. Something to do with oak trees.’

‘Is that what these bowls are made of?’

He nodded.

‘Did you carve them?’ said April.

‘I was given them.’ He scraped up the last of his stew and set his bowl on the ground. Whistled Gabe over and let him lick the last smears clean. ‘By a friend.’

He was studying her now, staring as she ate. April regretted that she’d asked him personal questions. Now he could consider it to be his turn.

But he said nothing. She finished eating, kept her bowl on her lap, hugged between both hands.

‘Was it all right?’ he said. ‘To eat?’

April was surprised. She’d pegged him as more of a take-it-or-leave-it man. Put on the spot, she almost blurted out the truth. Contrary to Oran’s opinion, April did not starve herself, but eating this had made her feel like a drug addict deprived of a fix. The flavour of it, the full meaty richness, had sent an opiate rush to every part of her body, so intense that she’d felt close to tears.

But she could not tell him that.

‘It was very good. I’ve not eaten rabbit before.’

‘Do they not have them where you’re from?’

The question had an odd tone to it, as if where she was from could have been as far as it was, on the other side of the world, or only a few miles beyond the woods. As if he knew nothing about the world outside the places where he lived, walked and foraged. But that would mean he’s been here all his life, April thought. And that simply could not be possible.

‘We do have rabbits at home,’ she said. ‘Too many of them, in some places. The farmers smuggled in a virus a few years back, to kill them. But I’m not sure it’s made a huge difference.’

‘Kinder to shoot them.’

‘They do that, too. Have culling days, where they pile them up dead in their hundreds.’

‘Vermin control,’ he said. ‘Sometimes necessary. Sometimes not. Men have always liked to shoot things.’

‘Do you have a gun?’ said April.

‘I don’t need to shoot anything.’

‘How do you catch rabbits, then? Trap them?’

‘I call to them,’ he said. ‘They come right to me.’

‘I suppose you can whistle the birds from the sky, too?’

He was amused by her irritation. ‘Want me to show you?’

‘No,’ said April, after a moment. ‘Because part of me would like to believe you.’

He reached out and took her bowl. Set it by his and let the dog lick it also.

‘Is that the washing up done?’ said April.

‘Good not to waste anything. If you weren’t here, I’d lick it myself.’

April glanced back over her shoulder, at the door in the knoll.

‘Did you make this place?’

He shook his head. ‘Charcoal burners. There would have been a hollow in the hill, which they widened out. I found their old wood pole supports. Most broken. I made new ones. Made the door. They would have burned charcoal under a clamp, out here, where we’re sitting.’

‘A clamp?’

‘Big pile of logs. Covered in dirt to keep it airtight. Wooden chimney to let smoke out. Charcoal burned slow, over a few days, with a day or two to cool.’

April remembered what Sunny had told her. ‘That’s how they made a living.’

‘A poor one.’

‘You don’t, though, do you? Make even a poor living here?’

‘I get by.’

‘How do you survive in winter?’ April could not imagine living here in the freezing cold.

He was amused again. ‘Who says I do?’

‘You’re winding me up again,’ said April.

‘Maybe I hibernate. Like a hedgehog. In a hole in the ground.’

Gabe had begun to dig near the edge of the woods, April saw. Were there bones there that he’d buried? Or that his master had buried? All that remained of the small corpses of eaten animals, planted like tubers to sprout again.

A bird sang, loudly and close by, its chirruping warble inset with an urgent one-note whistle.

‘Nightingale,’ said Jack. ‘In the hazel.’

‘How can you possibly know it’s in the hazel?’

He stared at her, head tilted to one side, in his own oddly bird-like way. A quicksilver notion that he was part bird, or part wild creature of some kind, slipped through her mind.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘For your loss.’

Her brain ordered her to breathe, but she could not.

‘You’re surprised,’ he said. ‘Don’t be. My life depends on being able to read the world around me. I need to see and listen and know what’s happening every moment. What will help me, what will hurt or kill me — sometimes they appear one and the same, and I need to be able to spot the tiny differences, for they make all the difference. After a while, you can see it, the glow or the adumbration, you can feel the warmth or the creeping of your flesh, and you know. You know where there’s life, and where there’s death, and you know where death has been and may very well come again. You can see the after-image of it, hear its echo, feel the imprint of its touch. That’s why you shouldn’t be surprised — that I can see your loss in you.’

He took her hand in both of his. April could not stop him.

‘But death has not come for you yet. Lift your face. Feel the sun. Be warm again.’

April shook off his hands and fled. She heard the dog bark once, and was pierced with regret, quick and painful as a thorn prick, about running away in such a childish manner, and about the fact that she would never see dog or man again, that they must now be shunned, her door slammed on them forever.

The branches scratched and clutched at her, rotten logs gave way beneath her feet, the ground jarred her legs, wrenched her ankles. In the clearing by the hollow tree, she paused to gasp and retch, and then she kept on, not stopping until Kit’s cottage door was closed and locked behind her.

That evening, an owl hooted, close by, perhaps even on the roof. Something scrabbled its nails briefly on her door and went away. April sat in the chair until the fire went out and did not move from it until the ash was grey and cold.

CHAPTER 16

late April

Oran watched her tear down the tattered drawing room curtains, rip them loose, sending the rings swivelling wildly around the rail.

‘Could you bottle that for when we come to take up the carpet?’ he said. ‘It’ll be free of the boards before you can say Jumping Jack Flash, tacks flying round the room like maddened bees.’

April dumped the curtain on the rubbish pile near the door. Oran’s bonfire would be large. With luck, he might light it too close to the house. If the place burned down, she’d be free. Free from everyone who insisted on intruding in the most private areas of her life, finding those soft spots and digging in, whispering wicked tempting words.

‘Has someone said something to cause offence? Such as myself?’ said Oran. ‘Or is it — you know. Are Arsenal playing at home?’

‘What?’

Oran held up two hands in the surrender pose. ‘I ask only in the spirit of offering consolation. Or ginger tea and aspirin. Whatever will suit.’

‘Arsenal playing at home?’ said April.

‘Their uniforms are red, you see.’

‘Thank you, yes. I was just agog that you thought it appropriate.’

‘Ginger tea?’ said Oran.

‘No!’

‘Then someone has offended you?’

Smoke in a clearing. The dog digging up bones. Her hand in another’s. The tightness closed in again on April’s chest, and both energy and breath left her in a rush. She sat down on the low sill of the tall casement window. The glass was cool but the sun coming through warmed her back.

‘Was it me?’

He was edging closer. April did not want him near her. She summoned enough energy to rise from the windowsill, and walk past him. Took up the lever he’d brought to remove the carpet. Hooked it under a threadbare piece and began to haul.

‘It’s just that I’m not easily offended myself.’ Oran was undeterred. ‘And sometimes I forget that others are, often right up to the moment their fist attempts contact with my face.’

April reached down to yank on the loosened carpet, and met a rising cloud of fibrous dust. She coughed and coughed, mouth full of what felt like beard shavings.

‘You all right?’ said Oran. ‘To be clear, I’m referring to this specific choking situation, not the previous episode of curtain-channelled rage.’

April’s eyes were streaming, and to her shame and annoyance, it was not all due to the dust.

‘Hankie?’

Oran was holding one out to her. Lord knows where it had come  from.

‘Is it clean?’

‘In the same sense as good clean fun,’ said Oran. ‘When it’s said in an ironic manner, that is.’

April used it anyway. ‘Thanks.’

She handed it back, and he crammed it into the tiny front pocket of the waistcoat he had on. It was worn unbuttoned over a Smiths Strangeways Here We Come T-shirt, dating, April guessed, from the time of the album’s release. The waistcoat was grey silk, greasy with age, and looked as if it had once been part of a wedding suit.

‘I have an idea,’ said Oran.

April was wary. ‘Do you?’

‘Let’s have a cup of tea — the builder’s variety,’ he added. ‘And then let’s away upwards into the attic.’

‘I thought Edward said there was nothing there?’

‘And how long do you imagine our elegant Mr Gill would be keen to linger in a dark, dank roof-hole that reeks of owl’s piss?’

‘You’re not doing a very good job of selling it as a destination,’ said  April.

‘Oh, come on now. Why let a dab of owl’s wee stifle your natural curiosity? There are nooks and almost certainly crannies up there that have lain untroubled by attention since Rudolf Hess got banged up in Spandau. Are you not gagging to poke around in them?’

No, thought April. Though the house seemed willing to let her freely travel around its other rooms, the attic felt different — closed up, out of sight, private. It would be like sneaking into a gentlewoman’s bedroom, and poking around in her knicker drawer.

And, then again — yes. The idea of seeing the attic had prompted a quick shivery thrill of excitement, the same feeling she’d had on the day her mother let her open her jewellery box. April had been — what, six or seven? Before then, the box had been out of bounds, and because of that April had craved it like nothing else. In her mind, the box became a miniature Ali Baba’s cave. She imagined that when she lifted the lid she would be blinded by sparkling light that radiated from the gems. It did not turn out to be quite like that, but it had been a treat all the same. The pearls glowed and the bright costume brooches did indeed sparkle. April’s favourite had been a brooch with a crystal bee that sat poised on a thin stalk above a rose and quivered when you walked.

‘I suppose you have a torch?’ said April.

‘Of course,’ said Oran. ‘A behemoth of one. Previously owned by a policeman. In a pinch, it doubles as a truncheon.’

‘Did you steal it?’

‘I did not. I found it to be in my hand after I had liberated myself from an affray. Finders keepers, losers weepers.’

He gestured towards the corner, where his tool bag and ancient tartan-patterned Thermos lay. Oran had apologised, but said it was too much trouble to light the Aga purely to boil water. To make up for it, he brought along tea he’d brewed that morning. Or possibly the night before, given its colour.

‘Tea first,’ he said. ‘It’s good and strong. Just the way you like it.’

April let Oran go first. The stairs to the attic were dark and narrow and they creaked under his weight.

The attic door was closed. Oran tested it with a push, and then gave it a hard shove. It opened less than a foot, blocked by something behind it. They squeezed through sideways, ducking under the low lintel.

Oran walked a few steps, held the torch up and turned in a slow circle, shining it into the corners and up into the pitched roof, bare timber like the walls.

It looked more like a fly-tip site than an attic. Broken furniture lay against the back wall, severed barley-twist bedposts propped against a mirror frame with no glass, an upturned table with only three legs, a bureau with black gaps for drawers, a bed base with rusting springs. None of the remains spoke of style or quality, which suggested to April that all the decent pieces, all Mr Potts’s acquisitions and special orders, had been sold. A chandelier, stripped of glass drops, was curled on the floor like a dead spider, near an old leather suitcase, empty, furred with mould. Bundles of newspapers, hardened into papier maché and tied up with rotting twine, were stacked under a casement window, one pane broken, the rest black with dirt. The obstacle behind the door was a large linen chest, very plain, with metal casters that looked too spindly to hold its weight. Everything was grimed with damp-streaked dust, dead leaves and bird dirt. No rodent droppings, April noted. There must be owls here after all, though the broken pane seemed too small for a bird that size to squeeze through, and the room did not smell of anything but must.

‘Well,’ said Oran. ‘Bleak House’s even bleaker attic.’

‘Disappointed?’ said April. She was, a little, and it irked her.

‘Never,’ he replied. ‘It’s a gift. Besides, we have not yet begun to poke.’

Oran’s torch beam was back on the linen chest, the only intact item in the whole room. If it contained the gentlewoman’s knickers, April decided, she should not pry. But it was a box, and it was shut, and closed boxes in April’s experience whispered to you like magic.

‘I’ll poke in that.’ April felt a twinge of guilt as she said it. ‘You’re welcome to tackle the rest.’

As Oran provided light, she crouched and with one finger gingerly lifted the lid, keeping her head well back in case something jumped out.

On top was a blanket. Cream with narrow blue stripes. It was slightly damp but, being wool, only on the top. April slipped her hand underneath, and found it dry.

‘The linen chest contains old linen,’ said Oran. ‘I suppose there may still be a market for crocheted piano leg covers and antimacassars.’

April lifted the blanket out and laid it on her bent knees, unwilling to put it on the dirty floor.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not linen.’

She held up a cardigan, moss green, fine wool. Then a tweed skirt, and next a cream silk pearl-buttoned blouse.

‘Begob,’ said Oran. ‘It’s Miss Marple’s glory box.’

‘It’s some woman’s clothes,’ said April, digging down. ‘Shoes, too. All of the same vintage, by the look. Nineteen-forties, I’d say.’

Oran regarded her with interest. ‘A closet fashion buff, are you? So to speak.’

April ignored him. Continued to rummage.

‘Oh, what’s this?’

In her hand was the head of a dog, an inch and a half high, made of ivory or bone, a fat silver collar around its neck. April felt the thrill that had eluded her.

Oran beckoned for it and, reluctantly, April handed it up to him.

‘Walking stick finial,’ he said. ‘See the silver ring is hollow? Ha! Watch out—’

He lunged it with a growl at April, who flinched, startled. The dog’s lower jaw, she saw after she’d recovered, had dropped down, revealing sharp fierce teeth.

‘You press this little button.’ Oran showed her. ‘And good boy becomes bad, bad doggy.’

‘A trick. Like a buttonhole that shoots water.’

Oran bounced the dog’s head in his palm. ‘These are quite valuable, you know.’

‘How valuable?’

‘Hundred quid?’

‘Not much in the scheme of things,’ said April. ‘Wouldn’t buy an electrician, for example.’

Oran shoved the little object in the front pocket of his jeans. April was about to protest, but decided she should trust him.

‘Well, go on.’ He made a hurry-up motion with the torch. ‘What else is in there?’

April sacrificed the blanket so she could place the items on a clean surface. At the end, April counted six skirts, six blouses, six cardigans, eight pairs of shoes, four dresses (three for day, one for evening), silk lingerie that looked as if it had never been worn, two jackets (one tweed, one linen), and one fox fur stole that looked like Oran — pointy-chinned and gingery.

‘Handsome devil,’ said Oran.

Torchlight searched the chest. ‘And that, unless it has a false bottom—’ he knocked it to be sure ‘—is that.’

‘Clothes,’ said April. ‘All, given their age, in surprisingly excellent condition.’

‘The wood is cedar,’ said Oran. ‘It repels the moth, and thus prevents the hole.’

April began to refill the chest, folding and laying each garment down carefully, out of respect to the woman or whoever it had been who had placed them there so neatly in the first place.

‘That would look good on you,’ said Oran. ‘That primrose-y number.’

A dress was in her hands. A summer day dress. Linen. Pale yellow. Not the vivid hue of ripe lemons, which had been so easy for a small boy to see from across the road, but still …

April laid down the dress, covered it with a cardigan.

Oran’s boots gritted on the floor as he crouched beside her.

‘Ah, come on now, you’re in there somewhere, aren’t you?’ His voice was low and melodic as if he were singing a lullaby. ‘The real April Turner.’

The tightness in her chest. Her heart and lungs struggling. She’d not seen Oran as a threat at all, but now, hard on the heels of Jack, he, too, had joined forces with Edward and Sunny. It felt like a conspiracy, as if they had arranged it all between them, had even aligned the events that had forced her to stay. Four against one, five if you counted the possibility of divine intervention. It wasn’t fair. At that moment, April hated Oran so much that if she’d been holding the torch she might have hit him with it.

But her face was in darkness, so he pressed on, oblivious. ‘I know a lot of people are careful about which aspect they show to the world. They hide their inside within a contrary outside, and not always to trick others, but often to deflect them, put them off. The thing is that our true insides always give themselves away. That quick glance, that unguarded moment. If there’s a devil in us, he’ll squeeze through a gap eventually. And if there’s an artist in us, a loving being, a creative and joyful being, they, too, cannot be kept down forever.’

April forgot about being careful with the clothes. She began to cram them into the chest, quick as possible. Oran sped up, too, as if he knew this was his only chance.

‘Your outside says one thing,’ he said, ‘but your mouth, eyes and ears say quite another. Your talk is quick and warm and funny, and your eyes latch onto beautiful things, and you truly hear my music. There’s a joyful being in you, April Turner — I’ve seen it — and you should—’

April slammed the lid. ‘Enough!’

Oran had been swinging the torch around as he spoke, creating swirling circles of light like opening night at the big top. Now, he rested it on his knee, dipped it down so that it illuminated only his dusty boots.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s how I am. I can’t help myself.’

April took the torch from him, got to her feet.

Oran rose, slowly. Stood there, shoulders hunched, hands in his jeans pockets.

‘Look, I know, I know, I should leave it. But please — one more question.’

April waited. She had not said she would answer.

‘Why?’ Oran said. ‘Why are you hiding yourself away?’

Oh, what did it matter if he knew? He had no power over her.

‘Because I believe that the scales need to be balanced,’ she said, ‘and that what you’ve taken from others can never be yours.’

‘What did you take?’

‘My son’s life. And so I have made mine forfeit in return.’

CHAPTER 17

May, 1937

James looked to his left at Rowan, who answered James’s unspoken question in the affirmative with a quick sheepish grin.

Yes, Rowan felt as ridiculous as he did. But Lily had chosen them, so there they were, dressed in top hats and frock coats, riding up on the seat of the wagon that bore Lily the May Queen across the village green towards her throne.

The only consolation, James thought, was that everyone would be looking at her and not at them. No one had been surprised when Lily was chosen. She was the perfect May Queen, pretty, demure, and so very English with her rose-fair looks. In her white dress, holding her posy of blooms, she was more than Spring personified. She was a higher being, the goddess of Spring herself, Persephone. And the other name she was known by — Kore, the maiden. Just like his mother.

It was James’s mother who had told him that story. How Persephone’s absence from the world had made it a barren desert until her own mother, Demeter, rescued her from the underworld and the clutches of her abductor and jailer, Hades. James thought that without Lily his life would be a barren desert, and was instantly cross with himself because that was exactly the sort of drivel that you’d expect from a nearly fourteen-year-old boy. James did not want to be a cliché. He did not want to be a pining, lovelorn adolescent. Yet, damn it all, that was precisely what he was. Good thing no one had the foggiest. He’d be laughed at from here to Christendom.

It was his father’s fault, James decided. If Lewis Potts had not had his way, if the Blythes had stood firm in their opposition, then Lily would never have appeared in Potts’s advertising, and she would never have become such a star. In only a few months, she’d become as recognisable as Shirley Temple, or Marian Marsh, whom she greatly resembled, which was probably why Sunny’s mother had taken to calling his father Svengali. James and Sunny had been too young to see that film, but they had seen The Black Room with Miss Marsh and Boris Karloff. Which had quite terrified James, though he’d kept that to himself, mainly because Sunny had been entirely un-terrified and had, in fact, cackled her way through the whole thing.

Oh, yes, James thought bitterly, if Lily had been a prize for her looks before, she was more than ever one now, and there was no escaping it. James’s friends at school could hardly believe he knew her. Some of them had even asked him to get them signed photographs. James wasn’t sure Lily’s penmanship would be up to the job, but he could always sign them himself, he supposed. Who would know?

James’s best friend, Peregrine, was angling for an invitation to Empyrean over the summer so he could meet Lily. James was demurring for reasons that were not all entirely clear to him. Not wanting Lily to fall for the handsome Peregrine (the future Sir Peregrine) Day was an obvious enough motivation, but there were others besides, lying low beneath the murky surface of his consciousness. James’s father wasn’t as strapped for cash as Day’s; his friend had confessed it readily, unabashed. But Empyrean, James knew, was not a patch on Ebury Hall, which had housed Days since the 1500s. Day had said it would probably be sold before he had a chance to inherit it but, as of the moment, it was still his home. Ebury had ninety-six rooms to Empyrean’s thirty-four, and over twenty acres more land. Peregrine’s ancestors had fought alongside kings, one of whom had bestowed a grander title on the family before another stripped them of it again a century later, either for treason or for tupping the wrong royal, according to Day, or possibly both. James’s ancestors on the Potts side had worked in textile mills and coalmines, and scraped livings tending sheep. His mother’s great-great-grandfather had distinguished himself at sea during the Napoleonic wars, but his plundered fortune had been looted to nothing well before his mother was born. James knew that set his mother’s family above his father’s on the social spectrum, but still a long way below Day’s. Below Sunny’s too. Dimity Northcote never talked down to James’s mother, her best friend, but she shot barbs constantly at James’s father, calling him Melmotte and Heep as well as Svengali. James’s father offered Rasputin as another option, but Sunny’s mother refused because the Russian had survived multiple assassination attempts before they finally got him, and James’s father was convinced enough of his own immortality.

‘Woah, now.’

Beside James, Rowan pulled gently on the reins and murmured the horse to a halt. Horses always obeyed Rowan. They stood quietly while he saddled them, and then did whatever he asked, even if it meant jumping a fence so high the edges of their hooves clipped the top. James was an adequate rider, but he preferred to be moved along the ground by his own two legs and not the four of some bulky and hairy dumb animal.

James and Rowan jumped down, and went to help Lily from the wagon. Smiling, she stepped prettily onto the ground. James and Rowan next offered their hands to the six girls in her entourage, who had sat on the wagon behind her.

‘Bugger off,’ said Sunny, who jumped down by herself.

Sunny’s posy was already coming apart, and the hem of her white dress had grass stains on it. She’d only agreed to do this, James knew, because Lily had asked her, and because the dress was pretty.

‘I’m not dancing around that sodding maypole, though,’ Sunny had announced, eliciting James’s father’s usual call for her to mind her language; these days said more for form than with any hope of a result.

‘Control your daughter,’ James’s father had demanded once.

‘She’s not a dog to be beaten,’ Sunny’s mother had replied. ‘And besides, she behaves exactly as she should — with vitality and courage and absolute honesty. She is a freethinking, independent being, beholden to no one but herself. Why would I ever want to change that?’

Sunny was like a comet, thought James. Travelling at full speed and blazing, but capable of obliterating anyone who got in her way. He was glad and relieved that Sunny had finally aired the subject of their romantic involvement, a persistent rumour, and they had both agreed they could never be together in that way. James had obviously not confessed that love for Lily was his reason, but Sunny was quite open about why she could never fancy him.

‘You’re too careful,’ she’d said. ‘I want a man who’ll throw himself headlong into life and not give a tinker’s cuss what people think, and try absolutely anything, because that’s what I intend to do. And he must be a man who’ll tell me absolutely everything he’s thinking, because, one, I can’t be bothered to mind-read and two, because I’ll be telling him absolutely everything, so he’ll have to play up and play the game or I’ll kick him off the pitch.’

It was true, thought James. He was careful. He was careful to keep inside all the things that people would not wish to see. Best that the world saw only the James Potts his father bragged about — the winner of sporting and academic prizes, the good friend of scions of English nobility, the handsome, fair boy who was now, finally, also tall. Taller than Rowan, even though his friend’s curls made them look the same height.

Lily was on her throne now, the girls in white seated on the ground around her, and James and Rowan standing at either side. Like guards, thought James, which was exactly what they needed to be. The attention that Lily had begun to receive as a result of her fame, particularly from men, was not always welcome. Though he hadn’t explicitly said it, Ellis Blythe expected Rowan and James to look after Lily. They were her friends, after all.

Sunny’s mother, being the nearest thing to nobility in the local area, stepped forward to place the floral crown on Lily’s head. This she did rather impatiently, observed James, practically ramming it over Lily’s ears. Perhaps James’s father had put her in a bad mood that morning? Not that it was necessarily a morning thing; more a permanent state of affairs.

Or perhaps his mother had been to blame? He’d heard the two women arguing in the study that morning. He’d been unable to make out what they were saying, but the tone was unmistakably one of disagreement. James had been about to inch nearer when Sunny’s mother exited, face so much like Sunny’s that James instinctively ducked as she passed him in the hallway. But Sunny’s mother did not even seem to notice him. James thought then that he’d heard his mother crying, but did not investigate. Part of him wanted to preserve her dignity. But he was reluctant for another reason, too, and the rebuke he gave himself was the same as the last word, the only word, he’d heard Sunny’s mother say before she’d stormed out. That word was ‘coward’.

In any case, James reassured himself, they were probably only arguing about trousers. Sunny’s mother had been trying to convince his mother to play in the women-versus-men football match that would be part of the village’s celebrations for the upcoming coronation. The men would dress up as women, and vice versa. It would be a hoot, Sunny’s mother said. But James’s mother never wore trousers; his father forbade it, deemed them fit only for bluestocking harpies and women of aberrant sexual mores. Skirts and blouses and cardigans — that was what James’s mother wore. That was her uniform.

The Morris dancers were starting up, hands slapping and bells a-jingle. James caught Rowan’s eye and the two shared a grin. Top hats and frock coats were bad enough but at least they didn’t have to wear bells or flap handkerchiefs.

It was a shame, thought James, that he and Rowan could not be friends for much longer. Already, they were falling into the roles Mr Potts intended for them — James as the landowner and Rowan as Old Ted’s replacement. Ted Holly was genuinely old now and his eyesight was failing, though he refused to admit it. Rowan did most of the shooting these days, killing always with one shot to ensure he caused minimum pain. Vermin needed to be controlled, he said, and James believed he meant it; gamekeepers’ blood ran strong through the generations. But no living thing deserved to suffer.

Last spring, James, half admiring, half resenting his friend’s abilities and courage, had watched Rowan climb a towering pine and bring back from a nest a young sparrowhawk whose mother had been shot out of the sky by James’s father. Mr Potts had been pleased. The shot had been a tricky one. Rowan had raised the hawk, fed it strips of rabbit meat by hand. He’d had to hide it from Ted, who would have nailed it with grim satisfaction to his predator’s gibbet. Rowan had taught it to fly and hunt, and last month he’d taken it back to the woods and let it go. James remembered the hawk’s yellow-orange eyes, exactly the same colour as the flecks in Rowan’s own brown eyes. But while Rowan’s eyes were always kind, the hawk’s were fierce-bright as the sun, burning into him, as if it had known he was kin to the man who’d murdered its mother.

Most days, though, James enjoyed his time with Rowan, observing his friend’s skill in the gamekeeper’s craft. When they were children, Rowan used to make the woods seem magical to James, and though those fanciful childhood days were over, Rowan could still make the woods reveal its hidden treasures. Only with Rowan did James see animals and birds up close that he would never have caught sight of otherwise. Badgers and owls, and, once, a stately stag with antlers James’s father would have coveted. Rowan knew where everything edible was, wild raspberries, mushrooms, hazelnuts, and had even found a secret swimming hole, with water that came from an underground spring, so icy cold that they could barely stand a quick dip in and out. James once made it a point of honour to stay in longer than Rowan, but he paid for it by getting so cold he was terrified for a few moments that he would shiver himself to death. But Rowan lent him his shirt and rubbed his back and limbs until the feeling came back. James appreciated that Rowan never once called him an idiot.

To think, only a couple of years ago James had resented how much time Rowan spent with Lily. Though neither of them was yet fifteen, both Rowan and Lily had now left school. When she was not accompanying James’s father on Potts publicity tours, Lily worked on the farm, tending the dairy cows. Rowan still did odd jobs for Ellis Blythe but less and less often. Gamekeeping took all his time now. Sunny was still studying at home, but had been roped into volunteer work by her mother, who’d joined the local branch of the Women’s Institute, an organisation she admired for being independent of the church.

So even though James was only home for the holidays, he and Rowan saw more of each other than any of the four. In fact, they were better friends than they’d been when they were children. Back then, James had always felt Rowan to be wary of him. Or had he been wary of Old Ted, who would have come down so very hard on Rowan if there’d been any hint of misbehaviour? There were many times James knew he could have made Rowan do anything he wanted, simply by threatening to tell on him to Old Ted.

He was glad he never had. It was better to have Rowan as a friend. All too soon their relationship would become purely professional — a master and his employee. It was a shame, thought James, but that was life.

A group of village boys had set up the maypole, and came now to tell the May Queen’s entourage that they could dance around it, which the girls skipped off to do, dragging along a protesting Sunny. The boys were supposed to join them, but instead one of them snuck behind Rowan and tipped his top hat off his head. The others pointed and jeered. James waited to see if Rowan would respond, but all he did was pick up the hat and put it back on. It was immediately taken off his head again, this time by an apple core. Rowan picked up the hat, but held it by the brim. He kept his back to the boys, and James could see that he was bracing himself for the next assault.

It occurred to James that if Rowan did not have him as a friend, then he would have none. Until recently, James had thought Rowan was not popular with the local boys because he was the gamekeeper’s grandson. Old Ted had banned children from his woods ever since little Billy Curry lost his leg. Old Ted put the blame for that squarely on Billy himself — and James knew Rowan had also copped it. He’d been beaten with Ted’s ash stick for not keeping the children out. After that, Rowan had only let James, Sunny and Lily play in the woods, and only because he knew they could do it secretly, covertly. Any other children, he saw off with a gun, same as Old Ted did. And that, James had thought, was the reason other boys did not like him.

But this last Easter break, James had been on the farm, sketching the outside of the barn. Two of Ellis Blythe’s workers, a man called Wilkes and another called Oby, had been inside. They’d probably been sent there to fork hay, but they’d been sitting instead on the bales, smoking an acrid tobacco. They were both new, and James knew Farmer Blythe did not much like either of them, but he’d had no choice but to hire them. The shortage of farm workers was now chronic, all over the country. James’s father had heard reports of farmers even advertising for men on the cinema screens. Even he, the great promoter, could not quite believe it. Oby was large and placid and borderline simple. Wilkes was small, pointy and dirty and stood in a hunched S-shape, like a crouching goblin. James found him unpleasant in every respect. Neither man had known he was there, and James had been careful to keep it that way.

Wilkes had been talking about Old Ted. Muttering and spitting, really, thought James. Oby was saying nothing, which was usual. Wilkes was telling how he’d been caught poaching hares.

‘It got in my loop, see, but ’twas its legs got caught, not its neck, and bloody thing started to scream. Hares scream like a bloody woman being murdered. I broke its neck but too late. Old sod came running. Good thing we’re needed here so bad or he’d have had me down the clink, fast as look at yer. The big man had to fair beg to get me off.’

James had heard a dry wheeze he assumed was a chuckle. But when Wilkes had next spoken, his words were spat out, sibilant and vicious.

‘Don’t know why he’s so high and mighty, the old sod. That daughter of his weren’t nothing but a whore is what I’ve been told, and that boy’s a whore’s bastard. T’aint right for him to put hisself above God-fearing folk. He’s no better than any of us.’

Sunny had told him that Rowan’s mother and father had never been married. To James, this had been of only minor interest and he’d never thought further about the implications. Until now.

This time the missile was a lump of horse dung and it hit Rowan squarely in the back. James heard Lily wail and, from over by the maypole, Sunny’s yell of ‘Oi!’ as she dropped her ribbon and came running.

But James had already taken charge. He stood between Rowan and the boys.

‘Leave him.’

He did not have to worry whether they would obey him; he knew they would. Their fathers were village merchants and innkeepers and smithies, and they depended on the patronage of the big house for a goodly share of their income. One word from James to his father and that patronage could easily be withdrawn. His mother would not like it, but she would have no choice. Another village would get their business.

Sunny skidded up, fists raised and at the ready, but James grabbed her and held her back.

‘Sunny-y.’

It was Lily, in tears. Sunny wriggled out of James’s grip, and clambered up onto the throne to comfort her. For a moment, James went rigid with envy, but then Sunny said: ‘Don’t mind those stupid boys. James has sent them running off with their tails between their legs—’ she shouted after them ‘—like the mongrels they are!’

Chest swelling, James felt noble enough to get out his handkerchief and do his best to brush Rowan’s jacket free of dung.

‘Thanks,’ said Rowan, subdued.

‘Good thing it wasn’t cow shit,’ said James. ‘This stuff’s mainly hay.’

‘The May Day committee organised the suit for me — I’ll be in trouble for dirtying it.’

‘Then we’ll swap coats. No one will punish me.’

‘Thanks.’ Rowan turned, began to take the coat off.

‘Why didn’t you fight back?’ James asked, as they swapped. ‘They’re cowards and weaklings. The two of us, ably abetted by Miss Jack Dempsey up there, could have taken them easily.’

‘I won’t fight,’ said Rowan. ‘I won’t — I don’t want to — hurt anyone.’

‘But it’s all right for others to hurt you?’

‘That’s their choice.’ Rowan’s face was pale but his mouth was firm. ‘I’ve made mine.’

James supposed it was fair enough — when you’d suffered as many beatings as Rowan had, felt that much pain, it wasn’t surprising that you’d be reluctant to inflict it.

When they were children, James recalled, it was Rowan who used to make James feel safe. And now, it seemed, it was Rowan who would not stay safe without him. But James wouldn’t always be around, would he? And as Rowan had said, it was his choice. All James could do was accept it, and hope for the best.

On the positive side, Rowan owed him one, and James knew, if the day came, his friend would feel obliged to repay the debt.

CHAPTER 18

early May

‘Should a May Queen be called Tyler?’ said Edward. ‘Shouldn’t she be Ada, or Eliza, or something of that nature?’

He wiped his hands on a white cloth napkin — part of the picnic set Sunny had brought along. It was a motoring set from the 1920s, a leather-strapped hamper with everything you needed for roadside dining stacked inside with neat ingenuity — cutlery, cups, glasses, plates, jars and containers, and a tiny kerosene burner for the teapot. The cutlery and fastenings were hallmarked silver. It had been given to Sir Peregrine along with his first car, apparently. He and Sunny had used it ever since.

Edward had dressed as if he’d intended to match it, in light brown soft trousers, a cream shirt and matching jersey, and a tan felt hat like a fedora. He was Gatsby, Sebastian Flyte and the talented Ripley all in one. April felt like a dowdy sparrow next to him. Or a dunnock — a bird whose identity she’d just learned from another book Sunny had lent her. She had not yet spotted one. It was all very well looking at pictures in books, but when a small brown bird swooped past at speed, it looked very much like the other small brown bird that had swooped past a moment before. Many British birds seemed to be small and brown. It would be a while, April felt, before she knew her chiffchaff from her stonechat.

Sunny had returned from Greece with a tan that made her eyes glow like blue topaz. Her hair had an added salt-bright whiteness. She wore a cotton maillot sweater in cream and navy over cream trousers. April thought she had never seen a healthier, or more elegantly dressed, octogenarian.

Once upon a time, April thought, she, too, would have been sitting there on the tartan picnic blanket in nice clothes, a rose-patterned dress and pink cardigan, with painted toes and silver sandals, and the daisy diamante clip that had been her mother’s in her hair. Perhaps some girl was wearing that clip now, out dancing at night on the other side of the world, having snatched it up with glee at the Salvation Army shop that had received all of April’s pretty things.

In a normal frame of mind, April would not have come today, but the restlessness during the whole of Saturday and that morning had been so horribly, tormentingly bad that when Edward knocked on the cottage door and invited her to the May Day fête, April had been in the back of the Alvis before he’d had time to finish the sentence.

She regretted that haste now. The sky was blue, and the sun warm enough to release the scent of the grass in herby green and daisy white wafts. Sunny had made sandwiches out of thin white bread with no crusts, half of them filled with cucumber and half with chicken salad. There were cheese scones, too, peppery with cayenne, and lemon curd tartlets in buttery-crisp short pastry. Everything looked and smelled so delicious, April was very nearly forced to sit on her hands.

And the people. The children. Laughing and happy. The maypole dancers were halfway through now, their carousel of ribbon topped by a lolly-bright weave. The accordion players stepped into a bright, uptempo number, as if to ginger up any child who might be flagging. The girls wore white dresses, the boys white shirts and pressed shorts. It could have been fifty years earlier, if the May Queen had not had her phone in her lap, texting from her throne, her floral crown slipping down her forehead.

Ben could have been one of those children, April knew. He loved to dance …

‘Did you have any luck with Connie?’ Edward was saying to Sunny.

‘Will she come to your birthday?’

‘She prevaricated madly,’ said Sunny. ‘Which I suppose is better than an outright no.’

Sunny pinched a cucumber sandwich between her fingers.

‘Stathis, Connie’s husband,’ she continued, ‘who really is extraordinarily handsome, said my children are afraid to commit. He said they are afraid that if they say yes, they will tempt Fate, and then I will die before my birthday, just like their father did.’

‘Hubris,’ said Edward. ‘The gods punish those who presume. He should know; the Greeks invented it. Among other things.’

‘A fancy name for superstition,’ said Sunny. ‘I may very well die before my birthday, but neither the gods nor my children will have had one jot to do with it.’

‘Superstition is the mot du jour,’ said Edward. ‘May Day is oozing with it. Lurking beneath this sanitised perkiness is a miasma of atavistic savagery.’

‘Pish,’ said Sunny. ‘It’s a lovely celebration of spring.’

‘That once included the ripping apart of a green man, and ritual leaping over bonfires,’ said Edward. ‘The fire represents the sun on which all life depends. No sun, no crops. No crops, no food. Starvation. Death. May Day is less a celebration of life than a plea for it. Please don’t let us die.’

‘Well, the celebrations in my time had none of that nonsense,’ said Sunny. ‘It was all good, clean fun. I remember particularly the May Day when I was fourteen, as it was right before the king’s coronation. We had two fêtes in as many weeks.’

‘Which king?’ said Edward. ‘George VI? The one who stuttered?’

‘The very same. I remember being at the Blythes’ once, listening to him on the radio. All the children were laughing, and Lily’s mother told us to be quiet because we’d put the poor man off. He should have come to our village fête,’ she added. ‘We had a women-versus-men football match, where everyone dressed in drag. The shock might have cured him.’

‘Was this a village tradition?’ Edward laughed. ‘I hadn’t thought transvestism played a large role in royal ritual. Not publically, anyway.’

‘No, it was some local’s bright idea,’ said Sunny. ‘My mother was the only one who didn’t look terribly different. Her hair was short anyway, and she wore her own plus-fours and a golfing vest. Most of the other women went as sailors or soldiers, though I recall that Mrs Cake, the headmaster’s wife, wore a safari suit and pith helmet. The men favoured long skirts and very large bonnets festooned with flowers, neither of which aided visibility or movement, which was probably why they lost three–nil. That and the fact Mrs Cake proved very handy in goal.’

A breathy accordion finale, cheers and applause signalled the dance’s end. The maypole was patterned like a stick of fancy seaside rock. The children were releasing ribbon ends, reaching out for bottles of soft drink and cake. They were laughing and calling, ribbing each other, mustering allies, splitting into the ancient tribal groupings of boys and girls, milling around the standing stones of adults and the giant central totem of the day.

‘We’ve rather lost it, haven’t we?’ said Edward. ‘Our ancestors’ drive to live, to stay alive. Once we raged, refused point blank to go gently. Now, we hold our lives more lightly, as if they matter less. Yet if our forebears had not been so driven, we would not be here to hold them at all. Is that irony, or how life is? I cannot say.’

‘What a misery guts.’ Sunny offered him a plate. ‘Have a lemon tart.’

April heard someone start to sing. She knew the voice well, and it did not take long to find him. Oran was at the edge of the green under a tree, sitting cross-legged, resting his back against the trunk. A small crowd began to gather, the odd person throwing a coin into a battered hat by his feet. April could not make out the song, but it sounded like one of his wistfully sad numbers. She supposed he’d decided that full-blown tragedy would not be in keeping with the mood of the day.

The crowd was swelling now, people of all ages drawn by the singing. Some had dogs with them, and each animal sat or lay facing Oran, as if they were listening, too. April would not have been surprised to see birds alighting on the tree’s branches, so they could pay homage to a fellow songster.

‘My goodness, he does sing beautifully,’ said Sunny. ‘Such a pity he gets stage fright.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Edward. ‘If he were famous, he wouldn’t be free to sing when and where he pleased. And we’d all be the poorer for it.’

‘He has such a sweet nature, too,’ said Sunny. ‘I believe that draws people as much as his voice. I have so enjoyed his company over — goodness, can it really be twenty-five years?’

‘You knew Oran when he was a child?’ said April.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Sunny. ‘When Perry retired, we moved back to Kingsfield and George Rose was a great help in fixing up the cottage. George would bring Oran with him — he was about ten years old then. To be honest, I badly missed having young children around and treated Oran as if he were a grandchild. But he repaid my attentions. He was polite, generous, interested and, quite frankly, a joy to have around. George was elderly and becoming unwell, and though he made it clear the boy could not let any of his other responsibilities slip, he let Oran spend a lot of time with Perry and I. Poor George. He died not six years later. Had nothing to leave Oran except his tools.’

‘Oran never told me exactly what you and Sir Peregrine did for him,’ said Edward, ‘but I gather that if it had not been for you, he would have been in dire straits.’

‘Oh, pish.’ Sunny looked embarrassed. ‘It was nothing the boy didn’t deserve.’

Edward delicately removed a blade of grass from his trousers.

‘Oran told me something else of interest,’ he said to Sunny. ‘Apparently, he has some doubts about his mother’s adoption. It was organised by Reverend Brownlow, George’s employer, and Oran seems to think it may not have been entirely legitimate. Do you have any knowledge of it?’

‘None at all,’ said Sunny. ‘But surely, if it concerns him, he could make further enquiries?’

‘He is reluctant to do so,’ said Edward. ‘I gather that George never wanted to talk about it. And even now that George has been dead nearly twenty years, Oran continues to respect his wishes.’

‘How very like Oran,’ said Sunny. ‘Loyal to the last.’

A sudden ripple of unease ruffled the crowd. People began to leave, some hastily, pulling away reluctant dogs and children with a sharp word, some less quickly, as if they resented their own anxiety and considered for a moment not giving into it.

As the crowd thinned, April saw what had disturbed them. Four people, clad in black, white-faced and thin beneath clothes too heavy for the warmth of the day. Even from a distance, they radiated a nervous, brittle energy — neediness layered with aggression. They were closing in on Oran.

‘Oh, curses,’ said Sunny. ‘I’d hoped she’d gone for good.’

Oran got to his feet, slowly, not with his usual bounce. He ignored three of the intruders, his attention on one only. A woman, April saw. Black-haired and possibly once beautiful. He placed his hands on her shoulders, leaned in to kiss her, but she laughed and pushed him away, hard enough so that he staggered backwards. Oran held out a hand to her, a plea for her to hold it. Instead, she dropped into a crouch, her back hunched over like a rat’s, and snatched up the hat, now so full of coins April could hear it chinking. She folded up the brim and shoved it under her arm, then said a few words in a jeering tone that was echoed by the others as they left, their walk becoming swifter, in a rush now to be somewhere else.

Oran took a step forward, as if he meant to run after them. But he went no further. April saw him slap his palm against the tree trunk, hard, angry with himself or with them, she could not tell. He stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and, shoulder blades pointed high with tension, strode off across the green in the direction of the pub.

‘I’ll look in on him later,’ said Edward. ‘See if I can encourage him out before he’s thrown.’

‘You know, there are surprisingly few people I could be bothered to murder,’ said Sunny, ‘but Cee-Cee Feares is most certainly one.’

‘Feares?’ said April. ‘Is she his sister?’

‘If she were his sister, I might be more tolerant of her behaviour,’ said Sunny. ‘Family ties being what they are. No, that woman is no blood relation. Cee-Cee Feares is Oran’s wife.’

April asked Edward to drop her at the old gate rather than at Empyrean. Walking kept the restlessness at bay, but for the last two weekends April had limited her walks to places she felt were safe, where she was unlikely to meet Jack. Places away from the woods and the garden. Right now, her plan was to walk along Empyrean’s drive and down the lane, and then across the neighbouring fields, avoiding the farm machinery that was out in force now, spraying and cutting and drilling. The warm weather had boosted growth, and many crops were past knee-high. The cows were out eating fresh green grass instead of hay, and the lambs were no longer tiny and shivering but plump and woolly. April tried not to recall how many she’d eaten over her lifetime, the roasted meat pink and moist, flavoured with whole garlic cloves and rosemary.

Last weekend, she’d made a wrong turn where two paths had crossed in a field, and for a moment could not reorient herself. Every direction looked identically lush and green. It wasn’t until she’d glimpsed the roof of the red phone box that she’d known where she was, and how to get back to the lane.

As she now walked up the pitted gravel drive, April found the idea of becoming lost and never found both terrifying and liberating. Perhaps that’s how she could escape all this? She could defy everyone and disappear, just like James Morrison’s mother.

Oh, God. She’d read that poem once to Ben when he was four and he had been distraught. ‘Is the mummy okay?’ he’d kept saying. ‘Is she back yet?’ On the spot, April had added a stanza not penned by A. A. Milne. It didn’t rhyme, but that hadn’t mattered because it had brought Mrs Dupree home safely, still wearing her golden gown, and Ben had gone to sleep happy. April had slotted When We Were Very Young back onto the shelf, and vowed to stick to Maurice Sendak, whose characters at least came back in time for supper.

April pictured what she’d be having for supper. Soup out of a packet, a piece of bread and some sliced carrot and apple, to ward off scurvy, as her mother used to say. Her father had always replied that he’d prefer scurvy to raw carrot, and rickets, too, if it came to that. Ben, however, had devoured carrot sticks and apple slices like they were lollies. He had never been a fussy boy.

The trees lining the drive were shushing in a light wind. The sound was soothing, but not enough to calm her. Since she’d fled from the woods two weeks ago, the restlessness had dialled up yet another notch. Now it was not bees but a flock of rapacious starlings wheeling about and pecking at her constantly as if she was made of seeds. If she stayed still for any more than a few minutes, her body twitched and fluttered and forced her into movement. Her mind swooped and chattered and careened from thought to thought on some random and erratic flight path — a photo of an egg-and-dart moulding in a book would suddenly morph into a china rabbit eggcup, a christening gift, the gritty crunch of knife on shell, crisp Marmite soldiers clutched in a small fist and plunged messily into a melting yolk. Egg crust and crumbs on a face thrashing to and fro, unwilling to be wiped. A nest on the lawn, fallen from a tree, downy feathers and plastic twine among the twigs, pieces of pale blue broken shell inside, a tale of a baby bird that’s flown safely away, though the true ending probably involved cats. Coaxing, failing to persuade a hand to reach under the neighbour’s hen for a still-warm egg. A storybook about a bird that hatched while its mother was away, and went looking for her, asking, ‘Are you my mother?’

At night, her mind went more haywire still. In her dreams, she did not fly but ran and ran, through woods, over fields, panicked, sobbing, gasping for breath. She could never tell whether she was chasing or being chased, but it didn’t seem to matter — the fear was the same, that whatever she was running to or from meant a loss so great she could not let it happen, she could not stop. In her dreams, April would have to run until she dropped.

Pecked at and pushed, hounded and tormented, day and night, relentlessly. She had given up on trying to use her willpower to stop it; it was too strong. All she could do was subdue it by keeping moving, keeping busy.

It had occurred to her that whatever — whoever — had been signalling before had grown tired of her wilful deafness, and had upped the volume. They had moved from suggestions to shouted orders: ‘Stop now! Go back!’

But how could she? Going back would be a betrayal — not only of Ben, but of his father, too, and everyone who’d cared about her, everyone she’d walked away from. How could she suddenly turn around and say to them that she’d changed her mind? That all the hurt she’d caused them had been unnecessary because, she could see now, her actions had been misguided?

If she said that, then she was also saying that the hurt she’d caused herself had been unnecessary, that everything she’d done had been for no good reason. That April could not buy. Atoning for her son’s death was an unassailably good reason, and April stood by her decision to do it. Going back was not an option. No matter how testing it might be to continue on.

Still, she could not shake the feeling that forces greater than her were at work. What they might want remained to be discovered. Perhaps, thought April, that’s what all the internal fuss has been about? Perhaps it was nothing more than the shapeless din of an orchestra warming up for a performance? Or the ear-piercing microphone feedback that precedes an announcement? Testing, testing, one, two, three …

A few feet ahead, at the edge of the drive, April saw a brownish lump, which, as she neared, became a bird. It was sitting as if dazed, its head tucked down into its body, beak pulled back. It looked rather like a cold spectator hunkering down in coat and scarf at a football match.

A fledgling blackbird, April guessed. It must have fallen out of its nest. That’s why it was sitting so still. It wasn’t hurt, but it did not know how to fly and instinct told it that movement would only attract predators.

April crouched, sat back on her heels, slowly, so as not to scare it.

‘What am I going to do with you?’

She couldn’t leave it. It would die from cold or hunger, or be killed. So many creatures out there that would eat it, including other birds, such as hawks, that might well have fledglings of their own to feed.

But if she picked it up, even carefully, it might die of fright. Perhaps she had no choice but to let nature do its thing?

There was a rustle in the grass verge, a sound of panting, and then a damp, cold nose in her face knocked April off her heels and onto her backside on the gravel. Gabe was about to sniff the baby bird, too, but a sharp whistle warned him away.

April looked up. Gabe’s master had his head tilted to one side, and he was smiling, cautiously, as if unsure whether he should.

Her words rushed out, unbidden but unstoppable. ‘Where have you been?’

And though she knew she shouldn’t, she took the hand he offered and let him pull her up off the ground. She let him pull her close enough to do what she had let no one do in years — touch her face and smooth the hair back from it, and brush the gravel from her palms with gentle thumbs.

‘I’ve been right here,’ he said, ‘all the time.’

CHAPTER 19

mid-May

‘I’ve found someone to help me with the garden,’ April told Oran.

Oran was sitting on the dining room floor, head resting against the wall, eyes closed. He did not respond.

It was Tuesday. Oran had not come to work in the house all of the previous week, and when he had not appeared yet again on the Monday, Edward had gone to wherever Oran lived and forced him to wash and put on fresh clothes and eat. As Oran had not been entirely sober, Edward had driven him up to Empyrean in the Alvis and said he would be back at five to drive him home again.

The drawing room needed its floor — herringbone parquet, to Oran’s delight — cleaned and sanded, but was otherwise finished.

April, not wanting to be idle, had spent the week without Oran working her way through the upstairs rooms. She ripped up carpet and pulled down curtains from bedrooms. She washed and dusted any surviving light fittings: wall sconces and the central pendant style of the period fitted to the ceiling with chrome or copper roses, shades in reeded or opaque glass, most round or hexagonal, with some sconces shaped like shells. The switches were white Bakelite, square and stubby. She found the bathrooms in better condition than she expected. The remaining fittings gave away which sex each bathroom had been primarily designed for. The men had solid, squared-off white basins with black trim on thick pedestals, whereas the ladies’ basins were daintier, set into slim chrome frames with tapered front legs and a towel rail. The baths were all the standard roll-edge cast-iron numbers with white enamel inside and on the roll. Only one bathroom had a stand-alone shower, tiled in black and white with a marble base. Mr Potts’s, April assumed. He sounded like a man who wouldn’t have the patience to run a bath.

By the time Edward came calling, she’d worked her way through eight rooms. He was impressed, he said. But he suggested that April hold fire. When Oran was back — yes, he would be; Edward would make sure of it — he and April should tackle the dining room, the entranceway, the master bedroom, and perhaps, seeing as April had already made a start, one bathroom.

Edward’s view was that prospective buyers would not need — or want — to see every room renovated. A few examples to give them a vision of how the house could look would be enough. Those who were willing to continue would want to put their own stamp on the decoration. Why bother doing work that would only be undone by the new owners?

April felt a jolt, as if she’d misjudged her footing on the stairs. When the house was sold, April would have enough money to buy a ticket home.

That had always been the plan, so there was no reason for April to be surprised. But somehow she’d let that end slip from her mind, pushed out by a bustle of new activity: the garden work that Jack had talked her into, her own work on the house, and the regular task of checking on Jenny.

Braving the disapproval of Irene, April used Edward’s phone every day to call the hospital. Jenny had already outlived the doctor’s prognosis of a month and, occasionally, she’d been well enough to talk to April, her voice weak but her usual cheeriness undimmed. April would hang up feeling both sadness and admiration for her friend, who saw only the positives in her situation — the good care she received, the people she hadn’t seen for years who’d visited, the excitement of what new adventure awaited her. Last Friday, April was told that her friend had been moved to the hospice. She rang but Jenny was not able to speak to her. Chances were high that April would not talk to her again before she died.

Another death. Another loss. Of course, April would mourn no one the way she mourned Ben. The first deaths she’d known had been her parents, her father first, then her mother, and she missed them both still, but in way that did not wrench her heart. They dwelled gently in her memory, their flaws acknowledged but forgiven, their virtues smiled upon with gratitude. But then, they’d reached the natural end of their lives, their deaths the result of age-worn arteries and erratic blood supply to the brain. Jenny, too, was of an age where cancer was more inevitable, less of a terrible shock. April would miss her, too, but like her parents’, Jenny’s memory would sit softly. It would not crush her under its weight.

Ben’s memory crushed her because she could have saved him. She could have prevented what happened. His loss must stay with her forever, undiminished, to remind her of what she’d done.

And she must go home, if returning to nothing and nobody could be called going home, because that was the plan she’d made. That was her path and this was only a temporary detour. She would do what was called for here, in the house and in the garden, even though it would be half-measures at best, nothing like a full restoration. But then, this place had come to the end of its natural life, too, hadn’t it? There was no point in fully restoring it. All she was doing now, like a good undertaker, was making it look pleasing in its coffin.

Hard on the heels of that thought came the sound of laughter. The children were playing in her mind again, playing in the house. She shook her head to drive them out.

‘There may not be that much we can do in the garden,’ she continued to an unresponsive Oran. ‘But we’ll see.’

She was echoing Jack’s words. April could not recall now exactly how the subject of reviving the garden had arisen between them, but she remembered with clarity her surprise when Jack had offered to help. ‘Why would you bother to?’ she asked him. ‘Aren’t you busy?’

‘I’ve got more free time in the warmer months,’ he replied. ‘And I like doing my bit to give living things a chance.’ Then he added, ‘I’d like spending time with you, too,’ and April found she had only one reservation left.

‘How much would you like to be paid?’ she said to him. ‘We might not be able to afford you.’

Jack had laughed. ‘I can’t remember the last time I touched money,’ he said. ‘I’ll work because I want to, and when I don’t want to any more, I’ll stop.’

‘Fair enough,’ April said, but inside, she felt anticipation bubble up and could not help a smile of delight.

‘Don’t get too excited,’ he warned. ‘Garden’s been neglected so long, the fruits of our labour might be limited.’

The walled garden, in particular, had been let go so long, he told her, that there was little to save. They could cut back and prune, clear beds and reduce the thriving population of large and vigorous weeds, and they could sow vegetables and flower seeds and plant bulbs. But the fruit trees, deprived of new grafts, were dead or barren now, the raspberry canes’ sparse root systems had been starved by the stronger competing roots of larger plants, and the grapevines had long since died from cold in the broken greenhouse. The hardier gooseberries had survived, Jack knew, and there was a passion vine against the brick wall still giving fruit. And raspberries and fruit trees, like vegetables and flowers, he said, could always be planted again.

As for the rest of the garden, the lawn, which Oran had not yet mowed, could be eventually reclaimed. The trees, copper beech, chestnut, magnolia, lime and maple, were mature and attractive. The rhododendrons were really too large now, but their flowers, Jack thought, were still pretty. The yew hedge had grown enormous and blocked light to the house. It could be trimmed, Jack said, by someone with a tall and sturdy ladder. The lilac and wisteria had left the walls and rotting pergolas and spread up hedges and trees. One purple wisteria in a chestnut, he estimated, was at least thirty feet high by now. But the standard roses were dead, the soil ‘rose sick’, and not to be planted in again for at least two years. The shoots of the climbing roses had not been trained downwards for decades and the plants were woody and bare at the base, the flowers now only right at the top, almost beyond sight. This could not be undone; if climbing roses were wanted, they would have to start again. Weeds had engulfed the rock garden, but alpine plants were hardy, so there might be the odd survivor.

‘How long would it take to see progress?’ April asked.

Vegetables and flowers she could have within a few months. Everything else, he said, would take years.

April had been disappointed. She had somehow formed the idea that by the time she left, the garden would be well on the way to being the thriving, bountiful one that existed in The Popular Encyclopaedia of Gardening. The list for May had sounded full of lush promise: Start disbudding wall Peaches … bark-ring vigorous Apples and Pears to induce fruitfulness … mulch Raspberries and Blackcurrants … earth up early Potatoes … lift and divide Primroses … prepare the beds for Antirrhinums, Stocks and other summer flowers. From what Jack was saying, she’d be leaving it barely better than she’d found it.

‘Why didn’t Kit look after the garden?’ She’d been unable to keep from sounding accusatory.

‘When Kit was young, gardeners were servants,’ Jack replied. ‘Whereas a gamekeeper was his own man.’

‘The job was beneath him, in other words.’

‘It was apart from him. It didn’t belong in his world.’

However, it seemed that not all of nature needed their help. The bluebells were out. Even though April knew it couldn’t be true, they’d seemed to materialise as quickly as a rainbow. One minute nothing, then a swathe of colour, a massed fairy procession winding through the trees and holding aloft bright blue will-o’-the-wisp torches.

Her gasp of delight had amused Jack.

‘Why so surprised?’ he asked.

‘Because — it’s like magic.’

‘No magic,’ he said. ‘Just how it is.’

‘Don’t you think they’re beautiful?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘My mother told me bluebells were enchanted by fairies. And if you heard a bluebell ring, it meant you were going to die.’

Jack had put his arm around her shoulders. April, as she always did, stiffened, and he, as he always did, ignored it. He was an extraordinarily warm person, April had discovered. Literally warm. Heat came off him as off a sun-baked stone.

‘If you ever hear a bluebell ring,’ he said, with a smile, ‘grab my hand and we’ll start running. No fairy enchantment has ever caught me.’

Oran, thought April, must be hearing a whole carillon of bluebells. And by the look of him, an imminent death would be welcome.

April set down the wallpaper scraper. No electricity meant all stripping had to be done by hand. Edward had offered to pay for a diesel generator to power a steamer, but the paper, a pattern of brambles, leaves and berries, was coming off easily enough, and April was grateful to be able to expend her pent-up energy.

She stood over Oran and kicked his boot. He uttered a small, protesting groan but kept his eyes screwed shut.

‘You’re not getting paid to sit there like a lump,’ she said.

‘Have mercy.’ His voice sounded like a rake on a gravel path.

‘I’d be more sympathetic if it weren’t self-inflicted.’

He unglued his eyes and squinted up at her. ‘It was only myself for the first hour or so,’ he said. ‘Then a dark beast took over.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘It most definitely had those, hanging bold from its hairy loins. It had red eyes, too, like burning coals. And the horns of a giant goat.’

‘That would explain the smell.’

‘It’s brilliant for a moment there, being possessed,’ said Oran. ‘You have super-powers. Everything you touch turns to gold. And then the crippling fear comes upon you as you realise he wasn’t joking, and that as the dawn breaks, you’ll be handing him your soul.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ said April.

‘God, yes,’ said Oran. ‘Four sugars, and a spot of milk.’

April poured two mugs-full from the Thermos that Edward had, thankfully, thought to bring along with Oran, and sat down on the floor next him. As he lifted his mug, April studied his left hand. It was grubby and not at all steady, but of more interest to her was the fact it had no ring, and no telltale white band of skin to show that one had been removed.

It wasn’t the ideal time to ask, April decided. She did not want to send him running to the pub again. She wanted even less for Oran to feel he had the right to ask her personal questions in return.

But he’d caught her looking.

‘I don’t wear it there,’ he said. He stuck his free hand down his shirt and pulled up a chain. ‘I keep it here now.’

The ring was silver and carved with what looked like Celtic runes.

‘I found it,’ he said. ‘By the side of a road in Huddersfield.’ He stuffed it back down his shirt. ‘Easy come, easy go, I suppose.’

‘How long were you married?’

‘We’re still married.’

There was an edge to his tone that made April decide to leave the conversation up to him, in whichever direction he chose to take it.

‘Eighteen years,’ he said, more softly. ‘Ten of them truly wonderful.’

Oran was thirty-five at the most now, April guessed. Same age as her. April had been twenty-four when she’d married Ben’s father, and twenty-five when she’d had Ben. That had been considered a young age to marry and have a child. But they had not been children themselves, whereas Oran must have been no more than seventeen. Was that why his marriage had not lasted?

As if he’d read her mind, he said, ‘We were soulmates, and we would have stayed so had it not been for terrible bad luck.’

He held the cup tight in both hands, no doubt finding comfort in its warmth.

‘Have you never prayed to God,’ he said, ‘to let you go back and do just one thing over again? Not fix every mistake, but only the one? It doesn’t seem that much to ask, does it?’

April could not speak. Could not look at him.

It did not matter. Oran had not meant her to answer the question that he obviously, just as she did, asked himself every minute of every day.

‘It’s like the lost horseshoe nail,’ he said, ‘that lost the shoe that lost the horse that lost the rider that lost the battle that lost the kingdom. My horseshoe nail was our bus fare to the next town, where I was to start work on a building site. I lost it on a bet, in a pub, with a man who tricked me into believing he was more drunk than myself. Because we had no bus fare, we had to hitchhike. Because we hitchhiked, we were picked up by a man who lived in the next town and who offered us a room in his house. All we had lined up was my work, so we said yes. In that house were other young people, and those young people had drugs, and those drugs were offered to my Cee-Cee and she said yes. And that yes razed my kingdom to the ground.’

April wanted to say she was sorry but she knew only too well how meaningless the phrase could sound.

‘From that nest of vipers, she went down into the darkness,’ he said, ‘into places that made that house look cheerful. And I followed her, always in the hope that I could save her, but I could not. I was close, once, so close to success that I could touch it, but once more she faded away from me. I still have hope,’ he added. ‘There’s a tiny light that’s always burning. It’s just how I am, I suppose.’

‘I saw her,’ said April, ‘on May Day, on the green.’

‘Yes, she comes to me now. And every time, I ask her to stay. One day, perhaps, she’ll say yes.’

‘She took your money.’

‘What’s mine is hers.’ Oran pressed his hand against his chest, where the ring lay. ‘We are husband and wife.’

April could remain near him no longer. Even when all seemed hopeless, Oran still managed to hang onto love, and April, though she knew she was being unfair, resented him for it.

‘Back to work so promptly?’ said Oran.

‘I’m not being paid to sit around.’

Oran watched her take to the wallpaper again with the metal scraper. He set his cup on the floor, then, using his hands to brace himself, slid upwards against the wall until he was on his feet. Cautiously, he took a step forward, testing to see if he could stand unaided.

‘I’m not sure that up and down motion you’re demonstrating so vigorously there would be advisable in my own case,’ he said. ‘Are there any quiet, semi-stationary kind of jobs that need doing?’

‘Are you any good at trimming hedges?’

Oran leaned on the wall again.

‘Now, that triggers a memory,’ he said. ‘Did you not earlier on say something about a garden helper?’

‘Aeons ago,’ said April. ‘Before you were conscious.’

‘You’ve found someone to help you. See, it’s all coming back. Those brain cells are not so killed as the medical doomsayers would have us believe.’

Despite it all, April had to smile.

‘Who is it then?’ said Oran. ‘Your helper?’

An excellent question.

‘A man I met,’ said April. ‘He knows the house. He was a friend of Kit’s.’

‘Old codger?’

April kept her mouth shut. No harm in that assumption for now.

‘I’m picturing a flat cap,’ said Oran. ‘And a knack for growing outsize onions and mammoth marrows.’

‘Will you trim the hedge?’ said April.

‘Why can’t the voluminous veg grower trim it?’

‘He doesn’t have a tall enough ladder.’

‘And he’s old and codgery. Whereas I am young and fresh.’

‘You look about as fresh as a prehistoric man exhumed from a tar pit.’

‘Which is a vast improvement,’ said Edward, stepping through the doorway, ‘from this morning.’

‘Surely it’s not five o’clock?’ said April.

‘Three,’ said Edward. ‘I suspected Piltdown Man here might not last the full day.’

Oran tugged on a forelock. ‘Master is merciful.’

‘Don’t thank me yet,’ said Edward. ‘I have another job for you.’

‘Does it require vigorous movement?’

‘It requires you to take a box that has been offered to you and say thank you.’

‘Then your wish is my command. What’s in the box?’

Edward was amused. ‘Already mentally negotiating with Big Mal at Cash4U?’

Oran pretended to look hurt. ‘Unlike some,’ he said, ‘I was not born with a mouth full of silver spoons engraved with my family crest. I must take my opportunities where I can find them.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Edward. ‘Though I have to say that the only gift of any value I received at birth was a Bunnykins plate from my great-aunt, which I dropped and broke when I was four. And I wouldn’t get too excited about the box. Its contents originally belonged to the late vicar of Kingsfield, and vicars are generally better rewarded in the afterlife than in this one. Or so they hope, I imagine.’

Oran frowned. ‘It is true that I’m not on top form in this current instant,’ he said, ‘but I’m struggling to find any good reason why I should be about to receive a box that belonged to the late Kingsfield vicar, God rest his soul.’

‘Apparently, the Reverend Brownlow willed it to your grandfather but, due to your grandfather dying almost immediately afterwards, the box was put away in the Reverend’s daughter’s attic, where it has lain for the last twenty-odd years. It was she who called me. She’s clearing out her house in preparation for selling it in order to fund a year in Patagonia, where she intends to go mountain climbing.’

‘Mountain climbing?’ said April. ‘Surely she can’t be all that young?’

‘Seventy this December,’ said Edward. ‘After Patagonia, she plans to end her days climbing what she considers the less demanding slopes of the Alps. I thought of reintroducing her to Sunny, but I fear the universe might implode.’

Oran had gone quiet. His expression, April saw, was unmistakably that of a person who, now in full possession of the facts, regrets their original eagerness to say yes.

Edward had also observed the change. ‘Qualms?’

‘What if the box has details about — the past?’ said Oran.

‘It may well,’ said Edward. ‘But then it may also just contain items the Reverend wanted your grandfather to have. It seems universally agreed in Kingsfield that the Reverend held your grandfather in high esteem.’

‘You know, if it hadn’t been for the Reverend, I would never have known that my mother had been adopted,’ said Oran. ‘I was twelve and he came to call on us. Granddad George was out but the Reverend seemed keen to stay anyway, so I made a pot of tea and he asked me all about school and whether I enjoyed being in the church choir, which I did, and whether I wanted to sing a solo at their next performance, which I most definitely did not. Then he stared at me in silence until I was going mad with the need to fidget, and said, “You have your mother’s eyes.” Which was true; I’d seen the photos. Then he added, “But not her hair. That beautiful summer-gold hair that was her own mother’s crowning glory.” I was about to say my ginger locks were a blessing from my father, but the Reverend suddenly went all of a blink, like a mole in sunlight, and said he had to go right away, so I showed him out. In the hallway, coming back, I passed a photo of my grandparents on their wedding day and it struck me that my grandmother’s hair was dark brown.’

‘Not summer-gold,’ said Edward.

‘As un-summer-gold as you could get,’ said Oran. ‘I checked the family photo album just to be sure she hadn’t dyed it, but my nan had been a brunette from childhood, dark as Elizabeth Taylor or Ava Gardner. Took me months to gird up the courage to ask Granddad George whether he and Nan were my mother’s real parents, and he grew so angry with me, I never asked again. I didn’t need to. His anger gave me all the answer I needed.’

‘He might have felt embarrassed that he’d never told you,’ said April.

‘Or he might have been worried that the circumstances around the adoption would come to light,’ said Edward. ‘Seems your suspicions that it did not go through any official channels could be correct.’

Oran looked at Edward. ‘My grandfather meant the world to me,’ he said. ‘I won’t do anything to betray his memory.’

‘Understood,’ said Edward. ‘Then how about this? Sunny has invited us all to dinner, so let’s collect the box from Miss Brownlow as I’ve already agreed and take it with us. After we’ve eaten, I will personally undertake the investigation of the box’s contents. That way, if I find anything … controversial … then I can instruct you to close your eyes until the offending matter is disposed of.’

To April, he added, ‘The dinner invitation extends to you, too, if you’re free. Sunny had an excellent stifado in Greece, apparently, that she’d like to try out on us.’ He saw Oran’s face. ‘It’s a type of casserole.’

‘Of course it is. No possibility for misunderstanding there.’

‘Come along?’ said Edward to April.

April had a vision of the four of them around Sunny’s table, laughing and talking and eating Sunny’s no doubt excellent food, and she was filled with a longing so intense that it took all her willpower to contain it.

‘I might come later,’ she said. ‘For the grand opening of the box.’

‘Please do,’ said Oran. ‘Much as I loved my grandfather, I admit I am very tempted to find out more about my mother. I might need someone with actual willpower, such as yourself, to stand by me and hold me back. To set an example of what it takes to never, ever give in to those baser urges, no matter how Siren-like their call.’

CHAPTER 20

August, 1938

He’d have him on the final run, thought James. Day was a better oarsman but James was twice the runner. What he lost on the water, he’d make up easily over ground.

The current guides race champion was a local man, Tom McNaught. He was twenty, a fit and strapping woodsman, and had won the race by miles for the past three years. He would not appreciate being beaten, and certainly not by lads barely fifteen years old. But James and Perry were well ahead of him. And as soon as James was out of this boat, he could surely sprint past Day and take the win.

The crowd around the lake was large. As many as two hundred people had turned out to enjoy a picnic and the sight of other people expending energy on a hot summer’s day. Lily was there, James knew, in the big marquee his father had ordered, eating food delivered by Fortnum and Mason along with his other guests, local dignitaries mainly, men like him whose wealth now also gave them influence, who headed boards and committees that knew best about what was good for people, and who were buying up the land that those left with only breeding could no longer afford to keep. James’s father’s success with the local Tithe-Payers Association had brought about calls for him to enter politics. Lewis Potts would never enter into any contest without being very sure he would win, James knew, and so his father was prepared to spend time building a base of support, and doing favours for others that would, when the right time came, require appropriate favours in return.

Lily had been invited because his father liked to show her off. Lily, in a way, James thought, had become his father’s property. He had taken over her life, and she did whatever he told her. James knew the Blythes were not happy about it — Sunny said so. Sunny said that the money they received from Lily’s modelling fees was not enough to compensate for her absence from the farm. The calf-rearing had gone badly that year because Mrs Blythe could not dedicate herself to the full-time care they required in those first weeks. Because of that, there’d been an outbreak of scours, which, ironically, forced Lily’s mother to spend three whole days and nights trying to save them. The whole lot, bar one lone skinny, sickly calf, died, and Mrs Blythe had taken to her bed for another day, sorrowful and exhausted. Sunny’s mother went around to help out, and tried to bring James’s mother with her, but his father would not hear of it. James’s mother had duties of her own, he said, and the Blythes were hardly a charity case. There were setbacks all the time in farming; it was the nature of the beast.

Sunny also said that the money was not enough to alleviate the Blythes’ worry about the society James’s father had introduced Lily into, in particular the older men. It had never occurred to James to worry about rivals that were not his own age, but now he became alarmed. ‘Had Lily complained?’ he asked Sunny. ‘Had anyone, you know, behaved — questionably?’

‘You mean got all goatish and lechy?’ Sunny said. ‘Asked to slip their John Thomas up her cunnikin?’ (Sunny had found an unexpurgated edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and insisted on reading the juicy bits aloud to James, causing blood to rush to his face and, more humiliatingly, to other places. Sunny, fortunately, was always too engrossed in the book, which she found hilarious, to notice.)

No, Sunny had not heard Lily complain, but, as she rightly pointed out, when did she ever? ‘Lily never says a bad word about anyone,’ Sunny said in exasperation. ‘And she never argues or stands up for herself. It’s as if she’s under autosuggestion — obeys any instruction given to her, no matter what it is. I do so wish she would develop a bit of gumption!’

James couldn’t imagine a Lily who argued. Her sweet nature was part of what made her so attractive. Sunny, who, in James’s mind, had always looked more like a boy than a girl, had given him quite a shock when he’d first arrived home for the summer. Her hair had been cut in a blonde curly bob, she wore stylish clothes (God knows how she afforded them) and she’d tanned her skin a smooth golden brown. With her bright blue eyes and white smile, she was, James had realised with a start, gorgeous. He’d never thought of Sunny as beautiful before, but here she was, a chic woman of the age, even if she were not a woman quite yet. Whereas Lily, he’d been quite relieved to see, was a little taller but otherwise exactly the same. As was Rowan, except that now, to his secret, intense pleasure, James had definitely outgrown him. Sunny insisted that Rowan’s growth had been stunted by the fact that Ted barely fed him. If it weren’t for the Blythes, she said, he’d starve. James told her she was exaggerating. Rowan was naturally small and wiry, that was all.

Rowan hadn’t been able to join in the lakeside sports. Old Ted needed him to help ready the woods for the cub hunting Mr Potts had planned for the following week. It was a precursor to hunting proper, which would start in a few months. Old Ted, James knew, did not like the hunt. Loathed the noise, the damage to copses and fences, the disruption that unsettled his already scatty pheasants at the all-important nesting time. But James’s father wanted to hunt cubs, and so Ted and Rowan would be out there, checking fences for anything that might injure a horse, making sure there would indeed be young foxes laying up in the coverts and, closer to the time, stopping the earths so they could not escape back underground.

It was a pity, James thought. He would have liked Rowan to see him win. Because that’s what he was determined to do. He would beat them all, including the famous Tom McNaught, and claim a hero’s welcome and perhaps a kiss from Lily, which would really show Day!

Day had left him behind on the first row across the lake but James had caught him again on the hill run, and they had slotted oars into rowlocks neck and neck. James tried not to fume as Day pulled ahead in strong, seemingly effortless strokes, and focused instead on the final half-mile run. It was over uneven, hillocky ground, with a subtle but taxing slope that would sap the energy of the unprepared. James had run here before — he had run everywhere that lay within twenty miles of home. He knew how to tackle it. Day wouldn’t.

The rowboat crunched hard onto stones. James threw off the oars and leapt out. He did not bother to look for Day. All that mattered was that Day was ahead and needed to be caught. He heard whistles and cheers from nearby spectators. Someone called his name, but he did not waste time turning. He ran, fast, in pursuit of his rival.

He saw him. At a guess, Day was fifty yards ahead, with about a quarter of a mile more to go. James knew he could run faster, but was that too big a lead? Well, he’d know in the next few seconds whether he was gaining ground.

Day was running well. Back upright, knees high, arms pumping. He was heavier than James, but he had strength and a long stride. James’s legs and lungs burned, his palms smarted, rubbed raw by the oars, and salty sweat stung his eyes. But he dug in, and was rewarded by the sight of Day’s back inching ever closer.

The finish line was now less than fifty yards ahead. Day’s lead had shrunk to twenty. James knew he needed to take extra care now. A toe clipping a clod of earth, a twisted landing in a hidden hole — he could be undone any second.

He wasn’t. He passed Day with ten yards to go, heard his friend’s oath, and grinned. The crowd cheered with enthusiasm, even though he was not their champion, and James collapsed backwards onto the ground and beamed in triumph at the sky.

The sun was blocked by Day, bending over him, dripping sweat.

‘Bastard,’ Day panted. ‘Sodding bastard.’

Another cheer, a loud one. Tom McNaught had crossed the line. Day held out a hand and hauled James to his feet.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Best be gracious in victory.’

The unseated champion was smiling, but his handshake crushed hard as a millstone. James gave a short prayer of thanks when McNaught was dragged away by his mates, promising commiserations in ale, though he couldn’t help resenting the way the man was being congratulated by all around him, as if he had won. He was their local hero, James decided, shaking out his fingers discreetly to get the blood flowing again. Their lad, their Tom, could never be supplanted by rich James Potts or posh Peregrine Day.

‘Christ, I may never play the piano again,’ said Day. ‘The man has hands of steel.’

An unbridled whooping got their instant attention. Sunny was racing towards them, arms circling, yelling like a Red Indian. Walking some way behind her, James saw, was Lily, smiling serenely. As usual, his heart went straight to his mouth.

‘Woo-hoo!’

Sunny skidded up, used James as a brake by grabbing his arms. She flung her own around his neck and hugged him hard, not caring, it seemed, that he was sweaty and smelled ripe as an old cheese.

‘That was brilliant!’

Sunny was wearing an outfit that must have given his father apoplexy, thought James. It was a pantsuit, wide-legged, with a halter top, in jaunty striped patches of blue and white, which made it look as if it had been reconstituted from men’s shirts. It showed a lot, James couldn’t help but note, of smooth tanned skin.

He’d stared at her a shade too long, but needn’t have worried. Sunny had lost all interest in him.

‘Hello,’ she was saying. ‘Who are you?’

Months later, Day admitted to James that he’d only just stopped himself from saying ‘I’m the man you’re going to marry.’ James had replied that it would have been entirely unnecessary. It was obvious to even the rocks that love had struck them like a hammer.

‘Well done, James.’

Lily was beside him. Her smile lit up her face, but she made no move to give him a congratulatory kiss. She was carrying a straw hat. Her dress was white and silky, with short draped sleeves and a collar that sat wide across her shoulders. Pretty, modest, not overly fashionable. Undoubtedly a dress bought for her by his father.

‘I can’t wait to tell Rowan,’ she said. ‘He’ll be so pleased for you.’

Jealousy punched James hard in the gut. Why was she even mentioning Rowan when the only person who mattered today was he, James Potts, the winner? He would have beaten Rowan, too, had he entered. He would have beaten him by miles.

He heard Day inviting Sunny to take a ride with him in his car. Even though he was a year too young to have his licence, Day had a blue and silver MG, a present, apparently, from his godfather who’d had a big win at Monte Carlo. Day was hiding the car from his father, because the old man would most likely sell it out from under him, having been forbidden by Day’s mother to flog any more of the Stubbses. Day had roared up in the MG, hopping out just in time to make the start. He’d have driven it like the clappers, thought James; the car had a top speed, so Day claimed, of seventy miles per hour. Hearing that, a classmate had cited a statistic that more Britons had been killed by cars in the early part of the decade than in the whole of the Napoleonic wars. Day had laughed and promised only to run over people he didn’t like.

He was laughing now, and Sunny was laughing with him, gazing up at him with eyes sparkling with amusement and (blindingly obvious to James) sexual heat. Why couldn’t Lily look at him like that? Why couldn’t her gaze be white-hot with admiration and longing? What did he have to do? Slay a bloody dragon?

Perhaps it was time to drop the mask and declare his intentions, like Scaramouche. If he waited too long, there was a risk he’d be too late. One of his father’s friends might decide the age gap was not so very great, and if his father approved of the match there’d be no stopping it. And there was the threat from Rowan, too. Not that Rowan had ever expressed an interest in Lily beyond friendship, but everyone knew that Farmer Blythe considered Rowan to be almost as fine a lad as his own two sons.

‘Come on, Jam-pot!’ Sunny grabbed his arm. ‘They’re about to give out the prizes. If you want yet another trophy for the cabinet, you’d better hotfoot it.’

‘Jam-pot, eh?’ said Day, in the voice of one now in possession of a potentially useful piece of information.

Lily smiled. ‘It’s his nickname,’ she said.

Of course it’s my bloody nickname, thought James. Only an imbe cile would have needed that explanation. Only an imbecile would have given it!

He composed himself. There were people waiting to praise him, award him that handsome silver winged cup. They’d probably want him to make a speech.

James followed the others up the hill, preparing in his mind the kind of modest words people would expect to hear from the winner of the day.

CHAPTER 21

mid-May

April hadn’t opened James’s art folio since that afternoon at Sunny’s when it had been handed into her care. After her failed trip home, April had unpacked her suitcase and placed the folio on the top shelf of Kit’s wardrobe. There she’d intended to leave it, but Sunny’s stories had sparked a curiosity about James. He was her relative, after all.

Her rational brain reminded her that a young man, dead over thirty years before she was born, could hardly have drawn anything that would connect to her. But his death was the reason she was here, in his father’s house, scraping wallpaper that he would have passed by every day. His finger marks were probably on that wallpaper somewhere; small boys’ fingers, as she knew, being magnetically attracted to anything they weren’t supposed to touch. And, who knew, perhaps there were some drawings in here of Empyrean’s interior? Not that it really mattered — their restoration work was a patch-up at best — but it would be nice to know that she and Oran weren’t too far off the mark.

She stood on tiptoe and slid the folio off the wardrobe shelf, took it to the kitchen table and opened it up.

There was the map, of course. April touched the chain around her neck and wondered whether it held the secret of the lock the two keys had been made for. But the little images of the lamb, dog, apple and beehive gave no more clues to their meaning than before. It was a mystery that would probably never be solved, April told herself. She slid the map to one side, and lifted the folio’s first page.

The drawings were as she remembered — neat pen and ink renditions of farm scenes, churches, rose-covered village cottages. There was one of an apple tree, a swing hanging from a branch. The apple tree the four children used to play in, April guessed. She glanced back at the map — she must ask Jack to help her find the place where it used to grow.

April began to skip through the early drawings. They were the kind you might expect to see on souvenir postcards, or sampler boxes of biscuits, inoffensive, charming, familiar, slightly dull. If you did not look past the first fifteen or so pages, you would think it was all the folio contained.

But after them came the drawings that interested April more — the sketches, quickly done, and with a furtive quality about them, as if the artist had felt rather like a spy. The crouching man she’d seen but there were others — a fair-haired woman sitting by a window, head bent, reading — no, sewing; a curly-headed boy, head bowed, whittling wood; a bird of prey, a falcon, perhaps, with a fierce front-on gaze; the head of a stag; a pool by some rocks; a thick-set woman leaning on a table, face in her arms, weeping or resting April could not tell; and the last, a still-life collection of objects — a tiny egg, a four-leaf clover, a little round bead or nut of some kind spilling what looked remarkably like tiny elephants, a brooch or pendant bearing an image of a pomegranate, and — a jolt of recognition — a carved dog’s head with a ridged collar.

It was the same one. It had to be. April wondered if Oran still had it. He’d better have, she thought. If he’d sold it to buy booze, she’d kill him.

But whose was it? James’s? And what had happened to the other objects? Broken, she assumed, or lost. Ben had found a four-leaf clover once — well, his father had pointed it out and Ben had picked it. They had dried it carefully and kept it in an empty matchbox, but one day he’d brought the box outside and the wind had whipped the cloverleaf away. Not even a promise of ice cream could console him. She and Ben’s father had spent hours crawling all over the garden, with no luck. They had to settle for a sprig of oxalis, reasoning that a four-year-old would not know the difference, but feeling guilty of deception nonetheless.

After the last sketch was a blank page. April had reached the end. The weak spine was coming apart, so she lifted the back cover carefully and as she did, the last pages curled over and she saw there were drawings that she’d missed.

Only two, quite unlike either the neat scenes or the quick sketches. These were in black pen, highly stylised, the outlined figures set within distinct and ornate borders. They looked like patterns for art nouveau stained-glass windows.

Both were of two men on either side of one woman. In the first, the men were knights, of the Round Table, April guessed from the look of their armour. They each had one hand on a sword and one outstretched towards the woman, but she had her head bowed, modestly, her own hands clasped together. Lancelot and Arthur, April wondered, competing for Guinevere?

But she had no idea who the figures in the second drawing were meant to be. The two men this time wore garb more like Robin Hood’s: tights, jerkins and capes. Again, each had one hand on a sword and one outstretched. But the woman this time was barely human. From her feet to her shoulders, she was made of flowers, but her face was that of an owl’s, its large round eyes speckled like goldstone.

April had to agree with Sunny. James Potts’s fondness for the obscure reference was highly irritating.

She shut the folio with a dusty thump, and felt a pang of loss, as if she’d pocketed a shining stone from the beach which later proved to be only a dry dull pebble. April grew cross with herself for having even the faintest hope that something in the folio might seem familiar, that a voice from the past might speak to her. There was nothing there for her, just as there was nothing here for her now. When her time at Empyrean was done, she’d be going home.

Connections to the past — could they really be restored once lost? Should you even try to make that effort, or should you let them go and watch them vanish backwards into blackness, out of your reach forever?

Her watch told her it was ten minutes to eight. Dinner would be nearly over at Sunny’s. If she wanted to find out what was in Oran’s box, she should leave now.

Oran opened the door.

‘You’re tardy,’ he said.

‘At least I turn up for work,’ said April, as she hung her coat.

‘What can I say? When the black dog seizes me in his jaws, I cannot fight him.’

‘Do you always blame your actions on supernatural beings?’

‘I grant you that it may not be the most mature response,’ said Oran, following her up the hall, ‘but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any such creatures.’

The box sat untouched on Sunny’s table. It was not large, the size of a shoe box, and, judging by the faded print on the cardboard, had once held tins of custard powder. Edward stood over it with a pair of scissors, readying to slice through the packaging tape that held it shut.

Sunny rose to greet April with a kiss. ‘Tea, my dear? Or there is a last sliver of baklava. I began the evening with a whole plateful, but then it was set upon by a ravening horde. If two men can constitute a horde.’

‘Tea would be lovely, thank you.’

Edward waited until Oran had resumed his seat and, scissors poised, met his eye.

‘Ready?’

‘No,’ said Oran.

‘Excellent,’ said Edward, and sliced open the box.

The contents went on the table one by one: ten small parcels, carefully wrapped in newspaper. From the way Edward handled them, they were obviously light in weight.

‘That’s the last.’ Edward peered into the box to be sure. ‘No incriminating documents or photographs. Just — whatever these are.’

‘Right.’

Oran was disappointed, April could tell. Everyone could tell; he had no gift for concealing his feelings. If that could be called a gift, she supposed.

‘What was the vicar’s daughter like?’ she asked.

‘Direct,’ said Edward. ‘And possessed of a face as tanned and lined as the back of a farmer’s neck.’

‘Strict, too,’ said Oran. ‘When she ordered her spaniel to sit I felt my own knees buckle.’

Edward sat down, pulled the first of the small parcels to him.

‘Feel free to shut your eyes while I unwrap this,’ he said to Oran.

‘I will not,’ said Oran. ‘If my fortune is about to be made, I don’t want to miss a second of it.’

A rattle as Sunny brought the tea tray. ‘No room on the table, I see, so please help yourselves.’

Then she caught sight of the object Edward had just unwrapped. ‘Good Lord—’

Edward held it out so they could all see. It was a Christ child in a crib, carved from wood.

‘A very little Lord,’ said Oran, setting it on the table.

Sunny reached for it, turned it gently over in her hand. ‘Rowan made this.’

‘Your Rowan?’ said April.

‘I’d know it anywhere,’ said Sunny. ‘He carved a whole nativity set when he was twelve years old. It sat on a shelf in the Blythes’ kitchen for years.’

Edward put his finger on another of the parcels. ‘Then I don’t think we need to be Sherlock Holmes to guess what the rest of these contain.’

‘Not my fortune.’ Oran sighed.

‘No,’ Edward agreed. ‘These wouldn’t rate highly on Big Mal’s list of prime pawn-ware. They’re too tasteful, for one.’

‘Which reminds me,’ said April to Oran. ‘Did you sell that ivory dog’s head?’

Oran drew himself up. ‘If you all had better expectations of me, then I might rise to them. As it is, you have no one to blame but yourselves.’

‘Did you flog my dog?’

‘I did not,’ said Oran. ‘Because I forgot I had it.’ He shoved a hand in his front pocket. ‘Here you go.’

April took the dog’s head. ‘I won’t ask how often you wash those jeans.’

Sunny had taken it upon herself to unwrap another parcel. Inside was one of the Magi. She set him upright on the table, looking down into the crib.

‘I don’t suppose,’ April held the dog’s head out to her, ‘that you recognise this?’

Sunny peered. ‘I’ve never seen it before.’

‘I found it in Empyrean’s attic, in a chest filled with old-fashioned women’s clothing.’

‘Cora’s, possibly?’ said Sunny. ‘I know she took barely anything of her old life with her.’

‘When did she leave?’

‘When James was away at war. I’ve always thought that was extraordinarily selfish of her, but I suppose when you’ve finally summoned the courage …’

Edward had unwrapped a second Magi, and Mary and Joseph. He set them in their appropriate places around the other figures.

‘I have a question,’ he said. ‘No, two questions. How did Reverend Brownlow come to have a nativity set that once belonged to the Blythes? And why did he wish to pass it on to George Rose?’

But before anyone could pose an answer, April had her first proper look at the figure she had just unwrapped—

‘The lamb!’ April held it up. ‘It’s the lamb in the map!’

‘Are you sure?’ said Edward.

‘Absolutely! I was studying the map only this afternoon!’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Edward. ‘In my experience, one resting lamb looks very much like another.’

‘Your bucolic lifestyle, of course, exposing you to a myriad of sheep progeny,’ said Oran.

‘I’ll have you know that I’ve vaulted at least one stile,’ said Edward. ‘And I’m very fond of the work of Holman Hunt.’

‘Hush your nonsense, the pair of you.’

Sunny reached out, and April gave her the lamb. ‘I do believe April is right. The lamb in the map had the same crooked front leg as this one. Rowan was only a boy when he carved them, after all.’

She ran her thumb along the lamb’s side, the wood soft and golden as toffee.

‘I wonder if the Blythes gave the set to the vicar when Rowan died,’ she said. ‘Reverend Brownlow always stayed firm in his support of Rowan, even when everyone else had turned against him, including Ellis Blythe. Poor man. He loved Rowan, but the stance he took went against everything Ellis Blythe believed in. He’d already lost one son to the war. A choice not to fight seemed an insult to his memory.’

‘Are you saying Rowan was a conscientious objector?’ said April.

‘It was a surprise to many that someone so able with a gun would choose not to pick one up in defence of his country,’ said Sunny. ‘But anyone who knew him knew that Rowan killed only to preserve the natural balance, to let all life flourish equally. He could see that political freedom was a just cause, but did not believe that it should require so many to die. Too many lives in the debit column for the amount of gain. He could not, in principle, reconcile that disparity. And his principles cost him dearly.’

‘The only time you can truly call a principle a principle,’ said Oran. ‘When it costs you.’

‘When Rowan was sixteen,’ Sunny said, ‘Old Ted kicked him out. The Blythes took him in and he worked willingly and well on their farm. But in 1941, when he turned eighteen, he became eligible for National Service conscription. The irony was that farm workers could be exempted because they were doing valuable war work, so Rowan needn’t have registered as an objector at all. But I suspect he could not bear feeling as though he was deceiving people, particularly Ellis Blythe. Even though Rowan knew it might end their relationship, he wanted the truth out in the open. He did not want to feel a fraud.’

Sunny pressed her mouth to the little lamb in a gentle kiss. ‘My poor, poor Rowan. How he suffered. I’m not one for regret, but I wish almost every day that I had been there for him at the last. I wish so much that I’d been able to say goodbye.’

‘I fear this tale does not end well,’ said Edward.

‘I know it doesn’t,’ said Oran. ‘I’ve seen Rowan Holly’s name on the war memorial. Among so many others who died too young and too far from home.’

‘Oh, no!’ Somehow April had formed the impression that James was the only one of Sunny’s friends who’d not died of old age. ‘But how could Rowan die in the war if he didn’t fight?’

‘Because he did, eventually,’ said Sunny. ‘The poor boy was driven to it. Once the news was out that Rowan was an objector, despite Reverend Brownlow’s calls for tolerance, the village turned on him, and Ellis Blythe could no longer bear to have him in his house. Rowan couldn’t stand the thought of being imprisoned in an internment camp, so he went instead into the woods and lived there wild, hidden, for almost two years. During the winters of ’41 and ’42, Lily and I used to bring him food. Secretly; no one knew but we two girls. And James, of course,’ she added.

‘But in mid-1943, I joined the ATS, the Women’s Anxiliary, and was sent to Guildford for training,’ Sunny went on, ‘and I know Lily had been finding it increasingly difficult to get away from the farm. I’m not certain, but I think the prospect of a third winter in the woods was simply unbearable. Rowan enlisted in December 1943, just before James did. And he was killed in March 1944, in Italy.’

‘In combat?’ said Edward.

‘Not exactly. There was a horse — no one ever confirmed whether it was a cavalry horse or one from a local farm. It was panicking, and Rowan went to calm it. Someone fired a shot nearby, and the horse reared and kicked Rowan in the head. Killed him instantly, which is one mercy, I suppose.’

‘And you wonder why I don’t want to know anything about my past,’ said Oran. ‘What if there were tragic circumstances like those around my mother’s adoption? Just think how I would feel then!’

‘Personally, I’d prefer to know,’ said Edward. ‘The bogey monsters of surmise that we conjure in our minds are usually vastly more terrifying than the reality.’

‘Speaking for myself,’ said Sunny, ‘I adore being able to trace my family back centuries. We’ve amassed the most marvellous collection of warmongers, zealots, crackpots and fornicators. And those were just the women.’

‘I don’t want my grandfather’s ghost to haunt me,’ said Oran. ‘There’s precious little room in my van as it is. Besides,’ he added, ‘where on earth would I start? I have nothing to go on — not a name, not a place, nothing!’

‘That’s true.’ Edward sat back in his chair, tapped his fingers on the table.

‘I have a suggestion,’ he said. ‘The genealogist I used to track down April is very good. I could ask her whether she’s prepared to take this on. What do you think?’

‘I think I won’t know what I think until there’s something concrete for me to think about,’ said Oran. ‘If I’m too terrified to face it, can I opt for remaining in ignorant bliss?’

‘No,’ said Edward. ‘However, I will buy you a stiff drink afterwards.’

‘Sold.’ Oran reached out and shook Edward’s hand. ‘But if it turns out that inside those hand-made brogues of yours lurk cloven hooves instead of feet, could you do me a favour and always keep your socks on in my company?’

CHAPTER 22

early June

April bent to look more closely at the rabbit and regretted it. She had stepped through the cottage door and found it right outside, hunched up, not moving except for the twitch of an ear.

Her first thought was that it was ill. A closer look proved her correct. Its eyes were swollen shut, red and weepy, and there were sores on its face and head.

She should put it out of its misery, but had no idea how. Kit had not left a gun — not that she knew how to use one — and she had no intention of cutting its throat with the kitchen knife.

It was early Saturday morning. April had arranged to meet Jack in the walled garden. She hurried there to find him.

‘Myxomatosis,’ he said.

‘I guessed. What should I do? I can’t leave it, but I don’t have anything to … dispatch it with.’

He had Kit’s shovel, offered it to her. ‘Hit it with this. Split its skull.’

‘No! I’d never manage that.’

‘Then leave it. It will die soon enough.’

‘I thought myxomatosis didn’t exist any more. It shouldn’t,’ said April. ‘It’s horrible.’

‘Rabbits are highly destructive and there are millions of them. You can understand why farmers want to control them.’

Jack drove the shovel into the weed-bound raised bed. Gabe, the dog, who’d been asleep on the stone path, raised his head.

‘But you’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s always a risk, tipping the balance too  far.’

‘Can you come and kill it?’ said April.

‘I thought you wanted to make a start here.’

‘It’s suffering.’

‘It’s one rabbit.’

‘Do you want me to beg?’

He killed it with a single strike of the shovel blade. April could not watch. He then used the shovel to bury it at the edge of the woods.

‘Thank you,’ said April. ‘I suppose you can’t afford to be squeamish.’

‘If you’re squeamish, you’re more likely to botch it. I try to avoid killing things, but when I do, best to do it quickly, no hesitation.’

Gabe was sniffing the area where Jack had buried the rabbit. April remembered the dog scrabbling in the dirt of Jack’s clearing, digging, perhaps, for old bones.

‘Does Gabe hunt for himself?’ she said.

‘He’s not my pet,’ said Jack. ‘We keep each other company by choice, and we understand that we have to fend for ourselves. He hunts by himself, in his own way.’

‘He doesn’t call to the rabbits?’ said April, with a smile.

‘He’s a wild thing so he hunts like wild things do. Not always quick and rarely pretty.’

‘If he’s really wild, then he’d be dangerous, surely?’

‘Who says he’s not?’ said Jack, with a smile of his own. ‘No, he’s like most creatures. He’ll only fight if he or something he wants to protect is under attack. And then he’ll fight to the death — his or his opponent’s.’

‘Harsh,’ said April.

A single sharp whistle called the dog away from the rabbit grave. ‘That’s how it is. Not much room for compassion or mercy in nature.’

‘Nature’s cruel, you mean?’

He shook his head. ‘Humans are cruel. Only humans inflict pain for revenge or power or pleasure. Nature kills to stay alive. There’s no good or bad in that.’

‘So which world are you part of?’ said April. ‘The human world or the natural one?’

‘Does it matter?’ he said.

‘As long as you don’t intend to kill and eat me,’ she said, ‘I don’t suppose it does.’

‘Not my first thought about what to do with you, no.’

It had been so many years since a man had flirted with her that April was not even sure whether that remark counted as such. His expression, too, was more amused than anything else. April felt the blush rise nonetheless, and hastily bent her head down to the bag she’d brought. It held lunch for the pair of them, Kit’s water bottle and a pair of battered gardening gloves, which she drew out, a useful distraction.

‘I found these,’ she said. ‘They’re far too big but they’ll do. Kit must have had seriously large hands.’

‘He was a big man, yes.’

‘Did you know Kit well?’

‘Not really,’ he said. ‘But we understood each other.’

‘Did Kit find your place in the woods?’

‘Kit didn’t need to look.’

Jack hefted the shovel to balance it better in his hand.

‘So far this morning,’ he said, ‘all we’ve done is kill one sick rabbit.’

April did not like feeling chided. ‘You have other commitments, do you?’

‘Always,’ he said, with a quick smile. ‘But you asked first, so here I am.’

Gabe ran to catch up as Jack strode away from the cottage, and April followed the pair of them, feeling less put out now than perturbed. She might know where he lived, she might believe him to be a straight-talker and well intentioned towards her — but what she really knew about him and his life was, in fact, nothing at all.

The walled garden, now that she was faced with it, seemed dauntingly overgrown and depressingly dead.

‘Is there really any point in this?’ she said.

‘Can’t always undo what’s been done — or compensate for what hasn’t,’ said Jack. ‘But the beauty of a garden is that you can always start again.’

He gestured around. ‘The foundations are all still here. A few years and it could look just like it used to.’

‘I won’t be here in a few years,’ said April.

‘So you say.’

‘Don’t you believe me?’

‘Doesn’t matter what I believe.’

He crouched down to reach into his leather satchel, which he’d left with the stepladder and the few gardening tools April had found in Kit’s shed. The cottage’s small vegetable plot now held weeds as well as shrivelled silverbeet. On the plus side, it also held mint, which had popped up and spread all over the plot like a fragrant green tide.

From his satchel, Jack drew a knife, and handed it to her.

‘Best if you had clippers,’ he said. ‘But Kit being more of a fork and spade man, this will have to do. It’s a good knife. Sharp.’

Its blade was encased in a black leather scabbard. Its handle was black, too, worn and old, but April did not need to touch the blade to know that it was as sharp as he’d said. As she removed it from its sheath, it flashed slim and lithe as a fish in water.

‘What wood do you want me to trim?’ she said.

‘All the dead stuff on the fruit trees, and, if you have time, on that rose over the arch. It’s the wrong time for pruning, but dead wood’s not healthy for any plant, so let’s have at it. Cut any suckers from the base, too, and check for insect damage and any scaly or orangey-brown areas that might mean disease.’

‘How do I know if the wood’s dead?’

‘Should be easy to tell,’ he said. ‘But if you’re in doubt, run the point of the knife down the branch and if you can see a line of green, leave it be.’

‘And if there’s no green anywhere at all?’

‘If it’s dead or too diseased, then we’ll dig it up and burn it. The peaches are probably beyond saving, but look—’ he gestured at an apple tree ‘—leaves and even the last of the blossom. It may not be fruiting, but it’s still very much alive.’

April fingered the point of the scabbard. ‘There was another apple tree here once. A big one, growing on its own in that wilder area over at the back. It died and was cut down. Did you know it?’

‘I know the one you mean,’ he said. ‘Kit was fond of it. He said it died gradually, over years, possibly because of root damage. A pity, he said. It gave beautiful apples.’

‘Children used to play in it, too,’ said April. ‘A long time ago.’

He touched her arm once, gently. ‘Come on. We’ve work to do.’

Over the next two hours, April made her way through the espaliered fruit trees — apples, pears and cherries. The peaches, as Jack had predicted, were dead.

A shame, thought April. There was nothing like biting into a fresh peach, the mildly bitter fuzz giving way to soft, sweet flesh. She had not bought a peach in years, but the memory of the taste filled her mouth so abruptly and convincingly, she could swear she had swallowed juice. A small, startled noise escaped her. Gabe, who had been lying on the brick path, asleep in the sun, lifted his head. Jack, clearing weeds from the raised beds, called out.

‘Did you cut yourself?’

‘No,’ said April. ‘No, I just— I’m fine.’

‘How are the trees looking?’

‘Less woody. But not necessarily more lively.’

Jack came over, inspected a pruned pear.

‘We can graft new wood on next spring,’ he said, ‘and then, with luck, they’ll start fruiting again.’

‘Next spring?’

‘We could do it now, but spring gives the best chance for the graft to take. And old trees like these will probably need to be worked gradually, over two or three years.’

‘Will you do it if I’m not here?’ said April.

‘If you’re not here,’ he replied, ‘it will be someone else’s garden.’

Then he said, ‘It’s almost noon. Do you want to break now, or push on?’

‘Break, if that’s all right? I need to gather my strength to tackle that climbing rose. It looks like it’s been grown by an evil witch.’

‘You could see the flowers instead of the thorns,’ he said. ‘That’s what the bees do.’

The map came again to mind. ‘Was there ever a beehive here?’

‘In this garden?’ he said. ‘I don’t believe so. I think there are hives a few miles away. Or there were. Kit told me once that he was worried the bee numbers were dwindling. He didn’t know whether that was because there were fewer hives, or because the bees were dying out. He hoped it was the former. He said we can’t afford to lose the bees.’

‘Why would the bees be dying?’

‘Chemical sprays. Development of farmland. We take away the flowers or we poison them. But, as Kit pointed out, if we lose the bees, we risk losing all the crops and fruit that depend on them for pollination.’

‘Tipping the balance too far.’ April looked up at him. ‘Would this be a bad moment to let you know the sandwiches are honey?’

He laughed. ‘Bees worked hard to make it. Seems only right to honour their effort.’

They sat on the edge of one of the raised beds. Jack ate the sandwiches she gave him in the same rapid way she’d watched him eat before, as if the food might escape before he’d finished.

‘I don’t usually put anything in my sandwiches,’ she told him. ‘But I thought you might like something more sustaining than butter.’

‘I haven’t eaten bread for ages,’ he said. ‘Last time, I found a bag someone had left by the river. Probably meant to feed the ducks and got distracted.’

He saw her face. ‘All in its wrapper. Perfectly good.’

‘I can give you bread any time. You just need to ask.’

‘Thanks, but I can’t rely on others to feed me.’

April stared down at her sandwich. The honey had come from a roadside stall, and was dark golden, sweet and runny, and possibly the most delicious thing she’d eaten in years. She’d not lied when she said she’d bought it for Jack, but she knew that wasn’t the whole truth. For the past few weeks her restlessness had been constant but predictable. The starlings still pecked and swooped, but April had grown better able to tolerate it, helped by the fact she was now busy seven days a week. She suspected that growing tolerance was what had provoked this new strategy from whatever it was that felt fit to plague her. Out of the blue, she’d begun to be assailed by phantom tastes and smells that felt startlingly real, like latent sense memories released. The taste of peach had not been the first.

April had crushed some of Kit’s mint, and the scent had transported her back to a summer lunch: roast lamb, fresh peas, iced water flavoured with mint leaves and sliced cucumber, sun-warmed strawberries that needed no sugar to sweeten them. April had prepared many a lunch like that. Ben would pick the mint — yank it, really — out of the garden, and shell one pod of peas before being tempted out onto the lawn and out of his clothes by his father and the sprinkler. Food had been so important then, April thought, but they’d taken for granted that they would always enjoy it. They’d taken for granted that they’d always enjoy love and family time, too. They could not imagine, back then, that anything would change.

The honey sandwich no longer appealed. April offered it to Jack. He took it, broke it and tossed half to the dog, who snapped it out of the air. April wondered how the pair managed in the dark months of winter when food was scarce. Did they still fend for themselves, or did they share food if the other was going hungry?

‘Why do you choose to live the way you do?’ April said.

He turned, at first surprised, and then amused. ‘Why do you?’

‘My life’s nowhere near as hard as yours!’

‘Isn’t it?’

Really, thought April, he could be so infuriating.

‘Of course it isn’t! I have warmth and shelter, and food within easy reach. I can go to the doctor when I’m sick. I’m free to go wherever I want, I’m not stuck in one place.’

Jack regarded her, thoughtful now, no longer smiling. ‘But I’m happy. My heart is light. I live true to myself, and I don’t waste time with regret. That gives me comfort, and the strength to cope with the harder times. Most times, I don’t feel my life is hard at all. Most times, I feel like I’m blessed.’

April stood up and brushed crumbs from her hands. Took up the knife and the stepladder.

‘I’ll start on the rose now,’ she said.

She went at the twisted brambles brutally, heedlessly. As if the rose sensed it was under attack, a thorny shoot sprang back and struck her cheek. This time, April did not cry out but Jack must have seen, because he hurried over.

‘It’s drawn blood,’ he said, inspecting the cut. ‘But not much.’

And before April could pull away, he cupped her face in his hand and wiped his thumb lightly over her skin.

His fingertips were hot, shockingly so, and April jerked her face out of his grip.

He held up his hand, palm out, to show it was no longer a threat. ‘You don’t like me touching you, do you?’

April’s face burned with residual anger and the lingering sensation of his fingertips. ‘I don’t like anyone touching me.’

He tilted his head in that manner of his. ‘Not always the case, though. I can see that.’

April refused to meet his eye. But lowering them meant all she could see was the gap above his top shirt button, the dark skin with a sweat-sheen from heat and exertion. His chest was moving with his breathing, and April fancied she could hear his heart. All the sounds in the garden came suddenly to the fore, the static hum of insects, the chirp and chatter of birds, the swish as a breeze brushed the top leaves in the circling trees. And the smells, sweet lilac and honeysuckle, bitter geranium, the musky tang of her own sweat. She could not smell him, but she could feel the heat coming off him as it always did, as if he generated it from an internal sun.

‘You see a lot, don’t you?’ she said.

It was a combative move, designed to push him away. But he stayed right where he was.

‘It’s only a matter of looking. I saw you carried a loss when we first met. Now I see how great a loss it must have been and I’m so very sorry for you.’

He held up his hand as if to touch her face again and April drew back. Instead, he traced his finger in the air, along the line of the cut that the rose had made.

‘If you were a tree branch and I ran a knife down you,’ he said, ‘I would see green. I know you’re doing what you believe is right. I see how resolved you are and I admire you for it.’

He reached up and plucked a rose from high on the brambles. It was full-bloomed and silvery pink, and its soft perfume wafted in the air between them.

‘But it’s time now that you came to life again.’

CHAPTER 23

mid-June

Oran’s bonfire smelled pleasantly of yew and fruitwood, and unpleasantly of burning silk. He had decided not to burn the carpet for fear it might prove toxic. Fibres and mould spores, he said, were not ideal for health when released into the environment. The curtains, though, burned quickly and the acrid tang soon faded from the smoke.

‘Yew’s a good firewood,’ Oran said. ‘Burns very slow and hot. Not much to hand these days because the leaves are so poisonous. Stop the heart. I learned that from reading Agatha Christie. It was the poison of choice of tribal chiefs of ancient Briton, who would rather die by their own hand than surrender. I learned that from BBC 4.’

‘Did you?’

‘Don’t ever burn willow, will you? It’s useless. Spruce isn’t much better. Too quick, too many sparks. Horse chestnut’s all right but it spits a lot.’

‘Noted.’

‘Your old codger might want the ash for the garden. Keeps off slugs and snails. Or you could make soap. Soak ash in water and you get lye. Mix it with mutton fat, boil it down and Bob’s your auntie. I learned that from my grandfather.’

‘I’ll stick with Pears.’

The day was windless, and the smoke rose straight up into the blue sky. April wondered if Jack could see it, and was cross with herself for thinking of him yet again. She did not want to think of what he’d said to her. It was the second time he’d said such a thing and she wanted that to be the end of it. But she also wanted to see him, and the knowledge of how much she wanted that was both vexing and confusing. April could not tell exactly what emotions he provoked in her because there seemed a mass of them, all milling around and jostling each other, too many to separately identify. She did not know whether to think of him as friend or foe. If he had joined forces with her unnamed internal assailant then he was most certainly the latter, and she should do all she could to resist him, too. Somehow, that had less appeal than it should.

‘It’s the summer solstice in three days’ time,’ said Oran. ‘Perhaps we should have waited to light the fire? We could have caroused around it, drinking and merrymaking.’

When April did not reply, he said, ‘I leapt over a bonfire once. Police dog caught me anyway.’

Oran gave up and began to sing. Though April knew she was imagining it, the crackle of the fire appeared to fall into a rhythm with the song.

She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,

And lovers are round her, sighing;

But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps.

For her heart in his grave is lying—

‘Do you not know one bloody song that’s cheerful!’ said April.

‘If it’s me you’re all a-grouch at, then out with it,’ said Oran.  ‘Otherwise, I’d prefer my head to remain unbitten.’

Unusually snappish for Oran, thought April. But fair enough. Her mood was hardly his fault.

‘Sorry. I have things on my mind.’

‘Things you want to share?’

‘Not really.’

The fire was dying down, charcoal now where there had been twigs, branches and leaves, strips of old wallpaper and green-gold shreds of fabric.

‘Not long now before it’s safe to leave,’ said Oran. ‘If you’re up for it, I propose we decamp to your cottage to brew a fresh cup of tea and make a plan for renovating the entranceway. Kitchens and drawing rooms are all very well, but nothing gives the right first impression like an imposing vestibule.’

April had already given thought to how the entranceway could be transformed. Her most elaborate vision was a Tudor extravaganza — timber trusses in the roof and polished flagstone floors, intricately carved dark wood panelling below hand-embroidered tapestries rich with birds, beasts and fruit, suits of armour, broadswords and antlers, with flaming torches or, perhaps more practically, candlelight, making the whole room glow.

None of this she had any intention of revealing to Oran.

‘I thought we’d just paint it white,’ said April. ‘And polish up the wood a bit.’

‘A lamentable lack of vision,’ said Oran. ‘We’ll need a stag’s head and a splayed zebra skin at the very least. An elephant’s foot umbrella stand wouldn’t go amiss, either.’

‘And where will you get those? Victorian Abominations R Us?’

‘The past is another country. It’s impolite to scoff at its mores.’

He picked up the spade he’d used in building the bonfire, and poked it into the smoldering ash. Embers flared, so Oran shovelled on dirt dug out from the surrounding scrubland. The area where he’d lit the fire was beyond the walled garden but not quite at the edge of the woods. Blackened earth between tufts of unkempt grass showed fires had been lit there before, and often. In one corner was a pile of broken up bricks, and next to it a split and rusted oil drum and a clawed skeleton of corroded metal that may once have been an old farming implement. It was a functional place, thought April, not meant to be tidy or pretty, and yet in one corner was a tall stand of purple-belled foxgloves, and buttercups dotted the grass as if a paintbrush laden with bright yellow had scattered droplets all over. There were white and yellow daisies, and pink feathery flowers that April did not recognise. The more she looked, the less scrubby and ugly the land became, and when she looked at it from a certain angle, it could have been a meadow, filled only with waving grasses and wildflowers.

‘All done,’ said Oran. ‘Glory be.’

Oran dropped the shovel, stretched out both arms and, eyes closed, lifted his face to the sun. Despite his red hair, the summer was turning his skin golden brown. His clothes were no cleaner, but the T-shirt he had on today was, for once, free of holes. It was apple green, with the words: The police never think it’s as funny as you do.

April was filled with unexpected affection for her odd but big-hearted workmate. She gave thanks he had his eyes shut, so the moment could pass unobserved.

She tapped him on the arm. ‘Come on, sun worshipper. Too long out here and you’ll be burned to a crisp. Just like the Wicker Man.’

The cottage was not stifling, but Oran suggested it would be nice to let the summer air circulate, so they opened the windows and used a doorstop to keep the front door wide. It was nice, April thought. Occasional scents floated in, of grass and honeysuckle and general greenness. Comforting scents that reminded April of childhood days, lying on the lawn under a tree, reading a book, while her father staked tomatoes and her mother dug in the flowerbeds or drew, often both at once.

April recalled lying on a lawn with Ben’s father not long after they’d first met. They’d been at a summer festival at the botanical gardens. A band had been playing in the rotunda but April had no memory of the music, only of her bare limbs twined with his, their bodies a little too close and hands a little too free for such a public event, though nobody protested. Warm, lazy summer days make people more tolerant of young love, April thought. Days like that make you feel time has stopped and no one will ever age.

‘It should be Pimm’s, I know.’ Oran placed a steaming cup on the table in front of her. ‘But tea is good for you in hot weather.’

‘I think that’s a myth,’ said April.

Oran took the second chair. ‘Not all myths are untrue.’

On the table were the books Edward had lent them. Oran pulled the National Trust guide to him.

‘Look. Two stuffed squirrels boxing each other.’

‘Abominable.’

April picked up The House Beautiful and Useful and found the page on which the author expressed his opinion on the correct way to furnish entranceways.

‘He says we’re to make a clean sweep of antlers, spears, assegais, shields and all other miscellaneous animal relics and weapons of warfare because they can never be properly seen and they make the place crowded and stuffy,’ she said. ‘There you go — no heads, skins or feet. He also says that a small bracket in the hall is useful as a place for police whistles.’

‘Is that how you summoned the peelers back then? These days, the police blow the whistles at you.’

‘Not at me,’ said April. ‘Oh, I like this bit: The latch-key has practically done away with the necessity for the old hall-porter’s chair, in which the faithful servitor used to doze until the return of his master and mistress.’

‘That’s me,’ said Oran. ‘A faithful servitor.’

April saw him touch his hand to his chest, where the ring hung on its chain. He didn’t seem aware he’d made the motion; April assumed that over the years it had become one of those small, instinctive gestures that reassures, like crossing fingers or touching wood.

‘Do you really believe she’ll come back to you?’ April said it gently.

Oran frowned, puzzled, as if the question was one he’d never considered.

‘I do,’ he said. ‘I have so much love for her that it will draw her back, I know it will.’

‘What about her love for you?’ April said.

‘I know she loves me,’ he said. ‘I just need to wait for her to remember that.’

April pictured the woman at the May Day fair, hunched over, snatching up the hat filled with money, jeering. Cee-Cee Feares, she thought, cared about one thing only that day and it was not Oran. Chances were high it never would be.

Her doubt must have shown on her face.

‘I truly believe people’s essential natures never change,’ Oran said. ‘I believe that what you were you can be again. The Cee-Cee I knew was beautiful, loving and joyful, and I believe that spirit is in her still, just waiting to be re-awoken.’

‘How long will you wait, though? It seems so sad to think of you being alone for all this time.’

The words were sincere, but April had not thought them through, and the minute they were out she knew she’d blundered. Oran was looking at her with an expression that bordered on pity, and April knew exactly what he was about to say.

‘It’s not the same.’ She pre-empted him. ‘You weren’t responsible for her choice. No, you weren’t,’ she said, as he began to protest. ‘But I was responsible for what happened. It was all my fault, and that’s the difference!’

Oran’s hands were resting on the open book, on the photograph of a dead squirrel in shorts and boxing gloves punching another dead squirrel square in the chest. He was tugging on his fingers, struggling, April could see, with an urge to respond, even though she’d made it clear the subject was closed. He wouldn’t be able to help himself, she guessed. Fair enough, really. It was she who’d opened the door, and now she must deal with what came through it.

‘I know what happened to your son.’ Oran was embarrassed but resolute. ‘I’m afraid I tricked our Mr Gill, made him think you’d already told me.’

April nodded, waited.

‘I don’t see how it could have been your fault.’

‘Were you there?’

‘Of course not, but—’

‘Then you know nothing.’

Oran lowered his eyes, tugged on his fingers again. They were smeared black with soot even though April had insisted he wash before making them tea. He did not seem to notice. Perhaps dirt and stains were invisible to him?

He sat back and ran a hand over his head.

‘I don’t want this to foster bad feeling between us,’ Oran said. ‘So I’ll go against my nature and leave it alone.’

It was what she wanted. But still, April felt a pang of loss that was unexpected in its intensity.

‘Well, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you alone, too.’

‘No, no. I don’t mind talking about it. Every time I do, it revives my hope.’

April wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing, but the air was clearer now and she had no wish for a reversal.

‘So — the entranceway,’ said Oran. ‘Now that antlers and assegais have been given the arse, more’s the pity, how about we paint it white and polish up the wood a bit?’

April smiled. ‘I still think a small tray for police whistles would be a classy touch.’

Oran shifted The House Beautiful around so he could read it. ‘Not to mention a suitable cupboard for the butler or footman to contain a small roll of red carpet for pavement use (they knew how to welcome people in those days), the basket wheel-guard (don’t ask, no idea), the carriage umbrella and other oddments.’ Oran grinned, delighted. ‘This book is tremendous. Hark to this: Avoid elaborate pictures. Studies of a couple of ducks, birds in flight, or fishes, the message of which can easily be grasped, will be most suitable.’

He pursed his mouth. ‘What do you suppose is the message to be grasped from ducks and the little fishes?’

‘That they’re ducks and fish?’ said April. ‘Not symbols of something else?’

A memory sparked in her head. ‘Speaking of which …’

April slid the art folio out from underneath the three volumes of The Popular Encyclopaedia of Gardening. She turned to the two stained-glass window drawings right at the end.

‘What do you make of these?’

‘Pretty enough,’ said Oran. ‘If a little tightly wound.’

‘But who do you think they are?’ April pointed to the knights. ‘I think this is Lancelot and Arthur, with Guinevere.’

‘The old love triangle. Never ends well.’

‘Exactly. But then who are these three? Who on earth’s the owl woman?’

‘Blodeuwedd,’ said Oran without hesitation. ‘The Welsh hero Lleu made her from flowers because he could never marry a human. Lleu went away and a local lord, Gronw, stole her from him. There followed some shenanigans with attempted murder, a spear and a rock, but in the end, of course, the hero won. Lleu slew Gronw, and to punish Blodeuwedd, he had the magicians Math and Gwydion turn her into an owl.’

He traced his finger over the owl face. ‘I always thought it harsh on poor Blodeuwedd. Lleu left her alone for so long …’

‘How did you become an expert on Welsh myths?’ said April, curious.

‘A book that my mother had been given as a small child. An old copy of The Mabinogion. Number ninety-seven in the Everyman’s Library. Orange cover. I remember that because I read it from cover to cover, many times. It was all I had of her.’

‘You don’t have the book now?’

‘No,’ said Oran. A beat later, he added, ‘I sold it.’

April did not need to ask why. To spare him any further embarrassment, she turned back to the folio, studied the picture of the knights.

‘Oran, look.’ She pointed. ‘Look at the heraldic symbols on their armour.’

‘A resting lamb on one,’ he said, ‘and on the other a snarling dog. I see — the same as the map.’

‘But no less cryptic,’ said April, with a sigh.

‘One man is the lamb, one is the dog …’ Oran looked at her. ‘Could the beehive and the apple be people, too?’

Balancing care and haste, April shut the folio and turned it over, drew out the map from the inside cover.

‘Four images,’ she said. ‘Four people.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Oran, ‘four friends …?’

April felt a tingling, the kind that accompanies mounting excitement, or signals a premonition.

‘James, Rowan, Sunny and Lily, you mean?’ said April. ‘I suppose that would make sense. If we assume from the picture of the knights that the boys are the lamb and the dog, then the girls must be the beehive and the apple. But who is which?’

‘I’m no Hercule Poirot,’ said Oran, ‘but I’d hazard a guess about the beehive. Who do we both know who’d fit the description of Queen Bee?’

April laughed. ‘Always busy, the centre of activity — you could well be right. But what does it mean that Lily is the apple? She represents temptation? Sin? Beauty, like the judgment of Paris? The apple of someone’s eye?’

‘Maybe all those things,’ said Oran. ‘Probably not the daily remedy for a doctor-free life, though.’

He opened the folio again to the back and contemplated the two drawings.

‘Two men, one woman, the eternal love triangle. I think, from what we know, we can eliminate Sunny as the woman. She had one love all her life and that was her husband.’

‘Rowan, James and Lily?’ April frowned. ‘But Sunny’s never said anything to suggest that. And, let’s face it, she doesn’t keep much back.’

‘Perhaps she never knew?’ said Oran.

For a moment, they stared at each other.

‘Bags you ask her,’ said Oran. ‘But when we run away, I promise I’ll be right behind you.’

CHAPTER 24

late June

April, lagging behind Edward and Sunny, stopped to look at an exhibition of cacti. The village show was an early one, Sunny had told her. Traditionally, most shows were held in late July or early August. The timing, according to Sunny, meant that the show’s produce tent, in which the three of them were currently strolling, lacked the classic exhibits of dahlias, chrysanthemums and onions, and featured instead early produce like lettuces and gooseberries, and a floral show made up of pot plants, flower arrangements, cacti and succulents.

The warm, wet weather outside made the air in the big white tent close and muggy. Not quite a hothouse, thought April, but hot enough to extract the scents of flowers and greenery, vegetables and earth, and mix them headily with damp clothes and a whiff of livestock. Each exhibit, floral or edible, was plump and gleaming with health, the result of committed labour and love and knowledge. Even with Jack’s help, it would be ages before Empyrean’s garden produced anything near as good.

Not that a long-term plan was the point, of course. Their job was only to make the garden as presentable as possible. Still, it was nice to see that, despite April’s ignorance, they were making more progress than she’d initially expected was possible.

At one time, she had considered herself a reasonable gardener, but the first few days with Jack had been enough to convince her she’d been a rank amateur. He knew that the fruit trees were at risk from aphids and red spiders, but he would not let her use an insecticide, asking her instead to give them a brisk hosing. Though there was still no water connected up to Empyrean’s dodgy plumbing, it came freely out of an ancient brass tap by the greenhouse, which Jack had pointed out to her. The hose was Kit’s and almost as ancient as the tap but, as with everything of Kit’s, it had been well maintained and did not leak a drop. Jack had asked April to buy more hose, so that he could knife holes in it, connect it to the tap and run it around the garden as a makeshift irrigation system.

Jack also knew which vegetables to plant in the newly prepared raised beds. He rattled off a list and let April choose. Carrots, runner beans, beets, broccoli and leeks were sown from seed. Seedling tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers and sweet corn went in also. Edward noted the amount in his file, gave her the cash, and asked when she’d be appearing on Gardeners’ Question Time. He assumed she was doing all the work on her own. It seemed somehow complicated to put him straight, so April did not bother.

It was a bit late in the year for planting most flowers, but not dahlias, according to Jack. Some considered dahlias old-fashioned, he said, but he thought them beautiful. April asked Edward for more money for dahlia tubers. What next? he said. Gladioli?

They pruned the lilac and excavated the rock garden, finding, as Jack had hoped, some survivors that would now be free to spread. The sweet pea was rampant, so they removed all the side shoots and, Jack insisted, gathered the flowers. He had no room for flowers, so April took them all home to the cottage, where their pink and white festoons now overflowed the edge of an old silvery metal pail, and their delicate fragrance scented the air.

And then there were the gooseberries. Jack had shown her the bushes filled with fruit and said that if she did not take them, the birds would. Cook them up, he’d said, if she did not like their tartness. April had not baked for almost six years, but at the mere suggestion, a sugary, buttery-crisp smell came to her as if she’d opened an oven door. In her kitchen was a bowl full of gooseberries, translucent and stripy, but she was not yet sure whether she would do anything more than eat them as they were. Even then, they seemed like too much of a treat …

The cactus April had stopped in front of was about ten inches high, bulbous as an overgrown marrow and covered in white fur like a rampant mould. ‘Cephalocereus senilis’, read the card, ‘Old man cactus’. It had won first place. April could not begin to imagine what constituted its champion features.

An older couple came and stood beside her. He had on a thin brown raincoat that made him look like a flasher. She had butterscotch-coloured hair and a large bust encased in a strident pink and blue shirtwaister dress.

‘You know Gerald combs his Cephalium,’ said the woman.

‘Well, it is the little things,’ said her companion.

‘The striations were really too indistinct in his partridge-breasted aloe,’ she added. ‘But I won’t begrudge him. His Mammillaria bombycina was superb.’

Edward and Sunny, April saw, were now halfway around the tent, in front of the vegetables. She hurried to catch up.

‘Rodney’s radishes have won first place,’ said Sunny. ‘Another rosette to go in pride of place on the potting shed wall, now that Irene no longer allows him to clutter up the mantelpiece.’

‘One of these days, I suspect Rodney will find himself declared clutter,’ said Edward.

‘Oh, that day occurred years back,’ said Sunny. ‘Look, he’s won for his spring onions, too. He’s coveted that prize for years, but had no chance while old Jeremiah Rash was alive. Jeremiah’s spring onions were quite otherworldly in their perfection.’

Jeremiah Rash sounded like the ideal name for the old codger Oran was still convinced was her garden helper, thought April. There’d been more than one moment lately when she’d almost told Oran about Jack, but, as with Edward, any explanation from then on seemed overly complicated. April told herself that she did not want Oran to get worried and go looking for Jack’s hideout, that Jack would resent any uninvited intrusions into his private world. But April knew the more honest truth was that she wanted Jack to remain her secret. She did not want to share him with anyone.

Still, that did not stop her feeling guilty about her deception.

‘Where is Oran?’ April said. ‘I thought he was going to meet us here?’

‘His van was broken into last night,’ said Edward, ‘when he was at the pub. He came back to quite a mess, I gather, though he was rather circumspect about the whole thing.’

‘Did they steal his tools?’

Edward looked surprised. ‘They stole everything he had bar his clothing, which you can understand, looking as it does as though he had found each item beneath an underpass. Oran lives in the van. Did you not know that?’

April felt a churn of dismay, for Oran, for the fact he had not told her and, above all, for the fact she had never thought to ask.

‘I didn’t,’ she admitted. ‘Does he need any help?’

‘I’ve advanced him some money to replace the things he needs most,’ said Edward. ‘But he refused to let either Sunny or I help him clean up. I got the impression he did not want us to see what they’d done.’

‘Do we have any idea who “they” are?’ said April.

‘Who else?’ Sunny said. ‘His appalling wife and her vile cohorts, of course.’

She comes to me now, he’d said.

April had a sudden urge to find Oran and console him, but she knew he would be too proud to admit he’d been a victim, and would refuse to lay any blame upon his wife.

Edward touched Sunny on the arm. ‘Shall we see how your sponge has fared?’

‘Oh, it won’t even place,’ said Sunny. ‘They want to encourage new entrants. Apparently it’s demoralising that the same person wins year after year. I should have done the gracious thing long ago.’

‘And stopped entering?’

‘And died!’ said Sunny.

At the produce tent door, she unbuttoned her umbrella, a long, black, sturdy item with wooden handle and tip that looked as if its original owner had been a Victorian prime minister. Once outside, she snapped it open. There was room under it for all three of them, but she did not offer. Edward pulled up the collar of his mackintosh and hunched into it. April resigned herself to getting wet. Kit’s yellow mac was too warm for this weather and if Kit had ever owned an umbrella it was now in Canada.

In the baking tent, the smell of sugar and butter, real this time, managed to only just mask the whiff of steaming clothing and damp dog.

Sunny’s sponge had been awarded first place.

‘Hmph,’ she said.

‘Home?’ said Edward. ‘Or the nearest pub?’

‘Home,’ said Sunny. ‘I’ve had enough of other people.’

By the time they arrived at Sunny’s, the rain had stopped and the cloud lifted. Droplets still hung heavy on the furniture in the outdoor courtyard, so they had tea in the kitchen. Sunny produced a tin of ginger biscuits. April knew Sunny would offer her some, even though she always refused. This time, though, April took one, and when no one was looking nibbled on the edge. When the spicy sugary mix hit her tongue, she felt it rush right through her bloodstream. April put the rest of the biscuit back on her plate, carefully, as if it were the incendiary device its effect on her suggested. She’d not eat any more. Who knows what it might lead to?

Sunny was watching her now, curious but obviously content to let it go without comment, for which April was grateful. In her head, April could hear Oran urging her to ask the question. She owed it to him, she decided, and took the plunge.

‘Did James and Rowan ever have romantic intentions towards Lily?’

Sunny went absolutely still.

‘What on earth makes you ask that?’

The cool, flat voice, so unlike Sunny’s usual brisk liveliness, made April want to squirm in her chair. But it was too late to back out.

‘I found some drawings in James’s folio,’ she said. ‘It could be my imagination working overtime, but — they made me wonder.’

‘I don’t know the drawings you mean.’

‘No. Well—’

‘There was nothing between those three. Nothing at all.’

April did not dare ask if she were sure.

Fortunately, Edward’s interest had been piqued.

‘You sound very certain,’ he said. ‘Almost too certain. Have you something to hide?’

‘Utter nonsense!’ The heat was back in Sunny’s voice. ‘If James or Rowan had had any romantic interest regarding Lily, then it would have come out in the open long before they went to war. You forget that, back then, if a woman wasn’t married by age twenty, she was on the shelf! Perry and I declared our love when we were fifteen, and that was not unusual. No,’ she shook her head once, vehemently, ‘James and Rowan had no interest in Lily other than a friendly one. Of that I have no doubt whatsoever!’

‘Evidence would support that, to be fair,’ said Edward. ‘Rowan was persona non grata at the Blythes by age eighteen, was he not? And I’d have thought Lily the farmer’s daughter would hardly have been considered a good match for James. Or had her advertising fame eclipsed her humble origins by then?’

His concession brought Sunny’s hackles down a fraction.

‘I’ve never seen the drawings you mentioned,’ she said to April. ‘But if they show James, Rowan and Lily together, it’s just possible that they refer to an incident that occurred during the summer war was declared.’

‘What happened?’

Sunny, to April’s surprise, looked discomfited.

‘I have to confess I’m not entirely sure,’ she said. ‘It was never spoken of, at the behest, I gather, of Ellis Blythe, who I suspect wanted to spare his daughter any shameful publicity, the attentions brought on by her advertising fame, as you called it, being quite enough in his eyes.’

‘I thought you four were as thick as thieves?’ said Edward. ‘Why weren’t you let in on it?’

‘Well, I was so busy at the time,’ said Sunny. ‘My father had finally died, and a month later our house was ripped apart by a frightful storm. Great chunks of the roof were blown clean off, and the holes let in more rain than we had buckets to catch. The water then seeped into the walls and shorted the house’s antediluvian electrics, which meant we had no lights, no geyser for hot water and no telephone. My mother had sold everything of value by that stage, so we had no money to make even temporary repairs. If Cora Potts hadn’t taken us in, we would have been faced with living in a house that was no better than a freezing ruin!’

‘You moved permanently into Empyrean?’ said April.

‘We did. In June ’39.’

‘What did Lewis Potts have to say about that?’ said Edward.

Sunny waved a dismissive hand. ‘Oh, he was in a generous mood, if you can call it that. He’d been made an offer for his business by some large firm — Levers, as I recall — and was on the verge of becoming eye-wateringly wealthy. His political career was waxing, too. He organised an enormous Save Agriculture march on Parliament. Thousands of farmers turned up, from all around the country. It made front-page headlines, which was incredible considering what else was happening at the time.’

‘Such as Hitler invading Czechoslovakia,’ said Edward. ‘Minor events like that.’

‘The fascists tried to disrupt the march,’ said Sunny. ‘Lewis Potts went and had a word with them and they faded off. He had nothing ill to say about them, though. I suspect he might have joined them, if he’d been more convinced they’d gain real political clout.’

Edward leaned forward.

‘Much as I’d like to imagine Oswald Mosley being usurped by Lewis Potts,’ he said, ‘this is distracting us from the main play. What do you believe befell the lovely Lily?’

Sunny hesitated, as if concerned about breaching a confidence.

‘From something I heard Martha Blythe say in an unguarded moment, I think there was a sexual attack made on Lily,’ she said. ‘And I think James and Rowan prevented it.’

‘Who attacked her?’ said April. ‘Someone they knew? Or a stranger?’

‘That I cannot tell you. I also have no idea how far the assailant got. However, I’m sure the Blythes would have called in the police had it been really serious. Fortunate, then, for everyone that James and Rowan intervened before it became so.’

‘Poor Lily,’ said April.

‘Yes, poor Lily,’ said Sunny. ‘But you know, incredibly, it did not change her. She was still as trusting and as loving as ever. I suppose you could be mean and blame that on a lack of intelligence, but my belief is she simply had one of those robustly positive natures, the kind that always sees the good in people and finds light even in the darkest of times. Even at the end, nursing her mother, no other family around her, she was not unhappy …’

A crack in Sunny’s voice made Edward and April glance at each other, alarmed. Sunny on the verge of tears seemed somehow ominous, like a rumbling in the ground, black clouds gathering on the horizon.

April reached out her hand and covered Sunny’s. The older woman’s skin felt as feathery and fragile as a butterfly wing.

‘We won’t talk about this any more if it upsets you,’ she said.

‘Oh!’ Sunny took April’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Don’t mind me. I’m being a silly old fool.’

She fished a handkerchief out of her trouser pocket and blew her nose.

‘Xandy sent me a postcard,’ she said. ‘From Ulan Bator.’

‘I see,’ said Edward. ‘Did he say he probably wouldn’t make your birthday?’

‘Swine,’ said Sunny. ‘Rotten hound.’

‘Which number is Xandy?’ said April.

‘He’s my fifth,’ said Sunny. ‘His birthday is the day after mine. He’ll turn sixty and good luck to him.’

‘What on earth is he doing in Ulan Bator?’

‘Working on the Trans-Mongolian railway? Breeding yaks? I don’t care.’

‘I doubt that’s true,’ said Edward. ‘But I sympathise. Rejection does make one feel like thumping something. Or someone.’

‘It makes me feel old,’ said Sunny, fiercely. ‘It makes me feel my time is running out. It makes me want to scream at my rotten children that they have no idea what will happen next — to them or to me or to anyone they love — and so they should seize every chance for joy that they can!’

She crushed the handkerchief into a tight ball.

‘You know, even with the threat of war so close, we young ones had no real sense of it. That summer of 1939, we were fifteen, sixteen, and full of love and life. We were singing with the joy of it all. We had no idea that the darkness was coming for us. If I had not been so absolutely in love, I’m not sure I could have borne any of it.’

CHAPTER 25

August, 1939

James found Rowan outside Old Ted’s cottage, sitting on a stool, oiling his rifle. Though only mid-morning, it was already uncomfortably hot, and Rowan had his trousers rolled up to the knee and his shirt off. He also had new bruises on his upper arm, small ones in a row, fingertip size.

‘Rifle didn’t pass muster.’ Rowan saw James looking. ‘I have to do it again.’

James sat down on the grass and considered taking off his own shirt. By midday, the heat would be unbearable. He was glad his father had invited so many people cub hunting that he didn’t have a spare horse for James. James had no love of horses, and even less desire to sweat in a coat and jodhpurs. Last year he’d had to go; after he’d won the lakeside race his father wanted to show off his champion son to the local bigwigs. This year the races had been put off because people were worried about what Reverend Brownlow insisted on calling ‘the grave national crisis’, so James had been unable to defend his title. He would have won, he knew. His only real challenger would have been Day, and he was too busy these days riding around in his car with Sunny to go out training. James would have left Day panting in the dirt.

‘You do know you’re probably stronger than Ted now,’ James said to Rowan. ‘You don’t have to put up with it.’

Rowan peered down the barrel of the rifle, and shoved the oiled cloth in with a rod once more.

‘I owe him,’ he said. ‘He’s looked after me.’

‘So he should have! You’re his grandson!’

Rowan gave him a quick, crooked smile. ‘Only half.’

‘Do you think he knows?’ James said, after a moment. ‘Who your father is?’

‘No.’ Rowan snapped shut the rifle, laid it across his knee. ‘Which is why he’s stayed angry all these years.’ He looked at James. ‘That’s partly why I put up with it. I know I’m just the target, not the cause.’

‘Still,’ said James, ‘he shouldn’t. It’s not right.’

Rowan stood, rifle in one hand, stool scooped up in the other. ‘It will stop soon enough.’

James scrambled to his feet. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m almost sixteen. Ted’s always said I’ll have to leave the cottage when I turn sixteen. It’s fair enough,’ he said, as if anticipating James’s protest. ‘I should be able to look after myself. I’m not a boy any more.’

He walked inside the cottage. James did not follow him, for the simple reason that Rowan’s words had rooted him to the spot. Sixteen. Not a boy any more.

James was sixteen. Had been for a whole seven weeks, and so, by Rowan’s reckoning, he was now a man. But he didn’t feel like one.

How could he be a man when he’d never kissed a girl, never even held hands with one? Day and Sunny, out in his bloody car yet again, were probably kissing right now. James did not want to think about Day kissing Sunny. Those thoughts tended to be accompanied by others less well formed that ascended from somewhere labyrinthine and dark.

It was hard to avoid thinking about them, though, because the couple was right in front of him all the bloody time, and had been since the beginning of summer, when Sunny and her bloody mother moved in.

No one had told James how long the two women would be staying. But he knew their house was now a wreck, and that they’d sold everything to pay the death duties when Sunny’s father had finally shuffled off. James had been roped in to lift paintings off walls, and help Ellis Blythe and Rowan pile them, along with all but a few pieces of furniture, onto the farm wagon.

‘I don’t care what price you get for it all,’ Sunny’s mother had told Farmer Blythe. ‘Sell it for kindling if you must.’

The local antique dealer had rapidly followed up his first offer with a significantly more generous one when Ellis Blythe had drawn himself up to his full height and stood over the man.

‘He didn’t even need to say anything,’ James had remarked admiringly to Rowan. ‘All he had to do was loom.’

But even a more generous purchase price hadn’t been enough. Sunny’s mother owed the revenue department more than she could pay, and her house was now unliveable. All of which, thought James, means Sunny and her mother will not be leaving any time soon.

James rather wished his father had objected, but they’d caught him at a good time. Levers were about to increase the first offer they’d made, which had been laughably low, according to his father, and soon they’d be rolling in it. James’s mother could have invited the whole village to move in and his father would have thrown open the door and bid them a hearty welcome.

At least it wasn’t long until school started again. Only another two weeks that he’d have to grit his teeth and put up with Sunny canoodling with his best friend, and his mother conspiring with her best friend. They were conspiring, James knew it. Dimity and Cora, always whispering in corners and going off together. Sometimes they argued — about what, James had never been in a position to overhear, but the tone of their voices always sounded like Sunny’s mother angrily trying to persuade his own of something. Unsuccessfully, because the arguments always ended with Sunny’s mother storming off and his mother quietly retreating to her room, much as she did when his father got angry with her.

Using anger to get what you want was a man’s tactic, thought James, and Sunny’s mother was very like a man. She was nearly as tall as James, and she had presence, confidence. He had seen forthright men, captains of industry and masters of England’s destiny, begin a conversation with Sunny’s mother on exactly the same note of jovial, indulgent superiority and end it on either a huge belly laugh or an indignant splutter. The end, of course, determining whether any further conversations would begin. Sunny’s mother did not let anyone get the better of her. She was, as his father with grudging admiration admitted, a fighter.

Fighting. That was another thing men did, this time one that James absolutely did not want to do. But Hitler had annexed Austria, and war was like Farmer Blythe — looming. James would not be old enough to enlist until he was eighteen, but he knew that if England was at war in two years’ time, his father would expect him to do so. James’s father had not fought in the previous war. He’d been born with misshapen feet, which made him unfit for service. James’s feet were fine. He was young, fit and strong. You couldn’t be excused simply because you were terrified. The army called that cowardice, and shot you.

The clunk of the cottage door shutting brought James back to earth. Rowan had his trousers rolled down and his shirt, waistcoat and cap on. He had the rifle under his arm, and a leather satchel slung across his chest.

‘Time to patrol,’ he said. ‘Want to come?’

‘You don’t really need that gun, do you?’ said James. ‘It’s just for show, isn’t it?’

‘There’s all sorts try their luck when the hunt’s on,’ said Rowan. ‘While the gates are open and the rails down they think it’s fair game to sneak in and steal what they can. But I tell you what,’ he added, ‘if someone shoots me, I give you permission to take the rifle and pop them back.’

‘Try not to let that happen,’ said James. ‘With my aim, I’m more likely to shoot myself.’

They walked into the woods. Old Ted was circling the perimeter clockwise, so Rowan was to do the opposite. If they came across anyone who looked like they were up to no good, then a warning shot was to be fired as an alert, and the trespasser directed at gunpoint to the nearest road and sent on their way with no illusions as to what would happen to them if they returned. Old Ted had a shotgun as well as a rifle, because a good pelting with shot was not only an excellent disincentive but also a way of marking the thieving bastards so the police could more easily identify them. Old Ted had no faith in the local constabulary’s ability to fight even the pettiest of crimes, and he couldn’t waste time herding every ne’er-do-well down to the police station. Branding them with buckshot would have to do.

The woods were marginally cooler than the cottage clearing, but James was still sweating. Rowan wasn’t, he noticed. He supposed Rowan was used to being outside in heat like this. His face and arms were so tanned that, with his brown hair and brown eyes, he did indeed look like the Gypsy everyone suspected Rowan’s father was. James wondered if Ted would have been more tolerant if the man had been respectable.

‘Where will you go when Ted turfs you out?’ said James.

‘I want to go away,’ said Rowan. ‘Far away. America. Or Canada. Somewhere with big woods. And mountains. And hardly any people.’

‘America?’ James was floored. ‘But who’ll take over as gamekeeper?’

‘There’ll be someone,’ said Rowan. ‘Some man who won’t mind living in the same place all his life.’

‘But what would you do over there? How would you make a living?’

‘I can shoot, trap, fish, grow food and cook. I can fell trees, chop wood, and I’m all right at carpentry. I can carve wood. I can care for animals.

I can train them.’ Rowan shrugged. ‘World’s changing, but I think it’ll need people like me for a while yet.’

James was silent, his thoughts travelling along two different lines. On the one hand, he would miss Rowan. Rowan’s company still had the power to make James feel better about himself. Safer, less under scrutiny from whatever powers detected good and bad in a person. But with Rowan gone, James would have no competition for Lily at all.

James knew that he and Rowan were the only young men Farmer Blythe allowed near his daughter. Ellis Blythe could do nothing about the men James’s father chose to introduce her to, but he could close the gate on the village lads and farmhands who whistled as Lily went by and ogled her freely. Lily as ‘The Potts Girl’ is public property now, thought James. It didn’t matter that they could only look and not touch, because in their minds they could do what they liked with her. The girl in the picture smiled and looked beautiful, and would never protest.

In James’s mind, Lily smiled and allowed him to kiss her. But if he pressed too close in his dream, her face would change. Her smile would become bewildered, then alarmed, as if she feared he meant her harm. James could never see himself in these fantasies. He wondered what expression came on his own face to make her look at him like that.

‘Have you seen Lily today?’ he said.

‘Her father’s keeping her on the farm. Too many roughs around for his liking.’

‘We haven’t met a single one yet. Are you sure Old Ted’s not making it up, just to keep people out of the woods?’

But Rowan had stopped dead. He turned to James and put his finger to his lips.

James shut up and heard what had made Rowan halt. Voices. Men’s voices. James could make out no words but could tell what type of men they were by the tone. Rough. Uncouth.

Rowan began to creep forward. James did his best to follow him as silently.

The woods were dense there, and the trees provided good cover for them. Rowan and James made it undetected to the edge of a clearing. On the far side, there was a hollow tree. Facing it, and away from James and Rowan, were two men standing shoulder to shoulder. James recognised one instantly from the S-curve of his spine. Wilkes, the ferrety farmhand. The other was not Oby, but a man James did not know. From the rear, he looked thin but tough and wiry. His dirty black hair was slicked back so that it curled in an oily wave just above his collar.

James and Rowan were close enough now to hear what the men were saying. But their words did not immediately make sense.

‘Well, my beauty,’ said the unknown man. ‘What shall we do first? What game would you most like to play with us?’

There was no reply. What were they talking to? James wondered. A dog?

Rowan sucked in a breath, the sound horribly loud to James’s ears. Rowan had gone quite pale, James thought, unless it was just the dim light?

Beneath shocked eyes, Rowan mouthed a word. James knew exactly what it was but could not comprehend that it was possible. He shook his head, disbelieving, denying, but Rowan, mouth now in a grim, tight line, grabbed his arm hard, and nodded.

Lily. The men were talking to Lily.

A surge of adrenaline, rage and fear made James’s heart pound, his breathing fast and shallow. He had to save her. He had to.

He started forward, but Rowan, still gripping his arm, roughly pulled him back.

Rowan shook his head once, adamantly. No. He flipped the safety on the rifle, set the bolt. Raised the weapon. Aimed it straight at the wiry man’s head.

‘Now,’ he murmured. ‘Now you can go and get her.’

James’s first step broke a twig. Both men whirled round, alarm but also aggression on their faces. When he saw who it was, Wilkes smirked. He was right beside Lily, James could see her now. She was between both men, on her knees, hands in her lap, head bowed, as if she was saying prayers in church. Her blonde hair hung down on either side like pale silk and offered no more protection. Towards her, the wiry man was pointing a black-handled knife, its blade slickly sharp. Wilkes had his own knife, a curved hunting blade, made for smooth and efficient slaughter.

‘There’s two of us, boy,’ Wilkes said to Rowan. ‘You shoot and one of us cuts her. We might not get her whole throat but we’ll do damage right enough.’

His hand had already darted out. The curved tip of his knife had penetrated the curtain of Lily’s hair and was now resting on her cheek.

‘What are going to do, bastard boy?’ said Wilkes. ‘If I was you, I’d back away quiet-like and pretend you never saw.’

Rowan shot him. Through the fleshy part of the shoulder. Wilkes flew backwards and collapsed on the ground, where he writhed, clutching his arm and yelling in pain.

Snick-snick went the rifle bolt. Rowan shot the second man. Same place. Same result. The shots were less than a second apart, though James swore he lived a whole life in between.

‘Get her now,’ said Rowan. ‘Quick.’

James ran, hoping that she wasn’t tied to the tree. Only her hands were bound. James grabbed them, pulled her to her feet and tried to drag her from the men who were still squirming on the ground like skewered adders, unable to get up.

Lily was slow and listless, as if the shock had drugged her. Her head was still lowered. She might not even know, James thought, who it was who was rescuing her.

‘Run!’ He yelled right in her ear, and yanked on her bound hands.

She lifted her head. Glanced around at the men, and then back at James, blue eyes huge and blank with terror.

‘Run,’ he ordered. ‘Run with me.’

And they ran, Rowan falling in as soon as they reached him. Ran back through the woods, using the unmarked trails they knew well, praying that the two men had none of their knowledge.

They ran straight to the Blythes’. Farmer Blythe said not a word, but stood and took his shotgun from above the fireplace.

‘Ellis, no,’ said his wife.

‘They took my daughter from my own barn,’ said Farmer Blythe. ‘On my own farm, right under my nose.’

‘If you murder them in cold blood, you’ll hang,’ said his wife. ‘Please, Ellis. Sit back down. Sit with your daughter.’

Farmer Blythe replaced the shotgun on its rack, and slammed his great fist down onto the mantelpiece. The pieces of Rowan’s nativity set shook. Mary and one of the Magi toppled over.

His wife rose. ‘I’ll call the police.’

‘No!’

‘Ellis—’ his wife protested.

‘I’ll not have every man and his dog knowing what happened!’ he said. ‘I’ll not have anyone questioning my daughter’s character! You know what they’re like. They’ll say she asked for it. I can’t …’ He wiped a huge hand over his face. His voice faltered. ‘I won’t let them do that to her …’

James could see his own alarm mirrored on Rowan’s face. All their lives, Farmer Blythe had been a calm giant, as steady as a mountain and with the strength of ten big men. Now, here he was, on the edge of breaking. Now he was looking to them, the boys he’d known from infancy, because he had no idea what to do.

‘Rowan, lad,’ he said, ‘will you come and work for me? Come and live here on the farm? I’m in need of good, willing labour and, most of all, someone to care for Lily, keep her safe. I haven’t the time; there’s so much to do here and no one to do it but myself. My boys have families of their own now to care for. Will you do that, lad? Will you work for me?’

James saw Rowan’s hesitation, and he knew what drove it. Rowan wanted to escape this place, not become indentured to it for who knows how long.

Farmer Blythe saw Rowan’s hesitation, too. ‘You don’t want charity and that’s fair enough. You want to make your own way when you leave your home. But I have real work needs doing, and a daughter to protect. I’m asking you for her sake as well as my own.’

A white-hot arrow of envy shot through James. Why Rowan? Why would Farmer Blythe choose Rowan as Lily’s protector and not him? He had so much more to offer — a big house and money and servants who’d do anything she wanted. All right, so he’d be away at school, but Lily could move in and Sunny could look after her. It would still be under his aegis, and it would be a bloody sight more fun for Lily than being constantly tailed by Rowan!

James considered making the offer, but knew he really should ask his parents first.

And then the chance was gone.

‘All right,’ said Rowan.

Farmer Blythe beamed with relief. Moist-eyed, he enveloped Rowan’s slim brown hand in his giant blond-haired one and shook it.

‘Thank you, lad. From the bottom of my heart — thank you.’

Rowan’s smile was tentative. There was something on his mind.

‘Those men are wounded,’ he said. ‘They need a doctor’s help.’

‘They don’t deserve it!’ said Farmer Blythe.

‘I shot them to save Lily,’ said Rowan, ‘not to make them suffer.’

It was agreed that an anonymous call would be made to the police from the phone box in the lane.

Next day, the rumour went round that the police had found two men in the woods. It had taken the examining doctor a while to detect the bullet holes in both men’s shoulders because their throats had been ripped out. By a feral, possibly rabid dog, or a particularly big and vicious fox. The police did not intend to investigate further. Though he had no weapon on him, the wiry man was a suspect in four knife attacks on young women, and Wilkes, as the police sergeant said when he came to tell Farmer Blythe of the death of his farmhand, was ‘a bad egg’ that Ellis Blythe was ‘well shot of, if you’ll pardon the choice of words’.

‘Would a fox do that?’ James asked Rowan that afternoon.

It was Sunday, Rowan’s only day off. They were sitting in Empyrean’s walled garden, backs against the apple tree, basking in the sun. Rowan was whittling a piece of oak.

‘Unlikely. They’ll scavenge a dead body, but they’re not killers.’

‘Then it must have been a dog. I didn’t know there were any wild dogs in the woods.’

‘There’s all sorts in the woods,’ said Rowan. ‘More than you might think. Even so, most wild creatures won’t attack without reason, so chances are those men provoked it. It probably scared them and they went for it with their knives, but because they were weak and wounded it got the better of them.’ He screwed up his mouth. ‘I suppose that was partly my fault.’

‘I wouldn’t waste any guilt or remorse on those two,’ said James. ‘In a rather grisly way it was a fitting punishment — a violent death for violent men. Eye for an eye. Very Old Testament.’

‘I doubt a wild dog had divine retribution on its mind.’

‘Sergeant Barnes said a knife was missing. I don’t suppose the dog carried it off?’

‘As I said, there’s all sorts in the woods. Might have been someone saw an opportunity to take what was useful to them.’

‘I’m not sure I like the thought of a strange person loose in the woods with a very sharp knife,’ said James.

‘Most who live in the woods just want to be left alone to live their lives. They’re not bad people; they mean no harm. Unlike those two.’

Rowan rested the whittling knife and wood in his lap.

‘Still,’ he said, ‘bad as they were, I can’t help feeling sorry for them. It must have been a hell of a nasty way to go.’

CHAPTER 26

early July

‘What happened to that baby bird I found back in May? The one that had fallen out of its nest?’ said April. ‘I feel bad for not having asked before, but I suspect the fact you’ve never mentioned it means I might be glad I didn’t.’

‘I fed it,’ said Jack. ‘When it got big enough to fly away, it did.’

‘Are you lying to spare my feelings?’

He smiled. ‘Does that seem like something I’d do?’

‘Thank you,’ said April. ‘For saving its life.’

‘I didn’t really. I offered it food and it took it. It saved its own life.’

‘Aren’t you splitting hairs?’

‘If it hadn’t taken the food, I couldn’t have forced it to. If it hadn’t had a will to live, I couldn’t have given it one.’

‘A will to live’s not always enough, though, is it?’ said April. ‘Not if you’re weak or sick, or you’re preyed on by something bigger.’

She was thinking of Fatso, who had taken to hunting baby rabbits. The ambience of Sunny’s courtyard was not enhanced by the cat lying under the maple and stripping the furry skin off his latest catch, with a sound like separating Velcro.

Jack drank from Kit’s water bottle, glanced up at the cloudless sky, and around at the garden, which was closer now to looking like the wild had never taken hold.

‘It’s a beautiful day,’ he said. ‘Smells like paradise. Why are we talking about death?’

April hitched up her knees and hugged them. ‘I had word that a friend of mine just died.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He put his arm around her shoulder. April didn’t resist. ‘Illness? Accident?’

‘Cancer. She was old, but still. She hung on for so long.’

‘Yes — still. Death might bring peace, but dying is hard.’

April hugged her knees tighter. ‘Unless it’s quick …’

She could feel his breath on her face as he leaned in closer, his hand firm and warm on her shoulder. But she felt no pressure from him. No expectation. If she did not want to tell him, then he wouldn’t push her.

‘He ran out right in front of the car,’ said April. ‘He knew all about roads, and looking both ways — he used to tell me off if I didn’t. He knew where the school crossing was, about waiting till the poles were out and the teacher had said “Cross now”. But he saw me, on the other side of the road — I was so obvious, in my yellow dress and my bright green bag — and he saw me wave to him, and he ran out. The teacher told me later that he’d had a brilliant day at school, and couldn’t wait to show me the picture he’d made. He was so excited. He couldn’t wait. His name was Ben,’ she said. ‘He was five.’

She heard him inhale, slowly, and press his mouth down gently on her hair. April unlocked her arms from her knees and wrapped them around him instead, burying her face into the hollow of his shoulder. His skin was sun-warmed and smelled like the fresh earth he’d been digging for the strawberries. She felt he would have held her as long as she wanted, but Gabe the dog, made curious by the stillness of the pair, came up and licked her bare arm. Jack pushed him away with his boot, but the spell was broken. April separated herself from him, and sat up.

‘That dog has no manners,’ he said.

‘He’s a dog,’ said April. ‘What can you do?’

His dark eyes were steady as he regarded her. April could see the tawny slivers of light deep inside them.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For telling me.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For not telling me it wasn’t my fault.’

‘Only one person can tell you that,’ he said. ‘And that’s you.’

‘You’re not going to lecture me after all, are you?’

He braced his hands briefly on his thighs and stood up.

‘I’m going to put new mulch on the fruit trees, and then I’ll leave you be.’

Ambivalence rose up in April. She did not want him to lecture her — that was true. But she had enjoyed being held by him more than she could comfortably admit. It had been years since she’d embraced or been embraced by anyone, male or female, young or old, and the comfort of another’s arms, the reassurance of their heartbeat, provoked a yearning for more that April was struggling to contain. She did not want him to leave her now, so abruptly. She did not like the nagging voice insisting that if she mattered more to him, he would stay.

‘What would you say? If you did have permission to lecture me?’

The question took him by surprise, and he hesitated.

‘I’m not sure now’s that moment.’

‘I doubt I’ll be offended. If that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘No. That’s not it. It’s more that—’

April had never known him to be unsure of his words. He rarely used many of them, but they were always confidently expressed.

‘It’s more — what?’ she prompted.

‘Knocking the scabs off too soon can hurt,’ he said. ‘It can make you look for comfort anywhere you can find it. Not always in the right places.’

April felt the blood rush into her face.

‘You think I’ll throw myself at you?’ she said, annoyed both with him and with her inability to conceal her embarrassment. ‘That’s a bit arrogant, isn’t it?’

He scratched behind his ear, mouth screwed up in the way that signals both an apology and regret that, you’ve dropped yourself right in it.

‘Sounds that way, I guess.’

Annoyance was swiftly turning into anger. April knew she did not make herself attractive, and that, in any case, sex and romance were out of the question. But it hurt to be rejected in that way — rejected even before she’d made an overture, being told quite clearly that he did not ever want her to make one.

‘I’m pretty sure I can control myself. But if you’re concerned, feel free to keep your distance.’

‘Who says it’s you I’m concerned about?’

That stopped her. What it did not do was reduce her embarrassment.

‘Come on.’ He held out a hand. ‘The fruit trees can wait. I have something to show you.’

I should refuse, April thought. But somehow she did not. He led her into the woods, dog at his heels. He followed no paths and soon April did not know which direction meant home. The trees around them all looked the same. She could glimpse the sky through their leafy roof but not the fields or lanes beyond. She hoped Jack would not leave her to find her own way back.

They passed a tangle of rusted wire netting and rotten planks of wood.

‘Someone’s old rubbish?’ said April.

‘Used to be a pheasant hatchery,’ said Jack. ‘Back in the day when they were bred to be shot.’

Back in James’s day, thought April. She wondered if Rowan had tended the birds, and how he’d felt about sending them off to be blasted by shotguns.

‘Here,’ said Jack.

At first, April could not see anything but greenery, and then she realised she was looking at a dilapidated wooden wall, covered in moss and lichen. At its base was a tall crop of nettles that Jack walked right through. April was not wearing boots or long trousers, so she stepped carefully. Closer, she saw the wall formed the back of a shed. An ancient shed that the woods had almost fully reclaimed.

‘Whose was this?’ she said.

‘The gamekeeper’s,’ said Jack. ‘Not Kit’s. Those before him.’

‘Why is it all the way in here? Did they use it as a hide?’

‘It wasn’t always deep in the woods.’ Jack ran his hand over the mossy surface. ‘And no, not a hide. Quite the opposite. Here. Look.’

There was a nail by his fingertip, bent and rusty. He showed her another one, and then another. Nails had been hammered in lines all over the back wall, starting close together at the bottom, and then increasingly further apart as the lines ascended. Most were still present in the wood, a testament to how firmly they’d been hammered in the first place.

‘Can you guess what this wall was for?’ he said.

April shook her head. ‘No idea.’

Jack pointed to the bottom line of nails. ‘Weasels and stoats went there. And above them crows, and then the magpies and jays.’

‘You don’t mean — they weren’t hammered up there?’ April was appalled.

‘I mean exactly that. This is a gibbet. A gamekeeper’s warning to other criminals of the natural world who might mean harm to his precious pheasants.’

‘Please tell me they were dead before they were hammered up.’

Her dismay caused him some amusement.

‘Pretty hard to hammer a nail through the body of a squirming stoat.’

‘I’m not sure that makes me feel better.’ April pointed to the top of the shed. ‘It sounds to me like the criminals, as you call them, were ordered by status. So what was hung up there? Hawks?’

‘Good guess,’ he said. ‘Kestrels, sparrowhawks, merlins. And right at the top, the grand tier—’

‘Oh, don’t.’ April put her hands over her ears. ‘You’re going to say owls, I know it.’

‘Nailed with their backs to the wall, so they could not hide their treacherous faces.’

‘Do owls really kill pheasants?’

‘They might take a young one, yes. But that wasn’t really the point. The more bodies on the traitors gibbet, the bigger a display of the gamekeeper’s loyalty.’

April shivered. ‘It’s barbaric,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad they don’t do it these days.’

‘No more stockades in the village, no more severed heads on the battlements,’ said Jack. ‘No more hanged men swinging in the trees, their eyes being picked out by crows.’

‘I swear to God, you’re enjoying this!’

‘I don’t enjoy watching any living thing suffer. But death doesn’t faze me.’

‘Ah.’ April folded her arms across her chest. ‘The lecture.’

‘It’s not my place to lecture you about anything.’

‘But you brought me here for a reason. To make a point.’

‘I find this place interesting. I thought you might, too.’

‘I find it cruel. Causing death unnecessarily is cruel.’

‘Maybe.’ Jack shrugged. ‘They would have died some time. Most not from old age, either.’

‘See!’ said April. ‘You do have a point to make. You’re just sidling around it, like a weasel. I should hammer you to a board.’

He laughed. ‘You’re the one obsessed with hidden meaning. Why don’t you tell me what it all signifies?’

April stared up into the eaves of the old shed, where spiderwebs were densely clustered. Rotting bodies would have attracted plenty of flies, she thought. Perhaps the spiders came for those and made the shed their home, and it was the strength of that tribal memory that still held them there, though the last corpse had long since shrivelled away.

‘I can’t look at things as objectively as you do,’ she said. ‘I can’t see beyond life as good and death as bad. I can’t see beyond a need for good and bad to balance out.’

‘Why do they have to?’

‘Because they must,’ said April. ‘Or at least we have to believe they must. If we believed bad and good were truly random, then we’d live in fear all the time. Or we’d descend into chaos. We have to believe there’s a pattern to it all.’

‘Patterns take time to reveal themselves. Should we always wait?’

‘Live for the moment, you mean? Is that your philosophy?’

He shrugged. ‘I can’t live in the past or the future, can I? Now is all I have.’

April regarded him. ‘You don’t live without intention, though, do you? You choose to live a good life and not a bad one.’

‘I make that choice because I want to,’ he said. ‘Not for appearances’ sake or because I want something in return. I make it for myself.’

‘I made my choice for myself,’ said April.

‘And you could make another at any time,’ he said. ‘No one would judge you.’

April unfolded her arms, hugged them around her chest.

‘I would,’ she said. ‘I’d brand me a traitor.’

Jack was silent. Gabe the dog was snuffling around in the leaf mulch near the roots of a big oak tree.

‘Don’t read anything more into things than what they are,’ said Jack. ‘Don’t make meaning where there is none. That’s it — that’s the closest I’ll get to a lecture. I promise.’

Behind them, a sudden snap of jaws. Gabe bounded back from the tree root and shook his head violently from side to side. Something flailed out of either side of his mouth like olive green rope. Something that twisted and hissed.

‘Snake,’ said Jack.

He sounds remarkably unperturbed, thought April. Gabe must kill snakes regularly. April had never seen a snake in the woods, and would prefer that it had stayed that way.

Abruptly, the hissing stopped. The green rope ends disappeared into the dog’s mouth in two swift gulps. Gabe, tail up and waving, loped up to them. His jaw was covered in white saliva foam and what looked like strips of peeled sunburned skin. April took a step back.

Jack clicked his fingers to keep Gabe away.

‘The dog has no manners,’ he said, with a sigh.

‘Can we leave now?’ said April.

Her arms, as she unwrapped them from her body, were stiff. There was a crick in her neck, and she reached around to rub it.

Jack moved up close, and placed his hands lightly on her waist.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I could have offered you a better way to spend a summer’s afternoon.’

April let him draw her forward into a loose embrace.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘History, philosophy and herpetology? I learned a lot.’

‘Good to hear.’

Smiling, he bent his head and kissed her once, briefly, on the mouth. April felt her lips tingle for some seconds afterwards, and her traitorous mind could not help but wonder what it would be like to be kissed harder and for much, much longer.

‘Come on, you beast.’

It took a second to realise Jack was talking to the dog. But then he took her hand, and they walked together, arms connected but swinging lightly as they went, in a manner April found unexpectedly joyful. As they left the old shed behind, the leaf canopy thinned and the sun shone down on them again, warm, from a bright blue sky. Flowers she hadn’t noticed on the way in came now into view. Thanks to Jack, April could identify most of them. Violets, richly purple, and pale yellow cowslips. White and pink dog roses. The tiny blue and mauve blooms of speedwell. The woods would become damp and grey again in winter, she knew, but right now, they were beautiful. Hard to believe they’d ever held anything as brutal as that traitors gibbet.

‘They say that in the old days,’ April told him, ‘an escaped criminal lived here.’

He gave her a quick, crooked smile. ‘They always say that.’

‘Do they?’

‘Outlaws in the forest. The stuff of legends.’

‘True,’ said April, nodding.

‘Not always true.’ Jack squeezed her hand. ‘But perhaps more true  than most might think. Of course, a criminal could be anyone from actual murderers to starving peasants who resorted to poaching to feed their children. It all depends on who decides what a crime should be — and on who’s doing the judging.’

CHAPTER 27

mid-July

Crowded on the cottage kitchen bench were one rough-edged tart, three jars of jam, twelve muffins and a crumble.

‘Is this some kind of trick?’ said Oran. ‘An optical and olfactory illusion?’

‘My bowlful of gooseberries was starting to go off,’ said April. ‘And there were piles of fruit still on the bushes. I thought it would be wrong to let them go to waste.’

Oran reached out for a muffin, but pulled back his hand, hastily, as if an invisible someone was poised to rap his knuckles with a wooden spoon.

‘Have one!’ April waved him on. ‘Have them all!’

Oran took a muffin, ate it in about four seconds. April began to suspect that his thinness might not be a result of a naturally high-burning metabolism, and felt bad that she’d never given the matter previous thought. Oran had even less money than she did and, though he occasionally had a blowout at the pub, April guessed that what little extra he had usually went to one other person — willingly, she knew Oran would say, though it wasn’t the whole truth.

‘You’re welcome to take the lot home with you,’ said April. ‘There’s a jelly in the fridge, too.’

‘I’d be worried about my cholesterol,’ said Oran. ‘Except I imagine that with this amount of fruit, any fat would be flushed right on out again.’

He took another muffin, but instead of eating, turned it over in his hands. April sensed he was working up to something.

‘Spit it out,’ she said. ‘And I don’t mean that last crumb.’

‘I started off,’ Oran said, ‘with the idea that this was out of character for you, this baking of sweetmeats lark. But then I thought — no, it isn’t, is it? This is the true you. The real April Turner.’

Compassion for Oran’s poverty was overridden by an urge to shove his face in the bowl of jelly and hold him down. No, this was not the ‘real’ her. This was a practical solution to a problem of excess gooseberries. It was true that she could also have tipped the gooseberries on Kit’s compost heap, but the thought of what Jack might say had eliminated that as a course of action. You can’t pick and choose when nature provides food, April could hear Jack say. When it’s abundant, eat your fill. It’ll be soon enough that you have none.

‘Do you want this food or not?’ she said.

‘God, yes. But I’ll leave you some of that jam to take to Sunny’s for tea on Sunday. And what about your old codger? I’m sure he’s a man who’d appreciate a rough tart.’

To her utter dismay, April blushed. Oran’s eyebrows rose so high they disappeared under his curly fringe.

‘Good grief, what’s that about? It can’t be my charmingly earthy turn of phrase. You’ll be well used to that by now.’

He tried to catch her eye, but April had made herself busy covering the baking with tin foil.

He grinned. ‘Begob, I’ve been mistaken, haven’t I? Instead of a grizzled mien and silvered hair, yonder grower of titanic tubers is a young buck, is he not?’

The grin vanished. ‘Is that not a bit of a risk? You might be able to take the legs out from under an old bloke with a swing of the shovel, but if a sturdy young stud leapt on you now …’

‘You’re young,’ said April. ‘You haven’t leapt on me.’

Oran drew himself up, touched his hand to his chest. ‘I’m spoken for,’ he said. ‘I’m not at liberty to leap.’

April filled the apple box she’d brought back from the village fair. Handed it to Oran.

‘I’m in no danger. But thank you for your concern.’

‘What’s his name?’ said Oran. ‘Do I know him?’

‘Jack,’ said April, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘And no, you don’t.’

‘You’re sweet on him, though? There’s billing and cooing in the air?’

April walked to her front door, held it open.

‘I’m not at liberty to bill and coo.’

The comfortingly homey aroma of baked fruit rose out of the apple box, as Oran lingered in the doorway. Something else was on his mind.

‘Spit it out,’ April said again, wearily, leaning her head against the edge of the door.

‘Just that — if I were not spoken for—’ Oran’s gaze flitted up and down ‘—I’d, well, I’d not leap exactly, as that would be un-gentlemanlike, but, hmm …’

There were bright pink spots on his cheeks. They clashed, April noted, with his hair, but almost certainly matched the blush that had once more lit up her own face. Even if she’d been able to think of something to say, the power of speech had deserted her.

Oran cleared his throat. ‘I’ll be away then.’ He lifted the box in a quick salute. ‘Thank you for—’

And he was off. April watched him go until she regained enough presence of mind to shut the door.

‘This is your handiwork?’

Sunny took the jam, kissed April hello.

‘I was forced into it,’ said April, ‘by a gooseberry glut.’

‘Well, I’m very pleased to have it,’ said Sunny, as they walked down to the kitchen. ‘I’d intended to make some with my elderflowers during the week, but the WI insisted on holding a bake sale yesterday to raise money for research into the decline of honeybees. I made three hundred bee-shaped iced biscuits for it and, quite frankly, if I never see another piping bag as long as I live, it will be too soon.’

April repressed an urge to ask Sunny whether anyone in her past had ever likened her to a bee. It was hard to anticipate which questions Sunny would answer readily and which would provoke her.

Edward was lounging in the courtyard, feet up on a spare chair, straw hat over his face. Fatso was not under the maple tree skinning rabbits but curled up inside the empty stone birdbath, filling the whole thing, which made him look like an over-size version of the kind of puff ladies with boudoirs once used to apply face powder.

The little brick-paved courtyard was a suntrap. The afternoon air circled in slow fragrant layers — the sweetness of rose and scented viburnum above the musk of new potting mix. Bees hummed. April hoped they were grateful for Sunny’s efforts.

‘April has brought us her own home-made jam,’ Sunny announced.

Edward roused himself, tipped his hat back onto his head. The look he gave April mixed polite interest with a hint of interrogation.

‘Has she now?’

Sunny laid out the tea things on her cast-iron table. Chicken vol-au-vents, to be followed by scones and bite-size pikelets. Perfect with the gooseberry jam, thought April. She wondered if Oran had eaten all the food yet, and decided he probably had. She hoped he wouldn’t regret his gluttony. Hoped also that he did not intend to restate his declaration, such as it was. Chances were high he never would but, on the off-chance that Sunny did murder Cee-Cee Feares, April did not want to be the second woman in Oran’s life to reject him.

‘One of my abiding memories from the war was making jam,’ said Sunny, pouring the tea. ‘I remember helping the WI women stir great vats of it down at the village hall. My mother, and James’s too, became very active members. They joined the make-and-mend corps, and sewed and knitted away like demons.’

‘Knitted for the soldiers?’ said April.

‘Socks, gloves, balaclavas, you name it. And, of course, most of the London children arrived inadequately clothed and then grew like weeds with the country food and air.’

‘You had evacuees living with you?’

‘War was declared on the third of September,’ said Sunny, ‘and a day later we were invaded by an undernourished, lice-infested army.’

‘Did yours also come ignorant of the use of lavatories?’ said Edward.

‘Really?’ said April. ‘In the late 1930s, some children did not know how to use a lavatory?’

‘Parts of London, and other cities besides, had no indoor WCs, even then,’ said Edward. ‘Poor streets shared communal toilets, often no more than a hole in the ground. Literally.’

‘I had to show Virgie how a flush worked,’ said Sunny. ‘It was not until the room flooded that we realised she’d become obsessed with dropping objects in and watching them circle away with the water.’

‘How old was she?’ said April.

‘Nine when she first arrived. Though she looked about a hundred. The skin on her face was all yellowish and puckered — like a baked apple, I remember thinking.’

‘She must have missed her family.’

‘Not greatly,’ said Sunny. ‘Virgie was one of seven, and from what I gathered — she was a child of few words — her mother had had umpteen miscarriages and was saved from any more pregnancies by bleeding to death during the last. Her father drank, and they preferred him drunk because when he was unconscious he couldn’t beat them. Her siblings who had not already made a life on the street had to fight each other for any available food. Virgie refused every invitation to be sent back home. When she was fourteen, she left school and took a job at a country inn, not far from here, that had been hit by a stray doodlebug. Amongst the fatalities was the publican’s wife, who’d been renowned for her steak and kidney pudding. Virgie worked there as a cook for forty years.’

‘Did she become the second Mrs Publican?’ said Edward.

‘She did not, and I’m convinced she stayed true to her name all her life,’ said Sunny. ‘Being nothing but cold, hungry and fearful for the first years of one’s life does close one up somewhat.’

‘One doesn’t necessarily need traumatic reasons to close up.’ Edward heaped jam and cream on a scone. ‘Sometimes one chooses to simply because it’s easier.’

He took a large bite and turned deliberately to address April. ‘How is the entranceway coming along?’

It’s no Tudor extravaganza, more’s the pity, was April’s thought. A thought she decided not to share.

‘It’s a lot larger than I first estimated,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’ve been painting for months.’

‘Oran has done a very skilled job of restoring that staircase,’ said Edward. ‘I try not to be amazed, and yet …’

‘Don’t forget that he had an excellent teacher,’ said Sunny. ‘George Rose was a true craftsman. Meticulous and particular, with the sensibility of an artist.’

‘And quite hard on young Oran, I’d imagine,’ said Edward.

‘George was tough, yes, but patient. And Oran did so want to please him. He really was the sweetest boy. One of those people who always choose to look on the bright side, who always see the good in people.’ Her lips thinned in disapproval. ‘He even spoke of his frightful parents with nothing but love, as if they’d actually cared for him. All they cared about was their own sybaritic pleasure!’

‘You see?’ said Edward. ‘Sex complicates matters.’

‘Nonsense! Only if you let it,’ said Sunny. ‘Personally, I’ve always found it remarkably straightforward, enjoyment pure and simple. Once Perry and I started, we were so delighted with each other that we were at it right up until just before he died. I miss it terribly.’

She saw their faces. ‘What did you think? That because I’m wrinkled like a dead leaf on the outside, that I’m as dry as one, too? That there’s no juice left in me at all?’

‘Lawks,’ Edward murmured, and tipped his hat back over his eyes.

‘Where is Oran, by the way?’ April had a sudden jolt of panic. ‘He’s not been robbed again, has he?’

‘No, no,’ said Sunny, with a satisfied smile. ‘He was issued a last-minute invitation to be the guest of the local folk club. I happen to know that their co-ordinator is an extremely pretty young woman with an excellent voice. They’d make a very sweet pair.’

April found she did not share Sunny’s pleasure at the prospect of Oran pairing up with a sweet-voiced young folk singer. It occurred to her that she had made Oran’s stubborn loyalty to his wife a marker for her own situation. If he could stick to his principles for so long, then so could — and should — she.

‘Oran told me that he’s been faithful to Cee-Cee ever since she left him,’ said April. ‘And that he means to continue being so.’

‘I’m sure he has the best intentions,’ said Edward. ‘But — what would that be? Eight years without sex? Even I might bestir myself before then.’

April did her best not to bridle. Edward and Sunny could be insufferably smug sometimes.

‘He was adamant about it.’

‘No doubt,’ said Edward. ‘But we don’t always remember what we do when drunk, do we? Or we try very hard not to.’

‘Eight years is far too long. If our folk co-ordinator falls through, Edward, you will need to find a girlfriend for Oran.’

Edward pursed his mouth, aggrieved.

‘Have you considered that I might want to find myself a boyfriend first?’ he said.

‘Well, then, be quick about it!’ said Sunny. ‘We’re none of us getting any younger.’

CHAPTER 28

June, 1941

James stood in front of the trophy cabinet, counting. Sunny appeared at his shoulder.

Virgie flushed two of your medals. They’ll be in the North Sea by now.’

‘She flushed them? For God’s sake, why?’

‘Because she could,’ said Sunny.

‘There’s something wrong with that girl,’ said James. ‘At first, I thought it was an intestinal worm — I’ve never seen anyone put away that much food and still be no wider than a billiards cue. Now, I think it’s something deeper — a fundamental flaw in her being.’

‘Pish. She spent nine years being starved and beaten, that’s all. That’s enough to make anyone a bit odd.’

James folded his arms huffily. ‘I wanted to take the trophies to Cambridge with me.’

‘I wouldn’t. Unless you want the other undergrads to think you’re a boastful arse.’

James’s shoulders sagged.

‘I doubt that will make any difference,’ he said. ‘I’ll be the stain-man’s son to them. Beyond the pale. A Potts blot on the landscape.’

‘They won’t all be posh snobs,’ said Sunny. ‘And if they are, flash your cash. It’s all about what you can buy these days, no matter how much the government tries to clamp down. Money talks and the black market whispers back. You know that’s true.’

But it wasn’t entirely true, was it, thought James. Money might talk loudly, but the real conversations still went on behind doors that only people with lineage like Sunny’s and Day’s could open. James had been accepted into St John’s because he’d passed the entrance exam with flying colours, and because his sporting prowess had lent him an added attraction. Cambridge might emphasise its amateur athletic status but that did not mean it liked to lose. His interviewers saw him as a potential blue, James knew. An asset.

But that wouldn’t be enough to keep him there. James’s gut lurched, as it did so often these days, and for so many different reasons. A pressing one was the fact that Levers had not renewed their offer to his father. They’d decided instead to focus on running Royal Ordnance agency factories, making munitions and filling explosives. James’s father’s factory was not suitable for conversion to war manufacturing of any kind, and with so many households tightening their belts, the demand for stain remover had plummeted. James’s father brushed off the jibes from Sunny’s mother. Potts was in fine shape, he declared. Firing on all cylinders. If it weren’t, he said, how could he afford to take all that time off for his political work? He was sure Sunny’s mother could do better than imply he was a rat deserting a sinking ship. She was far too smart to resort to unimaginative clichés.

James wanted to believe him — there’d be no more Cambridge without Lewis Potts’s money. But he was not blind. Thanks to rationing, everyone’s clothes were old and shabby now. They had more important things to care about than appearances.

Sunny, James couldn’t help but observe, looked far from shabby. But then she always did, even when her clothes had clearly been reconstituted. Today, she wore white shorts that showed a lot of tanned leg and a slim-fitting blue and white striped top that would have been eye-popping on a more lavishly endowed girl. The shorts, James guessed, had once been a pair of old cricket flannels — possibly her father’s, which would make them at least two decades old — and the top had been painstakingly hand-knitted from fine cotton. Sunny may well have sewn the shorts, but James had no doubt that the top was one of his mother’s creations. Cora Potts was earning a reputation as a talented knitter and seamstress, with an eye for fashion that brought young (and not so young) women to her door with hoarded fabric and skeins of wool, usually poor in quality and ugly in colour, pleading for Cora to transform it into some item that would made them look as cool and sophisticated as Veronica Lake. Hardly any of them could pay her, but James’s mother didn’t seem to mind. She’s found her calling, Sunny’s mother had said once over breakfast — creating beauty from stony soil. James’s mother had blushed and told her not to overdo it. It was only sewing. Women’s work, not God’s.

It didn’t stop with sewing and knitting, either, thought James. They’d become fiends for economising, Dimity and Cora. They’d even started to make their own soap with, of all disgusting things, mutton fat, though Virgie would probably eat it without hesitating. It drove James’s father insane, but what could he do? For one thing, any attempt to curb such work would be unpatriotic. For another, Empyrean had now lost the last of its servants to the war effort. One housemaid was now a land girl, the other a nurse, the boot boy had lied about his age and joined the navy, and the men who came to garden had handed in their notice not long after the cook. Dimity and Cora, aided by Sunny and Virgie, were the cooks, cleaners and gardeners now, and James’s firm impression was that his mother had never been happier.

The arguments continued, though. Behind closed doors. Whatever it was that Sunny’s mother wanted, she was not giving it up without a fight.

James felt a quick rush of vengeful satisfaction. He needn’t care about Sunny’s bloody mother any more. He was eighteen and leaving for university. When September came, he’d be his own man. He could carve out his life exactly as he wanted. And answer to no one.

‘Perry’s enlisted,’ said Sunny.

The news punctured James’s self-regard like a pin, and immediately, he grew resentful. First, because Day had told Sunny and not him, his best friend. And second, because now he’d be in the spotlight. Everyone would look at him and ask why he hadn’t enlisted. Day was a selfish bastard, thought James. And a foolish one, too. Being eligible for conscription didn’t mean you’d get called up immediately, so why not wait for them to come to you? Why rush in to what might well be an early, and probably nasty, death?

‘What in God’s name was he thinking?’ he said. ‘Stupid idiot.’

Sunny stuck out her jaw. ‘I think it’s heroic.’

‘There’s no bloody point in being heroic if you’re dead, is there?’

‘He won’t die,’ said Sunny, with a smile James found insufferably smug. ‘I know it.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

James gave the trophy cabinet a wallop with the flat of his hand. It rocked, and the tall cup James had won at the lakeside sports fell over. One of the fine silver wings snapped off.

‘You can solder that. I’ll show you how. If you can be bothered.’

James rubbed his palm. The blow had stung.

‘I suppose Rowan’s enlisted, too, hasn’t he?’ he said.

‘You haven’t spoken to him?’

Sunny was far from smug now, James saw. Her blue eyes had lost all their light.

‘Not yet …’ James searched her face for clues. ‘Why? What’s up?’

‘Meet me at the apple tree in an hour,’ said Sunny. ‘And I’ll tell you.’

James arrived first. Every year, he thought, as he placed his hand on its trunk, the apple tree seemed to shrink. He could probably still climb it, but that swing would never hold him now. Sunny had told him how the London children had needed to be shown how to push themselves. They’d never been on a swing before, and not all of them liked the motion of it. But all of them liked to climb. James had seen them swarm up the tree like monkeys. Or rats, he thought. More apt for city dwellers.

He heard Sunny approach. She was humming a song, and for just a moment, it harmonised with the bees that were all over the climbing roses. Golden brown Sunny, thought James, always busy, always in the thick of it, humming and buzzing with energy. Sunny the bee, James thought, with a smile. Queen Bee. Yes, that’s exactly who she was.

What animal would he be?

Sunny had brought afternoon tea, and spread it out on a blanket beneath the tree. There were scones that she’d baked. Cordial she’d made from elderflowers. Boiled eggs, ham. Jam and butter, too.

‘I suspect we’re not suffering the privations that others are,’ said James. ‘That’s country living for you.’

‘That’s the generosity of the Blythes,’ said Sunny. ‘They give us milk, cream, meat and eggs in exchange for help on the farm. With Lily’s brothers gone …’

James knew why she’d paused. Lily’s oldest brother was gone for good now. Killed at Dunkirk. One of the unlucky ones.

‘Even Virgie knows how to milk a cow,’ said Sunny.

‘It’s a wonder the pail of milk has anything left in it,’ said James, spreading butter on a scone. ‘Still, I’m enjoying the fruits of her labours, so I shouldn’t carp.’

It took him a minute to realise that he was the only one eating. Sunny was hugging her knees, staring off towards the far wall of the garden. Sunny might often be belligerent but she was never down. She was the kind of person who’d think Hamlet’s question stupid. Take arms, of course, she’d say. Don’t be such a big baby.

‘What’s up with Rowan, Sunny?’

‘Ellis Blythe sent him packing,’ she said. ‘Because Rowan told him he intended to register as a conscientious objector.’

‘A conchie?’ James was amazed, and then he wasn’t. It made perfect sense.

‘He didn’t even need to.’ Sunny was near tears. ‘Farm workers are exempt.’

‘He needed to,’ said James softly. ‘You know Rowan couldn’t bear to live a lie.’

Sunny buried her face in her knees.

‘And Ellis Blythe could not tolerate a man who would not fight for his country, when one of his boys had already died for it,’ said James. ‘Where’s Rowan now? I can’t imagine Old Ted will have taken him back.’

‘In the woods,’ said Sunny. ‘It was that or wait to be taken away to the internment camp.’

‘Of course.’

‘He’s fine now, because it’s summer. But when winter comes …’

James shifted closer and put his arm around her.

‘No one knows the woods like Rowan. There are old sheds there and charcoal burners’ huts and all manner of shelter. He won’t freeze, don’t you worry.’

‘Lily and I have talked about bringing him food over the winter months,’ said Sunny. ‘It will be so much easier for me but Lily’s determined.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I always wished she’d gain some gumption and now she has.’

James could not share even her tempered gratification. At first, the prospect of Rowan working and living on the farm, being in daily contact with Lily, had caused James no end of jealous frustration. Until he’d realised that Rowan would never approach her. He couldn’t. Rowan was there as her protector; he’d made a vow to her father. He could no more make advances to Lily than he could torture an animal.

But that was all over now. That vow was null and void. Lily and he would be alone together in the woods, away from reproachful, restrictive eyes. Free to do whatever they chose.

He should not care about that, James told himself. He should care that his friend had been banished, exiled, for holding to principles that in any other circumstance would be lauded. They were Christian principles, for God’s sake — love thy neighbour, blessed are the meek, thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not secretly covet thy neighbour’s daughter …

‘Do you want to see him?’ Sunny said. ‘I don’t know where he’s living, but I know how to find him. We leave an oak leaf under a rock by the swimming hole. On the ledge above the falls.’

‘I know it.’

‘He meets us there at noon the next day.’

Did he want to see Rowan? He’d always intended to. This was possibly his last summer at home, after all. When Rowan had abandoned Ted and vice versa, James’s time in the woods with Rowan had ended. But James had always been welcome at the Blythes’, and that’s where he’d expected to see his friend. And Rowan was his friend, he reminded himself. A friend he should care about.

‘I’ll do my best,’ said James.

Sunny stretched out her legs, shaking them to bring back the blood.

‘I need to be home by four. That’s when Perry’s due back. Our last week before he’s off to the training camp.’

Of course it was, thought James. It was typical that Day was here and typical that he’d never told James he was coming. Petrol was rationed now, so, really, he shouldn’t be able to make the drive that often. Yet somehow, here he was. Again.

Stop it. Day is also your friend. He was one of the few at school to overlook James’s tradesman origins. Day liked James for himself, and he didn’t give a hoot what anyone else thought about that. It was thanks to Day that the others came around to accepting him, too; thanks to Day that James’s school life had been a pleasure and not a misery. James owed him, and should feel nothing but warmth towards him. So Day and Sunny were in love, what of it? He should be glad, not envious.

But those little green demons wormed their way in, didn’t they? Pricked and burned like nettles.

‘Where is Day?’ James said. ‘Running errands?’

‘He’s taken Virgie, Liza, Mary, Ern and Fred out motoring. He found out they’d never been in a motor car before. Fred had been nearly run down by one in Packington Street, which hadn’t half put him off the buggers, he said, but Perry convinced him there was a big difference being on top of the wheels rather than under them, so off they all went in a cloud of dust and exhaust. No room for me, alas.’

‘He’s like the Pied Piper. Rather him than me.’

‘He’s performing a civic duty. Ern has completely worn out old Mrs Lacey. She applied to have him re-billeted, so she could have a rest. Mrs Cake has offered to take him in. Ern won’t know what’s hit him.’

‘I think he will. Mrs Cake’s wooden spoon is quite easily distinguished.’

James helped Sunny pack up the hamper. Offered to carry it for her, but she refused.

‘Sunny,’ he said, as they headed back. ‘Are you and Day — you know?’

‘Are we what?’

‘You know. Doing that.’

‘Oh,’ said Sunny. ‘That. Yes, we are. What of it?’

‘Nothing. Forget it.’

‘Cambridge will be full of willing girls,’ said Sunny. ‘Eager to offer you free access to their cunts.’

‘Sunny! Christ almighty!’

‘Don’t be such a prude. And don’t be your usual cautious self. It’s wartime. Bombs are falling. Planes are strafing. Invaders might well be gathering on the shore. Nobody’s safe, remember that. It’s too late for fucking when you’re dead.’

CHAPTER 29

late July

‘I’m melting,’ said April. ‘Like the wicked witch.’

‘I thought wicked witches got burned at the stake.’

‘I’m burning at the stake then.’ April lay back on the lawn under the shade of the big copper beech. Its leaves filtered the sun’s sparkle like carmine prisms. ‘My flesh is dripping off me.’

‘I love days like this,’ said Jack. ‘For me, the hotter the better.’

April squinted up at him where he sat, back against the tree trunk. Gabe was stretched out full length on the shaded grass, twitching in his sleep.

‘But you’re always hot. No matter what the weather.’

‘Am I?’ he said, amused.

‘I can feel you even from a distance.’

‘Maybe I store up energy. So I can use it later, when I need it.’

‘Maybe you photosynthesise, like a plant.’

‘Could explain why I shrivel to nothing in winter.’

‘Oh, don’t.’

‘That’s how it is.’ He glanced upwards. ‘In winter, this tree loses all its leaves and its sap retreats. I lose weight and strength. And in summer, I regain it.’

It was true, April thought. When she’d met him, he’d been lean and sinewy as a long-distance runner, and there’d been a sallow tinge to his dark skin. Now, he was the image of vitality, filled out and strong, his skin the glossy brown of a chestnut. He still wore his boots, but his trousers were drill cotton, not corduroy, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his shirt buttons undone to midway down.

Where was he from? She’d wanted to ask him that question so many times. And the reason she hadn’t, she knew, was not that she expected he’d decline to tell her, his justification that information about his past had no bearing on the present. She’d held back because she knew it suited her to live in a world where, if only for a few hours a week, there was just the two of them. It was like opening up a storybook and knowing it was just you, the reader, for whom the characters spoke and acted. You did not have to share that moment with anyone.

‘Are you real?’ she said.

‘Ha!’

He dropped down next to her, propped up on one elbow, his expression half amused, half appraising. Then he bent his head and kissed her, firmly, properly, and for much longer than before.

All the energy sapped by labour and the heat rushed back into April and spread everywhere, all at once, so that even her fingertips pulsed with it. The sensation was not completely pleasurable. There was an edge to it, like pins and needles or skin brushed lightly across nettles, and underlying it a fear, as if a strong hand was dragging her down below the water.

He broke the kiss.

‘Ask me that question again,’ he said, his smile this time, in April’s mind, one of self-satisfied triumph.

April sat up so abruptly he had to duck his head back to prevent it being collected by her elbow.

‘Why did you do that?’ she demanded.

With a slow exhalation of breath, he pushed himself off the ground, sat facing her, arms resting lightly on his knees.

‘Did you not want me to?’

There was a scrupulously honest answer to that, thought April, and then there was the right answer.

‘You know I can’t,’ she said. ‘You know that’s not part of who I am.’

He winced, as if stung by an accusation he knew to be valid, but ready to defend his point all the same.

‘Does a kiss have to mean that much more?’ he said.

‘More than what?’

‘Than something to enjoy.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘We’re two grown people,’ he said. ‘We like each other, enjoy each other’s company. Why not enjoy each other physically as well?’

Because I’m not at liberty to enjoy anything was April’s first thought. But the thought that overrode it was that he was right: she did enjoy his company. She enjoyed working with him in the garden, learning about plants and soil. She enjoyed watching things grow, often from nothing but a seed the size of a dust mote. She enjoyed his calm talk and the reassurance of his physical presence.

She enjoyed working on the house, too. The satisfaction of seeing drab and damaged surfaces revived, the expectant tang of paint and varnish. The sense that the house was grateful. Oran’s singing, the banter between them, even the terrible stewed cups of tea.

She enjoyed being with Edward and Sunny, in the rose-scented courtyard, or in the purposeful cheer of Sunny’s kitchen. She’d even enjoyed the brief flurry of baking, though she would be quite happy to never again see another gooseberry.

April had been enjoying it all, and until right that second she had not realised how much. She’d thought she was being rational, that everything she’d done had been for practical reasons only. But that was a delusion. She had been straying from the path for months now, and she’d not had the wit to know or the eyes to see it. April was furious with herself.

‘Would it really be that bad?’

Jack must have seen her expression change.

‘It would be wrong.’ April needed to be clear. ‘Wrong for me.’

She could hear him breathing, slow breaths as if he was thinking about what to say next. She hoped that he would not try to touch her again. If he did, she had no doubt that in her current mood she would hit him.

‘Can I ask one question?’ he said.

‘I might not answer.’

‘That’s all right.’

April held her own breath for a moment, as if by doing so, she might be able to freeze time. But what point was there in prevaricating? Jack was a man who seemed to have all hours at his disposal.

She breathed out, slowly, reluctantly.

‘Go on.’

‘What do you believe would happen if you became yourself again?’ he said.

April was relieved. This was a question she had asked herself enough times to have formed a confident answer.

‘I don’t think the world will end, if that’s what you mean. I don’t think a bolt of lightning will strike me down. But I would be taking what I am no longer entitled to. Joy, love, pleasure — I gave up the rights to those when I took them from my son, when I became responsible for ending his life.’

‘That’s a harsh call. Harsh as can be.’

‘Why should I go on as before when he can’t? Why should I have all those things he never will? If I caused his death, then I should pay a price, don’t you think? Nobody was about to send me to jail, so I made my own sentence. Don’t you think that’s only right?’

‘Doesn’t matter what I think.’

‘No,’ said April. ‘No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks or wants. This is my choice, for my reasons, and I’m the only one who can judge whether it’s right or wrong.’

‘And what if I asked you one more thing?’

‘Another question?’

‘What if I asked you to reconsider?’

April hesitated. ‘Why would you do that? You wouldn’t change your life for me, would you?’

That brought a rueful smile.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You have me there.’

‘Then why?’

He did not answer right away.

‘I dived into a river once,’ he said. ‘Someone I cared about had gone in and was being dragged under because the river was flooded and the current was swift. I could see the water was treacherous, but I did not think of anything except saving her, so in I leapt.’

‘Her?’

‘A friend. It was a long time ago.’

‘And you saved her, didn’t you?’ April could not see how it would be otherwise.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I could not reach her. The water was too rough, too fast. It dragged me under, too. I drowned.’

April grabbed his hand and held it tight. She’d been sweltering but dread had crept into her bones and now she shivered with cold.

‘I remember looking up from under the water,’ he said. ‘All above me was grey-green and swirling, but through it I caught a glimpse of blue sky and I felt a great sadness because I knew it would be the last time I saw it. Then the water came into my lungs and it all went black.’

‘But you can’t have drowned.’ April linked her fingers with his, as if to lock their hands together. ‘You’re here now, with me. Very much alive.’

‘I was lucky. The river tumbled me like a stick, over and over, but then washed me up down-river on a stony bank. And whatever bit of instinct was left in me spewed the water out of my lungs, and I came to, coughing and choking, bruises and cuts everywhere, and all my clothes ripped right off.’

He glanced down, lifted the toe of his boot. ‘Still had these though. I suspect they’ll survive right through to the second coming.’

His smile was faint and regretful, but the fact he was smiling made April want to hit him again. She did, but lightly, a cuff on the shoulder.

‘I detest you,’ she said, ‘for traumatising me with that story. What was the point of it, anyway?’

The face that looked across at her with affection was strong-boned and remarkably unweathered. He reached out to smooth her hair behind her ear.

‘I’m not sure it has one. But I wanted to tell you that there was a moment, a fleeting instant between the sadness and the blackness when I understood the peace that death could bring. I understood why some people gravitate towards it, why they don’t want to resist its pull. I’d always thought those people foolish, but now I can see better their point of view. I still don’t agree with it,’ he added, ‘but I don’t judge them half as harshly.’

‘Oh, my God!’ April tensed. In reacting to the drama of his story, she had forgotten how it had begun. ‘Your friend! What happened to her? Did she—?’

His expression sobered, and he would not meet her eye, but once again reached to touch her hair.

‘She died,’ he said.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It was a long time ago.’

He was clearly disinclined to say more, so April did not press him. She watched the rise and fall of his breathing and imagined the steady thump of his heart. His skin beneath his open shirt was smooth and brown and warm.

‘I’m so glad the river didn’t want you,’ she said.

He tilted his head. ‘Well, maybe that’s a start.’

And then he began to bounce up on his toes, full of energy that had suddenly arisen from God knows where.

‘Come on,’ he said to her. ‘It’s too good a day to waste.’

He snapped his fingers to wake Gabe, and stood waiting for her, eager to be off. April was not so sure that she should go with him. She had strayed and needed to get back on track, and that would best be done on her own.

Yes, that would be best. But he was already on the move, dog at his heels, and as she watched him go, April was filled with a clawing panic. When he’d told his story, for a moment there, she’d felt him go under. She’d felt his last impulse to breathe that drew not air but water into his lungs, felt his hand ripped from hers as he was swept away.

April ran after him, slipped her hand in his and held on tight.

‘Where are we going?’

‘The best place,’ he said. ‘In weather like this.’

The place was a swimming hole, further into the woods than Jack had ever taken her. At the edge of a small clearing a deep dark-green pool lay beneath a wall of moss and fern-clad rock, down which spilled the waterfall that had formed it and continued endlessly to fill it. The waterfall was a natural spring, less a cascade than a steady trickle, out from under a rock ledge. The pool leached into a rivulet that April assumed eventually widened and joined the big river or sank back into another hole in the ground. There was a hole in Wales, she recalled, that had no detectable outlet. Things that washed in never, ever washed out.

April dipped a toe in the pool and gasped.

‘It’s freezing!’

‘Only at first.’

Jack’s shirt and boots were already off and he was now, April saw, about to remove his trousers.

‘You’re not going in naked?’

He paused. ‘How else would I go in?’

‘I’m not going in naked!’

‘Why not?’

So many reasons.

‘Water’s cold.’

‘Wear clothes, then,’ he said. ‘It’s all the same to me.’

With a last tug, his trousers were off. It was too late for April to look away so she did not bother. As it was, he turned his back to her and sprinted to the pool, hitched up his legs and dive-bombed into the water. Gabe, who’d been drinking at the edge, was showered in freezing drops that made him start back and sneeze. Jack surfaced with a shout, then made a splashy, messy crawl to the rock wall, hauled himself out and began to climb.

‘Your master’s a ten-year-old boy, Gabe,’ April said. ‘In the body of a man of indeterminate age.’

Gabe stared at her with what looked to April like mournful agreement, loped over to a birch tree and flopped down under it.

‘Good thinking,’ she said, and found her own spot to sit down on, a patch of grass that was scrubby and uneven, but free of nettles and far enough from the pool to avoid the splashes that fountained out every time Jack leapt from the ledge above the falls.

April became acutely aware that by watching him swim, she was seeing every bit of him. He was utterly unselfconscious and yards away from her, yet it still felt too intimate for comfort. So she lay back on the ground, shifted around to avoid the worst of the stony, rooty lumps, and closed her eyes.

She heard his footsteps and quick breathing, and felt a waft of air and flecks of cool water on her skin as he dropped down next to her.

‘Are you not coming in?’

‘It’s freezing,’ she said. ‘Don’t deny it — you’re covered in  goosebumps.’

‘Soon warm up.’

‘Don’t even think about throwing me in, either. I’ll do you an injury.’

‘Perfect water on a perfect day. Such a waste.’

There was an edge to his voice that put April on alert. Jack’s manner might be terse at times but he was never angry. Even when she’d laid into him earlier he’d taken it calmly. Though he hadn’t hidden the fact he did not agree with how she chose to live her life, he’d not pressured her or shown any impatience. To be rebuked by him, even mildly, was a new experience, and not one April found she cared for. But she was tough, he’d said so himself. She could hold her own.

‘You can enjoy it,’ she said. ‘I’m not stopping you.’

‘I’d be happier if you enjoyed it, too.’

‘Then you’ll have to be less happy.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Right, that’s it then …’

And he was on his feet, pulling on his clothes with angry haste.

‘What are you doing?’ said April, alarmed.

‘I’m off.’

‘No!’ April scrambled to her feet. ‘I can’t find my way back on my own!’

‘Yes, you can.’

He tugged up his bootlace, tied it, snapped his fingers for the dog.

April’s heart was hammering. She only just resisted a panicky impulse to clutch hold of his arm and hang on.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she said. ‘To punish me? For not giving you what you want?’

That stopped him. The anger on his face yielded to remorse.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Your life’s your own, just like mine is, and I should let you live it your way. But it’s becoming so much harder to do that. So much harder to watch you—’

He stepped close, made as if to touch her and then thought again, kept his hands by his sides. April’s heart still battered against her chest, but now the alarm was of a different kind. The panic to avoid loss had become apprehension about what new element might be about to enter her life. This was not the Jack she’d known until now, who let his thoughts out slowly and with restraint. This Jack was about to burst open like a chestnut left too long on a fire, and spill everything, all at once. Every thought he’d been keeping to himself was about to pour down on April, and she was very much afraid she might drown.

‘April, are you really going to let all these opportunities for joy pass you by?’ he said. ‘Do you truly want to exist in the same grey, stale, cheerless, loveless half-light until you die?’

There it was. What he really believed. What he really wanted to say to her. The worst thing was not that he’d said it after all this time, after she’d begun to believe she was safe with him. The worst thing was that it was an exact echo of the question that had formed inside her the moment she had buried her old life. A question she’d refused to acknowledge, let alone answer, but that had persisted all the same, like a weed whose roots stay in the ground no matter how deep you dig.

And though the words were so familiar to her, coming from his mouth they sounded bright and sharp as new pins. They pricked and hurt, and April was desperate to make the pain go away.

To her amazement, she summoned enough willpower to push back. ‘Don’t blackmail me,’ she told him. ‘That isn’t fair — or kind.’

His face, usually so composed, was showing everything he felt. April saw pity, remorse, affection and frustration. She saw kindness and sympathy but also a pressing need to make his point, to leave her in no doubt how important this was to him.

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘There’s no point, because I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to. All I can do is ask you — beg you — from my heart, to reconsider.’

The clearing had seemed so quiet before, but now the noises swelled around her. The glittery rasp of insects, the jangle of the birds, the waterfall pouring, endlessly, as if sealed in a loop of time. In her mind ran a film of her own making, a sequence of images known and invented, of Oran the child, abandoned; of James’ mother, who’d lost her only son; of a father whose grief was so strong that he let his house go to ruin around him; of her own boy, and his father, her husband, and all those who’d cared whom she’d pushed away, and she felt the regret of what was lost and what might have been pour down over her as if it, too, would never stop.

But to give up. To change her mind and step off the path. To make all that hurt for nothing. Her reason behind that would need to be very sound indeed.

‘Why?’ April said. ‘Why do you want this so badly?’

‘Because when I see a life give up and die before its time, a bit of me dies with it. Because I want for you what I want for myself. I want us both to have as much as this life will give us, and for as long as it lasts. I want us both to be able to swim and run and eat our fill and feel the cool of the woods and the warmth of the sun.’

He reached out, touched one finger only to her cheek.

‘And because I’m selfish,’ he said. ‘I’m not ashamed to admit it. I want us to lie together, love together. I want us to be with each other in the moment, until the light fails and the leaves die and our time together draws to its natural close.’

CHAPTER 30

early August

‘I’ve done a bad thing.’

April surfaced from her own thoughts and looked across at Oran. They had both been working quietly that morning; April had put that down to preoccupation on her part and a Monday morning hangover on Oran’s. He was sitting with his back against the edge of the staircase, holding his mug of tea but not drinking. His shoulders were hunched, April took the time now to observe, in that way of his she knew signalled bottled-up unhappiness. April was not sure she had the energy or inclination to find out the source of Oran’s misery, but even if she did not ask, he would tell her.

‘What kind of thing?’ she said. ‘And don’t say “bad”.’

‘I broke my vow.’

She knew exactly what he meant, and the strength of her reaction surprised her. She was furious at him, she realised. Furious at him for giving in and — more gallingly — for enjoying what she had that very morning determined she never could. The last two nights it had been a different matter. For two nights she had lain awake and battled with her fears and her desires and her conscience. Last night her sense of regret for what had been lost had almost, so very nearly, made her give in. But this morning her resolve had returned and, until right this minute, she’d welcomed it.

‘With the cutesy little folk singer?’ she said.

Oran’s eyes widened. ‘No, but — how did you know about …?’

‘Sunny.’

‘Course! Begob, for a minute there, I thought it had been broadcast on Access Radio.’

His relief was short-lived, as he realised his problem was still very much present.

‘No, it was not Amy. But it was she who invited me to the gathering, the celebration of Lughnasa — you know, the Irish festival? For the harvest?’

‘Not really.’

‘On Saturday night, being the thirty-first of July, there was a gathering and we climbed the hill and there was dancing and storytelling and singing, and, of course, the sacrifice of the corn god.’

‘Of course.’

‘And there might have been drinking, too,’ said Oran. ‘And also possibly matchmaking.’

‘Matchmaking? As in — for marriage?’

‘Well, not a real marriage,’ said Oran. ‘More of a pairing off. In the old days, it was a trial, for a year and a day, and if you weren’t happy, you could go your separate ways, no questions asked.’

‘Convenient.’

Oran’s shoulders hunched up even further, making him look like a reddish-feathered vulture.

‘I have no memory of it,’ he said. ‘I was in my cups, completely. But when I woke up, there she was, under the blanket with me, and she kissed me, so …’

‘So you assumed.’

‘She also had her hand on my—’

‘Evidence seems overwhelming, doesn’t it?’

‘But then I had to throw up,’ said Oran. ‘Which sort of broke the  mood.’

‘Sort of?’

‘Her name was Lorelei.’

Oran stared down into his tea as if he could see right through the teak-coloured liquid and read the answer to his problem in the leaves.

‘Like the Siren?’

‘Is that what she was?’ Hope flared in his eyes and died again. ‘No, I remember now. Her real name was Cheryl. I heard her friends calling for her.’

‘Well, there you go.’

April knew she was angrier with Oran than she should be. But for God’s sake, he was a grown man and the sole author of his own downfall, and it was about time he recognised it.

Oran was gazing at her, eyes helpless and dewy as a deer’s. April had a most satisfying, if momentary, vision of firing an arrow straight into his chest.

‘What should I do?’ he pleaded.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Oran, I don’t know!’ April banged her mug of undrinkable tea on the floor and stood. ‘How about twenty push-ups and three bloody Hail Marys?’

‘I’m not of the Catholic persuasion,’ he said. ‘My father was, but he and my mother wanted me to make my own choice about which religion I’d adopt.’

The man’s capacity for self-delusion, thought April, was truly boggling.

‘Oran, your parents abandoned you. I can’t imagine either of them gave a flying fuck whether you became Catholic, Shinto or bloody Baha’i.’

He flinched, but instead of protesting he hunched up even further, cradling his mug. He’s like a beggar in the gutter, April thought, too cowed even to look up at the passers-by.

‘If you get so rat-arsed you can’t remember who you slept with, that’s no one’s fault but your own,’ she said. ‘I bet it wasn’t the first time, either. So, tell me, when are you going to wake up and admit it? When are going to admit that your marriage is not just over but smashed to pieces, and has been for bloody years? When are you going to stop being so weak!’

April did not wait to hear his response, had no patience for anything he might have to say. She walked straight back to the cottage to fetch her car keys and, without a second glance at Empyrean, got into the Volvo and drove off, gravel spraying from under spinning wheels.

She had no destination in mind, and found herself weaving through the hills and up onto the ridge. On the brow of the hill there was a parking area and April pulled in and braked, switched off the engine. She wound down the window and the sounds from outside seeped in — birds in the roadside trees, the bawl of a distant cow, the hum of traffic on the encircling motorways.

From her seat, April had a sweeping pastoral view, patchworks of fields dotted with copses and spires. Even in full summer, the light was soft, the view smudged at the edges like a pastel sketch. April could make a frame with her hands and, no matter where she placed it, capture a perfectly composed landscape.

The English countryside always looked so settled, she thought. Like a favourite jersey or armchair that over time comfortably adapted itself to your shape so that it wrapped around you like a hug.

If only the land could wrap around her, she thought, let her sink into it and lie there peacefully forever. No more doubts or fears or regrets. No more incessant internal debates about right and wrong.

Was there anyone ever in history, she wondered, who’d been able to tread their chosen path completely untroubled by diffidence or uncertainty? Anyone who wasn’t a fanatic or bonkers, that is. And when did you call time, make the decision that the path was wrong? How could you tell whether you’d simply hit a slough of despond or whether the signs were correct and you truly were on a road to nowhere, with no reward at the end at all? How could you tell when it would be braver and stronger to change course than to stubbornly push on? When was it right to give up?

A memory came — searching for her mother’s drawings, the ones Margaret Turner had given her over all those years. April remembered rifling through drawers, tipping out boxes, until Ben’s father had eventually confessed that he couldn’t bear to let her destroy them. They were too good, so he was going to keep them safe, keep them for her, even if she never wanted them again. He had no right, she’d said. She’d sounded calm and been near hysteria. They were the last thing, the last reminders of love, and they had to be got rid of. But he’d refused. So many huge, momentous demands he’d acquiesced to but not this. On this, Dan hadn’t budged.

Dan. Not short for Daniel. His parents were atheists and hadn’t wanted a name from the Bible. So he was just Dan.

They’d met at a costume party during their last year of university. Guests had been asked to dress as something that started with the letter C. April had gone as a spoon, thinking ‘cutlery’ a fine joke that no one would ever get, and when Dan had turned up as a fork, she had experienced that instant thrill of recognition that is not quite lust and not yet love, but the foretelling of the potential for both. Dan’s first words were that he hoped no one else turned up as a knife, because he wasn’t adventurous enough for a threesome. When someone arrived as a pair of chopsticks, they’d made a run for it, giggling like loons. When you’re young and falling in love, April thought, silly and sublime are interchangeable.

She’d thought him beautiful, and it was true that he had the perfect classical face, like a Michelangelo. Trouble was it was above really quite a skinny body and beneath hair that looked like the wool of an unshorn sheep — same colour, same texture, curls in all direction. April had never seen anything like it. When her mother had first met him, she’d been convinced it was a fright wig and insisted on pulling it. Then she’d insisted on drawing him. Dan loved that drawing and had it framed, even though her mother had sketched it on a piece of cardboard ripped from a cereal box.

They were both only twenty-four when April had fallen pregnant. It was an accident. At the time, of course, they could not recognise the irony.

Dan. Her man. She should have been called Pearl, he used to joke, so that she could be his girl. As it was, he’d remarried a woman called Anne, so he’d got his rhyme in the end. In his letter to her — he always wrote when he had news he felt she ought to know — he’d almost apologised for remarrying so quickly. But a life without love was so unthinkable for Dan, it bordered on being classified as inhumane.

April fingered the chain around her neck. Dan had given her a necklace when Ben was born. It had been given away with all her other loved possessions, but she could picture it as if it were still around her neck. A fine gold chain, with a little gold heart pendant inset with three tiny diamonds for the three of them …

Dan’s new little boy — he would be two by now. Perhaps Dan was so happy that he could forgive her if she changed her mind?

A dragonfly, opalescent and startling, stitched the air outside the car window and darted off. April tried to keep track of it but it was gone in an instant, lost against the lucid blue of the sky.

When did you call time?

First things first, April decided. She should not have said those things to Oran. The accusations may not have been unfair but the delivery had most certainly been unkind. She was a hypocrite, asking for leniency for herself but unprepared to give it. She must apologise. She wanted to apologise.

But though it was not yet two o’clock, his van was not in the driveway, and when she opened Empyrean’s front door, the entranceway was empty of everything but her roller and tray of white paint, and a mug that, when she picked it up, left a damp brown ring on the dusty floor.

CHAPTER 31

December, 1942

This Christmas would be as merry as a hanging trial, thought James. Everyone around him seemed to be either enraged or in tears, and, even more irritating, no one was home to provide food. He’d finally found the breadbin in the pantry, and made his own bread and butter sandwich, which he was now eating resentfully in the kitchen, the one place he’d be left in peace as no one else had any intention, obviously, of coming near it.

His father had gone up to London. James had been woken early that morning by his father shouting at the telephone, or rather at whoever the unfortunate person was on the other end. Out of bed and at the top of the stairs, James had overheard only a snatch of conversation between his father and mother before his father grabbed his coat and hat and headed out the door. Seemed the factory workers had organised a strike, and Lewis Potts was intent on breaking it.

Muzzy with sleep, James had given no more thought to what that meant and had gone back to bed for another hour. At breakfast — scrambled eggs and toast practically hurled onto his plate by Sunny — he’d learned more.

‘He cut their wages,’ Sunny’s mother had been saying to his own. ‘And not just a little, but drastically, and before Christmas, too. Those workers are mostly women, who have children to support and husbands away at war. How on earth should they react? Just because it’s wartime, they should lie down and take it? Don’t forget, they’re not only fighting for their own rights — they’re fighting so that their menfolk can come home to decent, safe conditions and wages that will keep their families from penury. Which is the least they deserve after risking their lives for the rest of us, don’t you think?’

James’s mother had admitted the truth of this with a small nod, but her face remained drawn and unhappy.

‘He has these men,’ she said. ‘They’ll go there, to the picket line …’

Sunny’s mother uttered a curse word that made even Sunny raise her eyebrows.

‘And they won’t care at all that the strikers are women,’ said Sunny’s mother. ‘They’re the type who relish that sort of thing, and would do it even if they weren’t being paid. Too cowardly for war, but eager enough when their opponents are weaker and unarmed.’

‘Your mother was exaggerating as usual, wasn’t she?’ James said to Sunny, as she and Virgie washed the breakfast dishes. ‘No one’s going to set upon a bunch of women with coshes.’

‘Even the police baton-charged the strikers in 1926,’ Sunny said. ‘And they bashed women and children regardless.’

‘Oh, and how do you know that?’ said James, irked. ‘You were three years old! Is that what your bloody Bolshevik mother told you?’

Sunny brandished the dish brush like a hammer and shook it at him. ‘Better a Bolshevik for a mother than an evil bully for a father!’

Then she noticed Virgie, backed into a corner by the Aga, hands clamped over her ears and trembling.

‘Look what you’ve done!’ Sunny accused James fiercely. ‘She hates it when people get angry around her!’

James left her to hug and console Virgie, and went to seek out his mother. Though he was nineteen now, a grown man, he still found her quiet presence reassuring. She was like Rowan in that regard, someone who had the ability to make you feel better just by being there. Someone who could let you into a world that felt as if it were made for only the two of you.

But his mother was readying to go out.

‘I’m due down at the hall to show the committee my costume designs,’ she said, buttoning her coat.

‘Costumes?’

‘For the play. Christmas is so hard for the children who are apart from their families, so we decided to occupy them with some amateur dramatics. We’re doing Macbeth.’

‘Macbeth? Isn’t that a bit … gloomy?’

‘We did consider a nativity play, but they do rather require the children to be solemn and quiet. Macbeth has murder, blood, daggers, witches and ghosts,’ his mother had said with a smile. ‘What better outlet for pent-up emotion could they have?’

James was about to ask whether any set painting was needed for the play when he’d noticed the brooch on his mother’s coat lapel. It was the enamelled one from her box of secrets, blue with the bright orange pomegranate.

How many other things had she released from the box? Did she even have the box at all now? The idea struck him as a borderline betrayal. That box had been their secret — his and hers. If she had got rid of it, then it meant she had no more need for it, no more need to share a special time with her son.

What would she get rid of next, then? Him?

‘I must apologise in advance for being so busy,’ his mother said. ‘Assuming the committee likes my designs, I have only a week to make them all. First dress rehearsal is on the twenty-eighth.’

She went without giving him the usual quick, soft peck on the cheek, and without inviting him to come with her and help out. James would have said no, he had study obligations, but it would have been nice, he thought, to be asked. After all, no one in the vicinity could draw as well as he could. He could just imagine a set painted by the children themselves. Yes, why not emphasise the ‘dunce’ in Dunsinane?

Left alone, James had lingered in the hall outside his mother’s bedroom, pondering what to do next. He could go into the woods and leave a message for Rowan. But while Sunny and Lily’s idea of a leaf under a rock on the ledge above the falls had been all well and good over summer, in winter leaves were scarce, and the back way up to the ledge was slippery and treacherous. James had no wish to be plunged fully clothed into a pool of ice-cold water. He’d be back home at Easter, when the weather would be better. He could see Rowan then. It’s not as if Rowan would be going anywhere in the meantime.

Sunny had told him that she and Lily were still bringing Rowan food. The pair planned to sacrifice half their own portions of Christmas dinner, pudding, custard and all, and take it to him the next day. James had felt obliged to offer some of his own dinner, and hoped his mother’s economising wouldn’t mean a less generous spread than previous years.

Sunny had also told him about Day, who was writing to her now as a pilot in RAF Bomber Command. Apparently, Day had been assessed and, much to his surprise, recommended for a commission. He’d had his head shaved, and been restrained in a dark room, a collar around his neck securing him to a chair, and forced to identify objects that appeared randomly and for a split second only on a screen. He’d put his success at this down to the practice he’d received keeping an eye on Virgie, Liza, Mary, Ern and Fred, who, when released in any given area, scattered to the four corners like quail.

At age nineteen, by rights a year before a less able man should have qualified, Day had been put in charge of a crew who were bigger than Virgie, Liza, Mary, Ern and Fred but no less his responsibility. Their average age was twenty. As of February that year, Bomber Command had gained new Lancasters, GEE navigation and Bomber Harris, and since May had been pounding Germany with bombs. His crew, Day had written, had also done a spot of gardening, which apparently meant flying low over the North Sea and dropping — ‘sowing’ as Day called it — mines to catch the more unlucky German warships.

Sunny was unshakeable in her conviction that Day would survive the war, and James had kept quiet about the fact he did not share that view. Bomber Command, the rumour was, had well over a forty per cent death rate. Sunny was good at mathematics, she could easily calculate those odds.

Damn Day and his heroics, thought James. Damn all James’s fellow undergraduates, too, who, though students were exempt from conscription, had downed pen and paper and gone to fight. His own student status was a perfectly legitimate excuse, but it would be a lie to say no one would judge him for using it. This year, the war had been especially grim for the British and their Allies. America had not been the magic weapon everyone had anticipated, and yet another Christmas — that fabled end date to all conflict — was about to go by. I should do my bit, thought James, fear or no. His country needed men like him. Next June he would be twenty — a much more sensible age for fighting than eighteen. That was six months away. James was sure he could decide once and for all by then.

James, still lingering in the hall by his mother’s bedroom door, heard noises from downstairs that told him Sunny, her mother and Virgie were also readying to leave. Most likely they were headed for the farm, where they worked even on freezing days like this. Sunny’s mother had already been out that morning to milk the cows. Her cheeks and hands were chapped a raw-meat red when she’d arrived for breakfast, and she’d had to hold her hands under warm water until they had regained enough feeling for her to be able to use a knife and fork.

The farm had made James think of Lily. She was not in his mind so often these days. Her time as the Potts girl had long gone; none of James’s fellow students would even recognise her. Her big-eyed innocent look was out of date now, replaced by more sophisticated and sexy stars, such as Veronica Lake and Rita Hayworth. Only a month ago, James had seen a very young Rita Hayworth in an old 1930s movie, Dante’s Inferno, with Spencer Tracy. James should have been at a lecture but he’d been plagued by a recurring dream in which he arrived at the lecture hall to find everyone had enlisted except him, even the women, so he had instead cycled to the picture theatre and sat in the dark, watching Spencer Tracy in three of his early and undeniably B-grade films. Rita had played a dancer and must have been no more than sixteen. James had felt his groin stir at the sight of her and had been glad that he was in a dimly lit theatre, with only a few other lost souls who’d chosen to waste a fine weekday on woeful dialogue and hammy acting.

No, Lily was no Rita, James admitted to himself. But the thought of her, perhaps enhanced by James’s feeling roundly rejected by all the other women in his life, brought other, more enticing, thoughts to mind. James was beset by a sudden vision of he and Lily in the hayloft of the Blythes’ barn, she naked beneath him, her hair spread out, gold on the gold of the straw, and her breasts firm and round in his hands.

The ensuing erection was insistent and painful. James decided he had two choices: go up to his room and relieve it in private, or go out for a brisk walk and let the freezing air deal with it like a nurse with a cold spoon.

As he dithered, the silence in the house closed in on him. Bugger this, James thought, and he grabbed his coat and scarf and headed out in the direction of the farm, slamming the front door as hard as he could, though there’d been no one home to hear.

Mrs Blythe and Lily were in the kitchen, which smelled, as it always had, of good cooking and damp wool. Mrs Blythe looked a little harried, but Lily greeted him with a huge smile, a hug and a warm kiss on the cheek that made James feel somewhat better.

Lily was dressed in a pair of baggy corduroy trousers and what looked like an airman’s jersey, knitted from thick dark-blue wool. Her outfit completely concealed her shape, and her hair was tied in a rough ponytail and tucked under a scarf. But her face was as fresh and pretty as ever, so pretty that James began to wonder why he’d ever preferred Rita, who was, he’d had to admit, rather a tramp.

‘I’m just on my way to Ted’s,’ she said.

‘Ted’s?’ James replied. ‘Good Lord, why?’

‘To take him his dinner,’ she said. ‘But really, to check on him. He’s so blind these days that he’s a menace to himself. He’s nearly set the cottage on fire twice. But, of course, the stubborn old coot won’t ask for help.’

‘Is Sunny here?’ he asked. He’d not seen any sign of the three women on the way over.

‘They’re helping with the ploughing,’ Mrs Blythe told him. ‘Even Virgie, bless her. Government’s calling for more and more crops to be planted, so Ellis is ploughing up the grassland down the back as well as the usual fields.’

‘Ploughing for victory,’ Lily said, with a grin. ‘It’s like digging, only with three pairs of horses and a tractor.’

‘Who’s on the tractor?’

‘Who do you think?’

James did not like to imagine what mayhem Sunny was capable of wreaking with a tractor, but he supposed Farmer Blythe had been given little choice.

‘They’ll be in for their dinner soon,’ Mrs Blythe said. ‘You’re most welcome to join us, Master James.’

James was about to accept gratefully, when Lily had tugged at his  arm.

‘I know you’ve just trudged here through the horrible slush,’ she said, ‘but please come with me. Ted can be a bit — grumpy.’

Damsels did not always plan their distress for convenient times, James thought, with a sigh. The smells emanating from the stove were making his stomach rumble, and it wasn’t as if there was anyone at home to make him lunch. But fair enough — if anyone qualified as a dragon, it was Old Ted.

‘Hand me the stew pot,’ he said. ‘I can always brain him with the lid if he makes a lunge for the shotgun.’

The path to the cottage skirted the woods, which in the low winter light looked dark and menacing, the trees like twisted and spindly evil spirits right out of an Arthur Rackham illustration, James thought. Shapes and shadows dire.

Beside him, Lily shivered.

‘Cold?’ he asked.

‘Remembering,’ she replied.

‘God, of course.’

James wished he weren’t holding the bloody pot. He craved to put his arms around her. The woods might look forbidding to him, but what must they look like to someone who’d been dragged through them by two malevolent armed men.

‘And I can’t bear to think of Rowan in there,’ she added, lessening James’s desire to hold her by a significant measure.

‘Have you seen him recently?’ It seemed only polite to ask.

Abruptly, Lily had stopped walking. James turned and saw an expression on her face that, like some showy chemical experiment, froze his blood and then sent it boiling again. But it would not have done to let Lily know that.

‘Are you all right?’

He’d hoped to sound neutral but comforting. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted her to confirm what he’d just concluded, but it would be worse to leave and still be wondering.

Lily stood, head bowed, arms wrapped around her chest, hugging the thick jersey. James set the pot on the ground and moved closer, but not so close that it might have spooked her.

‘I can tell you, can’t I, James.’ It was less a question than an assertion. ‘You’ve always been good with secrets.’

‘I do my best.’

‘We did it. Rowan and I,’ she said, baldly, no prevaricating. ‘We had sex.’

‘Did you?’ It was all he could manage.

‘We didn’t mean to, and we knew we shouldn’t, but we did. He’s been so lonely, you see, and I felt so sorry for him — I couldn’t bear it, the idea that he might be alone in the woods forever, and so I kissed him, and then—’ She lifted her eyes long enough to give him an embarrassed look. ‘Well, I’m sure you know all about it, don’t you?’

No, James thought. No, he knew nothing about it. Cambridge had not been full of willing women as Sunny had promised. None that had been willing to do it with him, anyway. He had not asked, that was true, but still — the women there were more like Sunny than Lily, sure and confident and forward, and James had expected that at least one would make a pass at him. He was tall and handsome, and he had money and brains and sporting ability. What the hell more did they want?

Perhaps that was it, James thought, watching Lily hang her head. Perhaps it appeared as if he had everything, and so no one felt sorry for him. If he came across instead as pitiful as Rowan, would the women then come flocking?

‘I feel like a traitor,’ Lily said. ‘Papa would have a fit if he knew.’

‘I won’t tell him,’ James said.

It was the truth. He had no wish to even think about it, let alone broadcast it to the world.

‘Come on,’ he said, picking up the pot. ‘Ted will be even grumpier if the food’s cold.’

Lily gave him a wan smile.

‘God, I do love you, James Potts,’ she’d said. ‘Thank you for being you, from the bottom of my heart.’

Now, in his own home, in an empty kitchen with no food on the stove, James ate the last of his bread and butter sandwich and rejected the idea of making a cup of tea. He had no idea where the tea was kept and no patience to take the lid off every likely canister. It was nearly six o’clock and no one was home. More bread and butter for dinner tonight, he thought.

But then he heard the front door open, and the sound of women filled the air, loud as the sudden burst of cackling that erupts from a henhouse when a fox has just crept in.

‘Are we having custard?’ Virgie was saying, as she and Sunny bustled into the kitchen.

‘Yes, but only Bird’s,’ Sunny replied. ‘But we are having mashed potatoes. Bugger Lord Woolton’s feelings about peelings.’

‘You shouldn’t say bugger,’ said Virgie.

I may as well be invisible, thought James. Neither of them had acknowledged him at all.

‘Did you know,’ Sunny said, ‘that the cornstarch in custard powder can explode when it mixes with air? And that every pound of cooked bones makes enough fat for four ounces of nitro-glycerine?’

‘You should join the ATS,’ said James. ‘They need cooks.’

Sunny glanced at him at last.

‘Bugger that,’ she said. ‘Let’s get cracking, Virgie. Time to boil up some weapons.’

CHAPTER 32

mid-August

Oran had been gone for over a week now. The house had been silent, literally and in April’s mind, as if it were giving her the cold shoulder. April felt guilty for driving Oran away and worried for his safety. Most of all, which surprised her, she felt the hole created by his absence. She missed him and she wanted him to come back but she did not know enough about his life to have a clue how to find him. It was time, April decided, to confess to Edward.

Irene was, as usual, at her desk, sitting upright and typing steadily, the click-click of the keys contrapunto to a sizzling swirl of violin music that was playing really very loudly behind Edward’s office door.

‘Is he busy?’ said April.

Irene poised her fingers swan-like above the typewriter keys.

‘Busy, yes,’ she replied. ‘Engaged in work for clients who pay? No.’

‘Should I go in?’ said April.

‘That depends,’ said Irene, ‘on how you feel about Nigel Kennedy. Personally, my pleasure in Vivaldi is ruined by a persistent vision of a Mockney-accented grotesquery with ragged cuffs and spiked hair. If this din continues, I intend to take the afternoon off. Or cleave his record player in two with a hatchet.’

April knocked once and pushed open Edward’s door.

‘Mind your step!’

Edward’s warning froze her. At her feet was a paint pot, half filled with white paint. Edward was up a ladder, with tray and roller, applying said paint to a wall, which had been stripped of its ugly wallpaper. The desk, chairs, bookshelves, sideboard and sofa had been shoved into the centre of the carpet, and covered in drop cloths. The heavy curtains had been taken down. Newspaper had been taped over the mahogany mantelpiece. Edward was in a T-shirt and jeans, and remarkably unspattered.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Perfect timing. One must always break for elevenses between the “Danza pastorale” and the “Allegro non molto”. Union rules.’

‘What brought this on?’ said April, as he stepped off the ladder, and hit a button to kill the English Chamber Orchestra. April fancied she could hear Irene sliding the hatchet back into her desk drawer.

Edward slotted his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans and rocked back slowly on his heels.

‘What brought it on? My finally admitting that Sunny is right,’ he said. ‘I can’t float around in no man’s land forever, if you’ll pardon the double entendre. I came to this place because I wanted to escape, and I suppose a part of me always saw that as a temporary move. But temporary by definition is of limited duration, and I’ve been letting it drag on and on, with no end in sight. It was time to make a decision: stay or go. And so I made one.’

‘Is Irene a fan of Scandinavian minimalism?’ said April.

‘I did consider that. But I decided I should be true to my own tastes.’ He glanced around. ‘I can buy a Marimekko cushion, I suppose, if it ends up reminding people too much of a dental surgery.’

He smiled at her. ‘Anyway, I doubt you came here for a guided tour of my psyche. Shall we brave infant and oversize buggy hour at Costa, and talk over a weak latte?’

As Edward queued, April saw several of the young mothers give him more than a passing look. Fruitless but fair enough, she thought. Edward was not as bonelessly slender as his usual, more formal clothes made him appear. The slim-fitting T-shirt revealed muscular forearms, biceps and chest. The sun had tanned his face, which made his eyes look almost as blue as Sunny’s, and brightened his mouse-coloured hair with streaks of blond.

‘Your fan base by the toy box thinks you’re looking very Calvin Klein today,’ said April, when he rejoined her, cups in hand.

‘Is that rugged and outdoorsy?’

‘No, I think that’s more the Marlboro Man.’

‘Pity,’ said Edward. ‘I’ve always fancied rugged and outdoorsy men. That’s why I lived in London for so long. Why take an unnecessary risk of meeting someone who will break your heart?’

‘That’s what happened, though, didn’t it?’ said April.

‘Of course it did. Fate objects strongly to being tempted.’

The look he gave her next was his interrogative one. ‘Which lends us a rather clumsy segue into the topic of our permanently heartbroken Oran. I assume his vanishing act is why you sought me out?’

‘I was hoping you’d know where he is,’ said April.

‘I don’t, I’m afraid. The van has gone. I tracked down the folk singer (who is very pretty, by the way), but she knows nothing and neither, it seems, does anyone else.’

‘Has he gone to see her, do you think?’

Edward shook his head. ‘I doubt it. Cee-Cee Feares only emerges when she wants something from him. At all other times, she stays well out of his reach.’

April felt ill. The fug of artificial vanilla and hot milk did not help, nor did the shrieks of the two tots fighting over some plastic toy.

‘It’s all my fault,’ she said. ‘I was horrible to him.’

‘He’s a grown man, April. It’s his choice whether or not he reacts like one.’

That was too close for comfort to the mutterings that had originally provoked her.

‘Yes, but I was really horrible — vile. I’m not sure I can forgive  myself.’

‘Well, that’s your choice. And now I’ll present you with another: do you wish to keep working on the house? I’ll understand if you don’t.’

April had not given it a thought. Each day since Oran had left, she’d worked there on her own, expecting that day to be the one when he’d show up.

‘I’ve finally finished painting the entranceway,’ was the best answer she could give. ‘And Oran had already pretty much completed the staircase restoration …’

‘Then that’s the entranceway, drawing room, kitchen and dining room completed.’ Edward sat up. ‘That’s more than enough, I’d say. No need for you to do more. But don’t worry about money — I’ll advance you some to tide you over, and deduct it from the final settlement. Which, I suspect,’ he added, with a smile, ‘might not be too far off now. Since I put it on the market, we’ve had only tyre-kickers, but now I think we may have a serious bidder. Early days still, hence my question about working on the house, but definite grounds for optimism.’

April had the oddest sense that she’d left her body and was staring down at the two of them from the ceiling of the café. She knew the house had been on the market because she’d instructed Edward to put it there. She knew when a reasonable offer was made that she would accept it. And she knew that when the house was sold, she would leave. Because that had always been the plan.

But until now, the plan had been just that — a plan, a list of actions to be taken at some future time, when the stars aligned. Now, Edward was telling her that the stars had been moving all along and were very nearly in formation. Though it had been coming for months, she did not feel in the least prepared.

‘So … when will you know for sure?’

‘As I say, these things can drag on. With luck, though, it will be only a week or so before we’ll know if they’ll make an offer.’

Edward peered down at the last of his latte and made a face that signalled he would not be drinking it. Then he turned his clear gaze back on her.

‘A decision pending for you, too,’ he said. ‘Go or stay. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? But then, as we know from Hamlet, the big questions in life always do.’

April went to sit in the walled garden, on the rough grass around the back where the sun shone full. There was a rounded patch that April had already guessed to be the last resting place of the famous yellow apple tree. The stump had long since been dug out or rotted away, so April could not be sure, but she liked to think that she was right. She liked to imagine the feet of three small children dangling from branches above her, the fourth child swinging alongside, legs and arms outstretched as if flying. She could see them playing hide and seek here, and hear their laughter, quick and elusive among the foliage.

She had come from Empyrean, where she’d walked through the rooms that were now painted and fresh, and the rooms that were still broken and grimy, and she had listened out for the voices there, too, but had heard none. The house was filled with the kind of settled calm that could signify acceptance of defeat, but instead felt more like peaceful rest. April had closed the front door behind her with a sense that whatever ghosts may have been lingering, their last faint traces were now gone, their years of living among the wreckage at an end.

In the walled garden, the roses were fading now, the heat too much for them. But the dahlias were starting to flower. Their new buds should be picked off, according to The Popular Encyclopaedia, until the plants had gained sufficient height. Other plants had come up without help. A great clump of mauve catmint, and a stand of red hot pokers. Blue buddleia attracted the bees and a golden daisy had seeded itself freely all over. August was a time for potting bulbs, the Encyclopaedia told her. Narcissus, hyacinth and freesia would all emerge sweet-smelling in winter if started now.

Winter. Not so very far away. If she stayed, that is. If she went back, it would be summer again, but it would not feel like it. In the garden of Circle Court, it had never felt like summer. There was a dampness that never left, that chilled your feet always as you walked, crept right up to your knees if you sat on one of the battered benches.

Not that she could go back to Circle Court. Her flat would be occupied by someone else now, and so would Jenny’s. But if she were to re-create her old life, then she would have to live somewhere similar, somewhere small and drab, with the same few possessions. She could not keep the money from the house — perhaps Jenny’s church would take it? That way, her old life could begin again as if it had never ended.

But what was the purpose of that life? April knew what she’d intended for it to be, but she was no longer sure she had actually fulfilled it. She did not feel as if she’d achieved anything worthwhile. She could see now that the real end was still beyond her, and, strive as she might, she’d never reach it.

Because she could not wake the dead. Nothing she could do would ever bring Ben back. When he’d died, she’d believed the essential part of her had gone with him. But she was still here, and she could feel the sun’s warmth and smell the last of the roses, and she could hear the echo of children laughing under an apple tree.

And what of Dan? How could she explain that all the hurt she’d caused him might have been avoided, if she’d seen then what she could see now? If she’d let him convince her that it was possible to move on, to live with grief but not let it become your life?

Dan had moved on. Not quickly. Not easily. But he had, and he had a life with his new wife and his new little boy, and perhaps another child by now.

April’s hand went to the chain around her neck. Remorse and reconciliation, Edward had said the keys symbolised. She was not short on remorse; it had filled her up like sawdust for five years and choked the life out of her. But reconciliation? Was that even possible? Could Dan ever forgive her?

He could, she decided, because he was the kind of person who’d always want to. Perhaps, though, it was more important that she first forgave herself.

A flash of blue caught her eye. A kingfisher, on top of the garden wall, light bouncing off wings as bright as if they’d been enamelled. It crouched, beak pointed outwards, and then it sped off into the sky, straight as an arrow.

‘My fault.’

Jack had come within a few feet without her hearing him.

‘I startled it. Hope I didn’t startle you.’

‘I never expect to see you during the week,’ she said. ‘But I’m very glad you’re here.’

He dropped down beside her on the grass.

‘I came in for the water from the tap. It’s always cold.’

She had given him Kit’s old flask, thinking he had more need for it than her. He offered it to her, and she drank, and felt the icy rush renew her. She had not realised she’d been so thirsty.

‘I have these, too.’

He held a bundle made from an old handkerchief, and untied it to show her what it contained.

‘Strawberries?’

‘Wild ones.’ He nodded to them. ‘Go on.’

‘I don’t like to take food from you.’

‘Plenty more where these came from. For now.’

They were smaller and rounder than the garden variety, but they exploded in April’s mouth like a flavour bomb, all juice and sweetness.

‘Goodness,’ she said when she could. ‘Glorious.’

He shared them all with her. Threw the last one to the dog, who spat it out.

‘Heathen,’ said April.

‘He’s a dog,’ said Jack, with a smile. ‘What can you do?’

But April knew exactly what to do. She leaned in to him and pressed her mouth to his, and the here and now ceased to matter.

CHAPTER 33

mid-August

‘The war rid me of any capacity to be surprised,’ said Sunny. ‘Nothing was normal so everything was, if you know what I mean. You stopped looking for any rhyme or reason in events because it was obvious there was none.’

‘Well, I’m surprised,’ said Edward. ‘Pleasantly so, of course. Very pleasantly.’

April had wondered all day what their reaction might be. She’d assumed it would be positive, but then not everyone welcomed change, did they? There’s comfort in what you’re used to.

She’d even wondered if her appearance would pass without comment. Jack had made none; April had the firm impression he never even registered what clothing she wore. Edward might feel it ill-bred to react; he’d be the kind to pick up a soup plate and drink from it rather than make a foreign guest feel bad. Sunny might feel it was simply none of her business. Which, to be fair, it wasn’t. It was April’s choice, and she’d made it of her own accord.

She’d arrived at Sunny’s for afternoon tea with her hair cut and coloured, and wearing pink lipstick, white sandals and a primrose yellow dress. It was the dress from the linen chest in the attic, a style typical of wartime: short puffed cap sleeves, a deep V-necked bodice that gathered in soft folds under the bust, a fitted waist panel from which a full skirt fell to just below the knees. It was not the same as the dress she’d worn the day that Ben had died. But it was similar enough to make her heart race and her fingers stumble as she’d zipped it up. It fitted. As she’d known it would.

‘I recognise that dress,’ said Sunny. ‘Cora made it for the summer of 1943. The summer I left to join the ATS.’

‘Weren’t you very young?’ said Edward. ‘Not even twenty?’

‘You could join as soon as you turned seventeen,’ said Sunny. ‘But you had to be unmarried. I decided not to tell them I was engaged.’

They were sitting in the courtyard under the shade of a large green umbrella stuck through a hole in the middle of the table. The table was not quite large enough, so Edward was obliged to keep one foot resting on its base, lest it topple and Sunny’s pretty plates and cups shatter on the flagstones.

The air in the courtyard smelled of lavender, one of the few plants thriving in the dry weather. Pots of sedums and succulents were also doing well, and there were some wonderful flame-coloured daisies with mahogany centres. Fatso was absent. Hunting, according to Sunny. He did not need food, but that was irrelevant. The surrounding gardens were teeming with rabbits and shrews, mice and moles, and he intended to catch all of them.

‘Why did you join that summer?’ said April. ‘Had you been working up to it?’

She bit into one of Sunny’s cucumber sandwiches and marvelled again at how something so simple could be so delicious. The lemon cake on the table was her own. It had a scattering of thyme in it, picked from the walled garden. It had turned out pleasingly well, despite being made entirely from memory.

Sunny, April thought, had not heard her question, being busy inspecting the underside of a leaf on her climbing rose.

But after running her finger and thumb hard along the leaf’s surface, the older woman said, ‘No’, and paused to wipe her hand with a napkin. April saw on the cloth a green streak that had, only a second ago, been a cluster of aphids.

‘No, I had not been working up to it,’ Sunny continued. ‘I was put in a position where I had little other choice.’

‘What happened?’ said Edward. ‘That is, if you want to tell us.’

April knew why he’d added that rider. Sunny’s posture was no longer as upright, and the lines in her face had become pronounced in the way a passing cloud will summon the shadows in a landscape. For the first time in April’s acquaintance, Sunny looked every year of her age. No wonder Edward sounded anxious.

‘You know, I’m not even sure my children know the full story,’ said Sunny. ‘Perry did, of course, but he was the only one I could bear to tell it to.’

Edward began to assure her that she did not have to say a word, but she cut him off with a wave.

‘Oh, no need to spare my feelings,’ she said. ‘I’m a tough old bird, you know. And as time goes on, these memories hurt less and become part of what make you who you are. It certainly helped make me. If I’d ever been in two minds about how I wanted to live my life, I had no doubt at all afterwards.’

‘Well, only if you’re sure,’ said Edward.

But Sunny did not hear him. She had been cast back over seventy years, to a place, April guessed, that was markedly less peaceful.

‘We were in the Blythes’ shed,’ she began, ‘milking the cows. The farm labour shortage was chronic by then — so bad in some areas that the government was considering releasing POWs. Supervised, of course.’

Sunny’s tone became accusatory.

‘People today have no idea how busy farms used to be. Today, you raise sheep or grow crops or milk cows, whereas then the Blythes did all of those and more, and with none of the technical contrivances we have now to save labour. They kept poultry and sheep and a milking herd. They grew wheat and barley, and oats to feed the stock. They harvested apples and nuts. Cob nuts. Hazel nuts. They ploughed, harrowed, rolled, made hay, spread muck, sheared, mended fences and hedges. They raised calves and lambs, and killed and hung their own meat. They took their own produce to market. It was not a big farm by today’s standards, but before the war there had been six men working on it besides Ellis and his two sons. In 1943 there were Ellis and Martha Blythe, Lily and, when they could, her brother’s wives, Cora, my mother and me, and wee Virgie, who was thirteen by then but still tiny. Seven and a half women doing the work of nine men.’

‘What about Mr Potts?’ April said.

‘Hardly!’ said Sunny. ‘Ellis Blythe worked for him, not the other way round. Besides,’ she added, darkly, ‘he had other things on his mind at that time.’

‘Trouble at mill?’ said Edward. ‘Political graft? Sex scandal?’

‘Do you want to hear this or not?’

‘Please. Carry on.’

‘We would take turns getting up before dawn to milk the Guernseys,’ said Sunny. ‘I enjoyed it but once we found Virgie asleep, still sitting on the stool, her head resting on the cow’s side. After that, we let her stay in bed.

‘That morning, it was my mother and me, and Martha Blythe. The sun had just risen when we heard it. A stop-start buzz, up in the air. An aeroplane with a failing engine. We kept milking, as we had to, but we were all listening intently. Its sputtering became louder — there was no doubt it was coming closer. Then silence, for no more than a few seconds. And then — bang!’

She slammed her hand down on the table. Edward and April jumped, and table and umbrella lurched, sending teacups rattling. April steadied the umbrella, while Edward clamped his foot back down on the table base.

‘The plane crashed,’ said Edward. ‘Obviously.’

‘Was it Germans?’ said April.

‘No,’ said Sunny. ‘A mixed crew, American and British. Joy-riding in a decommissioned Vickers Wellesley. They crashed in the back field. The plane clipped the top branches of an old oak, landed smack on the ground and burst into flames. We heard the woomph quite distinctly. Exactly like setting a match to gas.’

April’s hand flew to her mouth.

‘We left the cows half-milked and ran,’ said Sunny. ‘All of us, even Martha Blythe, who was no sylph. We met Ellis Blythe, running from the farmhouse. By the time we reached the field, the front of the plane was ablaze. One of the airmen had managed to get out, and he was staggering towards us, bashing away at the flames on his uniform. My mother and Cora had both completed first aid training through the WI. Ellis Blythe had on his old tweed jacket, heavy as a blanket, which my mother practically ripped from his back. She sprinted to the burning airman and shoved him to the ground so that she could roll him in the jacket and extinguish the flames. I’m not sure the poor man knew what hit him, but I suspect that his brain only started to function again once he was no longer burning. Before that, he was like an animal fleeing a stubble fire, blind terror overtaking all else.’

‘Who could blame him?’ said Edward. ‘Was he badly burned?’

‘He was,’ said Sunny. ‘But he was alive.’

She paused, to gather herself. A bumblebee was lofting to and fro in the lavender, humming its contented oboe note.

‘Martha Blythe had the presence of mind to return to the farmhouse and telephone for the doctor and police,’ Sunny began again. ‘She tried to take me with her, but I refused. These airmen were Bomber Command, the same as Perry. I’d never have forgiven myself if I’d not seen this through to the end.

‘The airman’s lungs were burned so badly he could hardly speak. My mother and I were bent over him, straining to hear. He said: “There are other chaps in the cockpit.” My mother asked: “How many?” He held up three fingers. Red raw they were, seared free of skin, down almost to the bone. I was so hypnotised by them that the first I knew that my mother was running to the plane was a warning shout from Ellis Blythe.

‘He ran to catch up with her. There was ammunition in the plane, shells were already flying in the heat, but my mother could not be dissuaded. She went in, of course, and so did Ellis. He had no choice.’

‘Your mother was an extraordinary woman,’ said Edward.

‘How they bore the inferno of that fuselage, I’ve no idea,’ said Sunny, as if she hadn’t heard. ‘They came out dragging another airman.’

‘Alive?’

‘My mother didn’t stay to find out. She left him with Ellis and ran again to the plane. This time, I held Ellis back, made him stay put. I think, you see, that I knew.’

Sunny, unconsciously, was twisting her wedding rings around her finger. The rings, a platinum band and three modest diamonds set in gold, were loose and circled easily. The veins of her hands showed blue under translucent skin.

‘It went up in a huge explosion, a fireball straight up into the sky. We were all burned a little by it, red patches on our skin and spots behind our eyes for days afterwards. My mother would have been killed instantly. There was no way of knowing whether the remaining two airmen had been alive or already dead. I like to think that they may have been alive. That she did not die for nothing.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said April.

She had a burst of sympathy for all those people who’d said exactly those words to her. They were woefully inadequate, but really, what else could you say?

‘I remember that I stood rooted to the spot,’ said Sunny, ‘absolutely numb with shock and disbelief. It took me a moment to feel Ellis Blythe’s hand on my shoulder, and to hear the noise, a high sound, keening on and on. I thought it was the aftershock of the explosion ringing in my ears. Until I realised it was coming from my own mouth.’

Sunny looked through the kitchen window to the sideboard, on which the photo of her and Perry on their wedding day could just be seen.

‘I made much the same sound when he died,’ she said. ‘My children were most distressed.’

‘Oh, my dear girl,’ said Edward, as if she were still only nineteen.

‘My memories of the day from then on are very patchy,’ Sunny said. ‘But I do distinctly recall Cora Potts, white-faced, gripping me by the shoulders and insisting that I could stay with them for as long as I wanted. That Empyrean was my home, too.

‘Cora,’ Sunny nodded towards April, ‘was wearing that dress.’

April glanced down, instinctively, as if somehow she would find she’d been transported back in time, and into another’s body.

‘I had no doubt she was sincere,’ said Sunny. ‘But I also had no doubt that I would leave. I could not bear the thought of being in the house without my mother, of entering rooms expecting to see her, or hearing laughter that could and should have been hers. After the funeral I enlisted and within two weeks I was in a training camp in Devon. I had no idea, at the time, that I would never see either Cora or James again, and that it would be over a decade before I next saw Lily.’

‘Did you correspond?’ said Edward.

‘Regularly with Lily, less and less often with Cora. By the late ’50s, she was in Paris, designing textiles. I saw an article about her in Vogue magazine, after she died. Her signature pattern was called “Harvest”, stylised wheat sheaves and bright orange pomegranates and an odd little round bird that, if you looked at it from an angle, resembled exactly a curlicued letter D.’

Sunny drew in a breath.

‘I suppose you’re wondering if they were lovers. My mother and Cora.’

Edward cleared his throat. ‘Well, er—’

‘To tell the truth, I’m not sure. But I rather think not. Apart from James and me, they were all they had. They saved each other from an isolated, lonely life. It’s no wonder they grew so close.’

‘Did your mother’s death spur Cora to leave, too?’ said Edward.

‘It may have provided the initial impetus,’ said Sunny, ‘that first push that sets the flywheel turning. But, again, I can’t be sure. Cora left in April ’44. She took nothing but the clothes she had on and some money she’d made by selling her jewellery. She took Virgie over to the Blythes and told Martha Blythe she was catching a train to London for the day, to do some shopping. She never returned.’

‘Did Mr Potts go looking for her?’ April said.

‘Mr Potts’s hired thugs went looking for her. They had no success. It was as if she’d been spirited away.’

The door to the courtyard was open, and from inside the house came a sustained yodelling yowl.

‘Home is the hunter,’ said Sunny, with a sigh. ‘Which means either a headless rabbit corpse on the doorstep or a dead shrew in the laundry sink.’

‘Headless?’ said Edward, with a quick grimace of distaste.

‘He crunches up their skulls with a sound reminiscent of a small cow eating swedes,’ said Sunny. ‘The shrews, by contrast, have not a mark on them. I suspect they may die instantly of fright, and Fatso’s depositing of them in my sink is more to deprive another cat than to proudly display a trophy.’

Fatso slid through the doorway and curved around Sunny’s leg. She bent to stroke him and he butted his head against her hand, and then leapt up onto her lap.

‘I had a phone call from Charlie’s wife yesterday,’ Sunny said, unhooking the cat’s claws from her cotton-knit top. ‘Seems my oldest son has been in hospital, undergoing tests on his heart.’

‘Serious?’ said Edward.

‘I doubt it. Charlie is a notorious hypochondriac. But he has been advised, apparently, to take it slowly. No excitement.’

‘And your birthday party might well qualify as excitement, I assume.’

Fatso’s eyes were closed tight and his purr vibrated the air, loud as an approaching swarm of bees.

‘At least you bring me presents,’ Sunny said to him. ‘Even if I have to remove them on a shovel afterwards.’

She fondled the velvety spots at the base of his ears.

‘Tests of the heart. We all face them, don’t we? But I’m not sure there exists any medical intervention to assist with mine.’

CHAPTER 34

December, 1943

His announcement should have made him the centre of attention, thought James. But, even six months later, everyone was still blinking in the aftermath of Sunny’s mother’s fiery death, still dazzled by its brilliant halo. The news that he had decided to leave the shelter of his student exemption and enlist seemed trivial and mundane — he was only one of hundreds of thousands of others who’d done the same and, let’s face it, in the circumstances it was the least he could do. On top of that, he was still here and very much alive. He was not a hero yet.

Dorothea ‘Dimity’ Northcote had been posthumously awarded the Albert Medal for conspicuous gallantry. Sunny had declined to attend the ceremony organised by the mayor of Kingsfield, so James’s mother had accepted the medal on her behalf. The entire village had turned out for the medal ceremony, and for the funeral, too.

James, like Sunny, had only come for the funeral. He had only brief words with Sunny, being one in an enormous line waiting to offer condolences, and straight afterwards she’d enlisted in the ATS and gone to a training camp in Devon.

She’d arrived there, she said in a letter to him, as instructed, with no civilian clothes other than what she was wearing, and James got the impression that she’d welcomed the chance to be rid of reminders of home.

The ATS wouldn’t take married women, and unsure of their views on almost-married ones, Sunny had given her engagement ring to Reverend Brownlow for safekeeping. She wrote that there was still the risk that Ern might steal it. He’d stolen over a pound’s worth of coins from the collection plate while Reverend Brownlow was actually holding it. Mrs Cake only realised when she heard him jingling as they walked home.

By the time of the medal ceremony, Sunny was in an army camp in Nottinghamshire, driving lorries. In another letter, Sunny described her uniform — khaki serge with brass buttons and buckle, lisle stockings (also khaki), and heavy brown brogues. James wondered if Sunny liked wearing clothes that made her look exactly like all the other girls. He guessed that she would never look exactly like them. Sunny could be clad all in black against a starless sky and the force of her would glow like metal on a blacksmith’s forge.

James did not speak to Lily at the funeral at all, had no contact but to acknowledge her wave with one of his own. Lily and her mother insisted on doing all the catering, and were far too busy doling out cups of tea and sandwiches to the horde of mourners to speak to him. He had not expected Rowan to attend, but it would have been good to know how he was, and whether Lily still … visited him.

But there’d be time for a conversation now that he was home for Christmas. It would be a rather reduced Christmas without Sunny and her mother, just the three of them, plus Virgie, of course, who was so quiet she didn’t really count. His mother had suggested inviting the Blythes but his father wouldn’t hear of it. His father was not in a particularly festive mood. From the little he’d said, James knew that not all was well at the factory. No more strikes had been organised, but there had been several accidents that had brought a halt to production. By ‘accidents’, his father clearly meant sabotage, though it seemed nothing could be proved. In any case, production delays had not made a material dent in sales because they were continuing their rapid slide. Over the past year, Potts had begun to lay off staff, which had immediately spurred many workers to leave for better pay and conditions in ordnance factories. Those who stayed were probably the kind who preferred the devil they knew, thought James. Or who enjoyed stirring up trouble.

James’s father, however, was confident that any decline was temporary. When the war ended, sales would pick up, as would his political career when general elections began once more to be held. There were always boom times after wars, said James’s father. It was a natural cycle.

Virgie was in the hall, coat on and head almost entirely obscured by a large knitted muffler. She held a basket in be-mittened hands.

‘You’re not walking into the village, are you?’ said James. ‘It’s bloody cold out.’

She shook her head. ‘The Blythes. For eggs.’

James took his own coat and muffler from the stand. ‘I’ll come with you.’

Usually, Virgie was so quiet you hardly knew she was there. It was a useful survival tactic, he supposed, to be able to disappear into the background. James found it quite restful to be around her, as he had as a child with his mother and in his teenage years during his excursions with Rowan into the woods. Being with peaceful people helped you feel at peace, too. You could, of course, read their quiescence as indifference — that they didn’t care whether you were there or not — but James preferred to interpret their silence as companionable. He preferred that whatever thoughts they might or might not have remained unspoken. Then he could believe what he liked.

‘Are you scared?’

The content of Virgie’s question startled him as much as its utterance.

‘About what?’

‘Going to fight.’

‘Ah,’ said James. ‘Yes, I am. Quite a lot.’

It seemed safe enough to admit this to Virgie. She was unlikely to pass it on.

‘Are you scared of getting hurt? Or of hurting someone else?’

Dear God, how old was she? Thirteen going on ninety-five?

‘Probably more scared of getting hurt.’

‘Ern got hurt end of summer,’ said Virgie. ‘He fell out of the mayor’s plum tree. Broke his arm.’

James had heard about that. Mrs Cake had been sympathetic enough to strap up Ern’s arm before tanning his rear end for scrumping.

‘If all that happens is I break my arm,’ said James, ‘I’ll consider myself lucky.’

And if he lost an arm, he’d be invalided out. James had never thought there’d be a time he would envy Billy Curry and his one leg.

As they approached the Blythes’ front door, someone was exiting.

‘Oh! James. Virgie. Good morning.’

It was Reverend Brownlow. He looked rather weary and harassed, James thought, but then his wife had only a week ago given birth to child number three, another daughter, which meant he now had three girls under three, an equation designed to murder sleep more effectively than Macbeth. (The Scottish play, being such a hit with the children last year, was being performed again this Christmas. Virgie was playing Banquo’s ghost, a part that could have been written for her.)

‘Your mother has very graciously invited me for drinks this evening,’ Reverend Brownlow said to James. ‘Could you be so kind as to let her know that I will regretfully have to decline? Imogen and Eliza both have croup and the baby is colicky, and, of course, Eleanor is quite exhausted after such an arduous labour, and so I really should—’

‘My mother will quite understand.’

James had caught the door before it shut, and now opened it a crack more to allow Virgie to sidle around the vicar and escape indoors.

‘Well, I mustn’t keep you outside in this weather,’ the Reverend was saying. But James was already closing the door.

Lily grabbed him by the hand as soon as he entered.

‘Barn,’ she said. ‘I need to talk to you.’

The barn, despite being well insulated by hay, was not the Blythes’ nice warm kitchen, where Virgie was about to be served a cup of hot cocoa and possibly a fresh baked bun. Lily could have waited five minutes before dragging him away, James thought.

But no, apparently she couldn’t have. He’d barely sat down on a hay bale before she launched into speech.

‘Reverend Brownlow came to talk to me about Rowan,’ she said. ‘He knew Papa was at the market, and that Mama still has a soft spot for Rowan. He’s so terribly worried about him. This will be his third winter in the woods and—’ Lily grabbed his hand again ‘—he told me that Rowan had tried to come to Mrs Northcote’s funeral. But he went to ask Old Ted if he wanted to come, too, and the bloody old sod took to him with his ash stick!’

‘What?’

‘Beat him so hard he bled, the Reverend said!’

Lily was gripping James’s hand too tightly for comfort, and her face was flushed dark red with anger — and fear, too, James saw. Her mouth was trembling and her eyes had a wild look to them, like a trapped animal.

‘Old Ted is ancient and pretty much blind,’ said James. ‘Surely Rowan could have stopped him?’

‘Oh, Rowan’s so weak now.’ Lily was close to tears. ‘So thin, you can see every rib. And he was so brave, trying to come to the funeral when so many of the villagers still hate him for being a coward. He did it for Sunny. Or he would have, if—’

And now she was crying properly, one hand still gripping James’s, the other trying to wipe away tears and snot.

‘Here.’ James offered her his handkerchief. ‘How the hell did Reverend Brownlow find out that Rowan had been beaten?’

Lily blew her nose. ‘Ted told him.’

‘Confessed?’

‘Not officially. The Reverend wouldn’t have been able to tell me if that were the case. Ted just sought him out last week and told him. Perhaps he wanted someone to make sure Rowan hadn’t died, though it would have been bloody months too late, the old sod. Who knows? I hate him!’

‘How come you didn’t know anything about it?’ said James.

Lily shook her head, eyes welling again. ‘I didn’t see him at all over the summer. I meant to but it was so busy here, because we lost Sunny and, of course, Mrs Northcote …’

James said, softly, cautiously, ‘And have you seen Rowan since?’

‘Oh, God.’

Those whispered two words contained all the information James needed.

‘I felt the scars on his back.’ She was barely audible. ‘I didn’t know what they were. I thought he’d been scraped by branches or something. I should have asked.’

‘When was this?’

‘Two weeks ago.’ Lily began swiping at her eyes with the handkerchief again. ‘We didn’t mean to, we really didn’t, but — oh, God.’

‘Come here.’

James reached out and gently drew her into an embrace. She came willingly and clung to him, face buried in his chest.

‘Dear, oh dear,’ he said. ‘It’s all a mess, isn’t it? A bloody mess.’

She began to hiccup with sobs. James cradled her head back onto his chest.

‘Shh, shh. Don’t think about it. You’re here, and so am I. Right now, we’re here and alive and well, so let’s just focus on that, shall we?’

Lily’s arms tightened around him, and they sat on the hay bale, locked together, until Lily lifted her head again and kissed him on the cheek.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You always know exactly what to say.’

James raised his hand, meaning only to brush the clinging blonde strands from her damp face. But a deeper urge made him cup her face and pull her to him, and take his first ever kiss from her beautiful mouth.

She pushed his chest to break it and it was his turn to say, ‘Oh, God.’

‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’

But she did not look angry with him, or offended. She looked kind, concerned.

‘It’s the feeling that comes over you when you’re scared,’ she said. ‘I know it all too well.’

‘Am I scared?’ He attempted a smile.

‘I would be,’ she said. ‘I’d be terrified.’

She reached out and, just as he’d intended before, stroked his hair.

‘My brave boy,’ she said. ‘So, so brave.’

And he kissed her again, couldn’t stop himself, and she did not resist but kissed him back. But when he lifted her down off the hay bale and onto the straw-covered floor of the loft, she began to struggle away.

‘No,’ she said, breathlessly. ‘No, we can’t.’

James so nearly yelled at her. She’d do it again and again with Rowan! Why the hell not just once with him?

But he said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll stop.’

And he sat up, leaned against the hay bale and dropped his face despairingly into his hands.

‘Oh, James.’

Lily was beside him, hand in his hair again, stroking.

‘It’s all right.’

She thought he was crying, he realised. And by God, he felt like it. All those years of wanting and never, ever having, never even getting close. All those years, and she had no idea. No one did. At least no one would know about today, either. That was a consolation prize, of sorts.

But what was this? Her hands, warm palms, cold fingertips, were on his, drawing them away from his face. And now her mouth was on his, and she was coaxing him back down onto the straw. And now her hand — James felt a jolt as if he’d touched a faulty switch — was down there, and …

‘Oh, God,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, God, yes.’

At last.

The panic set in the following morning. James had a sudden recollection of Sunny saying that she would never get pregnant because her mother had insisted on buying her a cervical cap and instructing her on its use. French letters weren’t reliable enough, Sunny’s mother had declared. Or rather, men weren’t reliable enough to properly inspect their contraceptives for holes. Her mother had learned everything from Marie Stopes’s Married Love, Sunny had said, which was ironic considering her father had been about as keen on sex as one of those monks in the Greek monastery who wouldn’t allow anything female on the premises, not even hens. Probably less keen, knowing monks.

He’d used nothing. He was fairly sure Lily wouldn’t know anything about cervical caps. She had not got pregnant with Rowan, but then, who knew — perhaps Rowan was too weak to produce anything fertile? Or perhaps Rowan had been cautious and pulled out before …

James had not been cautious. He had not pulled out. He could not be sure that meant Lily was pregnant but, equally, he could not be sure she was not. James recalled that Sunny had been adamant that having sex without contraception was a mug’s game; humans were meant to breed and nature very rarely made that difficult. If you were a young, healthy male and hadn’t ridden a bicycle too often over cobbled streets, Sunny had avowed, you’d have no trouble at all getting a girl up the duff.

And what would happen if Lily were pregnant? One thing and one thing only, James knew: he would be marched up the aisle by Ellis Blythe, the big man’s vice-like grip on his arm. No amount of James’s father’s money or influence would make a difference, not when Lily’s reputation was at stake. Even if Lily were honest and confessed that the baby might also be Rowan’s, Ellis Blythe would never allow that union. Only James would be marrying a pregnant Lily, whether he wanted to or not.

James did not want to marry Lily. Now that he’d — now that they’d — done it, he did not even particularly want to do it again with her. It had been very good, really quite a lot better than he’d imagined, but it was as if now that he’d won that particular title, he felt no need to defend it. The conquest of Lily was a minor, provincial race — good fun in the moment — but now he could look to compete in a bigger arena. As a soldier in foreign places, he would have access to all kinds of women, older, more beautiful — more sophisticated. True prizes that only the best could hope to win.

What the hell should he do? His first instinct was to talk to Sunny, but he had no idea how to get hold of her. He could hardly talk to his mother. Or, God forbid, his father.

He could talk to Rowan. Even if all Rowan did was listen in his usual calm way, it would be enough. It would be a load off James’s mind. A problem shared is a problem halved and all that. Confession is good for the soul.

Not today, though — for one thing, it was Christmas Day, and for another, he’d have to leave the sign at the swimming hole first. Lily would not know she was pregnant for — well, a few weeks, he supposed. He could wait a day.

It then occurred to him that Rowan might not be so pleased to hear that he was not Lily’s only lover. But he could hardly be jealous. Rowan and Lily couldn’t even have a proper relationship let alone a future together. Ellis Blythe would sooner cut off his own arm …

James could not tell where the idea came from. It seemed to seep into his mind as if from an underground stream, leaching its way upwards from a dark cave. A trickle of an idea that once it found the way in began to surge and rush.

No. James held up a hand, Canute-like, in his mind. The idea was impossible.

But then having sex with Lily had always seemed impossible, and here he was, in this predicament because the impossible had come true, like one of those diabolical fairytales where what you wish for never turns out well. Where you’re punished soundly for your greed, your gluttony or your pride.

James heard his mother calling him. Christmas Day. Presents under the tree. The king and carols on the wireless. Oh, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.

He’d go out for a walk — he often did, nothing strange in that. And tomorrow, he’d bring Rowan some carved slices of goose, a few roasted vegetables and a serving of pudding, perhaps the one with the silver piece in it.

And then he and Rowan would talk.

CHAPTER 35

mid-September

The bracken fern on the hills was bronze now, the berries on the hawthorn beginning to colour. Goldfinches were feasting on the thistle seed that flew in downy clouds up to the sky.

Autumn was here, but it did not feel like that. The days were still long and warm, and full of cricket chirp and soft, grass-scented air. Lying there in the wildflower meadow, with the dandelions and daisies and starry red campion, April could almost believe that time had paused for a while, to let her and Jack just be at ease.

She had long since given up trying to persuade him into an indoor bed. Even the woods felt too closed in for him now, he said, and the garden should be for working, so the meadow it was. April did not have his tolerance for scratchy grass and bumpy ground, so she had taken to bringing with her the blanket she’d found in the attic, rolled up and tied with one leg of an old pair of pantyhose, the other leg having been cut into strips and put to use in staking tomatoes.

The tomatoes had sprung up in Kit’s garden, seeded from those that had fallen over-ripe or been bird-pecked out of last year’s crop. April’s father had always grown tomatoes, so April knew how to stake the plants and pick out the laterals so that they did not get too bushy. You want them to put their energy into growing fruit not leaves, her father had told her. The tomatoes were sweet and full of flavour — nothing like their bland supermarket counterparts. April liked to eat them sliced, with salt and pepper, olive oil and a drop of treacly balsamic vinegar that had been a present from Sunny. Jack preferred them plain and whole. ‘Come to the cottage any time and pick some,’ April had told him. ‘I don’t like being that close to houses,’ he’d replied. ‘Even ones lived in by you.’

He’s been so good to me, thought April. So kind and patient. That day in the garden, he’d kissed her back, taste of strawberry on his tongue, but when she had reached for him, he’d caught her hand and asked her if she was sure. ‘Of course I’m bloody not,’ she’d replied. ‘But I want to very badly and, right now, that’s enough. If you want to, that is,’ she’d added, searching his face, suddenly anxious. ‘Glory be,’ he’d said, and that had been the end of talk for the afternoon.

But it had not been entirely easy and carefree. There were moments she felt as if she were being dismantled, taken apart bit by bit like a child’s toy and reassembled into something she did not recognise. That one day she might wake up to find she’d become another woman entirely, a woman half owl and half flowers, someone else’s creation, not her own. Or she would be overtaken by a sense of doom — she’d made the wrong choice and God or Fate was busy lining up some kind of punishment, setting a trap for her to fall in. When she felt like this, Jack would just hold her until she was steady again. He never minded how long that took.

Then there were wonderful moments, when she felt like she was soaring, that her body and all her senses had been given wings. She could see now that she’d been right, that all that restlessness, those phantom tastes and smells, had been her old self, the true April, pushing upwards like green shoots through the darkness in which she’d buried them. For five years she’d insisted everything be filtered through a half-light, grey and dull, watery and weak. Now, the world warmed and sang, colours were brilliant, smells heady, and every touch and taste voluptuous. When Jack’s hands and mouth were exploring, and he was moving with her, inside her, April felt connected with the essence of every growing and living thing around her. She felt that she, too, could call the birds down to her from the sky. Or fly with them, high as she liked.

‘That cloud looks like a swan,’ she said.

‘So it does.’

‘Have you ever eaten a swan?’

‘Swans belong to the king.’

‘To the queen, you mean.’

‘To the current reigning monarch. Swans are royal property. Once upon a time, you could be hanged for poaching them.’

‘Now, I suppose you just get a fine. Or a few days in jail, as a  deterrent.’

The swan cloud had diffused and elongated out of shape. A beaky tropical flower now, perhaps. Or just a cloud.

‘All things considered,’ said Jack, ‘I’d rather hang than go to jail.’

‘In God’s name, why?’ April propped herself on one elbow, frowned down at him. ‘Hanging’s a terrible death!’

‘It’s over quicker than a jail term,’ he said, with a shrug.

‘Yes, but you get out of jail alive. Quite a difference.’

‘I wouldn’t survive in jail. Four small walls would destroy me.’

‘I don’t like thinking about you dead,’ April said, after a moment.

‘Then don’t think about it.’ He reached up, stroked her cheek. ‘I’m not dead. I’m right here.’

April rolled onto her back and stared up at the lamb-white clouds renewing themselves over and over in the sky. The irony was, she thought, that he had no idea how often she was using that as a strategy. On the list of items she was not thinking about were: Oran and his whereabouts, whether he was safe, whether he would ever return; whether she wanted the house sold after all; and if it did sell, whether she should go home or — a new thought and thoroughly unformed — stay.

Last on the list, buried deep down, was Dan. She had loved Dan, loved him more than anyone until Ben was born. And that love was still there, she could feel it, like a small, warm creature nestled within her, sleeping.

April had no doubt that Dan still loved his first son, his dead boy Ben, as much as ever, as much as she did. But when Dan thought of her now, was it with any affection? Or had she killed any residual fondness for her as surely as if she’d wrung its neck and hammered its corpse to the wall of an old wooden shed?

She would write to Dan. He deserved to know how things were with her. Even if that knowledge revived some of his pain and regret, Dan would prefer a better ending for her than the one he’d seen her heading towards when she left him. Which meant, April realised, that she’d answered her previous question. Of course Dan still had affection for her. His capacity for love was boundless, and always would be.

‘Do you still love her?’ April asked, quietly.

‘Who?’

‘The woman who drowned.’

‘What makes you think I loved her?’

April was taken aback. ‘Because you dived into a flooded river to save her.’

He shook his head. ‘That wasn’t love. That was — pride. Wounded pride.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’d been trying to help her. Trying to make her see what she had, what life could give her, and I was arrogant enough to believe I’d been successful. She proved me wrong. Proved by choosing death that she hadn’t heard or cared for a word I’d said.’

‘Are you saying she committed suicide?’

‘Why do we need to label death with terms like that?’ Jack sounded irritated. ‘She died. Does the how make any difference?’

‘Well — the law likes to be quite clear on whether it was suicide or murder.’

‘The law is an invention,’ he said. ‘Made up because people need to believe that bad deeds will always be punished. Religion, too, invented just for that reason. Laws and divine retribution. All because people want someone to blame when things go wrong. Because of a need to know that someone will pay.’

April remembered the driver of the car that had hit Ben. A grandfather, helping out with after school pick-up. Because he’d been old, there’d been some question about whether he’d seen Ben, and for a moment there, April had wanted desperately for the police to find the man at fault. But he’d been so shattered by the accident, had crumpled like a rag and sobbed when he’d seen Ben’s body on the road, seen there was no hope. April knew that she had ruined his life, too. She could not wish more suffering on him.

‘Do you regret not being able to save her?’ she asked.

His had always been a hard face to read. But she could read it now — see the hollowing out behind the eyes, memory travelling backwards on a dark train, to a cliff edge where there is no buffer, nothing to stop the plunge.

‘I do,’ he said. ‘It’s the one regret I do keep with me. I need to. I need to remember.’

‘Remember what?’

She saw his expression shift. Sadness now had a bitter edge.

‘I took it for granted that I would be able to save her. How arrogant that was. As if I knew better than she did about what was good for her. That’s what I need to remember — that I couldn’t help her. That she didn’t even want my help.’

‘But that doesn’t mean you can’t help others,’ said April. ‘You’ve certainly helped me.’

‘Have I?’

‘Of course you have! I wouldn’t be where I am now without you!’

‘And so my job’s done?’ It sounded like an accusation.

‘What are you trying to get me to say? That I no longer need you? Because that’s not true!’

‘You enjoy being with me. That’s not the same as needing me.’

April was at a loss, and wary; she had not seen him like this. ‘I’m not sure what you’re driving at,’ she said, carefully. ‘I’m not sure of your point.’

‘Exactly.’ From bitter to furious. ‘What is the point of me? Round and round I go, but what exactly is the point!’

‘Jack!’

But he was on his feet, buttoning his shirt with angry haste, not caring if he missed some. And he began to stride away, boots in hand, too eager to be gone to put them on, a dog and a rustle of grass heads in his wake.

‘Oh, hell.’

April pulled on her dress and sandals, snatched up the blanket and ran after him. She did not catch hold of his arm because she guessed he was too angry, and would only throw her off. Instead, she walked just behind him until his pace began to slow. Finally, with a sigh of resignation or defeat, or perhaps just simple fatigue, he halted.

They were at the edge of a cornfield. Ears harvested, the corn stalks were shrivelling, dry and brown now as the grass stalks that grew through them. But out of the wall of stalks sprawled the green goblet heads and red flowers of poppies, into the light of the grassy break. April, feeling she should wait for him to speak, slid a papery bloom between her fingers and lifted its face to hers. How did that poem go, the one about the poppies in Flanders field? All she could remember was a fragment: Short days ago we lived.

‘I knew there was a reason I wear these boots,’ he said.

He raised his bare right foot, so she could see the thorn embedded in it.

‘Ouch. Stay still.’ As gently as she could, she extracted it. A single drop of blood oozed.

‘Rose?’ She held out the thorn to him.

‘Blackberry.’

‘I picked some the other day. They were delicious.’

‘There are some near here,’ he said. ‘Do you want to see?’

A peace offering, April thought. Or perhaps when his anger was gone, it was forgotten. Her relief that he was reconciled to her was such that it hardly mattered.

He was right, she knew. She did not need him. She would go on without him because now she knew how. Now, she knew that she could feel loss and not be destroyed by it. But she also knew that if she let him go, a great part of her current happiness would go with him. He spent only two days with her each week and those days were getting shorter, the darkness gathering in ever earlier, shadows encroaching inch by inch. To miss even an allotted minute seemed a loss much greater, time never to be regained, a hole never to be refilled. Happiness had been scarce, so now it was precious, and April wanted to grab as much of it as she could and hold onto it for as long as possible.

Perhaps she should start imagining a future without him in it, so she could be prepared? Perhaps that would be wise? Right now, though, there was only one answer to be given.

‘Yes, please,’ she said.

‘I’ll put my boots on first,’ he said. ‘Or I guarantee I’ll stand on a shard of flint next. That’s stuff’s sharp as a bloody glass knife.’

The brambles twined among two hedgerows that bordered a narrow path. Their proximity and sheltered position trapped the heat, and the berries were as fat as if they’d been grown in a greenhouse. Perfectly ripe, they dissolved in April’s mouth, tart and sweet at the same time, and so juicy that her fingers were quickly stained dark red.

‘My hands are beginning to resemble Lady Macbeth’s.’ She held them up to show him. ‘Out, out damp spot, as my father used to say.’

‘The Lady had blood on her hands?’

‘Yes,’ said April. ‘And it drove her mad.’

‘Poor woman,’ he said. ‘Nobody deserves that kind of torment, no matter what they’ve done.’

April wrapped her arms around his waist, leaned her head against his chest. He was as warm as ever, and smelled like earth and cornstalks and grass.

‘I know you want me to be happy,’ she said. ‘But you have to know I want the same for you. I want you to know how much you mean to me, how much you will always mean to me. I’ve been fortunate to have wonderful people in my life, and just because some of them aren’t in my life any longer doesn’t make them any less wonderful. Doesn’t make them any less important to me.’

She felt his chest rise and slowly fall, his breath skimming her hair.

‘You’re kind,’ he said. ‘And you’re right, too. It’s just that at times I find it hard to remember why I keep on. Even on days like this, all I can see is what’s dead and brown, and all I can feel is the hint of coolness in the air. And I wonder if this winter will be the one that will defeat me.’

April hugged him tighter, and he returned it, arms encircling her with a strength she could not imagine failing.

‘I find myself wishing,’ she said, ‘that we had nothing else to do but lie together in the sun. That we didn’t have to think about the future, or make plans for it. A foolish wish, I know, but so, so tempting.’

‘I know that wish well. It’s my faithful friend. But I can’t entertain it for too long or I’ll go mad.’

April raised her head and met his eye. ‘I have to make plans. I don’t want to, but I must.’

‘Then make them.’

‘Even if they might mean things change?’

‘Things are changing as we speak. That’s how it works.’

He smiled down, kissed her once, gently.

‘I might have my moments of doubt,’ he said, ‘but fundamentally I do believe that whatever happens, we have a choice about how we respond. We can fight, run, give up, accept — we can even choose to do nothing and simply endure. Our choice. No matter what happens.’

‘Don’t give up.’ April kissed him back, less gently. ‘Promise me.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘That is the promise I made to myself on the riverbank. And despite what I might say in a dark moment, I can assure you — I haven’t forgotten it.’

He took gentle hold of her wrist, kissed her juice-stained fingers one by one.

‘It was suicide,’ he said. ‘If you were worried about what I said earlier. There’s no blood on anyone’s hands.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m glad.’

‘Including yours.’

Her reply came after a pause, but it was sure. ‘I know.’

CHAPTER 36

late September

There was a red car outside Sunny’s. Not Edward’s Alvis, which was further up the lane, but a low sports car. A Porsche convertible, April saw, parked askew in Sunny’s short driveway, suggesting the driver had braked in a hurry.

Sunny’s front door was ajar. April knocked but there was no reply, so she walked in. Low voices led her to the door of a room she’d never entered, Sunny’s bedroom. Before she could knock again, the door was opened by a woman April knew instantly must be one of Sunny’s daughters.

‘Oh!’

The woman stopped short. She was in her fifties, blonde, slim and elegant, wearing the kind of dress and shoes that said she and the country were nodding acquaintances at best. She was frowning, and April felt the same blood-rush of panic that had hit her when Edward had called with the news.

‘How is she?’ said April. ‘Is she all right?’

‘I’m fine.’

The voice was strong enough for some of April’s panic to subside.

The blonde woman rolled her eyes.

‘She’s not fine at all, but it could have been a lot worse. The concussion is minor, and the wrist is only sprained. However, she won’t be able to use that arm for quite a while, which will certainly put a crimp in her style.’

‘How did she fall?’ said April.

‘She,’ came the voice from the bed, ‘is right here!’

‘The cat’s mother.’ The blonde woman smiled at April, held out her hand. ‘Hello, I’m Deborah, Sunny’s daughter. One of, that is. You must be April. Old bossy boots told me you’d be here any minute.’

‘Old—?’ April was reluctant to presume.

Deborah nodded her head in the direction of the kitchen.

‘His Nibs, Sturmbannführer Gill. Currently on the phone bringing the rest of my beloved siblings into line.’

A clip of footsteps and Edward appeared in the hall.

‘April,’ he said. ‘Have you been introduced?’

‘I proved capable of introducing myself,’ said Deborah. ‘So boo to you.’

‘Behave!’ came from the bed.

‘I am also capable, despite what you may have been led to believe, of spooning tea into a pot without incident. Please,’ Deborah said to April, ‘go in and sit with Mummy. I’ll be back in a mo with a cuppa and some criminally store-bought Jammy Dodgers.’

Edward had the amused half-smile of one who has decided to be tolerant because they know they hold all the power. April could only guess what he had said to get Deborah to Kingsfield so quickly.

‘I’ll supervise,’ he said. ‘I have very high standards for tea. If it does not curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock then it’s not up to snuff, I’m afraid.’

‘Good grief.’ Deborah shuddered, but did not seem entirely displeased to be accompanied.

April entered the bedroom to find Sunny, arm in a sling, sitting up in bed, radiating annoyance.

‘As soon as they leave, I am getting up,’ she said. ‘I am not an invalid.’

Fatso was asleep on the bedroom chair, tucked in a tight curl, like a hibernating squirrel. April sat instead on the edge of the bed.

‘You have concussion,’ she said. ‘Doctors usually want you to stay still for a while.’

‘The entire reason I have lived this long,’ said Sunny, ‘is because I have never stayed still. Any doctor worth his salt would recognise that in an instant.’

‘How did you fall?’

‘Oh!’ Sunny imbued the lone syllable with an epic’s worth of impatience. ‘I was up on a chair pruning the climbing rose and the stupid piece of furniture slipped from under me. I knocked my head on the pot of Duc van Thol tulip bulbs that I’d shifted there only an hour earlier, curse them.’

‘Knocked yourself unconscious?’

‘So it would seem. Dilly found me lying all groggy on the ground when she came around to drop off the proofs for our WI branch’s new calendar. No nudes, I hasten to add, despite Dilly’s annual lobbying. She called an ambulance, but I was compos mentis enough by then to insist they treat me on the spot. I will enter a hospital only when I am dead and even then I’ll make it difficult for them.’

‘And did Dilly call Edward?’

‘She did. And he, overriding my strong protestations, called Deborah. Though I suppose he had little choice. Of the sole two of my children who reside in this country, she is the only one not semi-permanently connected to an ECG.’

‘How is Charlie?’

‘Far too wedded to the thought of being an invalid.’ Sunny swept her free hand across the bed covers as if ridding them of invisible clutter. ‘Foolish boy.’

‘He’s in his sixties,’ said April.

‘He is still my boy. And always will be.’

Oh, yes, thought April. Always …

‘And how are you?’ Sunny fixed her with a perfectly lucid blue gaze. ‘What do you intend to do once the house is sold?’

In Sunny’s view, circumlocution was as wasteful as buying biscuits from a shop.

‘I haven’t decided yet.’

April could not quite bring herself to confess that she was putting it off. Tomorrow always seemed to be a better day to make hard decisions about the future.

‘Edward says there’s been some interest. Nothing firm as yet, though, I gather.’

‘Right.’

Part of April’s avoidance strategy had been to ask Edward no questions about progress. She had no desire to see how fast the guillotine blade was whooshing down towards her neck.

A rattle of crockery preceded a bang, as the door opened courtesy of Deborah’s shoe, which did not seem built for such activity.

‘Tea,’ she announced. ‘Which I’ve been assured now gleams like a lake touched by a zephyr and creases like the leather boots of a Tartar horseman.’

She set the tray down on the dressing table, and began to set out the cups and pour.

‘The Reichskriminaldirektor is now on the phone to Bertie,’ she said to Sunny. ‘I could tell it was Bertie because of the fearful whimpering.’

Deborah handed a cup to April, and then one to her mother, asking if she was sure she could hold it, which caused Sunny no end of irritation, as did the offer of a Jammy Dodger. April took one. She needed the sugar.

With a disapproving tut, Deborah shoved Fatso off the chair too quickly for him to retaliate. He landed like a brick, but composed himself and sauntered out the door, with a flick of his tail to make it clear that was his intention all the time.

‘Oh, look,’ said Deborah. ‘That really is the most delicious portrait of Daddy. So dashing!’

The portrait in question was a silver-framed photograph on the low bookshelf beside Sunny’s bed. It was black and white and of a (in April’s opinion) frighteningly young man in what must be the cap and uniform of the RAF. Sir Peregrine was smiling widely and looked as if he had not a care in the world, which surely could not have been the case. He was quite heart-meltingly handsome, thought April, and most definitely dashing. No wonder Sunny fell for him.

‘A month earlier and he would not have been looking so cheerful,’ said Sunny. ‘In March, they lost ninety-five aircraft over Nuremburg.’

‘What year was that?’ said April.

‘Nineteen forty-four,’ said Sunny. ‘March was a bad month all round. That was when we lost Rowan. He’d only just been posted. Had been in Italy no more than three weeks.’

‘Three weeks?’ said Deborah. ‘That does seem unfair. Though I suppose there were plenty of poor sods who died on their first day.’

She blew a kiss to the photograph. ‘But not darling Daddy, bless his lucky cotton socks.’

‘And where was James?’ said April. ‘You said they enlisted about the same time?’

‘Also in Italy,’ said Sunny. ‘He was sent as a reinforcement to Monte Cassino. Where he served with such heroism that he was awarded the DCM.’

‘Goodness,’ said April. ‘What did he do?’

‘He destroyed four German machine gun posts. James’s company was tasked with taking a particular hill, but the enemy kept them at bay, unable to advance, until James ran forward up the hill, completely exposed to enemy fire and lobbed a grenade right into the first pillbox and blew it up. He kept going, the company following behind him, and managed to blow up all four.’

‘How on earth did he escape being shot?’

‘For some inexplicable reason, the Germans never saw him. He was always so quick at running that perhaps they simply missed him. They were under attack from an entire company, after all.’

‘And he did it off his own bat?’ said April. ‘Not under orders?’

‘Completely on his own initiative. It was as if he didn’t care two hoots whether he lived or died.’

‘Or he thought he was untouchable,’ said Deborah. ‘Too many young men have realised that mistake too late.’

‘Could it have been the news of Rowan’s death?’ said April. ‘Sometimes grief does make you throw caution to the wind.’

And more, she thought but did not say.

‘It may have been,’ said Sunny. ‘Or it may have been that news compounded by bad news from home. It was about that time that Cora left — and, of course, the Potts factory burned down.’

‘It burned down?’ said April.

‘To the ground,’ said Sunny. ‘Five workers died, all women, and many more were badly injured. It was most tragic.’

‘What caused the fire? It wasn’t bombed, was it?’

‘No, it was an accident. A faulty piece of machinery began to spark and that was it. With so much flammable liquid, the place was itself like one giant bomb. Shoddy maintenance was the accusation, and it was probably true. No matter what Lewis Potts said publically, his business was on the verge of insolvency. Cora told me so in the letter she wrote to me after she left. She was quite charitable about him, which I suppose she could afford to be, now that she was out of his clutches. But the rumour I’d heard was that Lewis Potts was grabbing as much money as he could from the business, and refusing to upgrade or even check the equipment. He’d been overheard saying his workers could all go to hell. If any of those who died did, I have no doubt they were ready and waiting for him when he arrived two decades on. It was the end of Potts, in any case. And Lewis Potts never went back into business.’

‘So Cora would have told James that his father’s business was no more?’ said April.

‘Quite likely. And a blow like that on top of the news about Rowan …’

‘It’s amazing James wasn’t killed,’ said Deborah. ‘When you’re determined to die, you generally get your wish.’

A knock sounded on the front door.

‘Expecting anyone?’ said Deborah.

‘Who visits me?’ said Sunny, pointedly.

‘Now, now.’ Her daughter was unfazed. ‘I’ll see who it is, and if they’re panhandling, I’ll buy you a shoe polish sponge.’

April and Sunny heard her open the door, then a brief exchange — Deborah sounded sceptical, while the other voice, being outside, was too faint to sound like anything.

Then Deborah said, quite clearly but not at all graciously, ‘Oh, very well. Come in.’

The bedroom door opened.

‘He insists he does not want to sell you dish brushes,’ said Deborah, ‘and that he has indeed recently bathed. I have duly warned him that there is a serving member of the Sicherheitspolizei in the kitchen, along with some very sharp knives!’

A figure sidled in cautiously around her. April did not think she had ever been so glad to see anyone. She leapt off the bed to hug him, but then relief was overtaken by fury and she hit him instead, about the shoulders.

‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’

‘If you cease with the thumping, I’ll tell you,’ said Oran, ducking back to avoid her. ‘I’ve had quite enough of women wailing on me for now.’

‘My dear boy.’ Sunny welcomed him with her free arm outstretched.

‘Lord save us, what did you do to yourself?’ said Oran, eyes wide. He came to sit on the edge of the bed, right by her. ‘Have you been bare-knuckle boxing again? You know we talked about that.’

‘Oh, is this what’s-his-name?’ said Deborah. ‘The wandering minstrel? I should have guessed. The shreds and patches were a dead giveaway.’

‘Oran Feares,’ said Sunny, ‘this is my daughter Deborah. Lady Dalgleish.’

‘Yikes.’ Oran shot to his feet. ‘Is it expected that I should now kiss your hand?’

‘No one’s gone all Continental on me in ages,’ said Deborah. ‘However, as you’re rather stubbly, a shake will do.’

‘Where have you been?’ said April, more calmly.

But Oran was again sitting on the bed, his attention focused entirely on Sunny.

‘I came back for you, you know,’ he said to her. ‘Couldn’t imagine never seeing you again.’

‘Oh, my dear boy.’ Sunny held out her hand and took his. ‘It’s all right,’ she murmured. ‘It will all turn out perfectly. You’re home now.’

‘I feel somewhat de trop,’ Deborah whispered to April. ‘Shall we skedaddle?’

In the kitchen, Edward was in the process of ending a call.

‘Thank you,’ he was saying. ‘Hugely appreciated. Yes, goodbye.’

‘That can’t have been any of the Day siblings,’ said Deborah. ‘You weren’t even remotely polite to us.’

Edward stood tall, his eyes bright with what could only be described as triumph.

‘That was Miss Gina Fyfe, the genealogist,’ he said to April.

‘She’s found something, hasn’t she?’ said April. ‘About Oran.’

‘She believes she has,’ said Edward. ‘She’s meeting with me next  week.’

‘He’s here, you know,’ said April. ‘Just turned up.’

And then Edward was no longer standing tall, but leaning against the kitchen bench, face tight with anxiety.

‘God,’ he said. ‘Have I done the right thing?’

Deborah patted him on the shoulder.

‘Chin up, Heinrich. What’s the worst that can happen?’

‘Oran becomes a traumatised wreck and never recovers?’ he suggested.

‘We all have to deal with the bad stuff eventually,’ said Deborah. ‘The more we try to avoid it, the more it comes round to bite us on the bum.’

She hooked her arm in his. ‘Come along. Let’s brew up another pot of dewlap tea, and you can distract yourself by reciting for me all the threats you unleashed on my cravenly brothers and sisters regarding this blessed birthday party of Mummy’s. That way, I can not only have a good laugh, but I can store them up for later, so that when I turn ninety, those who are left will have absolutely no escape.’

CHAPTER 37

May, 1944

Letters were mysterious documents, thought James. Even when they were plainly worded, they still contained hidden adumbrations of meaning, little shadows behind the words that concealed the rest of the story, the true story, the one only he knew in full.

Take this handwritten note from Major Cowan, for example. In straightforward language it congratulated him on his Distinguished Conduct Medal. Had James been a commissioned officer, the major believed, it would have been the Military Cross. It was well done, well deserved. James was a good lad. He was proud of him.

There was nothing insincere about the note, James knew. Major Cowan was a thoroughly decent chap with a direct and frank manner. But he believed Lance Corporal James Potts to be a hero, and in that he could not be more wrong. On that hill, on his fourth run, James had pushed past a gnarled, scrubby tree, its lower branches spiky as thorns, and found caught in the other side of it the body of a very dead young German, flung there by the force of an explosion. Or perhaps he’d been a paratrooper who’d landed badly, his chute long since shot to ribbons and taken away by the wind.

It should have been him, James thought. It should have been his body suspended from a tree as bare as if every leaf had been devoured by a flying horde. That’s what he’d wanted, but his wish had not been granted. Perhaps his mistake was that he’d been expecting another to do the job, when by rights the only person who should take on that responsibility was himself.

Or perhaps his lack of success had been a form of retributive punishment. The wages of sin is supposed to be death, thought James. But then failure was a crueller payback because you were still around to experience it. You were around to remember every day what drove you to want to abandon your life in the first place. And to know that everyone else believed your failure to be a triumphant success.

James considered burning the note, but he did not for the same reason he hadn’t burned the other letters — there was no point. He had memorised every word, and each one acted as a whip on his back, a constant prodding reminder that made it impossible to truly rest.

His mother’s letter had been the first. It was postmarked London, so it seemed clear to James that she’d never had any intention of writing to him before she left. She’d had no wish to let him in on her secret; only to advise him once it was out, when everyone else knew, too.

In the letter, she spoke of his father but laid no blame at his door. Rather, she took care to be very clear that it had been her decision to marry him and her decision to leave. He had not forced her to wed, and he had not by any ill deed driven her away. She had known what kind of man he was when she married him, but she had not known what kind of woman she was. When she’d finally worked that out, she’d known that she and James’s father were irrevocably incompatible. If she’d stayed, she wrote, her soul would have withered to black. That was unusually poetic for his mother, had been James’s initial thought. But then he’d realised he had no grounds for making that judgement. He did not know his mother at all.

She’d written also of the accident at his father’s factory. The company’s insurance premium had not been paid — an oversight by the accountant, apparently. The man had been under a great deal of stress, trying to keep the company afloat.

The upshot was that his father did not have the money to rebuild. James’s father had assured her, she wrote, that despite this they would not struggle financially. His father had not known, of course, that his wife had already made up her mind to leave, and that any financial worries from now on would be entirely her own. She ended her letter by asking James to please keep in touch with his father. She’d made no promises to do the same with James.

Sunny’s letter came a month after his mother’s. Sunny had demanded to know what he thought about Lily’s news that the Blythes were leaving the farm. Sunny herself was outraged — there was no ambiguity there. How dare James’s father make the innocent Blythes pay for his own incompetence? How dare he sell the farm out from under them with barely any warning? They were being forced to go all the way to Wales to find a farm Ellis could bear to work on! James’s father was a complete and utter — the word strangely enough had not been cut out. The censors obviously did not consider Sunny’s four-letter opinion of his father to be a military secret.

Sunny had assumed Lily had also written to James, and she was right. Lily had written twice. In the first letter, she’d advised him of Rowan’s death. She’d also told him how Reverend Brownlow had fought to put Rowan’s name on the village roll of honour. Even though Rowan had died a soldier, there were still some who could not forget he’d once been an objector. Reverend Brownlow had thundered from the pulpit, Lily wrote, which had shocked everyone as it was most unlike him. Reverend Brownlow, she said, was a very good man.

In the second, shorter, letter, she’d told him she and her family were leaving. The reason was not the one she’d given Sunny. It was one that had made it impossible for her father to accept an offer from the new owner to stay and manage the farm. Lily had not asked for anything from James except his forgiveness. It was because she could not be sure who the father was, she’d said. Her conscience would not let her force responsibility on the wrong person. Of course, James had done what he’d done entirely to avoid such a responsibility, but getting his wish felt as false and hollow an accomplishment as his medal.

James slipped the major’s note among the other letters. The Eighth Army was preparing to advance up the valley. The long battle for this scrubby desolate mountain had finally been won, thanks to the Poles, who, James had to admiringly admit, had no problem screwing their courage to the sticking place.

The Poles had a bear. A real, live brown bear. It had shifted boxes of ammunition for them and they treated it better than they did themselves. Rowan would have loved seeing it.

It had been a bright but freezing Boxing Day, and James would have run fast to keep warm had he not been holding a parcel of food. Approaching the clearing by the swimming hole, the sound of male voices made him halt. But standing still, apart from the faint trickle of the waterfall, he could hear only the usual winter hush.

Rowan was waiting for him, shoulders hunched, hands shoved in the pockets of a coat that looked far too thin. As did Rowan. His friend’s face was drawn and sallow and his cheekbones jutted sharp as the rocks behind him. He looked ten years older than the healthy, strong young man James had seen this morning in the mirror.

‘Who were you with before?’ he said.

Rowan paused. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I thought I heard someone else. A man.’

‘Echoes,’ Rowan said. ‘There’s only me. Talking to the robin. He and I are the only ones here now. Everyone else is hibernating.’

‘I brought food. Christmas leavings.’

James held out the package. Rowan initially did his best to be polite, but then he gave up and wolfed it down so fast, he began to choke.

James bashed him on the back. Rowan winced and stepped sideways.

‘Hell, I forgot,’ James said. ‘Your back. Still hurts then?’

‘Only if it receives a direct hit,’ Rowan said, with a small apologetic smile.

‘Sorry.’ James did not enjoy feeling ashamed. It was not he who’d beaten Rowan.

‘Why the hell did you let Ted do that to you?’ he demanded.

Rowan stared at him for a moment, as if deciding how much to tell him.

‘He needed to,’ he said.

James was astonished at the rage this provoked in him.

‘You let him thrash you.’ His voice rang off the rocks and around the quiet clearing. ‘Flog you with a stick until you bled, because he needed to?’

‘I know it won’t make sense to you,’ Rowan said. ‘If it’s any consolation, it was the last time.’

‘It most certainly will be, because I’ll have my father sack him,’ James said. ‘I’ll have him arrested. I’ll see him hanged.’

‘No,’ Rowan said. ‘No, you won’t do any of that.’

He placed his hand on James’s arm.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Really, it is. You have to trust me.’

James felt angry tears prick his eyes. He rubbed them quickly with his clenched fist. The way a child would, he thought. But the idea that Rowan had been hurt, and for nothing, made him at once furious and sad. Rowan had suffered — was suffering now — simply for wanting to avoid hurting others. It did not seem in any way fair.

‘What the hell set him off?’ James asked. ‘Was he incensed by your being a conchie, and just took his chance when you showed up?’

Rowan shook his head. ‘It had been building up long before that. All my life.’

He picked off a dead leaf that stuck to his boot. An oak leaf, brown and damp, that only short weeks ago had been alive and green on the tree.

‘He told me the truth,’ Rowan said. ‘About my mother.’

‘Who your father was, you mean?’

‘No. About how she died.’

‘Sunny told me she died in childbirth with you.’

‘She didn’t,’ Rowan said. ‘When I was four weeks old, she went missing. She had always been a wanderer, he said, because she’d never been quite right in the head. A fey spirit, he called her. Wondered if she’d ever been his at all. She had blonde hair when he and his wife were both dark, so perhaps she was a changeling and the fairies took the real child. Or maybe it was he who’d strayed into a fairy ring and they’d cursed him. His punishment was to lose the women he loved.’

Rowan smiled at James’s expression. ‘I know. Fanciful and Ted don’t really go together, do they? But I can tell you that despair does let dark fancies creep in and take hold of your mind.’

‘Ted didn’t do anything bad to your mother, did he?’ asked James.

‘No.’ Rowan smiled again, sadly this time. ‘After I was born, she stayed with me in the cottage for the first two weeks, but then she started wandering again. Didn’t tell him, just upped and left me in the drawer that was my cot. He came home more than once to find me exhausted from crying, from hunger. Had no idea what to do, poor man.’

James shook his head in disbelief at that epithet, but said nothing.

‘Usually, he never bothered to go after her. She was never gone more than a few hours. But that last time, when she’d been missing for over a day, he went looking for her. Dropped me with Mrs Blythe, and he and Ellis went searching. They found her, quarter of a mile from here, where the stream joins the river. If she hadn’t been trapped in the rushes, they might never have caught up with her. She might have floated all the way to the sea.’

‘Did she—?’

‘Drown herself on purpose?’ Rowan said. ‘I’ve no idea. She looked very peaceful, he said, and she had a necklace of wild flowers around her neck, daisies and dandelions. Ted told me he’d never seen her make one. She never could sit still long enough.’

‘Christ, Rowan. Did he tell you all this while flaying the skin off you?’

‘Afterwards.’

‘And did he do anything to help you? Treat your wounds?’

‘He didn’t need to,’ Rowan said. ‘I know wood lore. I know which plants heal, how to make poultices.’

‘But the wounds are all over your back,’ James protested. ‘How on earth could you reach them?’

‘You’d be amazed,’ Rowan had said, ‘at what you can do when you have no choice.’

Rowan was right, thought James. But he’d had a choice then, hadn’t he? He, James, had had a choice about where to take the conversation next, about what to tell Rowan and what to leave out. About how he’d composed his face so that it appeared only sympathetic and encouraging, the face of a loyal friend. About how he had deliberately set Rowan on a path, without any heed to the consequences.

No, James had not given an ounce of thought that day to what might happen to Rowan. His only goal had been escape from a situation that might trap him forever, and he’d lied to Rowan, or at least twisted the truth, as a means to achieve that end. When the words had come slithering out of his mouth, he’d cared only for his own interests and there was no point in pretending otherwise. There was no point in pretending that he’d convinced himself Rowan would be all right, and that what happened was simply bad luck. That it had been Fate or God at work, and nothing to do with James at all.

Because, of course, that was nonsense. Rowan’s death had come as a direct result of James’s words that day in the woods. It was his fault entirely and it was irreversible. James could not go back and undo all he’d done. And because he could not change the past, now he was faced with a future over which he also had no power. Lily’s decision to give away the baby was already being enacted; there was no way he could stop it.

He had no power over anything any more. All he had left was guilt and regret for his arrogance and his selfish choices. And all he could do was wait until Fate or God weighed him in the balance, and judged what should become of him.

CHAPTER 38

early October

The tan he’d had before he left had faded, but otherwise Oran looked well, April thought. The Pentangle T-shirt he had on seemed to have been bought new, and his jeans were clean and without holes. His manner was calmer than it had been, too. His bounce had less jitter in it, and he was quieter, though April suspected the latter was more because he did not really want to be with her in Sunny’s kitchen. They’d been forced in there together, on Sunny’s orders, to make tea. Edward was due within the hour and she could hardly do it one-armed, could she?

Sunny was not enjoying her enforced rest. It made her feel geriatric. April was not enjoying the coolness Oran had shown towards her over the past week. But then that was entirely her fault, and any reconciliation would likewise have to start with her.

‘I know you don’t feel much like speaking to me,’ April ventured, ‘but I would like you to know that I’m sorry for what I said to you. And I’m very glad you’re back.’

Oran laid a stack of side plates on the Ben Nevis tray. The look he gave her was one of pink-cheeked, rather prim reproof, the look a Victorian lady might give a man she’d caught staring at her ankles.

‘You were quite the cow, it must be said.’ He huffed on a silver knife, rubbed it with a napkin. ‘Your words struck me to the core.’

‘I know.’ Now it was April’s turn to blush. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Wounded me to the very quick. I felt emasculated. Gelded. The vital essence of my manhood bled dry.’

‘Yes! God! I’m—’

And then she saw he was grinning.

‘Are you truly glad to have me back?’ he said. ‘Or is that your guilt and remorse speaking?’

‘I’m truly glad.’ April put her arms around his neck and hugged him. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘I missed you, too,’ he said. ‘After I got over railing at you in my mind, that is.’

April drew back. ‘Edward’s put the house on the market.’

‘So I gather.’ Oran kept his hands on her waist. ‘Does that mean you’ll be leaving then? For your dear native plains? Your own loved island of sorrow?’

‘I don’t know,’ April admitted. ‘I’ve been putting off making a decision.’

‘Something holding you here? Your young man, for instance?’

‘My—? Oh.’

April had no answer ready. As she’d continued to delay making plans, she’d not yet had reason to talk to Jack. More truthfully, she did not want to talk to him at all because she feared what he would say: that even if she chose to stay, he could not guarantee any kind of future with him. He could not guarantee that he’d be with her even a month from now. That’s how his life was.

Oran did not notice her hesitation.

‘Your garden god. Your Monty Adonis. Will I ever get to meet him?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said April. ‘He’s terribly private.’

‘Are you ashamed of me?’

He said it lightly, but she saw the shadow flicker.

‘Don’t be a cretin.’

April smiled and hugged him again, so he had no chance to see that the smile had been an effort. Today was the first time she and Oran had ever properly embraced. Physically, he was as she’d expected, all leanness and wire drawn taut with pent-up energy, like a greyhound poised and waiting before the rabbit is released. She had not expected him to feel so comforting. He should have felt the very opposite, she thought, as he had none of Jack’s calm and solid physical presence. Yet it was nice, being in Oran’s arms. Friendly, bolstering and oddly familiar, like hugging an old friend you had not seen for years but whom you once knew very well indeed.

When they broke the hug, Oran stepped back and tilted his head in the manner of a gallery patron studying a painting.

‘I like this new look of yours,’ he said. ‘Very pretty. Did the summer of love work its halcyon magic on you, or was it simply time for a change?’

‘Both perhaps,’ said April. ‘And how about you? You’re looking almost spruce.’

He glanced down at his T-shirt. ‘I made a tidy bit of money from busking, so I thought I’d tidy myself a bit, too.’

April was struck by a worry. ‘What will you do for money now you can’t work on the house?’

‘Oh, this and that,’ said Oran, breezily. ‘As is my wont.’ The shadow passed over his face again. ‘The only curse is that I lost my spot for the van. Some bugger slipped in there when I was away and stole it.’

‘Can’t you ask them to move?’

‘They have dogs,’ said Oran. ‘And tattoos in places that must have smarted like the very devil. Call me a coward again if you like, but even if I asked nicely I’m not sure they’d be amenable.’

An idea occurred and was out before April could think twice.

‘Why don’t you park up at the big house for now?’ she said to him. ‘It’s a bit of a trek to the cottage, but you can come down and use my bathroom if you like. I get first dibs, of course.’

Oran went quite red. ‘That’s a most kind offer. I’ll say yes right away, before you change your mind.’

He bent forward and kissed her hastily on the cheek.

A voice sounded from the courtyard.

‘We’re having afternoon tea, not supper! Must I come in there?’

‘Woah, Nelly, she’s a grouch,’ said Oran. ‘Some people should never be infirm. It disagrees with them something terrible.’

‘So where did you go?’ said April, when they were outside, and had served tea to Sunny’s satisfaction.

‘All over,’ said Oran. ‘I had no plan, just followed my nose. My only certainty was that I’d vowed to be pure and chaste, and to drink never more than four beers in succession.’

‘How did that work out for you?’

‘Remarkably well. Except that I now know that greasy takeaways are, in fact, disgusting, and not the manna from Heaven they always seem when crapulous at four a.m.’

‘And the pure and chaste bit?’

‘I see you smile, and I disdain your scepticism with as much dignity as I can muster.’

‘Quite right,’ said Sunny.

April took one of the blackberry friands she’d made. She’d had one already, but they were, if she did say so herself, delicious.

‘I apologise unreservedly.’ April saluted Oran with the friand. ‘Carry on.’

‘The only trouble I had with women was of an entirely unsexual kind,’ he said. ‘I was busking late one evening and suddenly found myself the target of attention from a hen party. They were quite badgered and very sparsely clothed, and they began to hoot at me and catcall and make suggestive suggestions. So, naturally, I upped the volume to drown them out and they took exception and started pelting me with moulded items of an X-rated nature.’

‘I thought you said this was an unsexual encounter?’

‘On my part it was, entirely!’ Oran protested. ‘And I can assure you, being sconed by a click-and-charge clitoral tongue vibrator does nothing to put you in the mood.’

‘I would have slapped them soundly,’ said Sunny.

‘I was outnumbered,’ said Oran. ‘And most of them were bigger than me. But then the knights in blue came to my rescue. They were at first unsure who had started the ruckus — I suppose I was looking a bit road-weary — but then one of the maidens kneed a rozzer below the thin blue line, and as soon as I could see I was off the hook I slung it.’

Sunny patted his knee with her free hand.

‘I’m very pleased you’re back, dear boy. And I trust you have worked what you needed to out of your system.’

Sunny was not in a position to see more than Oran’s profile, and so it was only April who saw him wince. Oran met her eye, and in his expression of embarrassed defiance she read both a confession and a plea: that Oran was as obsessed as ever with his wife, and that he needed that secret to be kept from Sunny at all costs.

April nodded to reassure him — who was she to judge how others chose to live? But she was not happy. Oran deserved better. He deserved better than to have that darkness always in a corner of his life, to be constantly clutching at a false hope that was nothing but a noxious cloud, a malevolent will-o’-the-wisp that wanted only to drag him into a swamp and drown him. Why couldn’t he see his wife for what she was? Why did he keep a space for her in his heart instead of banishing her to the wasteland where she belonged?

But, again, who was she to judge? No one, not even those who loved her most, had been able to dissuade her from her own choices. If Oran wanted to go to his grave still loving his faithless wife, then that was his right entirely.

A curt halloo from inside the house.

‘Edward,’ said Sunny.

So far, they had carefully avoided the subject of the main business of the day, but the anxiety had hummed along underneath nonetheless, April realised, as proven by the fact that all three of them now straightened in their chairs, bracing themselves.

Edward stepped from the kitchen into the courtyard, a large, plain brown envelope in one hand. It was the envelope that Oran’s eyes followed, as Edward joined them at the table.

‘Is it only me,’ Oran said, ‘or is that thing pulsating with energy, like some druid’s talisman?’

‘It’s only you,’ said Edward. He took a friand, wolfed it in two bites. ‘Christ, I’m starving. I missed lunch because I’d forgotten how much bloody traffic there is getting in and out of London. Next time I complain about having to wait three minutes for a space in the Waitrose car park, can somebody slap me?’

‘I’ll slap you now,’ said Sunny. ‘We’re not here to talk about you!’

‘Quite right,’ said Edward. ‘My apologies.’

He slotted a butter knife into the flap of the envelope, and looked Oran in the eye.

‘Ready?’

‘No,’ said Oran.

‘Would you prefer if I viewed the papers first?’ said Edward. ‘Or do you want to rip the Band-Aid off in one go?’

‘Will you judge me harshly if I choose the former?’

‘Not at all,’ said Edward. ‘Though you do realise the chances are high that this information will be essentially meaningless to you at this stage? These are names to fill in boxes on your family tree, nothing more. I’m sure someone somewhere will have stories and photographs, but until we find those, these people will be no more alive to you than print on a page.’

‘Myself, I’ve always found print on a page to be teeming with life,’ said Oran, ‘but I take your point.’

‘Are you ready now?’ said Edward.

‘No,’ said Oran.

‘Good man.’

Edward sliced open the envelope, reached in and extracted the contents in one swift movement, as if to take it by surprise and thus put it off guard.

They watched him scan the two pieces of paper, eyes travelling over one then the other and back again. When he lifted his head, it was not Oran he looked at first.

Sunny held his gaze, her expression thoughtful. Edward’s own expression, April saw, was unusually agitated.

‘Well, go on,’ Sunny said to him, in a flat, cool voice.

‘God, yes,’ said Oran, staring wide-eyed at the pair of them. ‘I’m about to expire from being agog.’

‘Very well.’

Edward handed Oran the first document — ‘This is your mother’s birth certificate’ — then the second — ‘And her mother’s, your real grandmother’s, for added reference.’

‘Can you read them with me?’ Oran said to April. ‘I need a bolster.’

April shuffled round her chair, and together they read the documents. They read them once, and then a second time, just to be sure.

‘Oh, my,’ said April.

‘I’m incapable even of saying “Oh, my”,’ said Oran. ‘I’ve received a sap to the skull in life’s back alley, and been robbed of all power of speech.’

He held a piece of paper in each hand. His eyes, still huge, shuttled between them as if trying to decipher two riddles that had been set by a particularly malicious Sphinx.

‘My grandmother. My mother’s real mother with the summer-gold hair,’ said Oran. ‘Lily Jane Blythe. Daughter of Ellis and Martha. There can’t be two of them, can there? Can there?’

‘I very much doubt it,’ said Edward.

‘And — Father Unknown? Any thoughts?’

‘Do you have any?’

‘My critical faculties have received blunt-force trauma,’ said Oran. ‘Help me out here!’

Edward caught April’s eye, and his silent question was clear: should he say something? April shook her head briefly. They should let Oran come to it in his own time.

‘My mother’s name is given here as Marianne Rowena Jemima Blythe,’ said Oran. ‘Am I reading too much into that? Am I, in fact, going mad?’

April put her arm around his hunched-up shoulders and hugged him.

‘You’re not,’ she said. ‘But I suspect those names show that Lily did not lie when she had them write Father Unknown.’

‘You’re saying that the truth is forever unknowable?’ said Oran.

‘Does that bother you?’

Oran traced his finger under the words that spelled his mother’s full name.

‘It’s always been my belief,’ he said, ‘that life has to contain mysteries that will never be explained. I mean, what would we do if we had nothing to wonder about, nothing to baffle us, keep us poised on our tip-toes? Our quest to divine the secrets of the universe seems to me to be the whole point of our existence. If we were to finally know it all, I think we’d vanish. In a puff of now pointless dust.’

‘So it doesn’t bother you?’ said April.

‘No, it bloody well does!’ said Oran. ‘But unless God decides to write me a clue across the heavens in letters of fire, there’s bastardly all I can do but accept it!’

April glanced over at Sunny, but she was away somewhere in the beyond. Or more likely in the before, and no wonder. April was dying to ask Sunny how much of this was genuinely news to her, but could not gather up the nerve.

Edward, thank goodness, was not such a wimp.

‘Did you really not know?’ he said to Sunny. ‘Did Lily not drop even one hint in all those years you corresponded?’

Sunny took her time meeting his eye.

‘Believe me or not, I don’t give two hoots either way,’ she said, ‘but no, Lily told me nothing. And since you are doubtless forming a wrongheaded opinion of her as we speak, I will categorically state that she would not have stayed silent out of shame. If she did indeed sleep with both James and Rowan, she would have done so out of pure affection and love for them both and would never have regretted it.’

‘I have no reason to doubt you,’ said Edward. ‘You knew her. I did not. Though you’re making me rather wish that I had. She sounds an uncommon kind of person. A better kind.’

Whether Edward intended to mollify or whether he was entirely sincere, his words had a calming effect. Sunny’s cool mask softened into an expression of wistful fondness.

‘Lily was a true friend,’ she said. ‘Generous and unfailingly loyal. If she said nothing to me, then it would have been because she’d made a promise not to.’

‘To whom, do you think?’

‘Her father and mother?’ said Sunny. ‘Or the Reverend Brownlow? In the end, I don’t believe it matters to whom she made the promise, only that she honoured it to the last. Wouldn’t you agree?’

CHAPTER 39

mid-October

The temperature was dropping daily along with the first of the autumn leaves. In Empyrean’s garden, the Virginia creeper and the maples were becoming steeped in red, beginning to glow like embers against a darkening ground. Dahlias continued to flower, shaggy heads in the colours of bold-print frocks favoured by a certain type of older woman. The chiffchaffs were leaving, following the thermals, while the robin, the winter bird, his breast growing ever redder like the leaves, had begun again to sing.

And Jack was ill. He had a hacking cough that was stripping the gloss from his skin and digging hollows in his cheeks. He was in the brown wool jacket and corduroy trousers he’d been wearing when April first saw him; a mild fever was making him feel the cold.

‘I can get you something for that cough,’ April said. ‘From the pharmacy.’

‘It’ll pass,’ he said.

‘I didn’t think you could ever get sick.’

‘Wish that were so.’ He folded his arms, hunched up to find some warmth. ‘I hate feeling like this. Hate it.’

April put her arms around him, and kissed him on the cheek. His skin was dry, his usual sunglow-warmth replaced by a more hectic internal heat that did not bring any comfort. They were in the garden, sitting on the blanket, backs against the brick wall, which gave some shelter from a wind that blew in at intervals, bringing with it a hint of frost. April was warm enough in jeans and a thick jumper, but she knew it would not be long before a coat, scarf and gloves would be required.

‘Come into the cottage,’ she said. ‘For an hour or so, to warm up and have a cup of tea. You can cope with being indoors for that long, surely?’

He shook his head.

‘Oh, don’t be so stubborn! It’s an hour. It won’t kill you!’

‘If I come in, I may never go out again.’

‘So? There’s room for two. Why not spend the winter with me? Why not spend it warm and dry and safe?’

‘Safe?’ A slight smile. ‘Is that what I’ll be?’

Dear God, he could be aggravating.

‘Yes! Safer than being out there.’ April gestured towards the woods. ‘Safe from hunger and cold and wild animals and—’ She ran out of threats. ‘Just — safe …’

The cough overtook him again. Gabe, who’d been lying on his other side, got up and nudged his arm, concerned. April had already seen that Gabe was thinner and his coat had lost its shine, as if reacting in sympathy with his master. What would happen to Gabe, she wondered, if Jack could not look after him? He could hunt for himself, but dogs were sociable animals. If Jack were not there, who would keep Gabe company? Gabe probably needed his master more than Jack needed a dog, but who knew? They could be as dependent on each other as flower and bee. Which would mean, of course, that they did not need her at all.

Jack’s breath was rattling in his chest, but the coughing had subsided. She leaned her head on his shoulder to draw comfort from his physical proximity and, knowing full well she was angling for reassurance, got her next words out quickly.

‘You won’t be alone, either. You’ll be with me.’

His mouth brushed her hair in a brief kiss.

‘You’re a good friend, April Turner,’ was all he said.

And it was all she knew she could expect.

She raised her head from his shoulder. ‘Can I get you some water?’

‘Tap’s stopped working,’ he said, with an apologetic grimace. ‘I tried it earlier.’

That news seemed ominous to April, but she would have struggled to explain why.

He misread her look of concern. ‘Don’t worry. The garden will get the rain. Best thing to do now is to finish the pruning and give it a good lot of manure. That’ll set it up for spring.’

It did not escape April that he had not specified who would do this.

He was coughing again. Hunched forward, one fist over his mouth, the other holding his chest in an attempt to relieve the pain. He sat back, head resting against the brick wall, eyes closed, struggling for breath.

‘Times like this,’ he said, ‘I can see exactly why someone might pray for a quick, merciful death.’

‘Just because it’s quick doesn’t mean there won’t be at least one moment of terror and panic,’ said April. ‘Unless you never saw it coming …’

He put his arms around her and kissed her temple. April could feel her pulse beat under the brief pressure of his mouth.

‘If it’s any consolation,’ he said, ‘I have seen things that make me believe you might be wrong.’

‘You’ve seen people die peacefully? I’m not sure I want to know.’

‘I came across a jackdaw once,’ he said, which did not, April noted, directly answer her question. ‘It was lying in a late fall of snow. I could tell it was very ill, not far off death, and I was about to end its suffering when two more jackdaws landed right beside me. And then more began to land, and more and more, so many all closing in around the bird in the snow that I had to back away. I stood at a distance, watching. Fifty jackdaws I counted, black as coal against the white. They made no noise, no jackdaw screech, just stood there, in a circle all around their fellow bird, for perhaps no more than two or three minutes, though, to me, it may as well have been two or three centuries. Then off they flew, all at once, in a great jet-feathered cloud. The bird was still lying there, but now it was dead; I went to check. They had not touched it but perhaps they had helped it on its way. To this day, I have no idea.’ He shook his head slowly, half smiling. ‘A mystery.’

‘Like you,’ said April.

‘Me?’ he said, surprised. ‘I’m no mystery. I’m as predictable as they come.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Well, you know exactly what I’m thinking now, don’t you?’

His hands had begun to move under her jersey.

‘Oh,’ said April. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’

She caught his wrist. ‘I thought you were ill?’

‘I’m very ill,’ he said, ‘but my heart’s still beating and my blood, a bit sluggishly, I admit, is still flowing.’

He lowered her hand and placed it where she could confirm the truth of that statement.

‘And so if you don’t mind the risk of catching whatever it is I’ve got—?’

She shook her head.

‘Then I’ll make the most of it,’ he said, and kissed her full and hungrily on the mouth.

CHAPTER 40

December, 1946

How had he been away so long?

No, thought James, that was the wrong question. The right one was: how had three years gone by like no time at all? Two and a half of them he’d spent in a war that had, for him, alternately raced and crawled to its end. Victory in Europe sounded so definite but it was an artificial punctuation point. It had taken two more months for James to be assigned a demob group number, and then the date they’d given for his release had seemed as far away as the moon. It had been calculated on his age and number of years in service, deducting time, reluctantly, in recognition of his medal (he owed Major Cowan for that one). Without that medal, James would still be in Italy. As it was, it had been a year before he’d escaped the camp. He’d left it in June, two days before his birthday, still wearing his uniform, his civvies apparently waiting for him back in England.

To be fair, he’d not hated the camp, more been bored senseless by the interminable wait. In October 1945 his regiment had moved into abandoned Italian army barracks, across the river from a mid-sized town, at the foot of a rural hill upon which sat a twelfth-century citadel. It was no fairytale castle with turrets and crenellations and flags. It was a featureless squat octagon with seven solid pillars, nothing inside but crumbling walls and a chilly stone courtyard. It had been built by an emperor, who had once forced a wise man to knuckle down and finish some great works, free from distraction within its walls. James had taken up drawing again to pass the time, but once you’d seen one side of the citadel, you’d seen them all. Likewise the banks of the nearby river, and the sheep grazing on the surrounding green fields. His comrades, too, had done nothing but lie around smoking, drinking illicit grappa and playing cards. There were only so many listless soldiers you could include in a sketchbook before the subject palled.

And then he’d been set free. He’d been expected to take a passage home right away, but he had not. He’d crossed the river into the town, bought better-fitting Italian-made clothes and a decent pair of boots, ditched the uniform by the side of the road and begun to walk. On the evening of his birthday, he’d entered a larger town where a handsome young Englishman was a desirable commodity, and so he’d celebrated with too much red wine and a rough coupling in a doorway with a girl whose lips seemed far too pale for her dark skin, as if she was gravely ill and this was the first sign.

The following day, he’d been buffeted by a summer storm, wincing as the wind threw road dust and gravel into his face with the force of an enraged woman hurling crockery at her unfaithful lover. He’d pressed on, and the extra effort had meant he’d arrived at his next stop so famished that he could barely see straight. He’d found a small osteria and devoured a plate of pasta and half a roast chicken. It was old, a stewing bird really, but he’d ripped it apart and stuffed it down, and followed it with some kind of cake with nuts and, again, too many glasses of red wine. The osteria’s owners had directed him to potential accommodation, but James had only walked a few feet when his over-indulgence caught up with him and he’d vomited copiously onto the cobbled street, splashing his boots with vile half-digested slush. He had not bothered to find the accommodation, but had spent the night under a bridge near a stream where he’d washed his boots, sleeping fitfully between queasy dreams.

In other villages, there’d been no food for him to buy, and he’d walked quickly through, past inhabitants who all had the same gaunt imprint of deprivation and fear. In one market square, he’d seen two middle-aged women fighting over what looked like a wheel of cheese. He did not know enough Italian to understand the imprecations they spat at each other but he guessed they were the standard insults, slurs on one’s family and one’s virtue, and one’s family’s virtue. As he’d passed, James had had to quell an urge to laugh. They’d been matronly women and their close grip on the cheese wheel meant it had got wedged between their bosoms. If they’d let go, it would not have fallen but been held fast by two bombazine-covered clamps. He had not waited to see which woman won the prize.

On the outskirts of a bombed city, four sullen, angry young men had robbed him at knifepoint. They’d taken his lira, which he had not cared about as he had access to plenty more, and his boots, which he’d resented very much, having just broken them in. He’d remembered then one of his regiment, an older man demobbed before his younger comrades, warning them that ‘the Eyeties were getting nasty’. The man had read that a gang of youths in Rome, who called themselves the Tosatori, the haircutters, were grabbing local women who went out with Allied soldiers and shaving their heads roughly with knives, not caring if they drew blood. James had then recalled the pale-lipped girl in the doorway. It had never occurred to him that he could have put her in danger. It would not be the first time that he’d been the instrument of someone’s downfall, he’d thought. And, just like both those other occasions, there’d be no chance to go back and make it right.

A week into his third month on the road, he’d walked into a town’s historical centre in time to see a grand palazzo on fire. The fire crew, such as it was, had been there, but the building was too far ablaze for them to save it, and they’d been concentrating instead on preventing the fire from spreading. James’s Italian had improved to the point where he’d understood that someone was trapped inside the house, the owner, a wealthy old man. One bystander had lamented the loss of the man’s art collection, but the other had been more concerned about the palazzo’s beautiful garden. Neither had expressed any regret for the man, who, James had gathered, was a miser who would not even donate money to help repair the local cathedral. He’d once been heard to curse at the Monsignor himself, and spit at His Holiness’s feet. As the roof of the palazzo had fallen inwards in a shower of sparks, the two bystanders had suggested that the man might now be regretting his renunciation of the church. Without the last rites, he’d be going straight to a place that closely resembled what was now his flaming tomb.

During October the temperature had steadily dropped, and James had wired more money from his account back home to buy a coat. He’d taken to sheltering in churches, slipping into a back pew if there was a service on and hunkering down until he’d gathered enough energy to get back on the road. One sermon had been a real tirade, the priest with spittle-flecked Savonarola-like fervour denouncing all manner of sin, from blasphemy to sodomy. The congregation up the front had worn most of the spit, which James had imagined raining down on them like fiery flakes from the sky.

At the start of November, he’d seen queues of civilians and soldiers filing into a town hall, and he’d joined them to see what was going on. The British soldier at the door had told him it was a service for Hanukkah, organised by a Jewish bloke who worked for the Allied military body that now governed occupied territories. Entrance was supposed to be invitation-only, the soldier had said, but one more wouldn’t make any difference. Long as James didn’t mind that the catering consisted of army rations. Halfway through, there’d been a commotion at the door, a group of people speaking in accented English requesting admission. Polish refugees, survivors, according to an American corporal seated next to James, of the camps. ‘Can you imagine,’ the corporal had said, gripping a table knife in his fist like a switchblade, ‘seeing your family, your children, stripped of everything they owned, starved, gassed, shot, piled onto a heap of corpses. Six million dead, maybe more. If you’d been one of the German guards, how could you cope with that amount of innocent blood on your hands?’ You’d cope by burying it deep in your mind, James had thought. Or by blowing your brains out, though the shame of failure had most likely been a stronger motivator for Herr Hitler than remorse. The Jewish chaplain had been reluctant to let the group in — army rations would stretch only to those invited — but his protest had been overridden. No one in the hall would eat if these people were refused. The group, two families or perhaps the glued-together shards of several, were thin but standing tall, grateful but resolute. Nothing more to lose, James had thought. Makes you bold because you no longer need to care.

The following evening, he’d nearly stepped on a body lying in the gutter. He’d telephoned the police from a bar, and they’d identified the body as that of a Jew, another camp survivor, perhaps one of the group earlier, who’d lived in the top flat of the adjacent building. The man had jumped to his death from the roof, had been their conclusion. Too much darkness in the soul, one policeman had said and made the sign of the cross over his heart.

Mid-December, his money had run out. There must be some mistake, he’d said to the cashier at the city bank. No mistake, the cashier had said, and given James a look as if he were some kind of conman, a fraud. The account was bare. James had used all his flattering charm to persuade an official at the British Embassy that his situation was dire enough to warrant a free phone call home, and had begun the conversation with his father on much the same note, assuming that the lack of money had been an oversight and could be quickly rectified. But no, his father had stopped his allowance. James had been away too long. He was reneging on his responsibilities at home.

The touch-paper had ignited. James’s guns had blazed. If anyone had reneged on his responsibilities, it was his father! Because of his father’s greed and mismanagement, James had no business to take over. He had no chance to complete his university degree. Because of his father’s blinkered arrogance, he no longer had a family. His mother had left. Sunny had left. Strangers ran the farm. His childhood home was empty apart from a hypocritical, corrupt and twisted old shit of a man. His father had stolen James’s inheritance, his friends, his family and his future — everything that had ever made James Potts anything special. Now, James was penniless, unqualified and adrift. Responsibilities? His father could go hang!

James had expected a tirade in return, terminating in an ultimatum, a threat. But his father had only said in a quiet voice, ‘Come home, my boy’, and ended the call. An embassy official had popped his head around the door and asked if everything was all right, though the whole embassy had surely been able to hear that it was not. So very British, James had thought. To speak in a code of omission, ostensibly to reduce the risk of causing offence but really to cover your back, so you could plausibly deny you ever meant such a thing.

The embassy could help by arranging a passage home for him, James had said to the official. His father would wire the money directly to them.

And now he was at the house, opening up the side door that was never locked. It seemed too official to use the front entrance, too symbolic of a return of a long-lost son, who, in all the stories, would be greeted lovingly by his family and friends and all the other people who’d gathered to welcome him home.

The kitchen was empty. The drawing and dining rooms, too. James did not call out, but ascended the stairs and entered his mother’s bedroom. There was no trace of her. Even the bed had been stripped down to a mattress on bare springs. Dust covered all the furniture like a white mould.

The room, like the rest of the house, was freezing. James touched a radiator, and felt only cold metal. He left the room and, bypassing his own bedroom, made his way to the stairs that led up to the attic. He did not expect to find anything there but he had an urge to get as high as he could before he was required to descend again. There was one window in the attic and from it you could see across the fields to the farmhouse. From this distance, it would look as if nothing had changed.

In the attic was a linen chest. Inside it James found what was left of his mother. The blanket she used for picnics, for extra warmth in the car and, folded up under her knees, for gardening. Underneath it, her clothes. Underneath those, right at the bottom, the box of secrets.

He lifted it out, tried the lid. It was not locked. Inside were only two items — the silver and gold keys on their chain and the ivory dog’s head. No robin’s egg, no four-leaf clover, no red nut concealing miraculously tiny elephants. He knew the enamelled brooch would not be there. And perhaps she had taken those other things with her, too. Perhaps she had never really liked the dog’s head with its unreliable face.

James tipped the contents out onto the blanket and the dog’s head rolled immediately to the edge and slipped down into the depths of the chest. He decided not to search for it. It was an ugly thing, really, and hardly a lucky charm. The box he took, though, and its keys. To leave it in the chest would be to admit that the bond between him and his mother was no more, and while he suspected his mother had long since accepted that, he could not bring himself to do the same just yet.

He was still carrying the bag he’d brought with him. A leather satchel, Italian-made, light because in it was all he owned in the world. Out of the attic, he considered dropping both satchel and box on his old bed, but the door was closed and he did not want to see if his room, too, had been stripped bare.

James decided to leave them in the entranceway. They would be easy to grab if he needed to leave in a hurry. On the hall table he found a pile of letters. Most were official, from banks and lawyers’ firms and the revenue department. None of these had been opened. He found four addressed to him, three from Sunny, postmarked Nottingham, London and lastly Cairo, and one from Lily, sent from a Welsh town James had never heard of. He opened Sunny’s most recent letter. Perry had been given a job with the Foreign Office in Egypt. When James finally got back home, he was to call the embassy collect. The ambassador would pay, Sunny wrote. He owed her for the flies and the sand.

Lily’s letter was dated October. Her father had died, suddenly, from a heart attack, in late June. Her eldest brother had been killed that month in a riot in Trieste, a sad post-war casualty, and the grief of losing two sons on top of the farm had been too much for her father. Her mother had taken very ill and, as both widowed daughters-in-law had gone back to their own families, Lily would be her full-time nurse. She wrote that the baby had been a girl, and Reverend Brownlow had given her to a good couple who could not have children of their own. Once again, she hoped James would forgive her. She hoped her father had forgiven her, too. He’d given up the farm for her sake, to spare her the shame. In Wales, all their neighbours thought Lily’s husband had been killed in the war. And they understood, with Ellis dead and Martha so unwell, why Lily could not keep the child. A pity, they all said. But that’s how life was. James let the letter fall back onto the pile.

A clink of glass on glass, from his father’s study. Not wanting to betray his presence just yet, James trod quietly up the hallway. The study door was ajar and through the gap James could see his father in his black leather chair in front of a grate filled with ash and sharp-edged glittery pieces of coal. The lack of fire somehow made the room feel even icier than the rest of the house. His father was bent forward, elbows propped on his knees, a glass of whisky in one hand that James guessed was not the first of the day. A single light was on, an ornate Austrian glass table-lamp in garish colours that his mother had never liked. It stained one side of his father’s face yellow and red, leaving the other in black shadow. His father’s shoulders were shaking, James saw. His mouth moved as if chewing on itself. Lewis Potts was weeping.

James went up to his bedroom. It was unchanged, the bed made, ready for him. He sat and let the seed of his plan grow and grow until its tendrils had looped and slithered and insinuated into even the furthest dark corners of his mind.

CHAPTER 41

late October

She heard the scrabbling at the door before the knock. It was after ten at night and April was readying for bed. Her first thought was that it was Oran, in trouble, or drunk, or both. She was wrong.

‘Can I come in?’ he said.

‘Of course,’ said April, opening the door wide.

She had suppressed her surprise, in case he misinterpreted it as reluctance and went away again. But she could not help asking for a small amount of reassurance.

‘Is everything all right?’

His step inside had been a cautious one, and now, unsmiling and wary, he was glancing around at the walls and up at the beams in the ceiling, as if they were live things waiting to pounce.

To her question, though, he gave a quick smile. ‘Of course,’ he said.

Gabe, too, had slunk in, and was sitting up tense and straight beside the now closed door, front feet braced, ready to run at the first finger-click.

‘Can I get you something?’ said April. ‘Cup of tea? Toast?’

‘No thanks.’

He looked at her properly for the first time, noted she had nothing on but knickers and a loose T-shirt.

‘You were off to bed,’ he said.

‘Only to read,’ she said. ‘I have a lot of reading to catch up on. The bookman at the village fair thinks I’m Christmas.’

‘Do you mind, then? My being here?’

April had let him stand at a distance, fearing a sudden move on her part might spook him. But she sped now to close the gap, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. His mouth was cold, so she kissed it again to make it warm.

‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. ‘I’m thrilled.’

He pulled her tight to him and buried his face in her shoulder and hair.

‘I shouldn’t be here at all,’ he said, voice muffled. ‘But I was just so—’

‘You were what?’ April prompted gently.

Instead of an answer, he kissed her hard, slid one hand under her T-shirt and down the back of her knickers. April shivered.

‘Cold hands,’ he murmured. ‘Sorry.’

‘Soon fix that.’

She took his hand and led him to the bedroom, and they made love with a physical intensity that bordered on roughness, the languor of summer long gone. The second time was gentler, slower, better for her, but he did not smile at her pleasure, as he’d always used to.

He was on his back now, staring upwards. What he saw, she could not tell. She doubted it was beams and plaster. His face was half in shadow, half illuminated by moonlight through the bedroom window, and his eyes were black as a barn owl’s. April had always thought of an owl’s eyes as large and golden, but two days ago at twilight, coming back from the hedgerows, basket filled with the last of the blackberries, she’d been halted by a gleam of white. It was perched on a low branch in a tree barely three feet away. It turned its head, swivelled it as only an owl can do, and she’d looked straight into its eyes. Black, no pupils visible, just two orbs as round and black as nightshade berries. It had blinked — white lids — and raised its wings, and flown off into the woods with no more sound than the hush of an oar on still water.

April placed her hand on his face, coaxed it around towards her, so she could trace with her fingers his cheekbones and jaw, his nose and forehead and the bones around his eyes, his ears, the curve of his skull under his short, dark hair. She wanted to memorise him, keep his portrait forever in the locket of her mind. But even now, when he was so close that she could feel his breath on her skin, he seemed to slide away from her. It was like walking around a tree, she thought. The whorls of bark and branch nubs gave you a different image at every step. And though you knew the whole of it was essentially unchanged, recognising it could often depend on which way you came across it.

But she would always recognise him, wouldn’t she? How could she not?

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For everything.’

‘Thank you.’ She kissed him. ‘Without you, I’d be …’

The right words evaded her because she did not wish to think about it too deeply. And she did not need to, because it was in the past now. Done, gone. What came next was a much brighter thought, if not without its dark patches. But those would always be there. No one on earth could avoid those.

He brushed his thumb over her mouth, and kissed her softly above her eyes.

‘Sleep now,’ he said. ‘And dream well.’

When she woke, he and the dog were gone. She searched the cottage, looked all around it, even in the shed, walked to the edge of the woods in case he’d left something, anything, even a leaf from the sole of his boot. But there was nothing to be detected except the coolness of approaching rain and the bitter scent of the wild daisies that she’d crushed into the grass.

CHAPTER 42

January, 1947

‘They’re saying that if this keeps up, it may well turn into the greatest snowfall of the century. Do be sure you’re careful on your way home.’

Reverend Brownlow ushered James into a warm parlour that was — well, to describe it as messy would be like describing the oceans as moist. His daughters must be aged — James made a quick calculation — four, five and six now. Their mother had herded them into the kitchen, so that James and her husband could talk uninterrupted. That is, as long as they did not consider yells, clanging and the occasional high-pitched whistling scream that reminded James of being shelled as interruptions.

He took the armchair Reverend Brownlow had gestured to and rose again immediately. The object he’d sat on was hard and extremely knobbly.

‘Not again.’ Reverend Brownlow held out his hand for it. ‘How does she do it?’

He looked up towards the high top shelf of the dresser. There James saw the other figures from the carved nativity set that for years had been as much part of the Blythes’ kitchen as the smell of baking and damp wool.

‘Katie is barely three,’ said the Reverend, ‘and yet she can climb like a mountain goat. Recently, we found her twenty feet up the old chestnut tree, and I’m not sure the scolding she received convinced her it had been in any way a bad idea.’

Reverend Brownlow turned the wooden lamb over in his hand.

‘I should really give in and let her have this. The set was meant for the girls, but my fear is that not even hard oak would survive their games. They managed to pulverise to dust three lawn bowls but refused to tell me how. I suspect the Americans believe they have invented the ultimate weapon, but then they have not yet met the Brownlow sisters.’

James could not resist.

‘May I?’

He took back the lamb and let it nestle in the centre of his palm, plied its toffee-smooth surface with his fingers.

‘It was a gift from the Blythes,’ said Reverend Brownlow. ‘When they moved to Wales, they could not afford to take with them many possessions. Lily brought us quite a few things to give to the poor, but this she wanted us to keep. As a thank you. And, of course, a memento.’

A flutter of knuckles at the parlour door. Mrs Brownlow’s pretty but harried face appeared round it.

‘I’m so sorry.’ She caught her husband’s eye. ‘Could you—?’

‘My apologies,’ he said to James. ‘I will be back. I just hope I can recall where I last left my whip and chair.’

This time, James inspected the armchair before sinking into it. He was so very tired. Bone weary was the phrase, and it was entirely accurate. His bones ached as if they’d had enough of holding him up and would prefer to collapse to the ground in a rattling heap before flattening to dust, like Reverend Brownlow’s lawn bowls, in a final act of surrender.

He gripped the wooden object in his hand hard, so as to feel that his muscles could still work if he wanted them to. He knew without looking that the lamb was not perfectly rendered, that one leg was awry, because he had long ago committed it to memory and only yesterday captured it in a drawing. When Reverend Brownlow had said Lily had given them the nativity set as a memento, she’d meant it to be one not of her family but of Rowan. The Reverend had been Rowan’s friend, which James had also been, and his ally, which James had not. James did not need a physical object to help him remember. There was no forgetting what he had done.

Why had he come here? To ask the Reverend about Lily’s baby? About the family who’d adopted the little girl? Or had he, perhaps, come to confess? To someone who would be disgusted by his actions but who, unlike everyone else, would be forced to pretend otherwise, because James was the penitent and Reverend Brownlow’s religious principles valued compassion.

But he had already confessed, hadn’t he? He’d spilled it all out, the whole story, in black ink onto a page …

He’d sat with Rowan on a fallen log covered with damp moss but not yet completely rotten, and told him that Lily was pregnant with Rowan’s child. He told him that Lily was too upset to tell Rowan herself, knowing that there was little Rowan could do to help. Ellis would never accept Rowan into the family, and there was the risk also that he would never accept Rowan’s child. Most likely, she would be forced to adopt the baby out. ‘Lily cares about you very much,’ James had said, ‘and she does not want you to worry unduly. But it does look a bit hopeless, doesn’t it?’

‘It’s all my fault,’ Rowan said. ‘I knew we should never have gone that far. I knew it was wrong, and a risk, but I was so alone, so desperate for the least bit of human warmth. Without Lily and Sunny, and you,’ he added, ‘bringing me food and keeping me sane, I really think I would have ended it by now. The woods are beautiful and full of life but they’re no place for a man to spend all his days. God,’ he said, and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. ‘I have no money. I have nothing to give her. What on earth can I do?’

‘I have had one thought,’ James said, aiming for the right note of cautious doubt, ‘but I’m not sure it will be palatable to you.’

‘Right now, I’m willing to try anything,’ Rowan replied.

So James told him, and Rowan nodded, as if he’d had that solution in his head all along and was waiting only for James to confirm it by speaking it aloud.

‘And you know, you needn’t be on the front line,’ James had said. ‘You could be a signaller or a cook or even a medic. After your training, you might never again need to touch a gun.’

‘I suppose enlisting sooner rather than later is your advice,’ Rowan said, with a faint smile. ‘But I want to talk to Lily first. And to Ellis. Can you arrange that,’ he asked James, ‘pave the way? I wouldn’t want to turn up unannounced and blurt it all out cold. That’d be too much of a shock for Ellis and Martha.’

James prayed his own shock had not been visible. He had not anticipated that Rowan would want to see Lily, and he cursed his own stupidity. Of course Rowan would want to say goodbye and reassure her that all would be well. Of course he’d want to declare his intentions to Ellis Blythe. God forbid, he might even suggest he and Lily marry before he leaves!

None of that could happen or the game was up. James did some very quick thinking.

‘I wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘You are so much of a traitor in Ellis Blythe’s mind that I doubt he’ll believe you. Enlist first, and then write to them once you’ve been posted, so they know it’s true. You won’t have to wait long. Training’s only six weeks now. You’ll be posted in February. And so will I.’

He’d placed his hand on Rowan’s shoulder and shaken it reassuringly. ‘I’ll have a quiet word in Lily’s ear once you’re gone, so she can stop worrying. And don’t you worry, either. We’re winning, my friend. This war will be over and you’ll soon be back home. Everything will turn out well …’

That was the story he’d written, and buried in a safe place for someone to find. Perhaps that someone would be Sunny, the one friend with whom he had always kept faith. But there was no guarantee that the clues he had posted to her this morning would reach her, no certainty that Sunny would even spot that the map held clues, let alone have the patience to puzzle them out. He pictured her scowling at the map and the keys on the chain, wondering what in hell he’d meant by sending them to her, cursing him for being obscure. He was indeed taking the slithery route to the end, he thought. Unlike Sunny, who drove through life like a Scammell Pioneer semi-trailer. Any obstacles, even ones as big as a tank, she either drove over or dragged forcibly out of the way.

Married now, Sunny and Perry were expecting their first child. Sunny was so excited, she’d declared over the terrible phone connection, that if the ambassador hadn’t been such a prig, she would have screamed aloud. She still might. The embassy was like a catacomb, only not as lively. Whenever she could, she escaped into the gaudy hubbub of the Cairo markets or sped on a bicycle through the back streets, imperilling chickens and outraging men. Her voice, even echoey and distant, had been as bracing as a run on a frosty morning, that first plunge into the swimming hole. For a fleeting moment, Sunny’s energy had filled James with an effervescent, reckless joy, the kind you feel when you swing too high or race full tilt through a grassy meadow, whooping and yelling, your friends racing beside you.

‘Hop over,’ she’d said. ‘Ignore all that hoo-ha in Palestine and jump on a boat. Perry and I would love to see you. It’s been far, far too long.’

He’d love to, James had said. But there was so much to do at home. Unravelling his father’s tangled finances for one, sorting out what he owed, tying off all those ends that still dangled threateningly like a hangman’s noose. It looked like there’d be enough money for his father to keep the house and not starve, and even to support Old Ted. Not that they had much choice, as Ted refused to leave. But there was no money for James; he would have to find work. Poorly paid work, most likely, as he had no degree and no connections. The Potts name carried no weight now and might, in fact, work against him. And his war hero status would have an expiry date.

‘Don’t be such a misery guts,’ Sunny had said. ‘We’ll find you a job. You could do most tasks at the embassy asleep, and you’d be more competent than half the people here. Don’t be so cautious, either — hop it right now. We miss you …’

An unexpected silence in the Brownlow house roused James. He listened, guessing correctly that it was the kind of silence caused by three small sets of lungs sucking in breath. The Reverend Brownlow would be busy a while longer. He’d probably forgotten that James was even in the house.

As the chorus of bellowing began, James made it to the front door without being detected, and walked out into the obliterating snow.

CHAPTER 43

last day of October

April awoke from a dream in which she was being hunted by a pack of dogs. She was running, as hard as she could, branches whipping her face as she crashed through the woods, while behind her a terrible baying clamoured louder as the dogs gained ground. She sat up in her bed, heart hammering, and it was not until her breathing began to slow that she realised the barking and yelping were not in her mind. The sound was distant but it was real and being carried across the still night from the woods. As April listened, it soared and then faded, as if the dogs — or their quarry — had abruptly changed direction and were now racing away.

April checked her watch. Twenty to midnight. Dogs in the woods at this hour — what could that mean? Was it the police pursuing some criminal? She felt a brief anxiety for Jack, but guessed he would be well out of their way. If Jack did not want anyone to find him, then no one would.

Oran, though, was a different matter. April had a sudden vision of him splayed face-down across the hood of his van, one arm wrenched behind him by a policeman who was demanding to know why Oran was parked up on private property, and who would not be predisposed to viewing any explanation in a favourable light. She should check on him, thought April, and the house, too. Best to be safe rather than sorry.

She dressed quickly, wrapping up in coat and gloves, grabbed Kit’s torch and walked outside into a frosty darkness lit up by a surprisingly bright sliver of moon.

Approaching Empyrean, her small funnel of torchlight picked up her car and Oran’s van. The interior of the van was dark. Oran must be asleep. But sweeping around towards the house, she illuminated a figure standing quite still at the foot of the front steps.

April stopped, wary, but the figure said, ‘It’s me’, and walked across the gravel towards her.

Oran had April’s blanket that she’d lent him around his shoulders and was hugging it close. He had a wide-eyed, dazed look about him, April noted. But then the barking of a pack of police dogs probably wasn’t Oran’s favourite sound to be woken by.

‘Do you know what’s going on?’ April said.

He did not meet her eye, but stared off down the driveway. ‘She came,’ he said.

‘Who came?’

‘With the others. I knew it was her before I heard them. Before I heard them laughing.’

‘Are you talking about your wife?’ April resisted the urge to shake him by the shoulders. ‘How the hell did she get all the way up here?’

‘They had a car. Stolen, no doubt. Parked it away down the driveway so we wouldn’t be alerted by the engine noise. Walked up.’

A strong foreboding shivered through April. ‘Why, Oran? What did they want?’

Now, he did look at her, and in his eyes April saw both shame and defiance.

‘Nothing good,’ he said. ‘They meant to enter the house, squat there for tonight or maybe longer. They wanted to bring their blackness in and spread it all around. They meant to ruin the house, cover it with their filth. They wanted nothing good.’

April’s sudden anger surprised her. The house was under her protection. If Oran’s wife and her cronies had harmed it, she would find them and make them pay.

‘It’s all right.’ Oran must have read her expression. ‘They were gone before they could get anywhere near.’

‘Did you call the police?’ April gestured towards the woods, which were now quiet. ‘Is that what all the barking was? I didn’t think you had a phone.’

‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘And those dogs had nothing to do with the police, believe me.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said April. ‘Who else would be running a pack of dogs at midnight?’

Oran hunched up his shoulders and drew the blanket tighter.

‘I don’t think I want to answer that.’

‘You’re making no sense,’ said April, exasperated. ‘Go back to the beginning. Tell me what happened.’

‘I heard them come up the driveway,’ he said. ‘They were talking quietly enough but the air was so still, even their breathing would have carried. It’s All Saints’ Eve, you know,’ he added. ‘The night of lost souls. That liminal moment between life and death.’

‘Don’t be melodramatic. And hurry up. It’s cold out here.’

‘I knew who it was before I got out of the van,’ Oran went on. ‘I’d been expecting her, you see. I came out to greet her, hoping that this time, maybe. But as soon as I saw their faces in the moonlight …’

He bowed his head, scuffed his foot on the gravel. ‘I tried, you know, to send them away, but they were not willing to listen. They were dead set on their havoc and destruction. I pleaded but all they did was laugh, and then push me over in the gravel and begin to kick me.’

April took a sharp breath. ‘My God. Are you all right?’

Oran offered her a faint smile. ‘It will probably not shock you to learn that I’ve suffered a fair few beatings in my time, and I can reassure you that I was spared the worst of this one. When I first heard the growling, I thought it might have been my own noise. But then it erupted into a fierce snarling and a yelling and screaming like you would not believe, the sheer terror and pain in those sounds, like a massacre. Don’t judge me, but I thought it best to stay on the ground and keep still. I opened my eyes a bit and that’s when I saw it — a great big white dog with teeth like a nightmare and glowing red demon eyes, though it’s possible fear might have led my mind to exaggerate that last bit. It had one of them down, and was going fair for the throat when the others found our shovel and began to lay into the beast. They struck it hard, I heard it whine, and they took their chance and ran back down the driveway, all limping and snivelling and sobbing with panic. The hound ran, too, like the wind. I would like to say it chased them but I can’t be sure. But, oh, it is such a satisfaction to picture it snapping at their foul heels till the end of time.’

There was steel in his voice, an anger that April had never heard before.

‘She won’t be back,’ April said, softly. ‘Will she?’

Oran stared off down the driveway again, but his posture was upright and his shoulders back.

‘When I say I pleaded with them, I meant I pleaded with her. I know this house is not mine but it has a place in my heart. I asked her not to destroy my work, all those months of effort that you and I put in. Asked her, please, to do that one thing for me. And then the moon came out and I saw her face in the light, and it was grinning and twisted and keen as a knife to do me harm. I knew then that my Cee-Cee was long gone, and that the person who’d taken over her body did not deserve my love, and never had.’

‘Oh, Oran.’

April put her arms around him and drew his head down onto her shoulder.

‘I wish I could tell you that you’ll get over the loss,’ she said, ‘but you never will entirely. I don’t think that’s possible when you’ve loved someone so much. But after a while, you do feel the grief less and the love more, and that is a comfort. Not perfect, but good enough to be going on with. That’s what I’ve found, anyway.’

Oran lifted his head and kissed her on the cheek.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ll remember that. And I’ll remember this night, too, keep that twisted face firm in my mind, so I’m not tempted to convince myself I imagined it.’

He frowned.

‘Do you think it’s possible I imagined the hound? That it was some manifestation of my own self I projected out there?’

‘I doubt it,’ said April. ‘Unless you nibbled on the wrong side of the mushroom earlier on?’

‘No, my mind was clear,’ said Oran. ‘Clear as this beautiful night sky.’

He lifted his head and grinned up at the stars that glinted sharp as ice crystals in the blackness.

April slipped her arm under the blanket and linked it in his.

‘Cup of tea back at the cottage?’

‘Thought you’d never ask. And might I be so bold as to enquire about the possibility of a midnight snack?’

As they walked, footsteps crunching on frosted gravel, April decided to tell him the one thing that still concerned her.

‘You know, when I first heard the barking, I thought it was a whole pack of dogs,’ she said. ‘I suppose it was only echoes …’

‘The only other explanation is that the hound I saw had some red-eyed comrades, all poised and ready to chase the sinners straight to Hell,’ said Oran. ‘But let’s say it was echoes, shall we? On a night such as this one, that answer’s much less likely to keep you awake.’

CHAPTER 44

early November

‘We’ve had an offer.’

April appreciated Edward’s use of the plural pronoun. It suggested the responsibility for the next step might not be entirely up to her.

‘Is it — are you happy with it?’

‘It’s very fair,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll be pleased.’

‘Developers?’ Sunny made the word sound synonymous with a disease caused by lax hygiene.

‘Actually, no,’ said Edward. ‘Well, not in the pure sense. It’s an overseas buyer. They want to establish a school for international students. Not a large one, obviously, though they do have some intention of putting more buildings in the grounds.’

The cherry-red Aga was heating Sunny’s kitchen most comfortably, and both Edward and Oran were in their shirtsleeves. The difference being that Edward’s shirt had on it a subtle pin dot pattern and Oran’s a picture of Shane MacGowan, fortunately with his mouth closed.

April was wearing a wool top under a cardigan, but she still wished for another layer. She had been feeling the cold lately and Edward’s news did nothing to warm her up.

‘You’ll be made for life should you take it,’ said Oran. ‘You could buy a cottage of your very own. One just big enough, say, for you and a willing flatmate.’

April managed a smile. ‘Van cold over winter?’

‘As an ice giant’s fundament.’ Oran took another slice of cake. ‘Or the heart of an inconstant woman.’

‘You don’t have to decide now,’ said Edward. ‘Think on it for a few days. I can stall.’

A few days, thought April. Just a little more time …

And then she knew what her answer would be.

‘No, I’ll accept it.’

‘Oh,’ said Sunny, flatly.

April suspected that Sunny was now viewing her even less favourably than she did property developers.

‘Are you absolutely sure?’ said Edward. ‘You do have a choice, you know?’

‘I know,’ said April. ‘I also know that I’ve come to love the house, but that’s exactly why I have to let it go. I can’t do what needs to be done to save it. I can’t bring it back to the way it was, can’t turn back time. It’s been empty for so long, it needs to be filled right to the brim with people, not just me—’

‘I’d be a willing flatmate,’ said Oran.

‘You and I would rattle around like dried peas. Or, in your case, one of those orange lentils. No, it’s the right thing to do. Let someone else make plans for it. Let them transform it into something new, something with a purpose. That’s what the house deserves after waiting patiently all these years.’

‘Me and Empyrean,’ said Oran. ‘Both patient waiters. Though not of the restaurant-serving kind, of course. I’d be terrible at that.’

‘At the risk of sounding like a game show host,’ said Edward, ‘I have to ask: is that your final answer?’

‘It is,’ said April. ‘But — do you think I could add a couple of conditions?’

‘Tell me what they are and I’ll be able to offer an opinion,’ said Edward.

‘There are two things I’d like to do before they take possession. First: I’d like to plant an apple tree in the garden.’ She saw Sunny’s eyes turn towards her. ‘Where your tree used to be.’

‘November is a good month for planting apples,’ said Sunny. ‘As long as you pick a hardy specimen.’

‘I want to see if I can find a similar kind. One that gives yellow fruit.’

‘Plenty of heritage nurseries, these days,’ said Oran. ‘Seems the further away the past, the more we hanker after it.’

‘And the second thing?’ said Edward.

April took a deep breath. The idea had only just come to her and she could not tell if it was foolish or impertinent, or both. The potential for Sunny to react badly seemed high. But there was no evading a straight answer now.

‘I’d like to hold Sunny’s birthday party there. We could put a big marquee on the lawn, hire those tall patio heaters, and put some Portaloos around the back. No power will be a complete pain for the caterers, but we could always hire some generators …’

All three of them were staring at her, Oran with a slice of cake paused halfway to his mouth.

‘Begob,’ he said. ‘That’s genius. Can we afford it?’

He directed that question at Edward.

‘I don’t think we need to worry about money,’ Edward replied. ‘The Day children have all agreed to share the cost. Pro-rata, of course, as their personal incomes vary widely. I had left it to Deborah to find a location, as she is closest. Of course, given her own income, which appears to be bottomless, there was always the risk she’d choose somewhere a little too rich for the others’ blood. So my guess is that this location will win universal approval as both appropriate and affordable. And if Deborah is unhappy with the heating, she can always wear her mink.’

‘Brilliant!’ Oran clapped his hands. ‘It’s a plan!’

‘Not yet …’ April cautioned.

Sunny’s silence had not escaped her. The older woman was sitting quite still, no expression on her face to give any clue to what she was thinking.

April put her hand on Sunny’s arm.

‘If you hate the idea, we won’t do it. Deborah will find another place.’

‘I don’t hate it.’ Sunny’s voice sounded flat and faraway. ‘Yet I can’t help but recall that my first visit to Empyrean was for a birthday party. And — well …’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Edward. ‘You fear there might be some symbolic parallel? Your first visit — and your last?’

‘Nonsense,’ said Oran. ‘You’ll live to be a hundred. You’ll get that telegram from Her Majesty sure as eggs. She’ll most certainly live to be a hundred.’

‘You can’t know that,’ said Sunny.

‘Neither can you, you doomsaying old wench!’

A twitch of Sunny’s mouth became a low chuckle, became a full-throated laugh. Then, suddenly, she was crying, fumbling for her napkin. Edward’s jacket was hung neatly on the back of his chair, and from an inside pocket, he pulled a crisp white handkerchief and offered it to her without comment.

Sunny dabbed her eyes and blew her nose.

‘What a stupid old woman I am.’

‘Not at all,’ said Oran. ‘Well, though, to be fair, you are quite old.’

‘Hush.’ April smacked him lightly on the arm. ‘Stop your mouth with more cake.’

‘Oh, my friends, my dears, my beautiful, funny young things, I am so very grateful for you,’ said Sunny. ‘If it weren’t for you, I might feel compelled to live with one of my own children and you know how cranky that would make me. Even the illusion of free will is better than none.’

‘Like the illusion of a free press,’ said Edward. ‘Which reminds me.’ He raised an eyebrow at April and Oran. ‘I gather you two had a bit of drama the other night.’

He fetched a newspaper from where he’d placed it on the sideboard, and after folding it neatly lengthways, like certain businessmen do on trains, began to turn the pages methodically, in search of some article.

April caught Oran’s panicked, questioning stare and shook her head, once, firmly. Oran had, after much embarrassed prevarication, asked her not to breathe a word of what had happened. He did not want Sunny to worry, and he did not want Edward to decide to take matters further and pursue his wife and her cohorts for trespass. The hounds of Hell would be preferable to having Edward Gill on your tail, was Oran’s belief.

April had promised to say nothing and her nod was to reassure him that she had been true to her word. What Edward had seen in the newspaper, she could not, and did not want to, guess at.

‘Ah. Here it is.’

Edward began to read.

‘Escaped Convicts Recaptured,’ he said. ‘At ten p.m. on 30 October, two inmates of HM Prison Wykeham Hill managed to escape by — blah, blah, home-made weapons — and fled into the woodland area that stretches behind Kingsfield. The police dog unit were — that should be ‘was’, a unit is singular — called out and tracked the men for two hours before capturing them in a clearing where they had attempted to hide behind a hollow oak tree. The two men were serving sentences for aggravated sexual assault and were considered highly dangerous. A spokesperson for the prison today said — and we end on the usual platitudes to cover up incompetency.’

Edward lowered the paper.

‘Were you two aware of any of this?’

April shook her head. ‘Not a bit of it. Slept like a log.’

‘Log-like also,’ said Oran, when Edward turned to him.

‘Probably for the best,’ said Edward. ‘It could have been a sticky situation if they’d decided to flee in your direction, armed with their home-made knives.’

Or in Jack’s direction, was April’s immediate thought. He would have been able to hide from the police, but what if those two men had happened upon him by chance — what would he have done, and without Gabe there to protect him? It suddenly occurred to April that Jack had most likely been with Gabe all along, watching in the wings as the dog drove the intruders away. Gabe did not know Oran, so how had the dog known that Oran needed protecting — unless he’d been told? She wished her friend a silent thank you and hoped that, wherever he was, he knew how grateful she was. And how much she cared.

‘There was an escaped criminal in the woods after all,’ said Sunny, thoughtfully.

‘This was two criminals,’ said Edward. ‘And, besides, that was eighty years ago. Don’t force me to have you committed.’

‘I saw him again, you know,’ said Sunny, as if Edward hadn’t spoken. ‘On the day I left Empyrean.’

‘Who?’

‘The man in the woods. I’d ordered a taxicab to take me to the station, and as we motored down the driveway there he was, running through the trees alongside. I assume the driver was concentrating on the road, as he made no comment. I watched him run, sure-footed as a deer, and quite as fast as the cab itself. And then he was gone, into the trees. The last thing I saw was a flash of white, the back of his shirt, I imagine, like the scut of a vanishing rabbit.’

Sunny touched her fingers briefly to her mouth. ‘You know, I had the strongest feeling that he was running just for me, to encourage me, to assure me that all would be well. I never saw him again, and I wish I had. I wish I’d been able to ask him whether I’d been right.’

‘He’ll be long dead now,’ said Edward. ‘You were nineteen then and he must have been in his thirties, given that he was an adult when he saved Billy Curry eleven years earlier from the man trap. If he’s out there now, he’s aged well over a hundred.’

‘A Japanese woman lived to a hundred and fourteen,’ said Oran.

‘A hundred and fifteen,’ Edward corrected.

‘There you go,’ said Oran. ‘But then again, she wasn’t living in the wild, gnawing on shoots and acorns.’

‘Will you help me look for apple trees?’ April asked him. ‘And I might need help digging the ground, now that there’s been a frost.’

‘I’m always here for you, you know that,’ Oran replied. ‘Except when I wasn’t, of course, but those were special circumstances. All other times, I’m as constant as the seasons, though admittedly a lot perkier in the warmer months.’

He took her hand and kissed it in gallant fashion.

‘Ask and you shall receive,’ he said. ‘And all manner of things will be well.’

CHAPTER 45

late November

‘Here?’ said Oran.

‘I think so,’ said April. ‘Can you see that slight mound? I’m fairly certain that’s where the tree was.’

‘If the remains of the stump and roots are still in the ground, it might be difficult to dig. That said—’ Oran brandished the shovel ‘—no point in conceding defeat until you must.’

April watched him place his boot on the shovel and break the turf with the blade. In her hands was the apple sapling, its rootball wrapped in moistened newspaper. They’d been unable to find the Yellow Ingestrie and had settled instead for its descendant, a Glebe Gold. The fruit would not be yellow, more of a green-gold with russet patches, but they were happy. The Glebe Gold had been registered in 1945, the orchardist had told them. Fitting, Oran had said. The end of a war, the birth of a tree. Life runs on like a river.

‘I’ve hit something,’ said Oran. ‘Root or rock, I can’t tell. I’ll dig around it.’

Then he said ‘Glory be’, and squatted to brush away dirt with his gloved hand.

‘Rock?’ said April, as he lifted it from the ground.

‘No, and not scissors, either.’

It was, she saw, a bundle about the size of a toaster, wrapped in oilskin or some other kind of heavy waterproof cloth and bound tight with an old leather belt.

‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘Buried treasure.’

‘Shall we open it?’

‘You do it.’

Oran pulled off his gloves — knobbly knitted creations the colour of nine-day-old pease pudding — and with some difficulty undid the rusted fastening of the belt. The cloth, stiffened also by age, stayed put and Oran had to peel it back like a blackened banana to reveal the contents.

It was a box, a tea caddy or jewellery box, April guessed, made of reddish brown wood with an inlaid edging of thin black.

‘Treasure indeed.’ Oran tried the lid. ‘But very much locked.’

‘Try “Open Sesame?”’

‘“Open with a jimmy” will work better, I think.’

Oran shoved a hand in his jacket and pulled out a pocketknife. April saw him stick the point under the lid, saw the two little holes in the lock and jumped as if it were she who’d been jabbed by knifepoint.

‘Wait!’

Oran watched, curious, as April lifted the chain from around her neck.

‘Here.’ She handed it to him. ‘Try these.’

‘Begob,’ he said, with a grin. ‘Wouldn’t that be a turn-up if they fit? Like Cinderella’s slipper.’

‘They must fit,’ said April. ‘James sent them to Sunny with the map. He must have buried this box. How could they not be the right keys?’

‘Soon find out,’ said Oran, and he slotted in one key and turned it. They both heard a small click.

‘So far, so good.’

He inserted the other, a turn, a click. Oran met April’s eye, a gleam in his own, and held out the box to her. ‘Do you want to do the honours?’

April stepped forward and raised the lid.

‘The long lost Orloff diamond?’ he said. ‘A lock of Lord Lucan’s hair?’

‘A letter.’

April drew it out. The thick paper, folded once, looked like it had been ripped out of a sketchbook. Linen dust fell onto her fingers as she opened it up.

‘Still legible?’ said Oran.

‘Just …’

April’s eyes were tracking along the faint-inked lines. Oran tucked the box under his arm and moved around so he could read, too. When they’d finished, they were both silent, taking it in.

‘Well, that’s a smack in the gob,’ said Oran, finally, his voice flat. ‘A bastardly thing to do any way you look at it.’ He frowned at the letter. ‘I’m not sure I want him as a potential grandfather now.’

‘Don’t judge him too harshly,’ said April. ‘As it turned out, it was barely a lie: Lily was pregnant, and Rowan might well have been the father. If the stars had aligned differently and Rowan had lived, it might have all ended well.’

‘But it was a lie,’ said Oran. ‘An outright, manipulative lie for his own selfish ends entirely. And with it, he destroyed the lives of people he professed to care about, and those toxic ripples have gone all the way down the line, to my mother and then to me. I know Sunny loved him, but really, he was a bad egg!’

When she’d first met Oran, April recalled, he’d seemed incapable of anger. Now, she’d seen it twice — directed at his wife and now at James. Perhaps all that had been needed for him to express it was a newfound belief that his own feelings were important. It would be interesting to see what else that belief enabled him to do. But right now, he needed comfort.

April placed her hand lightly on his arm.

‘If it hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t have had a life with your Granddad George,’ she said. ‘So good did come of it.’

Oran’s eyes, his mother’s eyes, had darkened, their amber streaks flattened into a uniform hard brown. As he looked at April, they cleared and softened, and he began to smile. Almost the old Oran but not quite, thought April. He’d never lose that ability to bounce back, but from now on, he would not so easily let himself be crushed.

‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘That is a very great blessing indeed.’

Then he frowned again at the letter in April’s hand.

‘Should we show this to Sunny?’ he said. ‘It was written for her, after all.’

April hesitated. ‘She’s loved James for eighty-five years. Should we not let her keep on loving him?’

By way of reply, Oran snatched the letter from her, ripped it into tiny pieces and dropped it down into the hole half-prepared for the apple tree.

‘We’ll keep the box,’ he said, ‘but we’ll dig this back into the earth where it can join all those other dark secrets that lie buried.’

Oran handed her the box and pulled on his gloves again. He picked up the spade to resume digging, but just as the blade bit into the ground he paused and leaned on the handle, face pensive.

‘An idea,’ he said. ‘That apple on the map — it had two meanings then, don’t you think? Sweet and golden Lily. And a symbol of temptation, an instrument of sin. And what about the lamb — an innocent to the slaughter, do you think?’

‘Could be,’ said April.

‘The sacred and the sinister contained in two miniature scratchings of pen and ink?’

April laughed. ‘Steady on.’

Suddenly, a realisation struck her, and it was her turn to frown.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘if James was indeed your grandfather, then you are the rightful heir to Empyrean, not me.’

Oran’s eyes met hers and for a long moment they stared at each  other.

Then he grinned at her and flexed his fingers. ‘We have a tree to plant,’ he said. ‘Stand back, woman, and let me work.’

He began to sing. The tune was familiar to April, but it was the first time she’d heard the words.

‘Would I were a little burnish’d apple,’ Oran sang, ‘for you to pluck me, gliding by so cold …’

The apple sapling went into the ground and the song came to its close.

Nay, since you will not love, would I were growing

A happy daisy in the garden path

That so your silver foot might press me going

Might press me going even unto death.

‘Do you actually enjoy those depressing songs?’

‘It’s a humanitarian necessity to have a creative outlet for the darker emotions,’ said Oran. ‘Otherwise, we’d all be simmering stews of pent-up hate, fear and jealousy. It’s like a volcano. A little jet of boiling steam now and then prevents us all from being blown to kingdom come.’

He patted down the earth around the sapling and stood up.

‘Grow well, young tree,’ he said. ‘We’re expecting great things from you. Or, at the very least, the odd apple.’

April had brought a bucket of water, filled at the cottage since the tap by the greenhouse refused now even to be turned. She tipped the water slowly around the apple until every drop was gone.

‘Time for tea?’ said Oran.

‘Of course,’ said April.

As they walked back through the garden, April sensed that Oran had something on his mind.

‘Spit it out,’ she said.

‘I don’t want to pry, or reopen any just-healed wound. But why did you ask me to help you plant the apple? Why not ask your green-fingered Adonis?’

April considered telling him everything. How, after that last night with Jack, the night he’d come to the cottage, she’d gone every morning to the garden and sat and waited, and then walked for an hour or two in the woods, listening out for the snap of a twig that might be caused by a man or his dog. How she’d returned to the hollow tree and tried to find her way again to his campsite, but had been pushed back by an impenetrable tangle of brambles and scrub. How she’d looked, too, for the swimming hole and the old shed but how her normally excellent sense of direction had failed her, and she’d ended up, every time, popping back out of the woods onto the fields, footpaths and bridleways. The meadow was there, and the cornfield, but there was no corn now, only ploughed earth and no wildflowers, the remaining grass brown and beaten down by rain. She considered telling Oran how she’d cried and cried in a way she had not done for over five years, and how she’d decided to stop because she could hear Jack’s voice telling her that her time was past for giving in to regret. Let it go, she’d heard him say. Let me go. Be happy.

‘He had some place else to be,’ was all she said.

Oran put his arm around her shoulder, gave her a quick hug.

‘I’ll sing a cheerful song, then. Just for you.’

And his arm tightened on her shoulder and he pulled her to a halt.

‘Look,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘The bird of all birds that I love the best. That in the churchyard builds its nest. And hops lightly over my Kathleen O’Moore.’

‘You said cheerful,’ April reminded him.

But Oran had dropped down to one knee and was holding out his hand to the robin, which had already hopped closer, watching them, head cocked, more curious than wary. Its delicate legs looked too thin to hold its round body, fluffed up even bigger in the cold. Its breast was not truly red, more of a dark orange, but it flashed like a flame against the dull brown of the muddy path.

April crouched down beside him, slowly, so as not to startle the little bird.

‘Be patient,’ she whispered, ‘and it might come to you.’

‘I’m always patient,’ he whispered back. ‘Though evidence might point to a more impulsive nature, I can wait as long as it takes.’

The robin hopped closer still, sideways so it could keep a close watch on them. April leaned against Oran’s shoulder. Her cheek grazed the rough wool of his peacoat, and she breathed in the smell of earth that lingered on his gloves and boots. The loudest sound was their own breathing, accompanied only by the lowing of neighbouring cattle and the undertone of faraway civilisation.

And there it was. On his outstretched finger, black eyes bright. And then it was gone, darting away into the trees.

Oran blew it a kiss as it disappeared.

‘Nature never disappoints,’ he said. ‘If you’re humble and willing.’

April hooked her arm in his. ‘A cheerful song now, please.’

‘Surely,’ he said.

There was a pause.

‘Right, I’ve got one. I — no, maybe not …’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘It’ll come to me, I swear!’

Oran raised his face to the sky, as if praying for divine inspiration.

‘How about if only one person dies?’ he said.

‘No dying,’ said April.

‘Languishes a bit?’

‘No languishing.’

‘Can it have soldiers in it?’

‘Do they die?’

‘Well, they’re typically at war.’

‘No soldiers.’

‘Let me think on it some more,’ said Oran.

‘No problem.’ April squeezed his arm. ‘But I will hold you to your promise.’

‘That’s more encouraging to me than you may know,’ said Oran. ‘I now look forward with great eagerness to the next promise I will make to you.’

CHAPTER 46

December

Empyrean was lit up like the fairytale castle it ought to have been. Spotlights made its white paint glow, stretched out its slate turrets so that they merged into the blue-black starry sky. The lawn was edged with rows of twinkling lights like miniature galaxies suspended in the dark. Fires in tall cast-iron braziers lit the entrance to the marquee, which held the buffet, bar, tables and dance floor. More braziers and tables were stationed on the open part of the lawn, for those who might prefer to be out in the crisp, still winter air, though no one was outside except some dedicated smokers, as the temperature was well below freezing. Deborah’s idea to fly the Julliard String Quartet over from New York had been vetoed by her siblings, so a man with a goatee had been hired instead to feed music into a sound system. Currently, Nigel Kennedy was playing ‘The Lark Ascending’. Irene’s husband, Rodney, had already complained to Edward that it was a nice tune but you couldn’t dance to it. Edward suggested he talk to the small-bearded DJ about some Glenn Miller, and possibly Elvis, if the night looked to be tending in that direction.

‘I thought Rodney would be more of a military-band man,’ April said. ‘With that moustache.’

‘There’s a dual personality in all of us,’ Edward replied. ‘Though it’s possible he jives solely to embarrass Irene.’

At the top table Sunny was camouflaged within a forest of family. Sons and daughters, sons- and daughters-in-law, grandchildren, great-grandchildren — all blond apart from Connie’s lot. Stathis, Connie’s husband, was, as Sunny had said, extraordinarily handsome but also quietly terrifying. If Stathis were an animal, April decided, he would be a tiger — languid and lethal. Deborah’s husband, Angus, on the other hand, would be a Highland cow — large, ginger and placid. Uncomplaining, he let sundry grandchildren climb all over him. Freya, the youngest of Sunny’s daughters, had come alone and in denim overalls, much to Deborah’s disgust. Deborah herself was radiant in blue velvet and diamonds that, as Oran had remarked earlier, could choke an ox. Charlie and his wife, whose name April had instantly forgotten, sat meekly off to one side, drinking water and wincing whenever a child shrieked nearby, every twenty seconds by April’s count. Bertie, on the other hand, had defied expectations and proved a lively guest, as was his Singaporean wife, who, unannounced, would burst into operatic song, her top note putting the hired glassware at risk. Henry and Xandy, both, for different reasons, unmarried, sat engrossed in a conversation about the Ebola virus. April had caught ten seconds of it and walked away, in need of a drink. Henry was bespectacled and scholarly looking. Xandy’s face had the deep lines and perma-tan of someone who’s spent the best part of his life exposed to the harsher elements. Both clearly had no clue that they were, after Stathis, the best-looking men in the place.

‘Xandy,’ said April to Edward. ‘Rugged and outdoorsy.’

‘I’d noticed,’ said Edward.

‘And?’

Edward made a face. ‘Does it not feel a bit — incestuous?’

‘You’re not related to Sunny in any way.’

‘Somehow, it doesn’t feel like that.’

‘Making excuses for inaction?’

‘Almost certainly,’ said Edward. ‘Old habits die hard.’

April looked around for Oran, and found him next to Sunny’s daughter Freya.

‘Oran has drawn the short straw there.’ Edward followed her gaze. ‘She’s rather hard work, that one. Earnest and humourless and full of nutritional theories that make you immediately crave a foodstuff made exclusively from alcohol, high fructose corn syrup and lard.’

‘It seems strange to me,’ said April, ‘that Sunny would have produced children quite different to her in personality. You’d think character traits as strong as hers would carve a straight line through multiple generations.’

‘Evidence would suggest otherwise,’ said Edward. ‘Happy, kind adults come from the roughest backgrounds, couples of average intelligence produce prodigies, children who were well nurtured by loving, principled parents grow up bitter and twisted. Our parents and our upbringing have an influence, certainly, but I believe ultimately it’s we who decide who we become.’

If April had not drunk two glasses of champagne, she would not have asked the next question. But she had, so she did.

‘Who do you think Oran’s grandfather was? James or Rowan?’

Edward’s eyebrows rose.

‘Who says I have a view?’

‘Of course you have one. You hate not being the smartest person in the room.’

‘You know me so well,’ said Edward. ‘Well then, let me put a question of genetics to you. Oran’s mother had blonde hair and brown eyes. Lily, her mother, was a blue-eyed blonde, and so was—’

‘James! God, yes, of course!’ said April. ‘And Rowan must have had brown eyes because he was so dark. But can we be certain that he and Lily would have produced a brown-eyed child?’

Edward gave her a look. ‘Were you not awake during Biology 101?’

April cuffed him on the shoulder.

‘Blonde hair is a recessive gene,’ she said. ‘How do you explain that then?’

‘Who knows what lurks deep inside us,’ said Edward. ‘My money is on Rowan as the father, but I’ll second Oran on one count — that some mysteries are better left unknown.’

April stood up and straightened her dress, a fuchsia sheath with a split that had seemed manageable when she was standing quite still in the changing room, but which she was now conscious of with every step.

‘I’m going to rescue Oran,’ she said to Edward. ‘Why don’t you get off your inactive backside and insinuate yourself into that other conversation?’

Edward stretched his arms above his head, as if he’d just woken.

‘I have a better idea,’ he said. ‘You rescue Oran and I’ll insinuate myself into that other conversation.’

‘I’d suggest you change the topic,’ April warned him. ‘I’m not sure anyone carries smelling salts these days.’

April did not need to interrupt Oran and Freya because Deborah had already come between them with a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

‘What are they?’ said Freya, nose wrinkled.

‘God, I don’t know,’ said Deborah. ‘Some sort of cheesy bite?’

‘No dairy for me,’ said Freya.

‘No dairy?’ said Deborah. ‘You’ve spent eighteen months on an Irish farm and refused to consume one of their largest primary products, the backbone of their agricultural economy? It’s a wonder they didn’t drown you in a peat bog.’

Freya shrugged. ‘Lactose disagrees with me.’

‘Lactose,’ said Deborah, ‘can join the queue.’

‘Girls!’ warned a voice from the head of the table.

‘And don’t forget,’ said Deborah. ‘Family photo at midnight. Everyone out on the lawn by ten to.’

‘It’s minus five degrees out there,’ said Freya. ‘Do you really want the Day family preserved for all eternity puckered and blue with cold?’

‘Put some lippy on, too,’ said her sister, undeterred. ‘You look like the ghost of Killiecrankie.’

Deborah bustled off, leaving a disgruntled sibling and a mist of Chanel. April put her hand on Oran’s shoulder.

‘Time to offer our best wishes to the birthday girl,’ she said. ‘So far, we’ve barely had a chance to say hello.’

‘Thank God you came,’ said Oran, as they wound their way towards Sunny. ‘If I’d had one more minute on the evils of refined carbohydrates, I would have tipped the nearest bottle of Krug over my head and set fire to myself.’

Sunny looked absurdly fresh, April thought, for a ninety-year-old woman at close to midnight, who’d been surrounded by at least one million family members for three days straight. Perhaps that was the reason. Family rejuvenated Sunny like the onset of spring. She was glowing with the joy of it all.

‘My dears.’

Sunny opened her arms to welcome them and accept their kisses.

‘How are you faring?’ she said. ‘Is the evening treating you both  well?’

‘Much improved since April saved me from self-immolation,’ said Oran.

‘You both look wonderful,’ said Sunny. ‘That dress is most elegant and that dinner suit very smart indeed.’

‘Edward offered me his second best,’ said Oran. ‘But being that he’s some inches taller, I looked like Charlie Chaplin. So he kindly rented me one instead, in return for assembling his Scandinavian bookshelves, which were the very devil, I tell you. Minimalist, my arse. A blue whale eats fewer krill in a year than I had pieces to slot together.’

‘And thank you for your gift,’ said Sunny. ‘I shall put it on the sideboard with my other treasures.’

Oran had fixed and polished up the box they’d found — a Georgian tea caddy it was, he’d told April, mahogany with ebony beading and the original brass fittings. Could be Chippendale, he’d said. Definitely worth a bob or two. We’ll give it to Sunny, April had said, closing the door on any argument.

Holst’s The Planets came to a sudden halt, halfway through ‘Jupiter’. The sound system launched into Jerry Lee Lewis’s ‘Great Balls of Fire’.

‘Rodney’s patience is at an end,’ said April. ‘Nice segue, though.’

‘Oh, Lor,’ said Sunny. ‘He’s jiving with Dilly. I should really insist that all the children be made to look away.’

Oran held out his hand to April. ‘Care to?’

April glanced at Sunny, feeling it would be impolite to leave so soon.

But Sunny shooed them with the back of her hand. ‘Off with you! Dance like young people ought to — before old age turns you into a pumpkin.’

‘No lifting, though,’ said April as Oran led her to the dance floor. ‘This dress is split too high already. I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought it.’

‘Would you care to know my thoughts on the subject?’ said Oran.

‘No,’ said April.

Oran was a good dancer, much better than April, but he made her feel as if she was a match for him, and soon she had her head back, laughing, as he spun her around the floor to Jerry Lee, Little Richard and Chuck Berry. But after ‘Johnny Be Good’, the rock and roll was replaced by the more refined beat of a Strauss waltz.

‘Someone must have overridden Rodney,’ said April, catching her breath. ‘Probably Irene.’ She fanned her face. ‘Lawks. I’m as red as a boiled beet.’

‘Let’s get some air,’ said Oran, and before she could protest he took her hand and led her out of the marquee onto the lawn.

‘Yes, that worked.’ April rubbed her bare arms and shivered. ‘Good thinking.’

‘Come and huddle under the brazier with me,’ said Oran.

April held back. ‘Huddle?’

‘Or freeze,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Your choice.’

April huddled. They stood in silence, breath clouding the air, lights twinkling around them like stars.

‘However, you’ll be pleased to know your instincts were bang on,’ said Oran. ‘I do have an ulterior motive. My natural cowardice has held me back thus far, but there’s no squirming out of it now.’

From his jacket pocket, he drew a crumpled skein of green and white. Held it above April’s head.

‘I’ve never been one for subtlety,’ he said. ‘Feel free to say no.’

‘If I say yes,’ said April, after a moment, ‘it will be a friendly one, no more.’

‘Good enough,’ said Oran, and he kissed her, sweetly, softly and not for long.

‘Disappointed?’ said April.

‘Never. It’s a gift,’ he said. ‘As is my ability to be patient. I can wait, you know, as long as it takes.’

From inside the marquee, April heard Deborah’s voice, clear as a bell. ‘Ten minutes to midnight! Photo time! Raus, raus!’

‘In ten minutes and two more weeks, it will be a new year,’ said April.

‘And so we go on,’ said Oran.

EPILOGUE

February

The phone was ringing. In the red phone box that stood all alone at the crossroads. April had heard the brr-brr as she approached, walking briskly up the lane, but had not recognised it for what it was until she was right by the door.

She checked around her, listened. No one. No sound but the insistent buzz-saw jangle, like an amplified cricket.

Why not? April pushed open the door. Lifted the receiver. Said hello.

No response, but someone there nonetheless. April heard rustling, of cloth or grass, a rapid inhale and exhale of breath, and the muffled thud of feet hitting the ground at speed, earth by the sound of it, not pavement. Someone was running, their phone probably in a pocket, bouncing around, hitting key or coins, dialling numbers at random. Dialling a phone box in the middle of nowhere.

Were they chasing something or someone? Being chased? Or simply running for the joy of it? The breathing sounded purposeful, controlled. Not laboured. Not afraid.

‘Hello,’ April said again, but they did not hear her. She listened until it became clear that the phantom dialler intended to keep running, until their breath or their legs gave out, she supposed, or they finally caught what they were chasing.

April hung up the phone. Braced for re-entry into the chilly wind, the whip-end of winter. It helped to know that the Aga — dark green — in the new cottage would be heating the kitchen most comfortably and that a cup of tea would be waiting for her, brewed by a flatmate who had not been as willing as she to go walking in the cold. Knotting her scarf tighter, April set out on the path back home, while all around her, in the shelter of earth and stem and bulb, green life waited for its spell.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On national radio, I claimed this book’s gestation period was as long as an elephant’s, but Wikipedia tells me it was closer to that of a Bactrian camel or Grant’s zebra. Never mind, it was long enough, which is why I decided to write my first ever set of acknowledgements. Myself, I tend to skip these in other people’s books unless I can see, from a quick skim-read, a name I recognise. Feel free to do likewise.

My thanks and much gratitude go to my publisher, Harriet Allan, who saw enough of value in my crappy first draft to ask me to do another; to Rebecca Lal, my ever-patient and amusing copy-editor; and to my literary agent, Gaia Banks from Sheil Land Associates, who pulled me out of several funks with bracing British cheer.

Many thanks also to two Helens: Helen Lehndorf, who let me nick a couple of lines from her beautiful poem ‘Spell for Cold Weather’, and Helen Rickerby, who published said poem along with others equally as beautiful and arresting in The Comforter (Seraph Press, 2011).

I had fun at Arty Bees, Pegasus Books and the Wellington City Library digging out obscure and fascinating research material. I bought a copy of The Popular Encyclopaedia of Gardening for $15 at a roadside stall in Ohope Beach eleven years ago, which proves that your grandmother was right and you never know when things might come in handy. For anyone who likes to fact-check, I shifted the date and timing of the total eclipse of the sun. The real one occurred on 29 June 1927 in the early morning, but Sunny’s description of it does tally with eyewitness accounts. The winter of 1947 was one of the most severe in British history — between 22 January and 17 March snow fell every day, somewhere in the UK. The El-range of appliances, invented by Earl H. Richardson, a meter reader at a Los Angeles power company, pre-dates Empyrean by a decade or so, but I couldn’t resist including the El-Eggo, even though I’m not entirely sure what you might have done with one.

Thanks to Harry Ricketts and Guy Somerset for their support, Creative New Zealand for my first arts grant, and to Jeremy, Jamie and David for agreeing to let me take four months off from our business, and for not bothering me too much during that time.

Extra thanks and lots of love to the aforementioned David, who doubles as my husband, and who is all for me pressing on with this writing lark, despite the fact I haven’t yet earned enough to buy him even a toy model of a Ferrari. And more embarrassing love to my sons, Callum and Finn, whose creative talents probably will see their dad in that Ferrari after all.

About the Author

Catherine Robertson is the author of three previous novels, all number one New Zealand bestsellers. She lives beside the sea in Wellington, New Zealand, with her husband, two rescue dogs and a Burmese cat. She has one son at home and one in London. When both sons were younger, the Robertson family spent time living in Marin County, California, and in the Buckinghamshire countryside. The red phone box at the end of the lane was real and may well be still there.

ALSO BY
CATHERINE ROBERTSON

The Sweet Second Life of Darrell Kincaid

No one knows ‘happy endings’ like romance novelist Darrell Kincaid. She’s delivered eight of them to her readers with pleasure. But it’s not to be with book number nine. In the act of adding the final full stop, Darrell has a revelation: it’s not the ending that really matters but what comes next. Darrell now sees that when her husband, Tom, died (twenty-one months and three days ago but who’s counting?) she lost more than the man she loved. She lost her own ‘happy ever after’. The life she expected to live has gone, vanished forever in a puff of fickle, unfair smoke.

Darrell knows she has a choice. She can stay in New Zealand and live a half-life, or she can leave in search of something — perhaps someone — else. So Darrell decides upon London, the least romantic capital she knows (why set yourself up for disappointment?). Armed with Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate as her guide to proper Englishness and the ideal romantic hero, she sets out to live the sweet second life she deserves.

‘… a well-written, thoroughly entertaining read.’

— NORTH & SOUTH

‘This is the novel I wish I’d written — a warm, laugh-out-loud funny romantic comedy … deserves to be an international success.’

— WAIRARAPA TIMES AGE

‘… poignant, warm and entertaining.’

— HAWKE’S BAY WEEKEND

‘You can’t help but like the slightly hopeless Darrell as she takes the first shaky steps towards her new life. A promising debut.’

— WEEKEND HERALD

The Not So Perfect Life of Mo Lawrence

Michelle Lawrence’s perfect life has been just as she’s designed it. But then her husband, Chad, ruins everything by taking a job in San Francisco, about as far from their comfortable family home as it’s possible to get without actually emigrating. Up until now, Chad’s primary focus has been keeping her happy, and Michelle can see no good reason why this should change.

But change it has, and Michelle now has to deal with Chad’s increasing detachment, while building a new life with her two small children in a place filled with cat-eating coyotes. On top of that, Michelle’s oldest friend is turning against marriage, while her newest is a little too obsessed with clean taps.

And down the redwood-lined street, there’s Aishe Herne, a woman who could pick a fight with a silent order of nuns. Aishe has designed her own kind of perfect life, in which there’s room for her, her teenage son and no one else. But when cousin Patrick lands in town like a Cockney nemesis, both Aishe and Michelle must begin determined campaigns to regain their grip on the steering wheel of their lives.

‘The Not So Perfect Life of Mo Lawrence is as quirky, funny and unafraid to puncture pretension as Michelle herself. How can you help but enjoy a story in which a person can be cut from a cloth that is “the kind of synthetic, flocked upholstery fabric that felt like hell against your skin but which would wear until the crack of doom. And which matched the curtains”?’

— OTAGO DAILY TIMES

‘It would be a disservice to refer to Robertson’s work as “chick lit” unless that means wickedly funny, clever and well-written. Although the book is a very entertaining read, it is by no means light and fluffy … The Not So Perfect Life of Mo Lawrence deserves to enjoy the same success as Robertson’s first book. With any luck, a third book is already underway.’

— BOOKSELLERS NZ

‘A good story, with great characters — fun from the first page to the last.’

— NZ DOCTOR

The Misplaced Affections of Charlotte Fforbes

When Charlotte Fforbes inadvertently falls in love with her boss, her usually cool self-control is tested to its limit. Thus far, Charlotte has carefully avoided love’s emotional tar pit, but suddenly she is in it up to her neck. Her first strategy is to ignore it — for one thing, boss Patrick is a husband and father.

Then Charlotte is given a clue that Patrick’s marriage may not be as stable as believed, and that is enough to fan a spark of hope into an infatuation-fuelled inferno. Transformed from efficient PA into a woman whose reason has been muffled with duct-tape and locked in a cellar, she’ll now do anything to find a way into Patrick’s heart.

Anything includes arranging to be nanny-for-a-month to the small children of Patrick and his wife and two other families at a Lake Como villa. Charlotte’s complete lack of child-minding experience daunts her the least. If she’s to win Patrick, she must also prevent his cousin’s wife being seduced by her charming, feckless ex, while fending off dogs, Gypsy gatecrashers and a large, vengeful ghost from Patrick’s past.

But Charlotte’s biggest test will come when she is forced to question whether her affections have been entirely misplaced — and, if so, was this her last ever chance to feel love like this again?

‘… as wry and endearing as her two previous novels and continues to explore the lives of their characters from the perspective of new, and just as idiosyncratic, narrators … She has a knack for odd imagery that is humorous and evocative and I found this novel as much fun as its predecessors.’

— OTAGO DAILY TIMES

‘The sheer naughtiness of Charlotte is part of the book’s appeal, along with trademark Robertson wit, sharp observations on parenting and less-than-perfect children, and the welcome return of characters from her delightful debut, The Sweet Second Life of Darrell Kincaid. If, like me, you want a bit of grit with your chick lit-style entertainment, it’s time you discovered Catherine Robertson.’

— DOMINION POST WEEKEND

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Copyright

The assistance of Creative New Zealand is gratefully
acknowledged by the publisher

A BLACK SWAN BOOK published by Random House
New Zealand, 18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand

For more information about our titles go to
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First published 2015

© 2015 Catherine Robertson

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ISBN 978 1 77553 642 0
eISBN 978 1 77553 643 7

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