‘What is happening now?’ I was suddenly scared. I was more scared than I had been for a long time.
‘I don’t know that anything is. Perhaps there should be, I really don’t know. You’re the grown-up. You’re nearly twice my age, I always thought you’d know all this stuff. I didn’t plan this, I didn’t go out of my way to create this kind of life for myself, it just happened and it happened because I was here and you were here. Getting it on with both you and Tim was just me in a weird mood then. I never thought about it for the long term, I never thought it through at all. As you said, it had only just started. And I didn’t do it so you could fight about me, either. But neither of you did, you just seemed to think it was all right that we had this triangle. It seemed quite hip, somehow, I was impressed. With myself as well.’
‘And now?’
‘I keep telling you, I don’t know. Your supper’s burning, I think.’
At that moment I could smell it too. I shot up out of my chair and pushed the pots off the heat. The pasta was just boiling dry and the sauce was nothing but a sizzling dribble at the bottom of the pan. This was becoming a habit.
I turned to Annis who was already at the door. She paused. ‘When did you first realize?’
‘What?’
‘That you loved me?’
I thought back, trying to remember.
Annis slipped out of the door.
Chapter Ten
There was no sign of Tim next day when I carefully carried my hangover downstairs, in the middle of the morning, following the smell of coffee into the kitchen. I lowered myself slowly on to a chair. Annis was there at the stove, insinuating long strips of bacon into a pan of sizzling oil.
‘Want some?’ she asked. ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace.’
‘No thanks, I’m feeling a bit. . delicate. Where’s that coffee I can smell?’
She poured me a mug from the cafetière and shoved it in front of me, then unsuccessfully tried to run her hand through my tangled hair.
‘Is your hair part of the Make Space for Wildlife initiative?’
‘My hair hurts, I can’t possibly brush it.’
‘I thought Pilsner didn’t give you a hangover?’
‘It does if you try and drink all of it.’
‘Ah.’ She rummaged around in a drawer and found a squashed carton of painkillers. So that’s where they lived. She doled out two pills into my eager hand. ‘Eejit.’
I looked round the kitchen. Annis followed my gaze in silent triumph. The place was spotless and sparkled, despite the gloom of the day. She hadn’t just cleaned the place, she had burnished it.
‘Talking of filth. .’ I told Annis my muddy tale while she sat down and attacked a couple of eggs, a mountain of fried mushrooms and a pile of crispy bacon. ‘Is that breakfast?’ I asked.
‘Second breakfast. I’ve been up for hours. You want to borrow the Landy then.’
I hid my surprise behind a gulp of coffee. ‘Yes, please.’
‘No problem.’ She dug out the keys from her jeans pocket and put them on the table, halfway between us; Annis’s most treasured possession — apart from her brushes, perhaps — and not a bribe in sight. As I tried to casually palm the keys she covered my hand with hers. She speared a mushroom and offered it up to my mouth. I closed my lips around the fragrant fungus, chewed and swallowed. She gave me a smile that barely registered before it vanished again, released my hand and returned to her breakfast. ‘Okay, you can go now.’
I climbed into the Landy’s cab and fiddled with the ignition. I wasn’t sure about the moon phase but hoped that the old diesel was oblivious to the dank weather. It was grey and damp but there was no fog this morning and the radio had promised dramatic improvements for later in the day. I didn’t share their optimism. The engine caught and the ancient contraption vibrated into life, belching a black cloud of pollution out the back. I would have another go at Grumpy Hollow, hoping somehow to get ahead of Avon and Somerset. They had the annoying habit of jumping out at me from unusual places and right now that was the last thing I needed.
As I pulled away I caught a glimpse of movement behind the hall window and raised a hand in salute. I felt guilty about my reaction last night when I found Tim in Annis’s bed and yet more guilt for being so inarticulate about loving the woman. I felt guilty for having allowed Jill’s son to be used as a lever to make me do someone’s dirty work for him. In fact my Accumulated Guilt Quotient was so high that smoking on an empty stomach hardly registered, though I was acutely aware of the stupidity of it while I fought to light a cigarette single-handedly with my temperamental lighter whilst coughing all the way up the track to the lane. Dark thoughts about how every lungful ate into my life expectancy helped to take my mind off things until I got to Lam Valley. I rattled past Chickenshit Farm, where I hoped Jack Fryer had managed some sleep, not to mention washing up, and after a couple of wrong turns found the track that led steeply down to the ford across the stream and on to Grumpy Hollow. I passed the tree where yesterday I had left the bike and ground on slowly through the mud.
In the churned-up area in front of the missing gate to the little herb farm I abandoned the Landy and walked from there. A length of rope had been strung from gatepost to gatepost, surely a purely psychological measure to reinforce the warnings on the signs to keep out. I ducked under it and walked on. Here the mists still lingered and being mindful of yesterday’s welcome I advanced cautiously. There were plenty of hiding places around here. The place was shambolic in a curiously attractive way. It had an air that reminded me of the charm of picturesque neglect the outbuildings at Mill House had acquired, though there was no sign of idleness here, quite the opposite; I’d never seen a place more densely worked and cultivated. Every corner appeared to be crammed with plants, many sheltered from the weather by bits of glass and grimy sheets of builders’ polythene. There appeared to be a couple of figures watching me from the middle of a small field of bright green foliage to my left. I waved and called hello. The figures didn’t move or answer and as I got closer I realized I’d been trying to converse with scarecrows. Very realistic ones. I was wondering if they were meant to scare more than just the birds. As I carefully advanced downhill past a zinc trough full of scummy green water, plants growing in rows of beds bordered with flimsy wooden boards, barrels, muck heaps and all kinds of junk, the structures at the centre of all this took on more definite shapes. An ancient-looking Volvo estate — it was beige, and when did they stop making cars that colour? — stood with its nose pointing uphill. Near a couple of pollarded willows sat an old-fashioned hump-backed caravan. Five feet away and at right angles to that stood a pale blue and weathered old shepherd’s hut, its wheels disappearing into the muddy grass. Connecting the two and shielding the space in between from the worst of the weather hung a home-made porch consisting of bits of wood, canvas and tarpaulin. Nests of bottles, presumably empty, had accrued beside the hut; wine bottles, beer bottles, water bottles, gas bottles. Behind the caravan stood a greenhouse, botched together from sash windows and, by the look of it, old shower cubicles, and beyond that stretched the grey caterpillar of a polytunnel far into the plantation. A couple of sheds, knocked together from old pallets and tar-paper, completed the picture. Thin wisps of grey smoke escaped from the lum-hatted stove pipe protruding at a drunken angle from the roof of the hut. Apart from the smell of wetness, of mud and dank vegetation, there was the undeniable aroma of country cooking in the air. My stomach rumbled loudly. A dim light showed in the little window of the shepherd’s hut. I splashed towards it, intending to knock on the side.
‘Hold it right there.’
I held it right there. It was a commanding female voice and it came from behind me. I turned round. She was pointing a rifle at me from the corner of the caravan. It had to be the Stone woman but it was me who felt petrified.