“Yes. You’d be good at that.”
“And”—she sounded as though she were smiling—“Sonopress is part of Bertelsmann.”
“So if you get bored you can move up the parental corporate chain?” It began to make a bit more sense.
“Right. But it’s not just that. I could really do that job, and I’d like it. I could get them to expand the community liaison stuff to other things—getting some of the bands whose CDs they press, or stars whose movies they put on DVD, to come to the festivals, maybe persuading some of the software writers to donate time to local schools. Whatever. It wouldn’t be just about money.”
“But meeting all those big names would be fun.”
“Fun is good.” Definitely smiling. “And it would be fun to get to know people who live here. Business development is lots of smiles and promises, but when you’ve got them to sign that deal, phht, that’s it, you fly to another city and smile at someone else. This would be different, it would be the same people over and over. I’d be part of something. Yes”—out of the corner of my eye I saw her nodding to herself—“yes, I could live here.”
Could I? Even if the police let me? I made the turn onto the ungraded mountain track. Stay in the world, Aud, she had said, and I had promised. I just wasn’t sure which part.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The rain beat steadily on the new windows and washed in a sheet over the handmade glass. Wavy water on wavy glass.
“Makes me seasick to watch it,” Tammy said. “I still don’t see why you paid so much money for bad glass.”
We’d been over it; I wanted the cabin to be as close as possible to the way it might originally have been built, using handmade materials where possible. But glass had improved in the last ninety years, and I was beginning to think she might be right. At least we were weathertight.
“We should light a fire,” I said.
“We don’t have the stove yet.”
“It would test the chimney.”
While I built the fire Tammy watched, standing by the long counter and dry sink of what at some point would become the kitchen. The tub and pedestal sink leaned against the wall of what would be the bathroom, once I’d installed a pump house and a combination of solar panels and generator to power it. If Eddie didn’t call. If Karp didn’t wake up.
Smoke eeled up the chimney and disappeared satisfactorily. I added more kindling to the ancient cast-iron grate, waited for it to catch, and began to lay on logs. Four walls, a roof, sturdy door, glazed windows, and now heat. Almost livable. The flames grew, turned from blue to red at their center.
“It works.”
I nodded. So far.
“Hey, we could eat here tonight, instead of the trailer. I’ll go see what there is to cook.”
The door squeaked as she closed it behind her. It might be that the hinges were slightly out of true, or just that they needed oiling, and at some point I would have to fix it, but at this moment I was more interested in the fire; I wanted it to be perfect: symmetrical, lively, just the right shape and color.
Tammy came back carrying the laundry basket; it was full of sacks of flour, and butter, some milk and bread and wine and what looked like my two cast-iron frying pans.
“It’s a surprise,” she said. She set to work, flouring the kitchen counter, pouring and measuring and kneading.
The fire roared. I used the tongs to unfold the iron bar hinged to the sidewall of the fireplace, and pulled it out across the flames. Like the fire, it gave me deep satisfaction. It had been a tricky bit of mortaring but now it was positioned just right to hang a pot or kettle over the flames—not that I’d need it once the kitchen had a range, or even when the stove was in place.
Tammy seemed to be making some kind of flat cake. “How much longer until the coals are hot enough to cook with?”
“Half an hour.”
Runnel of rain on the roof, pop and hiss of green wood on the fire, slap and whisper of dough. I stretched out on the unfinished floor and let myself drift for a while. Noises from the kitchen counter changed: Tammy had half a dozen cakes lined up and had moved on to wrapping a variety of vegetables in aluminum foil.
Hot yellow nuggets piled above and below the grate. I raked a few onto the front hearth. They began to cool to orange and go gray around the edges. I raked them back. “Ready when you are.”
The vegetables went in first. She held up the silvery packages one by one, “Corn, onions, butternut squash, sweet peppers,” and put them in the fire. She got up again and brought back one of the skillets, covered with a wet cloth.
“That’s my pillowcase.”
“I had to get creative. I needed wet cloth.”
Get creative. I could find out which hospital Karp was in. Go make sure he wouldn’t wake up.
Tammy wrapped the cakes in the pillowcase, put them in the skillet, put the skillet to one side in the hearth, then raked a handful of coals and ash over the lot, just like something out of a Foxfire book.
“The cakes and the vegetables should cook a bit before the bacon goes on,” she said. “I thought we’d have some wine.”
I got up and found the bottle and glasses and corkscrew and brought them back to the fireplace. It was a good rioja. Tammy had been paying attention; it no longer surprised me.
The smell of applewood and roasting corn mingled with red wine as I poured. I handed Tammy her glass.
“To your cabin,” she said. “May you have many dinners in front of this fire, with people you care for.”
I couldn’t see it, but I raised my glass, and drank.
She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. “It got warm fast.”
“Wood’s a good insulator.” Now that the windows were glazed and the fire working, the place was more or less livable as it stood. Hook up the toilet to the septic system, flush it using buckets filled at the pump outside. You’d have to leave before the snows, though, or stay until spring…
Karp’s hospital room might be guarded.
“Tell me about those cakes you’re cooking.”
“Ash cakes. Ken was telling me about them at the party. Some old toothless woman showed Adrian how, and Adrian showed Ken as soon as he could be trusted not to set the house on fire. That was when he was eight, he said. Or maybe nine. Anyhow, they’re supposed to taste good—if they don’t burn to a crisp. Which is where the wet pillowcase comes in. It sort of steams them at the same time, he said. Poor old Ken, keeping house at eight.”
There were worse things. “What were you doing at that age?”
“Eight? Eight was when I learned to ride a bike. And how to fall off a pony.” She laughed. “God, I wanted a pony so bad. Then my father took me to this riding school, where I found out that horses are big scary animals that stink and won’t do as they’re told, and it’s a long way down if you fall off.” She sighed. “I was Daddy’s princess. That’s what he called me, his princess. I think he liked it that I couldn’t ride. It kept me his on some level. What about you?”
Self-analysis from Tammy. “I learned to ride when I was nine. In England. With the daughter of one of my mother’s friends.” Galloping over the Yorkshire moors, wild as a lynx, with Christie Horley. Another life I had left.
“You looked quite nostalgic for a while there.”