“You’ve missed her by about . . .” Charlotte looked at her watch “. . . an hour. Gone to stay with a friend in Lambourn.”
“Did she say when she’d be back?” He tried not to sound too disappointed.
“No. Mrs Flanders told me she’d gone. I wasn’t here. I expect she’ll ring and tell us later.”
“Right. Oh, well, if you could tell her I called.”
“Yes, I will.” Charlotte was desperate to be more helpful but found herself so short of information that it was impossible to sound anything other than vague.
He got back into the yellow Fiat and drove slowly down the drive, looking to left and right as if for some sign of her, as though he would suddenly see her walking through the parkland among the long grass under the spreading oaks, coming towards him and apologising for the misunderstanding. And yet something told him he was never going to hear those words.
He arrived back at West Yarmouth, downcast, and was met by Elizabeth walking round the house from the stables. “Out again?” he asked, like a disapproving father.
Elizabeth regarded him curiously. “Yes. Naturalists’ Society,” she said steadily.
“Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.” He was apologetic now. “What is it this week?”
“Psocids.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Booklice.”
He tried to sound interested, “Fascinating,” but failed.
“They feed on mould in books and on wallpaper. They eat dried insect collections, too, which is rather funny.”
“Hilarious.” Stop it. He must stop being like this whenever Elizabeth talked seriously about her passion for natural history. Squirrels and butterflies he could understand, but bivalves and psocids were just a bit too esoteric to engender in him the uncontrollable passion evinced by Elizabeth. Still, they kept her occupied and that was all that mattered. Maybe she’d start conserving the books in his father’s study as Sites of Special Scientific Interest for psocids.
He called goodbye as Elizabeth mounted her old black bike and cycled off down the lane. He felt in his pocket for the key to the front door. Damn! He must have left it on the hall table. He turned round to shout after her but it was too late, she was now but a matchstick figure, her head bent over the wicker basket on her handlebars as she sped off in the direction of the entomology of Lynchampton.
Kit went to the back of the house to see if Jess was around. The clouds of the afternoon were clearing from the sky, slipping over the eastern horizon. A westering sun caught them on the underside – a mixture of smoky grey and pale orange. The wind had dropped and the evening air seemed warmer than the afternoon. He heard the faint sound of a Mozart string quartet and looked up at the barn to where the sash window of Jess’s room was propped open with a book. She caught sight of him and stuck her head out.
“Hello!” Her voice echoed around the barnyard on the quiet evening air.
“Hi. I’ve locked myself out.”
“Who’s a silly boy, then? Do you want my key?”
“Please.”
“I’ll come down.” She smiled at him. She had a lovely smile, but he had rarely seen it.
He waited on the cobbles that made an apron in front of the barn, which was stuffed with an assortment of implements and the bales of straw that made up Wilson’s bedding. It was a friendly sort of place. He normally just walked past it. Now, while he waited for her to come down, he had a chance to take it all in – the lengths of orange baler twine hung from six-inch nails hammered into the old timbers, the spades, forks and hoes stacked neatly against the old brick walls, the space for Elizabeth’s bike, and Jess’s mountain bike – far from new and caked with mud from repeated use. It was their workshop, a meeting-place for barrows and carts, and the day-to-day gubbins of country life. A place for everything and everything in its place.
Jess emerged from the door and climbed down the wooden steps that linked the upper storey with the cobbled courtyard. She was dressed in a pale blue T-shirt and cotton trousers, her face shiny and fresh-scrubbed, her hair still damp from the shower. She came up to him and stretched out her hand, dangling a key-ring on her finger. “Lucky I was in.”
“Yes. Thanks.” He took the key. “I didn’t really fancy breaking in.”
“Well, there’s a crowbar in the corner of the barn if you ever need to.”
He looked hard at her.
“Only joking.”
He made for the house, then turned back. “Are you in tonight?”
“And every night.”
“It’s just that . . . would you like a drink? And a bite to eat?”
She shrugged, then nodded.
“Give me half an hour to clean up and then come over. OK?”
“Fine.”
He went round to the front of the house and let himself in. He did not notice that Jess stayed rooted to the spot for a full minute before she turned and climbed the stairs to her room.
Why he had asked her for supper he was not quite sure. On his arrival they had all dined together, but since then they had tended to do their own thing. The farmhouse kitchen was communal and used by all three of them from time to time – it was the one part of the house that was open to all – but of late Elizabeth and Jess had used the smaller kitchen above the stable. He had not asked them to, they had simply gravitated towards it once the house had started being emptied of Rupert’s possessions. It was as if they were retreating to the safety of familar surroundings, holding on to their own West Yarmouth fortress in the face of a possible invasion.
The tap on the kitchen door alerted him to her arrival.
“Hi!” He greeted her warmly, and she gave him a nervous smile in return.
“It’s a bit lean, I’m afraid, but there’s a couple of trout. I can whack them in the Aga with some butter and lemon juice. And there are a few French beans and some wholemeal bread. OK?”
“Fine. I’m not picky.”
He grinned at her. “Good.”
“I brought this.” She held up a bottle of Australian Chardonnay. “I thought it might remind you of home.” There was a momentary silence. “Sorry. That was a silly thing to say.”
“No. Not silly. Just unexpected.”
“Well, I like it, really. It’s just that I suddenly thought when I was walking over that this is probably the muck they export to the Poms.”
She needed reassurance, and Kit said, “It’s fine. Really it is. Where’s the opener?”
She reached into a drawer, pulled out a corkscrew and handed it to him. He drew the cork from the condensation-covered bottle and poured the straw-coloured wine into two glasses.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers.” Jess sipped. “Mmm. Ready for that.”
He had never seen her so relaxed and at ease. Usually she was scurrying somewhere or other, busying herself in her job, seldom asking Elizabeth what she should do, but always occupied as though she knew, almost by telepathy, what she should be doing today and where on the estate she would be needed.
Kit busied himself with the trout while Jess leaned against the kitchen worktop. The conversation, previously such hard work, seemed easy, until Kit confronted her.
“I spoke to Titus Ormonroyd today.”
Jess said nothing.
“He told me about Becky . . . and Philippa.”
She stood perfectly still, meeting his eye but silent.
“Thanks for what you did. I think you were really brave.”
She lowered her eyes and took another sip. “Yes, well . . .” was the best she could do.
“Drop more?” he asked.
She looked up, saw that he was smiling at her and held out her glass.
“There’s something you ought to know,” he said.
Jess looked at him steadily. He topped up his own glass and turned to face her. “I’m not selling West Yarmouth. I’m staying.” He paused for a reaction, then thought better of it and went on, “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep it going – what with
inheritance tax and everything. We’ll probably be bankrupt in a year or two, but I want to give it a try and I could really do with your help.”
At first she neither moved nor spoke. Then her face broke into a broad grin and her eyes filled with tears as she walked up and flung her arms around him and squeezed.
“Hey! Watch your wine!”
Jess released him and wiped an arm across her eyes. She backed away towards the worktop. “Thank you,” was all she said, but she said it with more feeling than he could ever remember hearing before.
They sat at the kitchen table to eat their simple meal. A couple of candles burned in the brass sticks and the first bottle of wine was joined by another of similar vintage plucked from the door of the fridge.
Jess spoke freely of her early life in the London suburbs, of a childhood short on affection and long on troubles. She spoke with a candour that surprised him and an understanding of her situation that seemed breathtakingly detached. She talked about Philippa, explaining that there was only nine months between them and that her younger sibling had seemed always to follow in her wake – for better or worse.
Kit felt brave enough to ask about the hair and the studs. For the first time that evening she blushed. “It’s my shield. I put it on to repel boarders.”
He laughed. “And I was a boarder?”
“Too right you were. Stupid, really, isn’t it? I suppose it’s my equivalent of woad. Going into battle and all that.”
“You look much better without it.”
She blushed again. “Just watch it with the compliments. I’m not used to them.”
He watched her eat. “You really like it here, don’t you?” he asked.
“Don’t like it, love it. It’s the only place.”
“And you liked Dad, too.”
She paused, her knife and fork hovering over the plate. “More than that.” Her pale blue eyes gazed into the middle distance. She laid down her cutlery and sat back in her chair, her eyes glazed.
“He taught me so much. Changed my life.” She was speaking quietly, respectfully. “And now he’s gone. But I’ll never forget him . . . what he did for me.”
“Nor me.”
She looked up at him. “Glad you said that.” She brightened. “But what are you going to do with this place?”
“Carry on Dad’s work.”
“Is that all?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I think it’s great but I don’t know that it will keep you happy.”
He looked at her with his head on one side.
“You’re not a conservationist.”
He made to interrupt but she cut across him. “I mean, I know you want to keep the reserve going, but what about your dreams? I though you wanted your own stud.”
Kit looked surprised. “How do you know that?”
“I talk to pigs.” For a moment she looked deadly serious, then her face broke into a wide grin and her eyes sparkled.
Kit’s jaw dropped. “You’ve been eavesdropping.”
She lowered her eyes. “Only once, and not for long . . . honest. And there’s no reason why you shouldn’t do it here, you know. The stud. Plenty of spare land.”
“But it’s leased to Maidment and, anyway, I haven’t got the money.”
“Just a thought.” Then she sipped her wine before asking, “Have you looked at the books?”
“What books?”
“The books upstairs in your father’s study.”
“Well, I’ve seen them, but I can’t say I’ve looked at them.”
She stood up and picked up her glass. “Come on, I’ll show you. It’s what we used to do after supper. I haven’t done it since . . . Come on.”
There was a spark in her eye. He rose and followed her up the staircase and into his father’s – now his – room. Jess put down her glass on the edge of the desk and walked across to the shelves. “These are the best. Can’t read them, but the pictures are wonderful.”
She took down a large volume and laid it on the desk. “How do you say that – ‘Oiseaux remarquables du Brésil’?”
“Remarkable Birds of Brazil,” translated Kit.
Jess stared at him. “I think I’d worked that out.” Then she opened the front cover of the large book and began to turn the pages. “Aren’t they wonderful? Look at the feathers – the way they’re painted. Stunning. I don’t know who Mr Descourtilz was but he certainly knew his birds.”
“In Brazil.”
“We’ve got plants as well.” She took down another volume. “Besler’s Hortus Eystettensis. Oh, and these are really lovely – humming birds – a man called Gould.”
Kit turned the pages with amazement. “I didn’t know Dad had these. He didn’t when I left. Where did he get them from?”
“Somebody left them to him apparently. Someone who used to visit the reserve and liked what he did. There aren’t many, a dozen or so, but they’re all beautiful. I like the roses as well. I’d like a rose garden one day, especially with old roses in.”
She pulled another book from the shelf and laid it on the bed. “Les Roses. No translation, please.” She raised her finger in mock warning, then turned back to the large, leather-bound volume and its title page. “P. J. Redouté.” She said the word so that it sounded like ‘redoubt’, but he did not correct her, just gazed in awe at the illustrations that lay before him on the bed.
“Well, I’ll be . . .” He said no more, but stood entranced, lost with Jess among the roses.
At half past midnight Jess looked at her watch and said that she’d better be going. He walked her down the stairs to the front door and thanked her for coming. There was a moment of unease.
“It was fun,” she said. “I really enjoyed it.” She hopped from one foot to the other, unaware how to leave, then leaned forward and kissed his cheek. He half laughed, lifted his hands in an indecisive gesture and kissed her back, feeling the softness of her fine hair, and detecting the perfume of orange blossom on her skin. It was a fragrance he had not encountered since he had left Balnunga Valley. A sudden and evocative scent of the past seemed to propel him forward to the future. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he closed the door behind her.
Chapter 30: Bindweed
(Callistegia sepium)
“So, is he the one for you?” asked Sarah, cutting a piece of buttered toast into soldiers, pouring warm milk on to a bowl of Ready-Brek, and lifting a whistling kettle off the gas hob in a segue of movement that came as second nature to a mother of three small children.
Jinty sat at the table of the farmhouse kitchen, placing her bandaged arm on a dry patch between the small pools of milk that made its surface look like a map of the Lake District.
“I don’t know.”
Sarah pushed a boiled egg and soldiers in front of her youngest daughter, who was doing her best to empty the contents of her mug into the tray of her high chair – a slow process thanks to the small holes in the mouthpiece of the beaker. “Past tense?”
“I hope not. But it all seems to have gone pear-shaped.”
“You’re giving in a bit easily, aren’t you?” Sarah swooped down on the child with a damp J-cloth and wiped up the milk. She confiscated the mug, poked a finger of toast into the gaping mouth, which was preparing to utter a wail, pushed a bowl of cereal in front of the budding delinquent Jamie, and sent another small child off in the direction of the bathroom. “Where’s your staying power?”
“Evaporated, I think.”
Sarah sat down with a mug of coffee and placed another in front of Jinty.
“This isn’t like you,” she said.
“I know. What with all this trouble over Jamie, and the accident, I seem to have lost my drive.”
“Either that or it really was just a flash in the pan.”
Jinty looked up at her, cradling the coffee mug in her hands. “Do you think so?”
“Don’t ask me. Only you know that. It’s just that I would have expected you to be a
bit more positive about him.”
“But I am. I just can’t help thinking that I’ve been here before. Not in the same way. I really think he’s special but I need him to prove that he thinks I’m special, too.”
“Oh, I see.”
“And the trouble is . . .”
“Mmmm?”
“I still can’t get Jamie out of my mind.”
“And I thought you said the sex with Kit was like nothing you’ve experienced before?”
“Did I?”
“Last night. You’d had a few.” She wiped up more crescent moons of milk with a J-cloth.
“I just want someone who won’t let me down. Someone who’ll do things for me instead of being self-centred.”
Sarah raised her eyebrows.
Jinty didn’t notice. “Oh, why are men so bloody hard to read? Why do they say one thing when they mean another and then go off and do something completely different anyway?”
“Is that what he’s done?”
“No, but Jamie did.”
Sarah took a sip of her coffee. “This Jamie thing has really bitten deep, hasn’t it?”
“I’d like to think not.”
“Do you still love him?”
“He’s a bastard.”
“I asked if you loved him, not if you’d give him a character reference.”
Jinty looked up, paused and heaved a sigh. “I don’t know.”
Sarah tutted. “Oh, you poor love.” The toaster pinged and she got up. As she busied herself with butter and honey she spoke over her shoulder above the din of breakfasting children. “I think you should take your time. Don’t rush things. Just make sure you see him again soon and smooth things out, then take it from there.”
“Which him?”
“That’s rather up to you, isn’t it?” She lowered a plate of buttery honeyed toast on to the table in front of Jinty and watched as her friend’s eyes glazed over.
Sarah smiled as she took in the domestic carnage surrounding her, glad for just a moment that her own problems, though many and varied and mainly of a juvenile nature, were not quite as mentally taxing as those of her friend.
Jinty nibbled at a piece of toast. Jamie. How could she possibly still be interested in Jamie?
Animal Instincts Page 21
