by Alex Marwood
I’ve noticed already that she’s particularly fond of mushrooms.
The food is good and the company is rough, and the mud comes in with you wherever you go, but we’re far enough from a town that no one will bother us, and the hills are full of sheep and deer and rabbits. Sarah is helping out the Cooks – baking bread, plucking chickens, collecting eggs – and already there’s more colour in her cheeks and a light in her eye. We still sing at night, still plan for the End, the way we did at Plas Golau, and she’s already learned the words. We don’t talk much. New arrivals have always been separated from the ones they arrived with, until they can be trusted. She sleeps in a dormitory with three of the older women, and she seems content. I wave at her when we pass in the compound, and the smiles she returns to me are full of hope.
* * *
* * *
And as I wander the land looking for medicines, planning what we shall need to plant, my knife in my hand ready for the harvest, I also follow Uri around and watch him, so that I can learn his habits. He likes to take a walk each day, out onto the wild moorland. And one day, once you’re born and I can move again with stealth, I know he will go out alone. And then he will meet me coming the other way at the edge of the woods, where no one can see.
Maybe not this winter, though winter lasts a long, long time in these mountains. I can wait. I can always wait. One day, I shall follow. There are many places here where you can be alone, and in the winter the snow lies very deep.
And, once he’s gone, we will never speak of him again.
Acknowledgements
All books have their challenges, their deaths and disasters, and each one involves a learning of some sort. This one has taught me that one should trust the right people – and gosh, I’ve been blessed with the right people – to help when one’s in trouble, and that one should never trust a dermatologist. With beautiful irony, given the title of the book in question, one poisoned me so thoroughly as I was setting out to write it that I lost my ability to hold a thought or a memory for well over a year, an experience both terrifying and exhausting.
The patience, forbearance and support I’ve received from the people in my professional and personal lives (and the crossover) have been an absolute revelation to my untrusting soul. And the calm with which everyone greeted my mess of a first draft, the clarity and skill with which between them they nursed, prodded and guided me through hacking it back and finding the sense within still leave me breathless with respect and admiration. From the bottom of my heart, I thank everyone involved.
Laetitia Rutherford, my amazing agent, who like a swan gliding through the water never betrayed the frantic paddling beneath the surface as she negotiated the logistical ramifications while making me feel protected and supported. Having an agent with such a sharp editorial eye is also an extra, extraordinary gift.
Cath Burke at Sphere, who has always handled my eccentricities with calm and kindness, and to whom I owe a huge amount.
Abby Parsons at Sphere, who took on an addled author new to her and ploughed through with extraordinary steel and clarity.
Sam Raim at Penguin, who also had to do the same, and brought the same steel and clarity to the unknown. Both of you have my unending gratitude and respect.
The production, design, marketing, publicity and sales teams at both publishers, whose contributions generally go unnoticed by the reader, but who are essential to all books’ wellbeing.
All my foreign language publishers, but particularly Aleksandra Saluga and her team at Albatros, who have made me feel so welcome in beautiful Poland.
My friends and neighbours, so many of whom stepped up and checked up and kept an eye: including, but not confined to, BriBri, Charlie, Jane, Claudie, Ariel and Luke, Merri, Ali, Helen, Abbie and Alex, Filipa, Antonia, Venetia, Jo, Marie, Angela and Angie, Sue, Julia. If you’re not on this list, that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate you, simply that my memory really is dodgy!
Sarah Byrne and Marie Causey for giving me their names.
Erin, to whom this book is dedicated, and who is, as the dedication says, amazing.
Will, Ali, Cathy, David, Lina, Tora, Archie and Geordie, always.
The wonderful Rebecca Davis, whom we lost this year. I shall miss her keen intelligence, her pragmatism, our quiet words behind the scenes, more than I can say.
The beautiful strangers who have become friends on Facebook, who have provided constant blessed comfort, distraction and entertainment while I was unable to leave the house.
And last but not least, Baloo, who sat guard for a year in a darkened room and only asked for constant tidbits in return. A writer without a cat is like a soldier without Kevlar.
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