by C F Dunn
“Of course not!”
“Then he’s left you.”
“No!” I felt my skin burn under her microscopic stare. “He’s away,” I said, lamely. “He’s with the… the government.” Don’t ask me any more, I begged, silently. Don’t make me lie.
Dad’s eyebrows lowered. “With the government, hey? A bit hush-hush, is it, Em?” I nodded so I didn’t have to elaborate. “Well, I’m not surprised; I always thought Matthew must be working on something in R and D – never particularly forthcoming about his work.”
“That is no reason for his wife and children to be living like this,” Mum whipped, her toe rapping the galvanized bucket I’d found to put under the leak. “What are you doing here, Emma? Why aren’t you in Maine?”
“Matthew didn’t know how long he might be away, so he thought we would like to be close to, er, home – family.”
Mum snorted her disbelief. “Here?”
“Well, yes – here. He knows how much I’ve always wanted to live in a historic building, and this became available. And it does have family connections.”
“That’s very true,” Dad observed.
“And immaterial,” Mum flashed. “Collect your things and you can come back home with us. We’ve plenty of space and the children can have Nanna’s room. We can be back in time for lunch.”
“Mum, there aren’t enough seats in the car,” Beth pointed out, “and it’s illegal to double up,” she added before our mother could suggest it.
“Well, we’ll bring both our cars and come and collect you tomorrow, first thing, won’t we, Elizabeth?” Beth opened her mouth to answer, but Mum had already moved to a different tack. “Now, Emma, what about schools…”
The familiar tingle of obstinacy. “Rosie’s not going to school, Mum. I’m home-educating her as we did in Maine.”
“That was when you had a husband to support you.” She must have seen the hurt blanch my face because her mouth softened and she adopted a more conciliatory stance. “Darling, you must see that it’s hopeless; it’s positively medieval. Beth said something about you not having enough money to pay for the utilities. That can’t be right, surely.” I avoided her eyes and removed what looked like a dead spider from Theo’s dusty fingers before he ate it. “If Social Services find you living like this they’ll impound the children, or whatever it is they do.”
“Then they’d better not find out. We’re not leaving.”
She took a step back, her mouth becoming an angry line.
Dad intervened. “Penny, leave her. If Emma wants to live here, then let her. She knows where to come if she needs us. We’ll get the utilities sorted out for you, Em; don’t worry about that. Get you registered and an account set up, and at least you can get the lights working.”
“Dad, no – thank you. We’re fine as we are. I’d rather do that myself. I’ll get a job and pay for them myself.”
“A job? And how do you expect to work with two young children?” Mum demanded.
“I did,” Beth murmured.
“You had a husband, Elizabeth, who didn’t leave you to fend for yourself in what amounts to no more than a glorified slum.”
That did it; my temper flared. “Under no circumstances criticize my husband. He would be here with us if he could.” Jabbing the air to emphasize my point, I said, “This is where he wants us to be and this is where he’ll find us. Enough. End of discussion. Now…” I counted to five, “… would you like a cup of tea?”
Rosie ran ahead across the inner courtyard, seemingly indifferent to the biting easterly that was feeding thin, high cloud over the sky. The sun seeped through, but brought no warmth. Dad pinched his scarf closer to his neck.
“Tough at this age, aren’t they? Don’t feel the cold like we do. At least you won’t need a fridge for the time being.” We walked through the door to the stone walled garden and into another world. “Well, well,” he exclaimed, “I haven’t been here for many years. The Seatons kept it immaculately – kitchen garden over there, cutting garden for flowers along here – and over there,” he indicated with his head, “the soft fruit cages. All gone now, I see.” He looked thoughtful. “The top fruit seems to have survived, though.”
“Top fruit, Dad?” Any subject was better than the one we had left behind, and I dreaded him returning to his normal habit of probing. Mum might be a natural, but Dad had made Intelligence his career.
“Top fruit – apples, pears, plums – at the far end of the orchard. Had some old varieties, if I remember correctly. Will need a good prune now, of course.” We traversed the stony paths now bearded in grass, and saw Rosie scrambling up a craggy pear tree. She wedged herself securely, and waved to us. Her grandfather waved back. “The siege of Rochester Castle, hey? That was a sapper job. Good one, too, by all accounts. No time like the present to be teaching them about the past, eh, Em?” He broke a twig from an apple tree and inspected it.
“Yes, Dad, but it’s about all I can teach, apart from English and geography. Matthew… Matthew taught Rosie maths and the sciences – and music. And Latin.”
He tapped the trunk, felt the bark under his gloved fingers. “I don’t know much about music, and my Latin is a little rusty, but I can help out with maths and physics. Engineering, too, if you like.”
I remembered his ill-tempered attempts to teach me basic arithmetic at the dining room table until I had writhed in frustration. “Er, well…”
“I expect Rosie learns best by example, doesn’t she? We could dig over the kitchen garden together and do a little science at the same time. Make a game of it and give you a bit of time with Theo. How does that sound?”
“Perfect, thank you.”
“It’s what your grandpa used to do with you and Beth, and you both turned out all right. He taught me a thing or two, although I wouldn’t admit it then. I only wish I had spent more time with you. Still…” he beat his hands together to drive some warmth into them, “… it’s not too late for my grandchildren, if you’ll let me.”
“What about Mum? She’s furious.”
“Don’t worry about your mother; she’ll come round. She’s just concerned for her little girl, that’s all.”
Rosie swung off the branch, humming “I Had a Little Nut Tree”, dangled from one hand, then dropped the eight or so feet to the ground, landing lightly. She trotted off along a path, singing the rhyme to herself. Dad watched, curiosity creasing his forehead. Without taking his eyes from her, he said, “What happened in the States, Em?”
“I told you. Matthew’s been seconded to the…”
He turned neatly on his heel with military precision. “My darling Emma, I spent a good part of my career in Army Intelligence. I might be an old dog, but I know when someone is in trouble. You’re jittery as Hades and it looks as if you haven’t slept. Who are you hiding from?”
“I don’t know, Dad.”
“Then what is Matthew mixed up in?”
“Nothing. He’s done nothing wrong.”
“I didn’t say he had. So, will you tell me why a man – supposedly seconded to the government – loses everything, necessitating his wife and children to flee the country of his birth?” I didn’t answer. “I didn’t swallow that story about him buying you this place because you like history.” I continued to watch Rosie without comment. “Very well, then, I suppose I will just have to trust that you know what you’re doing.” He straightened his shoulders in his thick tweed coat. “In the meantime, there’s enough dead wood in these trees to keep you warm. What do you say to Rob and the twins coming over and giving us a hand? It will be good to get the family together – help you out.”
“I don’t know…”
“Give them a chance to repay some of the kindness you’ve shown them. Rob’ll be pleased to do it.”
“I didn’t know you knew about the restaurant!”
“I might be a bit of a duffer, but it wasn’t difficult to work out. You get a nose for subterfuge – benign or otherwise.”
I cast a swift look at
him and he raised a sandy eyebrow to which I returned a half-smile.
“OK, but on one condition – no more questions.”
He raised his hand in a salute. “Scout’s honour.”
I laughed. “Dad, you were never a Scout.”
He was right. Weeks of surveillance had left me worn thin and jumpy. I managed to get all the window shutters working with the help of a chisel and mallet I found in an old chest of drawers that served as a tool store in one of the barns, but even securely locked down each evening, I lay awake listening to the unfamiliar night sounds and for footsteps and the creak of a door. Lying next to her sleeping brother in the bed we shared, Rosie listened with me, and to prevent my creeping anxiety infecting her happiness, I told her whispered stories of her father’s past and the generations of history to which he bore witness.
After the initial shock of separation, the loneliness set in and, following that, a sort of equilibrium. My next biggest issue was finding a source of cash. True to his word, Dad, Rob and the twins turned up in wellies and jeans, and we set to clearing the orchard and reducing the surplus wood to useful logs we left against the wall to dry. While Mum and Beth looked after Theo, Rosie ran around gathering twigs with Archie, who at nearly six, took it upon himself to be her “big brother”.
“Good luck with that,” Rob commented as his youngest son watched open-mouthed as Rosie evaded his attempts to catch her by scaling a tree and lobbing tiny, withered crab apples at him from above. Rob leant on the tree loppers to watch. “You know, putting aside circumstances for a minute, this is a great opportunity for the kids to get to know each other.” Depositing an armful of smaller branches on the pile, I joined him. “Emma, about a job at the restaurant…”
“It’s OK. Beth told me you can’t take anyone else on; we’ll make do. Just admit that you don’t want me anywhere near the kitchens.”
“Your antithesis to anything culinary might have had something to do with it. No, seriously, it’s just that we’re fully staffed.” He checked over his shoulder, but the twins and Dad were inspecting a gnarled apple tree sprouting mistletoe like a green beard speckled in pearls. “I know you’re keeping a low profile, and Heaven only knows how you’ll avoid being clobbered with council tax if they find out you’re living here, but in case they do, this might come in handy.” He unzipped his rough jacket and withdrew an envelope. “It’s not as much as we’d like, but this is your share of the profits. Matthew said we were to keep it to reinvest in the business, but I guess he’d rather you have it. It’ll tide you over Christmas if you don’t eat anything.” He smiled uncertainly. “There’ll be more where that came from in time – when the business becomes established.”
“Thanks.”
“It won’t buy you an Aston, or anything.”
“Then it’s a good thing I don’t want one. I need some transport, though. I can’t ask you to keep coming all the way from Stamford every time I need something. I can walk directly to Manton over the fields to get a bus, but I’ll have to take Theo and Rosie and the ground’s not suitable in places, and a taxi’s out of the question.”
“Not ideal, is it? Look, that cash’ll get you a banger with a year’s MOT and low insurance. Do you want me to find one?” He frowned. “What’s the matter?”
“Yes, please, but I can’t have anything traceable back to me. I daren’t.”
“Are you in that much trouble?” He exhaled slowly, making a whistling sound through his teeth. “All right. I’ll buy it in Beth’s name. That way you won’t have to pretend to be a middle-aged Scottish bloke when you get pulled over by the police for speeding.”
I smiled thinly. “I really don’t want to involve you, but…”
“You can’t see an alternative,” he finished. “No, I know. See it as payback. We’d never have bought the restaurant without you. Now,” he said, easing his long back, “we’d better get this finished so we can enjoy that banquet I know you have waiting for us inside.”
CHAPTER
20
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Send me some tokens, that my hope may live
Or that my easeless thoughts may sleep and rest
John Donne
How quickly we adapt when we have to. Over the next week, Rosie and I explored room by room, noting what could be salvaged, the general state of disrepair. We decided which rooms we would live in and turned the keys on the others which seemed to have served as no more than a repository for the generations of detritus Roger Seaton had spurned. Then we went outside to the great stone barns full of corrugated scrap and tarpaulins and mice, down past the trees to where the formal gardens and tennis court once stood, and further to the waterlogged scrapes that were all that remained of the fish ponds by the narrow river. Overgrown and unloved, the bones of the manor lay under matted grasses and a tangle of bryony, bramble and hop.
Bit by bit we unpicked the history of the house and, as it became more familiar, we found ourselves seeing past the scars of its past, and found in its worn façade and dusty demeanour a more friendly face. Devoid of electricity, we resorted to time-honoured methods of cleaning. Finding a broad-headed broom in the stables, we wrapped it in a bit of curtain and sprinkled the great hall’s slabs of stone with water. And then Rosie sat astride the broom like a hobby horse while I pushed her around, leaving wet snail trails that Theo, thundering along on all fours, followed.
When they grew tired of cleaning and my hands and knees became raw, we cocooned ourselves in front of the fire in my blue cashmere blanket smelling of home, and I read to them tales of Alexander the Great, of knights in castles, of Peter Rabbit and Winnie the Pooh, until darkness fell and I could see no more. I found a certain peace in an existence stripped of complication, and manual labour drove out the gnawing hunger that life without Matthew left. Too tired to stay awake, I fell asleep after our prayers to the sound of Rosie’s song. But all the while that aching loneliness, the fear of what Matthew might be going through, the dread that I might never see him again.
One night, hours before dawn, an unheard sound woke me. I lay straining into the dark, my heartbeat the loudest thing in the room. There, a soft noise outside the shuttered window. Scratching. Rosie looked around from where she read in the remaining light of the fire as I climbed out of bed and put my finger to my lips. I could sense her fear as, wide-eyed and numb, she watched me check the shutter bar. My daughter: not yet five years old and already world-wary and watchful. I glanced at Theo’s sleeping form – no more than a bump of rumpled duvet in the bed. Innocent. Vulnerable. How could I protect them, guide them – be mother and their father? Who – on God’s good earth – had the right to steal their childhood?
Anger swelled, and I found myself in the hallway, down the dark stairs; outside in the night, poker in hand, facing the unseen foe that snatched my sleep and threatened my children – had stolen their father and my husband. My bare feet stung and slipped on the courtyard flagstone.
“Where are you?” I yelled into the night. “What do you want? Show yourselves, cowards!” Through the arch, mist clung to the contoured land, veiling the oncoming dawn and lank grasses stiffened with frost. Fumbling my way to the front of the house, I expected to see masked figures swarming, but instead a shape moved low on phantom wings, and soared in an arc towards the blank eye of the gatehouse. An owl. I watched it fly back towards my shuttered window and land lightly on the ledge from which it stalked the surrounding land with night eyes. I’d last seen an owl with Matthew. We had watched it from our bedroom window, his arms around me, bathed in moonlight as bright as day, safe and warm.
At the thought of Matthew, his absence grew, becoming a bubble of overwhelming loss. What did I think I was doing? What could I do? The futility of it all swamped my brief courage. The bubble swelled and popped. I dropped the poker and, sinking into the sedges lining the dry moat, raised my head and into the anonymity of the mist, howled out my loneliness.
“It’s the best I could do for the mon
ey,” Rob said, handing me the keys. “I got them to throw in new tyres and a tankful of petrol. I think the Scottish brogue gave me an edge in negotiations.” I circled the scarlet Nova, inspecting it. “I thought the five-door would be easier for getting the kids in and out, and I’ve put Archie’s old car seat in there for Theo.” I opened the rear hatch and let it drop closed again, expelling a waft of stale nicotine a cheap air freshener in the shape of a tree couldn’t disguise. “I gave it a quick vac, and it could do with a good clean, but I’ve checked it thoroughly – it’s sound enough and it’ll be economic to run.” He shrugged. “Not what you’re used to, is it?”
“If it’ll get us to town and back again safely, then I don’t care how old it is or what it looks like. Thanks, Rob, you’ve done a grand job.”
He handed me the envelope of notes; it was considerably thinner than before. “That’s all that’s left after tax. I got the insurance a bit cheaper, though.”
Tucking it away, I smiled. “You’re a star. I owe you a mug of tea for that.”
We took a bundle of wood each back to the house to feed the kitchen stove. From the great hall I could hear Rosie giving Flora commands to gallop. Rob fed wood into the Aga. “So, what are you going to do about cash?”
Centring the kettle on the hob, I crossed my arms and leaned against the chimney breast where warmed stone radiated gentle heat. “There’re not many jobs I can do for cash and no questions asked, so I’ll either have to sell my body or my jewellery – and since only one of them’s moral, it’ll have to be my jewellery – and hope that I can come up with another source of income before my options run out.”
“Not your wedding ring, surely!”
“No, not that – never that. But the earrings Matthew gave me, and Nanna’s gold watch should fetch enough to tide us over. I won’t sell her earrings unless I have to, and never my cross.”
“Won’t last for long, though.”
I gave a thin smile. “No, not for long.”
