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  He heard a clattering as she dropped the spatula on the floor. ‘Askew, did you say?’

  He nodded with a mouthful of pancake and got off his chair to fetch the spatula that had left a greasy skid mark on the tiles, but she had already stooped to pick it up. When she stood again, she took a step closer and looked carefully at his face. He felt uncomfortable, remembering he looked a fright when eating, and backed a little towards the table, but her eyes held him. Suddenly, she reached out her hand and stroked his cheek. So soft. He flinched and looked up at her in alarm. Just then, Michael burst through the scullery door with a jam jar in his hand. There was some jam on his face too.

  ‘I tested all of them,’ he said earnestly, ‘and this is the best one.’ He looked from Gabriel to his mother. ‘Honestly, it is.’

  ‘Is it, now? Well, that’s just splendid.’ His mother laughed. ‘Why don’t you two sit down and eat your pancakes before they get cold?’ She seemed normal again and Gabriel was greatly relieved.

  When they had finished their pancakes, Mrs Bradley asked, ‘Does your mother know you’re here today?’

  He shook his head. It was a strange question; he rarely told his mother where he went after school. ‘Where’re you going?’ Mother would sometimes ask. ‘Nowhere,’ he would answer, and it was usually left at that.

  ‘Tell her you’re welcome to come here and play with Michael at any time, will you?’ she said, her eyes ablaze again.

  He was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Michael, who had such a strange mother, but then he remembered her warm touch on his face and the flash of the deer. ‘Thank you, Mrs Bradley, I will,’ he said, knowing he wouldn’t.

  *

  But of course, Mother found out anyway. Gabriel had just got back from Michael’s on a damp evening a few weeks later when it was made clear, as he had always dreaded, that Michael’s house, with its strange and yet familiar feeling and the soft, beautiful mother, was too private and positive an experience to last.

  ‘You’re never to go to that house again, do you hear me?’ Her hands were hard on his shoulders and her face was too close; he could see the pores around her nose and smell the frustration on her voice.

  ‘But why?’ For once, he felt he needed to assert himself. ‘Michael’s my friend.’ He was careful not say, ‘my only friend.’

  ‘Your friend?’ A drop of her spit landed on his chin. ‘He cannot be your friend – it’s … unnatural.’

  This was an argument he had heard before, although never from her. Suddenly, he wanted to shout, ‘It’s all your fault – you’re the unnatural one, giving birth to a freak!’ But he didn’t; he had learnt to control his impulses and never blame anyone else for his shortcomings. Instead, he stamped his foot and bleated, ‘But he is! He is my friend – he has said so himself – I passed the test.’

  She sighed and let go of his shoulders to cover her face with her hands. ‘Have you met Mr Bradley?’ The anger had gone from her voice, but he could sense that this was somehow more important, and it frightened him.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mrs Bradley?’

  He hesitated; she was the most private part of it all – he did not want to give her up.

  ‘Answer me, Gabriel. What is she like?’

  Her body is still and her face is alive. She moves like a tree in the wind … or like a deer with the moon in its eyes. ‘She’s lovely,’ he whispered. How easy it was to betray under such threat. And still the blow, when it came, surprised him. She had never hit him before. His cheek burnt and he tried to swallow down the tears. He was trembling now and could not make sense of it all. In what way was he wrong now? He tore away from her and out of the house.

  As he turned off the road, it began to drizzle and the lane was soon muddy underfoot. He didn’t stop to open the gate on to the moor, but scissored over it, supporting himself with one hand. The turf and heather squelched as he ran. The wind that was blowing into the hole in his face resonated with his panting. Sheep huddled uselessly amongst last year’s bracken, scattering off with empty panic in their inane eyes as he passed. He crossed a river that sang of the sea and hurried its white water under a clapper bridge. He climbed a tor and the rain seemed to lift for a moment as he crested the hill and dug his heels into the slope on the other side, where Uncle Gerry’s cottage came into view. The longhouse was built into the hillside, facing a narrow valley of enclosed paddocks. A dirt track passed the cottage along the valley and connected it to the Stagstead and Mortford roads on either side. Uncle Gerry kept a few sheep in a pen and chickens in the yard, which had left it mucky with dung and wet straw. Gabriel didn’t stop to knock but burst through the door, which opened straight on to the parlour. A peat fire was fading in the large flagstone fireplace and a kerosene lamp stood in the globe of its own light on an oak table in the middle of the room. The stone walls were lined with books and a dark oil painting hung over the mantelpiece. A stuffed buzzard, perched on a peg, watched the door, flanked on the other side by a set of stag’s antlers. The gramophone was turning without music.

  Uncle Gerry had been asleep in his chair, but woke to the commotion.

  ‘Evening, Gabe; what’s new, lad?’ The bottle of Bell’s on the side table was still half full.

  Gabriel didn’t answer. He dropped his damp mac over the back of a wooden chair and fetched a couple of turves from the wicker basket and stoked the fire. Flames danced in his eyes as warm light fell on to a rug of deep colour. The sudden heat made his cheek pulse again. His damp shorts reeked like dog’s fur. Uncle Gerry rose to put on a new record. The jazz filled the small room but did not shift the silence between the man and the boy.

  ‘Go on, tell me what’s wrong.’ If he slurred the words it was because he had been woken from a dream of how it might have been. He smiled, his eyes still sentimental.

  ‘Mother says I can’t play with my new friend.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘She says it’s unnatural for me to have a friend like Michael. Is it, Uncle Gerry? He knows what I am and he still wants to be my friend. Honest – he tested me and I came out all right.’ He tried not to blink. ‘I did feel the current,’ he added, hoping it was the truth.

  The smile waned from Uncle Gerry’s face. ‘You know your mother’s nerves are frail and she gets very tired at times. Perhaps she’s having one of her headaches?’ he suggested.

  The boy, who had hoped for an alliance, sulked.

  ‘Who’s your new friend, then?’

  ‘He’s called Michael and he lives in a big house surrounded by trees and he has a Captain Marvel poster and a dead dog and a mother with a ring that sparkles.’ He could have gone on, but stopped – and reddened.

  ‘That would be a diamond, lad. It seems you’re mixing with posh folk, Gabe.’ He poured a stiff drink and frowned. ‘But your mother never held that against anyone. Does this boy not have a father?’

  ‘Oh, yes, he does! One that comes at weekends. He works in London, for the government. He was a hero in the war and met Mrs Bradley in France when there were lots of Nazis around.’

  Uncle Gerry put down the glass with a clink and looked straight at Gabriel – his eyes suddenly quite focused. ‘Does Michael live at Oakstone?’

  ‘Yes – how did you know?’ Gabriel was amazed; his eyes shone with admiration. Uncle Gerry knew everything.

  The boy’s uncle cleared his throat and looked away. ‘Oh, I just guessed; it’s the only posh house around here, apart from the manor.’ His voice was sharper now.

  ‘Do you know Mr Bradley, then?’

  ‘What? No, not really … That is, I might have done, a long time ago.’ He stood up and turned to inspect one of his bookshelves, his index finger trailing the leather spines. ‘Have you met him yet?’

  ‘Who?’ Gabriel was not too concerned about Mr Bradley.

  ‘Mr Bradley, of course.’

  ‘No, but Mrs Bradley says I really should.’ He picked up the tumbler and smelt it. ‘Was he a nice man, when you knew him?’<
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  ‘Leave that alone!’ shouted the uncle and snatched the glass out of the boy’s hand.

  ‘Sorry, Uncle Gerry; I didn’t mean to …’

  ‘Ach, never mind, boy. You shouldn’t touch the stuff, though; your soul’s not strong enough for it.’ He reached out to appease the boy, but he had moved away and was again squatting by the fire, playing with the poker.

  ‘Is your soul strong enough?’ he wanted to know. He had not appreciated, until now, that he failed in this aspect too.

  ‘Me? I haven’t got one.’ Uncle Gerry laughed – but his eyes stayed the same.

  ‘Why not? Did you never have one?’ A tooth was coming loose somewhere in the trench of his mouth and he wriggled it with his tongue.

  ‘Oh, yes, I suppose I did once, and Lord knows I tried to hold on to it … but I finally sold it for a bottle of booze after Monte Cassino.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Eh? Never mind – it’s just a figure of speech …’ His voice trailed off as he turned to sip at the last of the drink.

  They were both quiet for a while. Gabriel felt the repulsive taste of blood from the loosening tooth.

  ‘All right – let’s get you back to your mother; she will be worried by now.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Come on – put your mac on.’

  ‘Will you speak to Mother, Uncle Gerry? Please.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll have to speak to her about this.’

  They walked the track back to the Mortford road, which was slower than going across the moor. It had stopped raining but it was getting late and Gabriel was beginning to tire. He was falling behind and stumbled on stones and fallen twigs. They were passing through a plantation where a senate of bearded firs stood silent and ancient under a new moon. Uncle Gerry had stopped somewhere ahead and was waiting for him in ghostly contrast at the end of the dark colonnade of trees. He took his nephew’s hand in his and pulled him along. They walked like that for a while without talking, floating through the night, each one drawn to his own thoughts, until they were startled by the call of a hunting owl. Gabriel was not afraid of birds but drew closer to his uncle just the same.

  ‘Gabe?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I was thinking that you and Michael could come over to my cottage sometimes after school … No one needs to know. You can help me feed the chickens and suchlike.’

  ‘Oh, thanks – that’d be grand.’ He smiled in the dark and squeezed his uncle’s hand a bit harder.

  *

  It was almost midnight when they reached the cottage in the lane behind the church. As they stepped on to the path leading up to the porch, the door opened and a rectangle of light fell over them. From inside the light, a dark figure with fuzzy contours seemed to reach out and topple towards them, as if over-thrown by its own shadow. Gabriel held back and pulled at his uncle’s hand, but realised at once that the shape was Mother, lit from behind by the overhead electric light in the front room. He was too exhausted to prepare himself for the reprimands he was sure would come or to be surprised when they didn’t. Once inside the front room, he could see that Mother’s face was puffed and raw, but he had no time to reflect on it as he was ushered upstairs to bed. Then Uncle Gerry was in the narrow room, helping him off with the boots and unbuttoning the shorts and finding the pyjamas under the pillow. The room was chilly and Gabriel shuddered as he was helped into the flannel jacket that was so cold it felt damp against his skin. And then there was the nauseating wash of the first waves of sleep – the sinking in and out of folds of velvet and the island of emerald green in blue behind his closed eyelids. And somewhere, nuzzling up against the beginnings of his dreams, their underwater voices:

  ‘Well, Cecilia, I’m very sorry, but it was inevitable that this would happen – sooner or later.’

  ‘I suppose, but why now?’

  ‘I don’t know, sis, but let’s be reasonable. Let’s try to keep the children out of it.’

  ‘He must never know. Do you hear me? Never.’

  ‘But Cecilia …’

  ‘No: it’s my final decision.’

  *

  It was well into the afternoon, the feeble sun barely reaching over the hedges, when Mr Askew set out for his allotment again. As he shuffled along the street, past Wilkinson’s, which was now the deli, and a group of Gore-texed ramblers outside Rowden’s, he wondered whether he needed to employ a woman to come and do a bit of cleaning for him; somebody who could come – and be gone – while he was out for a walk or at the allotments. The thought was unsettling but he had to keep at it, unflinchingly. However, his mind soon slipped towards more pleasant thoughts. He quickened his steps as he remembered the plan he had worked out during his after-lunch doze. He was going to plant an herbaceous border on the side of the allotment that faced the silent woman’s plot. He could already see it in his mind’s eye: the taller achillea and delphiniums at the back and then anemones and sea holly at the front. Perhaps a few poppies. Lapis lazuli flanked by gold, white, purple and red – a rainbow of goodwill and neighbourly consideration.

  As he turned on to the path to the higher ground, he could see a glimpse of colour in the dull field. ‘Ah, good,’ he said to himself. ‘She’s back.’ Leaning into the wind, he stumbled towards her, waving his hand and shouting, a bit too eagerly, ‘Ah, I thought you might come back this afternoon – it’s such a nice day for it, isn’t it?’ He had made his mind up and would not have it otherwise, although the wind did bite and the sky was darkening over the hills in the west. A few gulls, having detoured from the coast beyond the horizon, scattered reluctantly from the beds of fat worms as Mr Askew charged up the broken path, his coat catching briefly on last year’s brambles. He was suddenly uncertain whether she had heard him – the wind was still against him – and threw his words at her with renewed force. ‘Lovely afternoon, wouldn’t you say?’ He faltered as he saw that she had stopped digging and was looking at him. In the flurry of the afternoon, she seemed remarkably still – the kind of stillness learnt in solitude. She was younger than he had thought at first, perhaps in her early fifties, and her dark gaze, as it finally settled on him, was more intense.

  ‘Not necessarily.’ Her voice was clear, the pronunciation distinct but foreign.

  He was taken aback for a moment, then murmured, ‘No, I suppose you’re right. Weather is always a matter of opinion – quite subjective, really. What is fair to one may be quite foul to another.’ How stupid he sounded.

  And yet her smile was without irony, or so it seemed. The headscarf had slid back to reveal her black hair, streaked with a few strands of silver. ‘Our nature makes it difficult to reach absolute certainty and consensus … but some things are indisputable –’ her eyes were the colour of reeds in a river – ‘such as, a rectangle has four corners, or, if I sow, I will reap.’

  The wind was fretting with his hair, lifting the fringe, which he kept long out of habit, and blowing it about. He tried to hold it down until he remembered the cap in his coat pocket. Putting it on gave him a moment to recompose himself. ‘I plant because I want my day to be a little bit more beautiful, if possible,’ he admitted, and dared look her in the eye.

  She looked at the snowdrops and scilla at his feet and nodded. ‘These flowers are new to me; they are very pretty. You’re lucky to have such insouciance. I sow vegetables because they offer me a sense of belonging –’ she pushed her spade harder into the earth with surprising strength – ‘and something to tend to,’ she added.

  He nodded. And then he remembered what he had come to tell her. ‘I intend to plant an herbaceous border.’ His hand indicated gently where. ‘It will be very … colourful in a few months. You see, it was you who inspired me, this morning.’

  It will become her beauty, he thought to himself, and the flawed day seemed suddenly perfect.

  2

  ‘I do not drink, take drugs or get caught up in trafficking,’ the strange woman on his doorstep said defiantly, and added, ‘I want to make it clear th
at I’m not like one of them Eastern Europeans.’

  Mr Askew only stared.

  ‘I wouldn’t normally answer an ad, you understand –’ she tried to look under – and then over – his arm which held open the door – ‘but, as there’s less to do up at the farm these days, I thought I might be charitable and help a neighbour who’s new to the community.’

  She was waving a piece of paper in front of him, a piece of paper, he realised, with his own handwriting on it. It was the note he had put up on the board at the post office, advertising for a cleaning lady. How he regretted it now. But it was too late for that, quite clearly. He looked beyond her, towards the canopy of green leaves that fringed his property. At least I still have the trees to myself, he thought, and lowered his eyes to her. She was a short and compact kind of woman and, if it hadn’t been for her bum, which presented itself in too-tight denim, she would have been altogether unremarkable.

  ‘It’s only for a couple of hours a week, you do realise?’

  ‘Most respectable homes around here are normally cleaned for at least four hours a week.’ She was beginning to sound impatient.

  ‘Oh. All right; let’s agree on three hours, then,’ because he would always compromise.

  ‘Fine. I’ll start on Friday,’ she said, thinking it was her own triumph.

  He sighed and began to close the door.

  ‘Ah-ah-ah!’ She might just as well have put her foot in the gap.

  He looked at her again.

  ‘I insist that you supply me with rubber gloves and cleaning products. Mr Muscle do the best ones.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, if you say so …’ He sounded nervous and hoped she didn’t notice.

  ‘See you on Friday, then.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Closing the door at last, he tried to offer her a smile with his mended mouth.