Tom is asleep. The drive, the heat and the wine have conspired against him. I’m happy being alone with my thoughts. This garden has the power to lull and soothe and I think I could grow to love it. The air is heavy with the sounds of the budding summer. The sawing of grasshoppers, the drone of bees drunk on nectar, lazily bouncing from flower to flower. I’ve hardly touched my wine, but still my eyelids begin to droop, the sun a red haze behind them, and sleep steals over me.
When I wake I find the picnic blanket has been wrapped around me and Tom is nowhere to be seen. The afternoon is on the tipping point of evening, the sun dipping below the trees and dew gathering on the grass. There’s a chill in the air. I shiver and sit up, wrapping the blanket more tightly around my shoulders. I was having the oddest dream. The memory of it is still there like an itch in my brain but it fades away as quickly as I try to grab hold of it.
I feel lost and for a moment have the irrational feeling that Tom has driven away and left me here. It’s unlike him to wander off and leave me alone in a strange place.
The sky is darkening and I look back at the house. The windows glow orange in the setting sun so for a moment it looks as though it’s on fire. Its welcome demeanor of earlier has vanished. There’s no sign of Tom at all, he must have headed in the other direction through the orchard to the paddock and woods. I leave our picnic stuff and pick my way through the trees, following a trail of recently trodden grass.
The orchard suddenly ends, and I come out into a clearing at the edge of woodland. The air seems heavier here somehow and the sound of birdsong has faded with the approaching dusk.
A building stands in the clearing overshadowed by the backdrop of trees. Pitch-roofed and imposing, it appears to be a workshop. Red brick and tile like the main house. Double wooden doors to the front, their surface bleached and cracked by time. These are barred and tightly padlocked, as is the smaller door to the side, and both look as though it’s been many years since either was in use. The arched window is obscured by something on the inside, so I walk round to the back of the building where there’s an annex of sorts, also with a window high up beneath a flat roof. I stand on tiptoe to look inside and for a split second a face looks back at me, pale features and a cloud of yellow hair. I involuntarily start and step back, the beginnings of a cry forming in my throat before I realize it’s nothing more than my reflection against the blacked-out glass, the blond hair just a trick of the dying light.
At that moment there’s a rustling and Tom appears through the trees.
“Hello you,” he says. “Sorry I left you for a bit, but you were fast asleep and after this morning’s headache I didn’t want to wake you up. Don’t you think this is amazing?”
He threads his fingers through mine and we look at the workshop. I can feel his excitement like a tangible force. He looks so happy I know I can’t deny him this. Yes, it’s been a bit tense recently but that’s only because of the baby thing. Maybe he’s right, maybe we can settle here and things will just happen. I allow myself the fleeting thought of a child, our child, running to us across the lawn. I so want to give him that, for I love this man with all my heart. I’m sure I do.
“Izzy, do you realize this has got its own driveway? A completely separate track off the lane that runs down the side. This would make an unbelievable studio for you if we converted it. I know it’s a bit dark with all the trees but we could make one side floor to ceiling glass and add a skylight or something. You could store all your canvases and stuff out here and have an office. It’s what you’ve always said you needed. I know you think you don’t want to leave London but just imagine what we could do with this.”
He squeezes my hand and smiles at me. “Please, just let me do this for you.”
“I know,” I say, “it is lovely, but it just feels so, I don’t know, sad somehow.”
“It won’t be once we’ve finished with it.”
He smiles and I note his choice of words. It would seem our moving here has already been decided. Somehow, I don’t seem to mind. I know when I’m beaten, and this place has certainly won the first round.
I try to ignore the sense of foreboding that sweeps over me as we make our way back to our picnic spot and onward to the car.
4
JULY 2004
“I did not know what she suffered from, but I knew that her malady must have been horrible”
—Octave Mirbeau, Le Calvaire
His parents were going away for a few months, doing their bucket list while she was still strong enough.
His mother placed her hand on his arm. He hated being touched unless it was on his terms. He looked pointedly at her clawlike fingers, the nails a faint violet, the papery skin translucent and dry.
“We’ll pay the rent on your flat while we’re away, so don’t worry about that,” she said. “It’ll just take a weight off our minds knowing you’re in the house. I couldn’t bear the thought of coming back to find something had happened, not on top of everything else. We would’ve asked your sister but it’s difficult for her with the baby.’
She saw him looking at her hand and two faint spots of color appeared on her cheeks. She rarely touched him, not since he was a boy, and she seldom made eye contact. If she did, her eyes slid quickly away to fix on something just over his shoulder. He suspected she was a little afraid of him, but he never pushed it. He always played the doting son. Occasionally long-suffering or a bit reluctant, because you had to keep it plausible, but generally he was The Good Son. He gritted his teeth and patted her hand, a little bit harder than was necessary, and felt her stiffen at his touch. That’d serve her right putting her diseased paw on him.
“Don’t worry about anything, Mum. Of course I’ll stay here and look after things. You just go and enjoy yourselves. Look, it really isn’t any trouble—it’ll actually be nice to be back in the old house again.”
He pondered the exciting opportunities this would present. It was remote enough for his purposes but not so remote as to cause him difficulties traveling with her. He needed to be patient and plan things down to the last detail. Unbidden memories of his past mistake surfaced and he quickly pushed them away. He’d been young and reckless back then and hadn’t realized his capabilities.
It was time for his most ambitious project to date. He’d been watching her now for long enough to know where she went and when she was alone and had worked out how he would get her into the car without a struggle, willingly even. He didn’t want her stressed, he needed her to love him, at least for a while.
While he was lost in these thoughts his mother watched him, her eyes sad beneath heavy lids. She felt entirely disconnected from the son she had borne. When he was a baby and a little boy she’d loved him unreservedly. He’d been her life, but as he got older she sensed something different about him, something that just wasn’t right. He’d sometimes been cruel, to insects and occasionally to animals, and although she’d tried to dismiss it as just a phase he was going through, she knew in her heart it was more than that.
As he grew she’d begun to feel uneasy being alone with him, even avoided it as much as she could, and then felt so guilty because surely that was a terrible thing for a mother to feel.