She tried to gauge his reaction, then blustered on, 'I don't want cows or pigs or anything, and I'm not going to be ploughing fields. But there must be something we can do to help ourselves.'
'You'll be getting your hands dirty.'
She turned round to find him in a T-shirt and jeans, his skin still visibly damp. Then she looked down at her fingers, protected for thirty years from the wear and tear of the everyday, already flecked with soil from the fungi. 'They'll get used to it,' she said.
Byron rubbed a towel over his head, and surveyed the land around him. 'Well, there's your breakfast for a start,' he said, then, pointing at the mushrooms. 'You can pick those until autumn. And, if you're not squeamish, you could probably feed your family for months.'
She waited.
A small smile played around his lips. When he smiled he looked like a different person. 'Erm,' he said eventually, and gestured at her dressing-gown. 'You'll not get far in that.'
'Oh!' she exclaimed, suddenly laughing. 'Oh. Five minutes. Give me five minutes.'
There was food everywhere, should you choose to see it, Isabel discovered during her morning with Byron. While Kitty stayed at home, chatting on the telephone, she and Thierry followed him round the garden and lake, Isabel trying to commit to memory everything he told her about the potential of her land, which felt now like a place of provision rather than a soul-destroying drain on her resources. 'The easiest things for you to grow will be potatoes, tomatoes, perhaps onions and some beans. They're all pretty foolproof in this soil. This whole corner you can use for rhubarb - it used to do well here.'
Thierry grimaced.
'You'll like it in a crumble.' Byron nudged him.
I must make one, thought Isabel, but she had never asked Mary for the recipe.
'Out by the stables there's the old greenhouse. If you start your seedlings under glass, protect them a bit, you can put them out after the frosts. Cheapest to grow everything from seed, although this year you've probably left it too late. If we tidy this up,' he pulled at some weeds near the red-brick wall, 'you might even find a few raspberry canes . . . There they are. Cut those back to about here,' he indicated with his thumbs, 'and you should get a good crop. All these brambles you may as well leave for the blackberries.'
He strode along, increasingly voluble. Here, in his element, his watchful demeanour lifted, the odd smile drifting across his face. His voice was soft and low, as if unwilling to disturb his environment.
'You've got all different varieties of apple along here. They'll be ready in the autumn. You need to get yourself a freezer so you can keep what you don't eat, then they'll last you the winter. Stew as many as you can. The rest you wrap individually in newspaper,' here he mimed polishing one, 'and leave them in one of the outbuildings somewhere cold - somewhere the mice won't get at them,' he added.
'And you've got Victoria plums, pears, crab apples, damsons . . .' He waved at the fruit trees. She couldn't tell them apart. 'Greengages here. Gooseberries on this bush. Mind the thorns when you pick them, Thierry. You can make jam, chutney, maybe sell it even. There's a lot of people sell stuff at the roadside.'
'Who would come all the way down here to buy jam?' said Isabel.
'If it's good enough you could ask the Cousins to sell it for you as organic. No spray's been used here, as far as I can remember.' He paused. 'Only things you'll have trouble with are lettuce and carrots.'
'The rabbits,' said Isabel.
'Yup. But we can rig something up to keep them off. And there'd be rabbit stew every night if you fancied it.'
'You mean kill them?'
'Like shooting fish in a barrel round here.'
She shuddered at his choice of words.
'It's not hard to skin a rabbit. Thierry's done it.'
She was astounded, but Byron seemed suddenly ill-at-ease. 'I was careful. I watched him with the knife.' It wasn't the discovery that her son had been handling blades that had stunned Isabel: it was the expression on his face of quiet pride as he glanced shyly at Byron, apparently basking in his approval.
'He's good at it, aren't you, T? Bit of a natural, your boy.'
'Did you enjoy doing it, Thierry?' Watching him now, with Byron, she thought briefly that he might answer. But he just nodded. She caught Byron's eye and saw reflected in it an acknowledgement of what she had hoped for. But he continued to talk quietly, as if he had noted none of it.
'And there's pheasant, deer. A couple of sides of venison will keep you in meat for most of the winter. You can hang it in one of the outbuildings. It's good. Very lean.'
'I don't think I could quite manage that,' she said, and smiled.
They stood for a minute as Thierry ran off with one of the dogs, weaving in and out of the trees.
'You'd be surprised what you can do,' Byron said, 'if you have to.'
They walked along the path round the lake and back towards the house, the sun warming the earth so that a few bees flew around them. Isabel's mind hummed with possibilities. Her provisions hung outside from brackets, unconventional hanging-baskets, piled with onions, fruit, a clear plastic tub of milk. She pictured them overflowing with her own produce, herself suddenly capable, peeling, skinning, cooking.
'And you'd teach me?' she said. 'To shoot?'
Now he seemed properly uncomfortable. 'An air rifle, yes. I shouldn't have used that shotgun. No licence. I know someone who'll give you lessons, if you want.'
'I can't afford it,' she said.
'You can shoot rabbits with an air rifle,' he said. 'You don't need a licence for that. You can borrow mine, if you want. I'll show you how to use it.'
In twenty-four hours, Isabel reflected, she had gone from a lead violinist to a gun-toting market gardener.
She sat on the rickety garden bench by the back porch, Byron's .22 in her hands, a row of cans lined up on the wall before the open field so she could not injure anything accidentally. He had told her to keep practising. She lifted the gun to her shoulder, found the can in her sights. You had to get them in the head, he had told her. A straight kill. It's cruel to wound them.
They're not cute fluffy bunnies, she told herself. They're food for my children. Money saved for this house. Our future.
Pow! The shot rang out over the countryside and, with a satisfying clang, the pellet met the can. She heard her son step forward, felt his touch on her shoulder. She turned and he beamed at her. She motioned to him to step away again.
This is it, Laurent, she said silently, her slim white finger closing again round the trigger. It's time to move on.
Fifteen
They thought Anthony couldn't hear. Shut behind the office door, they seemed to believe their voices wouldn't carry round the house, ricochet off the walls like bullets.
'I really don't think it's a lot to ask, Matt. I just want some idea of when you'll be home.'
'I've told you I don't know. You know I can never tell from one day to the next.'
'You used to give me some idea. And now you turn your phone off so half the time I don't know where you are.'
'And why the hell should I have to tell you where I am every minute of the day? I'm not a child. You want the Spanish House, don't you? Well, let me earn the bloody money to get it.'
In the living room, Anthony slumped on the chair, and wondered whether to put on his earphones.
'I don't know why you're being so aggressive about it. All I'm asking is that you let me know roughly what time you'll be home.'
'And I'm telling you, as I've told you a hundred times already, that I can't do that. I could be working at the big house and hit a problem. I could be called by someone on the other side of town with an emergency. You know as well as I do that I have to be flexible. Where's my bloody VAT book?'
Drawers being opened and shut.
'In the blue folder where it always is. There.' A pause. 'Look, I understand that, Matt, but why can't you ring me and give me some idea? That way I can plan my evening too. And supper.'
&nb
sp; 'Just stick my dinner in the oven, woman. If I'm not worried about eating it lukewarm, why are you making such a fuss?'
'Because you're being evasive.'
'No, you're being controlling. Like you want to control everything - this house, that house, the finances, Anthony, and now me. "You need to do this, you need to do that", harping on all the time!'
'How can you say that?'
'Because it's true. And it's getting on my nerves.'
'It seems to me, Matt, that pretty well everything I do is guaranteed to get on your nerves.'
It was the third time this week. His dad had been antsy and bad-tempered for almost ten days. For some reason he hadn't told Anthony's mother they had stopped work at the Spanish House, and he wondered privately whether this was because Kitty's mum had run out of money. Kitty was always saying her mum hadn't any. It was possible his dad was trying to work out what to do about it before he told Mum.
Whatever, something was going on. Usually when Matt headed off to a job, he would take Anthony with him after school, supposedly training him, steering him towards the day when he would take over. That's what he always said, even when Anthony suspected he wanted an extra pair of hands he didn't have to pay for. But he hadn't asked him to come lately. Byron was out working on the land, so he wasn't taking him either. Anthony didn't even know where his father was working - Theresa's house probably, not that you could call that working. In fact, it didn't bother him - it meant he could head down to Kitty's and hang out with her. It was easier than having to listen to this. He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. 'Do u think social services would take my parents into care?' he typed, then sent the message to Kitty.
'I don't want to argue with you, Matt--'
'You surprise me. You pick fights whenever you can.'
'That's not fair. I just want to feel as if I'm not married to a - a vacuum. Because that's how it feels. Even when you're here you're not really with us.'
Anthony's phone beeped. He looked down. 'No use asking me. Mine has taken to waving a gun around - K XX.'
'You're doing my head in. I'm going.'
'Matt, don't--'
'I don't have time for this.'
'But you've got time for her.'
A long silence. Anthony flipped the phone shut, then sat up in his chair, listening, as if to the slow fizz of blue touch-paper.
'What are you talking about?'
His mother, tearful now: 'I'm not stupid, Matt. I know. And I'm not going to put up with it again.'
His father, dismissive, cold: 'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'Who is it this time, Matt? Some shopgirl? Barmaid? A grateful client? Hell - the woman across the lane, perhaps? You spend enough time over there.'
His father exploded. 'Who told me to go over there? Who wanted me to do the work? Who's spent the last nine years going on and on about how much she wanted that bloody house? Don't start bitching at me when I'm doing the one thing you said you wanted!'
'Stop twisting my words! You wanted that house as much as I did!'
'I'm not listening to any more of this,' his father spat. 'I'm going to work.'
Anthony scrambled to put on his earphones as the office door opened and his father strode out. 'I'll be back when I'm back. All right? Anthony, you should be at school, not sitting there earwigging like some old woman.'
'Don't treat me like a fool, Matt.' His mother was crying now. 'I'm not going to stand by while you screw your way half-way around the county. Matt! Matt?'
His father's van disappeared out of the driveway in a spray of gravel, and Anthony removed his earphones as his mother came in. She started when she saw him, and wiped her eyes, trying to recover her composure. 'I didn't know you were still here, darling. Are you waiting for a lift?'
'Free period. I'm not due in till ten.' He fiddled with his phone so that she could straighten her hair. It was always perfect, and it made her look vulnerable when it was all messed up as it was now. 'Just wanted to make sure you were okay.'
Her eyes were red-rimmed and her skin blotchy. 'I'm fine. Really. You know what your dad's like . . . just a bit difficult sometimes.' Then she said, apparently casually, 'I don't suppose he mentioned where he was working?'
'No.' He added, 'But he's not at the big house for now. Kitty says he hasn't been there all week.'
'Really?'
'She'd know.'
His mother sighed, as if she wasn't sure whether she was disappointed or relieved by this information. 'So he's not there,' she said, almost to herself. 'Anthony, can I ask you something? Do you think he's . . . involved with Mrs Delancey?'
Anthony was glad he didn't have to lie. 'No. Not her. She's . . . different from us.' He had been about to say she wasn't his father's type.
'He's been so . . .' Laura mustered the kind of smile she wore when she was trying to convince Anthony that everything was okay. 'I'm sorry. I shouldn't involve you in all this. I suppose you think I'm a fool.'
He realised he wanted to hit his dad - really, really hit him. The words came even before he knew what he was going to say. 'We could leave him.'
His mother's eyes widened.
'I mean, don't stay because of me. I wouldn't be devastated or anything if we went.'
'But, Anthony, he's your father.'
The boy shrugged and grabbed his schoolbag from beside the sofa, already realising that anything he said would make no difference. 'Doesn't make him a good person, though, does it?'
At first she had thought it was the Cousins. She couldn't think who else would leave two boxes of fresh eggs outside her door - where she had almost trodden on them. She had picked one up, opened it and examined the speckled, irregularly sized eggs, some still bearing dirty straw or a feather. When she had broken one into a pan it had sat almost upright instead of spreading. Like a silicon breast implant, Kitty had suggested. 'The Cousins say that means it's really fresh.'
She had gone into the shop that lunchtime, and thanked them for their unexpected delivery. 'They were absolutely delicious,' she said. 'Almost meaty in flavour. I never expected eggs to taste like that. And the colour! So vivid!'
Henry had looked at her blankly. 'Darling, I'd love to think we were adding to your egg count but we don't do deliveries. Even to our nicest customers.'
Then, several days later, firewood appeared. It had a note attached to it: 'Needs seasoning for at least a year. Have put rest in barn by orchard.'
She had gone out and found a neatly stacked pile of freshly cut wood, some still leaking sap. She had breathed in its scent, running her hand over the bark. There was something elementally satisfying about a woodpile, the knowledge of warmth to come.
Two days later, crouching blank-eyed and furious in a rusting wire crate, six hens arrived. 'These are point of lay (eggs coming soon),' the note read. 'Will need corn or layers' mash, regular supply of grit and water. Old coop by greenhouse. Shut them in at night. Colin of Dorneys Farm will be round to take the old pallets at back of garage in payment.'
She and Thierry had strung up a ramshackle run out of old bits of chicken wire and posts, and watched the birds peck their way round the garden. Thierry had enjoyed this, busy with stakes and wire, brushing off his hands with satisfaction afterwards. The first time he had found an egg, he had rushed to hold it at her cheek so that she could feel the residual warmth. She had prayed that this might be a turning point for him.
And then there had been the rabbits. She had been upstairs, brushing her teeth in the unfinished bathroom, when she'd heard Kitty shriek. She had run down in her dressing-gown, mouth still full of toothpaste, to find her daughter hugging herself beside the back door. Her face was pale with shock. 'Oh, my God, someone really hates us!'
'What?' Isabel had cried. 'What's the matter?'
'Look!'
Isabel had opened the back door, Thierry at her side. There, on the steps, lay three dead rabbits, their hind paws tied together with baling twine, a small bloody patch on each head signifying
where they had come from. 'It's like Deliverance.'
'Byron,' said Thierry, happily.
'What did you say?' asked Isabel. But he was silent again. He picked up the rabbits and brought them inside to the kitchen table, laying them down gently.
'Eurgh! Don't put them there! They're dead!' Kitty shrieked, huddled against the wall as if the rabbits might suddenly revive and leap up at her.
'It's okay, darling,' Isabel soothed her. 'We've been left them as a present. Thierry will prepare them for us.'
'Someone left us roadkill?'
'They're not roadkill. People used to eat rabbit all the time.'
'Yes, and they used to send children up chimneys. It doesn't make it right.' Kitty was clearly appalled by the idea. 'If you think I'm eating dead rabbit you're out of your minds. Ugh! You're both disgusting!' She flounced out of the kitchen.
Thierry was grinning.
'Show me, darling,' Isabel said. 'Show me what Byron showed you and we'll do it together.'
It had been like this for almost two weeks. Early potatoes, tentative shoots emerging from their rumpled skins, envelopes of seeds, clearly labelled with instructions, two sacks of manure. Isabel had tried to find Byron to thank him, but he was never around. In fact, the house was deserted, apart from her and the children. Matt had not returned. The digger and his tools were scattered about the house and its grounds like landlocked relics of the Mary Celeste.
Thierry laid a plastic bag on the table, and put a rabbit on its back, its head facing him. He took the small kitchen knife and placed it on the left of the soft white belly, pulled a pinch of fur between his fingers and began to cut. Isabel fought the inclination to steer him away from sharp implements, but his fingers were as precise as hers were on strings, and his whole self seemed absorbed in his task. And as Isabel watched, marvelling at how tenderly he did it, her son put down the knife and peeled away the rabbit's pelt, almost as if he were removing its clothing, to reveal the raw pink flesh beneath.
She didn't know what she would say to Matt about that night. She couldn't explain her actions, let alone his, and although drink might have played a part, she knew it wasn't enough to blame the wine. If she were honest, some part of her had felt indebted to him - although the ugly truth in his offer had turned her blood to ice.