The wheelchair has been parked at an angle in the shade of a tall plane tree. Lillian sits slumped in it, a blanket spread across her lap. Maggie spots her from up on the terrace and feels a flicker of annoyance. Will has taken her right down to the edge of the retaining wall. What if she gets tired or cold? What if she wants to come back up to the house? And where is he, anyway?
She looks around, growing increasingly worried, until she sees his head pop up over the edge of the wall, like a rabbit emerging from a burrow, just a few metres from where Lillian sits. A spade is thrown up over the ledge, followed by several large pieces of stone. He says something to Lillian and Maggie watches her grandmother acknowledge him with a raise of her hand, before he is gone again, ducking down behind the wall. Maggie lets out a long sigh. She knows she needs to talk to him. She can’t let what happened at his studio the other night hang over them forever.
She joins them a little later, rolling out a picnic blanket beside Lillian’s chair and pulling a Thermos of tea and some of Jane’s walnut cake from a Tupperware box. She is careful not to disturb Lillian, who is now dozing, her chin resting on her chest, hands folded loosely in her lap. In the shade of the tree, Lillian’s face looks as translucent as a sheet of crumpled tracing paper. Maggie studies her for a moment, then picks up the stick of charcoal she has brought with her and begins to sketch the outline of Lillian onto a page in her sketch pad. While she draws, the leaves overhead move and rustle in the breeze, accompanying the rhythmic sound of Will hammering stones into the wall.
She tries to push her tasks for the afternoon out of her thoughts. She tries not to think of the pile of marketing brochures for drab-looking care homes lying on her grandfather’s desk awaiting her attention. Or what Harry will say when she calls him to ask if the Hamilton Consortium might still be interested in negotiating on the house and land. She concentrates instead on the smooth path of her charcoal moving over white paper.
‘We saved one once.’
Lillian’s voice breaks through Maggie’s reverie. She puts down the pencil. ‘Hello. I thought you were asleep.’
‘Just resting.’
‘What did you save?’
‘Up there,’ Lillian says, nodding towards the sky.
Maggie shields her eyes with her hands and sees a dark shadow hovering against the blue. ‘What is it?’
‘A sparrowhawk.’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘We saved one once,’ she says again. ‘It crashed into a window. We carried it into the woods, convinced it was dead, but moments later it was up, hopping about; then it just took off through the trees.’ Lillian smiles. ‘A tiny miracle.’
Maggie looks across to her grandmother and notices how her face is transformed by the memory; a sudden burst of animation, as if the echoes of the young woman she once was hover over her again.
‘Maybe this is a descendant, returned to say “thank you”?’
Lillian smiles again. ‘Far more likely he has his beady eyes trained on a field mouse in the meadow.’
They watch the bird for a while, gliding in the thermals. ‘It’s funny. Granddad never struck me as much of a conservationist,’ says Maggie. ‘You know, what with his shooting and hunting and all those stuffed animals everywhere.’
‘Oh. Not Charles,’ says Lillian with a small sigh, as if Maggie were a very foolish girl indeed. ‘Jack.’
‘Jack?’ Maggie frowns. ‘Who’s Jack?’
Lillian smiles and looks out towards the woods. ‘I went to find him. Just the once, a few years after Charles’s stroke. He was feeding the ducks with his wife and daughters.’ Her smile falters a little. ‘Sweet little things they were. All rosy cheeks and curls.’
Maggie is still puzzled. ‘I’m not following.’
‘I couldn’t face him in the end, knowing what I’d done to him. But I was glad to see that life had been kind to him in other ways.’
‘Gran, who is Jack?’
But Lillian either hasn’t heard or doesn’t want to answer. She turns her face towards the sun and closes her eyes once more. ‘Life was kind to me, too,’ she murmurs, her eyes still closed. ‘It brought me you.’
Maggie doesn’t know if she is still talking of the mysterious ‘Jack’. Another one of Lillian’s addled moments. Maggie pats Lillian’s hand and adjusts the blanket over her legs.
‘I’m glad to see you’re drawing again,’ Lillian says, her eyes still closed.
‘It’s early days,’ says Maggie, studying her rough sketch of Lillian through critical eyes.
‘He’s a hard worker, your Will,’ Lillian says quietly, after another long silence.
‘He’s not my Will,’ says Maggie, and she waits for her grandmother’s response, before realising that her breathing has slowed and she has fallen asleep once more.
She sits cross-legged on the grass beside Lillian, running her fingers through the soft green blades, picking the last of the daisies and threading them into a chain on her lap. Not her Will. Saying the words out loud is painful, but it’s the truth. She has to let him go. She can’t keep up the fantasy that one day they will be together. She blew that chance a long time ago and it will be far easier on all of them if she can accept it.
He appears again, hoisting himself up over the edge of the dry stone wall, and, seeing her sitting beneath the tree, nods at her in greeting. She pours him a cup of tea from the Thermos and carries it over to him. ‘A peace offering?’
‘Thanks,’ he says, lifting his T-shirt to wipe the sweat from his face before taking the cup from her hands.
Maggie shrugs. ‘Thank you for repairing the wall.’
‘If I hadn’t done it, you’d have had some of the farmer’s more friendly livestock marauding through your grandmother’s gardens.’ They share a smile at the thought of a herd of cattle grazing the lawns of Cloudesley.
‘I suppose that would be one way to keep the grass under control.’ Maggie feels the moment of levity fall away. It doesn’t matter how many stones they put back into place, she isn’t going to be able to save this place for Lillian.
‘How was your head the other morning?’ he asks, not quite meeting her eye.
‘Dreadful. I’m sorry for bringing my drama to your doorstep. I won’t let it happen again. I promise.’
His gaze settles on her face and he seems to study her for a long moment before nodding. ‘OK.’
‘Do you want some help?’ she asks, eyeing the pile of rocks at his feet.
‘Sure,’ he says, throwing back the last of his tea. ‘I’m almost done but you can help me with the last stones.’
She takes the hand he offers and jumps down into the meadow where she spends the next half an hour in surprisingly satisfying activity, passing the stones to Will for him to fit into the wall.
‘Great,’ he says, standing back to survey their work when the last rock is in place. ‘Now I just have to fix the gate down by the lane and we’re good to go.’
Maggie nods. She hasn’t yet broken the news to Will that all his hard work could be in vain, if Todd Hamilton gets his hands on the estate. She turns to look out over the meadow. ‘The trees are just starting to turn,’ she says, noticing the copper colour creeping across the green foliage. A gust of wind moves across the meadow, combing the long grass like fingers moving through hair. ‘I should take Gran back to the house. I don’t want her to catch a chill.’ She looks across to where Lillian is seated beneath the tree, still asleep but slumped forward again, her chin resting at an awkward angle on her chest.
‘I’d be happy to speak to Joe about moving his livestock next week?’ Will is making the offer as the first flutter of unease comes over her. Without replying, she turns and pulls herself up over the retaining wall, heading for the tree.
‘Maggie? What is it?’
But she doesn’t stop, not until she is kneeling at Lillian’s feet, reaching for her hand.
‘Gran?’ she says. ‘Can you hear me?’
A gust of wind catches the pages of Maggie’s sketchbook where it lies forgotten on the blanket, making them flutter and stir; but Lillian doesn’t move. Her grandmother’s hand, resting in her own, feels stiff and her skin strangely cold. ‘Gran?’ she says again, even though as she does, she understands that Lillian can’t answer.
Will moves alongside her and crouches down. He reaches for Lillian’s other hand and feels for a pulse in her wrist.
Maggie tries to take a breath but finds her lungs have turned to stone. She already knows what Will is going to say when he turns to her.
‘I’m so sorry.’
A terrible, empty ache opens up inside her. A hard lump rises in her throat. Not yet, she wants to cry. Not now.
Will stands and opens his arms to Maggie. She leans in, resting her head against his shoulder, gazing out across the meadow where the wind still moves across the grass and plays in the trees beyond. Higher up, above the treetops, she sees the sparrowhawk still wheeling on the breeze. It soars on the thermals, performing several slow turns, before heading away towards the distant spire of the church. She watches it, a distant speck of black against the blue, until it vanishes completely from view.