Theresa lived with her family in Pig Cottage, a small stone house standing on its own at the highest point of the Drovers’ Road, which led out of Eddon Gurney, over the hills to Selsdon, where there was a McDonald’s and a library. In the past in these parts, Ned had told Alexandra, the shorter valley roads would become impassable in winter: mud, mire and flood water could make them dangerous. Then the shepherds would drive their flocks along the summits of the hills, and so the Drovers’ Road came into existence – through high places barely fit for habitation: windy, bleak and far from water. Pig Cottage was reputed to be haunted – passers-by would report strange blue flickering flames burning within – but that was when it was derelict, and had no doors and windows, and the local farmer used it to sty his pigs. The methane from their slurry would on occasion spontaneously ignite. The council had eventually requisitioned the place, allegedly to house the troublesome Nutwich family, though some said to annoy the water company. There was no electricity, no piped gas – but the Water Board, under new regulations imposed upon it by the Government, had been obliged to provide a water supply, at great cost. Mrs Nutwich had eight children, of whom Theresa was the youngest but by no means the biggest. By some trick of the genes – her side, for the children were by different fathers – all were wellabove six foot tall, and broad, strong and pale with it: slow and amiable. Ned said it was nothing to do with genes: it was the pig slurry did it.
Alexandra could see the problem of remaining in the neighbourhood. Everywhere she went she would remember something Ned had said, or done, and be humiliated because what she had thought special to her was not. Where she had seen him-and-her, Ned had seen him-and-her-her-her. She, Alexandra, was diminished by an equivalent fraction of the number of ‘hers’. If there were too many she might all but vanish away, dwindled to the point of invisibility.
Alexandra had dropped off and collected Theresa often enough. She had never been inside the house. The Nutwiches were known to be private people. But now the door was opened by a very pregnant young woman, fine-boned enough to snap, skinny and small except for the vast bump in her middle, tight under stretched fabric. She would be one of the boys’ wives; a privileged stranger. Alexandra hoped the birth wouldn’t prove difficult.
The room was small, square, cosy and stuffy, a three-piece suite in an orange checked fabric; comfy chairs drawn up round the TV; a round table, a Madonna in a gold frame, bleeding hearts on the walls. Over the table was her, Alexandra’s, best lace tablecloth (Belgium, 1835, approx. £230). A fire burned in the grate, glittering on Ned’s copper fire-tongs in their stand (1910 Arts and Crafts, £550). A Victorian birdcage with a canary in it, singing. So this was where the birdcage (1851, Great Exhibition style, £900) had gone. It had disappeared, mysteriously, from the barn, though no one had been quite sure when.
Theresa came down the stairs slowly; thud-thud-thud. She scowled at her pregnant sister-in-law.
‘We don’t let people in here,’ Theresa said. ‘This is our place.’
‘Sorry,’ said the pregnant girl, and scuttled.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Theresa. ‘It’s not the way it looks.’
‘I’m not thinking anything,’ said Alexandra, wishing she had not come round, not come in. ‘Though I would like the tablecloth back, some time. No hurry.’
‘You just shove it in the wash,’ said Theresa. ‘I look after it properly. It’s so delicate. It’s antique. It’s safer here.’
‘All the same,’ said Alexandra, mildly.
‘So, what do you want?’ asked Theresa. On her home ground she seemed a different person. More bad-tempered, more aggressive. ’All the way up here! It’s my day off. I deserve some peace. I’ve been upset too. You think you’re the only one, but you’re not.’
Alexandra said she understood that: everyone was in quite a state. She explained to Theresa that Sascha wouldn’t be back for a week: could Theresa hold on for that long? Theresa said she supposed so, if Mrs Ludd didn’t mind paying her to waste her time.
Alexandra said she didn’t. She would need help sorting Ned’s clothes. Perhaps Theresa could come down to The Cottage and help her, and then she wouldn’t be wasting her time.
Theresa said she wasn’t paid to sort through dead people’s clothes, she was paid for child care.
Theresa sat down in an armchair, pushing the arms out with her bulk as she did so. They were already half-off: effectively, they were hinged. Alexandra sat in the chair opposite. A small child with a grubby face and bare legs ran between them, and pinched some potato crisps from a glass bowl which Alexandra observed to be her own, leaded crystal, French, circa 1705,£830. Theresa slapped the child’s legs as she ran off. The hand was large: the blow sudden. The child let out a howl.
‘Don’t worry, I don’t hit yours,’ Theresa said. ‘Ned said not to so I don’t, but life with Sascha would be a lot easier if someone did. That kid is spoiled rotten.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean by spoiling,’ said Alexandra. ‘Do explain.’
‘You are a sarcastic bitch,’ shouted Theresa, getting to her feet. The chair came with her. Theresa had to knock it away from her flesh. One of the arms finally detached itself so it fell separately. ‘Mr Ludd gave me all these things. You can’t prove he didn’t.’
‘I’m not giving them a second thought,’ said Alexandra.
‘Who do you think you are, anyway?’ said Theresa. ‘You never loved Ned, you don’t even love your own child. Everyone knew that. You just had him to save your marriage. Why bother to have a baby at all if you just give it to someone else to look after? That’s what beats me.’
‘Because I have to work,’ said Alexandra. She could see that without Ned’s presence in the house Theresa as child care was impossible. She had already given in: she could hardly be bothered to fight.
‘You don’t have to work,’ said Theresa. ‘No one has to work. You just love it, your face in the papers. If you wanted to, you could live off benefits like everyone else, but you don’t want to. You have to be someone special. You have to have someone like me to be better than, so you can boss them about. I’m so sorry for that poor little boy: he needs a firm hand and a visit to a psychologist. He’s disturbed.’
‘It was your red bracelet on the bed,’ said Alexandra. ‘Just your style. If it isn’t stolen, it’s plastic.’
‘Nothing happened,’ said Theresa. ‘I swear it on my life.’
Alexandra wanted to ask the nature of the non-happening but in the end didn’t. What was the point of that either?
‘I guess we’ve reached the parting of the ways,’ she said.