The old-fashioned bell tinkled as the door of the Northumberland farmhouse opened to a blast of freezing cold air and rain, which flung itself against the stone-paved floor till the rain-drenched woman in the Burberry mac managed to shut the door on the storm and the night.
A tousled-haired boy in pyjamas and a fluffy dressing gown flung himself at her. He seized hold of her round her thighs and slid his bare feet over her wet court shoes. ‘Mama! I lost the other tooth, see?’ He grinned, poking his tongue through the gap where his two front teeth had been, and she pulled back in mock horror.
‘Dearheart, what happened to our son’s tooth?’ she yelled, bending to one side to lean her umbrella in the corner and drop her handbag and briefcase among the mud-encrusted wellington boots, trainers and small shoes. She hugged the boy tight to her body. ‘Bring me glue and I’ll stick it back in.’
‘You’re back early, pet.’ Her husband’s voice was muffled by the thick oak of the kitchen door. There was the metallic clang of a casserole pan as it hit the Aga’s hob.
Beef stew, she thought, suddenly ravenous.
‘How was Sodom and Gomorrah?’ he called to her, but he didn’t wait for an answer, yelling ‘Dinner!’ at full force as if the house might contain more children, and there was the noise of thundering footsteps from upstairs.
Keeping her youngest boy close by her, his warm feet still resting on her stockinged ones, both of them giggling, she shuffled, step by step, along the hall and through the door into the kitchen. The sound of greetings and laughter and conversation. Of school catch-ups and weather reports, and cutlery scraping against plates, and the everyday noise of everyday life.
And in the hallway, the table lamp on the console shone a golden light through the jars of jewel-coloured chutneys lined up for the village fete. On the wax coats and puffer jackets and school blazers heaped and hanging on the hallway stand, and on the plastic tub of chicken feed standing by it. But the light did not quite reach the darkest corner of the hall, where raindrops dripped steadily from the tiger-print umbrella on to the worn flagstones.
*