Sunday, two weeks earlier Umbria, Italy

The tree was old, old. Its skin mottled black and dry, scabbed with lichen. Deeply creviced, like the dirt road behind it, like the face of the farmer who had led them here, past the stand of cherry trees and through a potato field, newly dug. Below them the folds of the Valdescura, the Valley of Darkness. Alvaro nodded as he translated the name: Because of the woods, he said.

The Fiorentina pear stood in a tangle of weeds and thorny vine, so they’d had to scythe their way in. It was afternoon late in a warm autumn; Laura watched dark circles of sweat flowering beneath Alvaro’s arms as he worked. Her own skin prickled too, but it was more than the heat. The Fiorentina was like a venerable relative of hers now. In the presence of its great age, its dignity and survival she felt humbled and grateful. And afraid: it was alive so could it feel? As they cut and moved closer she had a sense of the tree as human, hating them for being here, its limbs stiff against the intrusion. As soon as she was close enough she laid her palm flat against the rough trunk. Alvaro grinned at her. Is there a pulse? he said.

She looked at the farmer. He was expressionless, like the tree. He shrugged, folded his arms across his chest. Quanti anni? he asked. How old?

Laura leaned closer then and placed her cheek against the trunk. It wasn’t entirely pretence. One day, surely, one of these ancient trees would speak. Of all the days before, the people, the sun and the seasons, families, orchards. Of everything it had seen and suffered, all the triumphs and mistakes. Laura smiled at the farmer, shrugging as he had. She won’t tell, she said in her abbreviated Italian. Ninety? One hundred and ten?

She bent to pull her tools from her pack and the two men wandered off. This suited her. She believed the work of grafting was an intimate exchange, not surgical so much as psychological. It was not a performance, it was not for spectators. She spoke softly to the pear as she moved around, preparing it. Sometimes, as she touched and talked and cut, she felt in the air some old sadness, something alive and stoic but not human. She would fight back tears then or, like today, just let them come.

A cool wind came up the valley as she worked. It gathered with it the noise of a thousand leaves rubbing, bristling, and she didn’t hear Alvaro approaching, not even the sound of his boots; she jumped when she felt his hand on her arm. A frown had begun to form on her face; she liked to work alone. After ten years as her assistant, he knew that. But then she looked at him and saw that his eyes were uncertain. He thrust the mobile phone in her direction. It’s Kate, he said, raising his brows.

Later, she will keep seeing herself at just this moment. It will be involuntary – the scene will simply keep forming itself in her head, as if repetition and reinvention will force her brain or her heart or her eyes to understand it properly. She will see the pear tree, its stoic bark, its leaves, and hear her daughter’s voice. It is too mature, she thinks, too grown-up; as calm and final as death.

But on that warm afternoon – unseasonably warm, even for Umbria – she registered only Kate’s words and, oddly, the translucency of a leaf, sea green, lifting and falling in that light wind, lifting, turning, falling. Green as a wave, she thought, as she folded up the phone and dropped it into her shirt pocket. She looked down at what she had done, at the vertical cut in the tree’s flesh. Felt the handle of the knife gripped hard, hard in her hand. She loosened her hold and stared for a moment at the blade. Hesitated, then bent to her work again, concentrating. This part of the graft was crucial, it had to be precise. She squinted, feeling her way, telling the tree: It’s all right, it’s all right.

Alvaro appeared again at her shoulder as she was finishing. He watched as she packed the precious piece of tree flesh for its journey, then he took her tools and wiped and dried them. The farmer was gone and the sun was tipping over; Laura was aware of the world glittering, soft light on leaves and grass, the fine hairs on her arms. She picked up her pack, put her hand to the tree once more.

There was no noise now, nothing, only a bird calling, and the quiet orchestra of wind and small creatures breathing. Into that soft half-sound, Kate’s voice returned to her, the words stroke and lawyer. They made the sound of something collapsing.

They turned from the Fiorentina, and stepped back onto the narrow trail through the potato plants. Laura looked ahead to the thin shadows thrown by the cherry trees and the stone walls of the farmhouse. Beside her, Alvaro walked with his head bowed slightly, saying nothing. When they were through the field she turned her face towards him and said: My mother died.

There were a thousand things that might be done but only one that couldn’t wait. Back at the orchard they unpacked the truck and in the last of the light carried the cutting to the rows of pear and almond trees, where together they completed the graft. Laura knelt and concentrated. These minutes were crucial, she felt it in the nerves in her arms and hands and fingertips. She spoke as she worked: Precious Fiorentina. Perhaps to fight off a flush of irritation she felt and didn’t understand, something that had nothing to do with the tree.

She grimaced, her hands firm on the binding cloth. Alvaro had turned to check the other plants around them but his eyes, she knew, were watching her face as well as the movement of her hands. When she finished she leaned back on her haunches. Beside her Alvaro stooped to examine the leaves on a healthy almond tree. Go, he said, his face to the leaves. Go to her. I know what to do here.