After tea Duncan turned the telly on.
‘There’s a good mid-week match on. United v Bayern. Want to watch? It’s about to kick off.’
He headed to the beer fridge and brought back two bottles. He cracked one open and took a swig. The other one he noticeably left by the second armchair in front of the fire rather than bringing it over to Larry. He slumped in his chair, took another swig and made a loud ‘Aah’ sound. He actually smacked his lips as he plonked his feet up on the range.
‘Aye, I’ll keep my eye on the match,’ said Larry, ignoring the bottle waiting for him across the room. ‘But I thought I’d see if Sam here wanted to play cards first.’
Sam’s head was low over the new map he was drawing.
‘Do you fancy playing cards, Sam?’ asked Larry, shuffling a pack he’d brought out of his pocket. ‘Do you play?’
‘We tried to play Snap once,’ I said, ‘but nothing else.’ Sam carried on drawing – concentrating on getting the wiggles in the lane in all the right places. ‘That wasn’t so good, really.’
I shook my head at Larry. I hadn’t thought about the Snap Episode for a while. Sam hadn’t grasped the point of the game and when I yelled ‘Snap!’ and slapped my hand on the pile of cards he’d been stunned for a second before clapping his hands over his ears, slithering to the ground and producing a high-pitched shriek that I thought would never end. He was about five or six at the time. He hadn’t shut up until I’d said we could throw the cards on the fire then he’d watched them curl and blacken and burn as he sat there whimpering.
Sam’s head came up and he gazed at us as if he’d been dragged from under the sea.
‘Larry says do you want to play cards,’ I said, intonating carefully as though he was deaf.
‘I can teach you to play Cheat. Have you played Cheat?’ Larry was still shuffling.
‘What is Cheat?’ asked Sam.
‘Well, it’s a good laugh,’ said Larry.
‘I do not want to play Cheat,’ said Sam.
‘Hang on, I haven’t told you what it is yet,’ Larry shared the cards out between me, him and Sam. ‘You need at least three people.’
‘I do not want to play Cheat,’ he said again.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Larry straightening his cards. ‘Give it a chance.’
It was getting harder to hold Sam’s attention because the noise from the football was getting louder and louder and we were having to raise our voices over the roar of the crowd. I could see Duncan pressing the remote.
‘Okay, so the objective is to get rid of all your cards,’ shouted Larry. He glanced over at Duncan, who was slapping the chair arm and shouting: ‘For God’s sake, pass it!’ but he said nothing.
Sam studied Larry, then repeated: ‘The objective is to get rid of all your cards?’
‘Yes,’ said Larry. ‘First person to put down all their cards wins. But you lie and cheat as you put them down.’
‘You lie and cheat, and then you win because you have nothing?’ stated Sam.
‘Yes,’ said Larry. ‘That’s about it.’
‘I do not want to play Cheat,’ said Sam.
‘You need a good poker face to play it,’ said Larry. ‘That means you mustn’t let your face show what you’re really up to. You’ve got to be a good liar.’
Sam felt his face as if he was checking whether he’d got his big glasses on or not. Then he slid his pens and ruler into his pencil case, placed his pencil case on top of the map, pushed the pile of cards back to Larry and said: ‘I do not want to play Cheat.’
‘Christ!’ shouted Duncan over the telly. ‘The kid doesn’t want to play Cheat. Get the message.’ He turned the telly up even more. ‘This is a good match you’re missing.’
Sam put his hands over his ears, wriggled off his chair and went scurrying upstairs.
I rolled my eyes to show Larry I knew Duncan was being annoying. ‘Well, it looks like football’s won,’ I mouthed.
Larry gave me a wink so brief it was hardly there. ‘So let’s watch this match then,’ he said, striding over to the armchair. ‘You joining us, Alice?’
Duncan scowled.
‘Nah, I’m a bit tired.’ Then, without thinking, I added ‘What with everything,’ and I saw Larry smile.
‘Yes, you’ve put your all into it today,’ he said. ‘You were good.’
He wasn’t talking about the hay-making.
‘Well I think it’s an early night for me.’ I grabbed my book off the table.
Duncan looked pleased. ‘Night, Love,’ he said, his eyes not leaving the screen.
‘Night, Alice,’ said Larry. ‘Sweet dreams. And thanks . . .’ he hesitated, ‘for my tea.’ And I saw another of his barely-there winks.
I went upstairs and straightened the quilt cover before sitting on it and messing it up again. Then I went in the bathroom and stared at the sodden carpet and the mass of wet footprints that looked as though half a dozen people had had a bath in there. Two wet towels were chucked on the floor. I put one in the wash and draped the other over the bath.
We mustn’t get complacent.
The bed rocked as Duncan got up next morning to milk. I kept my eyes shut and lay still, concentrating on breathing slowly. I’d been awake for ages listening to the wind blowing round the house and imagining how much louder it must sound in Larry’s caravan and how cosy it would be to be in there with him.
Duncan took his clothes from the chair and crept to the bathroom, not quite shutting the bedroom door so as not to wake me. I snuggled down a bit further.
When I could hear Duncan downstairs I stuck my hand out of the bedcovers and finger-tipped around the carpet to find my mobile. I wanted to hear Larry’s voice. I pressed his number.
‘The number you are calling is not available. Please try again later.’
I pressed redial.
‘The number you are calling is not available. Please try again later.’
I let the phone drop onto the quilt.
Later when he came in for breakfast Duncan said:
‘We were lucky to get that haymaking done. Forecast’s bad today – wind’s already up.’
Through the kitchen window I could see leaves skidding across the yard, making Bess bark and snap.
Where’s Larry?’ I said. ‘What’s he been doing this morning?’
‘Nothing. Haven’t seen him.’ Duncan laughed. ‘Recovering, probably, after yesterday. It’s a good job I got him to check the anchoring on the polytunnel the other day. It’s going to be bad.’
I looked back at the scudding leaves and hoped Larry was right when he said there had been no need to refasten the polytunnel.
Sam slid into the room and sat down beside his map and started organising his Weetabix.
I plopped three teabags in the pot.
Something was wrong.
‘I’m going to get Larry,’ I said, striding off before Duncan could stop me.
‘Christ! He’ll find his own way in for breakfast,’ he shouted after me.
I strode through the washroom and had my hand on the back door handle when I stopped at the sight of the polytunnel. The plastic sheeting door had come unfastened and was flapping wildly and the wind was getting right inside the tunnel and blowing it up as though it was going to burst. I held my breath. Then a section of the covering broke loose from its anchoring and flapped straight in the air. The structure had the look of a ticking time bomb with a very short fuse.
‘Duncan!’ I yelled. ‘The tunnel!’
‘What?’
‘Come here!’
I opened the door and a gust of wind crashed it back. I left it – the tunnel was about to take off. I charged outside. As I reached it the wind dislodged the next section of covering and it too shot in the air with a deafening racket.
‘Christ’s sake! I heard Duncan shout. ‘Grab the fucking thing.’
I lunged at the tunnel, grappling with the plastic sheeting, but it was thick and heavy and hard to hold and it was as if the wind was doing what it wanted with it – playing with it for fun.
‘Larry!’ Duncan shouted. ‘Where the fuck is Larry? Sam!’
I let go and ran towards the caravan. ‘Larry!’ I yelled. Larry could sort this out. ‘Larry! Quick!’
Before I could reach the caravan there was a tremendous noise and I looked over my shoulder. Duncan had lost his grip on the sheeting and it was rising straight in the air and doing a slow twist. In trying to grab it Duncan was trampling on the small cannabis plants that were shuddering in the wind.
Duncan crashed over the plants as he chased the sheeting. Eventually as it snagged on the apple tree he lunged at it and, dragging it to the floor, he threw himself on it.
‘Alice!’
I ran over and stood on it too and together we grappled it into a huge bundle.
‘Keep a good grip,’ yelled Duncan. ‘Don’t let go. Get it to the workshop.’
The wind whipped my hair across my face blinding me and sticking it to my lips and my teeth but my hands were full of sheeting.
Where was Larry?
We dragged the sheeting across the grass and yard and into the workshop. The relief of getting out of the buffeting wind was immense; the noise and force of it stopped you thinking, and I needed to think because I was panicking.
Where the hell was Larry?
‘The useless bastard,’ said Duncan. ‘He doesn’t anchor the thing down like I told him and then does nowt to help us rescue it. Fucking useless bastard.’
‘I think there’s something wrong,’ I said.
‘Well, he can fucking stew. The useless bastard. I told him to use them extra flagstones to weigh it down. And he fucking said he’d done it.’
We left the workshop and Duncan strode back to the house, still swearing and cursing.
I legged it to the caravan.
The cannabis plants looked as if they’d had it – pretty much what you’d expect after a thirteen stone man and a force eight gale had finished with them.
I hammered on the caravan door. ‘Larry! It’s me.’ No answer. I turned the handle and it gave. ‘Larry, for God’s sake . . .’
I stuck my head round the door. It was empty. The only traces of Larry were umpteen cigarette butts squashed in the ash tray and two empty, crumpled cans of Carlsberg Special Brew. Everything else had gone: his rucksack, his books, his Golden Virginia tin, his clothes. Everything. I froze, half in and half out of the caravan.
‘Larry,’ I said ‘What the fuck . . . ?’
I went into the caravan and pulled the blankets off the bed as though I expected to find him hiding under there. I strode round the caravan in a panic looking for clues. But there were no clues. Larry had gone. Larry had done what he always did – he’d moved on. I grabbed my phone from my pocket. My hands were shaking. I called his number.
‘The number you are calling is not available. Please try again later.’
I chucked the phone across the caravan and it crashed against the metal sink and thudded on to the floor. He could be anywhere. I had no forwarding address, no way of getting in touch, nothing except that phone. I grabbed it and rubbed it against my jeans and checked it was still working. I called his number again.
‘The number you are calling is not available. Please try again later.’
I took the blankets off the bed and held them in a great big armful and buried my face in them. They smelled of Larry’s cigarettes.
My legs shook as I blundered down the caravan steps. I half ran, half walked back to the house.
In the kitchen Sam was drawing his map and Duncan was staring over Sam’s shoulder. He straightened up as I came in and the look of rage on his face stopped me like a punch.
‘The fucking bastard, I’ll fucking kill him,’ he said.
I was gasping for breath even though I’d only come across the garden. ‘He’s gone,’ I said.
Duncan grabbed me by the shoulders and manhandled me out of the way and headed for the back door.
‘He’s gone,’ I said again. ‘Anyway, it’s only a polytunnel.’ But he shot out the back door.
I slumped onto a kitchen chair and glanced at Sam’s map. He had his arm around it but I could see what he was drawing. Usually there were no people on Sam’s maps and each map was the same – but today’s was different. Today’s map had two stick figures on it.
The stick woman had brown frizzy hair and boobs sticking out of a tight T-shirt, the stick man wore a bandana round his head and had a gold earring in. The stick couple were lying in the polytunnel and the stick woman had her stick legs wrapped around the stick man who was on top of her as they had sex. Both had big smiles on their faces.
My insides flipped and my scalp prickled. I grabbed the kitchen table.
Sam coloured the stick man’s bandana in blue, concentrating on keeping his felt pen inside the lines.
I was shot-through with energy but I didn’t know what to do with it. I jumped up and walked to the door then back again and collapsed onto the kitchen chair. Then I strode to the washroom door. Through the window I could see Duncan kicking hell out of what was left of the cannabis plants. Swiping and kicking and stamping on the plants which looked to be smashed to smithereens.
I searched around the armchair Larry was sitting in when I last saw him. Had he left a note? I couldn’t believe he’d upped and left without a word.
There was nothing. I grabbed my car keys off the hook.
Duncan stormed back into the kitchen breathing heavily and with his fists clenched.
‘Is this true?’ he said nodding towards the map. Then when he saw the car keys: ‘Where the fuck are you going?’
‘I’m going,’ I said. ‘I’m not staying here without Larry.’
Duncan charged round the table and lunged for the keys, but I snatched them away and shoved them under my arm.
‘Give me those keys.’
‘I’m going,’ I said again. I had no idea where, but I had to get out. The kitchen walls were pressing in on every side. I couldn’t breathe.
‘I brought him here. It’s my fault.’ Duncan covered his face with his hand. ‘I’d like to break his fucking neck.’
I grabbed the back door latch.
‘We’ll be all right, Alice. We’ll sort it.’ Duncan was crying but my heart was full of Larry and I couldn’t help him. I opened the door. ‘Don’t go, Alice,’ Duncan said. ‘We’ll sort it out.’
I ran to the car and jumped in. The door flew out of my grip as a gust of wind snatched it away. The hedgerows blurred past as I headed down the lane, and my face was slippery with snot and tears however many times I wiped it.
When I reached the T junction at the main road I looked left to Lancaster and right to Preston. I had no idea where Larry was. And even if I knew, what difference would it make? He’d run away from me and Sam. He hadn’t even left a note.
I didn’t want to go either way. There was nothing for me to the right and nothing to the left. I had no friends in either direction, no family to speak of, none I wanted to see anyway. I had nowhere to go and no one to go to. I took my foot off the clutch, the car stalled and I rested my head on the steering wheel.
A car pulled up behind and tooted.
My heart was broken into pieces. It was a physical ache – an actual pain in my stomach and chest and throat that took my breath away.
The car tooted again, longer and louder. I felt for the ignition and turned the engine back on. I did a U-turn and, avoiding the other driver’s eye, headed back down the lane.
I sat in the yard and saw Duncan briefly come to the window to watch me. I knew I had to find Sam. I’d blurted out that I wouldn’t stay at the farm without Larry, right in front of Sam, and I felt sick about it.
Duncan jumped up when I went inside.
‘Alice, sit down.’
‘Where’s Sam?’
He glanced around the room as though Sam might be perched on the units or the range or something.
‘I don’t know. Sit down, Alice.’ Duncan sat down and pointed to the chair opposite.
‘I need to see Sam.’
‘Alice, do you love him? Do you love Larry?’
There was a crack in Duncan’s voice but I couldn’t talk to him now. I needed Sam. I walked past.
‘Alice, don’t walk away from me!’
‘I’m looking for Sam.’
I ran up the stairs.
‘Alice!’ I heard Duncan’s chair clatter backwards as he stood up. He stuck his head up the stairs as I knocked on Sam’s door. ‘Alice. You will fucking talk to me about this. I want to know what the fuck has been going on.’
I put my ear to the door then pushed it open. The bedroom was empty.
‘He must be at Jeannie’s.’ I headed downstairs and tried to squeeze past Duncan part way down. He grabbed me and held me against the wall.
‘How long’s it been going on? Ever since he got here?’
‘No.’ I said.
‘Tell me, Alice.’ He shook me by the shoulders. ‘I want to know. Do you love him?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Duncan’s face fell and his hands dropped from my shoulders. I couldn’t look at him. ‘Well, I thought I did,’ I said.
I slid sideways away from him and headed downstairs into the kitchen. Duncan followed slowly and stood at the bottom of the stairs. He looked stunned.
‘I need to find Sam,’ I said.
Duncan was staring back at that bloody map.
‘I’m going for him,’ I said.
‘You were with him in the polytunnel and Sam saw you,’ he said, as though he was talking to himself. ‘He reckoned he was a friend.’ He looked at me and said: ‘But then you reckoned you were my wife.’
‘I’m going to Jeannie’s,’ I said.
Duncan snatched Sam’s map and took it to the bin and I thought he was going to ram it in, but he hesitated and seemed to think better of it. He took it back to the table and turned it face down.
That was the first time I’d seen Duncan do anything he didn’t want to just to avoid upsetting Sam.
‘I’m coming with you,’ he said.
We struggled down the lane. I flattened my hair to my head to stop myself from being blinded by it. The wind fought us all the way – buffeting us and roaring in our ears. At Sam’s Pile of Rubble Covered in Weeds, the wiry tufts of grass were flattened by the force of the gale. A group of heifers crowded under an oak for shelter from a world that seemed to have gone a little bit mad.
I tapped on Jeannie’s door and stumbled straight in.
‘Hi, Jeannie, it’s me. It’s us.’
Without waiting for a reply, I went through the porch and into the living room.
Sam was there but before I could get any words out I was struck by the stink and the unholy mess. The dogs had scattered their food all over the carpet and there was dog mess mixed in among it. There was a hum of flies.
‘God, what’s going on?’ Then I focused on Sam and the breath froze in my body.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Duncan.
Sam was standing beside Jeannie’s wicker armchair. He was holding a comb and was gently brushing her hair.
Jeannie’s face was dark purple. Her eyes were open as was her mouth; her lips had shrunk back in a grimace and her top set of false teeth were skew-whiff in her mouth. She was piled with blankets and had five or six cups of tea and plates of biscuits on the table in front of her and beside her on the floor.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said Duncan again.
She must have been dead for days. Sam was holding one of her clawed hands that rested on top of the blanket and with his other hand he continued to comb her grey hair.
‘Sam, come away,’ I said. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run, but most of all I wanted to get Sam away from the disgusting spectacle in that armchair.
‘Put the comb down, Sam,’ I said. ‘You’ve helped Jeannie enough. Come here to me.’
Sam’s comb hovered in mid-air and a bluebottle darted across Jeannie’s eye.
‘You can’t help Jeannie now,’ I said to Sam. I walked over to him, holding my hand out. ‘You can’t do anything more for Jeannie. Come on.’
‘I cannot,’ said Sam.
‘Yes, you can.’ My teeth were gritted and I had one hand covering my nose and mouth.
‘Sam, do as you’re told and come here,’ Duncan’s voice was raised.
‘I cannot leave Jeannie. I did this and I must put it right.’
I looked at Duncan and saw my own horror reflected in his face.
‘You didn’t do anything, Sam,’ I said. ‘What do you mean? What did you do?’
Sam’s eyes filled with tears. A bluebottle walked across Jeannie’s hand and onto Sam’s and I longed to dash it away but I stayed still. The fly’s back shone iridescent blue as it washed its face, then it took off and buzzed towards me and I flapped my hands. ‘No!’ I said, knocking it away.
Sam took a cup of water and held it to Jeannie’s cold drawn-back lips and let a snail’s trail of water slide from the corner of her mouth down her chin and onto her blanket.
‘She’s dead, Sam. We can’t do anything for her now.’
‘She may not be dead,’ Sam whispered. He looked closely at Jeannie’s mottled fingers. ‘This may be a near-death experience.’
‘For fuck’s sake’, said Duncan. ‘She’s dead all right.’
Sam turned on Duncan. ‘That goose looked like it was dead,’ he said and he looked at me, searching for agreement. ‘That goose’s head was twisted and its body dropped from the sky. But it got up and went.’
‘What, that dead goose I threw on the midden?’ said Duncan.
Sam’s eyes were glistening. ‘On the midden?’ he said.
‘Things don’t come back from the dead,’ I said.
‘But,’ Sam looked from me to Duncan and back again, ‘but Chocolate Moustache said it is sometimes impossible to tell if something is alive or dead.’
‘Who the fuck is Chocolate Moustache?’ Duncan asked me.
I shook my head. ‘That might be true, Sam, but not when you’ve been dead as long as Jeannie has.’ I picked my way a step closer, avoiding a broken cup and saucer on the floor. I noticed that there wasn’t the usual ticking of clocks. Jeannie obviously hadn’t wound them up for a while. ‘How long has Jeannie been like this?’ I said.
Sam did not answer but stared down at her.
‘When did Jeannie last speak to you?’ I said.
‘Wednesday,’ said Sam. ‘The day before I did the strongest magic available on the internet.’ He put the cup down and picked up the comb and started brushing her hair again.
‘Wednesday?’ I said. ‘Oh God. Five days.’
‘For Christ’s sake put that comb down,’ said Duncan, ‘and let’s get out of here.’
‘The magic got out of control and knocked the goose out of the sky,’ said Sam. ‘Then it did this to Jeannie.’
‘And have you been making her cups of tea and getting her biscuits and things ever since then?’ I looked at the table strewn with uneaten biscuits and cold cups of tea and lemonade and water. He nodded. ‘Did you give her all these blankets?’
‘She was cold,’ he said. ‘Even when it was warm outside.’
‘Oh, Sam, Jeannie was an old lady. She was eighty-two and hadn’t been well.’ I had a memory of her telling me she’d lost her pills and my heart lurched. What had she said? Did she say she’d found them again? I hadn’t really asked. I’d been too busy trying to escape real life with Larry.
‘You haven’t done this, Sam,’ I said. ‘Don’t think for a minute that you’ve done it.’ I held out my hand again. ‘Come on.’
‘But My Name is Magic said his magic was the strongest you can get on the internet. It might have done this.’
My Name is Magic? Duncan and I exchanged looks again.
‘For God’s sake,’ muttered Duncan.
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘It definitely did not.’
One of Jeannie’s cats leapt from the dresser and crashed onto the table sending other cups flying onto the floor. I screamed and Sam grabbed my hand.
‘For Christsakes. We need to get these animals rounded up and sorted out,’ said Duncan. ‘I’ll call the police.’ He took his mobile out of his pocket and dialled 999. I saw the look of panic on Sam’s face.
‘Remember what I said, Sam. You have not done anything wrong.’
We listened to Duncan repeating Jeannie’s address. ‘An old lady has passed away,’ he was saying. ‘Yes, she’s definitely dead. No, there is no pulse. Yes, she is definitely dead.’
‘Come on, Sam,’ I said. ‘Dad’ll stay here with Jeannie until the police come. We’ll go home.’
I led Sam through the living room and gave Duncan a half-smile as we passed. ‘See you at home,’ I mouthed.
He nodded at us. ‘No, I don’t need to check,’ he was saying. ‘She is definitely dead.’
The wind grabbed the door as I opened it and I gulped a lungful of cool clean fresh air.
Sam and I clung to each other’s hands as we struggled up the lane. If I let go of him for a second I was afraid he’d take off and fly away and I’d lose him forever.
A policeman came back to the farm with Duncan after Jeannie’s body had been taken away.
‘I’ll see you in a bit, Alice,’ Duncan said and he went outside to feed the calves. I knew he was desperate to talk to me.
The policeman introduced himself as PC Dale and hovered about, clinging to his hat, until I told him to sit down and I got him a cup of tea.
‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs McCabe,’ he said. ‘I know you and the deceased were friends.’
‘Yes,’ I said. I avoided his eye; some friend I’d been. Her body had been rotting for five days before I’d even noticed.
‘It’s just routine, Mrs McCabe, I’ll need to take a statement from your son.’ He consulted his notebook. ‘Sam, is it?’
He must have seen the look on my face.
‘I can come back tomorrow to see Sam if you’d prefer?’
I shook my head.
‘No, let’s get it over with.’
‘She came to my barbecue party for sausages and marshmallows on Sunday but had to go home before the lightning bolt because Elvis had an ear infection and may well have been stuck behind the sofa.’
PC Dale’s pencil hovered over his notebook.
‘So she was here and seemed fine on Sunday?’
‘Yes. She ate some of my beautiful sausage and said I’d done a wonderful job.’
‘Sausage,’ repeated PC Dale jotting stuff down. ‘So, when did you see her next?’
‘On Wednesday but she did not want to talk about her wish list or her time travel and even though she was old she said she did not know anything about the creation of the 19th century toll roads.’
‘Right,’ said PC Dale.
I interrupted. ‘She didn’t look well. The cottage was upside down – even worse than usual. She said she’d been searching for her lost pills. For her angina.’
‘Well, she found them,’ said PC Dale. ‘The paramedics said they were in her pinny pocket. She hadn’t taken any though – the box hadn’t been opened. Was it like her to lose her meds or forget to take them?’
‘My mother said that Jeannie had a bit of a screw loose,’ said Sam.
I shook my head.
‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘She was an eccentric but she was all there.’
‘Okay. Was that the last time you saw her alive?’
‘According to Chocolate Moustache it is not easy to tell if someone is dead or alive.’
‘Well . . .’ PC Dale grimaced a bit.
‘Thursday the 19th of June was the lucky day that was unlucky and I did the strongest magic you can find on the internet and the goose fell from the sky and I found Jeannie cold and she did not speak. The goose got up and went again but Jeannie was not like the goose. She did not get up and go again.’
‘So . . .’ the policeman’s gaze hovered between me and Sam. ‘So, Sam, when you arrived at Jeannie’s cottage on Thursday, was she sitting in her chair by the stove exactly as we found her today?’
‘Yes. My magic went wrong.’
‘Okay,’ said PC Dale. ‘And did you tell anyone, Sam?’
‘No, I did not tell anyone.’
‘And since then you’ve been . . .’
‘Since then he’s been looking after her, waiting for her to wake up,’ I said. ‘He’s been giving her water and covering her in blankets and stoking the fire.’
‘Oh, I see. Deary me,’ said PC Dale and he shook his head.
We sat in silence as he carried on writing. ‘Deary me,’ he said again.
‘Do you think she didn’t take her tablets on purpose?’ I said.
PC Dale pulled a face. ‘Fraid I can’t say, Mrs McCabe. Toxicology tests will show what meds she’d taken. All I can say is she told you on Wednesday that she wasn’t well but that she’d found her tablets. She apparently died that night or the next day without opening them.’
‘My Name is Magic said his magic was the strongest on the internet but my mother says that did not kill Jeannie.’
PC Dale gave a little laugh then, seeing Sam’s deadpan face, he stopped.
‘Magic? No, I don’t think magic did it, Sam.’ He smiled in what he must have thought was an encouraging way, but Sam did not smile back. ‘Is My Name is Magic a friend of yours?’
‘Yes, I have twenty-seven friends, but I have never met them. I also had two other friends, Jeannie and Larry, but Jeannie has died and Larry has left his caravan after having sexual intercourse in the polytunnel with my mother.’
PC Dale had a rictus grin on his face. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Right, well I think that’ll be all.’ He closed his notebook and tucked it in his pocket. ‘I’ll leave you folks in peace.’
‘I did not like the polytunnel. It smelled funny and I never wanted to go in there. It was hot as a . . .’
‘Okay – ’
‘Right – ’
PC Dale and I stood up in a great clattering of chairs. Somehow I managed to show him out without either of us catching the other’s eye.
‘Alice, sit down and talk to me.’
I cleared the lunch pots into the sink and picked the kettle up.
‘Forget coffee. Come here.’
I put the kettle down and slid onto the chair opposite him. Neither of us spoke.
‘So, are you going to tell me what’s been going on?’
I shrugged.
‘Don’t do that! Talk to me!’
I ran my fingers through my hair and blurted out:
‘He was kind. He liked Sam. He was good with Sam – you could see that, it was obvious.’
He waited for more. When I didn’t say anything else, he shouted, ‘That didn’t mean you had to sleep with him.’
‘I know. I don’t know. It was a mistake. It was stupid.’
‘You can say that – ’
I cut him off. ‘You fight with Sam all the time. It’s exhausting. With Larry I felt like he was on my side. I felt like he understood me. Like he wanted to help and support me.’
‘Well I want to help and support you.’
‘It doesn’t feel like it. Ever since Sam was a baby – a really difficult baby – we’ve been fighting on opposite sides. Everything I do is wrong. Everything Sam does is wrong.’
‘That’s not fair. I’m working this farm to support you and Sam.’
‘It doesn’t feel like it. You’re here because you want to be here. Sam’s here because he daren’t be anywhere else. And I’m stuck here.’
‘Well that’s no reason to sleep with the first man who comes along.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Fair! Have you been fair?’
‘I’m sorry, Duncan. I didn’t plan it. It was mad. I thought I knew him. I didn’t.’
‘Have you spoken to him today?’
‘No, I . . . His phone’s turned off.’
‘So you’ve tried?’
‘I did this morning.’
‘And if he gets in touch – what then?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t even know who he is.’
‘Is that how you feel – that you are stuck here? Don’t you want to be here?’
I put my face into my hands. That was the crux of it.
‘I want to be able to choose. I’m in a straitjacket here. It’s killing me. I just want to be able to choose.’
We sat in silence, and then Duncan said: ‘What are we going to do about Sam?’
We both looked at each other. I shook my head.
‘I don’t know.’
The weather turned. Over the next few days the sun came out and burned my face when I went to hang the washing or put the rubbish out. The glare of the sun made everything unreal – like the three of us were going through the day-to-day motions but were suspended, waiting for something to happen. We hardly spoke, any of us.
Duncan worked outside all hours – finding jobs to do until it went dark – mending and fixing. One day I saw him attacking the weeds growing through the cobbles, going at them with a trowel when all he needed to do was spray them.
We were scrupulously polite, especially in front of Sam, who seemed to be carrying on exactly as he always had done. My heart was in my mouth every time he produced a sheet of paper to draw another map. I’d watch him smoothing and straightening and preparing the paper and think: ‘Oh God, what will he draw now?’ But there were no more couples having sex in the polytunnel. There was no more polytunnel – not in the orchard nor on Sam’s maps.
Outside, the wreckage of the plants had been abandoned and any that had survived Duncan’s rage were withered and wilting as one hot day passed into another.
I kept being struck afresh by the shock of it all: discovering Sam giving Jeannie’s corpse a cup of tea; finding the caravan empty and abandoned; seeing Duncan’s expression as Sam drew the couple having sex in the polytunnel.
The couple having sex in the polytunnel.
If I could change anything it would be Sam knowing about me and Larry. And how could I have shouted in front of him about not staying another day without Larry? It made me sick to remember. I’d been on the point of apologising to Sam once or twice; I’d never got very far, though. I didn’t have the nerve.
When Duncan did come inside, exhausted and filthy, we spoke to each other like guests in the household, skirting round each other, awkward and largely wordless. The only time I said anything was when I noticed him staring at my phone which was lying on the kitchen surface.
‘I’ve not spoken to him,’ I said. And it was true. I hadn’t spoken to Larry since he’d strolled naked across the landing.
I’d checked my phone a lot, more than usual, although I was pretending that wasn’t the case. But I wasn’t sorry he hadn’t phoned.
He’d as good as disappeared in a puff of smoke. It was as if he’d never been real – yet he’d changed my life and, even though he’d been a feckless waste of space who had done a runner, he’d changed me. He had made me look outside the family, look outside the farm and, for once, to think about me.
The following week we decided I’d go to Jeannie’s funeral and Duncan would stay at Backwoods with Sam. It was to be a burial in a village churchyard about four miles away. She was to be put in with her parents. I thought there was something sad about an old person returning to their parents to be buried.
I’d kept a close eye on Sam – his two best friends, Jeannie and Larry, had disappeared in the same week and I’d been waiting for a reaction.
None had come. He’d carried on with his schoolwork and drawing his maps and going on his computer. The only time he’d mentioned Jeannie was to ask who was feeding her cats and dogs. I told her they’d all gone to good homes and then, in a panic, I phoned the police and tracked down one of her cats to a local cat sanctuary. I asked Duncan to get it.
When Duncan carried it inside, Sam held his arms out and buried his face in its tabby fur. The cat put up no objection and blinked out at the world from Sam’s arms.
‘It’s Elvis,’ said Sam.
Since then they’d been together all the time, the cat always purring and kneading Sam’s quilt or his lap – a noise which didn’t bother Sam at all. On the contrary, despite being given a bed by the range, the cat had taken to spending the night sleeping on Sam’s pillow or sometimes on his head and appeared to have replaced the bobble hat.
The funeral fell on a Tuesday afternoon which was lucky; it meant I could leave home at my usual time and Sam didn’t need to think about it.
We finished lunch and Duncan stood up and stretched.
‘Well I’ll get some weeding done while you’re out.’
Sam, who was sitting at the table drawing a map with one hand and stroking Elvis with the other, announced: ‘I am going to Jeannie’s funeral.’
I stared at him. Duncan was pulling his boots on and hadn’t heard.
‘What?’
He must think Jeannie was being buried under one of the wooden crosses by her front door.
‘I am going to Jeannie’s funeral.’
‘It’s at Creighton. Down the lane.’ I’d nearly said down Hell Fire Pass. ‘It’s four miles away.’
He drew the lane on his map.
‘I am going to Jeannie’s funeral,’ he said again.
He coloured in the lane, and I waited for the inevitable, but for the first time he did not draw a skull and crossbones across the lane and no bright red sign in bold letters warning: DANGER.