George wheeled the barrowful of logs round the side of the house and parked it beside Raymond’s BMW. He stood for a moment, admiring this latest model, and then tried the front door; the latch was still down. Leaving the barrow, he went back to the garden and came into the kitchen just as Emma appeared at the other door leading from the hall.
‘I can’t find it in the parlour,’ she was saying. ‘Only this parcel with Bruno’s name on it. Oh, hello, George. How are you getting on? George has been splitting logs for us,’ she said to Raymond. ‘Isn’t that kind of him? Are you ready for some more coffee after all that hard work?’
She dropped the parcel on the table and went to wash up the mugs but George could see at once that Raymond was far more interested in the parcel than in the log-splitting, although he seemed hardly to glance at it. He murmured a greeting, smiled a brief acknowledgement of George’s labours, but all his concentration seemed directed towards the package. It was clear too that Emma was feeling slightly uncomfortable, as if George’s appearance was inconveniently timed. He wondered if he should make polite noises and disappear but something about Raymond’s fixed expression puzzled him. With a slight shifting of his elbow, which rested on the table, he’d moved the parcel closer, edging it right way up so that he could see the writing on it: it was Mutt’s writing. Even from where he was standing George could recognize it, although one of the words was in large capitals.
‘For Bruno James Trevannion. Personal and Private.’ And across the bottom was printed one word: ‘CONFIDENTIAL’.
The unusual thing about it in George’s view was that it was wrapped like an old-fashioned package ready for the post. The brown paper was folded carefully round the object inside and then tied firmly with string. Very slowly Raymond turned the parcel over, his thick forefinger idly probing the knots, although he still wore an almost indifferent expression on his broad, handsome face as if he were brooding on something else entirely and the parcel was simply an object to fiddle with whilst he concentrated on this other problem – as one might tap with a pencil or doodle on a pad.
Beside him, George felt Emma stiffen: waiting and watching, holding her breath. He realized with a little shock that she was actually prepared for Raymond to open the parcel and was bracing herself to prevent him from touching it. Instinctively, George went to fill the kettle. He smiled at Emma, glanced at Raymond, as if unaware of anything unusual.
‘I think I need a shot of caffeine after all that effort,’ he said – and thought he saw the faintest flicker of irritation pass across Raymond’s face. ‘Is Joss anywhere about? She might like some.’
‘I don’t know where she is.’ Emma had relaxed a little but was still distracted. ‘I’ll give a shout up the stairs.’
‘She went out.’ Raymond was very certain. ‘I heard the front door close, oh, half an hour ago, I should think. Perhaps she’s with the donkeys.’ He gave George a friendly glance. ‘Emma can make the coffee if you want to go and find her.’
He was very easy, very relaxed, and George smiled back at him.
‘She might be anywhere,’ he answered, just as casually. ‘I expect she’ll be in soon.’
Raymond nodded and shrugged – an up-to-you-chum gesture – and sat back a little in his chair, stretching his shoulders.
George thought: I wouldn’t want to play poker with you, mate.
He made the coffee, feeling Emma hovering beside him uncertainly, wondering if he were imagining the tension and that his suspicion was simply based on all the stories Joss had told him about her father’s business acuity. After all, why on earth should Raymond want to open a parcel addressed so clearly to Bruno? It suddenly occurred to George that it was possible that neither Bruno nor Emma knew what was in Mutt’s will and that Raymond, guessing that this was what the package contained, wanted to be ahead of the game. He felt a quickening of curiosity. It was more with a sense of mischievousness rather than any self-righteous intention that he sat down at the table and openly turned the parcel as if to read the writing for the first time, pulling it across the table.
‘For Bruno, I see,’ he said conversationally. ‘Did Mutt leave it for you to give to him?’
Emma didn’t see Raymond’s swift upward look of warning.
‘It was in her desk,’ she said, puzzled. ‘Odd really. It was actually right at the bottom of a folder containing Bruno’s school reports.’
‘Really?’ George was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘Why were you reading his school reports? Bit late in the day, isn’t it?’ He chuckled at his own feeble joke. ‘I’ll take it down to him, if you like.’
Raymond’s large square hand reached for the parcel slowly, as if George had drawn it to his attention and he too were now reading the writing for the first time. As he turned it, he moved it almost unobtrusively back to his own side of the table.
‘No need to bother,’ he said. ‘I expect he’ll be here soon.’
‘Oh, it’s not a bother,’ answered George cheerfully, preparing for a little light-hearted contest with Joss’s father with a certain amount of pleasure. ‘I shall be going right past his door.’
‘You haven’t had your coffee yet.’ Raymond’s hands, now clasped together and resting on the parcel, looked chunky. He leaned forward so that his weight rested on his arms, his broad shoulders hunched. ‘There’s no hurry, after all.’
George met his cold, blue-grey stare, sensed the weight and force of his personality, and was aware of an odd stirring of unease; the idea of a contest seemed suddenly foolish and he felt uncomfortable. He was glad to hear the kettle boil, to have an excuse to get up from the table to make the coffee, although Emma was already putting out the mugs and the milk.
‘Have you brought any logs in?’ she was asking him, obviously trying for a change of subject.
‘Not yet.’ He was feeling oddly humiliated, rather as he’d been as a small boy when Olivia and Joe outwitted him. He was convinced now that Raymond shouldn’t have the opportunity to examine the contents of the parcel, yet he was powerless to prevent him. He saw exactly what Joss meant when she’d talked about her father’s juggernaut tactics.
‘He just goes straight on,’ she’d said. ‘Any moral issues, ordinary humanity or common decency are all thrust aside or gradually crushed beneath the wheels of his determination. He fixes his eyes on his goal and never wavers for a second. If you get in his path you simply go under with everything else. It’s as if he feels that he has some divine right to take what he wants. It’s scary. I used to get cross with Mum for giving in to him but as I grew up I realized that withstanding him is almost impossible. It’s like trying to stand up to the Severn Bore or a hurricane.’
George was familiar with this feeling of helplessness; it reminded him of his childhood. Olivia and Joe had been bigger, stronger, more cunning: they had walked, talked, read their first words, ridden bicycles, whilst he was still in nappies. Nothing he learned to do could earn their admiration: they’d been there first. They’d sat on him, laughed at him – and were casually affectionate to him – but, for most of the time, their own fierce battles for supremacy excluded him and he’d been happy to grow up quietly outside the noisy, clashing circle of their endeavour.
Now, as he sat down again at the table and poured the coffee, he wondered what he would do when he’d be obliged to get up and go out to deal with the logs. He was certain that, on his return, the package would have disappeared and he would be in no position to question either Emma or Raymond about it. As he drank his coffee – very slowly – he prayed that Joss would return before that moment came. He would draw her attention to it, suggest that they walk down together to deliver it, so thwarting any plans Raymond might be making.
His gasp of relief was almost audible when the front door opened. Light footsteps hurried up the stairs and George watched Raymond’s face grow thoughtful, listening, his eyes on the parcel.
‘There’s Joss.’ Emma’s voice was brighter, as if she too were relieved, and she sat more easily in her chair. ‘I wonder where she’s been.’
George kept his eyes on Raymond, expecting some sleight of hand when Joss appeared: he was convinced that in the moment of her arrival, whilst attention was fixed on her entrance, the package would somehow be spirited away. The door opened and Joss and Mousie came in together. Raymond rose swiftly to his feet and in one quick, smooth movement conveyed the parcel to the dresser behind his chair, pushing it beneath a newspaper so that it was half hidden, even as he was saying ‘Mousie, my dear, how nice to see you,’ and giving her a kiss. It was so adroit, so clever, that George was almost breathless with admiration.
He looked at Joss, longing to share this new discovery with her as he had shared so much in the past. She was flushed, her eyes bright with some kind of recent excitement, and he was filled with love and longing for her. She smiled at him across the kitchen yet he could still feel the barrier between them. With a tiny jolt of fear he wondered if he’d mistaken this new reticence in her: that it was nothing to do with Mutt’s death but, rather, fear that he might demand too much of her now that he was free. After all, they’d never spoken openly of their feelings – he’d been too committed to his marriage for that to be possible – and nothing had been said that might now be acted upon. Perhaps Joss was not ready to see Penny’s defection in the light of an opportunity for her own happiness – and his. It went against all his instincts to believe that this was true, yet there was a new kind of wariness that had never been present between them before.
With this sudden loss of confidence and his preoccupation about Joss, he forgot the little scene with the parcel. Mousie was explaining that she’d left a book in the drawing-room and had come up to collect it, meeting Joss on the way, and Emma was insisting that she should have some coffee.
‘I’ll get on with the logs,’ George said.
Suddenly he felt flat, his spirits depressed, knowing that his new freedom was an empty gift without Joss to share it. He passed close to her, but politely as a stranger might, and she touched his arm.
‘Sorry I dashed off,’ she murmured. ‘Things are a bit difficult. It’s just … tricky. But it’s not you. Honestly.’
‘I’m glad about that.’ He smiled, his heart lifting a little. ‘No pressure. See you later.’
He went out, comforted by this little exchange, and began to fill the log basket, carrying the wood in a plastic container between the wheelbarrow and the drawing-room. It wasn’t until later that he remembered the package. He wheeled the empty barrow back to the shed and went in through the garden door to the kitchen. Raymond Fox was still sitting at the table, the women milling about him. Lunch was being prepared, and Mousie was being pressed to stay and join them, but there was no sign of the parcel.
George debated with himself and then spoke to Emma as she emerged from the larder.
‘I’ll be off now,’ he said, ‘or I’ll be late for lunch. Shall I take that parcel for Bruno?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ she said quickly but very firmly. She seemed preoccupied, edgy. ‘Joss says that he’ll be up later on.’
He nodded and turned to Joss.
‘Let me know later on if you feel like a walk,’ he told her. ‘I shall be down at the field to take the donkeys out at around two o’clock.’ Picking up his jacket from a chair, he went away without waiting for her reply.