20
Seeds
SATURDAY 17TH JANUARY 2009
When Arabella came down to breakfast, she found her mother hiding underneath the kitchen table.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I thought you were the vicar.”
“Why would I be the vicar?”
“He’s always lurking.”
“It’s seven in the morning; he’ll be having breakfast. Which is something that Toby and I would like to do too.”
The day before, Arabella had passed her mother running from the Mistresses’ Wing to the kitchen door with a wastepaper basket over her head.
“I’m incognito,” Jane had hissed.
Then there were the culinary fads. One week, Jane had cooked only Mexican food, before switching to Greek. Neither had been a success. Driven by hunger and necessity, the children borrowed a cookery book from the library and worked their way through the recipes. Occasionally their mother came to meals, but often she stayed in her office shuffling through endless correspondence, bills and paperwork. She spent most nights closeted in her studio printing new, even more morbid, wallpaper designs.
Arabella had stopped going to school. Her mother hadn’t noticed and her brother was too wrapped up with Celia to care. Instead she spent her time with Aunt Tuffy, whose latest research project involved feeding caterpillars the leaves of marijuana plants grown in the fourth ballroom.
“When will you see results?” Arabella asked. The experiment had been going on since the month before Enyon’s funeral and had been repeated through many life cycles of caterpillars.
“Butterflies sequester and store toxic substances from their larval food-plant to use as part of their chemical arsenal. Cabbage whites store mustard oil from cabbages and put it into their caterpillar eggs to make them less palatable to predators. Monarch butterflies use poisons from milkweed, aphids like cardiac glycosides and swallowtail butterflies prefer aristolochic acids for the same purpose.”
Arabella could hardly contain her excitement. “What will the marijuana reveal? Why not use a simple cabbage?”
Tuffy looked at her thoughtfully. “I might make a scientist out of you yet. You’re asking the right kind of question. Marijuana is pungent, potent and easy to grow. I’m interested in two things: can we identify plant compounds that bring about changes in colour and might the same compounds smell so awful that they scare a predator away?”
“And if you could?”
“Imagine if there was a pill to repel mosquitoes? Think how many millions of lives could be saved. Or if we could genetically modify a wheat or grass seed with a compound that would render wild animals repulsive to ticks or fleas.”
“Using nature to fight nature without having to invent anything new.”
The older woman nodded. “As so often in life, the answers are right in front of us.” Unused as she was to human company, Tuffy could see that something was troubling her great-niece. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong? If not, go away.” Although she sounded cross, Arabella understood that Tuffy was trying to be kind. She told her about Jane’s recent behaviour.
“Your mother is taking measures to stop people from bothering her,” Tuffy said. “She has to decide if she values friendship over productivity. Both require a significant investment of time.”
“Have you got any friends?”
Tuffy thought about this question as she moved seven bright green caterpillars from one box to another. “It’s been a great relief to find the company of insects and animals far more interesting.” She looked at her niece and smiled. “Now make yourself useful. Fetch down those specimen jars on the top shelf and in your best handwriting copy out the following names.”
For the first time in over forty-six years of marriage, Gordon and Glenda Sparrow were sleeping apart. Every night she asked him to come back to their marital bed; his answer was always the same.
“While you work for the enemy, I’ll have nothing to do with you.” Gordon’s anger, humiliation and grief had made him irrational. As far as he was concerned, Kitto was responsible for Acorn’s bankruptcy and the loss of Gordon’s savings and job. At the age of sixty-five and in the present climate, he was unlikely to find other work. Mark had offered help, which neither grandparent would accept. It went against everything they believed in; penury would be preferable. If Glenda could have found work elsewhere, she’d have taken it. Unlike her husband, she didn’t blame Kitto. He was an irresponsible ass but not a bad person. She bore Gordon’s fury in case it made him feel better, less powerless. Her heart broke for her husband and his shattered dreams. It was Mark who persuaded his grandfather to create an activist group of former employees and shareholders of Acorn to lobby the government and the bank’s creditors, hoping that proactivity would give Gordon a sense of purpose. Mark drove from Bristol to Trelawney three evenings a week to teach the older man how to use a computer and search for other people who had lost their savings. Glenda didn’t think it would do any good but was, at first, pleased that Gordon had an outlet for his rage. But the interest became an obsession and grew into a mania; sometimes she came downstairs in the middle of the night to find her husband hunched over the laptop (lent by Mark), stabbing the keyboard with two fingers. She comforted herself that Gordon had a cause, even if it didn’t have an effect.
Gordon’s network began to spread. He found associates in Cornwall, but also as far afield as Scotland and Scandinavia. Then he began to research their legal position and case law. The once-pristine kitchen was turned into his centre of operations. In the past he had picked flowers for his wife; now he made notes—pages and pages of notes—which were piled into neat stacks. Glenda’s domain shrank to a small corner around the kettle. If she watched television (always alone), the volume had to be almost inaudible so as not to disrupt the Skype calls Gordon made to his new friends. Glenda’s world had contracted; Gordon’s had exploded. She no longer recognised her husband: the man who had loved nature; who could name any tree in the forest; who coaxed cuttings out of sandy soil; who would nurse an injured mouse back to health had morphed into an angry and embittered campaigner. Before the crash, Glenda had counted the hours until she returned home to her husband; now she could not wait to get to the castle every day.
Jane stood at the sink, trying to make headway with the washing-up. Looking out of the kitchen window, her hands in soapy water, she saw a single rose trembling on a branch, a splash of colour against the January gloom, and she smiled. It was bound to be a good omen. This fleeting moment of pleasure was dashed by the sight of Magda, head down, coat on, suitcase in hand, marching determinedly towards her. Jane didn’t need to be told what had happened. Magda was just one of a long line of carers—eleven in six months—driven to resignation by Clarissa’s rudeness. The agency had been absolutely clear: “Magda Pawlokowski is the last person we will send you. There aren’t many who are prepared to live in the back of beyond and even fewer who will put up with such a cantankerous old woman.” Jane had been to five different agencies. She had even registered under a fake name; news, it seemed, spread quickly in that part of the world and the House of Trelawney was on a blacklist.
The kitchen door swung open and Magda entered, brandishing a sense of righteous indignation like a sword.
“Enough! Lady is too rude.”
“What happened this time?” Jane turned and wiped her hands on a tea towel.
“Food too hot, food too cold. Food too salty, food too sweet.”
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Jane hoped she could calm Magda down and persuade her to stay. The alternative—looking after her mother-in-law herself—was too bleak to contemplate. She leaned her face against the windowpane, hoping the glass would cool her hot brow and wondered if she had the emotional resilience to cope with any more upsets; she felt that one more problem would tip her into insanity.
“Taxi,” Magda said firmly.
“We could increase your wages?”
“Taxi.”
“An extra day off?” Jane was running out of ideas.
“Taxi.”
“Please, Magda, please.” Jane wondered if going down on bended knee would help. At that moment she was prepared to consider anything.
Magda shook her head. “Taxi.”
Jane drove Magda to the station and, once alone in the car, took out her phone and sent Blaze a message. Last carer has walked out. Your mother, your problem. Jane.