‘I know.’ She paused. ‘Andrew, what will you do if it goes against you?’
He said stubbornly, ‘It won’t. Or, put it this way, I’m buckling on the armour. I won’t make it easy for them.’ He shoved his hands into his pockets with a force that threatened to drive them through the material. ‘And there’s the programme. I’m sure it will make a difference.’
It was not often that her work had such a direct bearing on a situation and she felt a small glow of selfish pleasure. Andrew wiped the sweat from his forehead and cleared his throat. Agnes, I don’t often get drunk. I wouldn’t like you to think that.’
She looked down at his tanned forearms. Andrew…’
‘I apologize for that night.’
‘We all do it,’ she said.
‘Penny isn’t coming back.’ He seemed anxious to let her know. ‘Given the circumstances, I don’t want her back.’ There. He was saying: the way is cleared for you and me.
The level of the river had dropped, quite normal in summer, and the long weed streamed through it, like a drowning woman’s hair. Andrew hunkered down and dabbled his finger in the chalk-filtered water. ‘Trout?’
‘Well, there are lots of fisherman’s tales in the village.’
Andrew stood up and wiped his hand on his trousers. ‘I imagine there’s a bit of a frost pocket.’ He indicated the hollow between two ancient oaks and the north wall. Then he bent down again and scraped away at the earth. ‘Loamy soil. All you need is drainage, and you’d have very good grazing.’
‘Goodbye, irises.’
‘You ought to keep bees. They’d do well here. Lots of nice rich clover. It’s the swarming season. You could lure in a colony.’
Agnes threw away her grass stalk. ‘Why do they swarm?’
‘The hive becomes too crowded and unless they sort it out the bees becomes diseased and aggressive. Anyway, it’s time to chuck out the old queen in favour of a younger one.’
‘Poor queen.’ Agnes took the path alongside the river and beckoned to Andrew. Her words floated back to him. ‘Imagine, flying up into the sky, old in knowledge and bee sex, knowing that her airborne mating will result in another queen, who will usurp her.’
They walked as far as the boundary wall and leaned up against it. This was a good point from which to view the village.
‘It’s all very civilized and obedient,’ he pronounced at last. ‘Not like the moody moor.’
Agnes rallied in defence. ‘Are you saying the supermarket and the motorway have won? No ancient gods?’ She scraped at a curl of lichen on the wall, and its sage-green dust sprouted under her fingernail. ‘They are still here. They just had to find new hiding places, that’s all.’
His hand trapped hers against the stone. ‘I can only see what’s in my own backyard.’
Hand pinioned, she asked, ‘How do you like my house?’
He kept his gaze fixed on Agnes. ‘It’s very fine.’
Agnes removed her hand, and Andrew was aware that he had disappointed her.
They walked back to the terrace. Thick clumps of Jamaican daisies bloomed in the cracks of the steps and the sun had picked out white and orange moss circles fanning across the stone. In the trees, wood pigeons cooed.
‘You need to do some repairs.’ Andrew tested the bottom step with a foot. ‘This is pretty ropy’
‘You remind me of Mr Harvey’
Andrew made the same criticism of the walls in the kitchen garden, and offered advice on double digging, compost and where to site the bees. A slight frown appeared on Agnes’s face, so he did not mention that he suspected that all the sash windows would need replacing and the kitchen wing looked as though it was subsiding.
‘Had you considered getting the kitchen sorted out first?’ he suggested finally, noticing the frown deepen. ‘You would feel better.’
They were loitering in the walled garden, enjoying the warmth. Agnes picked up shards of glass and stones and placed them in containers she had left there for the purpose. She straightened up. ‘I dream of a warm, functioning kitchen with a honey-coloured flagstone floor.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t know why, I’m a rotten cook.’
As he drove up the drive and parked by the front door, Flagge House levelled challenging and hostile eyes at Julian. Since that night, three weeks ago – three years – he had gone over and over the situation and he could not work out if it was Agnes’s rejection that so piqued him, or that he had lost control over the situation. He could see the problem, he could hear the explanation – a spoilt man wanting his way-but they did not add up. The mental picture of his life running on oiled wheels, work, mistress, odd love affair, was still clear in his mind but the edges had blurred, and he was conscious of serious shortfalls of feeling and tenderness, and of the wish to help himself to them.
Of Kitty he could not quite bring himself to think.
He hauled on the brake. At the same time, Agnes and Andrew emerged from the kitchen garden. They moved slowly, absorbed and at ease, deep in conversation.
Agnes looked up and gave a visible start. She sent him an angry, disappointed look which asked,
At a disadvantage, and not a little sickened by himself, Julian waited for Agnes to approach him.
‘I’m
Agnes flushed. ‘How nice of you.’ Her voice rang strangely in her own ears. ‘Can I introduce Andrew Kelsey, the farmer who discovered the letters?’ She turned to Andrew. ‘Julian had the theory that Mary was an SOE agent.’
It took only seconds for Julian to assess and conclude that this man was also interested in Agnes. ‘Agnes mentioned that your case has gone to planning appeal,’ he said. ‘I run a firm that develops properties.’ He paused. ‘From your point of view, that might be a good thing.’ The video dangled from his hand.
A spat broke out between the wood pigeons. The sun slanted a beam of light into the driveway and shadow enshrouded the house. There was a moment of silence, a beat of impatience and rejection.
‘Why would that be?’ Andrew was polite, but only just.
‘I don’t think that district councils are always the best judges. They’re too close to the problem and too easily persuaded. Some developers prefer to do things properly and work with the planning people.’
‘Yes.’ Andrew’s eyes turned a cobalt colour with fury. ‘I expect it’s extremely satisfying concreting over an area the size of Bristol each year, particularly if you do it properly’
Julian began to enjoy himself. This was straightforward. His wars (and this was war) tended to be fought politely but savagely enough with guile, statistics, words and paper plans. He knew the territory.
Agnes intervened: ‘We’ve got most of the film under our belt, but we’re giving a chunk of time to the appeal.’
‘It will make good viewing,’ said Andrew. ‘Live executions do.’
‘Have you been offered relocation?’
Andrew swung round. ‘Can you relocate a life’s work?’
‘I think you can,’ answered Julian quietly, for Andrew’s anger had succeeded in touching him. It was on the tip of his tongue to present the usual arguments: fair compensation, government backing for new homes, the balance between the individual and the mass, working with the future, the vision that helps the ordinary person - people.
These were his beliefs, and that was the typically energetic language in which they were couched. But in the context of the distress registering on Andrew’s face, he abandoned the emollients and kept silent.
Agnes stretched out a hand for the video. ‘I’ll watch it tonight.’
Julian released it. ‘If Mary was an agent, she was a brave woman. You’ll see what I mean.’
At this point, the conversation ran out, for the two men were not making any effort. ‘Shall we have some tea?’ Agnes heard herself saying, and watched herself make bossy, shooing motions with her hands. ‘You two go through.’
She was waiting for the kettle to boil when Maud and Freddie returned from their drive, and she added more cups to the tray. She watched them walk across the sunlit yard, Maud’s steps uneven, uncertain. Agnes turned back
