Secrets of the Heart

‘Just remember when you’re the big successful shot, and I want to come back, which I will, that you owe me one. OK?’ Agnes made for the door. ‘I’ll see you soon and we’ll wrap up the ends. And, Bel, thank you for everything.’

‘Agnes…’ Bel’s expression had not softened one jot. Nevertheless, she said, ‘I wasn’t being quite truthful. There were moments… Once I even thought I heard her, transmitting her messages from the field.’

Oh, Bel.

Bel hunched over the keyboard. ‘Goodbye.’

32

Punctually, the bulldozers arrived at Tithings, followed by a procession of lorries, cars and Portakabins.

Andrew, Penny and a substantial crowd of protestors had taken up their first line of defence by the oaks. High in the branches above, the Gladiator was putting the finishing touches to a series of airborne ramparts, spinning a spider’s web from branch to branch. Delicate gossamer structures, shaking in the wind. From here, he and his willing recruits from Exbury’s teenage population planned to launch missiles.

The lead bulldozer forced its way into the north field. An oiled, hungry metal beast. It was the signal for the protestors to link arms and begin their chant. The local press photographer clicked away and the television cameras whirred as the bulldozer described an arc across the tender grass. Lowering its digger, it cut into the earth as cleanly and sweetly as the plough might have done, and moved on.

At the sight, Andrew broke ranks and walked with clenched fists directly into the path of the machine. He and the driver eyeballed each other, Andrew willing the other man to make the first mistake, to mow him down. But the driver merely touched his steering-wheel and drove around Andrew without any obstacle to his progress at all.

Almost a year to the day since John Campion died, a heavily pregnant Agnes stepped out of the drawing-room window on to the terrace to watch the first lorry negotiate its way over the meadow to the sites of the houses. It came to a halt by the river. Three men began to pace out measurements and to drive pegs into the earth.

While she watched, a new pattern was formed on the meadow, and the wind, a savage breath of winter, blew her short hair back over her shoulders.

With each swing of the hammer into the earth, Agnes felt the blow. Behind her, the windows of the house glittered in a cold sun, and the icy water in the river clattered over the stones.

She touched her stomach. It was a hard death and it would be a hard birth, and each would be a trade-off for the other.

For a long time, she stood quite silent and alone, until Julian appeared and led her to the waiting car, where Maud was sitting, and they drove away to live in the house by the sea.

Elizabeth Buchan

Elizabeth Buchan lives in London with her husband and two children and worked in publishing for several years. During this time, she wrote her first books, which included a biography for children: Beatrix Potter: The Story of the Creator of Peter Rabbit (Frederick Warne). Her first novel for adults, Daughters of the Storm, was set during the French Revolution. Her second, Light of the Moon, took as its subject a female undercover agent operating in occupied France during the Second World War. Her third novel, Consider the Lily, hailed by the Sunday Times as ‘the literary equivalent of the English country garden’ and by the Independent as ‘a gorgeously well-written tale: funny, sad, sophisticated’, won the 1994 Romantic Novel of the Year Award. An international bestseller, there are over 320,0000 copies in print in the UK. Her subsequent novel, Perfect Love, was called ‘a powerful story: wise, observant, deeply-felt, with elements that all women will recognize with a smile – or a shudder’. Against Her Nature, published in 1998, was acclaimed as ‘a modern day Vanity Fair… brilliantly done’ and Secrets of the Heart was praised by the Mail on Sunday as ‘a finely written, highly intelligent romance, without any of the slushiness usually associated with the genre’. Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman was described by The Times as ‘wise, melancholy, funny and sophisticated’. Her most recent novel is The Good Wife.

Elizabeth Buchan is currently on the committee for the Society of Authors, and was a judge for the 1997 Whitbread Awards and Chairman of the Judges for the 1997 Betty Trask Award. Her short stories have been published in various magazines and broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

For further information on Elizabeth Buchan and her work go to www.elizabethbuchan.com

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