He laughed. ‘I feel that way every time I drive in. Can I hop in and hitch a ride up to the front door?’
His wife, Cal, was standing on the steps waiting for them as Abi drew up. ‘I saw you coming. The kettle is on. You must be knackered after your long drive, my dear. Come and have some tea, then Mat can help you with your bags. These are Pyramis and Thisby.’ She indicated the two portly black Labradors which sat on either side of her, tails wagging. ‘Known to their numerous fans as Pym and Thiz. And before you ask,’ she shrugged ruefully, ‘those names are all that now remains of my misspent student past when there was talk of a thesis about plays within plays and Shakespeare. All now forgotten, thankfully.’ She laughed. ‘This way. Mind your head, the lintels are low.’
Abi followed her hosts down a long, paved hallway to the back of the house and into a cavernous kitchen. She stared half-appalled, half-enchanted at the huge inglenook fireplace where a fire burned steadily under an enormous black kettle which was suspended by an iron bar which was swung out from the back wall of the chimney. ‘You don’t cook on that?’
Cal laughed. ‘I have been known to cook soup there occasionally, but I’m afraid I have an ordinary cooker for the day to day stuff. Over there, lurking in the shadows, overwhelmed with an inferiority complex because it’s electric! Do sit down, my dear. Take the weight off your feet.’ She paused and took a deep breath. ‘We were so sorry to hear about your mother, Abi. What a terrible shock for you.’ She turned away tactfully. When she turned back a few moments later she was carrying a plate with a chocolate cake on it. Both dogs immediately sat down respectfully one on either side of Abi, their eyes huge and imploring.
That first evening Abi found herself confronted by a confusing whirl of facts and names and faces. The house, she learned, had been inherited by the three brothers of whom Mat was the middle. Ben, the eldest, her designated mentor, was rector of a parish some three miles away. The youngest brother wasn’t mentioned beyond the fact that ‘he was away at the moment’. Mat and Cal had ‘drawn the short straw’, to actually live in the place and try to stop it falling down. Apart from anything else they were the only ones with children so far. ‘Three. All grown up. All out of the nest. Thank God! All possible heirs to the pile.’ It didn’t seem to have occurred to them that they might sell the place and Abi, hearing the affection for it in their voices, was beginning to understand why. Cal cut a slice of cake for Abi and another for herself. (‘My parents christened me Calliope. Can you imagine! I hope you would refuse if anyone asked you to abuse a child by giving God’s blessing to a name like that!’) Mat had disappeared to do something urgently. The dogs were still gazing at Abi and the cake, dribbling disgustingly. Abi suddenly found herself smiling for the first time in weeks. She was going to enjoy living here.
‘The bishop said I’d be able to help,’ she said when she could at last get a word in edgeways. ‘I want to earn my keep.’
Cal smiled. ‘You will. Just keeping ourselves going is a full time job. I want to you rest and do absolutely nothing for a while. Take time. But when you’re ready I’m going to suggest you muck in with Mat and me and do anything and everything that we do! Honest hard work.’ She raised an eyebrow and gave the deep throaty chuckle which appeared to be her signature. ‘Then if you show an incredible talent for something like painting walls or sanding medieval woodwork we’ll jump on you. Or gardening.’ She looked up cautiously.
Abi smiled. ‘I’m afraid I’m not much of a gardener. I did help my mother when I was a child.’ She took a deep breath and steadied her voice with an effort. She could and must talk about her. ‘I loved doing it, but I haven’t had much time or space for gardening in the last few years, to be honest. I can weed with the best, though, and cut down brambles.’
‘But not till I’ve had the blackberries.’ Cal poured them both more tea. ‘There is a fabulous garden here. Somewhere. We hoped we might one day be able to restore it. Put it to work. Maybe get people to pay to come and see it. Mat took early retirement, which was a huge mistake as it turns out. He doesn’t have nearly enough pension to support a house like this.’
Abi wasn’t sure what to say. She hesitated. ‘While I’m here, I should pay you rent -’
‘No! No! No!’ Cal looked horrified. ‘Oh my dear girl, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. And anyway you are. Didn’t you realise? Dear old David is paying us to look after you, well, his diocese is, so in theory you don’t have to lift a finger. Except I think he feels some sort of occupational therapy would be good. Am I being tactless mentioning that? I’m sorry.’
Abi smiled. ‘I prefer people who speak out. Then we all know where we stand and it makes life so much easier.’ She liked this family. She had immediately felt at ease with them.
Cal nodded. She stood up. ‘I’m going to show you your room before I open my mouth and put my foot in it any more than I have already. Make yourself at home. Unpack. Settle in. Explore a bit and show up in here at about seven for a drink before supper. How does that sound? Ben is going to come and claim you tomorrow, I gather, for a bit of praying and retreating and all that, and if you need a church there’s one at the end of the garden. You can’t miss it and we’ve got our own gate which is handy. There’s only a service once a month, I’m afraid. Ben looks after it. It’s part of his parish, but he will explain all that.’
Her bedroom window looked south-west, across flat meadows and lines of pollarded willows towards Glastonbury Tor. She stared at it, mesmerised, as it rose, an iconic cone of a hill in the distance, against the bright blue of the sky. The house seemed to have been built on an island in the flat green landscape; perhaps it had once been a real island. It reminded her of the fens at home with the long straight drainage ditches, the serenity of the landscape. Turning away at last she sat down on her bed and stared round taking stock of the room. Cal’s non-stop chatter had left her exhausted, but not so exhausted that she couldn’t admire her new abode. It was a good-sized rectangular room with a small double bed, a low, comfortable easy chair, an antique chest of drawers, a dressing table, writing table and a fireplace decorated with dried flowers. The bedspread and curtains were a tasteful, restful, soft blue. It was attractive and welcoming. She found herself smiling with pleasure. She loved it.
Mat had brought up her two heavy suitcases and left them by the door. There was masses of other stuff left in the car, but she could bring it all up later herself. In fact, as she had given up the Cambridge flat, all her wordly goods were there. Luckily she didn’t have much, at least, not in her present incarnation. She had a room stuffed full of books and clothes and other possessions at home in The Limes, in the room her mother had insisted was still hers, but she hadn’t gone back to collect anything she hadn’t packed already after her abrupt departure following the quarrel with her father. David’s lay secretary had spoken to her father on the phone and explained that Abi would be away for a while and that he wasn’t to worry about her. At Abi’s request she hadn’t told him where Abi was going and he hadn’t asked. Nor, he had said apparently, did he intend to worry one iota.
No more than she intended to worry about Kier, she told herself sternly. She hadn’t asked David what had happened to him and David had not once mentioned his name.
Washing her face and hands in the small bathroom across the corridor which Cal had said was for her use alone she stared at herself in the mirror. She had lost a lot of weight in the last few weeks and her cheekbones stood out, giving her face a gaunt beauty. But there were dark rings under her eyes and her hair was looking lank and uncared for. She reached for her brush. She should cut it all off. Tame it. She shivered. That would be a victory for Kier and that could not be allowed to happen. She sighed. It was harder to put him out of her mind than she had imagined. He still haunted her dreams. His eyes were there all the time, watching her, their wild anger and panic terrifyingly real. Firmly she tried again to put behind her the niggling discomfort and fear which even the thought of him caused. With a sigh she dragged the brush through her long hair and pinned it up in a knot. Tonight she would wash it and comb it into some sort of shape and perhaps let it loose to tangle in the autumn wind. After all she was no longer a priest; she was an odd job woman; a gardener; a recluse. And perhaps she was at last going to find out which of these, if any, was the real Abi.
The house stood in some ten acres of paddocks and orchards, she was told, all sloping, draped around the shoulders of the hill like a cloak and the back garden had been laid out by a friend of Gertrude Jekyll. She wandered out onto the lawn and looked around. It was neatly mowed; the beds were a disaster though, their shape barely visible amongst the nettles and a sturdy thatch of couch grass where only a few more-desirable plants had managed to survive. She walked away from the house, following a path beneath an old pear tree, past a natural pond fringed with reeds, towards a stone arch, hung with yellow, sweet-scented roses. The arch was part of what appeared to be some sort of folly, artfully placed against a background of evergreen shrubs. A wooden bench had been placed near it and she sat down gratefully and took a deep breath of the rose-scented air.
Seconds later she realised she wasn’t alone. A woman was standing not twenty feet away staring straight at her. She was tall and slender, her dark hair caught into a knot on the back of her neck. She was wearing a long blue dress hitched up into her belt and on her arm there was a basket. She had been cutting flowers. Abi frowned. The dress looked strangely archaic, draped in a Greek or Roman style – but then round Glastonbury with its quota of
