He had stoked the Aga. The oven was good and hot.
It was kind of him to do that, she would think later. If he had in his mind what he was about to do, then it was a kind thought – or was it only thoughtless habit, persisting regardless, the habit of their lives, or proof that he meant to come back, after all, or just an option left open? He had taken the time on this his last morning to stoke up the stove so that his family should be warm when they came downstairs, and the bacon when she cooked it, if he were to come to eat it, would be crisp. (But he can’t have been thinking of them, not then. He can’t have been thinking of anyone but himself. It was so selfish, what he was doing, so appallingly, abominably selfish.)
What then? What happened next?
Calling to the boys upstairs. Hearing them moving, coming down.
The knock at the back door. Billy, the constable, the bedraggled dog held by a string tied to her collar, some other men.
I had to be putting her on the string, madam. She wouldn’t be going otherwise. I’d call her and she’d come along a little ways, and then she’d run back.
Thank you, Billy, she had said, taking the string in her hand, bending to untie it from the dog’s collar.
The men came on in, crowding the kitchen. Men who looked useless, their hair damp, eyes looking about, evasive; the smell of them the smell of a wood in the morning mixed with tobacco smoke. She wondered why they were all of them there; if the dog had been found straying somewhere, why they had all of them taken it upon themselves to bring the dog home? They looked about, shuffled. The boys had come in at the same time.
Perhaps we should go into another room, Mrs Ashe.
Yes, the sitting room. Just herself and the constable and Billy now. Billy had barely ever been in the sitting room before though he came almost daily to the kitchen. They didn’t sit in the room but only stood. That annoyed her. She felt annoyed with them for making her go there, for coming to her and taking her there to say whatever it was they were going to say, which already perhaps she knew, which was why she was angry. They were so awkward, standing there before her. Better if they had gone back outside. Outside at least they would have had space around them for what needed to be said. No weight of ceiling over their heads. No things pressing about them, no soft carpet or curtain or upholstery, but only cold space.
I have to go out and see. I want to see.
Are you sure? Perhaps you should wait a while, madam, let us bring him in first.
Yes. No. Now.
She led them back into the kitchen, where just the boys and the dog now remained, and spoke to Billy, her eyes to his high above the boys’ eyes, adult to adult. Her voice surprisingly controlled. Billy, would you be very kind and stay with the boys just a bit?
She put on her coat, hastily tied a scarf over her head.
Took up her gloves from where they lay on the table.
Put on her boots by the back door. Jonny’s stood beside them, neatly placed but wet with mud. How odd, could he have been out already? The thought registered but only superficially. It was nothing beside the shock of the other thoughts in her.
The air was cold, moist with fog.
The constable spoke plain words to prepare her. It’s a bit of a mess, Mrs Ashe. Might be best if you could wait and see him later, when they’ve tidied him up a bit.
How could she say that she must see the place? See him. Be outside in the cold air where words were not only words but visible as breath?
The constable knelt on the leaves on the ground of the spinney and lifted the edge of the coat that had been thrown over him. That was enough. She did not need to see the rest. She saw the twisted way that he lay, the length of his body, his hand that had let go its hold on the gun. The constable looked up at her with a question and she managed the smallest shake of the head that stopped him from going any further, an answer in her eyes as much as anywhere. No more.
In the kitchen, the boys had got themselves some cereal.
Billy had made a pot of tea. Always until now it had been she who made tea for Billy. He had made the strong tea she kept especially for him. Thought you’d be needing it, Billy said, his hands shaking as he poured her a cup, unsure of themselves, slopping milk white onto the blue-and-white saucer. Such competent hands they had seemed to her until now, big rough knobbly countryman’s hands, reddened with work or with cold.
The boys sat in their chairs and watched.
There’s been an accident, she said. She heard herself say that as if it was someone else’s voice speaking. She didn’t know what to say next.
She remembered the bacon then, that she had put in the oven before. She grabbed the oven glove, knelt before the stove, opened the door onto smoke.
The rashers quite black, welded to the roasting tray.
The tray hot through the glove.
She dropped the tray into the sink and ran water onto it. Stood back from the steam escaping the white walls of the sink.
The boys were watching. Billy was watching.
Think I should be off now, Billy said. If that’s what you’d like, madam.
Yes, Billy. Thank you, Billy.
Boys, come to the sitting room.
Again, to the sitting room. Out of the steam and the smell of burning.
We’ll be quiet there. Let’s go into the sitting room. There’s
