Swift saw that the others listened to Jasmine in the same pose. Except for Bruno, sitting opposite him, who held his hands joined, but glanced at him and rolled his eyes. Swift was surprised. He hadn’t noted that Bruno had a sense of humour. Jasmine sat at the head of the table, in a larger chair with a curved back and arms. She might as well wear a badge saying Head Girl. She still had her hat on, and Swift wondered if it was an affectation, or if she suffered from a scalp condition. Peter Merchant sat at Jasmine’s right, opening and refolding his paper napkin. He was bony faced, with thinning greyish hair and a faded complexion. Bryn, tonight’s cook, sat at Swift’s left and Kat and Suki sat either side of Bruno.
The evening was gloomy and tall white pillar candles in ornate pewter holders, four of which were spaced along the table, provided the only light. They gave the meal a vaguely ecclesiastical ambience and Swift found this irritating. It was another affectation, with Jasmine playing the role of high priestess.
Bryn wore a long blue-and-white-striped butcher’s apron, splashed with food smears and tied below his impressive beer gut. He brought the meal to the table with a great deal of fuss and noise, pretending to play a trumpet fanfare. ‘I present my heavenly slow-cooked lamb with herbs. Sweet and tender, like me! I want to see clean plates or there’ll be questions! Oh — and a nut cutlet for our plant muncher, Suki. You’ve no idea what you’re missing.’
Suki sighed. ‘You say the same thing to me every time, Bryn, but I suppose it amuses you, so I indulge you.’
He laughed and set a huge orange casserole down with a thump, so that the table vibrated.
‘We don’t need quite so much theatre,’ Bruno said.
‘Food should be theatre, man! Tuck in, everyone.’
The lamb casserole was served with roast vegetables and home-baked bread. They ate from shallow turquoise earthenware bowls. Suki, a tiny woman with short black hair, had informed Swift that she made them in her pottery. The food was tasty, but Swift was anxious about Afan and had little appetite. There was no sign of him, and Swift couldn’t understand his absence. Bruno had returned to his cottage to find Swift and had confirmed that Afan’s phone wasn’t by the bread bin, where it usually sat. The black cagoule he habitually wore was missing from its peg by the door.
Swift ate silently, listening to the scrape of cutlery. This was an odd, uncomfortable situation, to be a guest where he knew nobody and had no points of reference. He couldn’t relax. There were two carafes of elderberry wine, dry and slightly sharp, on the table. Bryn Price helped himself regularly to the one nearest him.
He asked in a forceful voice, ‘How d’you know Afan, Ty?’
‘We worked together a while back in Lyon, at Interpol.’
Price’s eyebrows went up. ‘Gosh! Hey, Jasmine, Afan worked for Interpol!’
She paused as she mopped her bowl with bread. ‘Indeed. Is that where you work, Ty?’
‘I used to.’
‘What do you do now?’
His instinct was to keep that quiet. ‘I’m self-employed.’
‘Well, I hope it’s not too quiet here for you after your European connections. No international intrigues at Tir Melys.’
‘We had some sheep rustling the year before last,’ her husband said with a little smirk. He spoke lightly, with a Home Counties drawl. ‘This is great lamb, Bryn. Tasty.’
Bryn grinned and tilted his head towards Suki. ‘I could probably name the lamb it came from, but that might upset some people, and I don’t want to be accused of insensitivity. The recipe’s from my great-nan, with my own little additions.’
Jasmine swept a hand in Swift’s direction. ‘We aim to be as self-sufficient as possible here, Ty. All our own vegetables and fruit, chicken, eggs and lamb. Wine, too. We take turns cooking and we make all our own bread. We respect the land that nurtures us. We live by Thoreau’s philosophy: “Live in each season as it passes, breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” It’s a simple life and a good one.’ She had a didactic manner and when she made a pronouncement, she gave a private smile.
Her husband murmured in agreement and Kat Glover patted the table in approval. It was a reasonable and benign philosophy, although self-evident — it would be difficult not to breathe the air. Listening to Jasmine, Swift placed a bet with himself that she’d written the self-satisfied description on the Tir Melys website.
He asked, ‘Have you all been here a long time?’
‘It feels like only yesterday, but we moved here from London sixteen years ago, and people gradually joined us,’ Jasmine said. ‘We all grow fruit and veg and then of course, we have our own specialties. Bryn has chickens and sheep, Bruno and Afan keep bees — Afan also makes mead with the honey, Suki’s a potter, Kat specialises in woodcraft and is an expert forager. Guy and Elinor are jewellers, Peter makes willow furniture and wine, and I generally manage the site, run healing and therapy workshops and of course, I play the harp.’
Bryn belched and grinned. ‘An alternative script that Jasmine could give you is that she and Peter are Mam and Dad, I’m the naughty one, Suki’s the normal, balanced one, Bruno’s the troubled one, Kat’s the problematic one, Elinor’s the damaged one, Guy’s the scathing one and Afan’s the high-minded one.’
‘Three cheers for the cod psychology, you should take it up as a career,’ Kat told him, sounding annoyed.
Peter Merchant cleared the plates while Bryn brought a huge oval platter heaped with fruit salad and pitchers of cream to the table. He set the platter and a ladle in front of Jasmine with
