Unsettled Ground

Towards the end, the track straightens, and he goes past the back of the dented sign that says Private, No Public Right of Way before the farmyard. Here, he passes a large barn made of planks stained black, concrete sheds with open sides filled with forgotten machinery and surrounded by nettles. Around the corner is the Rawsons’ brick-and-flint farmhouse and their manicured garden, the topiary like giant snowmen. He could walk four more miles to the village or he could knock on the Rawsons’ door and ask to use their landline or a mobile. Pepperwood Farm has been in the Rawson family for three generations; Rawson was twenty when he inherited it after his father died of a heart attack. Its 120 acres include the arable land from the bottom of the ridge to the bank of the Ink, the muddy stream which gives the village its name. It includes the beech wood on either side of the track and the meadow behind the garden, and officially, it included the cottage and its land. Julius sometimes works on the farm when they need an extra pair of hands, but the jobs are always arranged through the farm manager. If Julius ever sees Rawson, in his country squire get-up of tweed jacket, waistcoat, and corduroy trousers, he keeps out of the man’s way. But four miles walking on the morning your mother has died is another four miles walking. He goes up to the farmhouse door.

3

Julius falters over the lion’s head knocker. He has never stood on the front doorstep of the farmhouse before. As a child, he often went to the farm with Jeanie and their father and played in and around the disorderly collection of barns and outbuildings which are mostly tucked around the back. They spent time roaming the fields, picking blackberries and watching badgers at night as if the land belonged to the Seeders and not the Rawsons. From the back door inside, Julius has only ever been as far as the pantry, when he and his sister were invited in by the housekeeper for a glass of lemonade.

He lets the door knocker fall. The snow has stopped and already there are steady drips from the trees and bushes. Someone has driven in and out of the driveway, scoring and muddying the ground, but the early morning sun is shining, and where the snow is still clean, the shadows are sharp-edged and blue.

There are no sounds from inside the house and Julius is turning to go when he hears the door being unbolted. It’s opened by Rawson, dressed in trousers and a white shirt, his feet bare. Julius realizes he’s been expecting the housekeeper from his childhood, a large, kind, and aproned woman, who would surely be dead by now. Like his mother, he thinks. Dead. Rawson is tall, a whole head taller than Julius, and about his mother’s age, with brilliant white hair, black eyebrows, and a white moustache which flows down either side of his mouth. This morning he has also grown a crop of white stubble across his jaw and cheeks. The whole effect is that of a polecat, like the one Jenks, Julius’s drinking friend, once caught in a trap and brought into the pub: supple and lean.

“Julius,” Rawson says, stepping back, surprised, and Julius in turn is surprised that Rawson remembers his name. “Is everything all right?”

“I need to use your phone.” Julius’s own mobile, which he put into his coat pocket out of habit, is a basic model, not a smartphone like everyone seems to have these days, and he didn’t think to bring his charger.

“Of course, come in,” Rawson says in his educated voice, and steps back. The large hall has a carved fireplace, a tiled floor, and panelling. A blocky wooden staircase turns up the wall. Arts and Crafts, Dot used to call it, but Julius hadn’t known what she was on about and wasn’t interested.

“Is your electric working?” Julius wipes his feet on the mat.

“We’ve no problems here. Have you had a power cut? Checked the fuse box?”

Julius rolls his eyes as Rawson turns away. “Now where’s that handset? Caroline’s forever using it and not putting it back in its holder.” He goes through a doorway into a room that overlooks the front garden, a red-brick fireplace and two white sofas facing each other, a baby grand piano behind. It’s like a room that no one uses: no dogs on the furniture, no feet on the chairs, no wet spoons in the sugar. “Shall I look up the number of the electricity company? Who are you with?”

“I need the number for the GP surgery,” Julius says, coming into the room. He has an urge to take off his cap which he forgot to put on anyway. Fuck that, he thinks.

Rawson glances at him and looks away. Too stuck up, Julius supposes, to ask why he needs that number. The man bumbles around, finding the telephone handset on an armchair, pressing one button and then another to make sure there’s a dialling tone. “Who would have expected snow at the end of April?” Rawson says, making conversation and not waiting for an answer. He gives Julius the handset. “No problem up at the cottage, is there?” Rawson is searching on his mobile for the surgery’s number, walking about the room and back to the hall. Julius follows.

“My mother’s dead,” Julius says bluntly, just to see if he can stop the man’s mumblings, but the words shock Julius too. She really is dead. The two men stare at each other and Julius sees his own expression mirrored on Rawson’s face.

“What?” Rawson puts a hand out to the wooden mantelpiece.

A woman’s voice comes from above: “Who is it?”

“Julius,” Rawson calls while looking at him. “From the cottage.”

“What does he want?”

Rawson continues to stare at Julius, and Julius looks back, waiting to see what he will say, until Rawson raises his eyes to where the wooden banister turns squarely out of