place it was. On a summer morning, the chestnut trees- that Jean felt sure were there, flanking the courtyard just out of the frame of the drawing- would rustle in the breeze with a soft shivering note that would carry upon it the fluting calls of pigeons and doves. Madame would hear them from the open window at the back as she embedded the final long pin in her coiffure, and then she would look up to see- who? Her son, perhaps. Yes, definitely her son, some way off, moving thoughtfully between the vines, inspecting the grapes. Madame would know by the tilt of his head as he passed down the rows and as he paused to look up at the sky, that he was worrying a little, wondering if the weather would hold. Would the sun shine right up until the last day before the harvest? Jean smiled, then turned and made her way up the cellar steps, picking up a corkscrew as she went. The label had told her all she needed to know about the wine, whatever it might taste like.
It was nice, that first bottle of wine. It certainly loosened my poor old joints, at least. It was strong and I suppose what you’d call dry. I liked it more the more I drank, and it went well with my supper. Because after the first glass by the fire I started to think about food again. I’m no cook, or I wasn’t then- I’ve learned all that since. Up till then I hadn’t bothered with the Aga. I only had cereal or sandwiches, or I used the microwave for scrambled eggs or soup if I wanted something hot. I didn’t bother much. But that night I needed something more. I got the key to one of the two big freezers in the utility room and found bacon, sausages, butter. I noticed one or two other very tempting-looking things at the same time. For another day, I thought, half-expecting Michael. I’d already got eggs and tomatoes and bread. The Aga behaved itself. There was nothing difficult about it. There was an excellent pan for a big fry-up, and I sipped the wine while I cooked and the kitchen filled with the most wonderful smell. How they would have hated it, the owners! All of it: the smell of bacon and sausages, the fat-spattered Aga and the way I disobeyed their instructions about where I ate. I took my supper on a tray and ate by the drawing-room fire and finished the bottle of wine with some cheese. By then I felt rather sleepy so I made some very good coffee (theirs) and threw out my jar of instant as I waited for the kettle to boil. I wanted to stay awake, because after that wine label and everything that the chвteau had told me, I had been thinking about the importance of pictures. Photographs in particular.
I had taken a look at the photographs round the place, while I was dusting. There were two tables in the drawing room covered with photographs in silver frames, and others elsewhere in the house. I collected them all up and brought them over to the fireside for a proper look. The wedding ones I didn’t go for. I was pretty certain it was them, the owners, and the woman- blonde, quite a bit younger than him- looked tall and solid enough to fit my clothes, as far as I could tell by how she looked in the wedding dress, which was cream and heavy-looking, not proper white. Not a shred of decent chiffon either, just a flat veil with a little tiara. He was quite heavy-looking in that English male way that often ages well and they were smiling at each other, looking safe and polished and pleased. I suppose I mean rich. They did not so much as glance out of the photograph. I burned it.
There were others of him and her both singly and together, and with older people, parents or relatives I supposed, and some with friends. They seemed to go on holiday a lot. Sometimes they were tanned, or holding skis, or sitting at tables, and her hair changed, both colour and length, but it always looked expensive. Those pictures went in the fire, too. But there were others: proper portraits of the older people, and early snaps taken on beaches when they were white squinting children in baggy bathing costumes, holding up buckets, balancing on rocks. And there they were, older, at their own weddings or with their babies on christening day, and there were black and white pictures of men in uniform who looked hopeful and unironic in a way that you don’t get now. It was sad, but I burned all of them too. I will admit I did hesitate, but it would have been wrong to get sentimental about them. They had all begun to jar. The time for their stories had been and gone. They did not belong here, with me and all the other things, the vases and bowls and books and trinkets and little boxes. These people had nothing to do with this house, or with me and my son. It was time for our stories now.
March
On the first few days after Steph’s arrival Michael had gone out in the mornings before she was properly awake, apparently embarrassed by her presence. Then one day Steph got up and made him some toast, and as he ate it standing in the kitchen he told her, in what felt like an exchange- information for breakfast- that he would be out trying to do a bit of dealing. That day Steph blitzed the flat and was asleep on the sofa when Michael returned in the afternoon. He made her a cup of tea, sniffing at the air that was vibrant with the smells from plastic bottles lined up on the draining board, with names like citrus cavalcade and mountain mist.
A few days later when he came back his face was tight. When Steph asked him what was wrong, the look had turned to one of slight confusion. He told her about Ken, who was worse and was going into a home. He had just come from there.
‘Aw, got no family to go to? Poor old soul,’ Steph said, putting teabags into mugs and getting out milk, in the manner of the sort of mildly compassionate, busy wife that she had seen on television.
‘He’s not old, he’s just disabled. He was in the Gulf War. Got divorced after he came back. Doesn’t see his kids and his wife’s got someone else now. He’s got emphysema, other stuff as well, he can hardly walk. He’s in a right state.’ He paused with the effort of producing so many words at once. ‘Got medals. Decorated, he was- he’s got medals. That’s about all he’s got, poor bugger.’
‘He’s got you. He’s got a friend.’
Michael frowned. He had never thought of himself as Ken’s friend although it had been a slight surprise to realise, as he was talking, just how sorry he felt about him and how much he knew about him, when he had never noticed being actively sympathetic or curious. He grunted and sipped at the mug of tea that Steph had poured out, struggling in his mind with another surprise: the strangeness of being asked by Steph what the matter was. He had not realised that his face might betray his feelings. Even less had he expected there to be someone else around to notice the look on his face and care. But he had stopped wondering, on his way back to the flat in the afternoons, if she would still be there. He took it for granted that she would be.
‘Yeah, well,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the tea. And for asking.’
‘You’re welcome,’ she said. That was the first time that they exchanged smiles. After that they did so often, enjoying first the novelty, then the habit of it.
Steph had shoplifted a set of fairy lights that she strung along the shelf above the gas fire. But the sofa was too small for both of them. In the evenings, with the remains of that night’s takeaway lying in dishes on the floor around them, Steph would stretch out along the sofa and Michael would sit on the floor leaning against it, his long legs bent in front of the fire, which was now always lit. For a while they would not speak of anything and their silence seemed meditative. Then, full-bellied in the warmth, and in the soft coloured lights and confessional flicker of the candles Steph lit, they talked, unable to see each other’s faces.
Michael told Steph the story of his fifteen-year-old mother and the children’s home. He hesitated after a few moments, when he had finished the short, true part. From the age of about six he had begun to learn that some facts required decoration; there had been hardly anyone at the children’s home whose mother was not a ballerina or a princess, whose father had not commanded a submarine or killed tigers with his bare hands. Michael had so long ago concocted his own story that he felt more its curator than its author; the adult version was by now a
