Pleased that she had resolved this issue so quickly and effectively, Jane looked over the rose bed towards the west wing of Trelawney Castle. The windows had turned golden in the late-afternoon sun and the whole of one wall, three storeys high and a hundred and fifty feet long, was covered with the last flowers of the purple wisteria. She listened to the hum of bees feeding on the pendulous blooms and caught sight of a flash of yellow as a goldfinch darted into a nest. A pair of curlews flew over, calling to each other—theirs was Jane’s favourite sound, part giggle, part siren. In the far distance a cow bellowed, perhaps to its calf, and in the village two miles down the estuary an ice-cream van played “Greensleeves” through a tinny loudspeaker. Looking around, Jane felt her heart swell with love. This was her husband Kitto’s Trelawney and one day it would belong to her eldest son Ambrose. It would never be her castle; this Viscountess, like many before her, was nothing more than a faint shadow passing over its history.
Her mobile phone rang. The screen said “Clarissa,” her mother-in-law. Tempted not to answer, Jane, impelled by duty and habit, took the call.
“We will have supper early tonight. The Earl is feeling a little wan.” Her mother-in-law hung up without saying goodbye.
Jane had become the house skivvy and had no one to blame but herself; always eager to please, she had been far too accommodating. At least old Aunt Tuffy kept to herself in a cottage in the park; Jane occasionally saw her scuttling around corners, both women keen to avoid each other.
She put the gardening gloves, clippers and trowel in the wooden trug and set off towards the kitchen. The smell of warm grass drifting on the breeze reminded her of her old life again: running over menus with Cook, discussing seeds and borders with the gardener, ordering fresh flowers for the bedrooms, going to London twice a year to buy new clothes. It was a relief to have lost contact with old friends; there was no one to witness what had become of her life.
She walked around the west wing of the castle, past the collapsed greenhouses and outhouses, along the cobbled pathways sprouting with dock and ragwort, until she reached the peeling side door. It was never locked; the key had been lost many years earlier. Even the walls of the inner passage were lined with moss. Rogue buddleia self-seeded in the cracks; Jane took comfort in the prettiness of its purple flowers. She followed the family custom of kicking her shoes into the mountain of wellingtons and trainers in the boot room.
In the kitchen, she put the clippers back on the dresser along with all the other detritus of family life: school reports, cricket balls, teapots, cracked plates, aspirin bottles, old photographs, keys to forgotten doors, incomplete packs of cards and a stuffed, moth-eaten rabbit (provenance unknown). To stave off winter gloom, when the Cornish sun hardly rose above the escarpment, Jane had painted the whole room an electric pea-green with a wide border of intertwined honeysuckle, wild roses and clematis; those who looked carefully could pick out tiny field mice and bumblebees hidden in the foliage. On the pine table, a radio with an aerial made from a coat hanger sat permanently emanating the comforting if barely audible sounds of Radio 4. The washing-up—saucepans and cups—stood upended on the scrubbed wooden draining board and, in the sink, there was a pile of broad beans, carrots and new potatoes dug up that morning from the kitchen garden. Wiping her hands on her trousers, Jane turned on the tap and scrubbed earth from the potatoes, cut them into chunky medallions and laid them in rows over the top of the minced meat. It was the third time in one week that they had eaten a variation on cottage pie. Jane was an incompetent cook, bereft of ideas and patience. On Monday mornings she bought a catering-sized pack of mince and a bumper carton of tinned tuna from the local cash and carry. For her, cooking was a duty that had to be endured. Spare minutes, and there weren’t many, were spent in her studio designing and printing wallpaper. This activity was her lifeline to sanity. The process of painstakingly transferring her ideas on to paper, etching into blocks and printing in a phantasmagoria of colours, was intensely satisfying. Here at least she could complete a task; in other areas of her life, the chores were seemingly endless.
Her phone pinged with a text from Kitto: he had an important meeting and would stay in London. Taking a carrot and a large knife, Jane chopped the vegetable with gusto. Pooter, eyeing her nervously, slunk off to sit in the corridor. No wonder Kitto wasn’t coming home; if only she could have a mini-break from this life of drudgery. She felt envious of his job as Chairman of the bank, Acorn, the tiny flat in Pimlico and the tedious business dinners. It brought in a necessary income, but there was an unfortunate consequence: Kitto’s time in the City inflamed his tendency to invest in unlikely schemes. A few weeks earlier, her husband had bounced through the kitchen door, slung his briefcase on the table and, grabbing his wife by her waist, planted messy kisses on her neck. Things were finally going to change, he assured her. He’d made a “fail-safe, blue-chip, pukka, five-star investment” in some kind of “bond.” He couldn’t explain what this “thingamajig” did—something to do with housing and mortgages. The more he told her it was bombproof, the greater her feeling of dread.
Jane had heard this kind of talk before: always a different concept, always the same result. Kitto had turned five hundred prime acres over to growing strawberries at a time when Spain was mass-producing the fruit at a fraction of the cost. His idea to host organic burials had led to a massive and expensive advertising campaign and only three takers. He built and self-funded a housing development but failed to get the proper permissions from the local authority: the buildings’ shells still stood empty. His hydroelectric scheme had cost many hundreds of thousands to implement but had lacked sufficient water pressure to make it viable. One Christmas he had bought the family expensive metal detectors on the assumption that, after eight hundred years, there was bound to be hidden treasure. After four days of divining and a lot of holes dug, the most exciting object found had been an engraved trowel which was valued by the local auction house at less than £20. Later, there was the sizeable investment in rare-breed animals that turned out to be rare because no one wanted them.
And now some new idea and a bigger mortgage. Frustrated, Jane banged the saucepan so hard that the handle broke. It was one of her last good pans, a wedding present given by a distant cousin. Looking at it, she wondered if it could be soldered back on. She had become good at mending things; the tractor, her car, the lawnmower had all been coaxed back into service. Filling the armless saucepan with cold water, she put it on to the Aga and noticed that neither of the hobs was hot. She bent down to check the pilot light and found that it had gone out. Taking a match, Jane tried to get it going: nothing happened. She turned on the electric oven, put the pie in and went downstairs to the cellar to check the oil tank. Flicking on the light, she walked along the musty corridor to the boiler room. Don’t panic, she told herself, four huge tanks can’t have run dry. She took out her phone and held it up against the oil gauge on Tank One. It was empty. She held the light up to the second tank and then the third and the fourth. There was no oil in any of them. No oil, no Aga, no heating, no hot water. At least it’s June, she thought miserably, and we still have electricity. The children can have showers at school. I can carry hot water to my in-laws. And as for herself and Kitto, they could take soap down to the estuary and pass it off as a newfangled health cure.
Fighting feelings of doom and despondency, Jane went back upstairs and turned left into the scullery to empty the washing machine. With Ambrose and Kitto away, at least there was less laundry. Emptying the machine, she put the wet clothes into a basket and took it out to the back courtyard to hang the things up to dry.
With the washing on the line and fifteen minutes to spare before the pie was cooked, Jane steeled herself for the inevitable. Spirits sinking, she went along the flagstone corridor to the office. Since they let the estate manager go, four years earlier, Jane had assumed the role of family accountant. In the beginning, she’d attacked the tasks with
alacrity but, as the bills mounted and the possibility of paying them lessened, her enthusiasm for sorting waned. Her filing system was split into three categories: urgent, desperate and cataclysmic. It had started as a joke; Jane had never imagined that these words would be so prophetic or that their troubles could escalate as quickly and steadily as a platoon of ants marching up a sugary bun. Over the last few months, the “cataclysmic” tray had become as large as “urgent” and, if she were being honest, many of the “desperates” needed to be upgraded. Jane picked up the top unopened letter and tore out the contents. It was English Heritage threatening, for the third time that year, to put a condemned notice on Trelawney. We have repeatedly warned you that the upkeep of this Grade 1 listed building is falling short of even the most basic requirements. On our last visit, we counted fifty-six windows in urgent need of replacement. The buttresses on the east and the south wings were clearly subsiding. The Elizabethan roof is falling in. How did that esteemed body think the family could pay for the renovations? Crumpling the letter into a ball, she threw it across the room behind the filing cabinet. The next two letters were from banks offering interest-free credit cards for withdrawals up to £10,000. Jane slipped them into a drawer. Flicking through the other envelopes, she found one headed “West Country Fuels.” There, in red capitals, was the word “Arrears.” Her eyes spun down to the figure: minus £88,000. Minus £88,000! They had to be joking. She was about to sit down and write a holding letter when she remembered the cottage pie. Wearily, she got up and went to the kitchen.
Her younger son and her daughter, fresh and hungry from school, came bounding in. Jane’s genes hardly showed in her children, who all had their father’s auburn hair and hazel eyes.
“Oh no, not bloody cottage boring pie again.” Arabella slung her bag on the kitchen table and kicked off her shoes.
“We haven’t had it for ages.” Jane picked up the trainers and threw them on to the shoe mountain.
“Not since last night anyway,” Toby said, shooting a warning look at his younger sister. Jane smiled gratefully at her son.
“This kind of food could stunt my growth. It’s 4 per cent meat and 98 per cent fur and foot,” Arabella said, piling her plate high with grey cooked meat and slightly burnt potatoes.
“That makes 102 per cent.” Toby took a smaller helping and cut himself three large slices of bread.
“Please leave some for your grandparents,” Jane said.
“They never eat anything.” Arabella sat down at the table and squeezed the tomato ketchup bottle until all the mince was covered.
“Gross,” Toby said, smearing salad cream on his bread.
“It’s so I can’t taste it.” Arabella looked reproachfully at her mother.
“Maybe tomorrow I’ll make tomato ketchup pie and you can sprinkle some mince on it.”
“Remind me to laugh.”
Jane bit her tongue. For five years, she’d been waiting for her daughter to pass out of this phase. It was no comfort that the teachers at school also found her impossible. Wolfing down the food in a few minutes, Arabella dumped her unwashed plate in the sink and left the room.
“How was your day, darling?” Jane asked Toby. After the shock of oil tanks and Anastasia’s letter, she longed to have a conversation with someone other than Pooter.
“All right.”
“Who did you hang out with?”
“No one.” Toby wiped the last of the pie up with a piece of bread, got up, kissed his mother on the cheek and vanished.
Jane looked at the leftover corner of the pie: just enough for her parents-in-law. To fill in the silence, she started to sing; and to work out some of her irritation, she beat the tops of the pans with a wooden spoon.
In the television room down the corridor, Arabella and Toby listened to their mother and rolled their eyes. “It’s the gizzards and intestines they mash into that cheap mince. It gets into your brain and sends you tonto,” Arabella said knowingly.
“Mad cow disease,” Toby agreed.
“Do you think we’re going to be orphaned?”
“No such luck.”
* * *
On the ground floor in another part of the castle, known as the Mistresses’ Wing, Enyon and Clarissa, the Earl and Countess of Trelawney, sat side by side on a small sofa in front of a four-bar electric fire. Even in June, the room was cold and Clarissa had flung a fur coat over a tweed skirt and twinset. Her husband wore a corduroy suit with leather patches at the elbow, buttoned up over a thick woollen sweater and two scarves. Above the fire there was a mantelpiece with a clock and a family portrait of an ancestor, the 12th Earl. On the lintel, there were rows of stiff, wildly out-of-date invitations as well as some old Christmas cards. On the right, a side table was piled with books and papers, a small boxed television set, and sherry and gin in cut-glass decanters. In another corner, there was a roll-top desk over which were more family portraits. The windows were framed by green velvet curtains: one ripped, one intact, both faded brown by sunlight on the inner edges. The well-trodden Turkish carpet had been worn through in certain places and there was a dog basket for a long-departed canine friend.
“I’ll redo my will tomorrow,” Enyon said.
“Have your thoughts changed since yesterday?” Clarissa asked, not unkindly.
“I’m going to leave the Gainsborough portrait to Bella.”
“Who’s Bella?” She didn’t remind her husband that the Gainsboroughs had been sold a long time ago.
“My granddaughter, you silly old bat. Honestly, Clarissa, I do wonder about you.”
“You don’t have a granddaughter called Bella,” the Countess said. “Ambrose, Toby and Arabella.”
“Who the devil is Bella?” the Earl said crossly.
“Come to think of it, it might be Arabella.”
“Ha! There’s life in the old boy yet.” Enyon slapped his thigh. “Come here and I will search you, all over, particularly in those nice lace knickers.”
“I haven’t worn lace knickers since 1962,” the Countess giggled. She was eighty, while her husband was eighty-five. Today, his wrinkled face and gizzardy neck stuck out of a collar many sizes too large, making him look like an old tortoise. In his youth, Enyon had been a towering man with a neck as thick as a telegraph pole, who’d thought nothing of lifting up small heifers and could exhaust three fresh horses on a day’s hunting. His roar of laughter or shout of displeasure could be heard half a mile away. During their long marriage, the Earl had been constitutionally, almost pathologically, unfaithful. The combination of great looks, supreme self-confidence, a title and a monumental libido meant that few were safe; over the years his conquests included wives of friends, actresses, housemaids, girl grooms—so many that his nickname had been the Earl of Tres-horney. Nevertheless, his wife, determined to turn a blind eye, counted their marriage as uncommonly happy and content. There had only been one near-irreversible mistake, when both her husband and the girl had lost their heads and threatened to elope. The young lady, like a few others before her, had been dispatched to the Colonies with a sizeable pay-off. Now, looking at her beloved, shrunken, desiccated version of her husband, Clarissa knew that she’d been right to disregard the peccadilloes. How lucky for her that she had been born without any romantic aspirations.
“Is the yardarm at the right place?” Enyon asked.
“It’s 5 p.m. One hour to go.”
“Can’t we pretend it’s 6?”
“Standards, darling. Standards.”
The cold wrapped itself around their old bones so viciously that neither could move.
“Is it just me or is time going particularly slowly today?”
“Maybe a little slower,” Clarissa had to admit.
Their lives had been narrowed by age and infirmity. They rose at 7, washed and took a short constitutional walk around the castle’s perimeter. After that
they sat by the small fire and had a race to complete The Times crossword (they lived in hope). The monotony was broken by a stiff sherry at 12 and the lunchtime news at 1 p.m. There followed a brief nap and then “correspondence” (largely letters of condolences). There was a second constitutional at 3 p.m., a flannel bath at 5, another “snifter” at 6 p.m., supper at 7 and bed by 8:30 p.m.
“What do you think Mulligan will prepare tonight?” Enyon knew perfectly well that there was no cook but couldn’t bear to break his wife’s heart. Clarissa minded desperately about standards and staff. Enyon knew this was a woman’s lot; they didn’t have the brains or brawn to do more than worry about domestic life. Looking over at his wife, he thought how damned lucky he’d been. Clarissa had kept her figure and her counsel; a husband couldn’t ask for more than that.
“Let’s hope we don’t get wretched cottage pie again.”
She had never told her husband that the chef these days was their daughter-in-law. Mrs. Mulligan, the cook, had retired nearly ten years ago, but Clarissa was pleased that the Earl imagined a significant number of staff in the kitchen.
“Shall we change for dinner?” she asked. It took at least sixty minutes for them to get out of their day and into the evening clothes.
“Do we have to, darling? It’s so damn cold.”
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