House of Trelawney

by Hannah Rothschild

Blaze was shocked. “It was your home too—you must love it.”

  “I’ve had sixty years to get over that love affair. When I was young and expelled from Eden, as you were, it broke my heart. I moved on; it’s about time you did too.”

  “It’s the only place I ever felt at home,” Blaze said, reaching for Tony’s handkerchief. “Aren’t we formed by the landscape we came from? I am a product of that earth and of the water that bubbles up from the springs. I can feel the floorboards under my feet, picture the rafters over my head, which came from the woods we played in. At night my dreams are full of the ghosts and echoes of my forebears; I am woken by their laughter and sighs. At Trelawney, I was part of a continuum, a pattern, but here in London I am nothing, no one. My tap water has been through eight other bodies, none of whom I will know or ever meet. Maybe I walk past them in the street, maybe not. I eat food grown in a country I’ll never visit. At Trelawney I had an identity. Here I am simply a statistic.” Her tears flowed freely now. “I hate Kitto and Jane for living the life I was meant to enjoy.”

  “Don’t assume they’re happy. They are probably just as desperate.”

  “Miserable in luxury.”

  “Still miserable, only with better, older china.” Tony looked at her sympathetically. “Plus you don’t have their shame of failing to make the most of a wonderful life. Yours is a blank canvas. What a pity you never appreciated that freedom.”

  “It’s not what I wanted.”

  Tony leaned back in his chair. “You are my favourite relation: stronger, braver, kinder and cleverer than the rest of them put together. Why haven’t those attributes and your amazing success translated into a happy life?”

  Blaze started to remonstrate but thought better of it.

  “When did you last have a holiday?”

  Blaze blew her nose loudly.

  Tony winced. “Could you try and be a bit more ladylike? Next time I’ll take you to a working-man’s cafeteria.”

  “I can’t go abroad when the world’s about to end.”

  “A watched kettle never boils,” Tony said. “Besides, there’s a newfangled thing called the internet and the mobile telephone.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to go,” Blaze said in a small voice. “I can’t face sitting in a spa or on a beach on my own.”

  “You can come with me on Tikki’s yacht. Lots of lovely octogenarians.”

  “That sounds depressing.”

  “Now who’s being a body fascist? We are young people trapped in old skin.”

  “It’s not the bodies, it’s the endless chat about people I don’t know.”

  “You must have other options?”

  “Literally none.”

  “Do some charity work. Being desired brings transitory pleasures, being essential brings lasting joy.”

  “That’s what my psychic said. The economics don’t stack up. I give 10 per cent of my earnings to good causes. It makes more sense for the charity to keep me at work than have me out in the field.”

  “Once a mathematician, always a mathematician,” Tony said. “You must stop trying to control; leave some things to chance. Live a little. I dare you.”

  * * *

  Later that morning, Blaze took a train to Buckinghamshire. As the train trundled through the outskirts of London, she thought how dreary this part of England was compared to her beloved Cornwall. Here, uniform red-brick villages were bordered by neat little fields. Valleys which must once have been beautiful were bisected by ugly dual carriageways and scarred by long rows of pylons carrying electricity to new towns and superstores. Blaze imagined the constant thrum of traffic above the hedgerows and at night an orange phosphorescence from street lights hovering over the fields.

  She had received Wolfe’s invitation to lunch a few days earlier, but had no idea where he lived. His email had said: You’ll be met at Haddenham Station. She hatched clear ideas about Wolfe’s house and grounds: a gated, long tarmac road lined with young trees would lead in a straight line to a huge mock–Queen Anne mansion. Mrs. Wolfe, encased in a velvet tracksuit and dripping with gold jewellery and diamonds, would shout at indulged miniature dogs and obsequious Filipino servants. Wolfe himself would wear luxuriously soft cashmere tweeds and pastel-coloured cashmere pullovers. Both would be “watching their weight.” Mrs. W would talk about box sets, Mr. W would discuss the market fluctuations. She’d be fearful of foreigners, he of crime. After lunch there would be a short potter around the six-acre garden to admire Mrs. W’s roses followed by a visit to his study for some “serious talk.” There, underneath a late chocolate-box Renoir (“bought for a song when you could buy art”), he’d be condescending about her market analysis and give her a few useless tips.

  As the train pulled into Haddenham Station, she was tempted to cross the platform and take the next service back to London. Curiosity triumphed—just. At the station car park there were five large Rovers and a purring BMW. Blaze walked towards them but, one by one, her fellow passengers overtook her and got into those cars. Blaze stood and glanced around. In the far corner there was a beaten-up Land Rover. She looked in its direction and, to her surprise, the driver flashed his lights twice. The door opened and out stepped a man wearing jeans and a wax coat.

  “Blaze Scott?” he called.

  Blaze smiled and walked towards the car. Wolfe must have sent a farm worker to pick her up.

  The man held out a hand and Blaze shook it, feeling the rough calloused skin of a manual labourer. He didn’t introduce himself. “You should have worn less formal clothes,” he said. “Those shoes won’t last long out here. What size are you?”

  “Six,” Blaze said. She went round to the passenger side of the car and saw a large unbrushed collie sitting on the seat.

  “Queenie, back, now.” The dog jumped onto the back seat, shooting Blaze a reproachful look.

  “I haven’t made a friend there,” she said.

  “One-man dog. You never stood a chance,” he laughed.

  Blaze tried to brush the hairs and mud from the seat, knowing her black suit would pick up every spot of dirt. What, she wondered, would Wolfe think?

  The man put the car into first gear and it lurched into action. Blaze held on to the side of the door and laughed. “I learned to drive in a car like this,” she said. “My father sent us out as soon as we could see over the steering wheel.” She looked around at the dashboard and on the floor at an assortment of random objects. “It had much of the same stuff—string, binder twine, wire cutters and gloves.”

  “The essentials of country living.”

  “I never thought of this area as country. More Metroland.”

  “Next to the wilds of Cornwall, it must be tame.”

  She thought it odd that a farmhand was so well informed.

  They drove in silence for a few miles before turning off the road down a track that ran through a tangled wood. The Land Rover bucked and skidded in the deep, bumpy lanes and Blaze hung on to the dashboard.

  “The best way to deter visitors,” he said, navigating potholes and fallen trunks. After a while they came through a clearing and emerged in a deep cleft of a valley whose high banks were covered in wild flowers and grasses. Blaze gasped; it was enchanting. There was an open pasture planted with mature oaks and beech trees and through the middle a meandering river with sheep grazing on one side, cattle on the other. Occasionally there was a break in the ribbon of green made by a drystone wall, a rambling hedge or a small copse, but otherwise the valley seemed endless.

  “This is unexpected,” Blaze shouted over the noise of the engine.

  “It was in the same family for six hundred years,” the driver shouted back. “Never had a drop of fertiliser or a chemical near it. It’s the most perfectly preserved natural environment in southern England. Of course we can’t stop the birds and other wild animals bringing progress in on thei
r coats or in their shit, but we like to think that once here, they won’t ever leave.”

  “I’m not sure I would either,” Blaze said, as the Land Rover bounced over a wide track.

  After a few more miles they reached a farmhouse and two large stone barns. Two more dogs appeared, barking wildly. Blaze saw an old red tractor, a 1960s model that she recognised from her childhood, and horses’ heads sticking out from a stable. Other pieces of antiquated farm machinery lay here and there and, most incongruously, a small merry-go-round. The farmhand parked the car outside the front door and got out.

  “I’ll let the lady out,” he said.

  Blaze waited for him to open her door but he let down the tailgate and Queenie jumped to the ground.

  Blaze got out of the car and stepped into a puddle. Her smart kitten-heeled shoes kept her heels dry, but her toes were immediately sodden. Looking down at her suit, she saw it was covered in white dog hairs.

  “Is there somewhere I can wash before meeting Mr. Wolfe?” she asked.

  He looked at her in confusion and roared with laughter. “I’m Wolfe; call me Joshua.”

  Blaze couldn’t remember ever being so embarrassed.

  “Would your wife have any shoes I could borrow?”

  “No,” he said and, without waiting, walked into the house.

  Amazed by his rudeness, she followed him inside.

  “I’ll find you something to wear.” Looking her up and down, he added, “You’re a size ten.”

  “Eight, actually.”

  “I’ll lend you a belt.”

  While he was gone, Blaze took in a low-ceilinged room with whitewashed walls and a worn flagstone floor. There was an open fire, unlaid, and next to it two baggy chintz-covered armchairs. One wall was lined with shelves, painted red and loaded with assorted bowls and cups. A plate rack hung over a long white ceramic sink and the pine draining board had been scrubbed so hard that it was almost white in colour. Seeing two recently washed mugs, Blaze wondered where Mrs. Wolfe had got to. The table, also scrubbed pine, was set for two, an earthenware jug spilling over with wild flowers in the centre. On the sideboard there was a loaf of bread, some salad in a bowl and a large glass carafe of water. The room was untidy but the acceptable side of clean. Wolfe returned with a pair of boots and some clothes.

  “Do you ride?” he asked.

  “I haven’t for a long while.”

  “Let’s eat before we take the horses out. Do you have to be back by any particular time?”

  “I have a life,” she said testily. Already Wolfe had made too many presumptions.

  Over lunch she had a chance to study her host more closely. She put his age between forty-five and fifty-five. He was about six feet tall, with long legs and wide shoulders. His face had turned a deep brown in the sun, but she could see from the flesh peeking out below the neckline of his shirt that it was naturally white and slightly freckled. He had hooded eyes and deep blue irises. His hair, greying at the temples, was a dark brown and thinning slightly over the top. His features were slightly too large for his face—he had a big nose, made larger by a prominent break, and a sharp jawline. The ageing of his skin and the deepening of lines around his eyes and mouth made his facial architecture softer; as a young man he’d never have been called good-looking, but he was certainly middle-aged handsome. His voice was surprisingly soft, low and with a slight Canadian twang.

  He moved around the kitchen with considerable grace, sidestepping Queenie and an old lurcher, who both followed his movements devotedly.

  “How did you end up here?” Blaze asked.

  “I was born on a small farm in Canada. I’m what’s known as second generation, the child of two German Holocaust survivors who thought they were going to America to begin a new life and got as far as Toronto.”

  “Where had they been interned?”

  “Belsen. They were twelve when they went in, and clung to each other for the rest of their lives. Their tragedy is that, while they didn’t die, they never learned how to live.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “They tried to shut their memories behind a door of silence; denial isn’t the same as forgetting.”

  “They never spoke about their experience?”

  Wolfe shook his head. “Not once. But if we left the house they both held my hands so hard that the blood stopped in my fingers. Not one day passed, often one hour, even minutes, when they didn’t tell me how much I meant to them, how I was their only reason for living.”

  Blaze tried to remember either of her parents touching her, beyond the awkward hugs before the chauffeur took her back to school and a handshake from her father when she got into Oxford. Neither had ever said they loved her.

  As if reading her mind, Wolfe added, “The weight of love can be crushing. A child is too young to bear the burden of a generation’s dreams.”

  “Which is worse? One child smothered or the other starved by the absence of love?” Blaze shifted awkwardly in her chair. “What an oddly personal conversation.”

  “It’s often easier to talk to strangers.”

  Blaze wondered if that was right; she was many full moons away from any kind of intimacy. “How did you end up in England?”

  “My parents died within two days of each other; I was eighteen and left Canada with a couple of books, a change of clothes and no direction. I travelled around the world for about seven years, working on ships, factories, farms, anything. I joined a travelling circus in France, fell in love with a trapeze artist, followed her to England, and, when the troop moved on, I stayed behind.”

  “That’s all I’m going to get?” Blaze asked.

  “For now, yes; I want something for you to come back for.”

  Blaze looked up; he held her glance. Her heart gave a lurch, like a magnet pulled by gravity towards a pole. Get a grip, she chided herself and, feeling a blush creeping up from her neck to her face, pretended to cough.

  “Are you OK?” he asked and poured her a glass of water.

  Blaze drank it in greedy gulps, hoping he thought her redness was coincidental.

  Wolfe cut two large slices of bread on a scrubbed board and, fetching a large hunk of cheese from the larder, set it down on the table.

  “Keep an eye on Queenie. She loves Cheddar.”

  Blaze looked at the dog who eyeballed her back; the animal wasn’t thinking about cheese.

  Wolfe opened the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine.

  “I forgot to ask Molly to make any soup,” he said. Blaze felt a stab of disappointment; of course, there had to be a Molly in the background: doubtless her own polar opposite, a slight, beautiful, blonde girl just the right side of thirty.

  “So it’s your turn. I know you’re from a grand Cornish family.”

  Blaze tried to think of a story to tell—anything but the banal truth. She wanted to impress him, to invent a colourful hinterland, but she was out of practice talking about herself. In the financial world there were few women, and most men were only interested in their own lives and opinions. For her, conversation was a withered, underused muscle.

  “We’re a really close family. Probably spend far too much time in each other’s company,” she lied.

  “When you’re not out dancing.”

  Blaze laughed out loud: a hollow, tinkly sound. Uncomfortable under the spotlight of his gaze, she tried to steer the conversation away from herself. “How did you get started?”

  “Making the first ten thousand was harder than anything else. I never thought I would break free of abject poverty. I got very lucky; someone needed to sell a business quickly and I happened to know another who needed it. Did it a few more times, built up some capital, bought and sold a few things, diversified. Right time, right place. One of the most unfair things about capitalism is that once you’ve made a lot of money, it becomes e
asier to make more: the wealthy don’t have to do a lot.”

  “You and I know there’s more to it than that.”

  “I employ incredibly talented people who have helped me build the world’s most sophisticated computers and the fastest internet router in England.”

  “Algorithms are only as good as the information you feed them.”

  “Do you want to know the real secret of my success?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “It’s spending hours on a tractor ploughing a field or herding sheep or churning butter.”

  Blaze, irritated, didn’t laugh; how typical of a man to be so condescending, assuming that she might not understand complicated financial systems or be interested.

  Wolfe leaned towards her. “You think I’m being facetious; but the mundanity of those chores, the repetition, acts as a kind of meditation. I start each day with a series of numbers and questions written on a piece of paper, put them in my pocket and get on with the business of farming. By mid morning the answers are clear.”

  Blaze looked to see if he was teasing, but his face was serious. “It can’t be that simple.”

  “It works for me.”

  He got up and, taking the bowl from the sideboard, tossed the salad with two large wooden spoons. Blaze liked watching him work; there was a sensuality to his movements.

  “If I had this farm, I’d never leave,” she said.

  “It’s hard sometimes.” He put the bowl on the table. “I always attend your presentations. Even I have to get out of the valley.”

  “I never saw you.”

  “Maybe you didn’t know where to look.” He sat down again.

  “Your argument was compelling and your colleagues’ behaviour repellent.” Wolfe pushed the salad towards her.

  Blaze didn’t reply—she was touched by his show of support but wished fervently he hadn’t witnessed her humiliation. “I don’t understand why stocks aren’t tumbling. Those businesses are telling whopping lies; their balance sheets should be written down by a huge percentage.”

  “Maybe the collective desire for things to remain the same is overriding the reality,” Wolfe suggested. He scooped some salad onto her plate and then grated slivers of Parmesan over the top. Blaze smiled and speared a piece of lettuce with her fork. It was home-grown and so fresh that she could detect the taste of warm earth and sunshine.