of a ringtone or bleep of an arriving message so familiar that they presented no barrier to the seamless dialogue between them.
The digger driver reversed smartly away from the trench. A flock of gulls rose from the raw earth and banked over the ochre tree tops, wheeling back as the machine trundled off to dump its hopper-load of soil and flints on a swelling mound. It was a soft, windless morning. The grinding of the digger and the cries of the gulls carried a long way in the still air.
Two workmen towed a heavy roll of polythene sheeting from the back of a truck whilst the site manager in a fluorescent jacket and hard hat talked on his mobile at the door of the Portakabin office. On the lip of the trench a young man in a helmet was standing alone with his hands in his pockets. He studied the loads of earth as they were sliced and scooped away, from time to time glancing over at the contractor or his client. He was the first person at the site to notice two women and a tall, thin man strolling towards them from the direction of the main house. He sighed to himself. They were entitled to be here, of course, but in his experience visitors at an excavation meant nothing but delays and questions. He didn’t know Mrs Meadowe personally, but he came from Meddlett where she had the reputation of being unfriendly. He stuck his hands deeper in his pockets and concentrated on the digging.
Amos was also watching the work. He was in an excellent humour. Something that was ingenious, fitting and intricately designed was going to be created here out of nothing, on the rim of a field in an attentive landscape. Satisfaction that construction was at last under way spilled all through him. His sense of happy anticipation even increased when the digger momentarily halted and he caught the sound of laughter and raised voices close at hand. As soon as he saw Katherine he raised his arm and waved, beckoning the visitors across. Miranda and Colin followed her, picking their way past the contractors.
‘We thought we’d come and see what’s happening,’ Miranda called to him.
‘Progress,’ he shouted back.
The three of them scuttled towards him, bundling out of the path of the digger and gathering to inspect the work.
Amos put a proprietorial arm around his wife’s shoulders.
In the course of their married life Katherine and he had lived in a dozen houses, from the first cramped terrace to the latest sprawling mansion in half an acre of suburban garden. He thought of all the different property viewings, the potential homes with actual merits to be decoded from the hyperbole of various estate agents, the subsequent measurings and deliberations, and the final compromises that had to be made in order to fit a family within a set of walls, like a crab into a pre-existing shell, with the boys arguing over who was to have the bigger room and Katherine saying that really she was going to miss the old house. Now for the first time his family would have a home designed around it, not the other way around. Not that they were any longer precisely a family, of course; Sam and Toby had their own places, he had seen to that. But they would still come. Children took a long time to detach themselves nowadays, he had noticed, if they ever really did so.
Now his wife turned her head and remarked to Colin and Miranda that she couldn’t imagine what their home was going to be like when it was finally built.
‘There’s so much space, and air and sunshine. It’s hard to picture what a house will look like plonked down here.’
Amos frowned. Her vagueness as well as her choice of words irritated him.
‘Darling, you’ve seen all the plans a thousand times. Drawings, computer simulations, every single stage of the process.’
She only shook her head, and laughed.
‘I know. Weird, isn’t it?’
Miranda had brought a basket. ‘I thought we should have a celebration,’ she announced, to cover the momentary awkwardness. She led the way to a vantage point under the trees and unpacked a bottle of champagne and a carton of orange juice. Amos waved to the workmen and followed the others.
Miranda had found a reason for a celebration almost every other day at Mead. It was as if she were the entertainments secretary and they were freshmen newly arrived at university, needing scheduled social events and copious supplies of drink to kick-start their friendships. Four days ago Selwyn had announced that a major phase of his demolition work was complete, and they had gathered between the ceiling props and barrows of rubble to admire the open space and to drink wine poured into the plastic mugs that were all Polly had been able to muster. It was two in the morning before they finally dispersed to bed. Amos had joked that he wasn’t sure he could stand the pace and Selwyn countered that he couldn’t see why not, since they had little else that was significant to occupy them these days. At that point Polly took his arm and guided him off to bed in the tarp shelter.
Miranda threw herself into all these events, carrying the others on the tide of her high spirits. She was already screwing the plastic feet into a set of picnic wineglasses as they sat down in a row on the dry turf. Colin leaned back against a tree trunk. He was tired, but he raised his glass when Miranda handed it to him.
‘Here’s to the perfect house. May you live like a king, Amos. A solar-heated, green-spirited monarch.’
‘What about me?’ Katherine demanded. They all turned to look at her.
‘And a queen, K, of course,’ Colin added.
They sipped champagne and watched the digger as it rolled to and fro like a sturdy toy. The sun rose higher above the trees, but the outlines of the copses and field crests in the distance were blurred by mist, suggesting a cold night to come. The digger came up with another hopper full of earth, and they heard the note of the engine change as the driver backed up a short distance.
He jumped from the cab and walked across to look down into the trench. At the same time, the young man who had been watching slid his hands out of his pockets and walked briskly to the edge.
Amos was leaning on one elbow. He propped himself a little higher to see what was going on.
The digger driver returned to his seat and Amos nodded his approval, but then the man turned off the engine, dismounted once more and hurried away towards the site office. The other workmen stopped what they were doing.
‘What now?’ Amos groaned.
‘Maybe he’s found some buried treasure,’ Miranda teased, but she sat up straighter too. ‘After I’ve gone and sold the land to you, as well.’
‘It’s some bloody annoying thing. I just know it.’
The site manager left the Portakabin. There was now a cluster of hi-vis jackets and helmets gathered about the raw slit in the ground. Amos launched himself to his feet. He charged off with his head down and his elbows jutting at an angle. His trousers rippled over his broad shanks. Rather uncertainly, Katherine got up and followed him.
‘Better take a look?’ Colin murmured to Miranda. She was already on her feet.
A line of gulls settled on the roof of the stationary digger. They rotated their heads as if they were waiting for a curtain to go up. A sharp smell of sour earth and torn roots hung in the air.
