since you mention it.’
Barney followed her into the kitchen. He stood at the sink washing his hands while Nina foraged in cupboards. She put bread and cheese and fruit on the table, and poured two glasses of wine. The lush greenery outside kept catching her eye. The afternoon had mysteriously become an impromptu celebration.
‘You’ll have to teach me what these plants are, you realize. I only know the Christmas rose.’
The hellebore he had brought her on Boxing Day had been joined by two more. Their new leaves stood up from the earth like eagerly raised hands.
‘Easy. There’s Choisya ternata, Fatsia japonica, Hedera Goldheart and Ravensholst –’
‘Stop. I’m lost already. My husband was the gardener.’
He hesitated. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It’s all right.’
It was, she thought. A year, almost, since Richard’s death. Now she was drinking wine in the middle of the afternoon in her house in Dean’s Row with an amiable blond giant of a boy, and she had been pierced by a sudden arrow of happiness.
Barney was thinking that when Nina smiled, when she was caught unawares, she reminded him of a picture. Cathy had had a print of it pinned on her bedroom wall. Botticelli, was it?
‘Go on,’ Nina told him. ‘Have something to eat.’
He began with a fist-sized chunk of bread and cheese.
‘You’ll have to water out there a lot to start with. Even if the weather’s wet. The beds won’t catch much rain, being overhung by the walls.’
‘What do I use? A watering can?’
‘If you’ve got all day. Or I could come back and rig up a hose and a sprinkler for you.’
‘I can’t ask you to do anything more.’
‘I’d like to do it. And we Cleggs always do what we like.’
Barney had reached across and refilled Nina’s glass for her. She could see his father in him, only Barney was so likeable.
‘Do you? All right, then,’ she agreed, knowing that it had not taken much to persuade her and resolving that she would not worry about it. ‘If you can. Come back and fix up some water for me.’
‘I’ll come on Wednesday, then.’
He finished his chunk of bread and began on another.
‘Wednesday?’
‘There’s a lot of college that’s worth bunking on Wednesday.’
‘Am I supposed to agree to you missing college in order to come and fiddle with hosepipes for me?’
He put his head on one side and examined her face. In the strong spring light Nina knew that the fine lines around her eyes and the furrows at the corners of her mouth would be clearly visible, and at the same time she could see the boy’s ruddy open-air skin and the unclouded whites of his eyes. Untroubled healthiness and good humour beamed out of him.
‘You needn’t agree to anything, Nina. Only I know that practical experience, actually doing the job, beats any amount of classroom theory. I’ve never been any good on paper.’
Belatedly Nina understood that there was a whole subtext to this talk of hosepipes and practical experience, that the boy was flirting with her, and that she was not displeased by the discovery. She began to laugh, and Barney laughed with her, and their amusement sealed the impromptu celebration between them.
At last Nina took a deep breath. ‘Yes. Well. You’re old enough to know your own mind. But if you’ve finished your wine and had enough to eat, Barney, I should think about doing some work now.’
‘I’ll see you on Wednesday,’ he said, as she opened the front door for him. ‘I’ll bring along everything to finish the job.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ Nina said crisply.
She glanced across the green to the tarpaulins masking the west front. In the spring sunshine, the world looked newly bright and clean. The statues would surely re-emerge from their lime poultices as crisp as unfurling leaves.
‘Where are you going?’ Cathy asked her sister.
Lucy was examining her face in the magnifying mirror that extended on a bracket from the wall of their shared bathroom. She had been plucking her eyebrows and now she turned her head from side to side with a sharply critical expression.
‘Just out, okay?’
‘I’m sorry. I only asked.’
‘You’re in my light, actually.’
‘You’re always going just out. Who is it?’
‘Shut up, Cathy, will you? And move, so I can see what I’m doing.’
‘You look divine, darling. But that’s my shirt.’
Lucy snapped the cap on to her lipstick. She gave her reflection a last narrow-eyed appraisal, then she turned her back on the glass and faced her sister. The mirrored walls doubled and redoubled their twin likenesses, but the effect was too familiar for them to notice it.
‘You don’t mind, Cath, do you? And can I take the car?’
Cathy sighed. ‘I hope it isn’t who I think it is.’
Lucy crammed her Chanel purse into her handbag. ‘Don’t say anything. Just don’t. I’ve got to go now.’
Cathy followed her, frowning with concern. They met Barney coming up the stairs. He was whistling, but he stopped and took his hands out of his pockets when he saw Lucy.
‘Hey. You look real.’
‘Don’t try to be hip, Barn. You’re too old.’
Lucy framed a kiss in the air. On her way out she looked into the kitchen. Hannah was standing in front of the Aga in her dressing gown, heating up bedtime milk for Freddie with a fretful Laura balanced on one hip. Hannah had a cold, and so did the two children. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was red.
‘See you,’ Lucy called to her.
‘Your father telephoned.’
Hannah yanked the milk pan off the heat.
‘Is he okay?’
‘Mmm. I think. He won’t be back for a few days, he said. He’s still got some things to sort out.’
Darcy had gone to London and then, saying he had some business to do, had told Hannah he had to go to Germany. He had never been away from Wilton for so long before.
At least Vicky Ransome was at home, where she should be. Hannah had seen her, from a distance, in town. Hannah tilted the pan, staring at the flat moon of milk
