she’d been away, but she realized now that she’d forgotten just how breathtaking the Peak District really was. This afternoon a light rain was falling, but a few pale sun rays fought their way bravely through the clouds, bathing the jutted tops of the Pennines in a soft, celestial light. With the exception of the odd crumbling farm-worker’s cottage, this stretch of the Hope Valley was devoid of buildings, and seemed barely touched by man. After the ugly urban sprawl of Oradea, it was a blessed relief for Tish’s senses, and she drank it in like a hummingbird gorging on nectar.
Abel, on the other hand, was far more interested in talking than sightseeing. If there were an Olympic team for not-drawing-breath, Tish’s five-year-old son would surely have been appointed captain.
‘Do you know why it would die?’ he asked, not bothering to wait for a reply. ‘Because dinosaurs are allergic to falling over. Like I’m allergic to mushrooms. What are you allergic to, Mum? Some people aren’t allergic to anything, also some animals aren’t, but some are, like monkeys. Not giraffes, though. Unless they ate a log. That would prob’ly get stuck in their necks and then … hey, look, another tractor! Seven! That’s seven, Mum! I’m gonna be seven, after I’ve been six. Where’s my birthday gonna be again? At home, or in In-ger-land? Can I have two parties?’
‘England,’ corrected Tish, who was only half listening. ‘Not Ing-er-land. Try to stop talking just for a few minutes Abi, OK? We’re almost there.’
The taxi took a left turn and the road narrowed sharply as it climbed and weaved its way around the hillside. Occasional farms gave way to grey stone houses, their walled front gardens bereft of flowers other than the occasional early snowdrop bravely rearing its flimsy white head above the muck. This was the outskirts of Loxley village. Tish felt her heart soar as they passed each familiar landmark: Bassets Mill, Mr Parks’s farm, the abandoned dovecote that the local children used as a makeshift climbing frame-cum-treehouse. A few moments later and they were in the village proper.
A five-times-winner of Britain’s Best Kept Village competition, Loxley was small but perfectly formed. It had a triangular green that was bisected by a tributary of the Derwent, which villagers had crossed for centuries by means of a Saxon stone footbridge. On one side of the green stood the post office and village shop. On the other was the perfectly preserved Norman church, St Agnes’s, and on the third, the focal point of all village life great and small: The Carpenter’s Arms pub.
‘What do you think, darling?’ Tish hugged her son excitedly.
‘It’s really pretty!’ Abel grinned. ‘It’s like a picture from my book.’ His sweet, snub nose was now glued to the window. Villages, apparently, were a lot more interesting than fells. ‘Is it a park? When does it close?’
Tish squeezed his hand. ‘It never closes.’
‘Never? Cool! Can we go in that shop? Do they have M & Ms? Do they have Lego?’
The taxi continued through the village and down a gentle escarpment, Abel chattering excitedly all the while. The lane narrowed to a single car’s width, hemmed in on either side by thick bushes of dog rose and briar, so it was almost like driving through a tunnel. Then suddenly, without warning, the valley opened up again to breathtaking views. A few hundred yards further and the road abruptly stopped in front of a pair of lichened wooden gates, propped open with two stone saddle stools. Through the gates, a wide, sweeping driveway wound its way into the distance, looking for all the world like the entrance to some enchanted land.
‘It’s a palace!’ gasped Abel, his eyes on stalks. ‘Who lives up there?’
‘We do.’ Tish laughed as the taxi pulled through the gates. ‘For a little while, anyway. The house actually belongs to your Uncle Jago –’ the words stuck in Tish’s craw–‘but he’s away at the moment. Mummy’s friend Mrs Drummond has been looking after it for him while he’s gone, and we’ve come to help her.’
This seemed to satisfy Abel, who was more interested in the oak trees in the park and which of them might be most suitable for his planned Tarzan treehouse than Loxley’s complex ownership structure. In-ger-land, he had already decided, was infinitely superior to Romania. He hoped his Uncle Jago’s holiday lasted a long, long time.
He hoped it even more when he saw the house, a turreted, Disney fairytale that was just crying out for someone to play knights in it. While Tish paid the cabbie and struggled to drag her suitcase across the gravel, Abel raced ahead of her, bounding up the stone steps through the open front door.
A plump, elderly woman, wearing a striped apron over her gardening trousers and sweater, appeared in the hallway.
‘Who are you?’ Abel asked bluntly.
‘I’m Mrs D,’ said the woman, smiling as she wiped her floury hands on her apron. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Abel Henry Gunning Crewe,’ said Abel. ‘Do you like dinosaurs?’
Before she had time to answer, Mrs Drummond saw Tish lugging an enormous suitcase into the hallway. ‘Darling! Let me help you.’ She relieved Tish of the case, plonking it down at the foot of the stairs, and threw her arms around her former charge, enveloping Tish in a bosomy, cinnamon-scented bear hug. ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you.’
‘You too, Mrs D,’ said Tish with feeling. ‘You met Abel?’
‘I did indeed,’ Mrs Drummond grinned, turning to watch the little boy who was now mountaineering his way up the banisters. ‘He’s gorgeous.’
‘Isn’t he?’ Tish grinned back. ‘I thought he’d be tired after the flight and everything, but he hasn’t stopped talking since six o’clock this morning.’
‘Not to worry,’ said Mrs Drummond. ‘I’ve made some cinnamon pound cake. A couple of slices of that will take the wind out of his sails. Now, what would you like to do first, lovie? Eat? Have a bath? Unpack?’
‘No,’ said Tish resolutely. ‘I’d like to meet our house guests.’
A cloud of anxiety descended over Mrs Drummond’s kindly features. ‘I don’t think you should do that right away, Letitia. They’re not very nice people. Wait till this afternoon and I’ll get Bill and one of the other farm boys to go in there with you. They mostly keep to the East Wing, so they shouldn’t bother us here.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Tish. ‘I don’t need a bloody bodyguard in my own house. If you’d take Abel and get him something to eat, I’ll go and sort them out.’
‘I really don’t think you understand, darling …’ Mrs Drummond began. But Tish was already marching off down the hallway towards the East Wing. She always was a stubborn child, thought Mrs Drummond, watching her retreating back. Perhaps she should call Bill Connelly, just in case.
Walking down the East corridor, past Loxley’s grand, formal rooms, Tish gasped in horror as the extent of the damage wrought by Jago’s ‘friends’ unfolded. Every few feet, dark rectangles of wallpaper revealed the places where paintings had been removed and, according to Mrs Drummond, taken to London to be sold for drugs. In the library, antique bookcases stood with their doors hanging off the hinges and an array of beautifully bound first editions spilling out onto the floor. In the grate, Tish saw torn spines and singed pages: some Barbarian had used her father’s books as kindling! Everywhere there was dirt, Persian runners covered with the imprints of muddy boots, empty mugs and glasses littering every available surface, some of them growing livid green mould on the dregs of whatever vile, stagnant liquid
