6

I reached for the heavy iron knocker, memories of the young boy who’d turned back, knowing he wasn’t welcome. I stopped myself. This was different. The young boy was long gone. Since that day, I’d faced a lot worse than the impropriety of walking into a house unannounced. I tried the handle and the door opened. Unlocked. Like the Leckies’ cottage, like my farm, far enough from any big bad town.

I walked through the house. There was a dark study to my left, smelling of leather and the remnants of long-gone cigar smoke. ‘Grandad’s dead,’ one of the men had said. Kate’s father, presumably, which would make the men her sons. There was a drawing room to my right, musty furniture from the glory days of Victoria’s reign. The house was grander than the Leckies’, but just as neglected.

‘Are they gone?’ A woman’s voice came from upstairs, followed by a tread on the upper step.

‘No,’ I said. ‘They’re not gone, and they’re not going. We need to talk.’

The owner of the voice paused, then the footsteps -resumed, down the stairs.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, when she was halfway down the scuffed oak staircase. It was Kate, but it wasn’t. I’d been expecting a young girl, but instead I met an aging woman, dressed for outdoor work, a pair of leather gloves in one hand. She must have been going through the same thought process. How much of the thirteen-year-old boy was left in me?

We stared at each other.

‘Kate,’ I said.

She took another few stairs, and stopped again, keeping the high ground.

‘Cook,’ she said.

My adversaries appeared. They stopped in the doorway, like dogs that weren’t allowed past a threshold.

‘There’s a problem,’ the injured man said.

Kate sighed and looked at me.

‘I presume you’re the problem?’

‘He was waiting for us,’ the man said. ‘He had a gun.’

I admired his use of the English language. He hadn’t lied, just hadn’t specified who ‘he’ was. He was afraid of Kate. Didn’t want to be caught out in a lie. Needed some way of backing out of it.

‘Lucky I was there,’ I said.

‘Apparently we’ve got some catching up to do,’ she said, finishing her descent of the stairs and brushing past me. She shouted to the injured man.

‘Get that arm looked at. You’re no use to me like that.’

I followed her into the drawing room and stood awkwardly, unsure of how to regain the initiative. I’d come here expecting a fight, now I was being received. The drawing room smelt of coal from the fireplace. Too many years without having the chimney swept. I studied rows of untouched books on the shelves, thick with dust.

‘Sit,’ Kate said, as she herself sat on a couch in front of the fireplace. I studied the books for another minute, for form’s sake.

Kate rang a bell on a side table, and a uniformed girl -appeared.

‘Tea,’ Kate said. A statement. Not a request to the servant, or a question to me. A woman who knew what she wanted and was used to getting it.

I sat. Opposite sides of the fireplace, a settee each, like two great nations facing off over a piece of disputed territory. She looked at me, not hiding her curiosity.

She was the same age as me. Forty. I’d always imagined she’d been living a refined life, the wife of a minor aristocrat. A success story for the daughter of a self-made solicitor, having clawed her way out of the middle class. I’d been wrong. The woman who sat in front of me hadn’t lived a life of ease. Her face was lined from years of outdoor work. Her hair was greying, pulled back in a functional ponytail.

‘I heard you’re a big landowner now,’ she said. ‘Riding to hounds with the local gentry.’

I shook my head. ‘Just a farmer, trying to make ends meet like everyone else.’

‘I don’t think you know the first thing about making ends meet.’

‘Is that what you’re doing with the Leckies?’ I asked.

‘I’m not doing anything wrong,’ she said.

The servant came in with tea. She pulled out a table and put it in the middle of no-man’s-land, leaving the tray on it.

I waited for her to leave. ‘Your sons beat two defenceless old people to within an inch of their lives, left them terrified, then came back today to finish the job.’

Kate poured. Handed me a cup and took one herself.

‘The Leckies were paying rent that was fixed during the last war. They’ve got a son in Wales. They said they’d go and stay with him. Get out of harm’s way for when the tanks arrive. Lots of people are leaving.’

‘From what I saw, there was some arm-twisting involved.’

She sipped her tea.

‘I give Victor autonomy to run things as he sees fit.’

‘He’s pretty handy with a knife,’ I said.

‘It puts me in a sticky situation, though,’ she said. ‘The property’s not mine. I’m just the agent. The owner pays me to do a job. In this case, the job is clearing out the house for new tenants.’

‘Who’s the owner?’ I asked.

Kate smiled but didn’t answer.

She finished her tea, put the cup gently on the saucer, back on the tray. Back in no-man’s land. The détente unbroken.

‘Your father used to own the property,’ I said.

‘Used to.’

‘What’s going to happen when you tell your boss you failed to get rid of the Leckies?’

‘I imagine there’ll be some disappointment expressed,’ she said. ‘But that’s my problem, not yours.’

She rang the bell for the maid. We waited in silence. It wouldn’t do to argue in front of the staff. Once the tea things had been taken, Kate stood up, brushing non-existent crumbs from her dress, memories of a time when tea would have been cakes and sandwiches.

She held out her hand and I took it.

‘Thanks for visiting,’ she said.

*

Victor was standing by my van, nursing his broken arm. There was broken glass on the gravel. He’d kicked in all of the lights, front and back. A child who hadn’t got his way, lashing out.

‘You should quit while you’re ahead,’ I said, walking directly towards him. ‘One arm out of action’s an inconvenience, but you can still get by. You’ll have to use your left hand. It’ll feel like you’ve got a girlfriend.’

He scuttled back, out of range, as I reached the van. I kicked the broken glass out of the way of the tyres.

The gravel crunched behind me and the maid appeared, a shawl round her thin shoulders and a basket in her hand.

‘Going into town?’ I asked.

She looked at me cautiously, and flicked her eyes to Victor.

‘I’ll give you a lift,’ I said.

Victor grabbed the maid’s arm and pulled her to him.

‘Mabel likes the walk,’ he said. ‘Gives her more time away from the old dragon.’

He draped his left arm over Mabel’s shoulder. She froze. His hand covered her breast, and squeezed. She ignored it, keeping her eyes fixed on the horizon, her face flushing red.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘I could use the company.’

She pulled away from Victor and I held out my hand, helping her up into the passenger seat.

She was quiet as we pulled out of the driveway, back down the sunken lane. I didn’t know what to say, so we both sat with our thoughts. She couldn’t have been older than fifteen. Her first job, working in the big house for minimal pay and a straw mattress at the end of the long day. She was gaunt. She’d grown up hungry. A common enough story. Going into service was more about finding somewhere warm and dry to sleep, where the meals were provided, than the pay.

‘He’ll take it out on me later,’ she said.

‘Tell him he’d better not, if he wants to keep the other arm available for use.’

‘You and whose army?’ she said.

I dropped her by a row of dark cottages in Snatt’s Road.

‘You could find another job,’ I said.

‘She’s all right,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t pay too much attention.’

She climbed out of the van, and I handed her the basket. The cloth covering slipped. A grey pork chop, presumably stolen from Kate’s kitchen. I replaced the cloth.

‘Don’t come back,’ she said. ‘Better for everyone.’

I waited in the van as the front door opened. An old woman looked out, left and right, cautious. She grabbed the basket and pulled it in, along with the girl. The door slammed shut. Not such a crime, taking a bit of food from the big house, back to your mum.