The sheep were turned out in the lower meadow, the cows in the upper, and the lambs that had been left to grow were almost big enough now as to be indistinguishable from the sheep. Half smiling, Nina recognized little Fluffy, always the runt, with his jagged scar, still lagging behind the rest, completely unable to grow up, trotting around behind Parsley when he could find him. It did her heart good to see him.
No sign of Lennox or Parsley today, though. She was so used to seeing them striding on the sides of the hills—two little blobs, one tall and intent, one bounding in a flash—that she could generally spot them from miles away. Not today. She felt nervous. She was going to have to see him at some point. And try not to get angry with him. And wait, of course, for her eviction notice. And move on.
Professionally she had achieved more than she’d ever dreamed possible. Personally . . . she had made a hash of it. She thought back to the good advice Surinder had given her before she’d left. No, it hadn’t gone right. Things didn’t always. But at least she’d put herself out there. At least she’d tried and given it a shot. As Surinder kept saying, everyone’s love life went badly until the end. That was just how it was.
And now she’d learned a little, and she’d know what to do if she met any more puppy-dog-eyed men—or at least she’d find out their status before she started flirting with them and sending them poetry—and if she met another grumpy farmer, well, she’d know to run a mile and not let herself get sucked in to thinking about the touch of a hand, a strong masculine body pressing against hers . . .
In the midst of her reverie, she was startled to realize that Lennox and Parsley were standing right in front of her.
“Dreaming about books?” said Lennox.
Nina looked around the farmyard. It was suddenly full of farmhands armed with tools and shovels.
“What’s up?” she said.
“Thought you’d like to come,” grunted Lennox. “We’re off to the Clarks’.”
“Where?”
Lennox sighed and turned around to the boys. “Sorry. I told you she was a bit glaikit.”
“I am not whatever that is you just said,” said Nina defiantly.
“Those kids. Ainslee and Ben,” said Lennox. “I thought you said they needed help.”
Mrs. Clark was overjoyed to see them, completely overwhelmed. Nina and Ainslee took down the dirty curtains and stuffed them in the washing machine, while Lennox directed his men, who fixed the broken doors and replaced the glass in the windows. Two of them even started painting the sitting room, while someone else went up on the roof to replace all the loose tiles. It was absolutely astounding how much a band of people could get done with a will when they set their minds to it. Nina tried to thank Lennox, who looked at her completely dumbfounded that she would even consider it something worthy of thanks. It needed doing, that was all.
Ben ran about in a fit of delight, trying to help the gardeners and plasterers in turn as they fixed up the tumbledown house, as well as mainlining biscuits and turning Radio 1 up far louder than his mother could normally bear it. The sun beat down—it was incredibly hot—as they worked through the day, barely taking breaks.
Nina glanced over from time to time. It was so hot, Lennox had taken off his shirt, and was splitting kindling for the winter on an old log.
“Why have you stopped?” asked Ainslee, as they rinsed the curtains.
“Um, no reason,” said Nina.
“Is it that old bloke again?” said Ainslee. “Oh aye, I see it is.”
“Yeah, all right,” said Nina.
They both watched him for a second.
“Okay, let’s get going!” said Nina.
Pushing into the afternoon, Nina noticed with surprise an older gentleman she’d seen before. He was wearing a suit and tie, and she realized it was Lennox’s lawyer. He spoke in a low and intent voice to Lennox, who had put the ax down. Lennox’s face turned absolutely miserably cross, and he appeared to be swearing under his breath. The lawyer looked apologetic, and turned to go.
As he did so, he glanced up and caught sight of Nina through the window. He held up a hand and popped in through the new kitchen door.
“Ah, hello,” he said.
“Hello,” said Nina, fearing the worst.
“I just wanted to say . . . to say I was sorry to hear about your . . . your friend. I did speak to the Home Office, you know, but apparently it was voluntary, so there was nothing they could do.”
“You . . . you called the Home Office about Marek?”
“Oh yes. Lennox asked if I wouldn’t mind . . .”
Nina didn’t hear any more. She was staring out of the kitchen window. The lawyer took his leave, but she hardly noticed him go.
Lennox had hired Mrs. Garsters from the village for when they all trooped back up to the farm, exhausted, at the end of the afternoon. (Mrs. Garsters loved books about beetles and was practically an expert; Nina had to repeatedly apologize for her failure to find the most up-to-date British Journal of Entomology. She would huff and puff and ask what kind of a service she was, and Nina had to explain that she wasn’t a service, she was a business, which didn’t seem to placate her in the least.)
Set out on long tables in the courtyard were thick slabs of ham, with piccalilli and mustard on the side; fresh homemade bread, cut roughly, with salty local butter; sweating wheels of white and blue cheese; creamy potato salad; and a cool cucumber and green cabbage salad with fennel, orange, and oats, which looked utterly delicious, followed by huge apple pies and warm frothing cream from the dairy.
Nina couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so hungry, but her hands were sore and cracked from all the bleach she’d been using, and before she ate, she nipped into the barn just behind her own conversion; she was sure she’d seen Lennox leave some lanolin there—he used it for softening his own hands and for the sheep’s udders—and it was just, she felt, what she needed.
She rubbed the lanolin in, and was just refilling her bottle with water from the cold standpipe that fed directly from the well when she saw him.
She couldn’t actually see him at all to begin with; he was silhouetted against the sunlight pouring in from outside the barn, nothing but a tall shape. He could have been anyone.
But he wasn’t just anyone. And in a millisecond, everything changed.
She could leave it all behind. She could. She had before. She could do anything she wanted, like the traveling people, like everyone who moved around in the world. But she wanted to experience everything she could. She wasn’t going to hide any longer.