Forgive me for my doubt and for my busy, unattached life.

Perhaps you thought it was best to get out while the going was good. Perhaps you chose death in preference to what is on offer.

I promise to take care of you. I will wrap you in the softest of coverings, and lull you carefully and tenderly into being.

It was time to put down the anchor. When she got out of hospital, she would ring Andrew and tell him that she would marry him. Then she would settle to tidying and shaping the ends of her life in order to be ready for her baby. That was the least she could do. It was what she should do.

Agnes’s head hurt, and she moved restlessly in the white hospital bed. Somewhere, in the distance, she heard a woman screaming. Was it the other Agnes, struggling to give birth, held down on her bed by other women’s hands? Above her in the attic, mice scrabbling from beam to beam and the spiders spinning their webs?

For the tenth time in two days, Andrew picked up the phone and dialled Flagge House. For the tenth time, there was no answer.

In the end, he rang Bel. As he waited in his study at Tithings for her to answer, the sun came out behind the oaks. They seemed bigger, sturdier, more intrusive than he remembered from the morning. Stag-headed in shape. Oak was the hardest and stoutest of woods. It had built a navy and carried a nation. It resisted. It repelled fungal dry rot and teredines, boring molluscs-the invaders. The oak would face the bulldozer – and repel it.

When she eventually answered, Bel was crisp, never having troubled to conceal that she could not take Andrew seriously. Andrew didn’t care. Early on he had dismissed Bel as a woman of no substance and a sharp tongue. The theatre of her cropped, moussed hair and rainbow fingernails had never entertained him.

He asked Bel if she knew where Agnes was, and Bel replied that she was taking a few days off but was not sure where.

Andrew suspected she was lying.

‘Oh, by the way,’ said Bel, ‘did Agnes tell you? The Hidden Lives programme has slipped in the schedule. It looks like late October.’ She was maddeningly smug. She added, ‘Agnes is doing her best to get it out earlier, but she has other things to do, you know.’

‘I hope she is,’ he said. ‘The results of the planning inquiry have been delayed. I’m not sure quite when they’re due, but possibly early October and the timing could be critical.’

‘Goodness, the tension must be unbearable for all you farming folk.’

‘No need to be like that.’

‘Who do you think Mary was?’ Bel flashed the question, which, as it was meant to do, took Andrew by surprise.

‘Mary? Oh… Mary. To be honest, I can’t make up my mind about Mary.’

‘Mary,’ said Bel flatly, ‘is a probability, not a definite, wouldn’t you say? You can chase her down the byways of parish registers, electoral rolls, through the dusty corridors of Somerset House, but she eludes us, doesn’t she? And, believe me, I have chased her. Mary, the eternal woman who inspires such passion, the epitome of courage, suffering and mystery. How do we decode Mary? I’ve tried and failed, and I have to tell you that I’m pretty sharp at spotting weak links. She almost seduced me too.’

‘Ah,’ said Andrew. ‘You, too.’

‘Come on, Andrew.’

For a moment, he was tempted to lay down the burden of his secret. Only the notion that it would be Bel’s multi-studded ear receiving the confession prevented him. He did not want to waste his passion and effort on a woman like her. ‘Will you tell me where Agnes is?’

‘No, I won’t. She needs absolute peace and quiet. OK?’

28

The waiting was terrible. Having put back the date twice already, for no good reason as far as Penny could see, the worse-than-useless inspector was taking delight in spinning out the torture. Stuff about further evidence and extra figures. Gossip in the pub had it that Stone, the caring landlord, was hopping mad at the delay because he needed the money, pronto.

At night sometimes, lying beside Bob, Penny prayed that Stone would go bankrupt, and when he did she planned to send him a postal order for five pounds with orders to buy himself a good meal.

Wouldn’t they laugh, if people knew her terrors? The brisk, unflappable Penny reduced to a sleepless bag of nerves. Bob hated her tossing and turning but she didn’t care, one way or the other, what Bob thought.

If Andrew lost the farm, it would kill him.

Some things you know, and you have no idea why you know, but if you feel something so strongly, it is unwise not to pay it attention. Penny knew she must keep an eye on her husband.

Unable to bear it any longer, Penny drove over to the farm at the next opportunity. It was lunch-time, Wednesday, the slot between checking the meat orders and the journey to the abattoir.

‘As I thought.’ Penny edged into the kitchen to find Andrew eating a crispbread and cheese. The sight that greeted her was expected: unwashed dishes, a tangle of clothes in the corner and a muddle of cups and tins on the table. She directed her gaze to her husband. ‘When did you last wash those jeans? Get ‘em off, they’re filthy. And everything else.’

Habits were strong. Andrew stepped out of the offending clothes, revealing his lean, worked body. A little softer, perhaps, around the contours, but the same man Penny had married twenty years earlier. She flashed a glance past the flat naked stomach and legs to the countenance above, which seemed so frighteningly indifferent as to whether she was there or not, and knelt down to retrieve the clothes, sick with longing to turn the clock back nine months.

He watched her sort out the clothes into their respective colours and stuff the first load into the machine.

‘Go and get dressed, Andrew.’

Out of the same habit, he obeyed, and Penny cursed herself for being so practical and bossy. Perhaps she should try to say something. Now. Tell him of her mistake, her terrible mistake. Despite the magazines, her habit of reticence, and of hiding behind briskness, was ingrained. She was not good on the emotional stuff, and talk of the counsellors with whom some of her friends had ended up made her cringe. She decanted soap powder into the tray. These were naked areas, best kept private.

Andrew reappeared in clothes that were in no better shape. Penny scented her opportunity. Clearly the house needed to be taken in hand, actually a thorough overhaul was required, and if necessary she could spin it out for the whole day.

While he was changing she had whipped up one of her nourishing, quickie soups, with the already diced veg she had brought over in Tupperware boxes, and gave it to Andrew, who spooned it up hungrily. As hungrily, she watched. It was one of the better things of her life, dispensing food and comfort. ‘I don’t think you’re looking after yourself.’

He brushed aside her concern. ‘I’m fine. You needn’t bother about me.’

She flinched. ‘I am bothered about you.’

He did not even look up. ‘Not any more, Pen. You concentrate on Bob.’

Andrew…’ Penny searched down the inarticulate years of marriage to find the right words. ‘I could be bothered again. I mean… Bob is, well, not so very important to me.’

He shook his head and put down the spoon. ‘Thanks, Pen, but I don’t think so.’

It was at this moment that Penny made a discovery: if driven into a corner, it was possible to be other than yourself. She came out fighting. ‘Don’t be a fool, Andrew. You can’t run the farm on your own. God knows, it needs more than two. And if we – I mean, you – are to fight the planners all the way we – you – have to show that we have a thriving enterprise.’

Her vehemence struck home. ‘True. I must think about it.’

‘How are sales of the meat?’

‘Take a look at the accounts, if you like. They’re half yours.’

‘So they are.’ Penny had quite forgotten her material interest in the farm, which was indicative of her confusion and her doubts.

‘But not Bob’s, mind. Remember that. He can’t have a penny.’

‘Of course.’

Let her husband be as angry, vicious and unfair as he could be over Bob. Throw down the gauntlet It would prove that he felt something. That was what she wanted.

He needed feeding up so badly. Penny got up to butter a slice of bread and put it in front of him. ‘Look, I’ll bring some more food over.’

He shrugged, but she could tell that he did not dismiss the idea out of hand, which was good. ‘If you like.’

As a come-on it wasn’t that hot, but it was better than a definite rejection. Penny was not sure but she had an impression that Andrew was registering her properly for the first time in a long while and she burst out, ‘I can’t bear this business with Stone any longer. It’s gone on long enough. It’s not fair.’

‘Who said life is?’

Penny drew in a deep breath and put down her marker. ‘I’ll come over with the food this afternoon.’ Perhaps I can slide back into my place easily and quietly, and then we’ll continue as we were. It’s possible. It has been known. Lots of people do it. They break up, have a fling, come back, because habits are strong and it’s better the devil you know.

Penny did not quite understand why she was doing what she was doing, or why she had done what she had – only that her marriage was an anchor and she had hauled it up without thinking properly.

If she was truthful, she blamed the magazines.

Andrew looked at a point above her head. ‘Penny, you made your decision and I accept it. I can’t say it didn’t hurt at the time. It did.’

I must cling on to that, she thought. He did mind.

Then Andrew spoiled it by saying, ‘You must get on with your life with Bob, I’ll deal with the farm. I’ll make sure you get your cut.’ He paused. ‘Whatever happens.’