from falling down the stairs during a nocturnal trip to the bathroom. The light made the darkness seem even darker; there wasn’t a shred of moonlight and the stars were invisible behind a cloud cover. The trees were just darker patches.
‘We’re just not used to it. After London,’ I whispered back. ‘We’ll get used to it.’
A pause. I could hear her breathing and it was nowhere near the settled deep breaths of someone falling asleep. ‘Could we get a dog?’
‘It wouldn’t be fair.’ I stroked her hair. ‘Once I get a job, hopefully in the spring term, a dog would be at home by itself all day.’
I had a quick memory of childhood, coming home from school to be greeted by a cacophony of barking spaniels, greeting me in the hallway with their floppy ears, cold noses pressing into my schoolbag and warm licks of happy acknowledgement. The weight of a sleeping dog on my feet. The warning growl when strangers approached the door. The sense of being protected.
‘Maybe we could think about a cat, though. Or two, to keep each other company.’
‘Mmmmm.’ She snuggled down, pulling her more-than-fair-share of duvet up over her shoulders. ‘Cats are good.’ Then, drowsily, ‘I really like Rory, Mum.’
I absolutely didn’t know how to reply to that, so I stayed quiet. Let her think I’d fallen asleep. And, after a few moments of wriggling, her breathing settled, and she was asleep. I stayed awake a little longer, listening to the roar of the wind in the high branches, the tapping of smaller twigs against windows and the occasional wind-carried cry of an owl. I could almost imagine I could hear the dragging steps of Mr Coombes along the hallway, and silently cursed Maisy and her overactive imagination as I pulled the pillow over my head and dug myself deeper under my fraction of the duvet.
When I woke up the next morning, Poppy was gone. But then, the grey light filtering in told me I’d overslept again, as though my body was trying to make up for all those incredibly early mornings over the years. With no external noise to wake me, and my alarm not set, I woke when I was ready, probably for the first time in – how long?
It was another chilly morning with a gentle sluice of rain falling, so I pulled a fleece on over my pyjamas and went downstairs through the clammy air. The wood of the bannister rail was slippery with the damp, and I decided we’d have to light the wood-burner today, logs or no logs. If I didn’t keep the inside of the cottage warmer than the outside, we’d be up to our knees in mould before winter, and a little bit of heat might keep the woodlice at bay.
The stone floor of the kitchen was cold, so I stepped into my slip-on rubber shoes in the doorway. We’d brought slippers, but our slim-soled cosmetic footwear that had been perfectly suitable for underfloor-heated London flats was absolutely useless in the face of the brittle old-air cold that rose up from the flags. We’d acquired defensive shoes very quickly.
The kitchen smelled of toast and the kettle was still steaming. Poppy must have had Sunday breakfast alone. I examined the bread, in case it had already gone green, and then popped it in the toaster and started to make tea. ‘Pops!’ I called up through the ceiling to her room. ‘Do you want more tea?’
No reply. Not even the thud of feet moving about. I peered into the living room, where the wood-burner stood invitingly loaded with fuel, but she wasn’t there either. I opened the back door.
Through the glaze of rain I could see Patrick pulling at his hay net under the newly leafless apple tree. Most of the remaining leaves, and the apples that had hung from the unreachable branches, had fallen in the night’s gales, and lay like a mosaic beneath his hooves. Over at the caravan smoke puffed out of the metal chimney. I decided to make a mug of tea for Granny Mary, then hoped that she wouldn’t think I was going to make her tea every morning. But I made it anyway, and put a few chocolate biscuits on a plate. Took them off, reasoning that I didn’t want her to get too comfortable in my orchard, then put them back on again; she was an old lady who’d been ill. Then I wavered, in case she’d expect biscuits, decided I was