“See you,” she says and the gratitude in her voice is beautiful to hear.
This is unexpected. My plans for today will have to change, but it’s also a sign that I’ve made the right decision to prioritize Imogen.
I reach to turn on the ignition and as I do I get a whiff of something that brings me a feeling of dread. I sniff.Is that?
It’s a nasty, organic, catch the back of your throat stink.
Fuck.
I sniff again and glance in the rearview mirror. I should check, but I can’t bring myself to open the boot until I absolutely must. And what if someone drove past and saw me and thought something was wrong? Pulled over? Offered help?
I try to breathe through my panic and tell myself things are not falling apart. I turn on the engine so I can roll down the window. A deeper sniff triggers a retch reflex because the stink is overwhelming, but I feel like the luckiest person in the world because it’s definitely a countryside smell coming from outside my vehicle. Strong, repulsive, but fine by me because for a moment there, I thought it was something else.
Which would have been horribly problematic, because I don’t have time to get rid of the body before I collect Imogen.
Maggie waits anxiously for John to return from dropping the women at the barn. She had planned to drive the guests up there herself, but he’d got ahead of her and had the Land Rover keys in his hand and how could she take them from him in front of their guests?
The three women seemed nice enough. And determined to have a good time in the absence of their husbands. To make the best of it. “We’ll bring the men up to you as soon as they arrive tomorrow morning,” Maggie reassured them.
She chases the chickens back into their coop, enjoying the feathery rush of them around her legs.
Maggie’s worries seem insurmountable some days. She often wonders what will happen to the farm when John’s health declines further. Maggie can’t manage it on her own. She’s spoken to their son, William, about it. He’s a police constable and loves his job. He has to think about whether he can give up all that he’s achieved to come back here and farm. She senses that in his heart he doesn’t want to, but he’s attached to the land as much as she and John are, so there’s hope.
And then there’s the not knowing how quickly John’s health will decline. Do they need to act soon, or will he maintain a manageable level of function for a year or more?
John is in denial, but his symptoms have gained in frequency and intensity lately, just the way the doctor warned that they might. There are the memory problems, bursts of emotional aggression, moments of confusion, lapses of judgment, repetitive conversations, and the obsessive thinking. He’s taken especially against having guests in Dark Fell Barn. It’s becoming a real worry.
This morning, something new happened that troubled her. She didn’t have a chance to process it in the moment because she was too busy getting everything ready for the barn. But she pauses to think about it now. It occurs to her that perhaps it explains why she felt so uneasy when the biker arrived. Why the day had already gone awry.
John hallucinated. He claimed to see a figure walking away from him, through the morning mist, a tall figure. He described it in detail. “Shapeshifter,” he said.
“John,” she replied. “There’s nothing there, love.”
He stared into the mist for a long time and had tears in his eyes when he turned back to her. “But it was so beautiful,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to see one of those all my life.”
He talked about it more, conjuring up images from folklore, stories his dad told him, and that he had, in turn, told William, and she humored him at first as she worked to pack up the bed linen, thinking that might be the best response, certainly the easiest, until he said, “Perhaps it’s a sign that we shouldn’t let the guests stay at the barn tonight. A warning.”
“Don’t be so bloody ridiculous,” she snapped.
He fell quiet and didn’t mention it again. The incident seemed to have slipped through the holes in his memory after only a few minutes. For once, she felt grateful for his forgetfulness.
What’s bothering her is the fact that their previous guests left the barn early, saying they felt freaked out up there, frightened by what they described as terrifying noises in the night.
Maggie couldn’t think what they’d heard but refunded them all their money to appease them and prevent bad reviews. The barn is a crucial source of income. They’ll need it if they want to be able to stay here when John gets worse. Leaving really would be the death of him. In his right mind, or not, she can’t imagine him living out his days in a bungalow on a handkerchief-sized piece of land, or in some kind of nursing home. No, she’ll have to do everything she can to keep them both here. She’ll look after him.
But she can’t deny that since that incident at the barn, she’s nursed a worry about the coincidence of the guests leaving in fright and John getting himself worked up about people staying there.
And there’s the fact that he’s in and out of the farmhouse more than he used to be, especially in the evenings.
She lets herself into the kitchen and its familiar scents and sights envelop her like a hug, cheering her up. She’ll make bread tonight, she decides. That’ll be nice. Supper is cold cuts and cheese but fresh bread with it will be lovely. There’s time. The thought grounds her. She loves this room. So much of their life has played out here. She’ll also light a fire this evening. First one of autumn. It’s cold enough. Hopefully her guests will do the same.
As she lays kindling in the old fireplace, her worries fade, andher common sense regroups. Her kind, tender husband cannot be in the business of terrorizing guests. That’s as much a nonsense as some of the things he says these days. She should know better. She’s letting her own anxiety get out of hand and it’s not fair to him, or her. One of them needs to keep a level head to cope with what’s coming.
She starts to gather what she’ll need for breadmaking. It soothes her.
Whatever John’s state of mind, she still intends for them to travel further into old age together in the same gentle manner that they’ve lived their lives so far.
She hears the Land Rover and relief floods her. Birdie stands by the door, tail wagging, waiting to greet John. But he doesn’t come in. After a while Maggie goes out into the yard and calls for him, but she gets no reply. He’s taken off somewhere on foot, she supposes, and her anxiety bites harder than it did before.
