But the phone rings. And there's a voice on the other end, still trying.
"The harvest's this week," I tell her. "You could come. If you wanted."
There's a pause. There's always a pause.
"I don't think I'm ready for that."
"That's all right. It'll be here next year."
Another pause. A longer one.
"I saw the piece about the restaurant," she says. "In the magazine. The photograph of the two of you."
I hold very still.
"It was a good photograph," my mother says.
That's all. That is the entire distance we cover, on a Sunday, in June.
When I hang up, Cat is in the doorway with a tea towel, not remotely pretending she wasn't listening.
"Well?"
"She said it was a good photograph."
Cat doesn't saythat's wonderful.She doesn't sayshe's coming round.She has learned, over a year of Sundays, not to make it into more than it is.
"Right," she says.
And puts the kettle on.
On the night before the harvest we walk the fields, which we do every evening, because Cat says a farm you don't walk is just a spreadsheet.
At the top of the rise, she stops.
"So I've been thinking about something," she says, "and I'd like you to let me get to the end of it before you say anything, because I've been rehearsing in the walk-in for a fortnight."
"That explains the muttering."
"Iris."
"Sorry. Go on."
She takes a breath.
"Children," she says. "One. Possibly two. Not now — God, not now, the restaurant opens on Saturday — but at some point. In the actual future. If it's something you'd want."
I don't say anything.
"And I've thought about it very hard," Cat goes on, faster, "and I don't want to do it because of Marguerite, or legacy, or any of that. I want to do it because I want to teach somebody to cook in that kitchen. That's my entire reason. It isn't a very grand one."
"Cat."
"And if you don't want to, that's completely—"
"Cat." I take her face in both hands. "Yes."
She stops dead.
