The walk down the drive took twenty minutes. She had never seen it in daylight except in the distance from the upper windows, because she had arrived by taxi long after dark on her first evening. Since then she had been outside the house only to walk round the gardens, bring in logs and to try the doors of the outbuildings. Now, walking between the fields of Walden that bordered the drive on both sides, she felt there was little to see beyond their mild contours except for lines of drystone walls and stands of trees. The landscape itself, empty of livestock, people or buildings was pleasant; it harboured no threat and so held little interest. Jean felt mildly grateful, for that was all she required of it for now. In fact the kind of people (Mother was one) who noticed things in the countryside- interestingly shaped roots or poisonous fungi or how many berries there were- had always rather irritated her.
Jean did not hurry in the new shoes; she liked to look down at them as she walked along and feel the slight slipping contact of her feet with the leather lining. The rain and winds of the previous few days had blown a thin layer of mud on the tarmac drive into tiny patterns, like sand on a beach after the ebb tide. Trickles of water, dammed by clumps of saturated dead leaves and flung twigs, had found their channels. Jean did not avoid the wet particularly but she was already looking forward to her return, remembering that in the wardrobe there were some warm-looking slippers that she had not yet worn. She would light the fire in the drawing room and spend a quiet afternoon there; she might even stretch out on the sofa and nap after lunch, because her morning in Bath was bound to be rather exciting and tiring. Today the housework would be skipped, of course, but since that did not matter to her, it could hardly concern anyone else. This afternoon she would rest in the drawing room wearing the soft felt slippers while her wet shoes, stuffed with newspaper, dried by the Aga. It was a privilege to own such good shoes and so it was a pleasure, as well as a responsibility, to look after them properly.
It was a further quarter of a mile along the road to the bus shelter, where Jean stood and waited. As the rain began again, she thought a little sadly of the keys, quite definitely car keys, that had been among the others in the teapot. There were at least three cars behind the high doors of the stone garages behind the courtyard, but she could not drive. But almost certainly her son would, and as she climbed onto the bus and paid her fare to the driver she felt a slight, secret superiority over the other people on board. They looked resigned to travelling this way, but this would be the last time she would ever have to wait in the rain for a bus that was running late.
In Bath, she bought stamps, writing paper and a copy of The Lady at W H Smiths and asked for directions to the post office. Across the road from it stood one of those new coffee places with sofas, the sort of place she had never been in before, where they sold fourteen things with Italian names and where, she found, she had to ask carefully to get just a cup of coffee. The smell of the place was better than the coffee actually tasted, but Jean was already tired and grateful for the rest, and she needed somewhere quiet to do the next part. The places around her were filling up, so she shrugged her arms out of the olive coat and let it fall around her like a peel, lining side out. Then she spread her pink cashmere sleeves, as if she were resting heavy wings, across the low table. She set out her paper, envelopes and chequebook, establishing more territory, turned to the back of The Lady and began to read. When she had learned what she had to do, she printed on a sheet of paper:
WERE YOU BORN 1955 AND ADOPTED? Lady in country house seeks contact with her brown-eyed baby boy given (out of necessity but reluctantly) to adoptive parents, south of England, aged 3 weeks. All papers since lost. Mother longs to trace. Replies to Box No. only, treated in strictest confidence.
By the time she had printed out another copy to keep, filled in the form, calculated the cost, written out her cheque, and sealed everything in the envelope and addressed it, she was shaking slightly, and her coffee was cold. She wondered about ordering more but she had already spent half of her week’s money on the advertisement and the stationery, and she was worried that if she delayed even to drink a cup of coffee she might be overtaken by objections (although from where she was not sure) to what she was doing. Her courage was fluttering and growing restive, like something trapped and uncomfortable. Her heart started to bang inside her chest, and in her throat. People were looking at her. Oh God, could they hear it? Did it show on her face, how terrified she was? She had to get home. She tried again to stop shaking and could not.
‘Excuse me, are you all right?’
So it did show. She had to get home. Now she was certain that all the people here, drinking from foaming cups and talking about their shopping, indeed every one of the thousands of people walking in Bath this morning, would stop her if they could. They would form a mob, a huge furious mob, and stop her. Already this woman at the next table was ignoring what her friend was saying and looking at Jean with what she wanted her to think was concern, but was really suspicion.
‘I’m fine. I just need to get home. It’s rather warm in here. Thank you.’ Jean shrugged herself back into her coat, recovered enough now to see the woman noticing how good and expensive it was. With the woman’s eyes still upon her, she crossed the road to the post office and posted the envelope. She stood by the post box until she felt calm again.
Briskly she crossed back and walked into Waitrose, because it had struck her suddenly that a house needed flowers, especially in January. She spent very nearly all of the rest of her money on lilies, roses and freesias, and also picked up a leaflet about Waitrose’s home delivery service, hoping that she could place an order by telephone without having to use a credit card. She had never held with credit cards nor, it had to be admitted, had she ever been invited to own one. She had assumed before she arrived that while on this assignment she would go out and do her food shopping once a week or so, as she normally did. But the strain of being away from Walden had proved too great, she realised, walking as fast as she could back to the bus station with her armfuls of flowers. She would not risk it again.
Across town, at the moment when Jean was boarding her bus home, Michael was standing before the magistrates. The Bench- one kind-looking lady, one hard-faced one with dandruff and a man with sloping shoulders- had just re-appeared after having retired to discuss his case, and the hard lady was telling him again how disappointed they were to see him. Michael nodded in sad apology and submitted to another telling-off with the hangdog expression that the magistrates liked. He was lucky to be avoiding a period in custody, he heard, and he caught on the face of the kind lady a look of triumphant magnanimity which told him that he had her to thank for that. He answered in a hoarse voice their intrusive but by now expected questions about his earnings and outgoings. It was noted that he still was not working. Did he not have some experience of bar work? Michael gulped and tried to explain about the depression. So had he consulted his GP? They recommended that he see his GP again, leaving unasked the question of whether or not, after a string of missed appointments, his GP would see him. The mess that Michael was making of his life was expanding and filling the room, pressing down on the shoulders of the magistrates, who all now seemed to be sagging, and leaving Michael short of enough breath for explanations. But it was not the exposure of his squalid life that suddenly touched him and made his chin wobble as if he were still a snotty kid; it was the novelty of being questioned. He should be used to the way the magistrates went on by now, but every time it took him unawares. When they asked him about himself, sounding as if it really mattered, he found himself wanting to cry. For a moment he nearly allowed himself to believe that these motherly, judging women cared about him. But he glanced up at the flaky shoulders of the hard-faced one, and remembered that it was not his poverty, nor his upbringing in care, nor his bare little flat, nor the absence of friends and prospects that concerned them. All they cared about was getting money off him, first for driving the van without insurance or tax, and then an extra load for falling behind twice with the payments. Tears of self-pity filled his eyes, and when the hard lady went on to tell him that they were not imposing a community service order on him in view of his health, but increasing his fine and generously re-scheduling the payments, he lowered his head further and his tears spilled down the lapels of the jacket that he had worn to encourage the magistrates’ leniency. If he kept up to date with the payments from now on, he would clear his debt in four years. Michael opened his mouth and closed it again. There was no point in saying anything. It wouldn’t work. Any institutional sympathy for a child brought up in care was exhausted long before that child had become a struggling adult of forty, so he would not mention it. Now they were asking if he would be able to keep up with the payments this time. He gave the expected yes. And as he was being told that they hoped never to see him again, the kind lady started writing something and did not look up when he left the court.