corner. “Then he drowns them in the pond behind his pigsties.”
“What have they done to deserve that?”
“They’re eating his grain.” Claudia’s grip on the steering wheel tightens. “But his cows and pigs won’t starve because a few hungry rodents help themselves to some corn now and then.”
“Gray squirrels are considered vermin where I live.”
“There are right ways and wrong ways to control pests. Keeping them in cages till they’re half starved and then drowning them is unconscionably cruel.”
“Where are we taking them?”
“Right about here.” Claudia yanks up the handbrake and the Morris Minor judders to a halt. “Hurry up. We’ve got to get back before he does.”
Legs shaking, I clamber out. “Why?”
“I have to return his cages before he misses them.” Beneath the brim of her soft brown hat, Claudia’s gray eyes twinkle with triumph. “This is a nature preserve with plenty of old oak trees and lots of nice juicy acorns.”
* * *
That night I share my bed with a handsome silver-gray tabby named Max and wake up to the smell of bacon and eggs. I pull on a pair of old jeans and an Irish sweater, and follow my nose to the kitchen.
Its uneven plaster walls are colorwashed in lavender. Pine shelves, heavy and knotted, hold cookbooks and casserole dishes and blue earthenware plates I remember from childhood. Bunches of dried sage and rosemary hang from oak beams that criss-cross the ceiling; copper pans gleam from their hooks on the wall. The middle of the room is dominated by Claudia’s bleached wooden table. The one she used to paint on. The window, unfettered by curtains, looks out across a carpet of heather. Beyond lies the sea.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Claudia says, piling my plate with an old-fashioned English fry-up—grilled kidneys and tomatoes, bacon and eggs, and lashings of fried bread. Between her and Sophie, I’ve eaten more cholesterol and carbs in the past ten days than I have in ten years at home.
We gossip while eating and then Claudia shoves off to check on her traps. I head the other way, toward the water. The ground ends and I look down sheer granite cliffs to a small, crescent-shaped beach about two hundred feet below. How do people get to it? I don’t see a path. Maybe it’s one of those stubborn bits of coastline that refuses to give way to picnic hampers and daytrippers.
“Come along, Jill,” Claudia calls out.
Her back garden is an Impressionist painting—a tumble of textures and hues with bright points of light that focus the eye. Snapdragons and nasturtiums, all the colors in a box of crayons, spill across the path, alongside clumps of Michaelmas daisies that dissolve into clouds of white gypsophila and bright blue plumbago. I smell lavender and thyme. A hint of rosemary. Beside the back door, two stone rabbits crouch beneath a garden bench. A wooden squirrel perches atop a pile of clay pots. My shoes are muddy, so I scrape them on a hedgehog boot brush with beady eyes and an upturned snout. I pat its little head before going inside.
Claudia’s picking up her car keys when I reach the front hall. “Hurry up. We’re wasting the best part of the day.”
“Why don’t you relax and let me drive?”
She hesitates. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” I say.
* * *
It’s a day filled with windswept beaches and tranquil bays; of solitary stone farmhouses and stunted trees that grow sideways out of the soil. We drive through sunwashed villages with streets barely wide enough for a car, and past tiny beaches where old wooden boats lie in the sand waiting for the next tide to release them.
At four o’clock, we stop for tea in a café near Land’s End. Clotted cream and homemade strawberry jam. Milk bottles filled with sweet peas and freesia. Lace doilies, bone china cups. Starched napkins, white linen tablecloths.
“When’s the last time you saw your mother?” Claudia says.
I almost choke on a scone. “The day I left
“What have they done to deserve that?”
“They’re eating his grain.” Claudia’s grip on the steering wheel tightens. “But his cows and pigs won’t starve because a few hungry rodents help themselves to some corn now and then.”
“Gray squirrels are considered vermin where I live.”
“There are right ways and wrong ways to control pests. Keeping them in cages till they’re half starved and then drowning them is unconscionably cruel.”
“Where are we taking them?”
“Right about here.” Claudia yanks up the handbrake and the Morris Minor judders to a halt. “Hurry up. We’ve got to get back before he does.”
Legs shaking, I clamber out. “Why?”
“I have to return his cages before he misses them.” Beneath the brim of her soft brown hat, Claudia’s gray eyes twinkle with triumph. “This is a nature preserve with plenty of old oak trees and lots of nice juicy acorns.”
* * *
That night I share my bed with a handsome silver-gray tabby named Max and wake up to the smell of bacon and eggs. I pull on a pair of old jeans and an Irish sweater, and follow my nose to the kitchen.
Its uneven plaster walls are colorwashed in lavender. Pine shelves, heavy and knotted, hold cookbooks and casserole dishes and blue earthenware plates I remember from childhood. Bunches of dried sage and rosemary hang from oak beams that criss-cross the ceiling; copper pans gleam from their hooks on the wall. The middle of the room is dominated by Claudia’s bleached wooden table. The one she used to paint on. The window, unfettered by curtains, looks out across a carpet of heather. Beyond lies the sea.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Claudia says, piling my plate with an old-fashioned English fry-up—grilled kidneys and tomatoes, bacon and eggs, and lashings of fried bread. Between her and Sophie, I’ve eaten more cholesterol and carbs in the past ten days than I have in ten years at home.
We gossip while eating and then Claudia shoves off to check on her traps. I head the other way, toward the water. The ground ends and I look down sheer granite cliffs to a small, crescent-shaped beach about two hundred feet below. How do people get to it? I don’t see a path. Maybe it’s one of those stubborn bits of coastline that refuses to give way to picnic hampers and daytrippers.
“Come along, Jill,” Claudia calls out.
Her back garden is an Impressionist painting—a tumble of textures and hues with bright points of light that focus the eye. Snapdragons and nasturtiums, all the colors in a box of crayons, spill across the path, alongside clumps of Michaelmas daisies that dissolve into clouds of white gypsophila and bright blue plumbago. I smell lavender and thyme. A hint of rosemary. Beside the back door, two stone rabbits crouch beneath a garden bench. A wooden squirrel perches atop a pile of clay pots. My shoes are muddy, so I scrape them on a hedgehog boot brush with beady eyes and an upturned snout. I pat its little head before going inside.
Claudia’s picking up her car keys when I reach the front hall. “Hurry up. We’re wasting the best part of the day.”
“Why don’t you relax and let me drive?”
She hesitates. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” I say.
* * *
It’s a day filled with windswept beaches and tranquil bays; of solitary stone farmhouses and stunted trees that grow sideways out of the soil. We drive through sunwashed villages with streets barely wide enough for a car, and past tiny beaches where old wooden boats lie in the sand waiting for the next tide to release them.
At four o’clock, we stop for tea in a café near Land’s End. Clotted cream and homemade strawberry jam. Milk bottles filled with sweet peas and freesia. Lace doilies, bone china cups. Starched napkins, white linen tablecloths.
“When’s the last time you saw your mother?” Claudia says.
I almost choke on a scone. “The day I left
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