Season to Taste by Natalie Young Page A

cream. Flannel. Wash bag with shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, toothbrush, mouthwash, dental
     floss, hand cream, eczema cream (best to use these things as and when you need to from now on and put them back in here).
     Keep this packed beside the bedroom door. Outside on the landing. It will reassure you that you are on your way. It is also
     there if you feel you have to leave at any moment.
    67.  As for getting dressed, yesterday’s outfit of jumper and jeans will do absolutely fine if that’s what you feel like wearing.
     Who can tell you what you should be wearing to do this work? Some may choose a boilersuit, others a dress. What you were wearing
     yesterday is soft, uncomplicated, and on the floor. Slip back in.
    68.  Take the dog out for a walk.
    69.  Look at the grass underneath your boots. Think about how green it is. Look at the sludgy, wet, muddy mud all around the gate
     at the bottom of the garden. Look at the shine of rainwater on a leaf. Think about the ground under your feet. Can you feel
     the pine needles, hear them hiss and crunch together as you walk? What does it smell like? What does the air feel like on
     your cheek?
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    Lizzie stood in the dark lane and waited. It was Sunday morning. The feeling of heaviness in her chest had been there when
     she woke, and it was still there, a pushing sensation, insisting on something. She wanted to walk on up the lane towards the
     farm, but her legs felt stiff and heavy in her boots and she didn’t know, all of a sudden, whether she would be seen. There
     was light coming through the trees. There would be air and light up on the common.
    In a Saturday night feeding frenzy she had eaten her husband’s whole thigh. She had not known a person could press so much
     meat in. Then she had gone to the fridge for more wine to wash down lump after lump of meat. She had been sick. Even so, she
     could feel the food as if it were in her throat; and even her head and cheeks were bloated.
    The agent would say when she showed the house to people: “There’s a lovely walk. You just go to the bottom of the garden,
     through the gate and you’re out into the woods…”
    Lizzie pulled her scarf around her neck, and turned through the woods. She went up the hill path, up towards the heath, her
     boots either side of the sandy ravine, and the dog disappeared into the bushes.
    Up on the heath, Lizzie pulled a branch from the tree at the viewpoint, climbed down from the bench, and used the branch to
     whack the mud, lifting it up over her head and bringing it down with all her strength. The wind was blowing over the woods
     in the valley beneath, bringing the sound of the cars on the A31.
    She heard a voice.
    â€œYour dog’s missing!”
    It wasn’t a question, but a madman out on surveillance. The voice was raspy. She knew who it was; and her heart thumped.
    Lizzie looked back over the bracken to the little hand quivering near a white mouth. Her eyes dried quickly in the cold wind.
     He tried to shout to her again, but only a noise came out.
    â€œHello,” she called, but the sound didn’t seem to reach him. He didn’t move. A wave of white hair was blowing across his head.
    â€œI think at my place he’s the only one sane,” Tom Vickory had said. Lizzie looked at old Emmett. They were neighbors across
     hectares of woodland. In thirty years they’d had one lunch together.
    â€œYour dog gone?” he shouted, and bounced on his heels.
    â€œNo,” Lizzie called. “I brought her for a walk. She’s over there!”
    She forced a smile up into her cheeks. Old Emmett lifted his stick towards the oak tree with giant octopus arms that had been
     up here since the time of Henry VIII. “Over there!” she repeated. She made a waving gesture with a flat palm, and tramped
     away from the bench.
    It wasn’t clear how Emmett had got himself up onto the common, and there was no knowing