Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller (best large ereader txt) 📕

dentist?” Jeanie said. Her mother laughed, a quick, embarrassed laugh. “Oh, silly me,” she said and wiped it off with a flannel before she rushed out. A woman with strong opinions and interesting ideas. Rawson’s words come back. Jeanie would like to talk with that woman.

∙

One morning when she is waiting at the end of the lane for Alastair, who is unusually late, a different car pulls up, an old one, and Saffron gets out.

“I only just heard what’s happened,” she says. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jeanie ducks to look in the back window; the car seat is empty.

“Angel’s with my mum. Your friend Bridget knocked on my door last night, looking for you. She thought you’d been staying with us. Where have you been sleeping? I found the caravan, but you weren’t there. It was a complete mess. And did you know there’s a piano on its back in the woods?”

“I’m fine,” Jeanie says and folds her arms.

“You look thin, worn out. Come on, get in the car.”

“I’m waiting for my lift to the hospital.”

“I’m your lift today. It’s all been arranged, now get in.”

On the way, Saffron says she read about the shooting on the front page of the local paper. There was a photograph of the caravan and another of Julius smiling outside the pub, which they must have got from somewhere, but Saffron had no idea it was anything to do with Jeanie.

“Someone trashed the caravan,” Jeanie says. “Went through the lot, after the police probably did the same.”

“You’re back in your old place, are you? Bridget said you and Julius lived in a cottage at the top of the lane.”

“That’s right.”

“How’s Maude?” Saffron says. “Is someone looking after her?”

Jeanie drops her chin against the memory of Maude’s hot breath, the way the dog’s eyes followed her around a room, how Maude butted her head against Jeanie’s legs when she wanted food or a walk. Jeanie will not cry in front of Saffron. She will not cry. And to keep the tears from coming she makes her trembling anger return by saying, “They stole Julius’s fiddle and Mum’s banjo.” She is certain the thefts and the mess in the caravan are down to either Ed or Lewis.

Saffron glances over. “Have you reported it?” Jeanie doesn’t return the look. She likes Saffron but she is from a different world where lost things are found and ill people survive.

“How’s the garden?” Jeanie says, to change the subject.

“It’s beautiful, you should come and see it. I’m going to order the wildflower plugs for the end of September. You will plant them for me, won’t you?”

Jeanie doesn’t reply.

“I wanted to ask you something else about the gardening.” Saffron speaks quietly, eyes on the road. “I noticed you haven’t paid in any of the cheques I gave you. And I wondered, is it because you don’t have a bank account?” Jeanie can’t help the twitch in her shoulders, the slight turn of her head. “I thought that might be the case. I’ve got the cash and I can help you open an account if you want, it’s not difficult.”

“Has Bridget told you everything, then?” Jeanie says, but she’s past being angry.

“She said you haven’t made an appointment with your GP.”

Jeanie thinks Bridget talks too much about other people. “I haven’t had time,” she says.

Julius is being moved to a side room when Jeanie arrives, and she and Saffron wait in the Relatives’ Room. Mr. Jones and Julius’s regular nurse come in after half an hour, and Jeanie knows it isn’t with good news. She’s given more information about Julius and his lungs and his breathing and his temperature which she doesn’t take in, but she can tell from the tone of the voices that what she is hearing is a warning, a preparation. Not for anything immediate, but soon.

“Shall I come with you?” Saffron says, but Jeanie shakes her head. The nurse leads her to the room where Julius lies, paler and thinner, if that’s possible. He still hasn’t opened his eyes, or spoken to her, or told her what she should do.

The nurse checks monitors, wires, tubes, and says, “I’ll give you a moment.”

Jeanie sits, holds her brother’s hand, strokes his arm, and touches his cheek with a knuckle. She wonders how she will arrange to bury him next to their mother.

“You can go if you want to,” she whispers. “I’ll manage. I’ll be fine.”

32

Saffron insists that Jeanie go with her to pick up Angel from her grandmother’s house, and then to the bungalow for a cup of tea and to see the garden, even if Jeanie won’t stay the night. She cooks pasta with tomato sauce, and although Jeanie says she isn’t hungry she eats seconds. They walk the path through the meadow. It needs another mow—Saffron says she hasn’t had the time: whenever she’s home, she’s studying, doing things with Angel, or they’re both asleep. They sit under the flowering Indian horse chestnut and eat the cupcakes that Angel and her grandmother have made: blue icing indented with child-sized fingerprints. Angel runs up the grassy path and rolls back down on her side, over and over, veering off into the long grass, running back up, and shouting at them to watch. When Saffron’s mobile rings, Jeanie goes cold—this and Bridget’s are the numbers she’s now given the nurses’ station for emergencies—but it’s Saffron’s mother reminding her to bring a raincoat for Angel tomorrow because it’s supposed to be wet.

Saffron takes Jeanie back to the farm lane in the car and asks if she can come up to the cottage.

“I’d love to see where you live,” she says.

Jeanie looks into the back where Angel has conveniently fallen asleep in her car seat. “It’d be a shame to wake her.”

“Some other time then?”

“Some other time,” Jeanie says, getting out.

Saffron puts the passenger window down and Jeanie leans in. “But you’re happy for me to come and fetch you, if I get a call?”

Jeanie nods. She has told Saffron that