Season to Taste (13 page)

Lizzie put the key in the ignition and drove out of the garden center car park. She glanced across at the boy's cheek and
inhaled the scent of him. He was sitting beside her in a navy Puffa coat and jogging bottoms. As she drove onto the dual carriageway,
she lifted her head to check her face in the mirror.

She stopped in a lay-by, got out of the car, and stood in the air with her head up. Across the top of the field there was
a band of very bright yellow light. There was a fluttering sensation in her stomach. She waited to be sick.

She hadn't slept. The house was almost clear now, everything burned; the bloody bits of the lawn dug up. The bag was packed
by the bedroom door. She was almost done. She was nearly there. She stared at the light across the top of the field and felt
her head moving towards it. In the freezer, still to be eaten, were the arms, the head and another thigh. The dark little
house in the lane would be closed down soon, left behind, a memory. There would be a seat in a train carriage. It would pull
north. The day would be bright. It would all be future, and open, and clean, and light. It would be possible to do this, to
break away.

In the passenger seat Tom Vickory was staring forward through the windscreen. Lizzie got back in. He put a hand to his chest
again and grimaced.

Lizzie didn't make a sound. She was much too shy to talk to the boy while he was sitting beside her in the car rubbing his
palms up and down his trouser legs. She waited for him to stop doing that, and for some words to come into her mind.

She slowed down as she came to the village, and went past the steamed-up mirror on the bend. She drove past the Dog and Duck.
She turned into Tubford Lane and glanced over at him.

“Would it be all right if I come in?” he asked. “There's no one at home till later and I haven't got my key.”

“I'm afraid not,” said Lizzie.

“Come again?”

“No.”

He laughed. He looked over at her as they bumped up the lane.

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you leave work?”

“I'm not feeling great.”

“What is it?”

“I'm run-down. I think it's that.”

Lizzie said that he couldn't come in.

“I'll sit in the garden.”

“No. That doesn't work either,” she said, and her cheeks were a deep, flaming red.

It wouldn't work because she was now so determined to be done with the grim business at home that all she could think of was
taking another piece out of the freezer and getting on with it. Then the house would be locked. She would be at Euston in
two hours. She'd take the dog.

She parked the car in the lane and looked at the clock on the dashboard, at the speedometer, and the petrol gauge. She had
no idea what information she was looking for. It would be cool inside the train. There would be a seat for her, a place for
Rita, a cup of coffee to buy. There was always, in every place on earth, a cup of coffee to buy. The train would draw out
of the station, and pull north. It would carry them all the way.

Tom didn't move. He sat back in his seat, staring forward.

“My grandfather thinks your husband left last Monday. He said he saw him out with the dog on the Sunday.”

Lizzie turned to his face and then looked beyond it to the wing mirror on his side. Jacob had taken the dog out for a walk
on the Sunday night. He'd been thinking about going for a run.

“He did leave, last Monday,” she said.

“But how does my grandfather know that?”

Lizzie shrugged. Her lips were pressed together.

“He said he then saw you on the common. More recently. He said he was shouting at you. Then he said your husband wasn't here
anymore. Not ‘here,' he said,” and Tom held four fingers up like dicky birds either side of his sarcastic smile and his brown
sorrowful eyes.

Tom Vickory came into the house and went with her through the hall and into the living room. He moved the air around and changed
the atmosphere. Lizzie sniffed the air behind him as he walked past her to look around. She took the Pearl receipt from underneath
the bowl on the windowsill and showed it to him. Tom took it from her and gave it back, said she had nothing to prove.

She sniffed the air in the doorway to the living room and then went to make a fire while he took his coat off and sat down
on the sofa, splaying his knees apart. He fiddled with his phone. She had left a window open.

Tom put the phone back in his bag and inched forward, stretching his arms down and spreading his hands on the floor. He lifted
his head. He said it was cool how there was nothing in the house. “I feel like I can breathe,” he said.

Lizzie lit the fire and blew into it so that the smell of ashes from the night before would drift around the room a little.

“Mike said you'd mentioned to him about renting the house.”

She lingered around the fireplace. He was watching her, smiling shyly.

“Just an idea,” she said. “He asked me to make a cake. I asked if he was interested, for him and your sister.”

“Have to be cheap,” said Tom. “They ain't got much cash.” Then he shrugged and looked like he didn't want to continue that
conversation.

“Where's your dog?”

“She runs off sometimes. Not to worry, though. She comes back.” Her voice trailed off. She stood by the fireplace with her
legs straight and her arms straight. She was in her jeans and coat.

“Can't believe I just bunked off for the day.”

“Is that what you did?”

“Basically,” he said. She looked at his feet.

“Will they take you back?”

“Yeah, course. I'm the best they've got. Tomorrow'll be fine. Someone'll cover for me today.”

“Would you like a tea or coffee, Tom?”

“Tea would be great.”

“I have a herbal tea.”

“Lovely!”

He put a hand to his chest again and took in a huge breath.

“What are you doing?”

“Feeling.”

Lizzie's eyes dilated with fear.

Tom said: “Nic'll be back. She's done this before. I'm not surprised. Just freaks out. Like the dog. The girls can't stand
Mum and Dad. Mum and Dad can't stand the girls. But they're all kind of hooked on it, if you know what I mean. All bound up.
If we're having baked potatoes, Mum grates the cheese on, Dad has extra. The girls pick it off. No one says anything, but
it's all inwardly fucked. The farm's fucked. I'd go tomorrow too, if I could. I think I will. You know? I think I could just
go right now.”

Lizzie said nothing. She watched his limbs being thrown around on the sofa as he made himself more comfortable. She smiled
and moved past him with her hands folded in front of her, and she went into the kitchen and sniffed. She made a pot of tea.
They would drink this, she thought, and then he would go.

Tom called through to ask if she needed any help.

“No, I'm fine,” she said, and she could hear the brightness in her voice. Very quickly she mixed up a cake and threw it in
the oven.

She came back into the living room with a pot of peppermint tea. “I thought you might like a bit of sponge,” she said.

“You made a cake?” he said, yawning, when she came back in. He was like a great, stretching cat.

Lizzie sat on the floor beside the fireplace.

“It'll be just a little while,” she said. “It's in the oven now.”

“Wow,” he said. “Great!” He had a very big goofy smile.

“I suppose you think that makes me frumpy.”

Tom laughed.

“Not at all!” he said, lifting his sweatshirt and rubbing his hard brown stomach. “I'm bloody starving, to be honest!”

Lizzie knelt in front of the fire, the teapot on the floor, and placed her hands flat on her thighs. She couldn't look him
in the eye. It made her feel intensely itchy and uncomfortable.

“You OK?” he said.

She made a very calm face by emptying everything out of it.

“Yes, I'm fine.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“How do you feel? Right now,” he said, and she knew that he was smiling because she felt that as a presence in the room, and
it was warm and comforting, and so her head leaned further to the right and the smile on her face seemed to grow ever wider
and more crazed with the awkward thrilling realization of desire.

On the sofa, Tom pressed the cake into his mouth. He dropped crumbs all over the place, but didn't apologize. He looked at
his feet, occasionally took one of his huge breaths, lifting his neck right up, but he didn't say anything about the house
or about the husband. She was grateful for that. She sat and beamed.

They ate the cake and drank some tea. He didn't say thank you.

He said, “I think I'll stretch out and have some zizz. That all right?”

She nodded. She wasn't thinking. She felt gracious and kind. Poor boy. He was tired.

When she got up, she could feel his eyes on the back of her. She smoothed her jumper down and smiled at him, but his eyes
were hidden in the crook of his arm.

The heart was larger than she'd expected, slightly bigger than her fist. It was like holding a root ball. She washed it carefully
in her hands, then placed it on the chopping board and took her sharpest knife. It was manageable though; and she could fit
her hands around it. Unlike the two great pieces of chest, which had flamed like ships on the barbecue the night before last
and brought her to tears. She removed the tendons, tubes and tougher flaps of skin around the edge. These she would give to
the dog. She turned the oven up to 150 degrees, and put some water on to boil through a percolator for coffee. From the vegetable
box in the garage she took two onions and a parsnip. She brought these inside with an old carrot, some garlic, and three potatoes.
She cubed the potatoes, and arranged them in a glass baking dish. She mixed the vegetables with her hands, and then placed
the heart on top and poured on three cups of broth. She sprinkled half a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper in
an even layer. Then she covered the dish with foil and slid it into the oven. It would need to be cooked for three hours before
she checked it, stirred the ingredients and added more beef broth if needed. It would then go back in for another two hours.
It would be ready to eat by the middle of the afternoon.

She sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, and leaned her head back against the wall.

For a long time she felt the color draining from her cheeks. She watched the clock.

Tom was still here. He came into the kitchen coughing and said, “Right, that's it, I'm going to change.”

Lizzie was sitting very still on the kitchen chair. She had decided today was the day for cooking the heart and nothing was
going to deter her. The boy wasn't here to notice her cooking. He was hanging around, in limbo, waiting for life to make use
of him. He hadn't looked at the oven.

He sat down across from her and faced out towards the window. He took his mobile out of his back pocket and put it on the
table. Lizzie felt the sweat under her arms. She stared at the oven. She wanted him to leave. Tom was sitting on the front
of his chair, looking very alert, with his hands resting on his knees. He closed his eyes, and breathed in through his nose.
It was possible that he was preparing to meditate. Lizzie started to shake. She looked at the shiny dark hair, and his perfect,
smooth skin.

He carried on sitting there, breathing. After a while he opened his eyes. He coughed again. He twisted the button through
the buttonhole on his Aertex. He did not seem to notice the woman sitting opposite him, white and shaking. Or if he did, he
was too polite to say a word.

“Nic's problem's anxiety,” he said. “Always has been. Being young. Comparatively speaking. Like to her mates. Mike's a nice
guy, though. He loves her. He's solid. Reliable sort. It's what she needs. Certain she loves him.” He paused, opened his eyes
and twisted his phone around on the table.

“Fuck, I need to move out, man!”

He looked at her now and two tears squeezed out of his eyes.

“You could live here,” said Lizzie. Then she turned to look out of the window.

The wind was blowing in the tops of the trees.

From the corner of her eye she saw him turn his head very quickly, almost as if he'd been anticipating the comment. She flicked
her eyes at him and saw that he was frowning. It didn't put her off. It had become a plan. She would offer this. Then he would
go.

“You could live here with Mike and Nic. If you wanted to. I was thinking of converting the shed. I need the rent, and…It's
big enough. If we cleared it out, we could make it a perfectly adequate space.”

She thought of it, of the young man living inside the shed. She thought about him being here with her. That would be perfect,
she felt. To be alone here, with him in the garden.

Tom made a little snorting sound while dragging a finger across his eye.

“Yeah, right, I can live
here.
”

“It's cheap,” said Lizzie.

“Think what Mum and Dad would say,” he said. “If we all decamped down here!” He grinned again, hands still flat on his knees,
back straight.

“There's a carpet. And some lamps in there. We could get you a heater, and some curtains. Mike and Nic could do the house,
couldn't they? You'd just have the shed to sort. And you're practical. You could get everything from work.”

He laughed. She looked. His back was very long. He hadn't noticed the smell in the kitchen, hadn't asked what was cooking
in the oven. It was a rich, dark, disgusting smell. It was her husband's dark little heart.

“The garden's got potential,” he said.

He twisted round to look at her.

“How much?” he said.