Husbandry

Miranda closed her eyes and cursed softly, rubbing her painful ankle and regretting the crazy whim that had sent her up here this morning in unsuitable shoes to check the isolated copse of ash trees.

What possessed her to act so impetuously, to satisfy simmering curiosity about Jeffrey’s demise, just because the answers to today’s newspaper puzzle included ‘ashes’, ‘scattering’, ‘poison’, and ‘teacup’? She should at least have put her walking boots on first.

The trees creaked ominously above her now. She could swear the swaying branches were actually cackling. Miranda knew perfectly well that adding two-plus-two to make five, and often still being right, was her own very fine natural talent without extra-sensory input. Yet the coincidence of today’s claim in the local rag that this copse of trees might now be diseased, and those puzzle answers in its ‘tea-break’ page, was irresistible.

She glanced up. If those rattling twigs were mocking her haste, it was remarkably ungrateful. She brushed leaf litter from her knees and considered trying to stand; but a new wave of pain flushed out a dizzy spell and for a moment she seemed to tumble through time beyond the tangled ash roots, and be crouching on the earth beneath the spotted leaves of the hideous shrubs just inside her old school wall: decades back, nursing a turned foot and a crushed yellow sweet wrapper, half-crying, half-laughing with her old classmate Lizzie. She closed her eyes and let herself remember while today’s pain subsided.

‘Fac-i-emus!’ the two girls had chorused, as usual making it sound as four-letter-wordy as possible, after scrambling up the flinty wall for a quick survey before jumping down to leg it along the road and turn the corner onto the bridge. ‘Let’s do it!’ The trip was a simple lunch-break dare: complete that exposed dash over the bridge along which there were no places to duck or hide, and burst into the sanctuary of old Mrs Turnbull’s newsagency and sweet shop on the far side. Buy sweets, proving they’d done it. Show off the sweets to a favoured few, ideally while in school. Innocent times.

Portly headmistress Mrs McQueen chose random days to police the route herself – brisk pace out, slower stroll back – but her diary system was crack-able, and for their dares these girls favoured high-risk days. That lunchtime, Mrs Turnbull had hidden the breathless duo under the counter on the broad polished floorboards amid the cardboard boxes just before Mrs McQ lumbered in ahead of schedule, all ears and eyes and ordered a small bag of humbugs. Hypocrite, the girls had mouthed gleefully in tandem, crouched in their fragrant sanctuary. It was the closest call yet; and then Miranda had dropped an acid-yellow sweet wrapper while clambering triumphantly back over the school wall.

‘No leaving clues!’ Lizzie remonstrated and it was in reaching to catch the fluorescing twist of paper that Miranda had tumbled back then; turning her ankle and collapsing onto the earth and roots but laughing – a little hysterically – through her pain while trying not to choke on the sharply-lemony sweet in her mouth.

But this isn’t so funny, she told herself now, sat wincing among the reaching roots as she used her billowing sweet-wrapper-bright silk scarf to bind today’s sore ankle – and now I’ll have to fib to Lizzie about where this happened. Memories of sour bonbons made Miranda suddenly scrabble in her bag, its strap still loosely diagonal across her body, to find her battered blue box of paracetamol tablets. Breaking two from the foil, she managed to swallow them one by one without water. Better than nothing, she thought, wrinkling her nose at the bitter after-taste; and then noticed a curious greyish lesion on the ash trunk in front of her. She stared at it, or was it eyeballing her? Something about its pallor and the patterns of the bark around it, reminded her of Jeffrey’s face – gazing back at her and looking somewhat under the weather himself. How extraordinary. The twigs stopped rattling. The breeze must have dropped again.

Taking a deep breath, Miranda rose carefully to her feet – well, one foot, she thought – for a curious closer look, extending a hand to the tree trunk for support. The illusion of a face was lost this close up, and now the lingering sour taste of the painkillers only reminded her of one of Lizzie’s more revolting experimental tisanes. Damn Lizzie and her medicinal plants, Miranda thought irritably. Jeffrey probably just quietly tipped most of her ghastly teas away anyway, with no harm done, intended or otherwise.... but... he is still dead. Ashes to ashes; and very much up here.

She almost felt vicariously guilty of homicide herself, for entertaining her latest spine-tingling imaginings. Steadying herself against the scarred tree trunk, to let the frisson pass, she wondered if the strange lesion was significant in some other way. Her wandering attention was caught by a short, broken branch dangling within close reach, almost waving at her. That would do as a temporary crutch, she thought. As it surged encouragingly towards her again, in a renewed gust of the breeze, she accepted it gratefully. It snapped free easily and seemed a perfect length.

Excellent. I can hobble down to the gate and then call Freddie on the mobile, she decided. It’s a better signal there and I can say I tripped on the kerb while taking a short stroll along the road. No need to tell anyone I was all the way up here – or at least, not yet.

She tested the strength of the stick. It seemed adequate for the task. Freddie had loosened up considerably, she found herself thinking, since his super-efficient spouse Suzy had legged it with Miranda’s own (usually nay-saying and of course now ex) husband Matt – and to whom in many ways Suzy was welcome.

She wondered again if Lizzie had ever envied how evidently Miranda enjoyed the financial and other freedoms of a pretty decent divorce settlement, as the forsaken (and not particularly grieving) party? Although chalk and cheese in some ways, she and Lizzie had always done so much in tandem from girlhood onwards. Leaves from each other’s book, she thought, plucking a few actual ones off her new walking stick for a better grip. With stolid Jeffrey perhaps failing to take a hint from Matt’s new playbook, could Lizzie have felt tempted to deploy other means of slipping her own marital leash?

Miranda felt guilty herself again, for entertaining such a thought. It gave her goosebumps – or perhaps that was just the gusting wind again, so near the brow of the hill. The paracetemol was definitely kicking in. Her ankle felt a bit less painful, and her mind was clearing. Glancing back at the lesion from where Jeffrey’s face had briefly seemed to peer, she saw only crinkling tree bark. It was time to go.

Freddie can drive me round to A&E to get this ankle checked, she determined. He so likes to be useful, and Lizzie will believe his account of my fall and no doubt fuss over me later on with her herbs and poultices. That’ll be my opportunity to do a bit of digging – some investigating – and see how she reacts. If she gets antsy, I can pretend just to be a bit ‘away with the fairies’ on my painkillers! Miranda smiled and patted the rough tree trunk goodbye – although avoiding the Jeffrey bit, just in case – before starting to hobble carefully with her foraged stick across the unreliable ash roots, towards firmer ground.

***

Twenty-four hours later, settling deeper into a battered rattan chair on Lizzie’s patio in mid-morning sunshine, Miranda bestowed a misleading smile upon her old friend and set down a particularly disgusting cup of herbal tea.

‘Much better, thank you,’ she replied, although her ankle sometimes twinged more than expected. ‘Unusual tea,’ she probed.

‘Mostly a blend of ginger, camomile, and a touch of liquorice,’ Lizzie replied briskly, swishing a greenfly off her neat gardening slacks and crushing it beneath a sensible canvas lace-up, before sitting down in the chair opposite. ‘Anti-inflammatories for your ankle, dear.’

‘Really?’ Miranda looked away from the splattered greenfly stain on the patio to glance curiously across at the funary urn by the flourishing herb beds further along the garden, where Lizzie experimented with her culinary and medicinal plants; and then she reached deep into the capacious bag balanced on her lap.

‘How thoughtful of you. But would it cure this?’ Miranda thrust a folded copy of the local paper onto the small cast-iron table between them, rocking the teacups. LOWER FIELD TREES UNDER THREAT blazed a banner headline. Lizzie leaned forward in her chair, which creaked a little with the movement.

‘What’s that about?’

‘A developer who claims some old ash trees are diseased and will spoil the view from his swanky new build further along the hill. He wants to tear them all out. But look at that photo, Lizzie. Isn’t it where we – you know – scattered Jeffrey? Those trees were in perfect health when we, rather wittily I thought, dug him in around their roots last autumn.’ Miranda had been surprised by the quantity of ash that an overweight middle-aged man dispatched by an unforseen heart condition could yield. It was their helpmeet Freddie who, press-ganged ino the clandestine expedition, suggested that a little digging-in between the lattice of roots might cover Jeffrey’s generous traces better.

‘Ashes to ashes,’ Lizzie murmured again now, studying the photograph. The unofficial scattering was, she’d declared at the time, inspired by a sudden urge to free poor Jeffrey from the deceptively small and rather dreary urn provided by the crematorium. Miranda noted again how it still stood, now empty, near Lizzie’s beloved herbs, looking as if nothing untoward had ever happened.

‘Let’s do it!’ Lizzie had dared her on that day too, as if she and Miranda were still playing one of their girlhood games, standing on her patio and waving her small garden trowel before fetching a battered hessian shopping bag to disguise and transport the urn.

Lizzie looked up from the folded newspaper in front of her.

‘Yes, that spot was his favourite pause on our nature walks.’

‘So you said.’ Miranda still could not recall stout Jeffrey ever volunteering for strolls, in town or country. The running that Lizzie supposedly got him doing latterly had been solo and, Miranda suspected, involved more time resting out of sight than actual jogging. So Lizzie’s remark about the walks had surprised her and drifted back into her thoughts from time-to-time. When her misgivings or ‘inklings’ overcame her yesterday and she had wandered up to the trees for a fresh look, could tripping over their roots have been the ashes’ own way – or maybe even Jeffrey’s, given his briefly spectral appearance – of seizing her attention to something truly afoot up there? Miranda loved to consider such puzzles without delving into actual mysticism.

Ultimately. these things are revelatory clues spun from already having a perceptive or inquiring sort of mind, after all, she told herself – you just have to be open to considering the possibilities.

‘You should keep that ankle up,’ Lizzie said suddenly; perhaps misunderstanding her friend’s preoccupied frown. ‘Use that little stool.’ Miranda obliged, and set her bag on the patio tiles as Lizzie delicately unfolded the shouty newspaper to scan the article. Miranda wondered if she was looking for a better reason to object to the developer’s ideas, than a dive into open debate about the ash trees’ health. An artist’s impression of the proposed, enormous house was printed beneath the photo of the threatened copse and Lizzie exclaimed: ‘But what a hideous design! It’s a monstrosity! We should block that to save everyone’s view at all costs, never mind the trees.’

‘I thought so!’ Miranda said, her eyes gleaming. Lizzie was still so easy to bounce into subversive action when you touched the right nerve. ‘And I reckon the best bet is to stir up the tree-huggers,’ she suggested mischievously, still probing. ‘We could all camp in the branches, and lash ourselves to the trunks,’ she added, channelling memories of schoolgirl tree-climbing adventures. Lizzie set down the paper.

‘Hmm. They only do that bit when bulldozers are about to move in,’ she stated. ‘No, we should just block the development itself, on design grounds. Then any trees would automatically be safe anyway. Perhaps Freddie could find a planning expert for us. He so likes to be useful. Now, what about a herbal poultice for that twisted ankle? You won’t be able to do much tree-climbing until it’s fixed.’ Miranda noted the attempt at a change of subject. Perhaps it was time for her Plan B. She beamed, leant forward a little in her seat, and spoke in a stage whisper.

‘We can use the codewords for guidance.’ Lizzie looked puzzled.

‘What on earth are you talking about, Miranda?’

‘In that local paper, its tea break pages. I find them very handy.’ Miranda paused, realising that ‘tempting’ was more accurate.

‘Whatever for?’ Lizzie was glancing at her own teacup.

‘I see answers in them to things that… trouble me. Like… what could possibly suddenly ail those ash trees, just now?’ Miranda held her breath with anticipation as Lizzie eyed her, a little coldly, she thought.

‘I don’t quite understand, dear. What exactly are these code words you think you’re finding, and when did you begin to notice this phenomenon? Yesterday, perhaps, after your fall?’

‘They’re puzzles, dear, not a phemomenon!’ Miranda exhaled. ‘Surely you’ve seen them? Don’t tell me you’re completely clueless,’ she added, enjoying the irritated frown that flickered across Lizzie’s forehead.

‘Puzzles in the tea-break pages?’ Lizzie sounded carefully neutral. Miranda risked another sip of her now tepid tea – it was still disgusting – and nodded.

‘Yes, in the newspaper. Even the tatty old Shire Register has them each week. I’m rather hooked. I picked up this copy at… at the hospital,’ she fibbed, ‘while waiting for my X-ray, and that’s when I saw the words.’

‘Really. Which words? There are usually rather a lot in newspapers – even local ones.’

‘Oh, something like…’ Ignoring Lizzie’s sarcasm, Miranda thought faster. She did not want to give her underlying game away, with the actual words: not if there might be a genuine hazard from doing so, should Lizzie get her full drift yet. ‘I think they were… disturbance and… roots,’ she extemporized more lamely.

‘Oh. So. not very profound.’ Lizzie seemed even more dismissive. ‘Are you a bit feverish, Miranda – was your ankle grazed as well as twisted when you fell on that kerb – could something be turning septic? You might be developing blood poisoning.’

Poisoning! Noting that her fib about the tumble’s location had taken root, Miranda wondered if Lizzie’s rapid reference to poison was a subconscious confession – in which case, bingo! She laughed.

‘No, no grazes; thank you for asking, Lizzie. I just notice that these codeword solutions often channel my own thoughts.’ She was not fibbing about these sometimes, odd coincidences, although the trip to the ash copse was the first she had given in to acting upon. ‘What do you think?’

‘Bring on the men in white coats, is what I think,’ Lizzie responded tartly, but did her hand shake a little as she set her teacup down on the dark green cast-iron garden table? Miranda knew how forensically Lizzie liked to pick her way through anything curious. Perhaps this conversation should not stray too wildly yet from Miranda’s long-established relish for embellishing daffy anecdotes.

‘I still don’t quite understand, dear,’ Lizzie’s voice confirmed, efficient, methodical. ‘You didn’t mention being concussed by your fall.’

‘No; no concussion,’ Miranda smiled disarmingly back at her. Lizzie persisted.

‘So what exactly did they give you, for the pain? You could be having a hallucinatory reaction to that.’

‘Oh, I forget. It’s in my bag somewhere. Nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘Alright.’ Lizzie leant back in her seat. ‘So, let me get this clear. You suddenly reckon there are coded messages for you in the local newspaper puzzles? Or – oh, perhaps this is all a game?’ She almost sounded relieved.

‘Really, Lizzie, you can be so obtuse,’ Miranda trilled, ‘codewords are the game. I’m surprised you don’t know them. They look like crosswords, but every square is numbered and the clues are two or three letters printed here and there in them. You have to work out where all the other letters go, to fill in the words that way. They emerge – rather like something hatching,’ she added, scanning the plants nearest the patio as if seeking fat insect eggs about to disgorge eager larvae. She could sense Lizzie’s mounting irritation radiate outwards.

‘I’m not much of a puzzles person, Miranda, they were more Jeffrey’s thing. I prefer the gardening pages. I sprayed all those plants yesterday, by the way.’

‘Evidently.’ Miranda, now absorbing the unsolicited naming of Jeffrey, waved her left hand airily in the general direction of Lizzie’s flourishing herb beds, ‘although I do hope it wasn’t with something also toxic to humans! So,’ she hastened on, sensing a satisfying drop in temperature emanating from Lizzie’s side of the patio table, ‘when I complete a codeword, I try to work out what it’s really telling me. Sometimes I even write out the words, my list of answers, into little stories.’ She wondered if Jeffrey had been a codeword fan too, in which case perhaps – but her chain of thought was broken by the sound of Lizzie inhaling deeply, as if trying to keep her patience, and breathing out again through thinly-parted lips.

‘Very imaginative,’ Lizzie said; and retrieved her tea, which smelled to Miranda like some bland peppermint infusion, perhaps for a steadying sip. ‘But –’

‘And,’ Miranda gleefully interrupted, ‘some of the words really do chime.’

‘Chime? As in rhyme – you write poems with the words too? Nonsense verse, like Edward Lear, I suppose,’ Lizzie suggested acidly.

Perhaps her mint team was for dyspepsia.