Ms

‘Husbandry’. Chapter One.

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

What possessed her to act so impetuously, to satisfy that simmering curiosity about Jeffrey’s demise, just because answers in 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 again. 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 extrasensory help. Yet the coincidence of today’s claim in the local rag that this particular copse of trees might now be diseased, appearing on the same day of those puzzle answers in its ‘tea-break’ page, was irresistible. If those rattling twigs were mocking her haste now, 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 sprawling on the earth beneath the spotted leaves of hideous shrubs just inside the school wall: decades back, nursing a turned foot there, and a crushed yellow sweet wrapper, half-crying, half-laughing with her old classmate Lizzie.

‘Fac-i-emus!’, the two girls had chorused, making their mantra sound as four-letter-wordy as possible, after scrambling up the wall for a quick survey before jumping down to leg it along the road and turn the corner onto the bridge. It was a simple lunch-break dare: complete the exposed dash over the bridge along which there were no places to duck or hide, and burst into the sanctuary of Mrs Turnbull’s old newsagency and sweet shop on the far side. Buy sweets, proving they’d done it. Eat the sweets, ideally 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 these dares the girls favoured high-risk days. That lunch time Mrs Turnbull had actually hidden the breathless duo behind the counter 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 in tandem. It was their closest call yet; and then Miranda dropped that acid-yellow sweet wrapper while clambering swiftly back over the school wall.

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

But this isn’t so funny, she told herself now, wincing among the reaching ash roots as she used her billowing sweet-wrapper-bright silk scarf to bind today’s sore ankle – and I shall have to fib to Lizzie about where it happened. Memories of sour bonbons made Miranda scrabble in her bag, its strap still loosely diagonal across her body, to find a battered blue box of Paracetamol. Breaking two from the foil, she managed to swallow the tablets 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 bark in front of her. She stared at it, or was it perhaps eyeballing her? The twigs stopped rattling. The breeze must have dropped again. Taking a deep breath, she rose carefully to her feet - well, one foot, she thought – for a closer look. The lingering sourness of the painkiller reminded her of one of Lizzie’s more revolting tisanes. Damn Lizzie and her medicinal plants, Miranda thought irritably. Jeffrey probably just quietly tipped most of her teas away anyway, with no harm done - intended or otherwise.... but... he is still dead. Ashes to ashes, and up here. She almost felt vicariously guilty of homicide herself now, for entertaining these spine-tingling imaginings.

Steadying herself against the scarred tree trunk to let the frisson pass, she wondered again if that strange lesion was significant; and then noticed a short broken branch dangling within close reach that might do as a temporary crutch. It waved towards her a little, in a fresh gust of the breeze. She accepted it gratefully. It snapped off quite easily, and was the perfect length. I’ll call Freddie on the mobile when I get down to the gate and say I tripped on the kerb there while taking a short stroll along the road, she decided.

Freddie had loosened up considerably, in her opinion, since his super-organised efficient spouse Suzy legged it with Miranda’s own (usually nay-saying and of course now ex) husband Matt. Ready to venture back down the muddy field with her new ash branch, Miranda wondered now if Lizzie had envied the financial and other freedoms of a pretty decent divorce settlement, as the forsaken (if not particularly grieving) party? She and Lizzie had always done so much in tandem. With once-stout Jeffrey failing to take any hints from Matt’s playbook, might Lizzie have been tempted to deploy other means of slipping the marital leash herself? The motive gave Miranda goosebumps - or perhaps it was just the gusting wind, up here so close to the brow of the hill.

Freddie can drive me to A&E, she decided. He so likes to be useful, and Lizzie will believe his account of my fall, and fuss over me later on with her herbs and poultices. That’ll be my opportunity to wind her up a bit, and see how she reacts. Miranda smiled, and patted the rough tree trunk goodbye, before starting to hobble carefully with her foraged stick across the ash roots, towards firmer ground.

***

Twenty-four hours later, settling deeper into a battered rattan chair on Lizzie’s patio in the 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 still twinged more than expected. ‘Unusual tea,’ she probed.

‘Mostly a blend of ginger, camomile, and a touch of liquorice,’ Lizzie replied, swishing a greenfly off her neat gardening slacks and crushing it beneath a sensible canvas lace-up shoe, 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 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 her 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.

‘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 up the hill. He wants to dig them all out. But look at that photo, Lizzie. Isn’t that 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 Freddie who, dragooned into the clandestine expedition, suggested aloud that a little digging-in between the lattice of roots might cover Jeffrey’s generous traces better.

‘Ashes to ashes,’ Lizzie murmured again. The unofficial scattering was, she had declared back then, inspired by a sudden urge to free poor Jeffrey from the stocky decorative urn provided by the crematorium. Miranda noted again how it stood, now empty, near Lizzie’s beloved herbs looking as if nothing untoward had ever happened.

‘Fac-i- emus!’ Lizzie had dared them four-letter-wordish-ly then too - to Freddie’s evident confusion - as if she and Miranda were still playing one of their girlhood games. ‘Let’s do it,’ Miranda had translated softly for him. ‘Ah, yes, of course,’ he replied hastily, as Lizzie stood on her patio waving a small garden trowel, before she fetched the battered hessian shopping bag to disguise and transport the urn. Now Lizzie peered again at the newspaper photograph 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 it involved more time resting out of sight than actual jogging. So Lizzie’s remark had surprised her and drifted back into her thoughts from time-to-time. When her own misgivings or ‘inklings’ overcame her yesterday and sent her wandering up to the trees for a fresh look, could that trip over their roots have been the ashes’ own way - or maybe even Jeffrey’s - of seizing her attention to something truly afoot up there? Miranda loved to consider such puzzles without delving too deeply into actual mysticism.

‘You should keep that ankle up,’ Lizzie instructed suddenly, perhaps misunderstanding her old friend’s preoccupied look. ‘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 - sure enough - 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. ‘I reckon our best bet is to stir up the tree-huggers,’ she added mischievously, still probing. ‘We could all camp in the branches, and lash ourselves to the trunks,’ she suggested, channelling memories of schoolgirl tree-climbing adventures. Lizzie set down the newspaper.

‘Hmm. They only do that when bulldozers are about to move in,’ she stated firmly. ‘No, we should just block the development itself, on design grounds. Then any trees would automatically be safe anyway. Perhaps Freddie should find a planning expert for us. 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 now was time for 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 suitably perplexed.

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

‘In the local paper, its ‘tea break’ pages. I find them very useful.’

‘Whatever for?’ Lizzie glanced at her own teacup.

‘I see answers in there to things that…trouble me. Like - what could possibly suddenly ail those ash trees?’ Miranda paused for effect. Lizzie eyed her oddly, she thought.

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

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

‘Puzzles in the tea-break pages?’ Lizzie sounded too-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 the sarcasm, Miranda thought fast. She did not want to give her underlying game away with the actual words, in case there was genuine hazard if Lizzie got her full drift. ‘I think they were …“disturbance” and…“roots”,’ she extemporized, rather lamely, instead.

‘Oh. Not very profound.’ Lizzie just seemed 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 have blood poisoning.’ Registering that at least her fib about the tumble’s location had taken root, Miranda wondered if Lizzie’s sudden reference to poisoning could be a subconscious confession - in which case, bingo! She shook her head in reply.

‘No, no grazes, thank you for asking, Lizzie. I just notice that these codewords so often channel my own thoughts. 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 much Lizzie liked to pick her way forensically through anything curious; perhaps this conversation should not stray too wildly from her own usual relish for embellishing daffy anecdotes.

‘I don’t quite understand yet, dear,’ Lizzie’s voice confirmed, 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 an allergic 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 reckon there are coded messages for you in the local newspaper puzzles? Or perhaps this is all a game!’ She almost sounded relieved.

‘Really, Lizzie, you can be so obtuse,’ Miranda trilled, delighted, ‘codewords are the games. 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 radiating 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 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 ‘- 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.’

Lizzie inhaled deeply, as if trying hard to keep her patience, and breathed out again through thinly-parted lips.

‘Very imaginative.’ She retrieved her cup, which smelled to Miranda like some bland peppermint infusion, perhaps for a steadying sip. ‘But –’

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

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

‘No dear - although that’s a very good idea, I might try it - I mean chime with Events. Not world events, you’d expect references to that sort of thing to creep in to keep things current and indeed they do, but with my events.’ Miranda dipped into her meaningful stage whisper again. ‘I think the compilers could be channelling me, in some way.’ Seeing a startled look, or perhaps just more exasperation, on her friend’s face she added, ‘as I said, it’s quite helpful; and sometimes I find Answers to my Concerns.’ Lizzie’s teacup clattered properly this time - rather pleasingly, Miranda thought - as she put it down again and she seemed to pick her next words carefully.

‘Well, I suppose it’s a matter of what you are subconsciously hoping to find,’ Lizzie proposed, slowly. ‘The interpretation that you place on the words, and all that?’ Her demeanour suddenly switched. ‘I wish your system could answer a puzzle for me here! Something has eaten my coriander down to the ground. I only planted it out last week, and now it’s just stubble. Nothing else in the herb boxes was touched. I’m quite put out. Is your ankle up to a hobble around the garden for a minute or two with me before I give you a lift home? The early roses at the sunniest end are so lovely just now.’

‘Aphids,’ said Miranda, not to be outdone by this sharp change of tack. She lowered her bandaged ankle to the patio floor, ready to lever herself carefully from the chair. ‘Or perhaps red spider mites. You’ll need to water your coriander plants often to keep those invaders at bay.’ She knew how Lizzie always planted garlic close to her thorny roses’ roots to make the tender flowerbuds unpalatable to the first aphids, and scattered coffee grounds on the earth beneath them to deter the gastropods to whom her terracotta pots were already rendered inaccessible by regular vaselining around the tops and sides. Lizzie looked surprised by Miranda’s accurate advice, and seemed to have quite forgotten the herb poultice.

‘Take your crutch,’ she instructed, passing over the grey hospital-issue monstrosity that had replaced the un-mentioned ash branch, and positioned herself to offer a helpful arm while - Miranda noted – also conveniently also obscuring the view of the empty urn now. ‘If you don’t need the support, dear, you could always dispatch a tiresome slug for me with it.’

‘Tally-ho’, Miranda answered cheerfully, accepting and waving the crutch a little wildly, ‘the game’s afoot!’ (And bait taken, she thought). Accepting Lizzie’s arm and chattering brightly about poisoning pests Miranda let her old friend steer her up the garden path, passing the forlorn and redundant urn without their usual, reverential pause.