Excerpt from The Winter Ground

• Hodder & Stoughton, 2008.
  ISBN 978-0-340-93534-7, Hardback.

• Hodder & Stoughton, 2009.
  ISBN 978-0-340-93535-4, Paperback.

Twice a year, for a week or so, for half an hour each day, it is easy to feel glad to be in Perthshire. Between one morning and the next, when spring is unfurling, the beech walk between the edge of the park and the cottages becomes a sort of hushed nave where the sunlit green of new leaves against the filigree can lift the hearts and calm the minds of all who pass along it. And then again, when summer gives its first sigh and begins gently to sink into autumn, one day the green will turn to gold and the breeze will shake a few golden shingles free, sending them spiralling downwards and letting the sunshine dazzle through the pinprick holes in the canopy, so that one wants to stand in the dappling light and raise one’s face to heaven, feeling the leaves brush past as they fall.

Today was not one of those days. A particularly gusty November had seen off the last leaf weeks ago and now the bare branches, black and slick, offered no shelter but instead only organised the raindrops into larger servings, the better to soak Bunty and me as we plodded underneath.

For all the murk and chill, though, I had been eager to set out on our walk this morning. My husband, over breakfast, had been waxing political again.

‘Our days are numbered,’ he had begun, from behind The Times, after a hefty sigh.

‘Everyone’s days are numbered,’ I replied, hoping to offend him with my frivolity and avoid an out-and-out conversation.

‘Well, you laugh while you can,’ said Hugh, bending his newspaper down to look at me, ‘but mark my words, we won’t survive this, not this time. It will be upon us before we know what’s hit us and we will all be swept away.’ Hugh could find in the most blameless little Times leader sure signs of revolution blowing in like a ice-storm from the east and engulfing Perthshire. ‘Lenin —’ he went on, but I nipped it in the bud, for when he got as far as Lenin there was no stopping him.

‘— is dead,’ I said.

‘— has more people coming to visit his tomb every month, it says here,’ said Hugh, ignoring me.

‘Why not stick to the national news at breakfast?’ I suggested. ‘I’m sure Russian politics can’t be good for one’s digestion.’

‘Irish Free State.’

‘Or the book pages.’ I was getting desperate.

Hugh gave a bark of very dry laughter.

‘The book pages!’ he snorted. ‘That Kafka fella has a new thing out, worse than the last. The book pages, Dandy, are far from the oasis of comfort they used to be.’

‘But hasn’t Mr Wodehouse just published again?’ I asked.

‘He has indeed,’ said Hugh, with an air of triumph for which I could not account until he went on: ‘and has fled our shores and gone to live in France. Must know something the rest of us haven’t heard yet.’
I could not help the sudden leap of hope in my breast.

‘Well, as to living in France,’ I began, trying to sound casual. Once again, Hugh interrupted me.

‘Never!’ he thundered. ‘If we are going down, then down we shall go, fighting to the last.’ With that, remembering that the coming revolution would provide scope for valour and glory as well as an end to life as we knew it, he took a satisfied bite of his toast and folded the newspaper to the sporting news.

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