Learning by Heart Read Online Free Page A

Mill and Ellis Bitter. The Dabinetts were her favourite, prettier than the Michelins, by her reckoning. The cider-apple orchards occupied a slight rise in the ground, not high enough to be called a hill yet raised to avoid frost pockets and waterlogging. The field closest to her was almost one prolonged, round-headed mound, so soft was the contour and so gentle the falling-away of the land into the woods.
    She walked forward, still calling Denny’s name.
    The trees were planted in rows far enough apart for several people to walk astride between them. She set off now along the first, stopping every now and then to run her hands along the branches and feel the end of each with her fingers. She looked carefully at the tips for signs of winter infestation: for aphids’ eggs, or spider. Sometimes, in the spring, she would overturn nest after nest of minute caterpillars, curled in a wad of sticky white wool. Their intent, slow-burning attack fascinated her: their fuses were primed to blow in slow motion and take the autumn crop from her.
    After two hundred yards or so, she stopped and called again. ‘Denny!’ She would be surprised if he had gone as far as the woods. Ten years ago, perhaps, but not now. Not when he knew that she would soon be putting the kettle on the stove.
    They were a deserving couple, she thought, as she stood against the wind, a solitary figure in a great sweep of planting. A wry smile came to her face. A woman coming up to her sixty-fifth birthday, and a dog to his fourteenth. That made him almost a hundred in human terms. They were two old basket cases together.
    She felt in the pocket of her coat for a headscarf. Inside her Wellington boots, her feet were bare, and she had tucked her cord trousers into the tops. Like a child, she wriggled her toes inside the boots. Still functioning. No arthritis. Cora balanced on her heels, rocking backwards and forwards as if to reassure herself. She dreaded the onset of a telltale ache in her wrists and knees.
    She lifted her face to the wind and closed her eyes. She could taste rain. She had become good at detecting it, or the slightest change in the weather, just by standing here. But perhaps there would be no storm, just this sweeping, dancing, grey-on-white sky.
    She looked at her watch. Nine fifteen. She had to be in town, at the solicitor’s, by eleven, and it was a good half-hour’s drive. Denny usually came with her, trundling through the crowds at his snail’s pace, submitting to being tied up – and petted – outside while she did her errands. He would stand by the car if he realized she was going out, and refuse to leave the spot until she had ushered him on to the back seat. She frowned, and glanced back at the house.
    As she was walking back, and came within sight briefly of the lane, she saw the post van. A few moments later, Jim Blake came to the fence, holding the mail in one hand. ‘Blustery,’ he called, as she got closer to him.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Is there much for me?’
    ‘A few bits and pieces,’ he said.
    She got to the gate and opened it. ‘I can’t find Denny,’ she told him.
    ‘Want me to go and look for him?’
    ‘Goodness, no,’ she said. ‘He’ll probably turn up any minute. Come inside and have some tea.’
    They went into the hallway. Flagstoned and dark, it was full of boots and coats. Tied bundles of newspaper ready for recycling lay under the stairs. On the black dresser there was a tide of circulars, bills, receipts and magazines; notes, too, that she had made for herself and, just as quickly, forgotten. There was a bowl of clementines, almost desiccated with age, their skins shrunk to the texture of coloured, crinkled cardboard.
    ‘Put it on there,’ Cora said, indicating the dresser with a wave.
    Jim looked at the mail in his hand. ‘There’s a little parcel,’ he said.
    ‘People are hounding me with all sorts of things,’ she told him. ‘I’m sick to death of the lot of them. Estate agents. The