In the Fold by Rachel Cusk Page B

added.
    I sat down in the armchair. It was covered with a length of cloth, like something in a morgue.
    ‘I had heard,’ said Adam.
    ‘She’ll tell you. She’s s-seen things here.’
    Adam put a hand to his head, as though he were in pain.
    ‘What sort of things?’ I asked.
    ‘E-emanations. Lights. Do you know Caris?’
    ‘A little.’
    ‘She’s very porous. She’s always seeing things.’
    ‘Well, she hasn’t seen Isobel,’ Adam said. Isobel was the name of his baby. ‘She’s had distinct trouble seeing her. She’s never once laid eyes on her.’
    Brendon stared at him with his mouth open.
    ‘I know she got someone to do her solar chart when she was born,’ he said reasonably. ‘She’s bringing it with her from London. It’s, ah, good news apparently.’
    The windows of the little room were wet with condensation. A pall of odorous steam was suspended at its centre. There was a dirty, boiled-roots smell.
    ‘What’s that smell?’ I asked.
    ‘Hot mash,’ Brendon replied. ‘For the birds. Apparently it stops them pining for a cockerel.’
    ‘Who told you that?’ said Adam.
    ‘M-mum.’
    ‘I thought so. Show Michael your cartons.’
    ‘Oh. All right.’ Brendon hopped off the sofa and vanished into the kitchen. He returned with a carton and handed it to me. ‘Th-there you go.’
    The carton was bright pink. It had a turquoise label which read ‘Funky Chickens’.
    ‘A friend of mine makes them for me,’ said Brendon proudly. ‘They s-stand out a mile in the shops.’
    ‘You should have seen dad’s face when he saw them,’ said Adam, to me. ‘He thought he’d never be able to show himself in Doniford again.’
    ‘He just had to get used to them,’ said Brendon. ‘He likes them now. He saw Lady Higham buying some and she said they were the l-latest thing.’
    ‘The latest thing,’ Adam repeated, shaking his head. He puthis hands on his knees and stood up heavily. ‘The latest thing in eggs. That reconciled him, did it?’
    I stood up too. The dank steam was much thicker towards the top and centre of the room so I went and stood by the cast-iron fireplace. On the mantelpiece there was a small brass Buddha, grinning insanely. Next to it was an inlaid incense holder with a little grey worm of ash lying beside it.
    ‘I came to ask you a favour,’ Adam said.
    Brendon looked frightened. ‘Go on,’ he said.
    ‘Vivian needs the dogs walking.’
    ‘All right,’ said Brendon doubtfully. ‘They don’t like me, though.’
    ‘She can’t see to the end of her arm. They’re spending all day shut in.’
    ‘I’ll t-try,’ said Brendon.
    ‘They’re a bit temperamental with dad away.’
    Brendon looked aghast.
    ‘It’s all right,’ Adam said. ‘It’s only for a week.’
    ‘What am I supposed to do with them?’
    ‘Just take them to the top of the hill and back.’
    ‘But what if they run away?’
    Adam opened the cottage door and let us out on to the windy hill. A belch of steam was let out with us and was instantly drawn upwards into the sky.
    ‘If they run away you’ll just have to go and find them,’ he said.
    We set off back up the track towards the barns.

FOUR
    Adam’s house stood in a delta of tarmac, new, black and pristine. It lay at the end of a black, pristine tarmac river that meandered grandly out of the east side of town, beyond the old grid-patterned streets of residential Doniford, which looked infirm by comparison. There, the coast road passed through a fuming, hooting, rattling cascade of metal the narrow, decorous terraces struggled to contain. Great lorries like dinosaurs manoeuvred on the small roundabouts. Dirty trucks freighted with skips and scaffolding roared past, driven by men who gazed blankly through their spattered windscreens. Beside them the pavements and brick walls of front gardens looked miniature: the gardens and the facades of the houses shook like toys as the lorries passed and the daffodils seemed to jolt from side to side in the