Wyld Dreamers

stairs and begins to search frantically. The device is neither on the kitchen sill where it is often left nor on the office desk drawer. Then she remembers Julian using an inhaler when they were in the woods the previous day. In the boot room, she finds his waxed jacket and, in an inside pocket, the inhaler.
Heart pounding, she dashes back to Julian’s room. He is lying ashen-faced with his arms around Stella. He puts a finger to his lips. ‘I found it in my bedside table when I looked again. Poor Stella, I frightened her.’ His lips caress his girlfriend’s forehead.
Stella gazes back through half-closed eyes. ‘Oh, it’s you. I called Amy but you didn’t hear me. Where were you? It was too chilly to come and look for you. Hold me, Julian, I’m shattered.’
Amy is dismissed.

6
Humming, Amy pins her hair up on top of her head. She wants to look her best on her last night. Tomorrow she will be on the train back to the place where she grew up. She can’t call it home anymore. She is more at home here at the farm with her friends. Where she can be herself.
Amy winds a scarf around her waist, turning the lotus-strewn kimono she found stuffed in a chest into a garment that folds over her hips. She sneaks a look at herself in the bathroom mirror. For the first time since she’s arrived here a month ago, she’s appropriately dressed. It’s absurd how good it makes her feel, this collection of cast-off items. Or does her change of mood have something to do with Stella? The woman left Wyld Farm for London yesterday.
It has been a perfect day. Picking elderflowers from high in the hedgerows in the field where the sheep graze, Amy laid delicately-scented flowers into her basket. Now the creamy-white lace heads dangle in sweetened water, floating with the grated rinds of orange and lemon and slivers of ginger. If only it could be she that would, in four days’ time, complete the recipe’s instructions. She delights in the author’s name, Mrs Gennery-Taylor, imagines a tall woman with a fine bosom instructing her to strain the liquid, mix it slowly with sugar and yeast and then to watch the magic unfold as the cloudy mixture ferments into elderflower wine.
But Amy cannot do these things. She has to go home.
The kitchen sleeps in the heat of the Aga. Throwing open the back door, Amy sits on the step, hitches up her skirts to brown her legs and rolls a joint. Beyond a scabby lawn spanned by the washing line is the remnants of a kitchen garden. Lazy butterflies meander between bushes of sage and rosemary and thyme which struggle for space among ground elder and chick weed. There are cushions of comfrey and mounds of mint. The plant names float into her head without being summoned.
She wanders over to the greenhouse. Its cracked panes are smeared with dirt and cobwebs. The door buckles as she pushes inside. The air is dry and still. Leaves rustle as she moves between benches and upturned pots. A trowel lies in a quizzical tilt on a seed tray, a spider scrambles over it. How her father would have loved somewhere like this where he could raise seedlings! But he was a man who never got what he wanted, and she understood that this was the way he preferred to live; in a state of wanting. How could he waste his life like that?
Nearby a head-high cage of saggy wire makes a canopy for fruit bushes. Pushing between the branches, she finds clusters of blackberries, tart-sweet red currants and fat gooseberries. Her skirt sags with fruit. Tonight they will eat berry pie.
The stone floor and marble shelves of the larder make it the perfect place for pastry-making. In the half light, rubbing lard into flour, lifting her fingers high above the bowl as she sings ‘All I Want’. Joni is a singer she loves but rarely dares to play when the boys are about. ‘Squeaky girly voice…yuck,’ they moan when Joni hits a wavering note.
Amy kneads the pastry. She’s made most of the food they’ve eaten since she’s been at Wyld Farm. How will those lazy boys manage once she’s gone? She rolls out the dough and sprinkles it with cinnamon and mace. As she slides the pie into the oven, the front door bangs opens. Seymour comes down the hallway, his heels clicking on the flagstones.
‘Amy, darling. How’s life for the country mouse?’ He kisses her cheek and she is pleased to be splendidly dressed. ‘London is simply too hot to survive.’ He flings himself into a chair and beams.
Seymour has been down three of the four weekends she and the others have been here. He usually arrives on Friday evening, long after her parents would have gone to bed, with food, wine, a new record and stories of his frantic life. A life that sounds tempting but he insists it must be escaped. On Sunday nights, he leaves late, seemingly unaffected by the drink he has consumed, or he bangs out of the house at dawn on Monday morning, whistling his goodbyes to Molly, waking them all, noisy and infuriating.
She grins back. ‘We’re fine. The boys are in the garage fixing the Land Rover. It was making strange noises.’
‘Very good. Has the builder been?’
‘He’s been delayed again, he’s coming next week.’
‘What a sod. And how is the lovely Amy?’
‘I’m fine, the weather’s been wonderful. But you know, I’ve got to go home tomorrow.’
‘That’s nonsense! It’s far too nice here and you’re far too important to leave.’
‘My parents expect me back. I’ve been here almost a month, Seymour. College starts in September.’
‘Well, we need you to stay a bit longer. September is ages away.’ He plonks his feet up on a chair. She has never seen a man look chic in sandals before. ‘Call them. Tell them I insist you stay. Hey, we can’t be inside on a