LITMIR.BIZ

      SIX

      James Caulfield was woken by his lurcher, Barry, and, in turn, woke the labrador, Beryl, over whom he tripped on his way to the bathroom. He had a leisurely pee and then yawned at length, hanging on to the basin and staring vaguely at the mirror until the fog of reverie lifted and his reflection gawped back.

      ‘Christ,’ he groaned, stretching his chin to analyse bristle length, ‘reckon I can go another day?’ His dogs did not answer, merely observed him before glancing away in the approximate direction of the kitchen and their breakfast.

      ‘What’s today?’ James asked, this time not expecting an answer from his canine companions. ‘Thursday, I do believe. That means Mrs Brakespeare and as she’s rather short-sighted, the razor can wait until tomorrow.’ He stroked his chin thoughtfully, sprayed a long blast of deodorant under each armpit and went downstairs in his T-shirt and boxer shorts to feed the dogs. He stood over them, hands on hips, as he always did, while they slurped down their food before staring at him imploringly as if they could eat the same again. ‘Come on, out you go.’ He opened the arched oak door and the dogs bounded out into the morning.

      Standing barefoot on the stone steps of his home, he watched the dogs race each other over the lawn. ‘In-digestion!’ he called after them in warning, stopping them momentarily in their tracks, before they resumed their intricate chase in and out of the cedars. James looked over to the great house, the gables of which he could see through the shrubs and trees. ‘Morning all,’ he said quietly, ‘apologies, as ever, should my dogs shit in your shrubs.’ He shut the front door and went to change. It was ten in the morning and he was running late.

      James Caulfield is forty-nine years old. He lives at the Keeper’s Dwelling of Delvaux Hall, near Bakewell, Derbyshire. The Hall itself is no longer lived in by Lord Delvaux, or anyone of remotely aristocratic lineage, however tenuous. Fifteen years ago the Hall was converted into ten luxury apartments, the stables, the keeper’s dwelling and the forester’s lodge into self-contained residences. James is a landscape gardener for whom an address as seemly as Keeper’s Dwelling, Delvaux Hall, Near Bakewell, Derbyshire, is essential to his trade. His clientele would be strictly limited if his van and cards gave some cul-de-sac in Chesterfield as his abode. James bought the building as a forsaken shell fourteen years ago, taking on most of the interior renovations himself. Consequently, though his mortgage is relatively small, the upkeep of the place requires a monthly input of funds that his landscape gardening only just about provides for. It certainly does not stretch to fixing the temperamental heating system, or the extensive roof repairs.

      While most men his age dress in suits for the office or casuals for tele-working, James’s work attire consists of old khakis, a black cotton polo-neck (the polo part becoming unstitched at the neck), a quilted checked lumberjack shirt, thick socks and hiking boots, an old battered wax jacket slung over his shoulder but worn only in utterly antisocial weather. The whole ensemble, clothing as it does a strong six-foot frame, makes James look much more Ralph Lauren than he does Percy Thrower and that’s why most of his clients are female. His Italian mother bequeathed him a head of tenacious, dark curls that he keeps cut close to his scalp. Though his hairline has receded a little, it has not drawn back further since he was twenty-six, nor have the silver flecks which pepper the sides increased. Because he scrutinized it daily until he was thirty, and it didn’t creep back even a millimetre, James rarely looks at it now – he is more concerned with his torso. When he looks in the mirror, he is always unnerved to see that it is not the body of a man in his mid-twenties that he still fully expects to see. But there again, when he goes for his thrice-weekly run, he is always unsettled that three miles feel much more of an effort than seven ever used to. He fears that age is playing havoc with his memory and powers of logic. Saying that, he is blessed by good looks; working out of doors affords his skin a year-round healthy bloom and his olive complexion accentuates the glint of his nut-brown eyes. His teeth are good. His humour is excellent. His hands are anomalously fine and clean for his job. His self-sufficiency, however, is wholly exasperating.

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