Read Online Turbulence by Giles Foden - Free Book Online Page A

control the flow of seeds through different outlets. There was something about her that was immediately reassuring.
    She gave a start when she saw me, then smiled. ‘I’m supposed to be propagating cabbages,’ she said, lifting up the sower’s funnel-shaped spout and peering at me mischievously through it. She held out a hand. ‘But I’ve lost the packet that the seeds are in. Gill Ryman. And you must be …?’
    â€˜Henry Meadows. I’m from the Met Office. I’m staffing the radio equipment in Mr Mackellar’s field.’
    Gill Ryman. Eyes the colour of the sea and just as changeable, but brighter. Lines of care on her brow and, yes, she looked tired, but she was intriguing as well as reassuring – most of all those eyes, which were filled with the fierce energy of true believers. I didn’t know, then, quite how unquenchable was the faith of this bright-eyed huntress of seed, whom I would so terribly harm. It was her faith that saved me, not my own. And it was her intelligence which cracked the number. But on first meeting her, I got no sense of either of these things; she was, instead, the object of misdirected melancholic longings, feelings that I only half understood myself.
    Her hand was cold and slightly calloused as I shook it. Inoticed there was scrollwork on the front of her jersey. She was attractive, quite a big woman overall, but also, in an odd way, angular. The mixture gave a sense of strength and frailty in balance, as if she were both fern and flower; it made you wonder what lay beneath.
    â€˜Oh, that’s you, is it?’ She took off the scarf, shook out her locks, then looked me up and down, like a farmer inspecting a bullock at market. ‘We noticed the men from the ministry had been busy. My husband once worked for the Met Office.’
    â€˜Well, that’s why I’m here,’ I said. ‘I mean, at your door. I’m a follower of his weather work.’
    â€˜Really? But he gave all that up ages ago. He concentrates on his peace studies now.’
    Peace studies. How strange that sounded in wartime. A blasphemy. For a moment I was lost for anything to say. I didn’t want to arouse suspicion.
    â€˜All the same,’ I said eventually, ‘I am very interested in his mathematics.’
    â€˜I can’t promise he will see you, but do come in.’
    I stepped towards the front door again.
    â€˜Oh, we don’t use that one,’ she said. ‘This way.’
    I followed her round to the back. I found myself gazing at her well-covered form. She had a roundness across the hips; otherwise she was bony, all knees and elbows and shoulders. Behind the house, stretching up a hillside towards the low stone building and Mackellar’s, were vegetable gardens in which I noticed a tall labourer digging.
    â€˜That’s the cot-house up there,’ she said, gesturing at the old stone building as she opened the back door. Cot-house. Mackellar had used the same odd term, which I later learned was just an old word for a dwelling on agricultural land. The little black Highland cattle I’d seen earlier had moved closer to the stone structure. Now they were gathering round it,angling down their malevolent-looking horns as if they might lift it from its ancient foundations.
    â€˜Those are our gardens in between.’ My gaze drew back down nearer, to the old man, digging.
    â€˜Parsnips,’ added Mrs Ryman by way of explanation as I followed her into the hall. Directly, something hit me on the head.
    â€˜Sorry. Should have warned you. That’s my husband’s special heating system. It hangs from cables. Don’t ask me how it works.’
    A series of pipes, supported by wires, ran down the centre of the hallway. The whole place smelt strongly of steam and chemicals. I followed her through into a large country kitchen.
    â€˜Cup of tea?’
    â€˜Yes, please.’ The kitchen was rather spartan.