The kitchen emptied in stages.
Thomas, Ruth, Claire, and Sam went out first. Thomas's diesel turned over twice before it caught and pulled away down the lane toward the Greywell road. Victor and James left a minute later — keys, jackets, a second check that James had his card and his notebook, the saloon's quieter engine, the soft slap of the front door.
Maya stayed at the table.
She had a glass of water in front of her and the heel of a loaf with butter. June had set both down without asking and then sat across from her with the look she had used on James as a boy when she wanted something done without an argument.
"I'm eating it," Maya said.
"I'm watching."
Maya ate it.
The kitchen settled. From the back of the house came the tick of a radiator finding its temperature.
June stood up. She crossed to the worktop where her phone was charging and unplugged it. She did not sit back down.
Maya watched her.
She finished the bread, took a swallow of water she had not particularly wanted, set the glass down, picked up her plate, very carefully, and went through to the sitting room.
She closed the door behind her.
June sat down again at the table, the phone in her hand, and did not dial straight away.
The kitchen was quiet enough now that she could hear the second hand on the wall clock. She had cooked in this room for thirty-one years. She had taught two boys to peel potatoes at this table. She had once, in a temper she still did not entirely regret, made Thomas eat a meal he had complained about until he apologized to the carrots. She knew this room. She knew what a bad call sounded like inside it.
She was not going to make a bad call.
She breathed out, scrolled to Kwame's name, and pressed it.
It rang four times.
"Mum."
"You're awake."
"I've been awake."
His voice had the thin, ground-down quality she remembered from the worst weeks of his first year at university — the voice of a person who had been holding something for a long time and did not want to put it down in case he could not pick it up again.
"Where are you?" she said.
"Pradeep's. There are six of us here. The office said don't come in until Monday at the earliest, they're still waiting on the structural team. My building's red-tagged. They won't even let me up to get my own clothes yet."
"Are you eating?"
"Yes, Mum."
"Are you sleeping?"
A pause. "Some."
"Kwame."
"Some, Mum. We're all fine. Pradeep's wife is feeding us. She thinks it's funny. She keeps counting us at the table like we're going to escape."
June found she could smile at that. It surprised her.
"I'm glad," she said. "I'm glad someone there is laughing."
"What's happened?"
He had heard it in her voice. She had not even said anything yet.
"Nothing's happened," she said. "Everyone here is fine. I just — I want to talk to you about something, and I don't want to talk to you about it on a bad line in three days when you've finally got back into your flat, and you're tired."
"Alright."
She heard him moving — a door closing, the muffle of voices in another room cutting off. He had stepped somewhere private.
"Go on," he said.
She set the phone down on the table on speaker, because her hand had started to tremble and she did not want him to hear it through the receiver. She put both palms flat on the wood.
"Victor and James are on their way to the bank in Wrenford," she said. "With Edmund. They're moving money."
There was a silence on the line.
"How much money?" Kwame said.
"A lot of it. Most of the cash. Edmund is helping us put it into things that aren't paper."
"Why this morning all of a sudden?"
"Because the ground under the world shifted four days ago, Kwame. Because we sat at this table last night and looked at each other and realized that the money in our account might not be worth what it says it's worth by the end of the month. Because your brother said the words out loud and your father did not argue with him, and I have been married to your father long enough to know what that means."
Another silence. Longer.
"What are they buying?" Kwame said.
"Land, to start. The Hallett place is up. Harriet's selling — she came in, she doesn't want it, her husband doesn't want it, they want the cash. We're putting in for the orchard and the lower field. One and a half million marks. Three hundred cash to start, the rest on a mortgage, Victor and your brother think Edmund can get us at a sensible rate."
A pause.
"Henry Hallett's place? Henry Hallett?"
"Yes."
She heard him exhale. Not in disbelief. In something closer to recognition. Henry Hallett had been one of the names her sons had grown up hearing — the man who walked the lane every morning with a stick and a dog, who had once, when Kwame was nine, let him climb the lowest of the apple trees and then quietly told Thomas about it over the fence three days later in case it mattered.
"He was a good man," Kwame said.
"He was."
She heard him breathing.
"I'm not finished," she said.
"Go on."
"I am not asking you for anything. I want that to be the first thing you hear, because I know how you are. I am not asking. Your savings are your savings. I am telling you what your father and your brother and I are doing with our money this morning, and I am telling you that if you want to put some of yours through us, we will put it into the same hard things, and your share will be your share, in writing, when you come home."
A long pause. She could hear, faintly, the hum of a fridge at Pradeep's house. A man's voice somewhere far behind it, laughing at something.
"How much do you have liquid?" she said. "Roughly. You don't have to be exact."
"Four fifty."
"Alright."
"I can send three fifty."
She had not asked him for a number. She had been about to say, whatever you are comfortable with, and he had answered the question before she finished thinking it.
"Kwame —"
"I keep a hundred. That's enough for me if anything goes wrong here while I wait for the international flights to open up again. Three fifty into whatever the family is buying. I'll do the transfer right now. Into your account or Dad's?"
"Into James's, he is the one going with Victor."
"Alright. Same bank, it'll land in minutes. They'll see it before they finish at the counter."
"Good."
"Tell James. So he knows it's coming and can plan around it."
"I'll tell him."
She let the silence sit for a moment. Then she said the part she had been holding.
"There's one more thing."
"Go on."
"We're going to rebuild the farmhouse."
A pause.
"On the Hallett land?"
"Yes."
"That's what the early designs were for, then. The ones Dad had you ask me to start on."
"Built to take the shake. Properly. Reinforced where it needs to be. Your father said — and I am quoting him, Kwame, because he doesn't say things like this often — your father said your sketches would help."
She heard her son not speak for a count of perhaps eight seconds.
"Come home," she said. "As soon as travel is open, everything will fall into place when you are here."
"Mum."
"I know. I'm not pushing."
"You are pushing."
"...A little."
He laughed.
"I'll come," he said. "Last I heard, there might be movement next week. Nothing confirmed."
"Kwame."
"Yes, Mum."
"I love you. I'm sorry you have to be stuck there in a time like this."
"You don't have to be sorry. Tell Dad I'll have a draft ready by tonight — I'll email it for him to mark up."
"I'll tell him."
"I love you, Mum."
"I love you. Go and let Pradeep's wife feed you."
"I will."
The line went.
She sat for a moment with her hand on the phone. The wall clock had moved on by — she checked — forty-five minutes. It had felt longer and shorter at the same time.
She stood up and went through to the sitting room.
Maya was on the sofa with the TV on low, the news running. She did not turn her head when June came in.
"The weather is getting worse," she said.
June turned her head to the TV. Her hands closed in her lap. She murmured:
"God, please let my son return safely to me. Please."
Maya heard her and went to her side, but still kept a little distance for safety.
"He will come back safely, don't worry," she said.
June just nodded without saying anything as they both continued to watch the news before letting the news fade and turning back to the work.