Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
O n Saturday morning Leo bounded into the kitchen clutching a carton of milk and a bag of pastries. Anna still in her dressing gown because it was only seven in the morning, looked up from her phone where she was perusing the headlines on the BBC news website, deliberately avoiding the sports news because she no longer felt she had to keep up with rugby and football scores – which, she decided, was actually quite liberating.
‘How do you fancy going mushroom foraging?’ he said. ‘I’ve bumped into Michaela downstairs and she and Jan are going to K?ívokslátsko, a national park. They’ve invited us to join them. It’s a bit of a drive but apparently the conditions are perfect after yesterday’s rain. And it would be nice to get out of the city.’
Anna’s initial instinct was to say no but Leo forestalled her.
‘What else were you going to do? I’ve never been mushroom picking.’
She considered for a moment and looked out of the window at the crisp autumn sky, blue, dotted with the odd wispy cloud, lit with low golden sunshine. The truth was, aside from washing and changing the sheets on her bed, she had no real plans.
‘I don’t know anything about mushrooms,’ she said.
‘You don’t need to worry about that. Apparently Michaela’s an expert. We can learn from her.’
* * *
Half an hour later, Leo was waiting by the front door, looking like a poster boy for the rugged outdoor life in blue cargo pants, a pale blue Henley stretched across his chest – had it always been that broad? – and a navy beanie hat crammed onto his blonde curls, which made them fan out around his face like a naughty cherub. He was talking to Ludmila, who as always looked immaculate. Today she wore an elegant full-length cashmere coat in a rich burgundy that matched her lipstick.
Anna touched her own hair self-consciously. She rather liked its slightly longer length now, and feeling feminine for a change. A memory trickled into her brain of being taken to the hairdresser by her aunt. ‘She needs to have it cut short,’ she’d told the hairdresser. ‘I can’t be doing with the tangles. And I don’t do braids.’ Anna had cried when she’d seen her hair on the floor. ‘Don’t be silly, Anna, darling,’ her aunt had said. ‘Short hair is much more practical.’ But to Anna it was a symbol of all she’d lost. Her mother had brushed it for her, plaiting it into an elaborate fishtail each morning when she was at primary school.
Tears pricked at her eyes at the recollection.
‘I love your hair slightly longer,’ said Leo with that unerring ability of his to read her mind.
‘Thanks.’ The word rasped hoarsely from her constricted throat.
‘You okay?’ asked Leo, and it struck her yet again how he easily he was able to tune in to her emotions.
‘Mmm,’ she murmured, repressing her feelings. Being practical. ‘Fine.’
Of course, he shot her a sceptical glance and, of course, he didn’t say anything as he ushered her out of the door. That was Leo all over, always empathetic – but was that to her or everyone?
‘I hear you are going to pick mushrooms,’ said Ludmila. ‘I hope your trip will be fruitful.’ She looked at Anna. ‘You look lighter, my dear.’
‘Lighter?’ Anna stared at her.
Ludmila gave her an enigmatic smile. ‘Lighter in spirit. When I saw you last, I felt you were weighed down.’
Anna blinked at her, wondering what Michaela had been telling her. Lighter? How was one lighter?’
‘You’ve lost some of the load you were carrying. It suits you.’
Leo raised an eyebrow at Anna and Ludmila turned to him. ‘And you, perhaps you should think about picking up a load now and then. You can be too light. Sometimes you need to take things seriously.’
With that she left, her beautiful wool coat flaring behind her as she disappeared through the doors.
Jan, jangling his car keys, passed her in the doorway. He caught Leo’s eye. ‘She’s very wise, that one.’
Anna and Leo exchanged a dubious glance. Anna was left feeling a little unsettled by Ludmila’s words.
* * *
‘Perfect conditions for houba? ,’ said Michaela, who was clutching a wicker basket as she almost bounced out of the car into the chilly morning air. ‘That’s Czech for mushroom picking.’ Despite the walking trousers, she wore what looked like a dozen colourful scarfs and a big stylish jumper with a woolly knitted hat that almost tamed her flyway blond hair. Even dressed for a day outdoors, she looked stylish and feminine. Anna studied her and resolved to buy herself a nice scarf and cuter headgear. The bobble on Michaela’s woolly hat bobbed about with her excitement, her face bright and intent. Even the normally imperturbable Jan seemed up for an adventure.
Their enthusiasm was infectious, especially after the hour-long journey to get there, and Anna felt a little frisson of anticipation. Initially, she’d said yes to the trip because it was something to do and she didn’t want to be left out, but now she was here, her interest was piqued. The back-to-nature vibe of the morning appealed to her, as did the thought of foraging for their own food. It wasn’t something she’d ever done or even considered before.
From the bottom of her basket Michaela produced several small pocket knives. ‘We need these because it’s best to cut the mushroom stem low to the ground.’
They left the car park and began to walk along a trail straight into the forest, their feet making papery rustles through the ankle-deep golden leaves. Autumn was making its mark, coating the forest floor with a russet spectrum of yellow, oranges and browns. Impulsive puffs of wind whipped the leaves into the occasional flurry, like wild animals startled into flight. Anna found herself glancing over her shoulder as if she might catch sight of something flitting from the shadow of one tree to another, dancing on the very periphery of her vision.
Shaking off the fanciful thought, she focused on the task in hand. Already Michaela and Jan, their heads bent, were scanning the ground. Anna searched for the telltale white mushroom caps. That was, she assumed, what they were looking for, although it was a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Leo fell into step beside her and the two of them followed the Czech couple as weak sunshine filtered through the branches overhead, creating pockets of dappled light.
He had his hands shoved in his pockets and strolled along with nonchalant ease, as if he had no expectation of finding anything. Anna suspected he was as clueless as she was.
‘Hele!’ called Michaela and turned to beckon to them. ‘Look.’ She pointed down at a mustard-brown mushroom with a creamy bulbous stem, so well camouflaged among the leaves that Anna wondered how she’d seen it. ‘It’s a porcini and a good size.’ Carefully Michaela cleared the leaves around the satsuma-sized mushroom and dug along the stem before cutting it off close to the ground, leaving some behind. With a triumphant grin she held it up. ‘Here.’ She handed it to them to take a closer inspection. ‘See the spongy underside. These mushrooms don’t have gills. This is a good size. If they’re very small then leave them. This type of mushroom can grow quite big.’ After taking a sniff, with a blissed-out expression on her face, she popped it into her basket. ‘Now we look around because they often grown near to one another.’ She crouched and her hand scrabbled through the leaves, gently brushing them back.
‘And more,’ called Jan from less than a metre away, and scuffed back the undergrowth to reveal two more mushrooms.
Now that she knew what she was looking for, Anna’s confidence grew and she diligently scanned the ground, suddenly determined to find something, driven by the competitive spirit that had been drilled into her. With her cousins, everything was always a contest, the fastest, the fittest, the strongest, the loudest. And Anna the slowest, the weakest and the quietest. She never quite made the grade.
Unfortunately, the harder she looked, the more elusive the mushrooms seemed to be, and she began to feel frustrated, especially now that Michaela and Jan seemed to be on a roll, bending to scoop up their finds with increasingly regularity.
After half an hour, her neck aching a little, she stopped and huffed out a breath. This was hopeless – she was never going to find anything. The familiar sensation of inadequacy began to envelop her, pressing down on her shoulders, as she slumped under the weight of failure. With a sigh, and as much to stretch the muscles at the back of her head, she looked up, and watched a solitary leaf quiver at the very end of a branch before losing its tenuous hold and, with a dying breath, flutter down to the forest floor.
When she looked up she found Jan watching her.
‘Do you think that leaf was worried it was one of the last to fall?’ he asked with a whimsical smile.
With a shrug, she lifted her shoulders, staring at him uncertainly, not sure whether he was making a point or not. ‘I’ve no idea. Do leaves have feelings?’
‘Lots of folklore features forest spirits – the Leshy, Dryads, Nymphs, the Ents. Why not?’
He looked so earnest, Anna had to smile, and rather than tease him, she gave into her own musings. ‘Actually, do you ever get the sense that there are things here, just out of sight, and when we turn to catch them, they hide?’
‘Always,’ said Jan, his eyes widening a little. ‘Throughout Europe there are lots of fairy-tales set in the woods. Hansel and Gretel , Goldilocks and the Three Bears , Little Red Riding Hood … Beauty and the Beast . The location is always outside the safety of the village. They represent the unknown, beyond the boundaries.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.’
Anna shook her head. ‘I don’t need protecting. And I don’t believe in fairies and witches.’
Leo, appearing at Jan’s side, shook his head. ‘No, you’ve never needed protecting. But everyone needs a little looking after now and then.’
Anna didn’t like the direction the conversation had taken and deliberately wandered away to the right, her eyes studying a patch of ground by a fallen log.
‘Aha!’ said Leo and she turned to find him dancing on the spot, his hips wiggling triumphantly. He looked ridiculously pleased with himself. ‘I found one. I found one.’ He held up his knife as if he were about to perform a ceremonial sacrifice and knelt down. ‘Come to Papa, little one,’ he crooned as he carefully cleared the leaves around it and gently sliced through the stem. Cradling it gently in his hands he studied it. ‘My first ever mushroom.’ He grinned.
Anna’s first instinct was to say, ‘I hope it’s not a poisonous one,’ but at the sight of his broad beam, the words shrivelled on her tongue and she was once again reminded of his capacity to find joy and happiness in the simplest of things.
Instead she smiled back at him. ‘Congratulations. Would you like me to take a picture of you with your mushroom?’
Leo’s grin widened. ‘Yes, please,’ he said and immediately struck a pose, pretending to kiss his mushroom as if he were a chef.
As she took the picture on her phone of Leo standing in one of the shafts of sunshine slanting through the trees, the light glinting on his blonde hair and his eyes shining with happiness, she felt a little zing in her heart. A burst of warmth blooming as she acknowledged that he was gorgeous, both inside and out. What you saw was exactly what you got. There was no side, no hidden agenda with Leo. A pure spirit. For a moment, she wondered if she’d ever truly appreciated that before. He certainly wasn’t the least bit competitive.
What was wrong with her? Clearly, the forest spirits were messing with her, making her soft. She chased away the fanciful thoughts and turned her attention back to the task in hand. If it was the last thing she did today, she was going to find a bloody mushroom.
‘Anna, Leo. Come see this.’ Michaela called from the other side of a small glade and they hurried over. She pointed to a taller, pale mushroom and then, keeping it at arm’s length, gently tapped it. A tiny puff of green genie smoke billowed out of a small hole in the top of the cap.
Anna stepped back. ‘What’s that? Is it poisonous?’
‘It’s a miracle of nature,’ said Michaela. ‘It’s a stump puffball. It’s not poisonous when it’s young but this one is too mature, so it wouldn’t taste so good. This is how it spreads its spores. Mushrooms are fascinating.’
‘Don’t get her started,’ said Jan, taking her elbow and helping her rise to her feet.
They wandered on with the sun heating the day. The concentration was starting to give Anna a headache when suddenly she spotted something. She frowned and quickly glanced sideways to make sure Leo hadn’t seen it. Stealthily, as if it might make a getaway, she approached the large brown lump. It was huge, the size of two fists, but it had the same colouring and texture as the mushrooms Michaela had been collecting. Anna felt a burst of excitement.
‘Look,’ she called. ‘I found one. Is this one edible?’
Michaela came over to check. ‘Oh my, Anna. That is one big porcini,’ she said throwing her arms around her with a big hug. ‘The biggest I’ve ever seen.’
‘Go Anna, go Anna,’ called Leo, punching her arm and doing another one of his daft dances.
With a blush of pleasure, she knelt down and carefully sliced through the slightly spongy stem.
‘That is a good one,’ said Michaela with a sigh. ‘Very good. You win the prize for the best mushroom of the day.’
Leo hugged her. ‘You’re the mushroom queen.’
She giggled because it was silly and it was only a mushroom, but they were both so pleased for her. If it had been Steve or her cousins, they would have doubled down and hunted even harder to try and beat the find. This was so much more fun. She felt their joy in her triumph more than her own.
It seemed that now she’d found one, her eye was trained, and as she looked more closely she began to see a few more, but that first one had been enough. She smiled to herself and paused for a moment, struck by a clear, piping chorus of birdsong echoing from high above them. When she looked up she caught fleeting glimpses of a tiny dunnock darting from tree to tree, while a nosy chaffinch hopped up and down, peering at them from a branch. There was a sense that the forest was alive around them, although starting to shut down for winter, and as she looked, really looked for a change, she noticed how the vivid green moss carpeted the base of trees, while paler lichens dotted their bark, and how the leaves had drifted to echo the contours of the ground. She took in a deep breath and smelt the musty, earthy aroma. Her feet sank into the soft mulch. Her senses woke up one by one, absorbing the sensations of the forest, and a deep sense of contentment settled upon her, one she hadn’t felt in … she couldn’t remember how long.
‘Here, Anna,’ called Leo, beckoning her over. There were several porcini on the ground and she crouched next to him, helping to clear the leaves from around his finds, as he sliced through a stem and moved on to the next. Suddenly their heads were almost touching and they both looked up at the same moment. His eyes locked on hers and his gaze was unusually solemn as it searched her face, as if looking for something. It unsettled her, making her feel a little lost, and when he gave her a gentle smile and looked away, it was as if she’d missed something.
To break the moment, she reached for another mushroom – of course, at the same moment as he did – and their fingers brushed. She almost started at the little electrical tingle that tickled her nerve endings but she didn’t pull her hand away. Suddenly she wanted his touch, wanted to feel his hand on hers, wanted that connection even though it unnerved her.
Leo pulled his hand away first. ‘You can have this one,’ he said, with one of his warm smiles, generous as always. It pierced her heart. He was a good man. Always had been.
‘We’re going to have a fine dinner,’ said Jan, coming up behind them, carrying Michaela’s basket.
Leo rose and handed over his mushrooms, which he’d been collecting in his beanie hat. Anna stood up and also held out her latest finds.
‘Only if you’re cooking,’ said Leo. ‘My expertise with these fun guys – fungis, geddit? –’ he nudged Anna ‘– runs to mushroom omelette.’
‘Michaela will make her famous mushroom goulash. As you have collected the food, you have to eat it too. This evening. Come have dinner.’
‘That would be great,’ said Leo, running a hand through his hair. Why did Anna have to notice the sun catching its golden highlights? Or how well he fit the autumn scene? Why was she so aware of him? ‘We’ll bring the beer.’
Amused rather than irritated that he hadn’t consulted her, Anna rolled her eyes at Michaela, but at the same time she remembered how Steve had often accepted things on her behalf because it was something he wanted to do and assumed that she would go along with it. In contrast, Leo’s response was spontaneous, of the moment, rather than thoughtless or selfish.