The Blue Hour

In the chastening chill of a dazzling October morning, James Becker stands on the footbridge, hip hitched against the handrail, rolling a cigarette. Beneath him, the stream runs black and slow, the water close to freezing, oozing like treacle over rusty orange stone. This is the mid-point of his daily commute, which takes a full twelve minutes from the Gamekeeper’s Lodge, where he lives, to Fairburn House, where he works. Fifteen minutes if he stops for a smoke.Coat collar up, glancing quickly over one shoulder – he might appear furtive to an outsider, though he’s no need to be. He belongs here, astonishing as that may be. Even he can barely credit it. How can he – fatherless bastard of a supermarket checkout girl, state-school boy in a cheap suit – be living and working here, at Fairburn, among the bluebloods? He doesn’t fit. And yet somehow, through hard work and dumb luck and only a minor bit of treachery, here he is.He lights his cigarette and checks over his shoulder one more time, looking back at the lodge, warm light spilling from the kitchen window, turning the beech hedge golden. No one is watching him – Helena will still be in bed, pillow clamped between her knees – no one will see him breaking the promise he made to quit. He has cut down – to just three a day now – and by the time the water freezes, he thinks, he’ll pack them in altogether.Leaning back on the rail, he draws hard on his cigarette, looking up at the hills to the north, their
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