How Was It For You?

by Carmen Reid

  ‘Oh, I like that.’ Dave was busy with the parcel tape, making up the new boxes.‘Beginning is always the easy part.’

  ‘Two Zen nutters are about to go though my kitchen cupboards and take away all my belongings,’ Pamela said, slightly unnerved at the size of Alex’s collection.

  ‘But look in here.’ Alex was crouching down at a cupboard.‘You have basketware, half-burned candles, table mats in boxes that don’t look as if they’ve ever been opened. You do not need all this.’

  ‘Like your flat isn’t full of a million things you don’t need!’ Pamela accused.

  ‘But I sell them. This is different. Look, just pick a corner: begin and then continue,’ she repeated.

  Crouching down, looking through the kitchen clutter, the truth of this resonated with Pamela: beginning a marriage, in froth and flounciness, was easy; continuing was hard – harder than she’d ever imagined. Beginning her job, in her first ever designer suit, was easy; continuing under the Sheila dictatorship was hard. The first IVF attempt – easy – the seventh, bloody well almost impossible. They would begin the new life on the farm . . . and continue . . . see how it went. That’s all they could do.

  Chapter Fifteen

  PAMELA DID A final tour, although there was no reason to. Every room of her former home was empty. Completely empty, just flooring, walls and bare windows. She looked out of her sitting room window for a few moments, across the road to the houses opposite. Touched the smooth round door handles she’d had installed, one last time. Like shaking hands with her home. A final goodbye. She wouldn’t be coming back here.

  She saw her hands were trembling as she closed the front door, double-locked it and dropped the keys through the letterbox, as arranged with the estate agent.

  The removals men had already set off with the – big van? Small lorry? When did a van become a lorry? She was distracted for a moment by her ignorance of the technical specifications. Then she turned her head from the door she’d opened and closed almost every day for the last six years of her life.

  Turned to see Dave, already in the driving seat of their Saab, smiling at her encouragingly. She walked down the path to the garden gate, swung it open with its familiar rusting creak, and crossed the pavement to the car.

  Once in the seat, she buckled up her belt and they took one last look at their home together.

  ‘Goodbye, 27b Belgrove Gardens,’ Dave said.‘Hello, Linden Lee. Are you going to cry?’ he asked, reaching over to touch her hand.

  ‘No.’ This was more determination to overcome the tears than a statement of fact.

  He turned on the ignition, pulled out into the street and took the lefts and rights that brought them out into the great river of traffic at Hammersmith Broadway. Pamela looked out of the window at the tube station entrance, the newspaper stand, the coffee shop, the branch of Boots, all the familiar landmarks on her daily map of existence. They were driving past them, the road pulling them away, never to return. Suddenly she couldn’t stop the sobs.

  Dave changed lanes twice and pulled over onto a double yellow line already littered with other parked cars.

  He undid his seat belt and then hers, leaned over and put an arm round her, telling her it was going to be OK. With a jolt of surprise she realized that he was trying not to cry as well.

  ‘Why did I wear my bloody contact lenses?’ Dave managed after several minutes and she felt grateful for the chance to try to laugh. To try and shrug this off. They wiped their eyes and he fiddled with his eyelids in the mirror, trying to determine whether or not the bits of plastic had swum away.

  Pamela saw an anonymous little café on the corner, just yards from the car.‘Shall I go and get teas?’ she asked.

  ‘Teas would be good.’ He cleared the huskiness from his throat.‘Better put sugar in them as well.’

  ‘Sugar?’ She couldn’t remember when she’d last put sugar in her tea.

  ‘British medicine for shock, isn’t it? Everyone else drinks brandy, but we have weak tea with two spoonfuls of sugar.’

  As she reached for the door handle, she couldn’t resist telling him: ‘It won’t be like this in the country, you know – a café every five centimetres.’

  ‘No. We’ll have to learn how to make tea. Maybe even coffee.’

  ‘Terrifying!’ She smiled at him and he smiled back. And there it was, the glimmer of the thing that kept her hoping that maybe they would make it. She held the smile for a moment, then opened the door.

  The sugary tea lasted only as far as the first snarl-up on the A205 heading east. She watched grubby off-licences, bookie shops and minicab offices pass; schoolkids kicking a drinks can between them on the pavement, the flats above shops with peeling paint, filthy blackened brickwork, dingy net curtains . . . wondered if she would feel different if she didn’t see all this every day. Wasn’t assailed by it. The art of city living was to not really notice, not really be affected by all that you saw in one day. You couldn’t take in every face you passed, every building, every advert, every beggar, so you blanked, switched off, looked away.

  What would it be like to spend every day somewhere completely different?

  They meandered off the motorway and had a long pub lunch, knowing that the horror of arriving to an empty, unpacked house lay ahead. Then, back in the car, a turn-off was missed and not noticed for over 30 miles, so they had to double back, adding almost an hour to the journey. At last, they made it to the small town close to the farm to collect a brown envelope full of keys in all shapes and sizes from the lawyer’s office. Inside, was a note from Harry which attempted to tie some of the helpfully numbered keys up with the relevant locks:

  1 – front door

  2 – also front door

  3 – first door you come to after the front door. Ingrid is a security freak

  And so on through

  11 – the potting shed (in front garden)

  12 – the tool shed (in farmyard, next to smallest barn) and past

  15 – God knows

  16 – ditto

  17 – no idea, but maybe a copy of no 12?

  until he finally ended it: Sorry. I’m sure you’ll work them out after a day or two.

  By the time they were on the small, twisting road leading to the farm, the sky was already a foreboding grey and there was only an hour or so of daylight left.

  But as they turned past the farm sign and into the narrow road to the farmhouse, Pamela felt the painful throb of excitement, nerves, elation . . . maybe even terror.

  The house looked dark and gloomy under the heavy clouds. The removals van was there. The two men, looking sulky about the delay, had already stacked boxes at the door and unloaded all the heaviest items, including the sofa, although rain now looked like a certainty.

  Surreal, seeing their sofa parked on the gravel beside this huge, grey house.

  Dave went to the door with the jumble of keys, but the two he selected, a Yale key and a five-inch-long, ornate wrought iron thing, opened the locks straight away. Key number 3 sprang the lock of the inner door and then they were in.

  There was only a faint light now, but they both saw a letter on the kitchen table. The kitchen table? Pamela registered. Why was that still there?

  Dave picked the letter up and held it up close to read out. It was a cheery Harry-ish note welcoming them in, detailing a few essentials, listing neighbours’ numbers and finishing with the explanation that some old belongings of the previous owners, which might hopefully be of use, had been left behind.

  But Ingrid had PS-ed the note in an energetic scrawl: ‘Might be of use? I doubt it. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, we ran out of time to shift that old crap. If you want to phone us up and tell us to get rid of it we will, or if you want to just phone up and shout at Harry about it, please do. The electricity was off this morning, I called the f***ers and they said it should be back on this afternoon, if not ring this no. and harass them.’

  Dave felt along the walls for a light switch, pushed it down and not
hing happened.

  ‘Oh hell,’ he said, with admirable restraint.‘No lights,’ he explained to Pamela and the hardly delighted removals men.

  Where did they want things? the men wanted to know. As if it would be obvious. Did people honestly plan this far in advance . . . box number 27 into bedroom number 3?

  All boxes with a B upstairs, everything else, wherever, downstairs. That was the closest to an instruction formula she could come up with.

  Dave opened the kitchen door and led his wife into the body of the house. They tripped over an old trunk in the dark hall; in the sitting room were the two chintzy sofas with the stuffing gaping out of them and the matching, almost tattered curtains.

  Dave was moving on to look at the next room. The dining room was empty save for the shabby green carpet, pressed squares marking where table and chairs had stood, and faded wallpaper. In the gloom the house looked even more tatty, brown and unloved than Pamela had remembered. Upstairs, they were both gripped with the thought: ‘What the fuck have we done?’ but were far too scared to say it to each other. And anyway, it was too early. Instead they concentrated on positive remarks: ‘The kitchen’s bigger than I remembered it . . .’, ‘Lovely banister . . .’

  Lovely banister?

  As soon as Pamela had said that, she thought how desperate it sounded.

  Cold beans on bread with red wine by torchlight was the best supper they could come up with minus electricity.

  Dave had suggested going into town in search of fish and chips, but Pamela was worried they would get lost in the dark and they didn’t even know if there was a fish and chip shop. Neither of them had noticed on the two trips they’d made there.

  ‘Of course there will be a chip shop!’ Dave had argued.

  But Pamela wanted to stay put, wanted to make their bed, unpack her washbag, towels, some kitchen things, do the very first things to tame the wild wilderness of their new home, which felt anything but homely, felt – as she huddled into a chilly bed in her pyjamas, a jumper and dressing gown – as if she was living in a dark cave.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Dave tried to reassure her as they moved in together for warmth.‘It will all look much better in the morning.’

  ‘It couldn’t really look worse, could it?’ was all she could manage in reply

  Chapter Sixteen

  WHEN SHE WOKE up, it was better. Early morning sunlight was stealing into the room, but despite this Pamela got out of bed and tried the light switch. The bare bulb hanging in the centre of the cracked and stained ceiling came on.

  She had never before been so pleased to see a lit bulb. She could shower! She knew which box the kettle was in – and the tea bags. There was even a pint of milk, which might have survived the journey.

  She felt for her shoes, jammed them on and went down the wide staircase to the kitchen. Pushing open the heavy wooden door, she walked in, disorientated for a moment, because the room was swimming in light. The late September sun streaming in the windows was jumping and dancing over the walls, filtered by the branches outside.

  Going to the big kitchen windows for a look at the garden outside, she saw green, brown, the first of the autumn yellows, fields and a clear blue sky. Nothing else for as far as she could see. She focused on the few leaves scattered about the untidy lawn. The grass needed a cut, the leaves would have to be raked. Weeds. Didn’t they now have 50 acres of weeding to do? She smiled back at the sunlight and for the first time didn’t feel daunted at the thought; felt it might be possible, manageable.

  She ran the tap and hunted for the kettle. As the water heated, she watched out of the window – a small speckled brown bird she couldn’t name and tried to identify the trees but managed only a chestnut and a beech with any certainty. She realized she would be able to name all of them at a glance if they were kitchen worktops or flooring. She was an expert at interior wood: cherry, oak, ash, maple, beech, wenge, iroko . . . but looking out at leaves, bark and branches, she had no idea. She would ask Dave to tour her round the garden. She wasn’t sure, but suspected he knew bird names, tree types, plants from weeds. She hoped he could tell plants from weeds. That was going to be his job now, after all.

  After sniffing at the milk, she stirred it in, dumped the tea bags in the sink and carried the two mugs upstairs to the bedroom.

  When she woke Dave, he looked momentarily bewildered.

  ‘We’re here,’ she reminded him.‘Living the dream.’ This came with a little snort.

  ‘Tea? Thank you.’ He took a mug from her.

  She reminded him what this meant: ‘The electricity is back on – for now – so don’t go taking your tea for granted.’

  ‘Oh yeah . . . There’s something I want to say to you, but,’ he put his mug on the floor and peeled back the covers, ‘I need to pee first.’

  She got back into her side of the bed, sipped at her still too hot drink and wondered what Dave had to tell her.

  When he got back into bed, he brought his knees up and perched his mug on top of them.‘It’s our eighth wedding anniversary next week. Did you know that?’ he asked.

  ‘Um . . . well, I’m sure the date would have rung a bell, you know, as we got towards it.’

  ‘Very romantic!’

  ‘Do you want to do something? Go away or something?’ she asked, knowing she didn’t want to. A ‘romantic’ weekend away would probably be the final kiss of death: squabbles if they had sex, squabbles if they didn’t.

  ‘No,’ he answered.‘We are away, far away, I don’t think we need to go anywhere else.’

  This made her smile.‘So what then?’ she asked.

  All serious now, he said: ‘I want you to promise me you’ll give us your best shot. It’s a huge thing, this—’ he waved one hand about, sloshing tea over the edge of his mug.‘But hold tight. I know we have a long way to go. But we’ll try and make it better.’

  ‘I want you to be happy,’ he added, when she didn’t say anything.‘Or at least happier than you’ve been. And this place is going to be the answer for me. I know it. But I don’t know about you.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ she said, although really, she did. A baby was the answer for her. And he knew that too. A farm was a pretty poor second.

  ‘Will you just give it a chance? Give me and give this place a chance? Because the first months, over the winter, will probably be tough . . . lots of teething problems.’

  ‘Dave, I’ve just bought the place with you,’ she reminded him, ‘I’m giving it a very big chance.’

  This man, the one she’d vowed to take for better or worse, till death us do part, eight years ago. This man . . . she searched his face for some of the things she’d been so in love with back then. She saw the kindness and concern in his eyes, in his expression. Was that enough to stay for? A nice man? A kind person? Someone she’d thought would make a good father. That still stung in the back of her throat. Except he didn’t have the sperm! Cruel little inner voice reminding her: He didn’t have the sperm.

  She didn’t know why she was here, in this shabby bedroom in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles from anyone she knew. She really had no idea. Except maybe, she hoped she would have some time . . . to think things through, to decide what she wanted to do next.

  ‘I’m here to give it my best shot.’ She held up her mug: ‘Is it a deal?’

  They chinked mugs together and swigged back a mouthful of tea. In that moment it was impossible for them not to think back to their wedding, to the clinking of tall champagne glasses, dazzling smiles, dizzying optimism that this was love and it would last a lifetime. Now, they wondered if they would make it.

  ‘C’mon,’ he broke the thoughtful silence between them.‘Let’s get dressed and get outside to take a look around. I’m meeting my part-time farmhand, George later, I want to know what’s in the fields so I don’t sound like a complete idiot.’

  ‘I want to shower,’ she said.

  ‘OK, shower, I’ll wait for you.’

  The shower, under the luke
warm drizzle from the showerhead in the wall above the bath, shrouded with a cold rubber curtain, did not take long. No-one would want to spend long in there.

  ‘Nice shower?’ Dave asked as she came down into the kitchen wearing exactly the same as she’d worn yesterday, including the pants. She would start the unpacking later.

  ‘You’ll see,’ she answered.

  ‘Are we going to go walkabouts then?’ he asked.

  They hadn’t eaten anything, because there was only old bread left. And they had no idea in which of the boxes sensible shoes or wellies could be found, but still, going outside to walk about this new place, their new place, was too exciting to resist.

  In the garden, they poked about in the greenhouse and found ripe tomatoes, which Dave put in his jacket pockets. Then, side by side, they climbed up to the top of the hill so they could look at their land spread out before them. For the first time Pamela took in the neighbouring farms: next door’s had brownish scrub grass fields and, just visible before the curve of the hill, huge grey corrugated iron sheds. Theirs looked so green, rich brown, chocolate-boxy by comparison.

  ‘All these fields,’ Dave was explaining with a sweeping arm, ‘are the ones we’re going to be working on: a lot of it’s in grass, regenerating, but the rest is potatoes, vegetables and some fruit.’

  Dave was on the move, starting down the hill again, so Pamela followed, listening to the set-up. There were thirty customers a week who got a vegetable box delivered; there was a shop in Norwich and a stall in London which both took a selection of the very best, freshly picked stuff throughout the week with a big order on Friday, and if there was a glut, Harry had details of farmer’s market traders who would flog it off.

  ‘I hope you’ll keep working for the time being anyway,’ he told her, ‘Till we really know how much we can make and what all our costs are. I’m putting in a small field of strawberry plants straight away but they won’t be cropping at full strength for two years. Also, I wondered about doing up the small shed, you know, the one set back from the farm buildings a bit, as a little holiday cottage . . . so lots of ideas . . .’