Denholm was mute.
Jane immediately set about the kind of work in which she had become expert; she doused the hope and insisted to herself that it was too much to ask. Even a man in love would refuse. It wasn’t that Denholm wasn’t keen to give, it was that she asked too much.
‘Can you ever forgive me?’ Jane was still only in the foothills of the scene she’d prepared. ‘I have misled you, Denholm, this I know.’ Their bittersweet story deserved a long, satisfying final act.
‘No, no, don’t you worry about that.’ Denholm was on his feet, moving very swiftly for a sofa. He stood by the open drawing-room door, expectant.
Jane felt she must be mistaken; he wouldn’t usher out his almost-fiancée like a cat who’d climbed on the furniture. ‘Absolve me, please! I can’t live with myself if I feel I have broken your heart.’
‘Don’t you worry about my ticker.’ Denholm was in the hallway now. He was taking her jacket from a hook.
‘Oh. Well.’ Jane picked up her bag and her umbrella. ‘Promise me one thing,’ she said as she passed him, unable to whisper in his ear because his belly was in the way.
Denholm shrugged. He was querulous. ‘What?’
‘Do not take your life, Denholm.’
‘Righty-ho.’
When the door slammed behind her, Jane peeked through the window. She knew a man such as Denholm would never blub in front of a woman.
He sat in an armchair and lit his pipe. He shook out that day’s Times.
‘So brave,’ whispered Jane.
* * *
Doris braced herself as she approached the shack.
It was a good five minutes’ walk from the house. The door had fissures in it she could see through. Figures moved within. The men – her men – were in there. Eugene, with his soft flannel trousers and his soft Surrey voice, had been appalled by the accommodation, but Jez said he’d stayed in worse.
‘Morning!’ she called, and let herself in.
She would know better next time. Jez stood in his drawers. He didn’t hurry to get dressed. Doris stopped herself admitting he had nice legs before the thought had time to form itself.
‘I’ve brought you a kettle.’ Farms run on tea. Doris put the black iron kettle on the grate. ‘Settling in?’
It was a strange scene, like childhood memories of out-of-kilter dolls’-house rooms. Pamela Pargetter had mobilized the collecting of fixings for the area’s incoming labourers. A dainty chair from Lower Loxley sat beside a truckle bed rescued from Mrs Endicott’s spare room. Rumour had it that the Valley Farm pig man slept between satin sheets.
‘Better now you’re here,’ said Jez.
Eugene sniggered at that. Paying his due to the boss-man.
Doris wondered how Jez always had stubble. Four days he’d been at Brookfield and he never showed a bare face, and never a whisker. Always that dusting of soot. ‘You can get stuck into clearing out the ditches today. We need to keep the land drained for spring. Oh, and one of you can run over to Brampton Green with three of our weaned piglets. Dan’s selling them to the new pig club.’ She had to explain that too, but pig clubs were a war thing; Doris hadn’t known about them until yesterday.
All very sensible, very War Ag, a pig club entailed neighbours clubbing together to buy and feed a number of pigs. Then, when the animals were slaughtered, they shared the meat, or maybe the profit. Nicely common-sensical, it appealed to Doris.
‘Jez? Could you take care of delivering the pigs?’
‘If I have to.’
Sullen as ever, Jez was still her best worker. Eugene seemed to resent every request, and his hands were those of a girl. The limp, which didn’t matter when he was reading the days away at Oxford, put him at a disadvantage on a farm.
‘By the way, Sunday services are eight o’clock and midday. Reverend Bissett, Henry, he’s ever so nice. Gives a belting homily.’
Eugene let out a loud ‘Ha!’ and got back to his book.
Jez said, ‘I won’t be bothering God.’
* * *
Plump and sweet-smelling, like an uneaten apple left to rot, Blanche Gilpin lay among her bedclothes in frou-frou night attire. Her powdered face rose out of ostrich feathers.
‘Agnes!’ Quite a hearty voice rose from the invalid. ‘Get up here, girl.’
‘I’m no girl.’ Agnes bobbed at the door, the curtsey a relic of ancient times when she had behaved like any other maid. ‘They can hear you next door in The Bull.’ As Blanche opened her mouth, she said, ‘Before you ask, no, I will not massage those great lumps of meat of yours.’
‘I pay your wages, you ingrate.’ Blanche referred to Agnes behind her back – and to her face – as her crow. The black dress of severe material never changed. A brief stand-off ended as it always did. ‘Half a crown.’
‘Done.’ Agnes applied her strong thin fingers to Blanche’s doughy feet.
‘What’s up with my sister?’ Blanche swooned on pillows that cost twice what Agnes earned in a week. ‘I mean, I know I’m a burden and I know she’s a saint, etcetera, etcetera, but Jane’s face is particularly long this week.’ She opened one eye to study Agnes, but the maid’s expression was neutral. ‘You know everything, Crow. What’s the jig?’
‘Dr Seed’ll be here in a minute.’
‘Ow,’ said Blanche languidly, as Agnes bent back a toe.
Blanche had been in bed for thirty years. Not through choice, as anyone who visited knew. And everyone visited.
At fifteen, young Blanche, presumably less sarcastic and more biddable than the current version, had been chosen by an aunt to accompany her on a trip to the United States.
Jane had been stiff with jealousy as she waved them off on this adventure, then consumed with guilt when Blanche arrived home alone, in a wheelchair, looking as if she’d been through a mad scientist’s shrinking ray.
Poliomyelitis, storming through America, had caught Blanche a glancing blow. Her legs never recovered. The aunt had keeled over, clutching her heart, and only her ashes had chaperoned Blanche on the voyage home. It was the great saga of the Gilpin family, dividing their history into Before Polio and After Polio.
Now, Blanche could only drag herself around like a land-bound fish. The bed was by the window, and beyond that window was Ambridge, a.k.a. the world. Blanche’s face was always at the glass, and the world did not neglect her.
‘Hello, hello, hello!’ Dr Morgan Seed took off his soft hat as he stood at the end of the bed and filled the room. He was wide rather than tall. A man in his late prime who ate a little too much and whose moustache was not quite under his control, he was full of vigour, and therefore out of place in this muggy, pastel boudoir. Like all British people in February, he appeared to be all coat. ‘Apologies for my lateness, Blanche. I had to pop in to Mrs Endicott. She has a tingling sensation in her knee.’
Hungrily, Blanche asked, ‘And what was this tingling sensation, Morgan?’
‘It turned out to be… a tingling sensation.’ Morgan twinkled. For a man of his age he had a good twinkle. Kindly rather than romantic.
‘Mrs Endicott will bury us all,’ said Blanche, acquiescing as Agnes persuaded her into a quilted bed jacket. There were many of these in her wardrobe, some lacy, others fluffy, all of them exquisite. ‘She’s already outlived two husbands.’
‘Look who’s come to help us today!’ Morgan sounded theatrical as feet were heard on the stair. ‘It’s Nance, Nance Brown from the store, so kind of her!’
A different woman out of her overall and with her hair wound round her head in a Tyrolean plait, Nance was still diffident. She had met Blanche when delivering goods, whistled up at all hours to bring chocolate or Turkish Delight or both.
Agnes and Blanche exchanged a glance. Morgan didn’t notice this glance, but Nance did, and she bit her lip.
‘How pretty you are in your natural plumage, Nance,’ said Blanche. ‘Don’t you agree, Morgan?’
‘Pretty as a picture,’ said Morgan. He nodded, and said it again, ta
king in Nance, who kept her eyes cast down.
Very particular about how they manoeuvred her downstairs, Blanche gave step-by-step instructions. ‘My arm, dear doctor, my arm! Nance, you’re pinching me. Good God, Agnes, you’re not transporting a sack of potatoes!’
On the comfortable leather back seat of Morgan’s car, Nance fussed over Blanche’s blanket to such a degree that the patient relaxed. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ she said. ‘Morgan’s right, you’re a great help.’
The regular drives were Morgan’s way of airing his shut-in. A kindness and an atonement; he could do nothing to help her core condition and it frustrated his desire to help. He considered his extra petrol ration well spent in rescuing Blanche from her sickroom once a fortnight.
After a bit of ‘Shall I sit with Blanche? Or up front?’ and an ‘Oh, as you wish’ from Morgan, Nance sat beside the driver. She dropped a glove and when he handed it back it was with an old-fashioned gallantry that made both the dropper of the glove and the hander-back of the glove glow.
Behind them, Blanche filed it all. Each look. Each polite word.
‘Off we jolly well go!’ said Morgan. And off they jolly well went.
The Austin 12 passed St Stephen’s just as the noon service ended.
Dottie was first out, on Mrs Endicott’s arm, wondering aloud if she was ‘showing yet’. Sometimes, she said, she worried the baby was just wind. ‘What if I’m not expecting at all and it’s just a giant belch?’ She had sung loudly despite not knowing the hymns. Her hamster cheeks were rosy, her goggle eyes were clear. The countryside, with all its hazards, was doing her good. ‘I never go to church in London,’ she told the Reverend Henry Bissett as he pressed her hand in the porch. ‘But there’s sod all to do here. Apart from wait for the next anonymous note. ’Cos where there’s one, there’s two, you’ll see.’
This was an unpopular opinion. The poison pen was a one-off, people assured each other in whispers. If they kept a lid on the matter it would blow over. It would soon be forgotten, a secret buried in the soil, alongside all the seeds and bodies and carrion.
It was certainly not to be joked about at church.
The vicar, diplomatic to the point of being a contortionist, floundered. ‘Oh dear, well, the letter writer will find Ambridge barren ground indeed! There’s little sin here to inspire him.’
‘Codswallop,’ said Dottie. ‘Oh, Rev, we’ve all got secrets. I know I have.’ She nudged him, and Mrs Endicott tugged lightly on her arm. ‘I bet you and the missus have some little bits of business you’d rather keep to yourselves.’
The missus went pale as she avoided her husband’s eye and helped an old man of unguessable age down the step.
‘It could be any one of us,’ said Dottie. ‘I reckon he’s just biding his time, waiting for the best moment and then—’ She snapped her fingers and the crack made the vicar jump. ‘Bingo! Another letter, and another secret shared with the world.’
Oblivious to Dottie’s provocative commentary, Doris found herself picking through the gravestones with Pamela. She was among the faction that disbelieved the scurrilous letter, and found herself all the more afraid of another anonymous declaration. A lie can rear its head and strike at anyone.
* * *
Now, passing a weeping cherub whose nose had been gnawed off by Ambridge winters, she made conversation, for some reason desperate that the chic lady of the manor should like her. She took extra care with her remarks, dusting off ten-bob words she rarely used back at Brookfield. ‘The vicar has a lovely reading voice, doesn’t he? Lift up thine voice like a trumpet. I’m very partial to the book of Isaiah. Very, erm, rousing.’
Pamela, whose mink stole suggested she wasn’t an avid Bible student, said, ‘Pity Frances is so unassuming. She doesn’t lead the parish as a vicar’s wife should.’
‘Well, there’s you, and you lead, so…’ Doris hoped that didn’t sound rude. She was wearing her second-best scarf, and keenly felt it.
‘You do too much for the vicar,’ said Pamela. They stopped to let Bob Little from The Bull go by. He led his son, poor blind Jimmy, over to the newer graves, by the wall. There, the lad would fumble to his knees and leave his customary posy at his grandmother’s dead feet.
‘I do too much?’ This was an alien concept to Doris.
‘You have quite enough on your plate without running yourself ragged for St Stephen’s.’ Pamela lit a cigarette she extracted from a slim gilt box which she extracted from a slim crocodile-skin bag.
Doris, dazzled slightly by the accessories, said, ‘Oh, but the vicar’s such a lovely man and—’
‘A lovely man.’ Pamela seemed to find that amusing. ‘But just a man. He’s not God, Doris.’
Doris was shocked. Some pedestals were concrete; you did not push or shove at them. ‘With a war on, I feel the need to—’
Pamela interrupted again, exhaling smoke out of the side of the red slit of her mouth. ‘Is there a war on? Or is it just men posturing in uniform? Apart from the irksome shortages and the petty privations this doesn’t feel like war.’ She raised her hand suddenly and shouted, ‘Hey! You, boy! Philip Archer! Stop that!’
Doris wheeled to see her son’s head locked in young Gerald Pargetter’s arm.
‘No rough-housing, Philip,’ snapped Pamela.
The injustice was too much. Pamela’s son, Gerald, was sixteen years old to Philip’s eleven, and a much bigger and bolder boy in every way. ‘You all right, Phil?’ called Doris, adding tartly, ‘He didn’t hurt you, did he?’ hoping Pamela caught her drift.
Mortified by his mother’s concern, Philip sloped off. He was hoping to slope off as far as the gate, and then slope a little further, right down the lane, and home. Avoiding Sunday School was a weekly game; one he never, ever won. His mother had the all-seeing eye more commonly attributed to The Almighty.
The mothers walked on in silence.
‘Give my best to Alec,’ said Doris, as they parted at the lychgate. ‘Where is he?’
‘Attending to estate business,’ said Pamela.
‘Even on a Sunday.’ Doris was impressed. The poison pen hadn’t tarnished Alec one jot; she knew it was nonsense. ‘What a wonderful husband you’ve got there.’
* * *
Kitty was all feeling and no body. She felt like one of the feathers in the mattress beneath her. She sensed Alec was staring and opened her eyes.
He said, ‘You like doing it, don’t you, old girl?’
He was so different naked. She loved his clothes, the quality of the wool and the tweed and the flannel, their colours like fading leaves. But she adored him in his skin, as they said back in Dublin. Lean and strong and with all those male details that made her pulse jump. The width of his shoulders. The sudden narrowness of his hips. The legs that took up the whole bed.
‘I do. I love doing it. I could do it every day and twice on Sundays. But could you please not call me “old girl”, Alec? It makes me feel like one of Doris Archer’s old nags out in the meadow.’
‘Ha!’ Alec’s peremptory laugh was an accolade.
‘I heard one of them was put down.’ The older horse used to amble over for an apple from Kitty’s hand.
‘Another casualty of war.’ Alec lay back with a dramatic whump. Kitty’s bed was a cloud of pillows and comforters and blankets. It would be easy to become entangled and doze for ever. She was a siren, luring him onto the rocks of Noon Cottage with her song. Even on a Sunday; he had never taken such a risk before. ‘I should be at church. It’ll be noticed.’
‘I’m off the hook. There’s no Catholic church for miles,’ said Kitty. Petrol rationing had made a heathen of her. ‘I prefer our way of praying, anyway.’ She knew that would earn her a scandalized gasp and she enjoyed it. Kitty was already en route to hell for this affair, and for the inescapable, horrible fact that she was glad Noel was dead.
He’d been gone for seven months.
Kitty and Alec – this new and outrageous iteration – began in shared grief that one day mutat
ed into something else; Kitty couldn’t say who made the first move. It had been inevitable. Kitty, who strove to be honest, conceded that it felt inevitable. Therefore, it was right, and clean.
Kitty badly needed to be clean.
She loved to stare at Alec. He allowed it these days; at first it had made him uncomfortable. She liked to describe him to himself. You’re a Navajo, with that great hawk nose. Your lips are so thin that you seem to disdain us mere mortals, but then you pout in a smile and you are all goodness.
‘C’mon, Bella.’ Kitty called to the tortoiseshell madam strolling by. ‘Hup!’ Bella ignored her. The cat resented Alec’s presence, not knowing she had him to thank for her sinecure. She had been his gift to Kitty, a furry stand-in to keep her company when Alec couldn’t be there. Bella was over-loved and had character defects as a result. ‘Alec, do you think this war will fizzle out? I’ve started to disbelieve in it.’
Alec made a rule of not discussing the war with women. It never went well. He asked, instead, ‘Where’s the little one?’ Alec lit a cigarette and looked around for an ashtray in this feminine temple. None was to be found. He tapped the ash into a saucer.
‘With Mrs E. She took her so I could have a nice rest.’
They both laughed at that. He kissed her. Put down his cigarette and pulled her against the length of him.
With Kitty, Alec felt like an engine that was constantly renewable. They made love over and over; he was more energetic after each bout.
The woman was slippery and fulsome. Suddenly erupting with flesh and then spare again. Like an alpine walk after his route march across the desert of Pamela.
Kitty pounced. Astride him she laughed. From that angle her throat was a soft column and had to be kissed.
At first Alec had shied from comparisons between Pamela and Kitty. Too caddish. Now he revelled in them. In some small way they justified his presence in a bed that didn’t contain his wife.
The Archers Page 4
