‘I will, I’ll come in a minute,’ she says, knowing she won’t.
The door is ajar. The music has stopped and David is playing the guitar. People are talking.
She heads for their bedroom, pushes David’s clothes off the bed and miserable, falls asleep.
It takes Gerald a few moments to realise that the girl leaving the village shop is the same one he saw at Julian’s house a few nights ago. Her name eludes him, Joanna possibly, he was a little inebriated. He swings his Mini on to the verge and winds down the window.
‘Oh hallo,’ he calls out as Amy walks by.
While minded to ignore her father’s warnings about not talking to strangers, Amy still looks warily at the driver of the car. She sees Gerald.
She’s never had a conversation with the man, what would she say? She knows he and Julian were at school together and that Gerald lives on his parents’ estate in a cottage. He doesn’t seem to work, Julian mentioned an inheritance. Gerald like a mysterious creature from another world. Gerald often arrives with dope, a bottle of wine and once with half a fruit cake in a tin; peculiarly domestic, he cut them each a piece but left his own uneaten on a plate. Sometimes he stays the night if he’s too smashed to drive home. Amy doesn’t like his crumpled body on the sofa but she isn’t sure why.
‘I’m going to the pub for a quick drink before chasing up to the house. Care to join me?’
‘Yes, please,’ she says, wondering why she’s agreed.
There are three men at the bar and another group playing darts. She feels conscious of their stares as she sits at a table. Perhaps it’s what she’s wearing: dungarees, a skimpy singlet and boots.
‘I’ll get you a gin, it’s a good sharpener at this time of day.’
She hesitates. She usually asks for cider as it’s cheap. ‘Really? Thanks.’
The men move aside to let Gerald in. Gerald’s fingers stroke the head of Jackson, his greyhound. Elegant and aloof, the dog is always at his side.
‘Here you are. Only a single. Cheers.’ Gerald is still unsure of her name. ‘I was born two drinks behind everyone else, so just catching up.’
He downs half a lager, then sips a gin. ‘The first drink is bettered only by the second. So you’re at the farm for the summer? Enjoying yourself, I trust.’
He opens a packet of Players cigarettes. ‘Want one?’
‘Thanks.’
Her lips form a soft moue around the cigarette. ‘I’m staying a bit longer, not sure how long. It’s such a beautiful place and, well, I’ve never lived anywhere with so much space and land.’
‘So Julian’s back down here again. The country can get dull without good chums. Never sure university suited him all that well. It’s where you met him, I think?’
‘My boyfriend David and he were studying at the same place.’ Amy remembers her ‘A’ level results lie unopened in her pocket.
‘I was never sure if Julian was cut out for academics but he’s bloody good with machines. He tells me Seymour wants to renovate that cottage. Can’t think how long that’ll take, isn’t it a lost cause? But Seymour is a man with plans, that’s one thing you can say about him. David and the other chap, what’s his name?’
‘Simon.’
‘Yes, boy Simon. They’ve experience with this sort of thing, have they, building and all that?’
‘Not exactly. But we can help, all of us …’
‘Course you will, I’m sure you’ll make a good navvy. It all sounds like rather hard work. You just enjoy the summer. Seymour won’t mind, he likes people to have fun. Let me get you another. Jackson, stay.’
Before she can refuse, Gerald is buying another round.
‘I won’t be staying beyond the summer,’ she insists. Gerald pushes over a packet of pork scratchings. Suddenly she’s ravenous. ‘I’ve got to go back home. I’m starting a secretarial course in September and I need to earn some money before that.’
‘Why? Is that what you want to do?’
‘I don’t know, I have to do something until…’
‘Until what?’
‘Until I find what it is I really want to do.’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Gerald downs the rest of his drink. ‘To have as much of a good time as one possibly can in this strange old world.’ He sucks hard on the cigarette, inhales deep into his chest. ‘Shall we go to the farm now?’
Something happens that night and it’s only partly connected with her results (an ‘A’ and two ‘B’ grades) and the gins. There are also the psilocybin mushrooms that Gerald gives out and the huge voice of Grace Slick calling for courage in curiosity. Amy flirts hard with her boyfriend, and gets everybody to join her frenzied dance. The drugs begin to work their magic. Abandonment rockets into elation. Lights trail from their fingertips. The walls ripple and breathe. Weaving as one through the long hectic night to escape the irrelevant past and to reach for a future of wild and wondrous dreams.
9
‘It doesn’t make sense, Mr Stratton is rebuilding that cottage. Surely it’s more sensible to pull the place down?’
Mrs Morle chops fiercely at the onions and reminds herself again not to talk out loud. At least Lynn can’t hear, not with her bedroom radio playing pop music at that volume. The girl had come home from work, closed up the chickens for the night and slunk upstairs without a word. Mrs Morle sighs. At least her daughter goes out to work, not like those layabouts hanging around with Julian.
Pulling on a cardigan, she goes to the shed. Dry and warm even on the cold days, it smells of sawdust and creosote and of her husband though he’s been dead these last twelve years. It was Harry’s domain, the nails on which he’d hung his tools still visible, spaces on the shelves for his brushes and tins, his work bench up against the wall. Big and solid, just like he was.
Harry never regained consciousness from the stroke he suffered one September afternoon. Grey-faced and mumbling, he lay where he fell on the sitting room mat, his lunch congealing at the table. Over an hour it took for the ambulance to arrive. By then he’d fallen silent, his face a congealed red. As the ambulance men struggled to roll him on to a stretcher, Lynn arrived home from school. Mrs Morle bundled her daughter up the stairs. She didn’t want her daughter’s final memory of her father to be his blank green eyes.
It’s a wood shed now. Every so often, Mrs Morle gives one of the farm lads a few pounds to bring a trailer of wood sawn up into lumps suitable for the Rayburn. Tonight she’ll stack up the stove so it gets hot enough for a big bath that she and Lynn can share. She’ll dry the clothes too; it’s the only heated room in the cottage. ‘What you doing out here, Mum?’ Lynn appears at the door.
‘I’ll bring that in for you,’ and she hauls the basket of wood inside.
‘Thanks, love,’ Mrs Morle calls. She’s a good girl really. ‘It’s your favourite for supper…’
Mrs Morle nestles two pieces of liver in a pan of browning onions and checks the potatoes. It’s no business of hers what they get up to in the big house but now that-girl-Amy has returned those boys will likely be eating something more substantial than beans on toast.
That’s what the boys lived on when that-girl-Amy was away, as far as Mrs Morle could tell from the pans and empty tins stacked in the sink. Apparently the girl’s mother died a few weeks back. So why in blazes had she come back to Mr Stratton’s, leaving her father alone with his grief? She’d come knocking on Mrs Morle’s door yesterday asking for advice on making apple chutney. Didn’t have a clue. Nice enough girl but never been properly trained.
Last weekend when Seymour was down he’d roasted a chicken. The bones and skin were left in the fridge. Mrs Morle threw the lot into a pan with some vegetables and barley and cooked them up to make a soup. Why not, when she was cleaning in the house anyway? Seymour blew her a kiss, cheeky man, when he left on Monday morning in his fancy car.
Lynn sits at the table. ‘I’m starving, Mum. Something smells good.’
‘Mr Stratton has got himself a builder. Apparently
he wants Bramble Cottage doing up,’ says Mrs Morle, putting down a plate of food.
Her mouth full, Lynn says: ‘Tell ‘im to get in touch if he needs supplies and what not. I’ll get him a deal. Or perhaps I’ll slip across and see him next time he’s down.’ She carefully piles greens and carrots on to her fork.
‘Julian’s going to be doing some of it.’
‘Some of what?’
‘The building work. What Mr Stratton’s hired is a man to keep an eye on things, the tricky stuff like the roof and electrics. Can’t understand it myself, why he wants to renovate that wreck.’
‘Julian don’t know how to build. He’s soft, he’s lazy,’ scoffs Lynn. She pauses to take another bite. ‘He’s a bit weird, isn’t he?’
‘Just a bit lost, love. He can learn. It’s those friends of his staying at the house. Ignorant lot.’
‘They were in the pub last weekend. Clever types but don’t ‘spect they’ll be able to lift a spade. Nice-looking, mind.’
‘You watch yourself, young lady. I don’t want you getting mixed up with that sort. ‘
‘What sort is that?’
‘Spoilt and posh. Don’t trust them.’
Mrs Morle cleans the plates into the scraps bucket and opens a tin of pineapple. ‘Serve this out, will you, Lynn dear. Here’s some custard.’
‘We celebrating, Mum?’
‘No, love, just fancied a change. Everyone else seems to be doing it.’
10
When she touches Daisy’s calf, Amy’s fingers recall that her mother’s forehead felt the same: like linoleum, resistant and stiff. It is unnerving to know with utter certainty that the cells of the skin beneath her fingers no longer hold the magic ingredient that is life. It’s not the lack of warmth or pulse but an indefinable change to the texture and quality of skin. Death is not knowable. But it is touchable.
Like melting wax, she slithers to the barn’s earth-beaten floor. For the first time since she’s come back, the tears flow, proper tears that run down her cheek. There’s a relief and a comfort in her anguish. She gathers scattered pieces of hay into a pile and lays her head upon it, watering the dry stalks of grass. They soften. They absorb the moisture. They release the sweet smell of summer.
Daisy chews stolidly at the sinewy afterbirth that had slipped from between her hind legs. Her head hangs low as though in contemplation, the odd moan escaping her swinging jaw. Occasionally her long, rough tongue explores the body of her dead calf, tidying up the remnants of blood and gore on its coat. A fleck of blood sticks to Daisy’s nostril. Her tongue darts out to lick it away.
If only Shirley had been laid to rest in such a place. Rolling on to her back, Amy surveys the massive wooden beams which span the ancient barn. Against the eaves lodge bird’s nests and spiders webs. The slate walls are pocketed with dirt in every shades of brown and grey forming intricate patterns that make her gaze chase this way and that. Moss and mould bloom in muted greens and ochres. It is quietly beautiful.
By contrast, her mother lay in a glorified shed. Cheap carpeting and curtains with prints of mountain lakes could not disguise its origins. The sounds of the town leaked through the flimsy walls. It was soul destroying.
‘I’m not sure you should see your mother, that’s how you’ll remember her,’ her father had said not unkindly, but she had insisted. He arranged for them to visit.
After they had breakfasted, showered and dressed, he drove them the short distance into town. He parked the car near the library. A girl she’d been at school with walking along the pavement. The girl saw Amy too but flinched and hurried away without saying anything.
‘I will see her alone,’ Amy hissed in her father’s ear as they entered the undertaker’s shop.
‘Mr Taylor, Miss Taylor, good morning, I am Mr Robinson of Robinson and Sons. Once again my condolences on the death of your wife and mother. Please sit here while I make sure things are ready for you.’
The undertaker indicated two chairs by a low table on which sat a bowl of fake flowers on a doily and a Bible. He disappeared behind a thin curtain.
‘Was that Mr Robinson senior or junior?’ Her father whispered. The man was so bleached of colour, his manner so devoid of affect, that his age was impossible to discern. It struck Amy as funny that neither she nor her father had any idea of the man’s age. She began to giggle. Before she could stop herself, her shoulders were shaking, more with the effort of concealment than the humour. She was horrified to find she couldn’t stop.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Amy!’ her father hissed.
Mr Robinson appeared from behind the curtain. ‘We are prepared.’
‘I’m seeing my mother on my own.’ As Amy stood, her laughter drained away. Stony-faced, she followed the man into the garden shed. With each step, her mood darkened.
Shirley was sheeted so tightly in the casket that Amy had to fight the impulse to loosen the bedding. Her mother looked unlike herself. There were slight bulges below her mouth and her fringe was combed straight rather than swept to the side. Why had they changed her hairstyle? Sounds of a car horn and on the street outside, cat calls. Her mother might be disturbed, she worried, before remembering that Shirley was not sleeping. She was frightened to touch her mother but if she did not, she might regret forever not saying a proper goodbye. The pale lips might feel rubbery or worse, solid. Instead she put her fingers on Shirley’s forehead and felt the unforgettable sensation of dead flesh. How do fingers know that the body they touch is no longer thymeliving? The question hangs but the answer is irrefutable; they know.
‘Hi Amy,’ Simon’s voice brings her back to the present.
The man is standing in the barn entrance but it’s hard to make out his expression; the fading autumn light casts shadows. A bird swoops in over his head.
She searches in her pocket for a tissue. She cannot do what the farm workers do; shoot the snot from one nostril while holding the other tight-shut.
‘The calf is dead,’ she gulps.
‘Yeah, I h-h-heard.’ Simon looks around. ‘Do you think we could eat it? Seems a shame to w-w-waste the meat. Wouldn’t it t-t-taste like veal?’
When she doesn’t reply, he adds. ‘Hey, Amy, anything wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ she says, wiping her nose on her sleeve. ‘It’s just sad when something dies.’
‘Yeah, it is, poor little thing,’ Simon says sympathetically. He crouches down and holds out a crumpled tissue. ‘Clean-ish.’
She wishes fiercely he would disappear. ‘Well, I’m not tempted to eat it,’ she snaps.
Simon waves a book at her. ‘It’s all about s-s-self-sufficiency. But it only talks about killing c-c-cows, not eating the ones that die of d-d-death, if you see what I mean. ’
Simon nudges the calf ’s body gently with the toe of his boot. ‘Rigor m-m-mortis has already set in, that’s quick. I’ve read you’re meant to gut the animal and then hang it for a few d-d-days before it can be eaten. I’ll go and find Julian, see w-w-what he says.’
‘Yeah, see Julian, that’s a brain wave,’ Amy says snidely as he disappears.
Another bird flies in and vanishes in the gloomy upper reaches of the barn. She’d like to follow it, fly up to the highest beam and settle on a ledge to watch everyone below. Ruffle up her feathers and hunch up her wings while her friends try to find her. Would she be missed?
That night they sit by the fire and play music and smoke grass. At one point, Maggie waves a joint at David when it’s snatched from her fingers by Simon. A mock fight starts. It ends up with Simon squatting on top of Maggie making her yelp with laughter. Julian puts Sticky Fingers on the turntable, announcing to the room that the album confirms The Rolling Stones as the best band in the world. David jumps up, declaiming that on the contrary Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band will change pop music forever and The Beatles reign supreme. Amy’s heard it all before. It’s something they do when they’re stoned. They find it hilarious; Amy does not. She rolls another joint.
The men protest when Maggie goes to the turntable, saying girls can be in charge of music. But when ‘Eight Miles High’ starts, everyone starts to sing and sway along to The Byrds. Everyone except Amy. She huddles against a chair hugging her thighs. It helps to quell the paranoia that is starting to bubble through her body.
‘Come on Amy, dance with me!’ David tries to pull her up off the floor.
‘I’m not in the mood,’ she says, shaking her head. If she can stay completely still, she’ll be fine.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he insists. ‘Come on, babe.’
He succeeds in hauling her to her feet and wrapping his arms around her, murmurs into her ear: ‘Don’t get all dragged down and depressed now, will you. You gotta handle this, yeah? Be cool.’ The remark crumples her heart. ‘What do you mean?’ she says, pushing him away. Why is he being so thoughtless?
‘Don’t get all… I don’t know, weird or whatever. Pass that over, Simon.’ He holds a roll-up to her mouth. The cardboard end is soggy. ‘Smoke this…’
‘I don’t want that!’ She shakes her head. ‘You don’t know what to say to me, do you?’
‘What do you mean? My beautiful woman is with me again. I’ve missed her. What else is there to say?’
It feels she is watching from a great distance as the people she calls her friends sway around the room. Their faces are indecipherable. People can’t talk about death or they don’t want to; they don’t have the words. Getting away is what she must do. Unnoticed, she slips from the room and climbs the stairs. Perhaps David’s right – what is there to say? There’s no heating in the house apart from the Aga so it’s freezing in the bathroom. Ignoring the dirty sink and damp towel, she quickly brushes her teeth. Just as she’s rifling through the airing cupboard for her nightie, kept there during the day to stop it getting damp, a bitter voice slams her against the wall.
The voice is in her head. It whispers cruelly that her mother’s death might be her fault. She couldn’t wait to get away, it hisses, she was even willing to lie just to escape to the farm with her boyfriend. Shirley wanted Amy to come home but Amy ignored her wishes. Call herself a daughter? Maybe Amy’s selfishness caused so much stress that the cells of her mother’s brain burst? Does unhappiness makes cells leak? Her mother was very young to have a brain bleed…’
Wyld Dreamers: a gripping drama about secrets from the past Page 5
