Eventually a motorbike stops on the other side of the road.
David calls her from the throbbing machine.
‘Ames! Come here, I’ve missed you. How was Christmas and your father and how did …?’
She runs over to her boyfriend. Tears prickle but she’s determined not to cry, not now, so instead she hums as she embraces him, a trick she learnt as a child. A tune that was playing at Vi’s house; Bing Crosby singing that terrible saccharine song about Christmas. A car speeds by the embracing couple; there’s the toot of a horn.
‘Your beard, David, you’ve grown a beard. You look, I don’t know, like a pirate! Oh God. I can’t wait to get home.’
She buries her head under his chin, her favourite spot, and whispers into his jumper. ‘David, can we call Wyld Farm ‘home’?’
Draughts no longer whisper through the cottage; the once-ill-fitting windows and doors sit snug in their frames. And while the floors of concrete and stone walls are cold, they are not damp. Bob insists the work must continue. Julian calls him a slave driver, pretends he’s joking but there’s bile behind his jibe.
Bob summons his workforce by banging on the farmhouse door knocker, persistent knocks, enough to penetrate the deepest dream. Recently he’s taken to putting on music. The Who on full power chivvies awake even the most sleep-fogged. Julian, David, Maggie and Simon grumble as they trudge over to the cottage.
But Amy will already be gone. Early each morning she slips from the bed to follow Daisy’s swaying body from the field. Even when dry-mouthed and hungover, the thought of the cow waiting patiently, her udder ballooning with milk, drives Amy from under the duvet. For there is solace when her face is pressed to the cow’s flank. Her fingers turning tingly-warm as they cover the rubbery teats. Her ears rejoicing in the satisfying ping of the milk hitting the pail. The curdy smell.
A time when she can grieve for her mother. A place where she can rail about her father.
Few people visit; the cold, it seems, keeps them away. So in the evenings it’s only the five of them who press up to the range, their feet fighting for space in the lower oven, squabbling about whose turn it is to make supper. Even Gerald does not appear. When the hash runs out, they do not phone him; no one has the money to pay for more. David complains to her in bed that they’re becoming middle-aged. There is a quiet rhythm to the dark mornings and early nights that Amy appreciates. She does not admit this to anyone.
A postcard arrives. It shows a sunny beach and a sparkling sea. It is from Seymour who is working abroad or escaping the winter; it is not clear. Addressed to Pepper, the message reads that ‘they’ will bring back a tropical fish for the cat to enjoy. Amy feels envious: who is he with? She props the card on the dresser and imagines Seymour on a hot beach. He will be turning brown in the sun.
16
‘Take a right turn at the next junction,’ says the examiner, making notes with his stubby pencil.
It is hard to tell the man’s age for his terrible brown suit and shoes are at odds with his hair which just touches his shirt collar. His boss can’t approve of that.
‘Pull up on the left beyond the blue van and park up, please.’
Amy adjusts her skirt. It is the one her father bought her to wear at her mother’s funeral; it has ridden up her thighs. She dressed carefully for the test; everyone had said she should. The instructor, a man in all likelihood, will be susceptible to feminine wiles.
So last Saturday, David let her drive the Land Rover to a jumble sale in a village some ten miles away. Amy rummaged through the heaps of clothes on the trestle table. She found a pale pink blouse with a small nick on the sleeve for a few pence and a boy’s school mackintosh. Last night she washed her hair and slept with it in plaits so that in the morning it bounces with curls. Simon said she looked just like F-f-f-arrah Fawcett-M-M-Major.
The instructor gave her an approving look when he met her in the driving school office. She listened attentively to his instructions; she is determined to pass the test.
‘Your three-point turn,’ he says shaking his head, ‘was not strong. You didn’t go for the full lock of the wheel. Hence it was a four-point turn.’
When he clears his throat, his Adam’s apple moves up and down like a lift.
‘Then changing down a gear, there is…’ He reaches out to touch the gearstick and as he does, his hand brushes her thigh. ‘…more practice needed there, eh?’
She assents silently, her curls bobbing.
‘Your command of the road is tentative, Miss Tinker, but...’
She steels herself for disappointment. The examiner has turned to face her. Surely he is closer than is strictly necessary?
‘Taylor,’ she corrects and slips down in her seat.
‘Of course, yes, apologies. Miss Taylor.’
He makes a mark on his sheet.
‘I must inform you that, I have decided that…’ and now he is smiling and she sees a piece of dried food on the edge of his mouth and she can’t help staring as it moves to and fro, ‘…that you have passed the driving test. Well done.’
He leans back in his seat. ‘Would you accept my invitation to a celebratory drink in the pub?’
‘We’re going to the village, Mrs Morle. Is there anything I can get you while we’re there?’ Amy calls from the Land Rover.
Those girls spend more time driving around in that vehicle than they do working on the cottage. Mrs Morle shakes her head. She shuts her cottage door firmly. She does need preserving sugar for her marmalade but she’ll add it to the list she’ll give to Andrew Bishop when he comes to say he’s passing by the village shop. No doubt he’ll be going in a day or two and there’s no hurry. The gutting knife and meat cleaver clatter as she puts them back into the drawer. She’d used the tools yesterday to gut three rabbits that Andrew left in the farmhouse pantry. Would have been a waste to leave the animals, heads and feet still on and not yet cleaned for eating.
‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ Amy was pouring milk into a jug when Mrs Morle came in that Monday morning. ‘I don’t know what to do with these rabbits, Mrs Morle, do you? Colin said they’re good to eat but they need skinning and so on. But, I mean, how? Do you… would you mind showing me how to do it?’
Mrs Morle didn’t like being in contact with Julian’s lot. But she and Lynn loved a bit of rabbit and there’d be enough for everyone.
‘Alright, I will. Harry, that was my husband, he always gutted rabbit out in the field soon as he’d shot ‘em,’ Mrs Morle said. ‘They’ll go off quick with their innards left inside. The dogs love ‘em, of course, and it makes less mess cleaning them in the field. But these was only shot on Sunday and it’s cold in the pantry, so they’ll be fine for eating. You and the other girl, you come over to mine later and I’ll show you what’s what.’
With a small sharp knife, Mrs Morle sliced through the rabbit’s thick coat, careful to cut only as deep as the abdominal cavity. ‘If you go through that membrane, you’ll hit the guts and taint the flesh.’
Amy stood at her elbow trying not to wince. ‘Now I take the skin off the body.’
It required far more force than her words suggested. The animal’s front legs flounced in a macabre dance as Mrs Morle dragged the pelt from the flesh, as careful as when rolling her stockings down her legs each night. It was like removing a jumper from a wriggling baby.
The white abdominal sack gleamed.
‘Inside there is the innards and I need to get them out before they turn.’
Mrs Morle’s fingers dove into the sack and wrenched out pink-grey organs that Amy remembered from school science lessons. She had always been fascinated by muscles and sinews and blood vessels. She quite forgot it was a pretty little bunny that was being carved up.
‘Some folk eat the heart and liver,’ said Mrs Morle, ‘but these have been nicked by the bullet so they’re mashed. I’ll give ‘em to the dogs. You want to keep this left hind foot? It’s good luck if the animal was shot by a cross-eyed person at full moon. Who
was it brought these to you? Colin? Well he’s certainly no beauty.’
The vivid-pink carcass was now stretched out on its tummy along the cutting board like a diver about to plunge into a pool. Smack-crunch! The rabbit’s head was severed off with a slam of Mrs Morle’s cleaver, then the legs were chunked up into pieces.
‘So that rabbit’s ready for the pot. Maggie, you lurking there, are you, been watching? You cleaning the next one, eh?’
‘I’m a vegetarian, I can’t…’ Maggie had been hovering by the kitchen door, alternatively appalled and fascinated.
‘You’re telling me you’re going to miss a delicious meal of rabbit? I doubt that very much, not when you smell ‘em cooking.’ Amy gutted the second rabbit. A sensible girl and willing to listen, thought Mrs Morle as she watched the girl skin and joint the animal. Not a bad cook neither. She brought two servings of stew over to the cottage that evening along with a nice bit of mashed turnip and potato. Mrs Morle had never tasted rabbit made with garlic before but had to agree with Lynn that it tasted very nice.
Still didn’t make sense though, Mrs Morle thought next day as she swept out the Rayburn. What was a townie like Amy doing at Mr Stratton’s house? In fact, what were any of them doing here, pretending to be builders and smallholders and the rest of it?
It was time they went back to where they came from. Mrs Morle’s cup of tea had gone cold but she drank it anyway.
Although her treasured book on self-sufficiency advises it’s the season to scatter parsnip seeds, it is to the four winds the seeds fly rather than the soil. This morning is a fiasco.
‘How could we ever be self-sufficient if we can’t even get seeds planted?’ Amy bursts angrily into the cottage.
High up on a ladder in a room that reeks of paint, Helen is whitewashing the ceiling. With her arms raised, her rounded belly is obvious. The woman is pregnant.
‘Oh dear, difficult morning, Amy? Where would we be without frozen peas?’ Helen smiles down at her. ‘There’s plenty to do inside if it’s too wild for gardening. Maggie’s painting the bedroom. You could help her.’
‘But I’m meant to be growing the food and …’ Amy grumbles. She wonders if she dares to ask Helen about the baby. She always feels a little uncertain around her. It’s not that the woman isn’t friendly, it’s more that Amy feels gauche and inexperienced by comparison. She kicks at some discarded paper. ‘Alright, I’ll see what Maggs is up to. How are you anyway?’
A grin splits Helen’s face. She comes down the ladder and puts the roller in a tray.
‘I’m going to sit for a moment.’ She massages her neck. ‘I get tired these days. Don’t know if you’ve noticed but, well, I’m expecting a baby. I’ve known for a while but didn’t want to say anything to anyone. It’s due mid-July. Summer baby, just like me.’
‘That’s wonderful. Is it alright for you to be working like this?’
‘I’m fine and what am I going to do – stop? I’m doing what I’ve always done. Not smoking as much as before and I’ll probably stop before the baby’s born. I did have a bit of morning sickness in the first month or so but after that, haven’t really noticed really apart from my trousers are getting tight.’
What does Bob think about it? He already has two children from a previous relationship. They live with their mother some twenty miles away. Amy’s heard him moaning about giving money to his ex-wife.
‘Bob’s getting used to the idea,’ says Helen as though she’s read Amy’s thoughts. ‘Wasn’t that happy to start with, mind. But I think he’ll be cool when he sees the baby.’
Neither woman speaks for a few moments, then Helen climbs back up to the ladder.
The cottage is slowly taking shape. There’s a damp course beneath the newly-laid floors, the electricity and water supplies are connected and the warmth from night storage heaters is drying out the fresh plaster. But it’s some way from habitation…
She finds Maggie in one of the bedrooms. She’s bobbing around to the music on the radio, a paint-laden sponge in each hand. It’s obvious she’s on speed; the building team, as they call themselves, insist it’s the only way to get through the work. Maggie gestures towards a folded piece of paper on the mantelpiece. Amy doesn’t resist; the day’s been too frustrating. She snorts the white powder and rubs the remaining crystals onto her gums.
‘You brought anything to drink? I’m dry as a bone,’ Maggie says without waiting for an answer. ‘What do you think of it? Of what I’m doing. It’s called sponging. I read about it in an old book on traditional decorating techniques.’ She beams at Amy.
Yellow and cream blobs of paint have dabbed here and there on the walls like puffy coloured clouds.
‘Like the breath of daffodils! I love it,’ giggles Amy.
‘What will the Master think?’
‘Seymour? Oh, I think he’ll be fine. It’s different and quirky and…’
‘I’m going to paint the window frames like my most favourite dessert. Bet you can’t guess what that is…’
Before Amy can respond, Maggie shrieks: ‘Neopolitan icecream! So I’ll paint stripes of yellow and pale pink and brown around the window. Just gotta find the perfect colour for chocolate. It will look… delicious.’
Amy sits back on her heels and watches her friend who is fizzing with energy. The day is improving. She can feel her spirits lifting. When has life ever felt so free?
17
Seymour is parking the car when Amy and Maggie burst out of the cottage. In paint-splattered overalls, they make a refreshing contrast to his moody passenger he’s driven down from London. Eleanor, who he’d met on a shoot in Martinique where she was the local fixer, is the woman he is occasionally sleeping with in town. A girl with grit but a tricky one, too, with a list of things she doesn’t enjoy, the countryside being one of them. So why she pressed to come for a weekend at Wyld Farm he cannot fathom.
‘Hallo, you two. Let me guess….You’ve been painting! Maggie and Amy, meet Eleanor.’
‘Hi.’ Maggie nods at the woman in dark glasses who has not moved from the car. Another female that the London Lothario expects them to welcome.
‘Hi, I’m Amy. Pepper got your postcard, Seymour. He says, you haven’t been down in ages and where’s his present?’
Through the barely-opened passenger window the woman’s voice sounds agitated. ‘Seymour, I must lie down immediately. Take me to the house. Is there mud out there?’
‘A few puddles, I suspect, Eleanor. I told you that this is a farm. I’ll show you where to step. Look, could you two be angels and bring in our stuff from the car? I’ll administer appropriate attention to our delicate visitor.’
A foot encased in a high-heeled fur boot emerges slowly from the passenger side followed by a woman with spiky crimson hair. She allows Seymour to guide her towards the path and the house. ‘He looks pleased with himself,’ Maggs grumbles as she lugs a bag of shopping and a suitcase from the boot.
‘I thought he looked a bit miffed,’ says Amy. She take a bunch of lilies and two bottles of wine from the back seat and follows Maggie into the kitchen. She puts Tupelo Honey on the turntable. A few minutes later, Seymour appears.
‘You are both total treasures. Thankfully our hothouse flower is tucked up in bed.’ He collapses into a chair. ‘Eleanor has a headache. I can only find laxatives and one old Elastoplast in the cabinet. Apparently neither will help. In my opinion, a glass of wine is what the doctor orders. But Eleanor insists on pharmaceuticals. I don’t feel like driving to chemist.’
‘I’ll take you Seymour,’ Amy says, ‘I passed my driving test, you know. Give me a minute and I’ll change.’
Seymour has not seen Amy wearing anything but dungarees for months. The fitted cardigan shows off her figure and the flowery skirt swirls around her narrow ankles. The girl is wearing espadrilles laced up her shapely shins, a tightly-belted mackintosh and beret set on her head at a rakish angle.
‘We’re not going anywhere special, you know. You look sharp,’ he s
ays admiringly.
‘I can’t drive your car in welly boots, can I? Dad bought me these shoes for…for Mum’s funeral. They’re fine for driving. I got this coat in a jumble sale ages ago. Anyway, I haven’t been off the farm for a while.’
It’s strange driving the low-slung car. Amy is used to the Land Rover where the driver’s seat is high up and the vehicle moves at a comfortable lumber. Now she’s in charge of slinky creature that will, with the wrong command, streak off at speed. She prays they don’t meet another car on the narrow lane and she has to reverse. The amphetamine is helping her confidence.
He tries not to wince when she crunches the Jaguar’s gears and misjudges the ferocity of the brakes on the first few corners. By the time they reach the main road, Amy is driving more smoothly. Seymour gives directions to the chemist’s shop. He returns with several purchases.
‘Pills Eleanor can swallow to her heart’s content. Now I’d like to order the Sunday papers from the shop by the canal. You lot ignore what’s going on in the world but I don’t.’
Amy protests as she switches on the headlights. ‘It’s not easy when there’s no telly and we don’t get a daily paper. I listen to the radio sometimes but ugh, the news is so horrible. That terrible bomb at the Post Office. Anyway we’re more interested in living in the present, in the moment.’
He directs her to a shop she hasn’t noticed before and she parks. The lighted interior reveals tinned and dried goods, soft drinks, kitchenware and toys. Nothing of interest. But she follows Seymour feeling buoyed up by her success at driving.
‘Hallo, Naresh, how are you?’ Seymour shakes hands with the man behind the counter. ‘I hope the family is well? This is my friend, Amy Taylor, who is staying at the moment. Amy, this is Naresh Rao.’ He turns to Amy: ‘His son Sunil is training to be a solicitor. He’s completed one year so far. Where is Sunil?’
Wyld Dreamers: a gripping drama about secrets from the past Page 9
