God's Acre

by Dee Yates

  ‘Oh, I’ve been here a while. But I haven’t seen you for ages, else I’d have let you know I was going to my parents.’ There was an edge to her voice that made Tam look away.

  ‘Yes, I suppose we’ve all been busy,’ Agnes intervened. ‘Well, now you’re here, why don’t the two of you go for a walk. There’s plenty of moonlight to show you the way.’

  ‘How romantic!’ Neil murmured, as Jeannie passed him to get her hat and coat.

  *

  ‘It’s lovely to see you again,’ Tam began. ‘When did you get back?’

  ‘A few days ago. I couldn’t stand any more of my mum and dad insisting I give up my job and go to live with them.’

  ‘You mean you were here for Hogmanay?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘If I’d known, I’d have invited you to the dance.’ Tam put his arm round her, but she shrugged it away. ‘What’s the matter, lass? Don’t you want to be with me anymore? Is it Neil? Have you fallen for him?’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Of course I haven’t. It’s you. You don’t seem all that interested in me. Ever since Malcolm and Ian went you’ve never been near. What was I to think?’

  ‘You seemed so friendly, you and Neil that night. What was I to think?’

  ‘If you had stopped to think at all,’ Jeannie replied, her voice rising angrily, ‘you would have realised that Malcolm was our concern and nothing else.’

  ‘You really mean that? I was sure you must prefer Neil’s company to mine.’ He put his arm round her again, but she remembered Neil’s hint that Tam was up to something and she backed off again.

  ‘So, what have you been doing all this time, Tam?’

  ‘Oh, looking after sheep, mainly. Walking miles every day to make sure they’ve enough to feed; that and cleaning equipment – our usual winter-time jobs.’

  ‘Anything else, only Neil suggested you might be up to something.’

  Tam frowned. ‘That must be my idiot brother talking,’ he said under his breath. ‘All I said was that I thought I might enlist for the army.’

  Jeannie stopped dead and looked at Tam. ‘But why? I thought you didn’t need to. I don’t understand you, Tam. One minute you’re saying it’s lovely to see me again and the next you’re arranging to go away. How could you even think about doing this if you really care for me?’

  ‘It was that night – the night Malcolm went missing. When I heard about his dad getting killed and leaving those three weans fatherless, I just thought it wasn’t fair that I should be safe and sound at home here when I could be doing my part on the front. And then there’s Neil Cunningham always saying I ought to enlist, me being the second son. And he’s right.’

  Jeannie rounded on him, tears springing from her eyes. ‘What’s Neil Cunningham got to do with it? Why do you listen to anything he says? He only wants you out of the way. He’s jealous.’

  ‘Jealous of what?’

  ‘Of you, of course.’ Jeannie sighed and put her arm through his.

  ‘Well, I haven’t actually done anything about my decision yet. I’ve been too busy with the sheep. But they can manage without me for a while. Come lambing time, if the fighting’s no’ finished, my father can hire someone to help. Look, Jeannie, I’ll have regular work for a few months. Can’t you see? The farm is small. It’s difficult to make ends meet. I’ve had the extra work for Alec while he’s been injured, but at this time of the year there’s no daylight left by the time I’m finished on the farm.’

  ‘I do understand, Tam, why you feel you ought to do it. I shouldn’t be selfish. After all, we’re no different from every other couple that’s had to be apart while the war is on. But it’s so hard to think about you going away.’

  A bitter wind cut through the valley, hurling icy droplets in their faces. Tam put his arm round her and she snuggled close, craving the warmth of his body. She looked up into his eyes.

  ‘Shall I come back to the cottage with you for a bit?’ Tam hesitated and Jeannie, sensing the hesitation, rounded on him again. ‘What’s the problem now, Tam? No, don’t bother. I’m going home.’

  ‘No, Jeannie, don’t go. Of course we’ll go to mine. It’s only that I don’t welcome their comments either… my father claiming that I don’t pull my weight, my brother suggesting all the time that I’ll lose you to someone else if I’m not careful.’

  ‘And he may be right,’ Jeannie replied peevishly, trying to pull away from him. ‘You stay away from me for ages… and now you say you are off to join up, when I’m sure you don’t have to. What am I supposed to think when you behave like this?’

  Tam sighed. ‘Well, it’s the Reverend Thompson, on top of everything else. He knows I’m friendly with you and he takes it on himself to give me guidance as to how I should behave. The trouble is, I know he’s right. It’s just that it’s so difficult sometimes, you being so desirable. That’s partly why I decided to join up… get me away from temptation.’

  ‘You make me sound like the devil himself,’ Jeannie retorted, though she couldn’t help smiling at his words.

  ‘I just need you to understand. Don’t go, sweetheart. Come to my house. I don’t care what they say… or what they think. Come home with me.’

  *

  A fire was burning in the grate when they entered the cottage. Tam’s father was sitting with his chair drawn up to the hearth, studying the livestock report of the Farming Weekly. He nodded to them.

  ‘Come in, Jeannie, lass,’ he said, getting up from his chair and coming over to her. ‘See, give me your coat. Sit down by the fire and get warm. I’ll put the kettle on. Will you have a cup of tea with us?’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ Jeannie replied. ‘That’s if it’s no trouble.’

  They had warmed up and were having a second cup of tea when Alan burst in, hand in hand with a smiling Fiona. His father looked up in astonishment.

  ‘What’s the hurry, pal?’ He put down the magazine. ‘You two seem very pleased with yourselves.’

  Alan glanced at Fiona and back at his father. ‘Aye. Father, I’ve asked Fi to marry me and she’s agreed.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Douglas said. He stood up and walked over to Fiona and kissed her cheek, before turning to grasp Alan’s hand. ‘Congratulations to the both of you.’

  Jeannie too jumped up, kissed and hugged Fiona and, turning to Alan, did the same to him.

  ‘I can see I’ll have to announce my engagement more often, if this is the desired effect.’ Alan winked at his brother over Jeannie’s head, before taking hold of Jeannie’s shoulders and kissing her in return. Jeannie stepped back flustered, and glanced at Tam.

  ‘It’s a bit sudden though, is it no’?’ Douglas said, stopping to consider. ‘How long have you been walking out together? This is no’ a case of having to wed, is it?’

  ‘Well, what if it is? We were going to wed anyway. It’s just brought it forward a bit.’ Alan looked nettled. ‘I thought you’d be pleased to have another pair of hands round the farm.’

  ‘Aye. There is that.’ Douglas chewed reflectively on his gums for a minute. ‘And ken you could maybe have the shepherd’s cottage along the valley. It’s standing empty the noo.’

  ‘Aye. I thought that too.’

  In the brief lull that followed, Tam stood up and held out his hand to his brother.

  ‘Congratulations to you both.’

  Fiona stepped forward. ‘Don’t I get a kiss?’

  Tam blushed. ‘Of course.’ He gave Fiona’s cheek a tentative peck.

  ‘He’s not very demonstrative, your brother, is he?’ Fiona laughed.

  ‘Never was,’ Alan replied.

  *

  When Tam returned from delivering Jeannie to Blackford Farm, he found Alan alone, slumped in the fireside chair. The goodwill of earlier had evaporated and he looked sullen and resentful.

  ‘You don’t look too happy about marrying Fiona. Didn’t you tell me you’d fallen out with her a week or two back,’ Tam reminded him.

  Alan snorted. ‘I did too.
That was the night she told me she was expecting a wean. It was the last thing on my mind. I mean, she’s a nice enough girl… but marrying her! It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.’ He shrugged. ‘Still, I suppose we’ll rub along just fine, given time.’

  26. Holiday

  September 1997

  ‘I wanted to be the one who showed you my favourite place.’ He sounds hurt.

  She can’t believe her ears. How long would I have had to wait for that to happen, she thinks but says nothing.

  She is showing him her holiday photos. She’d enjoyed just short of a week with her daughter in Cornwall and he had not known she was going. She had said only that she was spending a few days with Rebecca and he had assumed, wrongly, that she was travelling to Scotland. Yet the first picture she hands him is of ‘Jamaica Inn’ on Bodmin Moor. He looks confused.

  ‘I thought you were going to Scotland.’

  ‘I never said so.’

  ‘Did you visit Fowey?’ is his next question.

  She brings out the snap she has taken of the estuary with its flotilla of colourful sailing boats and the water taxi and ferry boat weaving in and out between them.

  ‘I wanted to be the one to show you,’ he says again.

  ‘Well, you’ve talked about it long enough, so I thought I’d better see it for myself. If I wait for you, I’ll wait forever.’

  A pause. ‘What did you think of it?’

  ‘It’s a lovely place… and not too busy at the moment.’

  He doesn’t ask her what she felt when she was there, but showing him the photo brings it all back. She was an interloper, an uninvited guest. She stood by the river estuary posing for a photograph and she was afraid she would be recognised. But by whom? There was no one there who knew her, knew of her, but it didn’t stop the sensation of disquiet. The sense of him was all-pervasive. The seagulls screamed a welcome overhead and she recalled, one day in her cottage several months before, answering the phone to him. She could hear the seagulls then. He was phoning from the top of the hill, the only place he could get reception. The sound of seagulls, wherever they may be, always brings back the memory.

  The night she and her daughter stayed there, she barely slept. A nearby clock chimed the quarter hours and she lay on her back in the narrow bed, scarcely daring to breathe the air that he once breathed. She walked where he walked, understood his passion for the place and knew that she was savouring something that would never be hers. In the morning she could not wait to leave and could not bear to go.

  Wordlessly, he hands back the photos of his favourite place.

  *

  A couple of years later, he tells her he is spending the week in his seaside cottage. ‘He’, not ‘they’.

  ‘Alone?’ she asks.

  ‘Alone, yes.’

  Her heart races. Will she risk the snub? What, after all, has she to lose?

  ‘That’s the same week as I have off… I could book a place nearby.’

  ‘In the town, you mean?’ He is suddenly alert.

  ‘Well, somewhere near. You always said you wanted to show me round.’

  She senses the battle going on at her side.

  ‘There are some flats on the other side of the river. Look.’ She picks up the brown envelope, pulls out the information, recently acquired, as though she knew this was going to happen. His excitement is palpable.

  ‘I suppose it will be all right.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

  ‘Are you going to see if there’s one free?’

  She phones. There is one free. It is right above where the little ferry pulls in. She books it. There is only a matter of days to wait. The booking is for mid-September. The crowds should have gone by then.

  ‘I won’t be able to leave until Sunday lunchtime,’ he says. ‘Then, when I get there, I’ll have to spend the night in the house, call in at the pub. Let them know I’m around. They’re used to seeing me and Nicola around the place, so it will seem strange if I don’t go for a drink, even though I’m on my own. I’ll arrange to meet you on the Monday.’ Cautious as ever… as he has become. Not as he once was.

  Liz travels down on the Friday, preferring it to the possibility of Saturday hold-ups. It’s the first time she’s been away without her husband and, although she doesn’t miss his company, it is difficult to be so self-sufficient. She has booked in at a B and B. It’s an old farmhouse with large, high-ceilinged rooms, ancient furniture, and flies. That evening, she walks round the headland and through a wood, sloping to the bay beneath.

  The beachside restaurant is packed with trendy families in designer shorts and sweatshirts. She goes to the bar, conspicuous in her solitude, orders a red wine and a salad and seeks out one of the few empty tables. Behind her, a quarter moon rises above the trees. A solitary child is on the beach dancing in and out of the wavelets. The sun, low on the horizon, sets the little girl’s hair on fire and catches the edge of the waves with gold.

  Her wine is vinegary and she pushes the salad away, half eaten. It is lonelier here in this crowded eating place than in her old-fashioned room in the farmhouse. She gets up from the table and makes her way through the families to the exit, conscious of eyes following her.

  Her path takes her up the side of a stubble field. In the half-dark, bats flit around her head. A barn owl ghosts the sky and disappears into the black line of trees to her right. Her melancholy lifts as she thinks of the next day. She will take the car ferry across the estuary, find the little flat in which she is to stay, buy provisions, explore, go to church maybe on the Sunday morning. And then, the following day, he will make contact and they will meet.

  *

  She is sitting on the stone wall that marks the beginning of the pier. She has been ready for hours, watching the clock tick slowly round, measuring the time taken for the ferry to ply backwards and forwards between the two sides of the estuary. It wouldn’t do to be too early. But now she is here, at the place they have agreed to meet.

  A few people come and go, checking the timetable, queuing for the next boat, alighting when it pulls in to the harbour wall to disgorge its passengers to the shopping delights of the busier side. She checks her watch. It is half an hour after their agreed meeting time. She tries not to worry, but a nagging suspicion that he has changed his mind refuses to go away.

  But then there is a step behind her and he is there. But his face shows annoyance.

  ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,’ she says lightly, to mollify whatever it is that is wrong with him.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you at the main pier.’

  ‘I didn’t know there were two piers. You never said.’ She looks at him without smiling, before fastening her gaze on the water. There is a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Already she knows the arrangement has been a mistake.

  ‘Come on, I’ll show you the town.’ He turns away and begins to walk along the narrow road towards the shops and cafes. They say little.

  At the other pier, he stops.

  ‘Would you like to go up the river… see where I used to fish when I was a child?’

  ‘That would be lovely.’

  They sit in the back of the boat, though clearly he wishes that he was at the wheel. He points out items of interest and explains the tides, the narrow channels through which the boat must navigate. It is her initiation into the watery world that he inhabits when he is not at work.

  Back on land, she buys two rolls. They make their way to the pier – her pier – and cross to her side. He has recovered his equilibrium now. He loves the flat she has rented – its view back across the water, the coming and going of the ferry below the big sash window.

  The day has turned warm. At his suggestion, they take the lunch and climb the hill to overlook the headland. After they have eaten, they follow the track east. The land slopes away steeply to the sea. In the afternoon sun, the light sparkling off the water is painful to the eyes.

  Back at the flat, she opens the win
dow with its view of the slipway and watches him climb aboard the ferry. It’s nearly empty. She waits for him to wave, but he doesn’t look back.

  The following day, they board a slightly bigger boat that will take them further up the river. There are several other people on board. It’s peaceful; there is little conversation. Upstream, the boatman points out an egret on the further bank. A little further on, a flash of blue shows the kingfisher’s path.

  His shoulder is turned towards her as the boat nudges along and she could so easily rest her chin on it. The temptation is strong, but she resists, remembering his scornful words, spoken long ago, that she would probably be the kind of woman who would want to hold hands when they were out together. She would, but she has always gone to great lengths never to do this or make any other demonstrations of affection when they are out together.

  They alight at a tiny riverside village and take pictures. The ladies of the church are serving teas in a church hall that smells of mildew and furniture polish. There’s not much choice by the time they arrive, but the cup of tea and fruit cake is delicious. On the way back, Liz looks for the kingfisher, but he has gone, taking his brightness with him. The day is clouding over and rain is in the air.

  He suggests fish and chips at a cafe on the seafront. He has not been there before, he says, but he has heard that it is good. It is good, if a little impersonal… but after all, she thinks, smiling to herself, he couldn’t be expected to take her to one of his regular haunts.

  When they part, she hesitantly suggests he might like to stay the following night. She will cook a meal, so he has no need to worry about anything. Nevertheless, it takes him a while to decide and he doesn’t appear overjoyed at the prospect. If he does come, he tells her, he will not see her during the day. He has things to do.

  Before nine o’clock the next morning, she is in the town, shopping for the evening meal. At this early hour, she thinks she is unlikely to bump into him, but she is mistaken. He has walked down to buy a paper. The meeting is awkward – a brief exchange of words as though casual acquaintances, furtive looks around on his part, hasty goodbyes. She hastens back to her flat like a woman of the night. She walks over the headland again and this time goes right down to the shoreline, which previously they saw only from a distance. She forages in the rock pools and shingle on the beach, searching for treasures.