by Angela Huth
Dear George, he read, I think it’s time I was off now before I outstay my welcome. In all honesty, not much of a welcome. No enthusiasm for my presence showed through your politeness, and I don’t blame you. It became quite apparent in my (lovely) time here that I should never have done anything so untoward as to foist myself on you like that. A grave mistake, and I’m sorry. You’re plainly in absolutely no need of a companion. If I had thought about it more deeply I would have realised that was hardly surprising – father not long dead, the major decision of selling the firm and turning yourself to the allconsuming occupation of farming. What a rotten time for me to arrive out of the blue. Please forgive me. Enthusiasm has so often been my downfall. I get blown away with the excitement of some idea, then act foolishly without thinking. I won’t bother you again.
I’m off now to Norwich. Have to review an exhibition of Rosie Cotman’s watercolours. Then I might move on up the coast to a place I love as much as your part of the country. Good luck with the Friesians, lambing, the making of an even more rewarding farm. I envy your certainty. I admire it. I love the idea of your life. Please give my love to Nell, I left without saying goodbye as I couldn’t find her or Prodge. And love to you, L.
George sat down. He read the note several times, appalled.
The thought of his uncharitable behaviour, blasted at him by Lily’s note, was what most disturbed him. How could he, a man so sensitive, he had always thought, to others’ feelings, have been so churlish? So unkind? Lily, after all, had offered to leave the evening she had arrived. When he’d agreed (yes, reluctantly) that she could stay, she had responded very quickly to his irritation by quelling her natural ebullience and becoming a perfect guest – never in the way, never intruding. Now he thought about it, she had gone out of her way not to annoy him. In fact he could not think of a single thing Lily Crichton had done wrong while she was here. While she had tried, and changed, he had responded by not trying, and not changing. He could only hope that if she looked back on his churlish behaviour she might remember, too, the few times when there seemed to be some flare of warmth between them, some charge lighted by each other’s presence.
George’s immediate idea was to get in touch with her and apologise. It was he who should be asking forgiveness. But then he realised that was impossible: he had no idea where she was apart from being somewhere in Norfolk, or even where she lived in London.
He continued to sit at the table, heavy with shame, unable to explain to himself why he was so unaccommodating to women. Nell was the only one who understood his perversity, though she did not condone it. She expected nothing but loyal friendship from him, and it occurred to him now that he often took advantage of that friendship, relying on her to do things that she would never refuse. Yes, the disagreeable truth was that he was often less than thoughtful where Nell was concerned. This was usually due to preoccupation with work, rather than calculated, but the effects were the same. The irony here, George reflected, was that it would be Nell who would benefit from Lily’s message of horrible truth. As she was the one still here, she would be the one to gain from George’s new ways, since he intended to change. He might never see Lily again, and could live with that. But Nell: the thought of life without her, their roles clearly defined, was inconceivable.
After a while George took a casserole left by Dusty out of the oven. He then noticed that the table had been laid for two, so obviously Lily had said nothing of her departure to anyone. She had just gone, perhaps on the spur of the moment, disappointed that her idea of coming here had not turned out more happily. Presumably she had no desire ever to return, or to see George again.
He shook his head and poured himself a strong whisky, hoping it would dull his guilt and regret. Then he put away the knife, fork and glass that had been intended for Lily, and without relish began his solitary supper.
6
Even as a child George had fought against the innate sense of caution within him. In his grown-up life he fought harder, though often with no success. The wildest thing he had ever done, he reflected in his shaving mirror the morning after Lily’s departure, was to sell the family firm and opt to be a full-time farmer. The shadow of caution which naturally clouded so many of George’s decisions, had for once not descended. Guilt had been there – the throwing away of all that previous generations had put into the building of A, E & P – but he now regarded the sale of the antiquated firm without sentimentality. Besides, the old man had always advocated that to try to do two jobs at once was not ultimately satisfactory: to maintain solicitors’ office hours and run the farm, even with two reliable helpers, was often difficult. David Elkin, as George told himself frequently in the days after the sale, would have been delighted by the thought of further expansion and improvements to the farm.
It was caution in matters of the heart that struck George most forcibly. When he pondered on this he wondered at its cause: he was not a coward, not afraid of being hurt, not against keeping the rules of a temporary arrangement. But he was also not a man naturally inclined to dare in order to know. He inwardly confessed it was not so much the daring that alarmed him as the knowing. Simply (shamingly, perhaps), where women were concerned, he did not want to know too much. He found their need to confess what troubled their souls a burden – usually of no profound interest, and nearly always lacking in humour. The reticence he preferred, the delight of gradual discovery, was deeply unfashionable. He knew that such stern prejudices meant he was left with few girls to choose from, but this did not much trouble him. He did not want to be involved in the whole palaver of temporary relationships.
At Oxford he had seen many of his friends begin by professing their desire for and love of independence, then change their minds on a whim. Suddenly they would team up with a like-minded girl and declare that their new-found lusty companionship had put paid to all previous, foolish hopes of remaining happily unattached. Oh, he had witnessed it a dozen times – ‘the first, fine careless rapture’, the enthusiasm, the hope. And then, often because of the restrictions of student life – exciting love and producing essays on time being incompatible – the paling, the waning, the ending. Rarely the relief. George had given what comfort he could to many a broken heart – with a certain smugness in his own, knowing that the caution within him would swoop down at moments of danger so he was safe from such mess.
As an undergraduate, therefore, he was considered a cold fish. He was aware of that. He was also aware that such a reputation presented a challenge. Cold fish are to be won over. Several girls tried. George did his duty by them: often he enjoyed their companionship, their friendship. But as soon as the familiar signs appeared – he sensed a girl was suddenly closer to him than he was to her – his self-protection clocked in and he faded away. He had no wish, as he always, fairly, made it plain, for either commitment or regularity. He did not want to be part of a couple. He genuinely treasured his independence, was in need of bouts of solitude (something few girls understood or cared to contemplate). Such an uncongenial attitude disappointed many of those who pursued him – Serena most of all, who had wrongly assumed she was ‘getting somewhere’.
Since leaving Oxford, on his travels and during his working year in France, ‘there had been girls’, as he told Nell when she enquired. But, as she rightly guessed, they had been of no consequence. In fact they were of so little importance in the general scheme of his life that there had been no need to put up barriers, for not one of them was a threat.
The only girl he had ever unquestioningly loved was Nell: and that love was not of the heart-stopping, interfering kind. It was the love of siblings – unshakeable, unbreakable. Nell was strong, singular: not a recognisable type – her moorland upbringing saw to that – but a strange, original creature. He trusted her, relied on her. She played a vital but undemanding part in his life. He believed their understanding of each other formed the kind of cohesion that he would hope to find, in some vague future, in a wife.
With Nell there had never be
en a need for caution. And with Lily, in the brief time they had spent together, there had been no need for it either. Lily was no more than a friend, not particularly close, often annoying, but it would be foolish to deny that there was something about her which, had she stayed longer … As it was, she was gone before George was faced with any such decision, and he liked to think he was glad.
Such a plethora of morning thoughts were brought to an end by his need to make early farm-business calls. Today he was not helping with the morning feed for the ewes, and when the telephoning was done he ate his solitary breakfast. He had come to enjoy the ritual – silence while he eked out his coffee, gathering energy for the rest of the day’s labours. The agreeable thought that came to him of going up to admire Prodge’s finished shed was interrupted by a bang on the window. It was Ben.
‘First lamb,’ he shouted. ‘Dad says it’s a big ‘un.’
George hurried out, childlike excitement rising. First lamb on his farm … But before he could leave the house the telephone rang. Nell.
‘Is Lily there? We had a plan to ride again this afternoon.’
‘You’ve missed her. She left last night, I’m afraid.’
‘Left?’
‘There was a note. Something about having to go to Norfolk to review an exhibition. Didn’t she tell you her plans?’
‘Never said a word about leaving.’ Nell sounded disappointed. ‘I thought she was enjoying herself, riding and walking. Very strange.’
‘I don’t think she left because she wasn’t enjoying herself George was aware of an edge in his voice which he knew would not be hidden from Nell. ‘Perhaps it was just a sudden work thing. Though a bit odd, I agree.’
‘Well, if she gets in touch, tell her to come back. It was nice having someone to ride with.’
‘I don’t know if I’ll urge her to return,’ said George, forcing a laugh. ‘But I’ll tell her you were sad to have missed her. Look, I’ve got to hurry off to see our first lamb. I’ll be up later to heap extravagant praise on Prodge’s shed.’
Outside, there were intimations of spring. George loved this moment every year – those few days when the weather hovered between temperate and vicious: when a haze of green was still far off, but buds were already precisely formed. But for all the delights of a sharply edged morning, in the back of his mind a faintly disturbing question hung like an icicle against the sun: had he offended Lily so deeply he would never be forgiven? And why did the thought of not being forgiven chafe at him so?
No answer came. And here was the first lamb, rocking and twitching on the wet straw as its mother licked away the caul. Its nose was starry with mucus, its black legs aquiver as if four invisible winds of different strengths were assailing the tiny limbs. The afterbirth lay beside the ewe, a glistening jelly beneath a small halo of steam, indicating its recent arrival. There was a mauvish smell of birth above the deeper scent of acrid bedding. From the neighbouring pens came a chorus of approval from the other ewes awaiting their own labour. George’s earlier moment of amorphous guilt and anxiety was extinguished by this powerful rite of spring. For a few moments he was lost in the wonder of it, but kept his silence for fear of Saul scoffing at such sentiment. His contemplation was interrupted, in any case, by a red-faced Ben.
‘There’s another one just starting up over there.’ He pointed to a far corner. ‘Dad says it may be a bit of trouble. Chance to learn you how to put your arm up a ewe’s backside, he says.’
With an extraordinary sense of purpose, and determined to do well, George followed Ben to the single pen where a ewe jerked in discomfort on her bed of newly tossed straw. Saul was kneeling beside her.
‘You come right here, George,’ he grunted. ‘Put some of this on, then do as I say’ He handed over a tube of lubricating gel and George set about obeying instructions. Within a moment or two the hand that had plunged with curiously little distaste through the animal’s vulva was defining legs, hooves, a head that twisted when he touched it: a small struggling creature in the warm mush of its mother’s womb. He began to pull, to ease, talking gently to the ewe all the while.
‘We’re getting there,’ Saul muttered – grudgingly, George thought. ‘Fact is, you’re a natural shepherd.’ He gave one of his rare smiles. A moment later the lamb emerged from its mother’s parted flanks, slopped on to the bedding. George, Saul and Ben looked down on it: a lamb, potentially at risk, saved. The mother tired but fine. The satisfaction of the moment was shared by the three men. But there was no time to linger in triumph: there were others bleating for help.
For the next few weeks lambing occupied the majority of George’s waking hours and he learnt the meaning of exhaustion. He, Saul and Ben devised a rota of shifts, two on, one off, to attend to the birthing ewes. Ben was also in sole charge of the cows. George tried to keep pace with the paperwork, and in any spare moment Saul occupied himself with general farm duties that could never be left. After one long night shift George, coming to relieve him, found Saul scraping the yard with the briskness of one who has had a good night’s sleep. He was a man of rare strength and energy for his years, but the perpetual long hours of hard work and little rest had ground into his face a series of cavernous lines that added a decade to his real age.
The three men were rarely able to sleep for more than four hours a night. Ben and Saul, used to this yearly routine, increased the economy of the words between them – on occasions they snapped at each other, and once George saw Ben put down two full buckets of beet pellets and stomp out of the shed, leaving his father to fill the troughs. The boy’s wanting a good night’s sleep,’ Saul observed to George, a trace of a sneer in the admission, as if he himself was in no need of any such thing.
To begin with George was convinced that lack of sleep was something that would little affect him, but after three nights of just four restless hours, the deprivation began to tell. The profound longing to stay in bed when the alarm went at two or five o’clock in the morning, or whatever the time for his turn, was familiar from days at university, when after a very late night he needed to get up to concentrate on an overdue essay. He could cope with that. He forced himself to spring out of bed – not allowing himself a moment’s thought of luxury denied – and thrust his head under a cold tap. After a cup of very strong coffee he felt energy begin to move within him – but it was a false energy produced by caffeine, far from the profound sense of well-being that came from his normal nights of deep sleep. Later in the day he would feel a heaviness of head, an invisible sheet of steel pressing down on him, confusing. Sometimes, when he drew himself up after bending over, he had the sensation that clappers had lodged in his skull: they swung from side to side, as if in a church steeple, unbalancing him. And then at times his limbs became clumsy, his fingers dithered over cutting or tying or picking up, and rage against his own incompetence flared within him. Once Saul observed his slowness in opening bags of feed. ‘You may be dog-tired, but you just have to keep going,’ he muttered without sympathy.
There was no more time for poetic reflections on the birth of sheep, the wonder of new life. Though inwardly his awe at the safe arrival of each new lamb did not diminish, George began to understand Saul’s apparent gruffness, his lack of sentiment or emotion. Helping ewes to lamb was just another job, he began to understand, and a bloody hard one. Although no birth was quite the same, there was a repetitiveness to it all: on occasions George felt that if he had to inspect one more bulging vulva, clear up one more deposit of glistening umbilical cord, he would do something foolish.
Sometimes death would jolt the routine. An old Poll Dorset died giving birth to twins. Saul’s only comment was that he thanked the Lord it wasn’t one of the more agreeable ewes who’d been called to the eternal sheep pen: this one had always been a right bugger. He and Ben dragged the animal out of the shed, apparently impervious to her death. George was left to choose a foster mother from the few ewes whose lambs had been stillborn. He chose one with – he hardly dared admit it to himself –
a kindly eye, that he had been with at four o’clock one morning when her own black, lifeless lamb was born. It had slipped from her so fast that George, his eye on another ewe about to give birth, had missed the moment of its exit from the womb. But he saw at once that it was dead. Under the low, shaded light it lay shining like a slug, its head craned back, its eyes never to open under a web of viscous membrane gathered in the womb. George rubbed his hands hard over his face, glad neither Saul nor Ben was there to see his pity. Then he slung the lamb into a sack, took up a spade and carried it off to bury it. It was a cold dawn. A transparent moon was jostled by uneasy cloud and a mist, waist high, rose from the dark ground. On the hillside George thrust the spade into this mist, unable to make out the ground he was digging. He had to wait for an hour until there was enough light to see clearly, and worried that he should be back in the shed. But he could not face leaving the dead lamb unburied in its sack.
After a couple of weeks of this exhausting routine, George was pleased to find he was becoming accustomed to the lack of sleep. He was toughening. His head still spun, or rocked, and from time to time he tried to shake off the weight that pressed down on his skull. But the heavy-limbed, zombie-like feeling disappeared. He was pleased by this progress, and noticed that the occasional scorn in Saul’s eyes was replaced by something near to approval. But still, on occasions, he had moments of such dense tiredness that he doubted the nature of his own judgement.
One night, close to midnight, coming home from a long shift in the shed, he walked towards the farmhouse wondering whether he could be bothered to cut himself a slab of pork pie before dropping into bed. He was cold, aching, stumbling.
To his surprise there were lights in several of the windows. When he had gone out, six hours earlier, he had left on only the kitchen light. Or had he? George, confused, went through the door. By now he could not be certain he had not turned them on, though no picture of himself in the act of putting them on came to him. For a moment he was alarmed: then the solution came to him. It was Lily. That was obviously it. Lily had suddenly returned – although her car was not there. With a certain eagerness, despite his weariness, he hurried to the kitchen. It was empty, but tidy. Dusty had left a pork pie and tomatoes on a plate under an old meshed dome. George, no longer hungry, went upstairs to the guest room. The door was shut: the room was empty.
