by Angela Huth
‘Battery. It’s very sweet of you to come over, Prodge. So busy and everything. But George’s gone to—’
‘That’s all right. Soon sort it out.’ He gave a small gasp, like someone with asthma.
‘Is there anything wrong? You look—’
‘Nothing wrong, thanks very much. Well, maybe a touch of some bug.’
‘Shall I get you a glass of water?’
‘Don’t want to put you to any trouble. But I am a bit overheated, yes.’ He ran a fist over his forehead, banishing the sweat. ‘Please.’
In the sun-warm silence, Lily rose and fetched a glass, filled it with water from the tap. Prodge took three long gulps.
‘That’s better. Thanks for that.’
Lily was regarding him anxiously. It occurred to Prodge that she must think he’d been struck by some mysterious illness. But very quickly, having drunk the water, his whole body unclenched, his taut face slackened. He was calm again, though a hint of hostility darkened his eyes.
Suddenly, with no warning, he put one of his huge hands over hers.
‘Lily Crichton,’ he said at last, so quietly that she had to strain to hear him. ‘I have to tell you this. You are the most … extraordinary woman I’ve ever had the chance to meet. There’s no one like you round these parts. No one like you for miles. It wouldn’t be that strange, I don’t suppose, should it happen to a farmer like me – and I’m not one for chances to get into the wider world – should it happen that a man like me were to run into a goddess like you on a river bank …’ With each convolution of his declaration, Prodge’s face turned more deeply scarlet. He paused, pressed his hand harder on to hers. ‘Well, in the unlikely event of all that happening, I think it would be a case of… I can’t find the right word, exactly. But he’d be knocked out. Smitten. Wrecked. Troubled. Something like that.’ He looked at her, hurried from the abstract to the truth. ‘Because you’re exactly the sort of woman I’ve always had in mind, and you’re not available. George got there first. Almost everything, all our lives, except for prize Friesians, George got there first.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘But if another one like you came along, daresay I’d make a play for her.’
Lily laughed gently, still did not move her hand. ‘Oh, Prodge,’ she said, ‘I’m flattered. I hardly know what to say. I—’
‘Well, I know exactly what to say, though I seem to be tying myself in knots a bit.’ His voice was stronger now. He removed his hand from Lily’s, reclenched it. ‘I been tossing and turning all night, thinking about it. What I been thinking was: best to get it over. Put my cards on the table, tell her what’s going on.’ He banged his chest. ‘I’m a strong man, physically. I can muck-spread all day and not an ache in my back. I can plough all God’s daylight hours and more besides, no trouble. But I’ve never been hit like this before – just the one sighting, the few words we had, and down I went.’
‘Prodge,’ Lily said again. There were tears in her eyes.
‘Silly isn’t it?’ he went on. ‘But nothing I can do about it. I been on the lookout for a good woman for some time – thought the jacket might help. And by God it did, but in quite the wrong way.’ This time his smile was wry. ‘You’re light years from any woman I’ve ever seen or spoken to in all my life. Not surprising, really, you’ve brought me down.’
‘I’m sure I haven’t brought you down.’
‘No, in a sense you haven’t, of course.’ A determined energy strengthened his voice. ‘Outwardly things’ll go on as ever. No one will ever guess what’s bugging me, and I swear on my life I won’t bother you with it all.’ He paused. ‘Trouble is, and it’s why I’m confessing all this now – and thank God for your car playing up, I didn’t know how the hell I was going to get to see you – is that strong as I am, like I say, I couldn’t live the rest of my life with this secret. I had to tell just one person. Lighten the burden, that way, if you see what I mean.’
‘I understand.’
‘All I ask is that you take a bit of care. Don’t make it hard for me – throw your arms round my neck at some Christmas party, something. Don’t kiss me in the general kissing on a New Year’s Eve, that sort of thing. I couldn’t take that: might undo me. And one other thing, please say nothing to Nell or to George. Not a word. That’s more important than anything.’
‘I promise,’ she said.
‘Thanks. Fact is, a man can be struck down, like by bloody lightning, when he’s least expecting it. That’s something I’ve learnt. I’ve never had much time to think about the whole love business: too busy on the farm. The odd girl, the odd night – that’s been me up till now. Not very satisfactory. But not much alternative, living here. I always assumed the right sort of girl would come along, share the farm with me, help Nell out, be my wife and mother of my children. Well, that girl will turn up one day. No doubt about that at all. But one thing she’ll never know: one April afternoon I fell in love with a girl called Lily, and that love will never change.’
‘Prodge – I’m sorry. I understand what you’re feeling. But these things are so easy to imagine, especially if subconsciously you’re half wanting them.’
‘This is nothing to do with imagination, believe me. This is real.’
‘I’ll do everything you ask, of course. I don’t know what else to say, except that I’m sure that—’
‘Don’t you say anything,’ Prodge answered. ‘There’s nothing you have to say. There. That’s over.’ He pushed his chair back from the table, stood up. Chains had fallen from him. He was strong with resolve. ‘Everything said. I’ll never mention it again, I promise you that.’
Lily, too, stood up.
‘Just the once,’ said Prodge quietly, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘with your permission, I’d like to touch you.’ His request was delivered with such dignity, such restraint, that Lily, seeing the charge behind it, again felt close to tears. Filled as she was with all the surety of the last twenty-four hours, and a small hope of certainty with George, she knew there was no danger. To allow the wretched Prodge a single moment of contact would be a minimal kindness. She gave the slightest nod, permitting. Prodge cupped a hand under her chin, fingers splayed across her cheek. ‘Just to remember,’ he said.
His touch lasted for no more than a second. He swiped away his hand like a man burned. Then his eyes travelled the whole room before resettling on Lily.
‘I suppose you’re thinking of staying a while?’ he said. ‘Well I’ll not bother you, I promise you that. We’ll never mention all this again. George’s a lucky bugger, always has been.’ He stood up, stretched. ‘But thanks for listening.’ He lifted both arms high above his head as if to grab a bale of straw. ‘It’s a weight off my mind. As a matter of fact, it’s more than that.’ He lowered the invisible bale. ‘Confessing it to you seems to have brought me to my senses, got rid of it – almost. I can feel the whole daft business floating away, honest. – Now, this battery.’ They went out to the car.
An hour later, riding up the hill, Lily had no eyes for the April green of the valley below or ears for the insect drone of the distant tractor she knew Prodge was driving. Her mind was overloaded with thoughts of George, the immense change that had taken place in the last twenty-four hours. And of Prodge’s strange, sad declaration. Perhaps it was one of the few disadvantages of living so far from others. A man starved of much human contact is prone to a hawk-like imagination inclined to swoop upon the odd rare prey. Prodge’s disturbed state, for all his assurance about casting it off, troubled her. She hoped that the impossibility of it all would mean it would soon fade: fantasy, passion, whatever it was, rarely thrives on arid ground. It was something he had to live with until it vanished. For her part, she must grow accustomed to the guilt it had induced in her. Honour would forbid her to tell George what had happened: she could not break Prodge’s trust, but only believe the mad illusion that assailed him might pass.
Nell, turning to indicate that they would have a canter, observed that her friend was unusually pale and pensive
. She imagined there had been some kind of dispute with George, but it did not occur to her to ask questions.
The change in George and Lily’s lives, once they had become lovers, wrought other changes. So gradually that George could never pinpoint exactly when and how they happened, he was aware of differences taking place. He would catch sight of Lily pushing a huge barrow of manure from the yard to the garden. He would see her digging, planting. She would speak of lettuces, cabbages, beans: there would be daffodils and tulips next spring, she said. Indoors there was a shift, too: Lily took it upon herself to cook, thus releasing the grateful Dusty from her least favourite duty: she continued to clean and polish the house, which she enjoyed, and deal with the laundry. Lily would drive twenty miles to a market to find the cheeses George loved, home-made jams and organic meat. Often she helped him with the paperwork, making light of it, going efficiently through it in a way George had never quite managed, for all his legal training.
There was a feeling of unreality about the new arrangement, George sometimes thought: it suddenly occurred to him that it was because they had never discussed money. Occasionally he had given Lily a wodge of notes to pay for the shopping. But she had never asked for it. Eventually, with some guilt, he realised she must have spent far more than he had paid for.
‘Lily: there’s the serious matter of money,’ he said one morning at breakfast. ‘God knows what I owe you. You’ve been paying for food and plants for weeks.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m fine till my stash runs out. Besides, I have to make some contribution. I’m staying here. I’m a long-term guest...’
She paused. This was an area neither of them had dared to approach, or wanted to. It had arrived unbidden. But having done so, George knew he must face it.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘we should put things on some sort of regular footing. I should give you a regular amount to buy the food and stuff. It’s ridiculous that you should pay for any of that.’
‘Oh, George, don’t let’s talk about all that sort of thing. It’s so … binding.’ She turned her head from him, leading him into a difficult silence.
Binding! Her word hung in the air, threatening. Was binding the last thing she wanted? But they remained locked in their own visions for only a moment. Lily broke the tension with one of her sudden smiles. She turned to George.
‘But if you could afford it,’ she said, ‘I would love to make a few … improvements to the house.’ She looked up at the blistered ceiling, the stained walls, a cracked windowpane. ‘What do you think?’
George, who was not a man who would ever have considered altering anything in the house he was used to and loved, experienced the swiftest change of heart he had ever known.
‘Of course I can afford it,’ he said. ‘I’m reasonably well off, having sold the firm. That’s a good idea. You’re quite right: the place could do with a lick of paint. You get so used to somewhere you don’t notice … All I ask is that you don’t want my opinion about curtains and so on. I’m no good at that sort of thing. But I trust you absolutely. You do whatever you like. Just nothing too drastic.’
‘Of course not! Oh, that’s so exciting. That’s a wonderful project to get off the ground.’
And to keep you here, thought George.
‘Prodge has a friend not too far away who’s a good builder,’ he said. ‘You’d better get on to him.’
There was no more talk of money, and in the weeks that followed George, very busy on the farm vaccinating the lambs, then shearing the ewes and rams, spent little time indoors. When he was there he noticed, as if through a mist, that there were things going on which were no business of his: there were two builders, ladders, pots of paint crowding the floors, dust sheets over furniture. For a while he and Lily took their supper on the small table in the study: the kitchen was temporarily uninhabitable while the walls were being painted. On two occasions Lily went to London for twenty-four hours, leaving George to go back to his own, empty bed, and he yearned for her. She returned with her small car full of drums of paint and rolls of material. He asked no questions, but quietly enjoyed her excitement.
By mid-June the builders had left. The house was theirs again – a different house, but not so drastically changed, as Lily had promised, as to unnerve George. After being so long accustomed to its shadows, its murky darkness and crumbling corners, he saw that light, previously spurned, was now welcomed by the colours Lily had chosen: they caught it, bounced it back, played with it. The long passages were now brighter, though the floorboards still creaked and Lily had not replaced the old carpet. Functional curtains, bought in the choiceless era of the post-war years, were replaced by cotton and linen which, again, received the light rather than hindered it.
George was delighted by all Lily had achieved. Proud of her skills, he invited Prodge and Nell to see the finished result. The four of them toured the house. Lily pointed out the changes in each room, lest they should overlook them. They were polite, but showed no enthusiasm. Prodge kept running a finger inside his collar, twisting his head from side to side, awkwardly. This was not the sort of thing that interested him, and, like George, he didn’t go for change in certain areas. The house had been fine for years, in his book: why bother to change it? Besides which, all the tarting-up was surely a signal that Lily intended to stay. Although he had fought hard against his secret passion, and had managed to seduce several itinerant girls since his confession in the kitchen, the idea of Lily staying troubled him deeply.
‘You’ve not messed up the study, I hope,’ he said, as the four of them returned downstairs.
‘Prodge,’ said Nell, ‘Lily hasn’t messed up anywhere. It’s all a … great improvement.’
‘All that’s happened there,’ said Lily, ‘is a bit of cleaning. The walls have a new coat of limewash, as near to the old colour as I could find. So it’s just… brighter.’ They went to the study.
‘That’s all right, then,’ said Prodge, having scoured the room with blow-torch eyes. ‘Wouldn’t have wanted you to get rid of that old sofa. I’ve sat on that sofa all my life.’
Despite the relief of his low-key approbation, supper was not easy. Lily had gone to great trouble with the food, candles, a jug of pansies of seething blue. But the lack of ease persisted. It was the first time, George realised, all four of them had sat down together since Lily’s arrival. Although she and Nell apparently enjoyed each other’s company when they went riding, and on the few occasions she ran into Prodge she went some way towards winning over his natural gruffness, the evening was haunted by past evenings when it was just the three of them. It was impossible to ignore the resentment, caused by Lily’s presence, that burrowed within the depths of Nell and her brother. They tried to disguise it, but to George it was a tangible thing. His heart cried out to Lily, knowing she must be aware of it too. It wasn’t that they disliked her, of course: that would have been impossible. It was the difference they resented.
Lily, throughout the evening, was at her most enchanting, and the effort she made touched George profoundly. She exchanged no looks with him, made no shorthand references, kept up the face of a mere visitor. But George knew that no effort on earth would dissuade his old friends from the obvious truth. His own attempts at assuming a certain distance would never convince them. They knew him too well. It would have been very odd if they had failed to see that he loved her.
Prodge spurned George’s wine, both red and white, and drank several pints of beer. He grew redder in the face, more taciturn, and sweated in the way Lily remembered he had that afternoon here at the table. When he refused her chocolate mousse, saying no thanks, he never touched chocolate, George noticed a momentary disappointment cross Lily’s face. She refilled her glass of wine before George had a chance to do so.
When they had finished eating, Nell announced she was feeling too hot. She pulled off her home-made jersey of Jacob’s sheep’s wool. Beneath it she wore an old T-shirt the colour of an aged salmon which reflected nastily on to her neck.
‘We can’t all be glamorous,’ she said, suddenly turning on Lily. ‘We haven’t all got the time or the reason to bother.’
In the silence that followed George realised that Nell, too, had drunk far more than she was used to, and knew not what she said. For the first time he exchanged a look with Lily: don’t rise, it said. Then Prodge made a ponderous statement, the words skidding.
‘I’m not used to all this, yet,’ he said. ‘All this fancy stuff.’ He looked at the newly painted walls. ‘All very nice, Lily, but I’m not used to it. These bright walls, fancy flowers – didn’t used to be like this. In Mr Elkin’s day it was good and plain, none of this tablecloth business.’
‘But it was all pretty elegant in my mother’s day, if you remember,’ said George, lightly. ‘It was just that Dad and I couldn’t keep up her standards.’ He could see Prodge was brewing up to one of his occasional rages: deflection was needed, but he couldn’t think how. Prodge stood up, held the back of his chair. He swayed a little.
‘True,’ he said at last.
‘So it was,’ said Nell. ‘You remember, Prodge, she always had silver napkin rings. You said the only rings you knew about went through a bull’s nose. You made her laugh.’ George saw this appeasement was by way of apology for her rudeness to Lily: and hoped Lily saw it that way, too.
‘True,’ he said again, and turned to Lily.
‘Look, I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn. I meant no offence. It’s just a matter of… well, getting used to George’s new kitchen and so on.’
‘Of course,’ said Lily. ‘Of course I understand.’
‘I’ll drive you home,’ said George.
‘No you won’t. We’ll walk, Nell ‘n me. We’ll fetch the car in the morning.’
There were curt thanks: it would not have been in the nature of either brother or sister to make any attempt at false appreciation. George saw them to the door.
He returned to find Lily had once again filled her glass. On one who normally drank so little, it had had its effect. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes dizzied by candle flames. But she was smiling, giggling.
