by Angela Huth
‘Nothing to do with old times’ sake,’ George said.
A silvery night sky, its moon unhampered by a single cloud, flared through the windscreen. George looked at Nell’s profile, every half-inch deeply familiar: the unplucked, arched brows, the sweet mouth, normally upturned but now cast down. She had made some attempt, on her birthday night, with her clothes: a flowered shirt replaced the usual jumper. Several top buttons were undone – whether by design, George could not guess. He could see the outline of a rounded breast. He had not touched a woman, or thought of touching one, since Lily left, but now, suddenly shot with uncomfortable desire, he longed to stretch out and cup Nell’s breast in his hand.
She turned to him, scrunching up her eyes, willing herself to smile.
‘It’s funny, isn’t it, how everyone’s always thought of us as brother and sister.’
‘Well, we are almost, aren’t we?’
‘Suppose so.’ She put a hand on George’s thigh. ‘Though would I do that if I were your sister?’
‘Probably not.’
She took it away again, leaving sparks flying through the skin of George’s leg.
‘Kissing me was almost incestuous,’ she said.
‘Not really. We didn’t really kiss.’
‘No. But it was nice.’
George nodded. ‘You’re a very remarkable girl, Nell—’
‘Don’t give me all that tosh—’
‘—and you deserve an equally remarkable man.’
‘So likely I’m going to find one here.’ Nell laughed her scoffing laugh. She put a hand on the door but did not move. The fragment of an old song his mother used to play came to George’s mind. Moonlight becomes you … ‘Why are you smiling?’ Nell asked.
‘I was just thinking how pretty you looked.’
Nell hustled her shoulders far back against the seat. ‘Almost anybody can look OK by moonlight,’ she snapped. ‘Very unlike you to resort to that sort of line. But if you think you’re going to ease your way into a seduction, after all these years, by paying some incredibly unoriginal compliment, you can think again.’ Her voice was harsh, her hostility shocking. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what’s on your mind. Years of forced celibacy can screw up a man’s judgement, lower his standards. You’ve been very restrained till now, I grant you that. And I feel for you: no wife, no sex. Must be bloody frustrating. But no reason to turn to the girl next door for a bit of relief—’
‘Nell!’ George had never seen her like this. ‘What are you saying? I’ve never even thought in those terms. I love you. I’ve always loved you. You must know that.’
‘Oh yes: that sort of love.’
‘I’d never want you just for … Surely you can’t think that?’
Nell turned grimly to look at him. One cheek, caught by the moon, was a bleached triangle half hidden in dizzy white curls. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said, ‘it hasn’t ever crossed your mind.’
‘What?’
‘That one day, if Lily doesn’t come back, then maybe Nell, good old Nell, friend for ever, might do.’
There was silence. George shifted his back against the door, acutely uncomfortable.
‘I’ve never thought that,’ he said. ‘Of course I haven’t. Though I suppose I’ve sometimes wondered, if I hadn’t met and married Lily … Perhaps you and I might’ve—? Who knows?’
‘Never,’ said Nell, so quietly that George only just caught the venom of the word.
A single, precise tear appeared at the edge of her moonlit eye. It tipped over, ran fast as a pearl escaping from a broken string down her cheek. She swiped at it impatiently. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve trespassed, ventured where we’ve never been before. But I just wanted to make sure you know where I stand in your calculations. Lily’s been away so long. It’s only natural you might get to thinking … But no. I’m not available.’
‘Nell, you must believe—’
‘There’s Prodge coming up the road.’ Suddenly she was herself again. ‘I must go.’ She smiled. ‘Now you know the score I can see nothing whatsoever against kissing you goodnight.’ Her moment of darkness disappeared as quickly as it had come. She thrust herself towards George. Hard and fast she kissed him on the lips, this time opening her mouth. He could taste wine. ‘There. Just to say thank you for the earrings and the cake and everything. Last ever kiss. Put it down to the drink.’
She was gone, slamming the door behind her, running not towards the house, but to Prodge, who was by now coming through the gate.
George drove home shaken, puzzled, sad. Was it arrogant to suppose that Nell’s fierce rejection had conveyed how much she really wanted him? That she could not bear the thought of ever being taken up as second-best? George suspected – and he appreciated he was not always enlightened when it came to conundrums concerning women – that her outburst contradicted much of what she was feeling. Certainly her ‘final kiss’, though brief, had been far from sisterly. And her instinctive knowledge of his occasional thoughts both astonished and troubled him. He could only hope that he had convinced her that she had misunderstood him.
Put it down to the drink, Nell said. Well, he would do that. All the same, the once smooth path ahead was now muddied. What, now, might she feel about the idea of sharing the house? Despite her protestations he was almost sure that, should he invite her, she would be willing to take Lily’s place if the marriage finally dissolved. But was that what he wanted? When embroiled in a complicated situation, it’s hard to envisage any kind of clarity beyond it. He knew in his heart his love for Nell would never be the kind that stirred wild feeling. Any kind of permanency with her would be calm, untroubled, but lacking in that profundity of love that guards against the rub of daily life. But that moment of lust that had assaulted him not ten minutes ago – what was that all about? He hoped Nell had not observed his briefly stirred state, for the very thought filled him with shame. It must have been the wine. Even now his head was still a little afloat. He was in no state to work things out satisfactorily, and still bruised by Nell’s intense dismissal, for all that she could not have meant it. The fact was – oh, God knows what the fact was, he said to himself, striding across the yard. He hadn’t any idea how it would all turn out. And of course things never resolved themselves: he’d have to take some kind of action. Present dilemmas were causing too much unease.
Home, in his own kitchen, among that morning’s post he found a new card from Lily.
Wyoming, this time. God knows what I’m doing in America. I came out to see the Getty Museum but didn’t much like LA. Stayed with an old schoolfriend near Cody. We rode up the mountains in a western saddle – very dramatic, beautiful, fantastic wild flowers, but not the same as riding with Nell at home. Love as always, L.
George read the card several times before he put it down. It was the longest message Lily had ever sent since her departure. And surely it contained a slight change of tone – a very slight indication that her peripatetic life was beginning to pall? Missing her rides with Nell meant her thoughts, at least, were sometimes here. Maybe the stone within her was beginning to melt. Perhaps she was beginning to feel again: loss, homesickness, melancholy. Or was he reading too much into it? He tried to make himself believe this was the case, but at the end of this strange evening, his old tired hope came winging back. His love for Lily was as strong as it had always been. Until she declared she never intended to return, thus releasing him from hope, there was nothing he could do but keep his silence and continue to wait. For once, he did not write a reply that would never be sent. For once, he felt so optimistic there was no need.
Ben’s plan to take a course in Cardiff did not come to anything, but he took days off for interviews, leaving George and Saul with an extra workload. George dreaded the day Ben finally gave in his notice and the even longer hours that would mean for the two of them. The thought of employing a new third party did not appeal, and in all probability would not be possible. The days of eager farmhands were long gone.
So bu
sy was George on the farm by day that most evenings he had to work late in his study. He could not remember being so tired for a long time, but he was nevertheless undaunted. He had a strange, half-formed feeling that some sort of conclusion was on its way. That last postcard … When Lily still did not appear, as November slugged on through fog and rain, he shifted his hopes to December. Christmas, perhaps.
By now, Prodge’s health had recovered, although his old lightness of heart had still not returned in its entirety. George’s world was tightly bound to his own farm. He ceased to visit the Prodgers every day: they saw each other just two or three times a week. George sensed that they, too, were wholly concentrating on their own lives. Time was running out for them, and they did not want to miss a moment of it. This time next year their farm would be the property of someone else.
George went only occasionally to the village, for Countryside March meetings, and bought his provisions on market day, so there was no need for journeys to the city. Saul, as always, was the one to keep him in touch with news of the outer world, which he had not had time to read about in the papers or listen to on the radio. On one occasion, when in the milking parlour on a murky afternoon, Saul had whipped off his cap to alert George to one of his gloomy pronouncements. Surprisingly, instead, it was a rare bit of good news. It seemed there was some cause for a little local triumph: an application to build fifty-one thousand new houses in the south in the next twelve years had been turned down: now the final number was to be a mere forty-four thousand eight hundred. This inspired one of Saul’s rare smiles.
On another occasion he reported that the government was to increase rural bus services by fifty per cent. Though I’ll believe that when I next see a bus in the village,’ he said. ‘There’s people marooned there. Since Mrs Elkin left, they’ve been without regular lifts to collect their pensions. Some of them have been desperate. Mrs Field had a heart attack last week, only sixty-seven. The doctor said it was the stress of living in a dying place, and in my opinion he wasn’t far wrong.’
Lily did not appear for Christmas but she did send a card. She was in Bournemouth again, and again she wrote at greater length than usual.
I’ve taken the small flat attached to my aunt’s house and intend to start my book. It’s very quiet here in winter, some might say dull, but I like it. I walk by the sea. I’m getting a little tired, I think, of the constant wandering about, and need to pause for a while, wait quietly for the old pump to get going again. Have a happy Christmas, darling George, love L.
Have a happy Christmas, too, darling Lily, George wrote on the last of the sepia cards of the farm. I’m getting a little tired of waiting but send you all my love.
Whatever she meant by this oblique message, George did not dwell on it for too long, for it came to him, blindingly, that all this living in the darkness, not knowing, might be coming to an end. As soon as he had a few free days he would be off to find her – at last. If he succeeded, and she still refused to return home – well, there was nothing to lose. It would be his turn, then, to make the decisions and to get on with his life. The sadness of his failure would always be there, but at least he would be released from the exhausting business of hoping, hoping, which he felt was beginning to corrode his soul.
He was glad she was back in England, relieved she was not far away. Lily would always be on his mind, in his heart: his longing for her would not fade. But from now on he would try to diminish her place in his life, concentrate harder on those with whom he was daily bound – his animals, his farm, his oldest friends. His preoccupations for the moment, he told himself sternly, were the march, Nell and Prodge’s departure and his plan for them. The right time to put this to them still had not come: early spring, lambing over, could be it, he thought.
The next morning George stopped off at the field in the valley called Elm Field, though the trees had been cut down years ago at the time of the fatal elm disease. It was New Year’s Eve and a mild morning for December.
There was still early dew on the grass and on the cobwebs that spun in the hedgerows. George leant on the gate – a gate made by a carpenter in the village who had often worked for his father and other neighbouring farmers. George remembered the old man measuring wood, sawing it up in the small barn. He remembered the bright, musty smell of wood shavings as they fell to the ground, and the way they curled round his fingers when he picked them up. He must have been about four at the time, he thought, and wondered why the gate-making remained such a vivid childhood memory. And now here was that very gate, several decades on, weathered, but good as ever: a magnificent thing produced by a carpenter of great skill, plainly a man who knew and loved his wood. It was hard not to compare it with the machine-made gates of today, and to feel nostalgia for the days when every village was inhabited by various craftsmen.
George’s body and arms felt heavy, stiff. He had been heaving old bits of fence the day before, against Saul’s advice. It was a luxury he occasionally allowed himself, to lean on a gate and contemplate the land. He was in no hurry: Ben was doing the morning milk. So he went on leaning on the gate, and let his eyes meander over the sheep. What a fine flock, at last, they were, he thought. He and Saul had taken great pains over their breeding, and were expecting a good crop of lambs early next year. He looked forward to the lambing: despite his efforts to avoid sentimentality, it was always hard not to be moved by an event of such copious birth. He had become skilled in helping with the births - often two or three happened simultaneously, taxing his judgement and speed. And he could never quite relinquish the feeling of wonder and satisfaction each time a new lamb arrived alive and in good health.
By now George easily recognised many of his ewes. He could spot small differences in long black noses, the topaz eyes of the Poll Dorsets, the difference in the bulk of curly fringe overhanging the Exmoor Horns’ eyes. He knew the ones who caused trouble every time they were herded into the shed: the ringleaders and the followers. He was frequently aware of their indignation, their boredom, but mostly of their satisfaction.
One of two of the older ewes raised their heads from their grazing, turned to give him a look. The tops of their thick winter coats were specked with dew, putting George in mind of shaggy old dowagers who had overdone the diamonds. Their legs were silvered from the wet grass, to add to the illusion of a flock of sparkling creatures. Last year, several of them had suffered the agonies of scab: their wool hung from raw, rubbed skin in filthy globules, there was panic in their eyes as the irritation drove them nearly mad. Luckily, all but one had recovered. Now they were a good and healthy flock: not so long ago they would have fetched rewarding prices at market.
George wondered this morning, as he often did, at the link between man and beast, most especially when the beast is simply part of a flock or herd, whose fate it is to be slaughtered and eaten if its owner is to make a living. Each animal’s life at the farm was short in human terms, and each animal’s fate was the same. And yet, while it existed, living out its regular days that gave (as old Mr Elkin would have said) rhythm to life, it held an importance in its owner’s heart that numbers could never quite extinguish. Whenever an animal died, or was taken off to the abattoir, there was a moment of - not sadness, exactly, but a pinpoint of regret. Farmers resisted the charm of calves and lambs, for it was no use becoming attached to creatures who would soon cast off their youthful appeal, and whose days were numbered. None the less, there was a secret feeling of achievement - certainly for George -to have bred high-quality animals. It was perhaps this reward, more than the sight of crops gathered safely in, that kept many farmers going despite all the odds against them. A rum old business indeed, thought George: and for the thousandth time he was glad he had made farming his life. He would not want any other.
February, George decided, would be a good time to go in search of Lily. She had been gone for almost six years. He made arrangements to be away for a couple of days. Nell and Prodge congratulated him on his plan. At last, they said. George looked
forward to his quest, but also dreaded failing. He packed a small bag.
But on the morning of his departure, Peter Friel rang George, who had overslept, at six in the morning. He had heard on the news of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the North.
‘God knows what this’ll mean,’ he said. ‘I remember ‘67, so many farmers wiped out. Let’s hope the Ministry will be on to it straight away. Do something effective to stop it at once. Vaccinate,’ he added. ‘Mass vaccination, now’
There was no possibility, for George, of leaving. His priority was to protect his farm and animals. The day was spent with Saul and Ben organising safeguards. They laid disinfected straw at both gates of the farm, and put out footbaths for swabbing boots.
From that day, whenever George came into his house he found the telephone ringing. The network of news and rumour spread round the country. No matter how late a man had been working, how exhausted, he stayed up to watch the ten o’clock news, and was listening to the radio again at dawn. While the solidarity of the farmers, in their dread of the disease reaching them, and their fear for their future if it did, bound them in the utmost concern, the impression given by the government was that foot and mouth was nothing more than a little local difficulty that could soon be dealt with. The swift spread of the disease quickly put paid to this idea.
George, in common with thousands of others, looked at the maps of Britain published in the newspapers every day, saw the gradual accumulation of black dots that indicated new outbreaks. Within twelve days the first outbreak in Devon was confirmed. It was heading west: they were in its path. George ran to the shed where dozens of in-lamb ewes were already gathered to shelter from the weather until they gave birth. Saul was there, tight-faced. He took off his cap when George appeared.
‘I’ve heard,’ he said. ‘May the Lord spare us, all’s I can say. Ben’s looking at the cows.’
