by James Long
They were heading down the hill to the gate and beyond it the track was rough, potholed earth and stone. She was still submerged in this past time but now she made a bid to exert herself, swimming to the surface of this joint person and reimposing the present. The road was tarmac. She was in control and her body had changed to enfold the baby kicking inside her. For the first time she had managed the transition back to the present deliberately by herself, but it still came as a shock to lose Ferney from her side, to know that same man had gone on to a lifetime of loneliness. She wanted him back. She stood, irresolute for a moment in the road, then turned towards his bungalow.
He knew as soon as he saw her that this time it had worked.
‘The nurse will be here soon,’ he said. ‘We haven’t got long. Tell me how it was?’
‘I learnt there was something I didn’t tell you that day,’ she said. ‘Cochrane was up there on the hill watching us. You thought you saw something. You were right.’
He frowned, trying to remember. ‘Was I?’
‘I saw him afterwards and I didn’t tell you because I thought there’d be another fight. I should have done.’
‘It might not have made a difference.’
‘Oh yes it would. If we knew what sort of things he was prepared to do we’d have been more careful.’
‘He wanted you from the moment he saw you. It would have made him even madder to see you and me like that. So what are you thinking, that if you’d told me then maybe you wouldn’t have died?’
‘I’m thinking that you wouldn’t have spent all this time by yourself.’ She took his hand. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘We could spend all our time looking back. No use doing it unless it helps you look forward. Tell me what else you learnt.’
‘I heard it all through. I know it was my idea and I know what it’s like for us to be together and to be young. I know the difference it makes when our bodies match each other like our minds do and I know the house doesn’t matter a bit except as the place where we are both happy together.’
‘But can you handle it?’ he said
‘That’s the bit I don’t know.’ She gazed at him and the part she saw was the same young man who made her mind and body exult together. ‘I have a sense of a way that seems right.’
He just waited.
‘I think I must do it,’ she said and he let out a long breath. ‘I can’t talk to Mike about it. It wouldn’t be fair. I think I’ll know for sure when the baby’s born. If I know it’s you then I’ll know it’s what you want, more than you could want me there as a mother to you.’
‘You’ll know it’s me.’
‘Yes. But there’s another thing. That promise was about a simpler situation. The fact is Mike’s there and I have to think of that too. I had a feeling of wisdom up there. It’s faded away a bit now, but I think it was telling me I couldn’t prejudge it, that I would know when the time came what I had to do.’
‘I can’t argue with that,’ he said, and looked out of the window as a car drew up. ‘I think the nurse is here.’
It wasn’t the nurse. It was Mike.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Effie Mullard was carrying a large shopping basket completely full of parsnips and it was not immediately clear whether she had just bought them or was perhaps trying to sell them. Gally had taken Mike Christmas shopping in an attempt to get some seasonal spirit into their life. Three weekends had passed since his midnight departure and miserable return – weekends in which he had skirted the issue, keeping the conversation on male, practical lines. On each of those nights he had said different variations of ‘I’m tired’, put out the light and gone to sleep as soon as he got into bed, and in truth he did look tired. If he was keeping his outward emotions under tight wraps Gally could see there was a battle going on inside and she wished it were in her power to help, but there was an equally powerful struggle going on in her own mind whenever she allowed it.
It was now the Saturday before Christmas and the start of Mike’s holiday. Every day during the week Gally had been to check up on Ferney and usually she would spend an hour or two reading to him, which was safe and which he seemed to enjoy.
‘These eyes are getting a bit past it,’ he said. ‘I’d rather listen to you.’
She wouldn’t touch the history books which were his first preference. She offered him novels from a selection she brought with her, but he usually chose travel books from the large number on his own shelves.
‘Why do you like these so much?’ she asked one day.
‘I can’t go there, can I? Nor should you. France put me off all that, but I’m curious.’ He had videos too, neatly filed in his shelves in alphabetical order, exploration, adventure, nature – all of it overseas.
Gally thought of the foreign trips she had made, of a near miss on a motorbike in Greece, of the snake she had all but stepped on in North Africa, and thought how worried he would have been had he known. It was perhaps the reason she had felt so reluctant to go to live in America.
Every time the postman came Ferney seemed disappointed with what he brought.
‘Are you expecting something?’ Gally asked him one day.
‘Not really. That police sergeant said he’d send something, that’s all.’
‘What was it?’
‘Just something the lad wrote in prison.’
‘Billy Bunter?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I know he killed Cochrane, but is there something else that’s worrying you?’
‘I sometimes feel like I failed him, that’s all. I shouldn’t have let them put him in prison.’
‘You could hardly have stopped them.’
‘Maybe not, but I’d like to know how it was for him at the end.’
Sadness seemed to fill the room as he spoke.
He listened to the news on the hour every hour. It was dominated by the response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and he listened to the build-up in the Gulf as if he were taking the pulse of the fevered world. They both knew they could go no further for the moment in the direction of what would come next for them, but with that decided and left deliberately aside, Gally found she loved nothing more than sitting in that quiet room, offering him the sentences that took his mind off the pain – and he was in pain. There were times when he hid it, though she could still tell, and there were other times when it twisted his face for a minute despite himself. He had a liquid painkiller to dispense to himself and had given the doctors a terse answer when they’d enquired whether he felt confident to do that. It would be dangerous, they explained, if he took too much. In fact it took a lot to persuade him to take it at all.
At one bad moment when he had clamped down on a groan so that it came out as a snarl, she put down A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.
‘Shall I get you the bottle?’
‘I’d rather not. I can get on top of this without it.’ He started breathing in long, controlled breaths but then grimaced again. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Get it, would you?’
He took a spoonful and sat back and she watched for signs that it was starting to ease the pain. ‘Ferney?’
‘Um?’
‘Why don’t you like taking it?’
‘We’ve had a lot of pain come our way,’ he said, ‘and we didn’t used to have stuff like this. I think if you start leaning on it, you lose something and there’s no stopping then.’
‘Why do you feel you have to fight it?’
‘You mean why don’t I just take the whole lot?’ He indicated the bottle and there was an unexpected anger in his voice which was, she knew, the product of the pain.
‘You could if you wanted to. I’d understand.’
‘The time’s not right,’ he said more gently. ‘I’ll know when it is. Let’s not talk about it.’
She had a glimpse of what he really wanted to say, that he was still unsure what she would do when he died, and she left the bungalow that day feeling that all she seemed able to do was cause pain
to both her men. When Mike came back that weekend with bags under his eyes and tried to greet her with a perfunctory kiss, she held him in a long hug which finally let his stiff body sag in relaxation. She had decorated the house with holly, filled it with candles and set a roaring log fire for his return.
He sat in front of the fire with a glass of Scotch and looked around the room.
‘Very pagan,’ he said. ‘No Christmas tree?’
‘No car to get one.’
‘Whose fault’s that?’ but he was smiling. ‘Do you want a tree?’
‘Not really.’
‘Well, it’s a recent custom. All Prince Albert’s idea, you know.’
‘I’d rather have the holly and the ivy.’ She sat on the floor leaning against his knees and he rested a hand on her shoulder.
‘That’s pagan too, of course,’ he said. ‘I got together a lecture on Christmas history for the students’ last day, just for fun. The evergreens were sacred, you see, because when the other trees lost their leaves they were the only place of refuge for the spirits of the woodland.’
‘That’s why they put holly in cowsheds, so the cows would do well indoors.’
‘I never heard that one,’ he said and she heard in the tightening of his voice all the dangers of freely speaking what came into her head.
‘I expect I read it somewhere,’ she said. ‘What else was there?’
‘Lots of things,’ he said, his voice warming again. ‘Unmarried girls would have to go and fetch logs in from the woodpile last thing at night and they wouldn’t count them until the next day. The number of logs told them whether the girl would marry in the next year. I’ll bet they cheated. It can’t have been that hard to count in the dark.’ He looked at the roaring fire. ‘Logs have always been a big part of Christmas, fire and light. The Romans celebrated the same day, you know. They called it Dies Natalis Invicti Solis.’
‘Which means?’
‘You should have had a classical education. “The day the unconquered sun is born.” Of course it wasn’t until the fourth century that the Pope decided to make it Christ’s birthday.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘He had his reasons. Taking over a Roman festival was a neat trick.’
‘I’m amazed he got away with it. It must have seemed a bit strange for the first few years.’
Mike smiled. I hope it can just go on like this, she thought.
‘People forget quite quickly. I mean there’s a far more recent example of that. What colour’s Father Christmas’s robe?’ He fired the question at her.
All colours was the answer that came into her head, but a Christmas card on the table in her line of vision anchored her. ‘Red and white.’
‘It didn’t used to be. Until some time in the thirties it was usually green or sometimes it was a mixture of colours, then do you know what happened?’
‘No.’
‘The Coca-Cola company decided they’d put him in their corporate livery and they plastered America with posters and cards and heaven knows what and in no time flat we had a red and white Santa.’
‘That’s terrible,’ she said, but what was really terrible was that a sudden sliver of pure memory, unlike anything she had known before, had flashed through her mind, gone before there was time to hold on to anything except the faintest flavour of it. A memory of the red and white Santa, the new red and white Santa and a bleak feeling of desperate sorrow. The 1930s.
She got up quickly, took Mike’s glass. ‘I’ll get you some more,’ she said and went to the kitchen to give herself time. ‘It’s here,’ he called in surprise. ‘The bottle’s on the table.’
‘Oh, of course,’ she said, but the moment was past. The thirties, she thought: 1938, ’39? It’s lurking there. That was the missing me. Whatever Christmas held then, it wasn’t nice.
The Gillingham trip wasn’t a great success. The shops were limited and Gally wished she’d suggested somewhere bigger, Salisbury maybe or even Bath. They bought various bottles of the sort of thing you’re supposed to drink at Christmas and were about to stow them away in the car when a well-remembered voice said, ‘Major Clapham, what a nice surprise. I was just coming to see you.’
Mrs Mullard, dressed in an army greatcoat that brushed the ground, stood there smiling benignly at them with her basket of parsnips.
‘Hello,’ said Mike gamely. ‘It’s Martin, actually.’
‘Oh, go on with you,’ she said. ‘I know that, Martin, and how are you, Mrs Clapham?’
‘Fine. Nice to see you,’ said Gally. ‘Did you say you were coming to see us?’
‘I’ve been trying to for such a long time but I don’t know where the bus goes from these days, you see? They keep changing it. Still that’s all right now.’
‘Oh good,’ said Mike. ‘Why?’
‘Because you’ve got the car,’ Mrs Mullard cried with a laugh and climbed into the back of the Toyota parked next to them.
‘God almighty,’ said Mike as she closed the other car’s door. ‘Let’s run for it.’
‘Shush,’ said Gally appalled. ‘We can’t.’
The door opened again and Mrs Mullard climbed out looking indignant, addressing herself to the man sitting behind the wheel of the Toyota. ‘Well, you shouldn’t be in Colonel Johnson’s car.’ She straightened up and looked at them with pursed lips and defiant eyes. ‘Man doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’
Mike opened the back door of their own car in defeat. ‘Here you are. Climb in. Would you like a lift home?’
‘Thank you.’
He drove out of the town in the Wincanton direction. ‘Er, let’s see, Buckhorn Weston, that’s left isn’t it?’
‘Straight on,’ said Mrs Mullard. ‘I thought you knew.’
Straight on was to Penselwood. ‘I thought perhaps you wanted to go home?’
‘That’s it. That’s right. Straight on.’
Mike glanced desperately at Gally who stepped in. ‘Perhaps Mrs Mullard would like a quick look at the house, then we could run her home afterwards.’
Mrs Mullard looked puzzled. ‘What house is that, dear?’
When they got to Bagstone Farm, she seemed to see nothing remarkable in the transformation and Gally, understanding that the old lady had never let herself see the dereliction, was pleased that nothing in the re-creation surprised her either – not, at any rate, until she got inside.
‘Who’s done this then?’ she demanded as soon as they got into the hall.
‘Done what?’
‘Put paint over everything. It’ll have to come off. That’s good wallpaper under there.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Gally asked tentatively.
‘I’ll get it. You shouldn’t have to,’ said Mrs Mullard and marched off into the kitchen.
‘She thinks she still lives here,’ Mike hissed at Gally, then there was a scream from the kitchen. They went into the room, alarmed.
‘Someone’s stolen all my things. Where’s it gone?’ Mrs Mullard was standing in the middle of the room looking frantically all round her. ‘There’s white things everywhere.’
‘No, it’s all right,’ Gally said soothingly. ‘Come and sit down. I’ll light the fire.’ She nudged Mike. ‘Do you mind making the tea?’
He was glad to stay out of the way.
The sitting-room went down better and the old lady slipped back into the present day without a noticeable join. Gally knelt to light the fire.
‘It smokes, you know. When the wind’s in the north.’ She craned her head to peer up under the lintel. ‘Needs an iron plate across there, like it used to have.’
‘I know,’ said Gally. ‘We’ll get one.’
Mrs Mullard looked at Gally’s bulging stomach. ‘I wish I’d had my baby here,’ she said. ‘My Bessy. She’s not quite got the full set, poor lamb.’ She tapped her head meaningfully. ‘I always say it was being pushed out of here like that did it to her. If I’d stayed on here, she’d have been as right as ninepence. I could f
eel it, you know.’ She leaned over conspiratorially. ‘It was your husband’s fault, I’m sorry to say.’
Gally knew she didn’t mean Mike, but she couldn’t tell whether the old lady’s grip had slipped again or whether she perceived the deeper truth.
‘What do you mean?’ she said cautiously.
‘You know what it’s like. You can tell how they’re getting on inside there, can’t you? It was all fine while we were here, but when we had to move so suddenly I could feel it affecting her. The poor thing left a bit behind her.’ She looked around the room as if she might see Bessy’s missing faculties scurrying behind a chair.
Mike brought in a tray of tea and occupied Mrs Mullard with all the ritual questions concerning milk and sugar which are always inflected as if they are most vital and have never been asked before. Left to herself for a blessed moment, Gally’s head whirled with frightening possibilities. Could her baby be harmed if something went wrong, if Ferney was taken off, perhaps taken off to hospital so that he was first there and then not there? Was it because of the stone, perhaps? The water and the stone. He’d diverted the water. Had that done it, left Bessy half-baked?
‘I was just telling Gally,’ said Mrs Mullard. ‘It was your father’s fault.’
‘What was?’ said Mike equably, but there was a loud knock at the front door and the old lady sprang up.
‘That’ll be the butcher,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with him.’
Gally followed her as she rushed to the front door and dragged it open. Ferney stood outside, leaning on his stick. He gaped at her. ‘What are you doing here, Effie?’
‘Opening the door,’ she said. ‘Come in, you old rascal, I’ve got your wife here for tea.’
‘Ferney,’ said Gally anxiously. ‘Have you walked here? You shouldn’t be out.’
‘Why on earth not?’ he said. ‘Best medicine there is.’
