‘Small and noisy. No, don’t use that. There’s a clean one in the drawer. He was that puny, he looked like a skinned rabbit. My bairn weighed almost double at the same age.’
‘Matthew—small?’
‘Oh yes, and sickly. Couldn’t keep his feeds down. I’ll say this for your mother-in-law. She had a picky child on her hands. He didn’t even sleep through the night until he was almost eighteen months.’
Jennifer stared at Nan’s gnarled and bony hands. Could Matthew ever have been sickly, ever have been a bairn at all—all six-foot-steel of him with his computer-brain and that everlasting sceptre in his hands?
Molly was chopping onions for a home-made soup. ‘I remember Matthew. He was fourteen when he left here and I was eight or nine. He wasn’t small then. I was secretly in love with him. He was very tall and lanky with dark hair.’
‘What made him leave?’
‘What had he to stay for?’ Nan was tackling the saucepans now—six or seven of them. ‘He’d lost both his parents. Hester had married his father just before he died. I doubt if Matthew approved of that. He was quite a little snob, you know. She hadn’t much time for him, anyway, once the new bairn was born. And the farm was a write-off, more or less. Money was short, the house was dark and cold. I’d have had him here, but Hester wouldn’t hear of it. In the end, one of Thomas’s fancy relatives turned up from London and took Matthew off her hands. Offered to pay his fees at boarding school—even kept him in the holidays. No one saw him up here after that.’
‘Did Hester … mind? I mean, if she’d looked after him since he was a baby—fourteen years or so, then surely she must have …’
Nan rested her dish-mop for a moment. ‘I doubt if she’d time to mind, she was that busy. She had debts, you see, and it was quite a struggle to pay them off and run the house and … She made extra cheese and butter and sold them in the village. And you should have seen her eiderdowns! Real hand-quilted jobs stuffed with feathers from her own ducks. She never asked enough for them, considering how many hours of work they took her. No one saw her much, to tell the truth. She was always stuck at home, sewing or scrimping or cooking. We tried to help, of course, but she cut herself off more or less completely. My husband even offered to buy the farm—combine it with ours and offer her security. She wouldn’t even discuss it, so when she went ahead and sold the place to the Forestry, my John lost patience. After that she fobbed everybody off and lived like a recluse. We worried about the lad—your Lyn. We hoped he’d stay and make a go of it up here. But he went Matthew’s way.’
Molly was crying from the onions. She mopped her eyes on her pinafore. ‘He had to, Nan. There was nothing for him here. No job, no future—not for someone arty.’
Nan sniffed. ‘Arty’s not what I’d call it.’
‘Is it hard to get jobs up here?’ Jennifer steered the conversation away from Lyn again. ‘I mean, suppose I wanted a job. Do many women work?’
‘We never stop,’ grinned Molly, straining scum off the stockpot, then turning back to peel and chop some carrots.
‘No, I mean jobs outside the home.’
‘There aren’t any,’ snapped Nan. ‘And just as well. A woman’s got enough to do without …’
‘It’s funny, though,’ Molly cut in. ‘We may seem far less liberated than you London lot, but in a way, we rule the roost up here. The men can’t manage without us—well, not the farmers, anyway. A woman can almost make or break a farm. That’s why Hester was so important. Thomas would have more or less gone under without her to support him. She helped with everything—lambing, calving, milking, gardening, making bread and jams and butter, even cheeses. I don’t know anyone else who makes their own cheese now. It’s too damned fiddly. The skill must have died with her. And then there was all the paperwork. The women often took that on as well. My mother worked every bit as hard. And Nan. All the women did.’
‘I had six bairns,’ said Nan. ‘And we didn’t even have running water until 1945. Wash-day meant what it said—a whole day put aside for the laundry—not just a quick whirl in a machine. We had to collect rain-water in a butt, heat it on the range, then scrub away by hand with a bar of soap. You have to be dedicated if you farm up here. It isn’t just a job, it’s a way of life. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have my forty winks. There wasn’t time for naps in my younger days, but now I’m over seventy I reckon I deserve one. Goodbye, my dear. And tell that man of yours it’s only the guilty who can’t sleep at night.’
She banged the door behind her. Molly grinned. ‘She’s quite fond of Lyn underneath,’ she said. ‘Often talks about him. Look, leave all that. Ruth’ll do it. Go and put your feet up.’
Jennifer stretched herself out on the sofa. The old Jack Russell, lame and almost blind, padded over and flopped down at her feet. There was more room in the kitchen now. Four of the children had disappeared upstairs. Only Ruth remained, humming as she put the plates away. There was a general hum of satisfaction—cats purring, the chunter of the hens outside, stockpot burbling to itself beside the gently sizzling onions, the rasping snore of the terriers, replete after their lunch.
‘Molly …’ Jennifer said.
‘What, love?’
‘Could an outsider make a go of it?’
‘How d’ you mean?’
‘Well, live up here. Be accepted. Even if she was one of those … aliens from the south?’
Molly laughed. ‘Oh, yes. The shepherd’s wife at Nettleburn used to live in London. She worked as a check-out girl in Tesco’s and the only sheep she ever saw were those in the advertisements for New Zealand lamb stuck over the frozen meats section. She was terrified when she first came up here—said she’d never imagined anywhere so lonely. Yet now she admits she’s got more friends than she ever had in a city of seven million.’
Molly had turned the onions off and was heating milk for her shedful of orphan lambs. ‘Nan tends to sneer at people like that. Calls them foreigners and says they don’t fit in. But one or two of them have made a real success of it, gone back to all the old traditional crafts—quilting, smocking, patchwork, curing bacon, making their own sausages. There’s another girl who married the farmer at Biddlehope. She only came up here two years ago, yet she took half the prizes at our local show.’
Jennifer longed to do the same, leave her Cobham neighbours with their gleaming labour-saving homes and start again up here. She already had the skills. She was trained in domestic science, good at sewing, knitting, homemaking. Even Lyn had a feel and flair for gardening. Only one step further to set up a smallholding or market-garden and try to make a living from it. He might well be more contented self-employed and self-sufficient, instead of slaving in the city with Matthew as his task-master. All right, he’d never want six children, but even one would be a start. And they could maybe take a lodger in, or let out part of Hernhope to holiday guests. Nice to have more to cook for, a family around her, people dependent on her skills. She had never had sisters or brothers, grandparents or aunts. Just her and her parents becalmed in a small, quiet, cosy home on the commuter-line to London, and—after her father’s death—she and her mother cowering in a bungalow with a couple of ageing cocker spaniels. It had been too sheltered, too restrictive. Lyn was as bad—almost a recluse. They must expand, develop, become part of a larger whole, part of a community. Lyn already had a long tradition behind him. He was a native, born and bred here, not an outsider like the girl who worked at Tesco’s or the wife at Biddlehope. And she herself would soon fit in. Molly would help—not only as friend and nearest neighbour, but someone she could model her own life on.
She needn’t take things too far. Lyn wouldn’t want her fat and dowdy, dressed in men’s corduroys with cats on every chair. She glanced across at Molly—flour in her hair, rent in her sleeve—splashing milk on to her shoes as she filled five baby bottles for the lambs.
‘Want to help me feed them?’ Molly asked, heaving her shoulder against the heavy kitchen door. ‘Gosh, this sun�
�s amazing! You must have brought it with you.’
Jennifer smiled. Nice that, like an omen. Bringing the sun from London to warm and nurture Hernhope, nurse it back to life. Molly tugged back the bolts on the shed. Four lambs rushed towards her, butting their heads against her legs, reaching for the bottles. The fifth and smallest one lay shivering in the straw.
‘That’s Sooty. Sweet, isn’t he? Black lambs are rare up here, you know. He was only born this morning. Quite a tricky birth, I’m afraid. Mick couldn’t save his mother. Want to give him his bottle? Right, go and sit on that bale. You’ll be more comfortable there. Now try and coax him to his feet, then hold him firm between your knees. Don’t be frightened of him. He’s tougher than he looks. No, tilt the bottle more. Good—you’ve got the hang of it. He’s sucking well now.’
Jennifer stroked the tiny furry head, watched the black throat gulping and straining as the white milk dribbled down it. She had never fed a baby. It gave her almost a sense of power—the lamb trusting her, dependent on her, its whole effort and attention focused on her as wet-nurse and provider.
‘OK there, Mum?’ grinned Molly, who with two bottles in each hand was managing to feed all four remaining lambs at once. Jennifer glanced up at the window set high in the shed, a square of sky with a curve of hill trapped in it. Such space up here, such possibilities. Long hours and hard labour hardly mattered, so long as you had purpose.
‘Yes,’ she murmured, snuggling the lamb towards her, so that it was almost in her lap. ‘Just perfect.’
Chapter Six
Snow.
Not falling any longer, just lying dumb and treacherous, the hills like flanks of huge white animals, stunned and shivering where they had collapsed. The forest dark and spiky against the white blinding softness heaped around it. Every window etched with ice. Snow in April, almost May. Snow baffling new-born lambs, muffling new-sown barley, blocking paths, confusing birds, blanking out all landmarks. Jennifer pushed the curtain aside, added her doodle to the etching on the glass, stared out at the blinkered trees, the huddled sheep further down the valley, tiny whitish dots against the whiter hills.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
‘Cold,’ Lyn shivered.
‘Look, you go back to bed, darling. You shouldn’t be up at all with a temperature. It’s higher than it was last night. I wish you’d let me fetch the doctor.’
‘He’d never get out in this. Nor would you. We’re more or less cut off.’
‘Cut off?’ Crazy to be excited when lambs were dying, farmers frantic. It could be hazardous even for Lyn. Supposing he got worse and needed medicines? Supposing their food ran out? She was excited. She had never seen snow so all-enveloping—the world changed overnight from green to white, snow with the sun on it, making every smallest crystal flash and shine, dark-winged birds soaring against the whiteness, lending their shadows briefly to the hills. She was concerned for the Bertrams, worried for the farmers, but, secretly, she saw the snow as a bonus, since it would keep Lyn at Hernhope a little longer, stop him running south.
She let the curtain fall, joined him at the fire. The sturdy pine-logs which Mick had cut for them with his chain-saw were a glowing rubble of ash and embers now. Jennifer threw on another log, watched it spit and spark.
‘Go easy!’ said Lyn. ‘We ought to save that fuel. We don’t know how long this cold spell’s going to last.’ Lyn sneezed, coughed, blew. He didn’t have a cold. The cold had him—had laid its hands on every part of him—nose, ears, larynx, temples, chest.
‘You mean we could be snowed up for days?’
‘Easily. And if it was January or February, it could even be weeks. I remember one winter, the snow was so high we had foxes walking on the roof. And the icicles at the windows got longer and longer, until they hung there like a second pair of curtains, and another year, one of the forestry workers stapled his finger to the fence when he was working in thirty degrees of frost. He was so numb, he didn’t even feel it. Actually, I liked it as a boy, because I missed a lot of school. We had to prepare for winter, so we didn’t starve. Hester bought flour and sugar in hundred weight sacks at the beginning of November, but I remember sometimes dreaming of bananas or treacle toffees or some treat in the shops which might have been on the moon for all we could reach them.’ He laughed, which triggered off a protracted fit of coughing. ‘Damn! This cold’s got worse. D’you realise, Jennifer, they’re still basking in spring sunshine in the south? The minute it thaws, I want to get back home.’
Jennifer frowned. This was home, now, wasn’t it? She had done everything she could to make it so—scrubbed the scum and stain off wood and stone, opened all the windows (some stiff in the joints and grumbling as she heaved), replaced the smell of damp with the tang of polish, lit all the rooms with daffodils. At first it had been suspicious—sulked, creaked, fobbed her off. But she went on quietly cleaning and slowly the house tiptoed up towards her and ate out of her hand. She still felt Hester’s presence—her footsteps in the passage, her breath trapped in the joists, her fingerprints blurring walls and furniture even after she’d scrubbed. She was the one who had washed the corpse and laid the body out, yet even while she was brushing the hair and coaxing the stiffening limbs into a clean nightgown, she had somehow been aware of Hester watching her. She had feared to close those eyes—Lyn’s eyes. It would be like extinguishing both son and mother, mother-in-law and husband. Yet, once she had plucked up courage enough to do it, she realised that Hester was inextinguishable. She walked the house, watched the hills, sat down to meals with them—not as a ghost or restless spirit, but as someone who simply belonged there—always would.
She tried to propitiate her, bow to her taste and judgement, transform the house only slowly and with tact. Even if they remained up here, she would never replace the huge old-fashioned bath with its four enamelled feet, or the ancient cast-iron cisterns and polished wooden seats in both the lavatories. Hester would hate fibreglass or plastic, modern low-flush toilets, prissy pastel baths.
Lyn was also aware of Hester, but more distressingly. His mother barged into his dreams, blamed him for her death, kept him continually cold and small and shivering. He was constantly making plans to leave, fretting about the Cobham house or allotment, worrying about the work he had promised Matthew. Yet, for all his fears, he still hadn’trun away. In fact, he had started making a garden—removing stones, turning the soil, marking out a border. It was covered up with snow now, but things were growing underneath (flowers, hope, a future?). He had been waiting for the swallows, even drawing swallows—tangled lines against the blur of hill. Jennifer had pinned his sketches on the wall. He ripped them down again, looked almost scared.
‘Don’t do that, Jennifer.’
‘Why not?’
‘They’re … not good enough. I’m out of practice.’
She glanced at him now, huddled on the sofa, rough grey coat buttoned over blue pyjamas. He had refused to let her pack his dressing-gown. ‘It’s not worth it, Jennifer. We won’t be staying long.’
Longer than they’d planned, though; longer still if the snow was on their side.
Lyn blew his nose, mopped his eyes, ripped open a second box of Kleenex. ‘We must get back. We’re just messing around up here. If the roads are clear, we’d better leave on Saturday.’
He had said that last weekend. She had even started packing. He unpacked the cases himself, not systematically, just bits and pieces, as he needed them. By Wednesday they were almost empty again.
‘But you might still be feverish, darling. Why don’t we wait and see.’
‘I can’t talk any more, I’m sorry. My throat feels like splintered glass.’
‘Can I get you something—a gargle or a …?’
‘No thanks.’
‘I saw one of those inhaler things when I was in the cellar. Why don’t I go and …’
‘Jennifer, I asked you not to poke around the cellar.’
‘I didn’t. I only went to see if I could f
ind another lamp. There’s loads of stuff down there. Someone ought to sort it out.’
‘No.’
‘D’you remember those inhalers, Lyn? Or were they called vaporisers? You know, metal things with a nightlight under them and a little hole in the top. My mother lit one in my bedroom every time I had a cold. There was some antiseptic stuff inside, which puffed out of the hole and made the room all smelly. You must have seen them, surely.’
‘No. Never heard of them.’
‘Well, there’s one downstairs. I saw it. It’s an old one, but it probably still works. Why don’t I fetch it for you?’
‘No.’
It was an irritable, impatient ‘no’ which could have meant ‘yes’. She always had to interpret all Lyn’s ‘no’s’. Had Hester done the same? found it equally exasperating? She sometimes felt a bond with Hester, the two of them united through the foibles of her son.
‘I think I’ll go back to bed. You coming, Jennifer? We can put the fire out then. Save some fuel.’
‘It’s only eight o’clock, darling. I’ll stay a while if you don’t mind. I feel restless, anyway. I’ll only keep you awake.’
He would keep her awake. Had done all week. It wasn’t just the coughing—he was restless, feverish, shouting in his sleep. She should feel sorry for him. The trouble was, the sorrow was tinged with anger. Unfair irrational anger that he wasn’t a Mick Bertram who could run a farm, or sire a family. Resentment at their constant sterile sex. She had been strange herself after her mother’s death, bursting into tears in shops and streets, hoarding her mother’s shabby useless things like her hairbrush and her limp unfinished knitting. She had cried so much, her eyes had puffed and swollen for a week. Lyn hadn’t cried at all, yet. Perhaps that was the trouble. His grief was still inside him, corked like a sour fermenting liquid in a bottle. He needed cleansing and release. He couldn’t plan for the future because the blackbanded weight of the past was pressing down on top of him.
Born of Woman Page 8
