‘You two stay there,’ he said, ‘out of the way. There’ll be more vehicles coming through, and maybe trees coming down. Don’t want you squashed under neither.’
‘I’m going to see the burning!’ Sunny demanded. ‘You can’t stop me!’
‘Burning’ll be later. You’ll get your chance to dance around the flames, missy. Don’t you fret.’
He ambled off, tall, broad and sun-gold as a stacked hayrick.
‘I don’t fret!’ Sunny yelled. ‘And my name is not Missy!’
‘Shut up, Sunny,’ said James. ‘Or he’ll tie us up in the dairy, with all the cow shit.’
He leaned his arms on the fence and watched as yet another tractor grumbled by, its driver heading up the lane to Holt Farm to join the protestors. They were hundreds coming, and all because of James’s father. As head of the local Tithe-Payers Association, he had received a telephone call at six-thirty that morning from Mr Jennings, owner of Holt Farm, in a panic because contractors for the authorities had turned up and started loading their lorries with Mr Jennings’s corn and carting it away.
James’s father had spent a further two hours on the telephone, rallying all the members of the association. He told them that the ecclesiastical authorities claimed that Mr Jennings owed them three hundred and eighty-five pounds in tithes, even though any blind halfwit could see from his farm books that he’d made a loss. He told them that the contractors, whose job it was to impound goods to the value of the defaulted tithes, had turned up at the crack of dawn, unannounced — an underhand surprise attack worthy of the Bolsheviks, he had added, with a hint of admiration. He reminded them that the authorities did not always stop at stock animals or corn, but in one case had gone so far as to seize furniture, including children’s beds, complete with pillows and blankets. He told them they could not underestimate the threat to their own livelihood and property, and if they sat back and let it happen to Fred Jennings, then they could expect no help when the church, grasping claws outstretched, came for them.
By midday, over two hundred sympathisers would be on the property, using every means to obstruct the authorities’ contractors. It was the largest agricultural protest ever staged.
James’s father’s final call had been to the newspapers. They should know of this public outrage, he’d said. It is a matter of national significance.
‘Don’t forget to make sure they accompany the article with a photograph of you holding up a really big bottle of Potts,’ Dimity Northcote had called after him. ‘Otherwise the public might think it was all about the farmers.’
She never shied from speaking plainly to James’s father, who, in return, would always smile, and in a way that implied she’d just proven he knew something she did not. It was a smile meant to goad, and it usually did. James knew that was because his father enjoyed a fight. He enjoyed provoking people to square up against him, for the simple reason that he’d always win. James had seen his father lose only once — last Christmas drinks, a newly appointed master to the local school had objected to Lewis Potts’s assertion that Adolph Hitler, now Führer, Chancellor and Supreme Commander of the German armed forces, was one of the few leaders with the guts to do what it took to restore honour to a beleaguered country. The schoolteacher’s rebuttal was well reasoned and impassioned, and within minutes all those who’d been murmuring and nodding at James’s father began to exclaim and gabble to each other, fired up against this threat to the freedom of tolerant, right-thinking people just like them. James saw his father bow his head briefly to the teacher, acknowledging that the young man had bested him. In March, the teacher left the school. Sunny said he’d been sacked for fiddling with boys. Playing the violin with them? James had asked, astonished. Sunny had rolled her eyes. Fiddling, she’d said and demonstrated, causing James to yelp with dismay and blush as red as a beet. He’d never get another job, Sunny had said. This September, the school would open the brand-new Potts Hall.
James sometimes worried about how Sunny’s mother spoke to his father. She and Sunny would be living off the church, his father often reminded everyone, were it not for the generosity of the Pottses. He allowed Sunny and her mother under his roof, he said, because they amused him. When that became no longer the case, they would have to beg for charity elsewhere.
Life would be very lonely without Sunny, thought James. Less anxiety-inducing, but lonely. James had to remind himself of this every time he overheard Sunny’s mother and his own whispering together. This was the one time James did think it would be nicer if the Northcotes weren’t around so much. He loathed when they whispered. It sounded like spies plotting and it made James hot with resentment that he was excluded.
James’s mother and Sunny’s had chosen to stay at home today. James could not understand why — who would want to miss all this excitement? The advantages of surprise and an early start had enabled the contractors to initially make good progress. But for the last two hours, they’d been impeded by vehicle after vehicle coming up the middle of the lane — tractors, cars and horse-drawn wagons. Up at the farm, before Farmer Blythe had carried them away, Sunny and James had seen men roping a tractor to a fowl house, readying to drag it to where it would cause maximum obstruction. From where they were now, they could see men digging a trench near the farmyard entrance, and others, one carrying a large double-handled saw, eyeing up the large elm at the spot where the lane joined the main road. Later, there’d be a bonfire, and on it they would place an effigy of the Archbishop of Canterbury. That’s why Sunny was here. She didn’t care two hoots about tithes or farmers. She had come along purely for the fun of seeing a straw churchman burn.
Six men were strolling up the lane, farm labourers by the looks of their tanned faces and muscular forearms. Been given the day off by a sympathetic employer, James guessed, and sent to join the fight. Tenant farmers like Ellis Blythe had not paid tithes for over forty years, when the legal responsibility had shifted to the landowners. But they remembered their fathers’ and grandfathers’ hostility towards the payment. And they knew that most landowners these days were not rich men but smallholders scraping a living in a time of economic depression, and thus no keener than the tenants had been to give the vicar his one in ten. James had seen Farmer Blythe shake his father’s hand, thanking him for this chance to avenge centuries of injustice dealt out to honest, hard-working, simple folk.
The fence under James’s arms creaked as Sunny began to hook her legs over it. Even though the day wasn’t that warm, she wore no tights, and her skirt was shorter than it should be, owing to it being last year’s. James saw the labourers glance their way and hoped Sunny was wearing underwear. He would not have been surprised if she weren’t. Sunny dressed impatiently, and if she couldn’t find an item, she would simply omit it. James had once seen her button a cardigan right up to hide the fact she had nothing under it but skin. She didn’t dislike clothes; James knew she enjoyed the few occasions when she could wear a pretty dress. But when potential excitement was beckoning, she begrudged every second that came between her and it.
‘He’ll only bring you back again,’ said James, as she landed on the grass. ‘Probably carry you by your feet this time, like a dead rabbit.’
‘I won’t miss the burning,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought stones specially, in my pocket.’
‘Hoy!’
The shout was accompanied by the thud of large hooves on firm earth. Up the lane came Rowan, on Ferdinand, Farmer Blythe’s former plough horse. A Clydesdale, seventeen hands and, now that he was retired, so wide in the girth it looked like Rowan was riding a bay-coloured hot-air balloon.
A swirl of blonde hair behind Rowan made James’s heart jump. Lily had her hands around Rowan’s waist, but only lightly, James saw, barely touching him. She was wearing a pink and white gingham dress, rosy tights and a pale pink cardigan. She looked so beautiful, he thought, like cherry blossoms. He longed to draw her, perhaps in pastels or chalk, but knew he would struggle to do her justice, and he would not be ab
le to bear seeing her try to be polite. Lily had no skill with lying. Her face was like fresh snow; every emotion left its imprint.
James waited for Rowan to rein in Ferdinand, but the horse kept on walking past them.
‘I can’t stop.’ Rowan screwed up his face in apology. ‘If I do, he’ll never start again. Took me ages to get him going before.’
‘Keep up with us!’ Lily called back over her shoulder, laughing.
‘I could walk on my hands faster!’ said Sunny.
James knew she was envious that Lily and Rowan had arrived on horseback, when she and James had been given no choice but to walk. James’s father had taken his two-seater Lagonda. It was red, fast and loud and guaranteed he’d make an entrance. There were eight miles between Empyrean and Holt Farm. James hoped Farmer Blythe would reconsider, and give them a ride back on his tractor after all.
‘Come on!’ Sunny hit James on the arm. ‘Let’s beat them!’
James did not want to beat them. He wanted to show Rowan that you could stop that stupid horse, and lift Lily down and walk with her. But Sunny had grabbed his hand, and was pulling him along.
They overtook Ferdinand, and the farm labourers, who had moved to one side to let the big horse go by. James saw them staring at Lily, saw them nudge each other, one purse his lips in a silent whistle, and he was racked with anger. He wanted to confront them, avenge the insult with such force that they would grovel and cower. But they were men, seasoned and tough as bog oak, and he was not yet thirteen, and being led like a dog by a small, scrappy, twelve-year-old girl.
He shook his hand out of Sunny’s and watched her run on ahead, so intent on her goal she hadn’t noticed he was no longer with her.
As he stood there, Ferdinand passed by at a trot. It wasn’t fast, exactly, but his big legs meant he covered good ground.
‘He must smell carrots,’ said Rowan.
‘See you at the bonfire.’ Lily bent her fingers in a wave, as Ferdinand carried her away.
James trudged up to the farmyard, each footfall loosing a shaft of resentment that made him kick out at stones and dried crusts of mud. Why couldn’t he spend as much time with Lily as Rowan did? But even as the thought formed, James knew it was a vain one. They were growing up, the four of them, and they were growing apart.
Gone were the days of spending hours together messing about in the woods and the apple tree. Lily was expected to help out at home much more, and Rowan, too, worked longer hours for Old Ted, as well as doing odd jobs for Farmer Blythe, who was struggling to find good farm labour. Rowan often ate at the Blythes’, James knew. Last year, to say thank you, he’d carved them a nativity set out of oak, an odd present in James’s opinion, but Mrs Blythe had adored it and kept it out all year round, not just at Christmas, on the mantel above the kitchen fireplace, under Farmer Blythe’s shotgun. James liked the lamb best. One of its legs was crooked. Rowan wasn’t that good a carver, despite what everyone said.
When James had been small, Mrs Blythe had welcomed him into her kitchen and fed him fresh bread or warm cake and milk. Now he was older, she was more deferent. He was the master’s son, James supposed, and one day the Blythes would take orders from him. Whereas Rowan was an equal; they did not feel obliged to him.
And soon it would get worse. James was off to boarding school in September, while Rowan and Lily would stay at the village school, at least until they were fourteen. Sunny’s mother had decided to teach Sunny at home, which James’s father thought highly amusing. What would Sunny learn: the fine arts of illogical debate and foul language? James knew, though, that Sunny’s mother was a capable teacher and Sunny an even more capable pupil. Sunny was quicker at arithmetic than he was, and she could speak French quite fluently now, whereas his pronunciation made him sound like he’d received a blow to the head.
In a few months, James would hardly see Lily at all. Rowan would win her by default, by being the only candidate, not the best one. It galled James, but what could he do about it? That was how life was.
And did he even really want her? Sunny was so rude about her sometimes, and often James had to agree. Her mouth moved when she read, and she had to trace the lines with her finger to keep her place. You could tell her the most outlandish things and she’d believe you. Once Sunny had her convinced that she would be abducted by fairies unless she wore all her clothes inside out. It had taken a whole week for a frustrated Mrs Blythe to prise the truth from her daughter. Sunny had been admonished but had admitted no regret, though the next day she did bring the Blythes a cake that she’d baked, which Mrs Blythe had said was almost as good as one of her own.
But you could ignore the fact Lily was a bit dim at times, thought James, because she was so pretty. No wonder those men had admired her — she was the prettiest girl for miles, a real prize. James’s father had talked about using her to model for Potts in their advertising. He’d even offered to pay for a professional photographer to take her portrait, but the Blythes had politely declined. James’s father had told them he’d accept their decision only because he did agree that, at twelve, Lily was possibly too young. But her face could be her fortune — their fortune — and they’d be foolish to miss that chance. When she was thirteen, he’d said, they would talk again.
James’s father was in the middle of the farmyard, standing on the tailgate of a contractor’s defeated lorry, addressing a large audience in what James always thought of as his ringmaster’s voice. James’s father was tall and upright, with black hair parted in the middle and slicked into place. All he needed was a top hat and a whip, and a bright red gold-braided jacket. Step right up, folks, step right up. You won’t believe your eyes.
There were too many people for James to try to catch his father’s eye. He could hear him, though; his voice always carried. He was saying something about a victory, and being a step closer to the reversal of an ancient iniquity. There was cheering and applause. James’s father raised both his arms, and turned slowly, as if he were a pagan priest, thought James, showing his worshippers how he had captured for them the great and terrible power of the sun.
James knew his father loved this kind of attention. And why not? Why not fill your life with what makes you feel good? Why not go after what you want and not care all the time about what people might think? My father is a man who gets everything he wants, thought James, because he cannot see any good reason why he should not have it. If a prize were there for the taking, his father would take it. And he’d let no one stop him.
The crowd was moving. The bonfire was being lit. On top was a crude straw effigy of the archbishop. Already in the front row was Sunny, mouth set, hand pulled back with stones poised in her fingers, a blonde-curled miniature of Bernini’s David. James saw she needn’t have carried the stones all that way in her pocket. Someone had provided piles of old potatoes and chunks of carrot, for all those who felt like teaching a lesson to an ecclesiastical authority made of hay.
The effigy was ablaze. If James wanted to chuck a potato at it, this was his last chance. But the crowd that had kept him from his father was now between him and the fire. James could not find a gap to push through.
He made his way slowly around the wall of people’s backs, and saw Rowan and Lily standing a few yards off by the big bay horse. Rowan had Ferdinand’s reins in his hand and was feeding him chunks of carrot. He saw Rowan give Lily a carrot, saw her laugh as the horse’s rubbery lips mumbled at her palm. Her shoulder was pressed against Rowan’s. Her blonde head shone like a candle next to Rowan’s dirt-brown, scruffy curls.
Did he want her, or did he not want Rowan to have her? Was there any difference? His father thought Lily beautiful, a perfect specimen of girlhood, but that did not mean he wanted her for James. King Cophetua might marry a beggar maid, but Lewis Potts’s son was probably intended for better.
It’s all so complicated, thought James. Knowing what to feel, what to do, what was expected of you. And there was no one he could ask, because if anyone found out he had these w
orries, these feelings, they would surely think differently about him. Best to keep it to himself and hope that, one day, it would all become clear.
The archbishop had collapsed now, the last sprigs of straw vaporising like burned hair. James bent down and tightened his shoelaces. It was eight miles to home, but he could run that distance easily, and faster than anyone he knew.
He flexed his legs and set off, and imagined cresting the final slope before Empyrean, arms outstretched, all other competitors left behind him in the dust.
CHAPTER 15
mid-April
Spring was here now. April could ignore the passing of another birthday — a day like any other — but she could not ignore that her world was no longer brown and grey. The daffodils had been like the scouts of a floral army. They’d popped up, given the all-clear and launched the invasion, and now flowers occupied every stem and branch. The black and white photographs in The Popular Encyclopaedia of Gardening were of no help in identifying species that were not common back home, especially the wildflowers, like those starry red-pink blooms on tall vigorous stems. The garden plants were easier. The tulips, coming up in waxy candy shades, white and red, striped pink, mauve and orange. The low-growing yellow polyanthus. The lilacs that hung like bunches of grapes. They were still mostly green, but from the few that had burgeoned pink and purple came a sweet scent that would intrude unexpectedly and so briefly that April wondered if she’d imagined it.
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