The Long and the Short of it.

by Jan Ruth

  Contents

  Part One: The Shorts

  What to do About Clara?

  Over the Moon

  Two Hearts, One Soul

  A Piece of Cake

  Christmas Present

  Part Two: The Longs

  Wild Water - Chapter One

  Midnight Sky - Chapter One

  White Horizon - Chapter One

  Part One: The Shorts

  What to do About Clara?

  The certain risk of old love, or the uncertainty of new?

  The moment he pulled in to the yard, Frankie knew he’d made a mistake. Clara hated the place, he could tell. She stepped from the car and took in the hens and the muddy, leaping dogs with fearful uncertainty. His father’s Border Collie, circled the visitor suspiciously and diagnosis made, herded her towards the stone house. Once inside, Clara threw her suitcase in Frankie’s old bedroom, brushed the dog hair from her cream pants and assumed the petulant expression of a child denied sweets.

  As soon as they’d left the bustle of Manchester International Airport and crossed the border into Wales, Clara had fallen into a brooding silence as the rearing hills and the little villages passed in a grey blur. The sense of anti-climax was palpable, and along with a case of creased, unsuitable clothes and a distinct shortage of cash, the already fragile Christmas spirit was in danger of expiring. Yes, a big mistake to suggest his parents’ farm as a stop-gap to the Christmas madness.

  He only had himself to blame. Frankie had sold the idea of Ty Fawr, as if it might be some kind of jolly romp in Jilly Cooper land. Clara had readily agreed, no doubt thinking it would be all middle class parties, thoroughbred horses and log fires, but Frankie knew the sad truth of it. The huge rambling farmhouse had been in the family for generations and these days, it looked distinctly shabby, cold and gloomy. His childhood memories of roaming the heather-clad hillsides amongst windblown sheep, wild ponies, fishing for trout and climbing crumbling stone walls, had all seemed so vibrant, so full of life and colour. Maybe it had been, to a boy. Now, as a forty-eight year old with three children and a cheating wife in the background, Frankie wondered if the timing of his visit was more a test he’d set himself. A test to see if the magic was still there somewhere, still existed in some simple form he could understand, when it had all but gone from the rest of his life. If he could no longer look forward, then he was left with looking backwards, maybe to retrace his steps and find the wrong turning.

  He had no idea what to do about Clara.

  Her face said it all really; maybe she’d been expecting his ‘inheritance’ to be some kind of payoff for having his wife and children in tow.

  Italy had been her idea, and as a holiday it had been okay, and although the memory of the horrific flight home still made his stomach turn over, Frankie had loved her sassy smiles, her outrageous ski suits and her trademark, sarcastic backchat. He crossed to the window and looked vacantly at the swamp-ridden fields through tired eyes. The sky was heavy with rain, so low over the distant mountain range that it looked like a billowing purple sheet, angry and sodden. After the searing blue and white of the ski slopes and the build up to the festivities, it all added to his sense of despair, but then he caught sight of his metallic blue Mercedes in the farmyard below, and managed a smile.

  ‘You love that car more than me,’ Clara said, following his gaze, then slipped her arms around his waist and nestled into his back, ‘Let’s go out for dinner, somewhere cosy.’

  He laughed at this, ‘Out for dinner? Look, Mum will have got it covered.’

  ‘There must be somewhere... there must be a pub.’

  ‘There is, but you’d hate it,’ Frankie said, ‘and anyway, this evening’s entertainment is all planned.’

  Clara brightened. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a tradition round here, so find yourself something warm to wear, a stout pair of boots and a woolly hat.’

  Her face fell, ‘Don’t tell me... a midnight badger cull?’

  ‘Nope,’ he said, and forced his expression to remain serious, ‘that’s tomorrow.’

  *

  When did his mother get so old? Frankie watched her shuffle about the kitchen, her gnarled feet pushed into ancient slippers, struggling to lift a dish of beef stew and an apple pie from the range. There was a mountain of carbohydrate in the way of homegrown potatoes and freshly baked bread alongside the vegetables, and then a slab of butter and a jug of cream. His mother cooked as if it was still 1950 and they all worked the land. Rather than irritate him like it used to, Frankie found the ritual familiar and comforting, and he discovered he was actually ravenous. Their last meal had been a dubious airline sandwich. He caught Clara’s eye and she exchanged a tight smile, no doubt calculating the calorie content of her meal and wondering how she’d get through even a third of it.

  ‘Got something to tell you,’ his father said gruffly, spooning food onto his plate.

  ‘Ted! Not now, after Christmas, we agreed,’ his mother said, but his father seemed to want to get it all off his chest.

  It wasn’t entirely unexpected, their news, but it wasn’t what Frankie wanted to hear. They were going to sell Ty Fawr. The time had come they said, it was too big, too cold, too old. They wanted to live in a little bungalow by the coast, and the money left over would set up Frankie in a flat till his divorce was complete. Despite this generous lifeline, it all made him feel extraordinarily depressed, but what had he expected, that they’d carry on forever, forcing their arthritic limbs to cook, clean and tend the few remaining animals, whilst he lived out an indulgent, childhood fantasy to appease his flagging spirit?

  When he finally looked up from his plate, Clara was watching Ted, drinking in his misery, and Frankie wondered what she was thinking as she cleared the table and tried to get the huge sink to fill with enough hot water. His girlfriend looked out of place, with her sleek blonde hair and her carefully co-ordinated outfit, but Frankie was mildly surprised by her actions, and the empathy in her tawny eyes.

  Girlfriend; it sounded too young, but what else was she? Was she just the ego boost he’d sought in the wake of his crumbling marriage? That seemed cruel, but it was how everyone saw it and they all liked to remind him of the fact. She was of course, younger and less sexually inhibited than Ella had ever been. She was the stereotypical, single career woman, and then there was the fact that they did the same job; they’d met at work on The City Herald, and that in itself was another worn out cliche. A lot of his journalist friends who knew Clara, and Ella of course, had poured scorn on their relationship. They said she was too young, too flighty for him. She was just a blonde bimbo, she would tire of him and the children in no time, they all said. They were probably right, he readily admitted he was on the rebound and flattered by her attention.

  *

  The hall was full, the whole village in attendance for Christmas carols. Although she was long retired from the primary school, Cordelia Griffiths was not retired from organising village life, and her strident voice could be heard well before the doors opened.

  ‘Middle C everyone!’ Cordelia bellowed, her fingers striking the yellowed keys of the piano with more force than they required. Poker-straight grey hair, with eyes in the back of her head, or so it had seemed in his schooldays. No one had got away with anything in music class or morning assembly.

  ‘I can’t hear you, Frank Mackenzie! I know you can sing!’

  There was much amusement and throat clearing at this and Frankie looked across the room and risked a grin at Clara, who looked distinctly glum with a song sheet in one hand and a plastic cup of mulled wine in the other.

  Barely halfway through Hosanna Fawr, and Frankie’s eye was caught by a disti
nctive head of dark hair and a pair of blue eyes staring back at him. It was, it was Ella! At first, Frankie was furious, what the hell did she think she was doing coming here? It was his idea to come home to the valley, to stay well away from her, and that idiot she’d had an affair with. If he was here as well, well then, he didn’t know if he could control his temper. The evening spoilt, he pushed through the crowded room to get outside, then leant back against the wall of the building and sought solace in the black night sky.

  He was aware of her perfume before she appeared in front of him, her eyes downcast this time, and her voice barely audible. ‘Hi, Frankie.’

  ‘Why are you here?’ he said, looking wildly about then, as if the answer would materialise out of the ether, ‘And where are the children? Please tell me you haven’t left them with him.’

  ‘There is no him. It’s over.’

  He took a few moments to digest this bombshell, only half listening as she babbled out an explanation of how the children were at her father’s house, half a mile away. For a moment he was lost, thinking about the children, they were still relatively young, since Ella had not fallen pregnant easily and their family had started late by most standards.

  ‘We could make this the best Christmas ever,’ she said, ‘If you could forgive me?’

  Frankie took a moment to consider her words, and relished how often he’d run this scene through his head, willing it to happen.

  ‘Easy to say.’

  She agreed, ‘I’ve been a fool. Come back with me, let’s talk?’

  It would be easy to slip back into his old life and sweep all the anxieties of the future away, but then they would be replaced with another set of anxieties, such was the power of Ella’s infidelity. In her mind it was finished, but in Frankie’s mind it had only just begun.

  Ella, still striking at almost fifty, had been in his life forever. She was part of the landscape here, was that part of why he’d wanted to return. The ‘change of life’ and the death of her mother, had changed her, she’d said, made her aware of her own mortality.

  As an excuse for an affair, Frankie wasn’t sure if it held water or not.

  Ella read the confusion in his face, and touched his arm briefly before heading back into the hall, her head down against the spattering rain and high wind.

  *

  Clara always undressed in front of him, whether the curtains were drawn or closed, regardless of the lighting, on or off. The location or timing too, was entirely irrelevant. There was a slight hint of the surreal, sleeping with her in his old room with all of his Hemingway novels and university books from God knows when, still piled in corners of the room.

  Sex with Clara was pretty good, better than he could expect at his time of life. After a while, Frankie began to wonder what was in it for her. He was twelve years older, with no money and a big pile of emotional baggage.

  ‘What do you see in me, Clara?’ he prompted.

  She was straddled across his body, and the low light of the winter afternoon illuminated her profile and lit her amber eyes. Probably an insensitive enquiry, given the immediate circumstances but Frankie was getting used to abstract questions popping into his mind.

  ‘I fancy the pants off you,’ Clara said, but it was still lascivious, the way she said it with those narrowed eyes and that jut of her chin. He laughed somewhat incredulously at this, then found himself frowning at her serious expression.

  ‘Will you stay... will you stay here, with me, for a while?’

  ‘I’m not sure you want me to.’

  ‘I’m not about to run back to Ella, if that’s what you think.’

  Clara hadn’t mentioned the scene at the village hall the previous day, she didn’t appear even mildly curious, and her lack of drama in this respect was something Frankie was grateful for. He’d been to see Ella, well he’d been to see the children, and Ella had cried in the kitchen. Later, when the children had gone to bed, he’d held her in his arms. She’d sobbed again, and Frankie waited for a scrap of love to penetrate his heart, but Ella was too full of self-pity and a horrible sort of sad desperation.

  ‘Do you still love me?’ she’d said.

  ‘Yes,’ he’d answered, honestly.

  *

  A couple of days later, he took Clara along the worn path towards the Druids Circle across Craig Hafodwen, in the hope it would be cathartic, but Frankie had a million thoughts fighting for supremacy. His son, fourteen year old Tom, was at the forefront of his mind; he seemed so painfully withdrawn. His sisters, the twins, were so much younger and yet ignorance was probably bliss. They seemed to have double the resilience to everything around them, for now. He would never forgive Ella for hurting their children, never.

  Ella had brought the children to Ty Mawr, with the excuse it was for his parents’ benefit. Clara had been quietly gracious in the face of such blatant lies, his parents less so, performing a tight lipped welcome, knowing full well that Ella had gone through a stage of denying them all access not very long ago, because it suited her. Ella had been wrong-footed by their solidarity, and if she’d been hoping to score points over his girlfriend, then she’d failed.

  Afterwards, it struck Frankie that Clara was just treading water till she could escape, and that thought sobered him sufficiently to enquire when she wanted to head back to London.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, shouting above the wind. The terrain was hard going, stony, eroded tracks snaking through brown heather, mangled roots and gorse. What trees existed, were bent double. The steady ascent had posed no problem for Clara, but then she was ski-fit and took her body condition seriously.

  ‘Ella being here has kind of changed everything,’ he said, panting slightly, then caught hold of her hand in an effort to slow her down. He wanted to explain that his children wanted and needed to see him and with that motivation in mind, arrangements had had to be made with Ella, but it didn’t come out of his mouth like that.

  ‘Look, I appreciate you doing this, staying here, tramping up this Godforsaken hill with me.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I want to be with you?’

  Frankie could think of a million reasons, but went for the most simple. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure what you think. I get the feeling Ty Mawr wasn’t what you expected.’

  She bowed her head then, and the wind whipped her hair into a messy tangle. ‘You don’t know everything about me.’

  This much was true, but then they’d only known each other a matter of weeks, and his broken marriage had been at the forefront of any deeper discussions.

  ‘Tell me, then.’

  She told him about her abusive childhood, and he was shocked. Shocked, and annoyed with himself for taking centre stage with Ella.

  ‘I had no idea,’ he said, appalled by some of the details, and certain she was hiding more, but that could wait. She didn’t appear to want or need any reassurance from him, other than to explain her initial pessimism and her inexplicable quiet moments.

  ‘I was brought up in a place like this. You might have good memories here, but mine... I see him everywhere in a place like this. In the barns and the fields. My stepfather, that is.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise. You seem so… confident.’

  ‘On the outside, maybe.’

  It would be selfish now, to expect her to stay. She’d want to get back to London for Christmas and New Year. ‘I don’t suppose you would consider banishing your ghosts, with me?’

  He said it light-heartedly but Clara remained subdued for a while, deep in thought and Frankie wondered if maybe he’d offended her by making light of it all.

  ‘I feel sorry for your wife,’ she said, and lifted her eyes to the sea, ‘She may as well be out there, on a little raft, all by herself.’

  Frankie followed her line of sight, across the restless void of the Irish Sea, as if he expected to see Ella there, and instantly felt almost as helpless. ‘Is that how your past makes you feel, isolated?’
>
  ‘Isolated, yes.’

  *

  Later, Ella was waiting on the doorstep for him at her father’s cottage, her eyes shining. Frankie took his time, fussing with a bag of films and games for the children, then he checked his mobile phone and made an unnecessary call to the office. He needed a few seconds to think.

  Ella looked amazing, and it had stopped him dead in his tracks. How could he just switch off more than twenty years? Maybe he shouldn’t, maybe he’d been over thinking it all and it really was that simple, and all he needed to do was accept the long road to forgiveness.

  Ella kissed the side of his face, and it felt good, natural that she should. His wife had made an effort in the kitchen, he could detect something cooking with herbs, and there was a bottle of wine open on the scrubbed table. She moved around the small area with an over-bright sense of purpose.

  ‘Ella... I came to see the children.’

  ‘Dad’s taken them to the cinema, they won’t be long.’

  He couldn’t say what the meal was, only that he ate it and Ella talked and he listened.

  *

  Frankie was a long time, much later than he’d meant to be. Clara had caught up with a backlog of work in his absence, and typed up some notes about a feature she intended to write.

  ‘I’ve interviewed your father.’ She closed down her laptop and twisted round in her chair to look at him, ‘He’s quite heartbroken,’ she said, exasperated then by his blank expression, ‘The farm, Frankie. It’s been in the family for generations, it’s so sad.’

  ‘I know... I know but they have a point about it being impractical.’

  For a long moment, he watched her collect her belongings together. She’d write a good piece, he knew she would, as an accomplished features editor, she looked for the human interest story everywhere she went. He’d forgotten she was researching genealogy; knowing his father and how he loved to talk about the past and go over his old photographs, they’d likely had an interesting and more productive afternoon than he had.