by Amanda Craig
Sally’s business, however, is with looking after this small part of the world – which feels vast and varied and teeming with interest – and she’s thankful every day of her life to work where she does. Though it’s not like this for everyone, granted.
‘Come on,’ she says to herself, and Baggage.
‘Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness,’ says her mum’s voice reprovingly, but Sally believes that it’s people who don’t talk to themselves who lose all sense of who they are. The funny thing is, the voice she hears in her head or coming out her mouth is Mum’s. She jokes to Pete about how she channels Mum, and he rolls his eyes because truth to tell her husband and mother never got on well, even when she was alive. Mum had distrusted Pete for no better reason than the way his own dad had behaved to his mum. That, and being related to the Ball brothers.
‘No good ever came out of suchlike,’ Mum said.
Still, she’d taken no notice. ‘Pick yourself up and brush yourself down,’ said Mum’s voice, which does have a tendency to speak out during moments of stress.
‘Oh, be quiet, do!’ Sally answers aloud. But Baggage needs reassuring. She’s a sensitive dog, and understands every word Sally says. Why else would she have taken to sleeping on Peter and Sally’s bed?
‘And you a farmer’s daughter!’ her sister Tess had said, scandalised. But the truth is, Baggage is as lovely as only a springer spaniel can be, and Sally can refuse her nothing. Her coat of creamy white flecked with rich brown, a magnificent ostrich plume of a tail (Sally refused to have it docked, because to deprive a dog of its tail was in her view as cruel as cutting off a person’s tongue), and on her brown face she has a white hourglass with brown specks falling inside it. Her characteristic expression is of heart-melting appeal, especially when a sausage is in the vicinity. How could anyone doubt that Good existed, when they look into a dog’s eyes? Even when sorely tried, all Baggage ever does is look sorrowful, with that profound, gentle sadness which smites her conscience far more than anger.
Pete had given her to Sally as a puppy for her fortieth birthday. There have been other dogs, but they were always his, for work, and they both know that a dog is the next best thing to a baby. Baggage’s warm, soft, squirming little body, her affection and enthusiasm for everything, but particularly Sally, means Baggage is given a bath every day, and her teeth are brushed with special, chicken-flavoured toothpaste. Her temperament is as lovely as her looks, and ever since she began to accompany Sally on her rounds, families have greeted her with less suspicion and more trust.
‘There, there,’ Sally says to Baggage, who is whining with almost inaudible anxiety. ‘It’s only a ditch, my lovely, and not a real prang! Let’s ring our twelve o’clock, shall we?’
Unfortunately, this is a mobile black spot. She can’t get a signal for several miles on either side of Shipcott, and now she really starts to feel annoyed.
It has already been a trying day. This morning, she’s been to check up on Lily Hart, who has already had three children by as many men and lives on a one-acre smallholding in two caravans. She’s not one of Sally’s usual mums, though her type is familiar, all multiple piercings, blonde dreadlocks and deep Green principles underpinned by the use of her mother’s tumble dryer when things get too damp for the washing line. Lily and her kids have a sawdust toilet which, though perfectly clean, means that if you needed a pee you had to stand over two planks in the certain knowledge that disaster lay just below. Sally had done her best not to use it, but the fact is she had ended up on those ruddy planks, feeling most apprehensive and wiping herself with a square of the Western Morning News, which she was most unhappy about abusing in this unseemly way.
‘Best use for a newspaper,’ Lily said, interpreting Sally’s expression. ‘I never read them, Mum hands them on.’
Lily’s parents are incomers who run the White Hart hotel in Trelorn. Lily and her twin had gone to Trelorn Secondary School, and though Daisy had flourished and left home at eighteen, Lily has always been aggressive and suspicious of all authority. Her kids, in consequence, have not been immunised.
‘We’re all vegetarian, but I make sure my kids take omega-3 fish oils, so I’m not up for a ticking-off,’ were her first words to Sally.
‘I’m not here to do that,’ Sally responded in her mildest tones.
Persuading parents to bring their children to be vaccinated is part of Sally’s job, and it’s always harder when she comes up against someone who is convinced that homeopathy and alternative medicine will protect better than science.
‘I don’t trust vaccines. Why should I put something into my kids that might give them autism?’
‘You can get autism and measles, you know,’ Sally answered, well aware that all her arguments about bad science would be ignored. ‘Why not protect them?’
She has to keep hoping that gentle persuasion will bring Lily round to immunisation, but there’s no knowing. And now she’s running late to see a mum whose new baby is colicky.
Annoyed, Sally revs the engine again, but the whine of her wheels only rises in pitch. The rutted road is full of puddles, and when she looks at the ditch from outside, she knows she’ll have to call for help because she’ll never get her car out without it. Everything is on a deadline now; there’s never enough time to have a proper chat with new mums, it’s all form-filling and paperwork. Once, health visiting was about taking care of every vulnerable person within a radius of thirty miles. Cradle-to-grave socialism, but the most important are the babies.
Sam, she thinks; if I can get hold of Sam, he’ll have finished his round now. The postie is always helpful and friendly. She’ll just have to get to a stronger signal.
Sighing, she gets the dog out and begins to walk.
The lanes are so sunken that at this rate, she’ll be walking to Shipcott … Over the bend in the high hedgerow she can see someone on a tractor. Perfect! Sally waves and calls, but he can’t hear or see her, and she’s not going to chase him across a ploughed field.
‘Heel, Baggage,’ she says as the dog forges ahead, tail wagging. It’s a beautiful day now that the rain has rolled east at last; she can hear a pheasant’s squeaky cackle. They turn a corner and there it is pecking at something on the road, its bright red cheeks and neat white collar reminding her of the Vicar.
With a yip of excitement, Baggage bounds forwards. Sally starts after her dog; she can’t blame it for breaking its training when such easy prey presents itself.
There is a screech of brakes, and Sally rolls herself over her dog, shielding it. A door thuds open, and a woman’s voice says,
‘I’m so sorry, so sorry, are you hurt?’
Sally picks herself up, and sighs. It’s obviously going to be one of those days.
‘I’m all right. Just. Baggage?’
Baggage wriggles out of her grasp, and makes it clear she’s far more interested in the pheasant.
‘Idiot!’ says Sally, too shaken to know whether she means the dog or the woman.
‘I’m afraid the pheasant’s dead,’ the woman says. ‘I hope it wasn’t yours or anything?’
Sally bursts out laughing.
‘No. Happens all the time, the poor things. You could take this home and eat it if you hang it upside-down for three days, pluck and roast.’
The woman looks startled, then to Sally’s surprise, picks up the small corpse.
‘I wouldn’t say no to a free meal. Lovely feathers … My daughters will enjoy those.’
‘We were just walking along the road to get a signal for my mobile. My car’s gone into a ditch.’
‘You must let me help, then. Could my car pull yours out, do you think?’
Sally looks doubtful.
‘I think I’ll need a more powerful engine. If I could get to a landline, I can make some calls.’
‘Of course! Come back to my house and use mine. It’s the least I can do. Are you sure you’re both all right? I live just down the lane ahead.’
‘I’m fine,
really. Though if I see the chap who pushed me over, I can tell you, I’ll give him a piece of my mind. Some lunatic in a red Golf.’
The woman sighs, and says,
‘My husband, Quentin. Sorry again.’
She smiles, and Sally realises that she’s deeply unhappy.
‘I’m Lottie Bredin.’
‘Sally Verity.’
‘We’re renting a place nearby. Let me drive you there to make amends for bad manners.’
As they go back along the lane, Sally tells her about growing up near Trelorn before training as a midwife in London, and gathers that Lottie is an architect. She doesn’t know a soul here apart from her in-laws. Lonely, poor thing, Sally thinks, though the village school is a good start. These people parachute in from other places and expect to fit into a new community, but it just doesn’t happen like that.
‘So have you not met our local celebrity?’ she asks.
‘No. Who’s that?’
‘Gore Tore.’
Lottie slows the car in surprise.
‘Really? That Tore? I used to love all his records as a teenager, back in the day. He’s been going for ever, hasn’t he? My goodness, I’d no idea …’
‘He lives on the other side of the village. Nice chap, though it’s mostly his wife and kids you might see about. He’s always off doing concerts.’ Sally gives her a glance and decides to risk a little gossip. ‘All those alimony payments to keep up, they say.’
‘How old are the kids?’
‘Young. About seven or eight.’
‘I wonder whether they’re at the village school.’
‘Yes, I think so,’ says Sally. She knows they are, of course, because Tess is the school’s head.
‘My elder daughter is finding it a bit hard. She misses London.’
‘And you? Do you miss it?’
‘I miss my friends and my mother, and working.’ Lottie looks out of the window. ‘But at the same time, on a fine day this is just … I’ve never lived in the countryside before.’
‘The winters can be hard, but the summer makes up for it.’
‘I suppose weather matters more here than it does in the city.’
‘We do find other things interesting, too,’ Sally says dryly. It always amuses her, the way that Londoners think all they ever talk about must be weather and animals, as if country people aren’t interested in politics or TV or even books and music. There are quite a lot of things going on, but it’s too soon to tell her about those, yet. Or, indeed, why Home Farm will be familiar to anyone local.
Bumping along the drive in Lottie’s car, she even spots a scrap of blue and white plastic police tape left tied round a tree. The estate agent must have missed it.
Home Farm looks as if it’s been having some care given to it, for there’s a wheelbarrow full of brambles blocking the entrance to the house.
Inside, Sally goes into the living room to call her next appointment in Trelorn. She makes another call to Sam. He’ll be quicker than the AA.
‘Course I’ll come my love,’ he says at once. ‘Don’t you worry.’
While Lottie brews them both tea in the kitchen, Sally looks around. She was last in here a long time ago, at the start of her career when Home Farm and the Manor House had belonged to old Sir Jerry, and both of them falling to rack and ruin. It’s never been given much TLC, but now there are photographs on the dresser – two pretty little girls, and a handsome young man who looks like Lottie but with dark skin and curly hair. That would be the mixed-race son she’s heard about, though hardly anyone has seen him out and about, yet. Maybe they’ll stay, she thinks. Young families are what every village needs to stop it dying.
A tall boy, whom she recognises from the photograph, shambles in, and looks at her with surprise.
‘Hi,’ he mutters. Sally returns the greeting, as does Baggage. Xan laughs as the springer rolls over and invites him to tickle her tummy.
‘This is Sally, Xan. Quentin pushed her car into a ditch.’
The boy rolls his eyes.
‘Typical Dud. It’s freezing next door because he hasn’t brought in any wood, again.’
‘Split us some logs and I’ll sort you some breakfast,’ Lottie says. Over the sizzle of eggs in the pan, Baggage whines softly.
‘They never stop eating, do they, at this age?’
‘No, though he needs to get out more. He’s desperate to get some sort of job, poor boy.’
Sally looks out of the window, at where Xan is standing, legs apart, chopping an upended log with a maul. She shivers, and wonders if that is the axe that … But it must be a replacement.
‘Can he drive?’
‘No. In London there was no need. I’ve got an old bike, though.’
‘Jobs, well … there’s always Humbles in Trelorn. Mostly it’s Poles, but they also employ locals.’
‘Yes, our cleaner, Janet, suggested that too. He could give it a go.’
Xan has come in, carrying a basket full of logs.
‘We’re talking about a job for you, darling.’
Xan grunts, but Sally, used to the ways of teenagers, says, ‘Probably no good to you. It pays only the minimum wage.’
‘How much is the minimum wage?’ Xan asks; and when Sally tells him he says at once, ‘I’m up for it. It’s doing my head in just sitting around all day.’
A nice boy, Sally thinks, as Sam finally turns up and drags her Polo out of the ditch; nice family, apart from the dad, and living in that awful house. As she drives away, she wonders what they’ll do when they find out.
6
This is England, Too
‘When are we going back to England?’ Stella demands.
‘London isn’t England,’ Lottie says. ‘This is England, too.’
They don’t believe her. How can it be true, when there are no streets, shops and lights?
Yet since moving to this place the fraying fabric of her nights has been replaced by profound, velvety slumber. Is it the darkness? The sounds of the city have gone, but the country isn’t entirely silent either, for the hills rustle with water and when the wind isn’t blowing she can hear the cry of owls. Is it the air, so clean and cold and lively? Whatever the cause, it feels like a miracle. She is sleeping through the night again, and so is Rosie. Even if she still experiences the lurch every morning when she wakes and thinks things are still good, grief feels manageable.
It is not a feeling shared by her family.
‘The water tastes nasty,’ says Rosie.
‘It’s full of iron, and look how lovely it’s made your hair, sweetheart.’
They don’t care: their long blonde tresses are soft anyway.
‘There are bugly spiders everywhere, and you know how we hate them.’
‘It’s a spooky house, Mummy. It makes noises,’ Rosie says.
‘It’s an old house. All old houses creak. It’s just stretching a bit as it warms up, like a person.’
At times, though, she too thinks she can see odd things out of the corner of her eye. Quite often, she feels as if there is a presence in the room with her. Could it be haunted? She doesn’t believe in ghosts, but to live in the country feels as if a kind of prop to rational existence has been removed. She doesn’t mind being without immediate neighbours – after all, in London she never knew hers – but she misses her mother.
‘How are you, Mutti?’ Lottie asks, once a day.
‘My darling, I am in mint condition; how are you?’
‘Fine.’
‘How are my darling granddaughters?’
Rosie has settled into the village school, a Victorian Gothic building of brick and slate, without difficulty. She is always popular, being the kind of six-year-old child who likes pink and kittens, and has immediately found a new best friend in the local doctor’s youngest daughter. Stella is a different matter.
‘Country children don’t know anything about anything!’ is her angry cry. ‘They’re all stupid, and I’ll become stupid too unless you take me home!’
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Lottie folded her daughter’s tense, angry body in her arms.
‘I’m sure that’s not true, sweetheart.’
‘I’ll never be happy here.’
‘Never is a very long time.’
‘You’ve got pink cheeks, Mummy,’ Rosie observed.
‘I expect it’s blood vessels breaking from the cold,’ Stella said. ‘Just give it a try. It’s not even for a year.’
‘A year is a very long time if you are eight.’
Quentin puts it in characteristic fashion:
On the plus side, there are no mini-chavs with tattoos or future members of IS, but unlike the private system, a sizeable proportion is disabled. There are kids here who are dyslexic, autistic, Down’s syndrome and so on, and to the school’s credit, they are not excluded for fear of dragging it down the league tables, but integrated.
We’re in the honeymoon period of switching, giddy with relief at no longer having to sell a kidney in order to educate them. How we’ll feel if half the class can’t read by eleven is another matter.
Like all his columns, this has caused a storm of outrage online, attacking him for hating the disabled, for being a snob and a racist. Lottie can only be grateful that her husband is writing his column under a pseudonym.
‘I don’t understand why we have to walk,’ Stella says.
‘It’s good exercise, and it saves us money. The car is only for when it’s raining hard.’
It has all taken a lot longer to balance their books than expected, but even if everyone is sick of apple crumble made with apples from the orchard, they have a roof over their heads and £400 a month left over for food, petrol and utilities. Though very tight, they can just about manage on it. She will get back some tax from the Inland Revenue due to her fall in earnings, and Quentin’s freelancing is also yielding some income, even if it is always paid at least two months in arrears. Lottie doesn’t want to think about what will happen if the Canadian tenants decide to leave, or if she can’t find another job. It’s bad enough to be forced to do accounts every week with her husband.
