by Vivien Brown
Perhaps everyone loses it in time. The spark, the fire, the passion. It gets buried under piles of nappies, sleepless nights and endless bills, years of bickering and boredom and blame. It’s easier to get into comfy pyjamas and curl up with a cup of cocoa and a book, even though you usually nod off before reaching the end of the chapter, than it is to make the sort of effort that good sex, and a good marriage, needs.
Looking back, I know that I still loved him, even then, despite everything, but I couldn’t admit it, and more importantly, I couldn’t say it. Not out loud. It would have felt like backing down, like I was forgiving him, letting him get away with all that he’d done.
It would have felt like a betrayal. Of all that was important to me. My dignity. My family. You …
***
On New Year’s Eve, 1999, we all went up to the Mall, lapped up the atmosphere of the crowds, opened a bottle of champagne and let the children have a sip, watched the fireworks lighting up the London skyline, sang and danced our way back through the busy streets, and propped each other up on the tube on the way home as the heralding of a new millennium and the elation of the occasion sank back into tiredness and normality.
And normality it was. Nothing felt any different the next day or the day after.
Dan did well at work. They made him a partner, gave him a pay rise, let him have time off when he needed it, for fatherly stuff like school sports days and those meet-the-teacher evenings when parents got to find out the truth about their kids’ behaviour and their chances of making something of their lives.
Fiona had been well-liked in the office. I wondered sometimes if the way he was treated was more about compensating for her loss, making a better life for her child, than it was about anything he had done to deserve it, but what did I know? I never went there. It was her domain – theirs – and not somewhere I could ever feel I belonged.
When the older children were eleven, they moved up to the big school and, separated into different classes for the first time, they really began to blossom and grow as individuals with different interests, different friends.
Ollie threw himself into sport, joining the football team in winter, the athletics team in summer, swimming club after school, going off to camps. Anything but chess, the board and pieces pushed away under his bed, pretty much since the day Trevor had died. I did worry about his asthma, checking his bag and his pockets to make sure he had his inhaler with him at all times, but he rarely needed it any more.
Natalie’s hospital appointments tailed off too, although she did upgrade from one wheelchair to another, each one bigger and better, as she grew. Her new room became her haven, a place she could hide away in when the others got to do things she couldn’t join in with, no matter how much she might want to, or when life in general got too much for her. We all understood and left her to deal with it in her own way and, heart-breaking though it was, it was a method that usually seemed to work.
And Beth. I often thought Beth was me, all over again, but in a younger, smaller form. She made up her mind about things quickly. Too quickly sometimes, and it would take a ten-ton truck to shift her, even though she wasn’t always right. She looked like me too, even more than the others did, her huge mane of wild near-black hair marking her out as the warrior she undoubtedly was. Beth was tough on the outside, but there was also a softness, a vulnerability about her that I always knew was there. And a naivety, a romantic, see-what-turns-up view of life that got in the way of any real career ambition or sensible longterm life plan, although she would never admit to it. I didn’t have to worry about Beth, because I understood her.
Jenny was the real enigma of the family. She was smart, but she hid it, never wanting to overshadow the others in anything. We’d do spelling tests and I’d know for sure she deliberately got some wrong. She’d hang back in races too, fiddling a little too long with her sack or her spoon, just long enough to make sure someone else ran past her and got to the finishing line first. I sometimes thought she was doing it because she didn’t feel she deserved to win. Other times I thought maybe it was just her kindness, wanting to see others succeed, not really caring that much about herself. But, in the end, I decided she was just so desperate to fit in, to be accepted, and giving others the glory removed any rivalry, any sense of threat. It made them love her.
***
Dan’s dad was seventy-two when he decided to retire. Farm work was hard. Early mornings, back-breaking physical labour, constant worries about the weather, taking so few days off and virtually no holidays, yet still having the kind of brown and wrinkled skin that smacked of the outdoor life and far too much exposure to a cruel and gruelling sun. Sam had left it as long as he could, but the arthritis that was slowly bending his fingers into stiff misshapen stumps, and a small stroke, had finally made up his mind for him. It was time.
‘What will happen to the farm? And the house?’ Ollie had his worried face on. ‘Will Gran and Granddad have to move out and go and live in a flat or something? Where will all the animals go?’ He kicked off his boots, sending a shower of muddy clumps across the kitchen floor. ‘And where will we stay if we go to visit? Can I put a tent up in their new garden? Or won’t they have a garden?’
Dan shook his head. ‘Slow down, Ollie. I don’t know much about it all yet, but I’m sure you don’t have to worry. The farm is actually worth quite a lot of money.’
I raised my eyebrows. Money again. It had always been the first thing Dan thought about. Whatever life threw at us, it was always the money side of it that came into his head before anything else. How about his parents? Their entire life was about to change. Didn’t he care about that? About them?
‘I think we should go down there. It’s ages since we’ve been. And the school holidays are coming up, so we won’t have to worry about rushing back.’
‘Really?’ I asked. ‘How about work?’ Dan never took more than a week off at a time, and then only if he could stay in touch on the phone. ‘Won’t they mind?’
‘Work can wait. Family comes first.’
There was so much I wanted to say in response to that sweeping and very uncharacteristic statement, but I bit my tongue.
‘Well, I suppose I could ask for some time off at the bank.’
‘Of course you can. It’s not as if filling your shoes is going to be hard, is it? There must be loads of students and housewives out there looking for an easy job behind that counter of yours.’
‘Oh, thanks very much! Make me sound so indispensable, why don’t you? And why should they need to fill my job anyway? You’re making it sound like we won’t be coming back.’
‘Maybe we won’t be.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I just thought that, what with Dad stepping down, he might be happier knowing the farm was staying in the family. You know, not having to sell to strangers …’
‘Staying in the family? Dan! You don’t mean us?’
‘Well, why not us? It makes sense, doesn’t it? Going back to where I grew up, moving in, taking the pressure off Dad, running things, having all that space, all that country air, giving the kids the sort of childhood Jane and I had?’
‘Childhood? Dan, they’re teenagers. They have school, exams, friends. Their whole life is here. Not miles away in some tiny country village. It’s too late for all that. Maybe it could have worked when they were small, but not now.’
‘You haven’t had a chance to think it through, Kate. I’ve sprung it on you, I know that, but there’s so much going for it. The back-to-nature sort of a life. Escaping the rat race. It could be good for us. All of us.’
‘You are joking? You must be.’
‘Of course I’m not joking. Look, let’s go down there, stay a couple of weeks, work out some figures, see what Dad has to say. And Jane, of course. Half the place will be hers, after all.’
‘When your parents die, yes. But at the moment they’re very much alive.’
‘But it’s going to happen one day, Kate. Migh
t as well make decisions now, decisions everyone’s going to be happy with.’
‘Jane and Alan might want to run the farm themselves. Have you thought about that? Or your mum and dad might want to sell up, have a clean break, use the money to buy a little bungalow or something?’
‘Dad, in a bungalow? Pigs would fly first!’
‘Well, it’s not really your decision to make, is it? It’s their farm, their money.’
‘I know that. But there’s no harm in exploring all the options, is there?’
‘Well, I’m not going.’ Ollie had been sitting so quietly I’d almost forgotten he was there. ‘I like my school, and I want to stay there, with my friends, and do my exams there. Not be stuck in some stupid village school where all they learn about is milking cows and stuff. I want to go to uni and study sport. And Mr Braithwaite says I’ll be good enough to be in the county athletics championships next summer. This county, not bloody Somerset …’
‘Oliver! Mind your language. And as for playing in some sports team, you can do that anywhere,’ Dan said, dismissively. ‘There are universities all over the country, so you’d be moving away from here when you get to that stage anyway. And I hardly think sport is a suitable course, do you? Sport as a hobby maybe, but not …’
Ollie stood up. ‘I thought you said it was important to make decisions we were happy with, Dad, and to explore all the options. Time you started practising what you preach, don’t you think?’ And, with that exceptionally adult remark, he left the room, slamming the door hard behind him.
‘He has a point, Dan. Any move like that would have to be by agreement, not dictatorship. It’s something we’d all have to want.’
‘Might as well give up now, then. It’s been so long since we’ve wanted the same things … if we ever did.’
I took a deep breath. If Dan was hoping for an argument, I wasn’t going to give him one. Let him go and play at farms, if that’s what he really wanted. But I was staying put, with the kids, where I belonged.
If he went, he’d be back soon enough. I knew he would. Dan was an accountant. Always had been and always would be. He probably had the word written all the way through him, like a stick of seaside rock. I couldn’t see him getting his hands mucky shifting mounds of silage and prodding cows. This was all pie in the sky.
‘I suppose we could always get a manager in,’ he said, so quietly I thought perhaps he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. ‘Take over the business side ourselves, but get someone else to do the outside physical stuff.’
Now, that was the real Dan talking. Dan the money man, not Dan the milk man! As soon as he realised there was no money to be made, especially after having to pay a manager, he’d change his mind. I knew he would.
***
Dan’s old bedroom hadn’t changed in all the years we’d been married. The walls still had their old stripy paper and the curtains were still too thin, letting in the early morning sunlight as soon as it appeared and fluttering wildly whenever the window was left open, even by a crack. The bed was old and high, the mattress too soft and with a dip in the middle that we used to love because it would roll us towards each other in the middle of the night. Now it just felt uncomfortable and the effort of trying to stick to our own sides made proper sleep tricky, if not impossible.
Sam looked noticeably older. It was as if his decision to slow down and stop working had given his body permission to slow down and stop too. The kids loved him, though. And Molly too. Watching them together made me all too aware that they didn’t see nearly enough of each other, and that the older they all got the fewer chances there might be.
‘That looks lovely, dear,’ Molly was saying as Beth held a small mirror up and her gran admired the new wavy hairstyle Beth had created for her. I had just come back into the kitchen from walking the dog. Poor old Micky was long gone, as was Honey, the collie who had followed. This was Petal, the newest addition to the family, a young springer spaniel whose future was clearly mapped out for her as a family pet, now that a working farm dog would no longer be needed. Sam held out a hand and the dog moved across to him and buried her nose in it, sniffing for the treat she knew she would find there. ‘Good walk?’ he said, heaving himself up and rubbing the dog’s muddy paws with an old towel. ‘I see she’s been in the stream again!’
‘I couldn’t stop her,’ I protested.
‘That’s okay, my lovely. Dogs and water are meant to go together. A bit of mud’s no matter to me.’
‘That’s because you’re not the one who has to wash the floor,’ Molly chipped in, but there was a twinkle in her eyes that meant she didn’t mind either. ‘Now, go and find the others, Beth, and we’ll have a nice pot of tea, shall we? And a scone and jam. Made fresh this morning, both of them!’
I sat down at the old oak table and pulled off my boots. A big clock ticked rhythmically on the wall behind me, but otherwise the room was quiet, with just the three of us and the dog.
‘Is there anything wrong, Kate?’ Molly laid a hand on my sleeve and peered into my face. ‘Only, I can’t help noticing that you and Dan are … well, not saying much. To each other, or to us. Is there something we should know?’ She left a moment’s silence but I chose not to fill it. ‘You’re not splitting up, are you? I know I shouldn’t ask, but it’s a worry, and I think we’d rather know than be left guessing.’
What should I say? What could I? I didn’t really know what was going on in my own marriage, let alone feel able to explain it to someone else.
‘Things are … well, not great, I suppose, but we’re ticking along.’
‘Ticking along? Clocks tick along, Kate, not people. Where’s the fire gone? That get-up-and-go you used to be so full of? Dan can be a bit serious, a bit difficult sometimes, I do know that, but he means well. And he does love you, and the children. You’ve been together so long. It would be a great shame if … What I mean is that whatever it is, it can be fixed. Can’t it?’
‘I’m not sure. Ever since Jenny arrived …’
‘Ah. Jenny. I see.’
‘Don’t get me wrong. None of this is her fault and I love her to bits, but she has changed things between us.’
‘I don’t think she has, Kate. A child can’t do that. She wouldn’t know how. No, it’s you and Dan who have changed things. And only you and Dan who can change them back again …’
‘Oh, I don’t want to go back. It’s Dan who seems to want to do that. Come back here, relive his past, drag us all into some fool’s paradise of a country dream.’
‘And you don’t want that?’
‘No. I’m sorry. I’m nearly fifty, Molly. It’s too late to contemplate that sort of a massive change. It’s all too much. Don’t get me wrong, I have every respect for you and for your way of life, but it’s not mine. Not ours …’
Sam shuffled in his chair, Petal curled up and snoring at his feet. ‘That’s why we’ve decided we’re going to sell,’ he said. ‘Let someone else take the strain, move ourselves into town, close to the shops, the buses, the hospital … all the things we’re going to need in our old age. It’s the only way. Fair to everyone. There’ll be a good bit of cash left over, I shouldn’t wonder, if we can get a reasonable price for this place, and the land. Some for you and Dan, some for our Jane and her Alan. It might help get young Ollie through university too when the time comes, as it seems to be what he’s set his heart on. The others too, if they decide it’s what they want. But we’d like to see the money being used now, enjoyed now, not after we’re gone, you hear? No arguments. That’s why we’re not going to burden any of you with running a farm none of you really wants. We’re selling up, and that’s that! I’ll set Dan straight later, when he gets back from the pub. He’ll thank me for it in the end. They say it’s in the blood, the land, but our Dan’s no farmer. Not that I’d say it to his face, but he’s not.’
It was probably the longest speech I’d ever heard Sam make.
‘Thank you,’ I said. I didn’t know what else I could say, and an
yway, Beth was back, with Jenny and Natalie in tow.
‘Ollie says he doesn’t want tea. He’s going down to the pub to join Dad.’
‘Oh, is he now?’ I said, indignantly.
‘Oh, leave him be, Kate,’ Sam chuckled. ‘Boys will be boys, wanting to grow up and be like their fathers, take a sneaky sip of beer when nobody’s looking, even if they’re only thirteen! No real harm in it. It’s a nice little pub, no trouble or anything, and it’s the local chess league down there this afternoon. You never know, he just might rediscover his love of it. It was his favourite game for a while, wasn’t it? And there’s a fiver in prize money for the winner.’
***
‘That’s it, then,’ Dan said on our last night, turning over in bed as he tried to get comfortable. ‘Last time we’ll see this place; the end of an era.’
‘Everything has to end sometime, Dan. It was good while it lasted, but things change.’ Was I talking about the farm, or about our marriage? Our life together? I really wasn’t sure. ‘No going back.’
‘No,’ he muttered into his pillow. ‘No going back.’
I could hear the catch in his voice, the emotion bubbling up, and if he had allowed the dip in the bed to draw us closer together, if he had taken me in his arms and hugged me then, I would have let him, welcomed him, maybe even loved him again, just a little, but he didn’t.
I lay awake for what felt like hours that night, listening to the deep, dark silence of the countryside all around us, the occasional bark of a fox, the sleepy dreaming whines of the dog in her basket downstairs, and Dan’s slow breathing, his chest moving up and down as he slept, taking the quilt with it.
