by Angela Huth
But before returning to Oxford she had an appointment at a farm near Pewsey. In response to one of her advertisements in a country magazine, a farmer’s wife had written to say she had a ‘lot of old junk jewellery in the attic’, which she would be willing to sell if Ursula liked to come and make her choice. Such an invitation inspired the thrill of the chase: tracking down beautiful things in unlikely places, to Ursula, was irresistible.
She found the farmhouse at the end of a long track that led into a cleavage between soaring downs. There were some dozen cars parked in the drive. It was an unkempt place set in a neglected garden. But the basic structure of the house, once handsome Regency, was pleasing, simple. Its potential, so far from her grasp, struck Ursula with a weakness of longing. She paused at the door for a moment before ringing the bell, trying to restrain the thoughts of what, given the chance, she could do. . . . She looked down, then, to see she was standing in a sprinkling of pink and blue paper petals – very superior confetti, she thought at once, picking up a perfectly formed paper rose petal – very different from the commercial rubbish that passes for confetti today. What was going on?
The door opened before Ursula knocked. Mrs Green, the farmer’s wife, smiled up at her. Mrs Green wore a cotton dress ablaze with cabbage roses, and a pink plastic comb in her curly hair.
‘I’m afraid we’re in the middle of a wedding reception,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t like to put off our appointment. It was rather a sudden wedding, actually, though not for the usual reasons.’ She laughed.
Ursula stepped into a hall that smelt strongly of dog. Strings of silver horseshoes had been hung across mud-stiff mackintoshes that bulged on a row of hooks. The horseshoes swooped merrily across immemorial wallpaper, old framed photographs of prize bulls and rams and faded football teams. Yet other horseshoes secured to bannisters and hatstands, hung in inverted arches to meet at the central overhead light, where they were joined in a bow of blue tinsel ribbon. From down the passage came voices and laughter, and Danny Boy picked out in single notes on an accordion.
‘I’ve put the stuff out in the spare room, if that’s all right,’ said Mrs Green, leading the way upstairs. ‘Take what you like, no hurry. Then come on down for a drink and a piece of cake. Horace and June would like to see you.’
She showed Ursula into the room, and left with apologies, shutting the door behind her.
Ursula stood still for a few moments. Up here, the wedding reception was reduced to a muted ruffle of sound, singing and laughter. More clear was the bleating of sheep which came through the open window.
It was a neat, bare room: polished wooden floor that smelt faintly of lavender, white walls, cambric curtains, a single brass bed with a candlewick cover of fluorescent pink. On a table beside it were a Bible and old copies of Woman’s Own and Farmer’s Weekly.
There was a small chest-of-drawers under the window. On this Mrs Green had put two opened cardboard boxes, both sprouting aged tissue paper. Ursula went over to them, peculiarly excited. But before she would let herself explore the treasure, she looked out of the window to the sweep of Downs, a huddle of sheep, corn-rippling distances, trees no clearer than smudged fingerprints on the horizon. Her excitement, she then knew, was more to do with where she was than the unopened boxes before her. She felt that she knew this land, had known it for ever. It was at once recognisable, the place she should have found long ago, the place she would like to be for the rest of her life.
She unwrapped a twist of paper to find a French paste crescent moon set in blackened silver. She laid it on her palm and its fine stones doubly sparkled through the tears that had come to her eyes. Then she sniffed, smiling to herself, pulling herself together: Ralph would laugh when she confessed she had gone through another ‘earth crisis’, as he called them, but with understanding. This time, though, it would not be just to Ralph she would try to describe the powerful sentiments that had accosted her so unexpectedly: she would explain to Martin, too. There was the perfect, rare chance, this evening. Perhaps, very gently, she could persuade him just to consider . . . leaving the alien city for somewhere like this.
Half-an-hour later, Ursula had made her choice – handfuls of necklaces and stars and moons, bracelets and brooches in marcasite and paste, jet, ebony, moonstones, garnets – all things redolent of a quieter age, when old craftsmen spent a lifetime in spartan workrooms turning slithers of coloured glass into birds and flowers and stars to be worn on stiff Sunday bosoms of virginal grosgrain. . . . The buying and selling of such things was a small sideline in Ursula’s life, though of late she realised her business sense was waning as she found herself unable to part with more and more of her beautiful finds.
Downstairs, she peered round the kitchen door. It was a large dark room, unmodernised, but for a black glass oven and a microwave that were fixed, incongruously, on the dun walls. Strings of yet more silver horseshoes frilled over cupboards, dresser and fridge. Food and drink covered the large wooden table: huge pork pies, sausage rolls, salads, home-made bread, sponge cakes and trifles. There was beer, cider in basket-covered jars, and ginger wine. The smell of pipe smoke mingled with the smell of sweet chutney. An old man sat by the fire playing Daisy, Daisy on the accordion. Some of the guests were singing, others laughing at their attempts. Judging by their colourful faces, the celebrations had been going on for some time.
Mrs Green caught Ursula’s eye and beckoned her in.
‘June and Horace would like to meet you now,’ she said. ‘Over here.’ She led the way to the window, where the bridal couple sat side by side on upright chairs. They were well into their eighties. ‘Both married over fifty years, both widowed,’ whispered Mrs Green. ‘This is my great aunt June; Auntie, this is Mrs Knox, come to buy the trinkets in the attic.’
‘Very nice,’ said the bride to Ursula, not at all confused by the idea of commercial transactions taking place during her wedding reception. ‘My mother used to collect all that stuff. Nice to think it’s going to someone young and pretty again.’
She gave Ursula her hand. It felt like a small pouch of antique satin embroidered with blue silk veins. Their blue matched the wool of her dress, crocheted with scallops at neck and hem, the kind of dress that might be worn by a very young child. On her head was a beret of blue cornflowers, and a small silver horseshoe dangled from a chain round her neck.
Her hand slid from Ursula’s: she waggled her wedding-ring finger, smiling mischievously. ‘This is the ring the other one gave me,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t get it off for the life of me. So it saved Horace a ring, didn’t it Horace?’ She tugged at her new husband’s sleeve.
‘Horace, this is Mrs Knox,’ said Mrs Green, and turned to Ursula. ‘You’ll not say no to a piece of cake and a glass of my home-made wine, will you?’
‘I’d love some. Thank you.’
Horace put out a hand to shake Ursula’s. It was large-boned, ruddy-knuckled.
‘Very nice, too,’ he said. ‘Come and sit down with us a moment. We’ve spoken to all the others.’
Horace was upright as a soldier in pinstripe suit, waistcoat, fob watch, and a yellow carnation in his buttonhole. White hair stood straight up from his magnificent temples. Sprightly eyes blinked fast to rid themselves of constantly returning tears. He pointed to a chair with his stick. Ursula pulled it up and sat beside him.
‘Now, dear,’ June smiled at Horace with the air of one who is resigned to a future of restraining a husband to whom flirting is second nature. ‘He’s my husband,’ she giggled to Ursula, incredulous.
‘She knows that, silly.’ Horace patted his wife’s hand. ‘She’s a wedding guest.’
‘Lovely wedding,’ said June, looking round.
Horace bent his head towards Ursula. ‘Truth of the matter is, we were both so used to the married life we wanted to carry on. She and Jack were forty-nine years. I’d run along with Edith for fifty-two. All friends for life, we were. So when our partners passed on and we were put out to graze in his Home place, we thou
ght why not? Jack and Edith would have been pleased.’
‘Quite,’ agreed June. ‘Jack and Edith would have done the same if they’d been left.’
‘You get used to being married, see,’ added Horace. ‘You find you miss it if it’s not there.’
‘That’s just it,’ said June.
Mrs Green returned with a large slab of wedding cake and a tankard of ginger wine. The cake was damp and fiery with brandy, the wine sweet and sharp. It made Ursula sneeze.
‘Shotgun wedding, actually.’ Horace threw back his head in merry laughter. ‘I said to June, if you don’t marry me next week, old girl, you’ll miss your chance.’
June blushed. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to miss my chance,’ she said.
‘So there we were, weren’t we? My great-niece Dora, here, arranged all this knees-up in a trice, and we had a lovely Blessing in the church besides.’
‘We couldn’t wait,’ added his wife. ‘Horace, this music is going through my head. Ask Andy to play a lullaby.’
‘You can’t hear anything against this music, that’s it,’ agreed Horace, waving his stick towards the accordion player, who took no notice. ‘Blots out the linnets.’ He shut his eyes for a while. His wife patted his hand. ‘Nothing like the linnets round here, this time of year,’ he murmured, eyes still shut.
Later, having been pressed to more food and drink by Mrs Green and her husband, Ursula slipped away from the reception. In the hall, Mrs Green said she wasn’t interested in what Ursula had taken: if she hadn’t come, it would have gone to a jumble sale. Ursula tried to convince her that some of the pieces were worth thirty or forty pounds.
‘Give me a hundred, if you like,’ Mrs Green conceded in the end, smiling. ‘That’ll pay for the wedding.’
Ursula wrote a cheque. She liked the idea of paying for a party she had so enjoyed. Mrs Green followed her to the car.
‘You’re very lucky, living here,’ Ursula said.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Been here all my life but it’s hard work in winter. Still, we’re packing it all in, in a few years’ time. Selling up. My husband wants to end his days in Spain, near our daughter.’
‘Would you let me know when you’re thinking of leaving? We’d love . . . first offer.’
Ursula spent the journey home wondering how she could ever hope to convey to Martin the extraordinary delight of her day: the strange feeling that she had been part of that house, those people, for ever. When Mrs Green had gone back inside, Ursula had turned slowly round, imprinting every aspect of the landscape on her memory. Then she had heard the linnet, whose song had been drowned for Horace by the wedding music, and she had shivered slightly, despite the warmth of the sun.
The sadness in marriage is that you can never quite perceive each other’s experiences, she thought: on the other hand, they might not have happened had you been together. Often they are treats (from God? from somewhere) provided for one person to bestow upon another – to enlighten, perhaps, or to entertain. Had Martin been there, it would not have been the same. He would have been impatient of her slow choosing of the jewellery. Horace and June might have found it more difficult to talk to both of them than to just Ursula. Total immersion into a sudden, strange new world is easier by one than by two. But you are left with the difficulty of reporting: in this case it would be particularly hard to make sure Martin would understand the significance of the unexpected wedding, and to make sure her account was not embellished with sentiment, or the wrong kind of humour. She was determined to choose her words carefully. Depending on his reaction, she would produce the trump card at the end – Mrs Green’s plans to sell.
Home, Ursula carried her bags of heavy shopping into the silent house. The kitchen, which she had not had time to clear properly that morning, was full of reminders of her departed children: an odd shoe, a ruler, a small navy bomber-jacket curled round a pot of cold tea. She longed for Martin’s return, but that would not be for some hours. Still, there was plenty to occupy that time: tidying up, ringing the children, preparing the especial dinner, having a bath.
The kitchen was warm and stuffy, the smell of summer jasmine almost too strong. Ursula opened the window over the sink, glad of the fresh air that blew in. Outside on the lawn she saw the cat, belly flat on the ground, hindquarters hunched, tail flicking slightly. Its eyes were intent on a blackbird which pecked the earth in the shade of a lilac tree.
‘No!’ she shouted, and ran from the room to the garden.
She saw the cat briefly turn its head, sneer at her, then flee. The blackbird, a squawk of black-fanned feathers, rose into the air and flew crying away. Ursula stood still, shocked and relieved. Then she saw the cat slink along the terrace. It jumped up on to the window ledge and slid back into the kitchen.
She returned to the house, heart as flummoxed as the blackbird’s wings, unsure what to do. She found herself creeping cautiously through the kitchen door, tense, eyes all about her.
The cat was on the dresser – not in its normal place, but on the top shelf, static between two glass jars of dried beans. They looked at each other. Ursula found the rare eye contact unnerving.
‘You loathsome horrible animal,’ she said out loud, and felt better.
The cat tipped back its head, looked down at her unblinking. Ignore it, thought Ursula. That was the best thing – ignore it. Make it realise. . . . She moved, back to it now, to unload a basket on the table. A moment later she felt a weight on her shoulder, the scrabbling of bony limbs as it fought to keep its balance, the drag of claws on her skin.
Ursula screamed and turned her head. For a second, she had a close-up view of creamy points of teeth exposed by a snarling lip, a small flash of pink tongue. It hissed at her, eyes flat, cold, livid. As Ursula struggled wildly to remove the animal from her, its claws tore the flesh of her bare arm. Rubies of blood darted along the skin, some smeared into feathery marks by writhing fur. Then suddenly it dropped on to the table, still spitting, hackles raised. Ursula backed away, terrified, fingers of one hand running through the streams of blood on the other arm.
She thought too fast to be conscious of the plan: picked up an empty wine box from the table. The cat arched its back, waved its tail in the air. Ursula crashed the box down over it. The animal gave a piercing yowl, moved frantically inside the darkness of its cage, scratching at the cardboard sides. Ursula kept her weight on the box so that the cat could not upturn it and attack her again, all the time trying to decide how to secure it until she could get to the telephone. . . . Martin. With a sudden inspiration she picked up one of the shopping baskets, put it on top of the box. The two other baskets she jammed close to its sides. Now, although the cat continued to scratch and yowl, and the box moved very slightly, there was no longer any danger it could escape.
Ursula backed away and surveyed the ungainly prison she had made. She looked down to see blood on her skirt and on the floor. The cat’s voice changed to a kind of moaning, a horrible noise.
‘Oh, Martin,’ she cried out loud, and tears, before she could control them, jerked down her cheeks. At that moment she heard the bang of the front door and hurried footsteps.
She turned to see Ralph, an expression of stupefied horror on his face.
‘What on earth -’
‘The cat.’
‘The cat?’
Even in her ungrounded state, Ursula saw that a wisp of Ralph’s thin, dry hair had been disarranged by a breeze or his hurry. She had never noticed, before, quite how thin -
‘It attacked you?’
Ursula nodded. The blood was sticky between her fingers.
‘Go away, darling. I’ll deal with it.’
She had never heard him so stern. She registered liking sternness in a crisis. With no further word she ran from the room. Ralph banged the door behind her.
Martin, as much as Ursula, felt the loss of the children on the rare occasions they stayed away. But today, knowing they would be happy, there was little room in his crowded mind to think about t
hem. His own research work constantly suffered the mundane interruptions of university life: it was essential to make up for lost time if he was to finish by the appointed deadline his paper on Human Resources and Economic Development, commissioned by the World Bank. He looked forward to a rare day free of both pupils and the administrative business that fell upon him as Senior Tutor, so that he could concentrate on the formidable pile of journals waiting his attention. This evening, with no fatherly duties to divert him, he planned to continue reading in peace at home.
Some days, Martin found the copious study of dry matter essential to his research so tedious that only an act of supreme will would keep him at it. To achieve the sustainability of empirical conclusions, he found – as does every economist early in his career – is a long, hard slog. Short cuts cannot be risked for fear of destroying a whole edifice. The bulk of his work, to establish the validity of conclusions, was the endless reading of scholarly reports with their assessment of data gathered in the field. What kept Martin’s adrenalin going, even on the toughest days, was the knowledge that suddenly from other scholars’ findings would come an idea of his own that was so exciting that he would be obliged to pause for a while, sit back and take in its implications before settling down to prove its worth. When such inspirations came to other academics, Martin was always swift in his acknowledgement. His first duty this morning was to write a note of congratulation to a colleague whose recently published econometric study proved that cognitive skills ‘explain’ more of earning capacity than any other variable. As he walked across the quad, Martin felt an almost tangible sense of pleasure in his friend’s brilliance. The man had come up with remarkable data sets whose analysis definitively blasted the sociologists’ screening hypothesis: and proving that the best predictor of earnings was not the number of years spent in school, nor the child’s innate ability, but, without a doubt, cognitive skills learned in school. . . .
