by Alison Giles
She led the way into the house and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. ‘The bed’s made up. You remember where the bathroom is.’
The shower was a hand-held one in the cast-iron bath. I pulled the curtains round and doused myself. For a few minutes, everything but the blissful relief of tepid water on parched skin was drowned out. I towelled my hair, brushed it back loosely and, dressed in fresh cotton, slowly descended to the kitchen.
Flora had meanwhile prepared a tray – a pile of salad sandwiches and a large earthenware jug of juice in which segments of apple and orange floated.
I followed her outside and round to the back of the house. She placed the tray on the ground under the apple tree and I helped set up deck chairs in its shade.
‘I’m not at all sure why I’ve come,’ I said, having drained one glass of grape and pineapple and accepted another.
Flora acknowledged my statement with no more than the merest movement of her head. She leaned back, seeming in no hurry to press me to talk. In an odd way I found it comfortable sitting here with her, lunching companionably. Apart from the distant whirr of a tractor, there was no sound other than the discreet ones of our eating. But it was a deceptive silence. As my ears accustomed themselves to the quiet, I began to be aware of a background murmur: a flutter of wings; the protest of drying-out timbers as a bird landed on the shed roof; the sigh of grass under its feet as it hopped down, searching spy-eyed for insects; the click of its beak on the hardened soil. Bees, busy about their pollinating duties, strummed a steady harmony.
I put my plate down on the ground beside me. ‘That was delicious,’ I said. ‘Was the lettuce from the garden?’
She nodded.
She was watching my face and, with nothing to occupy me, uncertainty returned. ‘I thought it must be.’ I laughed awkwardly. ‘Lot more taste than those limp things one gets in London.’
I stared into the branches overhead. ‘Why did you invite me?’ I wondered what I was hoping she’d say – and what I was afraid she might say.
‘Andrew told me you’d been down. He got the impression you felt you wouldn’t be welcome. I thought you might appreciate reassurance.’
I lowered my gaze and tried to read her expression. It told me no more than the words themselves. ‘I think you’ve just put the ball back into my court,’ I complained.
‘Not really.’ Flora regarded me without rancour. ‘It’s always been there, hasn’t it?’
‘In my court?’
‘In the sense that it was up to you. You would have been more than welcome here at any time.’
I looked at her. Did she mean it?
‘It was hardly that simple …’ I said.
‘Your father and I both realised that.’ Flora picked up the jug, checked my glass, then refilled her own and sat back.
There was an extraordinary stillness about her. So unlike my mother who, even when she sat down, had to keep her hands busy. I wondered where she was now. Probably scouring some tourist attraction, determined not to miss any small corner on the itinerary. Just as she did with her duster; there was no place for cobwebs in her house. Everything clean and orderly.
Flora had been a particularly untidy item.
‘Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have come.’ I remembered my father’s one hesitant suggestion and knew it was true.
Flora’s hands cupped her glass. Her fingers were round and softly lined. An emerald gleamed on her right hand, its gold band nestling into the supple skin. ‘So why is it different now?’
I sipped my drink and wondered.
Flora rose to her feet; not particularly elegantly – I was beginning to realise that wasn’t her style. ‘I think I’ll clear these things away.’ She collected up the plates, leaving the jug and glasses.
‘Can I help?’
‘You stay there and relax. You’ve got things to think about.’ She brushed crumbs on to the grass and strolled off towards the house.
I was glad of the time to myself. My mind jumped and twisted; but came up with no satisfactory answers.
‘Here, Columbus!’ I’d forgotten about him until a ginger shape undulated silently round a bush directly in my line of vision. The cat hesitated, tail erect, and stared. Then he padded across and rubbed the length of his body across my shin. I patted my knee. ‘Come on, then.’ Again that considering stare. ‘Well?’ He leapt up and balanced facing me, stretching out his neck and making little exploratory movements with his head. I responded, jutting out my own chin – laughing as I mirrored him.
‘You’re honoured.’ Flora had glided back. ‘He normally saved that sort of communion for your father.’ She settled in her chair again.
Columbus lay down on my lap, his head turned towards Flora, ears standing up in little triangular points. I stroked his fur, soft under my fingertips. I could feel the heat of his body and cautiously eased my legs in search of cooler air. I wasn’t altogether sorry when, a few moments later, he spotted movement behind the tree and jumped down. I watched him chase a sparrow which spluttered upwards to safety.
‘If,’ I said, coming back to the thought that Flora had left me with, ‘Father hadn’t insisted on my coming –’ I could have sworn I saw her lift an eyebrow but the movement, if it was one, was so slight as to seem, the next moment, to have been imagined – ‘if he hadn’t begged me to, anyway … what I mean is …’
Flora’s face was expressionless.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Maybe something in me wanted to. To see where he disappeared to every weekend; to find out what you were like; to try to understand, I suppose. But it was more than that.’ I reached into my bag, pulled out a packet of Dunhill and lit up, almost without realising what I was doing. I took a deep pull, looking upwards and concentrating on a cluster of apple buds. ‘I guess it was that I just couldn’t bear to refuse him. Not that one last time.’ I turned my head to gaze defiantly at Flora. ‘I did love him, you know.’
She nodded. ‘I’m sure he knew that.’
‘He did? Then why didn’t he do something …’ I was less disconcerted now by Flora’s silences. I lapsed into one myself.
It was Flora who broke it. ‘So many questions,’ she observed as though she could see them crowding through my mind. ‘Haven’t you worked out answers to any of them?’
‘How could I?’ I was indignant.
‘Maybe you’ve never really tried to.’
‘There was no point.’
There hadn’t been. The silence on the subject of Flora, the disruption to my life, had left me with only fantasies – and insubstantial ones at that. It hurt, I realised, that neither of my parents had talked to me about it at all. I supposed they had wanted to protect me. Instead they’d locked me in limbo – observing but not understanding, not involved. But I was involved. A surge of anger took me by surprise.
‘No-one ever talked about it; about you,’ I said. ‘We were so happy.’ I fought the tears pricking the back of my eyes. ‘Then suddenly, “wham”. And neither of them said anything. No explanations. Nothing. My mother pretended to all the neighbours that everything was fine. What could I do? I hated pretending.’ I ground my cigarette butt under my foot, then picked up the flattened end.
Flora observed my predicament. ‘Chuck it in the bushes.’ She inclined her head towards something green with tiny white flowers.
I threw.
‘I’d have liked to be able to throw you into the bushes,’ I said, carefully continuing to stare at the point where the butt had landed.
‘Bit difficult when I was out of reach.’
‘Exactly.’ I felt myself unexpectedly grinning. I waited for something more, but nothing came.
I ruminated. ‘What I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘is why they carried on as they did. As though everything was perfectly normal. It was eerie. I mean, if they’d so much as referred to it even, at least it would have been out in the open. I’d have known where I was.’
‘But, as things were, you didn’t.’
I
shook my head. ‘But then, after a while, you adjust to it.’
‘Did you adjust?’
‘I just said so, didn’t I? Well, yes. I mean, I didn’t have any choice. Not as far as day-to-day living was concerned anyway.’ I slithered a piece of apple from the bottom of my glass and bit into it. ‘We developed a routine, Mother and I.’
‘Sticking plaster?’
I looked at her. ‘Wounds heal,’ I said.
‘Not necessarily. Not if they don’t get enough air.’
I considered. ‘Father said that once.’
It had been a deep graze – I’d come off my bike on the gravel path leading up to the recreation ground. By the next day my knee was red and throbbing.
‘Here, let’s get that thing off,’ Father had insisted, easing at the large pink square covering the torn skin.
I could hear Mother’s squeal now: ‘She’ll get dirt in it.’
‘No, she won’t.’ Father had been firm. ‘In any case, better that than leave it to fester.’
Almost without thinking, I touched my knee. It had got better, and the scar all but disappeared.
Flora sat there, hands in her lap.
‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘you think you know what’s going on inside me better than I do?’
‘I only know what you tell me.’
I protested. ‘You know a lot about me. Father must have talked.’ Making the point: ‘You knew my address in London.’
‘I thought we were talking about your feelings. I’ve only been able to guess at those. I know your father was concerned.’
‘Then why didn’t he talk to me, do something?’
‘It seems to me,’ Flora observed lazily, ‘that we’ve just gone full circle.’
I blinked; then acknowledged it. ‘So,’ I said, ‘what was the reason?’ Exasperated now at her silence, I prodded. ‘You must have some idea.’
‘Would you accept any explanation I gave you?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
Her failure to answer irritated me. I turned on her. ‘I think you’re enjoying this.’ I got up and paced across the grass. The sun, as I moved out of the shade, slapped on to my head and back. I turned and stared at her, my arms folded. Then I felt my shoulders sink.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ I said. ‘You’d only be defending him. At least, I’d be afraid that’s all you were doing, But then – ‘I scuffed at the grass – ‘maybe I want you to defend him.’ The admission startled me.
‘And if I did?’
I laughed ironically. ‘Why, then I could blame it all on you. Make you the fall guy.’
‘Would that solve things?’
‘Damn you, no. And I don’t know why it wouldn’t because it ought to. I am angry with you. Of course I’m angry with you –’ I was shouting now – ‘but it doesn’t take away that feeling in here …’ I thumped myself just below the breastbone: ‘It’s like a tight knot. And it frightens me.’
I stood there, rigid and bemused. ‘God, you’re a cow,’ I said at last.
Flora’s expression didn’t so much as flicker.
‘I’d better go,’ I said.
Still no acknowledgement.
‘Oh, hell,’ I said, wandering back and collapsing in the chair. ‘You know I don’t want to, don’t you?’ I stared at the sky.
‘It seems to me,’ said Flora slowly, ‘that you have every reason to be angry with me. But that’s the easy bit. What’s complicated is—’
‘My anger with them? My father, I mean. I’m not angry with Mother – how could I be? None of this mess was her fault. She’s the one who’s suffered.’
‘What a straightforward picture you paint.’
‘Ha! You see, you are defending him!’ I scored triumphantly. Then wished I hadn’t. I needed Flora on my side.
The thought took me aback.
‘I think it would do us both good to go for a walk,’ she said.
We deposited the glasses in the house and started along the lane.
‘Your father and I often used to walk up here,’ said Flora.
I allowed the image to take shape. Would my father’s arm have been round her shoulders, I wondered. Would they have held hands? Somehow I doubted either. Flora wasn’t the sort who invited protective gestures. And her ability to establish contact didn’t rely on physical touch. On both counts she was totally different from my mother. Not that my mother was particularly demonstrative. A kiss of greeting and of farewell … I wondered what I was saying.
Flora was strolling, hands in the pockets of her voluminous skirt. I looked at her. ‘Didn’t you mind,’ I said, my thoughts expressing themselves aloud, ‘being “the other woman”, only seeing him at weekends?’
She smiled. ‘One adjusts,’ she quoted. ‘But no, it was different for me. I did know where I stood. I was content to settle for the arrangement.’
Why, I wondered. I debated whether to ask her.
Flora had glanced in my direction. ‘It wasn’t such a hardship, you know. I’m quite content with my own company most of the time.’
‘Even so, you make it sound as though you had no say in it all either.’
‘On the contrary. I could have said no.’
‘What would have happened if you had?’
Flora hesitated as though about to say something and then changing her mind. ‘We’ll never know, will we?’ she said.
I considered. ‘You mean my father would have been forced to choose between you and my mother?’
‘That’s one way of putting it.’
And which of them would he have chosen? Why, my mother of course. And then – I tantalised myself with the pretty picture – everything would have returned to normal and we’d have been happy again.
But somehow I knew I could no longer believe it was that simple – any of it. I took a swing at the long grass beside the path, pulling away some of the seed head as I did so. I inspected the soft green shreds as they lay in my palm, then brushed them off.
We walked on, past the curve in the stream where I’d paused when I came here on my own. Flora kept up a steady relaxed pace. The first breezes of late afternoon stirred the trees. Abruptly we emerged from them.
Flora stopped. ‘Do you feel like going further?’
‘Perhaps not today,’ I said.
I put down the book I had been idling through and stared across the kitchen at the play of sunlight just catching the top edges of the window.
Flora had announced, some ten minutes earlier, that she was off to feed the chickens. She hadn’t invited me to accompany her, and I hadn’t liked to suggest it. Why not? It would have been something to do, and different from picking grey cardboard cartons of sanitised eggs off supermarket shelves. I rather thought I’d enjoy the experience of coming into close contact with a real live hen or two.
I glanced at my skimpy Bond Street sandals, wishing I’d had the sense that morning to throw in a pair of trainers. The lane had been one thing; I wasn’t too sure how they’d stand up to the rough end of a country garden. Only one way to find out. I made my way across the lawn and through a gap between raspberry canes. To either side of me stretched disciplined rows of vegetables: cabbages, carrots, purple sprouting, swelling onion sets, rounded lettuces. A grass path, flattened by constant use, ran through the middle. Ahead was a hedge which, glimpsed earlier from a distance, I had assumed marked the boundary, just as its counterparts to left and right did.
I picked my way towards the tall, narrow gate set into it and pushed it open to find myself standing in the entrance to a large netted-off chicken run. To the left stood a wooden hen house, low slung with a ramp up to its small, square entrance. Egg boxes projected from one side. In the far right-hand corner of the run, a clutch of flustered chickens scuttered to and fro along the fence while Columbus lay, haunches bunched and quivering, front paws stretched out sheepdog style, monitoring any escape manoeuvre. Lording it from his perch on the handle of a rusting garden roller, a black-tailed cockerel jutted out his neck
as if about to crow approval, then thought better of it, and raised a claw to scratch his head feathers. In the centre of this tableau, Flora crouched, a protesting hen grasped firmly between her skirted thighs. On hearing the gate creak, she half turned her head.
‘Looks as though it’s broken its leg,’ she said, clasping the bird and rising. I stepped gingerly towards her across the dung-spattered earth.
Flora allowed the leg to dangle. ‘See what I mean?’
‘How did it do that?’
Flora allowed herself a quiet chuckle. ‘Probably squabbling over the cock. Here, can you take it?’ She pushed the bundle towards me. ‘Keep your hands over its wings – that’s right – no, don’t squeeze the poor thing – just hold it firmly. I’ll collect the eggs. Then we’ll take it into the house and see what we can do.’
I stood there uncertain, holding the struggling bird well out in front of me while she checked the boxes.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Columbus, leave them be,’ Flora scolded, straightening up; and as the cat reluctantly relinquished his self-appointed guard duty and the hens scattered, we proceeded back through the gate and along the path. I was less aware of the crumbs of loose earth that had worked themselves under my instep than of the smell of grass and the pulsing warmth permeating the smooth feathers.
I held Arabella while Flora constructed a splint from pieces of thin ply neatly split, with a penknife, from the side panel of an old orange box. She padded them out with cotton wool and bound the dressing with a pipe-cleaner – one of my father’s, I registered absently – retrieved from a kitchen drawer. I was sent to rummage in the shed for a large cardboard box. We settled the invalid on wadges of newspaper and ensured there could be neither egress nor ingress – Columbus was watching the operation consideringly – with a square of netting retrieved from behind a clump of gooseberry bushes. Space for the box was made in the lobby between the boot rack and the trug.
