Meadowland

by Alison Giles

  ‘Us?’

  Flora raised a tolerant eyebrow. ‘Various people. Part of a crowd. We all promised ourselves that one day we’d do the Monte Carlo.’ She picked up her cup, stared into it, and gave a regretful shrug. ‘Once Auntie became bed-ridden … and then, when she died … well, it was the end of an era.’

  ‘So what happened then?’

  ‘Maybe I should have stayed in Bristol. But I had an urge to get out into the country.’ She gave a small smile. ‘To sit back and watch the flowers grow.’

  ‘And that’s what you’ve been doing ever since?’

  She nodded, looking thoughtful. ‘Perhaps I should have done more with my life. But then,’ she straightened up, ‘I’ve been quite content; lucky really. Haven’t had to worry about the pennies – Auntie left everything to me and Donald. Thank goodness. It’s meant I’ve been able to ensure that everything that could be done for him has been. Not –’ the robustness in her voice contrasted with an almost imperceptible slump in her shoulders – ‘that that was much.’

  I indicated my sympathy.

  ‘In fact,’ she said, ‘it’s this week I’m due to go and see him. I should have mentioned it. Pity it’s clashed with your visit – but I don’t really want to put it off. Difficult to gauge how much concept he has of time passing, whether he’ll be expecting me; but just in case—’

  ‘Of course you must go. I can easily occupy myself.’ I expected to feel disappointment; but the familiar sense of being let down failed to materialise.

  ‘Phew. Give me a drink. ‘Andrew flopped down at the kitchen table when he appeared that evening. ‘It’s been a heavy day.’

  I passed the Scotch.

  He took a long slurp, heaved a relaxing sigh, then fished in the inner pocket of his jacket to produce several folded sheets of A4. ‘Slipped into the estate agents’ at lunchtime,’ he said, straightening out the papers and laying them out in front of him. ‘I’ve been thinking –’ he lifted his glass again, took another sip and swallowed – ‘maybe it’s time I considered moving into a place of my own.’

  I stared at him. ‘But I thought—’

  ‘Ginny? The boys? Well, yes; I don’t know. Thing is … these last few days … it’s brought it home that there are advantages –’ he peered expressively across at me from under raised eyebrows – ‘in not having my style quite so cramped.’

  Automatically I let him take my hand. ‘Yes, but … maybe you shouldn’t do anything too drastic. Not in a hurry. I mean …’

  It was his turn to look puzzled. ‘Why? Don’t you like the idea?’

  Like it? Of course I liked it. The fact of it. It was the implications behind it I wasn’t too sure about.

  ‘There’s a cottage here –’ he was riffling through the papers – ‘about halfway between here and Chadham …’ He found what he was looking for. ‘I know the place. Been empty for quite a while; probably needs quite a bit of work doing on it, but still …’ He looked to me for approval. ‘Now don’t throw a dampener.’

  ‘But what about the boys? You said yourself …’

  Andrew reached forward and brushed the hair back from my face. ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘This is my problem. I’ve let things slide far too long. Yes, of course; I’ll have to talk to them about it, as well as to Ginny. But they’re pretty sensible. Having to cope with Jonty’s death has made them grow up faster – made them more realistic about the world.

  ‘And after all, I’ll still be around. No, I don’t think that’s the major problem. The big one – the one I’ve been sweeping under the carpet – is Ginny and her pride. Imagine I may have a hell of a job persuading her to accept gracefully that I don’t want to lay any immediate claim to my share of the house.

  ‘So,’ he pushed over the sheet of details for me to read, ‘why don’t you come with me to look at this place? See if it’s got possibilities.’

  We did so the following day. Wednesday. Halfway through my week’s leave already.

  Andrew juggled his appointments to allow himself an extended midday break. We took Flora along with us. I had an idea he valued her opinion at least as much as mine – though whether about the property specifically or about the principle of the idea, I wasn’t sure. In a way, I guessed, he saw her presence as some form of implicit approval of it.

  Lucke Cottage wasn’t the sort of place one fell in love with at first sight – an old and undistinguished brick building set back from the road amid knee-high grass and untended bushes. Patches of bare wood leered from behind peeling paint on the doors and window frames, and bird droppings encrusted walls on either side of drainpipes.

  Inside was better. If one mentally jettisoned the limp curtains hanging forlornly at rain-stained windows and ignored the occasional pile of abandoned rubbish, one could imagine the rooms redecorated and warmly furnished.

  ‘I see what you mean about it needing some work,’ I said. I wandered upstairs, made a face at the antiquarian plumbing in the bathroom, and peered into the bedrooms. In the second, larger one, I crossed creaking boards to the window. It faced the rear. I flapped a cobweb away. Then, ‘Come and look,’ I called as I heard Andrew’s and Flora’s steps on the stairs. ‘A sundial.’

  We inspected it at close quarters later: a tall stone plinth supporting a copper dial and arm, now olive-green with neglect. I trampled the undergrowth surrounding it, pointed to rose bushes struggling for air nearby.

  Andrew turned his attention back to the cottage, surveying it as a whole. ‘What do you think?’ He looked from me to Flora and back again.

  I gave a shrug of tentative encouragement.

  Flora turned the question round. ‘What do you think?’

  I stared at the sundial. It had to be Andrew’s decision.

  ‘Worth considering,’ he said.

  I ran my fingers over the etched hieroglyphics as we turned to leave.

  ‘Come and have supper with us tonight,’ suggested Andrew to Flora as he dropped us back at Wood Edge.

  As the Volvo disappeared along the lane and she and I retired into the house, I commented wryly, ‘I expect he’s planning to press you. About the cottage.’

  ‘Probably.’

  I picked up Columbus, napping on the chesterfield, and settled him, still curled, on my lap as I sank down.

  ‘What do you think about it?’

  ‘It looks solid enough. With a bit of effort—’

  ‘Paint, elbow grease, and a scythe?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  I stroked the curve of ginger fur asleep on my knee. I could imagine Andrew, sleeves rolled up and in an ancient pair of jeans, balanced on a stepladder with a pot of emulsion; or hacking back the weeds to reveal what, with a bit of luck, was a lawn beneath.

  And what would I be doing? Somehow that picture was less clear. Polishing the sundial, I thought. Yes, that could be my contribution.

  ‘I’m just wondering –’ I glanced up – ‘whether he should be rushing into this.’

  Flora, now seated and kicking off her shoes, nodded. ‘I thought possibly you had reservations.’

  ‘There’s Ginny and the boys for a start. How are they going to react?’ I recalled my conversation with Andrew yesterday evening. It was all very well him claiming it was his problem. ‘What if they blame me?’

  ‘They might be grateful.’

  I blinked. ‘Grateful?’

  ‘Who’s to say? Until Andrew’s talked to Ginny, he won’t know how she feels.’

  I wondered. I supposed it wasn’t impossible. Could she too have anticipated that Andrew’s living at the Dower House would only be temporary? Come to think of it – financial implications apart – it wouldn’t be easy for her to ask him to move out even if she wanted to. Could they both have got caught in a situation which neither of them felt able to break for fear of upsetting the other?

  ‘But the boys,’ I said. ‘They’ll miss him.’

  I’ll be around, Andrew had said. So had my father, I thought – been around, that is. But then not,
of course, in the way Andrew meant. He’d be the same as always with Tom and Justin when he saw them – and they with him. Was that just because he was their uncle not their father? Because they wouldn’t have the same reason to feel let down; that their mother had been let down? Or was there something more to it than that?

  I pictured Ginny when Andrew dropped in – on his way back from work perhaps. ‘Hi,’ she’d say. I conjured colour into her greeting: ‘The boys want to ask you about … The boys want to show you … Be a gem and kick a football around with them while I …’

  ‘Maybe it’ll be all right,’ I concluded.

  Later, we went for a walk, the sky that pre-dusk opalescent grey. For some reason, I never ceased to tire of the stroll up the lane beyond the house. Columbus, disturbed by my moving, chose to accompany us. He strutted ahead, his tail held high like an antenna.

  I stopped when we reached the stream and looked down at the water. Its summer languidness had melted into a steady current of movement, the weed at the edges streaming gently in the flow.

  ‘It’s not just Ginny and the boys … how they’ll take it … that bothers me,’ I said, reverting to our earlier conversation.

  Flora had paused beside me. I was conscious of her eyes, if not her head, turning towards me.

  ‘I’m not sure what Andrew’s expecting.’ I picked a leaf from an overhead branch and dropped it into the water. It floated off. ‘I love coming down here at weekends. Often. But not all the time. I’ve got a life in London too.’

  ‘You’re afraid Andrew might be hoping you’d give that up?’

  ‘Entirely, you mean? Move in with him?’ I wasn’t sure whether my mind had leapt quite that far. ‘I couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t want to.’ I considered. ‘Well, I might. If we both lived in London. But I’m not sure; it’s a bit soon.’

  We’d started walking on. ‘Don’t you think Andrew’s probably sensitive to that?’

  I supposed he might be. Come to think of it, on past experience he more than likely was. ‘But why has he suddenly decided?’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve just been the catalyst. Wanting the freedom to be on his own with you may simply be spurring him into doing something he’s had in mind for quite a while.’

  Which was more or less what he’d said to me himself.

  ‘I’m not saying he may not be anticipating that perhaps in time … if you both decided …’

  A weight seemed suddenly to have lifted. I halted and looked at Flora as she too stopped and turned. ‘You must think me a self-centred idiot,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Flora. ‘I don’t think that. But possibly you haven’t been giving Andrew the credit for plain common sense. At a thoroughly pragmatic level, he’s intelligent enough not to try bulldozing people into situations they’re not happy with.’

  ‘So it’s all got very little to do with me?’ Contrarily I now felt disappointment.

  ‘To be thoroughly brutal,’ said Flora,’ if you and he should find you’re not right for each other, he’d still have established the space to lead his own life, to develop some other relationship. What you can congratulate yourself on –’ she smiled now – ‘is having woken him up to the realisation that some relationships are worth pursuing.’

  I felt my own face lift. ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘he’s done the same for me.’

  Flora moved to my side and, for the first time ever, put an arm round me. She squeezed gently. ‘That’s my girl,’ she said.

  Shit, I scolded myself; why were my eyes filling up?

  On the way back, I said, ‘Andrew’s never mentioned previous girlfriends.’

  ‘Are you reading something into that?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘No need that I’m aware of. He’s had his share. Enough I guess –’ that smile again – ‘for him to have discovered what he’s looking for, what he values.’

  I acknowledged the compliment.

  ‘And what about you? Do you know yet what you want?’

  ‘I think I’m still checking it out.’

  Flora gave an understanding nod. ‘Fair enough.’

  She dealt succinctly, over supper, with Andrew’s prodding for an opinion on Ginny’s likely reaction. ‘You’ll just have to ask her.’

  Andrew seemed satisfied. Maybe all he was looking for was some sort of encouragement to broach the matter. He succeeded in drawing Flora more on the subject of Lucke Cottage itself. We all agreed it could reward a measure of care and attention.

  I couldn’t resist mentioning the sundial. ‘The first thing I’d want to do is clean it up.’ Then, at ease after my conversation with Flora, I heard myself volunteering to make curtains. ‘And I’m a dab hand with a paintbrush,’ I claimed, conveniently ignoring my lack of experience – one could always learn.

  ‘I’ll talk to Ginny when she gets back tomorrow,’ confirmed Andrew, helping himself to cream.

  ‘Ah.’ Flora looked from one to the other of us. ‘You’ll need the key then,’ she said to me, smoothing the situation – with her reference to practicalities – that Ginny and the boys’ imminent return threw up.

  ‘Of course. You’re going to be away.’ I’d not so much forgotten as failed to connect the timings. It gave me pause. I’d be alone in the house with only Columbus for company – not a prospect I relished. On the other hand, nothing to stop Andrew sneaking in … No! Not behind Flora’s back; I wouldn’t feel right about it; and neither, I was pretty sure, would he. Moreover I was glad, in some perverse way, that for all her tolerance she’d not only never suggested he stay at Wood Edge but wasn’t doing so now. There was nothing for it, I’d just have to take a deep breath and brave the country ghoulies. Unless …

  Flora was spooning apple crumble. I turned to her.

  ‘Why,’ I said, wondering why I hadn’t thought of it before, ‘don’t I come with you; drive you over? Would you mind? I think I’d like to meet Don.’

  CHAPTER 23

  Andrew glanced at me but made no comment.

  Flora finished her mouthful. Then: ‘If you like,’ she said.

  I wondered next day, as we skirted south of London, whether I’d been foolish to make my suggestion so impulsively. I was far from certain what I was letting myself in for.

  I supposed I’d anticipated Flora would brief me – give me some idea of what to expect. But she’d hardly said a word since we set off, other than to respond to my comments on the scenery or the traffic.

  And something was stopping me asking. Maybe I didn’t want to admit my doubts, my apprehension. In what way was Don brain-damaged? What was the effect? And was he physically scarred – disfigured even – as well? If so, how would I react? Could I cope without shaming myself or embarrassing and even hurting Flora – and Don himself?

  Well, Dad had done it. ‘Supported her,’ Andrew had said. So now it was my turn. Get a grip, girl. Suddenly I felt more assured – as though Father was hovering at my ear, whispering, ‘You’ll manage.’ Back to that pantomime again – only this time it was to be no on-stage performance: this was for real.

  As though in tune with my thoughts, Flora broke her silence to volunteer, ‘Your father often came with me, you know. When he could.’

  ‘Then I’m glad I’m doing so.’

  ‘So am I.’

  She said no more, other than to issue directions, until we turned in at wrought-iron gates and followed the signs to the visitors’ car park to one side of a large mock-Tudor building.

  ‘Bring your coat,’ she advised then.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It has to be pouring with rain or two feet of snow to keep Don inside. And even then he’ll argue.’

  We located him sitting on the ground beneath a cedar. Flora pointed him out, leaning against its trunk, picking randomly at the grass. When we were about ten yards away, she put out a hand to halt our approach.

  ‘Hello, Don,’ she said, just loudly enough for him to hear.

  He turned his head, and I swallowed a gasp: he was quite one of the h
andsomest men I’d ever seen. In total contrast to Flora’s, his eyes were startlingly blue, his classic features, under a still full head of, admittedly greying, hair, reminiscent of the heart-throb stars of old 1950s’ films.

  He rose cautiously – all six foot something of him, and broad with it.

  ‘Hello, Don,’ Flora repeated.

  Inching back towards the tree, he put out a hand as though steadying himself against it.

  ‘Wait there,’ said Flora to me. Then she began walking forward slowly. ‘It’s me, Flora.’

  I watched, mesmerised. Over to my left, a male nurse in high-collared, short white coat, was crossing the lawn. He glanced towards Don and Flora and slowed his pace. I looked back at Don. His eyes held all the fight-or-flight indecision of the hunted.

  Flora had paused. ‘It’s only me. I’ve come to see you.’ She put her hand in her coat pocket and pulled out a packet of sweets. The bag crackled as she opened it. Don flinched, cringing backwards.

  ‘It’s only the cellophane, nothing else. Here, would you like one?’

  The nurse’s careful stroll had brought him within a few feet of me. ‘Not one of Donald’s better days,’ he remarked. ‘Very edgy. Still, if anyone can calm him, his sister can.’

  She’d taken a sweet out of the bag now and was holding it out to him. Hesitantly Don let go of the tree and began moving towards her, darting glances from left to right as he did so.

  ‘It’s OK, old chap –’ the nurse’s tolerantly matter-of-fact commentary was for my ears, not Don’s – ‘you’re not in the jungle now.’

  I nodded. Understood.

  Flora stood motionless as Don approached her. Then he snatched the sweet – and simultaneously beamed. He popped it in his mouth and bent his cheek for a kiss.

  ‘Phew, that’s all right then.’ The nurse turned and went on his way.

  Flora was chatting to Don, brushing grass from his jacket, scolding him for sitting on damp ground. Then she called me over.

  ‘Don,’ she said, ‘I’ve brought someone to meet you. Hugh’s daughter. You remember Hugh?’

  Don turned piercing eyes towards me – piercing in colour only; his expression was bland. ‘No,’ he said emphatically, in a voice that had the depth of a man’s but the intonation of a child’s.