Miriam looked down at the Guardian again. ‘I suppose it is.’ She spoke almost with regret. ‘But I do think that there are times when something – chemistry perhaps, or hormones, or sexual desire – can give you a feeling that is really quite magical. When you’re just mad for someone and nothing else in the world matters.’
Louise smiled with affectionate contempt. ‘You’re a romantic,’ she said. ‘Would you melt and flame and flutter?’
‘Given half a chance,’ Miriam said. ‘But the women’s refuge doesn’t give you quite the scope of a gamekeeper’s hut in the woods. Anyway, I think my melting and fluttering days are over.’
‘Melting and fluttering are illusions,’ Louise said firmly. ‘They’re designed to keep women subservient through their emotions. I don’t think any woman of sense would melt and flame and flutter. Lady Chatterley is a real subservient character – firstly to her family, then to her husband, and then to her lover.’
‘Have you got a man at the moment?’ Miriam asked with sudden apparent irrelevance. ‘Are you still seeing what’s-his-name, Michael?’
Louise nodded. A few years ago, unable to keep a full secret from Miriam, she had invented an imaginary married lover, with the proviso that she did not want to talk about him.
Miriam, a true friend, prompted confidences but did not demand them and kindly hoped that Louise was sexually satisfied and privately worried that she was lonely.
‘Still him?’ Miriam said. ‘D’you think he’ll ever leave his wife?’
Louise had the grace to blush slightly. ‘I think he will,’ she said. ‘Their marriage was always a bit, I don’t know, empty. I think he will leave her soon.’
‘Would you have him here?’ Miriam asked, looking around at Louise’s orderly sitting room. ‘Would you live with him?’
‘I’d love it,’ Louise said. ‘It’s lonely here, sometimes. Especially in the winter, when it gets dark so early and it’s so quiet. It would be good to have company. Some nights I put on the radio just to hear another voice, and I actually wait to hear Mr Miles drive past at closing time. It’s ridiculous. I wait to hear the noise of his Land-Rover and then I know it’s bedtime. It would be bliss to have him here. I’ve waited so long for him, it’s the only plan in my life I haven’t completed. My work is right, I have a place of my own, I’m earning better than I ever have before. It’s just him – the one thing I’ve not got.’
Miriam looked uncomprehending. ‘I’d love to have time to be lonely,’ she said. ‘The phone’s always ringing and I live in a house with two men. The place is never empty, it’s never quiet, and it’s never how I like it.’ There was a short silence. ‘You don’t think it’s a bit … a bit obsessive?’ Miriam asked cautiously. ‘How you are about him? You don’t think you’re a kind of typical mistress, waiting and waiting while he fobs you off with excuses?’
Louise closed her mouth on an angry retort. ‘We’re going at my speed,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want more commitment at the early stages. I wasn’t ready for it. It’s only just now that I feel ready to move on. He’ll come to me when he and I agree the time is right.’
Miriam nodded but she did not seem convinced. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘It’s just that you hear of an awful lot of women who think that the man is coming to them, and then they’re forty or fifty and he’s still not arrived, and they never meet anyone else.’
Louise shook her head emphatically, pushing away the dreary vision. ‘Not me,’ she insisted. ‘I’ve not got problems with dependency. I’m a liberated woman. I love this man and we have a relationship but it’s an open relationship. But I have other men. I have a mature and independent life.’
‘But you don’t really get involved with other men,’ Miriam pointed out. ‘That guy from Leicester who I thought was so nice. You hardly spent any time with him at all. He was really interested in you and you only saw him at the conference and didn’t get in touch later. You’re not truly free if you’re not free to fall in love.’
‘Fall in love!’ Louise mocked. ‘Melt and flame and flutter?’
‘Not melting or flaming then – but you know what I mean. Intimacy, openness.’
Louise shook her sleek head. ‘I don’t believe in it,’ she said. ‘I believe in comradeship and sexual compatibility. All the rest is just a patriarchal myth to keep women in their place, waiting for men, putting up with their neglect or abuse. You of all people should know! You see that stuff over and over again! “He only hits me because he loves me so much.”’
Miriam nodded. ‘I suppose so. But you’re waiting. You’re not really free if you’re waiting. You’re putting up with neglect while he stays with his wife. You said yourself you were lonely.’
‘We’re not a conventional couple, you can’t make those sort of definitions,’ Louise said confidently. ‘I’m working towards the relationship I want with him. I accept the limitations on the relationship for now because they give me freedom and space. When I am ready and he is ready he’ll come to me.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Toby’s a long time.’
‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Miriam said. ‘When did he go?’
‘More than an hour and a half ago.’ Louise stood up and stretched. ‘Damn. I’d better take the money for the gate up to the farm.’
‘I’ll take it for you,’ Miriam offered. ‘I’d like a walk.’
In her first months at the cottage Louise had bought a pair of expensive walking boots and marched along all the local footpaths and bridleways. But after her first enthusiasm she found that she preferred to observe the countryside, and the small seasonal changes, from her windows. The landscape – so important to town dwellers – rapidly became nothing more than an obstacle between where she was and where she wanted to be. The four miles down the road to the Wistley shops might be a flower-fringed lane, no wider than a car, where cow-parsley and meadow vetch wiped their pollen on her car doors in midsummer. But it was a nuisance to have to drive every time you wanted a newspaper or a pint of milk. The twenty-mile drive to the university through the high clear hills of the Sussex downs was completed by Louise in an efficient trance. She listened to the radio, she thought about her work, she daydreamed of Toby. She hardly saw the pale earth turning green or the wheeling gulls.
‘Are you sure? I can just as easily drive up there.’
Miriam nodded. ‘I’d like to see the farm,’ she said. ‘Is it OK to just go round? Should I ring up or anything?’
‘He’s always there. I knock on the back door, and if there’s no reply I go round to the yard,’ Louise said. ‘He’s often in the barn doing things to animals. Sometimes he’s out on the tractor, but generally he’s in the yard or the barn.’
Miriam pulled on a light jacket. ‘Does he live there on his own?’
‘Yes. His father died about five years ago, I think.’
‘I’m surprised he’s not married.’
‘I don’t think he’s the marrying type. He’s got a bit of a reputation in the village, they talk about him in the shop sometimes. And he drinks of course.’
‘Gorgeous eyes,’ Miriam said.
Louise suddenly felt a stir of interest. She looked at Miriam more closely. ‘Gorgeous eyes?’
Miriam smiled. ‘A girl can look,’ she said. ‘And he does have the most deep blue eyes, that wonderful navy blue. Like Robert Redford.’
‘Wistley Common’s Robert Redford!’ Louise put her hand in her pocket for the envelope. ‘Here you are. Try and control your restless desires. I think you’d frighten him to death!’
Miriam smiled. ‘I’ll come back over the common,’ she said. ‘I’ll be a while.’
Louise nodded and turned back to Lady Chatterley’s Lover. It was one of the long descriptive passages about scenery, page after page containing nothing to which she could possibly object.
She had never thought of Andrew Miles as a desirable man before Rose had spoken of his bed and Miriam mentioned his eyes. She had thought of him as useful – a competent neighbour who would put up gut
ters and deliver her sacks of coal when the coal lorry could not manage the snowy lane. She sometimes bought eggs from him, and he knew the name of the septic tank contractors. He put up the fence for her, and mended a window hinge. It was comforting to know that a man as large and competent as Andrew Miles was up the road. His routine was known to her, the strangled roar at night of his Land-Rover taking the hill was as regular as a clock bell chiming for half past eleven, except at weekends when he was later.
She could not have survived in the cottage, especially the winter, if he had not stopped once or twice a week at her door to ask her if all was well. When her power had cut off suddenly in the night, it had been Andrew Miles at half past seven the next morning who had told her about the trip switch on the fuse box which would put the power back on. When there was a brief flurry of snow in February he drove down the lane in his tractor beating a clear path so that she could get to work. He told her she might telephone him from the university before she drove home and he would meet her in the Land-Rover in the village and ferry her to and from her cottage until the thaw. She always paid him excessive amounts of cash in unmarked envelopes; but she had never thought before that he was a man who might be seen as desirable rather than useful.
It was the same revelation as Toby. Louise had seen him in the bar and been introduced to him. But it was only when Miriam turned to her and whispered behind an indiscreet hand, ‘At last, a bit of real talent!’ that Louise had suddenly seen him as sexy. Then he had dazzled them both. Five years older than them, the gloss of Oxford and a fellowship at Bristol still on him, while they were nothing but undergraduates, he was a star in their tiny firmament. Louise, peaky and shy, smiled at him and watched him. Miriam, in her late summer bloom, glowed when he looked at her and seduced him without effort.
Louise turned the pages irritably. Lawrence was still going on about the state of England and the way one countryside replaced another, the mean dirty mining villages overwhelming and obliterating the open country. Louise skipped to the end of the chapter. She was only interested in prosecuting Lawrence as a sexist. Anything else was irrelevant. She wondered for a moment what Mr Miles would think of Miriam and felt unreasonably uneasy. Mr Miles could not seriously be of any interest to Miriam whose taste in men had always been for skinny intellectuals. Miriam, with her social conscience and her sharp feminist mind, could not possibly be attractive to Mr Miles whose tastes must surely run to the broad-hipped and bucolic. Nonetheless, Louise glanced at the clock and wondered whether Mr Miles would invite Miriam into the farmhouse for a mug of tea. She felt even more impatient with Lawrence, who believed that sensuality could smash the barriers of class and education.
Toby drew up outside the cottage. He was speechless with anger. Rose beside him was quite unconcerned. ‘That was a good afternoon’s work,’ she said with satisfaction as if they had enjoyed a peaceful shopping trip together. ‘Thank you for driving me.’
Toby opened the car door and got out. He was inwardly raging.
Rose leaned into the car and gathered up the Fromes’ laundry from the back seat. She slammed her door and set off down the path. Toby watched her go. She still had his hundred pounds in her pocket.
At the van door she greeted her dog, climbed the steps and then turned and waved. Toby stood still and then limped into Louise’s house. He had hurt his ankle when he jumped down from the wall and he very much wanted a drink.
‘You were a long time,’ Louise remarked. ‘Where have you been all this while?’
Toby dropped into a chair and nodded, saying nothing.
‘Miriam’s gone to the farm for a walk,’ Louise said. ‘You only just missed her.’
There was a short silence. ‘She’ll be an hour at the least,’ Louise prompted. She was not feeling desire for Toby, but she had a need to reassure herself that what she had said to Miriam was right – that her lover was turning to her, that he preferred her to his wife, and that he would ultimately come to her.
‘I’m absolutely exhausted,’ Toby said. ‘May I have a bath?’
‘Of course. There are clean towels in your bedroom.’ Louise paused. ‘Shall I scrub your back?’
Toby got to his feet with a little grunt of discomfort. Louise watched him limp to the stairs. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Have you hurt yourself ?’
‘She’s a public nuisance,’ Toby exploded suddenly. ‘I’ve had a bloody awful afternoon. I’ve sprained my ankle running around after her and I’m no further forward at all. She’s rolled me over for a hundred pounds and all I have to show for it is an absolutely wasted afternoon.’
Miriam would have been familiar with the irritable tone of Toby’s voice. He was intolerant of physical discomfort and on camping holidays if it rained, or if he scraped his knuckles or banged his elbow, he would be suddenly gripped with temper which only comfort and sympathy could abate. But Louise had never seen him like this before. His tone with her was always urbane, and detached. Toby scowling and red-faced like a crossed toddler was a new, less attractive Toby. He always laughed at her misfortunes, laughed affectionately, as if they did not much matter and she was silly and rather endearing to make such a fuss. But now, in his own discomfort there were no grounds for comedy.
‘Bloody woman,’ he said again, and turned and limped upstairs, dramatically favouring the sprained ankle and clinging to the banister.
Louise looked after him thoughtfully, and let him run his own bath and scrub his own back.
Miriam arrived at the back door of the farm and knocked. There were two short barks from a dog and a shout from indoors, bidding her enter. She opened the door with the old-fashioned latch and stepped into a large scullery. There was a row of pegs with foul-weather gear hanging up, and below them a muddle of Wellington boots. There was a handsome tea trolley bearing cardboard trays of dirty eggs, speckled with straw and grey-white hens’ droppings. There was a dog basket in the corner of the room and a large old-fashioned white kitchen sink with an enormous boiler hung above it and a hard-worn towel beside it. Either side of the sink was a brand new washing machine and tumble dryer. The collie barked once more, but kept its place in its basket.
The inner door to the house opened and Mr Miles looked out. ‘Oh! hello,’ he said. ‘Come in.’
Miriam hesitated and then undid her neat brown boots and left them side by side in the doorway before crossing the threshold to the kitchen. She felt rather like a tourist visiting a temple barefoot, anxious to conform to the courtesies and yet feeling ridiculous.
Mr Miles was eating his tea. A large brown loaf stood on the table with two thick slices carved from it. He had a broad wedge of pie on a plate with a pile of bright green tinned peas and boiled potatoes. A brown teapot stood on the table with a sugar bowl and a bottle of milk. He had a book propped against the butter dish and the radio was tuned to Radio Four.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ Miriam said. ‘I brought you this from Louise.’ She held out the envelope. Mr Miles pocketed it.
‘Would you like a cup of tea? Something to eat?’
Miriam hesitated. ‘I shouldn’t interrupt your meal,’ she said.
Mr Miles merely waited for a direct answer to his invitation.
‘I’d love a cup of tea,’ Miriam admitted.
‘Cup behind you, help yourself,’ he said and sat down again at his place. He switched the radio off and when Miriam had taken a mug from the dark wood Welsh dresser he pushed the milk bottle and teapot towards her.
Miriam poured herself a cup and then tasted it. It was very good quality Lapsang Souchong. She looked at Mr Miles with surprise. He shut his book, carefully marking the place, and continued to eat his meal with neat movements. Miriam thought she had never seen a man with such calm presence.
She looked around her. The kitchen floor was stone-flagged with bright rag rugs like scattered islands of warmth. The ceiling was low with the dark heavy beams making it lower; Miriam thought that Mr Miles must have learned to duck his head every three pa
ces. Behind her was the Welsh dresser and a large wood-burning kitchen range. To her right was a small casement window with a view over the nearest fields and then, as the land fell away downhill, the rolling side of Wistley Common, green and fresh in the May sunshine.
At the back of the room was a kitchen sink with a large expensive dishwasher beside it. A small white-painted door led to the larder and beside it another dark wood door with a latch led to the rest of the house. Miriam guessed the place was an old Elizabethan farmhouse with later additions. She would have loved to look all over it, but glancing at the owner’s unperturbed bulk she thought she did not have the nerve to ask.
Mr Miles finished his meal and folded a large slice of bread and butter into a quarter and downed it in two great bites. He poured himself another cup of tea and waved the pot invitingly at Miriam. She took another cup, not from thirst, but to prolong the visit.
‘This is nice,’ Mr Miles said. ‘Not often I have company for tea.’
‘Have you always lived alone?’
‘With my dad and mum before she died, and then with him. He went five years ago. Cancer.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Miriam said.
Andrew Miles shook his head. ‘He was glad to go, he was grieving for her. He thought he’d be with her after death. Cancer’s a disease from grief, don’t you think?’
Miriam felt rather bemused. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve never thought of it.’
Andrew nodded. ‘I think it is,’ he said. ‘Very rare in the animals. Only in the ones that can love. I’ve had a dog die of cancer but never a sheep.’
‘Don’t sheep love their lambs?’ Miriam asked, feeling wonderfully out of her depth.
‘For a while,’ he pronounced. ‘But they’ve got terrible memories, sheep. Most forgetful animals. Some of them never get the knack of caring for the lamb at all. It’s as if they forgot they just had it. A lot of nuisance, that is.’
‘Nuisance?’
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