by Jane Bailey
‘It’s all right about yesterday,’ I said. ‘I’m not angry or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘Well, I was, actually. It was unforgivable. I don’t know what came over me. I’m really very sorry.’
‘S’okay.’
‘Look, there’s something else. I wanted to … Shall we walk?’
He seemed to be thinking of the direction of the pub. But I started in the opposite direction, which took us along the road between fields. I didn’t want Betty or any of that crowd eavesdropping on anything. I found a stile and started to cross it into a field which was so steeply sloping it had escaped the plough. He followed me, and we drifted for a while in a beautiful sunlit scrubland. The limestone had carpeted the ground with wild thyme and trefoil, eyebright and squinancy wort. He walked with a modest gap between us, and I began to imagine him saying what he had said the day before, and it seemed unthinkable. So ridiculous did it seem that James Buckleigh should have pinned me to a tree and told me that he loved the smell of me, that I almost willed it to happen again. And yet now he was chatting about this and that with such an anxious look on his face, it was not even a remote possibility. Perhaps I had imagined it. My nerves were unstable. A lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
‘You’ve had a pretty rough time, haven’t you?’ He said it in a serious tone, as if he were about to broach something. I said nothing, and shrugged. ‘You’ll be pleased to hear that Philip is out of danger now. He’s back at our house and being pampered by Dad and Mrs Bubb.’
I stopped and stared at him.
‘It’s just for a few days. They’re giving him a desk job next week …’ I continued walking, kicking at some knapweed as we came closer to the edge of the field.
‘He’d like to see you … Do you think that’s … a possibility?’
I kicked at the ground again, sending up bittersweet wafts from the grasses. I was so irritated and so utterly unable to tell him why that I tried to change the subject.
‘Listen! Have you noticed there’s hardly any birds singing? Not yet mid-July and already the birds have stopped their territorial stuff because their fledglings have grown.’
‘Yes,’ he said helplessly. ‘I had noticed.’
‘Only, listen! D’you hear that?’ One bird kept up a lethargic little twitter, as if he could only just be bothered.
‘Yellowhammer,’ he said.
‘Oh yes. I forgot your interest in birds. A yellowhammer and …’ I put my head on one side, showing off, ‘a corn bunting.’
‘I know about you and Philip.’
‘What?’
‘I heard it all. I was there.’
‘But—’
‘I’m sorry, Joy. That’s what I came to tell you. I meant to tell you yesterday, but … look, I didn’t mean to overhear, it’s just that I opened the door with the tea, and he’d just started speaking, and you know how we wanted to get him to talk, and then I knew if I went back out the door would squeak again, and I was afraid it might put him off, so I just stood there stock still and … I heard it all. I’m afraid I told him to back off and told Sergeant Ince you needed some leave.’
I must have looked horrified.
‘I only told Sergeant Ince,’ he said. ‘I half explained it to her because I thought you needed some time off.’
‘Oh God!’
‘And Father because—’
‘Oh, for God’s …! And Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all! Oh, God Almighty! Who asked you to …? Can’t you just …?’
We had come to a stile at the bottom of the field, which led into some woods. I leant on the old oak bar and held my head in my hands. I felt angry and exposed. He leant on the stile too, and apologized again. Then he said nothing, just waiting for me to unravel.
I was aware of his closeness and, like the day before, I sensed he would wait a long time for me. I was too wrung out for a repeat performance, so I lifted my head and narrowed my eyes at him.
‘That’s so … so typical of your sort, isn’t it? You just barge in there, firing on all cylinders, and to hell with other people’s feelings!’
‘My sort?’
‘You just … you just … play with people! It’s all one big game to you – everything!’ I couldn’t tell if he looked fierce or hurt, there was such a sombre frown on him. ‘How dare you interfere in my private life! How dare you! How dare you!’
‘I’m sorry.’ Now he looked so forlorn and contrite I wanted to slap him. Even this seemed like a game. Why didn’t he fight back?
‘You and Celia, you’re just the same! You dangle people on bits of string and laugh at them!’
‘No!’
‘Is that what they teach you at your posh schools? Or is it bred into you? I’ve seen it! I see it every day – Sergeant Ince, all the officers – all jolly this and jolly that and just naturally leading the rest of us, because that’s what you lot do, isn’t it? Do they give you lessons in belittling? Do they beat you so hard and with so much enjoyment that you just have to do the same to everyone else? … Tell me!’
I was ferocious. I was well out of order. I could feel a trickle of sweat run down between my breasts, and I knew it would flower into a dark patch on the silk wherever it came to rest.
‘Actually, I left my “posh” school and went to grammar school. I kept running away, so Father took me out of it.’
I was still breathing heavily from my rant, and I couldn’t back down. ‘Well then, it must be bred into you!’
‘What must?’
I had lost my way a bit, so I lashed out with what really annoyed me about him. ‘You know very well what I’m talking about. You think you can just toy with the likes of me, don’t you? People like me, we’re just playthings for the likes of you and Celia. You can build us up to make us feel special and then you can just push us away, just humiliate us in front of everyone with one little … push!’
‘Oh …’ He looked mortified.
‘Yes … “Oh!”…’
I stopped because I was practically snorting with rage. He had listened and said little, nodding from time to time, holding me with his eyes and the strangest, most tender of looks.
I climbed the stile, because I could feel tears coming again. He followed behind, watching my bare leg closely as I swung it over. Once again an urgent lust took me by surprise. I wanted to lead him further into the woods. I wanted to clear the ground of emotion, and found myself longing for him to show that secret side to himself that had shocked me so much before.
We rustled through patches of milkwort and white bedstraw. There was the occasional whiff of badger as the sun began to fade. We came across a stretch of wild strawberries, and I plucked off the little red droplets and put them in my mouth. I willed him to put one in mine, but he did not.
We didn’t speak, but the shuffling of leaves, the cracking of twigs, and the low steady croon of a turtle dove all spoke to us in the heavy, scent-filled air. He seemed quite comfortable with the stillness, and I remembered how he had once carried me across town without so much as a word.
The gap between us grew less, and soon we were walking so close that our clothes brushed. It could have been accidental. Then we came to a log over a stream, and he held my hand to help me over. There was no need. He knew it, of course. I had grown up in woods. I should have been helping him.
He held back branches for me, and I noticed that now he was leading. When we reached another stile he stopped, and said, ‘Will you help me off with my jacket?’
‘Are you warm?’ I folded his jacket back and peeled it gently away from his good arm.
‘No, I think you’re getting chilly.’
He put his jacket around my shoulders. It was a small gesture, but it had an electric effect on me. That part of his clothing that covered his whole upper body – his arms, his chest, his heart – was wrapping itself around me, and it was still warm. As I pulled it close, a little waft of him came out of the fabric like a spell. I was transported back to
the room in Celia’s house, the mysterious room of wagtails and coins and feathers, the smell of leather and wood and the insides of his shoes, the deep disturbing smell of him.
I put my foot on the stile and he stopped it with a hand on my knee. Every part of me tingled.
‘I’m sorry about the trap,’ he said.
I looked around, confused, a little pang of fear starting inside me. ‘What trap?’
Then, he slid his hand down inside my naked leg, and said, ‘This one.’
I looked down at his hand, and I could see my naked knee was shaking. He leant in very close to my face, and repeated gently, ‘This one. The one I found you in.’
He was stroking the scar at my ankle. A hawk moth fluttered between us and landed on the bark of an ash. My voice did not work, and I found only a whisper:
‘You!’
He lifted my knee down and came to join me on my side of the stile. His hand went up to the small of my back and he pushed himself hard against me, sandwiching me between himself and the stile. ‘I’m sorry, but I do love the smell of you. I love everything about you, Joy Burrows … and I always have …’
41
The light was already beginning to fade and, to my disappointment, he suggested we head back.
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ I asked. ‘How could you keep something like that a secret from me?’
‘I only just found out myself. There can’t be many girls who look like you … and then your ankle, this evening … that was when I knew for certain.’
‘But how did you get to be with the Buckleighs? And what happened to Alice?’
He was holding my hand now and it felt good. A symmetry at last: him on one side, me on the other, and two palms touching.
‘I was already with the Buckleighs.’
I was confused.
‘After you disappeared, Alice looked everywhere for you. She was ill – can you remember? – that dreadful cough. She just seemed to get worse and worse. But she was on her own. The others were in some sort of trouble with the police, and she got separated. So it was just her. She was coughing up blood and everything …’ His hand began to grip mine more tightly, and I could see him frowning through the dusk. ‘… so she went to see her gentleman. You remember a “kind gentleman” who let her take his apples? So … that’s how it happened. Dad took Alice in and looked after her. Well … Mrs Bubb did most of it, I suppose. Only Alice didn’t last too long after that. Died just before Christmas, and she begged him to keep looking for her little girl who’d gone missing in the woods – that’s you, of course.’
‘So he brought you up as his own?’
‘No, no. I am his own. Well, I’m his best friend’s, anyway. My real father died in the trenches and my mother died of Spanish flu a couple of years later. But yes, by then I think he already knew about Celia – about her not being his child – so he was quite happy to take me in and bring me up as his own.’
‘Is that why Celia resented you so much?’
He shrugged. ‘Celia had enough problems of her own.’
‘Mrs Buckleigh?’
‘I never did find it easy to call her “Mother”. And she never once tried to be one. It wasn’t the fairy story it might sound, you know. It wasn’t like that at all.’
‘So what about the woods? How did you know Alice?’
‘I didn’t come here until I was five – I lived with my grandparents before that. Then I just went a bit wild, I suppose. Used to play in the woods all the time. And I got to know the gypsies, of course. I practically lived with them in the daytime for years. Then as soon as she got wind of it—’
‘Celia’s mother?’
He nodded. ‘She paid me so little attention, she hadn’t noticed what I was up to. Then when she did … I was packed off to prep school pretty smartish. Didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.’ I frowned, trying to take it all in.
‘The last time I saw Alice,’ he said, coming to a halt and looking directly at me, ‘was round about the first time I saw you.’ He looked suddenly sad. ‘I fully expected to go back and find you again after those first few days, but my bags were all packed and waiting for me. She didn’t even give me any warning.’
He told me how he had repeatedly run away from the school he was sent to, and how eventually he had won a scholarship to the nearest grammar school.
‘I hated that too, to be honest. But at least I was set free at the end of the day. And I joined the Air Defence Cadet Corps later. I always loved the idea of flying. To know what it must be like to be a bird … it’s the nearest you can get to it … I love it.’
We reached the place where he had parked the car.
‘What time do you have to be back by?’
‘Not for a good couple of hours yet.’
He opened the boot and took out two thick rugs. Then we headed back, deep into the heart of the woods.
He made me tell him everything I could remember after the police raid: how I had found Gracie, how she and I had told no one. We kept remembering times we had glimpsed each other: awkward, incomprehensible times which made sense to us now. I laughed and groaned at how deeply I had taken offence at the grubby little village girl phrase, which was clearly just a repetition of Celia’s. He marvelled at how he had never noticed my scar before, but reflected that I had always been wearing stockings until tonight.
‘Not when you saw me come in from the garden with all those vegetables.’
‘No. You’re quite right. Your legs were completely bare and pink with cold. But I can assure you I wasn’t looking at your ankles!’
We laughed at all the incongruous moments we’d had, which now fell into place. But I was still angry about the shove in front of Beatrice and the entire Mustoe family.
‘Ah …’ He looked up at the sky, and then shook one of the rugs out on the ground. He sat down and patted the rug beside him, but I stood my ground, waiting for the explanation. ‘I’ve never been that superstitious, not compared to Alice … but you know how she always said a man shouldn’t let a woman cross between himself and a fire?’
‘I can’t remember that.’
‘Well, it’s old Romani stuff. A woman’s power … I wouldn’t normally …’ I sat down to hear the explanation, which was sounding a little weak. ‘It’s just that there was something about you that day. You really got to me. It was as if you were full of magic – I mean really full of magic … I can’t explain it … It felt like you had so much power, and then there you were crossing in front of me with the fire behind you and it seemed that if I didn’t stop you … I don’t know … something awful would happen.’
I laughed out loud.
‘You see,’ he said, ‘something awful has happened. You have complete control over me!’
We lay back together and looked at the clear night sky. A few stars were dotted around, and then, as we continued looking, they seemed to have back-up. Thousands more arrived as our eyes adjusted, and then more, and more again … This is how it always used to be when we lay out all summer nights. You waited … it happened. And he waited for me now, listening for me to throw out little dots of light. He teased it out of me with patience.
I bared my soul to him beneath the stars, and he listened. And then, with a few whispered words of encouragement, he laid all of me bare to the softly risen moon.
42
James’s interference paid off after all: I was told to take a few days’ leave. He was still off with his arm injury, so we booked into a local inn, called The Mill.
It was an idyllic time: more vivid and detailed in my memory than any other. He lent me a gold ring of Alice’s for when we booked in as Mr and Mrs Buckleigh, and our playing at husband and wife – child-like and giggly though it was – must have sparked off the same train of thoughts in both of us. Everything about our pretend marriage was wonderful. We called each other ‘darling’ and even invented an array of pets and two children who were staying with an aged aunt. The children were called Daphne and
Cecil, and we became so carried away with our imaginary life together that we found ourselves lying to the landlady and her daughter during mealtimes, and trying not to look at each other in case we laughed.
The landlady was a stout woman from the Midlands who had moved to the Cotswolds with her husband nearly twenty years before. Their daughter, Lil, was not unattractive in a puppyish sort of way, but I couldn’t help thinking of a gorilla in a dress. She had a heavy, wide back, short neck, and a brown pageboy hairstyle with a thick sausage of hair rolled back above her forehead. She must have been barely seventeen, and had a little girl toddler. At first the landlady implied that she was her other daughter, but Lil enjoyed putting us straight over our evening meal.
‘We wuz all set to get married we wuz, but he went missing first day of the war. Missing presumed dead.’
‘Dead, my arse,’ muttered her mother from the bar. ‘Missing presumed gallivanting more like.’
Lil looked piqued, so I admired her little girl. She was a glorious tousle-headed pixie with wide blue eyes, cherub lips and a tiny pointed chin at the base of a round face. She toddled over to our table and said endearing things like ‘Da!’ whilst hammering the cutlery up and down, all of which made Lil blush with pride and the landlady throw her hands up in apology. It was clear that Lil adored her little girl.
James’s warm reaction to the child sent a shiver of excitement through me. But I was rescued from broodiness by him saying things like, ‘Doesn’t she remind you of Daphne at that age?’ and I would reply, ‘The spitting image! Though Daphne couldn’t talk for years.’
‘No, can’t you remember that time she first spoke, darling? Her first words were … What were they, darling?’
