Sam looked at the picture of the bird. Somehow with a few lines, Diana had caught the bright eye of the goshawk and with that she could see its ferocity. She spoke apologetically, in awe of Diana’s fervour. ‘You’ll have to be patient with me, I’ve only just moved to the countryside. To me it is all so green and glorious, it’s hard to imagine any peril.’
‘You’re right. We are very lucky here. You only have to fly over the land in an aeroplane to marvel at its greenness. Seventy per cent of our land area is occupied by agriculture. And we have over 1,500 flowers that make up British flora. But to understand the peril you must understand that of those 1,500 species, around 580 of these are considered threatened or rare.’
Diana sighed a deep lament of loss. ‘The wild strawberry, ragged robin, harebell… they’ve all pretty much gone. They were here in the first place because our traditional methods of farming, the grazing, the mowing, were all beneficial to the land.’
‘And what can be done?’
‘By civilisation as a whole? Absolutely nothing. But by you and me? Everything. Look at me? I’ve reintroduced three species since I’ve been here and I’m not stopping there. If we all did that…’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Four years. So that’s three quarters of a species for each year I’ve been here. But I’m only fifty-four. I might well be here for another thirty years or so if I’m lucky. I might be able to have a go at establishing more than twenty species, do you think? That would be something, wouldn’t it?!’
Diana noticed Sam flinch at the mention of her age and now watched her scanning her face and hair.
‘You thought I was older?’ said Diana, a trace of disappointment in her voice.
‘I suppose so, yes. I’m sorry,’ said Sam, embarrassed. She was certain her face had already betrayed her but she knew that any backtracking would seem disingenuous.
‘Well, there’s no reason to apologise. Infirmity and weakness come to us all. We must make the most of every strong day.’ Diana looked around, and Sam realised that the caravan did not contain a single mirror. ‘I think my skin is really quite good for my age but it’s the colour of my hair that you’re not seeing past. I had to let myself go grey when I got here. Trying to keep myself any other colour artificially wouldn’t have been practical and would have gone quite against the spirit of my journey of discovery. And vanity isn’t necessary here. The trees don’t care. And, besides, my grey hair makes me invisible which I like. Sometimes I tie my hair into a knot on the top of my head and put a decent dress on and walk into town and nobody gives me so much as a glance. There’s nothing quite like being a grey-haired woman to put you at the bottom of a pile of interesting people. And I do so love being anonymous.’
‘Doesn’t that make you sad? Being invisible? It happened to me and I hated it.’
‘No! That’s the whole point. I’m here because I wanted to find value in my life. I have a friend, Rebecca, who insists on keeping me up to date with what’s going on out there and I don’t envy her one jot. Quite frankly, I’d rather not know.’ Diana looked thoughtful. ‘But for her it’s probably vital. She’s still got her nose to the grind, she’s constantly working and worrying herself to death. She’s likely to keep on going until she drops, but I don’t quite know what the point of that is. If she were doing something useful, mapping the wheat genome or something practical, I’d get it. I’d applaud her. But she’s not. She’s just amassing personal wealth. It’s all so ludicrously futile. She doesn’t even have family…’
Sam wrinkled her nose, detecting a judgement she felt obliged to fend off. ‘Is it excusable, working as hard, if you have family? I’m not sure we’ll see eye to eye on that…’
‘I have no personal knowledge, I have no context. But I think that is often the driving force for empire building. That urge to stake your claim to a plot for the future with the family as motivation.’
‘And if you have no family?’ asked Sam, leaning forward and running a hand through her hair.
Diana looked flustered and then angry, her eyes flashing from pale blue to indigo as she appraised Sam. ‘This isn’t about me, Sam.’
Sam drew herself upright, shocked. ‘No! I was talking about me.’
‘Well,’ said Diana, relieved but still a bit irritated. ‘It certainly isn’t about you. It’s about Rebecca. Just Rebecca. I’m talking about Rebecca here.’
‘Oh,’ said Sam, completely caught off guard by Diana’s stern rebuke. Sam, silent for a few moments, thought hard before asking, ‘But how on earth do you manage financially? If you’re so young, you’re not even claiming a pension yet! How on earth do you live? Benefits?’
Diana looked crossly at Sam. ‘Goodness me, what do you take me for? Heavens, no. I have my means.’
What an enigma, thought Sam.
The conversation had become slippery. There had been a principled objective at the start of the conversation, Diana had seemed open, energetic, but now, since talk of Rebecca, it had become almost unbearably tense.
‘I’d better leave you in peace. But I’d love to come back?’
Diana stood up abruptly to signal that she too thought they had reached the end of the conversation but then, to Sam’s surprise, she smiled quite warmly. ‘You’ve been a lot less troublesome than my visitors in the past, so I don’t see why not.’
Sam said goodbye and walked slowly back to her house, conscious that something new had happened. She’d spoken at length with another woman who had not tried to categorise her. Diana had assumed that Sam was one of the good people! She’d shared her notebooks, her thoughts, her dreams and had promised her glimpses of rare flowers and birds as if she might be worthy of such access. Diana had neither asked her if she was married, or a mother, or in some other way attached to people in a manner that made her less not more. And the moment she’d tried to wade in with her own defence of childlessness, she’d been told, categorically, ‘This isn’t about you.’ How refreshing! Sam thought. Diana hadn’t tried to understand her or fix her. Instead, Diana had talked about the things within her control that only she could fix.
Sam realised with a jolt how much she’d enjoyed both talking and listening. There were so many subjects that had become off limits with Danny and the cordons around those restricted areas seemed to have widened with time, preventing them from approaching the topics themselves or any others that might lead inadvertently towards those exclusion zones.
After being submerged for so long, the sheer breadth of their conversation felt like oxygen and the intellectual challenge felt like light. And Sam felt taller.
Chapter 24
Danny was getting ready for work, packing his laptop away and winding a cable neatly around a battery pack before sliding it into place in an internal pocket in his rucksack. He had a lunch appointment so wouldn’t need to take his own food into the office, but he checked his watch and then hesitated at the fruit bowl, wondering if he should pack a piece for later regardless. He eyed up the selection and frowned. Sam didn’t compromise. She knew he didn’t like satsumas but she bought them anyway. She knew he didn’t like eggs, but despite this, she regularly cooked them for her own breakfast.
He picked up a satsuma and lifted it to his nose, inhaling deeply. A flood of memory accompanied the unmistakable scent and he closed his eyes briefly, remembering.
The associations were all good. A wooden tray lined with purple, crinkly tissue paper, each fruit individually nestled into its own compartment, like a precious jewel. The wooden tray, rough with splinters, was kept out of his reach, high up on a dresser, Danny recalled, but he could just about get to it by stretching up on his tiptoes. He would fumble around, biting his tongue in concentration, his small fat fingers meeting nothing but the tissue paper until perhaps the third or fourth attempt when they would find their target, the cool, dimpled touch of the satsuma under his fingertips.
Danny would crouch down beyond the dresser, just out of sight, and work his thumb nails through
the skin until rewarded with a sharp spray of juice in his face, the scent so strong he could taste it in the air before he’d eaten a single piece. And then he would unwrap it, sometimes trying to remove the peel in one unbroken piece, though he was usually too impatient to be successful. He was never too impatient to remove the pith though and would pull at it conscientiously, discarding each white thread as he separated the segments, liking to prepare the whole fruit before consuming it.
The fruit meant so much more than a rationed sweet treat. It was Christmas; a tree with lights and paper chains; a bunch of mistletoe strung in the kitchen doorframe for his mother and father to squeal beneath; it was the penultimate gift in the toe of his Christmas stocking, just before the cool touch of the coin that was his alone to spend. It was the very best of his childhood.
Danny opened his eyes and looked critically at the satsuma, weighing it up in his hand, before returning it carefully to the fruit bowl and choosing an apple instead. Apples were easy to select, the colour and the texture combined to give you an accurate assessment of the taste to come. Even without a visual clue, that slight give under your finger tips described exactly the brown, pappy flesh you could expect in a bruised area. But a satsuma? Satsumas were liars.
This was a lesson that Danny had only learned as an adult. He remembered no disappointing fruit as a child. He was quite certain that they had been consistent, the perfect blend of sharp and sweet, with each segment swollen balloon-tight with juice. But as with so many other truths of adulthood, satsumas had the ability to underwhelm. There was nothing about the scent or the feel of a satsuma that could accurately describe the level of acidity you could expect to find within. It could feel perfect to touch, the skin just loose enough for you to predict it would peel easily; the scent could be strong and citric, the feel of the fruit itself, once peeled, could offer a promising degree of plumpness. And then, even as you salivated, knowing exactly what was coming, the taste would dismay. An alkaline, dry disappointment, the juice barely running, and with no tangy bite to shock the tastebuds.
Danny packed the apple carefully into his bag, zipped it up and hoisted it onto his shoulder. He checked his watch. With four or five minutes to spare before he needed to leave for the station, he climbed the stairs to say goodbye to Sam.
Chapter 25
Sam couldn’t wait to see Diana again. Danny was now routinely leaving the house at just after six to catch his early train which gave Sam an extra pocket of time she had never anticipated. She felt too guilty to go back to bed so instead she hurried around the house, cleaning it and dealing with her outstanding paperwork, impatient for it to be a respectable enough time to visit. She imagined Diana would be up early, busy also, and she feared she might have lost her already to her woodland wanderings but nor did she want to appear overly keen. Eventually she allowed herself to head out, pretending to herself that she might just be going for a walk but knowing she was craving more conversation.
Diana was beside the caravan, tending to a fire. ‘I was just about to put this out, I’ll stoke it up a bit and put the kettle on, shall I?’ she said, brightly. Sam relaxed, aware suddenly that she’d been holding her breath.
Diana was wearing her ubiquitous dungarees and another vividly patterned shirt. Bright red concentric circles interplayed with black numbers and gold swirls, scrolls and, somewhat incongruously, pairs of fish.
‘I like your shirt. Pretty bold for a hermit,’ said Sam, sitting down cross-legged by the fire.
‘This old thing? I’ve had it for ever. It’s silk.’
‘Fancy!’
‘Rather practical actually. It dries quickly. I’m not blessed with a laundry service here.’
Sam looked up at Diana from her seat on the ground and imagined coping with day to day living in such a small space. ‘I can help, I mean, if you ever want me to take some things home to wash them, I wouldn’t mind at all. I don’t have much to do at the moment.’
Diana shook her head vigorously. ‘Good heavens, no. That would defeat the purpose, don’t you think? My objective is to live self-sufficiently here, I can hardly take on a cleaner and then go to sleep with a clear conscience.’
‘If you change your mind, let me know.’ Sam was still puzzling at the swirls and features on the shirt. She thought she might have seen the pattern somewhere before. Diana stepped into the caravan to collect the cups and tea she needed. Sam followed her and stood on the threshold watching Diana busy herself.
‘What’s it like, being a recluse?’
‘It has its moments.’
‘What do you miss?’
‘Surprisingly little. I have given in to a few small luxuries that I didn’t seem able to cope without, so I look after myself reasonably well.’ Diana looked around the caravan, a little proudly.
‘Television?’
‘Good lord no. I never watched it anyway. Poison.’
Sam, whose sanity often seemed to depend on the relief offered by other people’s problems was horrified by this. ‘Poison? I think of it as a merciful escape.’
‘But I have escaped, I hardly need to escape from this, do I?’ said Diana, as they stepped out of the caravan. Diana added another log beneath the kettle, prodding it into position with a short iron poker.
‘True,’ said Sam, settling into the warm spot by the fire and thinking how far removed she felt from her own life which was really so near.
‘Are you ever lonely?’ Sam asked, determined to get as many of her questions answered as possible, before Diana tired of her.
‘Lonely? No. Never. I was much lonelier before, when I was surrounded by people.’
‘I know that feeling.’ Sam remembered the sensation of being cast out by her office when she returned from her recuperation. That crushing feeling of isolation when nobody would even look her in the eye.
‘Oh, it is entirely possible. Believe me. Take my friend, Rebecca. She has a very active life and look at her, not a single friend in sight. She is one of those women who likes to think she has it all – but as far as I’m concerned, she’s severely lacking in several departments.’
Sam smiled at the slight. ‘You talk about Rebecca a lot. She is your friend, so you must be hers. She has you, at least?’
Diana paused while she stirred the tea and handed Sam a cup. ‘Well, not really. She had me but then I chose this life. In order to fulfil this obligation to myself, I had to reject her entirely.’
Sam narrowed her eyes as she looked at Diana, searching for traces of a past betrayal or deeper wound. She could see none. ‘That must have hurt her hugely. Real friends seem hard to come by these days.’
‘I needed to reject her in order to save myself. That is something that became very apparent and I don’t think I have had a need to regret my decisions.’
‘And you really are happier here on your own in the woods?’
‘I feel better. In the past, every weekday my diary was full for months and months in advance, but the panic I felt when I woke to a featureless Saturday could simply overwhelm me. Now, I have absolutely no idea what will happen tomorrow, but I feel in complete control of today. And that is a vast improvement.’
‘You make it sound so easy. It can’t be. There must be moments when it feels difficult to be out here on your own all the time?’
‘Sometimes I doubt myself. Sometimes I fear that my life as a happy recluse is just one more charade in a lifetime of charades, but most of the time when I wake up and I do a quick top-to-toe assessment of worries I find myself to be more or less carefree. Or at least, if I have cares, I have limited them to ones I believe I have the power to fix. There’s not enough kindling to light a fire, I need vital supplies I can’t find in the woods so will have to make a trip to town, that sort of thing. But I never find myself worrying about the things that used to keep me awake at night. My greatest achievement, I think, is that I no longer care what people think.’
Sam studied Diana. She still couldn’t quite equate the sheer volume of opinion
and the wealth of ideas with this humble life. Diana seemed to hold more thought than anyone she’d ever met. She seemed, somehow, beyond human. ‘Do you remember when we first met?’ Sam ventured. ‘You said you could help me. What exactly did you mean?’
Diana looked at Sam blankly. ‘Just that. You were standing right in the middle of the woods shouting insults and crying. I simply thought I might be able to assist you.’
‘How?’ asked Sam, peering over her glasses a bit at Diana, remembering the basket of herbs and wondering if Diana would have the same recollection.
‘By talking!’ said Diana, a little impatiently. ‘By being a friend!’
‘Oh,’ said Sam, unable to hide her disappointment. She’d expected something a little less pedestrian than friendship which, in her recent experience, was lamentably contingent on a number of things she could not offer.
‘Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?’ Sam watched Diana brace herself for something tough. ‘Nothing like that. Just, what do you believe in?’
Diana looked thoughtful and her eyes darted around the room as if examining her past in small chapters.
‘Belief. Belief kept me going for a number of years.’ Diana closed her eyes, to better describe her old self. ‘I suppose I was once a neo-classicist. But my big break with society made me reconsider. I toyed with Keynesian theory, but it never went quite far enough for me.’
Sam frowned, puzzled.
Diana, frustrated, exhaled in reply. ‘Well, I’m not a Marxist, if that’s what you’re thinking?’
Growing Season Page 13