Jackson’s barking woke them long enough for Julian to mutter: ‘Stop that fucking dog’s noise,’ and for Stella to mumble back, ‘It’s your turn to make tea,’ and for Julian to reply: ‘We don’t do turns, haven’t you noticed,’ before they both fell asleep again.
A strange smell wends its way through the house. Like cooking milk.
Earlier that morning Simon had been struggling to get any out of Daisy. Despite pulling and squeezing her teats, only a few drips plopped into the pail. When the animal stepped on his foot with her sharp pointed hoof, Simon bellowed. It was all much harder than Amy had led him to believe.
‘You need help.’ Lynn was leaning against the shed, her eyes flashing with amusement. ‘Just let me finish this.’
Taking a final hard suck, she stubbed out a cigarette, rolled up her sleeves and took his place on the milking stool. Her dark curls hid her face but he sensed she knew he was mesmerized by her pale forearms as they moved up and down in a rhythmic dance.
Lynn sometimes came into the farmhouse to return something her mother had borrowed or to use the phone. Her tone was softly mocking when she asked permission to make a call. She would glance around dismissively as if to expecting to see signs of chaos. Simon found her manner strangely erotic though he’d never admit this to the others. She was Mrs Morle’s daughter after all.
Within minutes, the pail was full. ‘I’ll put it in the pantry,’ Lynn said getting to her feet.
‘There’s no need,’ Simon insisted but she came anyway.
As soon they were inside the house, they could smell smoke and a dog muffled growls. Hurrying into the sitting room they found Gerald asleep, oblivious to the smouldering sofa he sat upon and the nudges of Jackson who was obviously trying to wake his master.
‘For goodness sake!’ With a disdainful and effective shove, Lynn sent Gerald sprawling to the floor while at the same time emptying the milk over the smoking sofa cushions.
By the time Julian thumped downstairs in his dressing gown, cursing and swearing, the drama was over.
‘F-f-fucking Gerald must have fallen asleep,’ Simon is ashen-faced. ‘Dropped his j-j-joint or cigarette, I don’t…. If it hadn’t been for L-L-Lynn, I don’t know what I’ve have d-d-done.’
Gerald looks up from the floor bleary-eyed and gives a weak smile. ‘Hey what are you all doing? Jules, what’s up, man? You look tense.’
Shaking his head, he seems not to know where he is. Meanwhile Simon has rushed back from the kitchen with a bucket of water which he flings over the sofa. Some of it sprinkles Gerald.
‘Shit man!’ he shouts.
‘Seymour. Where is he?’ asks Julian blenching. ‘He’ll go nuts when he sees this.’ He hovers his hand over the scorched area on the sofa seat. ‘Is the fire definitely out?’
‘Don’t get hassled, man,’ Gerald says hopefully.
‘It’s out alright,’ Lynn says calmly. ‘The whole sofa’s soaked, mind and burn marks on the arm rest.’
‘Fuck. I can’t handle this, my head’s banging. Shut up will you, Gerald? I need to think and I need tea and it is bloody freezing in here. Thanks Lynn, you’re a star. You too Simon mate. It could have been a lot worse. Let’s get warm in the kitchen and work out how we keep this from Seymour.’
Stella is in the doorway. She has found time to sweep her hair up with a clip. ‘What’s all the fucking noise?’ she complains.
Julian says: ‘Don’t worry now babe, a small fire, nothing serious. Just got to keep it from Seymour.’
‘Seymour’s gone,’ she says, disappearing back down the hall. Over her shoulder she calls: ‘…back to London.’
Five days later, Stella follows him by train. Not because Seymour encourages her. He does not return the messages she leaves at his studio or the notes she sends in the post.
The row that had been festering since Boxing Day finally erupts. The shouts and screams of Julian and Stella ricochet through the house. They bounce off the barn. Stella is short in stature but she can produce an impressive volume of sound.
Lynn, hearing yells from the Morle cottage, sniggers. She wonders idly if the noise will put Daisy off her milk.
The trigger for the fight was after Stella and Julian did not have sex. He called her ‘cold and unresponsive’ as she wriggled to the other side of the bed avoiding his advances. She retorted that she’d preferred foreplay with his father. Incredulous, he asked her to repeat the remark. When she said that Seymour was the only man who understood her body and gave her intense orgasms, the row exploded.
Julian was in turn flabbergasted, disgusted, incensed and finally humiliated. Stella finally left the farm dragging her beautiful and large carpetbag behind her. Ten minutes later she was back. The occasional buses which went through the village were not in service on New Year’s Eve.
‘I need a lift!’ she demanded.
‘Oh do you?’ Julian replied.
‘Do I have to ask again?’ she sniped.
‘You do. And you’ll have to beg and you’ll have to do it nicely,’ he retorted.
‘There is no one else to ask,’ she spat back, ‘and you aren’t nice.’
Simon drove her to the train station. The men agreed to meet in the village pub on his return. The place was packed with local people drinking as quickly as possible before the pub closed at 11pm.
It was rumoured the landlord had ‘lock-ins’ but the Strattons had never been on that invitee list. The boys downed several pints before the bar man called time. The New Year’s Eve party planned to take place at the farmhouse with Seymour’s friends bringing booze, food and possibly drugs, had been cancelled. It would now take place in Seymour’s London studio. Julian and Simon were not invited. They would see in the New Year together.
‘Christ, can’t tell you how relieved I am,’ Julian insisted over his fifth pint. ‘Stella is a complete and utter pain. Seymour’s welcome to her. She’s neurotic, tricky as hell, a nightmare on legs. She may think she’s clever but she hides it well under all that drifting about like an overgrown fairy. Now Lynn, there’s a girl with sense, don’t you think, S-S-Simon?’
‘The way she d-d-dealt with that fire and Gerald, it was impressive. She’s p-p-pretty, too, all that c-c-capable, rustic charm. I l-l-like that in a girl. We c-c-could invite her over?’ said Simon.
‘Fancy her do you, S-S-Simon mate? I could myself. Any port in a storm.’
‘Perhaps you could stop calling me that.’
‘Calling you what?’
‘S-S-Simon.’
‘But I’ve always called you that, mate.’
‘And I’ve always loathed it.’
They stared at the dregs of their pints. ‘Last orders!’ cried the barman.
Julian stood up. ‘Another pint?’ Simon looked at him quizzically.
‘Another pint to see out this shitty old year? Simon?’
‘Thanks I will. Jules.’
14
‘Why don’t you drive?’ John holds out the keys to his daughter.
Like a grumpy child bribed with an ice cream, he can see she’s tempted. Wrapping her fingers around the chilly bunch of metal, she walks to the driver’s side of the car.
‘You’ll have to tell me how to get there,’ she grumbles, ‘I don’t know where she lives.’
John gets into the passenger seat and does up the belt. He smooths the skin around his mouth and looks out of the window. Amy finds his anticipation appalling.
‘Drive past Murphy’s Pets towards the hotel, then left,’ he says.
She has passed the estate of mock-Georgian houses many times before. The tidy front gardens and short garden paths. There are no pedestrians, only cars with iced-up windscreens in driveways where perfectly round Christmas wreaths of fake leaves hang from identical front doors.
Her father tells her to stop the car. They are outside a house she finds even more horrible than the others. For in the bay window stands a teddy bear and it is dressed as Father Christmas.
‘Vi, this i
s Amy,’ says John.
‘Hallo Amy, come in. Happy New Year.’
The woman’s curls frame her face like a helmet. Her silvery-pink lips remind Amy of wriggling worms.
John stamps his shoes on the mat as though to shake off snow.
She follows the woman into a room. Christmas music is playing. On a comfy chair is a cushion crocheted in snowflakes. She indicates where Amy should sit, then settles herself on the sofa. She tucks silvery-pink-painted toes under her bottom.
‘Put that on, will you John? It’s parky out there, eh Amy?’
John seems familiar with the electric fire. Rising warm air makes the Christmas cards on the mantelpiece tremble.
‘Shall you get us tea and some of that lovely fruit cake, John?’ Vi’s nose wrinkles when she smiles. Amy suspects Vi thinks it looks appealing. ‘I bet Amy would like some.’
‘I bet she would. Amy? Would you like cake?’
John and Vi look at her. Amy’s brain has ambled to a stop. It is as though she has crashed a private party but no one has noticed she is a stranger. She forces her head to move up and down to save having to speak.
John disappears from the room. A kettle boils; she can hear the chink of china. From the corner of her eye she can see the back of the Santa teddy. Something in her waits for the bear will turn around and wink.
‘How did Christmas go?’ Vi asks.
Amy notices the pink cardigan that Vi is wearing. With a jolt she realises it’s the same one that she is wearing, the one her father gave her, only hers is green.
‘My niece and nephew were here for the day. We had turkey.’ Vi’s tone suggests she has said something utterly surprising. ‘Then pudding with brandy butter. I don’t like cream and brandy butter on Christmas pudding, do you?’
The constriction in Amy’s throat is making it hard to breathe. Spit pools in her mouth. ‘Yes, no, I don’t, I…’ The words won’t form words.
She is relieved when her father returns with a tray. He hands Vi a cup of tea. Amy looks away. She cannot witness their eyes meeting or their hands touching. A horrifying image of the two of them kissing flicks through her mind.
‘And for you, love.’ John offers his daughter a plate. ‘Festive in here. Vi’s made it nice, don’t you think?’
The only other Christmas decoration she has noticed is an artificial Christmas tree on a box covered in wrapping paper. She says, ‘Um,’ and then after a moment, ‘yes.’
‘So any New Year resolutions, Amy?’ There’s a lamp that makes Vi’s ears glow as pink as her lips. ‘John tells me you’re starting secretarial college in the spring.’
Mid-way through cutting himself another piece of cake, her father stops, knife poised, waiting for his daughter’s reply.
‘That was my plan,’ says Amy slowly. ‘But I’ve changed my mind.’
John jumps as though he’s stabbed himself. The motion sends crumbs of cake scattering across the pale carpet. ‘Oh shit. Pardon me, Vi! You what, Amy? That’s news to me, I thought we agreed you’d fill in that. ’
‘I’ve decided to stay in the country.’ She surprises herself with the confidence her voice contains. ‘I’ve been, yes, I’ve been offered work there. Seymour, that’s Mr Stratton, the owner, has said he will pay me from January.’
A plan forms in her mind as she speaks. She will replace Mrs Morle on Monday mornings, saving the cost of her wages, and use the Christmas money she got from her father and an Aunt to pay for driving lessons. She will pass the test. She will do all the errands that are required, so Bob, Helen and the others can concentrate on building the cottage. Once the vegetable garden produces food and there are eggs from the hens and milk from Daisy and bread that she, Amy, makes, it will cost almost nothing to feed everyone.
‘Like a commune then? Back to nature and all that?’ Vi says.
At the same time John blurts out: ‘Why didn’t you mention this before?’
‘It’s what the young people want these days, John and why not? Alternative life. Being a hippy. So is that what you are then, Amy?’ Vi smiles.
‘It’s not what you think, Dad. We work hard and we have a plan,’ Amy says proudly, ‘and Mr Stratton is happy with what we’re doing.’
Strange to remember how she’d first lied to her parents about Seymour living at the farm. She didn’t realise then quite how often he would be there. Sometimes she wondered why he did visit so often. ‘Of course he’s not always at the farm. He’s a photographer. He leaves us to get on with things. He trusts us. He likes what we’re doing.’ Her tone is defiant.
Vi says: ‘Don’t know if I could do that, live in a group. I like to keep my space just the way I like it, y’know. Sharing with everyone makes that difficult, doesn’t it, Amy?’
‘I’m not that concerned about tidiness,’ Amy sneers.
But she is. She hates it when the men tramp in from the puddle-pitted yard tracking footprints all over the hall. She tries to forget the conversations they used to have about how men and women should share domestic tasks equally. Because it doesn’t happen that way; she does everything in the house.
‘I’m sure you don’t mean to sound rude,’ John says pointedly.
‘Well I’m not.’
‘Not what?’
‘Concerned about tidiness. Nor am I meaning to be rude.’
‘It just sounded that way then.’
‘Well if it did, I’m sorry.’ Amy does not sound sorry.
‘No offence,’ says Vi brightly.
‘What does David’s mother make of it all? That’s your boyfriend isn’t it? Who else is living at the farm?’
‘I don’t think she minds.’ Amy had not given a moment’s thought to what David’s mother thinks about her son being on the farm. ‘Why would she mind? For goodness’ sake, Dad, it’s his life! It’s not her business.’ She does not hide her scorn.
‘Oh isn’t it?’ The young are as self-satisfied as religious zealots, John fumes to himself. ‘You lot, you think you know it all…’
‘We’re living differently to all the…straight people. And we’re going to change the world, Dad; live in spiritual harmony with Nature and…all that.’ She’s tongue-tied, too angry to put her feelings into words and it’s humiliating. Everything she’s says sounds a bit vague.
She stands up. ‘I think we should go, Dad.’ Looking down, she realises with horror that there’s a gap at her bosom where the cardigan has pulled apart.
The day she travels back to Wyld Farm, she resists the temptation to ram the cardigan into the dustbin. Never know when it might come in handy. Anyway, it would be a waste of the world’s resources.
15
Parting the curtain with a finger, Maggie squints from a sleepy eye. It rains a lot in Somerset.
There’s a blissful stillness in the house. Perhaps it’s early? If she’d wound up the wristwatch her mother had given her as a Christmas present, she’d know the time but she refuses to be ruled by the clock. The bed socks David gave her on Christmas morning (their mother bought and wrapped them, she knows for sure, but it’s the thought that counts, David told her with a nudge) keep her cosy from toe to knee. Maggie pulls the duvet a little higher over her head.
It takes her a minute to fix on a New Year’s resolution. To make Simon fall in love with her; that’s too obvious and anyway, it seems to be happening already. Too work less hard. That’s more like it. The cottage would have completely the wrong vibe if it was fixed by people who weren’t totally positive at all times. Resentment would seep from the walls and ooze from the floor; bad karma. Maggie snuggles down into the bed and resolves to ignore all demands on her time today.
Falling in love with a person is one thing, but falling in love with a place, what does that mean? There is no body to moon over, no mouth to crave kisses from, no person to communicate with. The exhilaration and euphoria which invades a person in love is absent from the love of place. But that strong sense that ‘this is right’, that ‘this is as it should be’; this is the feeling
when the place that resides within, which lifts and feed the spirit without, is cherished. This is how Amy feels when she gets off the train at Taunton and excitedly board the bus for Exmoor. Yet almost immediately she falls asleep. When she wakes sometime later, the bus is already speeding along what she thinks of as the ‘top road’. It’s not far before she’ll see the beech trees that stand like soldiers atop stone walls, guarding the soggy fields which plunges away behind them. The steep-sided combes where sheep are white slashes against the browning bracken. Yellow gorse flowers wink like sunbursts.
Skeins of mist scud across the landscape.
There is relief to be away, gone from the house where she first raised her head from the cot pillow on a wobbling neck, where her stubby legs became strong enough to bear her weight, where her first tottering steps took her barreling into the table where, a few years later, she sat to first form the letters that spelt her name and later to study for exams. Once a place of familiarity and comfort, her former home offers no future. She had hugged her father, promised to write and hurried away.
Stepping from the bus is like leaving an old world. Around her father’s house there are pavements and pylons. Here she is astonished by celandines and snowdrops which grow in the verge. She falls to her knees to cup their delicate heads in her fingers. The wind blows her hair into dancing fronds. The anxiety that has dogged her for days, clung like a spectre, slips away with the departing bus. She rummages in her bag for an apple.
The occasional vehicle that passes does so at great speed, the driver only glimpsing the girl they fly past. From out of the grey, first the sound, then the sight of a farmer on a tractor whirring by at a more sedate pace. Straw from the trailer, food for his animals, flies out behind him like a hail of golden arrows. Amy waits.
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