Wyld Dreamers

by Pamela Holmes

  Julian has never had a job as far as she knows, and that situation did not change when they married five years ago. He keeps himself busy with his cars and machines, fixes fences and chops wood; he does not earn cash. She manages the family finances. The means by which food finds its way on to their table is never discussed.

  ‘Peter, see the cows in the field. What do cows say?’

  ‘Moo,’ the boy responds dutifully. He slips his thumb between his lips, hoping his mother won’t notice in the mirror. She says it is a babyish habit, but she doesn’t know how delicious it tastes.

  Miriam kisses her son goodbye and drives on to the firm where she works. It is the first time one of the cottage’s owners has stayed on into the working week. Julian told her Amy is a freelance writer; women’s magazines apparently. Miriam does not read such magazines. She noticed Simon and the miserable teenage daughter leaving the cottage on Sunday morning, no doubt driven away by the steady drizzle. That’s life in the countryside for you, you have to be resourceful, come rain or shine.

  Amy will get lonely, Miriam thinks as she settles at her desk. But there definitely aren’t enough leftovers from Sunday’s roast to invite her for supper.

  When Julian found himself proposing marriage to Miriam within four months of meeting her, he was almost as baffled as she. Miriam was like a lifebuoy; round and unsinkable. Comfortable in flat shoes and anoraks, she was the unlikely partner of a quirky man like Julian. But his previous girlfriends, exotic in name and character, would not have provided the steadiness he needed. Whether conscious or not, he knew she what was he needed.

  Neither was Miriam the sort of woman that Seymour admired, at least initially, for she was not beautiful. But her inscrutability intrigued him. Seymour came to acknowledge, if not to understand, that something she offered was necessary for his son’s stability. The night he invited her to play Scrabble, they all knew what is signified; acceptance. Miriam usually beat Seymour at the game and, though he minded, it was not tremendously. When Seymour became very unwell, he announced that Miriam was allowed to give him bed baths; no one else. She had something he needed, too.

  27

  Amy closes the door as Miriam drives past, wondering vaguely why she feels as though she’s been caught doing something naughty. She makes a pot of strong coffee and sets up her laptop in the sitting room. She had always imagined the cottage would be the perfect place to write her column of gardening tips for housewives who could curl up on their clean sofas and fantasise about what they would one day plant, certain in the knowledge they would never put hand to trowel. Today she must write an article on the ‘seven vegetables you can grow that children will love to eat’. Needing more light, she runs upstairs to fetch the lamp. But she’s like a string bag drawn tight. She fingers the walls and touches the surfaces as though they will disclose something hidden, looks in drawers and behind doors. If she’d been asked to explain what she was searching for, she could not have said. Only that having been ripped prematurely from here, the place to which she had given total commitment, she always assumed returning would be revelatory. But it is disconcerting.

  Pragmatism forces her to her laptop. By one o’clock, the article is written and saved to a floppy disc. She puts on a coat and a pair of wellies and leaves the cottage.

  Outside it seems a grey veil had been slung from the sky. The geese give a half-hearted hiss, then waddle pigeon-toed back into their hut. The grass on the hill is greasy from rain. At the top she stops to catch her breath. Looking back down at the farm, she hopes she might in some illogical way see Daisy waiting by the barn and her garden abundant with vegetables. Why does it feel so dispiriting that there is no evidence that she or her friends had ever lived here? Now wheel-less cars crouch by the barn. A plastic bag caught on wire flaps erratically in the wind. A pile of logs blackens in the sibilant rain. The only sign of life is a shed light suggesting Julian is working or has perhaps forgotten to flick the switch.

  She takes an ancient path between dry stone walls and wind-twisted hawthorn where tiny wild strawberries nestled in the crevices. Through a broken stile is the field where enormous shaggy parasol mushrooms grew. She’d cook them with butter and the star-shaped flowers of wild garlic. A hare bolting from the undergrowth makes her jump. Only when her heart settles does she walk on towards the head of the combe. A sheep path cuts down through ferns and stunted rowan trees to a tumbledown cottage at the bottom but it takes her awhile to find the boggy track. Down she slithers and slides, splashing through a stream where watercress used to grow in the rippling shallows. But Mrs Morle would see it in her basket and tut. She mustn’t eat it, there might be flukes in it. So many memories…

  The village looks different; why is she surprised? Recession has blighted some parts of the country over the past few years but the homes she passes suggest their owners are more than solvent. Neatly-painted exteriors adorned with burglar alarms, well-stocked tidy gardens and new gates with locks on the driveways suggest economic health. Where signs of life are indicated by parked cars, the vehicles are new. Peering in the window of the boarded up grocery shop, she sees bare shelves and a curling poster advertising frozen fish fingers.

  Amy drops her article into the post box. It sounds empty.

  The bell on the pub door tinkles. Three men in overalls drinking pints seem surprised by her arrival. A dog stretched out on the floor raises a lazy head, then grunts back to sleep.

  ‘That’s a nice welcome, isn’t it?’ jokes the bartender. ‘Please come in out of the wet. What can I get you?’

  ‘I think I caught the post. Cider and cheese sandwich to celebrate, please.’

  It is warm in the pub and nice to chat to the friendly young man. She is cheered by it all and finds herself chatting on, telling him about her long-cherished dream to live in the country. That now she has the chance to do that, even if it will mostly be at weekends and occasional holidays.

  ‘Is your place nearby? I’ve been living here since last autumn so don’t know the area well. Moved here from Portsmouth. From what I gather a lot of new people have moved in over the past few years.’

  ‘I didn’t think you were local. I live in a cottage that used to be part of Wyld Farm. I suppose it’s second home owners like us moving in that changes things. How’s the job going?’

  ‘The pub’s a bit quiet during the week, but the weekends are busy with locals. Visitors are starting now summer is coming. The owner wants to start offering fancy food, what they call a gastro-pub. Some of locals aren’t sure…’

  ‘It’s the first time I’ve been in here since we moved in. Years ago there was a village shop selling everything you needed. Closed at lunch time – can you imagine that? The owner used to let me sell my jam for 20 pence a jar.’

  ‘You used to live around here?’

  ‘Me and my boyfriend came in the summer of 1972. Stayed for about 18 months. Before you were born, I expect.’

  ‘I was born in the summer of ‘74. My name’s Aubrey, by the way.

  Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course. What would you like to know?’

  ‘I’m looking for someone who was living ‘round here about that time. You might have known them.’

  ‘Gave you trouble, did he?’ Amy jokes. ‘What’s his name?’

  David invited Peter over to play with Marco. Miriam is doubtful that a sophisticated town boy will find her lad a good playmate but she agrees. The farmhouse is isolated and it’s good for Peter to play with other children. She’d have preferred it to involve running about and tree-climbing but Marco has his ‘Ninja Turtles’ with him, David says. Miriam had no idea what he was talking about but Peter’s eyes lit up when he heard; described creatures with odd Italian names who fought baddies. It sounded most peculiar.

  First stop, the bathroom. Every second day Miriam shaves her legs, a habit she developed at the age of fourteen following a visit to her cousins in the US. All the girls had long, brown, hair-free legs and hers, as little cousi
n Tommy pointed out loudly so everyone could hear, were hairy. Once hair-free, Miriam creams her legs and puts on her jeans. Usually she has to do the chores, domestic and personal, while keeping Peter amused. It seems not to occur to Julian that he might help, and somehow she can never find it within herself to ask for his help. Parenting to him means eating together at meals, turning the television off, collecting the boy from nursery when Miriam has to work late and kissing the boy goodnight. No doubt it’s to do with his upbringing. Perhaps things will change when Peter shows an interest in machinery. No sign of that so far.

  Julian is sleeping off the effect of last night’s visit to the cottage. From the sounds of smashing on the flagstones which woke her up at midnight, he was inebriated. His jacket, slung over the bannister, reeks of smoke. She hopes it is only from tobacco; the doctors suggested his medication prohibited him from smoking anything else.

  Miriam did not go with him to cottage last night. She said one of them had to stay with the sleeping Peter. Unlike some parents she has read about, Miriam does not trust to baby monitors. She does not tell Julian she will not befriend ‘the group’, as she calls David, Maggie, Amy and Simon. She will be pleasant and helpful but that’s it.

  Miriam sweeps up the glass shards and fetches a bucket of water to wash the hall. It is still hard to refer to the farmhouse as ‘home’; the place smacks of her father-in-law. It is as though they have carved out small runs through the forest of Seymour’s life to scuttle between bed, bathroom and kitchen. Some parts, such as Seymour’s darkroom, they do not enter. Julian locked it as soon as Seymour died as though the room contained secrets. But once the money from Julian’s inheritance comes through, things will have to change. The place is tumbling down.

  28

  She presumed the knocking was Andrew Bishop coming for her shopping list. So it was a shock to see Seymour standing there, a scarf wrapped around his neck like one of those African tribesman with an extended neck.

  ‘Mrs Morle,’ he said sheepishly, ‘I have come to make amends and to beg your forgiveness. To apologise for my insufferable behaviour in foolishly suggesting I no longer needed your services. I could not have been more wrong. I’ve brought you these.’

  He handed her a large bunch of flowers; the softest pink carnations, a sprinkling of tiny white rosebuds and feathery fronds. Despite everything, her arms accepted them.

  ‘Mrs Morle,’ Seymour said as she breathed the heady scent, ‘is there any way you could come back to work for me and Julian? We would be so grateful.’

  She peered through the foliage. She’d only occasional glimpses of the man these past six months when he drove in or out of the farmyard. There’s been no sign of him or anyone at all over Christmas. Seymour’s tanned face suggested a visit to warmer climes.

  Since that police visit last September, Julian’s friends had disappeared like a bad smell. Good riddance. She had asked Andrew Bishop what the police had been after but, despite his contacts in the local force, he couldn’t find out. That-girl-Amy had not been round asking for chutney recipes and the one who picked dock leaves saying she’d use them as toilet paper, and the boys too, all vanished. The only people Mrs Morle ever saw were Julian and sometimes that man Gerald. City types never lasted long in the country and that was a fact.

  ‘Would you come back as our housekeeper, Mrs Morle?’ Seymour’s tone was just this side of pleading.

  When Seymour sacked her, Mrs Morle had quickly found two cleaning jobs. One for a family who lived in the village and another for a couple in the town. The three-mile walk to the village was manageable but the other job meant taking the bus. That was unpredictable and the journey tiring, especially in the winter. His offer was tempting. But Mrs Morle could not forget the insulting way Seymour had terminated her work, out of the blue and by letter.

  It was as though he’d heard her mind working.

  ‘I did not discuss with you properly my need to change your working arrangements, and that is unforgivable, Mrs Morle. But I hope you can be generous enough to see your way past my misdemeanour with my sincerest apology. Could you, Mrs Morle?’ Just then Andrew Bishop pulled up in his Cortina. ‘Morning,

  Mr Stratton, cold enough for you? Anything you want getting from the shops, Mrs Morle? I’m on my way.’

  ‘Yes Andrew, I do,’ she replied. ‘I’ll just fetch my list.’

  The most exciting item on it was a packet of sausages. Two cleaning jobs did not replace the money she had earned from Seymour and she had to be careful. No one was averse to economy, of course, but it would be nice to have a roast on a Sunday and not to worry about the electricity bill.

  Seymour was talking to Andrew. ‘Morning, you off to town? Mrs Morle, let me save you the walk and take the list over to Andrew.’

  The man guffawed at something funny Seymour must have said. That infuriated her. ‘Something wrong with your neck?’ Why was the man trussed up like a turkey with that silly scarf? ‘How is Julian these days?’

  ‘He’s fine. Missing you, though. Especially when I’m working away so much.’

  ‘He always did, Mr Stratton. I suspect he misses his friends too. Haven’t seen them about…’

  ‘Yes, well, that situation didn’t work out the way we hoped, I’m afraid. There we are. I took him away on holiday for Christmas and now he’s going to…’

  ‘I’ll be off then, Mrs Morle, if there’s nothing else you want at all,’ Andrew Bishop called out.

  ‘Give me a minute, will you, Andrew?’

  It would suit her so much better to work for the Strattons. She did miss Julian, too. He was a queer boy but a good one. Her resolve melted.

  ‘Get me a leg of lamb as well would you, Andrew? A small one mind. I’ll settle up the extra money with you next week.’

  She glared at Seymour. ‘I’ll start back at the farmhouse on Monday, Mr Stratton, and do three days a week. With a 50 pence rise in my hourly rate, mind. Drop the key through my letter box, there’s no need to ring the bell. Tomorrow would be convenient day to start.’

  And she shut the door.

  Carefully laying the flowers on the draining board, she reached for the scissors. The flower heads danced in her shaking fingers. As she cut the stems, tears rolled over her cheeks. They dripped down her neck and soaked into her cardigan. She cried hard for several reasons: because Seymour had treated her badly, embarrassment that she’d caved in and done what he wanted, relief that she had her job back. But most of all because of the gaping hole that had been left by her daughter’s disappearance. What had become of Lynn?

  Gerald called in to see Julian only because he did not see Seymour’s car in the farmyard. The man could be snippy. Gerald parked his Mini and went into the farmhouse. The office was empty and there wasn’t a fire in the sitting room grate. The kitchen sink was piled with unwashed dishes, there was a half-cut loaf on the table.

  Then the back door banged shut. Julian came through the boot room door, his hair flattened from wearing a hat, his nose red.

  ‘Chilly out there. Hi Gerald, thought I heard a car. How’s things?’

  ‘Went out this morning early, it was beautiful. Jackson chased a rabbit right across the hill. Runs like the wind that dog, it’s a wonderful sight. I just came to see if there’s anything you were after? Now Daddy’s gone.’

  He shoved aside a pile of clothes on trestle bench and sat down. ‘How are things here? Ever hear from your pals? Troubadour Dave? The loopy ladies?’

  Julian nodded. ‘There was a wedding invitation from Amy ages ago. The cat had pooed on the envelope which seemed apt. I haven’t heard from anyone else. Not sure what they’re up to.’

  ‘Explain to me what happened. Seymour got aerated about them being here or something? But I thought that’s what your father wanted? A rural escape, a hippy commune…’

  ‘Seymour. You know how he is, how he changes his mind.’

  ‘Quite. Parents come from a strange land. My dear boy, if you need anything at all, just give me a tinkle, y
eah?’

  ‘Of course. You’ve been away?’

  ‘Just a little trip. To Morocco and a farm near Katama.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Indeed. I’ve found a farm in the foothills and the guy there who runs it, he’s pretty together. We got on fine. I’ve persuaded him to deal with me directly in future, provide me with regular consignments. It’s a better deal for him and for me, cuts out the local fixer. The plan is to hide the stuff into a car and drive it through Spain back to England.’

  Julian listened. ‘Wow. You’d need to find the right sort of car. If you like, I could start looking out for one, maybe do the modification. I’m pretty good with a welding torch…’

  ‘Great, sounds like you’re on. We can talk terms as things progress. Is there anything I can give you now? A little whizz? You can pay cash or put it on tick…’

  29

  Maggie wobbles along. It is not her bicycle; that is double-locked outside her flat. This bone-shaker has been lent to her by Julian. The handlebars make her sit like a schoolmarm and with no basket on the front (where was one meant to carry one’s dog if there was no basket?), she fears she might flip head first over the front wheel if she brakes too hard.

  Still, it was nice of Julian to pump up the tyres and the lanes are quiet this early on a Saturday. Within half an hour of leaving Bramble cottage, she is in the market square. The stall holders are starting to trade.

  She had planned to do several errands. But discovering she has limited cash in her purse puts an end to that. The town lacks a ‘hole in the wall’ and the bank is, of course, closed on a Saturday. Maggie wanders around the stalls, wondering what she can afford for supper. There was little food on ‘her’ shelf in the cottage kitchen cupboard save for oil, rice, tea and a wizened kernel of garlic. A few vegetables and a pint of milk for tea will have to do.