‘Liberty,’ Evelyn said, ‘now those two gentlemen have gone, could you be so kind as to fetch me something to read. Hardy, I think. I don’t mind which; I like ’em all.’
When Liberty returned with The Mayor of Casterbridge, she found Tim Haville-Jones back too. ‘Ah, Mrs Turner, there you are. I was just saying to Evelyn that I don’t want any unpleasantness. After all, we are neighbours …’
‘This neighbour business, I like it. Now, Mr Jones,’ the photographer tried to catch Tim’s attention. ‘Could you move closer to Miss Brooke, just one more shot; Good Neighbours, we all need them. That’s it, lovely.’
‘Look here,’ Tim leapt away from the tree as if it were still on fire. ‘My chaps will be back tomorrow and this time they will not be intimidated. I’ve arranged for a police escort and I suggest that you, Miss Brooke,’ he turned to Evelyn, ‘remove yourself from my land well before then.’
As he passed Liberty he said, ‘I would see to it that it’s sooner rather than later, or she’ll die of cold.’ Just as Liberty was about to think kindly of him again she noticed the wistful look on his face.
The reporter and photographer left shortly after Tim with a promise that they’d be back the next day. ‘If we get our skates on we’ll make tomorrow’s edition,’ the reporter grinned. ‘Now, had this happened on a Monday we’d have been sunk.’
Evelyn and Liberty were left on their own in the vast field, the November mist coming down, penetrating their clothes and chilling their bones. ‘I have to get back to work,’ Liberty said after a while. ‘Shall I get you some more blankets first?’ She gave Evelyn a worried look. ‘Actually I think you should take a break from this now. They won’t come back today, and if you froze to death they’d still cut the oak down.’
‘I do not intend to freeze to death,’ Evelyn said. ‘I’ve taken appropriate precautions.’ She had placed herself on a heavy, rubber-backed picnic rug and she was swaddled in blankets already, making her look like some enormous pupa against the tree trunk. ‘I would love some more coffee, though, if you’ve got the time.’ She held out the empty thermos. ‘I’m all right for sandwiches.’
Liberty took the flask and Evelyn’s keys. Walking across the crusty soil, she turned round to look at Evelyn chained so comfortably to her cause. Evelyn was a lucky woman, beginning each day with a purpose beyond its passing.
When Liberty returned, two travel rugs and the refilled flask in her arms, Evelyn asked, in the manner of someone enquiring about a friend’s holiday plans, ‘Had any more thoughts on the suicide front?’
Liberty shook her head. ‘No. What I mean is, I have, and I won’t. You’re right; I can’t leave Johnny, not for a while anyway.’ Her green eyes softened. ‘He’d miss me. He’d be all dignified and desolate and young and alone, I couldn’t do that to him.’ She laughed suddenly, ‘Anyway, you’re not a serious suicide candidate if you put off the moment until after that day’s episode of Home and Away.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Or maybe that’s precisely what should make you one?’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know.’
‘If you’re so keen on this writing business, why don’t you just carry on? You won’t find me giving up my garden.’
Liberty sat down on a corner of Evelyn’s rug and helped herself to one of the sandwiches: egg and tomato.
‘That’s what I would have said too, a while ago. But not any more. There is a fine line to be drawn between perseverance and obtuseness. I’ve spent close to ten years of my life crying in the wilderness, playing to an empty house, whatever you’d like to call it. Thank God I always made time for Johnny – mostly, anyway – but friends and lovers, other interests, they all took second place to this… this unrequited passion.’ Liberty sighed and shifted on her corner of the rug. ‘But a heart can only take so much. I’m dry; exhausted from trying and hoarse from crying. Quite simply, I have no talent. I’m sure there are thousands of people like me, we just don’t catch the imagination in the same way as your misunderstood genius. There are no films made about us, no biographies written. I mean, can you see it, the new bestseller? “A Small Life: The Poignant Story of a Poor Sod Who Was Not in the Slightest Bit Misunderstood and Who Suffered No Great Physical Hardship Whatsoever but Was Simply Untalented”.’ She helped herself to another sandwich, biting into it absent-mindedly.
‘If at least I was a painter,’ she said, when she had finished chewing, ‘I could hang my own pictures, cover my own walls with them until I lived cocooned by my own creations. Then, when I ran out of space, I could give them away as Christmas presents and tombola prizes. There would probably be a hospital or two that could be persuaded to take a few, hang them in intensive care maybe, where everyone is too ill to protest.’
‘I had a cousin who painted,’ Evelyn said. ‘My aunt wouldn’t have the pictures anywhere near her, so he hung them in the servants’ hall until the housekeeper complained. “It’s us or those awful pictures of Master Michael’s.” The pictures had to go of course.’
Liberty smiled, but it was not a happy smile. Poor Michael, she thought, pulling her red scarf closer round her neck. He and she were soulmates; clowns tumbling off the far side of art. ‘I don’t suppose there was a happy ending?’ she asked. ‘He didn’t, by any chance, end up selling for thousands in Bond Street galleries?’
Evelyn shook her head. ‘No, ’fraid not. One of his sisters, Gabriella, who had absolutely no taste but was a very greedy girl indeed, found them in the attic after he died and hung on to them in the hope that one day they’d become fashionable, but they never did so, in the end, she burnt the lot. It was the biggest bonfire the village had seen; the children were thrilled. So I suppose you could say it was a happy ending of sorts.’ Evelyn leant back against the trunk and added dreamily, ‘For a brief moment his talent burned brightly, shedding light into the lives of his fellow men.’
Liberty gave her a dirty look. ‘Was he very unhappy?’
‘No, I don’t think he was particularly. You see, we didn’t necessarily expect to be happy in those days. The notion that somehow we were put on this earth to be happy was not foremost in our minds, the way it seems with people today.’
‘You’re right,’ Liberty said. ‘It’s a new thing, this wretched expectation of happiness. Most insidious of all is the message that if you just try hard enough and want something badly enough, you’ll get it. Dangerous too; breeds discontent. I reckon you have to be careful with expectations; too little and life is cold and comfortless, too much and you burn up on your way to the sun.’ She stretched her legs out in front of her, but tucked them back in as the chill from the damp ground soaked through her thin trousers.
‘Look at disaffected youth,’ she said. ‘I reckon half of them riot because they expect nothing and have no hope, the other because they expect too much and get next to nothing. “Sorry, did we say you could be a pop star and drive a Porsche if only you wanted it badly enough? Just a joke, I meant the guy next door, the one with the talent.” I tell you, if Jane Eyre had fallen into the hands of a trained social worker, instead of that unspeakable man at the orphanage, she’d never have got Rochester.’
‘Why do you think that?’ Evelyn held out the sandwich box to Liberty.
‘Because she’d have been all bolshy and angry with her lot instead of a humble little mouse, the way Rochester wanted.’
‘The girl had passion though, that’s what made her interesting and her life worth while, Rochester or no Rochester.’ Evelyn brushed some crumbs of egg from her chest. ‘You have to have a passion in life. Now I could tell you things about aphids that would make your hair stand on end and your toes tingle with excitement… but you have work to do, I know. Another time.’
Liberty stood up. ‘You’re sure you don’t want me to unlock you?’
‘Quite sure, thank you.’
‘You can’t stay here all night. You’ll die of exposure.’
‘You’re right,’ Evelyn said unexpectedly. She brought the mobile phone from her bag and d
ialled. ‘Oscar,’ she said after a moment. ‘Evelyn here.’ Evelyn moved the phone a little further from her ear. ‘Now Oscar, it’s hardly my fault if your paper decides that my little story is newsworthy. Anyway, I didn’t call to chat about that. I want you to bring my calor gas stove across when you come home. It’s not much out of your way, only across the field. You’ve got a key haven’t you? Really? I was sure you did. Oh well, not to worry, Liberty will let you in and show you where the stove is.’ She clicked the off-button on Oscar and put the phone back in her bag. ‘He’ll be at my place around six-thirty, could you be there to let him in?’
Liberty nodded. ‘I still think you should call it a night and sleep in your own bed.’
‘Well I don’t, dear. Now if you could bring me the paper tomorrow morning, and some fresh coffee, I’d be most grateful.’
Liberty left Evelyn sitting upright against the tree, her chains spilling out from under the blankets. ‘I’ll be back before then, with some hot food,’ she called as she traipsed back across the field. ‘Call me any time. Call me!’ her voice sounded through the still air.
Five
Liberty had just arrived at Evelyn’s when the doorbell rang. ‘She’s still out there,’ Oscar said accusingly as he stepped through the door.
‘I’m afraid so. I’ve just taken her some food. I’ve got the heater for you.’ Liberty pointed to the stove. ‘It’s terribly heavy.’
‘Thanks,’ Oscar said, grabbing the stove and turning it on its heel.
‘Any news about the missing girl?’ Liberty asked, thinking that everybody liked talking about their work; she certainly used to.
‘Nothing much.’ Oscar let go of the stove. ‘The police still don’t know if there’s been foul play or if she’s just a runaway.’
‘Teenagers do run away all the time.’
Oscar took off his spectacles, rubbing them against the sleeve of his jacket. Stripped suddenly of the horn-rimmed frames he looked vulnerable, like a knight who’d just removed his armour. ‘It’s possible,’ he said, ‘but not likely. There have been no sightings of her. She was doing well at school, lots of friends, good, open relationship with her parents and brothers, apart from some minor boyfriend trouble. There just doesn’t seem to be any reason for her to want to run away, especially without a note or phone call or something to her parents.’ He put his glasses back on, returning his face to fully-dressed formality, and Liberty, who had been smiling companionably at him, felt him a stranger again.
‘Would you like a drink before you lug that thing across?’ She took a step towards the front door, expecting him to say no.
‘Please, I’d love one.’
‘What am I doing offering you drinks in your own aunt’s house?’ Liberty laughed that ingratiating, overly loud laugh she herself hated so much.
‘My mother had a laugh that hit your ear, softly like a puff of white smoke…’ she followed Oscar into the kitchen, ‘… well so I’ve been told anyway.’ She took a double step to catch up with him.
‘That sounds delightful,’ Oscar picked up the bottle of gin that stood on a pile of dusty detective novels. ‘Gin and tonic all right?’
Liberty nodded. ‘It didn’t get her very far though. She married my father, had me, and died.’
‘And from that you’ve drawn the conclusion that having a laugh like a puff of white smoke leads to an early grave, and have taken steps to avoid that trap. Very sensible.’ Oscar passed her the drink, raising his own. ‘Good health.’
‘I’m supposed to criticize my laugh, you are supposed to disagree. Did your mummy not teach you anything?’
‘Of course, you’re absolutely right. Anyway, I like a good laugh, as they say.’
‘Victoria’s got a lovely voice. Well, she’s altogether lovely.’
Instead of looking pleased at the compliment, Oscar drained his glass and placed it on the sink with so much care the effect was more bad tempered than if he’d slammed it down. ‘I’d better take that stove across before Evelyn expires from cold.’
Like a dog who’d offended its owner, Liberty padded behind him out into the hall. She stayed in the doorway, watching after him as he dragged the stove across the path, lifting it into Evelyn’s wheelbarrow. As he disappeared away from the shaft of light from the open door and into the darkness of the garden, she called out, ‘’Bye Oscar.’
‘’Bye,’ he called back. His voice sounded soft in the distance.
The next morning, with the sun rising slowly across the field as if it, too, found the thought of another day hard to take, Liberty was woken by a call from Evelyn. ‘Could you be a dear and bring me some breakfast? A bacon sandwich or two and some coffee would do.’
Liberty looked at the clock by her bed; seven-thirty on Friday morning. As recently as a month ago she would have been at her desk by now, to use up the best hours, the quietest hours, when the phone stays silent and the gas man doesn’t call, to write. She was not by nature an early riser, but she had grown to love those morning hours when the world seemed to shrink for a time to the size of a computer screen.
‘I haven’t got any bacon, I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘but I’ll fry you an egg both sides and put it in a sandwich. I might have some tomatoes, too.’
Twenty minutes later she was hurrying across the field with her basket of food like an over-age Red Riding Hood. She could see a crowd surrounding the oak, but she could not see Evelyn. As she came closer, half running half stumbling across the dry furrows, she recognized the reporter and photographer from the day before, and a few mothers and children from the village, but the rest of the twenty or so people were strangers. Two children separated from the crowd, running off and leaving a gap through which Liberty finally glimpsed Evelyn. ‘Is everything all right?’ she called out, and got a wave from Evelyn in return.
‘The power of the press never fails,’ the reporter grinned at her, raising his hand in a fisted salute that was more Soweto than Tollymead, Liberty could not help thinking. Just then a Land Rover revved into view, moving towards them like a ship at sea, up and down the ploughed and frost-hardened furrows. It stopped some twenty yards away, and Tim Haville-Jones jumped out followed by Bob and Clive, who was once again brandishing his chain-saw. The crowd jeered. Tim strode up to the circle closing in round Evelyn, his colour rising with every step. ‘This has gone on long enough.’ He tried to push closer to Evelyn. ‘Now get off my field or I’ll call the police.’
The crowd booed.
‘Mr Haville hyphen Jones’s cows produce the milk supplied by Daisy Dairy,’ Evelyn’s honeyed voice came from the back of the crowd. ‘I’m sure many of you get your milk from your local Daisy Dairy milkman.’ There was a general nodding as she continued, ‘Of course, the Co-op also supplies milk in our area, so we do have a choice.’
‘You’re going to regret this.’ Tim shook his fist at Evelyn.
Liberty looked closely at him. She had never allowed any of the characters in her novels to shake their fists, because until now she had believed that it was something people in real life never actually did, and here was Tim Haville-Jones shaking away. She made a mental note of exactly how the gesture was done and of the expression on the farmer’s face, before remembering that such things were of no more use to her than a view of the Taj Mahal to a blind man. This mental refuse collecting had become a habit, the gathering up of bits and pieces of conversation and expressions, the storing away of tastes of other people’s lives. She forgot, sometimes, that it was all surplus to requirements now, just like all those little black-bound notebooks she had carried around everywhere. The same thing had happened when she was four and new at school. They were all selecting bits of cloth for a Mother’s Day card, rummaging round in the large box of materials given to them by the teacher. Carried away by the excitement, Liberty had joined in, digging her hand deep inside the box and pulling out the prettiest piece of all; it even had a sequin, like the eye of a bird, still attached to it. She was holding it high above her head for ev
eryone to see and envy, before it hit her that she alone had no use for it, no mother to make a card for. She had handed it to the child at the next table, a girl she did not even like.
Evelyn, swaddled in several blankets, called her name and extended a mittened hand, beckoning Liberty towards her as if she had just spotted a favourite guest at a drinks party.
‘Liberty dear, how nice, and you’ve brought my breakfast.’
The crowd parted to let Liberty through with her basket of food, when Tim said, quite calmly, to Clive, ‘You can begin now.’ Then he called out to Evelyn, ‘I suggest you un-chain yourself, unless you want Clive to cut you loose. Of course we don’t want any nasty accidents.’
‘Could you hold the saw up please sir,’ the photographer shouted to Clive, raising her camera. ‘Like that, that’s right, thank you.’
‘So I can say that there’s already considerable support for a boycott of all Daisy Dairy products?’ the reporter shouted.
‘Yeah,’ the crowd shouted back.
Tim Haville-Jones turned quite grey. His gestures and expressions were all so gratifying, Liberty thought. He would have had a great career in silent movies: ‘Do fury Tim darling! Show us despair!’
Clive put the saw down and collected a pair of bolt cutters from the Land Rover before beginning to push his way through the crowd. Tim stopped him.
‘It’s all right boys,’ he said. ‘Let’s call it a day.’
Village Diary
Tollymead: There were celebrations in the village this week as Mr Tim Haville-Jones agreed to accept Miss Evelyn Brooke’s offer to make the great oak in West Field safe again after the fire to its trunk. There had been huge support for Miss Brooke’s attempts to save the ancient tree that has long been a favourite with local walkers.
Miss Agnes Coulson, organizer of the Tollymead Walk Your Way to Fitness Club, especially welcomed the news of the reprieve. ‘My fellow walkers and I each put a lantern in a tree in our gardens, to show solidarity. I put mine in my Dutch Elm, a survivor if ever there was one,’ Miss Coulson told the Diary. ‘That oak is a joy and an inspiration to us walkers. In the spring we watch out for the first buds on its branches, and we follow the progress of the seasons through its leaves until, back in winter, its branches are naked once more.’
A Rival Creation Page 7