The Moon Field

by Judith Allnatt

  George felt acutely uncomfortable. After what had passed between them, he had no idea how they should part. Kitty was fiddling with the strings of her hat and George imagined her to be deeply regretting a moment of womanly tender-heartedness. The fear that this could change things between them, that it could jeopardise their friendship and return them to the distant formality that had resulted from him going off to war, made him tongue-tied. ‘Kitty …’ he started, but then stumbled as she refused to look at him. ‘Thanks for getting me to walk up the fell,’ he said, trying to find their old, friendly tone.

  She glanced up at him. ‘You certainly came down fast enough,’ she said sharply, and then turned and walked quickly away. She linked arms with her friend and set off without a backward glance.

  George stood there for a moment. He was used to Kitty’s tart responses when she was disappointed in him but this was different, she had gone without arranging to meet again. He imagined her berating herself for the folly of a moment’s softness, wishing that it had never happened; she was so desperate to get away. He walked home slowly, his anger at being persuaded to take off the mask and put himself in such a vulnerable position leaching away to be replaced by a sadness and a sense of loss as he remembered the way their kiss had made him feel: light, weightless, like a bird circling up into the higher air.

  20

  PASTE BROOCH

  Violet sat at her writing desk in the Small Drawing Room, answering a letter from Elizabeth. They had exchanged several letters since Violet had written to let the family know the news of Edmund’s death, a duty she thought one of the hardest things she had ever done. Each time she wrote, she attempted words of comfort that she couldn’t feel, words that sounded hollow to her ear even as they left her pen.

  Elizabeth’s most recent letter invited her to come and stay. Violet knew she didn’t have the strength. The place would be full of Edmund’s absence: empty chairs where he had sat and talked to her; boots, overcoat, tennis racquet, everywhere something he had touched. The photographs that stood on the grand piano were now a series recording a frozen youth: boy, student, soldier … a stopped clock. In the garden, the flowers around the arbour where they had exchanged their promises would be in bloom again. She would think only of the voice she’d never hear again, the hand she’d never hold. She wrote to say that, sadly, her mother was too ill and couldn’t spare her.

  She sealed the envelope and sat back in her chair. Beside her, the glass cabinet that housed her china collection stood, dusty and long unopened. Inside, crowding the shelves, were vases of turquoise and cobalt blue, porcelain baskets with intricate latticework, china owls and brightly painted parakeets, a hoard of treasures kept safe behind glass: bright and dead as the past.

  From the French windows, sunshine fell across the clutter on the desk: stationery, ink bottle, pen wiper, a little inlaid box in which she kept her stamps and the funny little brooch that George had given to her. It caught the sun, tiny red and green points of light in a setting of twisted gilt wires.

  She felt sorry that she hadn’t been able to respond to his gift as she should. It had looked so bright as she held it against her coat, obscenely bright, and placing it there had reminded her suddenly of the corsage that she had pinned so carefully at her breast when dressing for the dance, thinking with such great hope and anticipation of seeing Edmund. She had slipped the brooch into her pocket and seen George’s earnest look turn to disappointment.

  Violet had always known that George cared for her. She had thought it touching: a boyish crush that he would soon grow out of. She had been in control, able to manage their conversations so that they both enjoyed each other’s company and friendship. She had been very careful not to encourage a romantic attachment: that would have been unfair, and she was confident in any case that George was well aware of the social distance between them. But with Edmund’s death, she sensed that something had shifted. Her reliance on George’s visits as a link, however tenuous, to Edmund, and an opportunity to release a little of her pent-up feelings, had changed the balance between them. She felt that she was taking advantage of his caring for her and letting him cast himself as her comforter, even though he was still so young and had his own injury to deal with. She had leant on him. Weakness on my part, she thought. Her grief was selfish and all-consuming; it left no energy to consider others. She could offer him nothing now, not even the cheerful companionship they had once shared. It wasn’t right to keep letting him prop her up, however much she depended on his visits as a way to unburden herself, however lonely she felt in the days in between.

  She picked up the brooch and turned it back and forth. It was roughly made, the fake stones crudely cut, unlike the jewellery she kept in a box upstairs: fine work with tiny-clawed settings that let the light shine through the stones. She wondered, nonetheless, if George had been obliged to save for it, and the thought made her ashamed. She shouldn’t have accepted it. It was a gift for a sweetheart. Who was it that George had mentioned? Katie? No, Kitty; that was it. She opened one of the tiny drawers in the bureau, took out a piece of tissue paper and wrapped the brooch carefully.

  She knew that her constant questioning about Edmund made George unhappy. Of course it would; it brought the war and all its horrors back; it didn’t let him heal over. There was something more than she could fathom, though, about his feelings towards Edmund: a closeness that puzzled her. When she asked him about Edmund’s death, he would always finish by saying, ‘There was nothing I could do,’ in such a tone of despair that she felt she could ask no more. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to see someone die, to wonder why a shell chose someone else, not you. Perhaps it made you blame yourself in some obscure way; perhaps it made you feel guilty just to be alive.

  She needed the relief of speaking about Edmund; it was the only link with him that she had left, and even the pain was better than nothing. Yet she knew she was pulling George down with her, like a ship foundering and taking down its tug. She slipped the brooch, wrapped in the soft paper, into the drawer. She shut it gently.

  George had decided to brave a visit to chapel on Sunday, in order to see Kitty in the hope that it would help ease them back on to familiar ground. He dreaded returning to the congregation, despite the fact that almost everyone had known him since infancy, and didn’t know which would be worse: people asking him about the war, or people studiously avoiding the subject and ambushing him with sympathetic comments for which he had no response. He asked the family to sit at the back, where he shifted uncomfortably on the hard oak seat, unable to stretch his leg due to the closeness of the row of chairs in front. He could see Kitty’s straw hat up at the front: Mr Ashwell insisted on punctuality for chapel, as for post-office business, which always meant they got there early and had the pick of the seats.

  The Elder finished the service with a blessing and stationed himself at the door to speak to people as they left. Some of the congregation spilt out on to the pavement, others formed groups in the aisles; there would be chapel business, social niceties and gossip for half an hour before the place would clear. George started moving towards the front but was intercepted by Alderman Rowe, who was standing talking to Mr Gibson. ‘What do you think, young man?’ he said. ‘You’ve just been out there. Gibson here was moaning about the number of farm hands he’s lost and I was telling him how much they’re needed in the lines. They should be training them up now to have them out there by the winter. We need every hand we can get, don’t we?’

  Mr Gibson replied before George could speak. ‘You won’t be saying that when we’re lambing in bad weather and we can’t get the beasts down off the fells because there’s no one to fetch them in.’

  George said grimly, ‘With respect, sir, pouring men into a winter stalemate would be pointless. They’d just sit and freeze in trenches waiting for the next bombardment. I don’t think people realise …’

  ‘Come, come, that’s hardly the spirit!’ Rowe said.

  ‘… you go down w
ith pneumonia, or your feet rot, or you get typhoid. It’s like living in one big latrine,’ George finished.

  Both men stared at him.

  Rowe said, ‘Surely we can muster a little more grit? The BEF are the best soldiers in the world – look at the attacks they’ve seen off, with the enormous odds against us!’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, but you can’t fight the cold with a bayonet,’ George said sharply. ‘Excuse me, there’s someone I must see.’

  As George stepped away, edging between the knots of dark-suited, shiny-shoed men, he heard the conversation resume. Gibson said testily, ‘Well, I can’t spare any more labour right now, that’s for sure,’ and Rowe replied, ‘You may have to, whether you like it or not. If we push forward in France there’s bound to be wastage; recruits will be needed and plenty of ’em.’

  Wastage. The word hung in George’s mind. Like an inevitable expenditure that has to be budgeted for in advance or some factory off-cut that’s a necessary part of an industrial process. Not Smith slumped over the parapet or Rooke’s slim form stumbling, falling.

  He rubbed his hand across his brow and blinked at the room, bringing back into focus the familiar chairs and hymn books. Scanning the noisy congregation, he found Kitty again and began to make his way between old folk who had remained seated to chat with their neighbours and families handing fractious babies between parents and siblings. Kitty seemed to recede every time he thought he was getting near her. She talked to first one acquaintance, then another, and always seemed to have her back to him so that he couldn’t catch her eye. In the end, he moved sideways along a row, excusing himself to those still sitting in it, so that he could arrive beside her, where she was chatting with the Borrowdale sisters. He tapped her arm and she turned round. A fiery blush rose immediately to her cheeks.

  ‘Oh! George,’ she said, as if she was surprised to see him, although George felt sure that she had caught sight of him and had deliberately turned away.

  ‘Kitty. Suzanne. Mariah.’ George acknowledged them. There was an awkward silence and the Borrowdale girls excused themselves. ‘I thought I’d never get through this crush,’ he said. ‘You’re in a very sociable mood today.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Kitty said, fiddling with the button on her gloves.

  George tried again. ‘It’s a nice day; should we go out on the lake this afternoon? I could row. We could go out to one of the islands if you’d like – have a break from walking.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said shortly. ‘We’re expecting visitors this afternoon; my aunt and uncle are coming.’

  ‘Do you have to be there?’ George asked. ‘Won’t they just want to talk to your parents?’ He knew that Kitty found their conversation, about distant relatives she’d never met, deadly.

  ‘I’m sorry you seem to think my company so dull.’ Kitty picked up her bag from the chair next to her. ‘I’ll relieve you of it.’

  Before George could take in her reply, Kitty had turned and was making her way towards the main door, leaving George unable to work out quite where he had gone wrong. He slipped out of the side door, into the alley, and hurried round the corner of the building hoping that the press of folk would slow her down and that he could catch up with her in the street. Just as he had feared, he was accosted first by one person and then another, asking how he was bearing up and murmuring platitudes about the healing properties of time, to which he had to respond politely, until he could have roared with frustration.

  On the other side of the street he saw Mr Ashwell gathering up his family to leave and met his eye. Mr Ashwell glared at George as he shepherded them away. George finally managed to excuse himself and limped off down the cobbled alleyway towards home.

  He flopped down into the fireside chair. He had tried, and all he’d managed to do was offend her again. Why on earth did she have to be so prickly and unreasonable! She was obviously settling in for one of her long ireful moods, as she had when he went away to the war. Sometimes women seemed a complete mystery. He felt miserable; it gave him an uncomfortable, tight feeling in his chest when she gave him that freezing look. It was no good confronting her when she was in that frame of mind, it would only lead to more sharp retorts that his heart didn’t feel strong enough to bear. He would just have to be patient and keep enduring chapel, where she would at least have to speak to him and there was some hope that he could talk her round.

  With a pang, he thought of the day they were missing and of the sun glittering on the lake. He had been going to row her out to the island where they used to climb trees and build dens or swim from one of the rocky bays in the ice-cold water. He had imagined fishing and making a fire to roast perch or bream in the embers, and sitting on into the evening to talk, as they always had done, while the midges danced crazily in the smoke. She was dear to him, almost a part of him. How could he have managed things so badly yet again? George stared at the stopped clock on the mantelpiece, with the prospect of a long afternoon of worry and regret stretching before him.

  Someone had tucked a letter behind the clock and George, reading ‘Mr G. Far—’ on the part that protruded, realised that it was meant for him and wondered how long it had been there. Tutting in irritation, he pulled it out, opened it and found that it was from Haycock. He read:

  Dear George,

  Sorry to hear about your stay in hospital. At least it was a Blighty one and not worse. Your postcard and later letters came all together in one go. Sometimes we have no post for ages here (can’t say where) then it all comes at once. Anyway, now I have your address I’ll write when I get the chance – paper very scarce here and most of the time we’re in the line. No four days on, four days off, here. This is our first day back in reserve for a fortnight.

  It’s a rotten shame about Rooke. Turland has been very cut up about it ever since. He says he’s going to write about this filthy, rotten war, when it’s all over. We had a kind of memorial for Rooke where we all lined up and Turland said a prayer. One of the regulars told us about reversed arms being a mark of respect so we stood resting our hands on rifles turned upside down. I thought Ernest might feel better after, but he said there should have been somewhere we could put a cross or some marker to remember him by.

  We’ve been dug in for months here, in the rain – worse even than when you were here. The ground has been like slurry. We’ve lost some men through slipping off the paths but none of your pals I’m glad to say. However, we’re all dreading better weather; you will know why. Apparently, it’s due to be sunny next week, so think of us then.

  Well, that’s all my news, such as it is. I hope to see you, if and when there is leave (long overdue).

  Cheero,

  Tom

  George knew exactly what better weather meant – drier ground and a push forward. He felt disturbed by the thought of his friends caught up in the maelstrom once again and the image of Rooke, stooping and then rolling, came before him as clearly as if he had turned a handle and played it on a screen. He felt himself sinking lower, weighed down by the awfulness of everything. When the family arrived, he was still sitting staring into the empty grate.

  21

  THE WALLED GARDEN

  On Tuesday when George arrived at the Manor House, he found Violet already waiting for him and his heart was instantly filled with misgivings. She stepped forward, her pale blouse banded by the shade of the branches.

  She fell into step beside him as they walked along the drive, but instead of bearing left to go into the woods, she suggested, since the weather was so pleasant, that they sit in the walled garden. Mrs Burbidge had gone into town, she explained, and the garden would be a sheltered spot where they could enjoy the sun.

  They turned in through a green-painted door; the sighing of the wood dropped away and was replaced by a muffled calm and a warmer air. The high redbrick walls, which gave back the stored heat of the afternoon, were lined with the green leaves and white blossom of espaliered pear trees. As they walked the gravel path around the e
dge of the garden, Violet pointed out the herb garden and the fernery and said that they would walk down to the orchard where there was a place she liked to sit. George knew that he should feel reassured by this new intimacy, but the change of routine and something about her more solicitous manner made him feel that she was making an unnatural effort.

  She asked him about his week and he told her that he was walking further, and that, on a walk at the foot of Latrigg, he had seen some fox cubs playing. She nodded, but seemed scarcely to be paying attention as he worked hard to entertain her by describing the antics of the cubs.

  They sat down on a wooden bench in the orchard, among twisted grey-barked apple trees dotted with the first pink points of buds. A little further in were a row of white-painted beehives with pitched roofs and clapboard walls. Bees came and went from them: dark dots zigzagging. A loud hum came from somewhere behind the hives, low and steady.

  ‘Look! They’re swarming,’ Violet said, and George saw that in one of the fruit trees there was a dark mass hanging from a branch, surrounded by a dense cloud of agitated movement.

  ‘Are you sure this is a good place to sit?’ George asked, worrying that Violet might be stung.

  ‘They won’t hurt us; we’re too far away,’ she said quickly, as though it was important that now she had got him here, they should stay. ‘Anyway, they’re far more interested in the queen. They’re clustering around her, you see, to keep her warm while the scouts go off to find a new nest site.’