by Angela Huth
George followed her out of the kitchen. They went first to the old dining room, last used long ago, before Mrs Elkin died. The peppery smell of a room that had witnessed hundreds of heavy meals over the years greeted them as George opened the door. In the solemn hush of elaborate oak chairs regimented round a civic-looking table, a bowl of wax fruit, dimmed by dust imitating the bloom of skin, was the only contribution to frivolity. The windows were low and small, admitting a grainy brown wash of light – poor illumination for the many pictures on the dark walls.
‘Shall I put on a light?’ asked George.
‘No, no. It’s probably better, not being able to see them too clearly.’ Lily smiled and moved down the room, eyes passing from the contents of one dull gold frame to another. ‘He was a chiefly a landscape man, then, your father,’ she said at last.
‘He was.’
‘Such terrible, terrible landscapes. Can’t have done much for a man who loved the country so much.’
‘But at least they never cost very much. He was always picking things up in junk shops, declaring he’d bought a real investment.’
‘Oh? He was that kind of a collector? He didn’t buy paintings for the love of them?’
‘I think he loved them too. He was very proud of them. If you think these are bad, wait till we get upstairs. The long passage probably houses the most dire collection of pastoral art in Britain.’
Going up the staircase, side by side, George put his arm round Lily’s waist. Thus bound they moved slowly down the dim passage, which creaked like a boat beneath them. They paused at each elaborately framed view – bland sunsets, rustic gates, bare elms of the sort that painters of rural scenes for calendars sacrifice their eyesight for in their conscientious attention to each twig. There was even a sub-Constable haywain beside a drear pond. George smiled.
‘The funny thing is,’ he said, ‘although I can see they’re all absolutely dreadful, I can’t quite explain why. Give me just a few reasons.’
Lily sighed. Her head was tilted to one side, just touching George’s shoulder.
‘For a start,’ she said, ‘and I won’t bore you with a long lecture, if paint is applied in exactly the same way to sky, earth, trees, water, whatever, the result is a mush of sameness that drains all life. Look at that soup of a pond, stagnant water of exactly the same density as that dull blob of hay. The hay would be just as good in the pond, the water on the wagon.’ George laughed, suddenly seeing. ‘Take that horse.’ She pointed to a bloodless-looking animal in the shafts of the haywain. ‘It’s not made of flesh and blood. It’s a stuffed toy. There’s no life there. No vitality. All these pictures are not only so badly painted it’s laughable, they’re dead.’
‘But perhaps the artists enjoyed painting them, felt they were saying something?’
‘Perhaps they did. Everyone’s entitled to have a go at painting if it gives them pleasure. They world’s full of happy amateurs who call themselves artists to give themselves status. What I find puzzling is why most people can’t see pictures – the good, the bad, what doesn’t work, what makes your spine tingle. That’s why I want to try to teach children to look, try to encourage people how to look – surely one of the most important gifts there is. It’s such a waste, missing so much of what’s there, isn’t it? Such a bonus if you can see … or even think you can see.’
Oh God: here was the message that she was soon to be on her way back. Back to work. Off again. George took his arm from her waist, a sudden melancholy trawling through him. He sat down on a hump-backed trunk that had stood in the passage for as long as he could remember. Lily sat beside him.
‘It’s so odd, when you see the solutions of genius,’ she went on. ‘You think: he’s solved it – why can’t others? But of course that’s a silly question. Genius can’t be copied, can only inspire, show, make it look easy, which is perhaps why so many people want to have a go. And while painters of little talent can of course improve, they can never produce that indefinable thing that’s always recognisable as great art.’ She sighed. George put his arm round her waist again. ‘Genius,’ she went on (George didn’t care if she never stopped). ‘What is it? Think. It’s Rembrandt’s light on a steel helmet: the steel hard, the light intangible. How does he do it? You can look through a magnifying glass at the brush strokes and still not have a clue. Ingres: fat fleshy hands resting on rich material – Ingres is absolutely certain of the difference between silk, satin, velvet, lace, all lightness and sheen, while the flesh they support is heavy, real flesh of a completely different texture. Then think of Vermeer, painter of absolute silence, of weight. The girl pouring milk from a pitcher. You can feel the weight of that pitcher. You can hear the silence. How did he manage that? How did he paint the sound of sploshing milk, the strain in the girl’s arm, supporting the weight? How did he? Genius. I could go on and on with examples of things people are blind to, but I won’t. I don’t want to bore you.’
‘You’re not boring me. But don’t you think that possibly you see all these things because you have an acuter than average perception?’
‘No. Because I don’t think I do. It’s artists who have the perception. It’s up to the viewers to see – to learn to see.’
Night had lowered itself through the windows by now. The passage was husky with darkness, the pictures almost invisible: just the dull glow of gold from the haywain’s frame. The trunk on which they sat had become uncomfortable. Lily stood up. She took George’s hands.
‘Come on: your room now. What great art have you hidden there?’
Lily, George could just see, was smiling again. He led her to his room.
‘Nothing much to offend here,’ he said. ‘Just a few fish. At one time my father became a keen fisherman, went through a phase of fish pictures. Later on he took up shooting, hence the dozens of precisely feathered pheasants you probably noticed in the study’ He switched on the bedside light. ‘I have to admit, I’m rather fond of that old dolphin – the last picture, I think, my father bought. From some student show, I think, in London.’
Lily went to the fireplace and looked up at the picture of a plump green dolphin tumbling in a lace of aquamarine water.
‘I could grow fond of him too,’ she said. ‘He’s full of life, and look at that water. The student understands about painting water She trailed off, turned to glance without interest at the rigid fish framed on other walls. Then she met George’s eye. ‘Time for you to explain the woman in my room,’ she said.
‘Can’t say I can be of much help, there.’
They stood side by side looking at the naked young girl lying back on rich Victorian cushions, though plainly the painting had been done in the fifties. Lily had put on a single light on the dressing table: the low wattage (one of Mrs Elkin’s singular economies, inherited by he son) leant no clarity to the painting.
‘Whoever painted her confused skin with enamel,’ said Lily, at last. ‘Look at the hardness. That’s not flesh. It’s painted in exactly the same way as the cushions.’
‘I see what you mean.’ George thought for a moment. After the long attack on his father’s pictures, he decided to make a stab at supporting the naked woman, if only to provoke Lily to more of her fierce reactions. ‘All the same,’ he said, ‘I do rather like the provocative way her leg’s bent.’
‘Terrible cliche,’ Lily answered. ‘But why not? Quite entertaining. There has to be something entertaining in so stilted a gathering of brushstrokes.’ She said this lightly, smilingly.
‘You’re a very harsh critic,’ George said.
‘Not really’
‘I remember the day my father brought her home. “I’ve found an Aphrodite”, he said. My mother took one look and brought her up here. Could be my father had had their bedroom in mind
Lily laughed. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I suppose if there’s anything appealing at all about the poor girl, it’s that she’s quite sexy’
‘She is,’ said George. ‘And you probably won’t believe me, but I’d wor
ked that one out for myself before you pointed it out.’
‘You’re learning.’ Lily tipped her head towards George, smiling. There was a small silence between them before he kissed her. Then, when he drew back, thinking it was time to return downstairs now, she said, as if from a long way off, ‘I’ve been here over a week, now, George. And—’
‘Is that the go-ahead. Does that mean—?’
Lily looked at him quizzically. ‘Bet you’ve never seen the naked lady with the morning sun on her.’
‘I haven’t, no.’
There’s nothing like looking at a picture in early light,’ she said.
‘Oh, shut up about art.’ He kissed her. ‘The time’s come.’ Too quickly for her to protest, George picked her up and carried her to the bed.
8
George would like to have lingered in bed next morning with Lily, but duty made that impossible. He allowed himself to lie looking at her for a few moments – head on a bent arm, childlike, lashes that made a lengthening shadow on her cheek so it was hard to tell where lash ended and shadow began. Her hair was scattered randomly over the pillow. Despite the dullness of the room behind the thin drawn curtains, its familiar lights flickered a little as she stirred. George marvelled. Then he left her sleeping.
Prodge had suggested to him that a few pigs would add to the variety of the farm: this morning he was off to buy a couple of Gloucester Old Spots, a distinguished, rare old breed of considerable virtue. They fared very nicely without hormones, growth promoters or appetite stimulants, all things George would not abide on his farm, and they were known to be good mothers. There was also no need for tail docking, teeth clipping or castration, cruelties he equally could not contemplate, so in the experiment with pigs the Gloucester Old Spots were the answer. George looked forward to their arrival.
As he ate his breakfast he could not help smiling to himself: in the choice this morning between remaining with Lily and going to fetch a couple of pigs, the farming instinct won. She would understand, he thought. Heaven knew how she would spend her morning, but it was possible she would be looking forward to his return, late morning, as keenly as he was. And maybe her heart would beat as fast as his beat now, remembering their night.
Three hours later George returned to the farm in the Land Rover, two large pigs in the trailer behind him. To his astonishment he saw Lily crossing the yard, a pitchfork of straw trembling above her head, pieces falling on to her hair and shoulders, making for the shed where the pigs were to be lodged. At the sight of George she waved the pitchfork. The straw fell to the ground. She laughed.
George, after a quick glance round to make sure neither Saul nor Ben was about, dashed across the yard. He wanted to kiss her, to touch her, but took the pitchfork from her instead. They stood on a small gold island of straw. The sound of pigs grunting and squealing came from the trailer.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ George asked.
‘I asked Saul if there was anything I could do to help. He looked at me in complete disbelief, couldn’t believe I meant it. But when I persuaded him I did, he said, All right, you can bed down the pigsty. So …’ She smiled up at him, pleased with herself.
‘You’re even dressed like a farmer.’ For the first time, Lily was wearing old jeans and gumboots.
‘Thought it might encourage him.’
George was almost overwhelmed by a desire to leave the pigs in the trailer and carry the new farm help into the house. He said, ‘You pick up this straw. I’ll back the trailer up to the shed.’
She tried hopelessly to scrape up the straw with the pitchfork, then picked it up by hand. Her eagerness, her wild joy in this minor chore, was plain to see. George’s own sense of exhilaration made him clumsy He had to make several attempts to line the trailer with the open door of the shed.
The two pigs moved down the ramp into their new lodgings with great dignity. A fine launching, it was, said Lily: they were as stately as ships. Only the champagne was missing.
‘We could have a bottle for lunch,’ said George. ‘I mean, it would be a suitable thing to do, wouldn’t it? On this rather unusual day.’
He and Lily stood side by side looking over the door at the Gloucester Old Spots as they examined their new habitat. They were magnificent animals, their coarse pinkish bulk broken up by a pattern of large black spots. There was something of the china ornament about them, and also something admirable about their interest in their small new world. They took no notice of their audience, but rootled about with satisfied grunts, deciding which corner of the shed would be their sleeping quarters. George and Lily watched them in silence, fascinated by the efficient manner in which they made themselves comfortable. George, glancing at Lily, wondered whether she regarded pigs in the same critical way that she looked at pictures. He wondered whether she saw all sorts of things that evaded his own eyes.
‘No AI for them,’ he said. ‘Out in the field with the boar.’
‘You’re going to breed, then?’
‘Of course. An average litter should bring us about nine to twelve piglets. In five months they should reach some sixty-five kilogrammes live weight—’
Lily laughed. ‘How on earth do you know all this? I thought you’d never kept pigs before.’
‘I did a certain amount of research before going down this new road. Of course, I know Old Spots’ meat isn’t that popular – Saul did his best to persuade me I was mad. All that fat, he said. No one wants to eat that, these days. But I liked the idea of them.’
‘You’re a farmer not entirely ruled by your head, then,’ said Lily.
‘For the moment I can afford a non-profitable little whim like this. But there could be bad times round the corner. You can never be sure of anything in farming.’
This note of seriousness did nothing to quell their spirits: for the moment anything other than this untroubled happiness was beyond imagining. They walked back to the kitchen arm in arm.
There were new cheeses on the table, and a salad. George loved the way Lily’s mysterious mornings produced such lunches. He looked at his watch.
‘Twelve-thirty,’ he said. ‘I could do half an hour at my desk, or I could open a half-bottle of champagne and we could have it upstairs. What do you think?’
Drawing the curtains in Lily’s room, George hoped that Saul and Ben were still occupied with sowing and would not come knocking at the kitchen door. Lily was in bed by the time he turned round. She sat in a great flurry of whiteness, breasts resting on the sheet, struggling to open the champagne. George hurried over to help her. But he became deflected – as a farmer might, he said to himself, by such a girl as Lily Crichton in her bed at lunchtime, freckled with dancing shadows, laughing. In the end they did not bother with the drink.
At two o’clock they came downstairs for lunch, both hungry and in a hurry. George had a dentist’s appointment nine miles away, Lily was to meet Nell at three to go riding.
George, watching Lily as she ate and floated to the fridge to collect water, feared her obvious deliquescence would be apparent to everyone. Her apparent happiness, her ease, her exuberance shimmied over her, a gold dust so powerful it would surely brush off everywhere she went. Nell, in her instinctive way, would know at once.
‘You won’t say anything to Nell,’ he said.
‘Of course not.’
‘It’s just that you look so – well, as if you’d been … that she’s bound to guess.’
Lily laughed. ‘That’s entirely your imagination. I may not feel normal, but I’m sure I look it. I’ll tell her I’ve had a hard morning laying straw for the pigs. We mostly talk about horses when we’re riding. Or she tells me about the people who live in the farms we pass. I love all that. She never asks me intrusive questions.’
‘Good. Because Nell will find out one day. I think she’s probably expecting it. But in a sisterly way she’s quite jealous of my time and my affection beyond her. It’ll be a delicate matter, breaking the news.’
‘What news?’
‘I don’t mean just that we’re lovers, now. I mean
In too much of a hurry to work out what exactly he did mean, George kissed her on the forehead and hurried out.
A short time later Lily, about to set off to the Prodgers’ farm, discovered the battery in her car was dead. She could walk the mile, but would keep Nell – who always stuck vigilantly to her schedule – waiting. She telephoned: explained the problem. Nell, all sympathy, said she’d ask Prodge to come down and either jumpstart the batteries or drive her over himself. Lily sat down at the kitchen table to read the paper.
When Nell delivered the message to her brother, his heart battered so fast he feared she would see something was the matter. He turned away from her so she would not see the reddening heat that had swarmed over his face. His shaky hands he hid in his pockets.
Since that afternoon on the river bank Prodge had suffered all the symptoms of a man poised between lustful fantasy and painful reality. He had dreamt of Lily: he had ravished her in his dreams and woken up out of breath. He had taken every chance he could to catch sight of her, visiting George with some petty excuse more often than usual. A few words had been exchanged, but never had they been alone again for a moment. Now, here was his chance. As Prodge drove perilously fast along the lane to the Elkin farm, he knew he must take advantage of it. Say something: what? He didn’t know. But something to suggest to the goddess Lily what she meant to him. She might be flattered, not believe him. She might laugh, scoff. She might be angry. Whatever: he had to risk her reaction, for no longer could he contain the restlessness that raged through him, night and day, in his heart and body.
Not ten minutes after Lily’s call Prodge appeared in George’s kitchen, scarlet in the face. The flush reached right up into his hairline. He looked feverish. Before Lily could ask what was the matter, or rise to go with him to the car, he had sat down beside her. His hands, clenched into fists on the table, visibly shook. A crest of sweat appeared on his brow.
‘What’s your trouble, then?’