by Angela Huth
12
A few days after the arrival of Lily’s card George returned to the hay fields to decide if the time had come for baling. The hay had been turned several times and scattered about to dry. They had been lucky with the weather. The threatened rain on the day of mowing had not come. There had been constant sun, but not insufferable heat. A light breeze, there was, as well, which exploded Lily’s roses but nicely dried the hay.
George walked back and forth across Top Meadow. He listened for the noise beneath his feet – there was a special note that came from scattered hay when it was fully dried. Every now and then he stooped to pick up a clump, felt its crispness. He would smell it, for the pleasure, before dropping it back on the ground. To George, freshly dried hay smelt of dusk. It took him back to haymaking in his childhood – they had machines then, yes, but also men raking till sundown, and his mother bringing strawberries and home-made lemonade. They would picnic sitting on the warm ground that tickled his bare legs. Unlike straw stubble, it did not prick uncomfortably.
This year’s hay, he decided, had reached the perfect moment. He had learnt how to judge its readiness from Saul in the last few summers. He had learnt so much from Saul, but this year there was no need for him to invite his opinion. George knew he was right. It was time to go over the field with the turner, marshalling the scattered hay back into rows, and then to call for the contractor with the baling machine.
This certainty in his own judgement gave George a feeling of quiet contentment. As he made his way back to the gate, a clump of crisp hay still in his hand, he was conscious of an ebbing of his misery. The void without Lily was still there, of course, but the physical pain seemed to be subsiding. In its place, he thought, he felt a kind of molten patience. He was in no doubt that his wife would return one day. It was inconceivable that she would do otherwise. Her card, he judged, was evidence of that. She would not be so cruel as to send him a signal, oblique though it was, if she had no intention of coming back. So he would wait for that day without fretting. From somewhere, strength to do that had filled him. He would put every mite of his energy into work on the farm: he would somehow help Nell and Prodge, and the waiting would go by – sometimes he’d be angry, sometimes impatient, perhaps. But it would not last for ever.
For all his new patience, strength and calm, George could not help dreading autumn. It was the time of year he loved most: berries turning scarlet on the rowan trees, Lily making blackberry jam. He loved the particular colour of autumn skies that arched over the land. Drained of their summer clarity, they dimmed into the milky blue of Burmese sapphires. Last year, bashfully, he had pointed this out to Lily You’re looking, George, she had said. I see just what you mean, she had said, because it so happened my mother had a Burmese star-sapphire ring. But I don’t suppose many people would know what you’re talking about. She had laughed, as if at his progress, as if she appreciated his hopeless attempt at poetical expression. Autumn: it was the time of year, those soft, steep steps up to Christmas, when his father used to begin bringing in the logs: the kitchen curtains would be drawn soon after tea, and early frosts clenched the ground each morning. Without Lily such joys would be dulled, though never quite gone. And with any luck there would be only one lost autumn.
In Lily’s absence Nell came over most days. She would never stay long, but always brought an offer of help. If George was mucking out the calf shed, Nell would take up a second pitchfork and join him. If he was indoors at his desk, she would make him a cup of tea. When she was gone he would notice that the collection of cups, and his lunch plate, had disappeared from the draining board: dried, put away. Sometimes she would bring him a box of bantams’ eggs, or a bottle of her home-made elderflower wine. At Christmas she knitted him a very large jumper made from her own spun and dyed wools.
At Christmas, as he thought she would, Lily sent George a card: Leonardo’s Madonna of the Rocks. No message there. Apart from the printed ‘Best Wishes for Christmas and the New Year’ (any message there?), Lily scrawled her brief news: Teaching a History of Art course in Norwich. All fine. Love. Other cards were thrown out after Twelfth Night: not Lily’s. George left it on the dresser.
He was grateful to Nell for her visits. She was undemanding, didn’t talk much. When she did have something to say it was bad news of a general kind which she delivered in staccato sentences.
‘Hedge sparrows disappearing by the thousand now, George. Did you know that?’
‘I did.’
‘God knows how many farmers are packing it in. Don’t blame them.’ They were sorting bags of newly delivered feed. Nell slashed a bag so fiercely with her knife that dozens of pellets spilt on to the ground. ‘Soon there won’t be a butterfly in the land: bloody pesticides. Let alone a village pub. Did you know something like a hundred and fifty country pubs a year are closing? And I read that a third of rural villages are now without a shop. As for village schools … How are people living in the country going to survive, George? It’s dying.’
It was on this occasion, a winter’s afternoon in the shed, that George realised that beyond her usual concern about farming and the country in general, Nell was beginning to suffer an anguish about her own situation that she had previously disguised. George saw that she was near to tears.
‘And there’s another thing. These passports for every calf we have to apply for … We’ve got nearly a hundred cows. How the hell am I going to find the time to fill them all in? Prodge is useless with paperwork.’ She bent down to retrieve some of the spilt pellets. There was something about her act that made it seem of huge significance – as if picking up pellets was of no less importance than any other farm job, but George knew that really she just needed to move her body and hands in order to hide a moment of despair.
‘Sometimes I feel exhausted as it is. Me, George. Have you ever heard me complain of being tired before? I’d like to see a MAFF man on an icy morning drive the tractor through the cowshed delivering half a ton of silage for breakfast. I’d like to see him up at five every morning to milk, never a lie-in. It’s always been bloody hard work, but possible. Now, with all the extra official paper business put on us, it’s only possible at huge cost. So many people are cracking up, physically, mentally. Nothing’s simple any more. There’s no time to admire a new calf, to feel a sense of achievement in a fine row of cabbages or a field full of healthy lambs. There’s so much extra to do now, most of the joy’s being drained out of farming. The government just think they can send us a mass of new paperwork and we’ll deal with it. Well, we will, of course. We have to. But have they any idea what they’re putting on to us in terms of man hours? Working twelve or fourteen hours a day on the farm, then coming in for two or three hours’ paperwork? Sometimes I feel if there’s one more page of questions to answer, one more cow to milk or TB test to arrange or sheep to dip, I’ll—’ She stopped, brushed away a tear with a muddy fist.
‘Nell, Nell,’ said George. ‘Look, I’ve far fewer cows than you. I can find time to help.’
‘Nonsense. You’ve got more than enough to do yourself.’
By now her nose was red and several strands of blonde curls stuck to the mud on her cheek. George thought she looked much as she did when she was fourteen, except that worry was now alive in her small, kind eyes.
Once again this was an occasion to chide himself. He had not looked behind Nell’s usual cheerful demeanour, had not guessed the extent of the worry BSE at their farm had caused. Full of self-reproach, he put an arm round her shoulder. ‘Shall we go in? It’s getting cold.’
‘No. I must leave in a minute. Time to get the cows into the parlour, help Prodge. He does more than his fair share.’
As if unaware of his arm, Nell sat down heavily on the hay bale behind her. George lowered himself beside her. An hour from now the shed would be crowded with animals, the warm fug of their breath and the various notes of their bleating. For the moment there was a husky silence and the faintly sour, sorrel smell of silage Ben had lugged dow
n for the evening feed. George and Nell sat looking through the shed’s huge doors to the fields, shrivelled beneath their thin winter grass.
George was aware of the comfort Nell found in their proximity. In her misery, all she desired was to sit on a hay bale beside him for a few moments, this bleak afternoon, before returning home.
‘I can’t moan to Prodge,’ she said at last. ‘He’s in such low spirits himself. I spend all my time trying to cheer him up. What he’s worried about, apart from the drop in income, is that Will Rogers, our landlord, seeing the way things are going, will want to sell up. There are a good few round here’ve sold their farms for a handsome price, and who can blame them? Debts mounting up, you can quite understand why these incomers with their millions are a temptation. You can quite understand why a wretched farmer might not think first about local property being out of reach of local people these days.’ She sniffed. ‘Makes you sick.’
‘I shouldn’t think Will Rogers will want to sell,’ said George. ‘He comes from a very old farming family. Been his land for generations.’ He put a hand over Nell’s. It was cold and dead. His touch sparked no reaction in her beyond a small, grateful smile.
‘Let’s hope, she said, ‘because that would be the last straw.’ Then she turned to him. ‘There is one thing you could do for me,’ she said.
‘What’s that? I’ll do anything I can.’
‘Come for a ride with me.’
George paused. He had expected to be able instantly to agree to any request. This one surprised him into hesitation.
‘I’m not much of a rider. I could try’
Nell snatched her hand away. She laughed, punched George on the arm. ‘Nonsense! You may not be that keen, but you’re perfectly competent.’
‘Of course I’ll come. But why do you suddenly want me to? You’ve never asked before.’
Nell shrugged, stood up. ‘Just a whim, really. I’ve missed my rides with Lily. You can ride the grey mare, like she always did. Quiet as a lamb.’
George caught the lightness of her new mood.
‘Very well. So when’s this to be?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon? What we might do is box them over to Dunkery Beacon – I haven’t ridden over there for years. We can’t be away that long, but Prodge said he’ll hold the fort.’
‘You mean, you’ve already told him your plan?’
‘I told him I was going to ask you. He said that in the very unlikely event of your agreeing, he’d be happy to do the milk by himself. Then he laughed. It was the first time he’d laughed for some days.’
They rode side by side over the empty moorland that swirled up the sides of Dunkery Beacon. The high peak was half obliterated by a thin fog, its earth the colour of a bruise. To both of them it was familiar territory. There had been outings as children: hide and seek among the thick jungle of bracken, patches of it taller than they were. George remembered hiding in caverns of intense green, marvelling at the tightly curled fists at the end of each leaf. He remembered the three of them paddling in the stream at the bottom of the valley in their underpants, then racing away from the grown-ups – running up the steep narrow lanes that had turned into cool tunnels of oak tree shadow.
It was a place few ever came to, unless they were in search of solitude, for there were no attractions beyond the views and the sound of water. On one occasion they joined friends who owned a farm on high land for haymaking. It was then, aged nine and ten, that George, Prodge and Nell drank their first cider and sat slumped in the field as the sun went down, staring at the distant sea too tipsy to speak. They had to be helped to the car, and Prodge was sick on the way home. Often they saw deer: antlers on a fine, alert head cruising through the depths of bracken like some masted ship expecting danger. They had been taught not to move or speak, when sighting a deer. They were good at keeping absolutely still as they watched the animal’s progress to a secret destination. When it was no longer visible Prodge would burst into giggles – nothing funny, he said. Just to relieve the tension, Nell always explained to George in her solemn, grown-up way. Often they climbed to the top of Dunkery Beacon and made private wishes. George, trying through the mist to see the place where he had screwed up his eyes and cast so many youthful aspirations to the skies, couldn’t remember a single one of his own wishes. But he did remember that Prodge’s wish (a secret he could never keep) was always for a bicycle.
The moor in winter was a more threatening place than it had been in those always summer days of youth. Its emptiness was full of surprises. They rode through a band of fog to come to a clearing of extraordinary brightness, though no sun. For a moment there was a half view of sloping land hemmed by skeletal fans of winter trees, then it was gone again. George was enjoying the ride more than he had expected. The grey mare was quiet but responsive. Her ears were constantly pricked. Occasionally she blew trumpet sounds through her nostrils and tossed her head. George could understand why Lily had become so constant a riding companion to Nell. It occurred to him that when she came back he would ride with them sometimes. They might even buy their own horses.
‘You’ve not been hunting yet,’ he said.
‘No.’ Nell reined in her mare so as to be level with George. ‘And I shan’t be going again. Hunting days over.’
‘What on earth do you mean? I thought you loved it.’
‘I do. You know I do. And I’d like to keep on, not let those bloody animal rights bastards feel they are winning – or the MPs who want to take another slash at those of us to whom the hunt’s an essential part of our lives. But I have to tell you something, George. I have to confess. This is my last ride. That’s why I wanted you to come. I’m not sure I could have managed on my own—’
‘I can’t believe you—’
‘—It’s no good. We can’t possibly afford the horses any more. You can imagine what they cost – winter oats, new saddlery, hunt subscription. I can’t afford the petrol any longer to box them over to meets too far away to ride to. And as for shoeing, did you know the nearest blacksmith is now fourteen miles away? I haven’t the time to ride there, and there’s the petrol again. It’s not that my horses are anything very special, as you can see. But any horses cost a bit to keep in condition, and all the hunting farmers are grumbling.’
‘But Nell—’
‘So it’s decided. Horses and all their stuff being sold next week. Box, if I can find some idiot to take such a run-down old thing, soon as possible. That should keep us going for a few weeks. Prodge was all against it, tried to persuade me to keep them. But things aren’t improving. Interest on the bank loan—’
‘Listen,’ said George, ‘you probably won’t believe this, but not five minutes ago I was just thinking to myself how much I was enjoying riding again, and how when Lily comes back we ought to buy our own horses. Wouldn’t the obvious solution be for me to buy your horses, but you carry on looking after them, riding them, as always, just as if they were still your own? In return for your looking after them, we’d share all costs
They had arrived in another patch clear of fog. Nell pulled up, turned to George with a tight, fierce face. She was affronted. Somehow George had put his suggestion wrongly. He cursed himself.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the thought, but I couldn’t bear that. Besides, Lily’s not here. Lily’s gone.’ The sharpness in her voice was almost a taunt. ‘If only you’d stop being so bloody stupid and proud and get in touch with her, you could tell her about the horses. She’d want to know’
She jerked her mare’s head round and set off at a trot. In a moment she was lost in another gathering of fog. George could not find her for some time. He rode alone in a troubled state, trying desperately to think what he could do to save Nell’s horses. But even if there was a way that avoided making her feel patronised, George doubted he could ever change her mind. Nell was known for her stubbornness, a characteristic that was usually more useful than it was a hindrance. In this case it precluded her from the ongoing pleasure of her horses �
� though, of course, George’s plan would partially erode that pleasure anyway. Borrowing animals that you had once owned … he could see that would not be the same.
At the top of the moor George saw Nell some yards away. She kicked her mare into a trot so that she would quickly be at his side. As he watched her rising and falling, an apologetic smile on her face, the sadness of the ride dissolved in the sudden thought of how appealing she looked on a horse, scatty hair bouncing under her cap, taut body, her whole demeanour one of intense liveliness and energy. He had often thought how good she looked, riding. But it occurred to him that never had he actually ridden out with her since they were children. Now, not only did she look good, but from his own saddle, his level vantage point, she looked curiously attractive. What might have come of his deep friendship with Nell, he wondered, if Lily had never appeared in his life? And if Lily never returned – well, a man can only bear so much celibacy, so much aloneness … It would be easy enough for him and Nell to slip into another mode, wouldn’t it? They knew each other so well. There would be no surprises.
She was by his side now, trying to flatten her horse’s mane with her whip.
‘Sorry and thanks,’ she said.
They rode back without speaking to where George had parked the trailer. When the horses were boxed, Nell moved a few paces from George, tapping at her knee with her whip.
‘Anyhow, none of it really matters,’ she said, ‘because if this foxhunting bill goes through none of us will be hunting any more. A great part of British life for centuries gone for ever. Hard to believe.”
Driving back she seemed to shake off her melancholy and asked George if he was going to join the Countryside Alliance march in London.
‘I’d like to,’ said George, ‘but someone’s got to do the animals. I’m going to insist Saul and Ben go. They could do with a day out. I’ve volunteered to help organise transport and so on from the village, but I won’t be able to go.’
‘Same with me. I’m determined it should be Prodge. They can all go together. Do him good to get away from the farm for more than an hour or so. He’s in a right gloom, these days, I can tell you. To march along with thousands of others as passionate in their concern about what’s happening might cheer him up.’