by Angela Huth
‘Oh Christ,’ said George. ‘I’m—’
‘—but he was as nice as could be about it all, I’ll say that. He said he was giving us a year’s notice, and had not intention of harrying us about the rent. I wouldn’t like to tell you how behind we are. Then he said his advice was to get out of farming before it’s too late. He seemed to think things are going to get worse, not better. Get out of farming, George! Imagine. What would we do? We can’t give up.’
‘How did Prodge take the news?’
Nell gave an attempt at a laugh, and then sighed. ‘I haven’t told him yet. Didn’t want to spoil this evening for him. He always loves the bonfire. I’ll tell him in the morning.’
‘So there’s a year,’ mused George. ‘A year in which to find a solution. That must be possible. Whatever happens, we will.’
‘Actually,’ said Nell, ‘I don’t believe there is one. This time next year we’ll be out: animals sold, no property beyond our clothes, books and a few bits of tatty old furniture. I’m not going to think about it.’
‘Well I am.’
‘That’s kind of you. But I can’t say I’ve any hope. I rang the landlord, tried to persuade him to change his mind. He said it wasn’t our fault, of course, the rent business. He quite understood, but he had to make a living, too. Huh! How much capital has he got, sale of two farms? I reminded him he’d be the owner of Prodge’s shed. I reminded him what that shed added up to, in terms of love and effort… Got nowhere, of course. He just said that’s life.’
George put a hand over hers. They had arrived at the village, parked. Nell turned to him as she switched off the engine.
‘Don’t know what I’d do without you,’ she said in a small voice before snatching away her hand.
‘Nor me without you.’
‘Please think of something.’
‘I will.’
On the village green, they found Prodge waiting impatiently for the guy, which he was to hoist to the top of the huge pile of wood and old tyres. Apart from half a dozen children who followed him everywhere, eager for a pat on the head or some word of command, the crowd who had come to join the festivities was small. Few farmers had either the time or the energy to turn out on a cold winter’s evening: they had their paperwork to struggle over after supper. Guy Fawkes night held too few attractions to lure them from their deadly work. Precious hours of sleep could not be missed for a bonfire.
But some of the old village women were there, shawls wrapped over their coats. The rural saints of Mrs Elkin’s estimation, always eager to help, had brought thermoses of tea and coffee and hot sausage rolls still in their baking tins. There were no women of George’s age. To the few left who still lived in the village but commuted to work in the local city, like the farmers and their wives, village celebrations could no longer be a priority.
The guy was secured in place. Prodge lit the bonfire. It caught immediately. Strong flames leapt up through its guts. They could hear the sounds of twigs shrieking and old boughs creaking as they were touched by the heat. A great sail of smoke swayed above the fire, paled by a moon that came and went between clouds. The guy himself was devoured within moments. His flopping head with its horrible grin and staring painted eyes was felled by a single flame: only the plastic ears survived a moment longer. George could laugh at himself now: how on earth could he ever have thought… ? But the impression, and the fright it had given him, left him uneasy. It was a warning he must heed. More than ever he was determined to help Prodge in some acceptable way.
Thirty years ago, he reflected – or even ten years ago – there would have been a couple of hundred gathered on the green for this ceremony. It would have been an occasion no one wanted to miss. Now, there were how many? Twenty-five, perhaps? George looked round at their faces, solemn, transfixed by the slight element of danger as people are in the presence of a strong fire. Some stepped back a little, feeling its great heat. Nell and Prodge stood side by side. Prodge’s old clothes were loose on him now, and in the firelight his exhausted face was little more than a moulding of bones covered with sheer flesh. Nell was hunched, hands in pockets, eyes narrowed. In the fire she was perhaps seeing the conflagration of their future, and thinking how best to put the latest grim news to her brother in the morning.
Suddenly Nell roused herself from whatever her dream and moved a little closer to the fire. A small boy, stick in hand, darted forward. In a second Nell had grabbed the child and picked him up. In her arms he was happy, waved the stick. She whispered something in his ear and made him laugh. The delight of the picture they made, young woman and child bound by the firelight, surprised George. He thought what a natural mother Nell would be, and could not help wondering if he himself would ever be a father.
George saw Prodge glance over to where his sister stood, still talking to the child. Quickly, like a man not wanting to be caught, he fumbled beneath his jacket, pulled something from his shirt pocket. As far as George could see it was a small piece of paper. But then, caught by the firelight for an infinitesimal moment, it glinted, which made George think it was a photograph. He saw Prodge screw it up without looking at it and throw it into the flames. This done, Prodge stepped back again, with a look of something like relief – though George could not be sure from this distance that’s what it was – and turned his attention to the small children surrounding him. Their hero, he seemed to be: they would do anything he asked. He gestured to them to stand back while he approached the bonfire, jabbed at it with his pitchfork. But most of its life was over. Flames, snake-slow now, had given up leaping. They meandered among what was left of the wood, then died in a bed of ash. People began to move away.
What Prodge could be, George thought, was a very good father. He wondered if he had ever loved a woman, or if he had only ever known the feckless young girls he met at the pub, bent on taking rather than giving, and not the least interested in what motivated the rare man they had lighted on. One day, George hoped, Prodge would meet someone like Lily, who would become his wife and not run away.
Home in his cold, empty house, George poured himself a glass of neat whisky. He turned on some music: Brendel playing Mozart piano concertos. Since Lily’s departure he had hardly ever listened in the way that he used to with her. As the yearning rills of notes reflected his own mood of bitter-sweetness, he wondered why he had denied himself this comfort for so long.
Restless, he wandered up and down sipping at his drink, then moved into the passage outside and went to the dining room, never once used since Lily’s departure. Slowly, he made his way all over the house, listening to his own footsteps, switching lights on and off as he entered and left rooms not visited for a long time. In his bedroom the piled-up books on the table on Lily’s side of the bed were in the very order she had left them. Wolf Solent had a marker halfway through. Perhaps one day she would remember to come back and finish it. There was a leatherbound volume of Keats’s poems, inscribed by her father on her fourteenth birthday, and a collection of Hazlitt’s essays. Lily had never been much of a one for modern fiction. George replaced the books in their order and went over to the dressing-table.
There, reluctance fighting a curiosity he’d never given into until now, he opened the middle drawer. It was empty but for an open box of powder and a swansdown puff, its drooping satin bow a small flare against the dull powder. George remembered the many times he had seen his mother, at this very table, pluck an identical puff from a box and dab it on her cheeks. Tiny specks of the stuff would fleck the glass top of the table. In the drawer, a dusting of powder now covered the paper lining. Memories merged: the scent of old roses, wife and mother. Quickly George shut the drawer. Opening it, he had known, was a foolish thing to do.
He sat on the bed for a while, wanting Lily. He picked up the photograph of her, taken on their wedding day, that lived on his bedside table. He wanted to tell her about his experience with the hanging guy: she was the only person in the world he could tell. He wanted her here, now, with him. Back whe
re they used to be.
Still restless, George went downstairs again. It occurred to him that he had been in and out of five bedrooms apart from his, and three rooms downstairs that were never used. This had always been one of the larger longhouses built locally: far too big – ridiculously big – for a man alone. The only rooms he occupied were kitchen and study, bedroom and bathroom. Even when Lily was here, rooms remained unused. It was absurd, when his friends were about to be homeless. Perhaps, at last, there was something he really could do for Prodge and Nell, to which they might have no objection. For the moment, he began to feel the rising excitement of an idea beginning to emerge. The better to contemplate, he poured himself another large whisky, and settled at last in his chair by the unlit fire.
15
The journey from an idea to a decision is often a long and difficult one, as George found after the night of the bonfire. He was forced to the conclusion that, except in matters concerning the farm, he was a procrastinator. In this case the procrastination was entirely due to the doubts that rose every time he tried to imagine a new life in which he shared the house with Prodge and Nell. The difficulty of putting this idea to them and persuading them of its benefits also caused him many hours of worry.
But even as he delayed announcing his suggestion (where would be best to do it? Their house? His?) George did not feel there was any great urgency to present his plan. He knew Prodge and Nell intended to spend their last year in the place that had always been their home, and did not spend much time thinking beyond that. He also knew that in some vague, unspoken way, they looked to him for a solution, which they expected him to produce when the time to depart was imminent. He hoped that the subject might come up naturally. When asked for his advice about what they should do, George would be ready with his strategy.
The only part over which he agonised concerned Nell. He tried to imagine her actually running the house. She would be efficient, of course. The place would be sort of orderly, she would provide good basic food, she would be able to return to her weaving and dyeing (George saw this in one of the unused south-facing rooms). On a whim, he tried to imagine her in his bed. If they could both shift from mere affection to the higher reaches of love, that would no doubt be perfectly possible, for he did love her, and would hope that the depth of his affection might produce adequate desire, if not passion. But he liked to think he would not actually have to face this possibility – unless in, say, five years’ time Lily still had not returned and he was forced to believe she never would. It would be good to have more of the house occupied again. What he knew would be forever missing was the unique magic that was Lily’s: the way her presence radiated the place, and she was able to conjure excitement from the ordinary. Still fiercely in love with his absent wife he had so patiently been waiting for, he was unwilling to replace the elements only she could provide with Nell’s kind, loving, but lesser presence. He realised it was his increasing despair at Lily’s absence that had spurred these alternative thoughts.
For the time being, George reckoned, Nell and Prodge seemed to be in better spirits, determined to make the best of their last year at the farm. There had been no more outbreaks of BSE among their cattle and Prodge’s bouts of depression were on the wane. He had stopped taking the pills and put on a little weight. Nell, in contrast, seemed too thin, her heavy bones clearly outlined under trousers and thick jerseys. They rarely mentioned their money worries, or how they were going to deal with the now large debt hanging over them. The only time George ever heard them complain was on behalf of farmers in general, and the increasing disaster of British country life.
The proposed Countryside March for the spring of 2001 added to the pre-Christmas workload for all of them, but happily. They formed part of a group who met to plan their local contribution to the grand finale. It was going to be, they all felt, an occasion – massive, dignified, quietly passionate – that the government would not be able to ignore. It might even shake them into a reassessment of country matters. The meetings in the village hall, chaired by George, were impressive in their numbers. No matter how exhausted at the end of the day, every farmer within a twenty-mile radius would turn up ready with proposals for all manner of help. There was an extraordinary feeling of unity at those meetings – the warmth of mutual concern and belief, the sudden charge inspired by the feeling that the massive protest really could have some effect. Nell said she found herself much moved by the crowd of such skilled country men and women fighting for the same cause.
After one of the meetings, George drove Nell and Prodge, Saul and Ben to the pub for a drink. It was Nell’s birthday. The landlord’s wife, at George’s request, had baked one of her excellent cakes.
The five of them sat at a table by the fire, drinking beer and wine, talking with a kind of understated excitement about the march. It was the event which they all looked forward to – the very thought of it stimulated hope. Then the cake was brought in, the candles lit. Nell was delighted. She pushed back her great bush of curly hair behind her ears in preparation for blowing them out. George had given her a pair of small opal earrings which she wore now. As they swung from her ears, the candle flames lighted the iridescent stones, firing them with miniature colours. She took a deep breath, blew. Not a candle escaped. Everyone laughed. Nell, looking through the small spirals of smoke they left behind, joined in the laughter.
‘I’ve always been able to do that,’ she said. ‘That’s my one boast. May I go on being capable for a good many years.’
She smiled at George, suddenly pink-cheeked: he had not seen her so happy for some time. He wondered if in her instinctive way she had some idea about the thoughts that he had been grappling with, but he did not let himself dwell on this for more than a moment. Instead, he drank faster, and more, than was his custom. Soon the saloon bar was an agreeable blur: firelight, gleam of pewter tankards and polished wood, mess of chocolate cake on plates, and the faces – briefly free of concern – of the four people, beyond Lily, he most cared about.
At some time in the evening he heard Ben turn to Prodge and ask what his plans were. Prodge, after several beers, did not seem put out by the question.
‘No plans yet. Nothing definite. Bit of time to go till we have to make up our minds. But I’m thinking I’d like to go and work for an organic farmer,’ he said.
‘That’s something we haven’t discussed.’ Nell said this lightly, but turned to him, puzzled.
‘No. But I’ve been thinking about it. It would be a challenge. A new thing to learn about. Aren’t I right, George?’
‘You are. It’s something I’ve been contemplating myself.’ In his slightly inebriated state, it occurred to him that if he offered Prodge the possibility of turning the farm …
‘You’ll never get rich like that,’ said Saul.
‘That’s not my aim. Now I’ve not been able to get the bike, all I want is to cover my costs and do something about getting the land back to natural farming. The old method of rotating crops, putting a field down to clover one year, whatever. I’d like to learn all about that. I’d like to try it – have the chance to try it. It’s what I believe in.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with our way,’ said Saul. ‘It isn’t as if we spray chemicals indiscriminately. We judge our soil very carefully, give it no more fertiliser than it needs. Well, you do the same. I’m not against the organic system, but it’s a hard struggle, I’ll tell you that.’
‘My belief,’ said Nell, ‘is that in twenty years’ time most of the farmers left – if there are any – will have gone over to organic. It’s what people want more and more. They’ve come to be wary of pesticides. They want to be able to trust their food—’
‘Rubbish,’ interrupted Ben. He held up his hand, emboldened by several pints of beer. ‘There’s too many farmers too impatient for profit to go organic: won’t want to wait a long time for their money. But whatever happens it won’t bother me so much any more.’ He glanced at George. ‘There’s a chance of a job lat
er this year in Cardiff. Some electrical place. Small industrial firm. I have to take a course. If I pass well enough, there’s a chance—’
‘Son, let’s not talk about this now,’ said Saul, and his face tightened.
‘Lovely drink,’ said Prodge, ‘though it’s done nothing to take my mind off the price of soya rations, gone up thirty pounds a week. What’m I going to do about that? I think I’ll walk home. Want to clear my head.’
George drove Nell home. When they arrived at the farmyard she seemed in no hurry to get out. George sat with his hands on the steering wheel. His head still spun a little.
‘Thanks for organising all that,’ said Nell. ‘It was a good evening.’
George turned to look at her. Her head was tipped back against the headrest, her eyes shut. Most of her face was in darkness, but the strong moon shining through the windscreen softened and blanched her hair.
‘Do you remember that time we were children, you kissed me?’ she said.
‘I do,’ said George. ‘Two occasions, in fact.’
‘It suddenly came back to me.’ She opened her eyes. ‘But then I’ve probably had a bit too much to drink. God knows what the morning milk will be like.’
They both smiled.
‘So I’d better get some sleep. So’d you. Thanks again.’ She leant towards George, cheek upraised. George kissed it. He let his mouth slur towards her mouth, which she kept tightly shut. They remained quite still, in this awkward position, for a matter of seconds. Then George could feel her whole body tighten. She gave a small whimper before pushing him away with both hands, suddenly fierce. ‘No point doing things for old times’ sake,’ she said, and turned her head away.