by Angela Huth
‘We could,’ said Prodge, ‘God help us.’ He turned again to his sister. Her silence dulled the edge of happy anticipation among the other three, making them all uneasy. Nell was looking out of the window, as if scarcely listening to all that was being said. Her eyes followed a moving cloud.
‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘You could. It’s the most wonderful idea, George. Typically generous of you.’ She moved her look from him to Lily, her severe expression only partially masking the depth of sadness she felt. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t be part of the package. I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate the invitation, but I can’t accept it. I won’t be coming here. Prodge can manage fine, with you two to look after him.’ Her eyes now met George’s: strong, firm. Inwardly he quailed, hating her public message. ‘I’ll be off to New Zealand. We’ve a distant cousin there who breeds horses. Always something I’ve wanted to do, as you know’
‘New Zealand?’ shouted Prodge, appalled.
‘I’ve been in touch with Isabel. We’ve been communicating for some time – long before this last crisis.’ Nell spoke lightly now. ‘We’ve great plans, great hopes. I shall like New Zealand – new country, new life. Something like England used to be,’ she added.
‘You never mentioned a word of this to me.’ Prodge stood up, hurt, betrayed, shocked. ‘Why didn’t you say anything? You dark horse, you.’
‘Some things are best kept to yourself until the right moment,’ answered Nell, a little harsh in her sudden detachment. ‘Had things been different, I might not have needed to go to New Zealand. No, don’t try to dissuade me.’ She turned to George. ‘My mind’s made up. It’s what I want to do. I’ll have time to concentrate on horses at last. I’ll be very happy’ She stood up, wearing the look of brave defiance George knew so well. She looked round, her silent message igniting each one of them.
‘Well, obviously, Nell ‘n me’ll have to talk a lot more about all this,’ Prodge said, unnerved. ‘Could be I’ll persuade her – ’ Nell gave him a scathing glance – ‘could be I won’t. And we can talk a lot more about your idea, the ins and outs, can’t we? I mean I’d like to leave our farm soon as possible, myself.’
‘Of course,’ said George.
Prodge and George gripped each other’s forearms, nodded: no one knew what further to say. Lily went to kiss Nell, then drew back. Nell had retreated to a place of her own. They could see she wanted no contact to endanger her facade. “Bye,’ was all she said, and followed Prodge out of the door.
‘I can see it wouldn’t have been possible for her,’ said Lily, later, ‘feeling as she feels – as she’s always felt.’
‘I thought, being Nell, knowing the impossibility . . . she’d get over it.’
‘Get over it?’ Lily was more ruffled than George had ever seen her. ‘But she’s been- in love with you for ever. I knew that the moment I met her.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Lily gave an incredulous laugh. ‘I thought you knew. I thought you didn’t want to talk about it any more than Nell wanted to talk about you.’
‘God preserve us from our sensitivities! I only had the faintest intimations. Only very recently did I realise just what . . .’ He shrugged. ‘But I thought it best not to mention what I guessed was the truth. I thought it would be even harder for her. She wouldn’t have wanted my pity or empty consolation. There was nothing I could do.’
‘I suppose not. I hate the idea of her leaving.’
‘So do I.’ He sighed. ‘But there was never anything I could have done, was there?’ By now George was roving the kitchen, miserable. ‘It’s arrogant to think I’ve been the cause of so much despair in her life, but I suppose that’s the truth of it, and I’ve never wanted to face it. Of course there were signs. I never wanted to acknowledge them. I tried to ignore them. And now nothing’ll change her mind. She’s a stubborn old thing. She’ll go, certainly. But I hope she knows it wasn’t unrequited love she felt: it was requited, but not in the way she wanted. Not in a way that was much good to her. Oh God, poor Nell. She’ll make a go of it, of course. She’s always successful if she puts her mind to something. But I’ll miss her. We’ll miss her, won’t we?’
Lily nodded. She set about small domestic acts in the hope that George would find consolation in her sympathy, and comfort in her busy presence.
In the weeks that followed, the Elkins and the Prodgers watched the playing out of the disease and its tragic results from their empty farms – new outbreaks every day, horror stories of incompetent killing, thousands of healthy animals awaiting slaughter, thousands of rotting carcasses awaiting burial, and some, already buried, dug up again to be buried a second time. Compared with many other farmers, the four of them realised their luck: they were neither bankrupt, jobless nor homeless. Starting again would be a long and difficult process, but possible. For so many, foot and mouth disease was the final disaster at the end of a decade of hardship.
For Ben, there was nothing left to do. He wanted to leave the empty fields and sheds as soon as possible, he said. He didn’t want the memory of them now to blot out how they used to be before the animals were killed. On the day it was announced that the General Election was to be postponed, he left to begin his apprenticeship with a firm of electrical engineers, scoffing at the idea that one more month would see the end of the disease. Saul, who had passed scarcely a day without his son since he was born, wandered the fields like a man confused, dazed. He bashed the hedges with his stick, called his dogs to heel if they wandered more than a few yards from him. Then he set to oiling machinery, checking much earlier than he would have done in a normal year that the tractors were in good shape for the harvest.
Prodge and George spoke endlessly on the telephone. It was decided that Prodge, master-builder of the great shed, was the one to renovate the far end of the house that was to be his. With Nell there was little exchange. She used regulations about not visiting her excuse for not coming over, and rang only twice, the second time to say her flight was booked. Finally, afraid she might feel incapable of saying goodbye, George went over to find her. He came upon her among dozens of packing cases, for she was sorting Prodge’s stuff as well as her own. She was pulling at straps and lifting heavy boxes as if weight was nothing to her, but her sharp shoulder blades were visible beneath the fuzz of her jersey. The farmhouse as George had always known it had disappeared in the upheaval. Furniture moved, pictures taken down, carpets rolled up – its sad state, previously half hidden in the general chaos, was now painfully revealed.
‘I’m so busy, George,’ Nell said, scarcely looking up.
‘I can see that. But I’ve come to say goodbye. Thought you might just slip away’
Nell said nothing, continued wrapping a photograph in newspaper.
‘You could always change your mind, come back if things didn’t work out,’ George went on, floundering.
‘Things’ll be fine. I won’t be coming back. I’ll have the horses, won’t I?’
‘You’ll have the horses. Maybe—’
‘If you want to know, this foot and mouth disaster has made the decision easier for me. I always knew that if . . . Lily came back, that would be the time for me to go. God knows I wanted her to, for you. But it wouldn’t have been possible, years and years more of . . . it wouldn’t have been possible for me. And I can’t stay forever the farmer’s sister.’
‘No.’
‘Prodge might get married one day, want me out. And as you and Lily have relieved me of the one stumbling block to my leaving – Prodge’s well-being – there’s nothing left to keep me, is there?’ She met George’s eye. ‘I mean, that old myth: you and me like brother and sister. For years it’s been rubbish as far as I was concerned. I wish it had been so – would’ve been much easier. But you must have known that.’
She gave a shaky laugh.
‘And I would never have done for you, George, except in the way we’ve always known. And that’s always been pretty good, hasn’t it? We’ve been
so lucky: our shared passions in our farms, our jokes and teasing and understanding. And then, goodness, we’ve been able to comfort each other in our time, too, haven’t we?’ Her voice lightened. ‘But you need more than all that. Perhaps I do. You need a woman with knowledge and ideas and information that you can call on when you come in from the farm, to transport you to another place. I haven’t got that range – no, don’t deny it. It’s the truth. You need someone who can put magic into things, like Lily. I’m more the practical kind. I don’t really believe in magic. And then – well, there’s nothing I could show you that you don’t already know’
‘Nonsense. You’ve taught me thousands of things.’
Nell looked George sternly in the eye. ‘What you should remember is that you and I were granted something rather rare between men and women – near-perfect friendship. The sort that lasts, survives anything. I suppose we’ve been slightly drawn to each other physically, too – I hate that word attracted – ’Nell turned up her nose, smiling – ‘but never so much as to make complications. Think how lucky we’ve been.’ She laughed convincingly.
‘I suppose we have,’ said George. He sighed. ‘They’re so confusing, all the permutations of love. But you know I’ve always loved you. I hope you’ve always known—’
‘Oh yes. I’ve known and been grateful for that kind of love.’ She paused, gathered herself. ‘You’ve been my life, here, George. Our life. Take good care of Prodge for me. Please look after him well.’
‘Of course.’
‘And don’t think I don’t realise what a gift from heaven your idea is: you and Prodge equal partners, new house, staying on the land he knows and loves ... a new prize herd one day. I shall miss seeing that, miss seeing what the three of you and Saul achieve.’ She tipped up her chin, tried to revive her smile. ‘But I’ll be fine. I’ll manage. I’m not too old for a new life, but if I hung around much longer I would be. I’m quite excited in a way, honestly’
‘Nell.’ George held out his arms. In this moment of parting, the jumble of sensations and messages burning to be imparted, but too complex to be expressed, made words impossible. Nell suddenly dropped the bundle of paper and pranced towards him – a high, jaunty step he had never seen before.
Despite huge sadness of the moment George could still register how this false gaiety ill suited her, but what courage it came from. She kissed him briefly on the cheek, then backed away into the rubbish again.
‘Don’t let Lily go this time,’ she said. ‘Give her my love. Say I’ll write. Now please, George, I’ve so much to do.’
‘I’m on my way’
‘My bantams,’ she said. ‘I never knew how much I’d miss them. Funny, isn’t it? Anyway: thanks for coming over.’
George’s eyes slurred with tears that did not fall as he hurried from the house. He could not help wondering whether Nell, alone again, would allow herself tears, too, or whether she would keep her own weeping for the other side of the world.
The Elkin farm, like the Prodgers’ and thousands of others, was now a ghost farm: the buildings were empty of everything but the smell of disinfectant. Every corner that could harbour the disease had been scoured by men in protective clothing with high-powered jet machines. George read that the average age for the British farmer was now fifty-six. Indeed, on the days when there was a reason to go to market, he had noticed the acute shortage of young men and wondered with some trepidation how he and Prodge would fare. Farm incomes were the lowest for sixty years: when, and how, would things improve? The future looked arid, but nothing would deter him from starting again. It was announced that the suicide rate among farmers was now higher than in any other business in the land – and the Prime Minister declared there was no crisis in the countryside.
Nell left for New Zealand with two smallish suitcases and her spinning wheel. (Prodge had insisted she take the fare from their parents’ cheque, and enough to see her through a month or so.) The same day he moved in with George and Lily and began work on what was to be his end of the house. It became alive with the noise of hammering and sawing, filling the silence left by the animals. Prodge worked with great speed and vigour: absorbed in the job, he ceased to talk about his old herd. But in the evenings, when the three of them sat down to supper together (Prodge promised to return the hospitality as soon as his new kitchen was finished), talk was now of Friesians and a new mixed flock of sheep.
On a warm spring day, 192,000 animals awaiting slaughter, George and Lily took their postponed break from the farm. They drove to the north coast. George knew of a walk through an oak wood that led to a small, unfrequented cove.
They sat on the pebbled shore, a warm sun on their backs, watching the waves lumber in as slowly as fat old seals. Once landed, quickly they fanned their foam on the pebbles, then receded, leaving nothing more than a skeletal trace of their brief lives to be washed away completely by the next wave. The rhythm again, thought George. Further out to sea the occasional wave broke prematurely, its crest making a white feather to dance for a moment on the water, then was gone.
‘I like this place,’ Lily said. She wore a blue scarf, bluer than the sea. They drank apple juice. There was an echo of their first picnic on the river bank, but not a pure comparison: time, events, a million sensations divided then from now.
It was the only occasion, that time by the sea, that they spoke of what had happened. It was as if neither of them had liked to unsettle their renewed happiness at the farm by dwelling on all that was past: neither believed in sterile analysis of matters of the heart, but both observed in the other the need to leap from the last stepping stone to the final bank of reassurance.
‘The feeling of no feeling,’ said George, with a small sardonic smile to ease the way, ‘has it gone now, do you think?’
‘I think it has.’ Lily played with a collection of silvery pebbles, running them through her fingers. ‘I don’t think I can ever explain what happened, because I’m not sure myself. But I know that I never stopped loving you. I just couldn’t feel that love, couldn’t feel anything. It was terrifying.’
‘And now?’
‘Now? It’s been such a long, despairing process. But I think – I really do believe – it’s roaring back now. By that I mean roaring gently, if you can understand the oxymoron. – I wonder if you ever guessed how fed up I became with all my restless roving, waiting? Sometimes I thought, this is it: I’m fine, I’ll go home. Then I knew I was deluding myself. I’d look at Van Gogh’s chair, or a copper beech in May – you know, that strange transparency of the leaves before the colour quite reaches them – and I still felt nothing, nothing. So I knew I had to carry on waiting.’ She paused. The first awful, welcome, lurch here –’ she touched her ribs – ‘was when I heard about foot and mouth. Ironic, really, something so appalling jolting me back into sensation. All I could think of was you and Nell and Prodge, and all the farmers waiting to know if they were doomed, and tears came into my eyes. I knew I couldn’t bear for you to go through it all alone. I had to be there with you. It was time to come home. No more thoughts, no more procrastinating, I just got into my car and drove. And here I am. So pleased . . .’
She tipped the pebbles into George’s hand.
‘And now?’ he asked again.
‘And now? Well, as it should be. I mean, given that you in all your love and generosity have taken me back with not a word of reproof, and have made no demands for an explanation. So – from this time forth, as it were. Promises. Beginning again. Wiser. For my part, hoping to do better, be a better wife. Not so much urging you to look, but looking myself at all the good things you are.’ She laughed.
‘But I loved your lessons in observation,’ said George. ‘All that time you were away I tried to practise, and I think I sometimes saw. In so many things – except for Nell, and that was because I didn’t want to face the truth – you relieved me of my blindness. You showed me how to abandon preconceptions, see what was really there. What more can any one creature do for anoth
er?’
Lily took the pebbles back again. The small clinking they made in her hand was the only sound against the brush of the waves.
They stayed there till the tide turned, mid-afternoon. On the way home each of them was aware of the pervading light of resolution in the other. They both sensed that some discovery had been made without resorting to the danger of excavation. At home, they found Saul sandpapering the rust from the mudguard of a tractor, and Prodge lifting a beautifully made frame into the window of his new kitchen.
By May, it was estimated that if the slaughtered animals were laid in a line they would stretch 1,908 miles – from London to the Sahara. By now the army had been called in to help. Soldiers were reported to be unhappy at instructions to finish off half-dead animals by bashing them over the head with lorry spanners, or drowning them in a river. Prodge painted his front door black and white.
In June, following the election, MAFF became DEFRA, to no apparent advantage, and in the Queen’s speech there was no mention of the crisis in the country. Decisions to deal with the crisis continued to be taken by scientists with computers but no veterinary experience.
Nell wrote from New Zealand to say she was happily installed with her cousin and horses. Prodge moved into his end of the farmhouse, still not quite finished but wonderfully transformed. Lily helped him choose colours and made curtains. Unmoved by her presence, he was now able to enjoy her help and friendship, and seemed deeply content with the whole arrangement.
At the beginning of August many footpaths were reopened, giving a signal that the worst was over. By the third week in August 3,750,000 animals had been slaughtered. 20,000 awaited slaughter, 9,000 were piled up waiting to be burnt. Birds were seen on the corpses. There were fears that the inefficient disposal of the dead animals would cause further contamination. It was announced by the new DEFRA minister, a woman not known for her love or knowledge of the country, that there were to be three separate inquiries into the disaster. Farmers, enraged by what they considered the mishandling of the whole catastrophe, accused the government of a cover-up. But they understood why there was not to be a general inquiry: as Prodge said, who would come worst out of that? The government hinted that some farmers were perpetuating the disease for their own good. While they conveyed some sympathy for those in the country tourist trade, rural disasters were plainly not the stuff of natural ministerial concern. The Prime Minister’s brief attempt at ‘taking charge’ had made no perceptible difference. The feeling was that his government remained impervious to the farmers’ distress, and had no real idea how to overcome the ongoing catastrophe.