by Angela Huth
An hour later, having made a great effort with her appearance, she came down again expecting to find Barry, as usual, sitting by the gas fire with the evening paper and a cigar. But there was no sign of him. She went to the front door, looked out. No sign of the car either. She switched on the porch light and saw, on the step, a box of six eggs. She picked it up, opened the lid. No message, but they were obviously from Johnny to encourage Barry. Prue smiled. The large brown eggs glowed like discreet lamps. She touched each one with a cautious finger, remembering the chill feel of shell. Then, determined not to hand them over to Bertha, she took them into the sitting room.
Barry came home an hour late that evening, no explanation. Preoccupied by some business matter, he did not notice Prue’s efforts to look particularly alluring. Over anaemic sausages and mash Prue gently put her idea to him. ‘Think, we could have eggs like this all the time,’ she ended, and pushed the open box towards him.
‘Where did they come from?’
Prue gave an edited story of Johnny’s visit and suggestion. Barry waved a hand, uninterested. ‘You go ahead, sweetheart, do whatever you like. Set it up. I’ll give you the money. Get that Johnny fellow to help you.’
Prue got up from the table, went round to Barry and kissed him on the temple.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You won’t regret it. Eggs . . .’
Barry patted her stomach with a cuffed hand. ‘Pregnant yet, are we?’
‘Not yet, no.’
‘Can’t for the life of me think why not.’
‘It takes a bit of time.’
‘So it does, too. I must get to my desk, try to sort out this business.’
Left alone for the rest of the evening, Prue wrote a short note to Johnny thanking him for the eggs and telling him of Barry’s agreement. Then she ran up the stairs, one finger skittering up the grim old banister as if in a lively dance.
Chapter 3
It was a late-autumn afternoon. Through the mullioned windows of the sitting room the sky was white as paste, thick, cheerless. Prue threw the magazines she had been trying to read onto the floor. Once again she allowed herself to glance at Johnny who was still there, fiddling with something on the roof of the chicken shed. He had told her not to come out till he gave the sign.
It had taken just two weeks to make, this habitat for future hens. There had been several expeditions in Johnny’s van to fetch wood, wire-netting, tins of creosote. Prue’s main contribution had been encouragement and praise. She had been amazed by his skill in measuring, sawing, nailing, heaving it all together. The work had been an agreeable interruption to the days. Time had gone faster. Prue had a project, a point, two things she had been missing. Now it was finished.
At last Johnny turned and beckoned to her. Prue ran down the garden to join him. They stood side by side, looking at the completed work – a chicken house and run identical to Johnny’s on the other side of the wall. ‘Not bad, what?’ he said.
‘I think it’s wonderful.’
‘Now for the chickens and the feed.’
‘When can we get them?’
Her impatience made him laugh. ‘Dare say it could be tomorrow.’
As Prue waited for Johnny’s van to park at the gate next morning, she remembered feeling like this on some mornings at Hallows Farm: cold mornings when, after the milking, she and Joe would have the chance of a word, a look, to confirm the fun they’d had the night before, or would have again shortly. At the beginning of the Barry One time, she remembered feeling so excited every new day that her clumsy fingers had trembled on the cold udders, making arcs of milk squirt onto the floor. Even in the early days of Robert, who had been a pastime rather than a romance, she had felt twittery, as she had described it to the others, when she struggled out of bed at dawn. And now here she was, feeling twittery again – a feeling that had never assailed her during her courtship with her husband – because the man next door was taking her to buy some chickens. Daft, she thought.
They drove slowly through dense fog to a poultry farm some miles from Manchester. Six coops, holding two Rhode Island Reds each, were waiting for them. Johnny piled them into the back of the van. Prue handed over one of her huge white fivers and was given a handful of change.
All the way back the stutter of the engine was ameliorated by the hens’ indignant clucking. There was a smell of chicken shit and damp feathers. It was bitterly cold – there was no heating in the van.
‘Much better’, said Prue, ‘than travelling in the Daimler.’ Johnny laughed. It was easy to make him laugh.
They lugged the coops to the run and set the birds free to shake themselves and scurry about exploring their new territory. They watched them try the water in the drinking trough, begin pecking at the pristine grass. The fog still hovered low on the ground, giving an ethereal quality to their fat bird-shapes. Johnny put an arm round Prue’s shoulders. But only for a moment.
For the second time Prue was faced with a dilemma. Again, she would have liked to ask Johnny into a kitchen she felt was hers and make him a cup of tea. But again she was thwarted by the very thought of Bertha’s jealous guarding of her territory, the outrage she would incur if she entertained a visitor there. ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ she said. ‘I wish I could ask you in—’
‘Sounds to me as though that housekeeper woman’s tyrannizing you.’ Johnny’s immediate understanding of the situation, and his not requiring any further explanation, was a relief.
‘Not really. I’m just not welcomed. I keep my distance.’
‘There’s no reason, though, why you shouldn’t come and have a cup of tea with me.’
Prue hesitated only for a moment. ‘No,’ she said, with a last look at the birds who were already at home in the run.
Johnny’s flat was on the first floor of the next-door house – a house identical in proportion and some detail to Prue and Barry’s. They went into a large room that incorporated an unruly kitchen and a collection of armchairs and tables covered with papers and files. Johnny looked for clean cups. Prue went over to the window and could see that on a clear day there would be a good view of both gardens and chicken runs.
‘You know what?’ Johnny was saying. ‘I’ll be able to look out and see you, morning and night, carrying buckets of chicken feed. Even better, collecting the eggs. It’ll give a rhythm to the day.’
‘I’m sorry – all this chicken business has taken up so much of your time,’ said Prue, ‘kept you from your poetry.’ She turned to look at him putting spoonfuls of tea into a pot the colour of liver. The china was overlaid with a silvery sheen, like the bloom of grapes in a picture she had once seen by some old master. Identical, it was, to the teapot at Hallows Farm. Prue felt her heart give a downward beat.
‘Don’t worry about that. Nothing takes me from my poetry. It’s in my head all the time.’
‘Goodness, is it?’ said Prue. ‘I don’t really understand about poetry.’
‘I’ll read you some one day. Here.’ He handed her a cup painted with such delicate roses that the suspicion of a wife occurred to her. Surely he couldn’t have chosen such prissy china himself. ‘Why don’t you sit on one of my battered armchairs?’
Prue chose one by the window, a morose but comfortable-looking piece of furniture. On the ledge beside her was the single frivolous object in the room: an empty vodka bottle in which was propped a child’s windmill on a stem. She wondered whether, when the window was open, a breeze would power the paper arms. She flicked the bottle with a finger.
‘Is there something significant here I’m missing?’
‘No. Just a silly moment of a minor triumph,’ Johnny said gruffly, and lowered himself onto a stool opposite her.
The thing about Johnny, thought Prue, was that he never seemed to think that talking instantly was necessary and he wasn’t one for explanations. He’d leave you to marinate in silence for a few moments, which indicated he was thinking seriously about whatever you had last said. Though probably he wasn’t.
As she shuffled about in the chair during one of these silences, Prue studied his slightly out-of-kilter face in which the air of cheekiness seemed too young for it. He wasn’t the kind of man she would have looked at twice a few years ago: too thin, a touch too tall, altogether too indeterminate. But now she was older – more mature, she reckoned – she found his outward melancholy rather appealing. And the really intriguing thing was that she had no idea whether or not he fancied her. Usually she could tell in an instant. One flick of her curls, one moue of her scarlet lipstick and men (so many) could hardly contain themselves. It had all been easy. But Johnny – did he even register that she was a pretty girl? They had seen each other most days in the past two weeks, bonded by their project, but there hadn’t been the smallest signal that he had anything on his mind other than completing the chicken run. Ridiculous, thought Prue. Or perhaps she was losing her touch.
She put the cup of tea on the window-ledge, then leant back into the unstable arms of the chair, which creaked as she moved, and bent one leg up onto the seat. She gave a shake of her head, a pat to her hair, the fraction of a smile. If he was inwardly on fire with lust for her, Johnny gave no sign of it.
‘Shall I put the lights on?’ he said.
‘Shouldn’t bother.’ Prue changed her position, now crossing her legs. ‘It’s nice in here, all grey.’
Her movement stirred in Johnny a look that Prue interpreted as a first positive reaction, almost interest. She blinked at him slowly, aware of the weight of her black-encrusted eyelashes.
‘You know something funny?’ he said. ‘I always wanted to meet a land girl. I had this feeling they weren’t quite real. I used to look at pictures of them in Picture Post – those sexy breeches and tight jerseys. Have you kept yours?’
So odd, the extraordinary impression that land girls’ breeches seemed to have made on the men of the British nation. ‘I have.’ Prue felt a flicker of apprehension. ‘We weren’t meant to – we were only allowed to keep our coats. But somehow I had two pairs so I kept one.’ Surely nice reticent Johnny wasn’t some kind of creep who wanted . . .
‘You must put them on for me one day.’
‘Not on your life!’ Her answer was a squawk.
‘I was only joking.’ They smiled at each other, and the moment of awkwardness evaporated. But it was then that Prue decided she was not going to make any attempt to seduce him. She liked to think that had she tried she would have succeeded just as easily as she had with all the others. But she wasn’t going to. Because somewhere deep within her lay the morals taught in childhood: a girl could have as many boyfriends as she liked (this being her mother’s teaching rather than that of the Church) but once married, no matter how difficult, you remained faithful. She liked to think she would remain faithful to Barry because he was – well, he provided many things she had always wanted, and he was kind and tranquil. He just wasn’t there.
‘Are you married?’ she asked suddenly, studying her cup and saucer with its prim roses.
‘Was once. Briefly.’ Johnny shook his head. ‘Pretty much of a disaster. Nothing in common. The wife was cursed with a vicious tongue and a pretty mean streak, though none of that was apparent before we married. Or perhaps I was blind. Strange how you can be taken in, wanting to believe. What I thought, though, and luckily she agreed, was that having made a mistake we should undo it as quickly as possible. No hanging about hoping for things to get better. She had money of her own and I had none so there were no financial fights. She’s married to a man in Las Vegas now.’
His large hands were clasped tightly round his cup, as if for comfort against the thought of a past wife. They trembled slightly. Then, Prue noticed, a small pulse in his jaw began a regular beat. She began to think that here was a neurotic neighbour, a touch highly strung, nervous. She’d have to take care to avoid any minefields. Not mention the wife again. But then he looked at her with such a disarming, happy smile that she thought she must have been mistaken. ‘Can’t say I ever think of her,’ he said. ‘But Barry? Your Barry? I scarcely know him. We have occasional landlord-tenant conversations, but that’s all.’
Prue tipped up her head. (There was a way in which a head could be tipped that signalled nothing more than polite interest.) ‘He’s a good man, Barry. I don’t see much of him. His work. But he’s generous.’ She held out her wrist, tapped the gold watch.
‘He is. Are you happy?’
‘What a question!’ Prue giggled, caught off guard. ‘Course I’m happy. I wouldn’t have married him if I hadn’t thought we’d be happy – though I have to admit we’re a bit chalk and cheese. But there’s no saying what makes a good marriage. Sometimes the most unlikely—’
‘Quite.’ It was almost completely dark by now. ‘Really is time to put on a light,’ said Johnny, getting up and taking Prue’s empty cup.
‘And time for me to be getting home. Barry’ll be wondering,’ she added, knowing that this was unlikely.
Now that Prue had taken her decision not even to flirt with Johnny, she felt unconstrained, able to make gestures that she knew were innocent and assumed Johnny would see as innocent too. She moved to face him, standing close. ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ she began. ‘You’ve taken so much time and trouble. They’ll change my life, those hens. Isn’t there something I can do for you in return?’
Johnny frowned. There was a pause while he gave thought to the question, plainly not seeing in it a devious signal. Then he smiled. ‘Well, there is, come to think of it. Your car . . . I’ll never afford one even half as beautiful. I’d love a ride in it. Would that be possible?’
‘Of course.’
‘We needn’t go far. And I’ll bring a can of petrol. I’ve stored a bit.’
‘But I’ve only just learnt—’
‘I’ll drive, if you let me. I’ll show you its paces. I know a good straight trunk road.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and swivelled her gently to face him. Then he kissed her forehead. ‘It’ll be fun,’ he said. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
When Prue arrived home she found that the Daimler was not in the garage and the house was in darkness. She let herself into the hall, switched on the light. From the passage that led to the kitchen Bertha appeared. She moved to the point where the passage widened into the hall, stopped and stared at Prue who gave a nervous laugh. ‘Johnny Norse has finished the chicken run. The hens are all there. Perhaps you’ve seen them?’ she said.
‘I haven’t looked,’ said Bertha. ‘I’m not that interested in hens.’
‘But there’ll be the eggs,’ Prue floundered. ‘Do you know when Barry’s coming home?’
Their eyes met. Bertha folded her arms across her hollow chest. ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘How should I know? It’s not my place to know, is it?’
Prue hated her. ‘Well, I’m going to shut up the chickens,’ she said, picking up the torch from the hall table. ‘It’ll be my nightly duty from now on.’ She tried for a carefree voice – no intention of acknowledging Bertha’s powers of intimidation.
‘Very good.’ Bertha turned away, strode back down the passage, her shoulders lifted so high they touched the mean little roll of hair at her neck. Her posture, Prue supposed, was meant to indicate triumph. Bugger her, she thought. Witchy old cow. She’s not going to lord it over me.
It took her longer than she had imagined to round up the hens in the dark. They skittered about, avoiding the beam of the torch. Sometimes one gave an uncanny squawk as she ran hither and thither. Prue was half entertained by their silly lack of direction, then remembered the place was new to them: they would take a while to become familiar with the geography of their house and run. She was also impatient – not a born chicken lover, like Ag – but she’d get used to them.
When she had finally shut the door on every bird, Prue looked over to the house next door, Johnny’s lighted window, undrawn curtains – actually, she remembered, there hadn’t been any curtains. He was standing at the window. He waved. She waved
back, and turned towards the house.
The kitchen light was on, the curtains there, too, not drawn. Prue turned off her torch and walked down the lawn keeping close to the wall. Something compelled her to study Bertha on her own. To spy, she supposed.
But Bertha wasn’t on her own. Barry was there, too. He stood, hands in the pockets of his overcoat, at the opposite side of the table. He seemed to be listening intently to Bertha, who gave an occasional stiff movement of her arm. Then suddenly he put both hands on the table, leant over and shouted. Prue couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it was plain he was angry, or threatening. Bertha now wiped floury hands on her pinafore and put them over her ears. Barry turned away and quickly left the room, taking a cigar from its case as he did so. He slammed the door behind him. Bertha picked up a tea-towel and dabbed at her eyes.
Prue felt the battering of her heart, a kind of unexplained guilt. She could think of nothing she had done wrong, but guessed she was the reason for the row between her husband and the housekeeper, and felt uneasy.
Barry was sitting by the gas fire, a balloon glass of brandy by his side, cigar lighted. He looked up when Prue came in, gave one of his wider smiles. ‘Hello, sweetheart.’
‘Barry.’ Prue went over to him, bent to kiss his temple. It shone a little with recent sweat and left a trace of salt on her lips. This evening greeting had become a ritual.
‘I hear the whole chicken business is up and going,’ he said.
‘It is. Johnny and I went to fetch a dozen Rhode Island Reds this afternoon. They seem quite happy. I’ve just shut them up for the night.’
‘Good, good.’ Barry stared at the peach flames of the gas fire. ‘I hear you went over to his place for a visit.’
As far as Prue could tell this wasn’t an accusation: his voice was light. ‘I did. He asked me in for a cup of tea. Well, I mean, I couldn’t very well ask him here, could I?’