Once a Land Girl

by Angela Huth

  ‘No.’ Suddenly Barry stirred, shifted. ‘I mean, why not? It’s your house. You can ask who you like here, right?’

  ‘I had the feeling Bertha wouldn’t much like that, using her kitchen. I thought I couldn’t very well ask her to bring us a tray in here.’

  Barry looked at his wife very hard, a look she couldn’t fathom. Then he spoke loudly, close to anger. ‘Listen to me, sweetheart. Bertha is the housekeeper. She’s in my employ. I pay her good wages. I give her a roof over her head. If my wife wants to bring the next-door neighbour in for a cup of tea, a man who’s given his time and trouble to set up your chicken thing, then that’s fine by me and it’s bloody well going to be fine by Bertha. I’ll see to that.’

  ‘Right,’ said Prue, confused. She watched Barry visibly calm down and sink back into the chair.

  ‘Here,’ he said at last, and held out his hand. Prue gave him her wrist. ‘Sweetheart, sweetheart,’ he said quietly. ‘I know we’re a funny mixture, but we’re all right.’

  Blimey, thought Prue. What’s got into him? Not a man for declarations, but he could surprise.

  He let go of her wrist, gave her a fond look. ‘That Johnny Norse is a good tenant,’ he went on. ‘Good neighbour, though I don’t see much of him. He helped with a leak upstairs once. Seems he’s a good carpenter. Writes a bit, too, I gather. Any road, if you want Johnny Norse as your friend, me away so much of the day, that’s fine by me and you ignore Bertha’s cheeky disapproval. She’s probably jealous. I saw her giving him a look once – he was walking down the road, she was polishing the front door. I happened to mention what a nice young man he was, and she bit her lip, near to tears, I thought. I scarpered, as you can imagine.’ He laughed his growling laugh, stood up. ‘Let’s go and eat, sweetheart,’ he said, and in that moment Prue was near to loving him.

  It was customary for Bertha, at supper, to bring in two plates of whatever unappetizing food she had cooked and put it down in front of them – Barry always first. This evening they saw a change in her habit. She had left two slivers of cod in a dish on the hotplate. There were boiled potatoes but no other vegetables.

  ‘She knows how to send a message, Bertha does,’ said Barry, and again he laughed.

  A few days later Prue invited Johnny to try out the Sunbeam Talbot as she had promised. He sat for several minutes without moving in the driving seat before he started the engine. Then he coaxed it into an exciting roar, something she had never achieved, and moved off with confident swoops of the steering-wheel.

  The fog that had lingered for a week had lifted. It was a sunny morning and soon they were on a clear road. Johnny drove more slowly than Prue had expected, but she said nothing. Impatient for speed herself, she supposed he was getting used to the car before putting his foot down. They seemed very quickly to leave the suburbs of the city: the country suddenly swept upwards from each side of the road. Johnny accelerated, smiling. ‘This is more like it,’ he said. ‘What a car.’

  But the burst of speed was short. At the top of a hill, he parked in a clearing cut out in the verge.

  ‘Just thought you’d like to take a look,’ he said.

  Prue glanced down at a wide valley and giggled. ‘Funny thing is,’ she said, ‘whenever people get to the top of a hill and look down they say the view’s wonderful. Course, it often isn’t.’

  ‘True. But you have to admit it’s pretty good here.’

  ‘Suppose so.’

  ‘I’ll have to try you out on a few of my other favourite views.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘But not today. We’ll have a cup of coffee then go back.’ Johnny stretched over to the back seat and brought out a string bag in which he’d put a Thermos and two cups.

  ‘Gosh, you think of everything,’ said Prue. She had a strange sensation that the moments were slipping away very fast. If she didn’t think of something quickly, this outing would be over and there would be no firm promise of another. She couldn’t rely on his mentioning journeys to see other views. She sipped the hot, sweet coffee, staring through the windscreen. ‘Thanks for this.’

  Then she opened the passenger door, got out and went to lean against the bonnet. Johnny followed her. He folded his arms, let his eyes clamber over a cluster of elms, a slanting field darkly ploughed, a carthorse whose ears were flattened against its sadly lowered head.

  ‘The reason I can’t go on living in the city’, said Prue, surprising herself, because the thought had only just come to her and it was one of those unimportant thoughts not really worth passing on, ‘is because there’s no sky. I’m starved of sky. All the nearby houses, and other people’s trees, break into it, leaving just little jigsaw bits. That’s no good for me. I need big skies, like we had at Hallows Farm. They came right down to the hedges . . .’

  ‘Is that so? I know what you mean.’ There was a pause. ‘So what are you going to do about it? Your husband lives in Manchester.’

  Prue shrugged, giggled again. ‘I’m being stupid. I didn’t mean to say that. There’s nothing I can do, is there?’

  Johnny turned to look her. ‘Don’t suppose there is. You’ll just have to get used to living in the city.’

  ‘Never. I never could. Not for always. I’ll have to get Barry to do something. He’s always saying, “What do you want?” One day I’ll say I want to live in the country. I can’t imagine why I didn’t think about that more carefully before I agreed to get married. I suppose I just thought I’d get used to living in gloomy old Manchester in the end – I was brought up there. But I can’t.’

  ‘Doubt you’ll get Barry to change. I hardly know him but he looks to me like a city man through and through. We must be getting back.’ Johnny moved to open the passenger door for Prue. ‘I’ve got to work.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Tell you what, on the way home we’ll get up a bit of speed.’ For the first time that day Johnny smiled.

  ‘Good.’

  They roared back to Manchester. The car skidded so fast into the driveway of The Larches that the gravel spun about, screeching. Bertha was at the kitchen window breathing disapproval onto the panes.

  ‘Silly bloody bitch. Wizened-up old baggage!’ shouted Prue. Further to annoy Bertha she slipped round to Johnny and kissed him on both cheeks. ‘That was fun. You’re a good driver. Thanks.’

  ‘We’ll do it again. Go somewhere else. Promise.’

  Johnny kept his promise. Several times he and Prue drove out into the country, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes stopping at a pub for a drink or fish and chips. They were both reticent in the matter of exposing their hearts. Only with the greatest delicacy did Prue hint at the oddness, the loneliness of her marriage. Johnny, equally, kept all but an outline of his desires to himself. They gave each other signals, but did not colour them in. It was best like that, thought Prue, for they were friends, not lovers, never would be lovers when more secret things could be exchanged in bed. And she was hugely grateful for Johnny’s friendship. She missed Stella and Ag – their wisdom, their laughter, their strength. She had no girlfriends in the city and felt disinclined to go out looking for any. So Johnny’s proximity, his waves from his window as she fed the hens, his insistence on lending her books of Wordsworth’s poems – ‘Blimey, Johnny, expect me to get through all this stuff?’ – were a comfort. The time to meet Stella and Ag for their annual lunch in London was a long way off, and all the while Bertha’s hostility increased, making life in the house uneasy. ‘What the heck do I do?’ Prue asked herself.

  The chickens were a help in breaking up the day, though her initial interest in them soon waned. It was often a nuisance to have to go and shut them up on a wet night. Still, there were the eggs. Barry liked the eggs. The thing that would really change her life, of course, was a child. By devious means she sometimes persuaded Barry into his crude act of lovemaking more than once a week. He did not protest, but he did not share her enthusiasm. Quite a business, he grumbled, this getting a baby going. Perhaps there was something
not right with Prue, he suggested. Perhaps she should see a doctor.

  Prue did not take up this suggestion, and almost two years after their marriage she was still not pregnant.

  The spring after the arrival of the chickens Prue and Johnny began to go for longer drives. Prue never kept them secret from Barry: she found that describing to him exactly where they had been, the state of the narrow lanes, the number of farms they passed, was a help with conversation at supper. Barry seemed pleased she had found ‘a pastime’, as he called it, that she enjoyed. He was also pleased that his present of the car was such a success.

  ‘If ever there’s a problem with petrol, sweetheart,’ he said one night, ‘let me know. There are ways and means.’ Barry was proud of his skills in negotiating the black market, but as he handed over petrol coupons or boxes of chocolates, he had the grace to look faintly ashamed. Prue always accepted these ‘small aids in difficult times’, as Barry called them, rather than cause offence by refusing them. The Lawrences, she knew, would have been appalled. She didn’t like to think of that.

  She was pushing globs of Bird’s custard among a gathering of tinned pears. Custard was one of the things that induced intense nostalgia: Mrs Lawrence used to make real custard with real eggs and vanilla. Bertha’s stuff was not the same at all, though Barry liked it at least three times a week.

  ‘If it’s fine tomorrow we’re planning a slightly longer trip than usual – over towards Bakewell,’ she said, ‘but Johnny can’t leave till after lunch, so if we’re a wee bit late don’t worry. Get Bertha to leave something in the oven for me.’

  ‘That should be a nice drive,’ said Barry. Then, after a long pause: ‘Good thing I’m the trusting husband.’

  Prue laughed. ‘You’ve every reason to be. I wouldn’t lay a finger on Johnny, would I? Or he on me. You know that. He’s just a good friend. Someone to talk to, or drive with sometimes. They’re long days here, you away so much.’ She tried to say this lightly so that Barry wouldn’t take it as an accusation.

  ‘It’s a good arrangement you’ve got.’ He lighted a cigar, although Prue hadn’t finished her pudding. He had never noticed she hated the smoke. ‘Up towards Bakewell – that’ll be a good drive.’

  The day didn’t turn out as Prue had hoped. There was a light rain that smudged the views, and Johnny seemed to have something on his mind.

  ‘Got a poem coming on?’ Prue asked, to deflect the tension that wrapped round him like barbed wire. Johnny ignored her question. Realizing she had struck the wrong note, Prue joined his silence. He drove rather too fast, hands gripping the steering-wheel in the same fierce way they had gripped the cup when he was speaking of his ex-wife, as if to halt a distinct trembling. The sharp knuckles were horribly white and again a pulse had started to beat, this time in his cheek. Perhaps he was fighting some inner demon, thought Prue, but she had no intention of asking what troubled him. He was the kind of man to be frightened off by sympathetic interest.

  The tyres hissed and skidded round corners. Eventually – Prue had no idea where they were and didn’t like to ask – he came to a stop. ‘I wanted to show you this,’ he said. ‘An amazing valley. But it’s not the day for it. Sorry.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. There’ll be other chances.’ Prue was puzzled that the disappointment had little effect on her. Come to think about it, the drives to look at views were beginning to pall. She was as keen on nature as Johnny, as she often told him, but didn’t see the point of just looking, admiring. What she liked was working the land: digging, ploughing, hedging, looking after the animals, doing something useful. So when he suggested they might as well find somewhere to eat, then return home early, Prue agreed almost eagerly.

  They drove a longer way home in case the mist lifted and there was a chance to see more of the landscape. Prue assumed false sorrow as the rain fell harder and they failed to see any views. She was impatient to get home, shut up the hens – whose requirements by now had become a daily irritant – and have a bath. Johnny dropped her at the front door at five o’clock. They said goodbye with a kiss on the cheek, both feeling the day had gone wrong somewhere.

  ‘Probably just the weather,’ Johnny said.

  Surprisingly, the Daimler was in the garage. Barry was never normally home so early. Prue let herself into the front hall and stood for a moment, taking in the ugly dark shapes of the furniture and pictures as if for the first time. What has all this got to do with me? she asked herself. There was no answer in the silence.

  Then, from the passage that led off the back of the hall came a squawk like a frightened pigeon’s. Round the corner dashed Bertha – her knees rising high, Prue noticed: usually she glided as if on wheels. Bertha’s neat roll of hair had come loose. Strands trickled down her rough neck. There was a scarlet patch on each of her cheeks, bright as sealing-wax. Her eyes rolled. Her long front teeth dug into her bottom lip. When she saw Prue she screamed. Then she clamped a hand over her mouth, and her fingers, smeared with blood, skittered to the bodice of her grim beige dress. Without looking down she fumbled to do up the two top buttons. ‘You’re back early!’ she shouted.

  ‘Do you mind?’ Prue turned to shut the front door.

  When she turned back again Bertha was shouting towards the kitchen. ‘Don’t come out here, Barry.’ But she was too late. Barry was now at the back of the hall, tieless, doing up his cuff-links.

  ‘What’s all this kerfuffle, sweetheart?’ he asked, ignoring Bertha.

  Prue shrugged. ‘I came in and found Bertha screaming.’

  Bertha, now a deadly white and clutching clumps of her skirt, was shifting from one shoeless foot to the other. ‘She came back early,’ she whimpered. Then she turned on Barry and screamed. ‘You told me this would never happen! You said you’d make sure she’d never know! You lied to me . . .’ The scream trailed away.

  ‘I think you’d better leave us,’ Barry said quietly. His cuff-links in place, he pulled a maroon tie from his trouser pocket and slung it round his neck. Bertha fled. Barry kept his eyes fixed on Prue, as if she was a mirror, while he knotted his tie. Then he said, ‘I think you’re due an explanation.’

  Prue nodded. What on earth had Barry and Bertha been getting up to in the kitchen to cause such disarray? In the chaos of her mind there was no answer to this question. Perhaps there had been another row between them and Barry, God forbid, had hit her.

  In the sitting room Barry turned on the gas fire, poured himself a glass of whisky and lit a cigar. Then he sat back in his usual chair, knees apart, the pin-stripe material of his trousers pulling into uneasy ridges and furrows about his thighs. Prue took her usual place on the sofa opposite. The furniture, so familiar, moved strangely: the pictures were askew on the walls. Prue had always found that when unexpected happenings, either joyous or tragic occurred, the stable things of every day began to dance, making normality unrecognizable. It was a kind of magic that had always alarmed her.

  ‘I expect you’re wondering what all the carry-on was about. Well, I’ll tell you. You deserve to know.’ Barry drew on his cigar with some pleasure, as if he was ready to enjoy the explanation. Then he exhaled a swirl of smoke that hurt Prue’s eyes. ‘Bertha, you must understand, sweetheart, is a very complicated woman. Unloved, pathetic.’ He paused to reflect on this judgement, tipping back his head.

  Again it occurred to Prue that, half lit by the small table lamp, he could be mistaken for almost handsome in a fat sort of way. ‘Oh yes?’ she said.

  Her lack of acute interest spurred him. ‘Oh yes. Definitely one of life’s unfortunates.’ Another pause. ‘I’ve tried to do what I can for her – not always very rewarding. But I feel sorry for her – who wouldn’t?’

  ‘How did she come into your life?’

  ‘Ah, there’s the story, you see. There’s the story.’ He gave a small laugh. ‘Funny thing was . . . same way as you and your mother came into my life. Wet Manchester night, sirens, no one about. I passed this pathetic woman at a bus stop where I knew there w
ouldn’t be a bus till morning. Drenched, she was. I stopped and asked where she was going. She was too frightened to answer at first. I think she thought I was a murderer.’ At the thought, Barry gave another bout of laughter. ‘I told her to get in. She had trouble climbing into the seat. I asked her where she wanted to go. She said she had to get to Liverpool where she had a cousin, her only living relative, who might put her up while she sorted herself out. But he had four children and only two rooms, and she didn’t know how to get to Liverpool at that time of night . . . Didn’t sound promising. She began to sob and shake and fall towards me. I pushed her up again.’ He lowered his eyelids, remembering. Prue had never before noticed their plumpness, faintly repellent. ‘ “Well,” I said, “I can’t leave you at the bus stop, can I?” She shook her head, swayed about, sobbing harder. I explained I had a nice staff flat over my garage where she could stay for the night, and I’d take her back to the city in the morning, try to find some charity to help her. That seemed to cheer her up. So I drove her here, the room over the garage.’

  Prue sighed. She wondered where this story was leading. Half her mind was on one of the chickens, which was limping badly. She’d have to ask Johnny . . .

  ‘When I got down to the kitchen in the morning,’ Barry went on, after one of his longer pauses, ‘my usual time, she was there. Table laid, toast in the rack. She’d tidied herself up a bit, smiled. I could see that once – no, believe me – she could have been . . . not pretty, heavens, no, but not too bad. She was plumper, then. Bosom, hips, all that. She came right out with it, bold as you please, not at all like the woman of the night before. Could she stay and cook for me? She’d worked in the kitchen in some big house before the war, learnt a lot from the cook there. Well, you know me, soft-hearted to a fault. I said I’d give her a month’s trial – I needed someone. She’s been here ever since. Keeps the place clean and tidy, as you may have noticed. Does the ironing, whatever’s necessary.’

  ‘And?’

  Barry tapped his cigar into an ashtray, pushing the stump of ash around as if prodding out some delicate specimen. ‘And? Well, it’s here we come to the twist in the story. Inevitable, I suppose. You know yourself, sweetheart – desperate people become obsessed with completely unsuitable others—’