by Angela Huth
Prue moved to the sitting room. Barry was in his chair, cigar already lighted, smoke moving blowsily above his head. ‘Ah, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘What was the trouble?’
‘That rice, Barry. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t—’
‘It was little thick,’ Barry agreed.
Prue took a seat opposite him, rested her chin on clasped hands. ‘But also,’ she added, ‘I’ve not much appetite, these days. I feel queasy quite often. I mean, in the mornings.’ She did not want to use the word ‘pregnant’ herself. She wanted Barry, sometimes a dim idiot, to guess.
‘Anything wrong? Are you ill?’
Prue hesitated. ‘I’m pregnant. Having a baby.’
There was complete silence. Barry waved away a scarf of smoke from his face. Prue could see a dull glitter, more like a second skin than tears, appear in his eyes. He shifted in his seat, changed his cigar from his right hand to his left. Then, as if enlightened, he stubbed it out in the ashtray. ‘You won’t want smoke around you,’ he said at last, trying to control an emotional voice. ‘I’ll give up smoking in the house . . .’ A very small smile cracked his mouth, then stretched into a bigger one. There was a flash of his gold tooth. He heaved himself out of the chair, stood up, patted his trouser pockets with cupped hands. It was plain he was undecided how to act. The smile still intact, he moved towards Prue, took both her wrists, pulled her to her feet. ‘This is the happiest day of my life, sweetheart. Me, a father! Imagine! You a mother! How about that? Are you excited?’
‘I’ll be more excited when the sickness is over.’ Prue managed a smile.
Barry kissed her on both cheeks, then laid a hand on her stomach. ‘Is it kicking? Don’t they kick quite early?’
‘Not just yet. It’s only a few months.’
‘You’ll have the best private care, of course. And we’ll get a room done up however you want it, a nursery.’ He said the word with great care, for it was not one he had previously had reason to use. ‘Oh my goodness, sweetheart. This is the news we’ve been waiting for. Trying for. Haven’t we? You must take such care of yourself. You’ll have to give up all that farm work. You can’t carry on heaving things about. It’s not even necessary. You can lie back reading magazines all day, thinking about the colour of the nursery.’
‘I don’t heave things about,’ Prue interrupted. ‘Mostly I just walk with the horse.’
Barry, noticing her indignation, decided not to pursue his point. ‘Well, we’ll see.’ He moved his hand from her stomach. ‘And now you’re having a baby I won’t have to bother you any more. I’ve heard it said sex can be dangerous during pregnancy. We wouldn’t want to take any risks, would we?’
‘Of course not.’ Prue hoped the lightness of her reply concealed the depth of her relief at his plan.
Barry returned to his chair. For a moment he looked with longing at the cigar stub. A hand automatically went to his inside pocket, home of his cigar case. Then, with a small, pathetic laugh, he forced his strength of will to triumph. His hand returned to his knee, gripped the stuff of his trousers. ‘Silly me,’ he said. Then he frowned. ‘Who else knows?’ The question was a swift change from mellow to sharp.
‘No one. Of course you’re the first to know.’
‘I’m glad, sweetheart. It’s wonderful. You can’t know how my heart’s bursting.’ He was gentle again. A real tear escaped from one eye.
‘It is wonderful,’ said Prue. He deserved the pleasure of her agreement. She would not want him to guess at her honest, muddled sensations. ‘I might go to bed. Early start tomorrow . . .’
‘Course. You go. Get as much sleep as you can. Is there anything I can do for you?’ Barry’s unaccustomed solicitude was making his voice unsteady. He seemed to be ungrounded by approaching fatherhood.
‘Nothing at all, thanks.’ Prue moved to the door, turned back for a moment to blow him a kiss. He sat beached on his chair, knees apart, a man too stunned to know how to regiment his body. He clapped his fingers silently together and apart; one knee began to jiggle violently. A moment of fondness speared through Prue. She blew him another kiss but, engaged in his own paternal thoughts, he was too preoccupied to notice.
‘I tell you what,’ he muttered, so quietly Prue had to strain to hear his words, ‘this baby of ours, he’s going to want for nothing money can buy.’
‘He?’ said Prue.
‘My son. I’m telling you, sweetheart, it’s going to be a boy.’
Prue did not hear Barry coming to bed, leaving next morning. She left the house earlier than usual in a wakeful state, though for once she did not feel sick.
When she arrived at the farm she found an Austin 7 parked outside the bungalow. Then a man came out of the large shed. He was small and narrow, in an ill-fitting suit. Spikes of oily hair stood up on his head and his face was contorted with anger. Prue guessed him to be Bert, Dawn’s husband, who usually left for work long before she arrived. He moved fast towards the car. ‘All I ask is that a man should have a decent breakfast before setting off for work, earning the only proper wages round here, and where’s Dawn? Where’s my so-called wife? Saying her bloody prayers, that’s what.’ His mouth twisted to one side, as if he was about to spit.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Prue. She had no idea how to react to this outburst . ‘Would you like me to cook you something?’
Bert was by now standing right by the Sunbeam. He put out a hand, touched the bonnet. ‘No, I would not. I’ll manage. You the land girl I hear so much about?’ Prue nodded. ‘A land girl with a Sunbeam Talbot? That’s a first if ever I heard one.’ He turned away, stumped off to his Austin 7. A moment later the small box of a car was seething down the driveway, its owner’s rage urging it to a speed quite out of keeping with its horse power.
For a moment Prue leant on the Sunbeam, wondering whether to go into the bungalow and discuss the day’s plans with Steve – they were always the same, but the farmer liked a routine discussion – or whether to find out what had so enraged Dawn’s husband. She decided on that, and went quickly to the shed.
Bert had been right. Dawn appeared to be saying her prayers. She was kneeling on a bag of pig feed, hands clasped at her chest, mouth moving, eyes scanning the corrugated roof. Every now and then she gave a small groan in which the words ‘Oh, Lord’ were so distorted they were almost indistinguishable. Then, abruptly, she rose from her knees very fast, swung round and faced Prue before she could back out of sight. But Dawn seemed unabashed to have been caught in her devotions. ‘I was saying my prayers for you this morning,’ she said. ‘You’ll need them.’
‘Thank you.’ Prue nodded.
‘Though I was saying them more for your baby,’ added Dawn, coming to stand close Prue and bringing with her a strong smell of toothpaste.
‘My baby? How did you know I was . . .?’
‘Ah!’ Dawn gave a triumphant laugh, then smiled down at her. ‘I can see things others can’t. Always have done. I’ve known for weeks there’s been a bun in your oven.’ Prue winced at the description. ‘Yes, a child in your womb, a baby to be born . . .’ She trailed off, her creepy smile clamouring right through her cheeks.
Prue, shaken, felt a nausea different from that caused by rice pudding. There was something about toothpasty Dawn, in the early light, that was deeply unsavoury. ‘I say my prayers in the shed because it’s the best place for me to pray. I see things here. I’m close to Jesus. He’s close to me. He’s all about us. Can’t you feel His presence?’ Her frantic eyes flung over the bags of pig feed. ‘You should believe me.’
‘I do,’ said Prue, feebly. All she wanted was to get away from the demented Dawn.
‘Bert and Dad say I’ve got a screw loose. They can’t understand anything if it’s not black and white. But they’ll discover one day, things I’ve seen. One day they’ll learn I’m telling the truth, seeing things that come to me.’
‘Quite. Well, thanks for your prayers, Dawn.’ Prue smiled, stifling the laugh that rose in her. ‘I must get in to your fathe
r, see what he wants me to do.’
All the way to the bungalow she knew Dawn’s eyes were on her, but she did not look back. It wasn’t till an hour later, walking Jack in the woods, that she felt calm again. Dawn was mentally unbalanced, she knew, but even the half-mad could be terrifyingly accurate in their visions. What she most hated was the thought that Dawn had known about the baby before she herself had known. The uncanniness of that chilled her, despite the high sun that had come out from earlier clouds.
Now that her pregnancy was no longer a secret, Prue decided the time had come to tell Stella and Ag, her mother and Johnny. The girls, as she had known they would be, were delighted for her, but they did not go overboard in their congratulations. Mrs Lumley was a different matter.
Not wanting to break the news on the telephone, Prue drove to her mother’s salon one afternoon. There were no clients. Mrs Lumley was sitting in one of the chairs in front of the mirror reading a magazine. She looked up to see the reflection of her daughter coming through the door. She turned, shouted, rushed to leap onto Prue with a hug that nearly knocked both of them over. ‘Oh my darling! You look so happy. I can tell. I can tell you’ve got news for me. Haven’t you?’ She released her grip on Prue’s neck, stood back to scan her face.
‘I have, as a matter of fact, Mum—’
‘That’s wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, isn’t it? When? Quickly, tell me. When?’
‘About another five months. I’m not absolutely sure.’
Mrs Lumley’s overwhelming joy caused her to laugh, cry and make curious twisting movements. She would bend, straighten and bend again, like a demented ballet dancer. In need of a paper handkerchief to wipe the mascara that had run amok on her cheeks, she aimed for the shelf that held bottles of dye and other potions. But so overcome was her excited hand that it swiped everything onto the floor. Suddenly streams of liquid were blurring into each other on the linoleum. With a scream of horror she bent to pick up a bottle, she slipped and fell. Prue put out a hand to heave her up. Her mother shouted that on no account was she to lift anything in her condition. So Prue obediently left her groping among the chairs, trying to find some purchase among their legs, which would help her to her feet. At last she stood, shaking, her feet adrift in slime, but smiling again. ‘Oh dear, silly me. I’m so over-excited, darling. Barry said you were trying. Hard,’ she added.
‘When did he tell you that?’ A flicker of annoyance rose within her. What was Barry doing, telling . . .? ‘You rang him, did you? You didn’t think that was prying?’
‘Oh no. I don’t like the telephone, do I?’
‘So he came round here?’
Her mother hesitated. ‘I don’t believe he did. I believe he stopped off at the house one evening on his way back from work.’
‘I see.’
‘No need to be so huffy, Prue. I think he knew you hadn’t told me your plans and thought I had a right to know.’
‘Quite.’
At that moment a tall woman with a puny crest of hair came through the door. She looked on the scene with some amazement. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.
‘I’ll leave you to it, Mum,’ said Prue, and made a dash across the slippery floor to the door.
Last to be told was Johnny. When she returned from the salon, and saw a light in his window, she made her way over to his flat.
‘Just come to tell you I’m pregnant – having a baby,’ she said, with no preamble. Johnny looked at her unsmiling. When, after a long silence, he failed to congratulate her, she shrugged. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’
Johnny stirred himself from a minor reverie. ‘Of course. Sorry. Well done. That’s good. What does one say to pregnant friends?’
‘That’ll do.’
‘You’ll be very preoccupied. I won’t see so much of you – or at least without a pram.’
‘Dare say.’
‘Want a drink? Tea? Anything?’
Prue shook her head. ‘I’ve got to get back. Barry likes me to be there when he gets home.’
‘Bet he’s delighted.’
‘Seems to be.’
Johnny opened the door for her. ‘I’ve got to go up to Bakewell next week,’ he said, more gently. ‘I’m making an elaborate gate for someone. Like to come? There’s a good pub. We could have lunch.’
‘Why not? We could go in the Sunbeam,’ Prue said.
At last Johnny smiled. ‘That’d be lovely.’ He stooped and kissed her forehead, then patted her shoulder with a rigid hand. ‘Well done – the baby thing. Take care of yourself.’
As she walked back to The Larches, through a hurrying dusk that weighed down the laurels in the drive, it occurred to Prue that since the incident, as she thought of it, things had changed between her and Johnny despite their agreement that all would remain the same. Pity. He had been a kind and easy friend. Now it was as if she had disappointed him in some way, or offended him. She hoped that one day their friendship would return to its old ease, but relations with Johnny were not currently the most important thing on her mind. Barry, she knew, was set for an argument about her work, and she was determined not to be beaten.
He left it till after the jam roll. Then he moved to the sitting room and took his usual seat by the gas fire. For a while the soft putt-putting of its small blue flames, which danced like periwinkles in a breeze, was the only sound. Then he gave a deep sigh and slapped both fat hands onto both fat knees. ‘This business,’ he said. ‘This business of the baby – wonderful . . . wonderful, sweetheart.’ It was a feeling he expressed most evenings.
‘Yes,’ said Prue.
‘Now you’d never call me a fussy man, even a cautious man. I know when it’s the right time to take a risk. But I’d never take a risk when a risk isn’t advisable.’ A little unsteadied by his own profundity, he went on: ‘And in the case of pregnancy, well, obviously not the slightest risk should be taken. All caution on board. My – our – son will be the most precious creature on earth. We have to do everything we can to make sure no risks come anywhere near him.’
‘Quite,’ said Prue.
Barry’s hand went automatically to the inside pocket of his jacket, previous home of his cigar case. Then he withdrew it with an impatient jerk of his head. ‘So that means, sweetheart, no more farm work for you. I’m not having you sweating your guts out heaving bales of hay or . . . whatever it is you do. You don’t need the few shillings they pay you. You don’t need a job. I can see it’s good to be out in the open when you’re used to fields and that, but the time has come to stop. So I’m asking you to give in your notice.’
Prue raised her shoulders and looked up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t think you understand,’ she said at last. ‘I’m not working as I would on a normal farm – it isn’t a normal farm. It’s a sad old horse who needs to be taken for walks, a few pigs and six geese. That’s all. I lead the horse about like a dog. I muck out the pigs twice a week, and make cups of tea for Steve when his batty daughter’s out. So you see I don’t think I’ll come to any harm – there’s no risk of that – and I’d like to stay on till, say, a month or so before the baby’s born.’
Barry raised an eyebrow. ‘Sounds like a weird place,’ he said.
‘It is. I thought at first I might be able to help them get it into better shape, be a bit more business-like. But they’re not really interested. They’ve no energy, little knowledge. I think that when Steve’s wife died – she ran the place well, apparently – the fight went out of him. I just do what they want me to do. Steve took me on because he liked the idea of a land girl, but there was never a real job.’
‘No.’ Barry, who had braced himself for a tough argument, was melting under Prue’s simple logic. ‘I’m rethinking,’ he said, ‘something I’m never able to do very fast, sweetheart.’ He gave her a small, self-deprecating smile that Prue realized was endearing. He could surprise her sometimes. She smiled back. ‘So, this is what I think. You stay on at this so-called farm for a while longer. Carry on taking the
horse for a walk like a Pekingese, and making the farmer’s tea, but give up mucking out the pigs. I ask you that. Lifting pitchforks of sodden straw would be daft.’
‘It would,’ said Prue, warm from winning the greater part of her argument, which had turned out to be hardly an argument at all. ‘You’re quite right. I promise to give up the pigs.’
‘Thank you, sweetheart.’ Barry tipped his head onto the back of his chair and closed his eyes. Suffering from the weariness peculiar to easy compromise, he laced his fingers over his stomach and appeared to fall asleep. She crept out of the room, not wanting to wake him.
Prue kept her promise to Barry. She explained to Steve that she could carry on exercising Jack but would no longer undertake anything else. Naturally, she said, she wouldn’t want to be paid for walking Jack. It was a pleasure.
‘Of course I understand the position,’ said Steve. ‘I just pity the pigs. I’m not up to them, though I’ll have to have a go. Dawn hates them, won’t go near them.’
‘Why don’t you sell them?’ Prue suggested.
‘Not a bad idea.’ Steve stared out of the window as if puzzled that the solution hadn’t occurred to him before. But anything to do with his farm, Prue had noticed of late, seemed to strike him with an unaccountable lack of enthusiasm. ‘I might put that into motion. But then again I might not,’ he added.
In the next few months there were no signs of his slight intention materializing. As she walked with Jack past the pig field Prue observed that the bedding in their shelters was thick, sodden. The stench permeated the whole field. She pitied those animals: during her spell as pig-manager they had been clean. Looking down at her swollen stomach she wished she could help. But she had given her word and wasn’t going to break it. She also noticed on her walks that the hedges of the pig field – as everywhere else on the farm – were in a very bad state. Ag and Mr Lawrence would have been shocked, she thought. They could have put them right in a few days. But there was no one on this so-called farm who knew a thing about hedging, or seemed to care that the whole place was going to ruin.