by Angela Huth
There were few people in the church – some half-dozen farm workers, Alice, top heavy in a hat flaming with black feathers (some long-past present from Ivy), one or two villagers, and the old woman from the post office to which Ivy and Prue had driven so often to post a single letter.
Gerald had told Prue to go to the left-hand front pew. He would join her there. She moved up the aisle with a small toss of her head, aware that her long black New Look skirt – from now on to be called her funeral skirt – swished round her legs in a frivolous manner that Ivy would have approved but staider folk might have found inappropriate. She wore a black bow in her hair, and a pair of black suede gloves – one of many presents from Ivy in lieu of wages.
The front pew was perilously close to the coffin on its stand.
Prue wondered if Ivy, within it, looked as she had before she had died in the hospital, or if she had changed. A large bunch of white chrysanthemums lay on it, with a card from Gerald. Pity it wasn’t rose-time. Ivy would have liked a covering of ‘Himalayan Musk’, a name she had taught Prue just a few weeks ago. Beside the soulless chrysanthemums lay Prue’s small bunch of the only three gardenias she had been able to find: knowing she wanted them, Johnny had driven all the way to a florist friend in Winchester who had some in her greenhouse. The journey had used the last of his petrol ration. He’d been good, helping her like that, in the face of her determination. Ivy had said so many times they were her favourite flower. Their scent smelt of extravagant parties in the twenties, she said, and Ed had worn one in his buttonhole on their wedding day. It had been good, too, of Gerald to let Prue put her flowers, and her card – ‘love, love from Prue’ – on the coffin beside his. Everyone had been good.
Gerald was suddenly beside her. Very dark suit, black tie of ribbed silk. Prue went on looking at the altar window, the sun making brilliant the angels’ wings. She turned to see the vicar come in through the door and close it behind him. In the moment of light at the back of the church, she also saw Johnny standing by the font. He’d said he wasn’t coming. Didn’t think he’d be wanted, he said. He, too, had found a black tie: a thin, stringy thing, a single pencil line on his white shirt.
Prue turned back to concentrate again on the window. The primary colours confused her eyes. She shifted her gaze to the two lighted candles on the altar. Beside her, Gerald moved slightly. She knew he kept glancing at her. She remained looking at the candles.
The small organ, at the side of the altar, wheezed for a moment. Then it produced so thin a sound from its fat sides that Prue felt herself smiling. ‘Lead, kindly light’, it began. It’s my fault, all this: Prue’s inward words went with the tune. I killed the Hon. Ivy Lamton. The small congregation stood: ‘Amid the encircling gloom’, they sang.
Ivy was buried beside her husband in the churchyard. A yew tree stood by the two graves, its black-green mocking the livid colour of the false grass that had been laid over the mounds of earth dug from the ground. The few people who had been in the church gathered round the grave, but Johnny was not there. Gerald stood close to Prue until he had to step forward, pick up a clod of earth and throw it down onto the coffin. He did not signal to Prue to do the same. Rooks, cawing in the trees overhead, meant the vicar had to raise his voice for the final prayer.
Back at the rectory there was not much of a wake. Alice had insisted on being in charge. Her idea of all that was necessary was pots of tea and plates of the last of the shortbread biscuits. No one stayed long. They shook Gerald’s hand before they left, muttering their condolences.
When they had gone, Gerald and Prue sat in the sitting room. Though nothing had been moved – today’s Times was on the stool and everything was the same – it was desperately empty now that Ivy was not going to potter in with her cane.
‘What now?’ asked Gerald. ‘What are you going to do?’
His look was so concerned that Prue felt a prickle of amorphous hope. ‘Don’t know. I’ve got to leave the cottage. Johnny’s being unpredictable. Find somewhere of my own.’
‘You can always stay here while you’re looking,’ said Gerald. ‘I know Ivy would have suggested it. I won’t be moving in for some time. Lots to sort out.’ He undid the black tie, pulled it off. Undid the top button of his shirt.
‘Thank you,’ said Prue, ‘but I don’t think I could do that. I’d find it too strange.’
Gerald nodded. There were small angular shadows under his eyes that were not usually there. He smiled, which banished the tired look for a moment. ‘It’s probably not an appropriate moment to say this, but you look beautiful in all that black,’ he said, not looking at her. Prue felt herself blush. ‘I dare say,’ he went on, ‘that sitting together in the front pew we’ve given the village something to gossip about.’ The blush did not fade. ‘You must promise to let me know wherever it is you go, when you do. Promise to keep in touch. When you’re finally settled I’ll hire a removal van to deliver Ivy’s clothes. She left me a note saying you were to have the entire contents of her wardrobe. Such a good idea.’ He crossed his legs, looked round the bookcases. ‘And I’m going to add to that her complete works of Dickens. I think you should have them.’
Prue felt her eyes blink unsteadily. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ She stood up, reluctant to go but feeling she should. ‘It’s a very generous thought, but it would break up the library.’
‘Well, that’s what’s going to happen.’ Gerald stood too. ‘Awful thing is, I’ve got to get back to London. I see you’ve rented a car.’ He smiled, glancing out of the window. ‘Should just about get you back to the cottage. You can always borrow Ivy’s. . .’ For some reason this thought ungrounded his voice.
‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘Anyway.’ He came towards her.
Prue knew there was only a moment left. ‘Do you think it was my fault?’ she asked. ‘Did I kill Ivy?’
Gerald put his hands on her shoulders quite roughly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It was a ghastly accident. You managed to avoid a worse one. You’re never to think that again – please. For me. What you must remember is that it was the perfect day for Ivy to die. She’d had a lovely afternoon with Arnold. She was with you, to whom she’d become devoted, and she was in the Sunbeam. Remember that.’
He drew Prue to him. Their cheeks did not touch but they stayed pressed together for a long, silent moment. Then Prue said she’d like to go round the garden when Gerald left. He said please do, go where you want, stay as long as you like. There was no need to lock the front door. Ivy had not believed in locking front doors. He said all this in a great hurry, the words tumbling together. Then he roared down the drive in his powerful car. They did not wave.
When he had gone Prue spent the rest of the afternoon wandering round the garden, sitting on the terrace, looking at the trees, which were turning to autumn colours – ‘hectic red’, Ivy had said only last week, a quote from a poet called Shelley whom she had put on Prue’s list to read. As she went from place to place in the garden, she tried not to remember, because she knew remembering too much would break her, and she had to stay strong.
When it began to grow dark, she sat in the sitting room for a while. The unfinished Emma lay on the table. She put it back in its space on the bookshelf, then drove to the cottage in the small rackety car.
Johnny was at the kitchen table playing patience. A bottle of vodka stood beside him, and two glasses. ‘I was there after all,’ he said.
‘I know. I saw you.’
‘You look washed out,’ he said, ‘but beautiful in all your black.’ Prue winced. ‘What you need is a drink. I promise I haven’t touched a drop.’
‘Good. That’s good.’
‘Here.’ She drank the vodka he gave her in one go, something she had never done before. It burnt her throat.
Johnny refilled the glass. ‘Where’s Gerald?’
‘Gone back to London.’
‘I suppose he’ll be moving to the Old Rectory soon.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He’ll need a woman – a wife – to look after it.’
‘Dare say he’ll have no trouble finding one.’
‘I hope he’ll keep ordering more gates.’
‘I’m sure he will.’ It was as if she was throwing pebbles, the way the words came out. They landed randomly.
‘I’ve almost finished the last one.’
‘Good.’
‘It’d be wonderful to live in that house, wouldn’t it?’
‘I suppose it would.’ Prue raised her eyes to Johnny. She couldn’t see him clearly for the tears that suddenly came. She knew he was urging her to have more vodka, and that she obediently swallowed several glasses between the sobs that shook her. Very quickly she was completely disoriented. Solid things liquidated, spun, came at her and receded in a hideous dance. Through bemused eyes she saw Johnny stand, a strange, kindly, determined look on his face.
He picked her up, carried her upstairs. He laid her on her bed, undid her black shirt, pulled off the funeral skirt, lay down beside her. Through the chaos of vodka and tears she was vaguely aware of the comfort of another human being. Then he began to act far beyond mere comforter, and it was not in her power to stop him.
Very late next morning Prue came down into the kitchen. She carried her small, packed case. Johnny was sitting at his usual place at the table, his head in his hands.
‘So you had your way after all,’ she said.
Johnny looked up, bleary-eyed. ‘You needed comforting. You seemed to appreciate it.’
‘Appreciate it? I didn’t know what I was doing. You took outrageous advantage of me, you know you did. You call that comforting?’
‘Sorry,’ he said dully. He looked at her suitcase. ‘You know if you leave now what will happen.’ He touched the bottle of vodka still on the table, empty.
‘That’s blackmail. And I’ll tell you something, Johnny, I don’t care. I don’t care what you do to yourself. I don’t care about you any more. We’ve had some good times, you’ve often been kind. But you knew I could never give you what you wanted, and your near-rape last night spoilt every last hope of our living peacefully together.’
‘I didn’t force myself on you, I swear to you I didn’t. Though you were probably too drunk to remember your own willingness. Too drunk and too sad about some dotty old lady who seemed to have so much influence over you, who you seemed to love—’
‘Don’t go on. I’m going.’
‘Where to?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll stay at some pub or hotel. Miles from here.’
‘You’d better keep in touch. I may have to send on letters.’ He covered his eyes with his hands.
‘Maybe.’
‘What about the Sunbeam? What about the chickens?’
His playing for time was pathetic, Prue thought. Her head throbbed. ‘I gave mine to you, remember?’
‘I’ll take care of them.’ Johnny broke a moment’s silence by banging his fist hard on the table. ‘Go, then, woman,’ he shouted. ‘If you’re really going, just go . . .’ Prue moved quickly towards the door. ‘Just imagine my evenings, sometimes’ – he picked up the bottle of vodka, waved it – ‘and remember I was another of the idiots who loved you.’
Prue hurried out of the door and down the path. She had trouble starting the small car, but jerked forward after an alarmingly long wait for the engine to engage. Glancing back at the cottage she saw that Johnny was not at the kitchen window watching her departure. She drove away as fast as she could. Her only thought was to buy a road map.
That evening she drew up in front of the pub at Hinton Half Moon. Earlier, studying the map while she ate sandwiches at some roadside, the idea had come to her that, rather than be anywhere near the Old Rectory and the cottage, she would like to return to the part of the country she loved more than anywhere else. She remembered that the pub had a couple of rooms and decided to take her chance.
The man behind the bar was a stranger. He had only taken over the place a year ago, he said, and was delighted to let her have the big room at the front for as long as she liked. Prue ordered a ginger beer and explained she used to work as a land girl a mile or so up the road at Hallows Farm.
‘That was the Lawrences’ place, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘People still talk about them. A couple from London have it now. I gather they don’t do much farming, just like owning the land. Now I come to think of it, a young man dropped in here not that long ago. Said he was the Lawrences’ son. Said he’d come to see if the new people would sell the old tractor if they hadn’t got rid of it.’
‘Joe,’ said Prue.
‘And there’s talk that the people at the farm are thinking of pulling down the barn, building something else.’
‘Really?’ said Prue. The barn, the barn. She asked if she could have a bowl of carrot soup, the only thing suggested on the menu propped up on the bar.
‘That’s more on the lunch menu,’ the man explained, ‘though I dare say my wife would heat some up for you.’ He came back with the good news that it was being prepared.
Prue explained she had come to look around, see if she could find herself somewhere small to live.
The man shook his head. ‘There’s nothing I know of, but I don’t get out much. I’m mostly behind this bar. But you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.’
Later, the publican’s wife showed her to the room: sparsely furnished but comfortable. She slept deeply, and set off early after breakfast next morning.
Her plan was to drive for a few miles, remembering the land, looking out for a tumbledown cottage, before she consulted an estate agent. She pottered about all day, glad of the fine, brisk autumn air, only stopping to scan each row of buildings in various villages. Sometimes she parked the car and walked across a well-remembered field, no longer full of sheep. She avoided the Barry One wood, and had no desire to go anywhere near the barn. That one time, with Johnny, had been enough.
Late afternoon, and no luck. Prue told herself there was time, endless time: no need to become anxious. In order not to pass Hallows Farm, she took the lane that went past Ratty’s cottage back to the village. At his gate there was a small, dull board: ‘For Sale’ it said. Prue braked so hard she hurt her ribs again, but did not care. To make sure this was no mirage, she hurried out of the car to examine the notice more closely. There was the name of the estate agent, the telephone number.
Prue stood by the small wooden gate looking up at the cottage. The ugly new paint, which had been there when she and Johnny had passed by, was blistered. She could see it had never been put on properly in the first place. The windows were filthy. The front door was cracked. The garden was a wilderness of weeds. They ran right across the small front path that Ratty had always taken such pride in keeping trim.
With a burst of energy that sliced through her exhaustion, Prue made things happen very quickly. She drove first thing next morning to the estate agent in the local town. The cottage had been on the market for ages, he said. Most people did not want to be so ‘cut off’, as he called it. He gave her the key, warned her the place needed quite a bit of attention. She would find it was even worse inside than out. He also said, if she was interested, she could have more land: the people at Hallows Farm had come to him in search of a buyer. They didn’t want the bother of all the acreage.
Later that morning Prue, frustrated only by the rotten acceleration of the hired car, unlocked the front door of Ratty’s cottage. She had not been inside more than a couple of times – mad Edith had not been one to encourage visitors. But she remembered it had been overcrowded with too much gloomy furniture, and there was always a sour smell of old tea, rotting vegetables and cats.
The smell was still there, in the empty rooms with their walls of hemp-coloured, battered paint. Dark squares of cobwebs, where pictures had once hung, made ghost frames. There were still cinders and ash in the hearth, mould where rain had come through the windows. In its present state, Ratty’s cottage was not appealing. But what seemed imp
ortant to Prue was that the front room, and the bedroom above it, looked over Lower Pasture. She had not realized those rooms faced that field, which needed ploughing, harrowing, bringing back to life. An overgrown lilac tree, where the blackbird Ratty loved used to live, hid much of the view, but it only needed a bit of pruning.
Prue stood at the window looking out for a long time. In the empty fields she could see Friesians, sheep, lambs. The hedges would be neatly laid again, just as Mr Lawrence would like. The old shed could be expanded to shelter a new tractor. Inside the cottage there would be white paint, and furniture from local auctions. There would be a more modern telephone than the one at The Larches, a book of useful numbers, and Rudolph’s card propped up somewhere. Upstairs there would be a whole room of cupboards for Ivy’s clothes, with bookshelves for Dickens and all the other writers she had urged Prue to read. Outside, the tangled garden would have the sort of flowers that Ivy had recommended, and the plum trees that Mrs Lawrence and Ag so enjoyed. Prue realized how hard she would have to work to transform the place. It might take her years. But here was the project she had been looking for. The idea of the effort that would be needed was thrilling. Here, to be alone, so much to do, solitude would be just what she would need and love.
Prue moved away from the window, made her way back to the kitchen. Leaving the view did not dislodge the pictures of the fields and garden from her mind – how they were now, how they would be. And downstairs, superimposed over the darkness, was the bright light of her imaginings. She could see it all.