‘Donna,’ Georgie says gently, ‘I don’t think you’ve got any choice. And that’s the first thing we must sort out. Calm down, calm down and tell me why you are so against having this baby. It’s not that bad, it’s not the end of the world.’
But Donna peers at her fiercely. ‘How the hell would you know?’
‘Well, look, nobody would ever give birth if it was that bad, now, would they?’
‘It is that bad, I know it’s that bad and I’m not going to have it. And I can’t bear you to go away.’
Not back to that old chestnut. ‘But if the child is Chad’s, which it is, you are going to have to tell him,’ Georgie starts off hopefully. ‘Who knows? He might even be thrilled…’ and she knows immediately she has gone too far, she sounds downright silly, so silly that Donna doesn’t deign to answer. ‘Is there absolutely nobody else? No family, no relation who might want to help you and take you in, just until after…?’
‘You know there isn’t! You know that! I’ve told you all about my life. How can I go back to them, and anyway, they wouldn’t have me.’
They sit in silence while Donna shudders. She tears tissue after tissue to shreds, reminding Georgie of her mother. Every so often she gets up to clear the soggy mess off the table.
‘Perhaps you secretly wanted a baby, maybe you saw it as a way of challenging Chad, forcing a decision on him, a way of bringing this relationship of yours to a head?’
Donna sobs, but more quietly now, just a gentle shaking of the shoulders. ‘Some of your visitors, I noticed, this summer, I watched them with their kids. You were having such a great time and some of them were so sweet, I loved playing with them so much…’
‘You think it was seeing this that made you decide you might like one of your own?’
Donna shakes her head. ‘It’s not that simple. It wasn’t one thing like that. And anyway, I don’t want a kid, it was only a dream and it made me careless.’ She makes it sound as if Georgie should know. ‘I wish you’d never bleeding well come here.’ And Georgie jumps at the suddenness of that.
‘What’s all this got to do with me?’
‘You know what it’s got to do with you, but you don’t take my feelings seriously. You think I’m playing some sort of game, but I’m not, I can’t help it. You came here and everything got right out of hand and I don’t know what’s going on any more.’
‘But you seemed to enjoy yourself last summer, joining in, coming on picnics, sometimes you seemed quite happy.’
‘Well, I wasn’t happy,’ snaps Donna. ‘I was jealous, right? And every night I went back to Chad while you sat with your friends and drank and laughed.’
‘But you loved Chad. You didn’t want to leave him.’
‘Well, that’s all changed now. Now I want to stay with you.’
Here they are again, going round fruitlessly in the same old circles. There is no way of making progress with Donna. There never has been. It’s futile. Georgie makes tea, she makes coffee, she shares some mince pies before she freezes the rest. ‘Poor Lola,’ sobs Donna every so often. ‘Shit. How can things get worse than they are?’
And Georgie doesn’t know either.
By the time Donna departs she has been convinced that she ought to tell Chad.
‘I don’t want to tell him. I don’t see the point,’ she bursts out.
‘The point is, Donna, that if Chad throws you out and you go to the social services, they are bound to give you a home in your vulnerable condition.’
‘They’d have to give me one anyway.’
‘Not necessarily…’
‘If I just left him they’d find me somewhere.’ And she blows her sore nose vigorously.
‘They would say you’d made yourself homeless.’
‘I could tell them how he treats me.’
‘You don’t want a home for battered women,’ Georgie pats her hand and mutters. ‘And quite apart from all this the child is Chad’s, presumably. He has a right to know, he will have to pay maintenance, and the whole thing would be much simpler if you behaved responsibly, acted like an adult for once and faced him with the truth.’
Donna sulks. ‘When should I tell him?’
‘Now, at once,’ Georgie insists.
‘Tonight. After tea,’ promises Donna. Her eyes are tearless now, though the lids still show red and her face is even paler than usual. ‘I might as well. There’s no good time. But what will I do if he throws me out?’
‘He’s not going to throw you out on your ear just like that.’
‘You don’t know the bastard like I do.’
‘No, I don’t, but that reaction is very unlikely. Won’t he give you a few days’ grace, after all, Donna, it’s his baby as well as yours, he’ll understand that, he’s not totally stupid, and then we can go to the social services.’
‘He’ll go barmy.’
‘But he won’t kick you out. That would be criminal. In this weather you’d die.’
‘So what shall I do if he does?’
‘Well, in that unlikely event, you know you can come here. I don’t need to tell you that, do I?’
‘And you’d take me in?’ Donna asks, her dull eyes brightening.
‘For the time being,’ Georgie tells her, ‘until something could be sorted out, yes, of course I would.’ And she means it, of course Georgie means it.
‘Think of me then,’ she whispers as she departs just before dusk. ‘Think of me about six o’clock, telling Chad.’
‘I will think of you. It’s going to be OK, Donna, really it is. Things usually work out in the end, even the worst things we dread the most.’
Huh! Who is Georgie trying to kid?
Georgie sits for a while considering poor Donna’s plight and how curious it is how some people seem to attract bad luck. Do they ask for it? On some subconscious level, do they go willingly to their fate, creating their own distress, belittling themselves? It seems to work like that almost every time, and might Donna damage herself in a misguided attempt to get rid of her baby? As a protest? In revenge? Or merely more attention seeking.
Hell. It’s late. It is almost dark already and Georgie must close the hen house and stock up with wood. On her hasty way out she trips over Lola.
‘Oh, Lola!’
Stunned, Georgie can hardly believe it!
Nestling comfortably in a strange blanket, the dog gnaws on a giant ham bone. On seeing Georgie she leaps up, wild-eyed, and tries to lick her to death. Georgie crouches down beside her, staring round in the murky darkness. ‘Where have you been all this time? I’ve been out of my mind with worry. Where did you get this cosy blanket? And who gave you this smelly old bone?’
Despite shivering in the cold wind, Lola refuses to come into the house if the bone is forbidden. The blanket, a smart tartan rug, has kept her contented and warm. How long has she been out there? Georgie hurries her inside and the dog takes up her favourite position in front of the fire, chewing blissfully on strips of fat, her eyes half closed with pleasure, as if she has never been gone. Georgie examines her carefully. Lifts her ears. Feels her limbs. She even inspects her feet. Lola is absolutely fine, not a scratch on her. Her eyes are bright and her nose is cold. Wherever she has been she was happy and well looked after.
But someone had definitely taken her. And someone decided to bring her back. They might not have done. Georgie can hardly bear to confront the dark and close up the hens, it takes all the courage she can muster. She sings out loud for bravery as she visits the woodshed, almost shouting and clattering about with the logs, skinning her knuckles badly, but not even noticing until she gets back inside. She slams the door. Locks it. Chains it.
Oh God, oh God. Along with the surge of relief comes the awful sensation of fear, black and winged, it bats around her head, chilling her spine. She senses the violence somewhere out there. She cannot throw off this sense of foreboding. She must leave Wooton-Coney at once, this instant, this very night before it’s too late. She could pick up her toothbrush a
nd Lola’s bowl and be out of here in ten minutes. Horace Horsefield would feed the hens until she managed to sell them. One simple phone call would organize that. She could send for her things afterwards, pay Pickfords to pack and deliver. She could check into a hotel for the night and organize everything from there.
No time like the present and she’d promised God. So she gets up, eager to start. Let Stephen’s hellish cottage burn down. His paintings stare down from the walls, the eyes of his subjects encourage her to go, to leave here at once, while she can…
Wait! What about Donna? What will she do if, later tonight, she makes her dreadful confession to Chad and the oaf loses his temper and attacks her, throws her out in the darkness with nowhere to go?
Georgie will go and explain to her… but what if Chad is still in the dark? What if Georgie goes over and puts her foot straight in it, making matters far worse because Chad would resent her knowing…
Well then, she will persuade Donna to come to London with her now. They can sort something temporary out for tomorrow. But Donna is so infatuated, so dependency prone, there’d be nothing worse for her mental state than a deeper involvement with Georgie right now. No, no, Donna is at an important crossroads. She is on the verge of leaving Chad and, in her condition, the social services would be bound to give her a flat. This is Donna’s only way out. She must sort matters out with Chad, and then, depending on his reaction, she must face up to her new independence in a responsible and adult way.
Georgie’s involvement could wreck all that.
Georgie wrestles with her predicament while Lola lies at her feet, gnawing on her bone and basking in contentment with the logs crackling merrily. Perhaps she can afford to wait and leave first thing in the morning? Mercifully Lola has not been hurt. The door is locked. She has a phone. Surely she can endure one more night for the wretched Donna’s sake? The girl has no-one else to take her into town, to help her sort matters out, to take any interest in her welfare. Disapprove of her as Georgie might, the girl needs her, and she’s already made enough mistakes without risking one more tragedy…
Georgie crouches over the fire and places small pieces of wood on the flames, unable to control her thoughts. She re-enacts all the incidents in her mind, trying to make some sense of them until, at last, she’s exhausted and can think no more.
She and Donna have one thing in common, their total isolation.
All that evening she waits for Donna, half hoping she will turn up so they can leave together. The clock ticks on. Perhaps Chad has accepted the news? Doubtful. Far more likely the cowardly Donna has failed to tell him.
So, later on, Georgie and Lola cuddle up by the fire to spend their last night at Furze Pen Cottage. Georgie, of course, cannot sleep, but comforts herself with the sound of Lola’s reassuring breathing. There is no doubt in her mind that she is leaving Wooton-Coney tomorrow. She will tell Donna so in the morning, and drop her in town on the way if she’s ready.
And this time, after losing Lola, it will take a direct bomb hit to stop her.
TWENTY-THREE
THE CLOCK SAYS NINE, but outside it looks like night. Georgie, thick and bleary-eyed, wakes with a sense of urgency and, sloughing off the terror of her dreams, crosses the room to turn on the light. Nothing. She clicks the switch again, no result. Donna? Has Chad been told? Where is Donna, has she survived?
Today is the day she is leaving Furze Pen. This bright thought brings a new and wonderful sense of relief. But the silent darkness is eerie and all pervasive, especially after the clamour of last week’s winds. It has been impossible to get reception on the TV or the radio, and lately she has been far too concerned about Lola to drive the necessary five miles for a paper, so she hasn’t a clue what the forecasts are.
She draws back the curtains and peers out. The snow that drifts down forms a moving veil, obscuring even the stream from view. The flakes are thick, fat cotton-wool balls, but, with narrowed eyes, Georgie sees there is some activity through the gloom, the Buckpits’ tractor revs its way from the farmyard and, more distantly, there’s the dark-grey shape of a snowplough passing silently down the road.
Life, of a sort, goes on.
Shaken and disheartened, Georgie wipes the steam from the windows. Already her car is a humped bump beside the road and the hedge is leaning, groaning, heavy and matted with white. Curse it. A good six inches must have fallen overnight and Georgie, who has always loved snow, feels such an overwhelming bitterness towards this perversity of fate that tears sprout with all the passionate anger of a child’s.
Damn damn damn. She will ring the weather forecast at once. Maybe it is clear elsewhere. Maybe it won’t last long and, as the snow-clearing truck is here already, there must be a chance of getting out. Her eyes brighten as she lifts the phone, only to confront a stony silence. Damn. Damn. She has been cut off.
Damn the weather. Damn Donna.
She pulls on her boots, still damp from yesterday’s fruitless searches, fights with the rarely used front door and rushes outside. Her stepping stones are massive white snowballs, deceptively soft, as if they might collapse on impact. She crouches and scrambles over her stream, followed by an excited Lola, who rolls and delves in riotous joy, shamelessly in love with the stuff. She watches the snowplough disappear into the distance, stares at its tail lights, then down at the road. It has made some small impression, the snow has been churned so it banks the sides, but already the surface is white again. Where has the machine gone now? Perhaps, if Georgie hurries, she could follow it and escape?
But dammit, what about Donna?
If only she could get free. Resentment storms in her head as she stares hopelessly at the road. She herself is already covered, it sticks to her coat like fuzzy white burrs, grim and determined. There’s no getting away from it, she cannot attempt to drive in this.
Unable to accept defeat, she struggles across the road to the farmyard, her feet sinking in deep pockets, snow sliding inside her boots, she has to fight hard to keep going. The Buckpit brothers are still busy milking and the glow from the parlour is softer than usual, the sound is different, quieter. She walks straight in, not bothering with platitudes, not caring if the testy Mrs Buckpit should come to wither her with one of her glances. She even forgets about the ashes, Georgie’s business is urgent and nothing is going to stop her.
Lot turns round and stares at Georgie inanely, hands on the steaming udders of a cow. He wrings out a grimy cloth. Georgie, ignoring his sullen stare, wades straight in. ‘I have to get out today. It is essential that I get out, and I wondered if you could give me a tow up the hill with the tractor.’ Not an unreasonable request from one neighbour to another, but seeing the look on his bovine face she quickly amends her request, ‘afterwards, of course, when the milking is finished. I’ll pay you for your trouble.’
The lout carries on with his work, clanking the metal gate and waiting as another cow obediently sways into position. She will have to repeat her request, although it’s quite obvious that he heard her the first time, but just as she is about to speak he turns and proves her wrong, ‘And where do you think you’ll be going?’
‘I just want help to get out of here, it can’t be this thick everywhere else.’
‘Oh but ’tis. ’Tis everywhere.’
‘What?’ How does he know? They haven’t got a radio, let alone a TV? ‘It can’t be all over?’
‘Mostly.’ And he wags his oversized head, it moves rhythmically from side to side, like the tails of his cows, and his hair is equally black and tufted. ‘They said so on the CB before the aerial snapped.’ A CB radio? Ah yes, that’s the reason for the outsized aerial on the top of the Land Rover. Could he be her adversary, this burly brute of a man, could it be he who stood so unnervingly, the figure in the fields, staring in such sinister fashion? Stalking? Skulking around her woodshed at night? No, not Lot. He wouldn’t have the wit for a start…
‘If it wuz remotely possible for either of my sons to help you this morning, d’you hones
tly think they’d have the time?’
Georgie turns round wearily. So the shrew has been keeping watch, huddled at her kitchen window. Does nothing get past her?
‘I realize this weather must cause extra problems…’
‘Extra problems?’ And the Buckpit bitch gives a keen-eyed, skeletal smile. ‘We’re on a generator already as it is, we can’t get the milk out. We’ll have to throw the lot away. I’d have thought, if you were planning a journey, it might have been wise to check the forecast before you went.’
Georgie shrugs her shoulders desperately. ‘I have been far too worried about my dog to be taking notice of ordinary things, as you know. And anyway, this is an emergency.’ But the numbness in her cold feet is slowly spreading throughout her body, leaving her wooden, empty, the fight frozen out of her.
‘I see the dog came back then. Of its own accord.’
And Lola gazes up at the woman, willing to be friendly, even with this charmless character, so forgiving is she.
Georgie protests, ‘She was brought back, Mrs Buckpit, by the person who took her away.’
‘Well, we wouldn’t know anything about that. And now, if you don’t mind, God willing, we’ve more to be getting on with…’
But she just can’t leave it at this. Georgie attempts to persevere by attracting Lot’s attention again. The thin and weedy Silas, with cow manure all over his hands, is watching and picking his teeth with the needle end of a syringe. ‘So you don’t think there is any chance, not even later when things have calmed down?’
The woman answers for her sons. ‘What makes you think anything’s going to calm down? There’s wuss to come, midear. They say it’s gonna be bad, real bad, wuss than we’ve had it before. Luckily,’ and she stares coldly at Georgie, ‘we have made preparations, I suggest you go back home and do the same yesself. While you can.’
While she can? Mrs B. seems to be prophesying the end of the world as we know it, and her thin voice crackles with triumphant foreboding.
There is no way to vent her indignation. There is nothing to do but accept. On her unsteady way back to the cottage Georgie strains to see Chad Cramer’s place, but all there is is a distant shape, she cannot even tell if the Land Rover has gone. The snow is deeper already, in those last few short minutes. She rubs angrily on the windscreen of her car, but no colour, no metal shows, just the odd piece of black tyre tells her it is still there under the mound of white.
Unhallowed Ground Page 23