‘I’m not selling, Leonard. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was like that. There was stuff going on at home.’
Leonard shifts again foot to foot. Bartholomew turns away to pick off some dried leaves from a stem.
‘How are the trousers working out for you?’ asks Bartholomew.
‘Oh they’re magic,’ says Leonard. ‘You just wash them, and they’re good to go. No ironing required. I might order some more.’
‘Well, I probably owe you a few days off.’
Leonard is hopping now. He taps his watch. ‘It’s that time,’ he says. ‘I shall pick up the paper and venture in, if it’s all the same to you.’
Some things never change, Bartholomew thinks, as he watches Leonard hurrying up the main path to the warehouse. He glances at the entrance gate, where his eye is caught by a pea-green coat. Ruby’s hair is glowing in the sunshine. The sight of her makes his body quicken. She hasn’t seen him yet, and he watches her familiar form, grown strange over three months of separation. He is filled with desire and reluctance. Some part of him – and not a small part – would like to remain where he is, full of unrequited longing, unblemished by the real person. He is not sure he can absorb any more guilt. But he walks briskly up the main path towards her. He has a hand over his eyes and is squinting when he says, ‘Hello, stranger.’ He smiles at her. She doesn’t smile back.
‘You left me a note,’ she says. Her face muscles are barely moving. She looks haughty and elegant. She is so pretty, her face like home to him.
‘I’m glad you came.’
‘Yes, well, here I am, then.’
‘Can I make you a tea?’
‘No, you’re alright.’
‘Um, shall we go and sit on that bench?’ he says, pointing the way with one arm, the other hovering over her back. He daren’t touch her. How have I got us here, he thinks, to this impossible place?
She sits rigid, looking ahead at the plants, and he sits beside her, his body turned towards hers. Above them, a white cherry is in blossom, its nodding flowers lit by the new sun.
‘It’s looking well,’ she says, nodding towards the beds and paths.
‘Thanks. Mostly Leonard’s work.’
‘What did you want to say?’
‘I don’t know where to begin,’ he says. He pauses. They sit, for a moment, looking out together. Then he turns to her, saying, ‘Who are you going out with?’
‘I’d say that wasn’t your ideal starting block.’
Her eyes are steely – sad-looking. They’ve lost their usual Ruby sense of amusement.
‘No, sorry Ruby. I’m really sorry, about what happened.’
‘Yes, well. Water under the bridge now,’ she says. ‘I’ve got a new place. Fresh start.’
‘I saw.’
‘It’s better – I feel better. I don’t think we were suited, to be honest.’
‘Oh don’t say that,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what got into me at Christmas. I was cutting myself off. There was stuff happening at home.’
‘Well, like I say,’ she says, ‘there’s no need to worry about that now. We’ve both moved on, ha’n’t we?’
‘But I do worry about it,’ he says. ‘I mean, I don’t want that to be, it.’
Her back is straight as a rod.
‘There was a fire, at Christmas I mean,’ he says. He slumps back on the bench. He feels exhausted. He just wants to tell her everything.
‘A fire? At the farm?’
‘Everything’s turned to shit. I mean everything. They have to sell up – mum and dad. Primrose lost the baby. Max has started drinking. Really couldn’t have got any worse.’
He can feel her processing what he’s said. He rubs his eyes with both hands.
‘You’ve been dealing with all that. By yourself?’
‘Sort of. Made me realise things.’
‘What things?’
‘That I was an idiot. That I need you.’
‘You want me back so I can help look after your mum and dad? How could a girl refuse?’
‘No. I want you back because I love you, because you’re a good person. You want it like a romantic film, Ruby, when all that stuff’s just crap. I want you because it’s better to be together. I want you because you’re different to me, better than me, and because, because I need you and I couldn’t admit that before. Why is that so terrible? To realise you need another person, to realise you’re not as good without them?’
She is frowning now and he sees that there are tears in her eyes – hot angry tears and her chest is rising and falling. She is pushing it all down, he sees, not wanting to dissolve in front of him.
‘You lost all your kindness,’ she says in a wobbly low voice. Her hands are fists in her lap. ‘You hurt me and you didn’t even feel it.’
‘I know. I do know that, Rube.’
She swings round to face him. ‘You don’t call me that. Not now. It’s not like that now between us.’
‘I’m sorry. Please, I’m trying to say sorry.’
‘I’ve spent three months crying and feeling wretched. I’ve had to move out of my flat because I couldn’t stand to be in the same street as you. And every time I reached out to you, I just got nothing. You were cruel. That’s not how you treat someone you love.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
She has stood up and is looking down at him. ‘I’ve got to go. Good luck with everything.’
‘Please Ruby, let’s talk some more.’
‘I told you, I’m with someone else now.’
All the energy has drained from his body. He is letting her go because he is too exhausted not to, and because his destruction is everywhere, irreparable.
A moment passes and she is still standing there, as if she’s waiting. ‘Right, well. I’m off.’
He looks up at her with his hand over his eyes to shield them from the low sun. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ he says.
‘Don’t try and contact me again.’
‘No, if that’s really . . .’ he says, his head hanging down, elbows on knees.
‘You can text me maybe.’
‘I know how you like to text.’
‘But just as friends.’
‘Right you are.’
She is still standing there, tightening the belt around her pea-green coat. She really has lost a lot of weight. She looks ridiculously pretty.
‘Is that it then?’ she says. ‘Is that the sum total of what you have to offer me?’
‘You just told me you’re going out with someone, Ruby. What do you expect me to do, spear him with my sword?’
‘Yes! Yes! I do bloody expect that. Or at least more than “Sorry Rube, fancy giving it another go?” ’ (She has put on a moron’s voice. Bit uncalled-for, he thinks, smarting.) ‘It’s like you want me to wait and wait and wait. Like I have to constantly pretend that it’s all fine and I don’t need to get on with things. This is my life Bartholomew. I can’t keep gambling on you. And here’s a newsflash: women can’t have babies at 105!’
‘You’re not 105.’
‘No, but I’m not twenty-one either. I’m thirty years old. What about the things I want?’
‘God, you’re always pushing aren’t you? You never stop pushing. Forgive me for not showing up with a ring!’ he shouts. ‘I thought a chat first might be an idea. But it’s never enough for you, is it Rube? Nothing’s ever enough!’
He gets up from his bench. She is silenced by his outburst and he marches away towards the warehouse, thinking that’s it then, it’s all gone to hell in a handcart. I wanted to beg her forgiveness, win her back, I even want to marry the stupid cow, and I’ve ended up telling her to sod off.
*
The metal ring-pull handles clatter as Primrose pulls open a drawer and lays her folded T-shirts inside it. Her suitcase is open on the bed and she turns to unpack the next layer but stops and stands in the centre of the room. Her own room. She has never had her own room before. It is small – a single bed up against the wall with the
window above it, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe which is far too big. There is a lamp on the chest of drawers and beside it her keys – her own set of keys to Claire’s flat. Claire is out and Primrose is marvelling at the silence and the feeling she has of possession: being alone in a little flat that she has, temporarily, all to herself.
She feels beneath the lampshade and pushes its hard little button to turn it on though she doesn’t need to – it’s bright outside. She sits down on a sliver of bed beside her suitcase. She looks at her watch. She hasn’t much time, she’s meeting Jacob at the Malton job in an hour and wants to change into her new outfit first, but she sits for a moment and looks at her little pink room. Should have brought that rug, she thinks, but I can’t go back now. There’s no going back now.
She’d been surprised how quick and easy it was to pack – how little she’d wanted to bring away with her. Just her clothes really, some towels and bedding. She’d tidied up the kitchen and packed away her tools – there was no room for them in Claire’s flat and she barely touched them these days anyway. They seemed like a cumbersome dead weight as she pushed the black boxes into the cupboard under the stairs, then returned to the kitchen to write Max a note.
Dear Max,
I’ve gone to live in Lipton with Claire. I’m sorry it didn’t work out with us.
There’s a fresh ham in the fridge – a nice one from Alan. I’ve fed the pigs and chickens but you’ll need to see to them now.
Primrose
She should go. The bike ride to Malton is forty minutes at least, but she can’t tear herself away from this private place, even for Jacob with his bright eyes and energetic eyebrows. Oh it’s lovely how he listens to her with so much going on in his face, listening so hard and smiling and craning to hear what she might say next. But Jacob is poor competition for the joy of this box room with all her things just where she wants them. She thinks back, with regret, to Ann Hartle’s attempts to get her interested in homey things – market-stall tea towels and Coopers peg bags. She never understood it then but she does now. Now she wants to shift that lamp a little to the left and lay her book beside it; buy a rug; position her wash bag on the bathroom shelf. She wants to mark out her space in the world, and she wants this more than she wants Jacob.
‘Prim?’ calls Claire from the hallway.
‘In here,’ shouts Primrose.
Claire peeps round her door. ‘How’s the unpacking?’
‘Good thanks.’
Claire steps in, rustling in her anorak and out of breath from the stairs up to the flat. ‘Here, you’ve made it nice,’ she says.
‘I might buy a rug.’
‘You couldn’t look at the ignition on the stove could you?’ says Claire. ‘It’s not worked for a year and I’m that fed up of using matches.’
‘Course I can,’ she says. ‘I’ll borrow a couple of tools off Jacob.’
‘When are you seeing him?’
‘Ooh bugger it, right now. I’m late. Supposed to be in Ribblehead at two.’
‘OK, well, I’ll see you later on. Fancy the Crown tonight?’
Primrose nods. ‘And I’m making us lasagne for tea.’
‘La-di-da,’ says Claire, walking off down the hallway. ‘You’ll be shaving your Parmigiano next.’
She walks into the Ribblehead house which is thick with dust. Her new boots clack on the raw wooden floorboard and Primrose steps carefully over the holes and cables and the mess of tools.
‘Hello,’ she says.
Jacob backs clumsily out of the cupboard under the stairs and settles back on his haunches.
‘Hello, Primrose,’ he says, and she is reassured by the fullness of his warmth towards her.
‘What are ye working on?’
‘Just finishing off the kitchen circuit. I’ve put it on a separate system to the old one.’
He is rubbing his hands on his overalls.
‘You look nice,’ he says to her and she squirms a little under his gaze. He is so bald about looking at her. Honest maybe. Or shameless. Whichever it is, he takes in her clothes, her body, without apologising for it. She’s not used to it.
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘It’s all dusty here. It’ll ruin your new boots. I’ll treat you to a tea round the corner.’
As they walk he places a hand lightly on her back. She thinks he would probably like to hold hands, but she keeps hers firmly in her coat pockets.
They sit across the pale Formica table in a café which is filled with the other builders on the job, who seem to like him. He has friends. Her tea is too hot, so she just sits, looking at him and he talks – about his van, saving for a new one, whether he might take her to the cinema to see a Harry Potter film (she nods), the next job across the dale which hasn’t been confirmed yet, but there’s plenty of work – a boom time in construction. He says he’s keeping his head down, working and saving for the future when he’d like a place of his own (but not at these prices). How what he’d really like to do is keep animals – on a smallholding maybe. The irony, she thinks, but she doesn’t say anything, just smiles at him and nods. She can see how hard he’s working to impress her – and how available he is, in the moment. But his words zone in and out to her, muffled behind a kind of ambient fog, as if she can’t stop herself detaching from it all. You have all sorts of ideas about me, she thinks as he talks – all sorts of ideas about what I might provide for you, all the fantasies I’m going to fulfil. But it’s only a matter of time. She realises that she has little hope. And that she feels sorry for him. There he is, working his socks off with that charm offensive, basking in the perfection of them both in this new thing. But she knows that soon enough it’ll shatter down. They will both emerge, as they are.
For now, though, she goes along with it, carried along by his hope and enthusiasm, which is unsullied by a marriage gone wrong.
*
Max pushes open the door of the Crown in Lipton. It has a different feel this one – more hushed, more genteel than the other boozers he’s become familiar with. Lately – since Tony Crowther barred him from the Fox – it’s been the Plough at Athorpe, one of those anonymous places on a trunk road out of town, with tringing fruit machines and the air so full of fag smoke it made your eyes sting. There were several like him in the Plough – men sitting alone, their roll-ups next to their pints. He knew he was joining their ranks, with their sheen of sweat and shaking hands.
Every day he woke saying, no more, today is the day I stop, and then the day would reach such a pitch with this need in his body – like a fist tearing at his insides. This need eclipsed every other thought in his head. And his mind, filled up with it, would trick him, saying, ‘It’s just the one’. Just one, to steady things up, because he definitely would be better. And he’d find himself among the men (and the occasional woman) in the Plough, for whom a pint was no longer a social event. And then, after the sheer joy of holding that amber glass and taking that first sip, and the pleasure and relief which seeps through his body with gulp after gulp; then the revulsion would come, his mind saying, that’s the day shot, all turned to shit: you gave in, you weak fuck, you pathetic pile of . . . Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Might as well go the whole hog. Tomorrow, after all, is another day. And he would abandon himself to it because there’s no saving him today. Not today.
But this is not the Plough, it is the Crown, where the door closes ever so slowly, its bristles dragging on the soft pile of the carpet. And the room smells, not of failure but of home-cooked food. Steak-and-kidney pie. Yorkshire pudding with gravy.
Max scans the room. His gaze stops at a group of men and women at a table close to the fireplace. At its edge is a woman with glossy brown hair. She has one hand on her glass and isn’t saying anything. She wears a brown and black floaty blouse and a big necklace. Something about her is familiar. He approaches the group.
‘Primrose?’ he says.
Her face falls. She gets up hastily and shuffles out past jutting knees to where he stands. ‘What
are you doing here?’ she whispers.
‘I got your note,’ says Max.
‘Over there,’ she says, nodding at a table at the back of the room, far away from the group.
They sit down and he stares at her though her eyes are on the table. Then she looks into his face, holding him to account, her expression blunt as a mallet, and he flinches under the directness of it. She’s wearing make-up – her eyelids are shimmery. He’s never seen her wear make-up before. And her hair is different, her clothes. He takes in her new look and sees in it a life that has gone on without him. Her new interests – new friends – pursued while he’s been drinking his into oblivion. She’s not lost, as he is. They are not lost together after the failure of their marriage. No, he’s alone in that. He feels speared by envy, right through his heart.
‘You look . . . you’re different,’ he says, and even he can hear how bitter it sounds. ‘What’ve you done to yourself?’
She flushes and touches her hair. ‘What d’you mean? I’ve just straightened my hair.’
‘You look,’ he says, ‘you look ridiculous.’
She fiddles with her necklace. He sees her shoot a glance across the bar to Claire and a man standing next to Claire. Both are looking over at Primrose. He sees Claire mouth ‘Are you OK?’ across the room and Primrose nods back, in her shy way. The man is staring.
‘Who’s ’e?’ asks Max, nodding towards the man.
‘Why d’you want to know?’ asks Primrose, weary of him. Her eyes are dead. She’s just being patient, he thinks, waiting for me to have my say and then hop it, so she can go back to him. And he settles into it, the wounded party.
He finds himself examining her again. Her shirt is slightly see-through. ‘That new clobber?’ he says.
‘Did you come here to say summat?’
‘Just thought we could ’ave a drink together after five years married.’
‘Right,’ she says softly. ‘How’s Sheryl?’
‘Oh god, Primrose. Sheryl, I didn’t mean . . . That were a mistake. It’s finished now. Sheryl never meant anything.’
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