by Bill Kitson
He sighed, knowing that was probably too much to hope for. He would have one last try the following day, but if that was not possible, he might have to move on, find another location. His short-term tenancy of Track End Cottage had not been expensive by London standards, so vacating it early was not going to be financially crippling. One way or the other, it didn’t matter too much, for the time being he had plenty of other scenes to keep him occupied. He looked at the pencil sketches he had already made. There was over a month’s work in those alone. It didn’t matter, he wasn’t on a deadline. Other artists might have tried to paint the scene from the image they had dreamed up, but he felt that would be unfair to those who would view the finished object, and even more so to anyone wishing to buy it.
The following morning as he was washing up, sound, and a blur of movement, caused him to glance out of the kitchen window. He was in time to see the cause of the disturbance; a Land Rover was passing the cottage heading towards the main road.
The artist was surprised. He wasn’t aware the track led anywhere other than into the woods that surrounded the cottage. Obviously, there was more, and he determined to explore the one area he hadn’t so far tried.
The path wound its way for over a mile between high hawthorn hedges, bare at this time of the year, the lack of foliage allowing glimpses of the countryside beyond, which, as with the area near to the house, appeared to be mostly woodland. Eventually, the hedges gave way to a red brick wall, which was in turn supplanted by the line of single-storey buildings. Donny guessed these to comprise nothing more than pigsties and barns, but as he reached the corner of the building he realized he was wrong, and smiled with delight at the view before him.
Set at right angles to the livestock residences was a pleasant-looking two-storey house, larger than the one he had rented, but by no means huge. Possibly part of a farm, he speculated. The small garden beyond the house gave way to a lush meadow that sloped gradually towards the distant River Helm. Framing the field, surrounding the house on three sides, were banks of trees that formed the fringe of a deeper forest, almost exactly as he had visualized them. On the far side of the river, a few sheep were grazing with their lambs on the lower slopes of Black Fell. ‘Perfect,’ he breathed.
Any plans for leaving the area were shelved. Donny knew there was no way he could leave until he had captured this scene on canvas. All he had to do beforehand was to seek the house-owner’s permission to cross their land to where he could set up his easel and commence work. The thought that the property might form part of the estate that owned Track End Cottage didn’t enter his mind at that juncture. He walked through the open gate bearing the sign Keeper’s Cottage, and crossed the gravel drive. He reached the front door, lifted the heavy brass knocker, and banged it three times on the oak panel.
Chapter Three
Kim Nelson was loading the washing machine, but her mind was elsewhere. Had she thought long enough about her situation, she’d have wanted her mind and body to be elsewhere on a permanent basis. Since losing her job at Helm Plastics, another victim of the cutbacks forced on the company by the state of the economy and the rapidly growing aversion to the use of their products, Kim had been tied to the house. Her efforts to find other work were so far unsuccessful, and to compound the boredom of the long days, the drudgery of housework and the loss of the small amount of independence her income had provided, Kim was forced to endure the company of her husband on an almost full-time basis. Apart from a shopping trip into Helmsdale each week, he was the only person Kim spoke to, and he wasn’t a spellbinding conversationalist.
Kim enjoyed those trips, taken on the Dales Village Bus. She often shared a seat with an elderly gentleman from Wintersett. She liked the old man and felt sorry for him. He must lead as lonely an existence as hers, she thought, with only his small terrier for company since the death of his wife. Kim liked the way his eyes lit up when he got on the bus and saw her sitting alone. He always made a beeline for her seat and was happy to flirt gallantly with her, wishing he was younger, or alternatively, simply to gossip about the various villages they meandered through and the characters he’d known who lived there.
Why was it, Kim thought bitterly, that she couldn’t have found someone like the old man to marry, albeit a much younger version?
Her actual marriage had been a mistake. A marriage she’d begun to regret almost before the Registrar’s ink had dried. Kim blamed her inexperience and loneliness. Her parents had divorced when she was seventeen; her mother had died soon afterwards. Kim’s father, already remarried and surrounded by his new family — including two children — didn’t want anything to do with Kim, a painful reminder of his first failure in the marriage stakes. Kim, having few claims to academic success, had settled for a production-line job in a local factory to help pay for the tiny, rodent-infested and damp flat she called home. Her life was dreary by comparison with that enjoyed by her peers. Hoping for some excitement, she’d obtained a passport and headed for Ibiza, but the combination of nightlife, booze, drugs, and casual sex were not the sort of cheap thrill she was seeking. So when Elijah had met her, then dated and proposed, Kim had accepted, convinced that married life in a country cottage set in delightful surroundings had to be an improvement. Nothing in that dream could have been further from the reality. She was now trapped in a marriage from which the last vestiges of affection, love or any of the tender feelings had vanished. In fact, at times Kim wondered if they had ever existed.
If Elijah Nelson was aware of his wife’s lack of feeling for him, it didn’t concern him. If he knew that the marriage had been a mistake, he ignored the fact. When, as happened regularly, usually after a drinking session, he became in turn amorous and violent, he ignored Kim’s protests. As far as Elijah was concerned, she was his wife. And to Elijah, the word wife equated to property. He neither knew, nor cared, that Kim had developed a deep loathing for him and that his touch made her skin crawl. It was her duty to satisfy his demands, no matter how much she detested them, or believed them to be abnormal. When he wasn’t affected by alcohol, he was cold, taciturn and sullen, and any emotions he might have felt were kept rigidly under control.
There had only been one occasion when he let his feelings get the better of him, a time several years ago when an altercation in a Helmsdale pub had led to his arrest and conviction for causing an affray. To Kim’s surprise, whereas many employers might have seen this as reason to discharge a member of staff who had gained a criminal record, the Harland estate had backed Elijah, even providing such a good character reference that he had escaped with nothing more than a short-term community service order plus a fine, which the estate paid, along with the legal fees that had accrued.
Kim often wondered why the estate had acted in so supportive a manner. Was it nothing more than extreme loyalty to a staff member who had already undergone great troubles — or was there more to it than that? It wasn’t the first time they had come to Nelson’s aid in a crisis. Nelson had told Kim, albeit unwillingly, about his mother’s desertion of the family to live abroad with her lover, and of his father’s subsequent suicide.
‘I found him in there.’ Elijah gestured to the kitchen. ‘It was a right bloody mess. Blew his head off with a .12 bore.’
He then told her how the estate had taken care of him, giving him an apprenticeship to the head gamekeeper, and later promoting him after that man retired. The more she thought about it, the more puzzled Kim became about that and other facets of Nelson’s life, things that he refused to share with her. What, for example, was so special about the outbuilding that ran at ninety degrees to the house? The single-storey edifice had once been a piggery; that much Elijah had told her. However, to the best of her knowledge, he had never kept pigs. Nor would that explain why the building was always kept locked; the windows boarded over. She often wondered what was inside that made such security necessary. Eventually, she’d plucked up courage to ask — and soon regretted the curiosity that prompted her question. Elijah had
glared at her. ‘Just a load of old stuff, rubbish mostly,’ he’d said, but the look on his face had belied his words.
Later, he’d gone off to the pub, and on his return gave her one of the most ferocious sexual assaults and beatings imaginable. It was as if he was taking revenge on her for having the temerity to ask something that invaded his privacy. Even as she nursed her wounds, Kim realized that there was far more she didn’t know about her husband than all the things she’d learned about him.
As Elijah left the house that morning to supervise the shoot day on the estate, he warned Kim that he would not be back until late, and there would be no need to prepare a meal, as he would be dining at the manor house, courtesy of his employer and the shooting party. Kim was at first elated, then fearful. Happy that he would be out of her hair all day and evening; dreading what condition he would be in afterward, and what consequences she might have to suffer.
She had placed the washing tablets in the machine and was about to start the wash cycle when she heard the knock at the door. Kim frowned. By now the shoot would be well under way. Had he forgotten something? The thought that it might be someone other than Elijah didn’t occur to her. Stuck out there in the wilds, visitors weren’t rare, they were non-existent.
She hurried down the hall to open the door which she had bolted after his departure. Any delay would arouse his suspicions, although what he imagined she could get up to alone in the house, she couldn’t guess. She slid the bolts back and flung the door wide; then blinked in surprise when she saw the stranger standing on the doorstep. The man was about her age she guessed, reasonably good-looking, and appeared mildly apologetic.
He smiled. A nice smile, Kim decided.
‘Sorry to disturb you.’ Then he began to explain the reason for his intrusion. Kim had already noticed the absence of a car on the driveway, which tallied with his statement that he was staying at Track End Cottage. He gestured to the paddock below the garden. ‘If you would allow me access, I’d like to set up my easel and paint that glorious scene. I promise not to disturb you, or make a mess,’ he ended.
‘I’m sure that will be OK. The land belongs to the estate. This is only a tied cottage. My husband is the estate gamekeeper,’ she explained.
‘Oh, I never thought of that. If that’s the case, and if it’s all right with you, I’ll make a start tomorrow.’
* * *
As he walked back up the lane, Donny thought about the woman he’d just met. She was pretty and had a terrific figure. He’d always concentrated on landscapes, which had disappointed his college tutor who reckoned he could have made a fortune painting portraits. Now, for the first time, he was tempted by the idea. He would have to paint her nude, of course. His artistic eye had already provided a mental image of what she would look like under those less-than-flattering clothes. It was a shame she was married.
That last thought disturbed him. He hadn’t really been considering her in that light, but once the notion entered his head, he found it difficult to dismiss. He sighed: she was married, just his luck, probably quite happily married. Although her expression when she mentioned her husband didn’t reflect that, he mused. No doubt there would be three or four kids around the place as well. Better to stick to landscapes and keep his mind from straying onto her obvious appeal.
* * *
Donny managed to get an outline sketch of the scene onto paper the next day, but contrary to his normal habit, didn’t work on it when he returned to the cottage. That he was subconsciously spinning the task out didn’t occur to him until much later. Halfway through the second afternoon, the gamekeeper’s wife walked down to the meadow with a mug of tea she had brewed for him.
Over the next week, this became a sort of ritual, and after delivering his drink, Kim would stop and admire the developing landscape. These visits became more protracted as they chatted about their respective lives.
Although Kim didn’t say it outright, he sensed her deep unhappiness. Her comment when she learned that he was single had been telling. ‘Marriage is over-rated anyway,’ she’d said.
He had only one brief encounter with her husband, who he thought to be surly and antagonistic.
It was a surprise to Kim a few days later when Elijah returned home early, nodding abruptly in response to the cheery wave from the artist, who was just packing up his materials. On entering the house, Elijah told Kim, ‘I’m going away for a week. The boss has entered his prize sows in a show down south and he wants me to attend and display them. After that, he’s taking me to a game fair in Hampshire. Pack me a bag.’
The following day, she sighed with relief when she saw the tail lights of the Land Rover disappear along the lane. An hour later, she glanced out of the window and saw that, ignoring the threatening clouds that were beginning to form over Black Fell, the artist had started work. It was a mild morning. The temperature had risen slightly from the previous days and he didn’t feel the need for his jacket. She decided to walk over and talk to him, using the by now habitual mug of tea as an excuse. They chatted for a long time, and for once, they touched on matters that were deeply personal. It was surprisingly easy, merely a chance remark that led to the irreversible course of their relationship.
‘I’ve never done portraits,’ he told her, ‘I’ve always concentrated on landscapes.’ He paused before continuing; knowing that once he said it, there would be no going back. ‘That was until I met you. I’d love to paint you. I’d love to try and capture your beautiful face, your figure, every intimate part of you.’
‘You mustn’t say things like that,’ she told him. ‘It isn’t fair. I’m going inside.’
He’d blown it, he realized as he watched her returning to the cottage. He’d ruined his chance with her by his own stupidity.
The rainstorm struck suddenly, with a violent squall driven by the strengthening wind. At the first drop, he flung the cover over his canvas and thrust it into the waterproof bag and began folding his easel and stool. Collecting the tools of his trade would take some time, and he was already drenched.
Then he heard Kim call, ‘Here, let me help.’
She was as ill-dressed for the weather as he was, having dashed from the house on seeing him struggle. By the time they reached the shelter of the house, they were both soaked to the skin. ‘Upstairs,’ Kim commanded him. ‘The bathroom is the first door on the right. Get those wet clothes off before you catch your death of cold. I’ll find you something to wear while I put them in the tumble drier.’
‘What about you?’ he objected. ‘You’re as wet as I am.’
‘I’ll manage.’
Kim had gone into her bedroom and was down to her bra and pants when she remembered that she’d put the bathroom towels in to wash that morning. She hurried out onto the landing and took a bath sheet from the airing cupboard. She paused; gripped by sudden apprehension at what she was about to do. Would she be jumping from the frying pan into the fire? For all she knew, Donny could be as bad as her husband — possibly even worse. After all, she knew nothing about him apart from what little he’d told her. Then her need overcame her fear.
He had stripped off and was beginning to shiver when he looked round and noticed there were no towels. He was pondering putting his wet clothes back on when the door opened. He automatically turned towards the sound, then as quickly turned away as Kim entered the room. ‘I forgot I’d put a towel wash on,’ she apologized, holding the towel out.
He reached out for it, hoping that she hadn’t noticed his instant reaction on seeing her half-naked. She held onto the towel, however, causing him to look at her.
‘Kim,’ he said, his voice a croak. She took hold of the towel in both hands and began to dry him, every movement a caress that inflamed him further. Then she wrapped the towel scarf-like around his shoulders. She stood back, and he watched, spellbound as she unhooked the bra, and wriggled out of her pants.
‘Now you must dry me,’ she told him, her voice husky with desire.
He moved towa
rds her, then checked. ‘What about your husband?’ he said. ‘What if he returns home?’
‘Forget him; he’s on his way to attend an agricultural show and a game fair down south somewhere. He’ll be gone for a week, a whole glorious seven days.’ She turned her back and waited as he began to dry her hair, then her body, his hands lingering over her breasts before continuing down. He felt a shiver run through her as she reached her hand out and began to fondle him. ‘The bedroom’s this way. Let’s go in there, shut the world out, and pretend we’re the only ones left alive.’
* * *
Elijah was supposed to be away. He had told her so, deliberately emphasizing that he would be gone for a week. That had been a lie. There was no agricultural show, only the game fair. His absence from the estate would only be three days. He had even asked her to feed the poultry as part of the deception. He’d spent the night in town, a novel experience, and one he wasn’t keen to repeat, but it had certainly proved enlightening, and in parts, deeply satisfying.
The old binoculars from his childhood were essential to his work as a gamekeeper. They had saved him a lot of time and wasted effort. Using them to locate errant birds on the vast moorland slopes had enabled him to reduce the mileage he had to walk dramatically. Today, however, they were being put to a different use. Although perhaps not that different, as their powerful magnification was showing another being who was straying from the straight and narrow. He’d had his suspicions for a while now. Confirming their accuracy brought him no satisfaction or pleasure, quite the reverse.
From his vantage point high above the house that nestled in the valley, the binoculars brought the front of the building into sharp relief. With the aid of the powerful zoom, he could see through the rain right into the house. His house. He could see right into the bedroom. His bedroom. He could see exactly what the woman on the bed was doing. His woman and his bed. And he could see who she was doing it with. He lowered the binoculars, unable to watch the nauseating spectacle any longer.