‘We are. Tom and I are doing Greats; Gladys is a mathematician. She’s the brainiest girl I’ve ever met.’
‘And is there honey still for tea?’
‘Pardon?’
I felt myself flush red; why had I tried to impress him? Now he would realise how unlikeable I was.
‘I think I should like to go to the seaside, if I had a holiday,’ I said hurriedly. ‘Or London, perhaps. I’m not sure I see the point of traipsing all over the countryside and wearing out perfectly good boots. Is it just the three of you?’
‘It is.’
‘Will you be camping? In tents?’
‘That’s right. But – there’s nothing, you know, improper. Gladys is great fun, but she’s not that kind of girl, do you see? Anyway, we’re all far too frightened of her for that.’
‘You should be frightened of me,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘Why, are you terribly brainy?’
‘Yes, I am. I can do all sorts of things.’
‘How old are you, if you don’t mind? No – let me guess. Sixteen?’
‘Nearly seventeen,’ I lied, and felt myself blush again. He was very nice.
‘So shall we see you at Girton soon? Or Newnham, perhaps?’
‘Probably. I haven’t decided. Oh – we’re nearly at Monks Tye. It’s just up ahead.’
‘Righto. Well, it’s been a pleasure talking to you, Edith. And good luck with your studies. Shall I let you out here?’
He brought the motor-car to a stop outside the Waggon & Horses, a pheasant exploding from the hedge-top as we pulled up. Two elderly farm-hands in smocks sat outside with their mugs, and one touched his cap.
‘Neil, I –’
He was smiling at me, his hand out. I didn’t take it.
‘Can I come? With you, I mean. On your hike. With Gladys and – and Tom?’
His face clouded, and he put his hand back on the steering-wheel.
‘Oh, I – I don’t – I’m sorry, Edith. It’s been lovely to meet you, but – don’t you have somewhere to be?’
‘My sister’s – but she won’t mind, honestly. She doesn’t even know I’m coming. Wouldn’t two girls be better than one? I can show you the way, I know all the paths and roads –’
‘All the way to the sea? Look, it’s terribly kind of you to offer, but I can’t very well take a sixteen-year-old girl along with me, just like that. It would be kidnap, don’t you see?’
‘No, it wouldn’t, not if I wanted to go with you.’
‘Edith, this is – I –’
Suddenly I saw that he just didn’t like me – that was the reason; and why should he, when I was so stupid and so young? I knew from his face that he wanted me to get out of his motor-car so he could drive away and go on his holiday with his clever friends. For a moment I wondered what would happen if I refused to get out; but it was no good.
The engine was still idling, and I released the latch and pushed open the car door. I felt angry and humiliated, and for the very first time I let myself notice it while it was happening, instead of belatedly. I thought that I was angry with Neil.
‘You can piss off,’ I said, and I slammed the door as hard as I could, enjoying the sound it made. ‘Piss off, and all of the rest of you, too!’
My voice had risen to a shout, my fists were clenched and my face flushed. Neil stared at me, stunned. One of the old men on the bench stood up.
‘Go on, then! Go!’
And with a roar of the engine, he did.
The old man followed me almost to Mary’s door, and as I waited for her to answer I turned and glared at him. He was pretending to be concerned about me, but I knew that really he wished me ill; he hated me and wanted me to be small and weak, as they all did. Although he asked me questions, I barely heard them, and refused to speak. There was a feeling in my chest – something high and tight and somehow familiar. My jaw ached, and I realised I’d been clenching my teeth. I was about to trace a witch-mark in the air between us, but just then Mary came to the door.
I pushed in past her and shut it behind me, and then embraced her tightly. I wanted the feeling back, the one I’d had when we’d shared a bed and she’d made me feel happy and safe and loved.
‘Ed! Did you walk over? What’s the matter?’ she asked when at last I let her pull away. But I just shook my head. Perhaps I shouldn’t explain anything to her, for after all, she was excluded from the secret; it was me, Mother and Grandma, and nobody else. All those years I had been envious of her prettiness and her bond with Mother, when in fact it was I who was special all along! But I loved her – of course I did – and looking at how tired and worn-out she seemed now, I knew I should be kind.
In the sitting-room I said that I didn’t want to hold the baby, thank you, and she looked at me open-mouthed as though she had not just asked me a question but rather given me an instruction of some kind. I simply smiled, and sat down.
‘So why are you here, then, Ed?’ she asked, and settled the baby back on her hip. There was a trace of resentment in her voice.
‘To see you! You invited me to come, remember?’
‘Aren’t you harvesting?’
‘It’s all in hand.’
‘Without Doble? Are the Rose boys helping?’
‘No, but it’s all going perfectly well.’
‘Do Mother and Father even know you’re here?’
‘Mary, have you got anything to eat? I missed breakfast.’
‘You missed breakfast? What do you mean?’
I sighed impatiently. ‘I slept in. And then I came straight here. Honestly, you don’t seem very happy to see me.’
Her face flushed. ‘And you don’t seem very happy to see baby Terence, either!’
I held my tongue.
‘Look. Can I have a cup of tea, at least? I’m parched.’
She glared at me for a moment and then, defeated, went to the little kitchen at the back, the infant drooling and complaining at her hip. I sat back on the settee and let out a long breath.
While the tea was steeping she put the baby in its basket, talking to it in the daft way that she had. I wondered whether Mother had once cooed over us like that when we were children; certainly neither she nor Grandma resorted to it when they held Terence now. Perhaps it was just her.
She had put six bourbon biscuits on a plate, and I ate three while she was bent over the basket. Their sweetness left a film on my teeth.
‘Shall I be mother?’ I asked. I was so thirsty, and I had the beginnings of a headache.
‘If you like.’
She took her cup and went to sit in one of the armchairs. There was something prim in her movements, as though she was on show, or being judged. Why couldn’t she belch, or throw one leg over the arm of the chair, I wondered; was she feeling nervous for some reason, or was this what being a married woman meant?
‘Why was Buller Blythe following you, Ed?’
‘The old man outside? I don’t know.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘Oh, it was nothing. He wished me ill, and I won’t stand for it any more.’
She frowned at this.
‘How’s Father?’
‘I hate him, Mary!’ I hadn’t meant to say it; it just came out.
‘Ed, you can’t hate him!’
‘I do, though! You didn’t see him at the fete, it was awful.’
‘I’ve seen him drunk enough times; I know he can be a handful. Why do you think I don’t come back to visit more?’
‘It’s got worse, though. Even Frank agrees with me.’
‘Frank? Really?’
I nodded. ‘There’s something . . . wrong with him.’
She sighed. ‘You know, Grandma blames Mother for it – she said Mother allows it.’
‘Allows it?’
‘By covering up for him, keeping it a secret. She said we’ve as good as made a rod for our own backs.’
‘I sometimes think’ – I dropped my voice to a whisper – ‘I sometimes think he isn’t
actually our father at all, but somebody else.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘I can’t explain it. But you should watch him very carefully next time you see him. Do you mind if I finish the biscuits?’
She shook her head. ‘Ed, I’m – I’m worried about you.’
‘Me? Why?’
‘You seem very . . . you don’t seem yourself.’
I sat back and laughed. ‘Not myself! Like Father, you mean? Oh, I can promise you I really am very myself. More so than ever, in fact.’
‘But – you seem so different.’
‘I am different. Everything’s changed.’
‘What’s changed, Ed? You can tell me, you know; I’m your sister. You really can. It’s Alfie Rose, isn’t it?’
I felt like a rubber balloon at the instant all the air goes out of it, or like the wireless when the battery fails. It must have shown in my face, for she put down her cup and came to the settee, and put her arms around me.
‘Oh, Ed, you’re my sister, and I love you, do you know that? Tell me – just tell me what’s happened!’ she said.
The sobs that heaved out of me then were frightening, and I clutched at Mary and cried and cried. Snot ran out of my nose, and my mouth was pulled back in a grimace; I heard myself making sounds that were almost screams, but I let it happen, I let it move through me, a juggernaut of fear and pain and shock. I pushed into Mary and clung on for dear life as she rocked me and spoke to me quietly and stroked my head.
At last the sobs began to subside, and I sat back a little and rummaged for my hankie. She pressed a clean one of her own into my hand.
‘Ed – Ed. I need to ask you. Did he make you . . . did he make you do it?’
‘He didn’t make me,’ I managed. ‘I let him. It was my fault.’
My crying had woken the baby up and it was starting to whine, and I knew that any moment she would go and see to it. Inside, I made myself ready for the blow of her getting up and moving away.
‘Oh, let him cry,’ she said, putting an arm around me and squeezing. ‘He drives me mad, anyway. I wish I’d never had him sometimes.’
Heavens, the relief of it, to feel her there again: my sister. I couldn’t help but laugh, and she laughed too, through her own tears.
‘Now, tell me what happened exactly. All of it – don’t leave anything out.’
And so, haltingly at first, and then in a rush, I did.
Mary was making us sandwiches when there was a firm rap at the door. She appeared at the kitchen doorway and looked at me; after everything we’d talked about we were neither of us ready to see anyone – particularly anyone from Wych Farm.
But the rap came again. ‘I suppose you’d better answer it,’ I said miserably, drawing my knees up onto the settee.
‘Mary, I’m so pleased to meet you at last,’ rang out Connie’s familiar voice from the hall. ‘I’m Constance. I’m ever so sorry to trouble you, but I don’t suppose your sister Edith happens to be here?’
‘Ed? Oh – she’s –’
‘It’s all right,’ I called out. ‘Hello, Connie. Come in.’
With Connie in it, Mary’s front room suddenly seemed smaller and cheaper. ‘No, don’t get up, darling,’ she said. ‘I gather you’re unwell.’
Mary, who had raised her eyebrows at Connie’s ‘darling’, spoke up: ‘She’s just a little . . . overwrought.’
‘Overwrought – that’s it exactly. May I sit?’
‘Please do. Would you like a cup of tea, Constance? I’m just making a pot.’
‘Yes please, that would be kind. Did you know it’s starting to spit?’
She sat down next to me on the settee. ‘I bicycled over – your mother sent me. I’m glad to find you here, I thought you might have run away.’
‘Am I in a lot of trouble?’
‘No – your Father thinks you’re languishing in bed with whatever Alfie Rose has got. He doesn’t suspect a thing.’
‘But Grandfather –’
‘I know, you were vile to poor Albert, apparently,’ she said, and grinned. ‘But he’ll forgive you.’
Mary came through with a plate of sandwiches and a pot of tea. ‘She always was his favourite,’ she said, but her voice was kind.
‘I’ll fetch another cup, shall I?’ said Connie. ‘No, you sit down, Mary, I’ll find it. I always know where to look for things in other people’s kitchens – it’s a knack. See, what did I tell you?’ – and she reappeared after a moment with a cup and saucer and teaspoon.
‘Now, let’s the three of us ladies have a proper chin-wag. It’s about time, don’t you think?’
Before Connie arrived I’d told Mary everything about Alf, going all the way back to when he first kissed me behind the privy at Rose Farm, and including everything I’d been letting him do. She said that in her view we weren’t sweethearts at all, and furthermore that on the night of the fete he’d behaved like a cad.
‘It’s my fault, though – I should have told you what men are really like,’ she’d continued. ‘I thought there’d be lots of time, and I suppose I didn’t think you were interested, always with your head stuck in a book. And – and I suppose I was so taken up with Clive, and then the wedding, and now Terence. I’m ever so sorry, Ed.’
‘Oh, that’s all right. You won’t tell anyone, though, will you? Not Mother, or anyone?’
‘Course not – and neither must you, or you’ll get a reputation.’
‘What if he tells – what if he brags?’
‘I don’t think he will. I’ll wager he knows he’s behaved badly; I shouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t ill at all, but feigning.’
I took a deep breath and held it for a moment, and as I released it I tried to let my shoulders drop. ‘Mary, I don’t ever want him to kiss me again. Or – anything. It was so horrible – horrible!’ I shuddered, and briefly felt as though I might cry again.
‘You’ll just have to avoid him, then, or carry a hatpin. They can’t help themselves – not once they’re, you know, inflamed, or it damages them down there. Men are all the same that way; that’s what Mother told me. So it’s best not to let them get too near, unless you’re really in love.’
‘All of them? Even’ – I searched my imagination – ‘even Frank? Even John?’
‘Probably.’
‘Was Clive like that when you were courting?’
‘Course he was, but – I liked him back, you see.’
‘But I – I like Alf. Everyone likes him; I think Father wants me to marry him. And you know Frank sets a store by him, too.’
‘Not with your heart, or your body, you can’t have liked him. Oh, it’s hard to explain.’
‘So tell me what on earth is the matter, Edie,’ said Connie now. ‘You know you’ve got Ada ever so worried, poor thing?’
‘Connie knows that I – that I kissed Alf Rose,’ I said to Mary, making sure with a look that she understood.
‘Surely it’s not all about a boy, though,’ Connie said confidingly, taking my hand. ‘I mean, dunking yourself in the horse-pond, and drawing magical shapes. Darling, we all just want to understand.’
‘Yes, the device you drew in the air the other day,’ said Mary. ‘I was coming on to that.’
I looked out of the window. On the other side of the road I could see part of the village hall, where the dances were held. Parked next to it was a grocer’s van marked ‘G & E Evans’, and a woman hurrying past in a headscarf carrying a basket of eggs. It was all veiled in light drizzle; the lustre and detail that the past few days had been loaded with, that had given the workaday world such an overwhelming luminosity and significance, seemed somehow to be draining away.
‘It was just for good luck, Mary; you know, like touching wood. Don’t you ever do that?’
‘Ed, it was a daisy-mark, like in the house. And you know it.’
‘What’s a daisy-mark?’ said Connie.
‘A witch-mark, some call them. They’re all over this part of the world.’
>
‘Gosh. Made by witches?’
‘Oh no,’ Mary said. ‘For protection against them. Ordinary people drew them in their houses a long time ago.’
How could I not have understood that? Why had I so stupidly assumed that the marks were some kind of spell? There was so much I didn’t know, or had got muddled about – which was so unlike me, usually. What a silly little fool I was.
‘Mary, I need to ask you something. It’s about Grandma Clarity.’
‘Grandma? What about her?’
‘How does she – how does she know things?’
‘Know what things?’
‘You know what things. We used to talk about it when we were children: how she’d always know what was wrong, even before you spoke. She knew you were expecting Terence –’
‘Ed, that’s just something women can tell.’
‘– and she knew about my landrail –’
‘Mother had mentioned it!’
‘– and there’s the way she can make people better, or overlook them and cause them ill –’
‘Ed, you know perfectly well she can’t overlook anyone.’
‘She can make them better, though, and animals. You know she can!’
‘She’s good with herbs, that’s all! Lots of the old women are. What do you think people did for medicine before doctors came along?’
‘Is that all, then?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s just that Frank said . . . Frank said she was a witch.’
Mary burst out laughing then, but Connie’s face was grave and still. It was unlike her to remain silent for so long; I had almost forgotten that she was there.
‘But Ed,’ Mary said at last, ‘you didn’t believe him, did you? You know what an idiot he can be.’
I shrugged. ‘I – I don’t know.’
‘You’d better not say anything of this to Mother, you know. She’ll be terribly hurt.’
‘Hurt? Why?’
‘Think about it, you ass: she grew up with people saying cruel things about her mother, and now you’re doing the same!’
‘I’m not! And anyway, why should it be a bad thing?’
‘Look, Ed. You have to stop all this, right now. I know you’ve been – tired, and I understand it, honestly; and I know Father’s been under a fair strain of late, which makes everyone’s life hard. But nobody’s a witch, and you know that very well.’
All Among the Barley Page 19