A Spell of Swallows

by Sarah Harrison

  Not waiting for an answer, he went on in his quiet, unassuming way: ‘I hope you’re quite happy with this arrangement.’

  ‘Of course he is,’ said Vivien, ‘I told you. You are, aren’t you, Saxon?’

  She was putting him on the spot. Ashe’s level gaze hadn’t left his face.

  ‘I trust you to look after the car, naturally,’ said Saxon.

  ‘Naturally,’ said Ashe. ‘And Mrs Mariner, too.’

  ‘That goes without saying,’ said Saxon, irritated at this appearance of being prompted on a matter of form.

  ‘Do let’s start,’ said Vivien impatiently. ‘And Saxon, you’re not to watch.’

  ‘Let me see you safely out of the drive, at least.’

  ‘I’d be grateful if you would,’ said Ashe.

  Saxon stood looking on, without comment, as Ashe started the engine, took his place next to Vivien, and took her through the controls. It was frustrating not to be able to hear what was being said, but the man’s manner was reassuringly calm and workmanlike. By the time the car turned, a little jerkily, out into the road with Vivien at the wheel, Saxon was some way to being mollified. Apart from that one remark, to which he had responded oversensitively, Ashe had been a model of calm civility, if not exactly of deference. There had even been the implication that the two of them should agree, man to man, before the lesson could take place.

  Saxon returned to the house, and his book. But he couldn’t concentrate, and ten minutes later set the book aside and went out of the back door into the garden. Once outside, he wasn’t sure what to do. This was not his domain: he did no gardening, and only spent time here with Vivien and at her instigation. It wasn’t quite warm enough to sit, and besides he hadn’t brought his book with him. What, he wondered, gazing about him, did people do? They strolled, perhaps. Saxon wasn’t one of nature’s strollers, being more accustomed, and inclined, to short, brisk journeys with a clear end in view. However, since he was here, he began a somewhat self-conscious perambulation around the edge of the vicarage’s quarter of an acre, glad that Hilda had been given the evening off.

  He walked with long, slow strides, his hands behind his back. He didn’t know the names of plants, but it was impossible not to notice the surge of uncontrolled growth that was taking place. The apple trees next the shed were already in bud. Great rafts and tuffets and fountains of greenery swelled on every side, The ‘lawn’—even Saxon mentally placed inverted commas round the word—was sprinkled with the white dots of early daisies, now closing demurely for the night, and patched with archipelagos of moss. A mole had been busy, the fresh brown eruptions of a new fortress dotted the grass furthest from the house. Saxon, largely indifferent to what went on in the garden, didn’t much mind, but knew that the catcher would have to be got in. With the evenings drawing out and the weather improving, visitors to the vicarage would be more likely to see the garden. Molehills all over the place created a slovenly impression.

  He noticed the badminton set, still in its canvas bag, propped up in the angle between the side of the shed and the water butt. With summer ahead, Vivien must have taken it out. Another reason to see off the moles. Maybe this was something he could do to while away the hour. He loosened the drawstring and pulled open the top of the bag, but after peering in glumly at the jumble of racquets, iron rods and string he concluded that it was definitely a job better undertaken by two. He moved on. Croquet was a good game, and one he’d showed an aptitude for on the occasions he’d had to play—notably up with the Delamaynes, one day last summer. Vivien had enjoyed herself (he smiled at the memory) but had lacked the killer instinct. In any event, the agricultural surface of the vicarage lawn was hopeless for the purpose. Perhaps a large roller—he believed the cricket team had one, but how would one get it here from their field on the other side of the village . . .?

  Saxon reached the end of the garden some hundred feet from the house, in his opinion the most attractive area, though it was terribly overgrown. Here the snaggle-toothed fence, scabbed with lichen, rambled across part of a small wood. The stately trunks of mature chestnut, elm and beech trees gave the place a churchlike air, and layers of leaf mould muffled his footsteps. In January there was the odd snowdrop, and this evening he could see one or two plucky primroses shining through the undergrowth. Saxon’s faith was largely cerebral, the product of reasoned thought and wide and intensive reading, but here he could fully acknowledge that God was manifest in natural beauty, and that the phrase ‘God’s own cathedral’ (often used facetiously by Sidney Delamayne to justify a Sunday morning’s shooting) was appropriate.

  A huge branch had split away from one of the elms during a winter storm, and collapsed, dipping, then extending a beseeching, horizontal arm, before sagging finally to the ground. Already the sharp, white scar between branch and trunk had been colonised by thick plates of orange speckled fungi. Gingerly, Saxon lowered himself on to the natural seat of the branch, testing it carefully with his weight. It barely moved. He sat, looking back at the house. It was interesting to observe it from this angle, which provided a more intimate, domestic view than that from the front, and one which in some small way altered his perception of himself. He again pictured Vivien and the puppy running about, enjoying themselves, only this time he also pictured himself, if not running about with them, then sitting here beneath the trees, looking on indulgently as a father might do with two high-spirited children. Then there was the badminton to look forward to with its attendant frisson, and Hilda’s home-made lemonade . . .

  A single swallow swooped down from high above the trees, with a sound in the stillness like the whistling flight of an arrow. At lightning speed it described a long, low inverted are from the treetops to its nest beneath the bedroom gable and once there seemed to melt, in an instant, into the stone. Vivien was right—he should try to be out of doors more. Nature refreshed the soul and fed the imagination.

  Like one of the fresh green spears at his feet, a line of poetry popped into Saxon’s head:

  If I am quiet, it is to hear your music

  The line, as always, came as a surprise, breaking into his thoughts spontaneously; fragile, but nonetheless demanding his attention. At once he was filled with the thrilling anticipation that preceded a poem.

  He got up from his tree-seat and began walking back across the rough grass to the house, slowly and deliberately because to hurry might be to douse the frail, enchanted spark of inspiration.

  Vivien’s prediction had been incorrect: she was an apt pupil. In no time at all, under Ashe’s tutelage, she had mastered the controls and had to be restrained from going too fast. Rather than attempt Fort Hill, with its steep gradient and bends, they had driven down the High Street and continued some way along the road beyond the village, in the direction of Bridgeford. Several people stared as they went by, and then waved or smiled when they saw it was Mrs Mariner at the wheel.

  She was exhilarated. After half an hour, Ashe suggested they stop at the next farm gateway, and she managed that quite well, too.

  ‘If we could change places for a moment, Mrs Mariner,’ he said. ‘I can turn her round.’

  ‘Can’t I do that?’

  ‘Next time, perhaps.’

  She climbed out of the car, a little wobbly on her land legs, and watched as he performed the manoeuvre. When it was done he turned the engine off and jumped down.

  ‘Might as well take a little break.’

  She said: ‘I can’t remember when I last enjoyed myself so much!’

  ‘You’re doing well.’

  He leaned his forearms on the gate, looking away from her, over the field. There was something attractive in his studied detachment; a consciousness of the rules that could be broken.

  ‘You’re a good teacher.’

  He lifted his chin—maybe, maybe not.

  ‘Would you mind if I had a cigarette?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  He took a box of matches from his pocket, waited, and lit the cigarette for her. Sh
e joined him at the gate, leaning her back against it.

  ‘I hope you don’t think this is unladylike,’ she said. ‘My smoking.’

  ‘That’s not my business.’

  She realised as he said this that she wanted to make it his business—to elicit an opinion, any kind of response, from him.

  ‘Have you taught anyone to drive before?’ she asked and, when he shook his head, added: ‘Because you’re a good teacher.’

  ‘It’s not hard.’

  All this time he had stayed in the same position, looking out across the field. Now suddenly he turned to face her and she felt again the shock of his damaged face, the calm way the rest of him looked from behind it, as if wearing a mask. A bird twittered its spring song; otherwise the early evening was quiet. She thought: These feelings are wrong, but I wanted to feel them. I made this happen, I wanted to be here.

  Ashe opened the driver’s door and stood waiting for her.

  ‘Better get back,’ he said. ‘We don’t want Mr Mariner worrying.’

  Saxon heard the car in the road, and looked up, slightly tranced, from the sheet of paper where there were now some eight lines in black ink, busy with crossings-out and corrections. The car turned into the drive, but the mood of the poem still held him in its spell; he watched without great attention as Vivien got down from the driver’s seat, and Ashe took her place to manoeuvre the car into the garage. They exchanged a few words, after which Ashe left, and Vivien walked back to the house. Saxon did notice her expression, which was oddly concentrated and inward-looking. Perhaps, he thought, with an unworthy lurch of hope, it had not gone well.

  But when she came into the study she was her usual self, and full of her success.

  ‘That was marvellous,’ she declared, pulling off her hat and with it most of the pins from her hair. ‘Bother. Anyway, Saxon, I can drive! I enjoyed it, and you may not believe this but we never had a nervous moment . . .’ As she spoke she was picking up the hairpins, which she then put on his desk where they lay higgledy-piggledy, like stray pine needles from a Christmas tree.

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’ Absently, using the side of his hand, he clustered the pins together and laid them the right way round.

  ‘I hope you didn’t spend your time fretting about us. Or about the car. I was safe as houses, I promise.’

  ‘No,’ he said truthfully. ‘I didn’t fret at all.’

  ‘Mind you,’ she went on as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘I was in good hands. Mr Ashe is a first-class teacher.’

  ‘I’m sure he is.’

  How perverse, he thought. I’m longing for her to go, so that I can continue writing about her.

  ‘How have you been?’ She went to the window and stood with her back to him. ‘Have you been all right?’

  ‘Perfectly. I went out in the garden for a while.’

  ‘Saxon!’ She feigned exaggerated surprise. ‘The garden?’

  ‘Yes. Not like me, you’re thinking. But it was very pleasant. And then I came in here to do a little writing.’

  He half hoped she might ask what he was writing, but no.

  ‘Shall we have supper then? It’s waiting for us.’

  Eating was the last thing he wanted to do, and he very nearly said that he simply wasn’t hungry. But the contrast between these thoughts, and those that had inspired the lines of poetry that lay before him, shamed him. He got up, stiffly, scraped the hairpins into his cupped hand and handed them to her.

  ‘Yours, I think.’

  Very late that night, Saxon woke up. He woke suddenly and cleanly, and was instantly alert, as if someone had tapped him on the shoulder. He peered at the clock on his bedside chest: half past twelve. What had woken him? He was a sound sleeper and rarely even dreamed. He glanced down at Vivien. She was curled tight as an ammonite with her back to him, her hands bunched beneath her chin, her hair pushed up, folded, on to the pillow like the loop of a bow. Her lips trembled on a long breath: she was far away.

  He got out of bed and went to the window. An almost full moon had bleached the garden of colour; it was a place of shadow and pallor like a faded photograph. He could see the pale canvas of the badminton set, the livid scar of the broken branch, the inky-black blobs of the mole fortress on the fog-grey grass. He fancied he could see himself, sitting down there, gazing back at him—the other Saxon, who had been inspired to write those tender, confessional lines. The notion made him suddenly anxious, because he did not wish to lose either.

  His bare feet felt cold and he returned to bed, reaching for Vivien and scooping her, just as she was, into his arms. Still deeply asleep, she settled her back against him, and murmured something, a single word, which he couldn’t make out.

  ‘Come on Sunday,’ Mrs Mariner had said during their second outing in the car, ‘when we’re in church. It’s one of Hilda’s Sundays on, so make sure she doesn’t get a fright—a man in the garden, I mean.’

  Ashe had known very well what she meant, and didn’t hold it against her. And now that he was here, he intended to present himself to Hilda anyway. A good housekeeper’s standing in the household and her value to it could never be underestimated, and after his poor showing on the front doorstep a couple of weeks ago he was anxious to secure a place in her good books. That meant behaving with a good deal more deference to Hilda than to her employers.

  He knocked on the back door and waited until the moment Hilda opened it to remove his hat respectfully.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, looking away, ‘it’s you.’

  ‘Good morning. Mrs Mariner asked me to put the badminton up for her.’

  ‘Yes, she told me.’

  ‘Thought I’d better let you know I was here, just in case.’

  ‘She did warn me.’

  Ashe took no offence. ‘They’re in church, I believe.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Mr Mariner’s busy day I suppose.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I’ll be getting on with it, then.’ She was itching for him to go, but he had one more card up his sleeve and paused, sniffing. ‘Something smells good.’

  ‘It’s silverside of beef.’

  ‘Wonderful. Silverside! Food for the gods.’

  Hilda unbent a little. ‘It’s the reverend’s favourite.’

  ‘And your speciality, I bet . . .’ He smiled.

  ‘I’m a good plain cook,’ she conceded.

  ‘Oh well . . .’ He sighed, as if tearing himself away. ‘Mustn’t keep you from it.’

  As he walked away he was conscious of her looking after him for a few seconds before she closed the door. He considered that it had gone pretty well.

  It didn’t take Ashe long to set up the badminton. The slowest part was disentangling the components, the rods, net, pegs and guy ropes, and laying them out in order on the ground. Once he’d done that it was the work of minutes to see to the rest. He left the racquets and shuttlecocks in the canvas bag and put them just inside the shed, noticing as he did so the mower standing beneath its tarpaulin. He hesitated, hand on the door. The grass was badly in need of a cut, probably hadn’t been touched since last year, and the moles had been having a field day.

  He glanced first at his watch—only twenty-five past eleven—then up at the sky. It was nice enough at the moment, but cloudy and uncertain. Definitely not set fair. And at this time of year a fall of rain would render this lot too soggy to mow for days.

  He weighed up the pros and cons. They couldn’t but be pleased to have it done. He’d do a good job, and there’d be no need of payment—it would be off his own bat. No question but Mrs Mariner would be delighted. Her husband would have reservations, but wouldn’t (if Ashe had read things correctly) want to voice them in front of him.

  On balance, Ashe reckoned he’d go ahead.

  At the end of the service Vivien got talking animatedly to the Delamaynes about her driving, so that in the end Saxon was waiting for her in the porch, his surplice over his arm long after the sidesmen had left.
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  ‘High time!’ remarked Sir Sidney approvingly on his way out. ‘A young woman these days should be able to get about a bit.’

  ‘And very charitable of you,’ added Felicity pointedly, ‘to give the job to that strange chap with the face.’

  Vivien sensed that Saxon had been about to deny any charity, but had thought better of it.

  ‘He seems very competent,’ was what he said instead.’ And he knows about cars.’

  ‘What a useful fellow he is,’ commented Felicity. ‘I do like a man who can turn his hand to things.’

  As Saxon and Vivien walked together across the churchyard a few spots of rain began to fall. Approaching the gate, they heard the rapid, uneven snicker of the lawnmower bouncing over the bumpy ground. He was still here; Vivien caught her breath.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Saxon asked, moving ahead of her into the garden.

  ‘I have an idea it’s Mr Ashe.’

  ‘Ashe?’ Saxon frowned, taking in the assembled badminton net and the neatly tram lined grass. ‘Good heavens.’

  She said, as if excusing all this industry: ‘I only asked him if he’d put up the net.’

  ‘I must say . . . Yes, I suppose—I don’t know what to say.’

  Vivien left her husband and walked towards Ashe, who was turning at the far end of the lawn, to execute what would be the final run. She noticed that he had stamped down the molehills and mown over them.

  ‘Mr Ashe!’

  He raised a finger in a gesture that might generously have been interpreted as forelock-tipping or, more realistically, as an indication that she should stay where she was until he had finished. Saxon, with a slight lifting of the chin, elected to choose the former interpretation, Vivien the latter. Just the same both waited, like dignitaries at a march-past, as Ashe completed his run.

  He left the mower near the house and came over to them.

  ‘Good morning. I hope you don’t mind, Reverend. Mrs Mariner asked me to put up the net, and I thought you might like to play some time soon, so I had a go at the grass.’