Past

by Hadley, Tessa

  He was taking her seriously, observing her very closely. Mikey wasn’t good looking. His sandy hair was limp and his eyelids were freckled, with short fair lashes; he moved his shoulders stiffly, turning his whole torso at once. But Jill thought now that she had always liked his unselfconscious calm, as if he were holding something back. — They probably had an old copper for hot water, he said. — No shortage of firewood. It would certainly be peaceful. I haven’t been past it for a while. I suppose I can see you living like that, if you really didn’t mind those inconveniences.

  For some reason Jill felt ashamed then, as though she’d been showing off. It was the kind of thing her London friends went on about: starting new lives in the countryside, getting closer to nature, doing without modern technologies. Usually she was the one who debunked their fantasies, saying they had no idea what hard labour it was, getting a living out of the earth – and that the countryside wasn’t an empty place you could just drop into, like a garden of Eden. Real people lived in it, who mostly took a dim view of outsiders. Now here she was pretending to be a gypsy like any romantic. Mikey promised he would find out who owned the cottage – he thought it was probably tied to one of the big estates, and didn’t suppose the Goods had been paying a king’s ransom. The place would most likely be left to fall down, if no one wanted it. Jill told him then about trying to get a job in the wool shop. — I wasn’t good enough, they wouldn’t have me.

  — In the wool shop? He was incredulous. — Aren’t you a bit overqualified for that?

  — There isn’t much call for classicists down here. Actually, there isn’t much call for them anywhere. And I need the money.

  — I forgot you did classics, he said. — You were the clever one.

  — You solved all the arithmetic problems at junior school.

  He liked remembering that. — Filling up a tank, so many gallons, such a cubic capacity, how long would it take, that sort of thing. Yes, I enjoyed those.

  She saw that Mikey was curious, wondering why she needed money if she had a husband who wrote for the newspapers. Because of her enquiries about the cottage, he must have half an idea that she was up to something, digging her way out of some disaster. Perhaps she could explain herself to him sometime. She would like someone else in the world to know what she was planning and what she felt, and what Tom was – what he really was, once and for all, which nobody saw apart from her. Though that was nonsense of course. People weren’t ‘really’ anything, there wasn’t ever any final, definitive version. For a moment she hoped Mikey would say that if she was looking for a job, they needed help with their filing right here in the office. Instead he asked how many children she had. He might have been worrying about the cottage and the earth closet, reminding her of realities and of her responsibilities. Was he reproaching her? You never knew with men, what ideas they got into their heads about how mothers ought to behave.

  — Two girls and a boy. The oldest is seven, the baby’s eighteen months.

  — That sounds like quite a handful.

  — Mum’s looking after them this afternoon. I can’t tell you what a treat this is, just sitting here talking, drinking coffee, not having to worry about anyone behaving badly, or falling over, or needing their nappy changing. What about you? Do you have children?

  — Haven’t been nabbed yet, he said heartily, rubbing his finger round the rim of his coffee mug as if he was trying to make it ring. — Don’t know one end of a baby from the other. I was engaged once, but it didn’t work out. Still footloose and fancy-free.

  The words sounded as if Mikey had overheard someone else using them: they didn’t suit him. It was ridiculous to think of him as footloose, he was too shambling and heavy. They were both embarrassed, and Jill began explaining the kind of properties she was interested in – not the modern houses that were like anonymous little boxes. And not anything in town: she’d rather live out in the country. She might learn to drive, and anyway didn’t mind using the buses. — I’d have thought you were the marrying kind, she said while he looked for more property details in a filing cabinet. — The kind women are drawn to.

  — Well, they haven’t been queuing up lately, he said, searching through papers with a frown. — Here we are. See what you think of these two places. At least these have running water, though they’re not exactly all mod cons. I could take you round to have a look, if you were interested. One afternoon later in the week? Or next week?

  Jill wondered about Rose in the outer office – she was middle-aged, with a stiff blonde perm, but anything could happen if a man and a woman spent every day together. Then she was afraid that Mikey might be affronted, by her having claimed so high-handedly to know him – or perhaps by her remark about the little boxes. She must sound like a ghastly snob, despising those: most people were grateful to have a roof over their heads, and indoor bathrooms. Beneath his show of being blunt and uncomplicated, she suspected that Mikey was all delicate perception and quick judgement.

  Sophy told Jill, who was sorting out laundry, that she was going to drop in at Roddings. The children were playing in the garden – Hettie was in charge, making sure no one fell in the river. Eve Smith was doing the church flowers that week, Sophy said, and wanted lilac for her colour scheme. All this was the truth, and before she went she picked an armful of the plumy lilac that grew beside the rectory’s front gate. But when she’d handed the lilac over to Eve, and Eve was filling a sink for it in the Roddings back scullery, Sophy also asked if she could use the telephone. Eve had a pink, round, patient face and lank, greying dark hair, forever falling in her eyes; she looked washed out, with all the work of a farm and three grown bullying sons all living at home. She told Sophy to go ahead and help herself, pushing her hair back with a broad mottled arm because her hands were wet. Sophy had brought half a crown with her, to leave discreetly beside the phone as payment, always anxious that it might not be enough, or be too much. You could never forget you were the vicar’s wife, with all that brought in the way of wariness in the country women, and a submerged hostility.

  The Smiths had their telephone in the farm office, which was off the passage to the yard, a watershed between indoor and outdoor worlds: farm machinery and veterinary equipment were jumbled with boots and socks and waterproofs, an old clock ticked on the mantel above the huge cold fireplace, packets of shotgun cartridges were spilled amongst the paperwork on the desk. Parts of Roddings went back to the fourteenth century, Grantham said; the beams in the low ceiling were twelve inches thick. If John Smith or any of the boys had been at work in the office, Sophy would have abandoned her call: she didn’t mind John, but could never have explained to him what she was up to. First she dialled the number for the flat in Marylebone, though she hardly expected anyone to answer, and no one did.

  Then, fishing out a scrap of paper from her coat pocket, she tried another number, the one which Tom had left for Jill last week. Sophy had copied it before she gave the note to her daughter – partly out of her usual anxiety over losing things, partly because she was thinking that she might want to contact Tom herself, without letting Jill know. She didn’t have much hope of getting hold of him, but it was worth a try. Obviously the two young ones had quarrelled. Sophy dreaded being the kind of mother who insisted on explanations, but she had got it into her head that it was her duty to encourage Tom, and tell him not to be deterred by Jill’s intransigence. Her daughter was capable of putting up such a shining, off-putting show of certainty; Jill believed that each time she changed, it was for the last time. She insisted that she hadn’t spoken to Tom the other night, though she had taken the handful of coins which Sophy put out for her. Left to himself, Tom might not persevere. He made such a point of being fearless, shocking people with his hair and his jokes and opinions; but Sophy didn’t trust him not to give up at the first obstacle. She saw the strain in his eyes sometimes, as if his bravado was hard work.

  A woman answered the phone: her voice was breathless as if she’d broken off in the middle of som
ething funny. Sophy asked if she could speak to Mr Crane. There was a hesitation, then the woman proceeded more cautiously, though with something flaunting in her voice, as if her laughter might start up again at any moment. — Who is this speaking, please?

  She couldn’t possibly say she was his mother-in-law. — It’s Sophy.

  — Sophy, I’m afraid Mr Crane isn’t here.

  The woman’s voice sounded as if she were putting on a parody of a secretary’s clipped professionalism for someone else’s benefit, to amuse them. — He’s in an important meeting. Terribly important. I don’t have any idea when he’ll be back. Do you know, Bernie?

  Sophy heard a man’s voice – it didn’t sound like Tom – in the background.

  — Bernie doesn’t have any idea either. Shall I ask Mr Crane to call you back?

  Sophy said she would try again another time. It was strange to put down the phone and look around the unchanged walls of the Roddings office, coloured a deep yellow-brown by the men’s tobacco smoke over the years. Her conversation lingered in there, a frivolous rainbow vapour from another world, a younger one. Should she feel anxious, because a woman had answered the phone? Definitely it hadn’t been Tom’s voice in the background. Probably they were just a couple, friends of his. But disturbing possibilities swam in her imagination, uninvited: just because they were a couple, that didn’t preclude other arrangements with her son-in-law, experimental combinations. She found herself wondering, alarmed by her own inventiveness, whether the woman hadn’t answered the phone half-naked, propped on her elbows amid rumpled sheets, in the middle of the day. It was extraordinary how much you knew about people, even from such a short exchange. These friends of Tom’s weren’t straightforward, they weren’t serious, they had laughed at her. Sophy felt caught out, as if she belonged to ancient, earnest history.

  In the middle of the night a noise intruded into Jill’s dream and dispersed it. She was sorry, because the dream had been intricate and delicious – tidal, like swimming in shallow warm water through fronds of weed. She assumed at first that she had been woken by one of the children calling. Then the noise came again, thudding against her window-pane, a slushy blow, insolent and insistent: some bird must be bruising itself against the glass, on a crazy mission to get inside. Her first thought was to get up and close the window, which was open six inches or so at the bottom. Jill had been brought up to sleep with her window open, even on the coldest nights.

  The front garden was stark with moonlight. There was no wind, and yet the young silver birch seemed to be quivering in agitation; some big animal was rooting round its base. When the animal straightened up she saw that it was a man – it was Tom, in his bulky duffel coat with the hood up. He had been gouging up another handful of earth and stones from around the base of the tree to throw at her window: luckily her parents slept at the back of the house. Furious, she pushed up the window and leaned out, feeling the cold air on her bare shoulders. She was wearing the pink nylon nightdress he had bought for her last birthday – not out of any sentimental attachment, but because it was the only one she’d had clean to bring with her.

  — What do you think you’re doing? she hissed.

  He dropped his handful of earth and came to stand below her, brushing off his hands, turning the pale oval of his face up to her, framed monkishly in its hood. — Come down.

  — I don’t want you here, go away.

  — For god’s sake, Jilly, come down and talk to me.

  Truly, in that moment she wasn’t gratified – even though he’d come all this way just to find her. All her exasperation, which might have been waning, revived at the actual sight of Tom. Of course she couldn’t really send him away, though she longed to do it; there was nowhere for him to go from here, in the middle of the night. And she was afraid of his making more noise, waking up her parents, confirming their suspicion that in choosing Tom she had made drastic errors of judgement and taste. She told him to wait, she would come down; then she closed the window and stood in her bedroom at a loss, not knowing what to do with him. This room, where she had slept alone all through her childhood and girlhood, appeared in that moment virginal and sacrosanct – even though she’d spent any number of nights in it with Tom since they’d been married, when they’d come visiting together. But her marriage seemed to her now a flimsy, provisional thing, and the spell of her solitude had grown powerful again. Every nerve was strained in her, against his intrusion.

  Pulling her nightdress over her head, she dressed hastily in the clothes she’d taken off the night before, putting on an extra jumper, and then on top of that her coat. Another handful of gravelly soil came thumping against the glass, and she remembered that Tom had no patience: even when his dinner was almost ready he couldn’t stop himself sometimes from devouring two or three slices of bread, thickly buttered, spoiling his appetite: his wide eyes would be pleading with her apologetically even while his mouth was still full. Quickly Jill made her way downstairs with her shoes in her hand, then went through the kitchen and let herself out by the side door, unlocking it and closing it quietly behind her, slipping into her shoes and making her way round to the front garden. The sky was a vivid blue, so bright it seemed to stand back from the land in amazement; the swollen moon fumed with light above Brodys’ broken old slate roof, which was a sheet of pure silver. She couldn’t see Tom at first, then he reappeared loping round the far side of the house. She supposed he’d been looking for a way in at the back. He was a big man, six foot two or three and fourteen stone, but he walked hunching his shoulders like a teenager, with his hands in his pockets, rolling stiffly from the hips.

  — Thank Christ, he said. — I’m fucking freezing, Jill. Let me inside.

  The duffel coat had its animal smell, like a wet old dog; it must have rained at some point on his journey. Jill snapped at him in an undertone not to swear, not here – seized in a gust of rage she swung her hand at him, slapping him hard across the face, although the hood’s hairy fabric deflected the worst of her blow. She had never hit him before and he was astonished, though comically obedient, keeping his outrage subdued. Really, he might have bellowed. — What’s that for?

  She could tell he was flooded with self-pity.

  — I didn’t want you to come here. I didn’t ask you.

  All this conversation was carried on in a barking whisper, while Jill took Tom by the arm and steered him away from the house, down the garden path. He said plaintively that he’d come because her mother phoned: he’d thought something must have happened to her, or to one of the kids. — I’ve hitched all the way, it’s taken me all night, there was nothing on the roads, it rained. I had to walk the last few miles, from West Huish. And I got lost, I went the wrong way.

  — My mother didn’t phone, she scoffed. — You’ve forgotten, we don’t even have a telephone!

  — Well, she did, she spoke to Carol. Who was at Bernie’s, as it happened: I’ll explain later what’s going down with those two, it’s pretty complicated.

  Jill thought then that Sophy must have gone through her pockets.

  — So that really was Bernie’s number?

  — Of course it really was Bernie’s number, he said indignantly. — All the time I was on the road, I was so anxious, worrying about all of you: now when I’ve got here you treat me like a pariah. And I’m hungry, I’ve had nothing to eat since I set out, I’ve got no money.

  Knowing he would be hungry, she had brought out a packet of chocolate mini rolls from the kitchen. Struggling with the foil wrapper in the dark, Tom wolfed down the first roll in a couple of mouthfuls, spitting out bits of foil. — Can’t I just come inside? he urged her through chocolate crumbs. — Jilly, we have to talk. This is getting ridiculous. Just because of one stupid mistake.

  — Give me a mini roll. I’m hungry too. You woke me out of my sleep.

  — I’m not sure if I can spare you one. I’m famished – and these aren’t very filling. But go on then. Look: see how much I love you? What’s mine is yo
urs. Disregard that it was yours in the first place.

  Jill ate her roll in smaller, thoughtful bites. — If you want to talk to me, we have to walk. I know somewhere we can go. I’m not letting you inside the house; I don’t want my parents to know you’re here.

  He said resignedly that he didn’t mind walking. When they opened the front gate, the lane was so pale in the moonlight, between looming dark walls of hedge, that they felt as if they were stepping down into water. They went on whispering, even when they were surely out of earshot of the house. Tom asked over his second mini roll whether she’d told her parents about you-know-what, about Vanda.

  — I haven’t. I’m too ashamed to tell them.

  — Ashamed of me?

  — Of myself, that I married anyone capable of anything so dismally ordinary as an affair with his secretary.

  — She wasn’t my secretary. I don’t have a secretary.

  — Someone else’s secretary then. Talk about second-rate.

  Tom gave a low, swooping whistle of mock admiration. — Ten days at home and you really are back to being the vicar’s daughter.

  She swung round to slap him across the face again and this time he was ready for her, he caught both her wrists easily in his big hands, laughing. — Come on, you have to admit, that did have something of your old man in it. Something of the pulpit.

  Jill stopped struggling then and stood very still, with her shoulders slumped inside her thick woollen coat and her head bowed, as if some burden were falling on her out of the dark, some awareness of futility. Tom wasn’t stupid, he didn’t mistake this for submission to him. He put his arm around her carefully and they began to walk again, more slowly. When they were out of the moonlight they had to slow down anyway, because they couldn’t see the road surface. After a while she was leaning into him, letting him take some of her weight, in a way that felt familiar to her and even comforting, though she complained that his coat smelled awful and scratched her face.