Land of the Living

by Georgina Harding

  It was at harvest time that she first knew that she was pregnant. The change in her came with a great tiredness that meant that she curled up and slept through stretches of the day when everyone was out in the fields and no one in the house to see. So she told no one at first. If Mrs T suspected, she did not speak of it. From the stillness of the house she could hear the harvesting, identify by the direction of the sound the field they had got to – she knew the farm well enough for that by now – hear the grain cart coming in and out of the yard, the voices of the men, and yet it seemed to have no connection to her, all that activity out there.

  She told Charlie one evening when the harvest was almost done. It was late and the sun was low and they were walking the stubble. She had not known before she came here that stubble had different colours and textures, that barley stubble was more soft and golden than wheat. The harvest had been good. These last weeks had been dry, and the dry ground was cracked between the stalks. They walked the golden stubble and the cracks in the land.

  I think I’m pregnant, she said, reaching for his hand.

  Think, he said, or know?

  I know, she said. I wasn’t going to tell you until I was certain. You’ve been so busy. I think you’ve scarcely seen me these last few weeks.

  Of course I’ve seen you. I always see you.

  Charlie’s hand was sure about hers, dry and hard and dusty.

  But are you happy?

  He stopped and took her other hand. They faced each other now.

  Yes, I’m happy.

  She wasn’t sure, even when his arms were about her, the dusty grain-smell of him.

  And now he slept hot and separate at her side.

  After a time she felt the need again to get up. The baby pressed on her. She slipped away from Charlie’s hot body and out of the room. She could make her way in the dark now, so many nights she had done this, out along the passage, quietly, without waking him or even waking herself any further by putting on any lights. But Hussey seemed to be awake. She could see a bright crack beneath the door of the spare bedroom.

  Hussey heard the creak of the boards as she went to the bathroom, heard the flush, heard her go back. When he thought she must have settled, he got up himself, quietly, went to the bathroom and washed and shaved. He exchanged his pyjamas for the clothes he had taken off such a short time before, only with clean underwear, and a crisp clean shirt that had been ironed and folded at his club. There was barely anything to pack as so little had been unpacked the night before. He had been used to having a servant unpack for him, laying his things in drawers, removing them from drawers, bungalow to bungalow, when he was on tour. He took his case with him when he went downstairs.

  In the kitchen the dog slept in a basket close to the stove. She uncurled and greeted him, her warmth and her smell about his legs. He bent to stroke her. Shhh, Jess, that’s your name, isn’t it? Then she curled again while he made tea, though the water was slow to boil.

  He took a notebook from the top of his case and tore out a page, folding it first and taking a knife to the fold so that the edge was neat. Then he took out a fountain pen from the breast pocket of his jacket.

  My dear Charlie,

  The Cotswolds won’t do. I see that, coming here. I must get to London and tell them this morning if I want the Kenya job. You have a good life here and I don’t want to intrude on it. I wish you the best of luck. Please give my apologies to your lovely wife for being such a rude guest.

  Jack

  Two stiff black bolts on the back door, top and bottom. Hard to push them back without a sound. He turned the key in the lock, opened the door, trying to hold Jess back as he did so but she wriggled out beside the suitcase. No, you can’t come with me, dog. But she did and he let her. She would turn back somewhere. Dogs always did. And this her place. She would know her way home.

  It was foggy, the cobbles in the yard shiny with heavy cold dew. He walked out through the open gate, round to the drive and to the road. No, Jess, you can’t come with me any more. He thought he should make a token effort here. Home now. Go on home! But the dog persisted and in truth he was glad of her company. It wasn’t as if there was a lot of traffic to run her down. It must be a couple of miles to the main road where he might hope to get a lift, and surely she would give up on him long before he got there.

  Best to go now, when the decision was made. No point hanging around. It wasn’t that early for him. He had been getting up at five for the last thirty years. He was used to early starts. It was a habit he’d formed when he was first posted to India, to the plains where it was so hot and the early morning was the only time when it was cool. And the walk, even if he had to walk all the way, was only six miles or so, no distance, and on the flat. Like the plains, when he was a young man. Only, he wasn’t used to the flat any more. He wasn’t used to that, and he wasn’t used to the lack of porters and to having to carry his own case, the handle that dug into his cold hands, which would have been better off with gloves only he didn’t have any. It disturbed him, the horizontal land, the straight lines of the roads and of the hedges beside them, the bare elms rearing up in the fog. Walking on the flat in this fog seemed an abstract activity, almost like walking on the spot, if it had not been for the changing forms of those elms, or a lone oak he passed, or a break of Scots pines. And for the dog, who still came with him.

  Then he heard a car coming behind, turned and saw its lights yellowish in the fog. He stood on the verge, the case in one hand, the dog held back by her collar in the other.

  The car stopped for him. Window wound down. A man in a brown tweed jacket, brown eyes, balding.

  Can I give you a lift?

  He reached across and opened the door.

  Where are you going?

  Swaffham?

  I can take you to Swaffham. Don’t worry about the dog, she’ll find her way back. Won’t you, Jess? Go on off home now.

  You know her?

  I’m the local doctor. I know everyone round here, and their dogs too. Nice young couple, the Ashes. She’ll be due any time now. That’ll be good to see.

  The doctor drove, and didn’t ask any questions. Perhaps there were others like him these days, on the road in the morning with their cases in their hands. How was he to know?

  But where were you going? I don’t want to take you out of your way.

  The doctor gave a slight smile, shook his head. I was on a call. I was just going home, but I don’t think I’m ready for home just yet. Driving’s fine.

  Perhaps he had been attending a death. That was what doctors did in the early hours. A death, or a birth. Somehow it didn’t seem like it was a birth. He peered at the road ahead, his hands patient on the wheel. There was no hurry in the fog.

  She managed a stretch of sleep for an hour before dawn, but woke and felt a cramp just as Hussey went downstairs. The floors and walls were thin in this old house. She heard him in the kitchen. She could have gone down herself, sleepy, hair askew, whale-shape wrapped in her pink dressing gown, and made him tea or breakfast or whatever he wanted – but no, she thought, that was what he didn’t want. He was a lone man who wanted to be alone. Here he didn’t fit. Let him be, she thought, let him go, hearing the bolts drawn on the back door. Let him creep out, and take the past with him, whatever it was that they talked about all night, some past which she did not understand and could not enter, of which she was both jealous and afraid as if it held some threat to her or the child. She felt another sharp cramp. She had been having such cramps on and off for days. She was told that they preceded contractions. They were her muscles, the baby, preparing themselves. She lay on her back in the bed and held her two hands now to her belly, and Charlie snored peacefully beside her. He must have slept and sweated it out now, the night’s drink and whatever had been said. Let Hussey go, and there would be just the three of them in the house. Then she slept again, deeply.

  Charlie was already in the kitchen when she came down. He had the Aga stoked and the kettle on f
or breakfast.

  Hussey’s gone.

  I thought I heard something.

  When?

  Early, I thought I heard him go out.

  He left this note. I came down and there was this note on the table, and Jess was outside, she must have gone out with him. Her coat was wet as if she’d been a long way.

  Claire yawned and pulled a chair back and sat down, away from the table where she had space.

  I had such a bad night. I kept waking up. She spoke in a tired vague voice. I think I heard him. I think I even knew he was going. I just didn’t think I should stop him.

  No, he said, but what he meant by the word wasn’t clear.

  You were up for ages, what did you talk about? I heard you laughing.

  Did we laugh? I don’t remember.

  What’ll he do?

  Go to Kenya I suppose like he says in the note. Here, read it.

  You were right, darling. Home’s not his home, is it?

  He picked up the note again from the table where she’d put it down. Odd thing, you know. I don’t think I’ve ever once called him Jack.

  The fog was slow to lift. The first moment some light broke through, Claire saw it and went out and picked daffodils to bring in to the house. Was it because she was so tired that the brightness of the flowers disturbed her? They stood up crude and yellow from the dull March ground, when everything about them seemed to have settled numbly back into winter. When she snapped the hollow stems the smell of them stung with its greenness. She arranged them indoors where they looked suddenly happier, and she built a fire in the sitting room and lit it, as though they still had a guest in the house. Or perhaps it was to draw Charlie into the room, so that they might sit a part of the day before the fire with the dog on the rug and the daffodils bright on the table before the window, an image of warmth and closeness that anyone outside would see should they come by and look in from the grey. That Hussey would see if he were to walk back, that would be too strong an image for him or any memory that he brought with him to break.

  Charlie had spent much of the morning in his study.

  What have you been doing?

  Paperwork, he said.

  I made a fire in the sitting room.

  That’s nice, he said, but went back to his study.

  After lunch, it cleared. There was still no colour to the world apart from the daffs, but a milky distance at least. She thought that he should go out, work at something, do whatever it was that made a man feel sure of his place in the world. Turn thoughts to things.

  Will you go out on the farm now?

  It’s been too wet, we still can’t get on the land. Maybe tomorrow. Did you hear the forecast?

  No. We’ll have to make sure to listen later.

  She thought she could not bear all that was unsaid. It hung about them like the day, whatever it was that he had talked about with Hussey. The war, the Japs, the Nagas, whatever it was that she didn’t know. She had a sudden fear that he might all of a sudden take himself off, like Hussey, in the dawn when she slept or even in the day, in this not-broad daylight.

  Sometime in the afternoon he came out from the study with his gun, called Jess to him, put on his coat and his boots and his cap. Said there would be pigeon for supper.

  She smiled and spoke lightly. That was her part, to be light.

  That’ll be lovely, darling. The words floated and did not feel quite her own.

  Come along, Jess.

  He opened the door and the dog ran past and ahead of him across the yard. He had the gun under his arm. His boots sounded bright first on the cobbles and then more dully on the track. He opened a gate to a field, strode out across it, the golden dog running on, the mud gathering and weighing on his boots.

  The field was ready to be drilled as soon as there was some warmth in the soil. The winter’s plough was broken down, harrowed to a good smooth tilth. This field would be barley, this year. Claire was happy that they would have barley in the field in front of the house. It will be like having the sea before us, she had said. In June the purple tips of the crop would move like a sea, ruffled in the wind. And it would be gold, when it ripened, more golden than wheat. There was so much gold to come when now all was brown. The brown field, the brown spinney at the end of it, the ground of which was copper and brown with old sodden leaves. He took his position at the edge of the spinney, in his brown coat with his green-brown tweed cap, beside the trunk of an oak, hoping that his still form would merge in the pigeon’s eye with the tree itself. Who knew what was in a pigeon’s eye, the small black bead of it? A pigeon could identify movement a long way off. Pigeons were clever and watchful, even when they were flying home. But that was the moment to shoot them, nonetheless, when they were flying home at the end of the day, standing still as a tree, with the dog well trained beside you, still as yourself and the tree, standing within the home to which they were flying, where they would roost. So he stood and waited, very still, with the comforting weight of the gun in his hands. The dog waited beside him, but watching him and not the field. Only her tail moved, twitching on the brown leaves, and the breath from her open mouth. Good dog, Jess.

  He flexed his fingers as they grew cold. He had listened to the forecast. The fog wasn’t coming down again. The night would be clear and cold. The sky towards sunset was becoming unexpectedly lighter, pale turquoise-blue streaks bared in it, the first colour in all of that day. He saw the birds coming towards him, not a single one but half a dozen at once, and there would be more behind, but his first shot would serve to drive them all away, to wheel away and back and round, and gather again, and perhaps return when it was all the colder or find some other roost. He singled out one bird, shot, and it fell to the ground, and Jess ran for it and brought it back. He put the bird into his bag, moved along to another spot and began the wait again, alert, mind emptying of all but the sky as the brief light faded.

  Grey dusk by the time he walked back, coming this time to the front of the house. Claire hadn’t drawn the curtains yet. He could see into the sitting room, the fire still burning, that she had kept up all day; the mirror above the mantelpiece, the daffodils on the table before the window, the green armchairs and no one in them. But the front door was open, and Claire standing outside calling him. She was leaning against the doorframe, barefoot, feet flat to the stone of the doorstep, crying out and spreading her hands wide across the great curve of her belly – woman, just that, not Claire but woman – or no, just essentially Claire. In one smooth movement, he put the gun to the ground and ran towards her.

  Also available by Georgina Harding

  The Gun Room

  The memory of war will stay with a man longer than anything else.

  Dawn, mist clearing over rice fields, a burning Vietnamese village, and a young photographer takes the shot that might make his career. The image, of a staring soldier in the midst of mayhem, will become one of the great photographs of the war. But what Jonathan has seen in that village is more than he can bear...

  He flees to Japan, to lose himself in the vastness of Tokyo, and to take different kinds of pictures: of streets and crowds and cherry blossom – and of a girl with whom he is no longer lost. Yet even here his history will catch up with him: that photograph and his responsibility in taking it; his responsibility as a witness to war, and to other events buried deep in his past.

  ‘Georgina Harding’s novel is the finely tuned work of a writer exceptionally at ease with her craft and a testament to the power and poetry of clean and disciplined prose’ Sadie Jones, Guardian

  ‘Quietly and restrainedly, The Gun Room is a book that provokes searching questions’ Daily Mail

  ‘Graceful and considered ... The dreamlike quality is heightened by Harding’s sharply observed prose ... As befits a writer adept at carefully cropped scenes, Harding has the measure of photography. The novel plays with its ability to captivate, shock, inform and misdirect’ Sunday Telegraph

  Click here to order

  P
ainter of Silence

  Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012

  Iasi, Romania, the early 1950s. A nameless man is found on the steps of a hospital. Deaf and mute, he is unable to communicate until a young nurse called Safta brings paper and pencils with which he can draw. Slowly, painstakingly, memories appear on the page.

  The memories are Safta’s also. For the man is Augustin, son of the cook at the manor house which was Safta’s family home. Born six months apart, they grew up with a connection that bypassed words. But while Augustin’s world remained the same size Safta’s expanded to embrace languages, society – and a fleeting love, one long, hot summer.

  But then came war, and in its wake a brutal Stalinist regime, and nothing would remain the same.

  ‘Conjures a tale that recalls vintage Michael Ondaatje ... delicate and sweeping’ Daily Mail

  ‘This is fiction of the most graceful kind ... a quiet storm of imagery and emotions’ Independent on Sunday

  ‘Harding writes with exquisite restraint ... Her deceptively simple prose gives a startling beauty to the ordinary, and evokes great depth of suffering’ Guardian

  Click here to order

  The Spy Game

  On a freezing January morning in 1961, eight-year-old Anna’s mother disappears into the fog. That same morning, a spy case breaks in the news. Obsessed by stories of espionage, Anna’s brother Peter begins to construct a theory that their mother, a refugee from eastern Germany, was an undercover spy and might even still be alive. As life returns to normal, Anna struggles to sort fact from fantasy. Did her mother have a secret life? And how do you know who a person was once she is dead?

  ‘It is the calm quietness of her writing that is so appealing – she lays an image down so gently that it floats in the mind long after’ Margaret Forster

  ‘Harding skilfully weaves together history, memory and imagination in this haunting and beautifully written novel about how, chameleon-like, we construct our own identities’ Daily Mail