The Love of a Lifetime

by Mary Fitzgerald

  I sighed and looked through the window. It has been a raw day, sunny and clear, but the wind is blowing hard off the hill and bringing the last of the autumn leaves off the fruit trees.

  “Did you, Richard?”

  “Yes,” I muttered, “I loved it. Apart from this farm, there is nowhere on earth I would want to be.”

  “But you came home.”

  “I came and went a few times,” I said. “I was a regular soldier and stationed out there. But I came home on leave. To see Mother, Billy and Elizabeth.”

  Sharon was quiet, listening. That is the wonderful thing about her, she doesn’t hurry my memories and I can get them in order in my mind.

  “The first time I came home, I had been away for eight years and things had changed. The farm was bigger and more efficient and Billy was doing well. There shouldn’t have been a thing to worry about. But there was. They weren’t happy.”

  I think I might have gone on to tell her more, but the phone rang then and she made a gesture of apology to me and left the room. When she came back, we ate our lunch and spoke about Thomas and the moment was lost. But that time of my return has been much on my mind and I must speak about it. Talking into this machine is easier, anyway, because I can speak the truth. I might have lied to Sharon. I don’t want her to judge me. Not yet.

  That next morning, after Fred telling me about Billy and Elizabeth, I came down to the kitchen with a renewed awkwardness. I’d been home for four days and had just got back into the way of being part of a family when this bombshell had exploded. Fred had intimated that I had to sort the problem, but what could I do?

  So I walked through the hall and into the kitchen passage quite downcast. All the bloom of my homecoming had been thoroughly wiped away. It was with relief that I saw Marian was sitting at the table, drinking a cup of tea. She had a small diary in her hands and was pointing to a date.

  “I want to take Mother on a little holiday,” she said after I had given her a nod and kissed Mother’s cheek. “I thought Torquay would be nice.”

  Mother put a plate of sausage and eggs in front of me. “I can’t go away,” she said, “there’s far too much to do.”

  “Nonsense!” Marian straightened her hat, a severe brown cloche, decorated with a black cock’s feather. “Richard is home for a few months and Elizabeth can easily do your tasks. I’m sure she can do more in the dairy and it wouldn’t kill her to cook a few meals for her husband and brother-in-law. After all,” she added, her voice weighed down with import, “she has plenty of time to take that dog for long walks.”

  Mother said nothing, but sat down in front of the pot and poured me a cup of tea. Her face was tight, drawn about the lips and she kept her eyes firmly on the cups and saucers in front of her.

  “What d’you think, Richard?” Marian said, giving me one of her meaningful looks to make sure that I agreed with her.

  As ever, I took the easy way out. “Good idea,” I muttered through a mouthful of food. “You’ve always enjoyed the seaside, Mother.”

  She looked up, shaking her head slowly. “But you’ve only just come home.”

  I drank my tea. “I’ll be here for a good while yet. A week,” I stopped and looked at Marian for confirmation, she nodded, “a week away won’t make a difference.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “I need a decision now,” said Marian. “I’ve got a full diary.”

  “But it’s the week after next,” Mother complained. “I’d have to get everything ready; there’d be washing and I’ll need a dress for going down to dinner if we’re staying in a nice hotel.” Her voice trailed away and I knew that Marian had won. A lot of the spark had gone out of my mother.

  Marian made a note in her diary and put it back in her handbag. “Good,” she said, “it’s decided. I’ll pick you up on Thursday afternoon and we’ll go into town to buy you a dress.”

  Mother shrugged and that was an end to discussion. She had given in.

  I accompanied Marian to her car.

  “You look better today,” she said, surprising me, for everyone else had thought my tan quite winning and said how well I looked.

  “Not so yellow,” she added.

  I ignored that but took the opportunity of our being alone to raise the question. “Have you noticed anything odd between Billy and Elizabeth,” I said tentatively.

  Her face clouded. “I was never in favour of that match,” she said.

  “But, I’ve heard,” I started anxiously, “I’ve heard that he’s…”

  She put a finger to my mouth so that I couldn’t finish what I was saying. “Take no notice of gossips,” she warned. “You’ll never hear anything good.”

  “It isn’t gossip,” I said, angry that she was dismissing it so casually. “Fred Darlington told me that there has been violence.”

  My sister flinched as though someone had struck her and her mouth pursed even smaller. “Whatever has happened,” she said in an unnecessarily lowered voice, “isn’t to be talked about. Mind me, Richard. It’s family business and no-one else’s. Besides,” she got into her car and waited impatiently while I cranked the starting handle, “besides, Elizabeth hasn’t complained, so there’s probably nothing to it.”

  When I got back into the kitchen, Elizabeth was sitting in the chair Marian had vacated, pasting butter and marmalade on a piece of toast. She looked almost like her old self this morning, the wind having added some colour to her cheeks and pulled her hair about. She wore a grey skirt and a pale blue jumper and when she lifted her head to smile at me, I saw a flash of silver and blue, just showing over her collar.

  “Oh,” I said, “you’ve still got that old necklace. I thought you might have got rid of it by now.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t.” She bridled and put up her hand to touch the silver links.

  “She wears it all the time,” said Mother. “It was a nice present.”

  I kept what I thought of that remark to myself. Mother hadn’t been so keen at the time; indeed she hadn’t been keen on anything that might make Elizabeth and me closer. I gazed at her, wondering what she thought of the rumours of trouble and if she knew that they were true. I doubted that she would say anything, even if she had the facts laid out before her. In that respect she was as closed off as our Marian. Family matters had never been spoken abroad, but now it seemed that they could not be spoken here either. I changed the subject.

  “Mother’s going with Marian to Torquay. The week after next.”

  Elizabeth put down her knife and looked up, genuinely pleased. “Well, I’m very glad to hear that, Mother. It’ll do you good, a few days away and I’ve heard that Devon is mild at this time of the year. They’ve got palm trees on the promenade.”

  Mother laughed. “I don’t know about palm trees, I expect they’ll be nice but our Marian is planning to take us to a grand hotel and I’m not sure I have the clothes.”

  Elizabeth shook her head, still smiling. “You have and you can easily buy some new things if you feel like it. Go to Clays.”

  I listened to them chattering, the two women I’d loved best in the world, but now somehow removed from me. Only Billy had taken me back into the family as though nothing had happened. With Mother and Elizabeth I sensed a distance.

  I got up then, bored with women’s talk about clothes and trips and wandered out into the yard where I was immediately grabbed by my brother who put me to work shifting hay. He was revving up the tractor ready to go into the fields.

  “I’m going down the Major’s land,” he said. “There’s peas to plant. Come and join me when you’ve finished here.”

  Billy had three farm hands working with him now and all were kept busy. One was a lad, about fourteen, I suppose, and a bit mental. The men were kind to him and helped him with his jobs, but Billy gave him hell, day and night. I didn’t like to hear him shout and swear at the boy and said so on the third day I was home. Billy ignored my protests.

  “He’s got to learn,” he said, “an
d he’s so thick that I have to tell him the same things over and over again. I wouldn’t have taken him on if Mother and the vicar hadn’t begged me. I can’t abide him.”

  I remembered Billy’s contempt for the disabled and disfigured, it had bordered on the downright cruel. He had teased Herbert Lowe unmercifully as a lad and once our father had belted him for poking a stick at Herbert’s bad leg. And he hadn’t been much better about Johnny Lowe. “That empty eye socket is horrible,” he’d told Elizabeth the day before her party. “I don’t know why you want him at your do.”

  She had tossed her head in her usual way. “I like him,” she said, “what difference does an eye make? He’s still handsome.”

  I had been jealous when I heard her say that, but Billy had snorted angrily and yelled that she was going out with an ‘ugly bugger’ as he ran into the field followed by the turnip that Elizabeth threw at him.

  But I think my complaint about Billy’s treatment of the boy had some effect because he stopped shouting at him and left him in the charge of the other farm hands.

  I wondered about Johnny Lowe and that was when I found out about how rich he had become. Billy still despised him but Mother said he had done well for himself and had looked after his family like a gentleman.

  I was thinking about that as I forked the hay into the stalls, so after finishing, I changed my mind about helping Billy with the peas and decided to walk into the village to see Herbert Lowe. He was long retired now and living in some comfort, thanks to Johnny’s regular contributions. To my great pleasure I was greeted like a long lost son by the old man. He had changed greatly and looked aged and in poor health but was still able to carry on a conversation.

  “You’re a grown man,” he said in a breathless wavering voice and then gave a dry little chuckle. “The image of your father, I’d say.”

  My heart sank. I’d put all that business behind me, deciding once I’d got home that those fancies which I’d dwelt on so miserably, were simply those. Fancies. No matter what an ignorant old tribesman had suggested. But here was someone who’d known me from birth, speaking about it as if it were quite accepted.

  “How have you been keeping?” I asked, hoping to divert him.

  “I’ll do,” he said.

  “The farm’s doing well,” I ventured again.

  “Maybe.” He stared into the fire for so long that I thought he must have fallen asleep. I was just about to get up and quietly leave, when he said, “I haven’t seen Miss Elizabeth for some time. How is she?”

  “Well,” I said, “she seems very well.”

  “Taking care of herself, at last, is she? I told her that. Don’t provoke him and keep a damn big dog with you at all times. That way you’ll be safe. That’s what I told her, poor lass.” He cleared his throat and spat a glob of phlegm into the fireplace where it sizzled noisily on the hot grate. I stared at it, as he weakly raised his arm and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his cardigan.

  I wanted to go now, I’d heard enough but he started speaking again.

  “Your Mother was downright wicked allowing that match. I told her so myself. And you were no use. Clearing off like you did.”

  I felt helpless. Here was the suggestion again out loud and from a source that I had to believe. I stood up. “I have to go now, Herbert, but I’m glad to have found you in good health.”

  He grunted and gave a little chuckle. “I reckon you came just in time, son. I’m not far off from meeting my maker.”

  I bent over and shook his hand before leaving, but he fastened his fingers around mine and looked up into my face. “By God, lad,” he repeated, cranking out a breathless laugh. “You are the very image of him and, don’t worry, I always respected him, really, no matter what I pretended to Mr Wilde.”

  As I walked through the village, accepting the greetings and good wishes of several old acquaintances, I was troubled. So many problems in front of me and none of my making. Not only the question of my parentage which, if I was honest, was the reason I had come home but now this monstrous accusation against Billy. I had no doubt that I was expected to do or say something about it, but it was so unfair.

  And I couldn’t let it go, particularly when I made myself think of what Billy might have done to Elizabeth to cause so much gossip. The evidence of his brutality must have been horribly obvious because I knew my girl. She would never have complained to outsiders. If Fred had seen bruises and he lived down the road in the village, what had Herbert seen when he was about the farm, daily? He might have been retired, but I knew that he would have remained a fixture at the kitchen table at midday dinner times for as long as he was able to get out.

  The road out of the village led past the Gate House, now an abandoned place with the downstairs windows boarded up and the little garden in front overgrown and full of weeds. Billy had bought it along with the land and I wondered that he hadn’t put a tenant in there. It would have brought in a few bob and he wasn’t one to let that sort of money go. I stopped for a moment at the spot where I had stumbled over the Major’s book and that whole episode came flooding back.

  I saw the inside of the house clearly, the polished tables and colourful rugs. Those rugs I’d seen more recently in the bazaars in Peshawar, their similar colours and patterns, timeless and exquisite. The idea that Major must have bought them in that same market made me smile. How strange that we should have been in the same place and doing the same thing. I wondered what he would have thought of that small boy if he had known what was coming to him. Did he know who the boy really was? Possibly. Mother could tell me, perhaps, but could I bring myself to ask her?

  I tried to picture the Major’s face. Tried to see through the gloom of that dim room to the thin stooping figure who had pointed me towards the leather stool before almost falling into his chair. Was his hair red, did he have a sharp bridge to his nose and blue eyes? It was no good, my memory was blank. All I could remember were the smooth pale hands, so unlike Father’s, presenting me with the book. I looked down at my own hands and my stomach turned.

  It had clouded over and a few drops of fine rain were coming in on the wind. I shivered as I hurried on along the lane towards the farm. I wasn’t going to help Billy with the peas. I could hardly bear to look him in the face, not before I’d spoken to Mother. But once I was home, my determination filtered away while I tried desperately to think of questions to pose or accusations to make that wouldn’t sound foolish.

  Marian telephoned after supper to tell Mother that she had booked the hotel so that there could be no backing out.

  “I wasn’t going to,” said Mother, but the indignant tone in her voice gave the lie to her assertion. She had been nervous about telling Billy at supper but as it turned out, with no reason. He was all for it, telling her that he also was going away for a few days to take Diamond to the Three Counties Show.

  “Our Dick can be in charge,” he said and gave me a slap on the back. “After all, he’s been an important man in the army, in charge of more than a couple of farm workers.”

  I was less confident, but Billy had no doubts.

  “Get out the vet if you need to, but you’ll be all right. The men are used to dealing with animals.”

  Only Elizabeth was silent. She hadn’t been invited to either trip and seemingly there was no thought that she should have been. I stole a look at her and was astonished to see the secret look of joy which bathed her face. The look disappeared almost immediately but I’d seen it.

  The night before Mother’s trip, I ventured a question about Billy and Elizabeth. They had both gone up and Mother was just finishing off her ironing, ready for her holiday. She looked tired and dispirited and not at all ready for a jaunt. I tried to jolly her along.

  “You’ll love it,” I said. To tell the truth, I was becoming bored with her uncertainty. The Mother I remembered never dithered like this. “It’ll be somewhere different to see, and Marian will make it all comfortable.”

  “I know you’re right, Richard, love.
But I do think I’m needed here.”

  This was my opportunity and I grabbed it with both hands. “Is it because of the trouble between Billy and Elizabeth?” I asked.

  She gasped and her hands froze on the iron. “What have you heard?” she said.

  “Quite a lot.”

  The colour drained from her face as she stared at me in dismay. I didn’t like to see her upset but once I’d started, I couldn’t stop. “For God’s sake, Mother,” I said, “tell me.”

  I thought that this would be another rebuttal for she shook her head and said nothing for a couple of minutes but hung up the blouse she had been ironing and unplugged the iron. That was a new addition since I’d been away. The old flat irons that Mother used to heat up on the range, had been put away, no longer of any use. And now she took her time, winding the brown cloth-covered flex into a figure of eight and folding up the white blanket she used as an ironing cloth.

  “Mother,” I said, getting angry now. I suddenly couldn’t wait any longer, now that I had braved the citadel of silence. “Come and sit down.”

  She sat in her chair, opposite mine, in front of the range and took a deep breath. “I think it started on their honeymoon,” she said, her voice quiet and very reluctant. “Elizabeth said nothing, but she seemed so low when they came back, even though they only been away for a couple of days, that I knew something had gone wrong.” She shifted, uncomfortable about talking of such intimate things, but now ready to break a long silence. “I thought at first,” she continued, “that it was just maidenly embarrassment and that after some months all would be well. But then, one night, I heard her crying. It woke me up and I came downstairs. I thought a cup of hot milk would settle me, but I found her here, in the kitchen, shaking with fright. “He tried to kill me,” she said. “Your son tried to kill me.”

  I felt sick, I knew how violent my brother could be when he was in a temper and my next words were so foolish. “What had she done to anger him?” I said.

  “Nothing!” Mother almost shouted the word at me. “She’d done nothing. Your brother can’t control himself.”