Now, as we walked amongst the brushwood and small trees, coming across patches of wild pansies and ladies slipper, I could see what she meant. Sometimes wild areas are better than cultivated fields. I had loved my time in the stark mountains of the Frontier, even though when walking or riding through them, I had been anxious that the bare rocks would be good hiding places for rebels. It was a grandeur, made by an Almighty and better than man could do.
The dog, who had been springing happily ahead of us, startled a nesting bird, so that it flew suddenly out of a young tree straight towards us.
“Oh!” gasped Elizabeth and stepped aside, bumping into me so that in order to keep my feet I had to grab hold of her. This was the first time I had touched her since the hug on my arrival and I should have seized the opportunity that I had so longed for. But I couldn’t. Even as my arms folded round her thin shoulders and her head sought the shelter of my neck, my shyness and ever present cowardice took over. I dropped my arms and stepped away. My hands felt almost burnt from the contact with her body.
We carried on walking, me singing a stupid little ditty about ‘the birdies in the sycamore tree,’ quite idiotic but I was nervous and would have been grateful if she had joined in, but she was quiet. It occurred to me then that she may not be listening to me, but away in her own thoughts as she so often seemed to be around the house and farm. But when I snatched a quick look at her, I was startled by the hurt expression that had spread across her face. Had she had wanted me to hold her?
We had reached the end of the little wood where the path opened out and the roofs of the village houses could be seen in the distance. “Where now?” I asked.
“I usually walk into the village and back home along the lane,” Elizabeth said in a low voice. “But you can go back the same way, if you want.”
“No.” I suddenly felt angry. I’d done nothing wrong and she was sulking in a way that was ridiculously childish. Indeed, her behaviour was constantly awkward and could be described as spoilt. Maybe she was entirely the cause of her own misery, no matter what Mother said. “No,” I repeated, determined not to be fobbed off, “I’ll come with you.”
The village was quiet. Most of the men were at work, either on farms or down the pit and the women had done their shopping and were in their houses, getting the evening meal ready. A few people were about and greeted us politely. Fred waved from the garden of the Police House where he was watering a bed of flowers and holding his small daughter by the hand. He had two children then, both girls.
It was nearly five o’clock when we walked past the Gate House and as ever, memories drew me to the place, so that I paused in our walk and looked carefully at the door and windows.
“It looks as if someone has been trying to get in,” I said. One of the boards Billy had put across the small drawing room window had been prized away and was hanging loosely on the one remaining nail. “I’m just going to have a reccy.”
I didn’t know if she understood the military language but it didn’t matter. She waited with the dog while I walked into the overgrown garden and peered through the exposed window. The glass was intact but because of the gathering gloom and the dirt on the window, I couldn’t see through the diamond panes. I struggled through the weeds to the front door and tried the handle. To my dismay, it turned easily and the door swung open as it had all those years ago.
For a moment I paused, unwilling to confront the ghosts that always assailed me when I passed this house, but squaring my shoulders, I pushed the door wider and stepped inside.
I can’t tell you how strange I felt inside that house. First I was a child again, sitting in front of a man who wanted to give me glass of whisky and then a lad trying to stop his mother climbing the narrow stairs to tend a man she so obviously cared for. But all that had to be put aside. Now I was a man. An empty house should hold no fears, but you don’t choose your fears, they come upon you and you deal with them as best you can. When I stepped further into that hall I was able to put aside what I’d previously felt. After all, it was only a house.
“Has anyone been in?”
Elizabeth was in the doorway behind me, holding the dog on a lead now and sounding quite concerned.
“I’m not sure,” I said and walked into the drawing room, where the furniture was still in place and apart from the huge bookshelves now empty of books, nothing had changed. There were the rugs which I’d thought about when I was in Peshawar, their bright colours dull with a thick coating of dust as was the ornate sideboard and the ironwork flower stand. The Major’s armchair stood next to a cold and dirty fireplace and I smiled when I noticed the little table beside it still held a tray with a decanter and glass. The decanter was empty and when I looked closer, I saw a little pool of liquid spilt onto the table and down one of the legs. That must have happened recently because the rest of the room was crackling in dust and cobwebs and any old liquid would have dried up years ago.
“Someone’s been in here,” I said, pointing to the table. “Had a bit of a drink.”
“That window board was in place yesterday,” said Elizabeth. “I came along the lane. I would have noticed if it had been hanging down like that.”
I nodded. “Lads from the village, is my bet,” I said. “Probably broke in for a lark and drank what was left of the Major’s brandy” I looked round. “Nothing else seems to be disturbed.”
Elizabeth walked into the hall and gazed up the narrow staircase. “What about up there?”
Our shoulders touched as I brushed past her to climb up the creaking stairs. A waft of her soap, or talcum or whatever it was that she used to give her that sweet rose and lavender scent came to my nose and I breathed it in. It was still in my head as I looked round the door of the gloomy bedroom.
The room was as bleak as I remembered it. Bare floor and the little cot bed, now with its mattress rolled up, and the few pieces of furniture. Nobody had been in here for years, I could see that. When I turned round, I could see my own footprints in the dust.
“It’s fine,” I called. “Nothing here,” and I turned to go out of the room. To my surprise, Elizabeth was on the tiny landing, having come up the stairs without my hearing. She had left Tess by the front door and was standing at the top of the narrow stairs.
“What’s in there?” she asked.
“The bedroom.”
She moved forward and looked over my shoulder into the little room where I had watched my mother cradle the Major in her arms.
“It’s very Spartan,” she said after a moment, “compared to the room downstairs.”
I nodded. “He was on his own; no wife to make it comfortable.” I looked again at the narrow cot. Was this where I was conceived? Did Mother come up here with that mad old man and allow him to have his way with her? I shuddered, suddenly hating the thought that she had joined in willingly, wanted to be made love to by the Major. How could she possibly have preferred him to Father?
“Let’s get out of here,” I said and turned swiftly, brushing clumsily against Elizabeth again so that she put up her hands to my chest to stop herself being knocked over. Her face was close to mine, eyes wide in sudden surprise and that lovely mouth open in a silent ‘O.’ Before I realised what I was doing, I had bent my head and closed my own mouth over hers.
She made no resistance, only a gasping sigh as she slowly put her arms around my back and pushed her thin body into mine. I held her closer and closer, wrapping my arms about her so that it seemed that she became almost a part of me. Once she groaned, but I couldn’t tell if it was in pleasure or regret. I didn’t care, all I knew was that I felt as though I was sucking in renewed life and it was wonderful.
I think we broke away at the same time and the realisation of what I’d done broke through the ecstatic feeling that had washed over me.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, “so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“It came over both of us,” she said quietly and lifted up her hand to brush away a strand of hair th
at had fallen over her face. A pink flush suffused her cheeks and when she looked directly into my eyes I could see that hers had softened and become a more intense blue. She looked almost as young as that girl I had left eight years before.
The desire to take her in my arms again was overwhelming and it took all my poor reserve of moral correctness to stop myself.
“We’d better go,” I grunted, not looking at her but forcing myself to slide past her and go down the stairs. “I’ll come back later and nail up that board again.”
“Yes,” she said and followed me down and out of the cottage.
Chapter 17
We ate our supper in virtual silence that evening. My mind was full of what had happened and I knew that Elizabeth was thinking of it too. She had made a casserole of lamb and leeks and left it stewing in the range while we went for our walk. I’m sure it was delicious but I ate it automatically, one forkful after another, barely tasting a morsel. After a while I pushed my plate aside and got up. I couldn’t sit opposite her in that silent kitchen any longer.
“I’ll go and fix the window,” I said, “before it gets too dark.”
She nodded but said nothing. She had pushed her plate aside too and I could see that she had eaten less than me.
All the way along the lane, I thought about that kiss and was overcome with shame. What had I done to her? She was a person, who according to all reports, was repelled by physical contact and I, in my jealousy and stupid longing, had violated her just as cruelly as my brother had. I hated to imagine what she must be thinking about me.
“Hello, Dick!” A voice broke through my thoughts and I looked up to see Fred Darlington, attired in his police sergeant’s uniform, walking along towards me. “I was just coming round to your house,” he said. “The Gate House has been broken into.”
I held up the hammer and the jar of nails I’d taken from Billy’s workshop. “I know,” I said. “I was just going to fix the board.”
“I’ll come with you, then.”
Elizabeth had found the front door key to the Gate House in a kitchen drawer and I had it in my pocket. In those days we never locked our doors, but I thought that perhaps now it might be a good idea. Something of a deterrent to the village louts if they tried to break in again.
I was glad Fred was with me once we got to the cottage and started on the repair, for the board was heavy and I’d have struggled to hold it up on my own and to hammer in the nails at the same time. “Damned youngsters,” Fred growled as he held the heavy piece of wood in place for me. “It was probably the Kirby boys and some of their pals. Right tearaways. Jeff Kirby will end up inside sooner or later.”
I thought about those children that Mrs Kirby used to leave in the pram outside the Golden Lion and remembered how Mother had condemned her. Jeff must have been one of them, poor lad. Dragged up, fostered out, sent to children’s homes, always in trouble and his brothers and sisters the same. As it happened, he did go prison later on. He got a couple of years for breaking into the mine office and stealing the wages, but after that, he came home and behaved himself until he joined up. He was killed at Tobruk, leaving a nice wife and a school age boy. Young Mrs Kirby used to do a bit of housework for me, until she married again.
But that evening, repairing the board in a sharp rain fall that was now set in for the night, I had nothing but anger for the whole Kirby family.
“Thanks, Fred,” I said when we’d finished and I’d locked the door securely. “Our Billy’s away, you know. I’m in charge and don’t want to let anyone down.”
Fred pursed his lips and shook his head. “Wouldn’t do to upset him,” he said and grinned to let me know that it was a joke. I think he felt embarrassed about what he’d told me before.
I laughed too. “You’re right there.”
Still grinning, he picked up his helmet and brushed down his jacket. I thought he looked smart in his navy blue uniform. Authoritative. But then I supposed I did too in mine, although the material that our khakis were made from, was very rough and you had to work hard to get the creases into the trousers. Our tropical clothes were better, but of course, out east we had dhobi wallahs to do the washing and ironing. I hadn’t worn my uniform since I came home, managing for the first week on my one civilian suit and a couple of shirts, but our Billy was having none of that.
“Come into town with me,” he’d said on the Friday and we’d gone to the men’s outfitters in town where he bought me a Harris tweed jacket and two pairs of slacks. He even paid for new underwear and a good pair of shoes.
“I can’t accept all this,” I’d hissed when the sales assistant had moved away. I was ashamed of having to be supplied with clothes as though I wasn’t able to pay for my own.
“You can and you will,” said Billy. He wouldn’t brook that sort of nonsense. “You can work off your debt,” he added, “if it makes you feel better. And there are spare overalls and boots in the scullery so you can keep this lot clean.”
Mother had kept some of my old clothes in the press in my bedroom, but they no longer fitted me. I had grown a lot both in height and breadth in the eight years away and these schoolboy’s clothes were good for nothing except a jumble sale. I had a good look at myself in the glass too while I was searching for socks in my old dressing table. The face that looked back at me was almost that of a stranger although uncomfortably, another face flickered through from the depths of my memory. It wasn’t as if this was the first time I’d seen myself in all the years I’d been away, but here, in this old familiar setting, who I was and who I had been, seemed desperately distant from each other. Now it was a man who stared back. A man with dark red hair and tanned skin with lines around his eyes even though he wasn’t yet thirty, a man of some experience and a man who could hold his own in a company of rough soldiery. I thought of the pale carroty youth I’d been and alone in my bedroom I laughed. How could I have possibly imagined that Elizabeth could have loved me then? I’d been nothing more than a child.
Fred broke through my thoughts again. “Come and have a bite of supper with Miranda and me,” he said. “She’d love to meet you and I want to introduce her to my best friend.”
I was touched. He still regarded me as his best friend and I was glad of that but I knew that I mustn’t go this night. Things had to be said between Elizabeth and me. I wasn’t going to allow what had happened earlier to become another subject in the Wilde household that wasn’t talked about.
“Thanks, Fred,” I said, “But can we make it another night? Perhaps tomorrow? I’ve got things to sort out at home.”
“Tomorrow night, yes,” he said, “even better. I’m off duty and it will give Miranda time to prepare something.”
We parted at the gate, him turning towards the village and me back to the farm. “Dick,” he called, as I walked away, “bring Elizabeth with you.”
The light was on in the kitchen when I got home but the room was empty. The supper things had been cleared away and a fresh pile of ironed clothes lay on the table, smelling sweetly of washing soap and the outdoors where they had blown about on the washing line in the morning air. I wondered if Elizabeth had gone to bed but as I stood, frustrated that she had escaped further discussion, I heard a noise at the scullery door. The dog, Tess, trotted into the kitchen, wagging her tail and shaking her coat. It was damp and redolent of the fields.
Elizabeth walked in after the dog and I once again I could feel my heart melting. In the soft light, she looked younger, her hair curling after the rain and her cheeks pink from the recent exercise. I could no longer wait.
“We have to talk,” I said.
“What about?”
I groaned. “You know what about.” She was so frustrating. How could I make her sit down and talk to me?
She took off her mackintosh and went into the scullery to hang it on the row of hooks. When she came back in she still wouldn’t look at me but went to the range to move the kettle onto the hot plate. I waited anxiously for her to speak and watched h
er face. But when she did open her mouth, I was further frustrated.
“Do you want tea?” was all she muttered. I could feel the blood rushing to my head and knew that my fists were curling.
“No!” I shouted. “I don’t want fucking tea.”
The shouting and expletive shocked her and when she turned round to stare at me I could see fright in her eyes. I was immediately ashamed.
“I’m sorry,” I apologised, “I didn’t mean to swear. Forgive me.”
Her nodded agreement was slow and wary and I was sick with myself for upsetting her so. I knew what she was thinking. That I was the same as my brother and maybe the next thing I would do was hit her. I swallowed and forced myself to calm down. This was the last thing I’d intended.
Cautiously, I walked across the room so that I was beside her and I took her hand in mine. She flinched and went to draw away but I gently held on.
“Look, Elizabeth,” I said, softly. “I am truly sorry about what happened in the Major’s cottage. It was wrong of me, but,” and here I faltered, uncertain about saying what I was really thinking. So many feelings in this house were hidden, so much was never said that the occupants lived in it flat and unreal, like two-dimensional figures. In our home, all was on the surface, nothing beneath could be explored and if I didn’t speak now, it wouldn’t matter. Billy would be home in two days, Mother at the end of the week and in a month I would be gone. Everything would stay the same and life would carry on as usual. Perhaps that was indeed the best way.
But as I looked up at her, preparing to apologise again and leave it at that, I saw the glint of the necklace showing through the open neck of her blouse and knew that she had once felt something for me. I had to speak.
“I have loved you since I was ten years old,” I said, now not daring to look at her but addressing my words to the shadows in the corner of the room. “Before I went away, I had planned to tell you, but I was too young, too stupid and cowardly to speak up. And then you chose to marry Billy and I lost my chance. But I have never stopped loving you, not once. I don’t think I ever will.”
The Love of a Lifetime Page 21