The Love of a Lifetime

by Mary Fitzgerald

  I have always loved that place and I think that he and Sharon do too. They have walked out there on several occasions. Mother used to say that it was the most beautiful part of our land. In the summer Billy and I used to go there with our friends in the early evening for swimming although then we didn’t appreciate the scenery. We took our pleasure hiding amongst the willow trees whose branches hung over the river and jumping out on one another. Later, as shy young people, those same branches offered us shelter for changing purposes. Our Billy was private. He didn’t even like me, his brother, looking at him nude.

  In the winter it was a different place but I loved it then too. I think of the lonely days after the war, when Nell and I walked daily through those meadows down to the river, even when icicles hung from the bare branches and frost sparkled on the carpet of dead leaves beneath our feet. Old Nell chased happily around the tree trunks but there were no rabbits for her to raise. They were all below ground keeping out of the weather. Lucky them, I used to think, cosy and at home with their families. I found it hard to stay in my house for long, in those days. My head was too full and my heart broken.

  But now the land is unusable and the river poisoned by an overflow from Jason’s slurry lake. He is sick with it all and is threatening to get out of farming. I heard him tell Sharon that it was a mug’s game. He’d be better off selling his acreage to the developers. “I could retire to Spain,” he said. “Play golf all day.”

  Sharon laughed. “You’d hate it,” she said and then added with a pretend sneer, “and who would you get to play with you? From what I hear, you’re not much cop.”

  I waited for an explosion of temper, but he is a calm young man and doesn’t seem to take offence easily. All he did was to give her a teasing slap on the backside as she walked past.

  “Stop it,” she giggled. “I don’t know what Richard will be thinking of us.”

  I was in the kitchen with them. We’d just had a cup of coffee and Jason had come round to collect Thomas. It’s Saturday and he has tickets to a football match.

  My coffee tasted so awful I couldn’t drink it and Sharon gave me a searching look when she picked up my cup to take it to the sink. Just lately, I’ve been off my food and I’m bone tired, but what can I expect. Death is just round the corner. But here is the thing. My life has become interesting in these last months, more than it has been for forty years and I don’t want to leave it. It isn’t fair.

  A knock came at the door and who should come in but Andrew Jones. I haven’t seen him for a few weeks since I gave him my latest instructions and I don’t know whether he has seen Sharon either. He didn’t look pleased to see Jason sitting at the table.

  “Morning, Mr Wilde,” he said, “How are things?”

  “I’m still alive, if that’s what you mean,” I growled and Sharon left her computer for a moment and came to stand beside me, worried, I suppose, in case I was upset. She has a lap-top computer now, given to her by Jason as a birthday present. An expensive present, and one that she was all for refusing even though it was exactly what she wanted for college. It was only when he asked her to keep track of his milk yield on it for him, that she accepted.

  “I don’t have the time, and I can’t afford to take on another man,” he said. “It would help me no end if you could load my accounts and farm business onto it. When you have the time.” This last was added hastily, but Sharon was trapped. She wanted the computer and agreeing to his request was her method of payment.

  She and Thomas spend quite a bit of time at Jason’s house and he is here by the minute. He is paying suit, as my Mother would have put it and Sharon is showing no signs of rejecting him.

  But I can see that this affair doesn’t please Andrew Jones at all. In the spring and summer he must have thought that he was the chosen suitor, taking her on holiday and all. I’m wary of him, though. He knows too much about my business. “What d’you want?” I asked.

  “Nothing in particular,” he said, pulling out a chair and sitting beside my wheelchair. “Just a social call.”

  “Well, you’d better stay to dinner.” Sharon was in one of her restless moods, “Jason and Thomas are off to the football and they’re leaving any minute.”

  I saw Jason’s face cloud over, but if she noticed, she ignored it and went to the hall to call for Thomas. “Hurry up, love,” she called. “You’ll be late getting to the ground.”

  I could hear his footsteps coming down the stairs and into the hall and waited for him to burst into the kitchen. He looks so well and is growing apace. Every week he seems to need new shoes and I have been glad to help with the cost. Sharon argues, of course, insisting that she isn’t a sponger, but I tell her not to be so silly. What’s the price of a pair of children’s shoes to me, when I’ve money in the bank, just gathering interest? I’d rather spend it on Thomas than give it to the government.

  I watched Jason and Thomas leave. Jason was reluctant and Thomas had to almost drag him out of the house. It’s not that he didn’t want to go to the match, but Andrew Jones was staying for lunch and that didn’t go down well.

  “Bye, Mummy, bye, Mr Richard,” the boy called as he took Jason’s hand.

  I shuffled a hand in my pocket. “Wait a minute, son,” I said, “come here and open your hand.” I poured some pound coins into his palm and closed the fingers over them. “Buy some sweeties.”

  “Thank you,” he breathed looking to his mother for permission to take the money. She nodded and he said “thank you,” again and put his wiry little arms round my neck and gave me a hug. I live for these moments.

  Andrew Jones only stayed for his dinner and left soon after. I think he’d hoped for an afternoon alone with Sharon but she was having none of it.

  “I’ve work to do,” she said after he’d finished the fruit salad she’d made for pudding, “so I’m going to throw you out.” She looked at me. “That is, unless Richard needs to talk to you.”

  I jerked my head over my shoulder towards my room. I was tired and needed my afternoon sleep, so that was that. He had to go.

  When I woke up, Sharon was bringing in some tea and scones.

  “Hello,” she said, “feeling better?”

  “Yes,” I said, “how did you know I was badly?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve known you long enough now to tell. Do you need the doctor?”

  “I don’t think so, not yet. The painkillers are keeping me pretty comfortable, but I am increasingly tired.”

  “Gone off your food, too.”

  I nodded. “Nothing tastes any more.”

  Her face drooped and she gazed at me in a distracted way. “I wish I could do something. Something to help. Make you something you could fancy.”

  I laughed. “Unless you can make up some special elixir of life, then I wouldn’t bother. Its anno domini, my dear. It comes to all of us.”

  For her sake I drank my tea and ate a scone and we sat happily for an hour while the sky darkened and the late autumn night closed in. On my instructions, she changed the tape in my recorder and put in a new battery.

  “Still at it?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “still telling my story.”

  “Will I hear it sometime?”

  I nodded. “When it’s finished and if I’m brave enough.”

  I’ve never thought of myself as a brave person, despite that double row of medals lying in my desk drawer. I got those both before and during the war, but what I did to earn them was very much spur of the moment stuff because I doubt I’d have had the necessary courage if I’d had to think about it beforehand. I have been cowardly about lots of things, particularly when it comes to people. It was the way we were brought up, no doubt, keeping everything to yourself and not speaking up. My heart sinks even now when I remember how I lay awake beside Elizabeth on that second night and wondered how to get her away from the farm. I know that part of my concern was how to break the news to our Billy and face his wrath. Even after all those years of being away and growing u
p bigger than my brother, I was still scared of him.

  Elizabeth was nervous too. When we lay together the next morning in the first light, we indulged in little conversation. Somehow, the first excitement had faded and now we were into something that was almost too big to cope with. We had one more day before Billy came home and then the day after that, Mother would descend on us. There would be no keeping of secrets from her. Her instinct was far too acute.

  “Elizabeth,” I started, “I’ve been thinking.” I wanted to talk about what we should do but she wasn’t in the mood.

  “Got to get up,” she said, rolling out of bed and pulling on her shift. She was lovely. Her body was smooth and perfectly straight. That’s how she walked, too, upright, straight, like a lad with none of those mincing steps that some women make. She never bustled like Mother, or wobbled her hips like the women who hung around the barracks did, she simply walked without fuss.

  “We could go to Canada,” I said, getting up too and pulling on my work trousers. “Or Australia. They want workers in those countries. We could make a new life.”

  But she shook her head and left the room and all that day, at the market and then back at the farm, the subject wasn’t mentioned again. I did try once, after supper when we were sitting in the kitchen having a cup of tea.

  “Will you think about leaving?” I begged, but she wouldn’t answer me. It was a lovely evening, still warm after a fine spring day and the air was scented with the smell of flowers. The laburnum tree had just blossomed and I had cut a spray to bring into the house. It was there in a jug on the table.

  “Let’s go out,” she said suddenly. “Let’s go on the hill.”

  “I thought you didn’t like it up there now.”

  “I’ll like it with you.”

  We were like youngsters again, running up the hillside, with her dog galloping beside us while the birds swooped around the trees for a last supper before bedtime. We made love on a bare patch of scrubby land, close to the top and our cries were as natural as those of the old fox who had started to bark or those of the owls who were just waking up.

  “I love you so much,” I said, holding her close in my arms.

  “I know and I you.” Her voice was soft but sad and I now realise that her mind wasn’t running along the same lines as mine. I was all for going away, but she was for staying and talking about it would spoil everything.

  The next day we stood in the yard as Billy unloaded Diamond from the box and came over to join us.

  “Everything all right?” he asked scanning the barns and the home field.

  I nodded. “Gone like clockwork.”

  “Good. Knew you’d be able to manage.”

  “And you,” I hoped my voice sounded normal. “How did you get on? Did the old horse win again?”

  He frowned. “No. Runner up. Some bloke from the north brought down a fine pair of nags and one of them took the cup. It was fair enough though. I would have judged it the same.”

  He told us more at supper, extolling the youngsters coming up which he had judged. “I might buy a young ‘un. Diamond’s had his day and it’s time for new blood.”

  The words were too close to home and I sneaked a look at Elizabeth to see if she had found them so, but she was looking down at her plate, not joining in the conversation.

  Suddenly, Billy turned to her. “You look very well, our Elizabeth. What you been doing to yourself?”

  My breath caught in my throat and I thought my heart would jump out of my chest. Did he know? Had he somehow found out? I was almost shaking with fright as I gazed at her, awaiting her reply.

  I shouldn’t have worried; she was as calm as ever. “My work as usual,” she said. “Nothing different.”

  Billy turned back to me. “Its having you around, that’s it,” he laughed. “I expect you remind her of the old days when we were silly lads and lasses. Mind you, her face does look as if she’s been rouging. I can’t abide that. Paint and powder. It’s common.”

  Elizabeth got up then and cleared the dishes. “You know I don’t wear that sort of thing,” she said, over her shoulder. “You must be mixing me up with someone else.”

  He froze, his eyebrows lowering and his mouth going into a thin straight line. This was a bit of by-play I hadn’t seen before. Was she suggesting that he had another woman? Our Billy?

  No, I thought, not him. From what Elizabeth had said, I didn’t think he even liked women much. But I didn’t want a row so I changed the subject rapidly and we went back to talking about the horse show and the people he met there.

  That night I slept alone in my old room. I longed to creep across the landing and join Elizabeth in her narrow bed in the room above the front door, but I was too scared. Suppose the dog barked or the floorboards creaked under my footsteps. What if we woke Billy with our cries of pleasure? It didn’t bear thinking about and I lay sleepless and angry with myself in my empty room until long after the owl had gone to sleep and the moon was on the wane.

  Mother came home on the Saturday and it was clear from the off that she had truly enjoyed herself. She was full of the delights of Devon and when Marian carried in her suitcase, Mother gave her a thank you kiss and a pat on the hand. It was obvious that the week away together had rekindled their old closeness and I was glad of it. They had been great friends when Billy and I were children and, fair play, Marian did have a big part in bringing us up. The memories of us as two baby boys must have been still been between them.

  “I loved Torquay,” said Mother that evening after supper, “and you would love it too, Elizabeth.” I think she was feeling guilty that Elizabeth had not been invited on the holiday. She had been especially attentive to her all through supper. “You would think you were in a foreign country,” she added, “with all those palm trees along the front and the gardens, well, I have to say, they were the best I’ve ever seen.”

  “What’s the land like down there?” Billy asked.

  “Oh, it’s so red,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe it. The earth is rich and the pasture deep and in such good heart. The cattle seemed most contented.”

  Billy grunted. “I don’t suppose they get the rain like we do, though. Our grass is the best in the country.”

  Mother smiled and shook her head. She knew our Billy; he was never able to accept that anywhere could be better than our farm. “And how have you been, Richard?” she said, turning to me. “Almost back to your old self. I didn’t like that colour you had when you first came home. Marian agreed with me. We thought you looked quite yellow.”

  “Cold fresh air, that’s what it is,” I muttered hoping that she couldn’t see the new light in my eye, which I was sure was obvious to all. I ached for Elizabeth, wanted her naked in my arms, needed to feel her cool lithe body under mine and all my desire must have shone out of my face for when I turned to look at her, sitting quietly in her chair at the end of the table, the look she returned was one of both joy and caution. She gave a slight shake of her head and reluctantly, I turned away, back to Mother.

  And there I met another pair of eyes, full of alarm. She knew, in that moment of my recklessly letting Elizabeth see how much I loved her, I had given away our secret to the person who knew me best. I saw her snap her head round to Elizabeth and then back to me and then reluctantly over to Billy. I followed her eyes. If she had guessed, had Billy?

  He hadn’t. My brother could never pick up on a glance, never get a nuance and we were quite safe, for now. But Mother looked almost frightened and I had to break the atmosphere.

  “The Gate House was broken into,” I said, “three nights ago.”

  That certainly changed the atmosphere in the room. “Damn and blast it,” Billy exploded in one of his sudden tempers, banging his fist down on the table and his cheerful mood flying away. “Hooligans from the village, I’ll be bound. It’ll be that young Kirby and his pals. By God, I’ll give them what for.”

  “Calm down,” I said, “you don’t know that.”

 
; “I can guess,” he growled.

  “Was there any damage done?” said Mother tentatively.

  “No, not much. A board was torn off one of the windows and some bugger had drunk what was left of the Major’s brandy.” I turned to my brother. “Why don’t you tidy the place up and let it? God knows, it would be safer with a tenant in place. Otherwise it’ll just go to rack and ruin.”

  He shrugged, “I might sell it. Get it off my hands. I never could abide the place, anyway.”

  Mother stood up and started to gather the dishes. “You’ll do no such thing, William,” she said, her face troubled. “Your father always planned to add the Gate House and its land to our holding and I was glad when you managed to do it. I won’t let you go against his wishes.”

  The room simmered in anger and accusation and I was both glad and sorry I’d brought up the subject. Billy’s tempers could be fearsome but at least it had stopped Mother thinking about me and Elizabeth. “Well,” I said, “you could just get the garden done up. It won’t look so abandoned then.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Elizabeth, suddenly, “I’ll get the lad, Ernie to help me.”

  Billy wasn’t pleased, I could see that, but he pushed his chair away from the table and got up. “Do what you like,” he said, “but I might still go ahead and sell it.”

  He never did. That cottage is still part of the farm today and I do have tenants in it. They are a couple of retired school teachers who came up from London over twenty years ago. I put in heating and a new bathroom and they have kept the place very nicely. The garden is a picture.

  It was the following day when I realised what Elizabeth was up to. “Meet me at the Gate House, after dinner,” she whispered when I put my head round the dairy door.

  The lad was there as ordered, digging the garden and he nodded to me in his vacant way. Elizabeth was nowhere in sight but the boy jerked his head towards the door. “Miss Elizabeth’s indoors,” he said, “if you’re looking for her.”

  She was in the bedroom and I noticed straight away that she had unrolled the mattress and put an old quilt over it. “I found this in the chest,” she giggled, “I hope it doesn’t give us our death of cold.”