by Gilli Allan
‘Did you not want it? Presumably you could have sold.’
‘At the time, property prices were falling. Anyway, the farm was Serena’s and she did want it. With a child on the way, the opportunity to get out of London was attractive to her … and of course, she’d grown up here. To me too it seemed like a turning point, a chance to get out of the rat race before I was chucked. A completely new road, if you like.’
‘What was your job?’
‘Advertising. Hang on, why are we talking about me?’
Jessica had been thinking the same thing. The situation was bizarre. She didn’t even like the man, yet here she was listening to his life history when all she wanted was to be with Danny.
‘You were talking about the size of the farm … the sheep.’
‘Oh yes.’ He said nothing more for a moment. They both looked out at the countryside spread before them; fields, hedgerows, dry stone walls, and beyond the lane the grassy slope up to the line of trees on top of Spine Hill.
‘You must feel so honoured to be the owner and guardian of such a lovely part of the English landscape.’
His sideways glance was interrogative, as if he suspected some barb in her comment.
‘It’s a huge responsibility which sometimes weighs rather heavy. I’ll admit that. Over the years I’ve been trying to simplify the farm. I rent off a lot of the land and I got out of cattle and dairy.’
‘Like Danny’s father?’
James Warwick looked mildly surprised. ‘You must have been talking to Dan for longer than I realised. I’m planning to sell off a large chunk of land to the north, beyond Spine Hill.’
The view she looked out on from her front windows – the countryside over which she’d rambled so extensively during the last month, belonged to him?
‘And some further to the west, reducing my holding substantially.’ An engine rumbled into life. A tractor emerged from behind one of the barns and began to move toward them. They watched as it manoeuvred past them, its trailer piled with stakes, lengths of fencing, a roll of wire netting and tools. The driver was wearing a check jacket, the woollen hat with ear flaps was pulled down over his head, and a black and white Islamic prayer shawl was wrapped around his neck. Jessica tried to compose her face.
‘Daft as a brush,’ James Warwick said, with a slight shake of his head.
Jessica watched the tractor as it chugged off down the track; the reel of mesh fencing bounced slightly in the trailer.
‘You don’t bother to repair the walls when they fall down?’
‘I’d love to maintain the traditional dry stone walling. Up to a point I’ve learnt the craft and can repair small sections on my perimeters but there’s too much for me to handle. And it’s expensive to have it done properly. I have to weigh up competing demands.’ He squinted out across the fields as if contemplating the miles of crumbling wall he could never keep up with. Abruptly he changed tack. ‘I was hoping you would still come over to see the lambs, particularly after the row last week. Though I didn’t really expect you, and not on your own like this. What happened at the nursery.’ There was a long pause. ‘I’m sorry that I lost my rag. That you … and … the others should have been witness to it. It was nothing to do with you.’
Oh yes it was, she thought. He did not look at her but continued to stare across the enclosure with the lambs and their mothers, beyond the caramel coloured caravan, into the distance. Strange, that little caravan, she thought. It was unsightly, marring what otherwise was a perfect scene. Even the dilapidation of some of the dry stone walls had a picturesque quality. The house, with its cluster of stone barns around the courtyard, the mature trees which surrounded it, and the undeniably beautiful setting made up a picture postcard farm. He wasn’t the kind of farmer to tolerate ramshackle outbuildings constructed of breeze blocks and corrugated iron, or the piles of used tyres holding down acres of bright blue plastic sheeting; the rusting, redundant machinery, or used fertiliser bags allowed to blow about and litter the landscape. Why did he allow this particular blot on his landscape? He glanced at her as though suddenly recalling she was there. Beneath the jut of his frown she noticed how like his mother’s his eyes were. Wealth and privilege were not automatic insulators against life’s tribulations. She was almost tempted to review her hostility towards the man when the testiness returned to his voice.
‘But it really winds me up, this obsession with denying or trying to suppress gender difference. Sheila Jordan …!’
‘Was only implementing some of the aims and objectives clearly stated in the school’s mission statement and in its prospectus,’ Jess retorted.
‘What? Prospectus! Christ! It’s a nursery! Most of the children are only three years old, for God’s sake! We send Sasha there to have a good time and to mix with other kids. Why the hell do they need prospectuses and mission statements?’
‘Whether or not you think it necessary, it is a legal requirement for all accredited nursery schools these days. Have you never read the prospectus? You should have signed their policy statement agreeing the school’s philosophy. I did.’
‘Policy statement? Of course I’ve never read it or signed anything! All I know is Serena put Sasha’s name down, before she, before … All I want for Sash is that she enjoys her childhood.’
‘Which I’m sure she does. It’s not the school’s policy to suppress difference, but they’re not in the business of reinforcing it either! They try to encourage the children to explore the full range of activities without stereotyping. In fact, if you really want to know, the whole thing was my fault!’ His frown deepened. ‘Rory was extremely upset when I collected him one day last week. He complained that the girls …’ Here Jessica paused; there was no need to rub it in that one of them was Sasha. ‘… were ganging up, preventing him, or any boy, from playing in the Wendy house. It struck me that if some of the boys wanted to, they should be encouraged to play in the house. That’s all it was. I’m sure Sheila explained that it was an experiment which had only been tried on one morning.’
He sighed. ‘Yes she did, but she didn’t say it was your idea.’
‘Not exactly my idea, but I did raise the subject. But there was never any question of forbidding Sasha’s use of the house. We were just trying to be fair to everyone.’
‘Well … as I said, I was angry and when I lose my temper I shoot from the hip. I was throwing undeserved insults around. I’m glad to have this opportunity to apologise.’
‘Whether or not they were deserved is not the same as saying they were insults.’ Jess said, looking at him levelly. ‘I can’t speak for anyone else, but I am a single-mother … not divorced from a husband, not widowed. And I’m not a bit ashamed of the fact. If you have a problem with that …’
She could also have added that she was the daughter of an unmarried woman. Was that all it was, life repeating itself … a daughter following her mother’s example? No. Her own upbringing was hardly a model she wished to repeat. When only in her mid-teens she had rejected much, if not all, of her mother’s attitudes and chosen lifestyle. Her mother’s decision to have a child without a father had been political. Jessica’s pregnancy had been a mishap. Anyway, it was hardly something James Warwick would ever want, or need, to know. Judging by his expression she had given him enough to chew on for the moment. ‘By the way, what do you use the caravan for?’
‘What?’ He looked totally bemused for a second.
‘The caravan? What’s it used for?’
‘Oh, it’s where … um, Dan lives.’
Chapter Eleven
At last they’d reached an oasis of calm. The brilliance of the sunny afternoon hardly touched the shadowy little room, but it was warm and the flames behind the doors of the wood-burning stove flared and crackled. Jessica sat on the floor, back to the sofa. On the rug next to her were the carton of juice and packet of crisps loudly demanded yet so far untouched. Rory was lying flat out on the sofa, head turned to watch one of his DVDs, with Tubs curled up on the smal
l of his back. Often she would watch television with her son like this, allowing the colourful images and ludicrous plotlines to numb the confused thoughts which teemed in her brain. Today it was a respite even more welcome than usual. Rory had been wired-up, cantankerous, and intransigent; it was the worst he’d been for quite a while. He’d wanted to play with her mobile phone and she’d had to wrestle it from his grasp several times. For the time being at least he was distracted. God bless Toy Story. She could switch her tired brain to idle and let the adventures of Buzz Lightyear and his friends wash over her.
Schemes for seeing Danny were at odds with her common sense. She knew it would be stupid, irrational, and, more importantly, damaging, to persist in this folly. It would still be easy to extricate herself, yet the urge to act on her emotions was swelling like a poisonous spot; impossible to leave alone – to allow the sensation to reach its throbbing apex then slowly fade to nothing. She had to touch, to probe, and in the end to squeeze. She reminded herself that she’d always been a very sexual person, quick to arousal and unconstrained in expression – behaviour reinforced, even heightened perhaps, by the drugs she’d taken during that mad time in her life. Even so, this was not a facet of her nature she was ashamed of; the years with Sean and the early days of motherhood had simply smothered that part of herself, but it remained an important need, growing more insistent as time passed.
Jessica turned to look at her son. Despite the broken nights, the prickly moods, the tantrums, she loved him more than she could ever have believed. How could she regret the product of her sexual liberation? Whatever happened, whatever her own selfish desires, his needs, his well-being had to come first. The film had finished and Rory had fallen asleep, his cheeks flushed. Jessica quietly got to her feet and went upstairs to her bedroom.
The FTSE share index looked hardly more encouraging than it had last week. There’d been overall improvement, but the figures were still way off where she wanted to see them. Jess dragged her eyes away from the monitor and stared out of her bedroom window. She’d grown fond of this view which, depending on the light, forever transformed itself from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. This afternoon the countryside was suffused in a warm light which turned the tops of the leafless trees to apricot. Sometimes, on a dull day, the panorama was cool, almost monotone – distant hills hazy with mist; trees spiky silhouettes against the grey; the fields washed with a transparent tint of sage. At other times, like today, it was warm and rich; the butterscotch yellow of the dropping sun in such contrast with the sky it traversed that the blue took on an almost violet bloom, the land a coppery burnish.
How much of this landscape belonged to James Warwick? And if he sold it what would become of those fields, now dimpled with soft shadows in their hollows and clefts; the river, its path delineated by dots and dashes of light; those hills and valleys; those trees? It was hard to envisage even one acre, let alone a hundred or even a thousand. Did all of the countryside spread out before her eyes belong to him? He’d said he rented some of his land to other farmers; that he was paid to graze horses. There were cattle on several of the fields, more than one had horses, and yet others were ploughed into corrugations, which from here looked like brown needlecord. Jess tried to imagine it all covered in housing. Difficult. Only one line of houses at the opposite side of the lane would shorten her view to just that – less than a hundred yards, before manicured lawns, mock Tudor elevations, brick and red tiles stopped her eye as efficiently as a backcloth dropped from above. It couldn’t happen, could it? Surely no one would grant planning permission?
But what if the projected by-pass was likely to come anywhere near here? As yet the possible routes were still only rumour and speculation. She’d not been sufficiently interested in the topic to follow up the stories. Six weeks ago Danny had told her the road might cross the river at Skirmish Bridge. Until now she’d thought only that it would be a pity if an ancient bridge was sacrificed to the demands of the motorist. But it was Northwell Lane – the lane which ran along in front of her own house and curved around the eastern end of Spine Hill on its way to connect with the main road into Warford – which crossed the river at Skirmish Bridge. Hadn’t Sheila said it was James Warwick’s land over which the by-pass was likely to run? And once a dual carriageway was approved, the planning permission for gravel extraction or worse, for industrial parks, housing estates, and out of town superstores, would be that much easier to secure.
This was a rented house and she could easily move on, even without waiting for the proceeds from the sale of her flat. Her portfolio of shares might not yet have recovered their pre-crash position but they were still worth more than when she’d first invested. Though she could release some cash to put down as a decent deposit for a house and still have money to play with, a cold, sick feeling clutched at her stomach. If what she’d suddenly suspected was true, no one in the future would ever be able to enjoy this precious peace, this uninterrupted view of rural England. Once gone it was gone forever.
Her sense of unreality was heightened by the appearance of a Land Rover, which pulled up outside. The man in a Barbour who got out had very dark, Medusa-like hair. His glance towards Weavers Cottage confirmed his identity but he made no move in its direction. Jess shook her head to clear it of the bizarre notion that thinking about him had conjured the man’s appearance. It was highly improbable that James Warwick would ever deliberately pay her a visit. Even if his approach the other day had been evidence of a desire to establish a more informal, even friendly relationship, the impulse had surely been thwarted when she’d put herself in a category he apparently despised. But she wanted to talk to him; she needed to ask him about this road thing.
She’d been sitting down too long; stiffly she un-cramped her knees and hips. By the time she got downstairs the Land Rover’s engine had started up. She opened the front door only to see it move away, revealing Danny standing across the lane. In his Bolivian Indian’s hat and the prayer shawl thrown scarf-like around his shoulders, Danny stood in that characteristic pose – head tipped back, eyes narrowed – as if staring across some vast prairie. As soon as the Land Rover was out of sight around the bend he slowly crossed the road, but stopped by her gate.
‘Why are you here?’ clashed with, ‘I’ve come over to move the horses.’ They both stopped talking and grinned at one another. It was then she noticed the tangle of leather straps, buckles, and ropes, plus a saddle, piled by the end of the track opposite.
‘Why do they have to be moved?’
‘Basically, he’s got fed up of having to bring winter feed over for them. I can’t do it, look, I haven’t got a driving licence.’
‘Have you time to come in?’
‘I’d like to, but the tack … and …?’
‘I know … the cat. But just for a minute? Bring the tack over, leave it by the door. I can make you a coffee or a fruit tea or something?’
They couldn’t see Rory – the high back of the sofa was angled towards the front door – but he must still be sleeping. Had he been awake he would have got up to see what was going on. Jessica lifted her finger to her lips. As they tiptoed through to the kitchen, Danny pulled off his hat and pushed it into his pocket.
‘I spotted the Land Rover from my bedroom window,’ she said, once the door was firmly closed. ‘I was looking at my investments on the laptop.’ She filled the kettle. ‘I was very lucky in the early days of joining the bank. The dotcom bubble burst just before my first bonus. I hoovered up a load of shares. I must have chosen right, more by luck than judgement. They’ve done really well over the years. But they took a hit and I haven’t fully recovered the pre-crash position.’
Danny looked blank. ‘To be honest I don’t really understand all that stuff too well,’ he admitted.
‘Sorry. It was on my mind.’
He shook his head. ‘High finance, stocks and shares and such. It’s like a foreign language. Like, your job you were telling me about. It wasn’t anything real you were buy
ing and selling, like coffee beans or barrels of oil or even gold bars?’
‘No, I wasn’t a commodities trader. I dealt in derivatives. The financial instruments related to the movement of shares. You’ve heard of the Footsie 100, the index of shares of the top one hundred companies? I was predicting whether the index would move up or down.’
‘But you weren’t even buying or selling these … d’riv’tives … like now, but at some time in the future. Is that right?’
‘Just about … that’s why they’re called Futures and Options.’ How was she going to explain this? ‘For instance, with a futures contract you’re committed, for a small margin payment up front, to exchange at the price agreed on the date you made the deal. Do you see?’ His eyes were wide. She had no idea if he was absorbing and understanding what she said. ‘At the contracted time, if the market has moved in the way you predicted, you make a profit on the difference.’
‘What happens if you’re wrong?’
‘You have to make sure you hedge your deals.’
‘So it’s like gambling? Betting both ways on a horse?’
‘Kind of.’
‘All that kind of wheeler-dealering doesn’t really seem right to me. It’s like price and value have nothing to do with each other. It’s all a kind of bluff, using money that isn’t really there, isn’t ever put on the table in piles of notes. There’s nothing real, look. Like a share, or a pound, or even a packet of tea isn’t worth anything except what the financial wizards think it’s worth. There’s this big, complicated structure that needs everyone believing in it to keep it growing.’
‘It’s a slightly simplistic view.’ Instantly she knew she’d said the wrong thing.
‘I’m a simpleton, I know. I don’t understand anything!’
Feeling guilty that she had, indeed, mistrusted his ability to comprehend, Jess said, ‘I didn’t mean that! You’re not!’