by Rosie Thomas
She piled two unnecessary logs on the fire. The fir garlands on the mantelpiece were beginning to droop and spill their needles.
‘Where are you going?’ Colin lazily asked, his eyes still on the television.
‘I’ll be back,’ she said.
The kitchen was a mess. She began the washing up, thinking mundane thoughts. There was Boxing Day’s big dinner to consider. Dinner for everyone at Mead; the Knight boys were leaving the day after tomorrow for a ski trip, Alph and Omie were returning to their boyfriends. Most of the cooking was done already, thanks to Colin. A huge ham was resting in the larder, the fat honey-glazed and carved into diamonds studded with cloves. There were sweet and earthy root vegetables to be roasted, a pair of sharp lemon tarts to offset all the richness, a whole Stilton. People would be hungry. Sam, Toby and Alpha were all determined to enter the village charity run. Selwyn was making claims on it too. There had been talk of everyone else walking to Lockington, where the route would finish, to greet their runners as they came in.
At the end of the afternoon once the daylight had gone there would be candles lit, glasses filled, the gathering at the table. Afterwards they might even play charades, Miranda thought. She bent her head over the sink, scrubbing hard at the pan that had held the turkey.
Polly stood in the doorway. With her back turned, Miranda could have passed for a girl in her twenties. She was dressed in a wide-necked short top that fell off her shoulders, a full skirt of some pinkish diaphanous stuff sprinkled with sequins, thick ribbed tights and her well-worn cowboy boots. As always, Polly noted, Miranda’s ensemble was theatrical, but it fell somewhere on the right side of fancy dress.
Miranda must have felt watched because she spun from the sink.
‘Polly, it’s you.’ There was a catch in her voice.
‘I’m sorry, lurking about your house, tonight of all nights. I don’t mean to intrude.’
‘What? It’s not an intrusion at all.’ Miranda’s voice was warm, she had recovered from her surprise. ‘Is everything all right?’
Polly nodded. ‘They’re playing a game.’
‘Highly commendable. It’s telly, across here.’
‘Mirry, can we talk?’ It was crucial to ask Miranda, Polly acknowledged, before the idea took such a firm hold of her that she would be unable to let go.
Miranda dropped the pan scrubber into the bowl of greasy water. Slowly she peeled off the washing-up gloves. Her heart seemed to leap into her throat.
‘Of course. That’s an amazing coat of many colours. Would you like a drink?’
Polly compressed her lips. ‘God, no. Thanks, though.’
They sat down at opposite sides of the table. Miranda piled up plates, sweeping debris away from underneath. From the pantry, she could hear the shudder of the fridge motor starting up.
‘I should have asked before…’ Polly began.
Miranda waited, the same feverish brightness in her eyes.
‘…but the more I got involved, the more superstitious I felt. I had to go on reading, in case I was overestimating it all. Then I saw this.’
Polly unfolded a sheet of lined paper. She was about to smooth it out on the table but the surface was too greasy and sticky. She held it awkwardly in midair, not quite handing it over.
‘What is it?’ Miranda asked in bewilderment.
‘A letter. From Jake’s great-uncle, in France. Christmas 1915.’
The shelves and cupboards of Jake’s study held a jumbled cache of letters, diaries, account books, estate papers, bills and farm records that went back almost two hundred and fifty years, that was what Polly had discovered. They were mixed up, incomplete, some of them barely legible, others in a language almost forgotten. But none of that daunted her. She was a historian, and a trained researcher. As she had burrowed deeper into the records, her conviction grew that here was a story that had been waiting generations for her to arrive and unravel.
It was the story of an English house, not a great aristocratic residence, not even a country manor house, but a small estate and a farm building that grew with a family’s fortunes and changed with the changing times. She had found a bill of sale dated 1759 for a pair of plough horses, the record of a daughter’s dowry at her marriage in 1820, love letters from Mr Edwin Meadowe to his sweetheart before he married her in the 1850s, bills from Victorian tradesmen in Meddlett, folded up and stuffed away, quite possibly never paid. Edited, annotated, properly arranged, Polly was certain that all this material could make a sensational book.
A sensational book meant money, of course, and the Davieses seriously needed funds.
But Polly was also aware that Mead was Miranda’s house. The Meadowes were her family even if only by marriage, and she was the last to bear the name. Nothing more could be done with any of the records without Miranda’s consent, and Polly knew just how jealously Miranda guarded her privacy and her husband’s legacy.
Then two days ago she had uncovered the box of First World War letters, written from France by Second Lieutenant George Meadowe to his parents and elder brother at home.
Miranda looked bewildered. ‘A letter? I don’t know where I’ve put my glasses. Is it important?’
Polly faltered, ‘Yes. Well, not this instant, of course…’
‘Read it to me,’ Miranda said quietly.
Polly pushed her own glasses up to the bridge of her nose.
My dear Governor, Muth and Eddy,
Well, we had our Xmas day, the best we could do, because it rained like Hades and the men and horses were sliding like poor amphibians through the mud. We had our company service at 11.30, the men somehow under shelter in a barn, the padre did it very nicely, and we sang ‘While Shepherds Watched’ and other favourites. Sergeant Gillings has a very fine bass, it was touching to hear such a man giving voice to the familiar words, but I have to confess that I felt more than a tremor of longing to be with you all, listening to the Governor reading St Matthew in church and afterwards Muth complimenting the Misses Cooper on their new tippets before returning to the warm fire at Mead. After service we had our Christmas dinner, there was ham and plum pudding so we did very well, and all the time the Boche less than a mile away and ourselves within range of the damned field guns. They have been quiet today, for which we thank God or the generals. Then there was more singing, this time the men inclined not to carols but less suitable songs, however it being Christmas I did not feel it right to reprimand them. So now the day is ended, I hope and pray that there has been some cheer for you and that Muth especially has not felt my absence too keenly. It will not be for ever, my dear beloved family, and until then my love to you all,
Georgie
As Polly finished reading and refolded the sheet of paper, Miranda looked towards the window, and the yard and the outbuildings invisible beyond it.
‘I’ve never seen that one,’ she said.
‘There’s a box full of them.’
‘Jake was always saying he would sort out the family papers. I’m glad you’re doing it, Poll, he would have been grateful. I think that must have been George Meadowe’s last Christmas.’
Polly nodded. In the same box she had found the pale buff-coloured Post Office Telegraph message, dated six months later and beginning with the terrible words, ‘Deeply regret inform you’.
Miranda added, ‘I do know that George was the late, unexpected baby of the family, fifteen years younger than his only brother, who was Jake’s grandfather. Edward, Eddy, had what was probably rheumatic fever as a child. He was always a semi-invalid, and he couldn’t have hoped to go to France. Naturally their parents were deeply proud of their strong, heroic second son. It was ironic, wasn’t it, that it was Edward after all who lived on finally to marry and father a boy of his own?’
Polly nodded. The threads of all these stories woven around Mead tugged so insistently at her that she almost lost her balance. A historian’s giddy omnipotence briefly possessed her and she speculated on how thrilling it would be if she could just
find the evidence and follow it back further and further, digging deeper into the past until she arrived at the princess of the Iceni herself, not just her sad uncovered bones, but the real woman, long before the time of any Christian festival, dressed in her leather cloak and protected by her great shield, heading her tiny army out of the settlement under the sketched-out margins of Amos’s house.
That would be a narrative trajectory.
When she came back to earth it was with a sense of fragility – Miranda’s, her own and Selwyn’s, and the rest of them who were temporarily anchored at Mead this Christmas – as against the absolutely steady continuum of life itself.
Polly had not concerned herself much with the taboo about mentioning age, or the threat of the ten-pound box. If she thought about it at all it was to reflect that Amos and Selwyn went on far too much about getting old, and it was men in their vanity and vulnerability who were more concerned with ageing than any woman could be.
But now it came to her. The magnificence of the continuum itself was the best corrective to fears of enfeeblement and death.
Miranda was still sitting opposite her. She was resting her chin on one hand, half-turned to stare into the square of blackness beyond the kitchen window.
Polly began, rotating the letter in her fingers as she spoke, ‘I was going to ask you, how would it be if I were to catalogue the Mead papers properly, perhaps with a view to arranging them for publication?’
Miranda lifted her head from her hand. Polly could clearly see the inward reckoning she was making: Miranda was nobody’s fool. Polly bit the inside of her lip as she waited, and then winced from the pain. She wanted so much to write this book. Nothing had stirred her so deeply since – well – perhaps since Ben was born.
‘You want to write a book about Mead and Jake’s family?’
‘Yes.’
There was a silence.
‘I’d have to think about it. Is that all right?’ Miranda lightly said.
Her smile was open, and warm with their long friendship, but Polly knew suddenly and for certain that there were quicksands between them that no one had even ventured upon. Not yet.
All she could do was nod in acquiescence, shielding her passion as discreetly as she could manage.
‘Of course. It’s only the vaguest idea. I might not even be able to interest a publisher in the end,’ she said.
Nic came in. She held her arms akimbo, palms of her hands pressed to her belly. She was flushed and tousled from sleep, half yawning and half smiling. She wasn’t ordinarily a pretty girl, but with the glow of pregnancy and relaxation on her she looked beautiful.
‘Can I make a cup of tea, Miranda? This baby is kicking so hard you can probably see it from over there.’
Polly stood up and went to her. When Nic guided her hand to it, she distinctly felt the pressure of a tiny heel against her fingers.
Here then was the continuum, made flesh beside her.
The race start line was on Meddlett green.
A trestle table had been set up and a sizeable crowd of runners milled in front of it, registering their names and collecting their race numbers from officials. The more serious ones performed stretches or ran up and down the road in mysterious spurts. Whole families turned up to compete. Friends and supporters muffled in scarves and hats crowded on either side of a tape stretched beneath a ‘St Andrew’s Church Tower Appeal’ banner.
‘This is all right,’ Toby approved.
He, Sam and Alpha were in lycra running tights with reflector flashes down the sides, and they had brought safety pins to attach the numbers to their vests. All three of them were regular runners, although Alpha protested she wasn’t fit at all and probably wouldn’t even get around the course.
‘Yeah, right,’ Omie mocked, who knew her sister better than that.
Selwyn wore khaki shorts over a pair of Polly’s leggings, and his all-purpose trainers were decorated with paint splatters.
He passed his number across his chest as though it might attach itself by suction.
‘What am I supposed to do with this?’
The others each donated one of their pins, and Alpha patiently secured the number for him. Selwyn at once set off on a circuit of the duck pond, arms and legs pumping, sending the ducks scattering for shelter under the willows. Children stared at him. He drew a round of applause and catcalls from the teenagers wheeling on their bikes in front of the Griffin. The vicar and his wife passed through the crowd with trays of mince pies, wishing everyone good luck. There was an atmosphere of rising hilarity as more runners turned up, these later arrivals mostly plump, wearing comedy costumes or noticeably hung over. Compared with a huge man decked in a tulle ballet skirt, Selwyn began to look like a serious contender. Soon the joke entrants outnumbered the serious contestants, whose sinewy legs and self-absorbed warm-ups now suggested overkill.
Everyone from Mead had come to see off their runners except Joyce, who said she wasn’t interested in a whole lot of people dashing about like schoolkids in the freezing cold, and Polly who offered to stay behind and keep her company. The box of half-read letters was calling to her, and she declared that Selwyn was absurd to insist on running five kilometres in the wake of three children in their twenties.
Colin got out his camera. Selwyn posed between Sam and Toby, with Alpha in front of her father. Selwyn circled her with his long arms and beamed over her shoulder. The bare willows and the pond made a pretty backdrop. Miranda stood watching them. Several people in the crowd said ‘Hello, again’ to her, with the unspoken rider that it was a surprise to see her in the village twice in as many days.
Nic stood out in her red coat. One of the lean figures in running kit dropped back from the keen contingent who were pressing up to the tape for an advantageous start position. Alpha, Toby and Sam were now amongst them.
‘Hi again,’ Kieran said to Nic.
‘Hello.’ Her face was pink, probably from the wind. ‘You look pretty fit. Are you going to win?’
‘I don’t think so. But wish me luck anyway.’
‘Three minutes,’ the vicar boomed through a megaphone, looking as if he were presiding over a 1950s school sports day. There was a general stripping off of fleeces and gloves.
Standing beside Amos, Katherine was reminded of all the afternoons of the boys’ school days when she had turned up to football matches and track events. There was even the same smell of fresh mud and open Thermoses. Amos had been a less regular supporter in terms of physical presence, although to do him justice he had always been proud of his sons’ sporting achievements. She reached up to touch the necklace he had presented her with yesterday. It was weighty, massive with the implication of money spent, and it felt like a shackle. She had the urge to tear it off. He saw the gesture and she knew he read her thoughts, and was waiting with his lawyer’s precision to see whether she would do it or not.
Suddenly, like equals rather than adversaries, they smiled at each other. Katherine lowered her hand.
Amos was brutal in his way, but sometimes his care for other people surprised her. On Christmas Eve he had fetched a blanket, wrapped the dog’s broken body in it and placed it in the boot of the car. He had waited with the distraught girl until it became clear that the car and its driver had vanished into the fog, and then he had led her away and driven her home.
Amos would be all right. Toby and Sam would be all right too, she realized. She felt dizzy at the prospect of freedom.
‘One minute,’ the vicar called.
Two people stood at each end of the tape, waiting to lift it. The runners formed a broad column, singlets and lycra at the front, children and ballerinas and a single defiant Elvis at the back. There was a rowdy attempt from the crowd to count down the seconds. Toby had his forefinger to the button of his stopwatch.
‘On your MARKS,’ shouted the vicar. ‘And…GO.’
The tape broke, there was a cheer, and the front runners streaked away. The rest of the field jostled over the start line and the
ragged column poured towards a lane at the far end of the village. The finish line, via woodland tracks and bridle paths, lay in the grounds of Lockington Hall.
‘Go, Kieran,’ Nic shouted and clapped her hands as he passed. He looked back over his shoulder at her and almost tripped.
‘Who was that?’ Ben jealously frowned.
‘Kieran,’ Nic said.
Colin snapped the runners as they went by the post. Selwyn raced by, already at full stretch, his arms windmilling and his mouth open in a wild smile for the picture.
The spectators watched until the last runners turned the bend of the lane and headed for a belt of dense woodland blanketing the same low ridge that sheltered Mead. Then the groups started to break up, some heading for home, others regretting the fact that the Griffin was closed. With the rest of the Mead contingent following her, Miranda led the way to the short-cut that would take the walkers across to Lockington. Only Amos said he wouldn’t come.
He turned aside to where he had parked the Jaguar, in the same spot near the church as on Christmas Eve. He drove back along the Mead road as far as the gate to Jessie’s cottage, and then pulled in on to the verge.
No one answered his knocking, and, like Geza he moved to the window and peered inside. But unlike Geza, he went on to the back door of the cottage. On the way he pushed open the door of a tumbledown outhouse. The body of the dog still lay there, wrapped in the lap rug that – he now remembered – had last been used in the summer for a Glyndebourne picnic.
Amos didn’t even knock at the back door. He put his shoulder against the flaking paintwork and shoved hard. The screws holding a small bolt on the inside immediately pulled loose, and the door scraped open.
‘Jessie?’ he shouted as he stepped inside. There was no response, but a hint of warmth in the clammy interior air indicated that she had recently been there.
He shouted louder. ‘Jessie?’