‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’ She spoke easily enough but she felt the beginning of a sense of unease. He took her by the arm to steady her across the uneven ground, focusing the beam of his torch carefully onto its treacherous surface.
Inside the small, low-ceilinged space, he helped her out of the borrowed wet-weather gear, sat her beside his fire, uncorked a bottle of Chateau Neuf du Pape, poured her a glass and wished her a merry Christmas. She touched the rim of her wineglass against his and sipped thoughtfully, taking stock of his appearance.
He seemed different. Almost a year, she realised suddenly, had passed since she had seen him. Since then the slow recovery from his breakdown had continued. He looked fit and appeared to be stronger and more robust than she remembered, and very different from the stressed and exhausted creature he had been when she first met him, only weeks before the catastrophe that had put an end to his career in the RAF.
He seemed relaxed and sat watching her appreciatively. She had pulled off her muddy boots and was sitting on his sagging, sheepskin covered sofa, wearing slacks and a turtle-necked sweater, both of which were the same soft, blue-grey colour. The firelight illuminated her smooth skin and was reflected in her eyes. Her dark, damp hair framed her face and merged into the shadows. After they had exchanged a few pleasantries a silence fell between them.
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have come,’ she said finally, engaging his eyes and surprising him.
‘Why ever not?’
‘Because… I don’t know,’ she was sitting on the edge of the sofa, her glass in both her hands. ‘But… I’d somehow got the impression you wanted me to.’
‘I do want you to. What makes you think I don’t?’ She shook her head, half smiling.
‘I don’t know.’ There was another pause ‘You seem…sort of…complete, Chris. As though you don’t need…interruptions.’
She had noticed that the table under the window was loaded with books of various shapes and sizes. There were piles of handwritten notes and a scatter of loose foolscap pages. She got to her feet and, carrying her wineglass, went to the table and examined the titles on the spines of the books. ‘You’re studying something!’ she said, flicking through the pages of a thick textbook.
‘Arboriculture,’ he told her, watching her. ‘The history and cultivation of trees. I’m not too bad on the practical side but I needed to mug up on the technical stuff if I’m to have any chance of qualifying for a job I’m after.’
‘Very impressive!’ Georgina said, realising that the tone of their conversation had reverted to the brittle, predictable exchanges of their early acquaintance, when their backgrounds had resulted in a relationship that neither had enjoyed but which had been irrevocably changed by his breakdown and her reaction to it. Before she could explore this situation, he spoke again. He had realised, he explained, while he had been living and working alone in the forest, that life had to go on after his crack-up.
‘I had hoped, at one point, as you know, that it might have involved you. The “life going on” bit I mean. But…well, it didn’t, did it? I mean, you went your way and I, after a while, found a way of my own and now I’m heading in that direction.’
She studied him for some time and then, embarrassed, returned to the sofa, arranged herself more comfortably than before and sipped her drink. She nearly told him how fine the wine was but didn’t want their conversation to slide into chit-chat about the obvious delights of her favourite red.
‘It’s odd,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s as if you have been three different people since I’ve known you.’
‘Three?’ he asked. He seemed, to her, to be only politely interested.
‘Yes. The first was before your crack-up, when you were very stressed and so clever at hiding it that it was hard to see past the performance – the RAF hero and all that. The second was when you were sick. You were completely different then and I rather liked you.’ He laughed and asked her whether that was because he had made her feel like Florence Nightingale. She smiled, shook her head and then became serious again.
‘You were…I don’t know…you were sort of…’
‘Needy,’ he told her. ‘You felt protective.’
‘Not only.’
‘No. Not only. You also felt sorry for me. And a bloke doesn’t like it when his girl feels sorry for him.’ Georgina shrugged. She was too honest to deny her feelings or the logic of his reaction to them.
‘You were going through a bad time,’ she said, and again they sat in silence while a gust of wind moved noisily up the valley and through the trees surrounding the cottage.
‘Look, Georgie,’ he began gently. ‘I’ve been up here for over a year now, quietly getting myself back together in the only way I know how, while you,’ he smiled at her, ‘must have been having one hell of a time!’
‘The ATA, you mean? Well, yes. It has been amazing. Incredible, really, when I think about it. Which, in fact, I seldom have time to do!’ She was conscious of prattling on. ‘l would never have considered myself capable of half the things I’ve done. I’ve met some fantastic people, and…’
‘Georgie!’ he interrupted her, ‘You don’t have to tell me! I know! I’ve done it! I know what fliers are like. All that gung-ho camaraderie. And the fear. The gut-wrenching fear. I know, more or less, what happens to people in wartime.’ He paused, smiling, she thought, slightly indulgently, at her. ‘Believe me I do know how things have been for you this last twelve months.’ He refilled his glass and drank fast. A first and possibly the only sign that his nerves were not quite as steady as she had thought. She would have preferred it if he had used the word ‘guessed’ instead of ‘know’.
‘Yes, of course you know what it’s like. I didn’t mean to suggest that you didn’t. Sorry!’ She wondered why she was apologising. Of course he didn’t know precisely how it had been for her. Certainly not all of it. How could he? Nevertheless the tension between them seemed to have eased slightly. Christopher heaved himself up out of his deep armchair and lobbed a couple of pieces of wood onto his fire, dropped back into the chair, offered her a cigarette and, when she refused, lit one for himself.
‘You’ll have had experiences,’ he said, flicking his spent match into the fire. ‘And I don’t only mean professional ones. I know what goes on. How the situation everyone is in intensifies feelings. Emotions get sharpened. Inhibitions get overridden. It’s all part of what the war does to people. So, no doubt you will have had some “adventures”.’ He suddenly smiled. ‘Don’t feel guilty! I’m not the least bit jealous! Honestly!’
‘As it happens you have no cause to be.’ She spoke quietly, staring into her half-empty wineglass. ‘But you’re right about the opportunities. There were lots of those.’ He was looking at her with a new intensity, his cigarette burning down towards his fingers. ‘The women I am working with are amazing. So professional. All, in their various ways, attractive, some beautiful. There was plenty of attention, if you wanted it. I noticed that the younger ones, whether or not they were married or even only spoken for, fell into two groups. Some of them were what my mother would call “free with themselves”. One or two had long-term and very passionate affairs, usually with fliers. Others…didn’t. I was one of those. I did, once, get very close to someone. We were going to spend a leave together. But, in the end, although I did have strong feelings for him at the time, I decided against it.’ He was watching her closely.
‘Why?’
‘For a long time I didn’t know! I still can’t explain it. I felt… I don’t know…as though there was something blocking my view of things. Something getting between me and…this guy. Something. Or someone.’ She sat for a moment. ‘Then,’ she said, almost inaudibly, ‘a few weeks ago, I realised what it was that was getting in the way. So you see, that was why…’ She stopped and sat looking at him.
He had changed, she realised, over the months they had been apart. Of course he had. She had been a fool not to appreciate that in her absence and as the mont
hs passed, he would heal, physically and mentally. He had become, she understood suddenly, a third version of himself – the recovered Christopher. Like the first, he found her attractive. Unlike the second, he had thrown off the needy, forlorn, dependent version of himself, from whom, after she had played her part in his initial recovery, filling the gap left by his distant and disengaged father, she had withdrawn, disappointing him by forsaking the pacifism she herself had taught him and involving herself in a war he deplored. Now, a year older and although not too young to explore their own feelings, they were still too young to reveal their findings to each other or even, perhaps, to dare to try to define them for themselves. Possibly it was fear of damage that made them cautious, protecting themselves from exposure and not fully comprehending what was at stake. Unaware of how easily a faulty decision at this age can scar a lifetime.
Georgina, following her own path and focused on it, had not properly considered Christopher, unrealistically expecting him to remain in the curious, suspended state in which his breakdown had left him and in which, she had assumed, his feelings for her would not alter. ‘You know where to find me,’ he had said almost a year ago, and yes, here he was, geographically in the same place but not emotionally, she understood now, with a sense of shock. He had been in love with her. Her withdrawal from his life, when she turned her back on pacifism just as he was adopting it, had hurt him. But he had recovered from her. He had taught himself to live without her. She had stupidly expected him to be waiting to welcome her back. To hold out his arms to her and take her to bed.
She was ready for him now. Over the last months she had begun to understand herself and she knew what she wanted and who it was she wanted. But Christopher wasn’t holding out his arms, nor did his expression suggest the reaction of a young lover to the immediate prospect of the consummation of his feelings for a girl with whom he had been in love for over a year.
She could have told him, almost without thinking and certainly without considering the consequences, that he was what had stood between her and the affair with Fitzy. Instead, she stood up and was about to shove her arms into the sleeves of Lionel’s waterproof jacket when Christopher got quickly to his feet and took it from her.
‘No, Georgie. Don’t go. I need to explain to you what’s happened to me. Where I’ve got to and what I have become. Sit down.’ She sat, staring gravely at him.
‘I feel so stupid,’ she said.
‘Why? You’re not stupid! You couldn’t possibly know the effect this past year has had on me! Perhaps I am this third person. The third version of myself that you were just talking about. Not the first version, the exhausted mess, strutting about, trying to be normal until I simply couldn’t fly any more and everything fell apart. And not the second, the raving lunatic that you visited in the nut-house, or the recovering “walking-wounded” Christopher that I was a year ago…’
‘And felt sorry for?’
‘And felt sorry for, bless you.’ He took her hand, kissed it briefly and gave it back. ‘Bless you, Georgie, for doing that and being there! No one else was. My father couldn’t cope with it, poor chap. He was, and still is, as embarrassed as hell about what happened to me. All that “lacking moral fortitude” stuff and going AWOL and getting discharged – it crucified him! He can’t look me in the eye, Georgie! My own father! And you, darling, darling girl, were “sorry” for me! No. Don’t apologise for that! It was a logical and a very sweet reaction. But not one that develops into a healthy love affair, right?’ She could not contradict him.
‘So…what now?’ She asked him. ‘What do you mean by “what I have become”? Are you going to stay up here in the forest and live like a hermit? Or become a priest? A missionary, perhaps? In darkest Africa?’ They were laughing now.
‘No. I’m going to emigrate,’ he said, and saw her smile fade and her eyes widen in astonishment. ‘I’ve got more studying to do and a thesis to write but, if things go according to plan, in a few months’ time I’ll be qualified for this job I’ve applied for. It’s in New Zealand. Working for their Forestry Commission.’ There was a long pause while Georgina stood, transfixed, her face blank, her lips slightly parted.
‘Whoops!’ Christopher smiled. ‘Now who’s doing the big double take?’ She managed to laugh with him as he refilled her glass. He watched her take two gulps of the wine. Then she sat down on the sofa and stared into the fire.
‘Well, that’s wonderful!’ she said eventually, conscious of trying to sound relaxed and positive, even slightly detached. ‘I’d just…never thought…about you…not being here, somehow. And New Zealand couldn’t be further away, could it, from all of us? All the people who have made you feel… How have we made you feel, Chris? And who, other than me, is involved?’ She considered for a while. ‘Your father is, of course. I could never understand the way he reacted when you…when you…’
‘Cracked up?’
‘Yes. And nor could Alice.’
‘Alice?’
‘Yes, Alice. She was very concerned about you and…and about him.’
‘Was she? How very kind of her! But why about him?’
‘She’s fond of him, Chris. Possibly more than she realises, I think. Oh, please don’t tell her I said that!’
‘I mustn’t tell her what you think she thinks of my father…?’
‘The thing is – well, one of the things – is that although she is fond of him she feels that his treatment of you, when you…when you really needed him…was so awful that she, well…rather hated him! Everyone at the hostel did!’ Christopher was almost laughing at her.
‘That was extraordinarily supportive of you all! I had no idea how much effect my disaster was having!’
‘Of course you hadn’t. But they saw you, Chris, when the military police arrested you. They saw the state you were in! And they saw your father turn away, yes, literally turn away! No one could understand it. It was why I came to visit you in the hospital.’
‘Because he refused to?’
‘Right. Until the day he brought your discharge papers to you.’
‘I remember,’ he said. ‘You came to see me that day, too, didn’t you?’ She nodded and then watched as he sat still, his mind digesting what she had told him.
‘At the beginning,’ Georgina said, ‘Alice defended him. She was always certain there had to be a reason for him to behave as he did. But, as the months passed and you stayed up here, alone, and he stayed down there, alone, I think she felt there must be something lacking in him. Which I think is sad because…’ She let the sentence hang. She could see that his mind was exploring another tangent.
‘Yeah…well, my relationship with Pa has always been a bit dodgy,’ he said. ‘It started when we lost my mother. I think I reminded him of her too much – she and I were very alike, physically. Seeing me about the place made it harder for him to come to terms with her absence than if I hadn’t been there. Which, a lot of the time, I wasn’t, actually, what with boarding school and then flying school and then the RAF… Oh, he was very generous, all that sort of thing, but…it probably disappointed him when farming didn’t appeal to me. Anyhow we were never what you’d call close. And then came the big one! I cracked up, went AWOL and ended up in a madhouse! I wasn’t exactly every father’s idea of the perfect offspring! Sons don’t come much more disappointing than me!’
‘Alice thinks there’s more to it than that,’ Georgina said.
‘More? Heaven forfend, Georgie!’
‘And you keep using the word “disappointment”, Chris! Why? It’s not “disappointing” when your son experiences what you went through. Alice thinks something must have caused your father to react as he did. As though there has to be some…some excuse for it.’
‘And what do you think, Georgie?’
‘I think it was unforgivable. And it still is unforgivable! And he deserves to lose you.’ Christopher laughed. She was thinking that she, too, deserved to lose him.
‘Well, it’s true that it’s largely be
cause of him that I want to get away from here. I don’t think I can face spending the rest of my life avoiding eyes that are so full of reproach.’ He reached forward and flicked his cigarette stub into the fire. ‘You never told me what it was that “got between you” and your affair with this flier fellow.’
For a moment she looked at him. Then she lowered her eyes and shook her head.
‘Christ!’ he said suddenly. ‘It wasn’t anything to do with me, was it?’ She wasn’t sure whether he would have been pleased if she had admitted that it had been because of him that she had withdrawn from her arrangement with Fitzy. Maybe, for Christopher, it would have complicated things. Muddied the waters of his apparently clear-cut decision to emigrate. He looked sharply at her, trying to read her, and then, sensing that his intensity was disconcerting her, busied himself refilling their glasses.
It would be so easy, Georgina realised, to admit that he was right and that her arrival at the cottage demonstrated her willingness to continue and further their relationship. In this scenario he would have been overwhelmed with happy surprise. He would have kissed her, they would have gone to bed and in the morning, over bacon and eggs, they would have discussed the future and he would have said, ‘Come to New Zealand with me!’ as though that would have been the easiest, happiest and simplest thing imaginable. Which, of course, they would both have known it was not.
A violent gust of wind howled through the trees and struck the solid old building. The door and the tiny windows rattled and creaked under the onslaught.
‘’Struth!’ Christopher said ‘I think you’re stuck here for the night, Miss Webster! Oh, I’m not suggesting any impropriety! I have a bed in the room through that door and this sofa, I’m sure you will agree, is much more comfortable than it looks. So…no strings… Right?’ They both knew there were strings. What they were uncertain of was how strong the strings were and where they would lead them. He got to his feet.
The Girl at the Farmhouse Gate Page 21