by Connie Monk
‘I can’t imagine my life without her.’
After he’d gone Louisa went back to the electric fire and lit another cigarette. How far away her immaculately tidy, functional and characterless flat seemed. Already after just a few hours the spell that was Violet was reaching out to her. For three months she would be working in Reading, but there were weekends when she would be here. With that reassuringly in mind, she at last climbed the stairs, took off Violet’s silk robe, looked at her unfamiliar reflection in the glamorous black nightdress and then climbed into Violet’s bed.
But working five and a half days of every week she found a trip to Lexleigh each weekend wasn’t possible. That’s what she told herself, but the real reason was less straightforward. Leaving the firm where she had worked for fourteen years in one capacity or another, leaving the town that held all of her past, held no regrets. On the contrary, it was as if a door to freedom had been opened to her. And that’s the way she wanted it to remain. When she next arrived in Lexleigh it must be to begin her new life, and for that she was prepared to wait until she could close the door on all that had made up her thirty years. She was like a chrysalis about to burst from its shell and become a butterfly.
Two
Harold saw that the light was still on in the sitting room when he got home. He was very fond of Bella, dear sweet child as he thought of her, but after the emotional evening he had spent in the house so full of memories of Violet he felt he couldn’t face her chatter. So, closing the front door as loudly as he could to be sure to attract Leo and her to the fact he was home, he called out to them as he crossed the hall to the stairs.
‘I’ve been meeting our new neighbour. I’ll go on up to bed now. Sleep well, you two.’
‘Oh, Dad, do come and chat. What did you think of her? Nice, isn’t she? I met her when I went for a walk.’ Bella opened the sitting-room door.
‘She seemed very pleasant.’ How pleased he was with his cheerful voice. ‘I didn’t know there was anyone there – you didn’t say. I called there when I saw a light on – thought someone must have broken in. We had a nice evening. Now, my dear, I’m going to hit the hay.’
She crossed the unlit hall and raised her face to his. ‘Now we know you’re home OK we’ll come up soon. Night night, Dad, God bless.’ In the dark her kiss landed on his chin then, as he started up the stairs, she went back to Leo. ‘There, silly, you said not to tell him. But it’s done him a world of good to meet someone new. And she’s really ever so nice. It’s a pity she’s not moving in straight away – she has to give three months’ notice at work.’
‘Lucky her. I wish I could say the same. By this time tomorrow we’ll be back in that concrete jungle again. Coming here as often as I have these last few weeks makes me realize just how much I detest being stuck in that ruddy factory. How about living a gypsy life, carrying our home behind the car, moving where the spirit guides us, meeting new people?’ It was a pipedream, not a serious question.
‘Oh, Leo, you are funny,’ she chuckled, ‘a real old dreamer. And anyway, real life is much better than dashing from pillar to post not knowing what you’re looking for. We have a really comfy flat and soon we’ll start collecting up the things we need for a baby.’
‘I know. Lots of poor devils have little chance of getting their own homes. Oh, I know all that. Coming here, sniffing the country air instead of the hateful smoke of factory chimneys always unsettles me.’ Little did she guess the effort it cost him to smile at her and ruffle her honey-brown wavy hair. ‘The flat may be what you call cosy, but it’s not going to be suitable for much longer.’
‘I know. Can’t you just imagine Mrs Pyke’s face – you know, the haughty one from flat three – if we left a pram in the entrance hall,’ she chuckled.
‘Don’t know why I bought the wretched place. No one there would know the meaning of the word “fun”. We’ll have to start looking.’
She nodded, wriggling closer to him as she sat on the arm of his chair. ‘I don’t mind where we live so long as I’m with you,’ she said, sliding from her perch to lie back on his lap. ‘Dad’s gone on up, so shall we go to bed?’
‘Now there’s an invitation.’
‘Leo Carter, I love you so much that sometimes I’m frightened. If I hadn’t got you there’d be nothing.’
Raising his eyebrows in the quizzical way she adored, he moved his hand on the slight bump of which she was so proud. ‘Nothing?’ he teased, while, uninvited, the thought came to him of just how young she still was.
‘I’m ready for us to go to bed, aren’t you?’ she whispered, nuzzling her face against his neck.
‘Put like that, no man could resist.’
‘It’s my very favourite time, darling Leo, when we snuggle down together. Bed is the best place of all – with the door shut and the covers over us it’s our own world. Don’t you think that, when we cuddle down each night?’
‘At this moment my thoughts aren’t on cuddling down.’
He heard that familiar, contented chuckle and for a moment felt ashamed of his instinctive feeling of irritation. Surely he ought to be thankful that she was always willing when he wanted to make love; sweet, generous Bella was always there for him. And if a silent voice whispered to him that being there for him wasn’t the same as understanding and sharing what drove him, he pushed the thought away and drew her closer. Utterly content, she had no inkling of the workings of his mind.
Once upstairs they got ready for bed but when she raised her nightgown to slip it over her head she found it taken out of her hands.
‘You don’t need that,’ he told her, drawing her close.
‘But we shall be cold.’ Although that was what she said, leaning against him she could feel the warmth of his body as, still holding her close, he walked her backwards and gently pushed her down on the bed. ‘It would be warmer under the covers.’
‘No. I’ll make you warm.’
She wanted to remind him that she was gazing straight up at the light and it wasn’t nearly as romantic as when the light was out and there was nothing but themselves in their world. Darkness added a sense of mystery and, lying straight on top of the satin eiderdown, she couldn’t relax. She was always thrilled to know he wanted to make love to her and she really did wish she could get as excited about it as he did. Sometimes, just when she was loving the feeling of his warm body on hers she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the strangest sensation that pushed everything else out of her mind, as if she reached a goal she’s been straining towards. Usually, though, all she wanted was to know that she was the one who heightened her beloved Leo’s passion and who held him close when he reached his climax.
‘Let’s turn the light off, Leo, darling. It’s so much more romantic in the dark – and it’s shining in my eyes.’ She thought he was going to do as she said as he moved a little away from her, but instead he dropped to kneel on the floor, gently forcing her legs further apart as he rested his head on her and she felt the moist warmth of his mouth as his tongue caressed her. She wished he wouldn’t. Why did he want to do that? She felt uncomfortable, as if he were intruding on something too personal to share. This wasn’t making love. He’d never done this before and she did wish he’d stop so that they could settle into bed and do it properly. But perhaps this was part of being married. It wasn’t that she didn’t want them to know each other as if they were one person, really belonging – of course she did – but while he was down there on his knees she felt like a ‘thing’, not a person. Pushing herself on her elbows she sat up and then reached out so that she held his shoulders. Surely that would tell him she wanted him to come close.
‘Come back. Let’s love properly. Keep the light on if you want to. I’ll shut my eyes.’
She might as well have dowsed him with cold water. Getting up, he turned his back and reached for the light switch, then crossed the dark room to draw back the curtains and open the window while she got into bed, satisfied now that she could look forward to what woul
d come next. When he got in by her side and she wriggled close she was surprised and hurt to find that his earlier passion had faded. She had failed him.
‘Leo, it was just that you were so far away down there on your knees and I was getting so cold.’ She drew his hand to where a minute or so ago his mouth had been, pressing it tight against her as she moved her hips and arched her back. She knew that she had repaired the damage of her previous rejection. ‘I want to feel us so close we are one person. Please love me, Leo, please.’
That night she had no desire to strive for any goal except to find her own reward in knowing that in her he had found his own fulfilment. A few minutes later as she settled comfortably for sleep she had no doubt that he did the same. But how could he when he knew there was something fundamentally important lacking? He was ashamed of the anger that filled him as he imagined the years ahead. He was ashamed of the thought that he had been a fool not to have been careful she didn’t get pregnant. His memory took him back to the evening of her birthday when he had taken her out to dinner. She had been as excited as a child at her first party, but a combination of champagne and wine had led her to make obvious what he had already known: he was the centre of her universe. He’d enjoyed the admiring glances of other diners, for surely she was the loveliest creature he had ever seen, her figure agile, her wavy hair such an unusual honey-brown colour with a tinge of gold in the sunlight and her features delicately perfect. Fringed with abnormally long lashes her dark blue eyes had begged him to love her. It would have taken a man with a stronger will than his to listen to the inner voice reminding him that in experience she was a child, a love-struck child with the body of a woman. He had taken her back to his flat and together they had listened to the hooters sounding as the nearby church clock struck midnight. The start of a New Year: 1957. He had known she was slightly drunk, for sober she would have held on to her reserve. Instead, with blatant lack of finesse, she had wordlessly played the temptress and on that night – no doubt thanks to her alcohol-produced lack of inhibitions – she had held nothing back. But the occasion had never been repeated. Was that the real Bella? Or had that been simply the result of birthday excitement, dining in the best restaurant in town, drinking her first champagne? Was the devoted, gentle girl who would always be there for him, not as a duty but because her joy came from making him happy, all he was ever to know? He vowed he would never hurt her; she was as good as she was beautiful and she would be his lifelong companion. Truly he loved her, but not in the way he had supposed a man would feel for his wife. And the thought came to him, Not as Dad had for Violet. He didn’t ask himself why he could think of what had been between his father and Violet without resentment; it had been something he had always accepted and understood, although it had been something no one mentioned. David had never liked her, he mused, looking back down the years, but he never went out with them or had any fun like I did. She was something special; I used to think so even when I was a kid. And Mum never seemed bothered. Poor old Mum, she never seemed to look further than what the farm was producing, that and the home. Perhaps men were different from women, he told himself. He was no inexperienced youth and he’d had women friends, but no thought of marriage. He should never have let himself take what Bella had so blatantly offered during that first hour of the year; for him it had meant no more than a passing whim whilst to her it had been the experience that had changed her life – changed both their lives as it had turned out. But without the coming child, would he have found it in his heart to cast Bella aside? She would be a good wife to him, loyal and caring; she would be a perfect mother to their children. So what was wrong? Why didn’t he look to the future with enthusiasm?
Turning over, he was determined to sleep, but his mind moved on to his father. It bothered him to think of him living alone in the farmhouse with just Eva Johnson coming across from her cottage every day to ‘give the place a tidy through’ as she put it, making sure that when she went home she left him a meal that, at the most, only needed warming in the oven. No wonder the poor chap looked so peaky. He’d have another talk to him about getting more help on the land. If he’d been down to The Retreat talking to the woman who said she was buying it perhaps he had come to an arrangement with her that she wouldn’t go ahead. Then they could put a manager in to oversee the growing of the crops and take the poor old lad back to live with them. Bella would keep him cheerful; he’d enjoy having a pretty girl making a fuss of him.
Then his mind jumped back to Bella. She deserved a husband who really adored her, a young chap with a steady job who would look for nothing more than an unchanging routine, who would make love to her in a warm bed a couple of times a week and be as satisfied as she was herself. Poor kid. Even being part of a family makes her happy. She’s had no proper life at all, evacuated when she was so young that she can’t remember much about her parents, both killed early in the war. What a rotten life for her. Evacuated until the end of the war and then put in an orphanage.
Turning over to face her, he put his arm protectively across her. Bella was safe with him now. As he had many times before, he promised himself that he would be the best husband he could possibly be. She deserved nothing less. And, as he also had so often, he silently vowed that he would make her happy always.
As Louisa worked out her three months’ notice and the solicitors dealt with probate, for her the time seemed to drag. Moving away from her flat was so different from moving into it. She remembered how proud she had been seven years previously when she left her bedsit and rented her first real home. Now she saw it differently. The furniture wasn’t her own; the curtains weren’t of her choosing and neither were the rugs. Soon she would be in her own home and even though everything there had been provided by the aunt she could hardly remember, the thought pleased her and gave her a sense of belonging. The only thing that surprised and disappointed her was that the garden was a shambles, but in the life she envisaged ahead of her she would have plenty of time to work on it.
At last the day came when, with her portmanteau collected by the carrier from the railway station, she locked her front door, returned the key to the agent and then walked briskly to the station. This was the beginning of a new life; no longer would her days be ruled by the clock. She had always accepted the town she had grown up in, the sound of the biscuit factory hooter at the beginning and end of the working day, the vinegary smell from the much smaller factory where sauce was made, the swish of the trolley buses which had replaced the old tramcars whose tracks had been just the width to trap her bicycle wheel when she’d been a child. In her last week she’d become aware of all the sights and sounds and smells she had lived amongst and hardly noticed.
But as the train shuddered into life and pulled away from the station, she had no feeling of nostalgia. Ought she to be scared of what the future held? Perhaps she would find no one wanted to entrust their accounts to a woman! Well, if that were the case she would do something else. Her life had been orderly and unchanging, just as she’d taken for granted it would continue. Now, instead of being frightened of the uncertainty of what lay ahead, it brought a challenge that was the most exciting thing that had ever happened. It was up to her to make a place for herself in Lexleigh, just as it was up to her to become recognised in her profession.
She had closed the door on The Retreat on a windy Monday morning at the end of March; she turned the key in the lock and took her first step into her own home on the first day of July. Her portmanteau wouldn’t be delivered until the following day so all she had to unpack from the weekend bag were the necessities for one night, food for the evening and toiletries. All this was now officially hers. Tomorrow she would look in all the drawers and cupboards, not prying into someone else’s life but knowing that she owned every stick and stone of it. And tomorrow, too, she would walk up to the farm and tell Mr Carter that she was living here now. Perhaps she was being fanciful, she told herself, but because he and Violet had been so close it made her feel that already she had fitt
ed into a slot here.
So next morning that’s what she did, seeing Ridgeway farmhouse for the first time.
A middle-aged man came across the yard to meet her as she approached, touching the peak of his battered trilby hat as he spoke.
‘’Morning, ma’m,’ he said, seeming to scrutinize her as he came nearer. ‘Can I be of any assistance?’
‘Good morning. Yes, please, you can if you can tell me where I can find Mr Carter. Would he be in the house or in the fields somewhere?’
‘You’re a week too late. His son took him off to have a break with him and his wife. Offhand I can’t tell you his address, but if you like to bang on the door of the cottage, the one with the well in the front garden, my missus has got it written down.’
‘No, never mind. I’ve just moved into The Retreat.’
‘Well, I’m damned. But I might have guessed. One look at you and I might have guessed.’
‘Mr Carter said I looked like my aunt, but you can never see resemblances yourself, can you?’
‘You’ll know him quite well, I suppose, after all the years they …’ the sentence trailed into silence.
‘No, not that well.’ Today Louisa might have left her old life behind her but her new-found freedom didn’t stretch to discussing with this stranger the evening she had met Harold Carter. But, hearing the tone of her reply as curt, she added, ‘I’ve met Bella. Do they come often?’
‘They did, in the early days after it happened …’
‘After Mrs Carter died so suddenly, yes, Bella told me about that. She said they tried to get here at the weekends. But of course that left him alone all through the week. So they’ve taken him back with them. And you’re looking after things here?’
‘Ay. You could say that, I suppose. They’ve been trying to carry him off with them every time they came, but he couldn’t be persuaded. What the difference was this time I can’t tell you but he went off like an obedient child. I dare say he realized that Bella’s time was getting closer and feared they wouldn’t keep getting here so often. To be honest, it makes no difference to the work whether he’s here or there.’ He thrust the prongs of his fork into the ground, seeming to indicate he was settling for a chat. ‘He and I are much of an age and when he married and came here to his wife’s family’s place, her dad was really the guv’nor, although his old father was still alive too at that time. Crippled with arthritis the old man was, so not much use on the land. Both of us new to producing veg to the scale we do here, his father-in-law took the two of us in hand; fine man, he was. Pity Mrs Carter hadn’t been born a boy – she would have been just such a one. But Harold Carter, he blew hot and cold, if you understand my meaning. Picked the job up quick as you like and for a while seemed to have his heart in it right enough, but he never was the staying kind. Now me, I wouldn’t do anything else. Best job in the world, if you ask me. But after a few years, with the old man (and granddad too) gone and him left in charge, that’s when he took fright, if you ask me. Looked ahead and saw the rest of his life never changing, season after season, crop after crop each year – ah, that’s when he got fidgety. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, even if I couldn’t understand. Takes all sorts, I suppose, but just look around; can you tell me of a better way to earn a crust?’