Vanessa was pointing now. ‘Look,’ she said; ‘down there. There’s the river. It’s like a scaly snake going round the town, isn’t it? And over there.’ She pointed to the right. ‘You can see for miles and miles, open countryside.’ She came towards him and put her hands on his thick, broad chest before she said, ‘I’d like you to build our house here, Angus.’
He strained back from her, his face all creased up, his head moving slowly. Then with a jerk he was free from her hands, and he kicked the earth as he said, ‘Here! You must be bloody well barmy, woman.’
‘I’d—I’d like it built here, Angus.’ She was smiling now. ‘I can see it. I came out last week and measured.’
‘You what!’ His shout resounded down the valley.
‘That’s it, shout.’ She nodded at him. ‘You’ll hear the echo of it from up here.’
He spoke a few tones lower now as he said, ‘You came up here and measured …?’
She stared at him. She thought he was going to choke. She felt strangely calm now, at peace, and, more strangely still, in control of the situation…and him.
‘Yes, I came up here and measured. I want it long and low, and spreading, with a paved terrace all about it. And that,’ she swung round and pointed to the quarry, ‘that’ll be a lake with a boat on it. Two boats; and a diving board just there.’ She pointed farther away to the side.
‘Christ Almighty!’ He had his head bowed now, holding his brow.
‘How much land is there altogether, including…the hole?’
‘You’re not serious?’
‘I was never more serious. That’s a trite phrase.’ She smiled tightly. ‘What I should have said was, I’m doing something on my own for the first time in my life…besides having babies.’ Her smile widened. ‘How much land is there?’ she repeated.
‘About four acres.’
‘Very nice.’ She put her head on one side. ‘There used to be heather on this part of the fell at one time, and not so very long ago because I can remember it. We’ll have heather again, a heather garden, and shrubs, rhododendrons and azaleas. And the house on the rise here.’ She spread an arm wide. ‘And the gardens running down to the road on that side, and down to the lake on that.’
She was walking away from him now, down the slope towards the stone buildings. The door of the first one was half ajar and she went in and looked about her. The place had three rooms. One had been used as an office, the other two as a storage place for tools. She saw Emily living here, near Angus, yet still independent. She said so as soon as he came through the door.
He stood staring at her again. She looked different, more beautiful, more of a woman at this moment than she had ever been before; even after having the bairns. She was stately, mature, classy; aye, that was the word, classy. He was still furious inside at her, at the position she had put him in; at the way she had brought his castle tumbling down as if she had barraged it with a twelve-pounder, and now she was asking for favours…No, she wasn’t asking, she was demanding. She had her plans all made, and he knew that when he had time to simmer down and think he would realise that she was right about building above the hole. He knew that she had what he would never have, vision. And she had thought of his mother an’ all. He would remember that, aye.
She had her back to him and she startled him now by saying, ‘You don’t have to buy me any more, Angus.’
‘WHAT!’
‘You heard what I said. You still think you have to buy me; you’ve got to give me something to keep me with you. I’ve so many clothes I don’t know where to put them, and jewellery that I never wear. You know, Angus, your imagination is limited, even to your own capabilities and attraction. Oh yes, you’re always yelling about what you can do, but inside you’re always fearful of not being able to accomplish it. It’s true isn’t it?’ She waited, and when he didn’t answer she went on, ‘I’ve never really talked to you, shown you my real feelings, and you’ve been aware of this all the while, but I’d like you to know something now. It’s just this, that whether I knew it or not I loved you when I married you, and now I can’t love you any more…I mean,’ she moved her head hastily, ‘I can’t love you any more than I do; I’ll never be able to love you any more than I do at this moment. If you gave me everything in the world it wouldn’t make any difference. As to yourself, I don’t want you to change, no matter what you think. I know that only with you, and through you, can I be happy…There’s been a sort of vacant spot in me for a long time. You didn’t fill it, and the children didn’t fill it, so I thought it was the miss of my people, and my venture today was as much to see them and find out to make things right in other ways. But now I know that we’re cut off for good and all, the void, in a strange way, is filled, and…and I’m not unhappy about it now. One thing I know is that I want to start a life of my own, on my own plane, on our own plane, neither lower-class nor middle-class, but our class. Your mother and Rosie have ceased to stress how different I am from them by every look and word, yet they still look upon me in the same way as they did when I first came into their lives. Beneath the surface we haven’t mixed. But you and I are different, Angus; we’ve rubbed off on each other.’ Her voice was trembling as she finished, ‘I love you, Angus; and—and not just out of gratitude, as you’ve always thought.’
Her whole body trembled as he came towards her, and when he held her face between his rough hands she put hers up and cupped his. Slowly now he dropped his head forward onto her shoulder and muttered thickly, ‘Thanks, Van. Thanks.’ Then after a moment he added, haltingly, ‘I love you so much I’d go crazy without you. You know that, don’t you?’ Her heartbeats were sending the blood flowing fast through her veins and she was about to answer, ‘You’ll never have to be without me, darling, never.’ But that was a reply she could have made to Arthur Brett had she married him. It was a formal, acceptable, reply. What she wanted was a reply to fit the plane on which they were going to live from now on. If Emily had ever been called upon to reply to such a statement undoubtedly she would have said, ‘You might go crazy without me, lad, but there’s an even chance you’ll go bloody well stark staring mad with me.’ But she wasn’t Emily, and she couldn’t bring herself to swear to be amusing. Yet she wanted him to laugh as Emily could; she wanted to bring him back to normality; she wanted to set the pattern for the future, and so she ventured, in a good imitation of her mother-in-law’s voice, ‘Aye, I do, an’ I’ll Emily Cotton well see that you never get the chance to be without me, lad.’
The result was even more successful than she had anticipated. His head came up and he stared at her blankly for a moment; then he dropped it back on his shoulders and let out a roar of deep laughter, such laughter as she hadn’t heard from him for a long time. It seemed to sweep away the obsession of his years of striving, and, as he picked her up, as if she were a child, and swung her around, she laughed loudly too.
When they were standing still again, he gathered her into his arms and he looked into her face before he said, with a self-conscious shyness that was new, ‘Remember Mam’s bit of poetry? Well, I’m always saying it in me mind to you:
“I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon,
In the round tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away.”
‘Oh, Angus. Angus.’ For the first time in their joint lives her mouth dropped fiercely onto his.
Bower Place and Ryder’s Row were merging.
The End
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The Round Tower Page 35