"Well let me see," says her mother. "It's spring, so how about a fertility rite? The one where you pour a libation over the Stones. Gin, normally. There's a special incantation and you have to drink a glass with each of them. All right, I made that up. But honestly dahling, all you have to do is protect them from harm. And the heath, of course. That's all I ever did."
"But that's not a job! I'm not giving up my whole life just for that. How can they possibly be harmed? They're stones for goodness' sake. And no-one is going to touch my heath. They all know how I feel about it."
"You'd be surprised," says Hester. "Let me give you a tip: watch out for your sister."
"Miranda? What's she got to do with it?"
"Just watch out for her, that's all. I'm going now."
"Going? Where?"
"You don't want me so I'm going. You can get back to whatever it was you were thinking about. I'm sure it was much more fun than talking to your mother."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to. I'm not going to keep interfering. I know you think I will, but I won't. In fact, I'm not even going to speak again unless I'm spoken to. Will that suit? I'll just find a little corner to crawl into and keep quiet. Like I said, it's your life to live how you want. I've had mine, and now it's over. I'm just along for the ride. If you need me, call."
"Oh look, you don't have to be like that," protests Bella. "That's just making me feel rotten. You don't have to go."
Yes I do. I'm going. Just one little thing: they've put me in the churchyard. I know they meant well but I don't like it. It's not decent. I want to be up here with the others. You don't mind, do you? It shouldn't be all that difficult. In the old days you'd have had to build me a funeral pyre and everything, so at least I've saved you that trouble. And Bella . . ."
"Yes, Mummy?"
"Our replacement."
"Yes, yes, I know all about that. You don't have to tell me about that."
"Well I wouldn't leave it too long; accidents happen you know. I really thought we'd had it when you crashed the van."
"No, all right."
"And Bella . . . "
"Yes, Mummy?"
"Any chance of a fag?"
"No!"
CHAPTER NINE
Anyone wanting the Tenstone Estate Office will probably call first at the Post Office in the village from where he will be directed by Miss Ada Dunnock, 87, postmistress and church organist, to Manor Farm. Finding himself already parked in the main farmyard, aka the village street, our visitor will make his way on foot to the large, cob-and-thatch farmhouse and diffidently ring the bell. It is the sort one pulls rather than pushes, producing a distant metallic jangle and an embarrassment of rusty wire which he will still be feeding laboriously back into its hole when the tenant, George Dunnock, appears suddenly behind him, still chewing and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. A man of few words, he will brusquely indicate with a grunt and a wave (as might one who has done the same thing many times before and is thoroughly sick of it) an unmarked track behind the milking parlour, before going back to his lunch.
Picking his way up the gently sloping track, half obscured by a burgeoning growth of nettles and cow parsley, the visitor will find his way barred by a pair of tall, cast-iron gates, identical to those at the Manor's main entrance but without the circumjacent gatehouse. Beyond them lies a rather magnificent stable-yard of symmetrical design, with central hayloft and clock tower. Alas, the gates are locked. Indeed, by the appearance of their rusty padlock, and the clinging bindweed, they are seldom or never opened.
Somewhat at a loss, the company representative, local government official, tax inspector, or whoever he may be, will begin to retrace his steps. He will be disinclined to try the farmhouse again and risk the wrath of Farmer Dunnock and he cannot know that if only he were to push open the great, creaking door of the tithe barn and cross its dark interior he would find an identical portal on the other side, which, piercing as it does the manor park wall, is the regular, if rather unorthodox, entrance to the yard. Instead, he will probably elect to drive the quarter mile back to the gatehouse and there ask directions of Fieldfare, the elderly gardener, who can usually be found taking his ease among the mowers, tools and bags of compost, with a mug of tea at his elbow and the Financial Times open at the share prices. Begging pardon for not getting up (his tin leg is hanging on a hook on the wall) he will direct the visitor (perhaps with a brief digression on how he came to leave the original in a field hospital at Suez) along the curving gravel drive between the clipped pyramids of yew, past the great, ivy-clad house (here with an odd sense of trespass and a feeling of being watched), under the shade of three mighty cedars of Lebanon (reputed to be some of the oldest in the country) and into an echoing mews of garages.
Parking once again, he must now do battle with a stubborn five-bar gate (you have to lift as well as shove) to at last gain access to the stable yard, not fifty yards from where he first started. Here he must seek out an inconspicuous door, distinguished from the others only by the lack of a horse's head sticking out of it and a small brass plate bearing the legends: 'Tenstone Estates Ltd.' and 'Tenstone Ball Clay and Mining Company Ltd. Registered office.'
The door will probably be ajar, it is never locked, and peering inside he will no doubt be discomfitted after expending so much effort to find only a small, dank, flagstoned room containing a desk, a rickety Windsor chair, a threadbare sofa, a tottering pile of old Horse and Hound magazines and a single wooden filing cabinet. This last is used mainly to store shotgun cartridges, sundry traps and snares, equine medicaments, rat poison and the like, and to act as a table for an electric kettle, a jar of instant coffee and a tray of grubby mugs. Any paperwork appertaining to the running of the estate will be found, if at all, gathering dust on the desktop or the flyblown window sill, much of it yellowed to the point of illegibility and impaled on wire spikes, like a gamekeeper's gibbet.
Unless he is very fortunate, however, he will also find the place deserted. There is no secretary, and John Rook, abhorring all bureaucracy, prefers to be out with his gun or squiring Mrs Broadmayne about the estate. After a futile wait (short or long, depending on his nature) our man will no doubt make his way to the studded, oaken front door of the Manor House, to be greeted by an uncomprehending young woman whose only answer to all enquiries is: "Mrs Broadmayne, she no here!"
At this point our now thoroughly weary and discouraged pilgrim will probably decide to give the thing up as a bad job and repair to the Swan in Wimbleford for a smoked-salmon sandwich and a pint or two of Old Tom, an outcome that for thirty years has suited the directors and management of Tenstone Estates Ltd very well.
What a pity, then, that he didn't choose today to visit, Best Beloved, for, as you can see, we are all assembled.
"Christ, it's like an oven in here," complains Michael, running a finger round the inside of his collar. "Has the air conditioning packed up again?"
"Perhaps we could have the door fully open?" suggests Miranda, and John Rook, being nearest, reaches over to unbolt the bottom half. Outside, the empty stable yard swelters in the blazing afternoon sun. A passing chicken takes the opportunity to wander in, but finding nothing of interest wanders out again.
"Now this is what I call summer," says Rat, amiably. "Hope it lasts."
Veronica is sitting at the desk, trying to make sense of the untidy heap of documents spread before her. She peers at the manager over her glasses. "Who are Swift Agricultural Contractors? We haven't dealt with them before, have we?"
"Hedge cuttin'," grunts John, who is a man of fewer words even than George Dunnock, his father-in-law.
"Then shouldn't there be an invoice or something?"
He shrugs offhandedly. "Tis there somewhere, I d'say." He is leaning against the wall with his arms folded and a detached look on his dour, weather-reddened features.
"Well, I can't see it," says Veronica, irritably. "I wish you'd at least keep this stuff in some sort of order."
"It's green I think," says Miranda.
"Then it definitely isn't here," declares Veronica. "It's lost."
Rat, who for want of a chair is perched on the end of the desk, suddenly swings down and retrieves a grubby sheet of pale green paper from the floor. "To trimming hedges both sides," he reads. "Tenstones village to Wimbleford Road, six hundred and twenty-five pounds."
"That'll be it," says Veronica, looking reproachfully at John. Thank you, Ratty. I'm surprised we haven't had a reminder; it should have been paid ages ago."
"Six hundred pounds," muses Rat. "Is that reasonable? I suppose it is."
"It's cheaper than Charlie Brambling," says Miranda. "He wanted seven, nearly."
"Have we lost him then?" asks Veronica. "He's been doing us for years."
"It was his choice. I even let him see the other quote, but he wouldn't drop."
"What a pity. He always did such a good job."
"We did agree that everything should go out to tender now."
"Yes, but it just seems a shame."
"Anyun can flail an 'edge," mutters John.
Rat nods in agreement. "It's a poor sort of job at best. Pity we can't afford to lay 'em like we used to. You can't beat a nicely laid hedge." He turns to Michael, who is not a countryman. "In the old days, you see, when it was all done by hand, they used to drag down the branches, cutting half through them, and sort of interweave them, like a living fence. It was a real craft, none of this mechanical mangling, and of course it was very stock-proof. When I was a boy you'd often come across gangs of them, working away in all weathers."
"In smocks and buttoned gaiters, I suppose," smiles Michael.
"Yes, as a matter of fact they did, some of the older men anyway, with their smocks tucked up under their braces, as I recall, to keep them out of the way. That's going back sixty odd years of course, but they were still laying hedges round here until well after the war and a few do it even now."
"Not for sixpence a day and a flagon of cider, they don't," says Miranda. "And if they want more, we can't afford it."
"Five hundred metres of barbed wire," reads Veronica, frowning. "What was that for?"
Bella yawns. She is not interested in hedges, or barbed wire. She has bagged the old Windsor chair and dragged it into a corner where she is diverting herself by drawing smiley faces on the dirty window pane. Why couldn't they have done all this boring stuff separately? It's not as if it's very exciting watching someone write cheques, unless, of course, they're for oneself. A nice fat cheque would be extremely handy just now. She particularly needs to replace her wardrobe, most of which is still in London and is, in any case, rapidly going out of fashion; not that anyone would know or care in this godforsaken hole.
She is only here at all because her aunt insisted she be present at the first formal meeting of the new board. Tenstones Estates Ltd (and, nominally, Tenstones Ball Clay Ltd) are now to be owned by Aunty Veronica, Miranda and herself, Aunty retaining her half share while she and Miranda inherit their mother's half between them, a quarter each. Bella does not, of course, accept the legitimacy of this absurd arrangement, knowing that the whole estate is hers, and hers alone, by a right of succession going back some five thousand years. Not long ago she might have been inclined to argue the point, but that was before she inherited the wisdom of the ancients. For over an hour she has listened to them droning on about tree planting, footpaths and, at stultifying length, the replacement of a lorry-damaged cattle-grid. This last, if nothing else, has decided her that she is only too pleased to let them enjoy the illusion of ownership. It costs nothing, and if it absolves her from having to deal with these achingly mundane matters, so much the better.
But of course! Bella is suddenly aware that a new piece of the jigsaw has dropped into place. This, surely, is how it must always have been. After all, she cannot imagine her mother getting involved with hedge cutting or cattle grids, or her grandmother for that matter. No doubt there has always been someone, an Aunty Veronica or a Miranda, whose job it is to shield the Priestess of the Stones from these worldly cares. Such lowly work is clearly the province of simpler souls, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water – or cheques, anyway – whose limited understanding precludes them from anything of a more elevated or spiritual nature. Can it be coincidence that she has a sibling who in all her parts is so perfectly suited to that work? No indeed! Small wonder that she feels so uncomfortable here. Her very presence is an affront to the natural order of things. Bella makes up her mind that not only is this her first board meeting, it must also be her last. If she is to retain the respect due to her position she must clearly keep a proper distance in future. Anyway, she doesn't care for the all-pervading smell of horse poo; unlike Miranda, who probably rolls in it.
"It's never worth two-fifty a month," says Veronica.
"How much then?"
"I don't see how we can go above two."
"This is Tenstones we're talking about, Aunty. You'd pay more for a terrace in the backstreets of Bradport."
"I doubt that. Anyway I can't see the point in having it sit empty for ages, just to get an extra fifty a month."
"We could at least start at two-fifty. We can't give vacant possession yet, anyway; there's all that replastering to be done first.
"All right, if you must," sighs Veronica.
"And what about Willow? No-one has cleared it yet, by the way."
"Ah indeed," says Rat. "Poor old Winnie."
Veronica shakes her head sadly. "I'm sorry to say I haven't given her a moment's thought, what with everything else. Isn't that awful?"
"Well, she had a damned good innings," says Rat, by way of comfort. "What was she, ninety-six?" He turns to Michael. "She was born in that cottage, you know, lived there all her life and died in it. Had seven children and buried the lot of 'em."
"What's it going to be then?" says Miranda, slightly impatiently. "One eighty a month?"
"What, with an outside lavvy? Surely not."
"It's not really outside; it's off the conservatory."
"You mean that horrible old lean-to greenhouse? It leaks"
"It's a conservatory, Aunty. You'd make a terrible house agent."
"What's the point in fibbing? They'd find out soon enough. The place is a mess. It wants pulling down and putting up again, not that we can afford it."
"You'll never get rid of it with that attitude. You've got to be positive. It's all a matter of perception. You're not renting them a tumbledown cottage, you're renting them a lifestyle. The place is awash with character. Imagine it on a day like this: all dusty geraniums and sleeping cats and roses round the door. Give it the right image and they'll be queuing up."
"Well the septic tank'll want emptying, anyway," says Veronica, making a note of it. "I'd go for one-fifty, personally."
Bella sighs. Boring hedges, boring cottages, boring old Winnie Weaver, who once sneaked on her for smoking in the churchyard with Avril Dunnock; the only cigarette she ever smoked, as it happens. God, she could do with one now though. Or someone could. How much longer can this dreadful business go on? If the bills and the cattle-grid were bad enough, the rents threaten to be far worse. There are five farms, eight assorted smallholdings and she is not sure what number of cottages. Lots, anyway. Surely they're not going to go through all of them?
Tired of drawing faces, she falls to covertly observing the others. Now that she sees them in their true light they have become newly interesting. No longer just family, they are, in their own small way, servants of the Stones, just as she is. Are they mere ciphers, she wonders, unconscious of their fate, or do they know? No, surely not, or they'd have said something. They'd have said, 'Great Bella, we know thou art the Priestess of the Stones and we, thine handmaidens, are but here to do thy bidding. We, who are not worthy even to touch the hem of thy garment, therefore beseech thee to look with favour upon these thy poor servants and grant us thy blessing.' Whereupon they would throw themselves prostrate before her and she would take t
hem by the hand and with a kind word nobly raise them up. After which there would be much hugging and kissing and mutual pledges (hers rather aloof and restrained as befits her position) of lifelong devotion.
She watches Aunty Veronica at her desk – the plain, square face, the heavy, muscular shoulders, the awful print frock, the little skinny legs set wide apart on the footplate of her chair – and it's as if she is seeing her for the first time. Has she really come down the ages too, the eternally faithful servant of her more favoured sisters and nieces? And there, sitting behind her on the sofa, is Miranda, the next generation, her aunt's presumed replacement. Is she, perhaps, going to download Aunty's soul when the time comes? Wow! This she can't wait to see.
Miranda, she has noticed, is not wearing her usual dumped-in-a-hedge-by-her-stupid-horse look but a smart pinstriped suit and full war-paint. She sits on the threadbare sofa with an equally resplendent Michael, who despite the heat refuses to throw off his jacket or tie. Each is clutching a bulky folder as if they are afraid someone might steal them. The clothes are perhaps what they always wear on these occasions (after all, even she has dug out a crisp white blouse and a rather nice little purple miniskirt that she'd forgotten she had) but the files are a bit ominous. What can be in them? Please not more bills and rents.
The only person in the room who has made no sartorial concession to the occasion is John Rook. He is wearing his usual summer uniform of khaki shirt and camouflage trousers tucked into stout boots. To her annoyance and shame Bella finds her gaze regularly drawn to him. Watching him askance from under lowered eyelashes, she wonders, yet again, how it will be. Coolly decorous on a bed of bracken? Tumbled in a hayloft? Bent over a gate? Will it be tantamount to rape, or will it have something of the passionate abandon of a one night stand? Will she wake in the night to find his lean, hard body upon hers, a calloused hand over her mouth, cautioning silence, or should it be she that makes the first move? She doesn't know. No-one has told her. Another piece needed for the jigsaw. Why are these essential memories so resistant to recall?
Isabella: A sort of romance Page 12