‘I must be frank,’ he goes on, and here it is, she knows. The real reason he has come down here. ‘I still think the best plan is to look at selling and redevelopment. I know you don’t want to move Mother,’ he holds up a hand as if stopping traffic, and she knows that she is glowering. ‘But I think we should look at coming up with some architectural plans. Now, Mother, please don’t object. I’ll organise everything; pay all the costs: we can settle up later if we go ahead with it. But this is a much sought-after area, and I’m just suggesting we look at all the options. See how much all this could be worth. We’ll be talking in the millions, especially if we did the development ourselves. Think how that would set you all up: take away all this worry and stress.’
‘I am Not Moving From Here.’ She enunciates distinctly, her voice clipped in the way her mother always wanted her to speak. She thinks of Evelyn’s steeliness and inflexibility; tries to channel it into her manner, now. How to explain the real reason she cannot leave? She glances at her children and the impossibility of ever revealing her deepest secret strikes her afresh. Better, perhaps, to explain that she is Skylark? That at eighty-eight she relies on these animals, these fields, these views that anchor her here; that bind her to the place. For she is nothing without the memories they conjure up, good and bad, and she knows that, once removed from them she will simply cease to exist.
‘Well let’s just have a look.’ Richard’s tone is emollient, but there is an edge to it too, just as there often was with her mother. She wishes to God she had never accepted that £50,000 loan he gave them after Fred died – for it bolsters him, she can see that; makes him feel he has some leverage.
She holds firm. ‘I am not interested in looking at any plans.’
‘Well perhaps Judith and Tom would like to see them?’ he says, encompassing them with a smile. ‘Otherwise, Mother, I’m afraid that we will all be sitting here, repeating this conversation this time next year, even further in debt.’
Fifteen
Lucy vibrates with rage as she works, alone in the kitchen, baking scones and cakes for the afternoon teas. Carrie and Richard have set off early, leaving behind an atmosphere so unsettled it feels curdled. Flo and Tom have been rowing, and she was sure she heard her mother quietly sobbing when she passed her bedroom, late last night.
Now, as soon as she has slammed another batch of scones in the oven, she turns to her notepad to scrutinise the numbers. The outgoings seem endless: seed, cake for the cattle, the combine servicing. The bank is getting tetchy, and Uncle Richard is no fool. He knows another TB scare, or a harsh winter with another glut of cows’ deaths, could see this more manageable – but still worrying – overdraft burgeon over the winter months. Her grandmother remains defiant – but what if he wears the rest of them down?
They need to think of something to dazzle him: something innovative that will show they aren’t just intent on slowing the farm’s slide into decline, but in halting and reversing it. What about Tom’s ice cream idea – the only suggestion he didn’t automatically reject? Come to think of it, why hasn’t she been taking Tom’s ice creams to different farm shops and delis around here? She has been down here a fortnight now, and she should have achieved much more. Her GP signed her off for six weeks, which means returning in mid-August. She swallows. Less than a month. She has so little time.
She scratches at a bite from a horsefly that blooms, hot and angry, agitated at the thought of having to return to the hospital and her London life. The memory of Emma pointing out her drug mistake hits her again: her own stab of fear and the look of shock and pity in the other nurse’s eyes. What if she had administered the dose?
She clutches the side of the table. She mustn’t obsess: must get on with working before she lets herself dwell on Matt, too. For her anxiety about returning to London is fuelled by the state of their relationship. They haven’t spoken since he left; their only communication a text when she said she was returning to Cornwall. Hope you have a good break. Talk when you’re back, as if she were taking a short holiday. She had drafted a reply, but it was one of those texts – cold, sarcastic, filled with expletives – that she knew, as she composed it, she would never send.
She starts shaking at the thought of him, and what he’s doing now. Perhaps he’s moved in with Suzi? She wrenches the oven door open, incandescent at the thought of another woman in his arms or, worse, in her bed. And yet, perhaps she’s partly to blame? It has been quite some time since she initiated making love. They were friends for two years before they started going out: Matt the person she regaled with her dating disasters, who she turned to when one boyfriend turned out to be gay, another, serially unfaithful, when she tired of moving from one six-month relationship to another. Perhaps, ultimately, friends are what they should have remained.
She must get on. A solid wall of heat smacks her as she bends down and she straightens up, dizzy. Then her left eyelid starts to twitch. So she is tired as well as stressed. She slams the baking tray on the table and begins to decant scones, her fingers scalding. Steam rises, bathing her cheeks in yet more perspiration, escalating her bad temper to something close to panic or fear. There’s that feeling again: of teetering on the headland, unsure of whether the wind will buoy her up or abandon her and send her tumbling. Let nothing else go wrong. She needs this farm as an anchor: for her well-being is precarious, in the balance. If one more thing goes wrong, she will be pushed out of kilter, forced to the very edge.
The sound of a Land Rover towing a heavy horsebox comes from the yard, the rattle and grind of a heavy load coming to a halt, and then a gentle lowing and the thud of cloven hooves clattering down a metal ramp.
The new Ayrshire heifer. Tom and Judith are in the top field, hay baling, so she had better settle her in. She rubs at her red cheeks and smarting eyes, aware that her distress must be playing across her face. She does not want to face anybody, now or at any time in the future. If only she could stay in this womb of a kitchen, cocooned from the well-meaning looks of neighbours curious as to why she has returned from London, hidden from the harsh realities of life.
Outside, in the brilliant white sunshine, the cow’s owner is pulling her from the trailer. A tall, broad-shouldered man, from what she can see of him: dark brown hair, strong arms and a voice that is firm with the hint of a Cornish accent. ‘Easy girl, easy does it. C’mon. Easy now.’
The cow is a beautiful amber brown with a white diamond over her nose, two white legs and a pale underbelly. At two years old, she is slighter than many of the cattle in the herd. A cow that has not yet had a calf, nor been pregnant, but is ready to run with the bull and will do so in the next few months. By Christmas, her belly should be swelling: by next summer she should be ready to milk. Her calf will get just two days in which to suckle, and then she will join the rest of the milkers in the shed.
She really is a fabulous beast: following the man quietly now, just the occasional toss of the head to suggest she is not to be taken for granted. A cat streaks in front of her, dodging her hooves.
‘Easy, easy.’ The man is gentle and authoritative as he leads her towards the field, one hand resting on her flank as he does so. Lucy rushes forward to open the gate.
‘Need some help?’ Despite herself, he has piqued her interest.
‘Yes – great. If you can just open it, I’ll hold her back.’ He glances across at her then, shooting a quick smile. Her chest tightens. It’s him. The man from the beach: and he is familiar.
‘Hello, Lucy.’ He smiles at her as if waiting for the penny to drop.
‘Ben? Ben Jose?’
He grins at her.
She readjusts her face, trying to shake off her extreme surprise.
‘Just let me get her sorted.’ He leads the heifer into the field and unties her rope. The cow crops the sweet, sleek grass, jaw chomping rhythmically, feet shuffling. At the other side of the field, a member of the herd raises her head and stares.
She glances sideways at Ben. Tom’s old friend from seco
ndary school: not seen since he was, what, sixteen and she, eighteen? An annoying sidekick of her little brother’s, who tried to gatecrash her parties and who once stole her cider when he was fifteen. Fred had laughed it off: well, boys will be boys, he had said, with the infuriating double standards that allowed his son to get away with far more than his daughter. Judith had been upset: what would his mother say about him coming here and drinking so much he was sick? But Lucy had been livid – particularly since Judith had blamed her for stockpiling the drink, as if it was her fault the boys had got paralytic. He’d kept away from the farm for a while after that. Then, a few months later, in the September of 2001, she’d gone up to London – and escaped.
Well, he’d certainly changed a bit now. The dark blue eyes are the same. But the soft boyish face has gone, replaced by sharp cheekbones and a jaw that must have been hiding underneath. Of course he has bean-poled and broadened: little hint of the skinny slip of a lad she recalls, though he shot up that summer she left. She feels as if the sky has tipped. If Ben Jose can metamorphose like this, then she has certainly been away from the farm, or disconnected, for far too long.
‘I’m sorry about the cider,’ he says. The corner of his mouth twitches with laughter.
‘Oh. That. Surprised you remember.’
‘I had the biggest crush on you. Think I nicked it to make you notice me. Well, that and wanting to get legless.’
The confession confounds her. She would have no more looked at him than at the postman, Sam.
‘I’m sorry. I had no idea you might have thought that,’ she says.
‘Don’t worry about it. I was an obnoxious little twerp. I’m sure I deserved a bollocking.’ He gives a laugh that is just the right side of self-confident, then walks back up the field towards the horsebox, leaving the heifer to graze.
Is that the end of their conversation? She finds she is disappointed, and catches up with him to wrest open the gate.
‘So … what are you doing now?’
‘Working at Tredinnick – my uncle’s farm. Went to agricultural college, then, after a spell on a farm in Warwickshire, came back home.’ He nods at the sea, petrol blue today and a little choppy. ‘Couldn’t really see a reason to stay away.’
He smiles. ‘I work with livestock, mainly: beef, pigs, sheep – and one day a week in the farm shop.’ He grimaces.
‘Not your forte?’ She can’t imagine him behind a counter. He looks as if he belongs with an arm up a cow, or in a newly ploughed field.
‘Just rather be on the land or with the animals. But I can see diversification is the answer. Food particularly: we butcher our own beef and lamb and make our own sausages.’ He looks pensive. ‘It’s what modern farming’s about, isn’t it?’
‘Well, talking of which …’ She hates herself for this, but perhaps this is what she will have to learn to do. ‘We’re looking at diversifying. I wondered if the shop would try some of Tom’s ice creams? Cardamom and orange? Or clotted cream and blackcurrant? And one of my carrot cakes.’
‘Tom’s been making ice cream, has he?’ Ben looks surprised. ‘He’s kept that pretty quiet.’
‘It’s gorgeous,’ she says, and at least now she sounds less of a saleswoman and is being honest. ‘You’re in for a treat.’
She races back to the kitchen and pulls three fresh tubs from the freezer; then decants a freshly-made carrot cake, topped with an orange-flecked buttercream.
‘You want me to take this now?’ He looks bemused.
‘If you don’t mind?’ She smiles, self-consciously upbeat.
Oh, please, she thinks, as she places the box in his strong, tanned hands. Do like them and say Tredinnick will order some. Please let this be a good business opportunity.
‘Well, great. Thanks. We’ll try them out and get back to you … perhaps some time next week?’
She finds herself willing him to say something more positive that she can grasp on to. But with that flimsiest of promises, he backs away from her, and is off and away.
Sixteen
Then: 20 July, 1943, Cornwall
It was the noise that broke into her thoughts.
The deep growl of a British bomber, or more than one of them from the sounds of it: a throaty drone that grew steadily louder and louder until she could hold off no longer and had to open her eyes.
She had been leaning against the gnarled tamarisk at the bottom of the garden, basking in the mid-July heat, and it took a while to acclimatise to the brilliant sunlight. Black dots pulsed towards her before her vision adjusted, and then she saw them: a trail of B17s, flying nose to tail, in perfect formation. A ribbon of heat and power and metal rippling across the sky.
The sun glinted on their wings, then, as they tore up the coastline towards one of the airfields further up the coast: Davidstow, Cleave, or perhaps Chivenor, over in Devon. Coastal Command was not just bombing German U-boats deep in the Channel but was blasting French ports to stop German troops mobilising from there, her father had explained. There was something so carefree about their return: as if the pilots and crew were jubilant as they seared through the sky. The safety of Cornish land and waters lay beneath them. The golden strips of sand and rugged cliffs, the small green fields and granite grey hamlets and churches of England at its most beautiful. The England they were fighting to maintain.
She stood and began to wave, slightly self-conscious at first and then wholeheartedly, just in case any of those men could see her, this tiny speck to their right, in a cornfield, and would guess that she was grateful to them. As always, she felt her heart swell with relief for those who had returned, would not let herself think of those who had not done so, who were lucky if they’d managed to ditch before their planes plunged deep into the murky sea. Nor did she dwell on the destruction they might have caused deep in the Channel or to the ports over in France where ordinary French people lived. Trawlermen like those who unloaded their catch, down on the quay in Padstow. Perhaps even children and young women, like herself and Alice.
The drone was dying away now. The planes disappearing from sight over the headland, leaving a trail of exhaust that discoloured the blue and prompted her usual sensation of flatness, and then unease.
She shuffled back against the trunk of the tree and looked up at the feathery fronds of the leaves that dappled her. Her ankles, left out in the sun, would tan if she stayed here too long, and her skin turn a deep chestnut like her father’s. Her mother would hate that. She pushed her shins out further and hitched her skirt up above her knees.
Keep thinking of things like that, things that are inane, and frivolous, she told herself. But instead she thought, as she always did when she saw a plane, of Edward: still in North Africa, working to clear a destroyed port and swimming in the Mediterranean, or so his heavily censored, relentlessly jolly letters seemed to suggest.
Dear Edward. The Duke of Cornwall’s boys had been part of the first army: pushing east against the Germans from Algiers, contending with the heat and the dust to capture Tunis and precipitate the surrender of North Africa. It was a turning point in the Allied campaign, her father said, and Edward was a hero. The idea was ludicrous, though she kept that to herself, and tried to marry the image of him in his cricket jumper, reading Brave New World, with Edward sand-blasted and weary, streaked with sweat and dirt in his army fatigues.
She tried so hard to empathise with what he was going through: not just the fear – for how could she begin to imagine that? – but the extreme discomfort: the sand in his strawberry-blond eyelashes, the sunburn on his pale skin, the sweat-inducing, stultifying heat. It made her want to cosset him: to ease the heavy backpack from his back and carry his steel helmet and rifle, which must be near-crippling in the conditions of the desert. But it didn’t make her love him, like a sweetheart. She still couldn’t think of him in that way.
She tried. Oh, how she had tried! She would stare at the photograph of him in his fatigues; replay his kisses on Davidstow moor, which hadn’t been unpleasant, they
just hadn’t provoked the reaction she had expected, and try to conjure up what she believed she should feel. Perhaps she was being unrealistic but, when she kissed, she wanted to feel consumed, as if she could crawl under the skin of the other person, so intense was her longing, as if she were overwhelmed by something bigger than the both of them. She was reading a lot of Hardy, and she wanted that overwhelming feeling Tess had for Angel Clare, or Gabriel Oak for Bathsheba, or Bathsheba for Sergeant Troy.
She smiled. Edward, of course, would be ever-so-slightly patronising if she ever referred to such lovers, for he didn’t rate Hardy. ‘Sentimental twaddle,’ he would say. ‘Mawkish; overindulgent. Look where such infatuation got Tess.’
And yet she clung to her conviction, wedged hard in her core, that this grand passion was what she wanted. Perhaps the war would change him, and when he returned she would see him as her hero.
She sighed. She ought to be getting back to the farm. Her mother was packing to leave for Falmouth, where her sister had just had a fourth baby and was run ragged. It was terrible timing – mid-July, nearing the corn harvest. For any mixed farm, one of the busiest times of the year. Still, needs must, her mother had said, when she announced she would be away for three weeks. Gwynnie – never the most practical of women – needed her. And Maggie was more than capable of pulling her weight, now she was back for the summer. Evelyn’s habitual dissatisfaction had slipped, then, like a mask, to reveal a different woman: one who wouldn’t spend the summer working under the blistering heat but would tend to her newborn nephew, and his small siblings. A woman who might have been a doting mother if it hadn’t been for the relentless demands of the farm.
Maggie shifted her legs out of the sun and contemplated going back, but the thought of Evelyn flying around in a flurry stopped her. She wasn’t going to spend the summer like her, in a whirl of bad-tempered energy, each chore accomplished in a manner that suggested she really should be – she deserved to be – elsewhere.
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