Depending on how long the weather held, there might be a fortnight or so before harvest, and, in this time, she was going to get her jobs done quickly: milking, preparing the lunchtime meal, doing the bake. And then she was going to slope off for an hour each afternoon: down to the beach to read in the dunes, up on the cliffs for a ramble with Alice. Or – if she had the energy after she’d washed the supper things, after no one needed her – for a late evening swim. The beach would be empty then and she could immerse herself without fear that anyone would see her in her knitted costume. If no one were there, she would run in in a slip and then pull it off once hidden by the water, so that she could swim, free and unencumbered, as weightless as air.
Of course, when harvest started she would be busy, but she didn’t mind that. Harvest felt like a celebration, especially if the crop, barley and dredge corn, was going to be as good as it looked like this year.
It was exhausting work: binding the sheaves, forming the shocks, working in an ever-decreasing oval until all the barley was baled and the rabbits forced to scamper out. And yet she could cope with working under the hot sun, pushing herself until her arms and legs ached so that she slept deeply at night, her body so exhausted her mind stopped running in circles. She craved that oblivion. Anything to stop her fretting about the future: not about the war, but about what she was to do about Edward. She looked back at the farm, searching for a distraction from such troubling thoughts.
A figure was making its way towards her with a slightly diffident walk.
‘Did you see the bombers?’ Will’s face was alight with the drama. Then: ‘Your mother’s looking for you.’
She groaned. His smile grew broad.
‘Did she say what it was about?’
He shrugged. ‘Just the usual.’
She smiled back, surprised that he might be critical of Evelyn, for Will tended to keep his head down.
‘Sit down here with me for a minute?’
‘Won’t your mother get angry?’
‘Probably, but no more than she is already.’ She suddenly wanted to talk. It had been a long time since they had chatted properly. She had avoided him since Easter, when he was silly over Edward, but he seemed to have grown up since then, or forgotten about it. Besides, she couldn’t maintain her offhand manner much longer.
‘Budge over, then.’ He lowered himself next to her and nestled his back against the trunk so that their shoulders and thighs were wedged against each other. She felt the warmth flow from him, enjoying the firmness of his thigh against hers.
She shifted slightly away.
‘Are we both hiding now?’ He almost whispered it.
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Just a little.’
She gave a smile of complicity. ‘I just wanted to avoid going back to all the bustle. She gets so tense it’s better to stay away from her.’ She sighed. ‘I promise I’ll go back in a bit.’
They gazed at the sea: so tranquil now there were no planes, no hint that a war was continuing. It wasn’t always the case. Besides the aircraft flying past, the water turned green when a pilot jettisoned an aircraft, and the estuary boomed when mines were bombed, out in the Atlantic. Now there was just a sleek expanse of blue.
‘I got distracted by the bombers,’ she explained. ‘And thinking about Edward. But before that I was thinking about swimming: about how, once Mother’s away, I’ll be able to do it as much as I like.’
‘Do you remember teaching me to swim?’
His question took her by surprise.
‘You were awful.’
‘No need to swim in London.’
‘You’re much better at it now.’
‘Well, no thanks to you. But, I’m all right at it. Yes.’
She glanced at him, remembering his frantic doggy-paddle that first full summer on the farm, and his embarrassment at being shown up.
‘’S’all right for you,’ the fourteen-year-old Will had shouted, spitting out yet another mouthful of salt water. ‘You’ve had all this,’ and he’d gestured at the turquoise bay and golden sands, the evidence of her good fortune, ‘on your doorstep. Course you can do everything much better than me.’
He had tried to storm through the water, then, but had been buffeted by a wave and pushed under. When he had emerged, his face was furious and crumpled, and Maggie couldn’t tell if he was wiping away water or tears. He had pounded up the beach, legs pale and skinny from never having experienced a full Cornish summer. But the next day she spied him trying to teach himself: clinging to an old wooden board as he worked on his legs.
His arms, resting loosely on his knees, were long and muscular now; his shoulders broad and firm as shelled almonds. She imagined a fast, powerful crawl, those arms wheeling in and out of the sea.
She looked up at his face: the freckles merging with his farm boy’s tan, his cheeks hollowed with none of the softness of last summer. Over the winter, he had spun himself a cocoon and emerged, more man than boy.
‘Come on. Your mother will be furious.’
He jumped up in one movement and pulled her to her feet.
For a moment, she stood there, feeling the warmth pulsing between them, sensing the shape of his fingers, long and firm but with small callouses, imprinting themselves onto her skin.
He dropped her hand and turned to walk back to the farmhouse. Evelyn was standing at the top of the garden, peering down the fields. Even the way she stood – one hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun, the other fiddling with the tie of her apron – suggested she was tense.
‘Do you think she’s seen us?’ Maggie asked, drawing back into the shade of the tree.
‘Nah. We’re hidden here.’
For a split second, the air was taut with possibility. The breeze seemed to have dropped and Maggie felt as if she could hardly breathe.
Then Will turned and began to trudge up the track: a firm, steady pace that suggested he had work to be getting on with.
Maggie hung back a minute, and then followed, head down, as if she had had absolutely nothing to do with him.
Seventeen
The heat, which had been building steadily since ten, had reached a climax: one o’clock, Will reckoned, as a ball of fire sizzled overhead.
A trickle of sweat ran between his shoulder blades and stuck his shirt to his skin. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and felt his hair, damp with moisture. His stomach jabbed with hunger and his arms and lower back were beginning to ache from a morning’s hard work, but what he most needed was a drink.
The girls, back at the farm, should be here by now, bringing fat pasties and jugs of lukewarm tea. The corn shimmered as if in a mirage. His throat rasped and he imagined gulping down the liquid, drinking so fast it dribbled down his chin.
Then he felt guilty. Edward must have experienced far more extreme heat at Tunis, and exhaustion and fear, while he was safe in a Cornish cornfield: safe, and living alongside the girl of Edward’s dreams.
He scuffed his boot through the stubble, hating himself for his jealousy, and then for the hard glow of satisfaction that it was he who was here with Maggie, and not Edward – the lad she was courting. It all made him feel a bit of a worm, not to mention a wimp. The question of whether he would sign up next year kept nagging at him, as he paced up and down the field, gathering the sheaves and standing them in shocks. This was part of the war effort, too – but was it enough? Then again, he couldn’t imagine not gathering in the harvest next year.
The mirage melted to reveal no Maggie and no tea, and so he carried on working. They had cleared a good half of this field now: Uncle Joe, driving the Shire horse and binder, himself, James, Arthur, and three men from the village gathering up the sheaves.
Uncle Joe would be thrilled. There was a dairy farm down at Lanlivet that was completely self-sufficient. Hay, they’d grown; clover, beans, peas, vetches and oats for silage; then spring wheat; marrow-stemmed kale and, for the best milkers, linseed. It had been praised
in the West Briton for not putting demands on transport or convoys, and Uncle Joe wanted them to be equally economical and patriotic. Trouble was, every spare patch of grass was already planted: the verges running to the hedgerows; the valley dipping down to the sea; the flowerbeds, stuffed with potatoes, runners and green beans, kale and rhubarb. They’d be digging up the front lawn next.
‘Dinner time!’ A voice, high and bright, cut through his grumbling.
Alice was running through the corn, holding a small basket. Maggie, carrying a larger one, with a jug and enamel mugs, followed in her wake.
The crop seemed to part for her as she surged forward, her dark curls breaking free of the ties at the back of her neck, her face reddening. The stalks pressed against her, outlining her breasts and her long, strong legs. He flushed just thinking about it. Did she know why he and Arthur smiled broadly whenever she walked towards them, though never if her father was likely to spot them looking? Perhaps, but if she did she didn’t know what to do about it. And, more to the point, neither did he.
It was fair to say that Maggie tormented him, now, even more than she had at Easter: this young woman who had once been a flat-chested tomboy, keen to show off her farm to them, and so eager to be his friend. He thought back to their first full day at the farm, when she had inadvertently shown them a squashed piglet. ‘Where’s the runt, James? There were twelve,’ she had said and then her voice had shrunk to a quiet ‘Oh!’ when Alice had pointed to the still, pink cylinder nestling in the straw. To cheer themselves up they had raced to the beach.
It was better than he could ever have imagined, stretching firm and almost white to the sea, which sparkled in the distance. The sand was soft where the thick stalks of seagrass met it, and finer than sugar when he bent and pushed his fingers in.
He had tried so hard not to appear over-impressed. But as the wind caught the waves and the sea glinted as if filled with diamonds, the strain of the last thirty-six hours lifted from him and he became just a young boy again.
‘Race you!’ he had cried, and, whooping and laughing, had charged across the beach.
‘Wait for me!’ Maggie had called after him.
He had turned and flashed a smile, but hadn’t stopped running.
‘Catch me if you can!’ he had said.
He could remember that exhilaration now. His taunt had floated through the air as he wheeled and whirred towards the water. The nearby seagulls – great, cocky birds – had flown up, startled, as he charged towards them, then hung, suspended, buffeted by the wind.
Like skylarks circling one another, the two of them had flitted to and fro, whooping and whirling and eventually tumbling as they had streaked across the sand and then raced through the shallow waves. His lungs had banged against his ribs, and his heart had swelled – not just with the exertion but with the sheer thrill of finding a potential new friend to race with in such a glorious place.
She had shared that exhilaration then. He had seen it in her flushed cheeks and her eyes that laughed at him, daring him to run faster, challenging him to outstrip her – which at thirteen he could, though she was the better climber, the more confident swimmer. Well, the one who could swim.
She had shared it, too, that night, about a month after they’d arrived, when he’d experienced his first storm here and had lain in bed as the farm was buffeted. Rain seeped through the cracks of the window, soaking rags and licking sills slick with water, and the whole house had creaked, beams and floorboards groaning like a ship tossed on the high seas. But it was the wind that was the most exciting: an asthmatic whine that whistled through the casement fastenings, high-pitched and insistent like an old crone clamouring to be let in.
It rained in London, of course it did. Will had known the Thames, grey and swollen. But the wind didn’t seem to blow there like it did here. The thought came to him that, if he could just open the window, he could test its force: see if he could resist. Of course he’d get wet. But he was always getting wet and filthy and sandy. And he had a towel to dry himself with. Better take off his pyjama top, though. No point irritating Aunt Evelyn, who had been livid about the muddy boot prints in the kitchen and the tear in his shorts where he’d caught them on the rocks when scrambling down from the cliffs. Now, if he could just open the casement latch – a bit stiff here – and push it …
‘What are you doing?’
He had jumped. He couldn’t help himself. She had stood there, waiting in the doorway. It gave him a fright, her creeping in like that and just standing there.
‘It doesn’t open like that.’ She had come up to him and fumbled with the handle, wiggling it so that the lock came free.
One hand on the catch, she had turned to check.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
He had nodded.
‘It’ll be strong?’
‘I can handle it.’ The valour of all vaccies rested with him.
‘Ready then: one, two, three …’ And she had forced open the fragile pane.
The wind was even fiercer than he had imagined it, the rain far wetter. It had lashed at his face, flaunting its power, sharp and sleek.
‘Brilliant, isn’t it?’ Maggie had beamed at him, half hanging out of the casement, her eyes bright in the moonlight, her cheeks shiny and slick with wet.
He had nodded, unable to speak against the force of the storm as he flung his arms and torso out of the window, caught up in the intense, adrenalin-fuelled moment. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this: the exhilaration of courting danger so blatantly, of goading the elements to come and get him. This exquisite sense of being alive.
Later, once he’d handed her his dry pyjama top and they’d wrapped themselves in his rough blankets, they had squeezed onto the seat by the window. Her legs were warm against his, and she had tucked them both in.
‘I love it when it’s like this,’ she had confided, watching a fresh flurry of rain strike the pane. ‘When there’s danger but it can’t quite get to us.’
‘Like the war?’ he had said, thinking of how they’d yet to experience it in deepest Cornwall. Then he had thought of his parents and Robert, back in London, waiting for the war to really begin.
‘No,’ she had said, chewing her lip in concentration. ‘Maybe a safer sort of danger than that. You know: when you know it’s there – you can sense it, feel it – but you know you’ve got the better of it. Like managing to swim in a choppy sea.’
‘I’ve never done that.’ The thought filled him with fear.
‘No?’ She had looked at him, askance. ‘Well, you should try it, sometime. I’ll teach you. It’s a delicious sort of danger, you’ll see.’
A delicious sort of danger. That was what he felt now. Something completely exposing that made him feel vulnerable yet emboldened. Not so terrifying that he couldn’t cope with it, yet enough to make him feel intensely alive. Did she feel the tiniest bit like this? Even when they’d sat together beneath the tamarisk? Well, of course not. She had Edward. But there was no doubting that he did.
He watched her filling the enamel mugs with tea and held out his own. Would she look at him, now? Go on. Please. But she filled it up without a glance and carried on pouring the others; eyes downcast, measuring the liquid carefully.
‘Thanks. Just what we needed.’ Arthur, as sturdy as the Ayrshire bull and with the same thick neck, beamed down at her. She smiled back and he felt a wasp’s sting of jealousy that he hadn’t prompted such a response. He buried his head and gulped down the tepid liquid, emptying his mug in one go, he was so thirsty.
‘Would you like some more, Will?’ The jug was empty, but she was holding her mug out to him, looking straight at him now.
‘What about you?’
‘I can get more in the kitchen. Go on. You look like you need it more than me.’
She passed it over, and he found himself mesmerised by a drop of tea beading on her lip. He wanted to lick it. With a cat-like tongue, she swiped it away.
He turned the m
ug so that his lips touched the spot that had been touched by hers, and imagined tasting them. He daren’t look at her. By the time he’d finished, she was busying herself with her tray.
‘Well, I must go and fetch some more. I’ll be back in five minutes.’ She rose, not making eye contact, once again. Her cheeks were flushed a deep pink and her forehead gleamed with a light sheen of sweat. He felt a pang of guilt, now, at taking her tea, for she, too, must be feeling the heat.
He watched as she marched through the corn, the empty jug swinging from one hand, her back stiff as if she sensed her progress was being followed. He glanced at Arthur, who gave him a fat, leering wink.
It was only later, in bed that night, as his limbs sank into the mattress, his body aching from a fourteen-hour day, his neck hot to the touch where the sun had scorched him that it struck him that perhaps she hadn’t flushed just because of the sun. That perhaps she might feel as he did.
And that was intoxicating.
Eighteen
He was lying spreadeagled in the sand dunes when they came across him, looking for all the world as if he was asleep. The fields had been shocked: the sheaves of straw were standing upright, burnished by the sun, drying in the wind.
The afternoon milking was a couple of hours off and so he had sneaked down here just for a moment, he explained, when Alice jumped on him to shake him awake and Maggie stood there, wondering how tired he must be to be able to fall asleep so readily. He rubbed his eyes, and for a moment, she saw the young boy of nearly four years ago, embarrassed and tongue-tied that first morning, when they were introduced at breakfast. Then he stood up, stretching those long limbs and towering over her, and the thirteen-year-old vanished.
‘Come on,’ he said to his sister. ‘What shall we do now that you’ve caught me napping? Go for a ramble?’
‘We could always rock-pool,’ said Alice. She gestured at her fishing net and bucket. ‘That’s what Maggie and I were going to do anyway.’
The Farm at the Edge of the World : A Novel (2016) Page 11