‘Oh, Lucy.’ Judith folds her into her arms. ‘That’s what mothers do, isn’t it? Protect their children. I’m so sorry, but I let you believe the coroner because it seemed the kindest thing to do. Better to think he’d had an accident than that he’d chosen to end his life, wasn’t it? Perhaps I’d prefer to believe it was that as well.’ There is a tremor in her voice but she masters it. ‘No one wants to think that they couldn’t help their husband. That life had become so unbearable for him and there was nothing I could do to help.’
She starts playing with an offcut of the dough, rolling it into a worm beneath her fingers as if she cannot look at her daughter.
‘It’s painful to admit. I thought we had a good marriage and that that would somehow lift him. That I could help him see this darkness through.’
‘You did have a good marriage.’ Lucy puts her arm round her. ‘You did have a good marriage,’ she repeats, wanting to cling on to this certainty.
‘Yes … I know we did. But a good marriage – or love – isn’t always enough. His depression … well, I underestimated how bad it was. Just how overwhelming, how all-encompassing, it could be.
‘A couple of days before it happened – just after he’d got the positive TB test – he’d gone for one of his long walks and I thought he’d got things in perspective. I didn’t realise he couldn’t shake the depression off, not properly, particularly since he hadn’t got any help – not gone to the GP and asked for medication, as I’d suggested time and time again. So, you see, it suited me for you to think it was an accident. It was what I wanted everyone to believe. What I wanted to believe, too, except, of course, I couldn’t, knowing him as I did, knowing how low he could feel at times. But I didn’t want you to know – or guess.’
‘You weren’t responsible in any way, Mum.’ Her mother looks diminished: a slight figure crushed by so much emotional baggage.
‘Oh, I know that.’ Judith manages to muster up some indignation as she draws away to look at her. ‘He was big enough and ugly enough to make his own decisions. But still, you’re left wondering if you could have done things differently. There are the constant “what ifs”: What if I’d made that appointment at the GPs and marched him to it? What if I’d begged him not to go for a run that evening – instead of just thinking he was in a black mood and it might make things better? What if we’d made love the night before, even? And that hurts. It really hurts. That’s why I don’t really want to talk about this. And part of me still wants to believe it was an accidental death.’
She starts rolling the dough properly now. ‘Better get a wriggle on.’ The moment for explanations seems to be over and she boxes up her emotion, sniffing as she lifts the dough, her movements light and quick.
But then she stops, perhaps aware that it feels too brutal to shut the conversation down so fast. ‘It doesn’t mean that he didn’t love us – any of us,’ she says, her eyes bright with tears as she glances at her daughter. ‘It doesn’t mean that at all – and you’re not to think it.’
‘Of course not,’ Lucy says, though a childish part of her wants to scream: He couldn’t have, or he wouldn’t have left you. He wouldn’t have left me.
‘I thought that for a long time,’ Judith says, as if reading her mind. ‘How could he have done this if he loved us? And then I felt such anger. How the hell could he have taken that option? It felt cowardly, and for quite a while I hated him.
‘But it helped to see it as an illness: something he couldn’t help and that was distinct from his feelings for us, and so couldn’t tarnish them. He loved us, and he loved this place,’ Judith persists, her words hard and bright as glossy sloes, her fingers pushing against the table as if to impress on her this certainty. ‘That’s why I don’t want to leave here, don’t want to give up on it – though Richard can’t understand that. Can’t see why I don’t want to be shot of it, rid myself of the daily reminder of where it all happened,’ she says.
‘I don’t know how you’ve managed to deal with it without feeling bitter,’ says Lucy. ‘You always sound so loving when you talk of him.’
‘It still hurts. It hurts terribly sometimes. But his death, his,’ Judith falters as if the word is still difficult to say, ‘suicide … isn’t the whole of him. It’s not the thing I focus on. I think of the good times, the wonderful memories of him. And those outweigh the bad.’ She gives a half-grimace. ‘Well, most of the time, anyway.
‘When I’m feeling bleak, I think of him racing down the field with you on his back when you were a little girl, or running along the cliff with Tom. His excitement at the end of harvest. And, yes, the way he could still make me feel girlish, right up until almost the very end.’
Lucy nods, barely trusting herself to speak.
‘Do you remember his laugh?’ she manages at last, as she thinks of his distinctive roar: a belly laugh that would fill a room so that people would stare at this larger-than-life giant. ‘I’ll try to think of that.’
Her mother’s face brightens. ‘Exactly. A man who could laugh like that could feel huge joy as well as despair. Of course, the two came together for him. He felt things strongly, intensely. Too intensely. But I suppose that at least he felt them. At least he experienced those highs while he lived.’
For a while they are silent, and then Judith slowly resumes her baking. Lucy watches, wondering at the repercussions of her father’s suicide and who else knew of it. Whether it was only kept a secret from her – and tacitly understood elsewhere.
‘Does Granny know?’ she says.
‘Yes,’ her mother replies, as if there is no keeping anything from her mother. ‘She knew at once. “A lot of deaths on a farm”, was what she said, which seemed an odd thing to say about someone who’d fallen from the cliffs and drowned. And then: “It can be a soul-destroying way of life”. For a moment, I thought she was just referring to the accidents she’d known over the years. And then I realised that, of course, she wasn’t, at all.’
She looks up and manages a rueful smile. ‘She’s such a canny old bird. Might be worth talking to her. Not about Dad, necessarily, but about Matt or what you’re going to do about your nursing – that’s if you want to talk to someone other than Tom or me. She was so wise after Fred died that I can’t help thinking she’s experienced some intense heartache or loss.’
‘Well, she lost your dad.’
‘Yes, perhaps that’s it, though I can’t help thinking it was something different to that. Something she hasn’t told us. An old secret.’ Judith gives herself a little shake. ‘Perhaps I’m imagining it, but she’s always been so private, I’ve always thought she’s experienced far more in life than she’s ever let on, even to me.’
‘I think her generation probably have,’ Lucy says. ‘The war must have meant that death was common.’
‘Yes, maybe that’s it,’ Judith says, but she looks pensive. ‘Often I’ll catch her, on her bench, deep in thought, and there’s a sadness to her. Not a wistfulness, but something more intense. She’ll shake it off when she sees me, insist on being cheery, but it’s there all right and I’ll see it again when she doesn’t think I’m looking.’
She smiles, betraying the weight of anxiety on her shoulders, the burden of caring for her mother, daughter and granddaughter. Three generations of one family: an abundance of care.
‘She may have seven or eight years left in her – but she may not. I would hate her to die with any kind of regret.’
Twenty-six
Then: 28 January 1944
It was freezing in her bedroom at Aunt Edith’s. The tips of Maggie’s fingers were so numb that she barely felt the needle prick her as she fumbled with the stiff folds of the material and it shot from her grasp.
Late evening, and she was supposed to be studying in her dark room in this Edwardian house, but the cold made it hard. No fire in the grate, for her aunt had limited means and lived frugally, despite the gentility implied by the solid granite villa. There was a range in the kitchen, but Maggie could har
dly make such alterations there.
For she was letting out her pleated school skirt and shifting the buttons on her blouse. Two inches she would gain on her waistband, if she did this. Perhaps an inch for her swelling breasts. Under a heavy school jumper and with her blazer pulled around her, she might just look as if she had become a little plump. As if Aunt Edith had, somehow, been overfeeding her, or she had overindulged, back home at Christmas. Farming families never seemed to go hungry, despite the rigours of rationing.
She stroked her stomach, feeling her curves rather than seeing them by the glow of the Tilly lamp. It was just a tiny swell: probably not noticeable – though it soon would be as winter segued into spring. She had managed to convince her parents it was best if she stayed at her aunt’s most weekends this term, given that it was the depths of winter and the lanes skirting the moor could be treacherous. Besides, her aunt was lonely, and she could work so hard towards her exams. Her parents had agreed, confounded by their daughter, who hid herself away in her room in the evenings and was uncommunicative, almost surly towards Alice. ‘She’s lost her spirit,’ her father said. Her mother just watched her: eyes narrowed, lips pursed.
Evelyn didn’t know: she was sure she didn’t know. But how much longer could that continue, and what would she do come April or May when this baby was born? She would have to hope for a cruel spring after a harsh winter, one when she could bundle herself in knitted jumpers and handed-down overalls – her secret hidden over the Easter holidays until she could somehow give birth here, alone. And then what? A sob bubbled up, and she gulped it back down, ever alert to the possibility that her aunt – anxious, solicitous though mercifully shortsighted – might hear her. What would she do once she had a real-life baby in her arms?
She started to rock herself, clasping her hands round her slight shoulders, seeking warmth and comfort. What could she do with her baby? It was her constant refrain. Or rather, how could she keep him – for it was a he, she was sure it was. What could she say to persuade her parents that the baby shouldn’t be given up for adoption? And what would she do if they refused to help? She thought of her aunt: seemingly mild and conventional, and yet with a quiet inner strength that came from having lived alone throughout adulthood. Unlikely though it seemed, could she be persuaded to provide a home for Maggie and help her bring up this illegitimate child?
A flurry of rain lashed against the window: percussive and insistent despite the heavy blackout curtains. Outside, the town would be shrouded in darkness. It would be even bleaker, out on the moor. Would Will be listening to the storm – or curled up with his Land Girl? Anger flared and, simultaneously, longing and regret. For a moment, she was back in the cornfield: watching him drink from her enamel mug, a bead of tea on his lip, the sweat licking his thick dark hair. Then she was in the hay barn watching his pupils darken with a look of intensity and earnestness, as she came towards him.
No use wishing for that now. Look where it had got her. The sob forced its way up, insistent, and she swiped at the tears running hot down her cheeks. She had been such a fool. Such a stupid fool. A clever girl, but no sharper than Eileen in the village, who’d left school at fourteen and would go with anyone, provided they gave her enough cigarettes and chocolates, Arthur said. How could she have been caught? It had only happened the once and so she thought she could risk it. Hadn’t really thought it could happen the first time – for it didn’t always with cattle. (Though sometimes it did, a thought she had shoved to the back of her mind.) Held in his arms, she hadn’t felt able to resist him. Or, if she was honest, she had wanted it so badly, it had barely occurred to her to resist.
She stabbed her finger again and the needle pierced her: a drop of blood beaded and threatened to smear across the worn cotton of her blouse. She sucked hard, the salt of the blood mingling with that of her tears, and her eyes pricked again. She was in the cave, his fingers brushing her lips so that she couldn’t help but kiss them. From those intense feelings to the act of making love, it was just a few short steps.
Don’t think about that any more. Those heightened moments that spooled through her mind, late at night, as she told herself she mustn’t think of him: those images that tormented and re-assured her, so that one moment she thought he loved her, the next, she knew he barely thought of her for there was still no news, no letter, at all. To her shame, her body still craved him, had become more unruly and lustful, even as she tried to focus on this new life. She stroked her stomach. Last week, she thought she had detected a flutter – further proof that there was something inside her that would have to come out.
She reached to open up the lamp. The light was too soft for such intricate work, but she peered intently at the needle, keen to be finished before Aunt Edith entered with a perfunctory knock and her nightly mug of Horlicks. She made a neat knot; bit the cotton with her teeth. There: that should see her through until Easter, though perhaps she had better further limit her eating. Easier to achieve here, away from her sharp-eyed mother, and with frugal, bird-like Edith in charge.
The sewing done, she lowered the lamp and shrank into the gloaming. Pulled her cardigan around her. Rearranged her knitted scarf. If only she could feel the sun beating down on the nape of her neck – the same sun that would bleach the barley and wheat reed, and join the dot-to-dot of Will’s freckles so that he glowed with a farmer’s tan. She tried to conjure it up: the high noon sun tempered by a light onshore breeze that cooled the sweat trickling down her back. It was no good. The heady heat of last summer belonged to a different age: one fuelled by hope and love and filled with joy and expectation. Now, she was tired and racked with a perpetual, low-lying fear. Perhaps this was what it felt like if someone you truly loved was away at war?
Which brought her, inevitably, to Edward. Oh, Edward. His name always slipped out in two syllables suffused with guilt and despair. His photograph was on her dresser, next to her silver-backed hairbrush and mirror. Propped up for propriety’s sake – for what would Aunt Edith think if she didn’t show some interest in the young man she was supposed to love?
‘I never said I loved him,’ she had whispered savagely, when her mother had made this point. Evelyn had gripped her wrist, as they’d packed, in her bedroom.
‘Love isn’t necessary. But you will show some loyalty to that poor boy.’
The photo, in its silver frame, was turned down at the moment. She couldn’t bear to look at those blue eyes; that small, brave smile of trepidation, his thin lips pulled tight as if to convey confidence, the tension around his brow suggesting anything but.
‘I suppose I’m scared, Maggie,’ he had said, and she saw in this photo the sixteen-year-old who had come off worse when wrestling fourteen-year-old Will. The cricket-loving Edward who was destined for a partner’s desk in a solicitor’s office, not for sowing caulies on the north Cornwall coast. A young man who, despite the newly developed muscles, had never relished the thought of fighting. Would it be this cold in Italy, where the regiment was thought to have landed? She very much hoped not.
Perhaps he would fall for an Italian girl, and be secretly relieved when she let him down gently, as she would, as soon as he returned. But that still wouldn’t justify her duplicity, her wantonness, the fact she had so callously betrayed him. She pulled her cardigan tighter and began her rhythmic, fevered rocking again.
Twenty-seven
Now: 6–7 August 2014
The farm looks at its best as Lucy leads the cows out of the parlour and back to the fields for grazing. Eight o’clock and the early morning sea mist has lifted away. The sky is clear after its blush pink start: a faded blue shot through with gold. She pauses for a moment, remembering how her father enjoyed this tranquillity.
Her mobile rings, brusque and intrusive, and for a moment she is disorientated, the ringtone a discordant blare. Matt’s name flashes up and she considers ignoring it for she doesn’t want anything to intrude into this moment of calm, nor to talk to him when her mind is full of her dad. And yet they
haven’t spoken – spoken, as opposed to sending a few curt administrative texts – since he walked out on her five weeks ago, and so of course she answers it.
‘Hey.’ His voice is soft, caressing.
‘Hello.’ She is cold, uncomprehending.
‘I was wondering how you were. How you were feeling.’
She doesn’t trust herself to speak. Her throat thickens as she thinks back to the problems that have driven her here – not the revelation of Fred’s suicide that preoccupies her now. But it seems he doesn’t require an answer, for he is still talking.
‘I was wondering when you were coming back to London? We should meet and talk.’
‘What about?’ The words sound clotted.
‘About us.’ And for the first time he sounds sheepish.
‘What about us?’ She isn’t going to make this easy for him.
‘I miss you. I want to see you. Look … I made a mistake. A stupid mistake and I regret it. I’m sorry … really sorry.’ He pauses. ‘It seems so stupid giving up on seven years of us … Giving up on our marriage. We should talk about where we go from here …’
She is numb. His words wash over her – the apology she has longed to hear, the still equivocal suggestion that they resume their relationship. It is so incongruous, this painful conversation in a calm setting – the possibility of a new start while she is focused on the past – that she doesn’t know what to think or say. A truth nudges towards her through the fog of her thoughts. She can’t leave here, yet, and return to the clutter and noise of London – a setting she now associates with her professional and personal shame, where she knows her fragile self-belief is even more flimsy. Not while her mind is filled with Fred and with what Judith and Tom have had to experience without her. Not while she tries to help her brother and persuade him that the farm has a future. If she is to talk to Matt, it feels as if it should be on her terms, here.
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