The Farm at the Edge of the World : A Novel (2016)

by Vaughan, Sarah

  ‘I sort of guessed,’ she confessed. And the half-truth quickly became a truth.

  ‘Really?’ He looked at her again, as though seeing her afresh. ‘Well, that’s more than I did, though of course I’d barely seen Maggie recently. I didn’t know her like you.’

  ‘She confides in me.’

  She didn’t know where that had come from: a definite half-truth, for Maggie never told her anything these days, and had behaved as if she could barely tolerate her since the summer.

  ‘She tells me most things,’ she said.

  ‘So you’ll know who the father is, then?’ He looked at her, wolf-like. She wondered if he meant to be mocking. ‘Don’t worry: you don’t have to betray any secrets, though I think I can guess.’

  She shut up then, concentrating on the road emerging before them, the moor opening up on either side: an unseen expanse of gorse bushes, granite and rolling bleakness. Determined not to betray anyone or to make him mock her. For was she imagining a streak of laughter, when he asked: ‘And how is your brother these days?’

  ‘I’ll drop you off here: you come down Higher Bore Street and meet me outside the Mason’s Arms when you’ve finished.’

  They were in Bodmin, on the road leading to the orphanage, the car’s engine running as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of her and was desperate for a drink.

  ‘Aren’t you coming with me?’

  The reality of the situation, the fact that she would have to confront the nuns alone, hit her with the force of a gale blowing in off the headland.

  ‘Why would I do that?’ He looked genuinely surprised at the suggestion. ‘I might as well wear a placard saying I impregnate thirteen-year-old girls.’

  She felt a jolt of shock, then, at his brutal language, and the thought that a man could do that with someone her age.

  ‘Just hand it in quickly. Then run away if need be. If you don’t want to come in, just wait in the car outside.’

  He roared off towards the pub, where she could already see a cluster of soldiers gathering. The streets were full of them, these days: some two thousand men, Uncle Joe said, parking their tanks up at the Beacon; swelling the five-thousand-strong town.

  It started to drizzle, and she pulled Maggie’s gabardine raincoat around her and the baby and tried to look inconspicuous: a young girl sheltering a bundle, scurrying up the hill towards the orphanage, on the road out towards the coast.

  A couple of GIs walked past, more slick than the Duke of Cornwall’s soldiers. Their velvet laughter filled the night air.

  ‘Good evening, little lady,’ said one.

  ‘A little young, Bud. Even for you.’

  She walked faster, away from the smell of them: their Brylcreem and soap, the whiff of their cigarettes. Their reek of definite manliness. Lifting her face to the rain, she tried to cleanse herself of the stench of them.

  And then she was there, in front of the orphanage, perched at the top of a street of mean, flat-fronted terraces. There were hills behind, she was sure of it: a patchwork quilt backing into the darkness; but the street itself was built-up, crowded and dark.

  The convent, or the orphanage, for the sign suggested they were the same, was a small castle. Not as old as the farm, but fancier, with turrets, a cross, and crenelated ramparts all made from chunks of granite, piled on top of each another. The mullioned windows glittered, and Alice tried to imagine what they hid. Was that a child crying? The cry grew louder – but it was the wind, keening with a rasping whistle that grew as it blew in from the moor.

  The mizzle became thicker: fat droplets striking against the windows and running off her coat, licking her calves, soaking her ankles. She pulled the baby tighter. He carried on sleeping, lulled by her heartbeat, safe and warm.

  She ought to hand him in now, she really ought. Before he got soaked and they both caught a chill. Before the wind grew fiercer. Before Mr Trescothick got angry. She stepped out of the shadows. The heavy oak door opened and a woman threw out a cat, which landed with a hiss and a yowl.

  Alice stepped forwards and the door of this wicked fairy’s castle slammed shut. The cat streaked past her, eyes wild in the dark and fur spiky, and she knew with absolute certainty that she could not leave this child here.

  She drew him tighter, backing away, keeping the castle in view – poised to run if the woman should come out to grab him, having spotted her. She had lost everyone: Will, her parents, Baby Robert, her twin sisters, Pam and Susan. She had lost the love of Maggie, the occasional affection of Auntie Evelyn and no doubt the goodwill of Uncle Joe. She had even lost the baby kittens, Flopsy the wild rabbit and Bert, her bottle-fed piglet. Everyone and everything she had ever loved had gone.

  Her throat ached with the effort of keeping in all this loss, and she felt her grief well up inside her. She wouldn’t give up this baby. She just couldn’t. It was too much to ask of her. If they thought she was old enough to have a child, then she was old enough to decide that she couldn’t give him up, too! She felt strangely elated as she turned from the orphanage and was blown down the street towards the town. She had never gone against a grown-up’s wishes before, and yet she had no choice. They would have to drag this baby from her.

  She would have to take it somewhere, though. The reality of what she had done grew on her as she ran down Higher Bore Street towards the pub where Mr Trescothick was drinking. Aunt Evelyn’s face – the rage as she had screamed at Maggie – loomed in front of her and she knew she couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk bringing this baby back to the farm.

  The germ of an idea she had had in the car began to grow and gain life. What if she was able to get the baby to Will, on the other side of Bodmin? If he saw it, she knew that he would take responsibility. He would love it and make a home for his son.

  Happiness bubbled up and she hugged the baby tightly. Why hadn’t she thought this through before? He would come and fetch Maggie and form a family. Uncle Joe might support them and help them marry. And Alice? Alice would be the fairy godmother. The supposed child who had made everything better and had brought about a happy ending, after all.

  She could imagine it now. Will delighted to see her and proud that she had rescued his baby. Maggie, once they were reunited, so incredibly grateful – so sorry that she had tried to push her away. Her beam grew wider and she found that she was crying, but they were tears of relief that she had thought of a solution; that she would keep Baby Will in the family; that she wouldn’t have to lose someone else she had loved. She kissed the top of his head, her tears wetting his cheeks as she shifted her grip on him. ‘Baby Will,’ she whispered, ‘I’m going to take you to your daddy and you are going to be so loved.’

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Patrick Trescothick, coming out of the Mason’s Arms, lurched towards her. He was livid.

  ‘I … I … I’m not giving the baby up. I can’t. The woman was cruel.’ Her voice trailed away.

  ‘Get in the car.’ He wrenched his door open and slammed it, then started the engine before she had a chance to settle down.

  The car hurtled across the wide street and dipped away from the town in the opposite direction to the orphanage.

  ‘Are you not taking me back there?’ Her voice came out small and pinched.

  ‘What’s the point?’ he snarled and the car filled with the smell of smoke and beer. ‘I can’t make you do it and I’m not handing it over. We’ll just have to drive back to the farm.’

  He took a sharp left, then did a U-turn before screeching back past the pub and out on the coast road. The nerve below his left eye was twitching again.

  ‘Bloody woman! What the hell was I thinking?’ he cried, slamming the steering wheel with the flats of his hands. Her heart thudded, but she stayed silent. Was the bloody woman Evelyn? Her breath came out, light and tense.

  The car tore along a dark ribbon of road through woodland. They were going the wrong way. The wrong way if she wanted to get this baby to Will and safety.

  ‘Please
,’ she blurted out. ‘Please. We could take the baby to my brother’s. To Will’s. He’s at Farmer Eddy’s at Polcarrow, the other side of Bodmin. Do you know it?’ She didn’t seem to be able to stop talking. ‘Will would know what to do. He would help us. He would take the baby. I know he would.’

  Her words – out in the cold dark of the car – sounded ridiculous: the childish make-believe of a girl who wanted to play happy families and make everything better.

  ‘Please,’ she begged, again. She was frantic now. ‘Please.’ There were tears running down her cheeks as he drove on regardless. ‘Sorry,’ she whimpered, then started hiccuping as she tried to stifle her sobs.

  He put his foot on the accelerator and drove faster, the car weaving its way through dark patches of furze and gorse towards the mass of Brown Willy; the windscreen wipers scraping as the rain plashed down.

  Panic overwhelmed her. She had ruined everything. Thrown away the chance of a home at the orphanage and the possibility of one with Will. And now she was taking him back to certain danger. She clung to the baby, her tears wetting his skin and seeping into the wool of his blanket. The baby stirred and gave a small bleat of indignation. Then a cough; then a full-on cry.

  ‘Waaaaaah … Waa … aaaaah … Waaa … aaaaaaaah.’

  ‘Can’t you shut it up?’ The vet looked appalled as the car lurched.

  But it was as if someone had pulled a plug and she could not contain him.

  ‘Shhh … shhh … baby …’ she tried. ‘Shhh … shhh … Please be quiet.’

  The cries died down a little, then immediately grew.

  She was shaking properly now. ‘I don’t know how to stop him.’

  They were building to a furious crescendo.

  ‘Can’t you feed it or something?’

  She strained to reach the bottle, but almost knocked the baby’s head. ‘I can’t get to it. Please – could you stop a minute?’

  ‘Oh, bloody hell.’

  He swerved and the car lurched off the road onto the moorland before ploughing into a gorse bush. ‘Bloody hell,’ he repeated. ‘Damn, damn, damn.’

  She reached for the bottle and uncapped it, then tried to shove it in the newborn’s mouth.

  ‘Here, baby. Here … please take it.’ Her voice cracked with desperation.

  ‘Waaaah … waagggh …’ And then a hesitant then frantic gulping as the warm, creamy liquid began to go down.

  She couldn’t believe it. She had managed to make him quiet. Tears sprang again as she looked down at his small mouth, working away in the darkness. The terror that had gripped her since leaving the farm began to ease and she felt relief rush through her like sunshine, warming her insides, lifting her fear.

  ‘He’s so lovely, isn’t he?’ She felt bold enough to say that. She felt as if she needed to convey how precious he was: to mark this occasion. This might be the only time she could do this: watch him drink as she held him in her arms.

  The vet grunted, tension vibrating from him. He lit a cigarette, grimy fingers fumbling in the packet, but grew calmer as his smoke rings filled the car.

  The baby carried on drinking, eyes bright and fixed on her, mouth working away rhythmically, as he drained the bottle like a lamb. Eventually he fell asleep again, the teat slipping from his mouth, his lips occasionally twitching. He looked so peaceful, the trauma of the past hours eased by sleep and a belly full of milk.

  ‘Couldn’t we take him to Will?’ The words slipped out without her intending them to. She glanced at him, but the cigarette and the sight of the sleeping baby seemed to have relaxed him.

  ‘He wouldn’t take him. What is he? Seventeen?’

  ‘Eighteen in June.’

  ‘The last thing he’d want at seventeen.’

  She bit her lip, determined not to antagonise him, but how could he be so sure? And then she thought of how Will hadn’t written to her since leaving, and of how he hadn’t contacted Maggie. The fact niggled, ugly and insistent. Perhaps he had never loved Maggie – or even cared for her at all?

  She waited for him to start the engine, but the vet sat still, almost mesmerised.

  ‘I do know of another family who might take him. Other farmers with a farm on the moor.’

  She didn’t want anyone else to have this baby. But she’d refused to take him to the orphanage, and he wouldn’t take her to Will. Another farm – familiar, and nearby – might be a safer option than their farm.

  ‘Why would they want him?’

  ‘They can’t have a child. They tried for years, and they want one.’

  She closed her eyes, trying to imagine this childless couple. What must it be like to want something so badly that you would accept it even if it wasn’t yours? There had been a ewe whose lamb had died last spring and who spent her days trying to lure others’ lambs to her. She had succeeded with one, and the lamb never went back to its mother. She sometimes wondered if the original mother missed her, or if the lamb ever realised. That was the difficulty with sheep bleating: they all sounded so plaintive it was impossible to tell.

  She opened her eyes and caught Patrick Trescothick looking at her strangely. Something had shifted in the atmosphere between them, as if the sleeping baby and the silence of the moor around had created a new intimacy. Outside, the rain hammered on the window, but inside the car was quiet and calm.

  ‘Of course it will cost you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She was puzzled. ‘I don’t have any money.’

  He was leaning towards her now, with a determined look on his face and a silly, mocking smile. His mouth took her by surprise. That wide, taunting mouth tasted of smoke and beer and, just for a moment, she was too shocked to push him off.

  ‘Just a kiss,’ he said. ‘And another.’ His tongue was probing, thick and hard now, and his hand with its grimy fingers was forcing its way between her legs, pinching and grabbing between her thighs.

  ‘No!’ She came up for air – appalled and furious – and managed to push his fingers away.

  ‘You help me, I help you,’ he said, grabbing the back of her neck and pulling her back towards him. One hand clawed away at her knickers, rubbing beneath the material, and then he grabbed her right hand and pushed it down into his crotch.

  ‘Touch me,’ he said, furious, crushing her fingers and making her rub up and down the hardness at the front of his trousers, which stirred and strained.

  ‘I don’t know how to.’

  ‘Just do it.’ He sounded savage, and, loosening his trousers, thrust her fingers on to it again.

  Blood galloped through her head. He is mad, she thought, quite mad. And yet, if I am to get out of here safely, with the baby, I need to do exactly as he says. She tried to remember what Will and Maggie had done, but the thought of that – and of what it could lead to – made tears brim and wet her cheeks. His face slid from hers, her tears coating it.

  ‘Don’t you dare cry!’ He was shouting now. ‘What have you to cry about? What the fuck have you got to cry about?’

  And then his face crumpled like a small boy’s: as if loss and anguish were battling rage.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and she tried to touch him as he’d said, moving her fingers up the disgusting thing. Let this be over soon, she prayed. Let him do the jolting soon; please, let it all be over. And don’t let it get any worse. Please don’t let him harm the baby or me.

  But she didn’t seem to be doing it right, for it was softening under her touch, and she feared that he would get angry. His face was red and squashed, and it was a while before she realised that, actually, he was crying.

  Eventually, when it had shrunk to a mouse in her hand, he leaned over the steering wheel and became convulsed with sobs.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she could just make out him saying. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

  She sat very still, listening to the sleeping baby and the pounding rain, trying to work out if she could remove her hand without him noticing. Her insides were wound as tight as a spring.

  ‘Loo
k at the golden boy now!’ he said, his face wet with tears. ‘The only son left and I’m a dirty drunk. What a fuck-up. What a bloody fuck-up.’ He grappled with the keys to the car and reversed abruptly, the car scratching along the side of the gorse bush before veering away.

  Her heart thudded hard against the baby. She looked down at him intently, hoping that he couldn’t hear this and wouldn’t wake and start screaming. With her right hand, she pulled down her skirt, rearranging it over her bare knees. There was an angry sore patch on her inner thigh where he’d grabbed at her, and her insides felt stretched and bruised where he’d tried to thrust in a finger. As the car accelerated, she felt very afraid.

  And then suddenly, he braked so fiercely that she had to brace herself to stop slamming against the dashboard. The baby, tight in her arms, bleated awake.

  Was he going to go for her once more? She felt for the handle. Better to fling herself out with the baby than for that to happen again.

  He wasn’t reaching for her, though, but manoeuvring the car so that they took a sharp right and plunged deep into the centre of the moor. She glanced out of the window at the moorland now rolling behind them. She had missed her chance to jump: if she did it now, she risked losing the baby. The thought of him falling from her arms into the scrubland – dark, unknowable and almost ghostly, with its boulders and bogland and silence, and the mist that enveloped you secretly – was absolutely terrifying.

  ‘How will we explain it?’ He seemed to be talking to her. ‘The baby. If this other family take it.’

  ‘We wouldn’t need to.’ She swallowed, her heart thudding. She needed to play this carefully. ‘We could tell Aunt Evelyn I’d handed him in to the nuns. Just as she said.’

  ‘And … what happened.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You won’t mention it?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She almost laughed. Who could she tell and who would believe her? There was no one she could trust even if she could find a way to explain.

  ‘You suddenly looked much older … with the baby. For a moment, I thought he was yours. It was … a moment of madness.’