The face of his mother had vanished very quickly from George’s mind after her death. This often worried him, as he confessed to Nell and Prodge but to no one else. He studied photographs of her to induce memory, but a static two-dimensional image is no evoker of flesh, blood and habit. ‘Your mother used to tip her head back when she laughed,’ David Elkin once said, ‘exposing the full length of her pretty neck. I loved that.’ But George held no such picture. Her voice still lived in his head – slow, husky, trailing. The feel of her thin hand, the skin warm and soft as ageing rose petals, sometimes returned to the gaping fingers of his own empty hand. And never would he forget the smell of her. This was nothing to do with man-made concoctions, which she never wore, but was a natural skin smell, somewhere between primroses and cowslips. When George was very young and still afraid of the dark, she would lie beside him on his bed, reading to him until he fell asleep. The scent of her, the warmth of her, the music of her voice combined to make him feel utterly safe. He was aware of this safety long before events taught him the preciousness of this state of being. Sometimes, in his attempts to visualise her face, he would think back to those sweet evenings and try to remember how, through drowsy eyes, he saw her chin, her downcast eyes, her hair. But that picture seemed to have gone for ever. On the occasions he dreamt of his mother, she was always turned away from him, or in shadow, or moving too fast. So the subconscious was of no use, and he would awake frustrated and sad.
What he remembered – would always remember – were the funny things she said, her singular way of looking, the wisdom of her theories, her belief in magic. This had little in common with his own. While he loved the whole idea of goblins, witches, spells – and when they ran out of books his mother would make up her own stories containing these elements – her belief was in the more grown-up kind of magic. This held little appeal for George, although he would listen politely. To be honest, Mama, I don’t really understand what you’re talking about,’ he often said. ‘You will,’ was always her reply.
After she died George cursed himself for not having attended to her magic beliefs more carefully. Her theory was that should something outside the norm happen in a familiar place, that familiarity was shattered. ‘When your father came to take me out for the first time, he came up the stairs and into my tiny flat, and the small sitting room where I was waiting – nervous, thrilled – broke up into a thousand pieces that came showering down on to me so thickly that I was unable to recognise where I was. It was a sort of snowstorm of sensation. It didn’t return to normal until the next morning when I was alone again.’ George had had no idea what she meant at the time. She had also told a story about some furious row with her brother, here in the farmhouse kitchen, which, for her, distorted the solidity of all familiar things. That was a dark, frightening magic, she explained, that left you momentarily with nothing to hold on to. But good magic, if you were lucky, was the more frequent. You just had to be able to recognise it: the going for a walk in a place you knew well, with someone you realised you loved, for instance, heightened the sense of importance in every tree, flower, distant field, fading view.
His mother’s recounted moments of her kind of magic were too numerous to remember – and, to be honest, at the time George had not found them particularly interesting: they were experiences so far from his own. But one or two stuck in his mind, and by the time he went to Oxford he found himself looking, secretly, for a similar experience. He was mostly disappointed. Sometimes, alone among Magdalen’s fritillaries or listening to the New College choir at Evensong, he would sense a frisson that seemed to give special significance to the moment, shaking him from his usual sense of detachment. But it was never caused by a girl, a romantic involvement. He began to doubt it ever would be. His mother, he had concluded, had been particularly lucky in her brushes with magic, but her gift had not been passed on to her son.
But the morning after Lily’s return the truth of his mother’s belief became suddenly clear to him. He went down early to the kitchen. He had not slept more than an hour since going to bed at dawn, and was impatient to be up. Impatient for the day to begin. He made himself a pot of strong coffee and sat down at the table. It was a fine blue day, the clarity of spring in every leaf outside. But it was not a day he recognised. The fact that Lily was asleep upstairs had altered everything. The furniture of the room swayed as if powered by a rocking sea. The stripes of the blue and white butter dish, which had given service for as long as George could remember, seemed to have been charged with new brightness overnight. They dazzled. The solid things of everyday began to dance. This is madness, thought George, but enchanting.
He sat there unmoving, wondering when Lily would come down, and what would happen when she did. He knew he could not wait for her long: the sheep awaited him. But when he had time to return to the farmhouse … perhaps she would be down. And then what? How would this visit be? How long would she stay? What could he do to keep her as long as possible? Buoyed as he was with the light of revelation, the first intimations of powerful feelings for Lily, he would not want her to go again.
George’s reflections were broken by the sound of hooves. He looked out of the window to see Nell riding into the farmyard. It was unlike her to come so early. George’s happy thoughts turned to unreasonable fury, rage: at this moment he did not want to be interrupted by anyone, least of all Nell, to whom there would have to be careful explaining. George automatically fetched milk, a second mug: control was needed.
Nell came striding into the room, a small birch whip in one hand, an egg box in the other. For an infinitesimal moment George was aware of seeing her as strangers, encountering her for the first time, might see her: friendly, raw-boned, uncouth, thoughtless of her appearance. Would they miss, he wondered, a certain careless attraction that emanates from some girls who have never experienced city life?
‘You’re early’ he said.
‘Such a lovely morning. Thought I’d ride.’ She put the box on the table, sat down. ‘More bantams’ eggs.’
‘Thanks very much.’ George wanted to throw the box long and far, smash the eggs into a murk of yolk and slime and shell. He prayed Lily would carry on sleeping, not come down just now.
Nell poured herself coffee automatically. She turned to George.
‘Prodge definitely wants to get married,’ she said.
‘Prodge? Married?’ For a moment George’s surprise halted the swinging of the room. Lily faded. ‘Who to? Why’s he not said anything to me?’
Nell laughed.
‘Oh, there isn’t a girl. No one particular in mind. Just an idea.’
‘How did all this come about?’
‘Goodness knows. I think it’s been creeping up on him. Shed finished, prize cows, farm doing nicely. Now it’s time for a wife. Children, I suppose.’
‘Good heavens.’
‘Besides which, I think …’ Nell narrowed her eyes. ‘I think it wouldn’t be stupid to suppose that he’d like to find a wife before you. I told him Lily was coming back.’
There was a long silence. Nell could be devious sometimes, George knew of old. But he was relieved by the lightness of her tone.
‘Perhaps that’s what set him off,’ she went on. ‘Anyhow, last night he gave me a whole long spiel about the kind of girl he was looking for, and how he’d take one on even if she only half measured up to his expectations. Trouble is, he fancies something quite glamorous, but he knows the most important thing is that whoever it is doesn’t mind living miles from anywhere and will make a good farmer’s wife. Anyhow, he seems to think his black leather jacket – he got it, cost a bloody fortune – is some sort of good-luck token. Now he’ll seriously begin looking.’
George sighed. The whole notion, setting about marriage in this way, seemed preposterous. And yet, of course, normal. His anger at Nell’s ill-timed appearance had fled as quickly as it came, and now his concern was for her.
‘What about you, Nell?’ he said. ‘What will you do if Prodge finds this perfect wife?’
‘Oh, me. Don’t worry about me.’ Nell shrugged. ‘He wouldn’t turn me out. House is big enough for three. I’d just keep on, wouldn’t I? Doing my own thing. Not interfering, of course.’ She stood up. ‘Daresay I’d come in useful for baby-sitting.’ She went to the sink, washed her mug as she always did, turned it upside down on the draining board. With her back to George she asked: ‘Did Lily come, then?’
‘She did, yes. Pretty late. She’s sleeping.’
‘Sleeping.’ Nell turned to him. There was no enquiry in her eyes. ‘Well, that’s good she’s back,’ she said. ‘You won’t be so alone.’
‘You know I like being alone.’
‘Things can change. Anyhow, tell her to give me a ring and we’ll go riding. It’ll be nice for me to have her back, too. Not many girls of my age in these parts, as you well know. Give her my love.’
George watched Nell’s powerful long strides across the yard. She untethered her grey mare and then mounted with a single, elegant spring. Once in the saddle she was, as usual, an impressive figure: straight and sure, absolutely in command. As she jogged out of the yard her blonde curls sprayed against the sky like small foamy waves dashing themselves to pieces on the sand. Despite the happy turmoil caused by Lily, George was not unaware of the familiar pull of his old affection for Nell in his heart.
Lily had brought lunch. When George came in he found cheeses arranged on a pretty old plate taken down from the dresser – a plate his mother had been excited about finding years ago in a market: too good to use, she said. She wouldn’t want it to be broken. Its sudden place on the table shocked George for a moment. Then he saw how right Lily was: how foolish it was to keep things for mere ornament.
Wedges of Dolcelatte and Chaumes and Camembert sat at various calculated angles round the hunk of rugged Cheddar that had been Dusty’s only offering of cheese for months. George smiled. There was a delicious smell coming from the oven. Bread, or warming rolls, perhaps. No wonder the kitchen continued to dance.
Lily came in carrying four small pots of tufted greenery.
‘I brought herbs,’ she said. ‘I remembered that last time there were never any herbs. And there wasn’t much salad. So I brought …’ She went to the fridge and took out several different lettuces, sophisticated curly things with ruby leaves. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Of course not. We’re rather in the outback, here. Not rich in radicchio.’
Lily seemed so busy with the salad-making that there was no chance to go and kiss her, which George longed to do. He stood by the dresser, helpless, grounded, watching her, eyes half shut for fear of too sharp a picture unnerving him completely. It was an impressionist picture he saw: the swishing of a pale skirt, scatty hair shredding the sun that alighted on its waves, pretty hands slivers of light among the reds and greens of lettuces, long fingers twinkling as scissors chopped a length of chives. But for all the vitality of her movements, Lily seemed withdrawn – morning shyness, perhaps, after the acknowledged charge between them last night. Or possibly, thought George, he had misread her then. Perhaps he had assumed she felt what he felt, and had been mistaken.
They ate. The kitchen table was transformed into the corner of a French restaurant: gingham napkins (where had she found them?) folded on side plates, wine glasses, a bottle of fizzy water. Had she been shopping this morning, George wondered? Or had she kept all these things hidden in the boot of her car? So many questions George asked himself: but put none of them to Lily.
Their talk was flat, constrained, as if each seemed bent on not putting a foot wrong. It would be better at dinner, George thought: apart from anything else, time would not be against them. He was always in a hurry at midday: not the moment to linger over wine (in fact neither of them touched the bottle he produced to go with the glasses) and try out all the cheeses on the newly baked bread. George looked at his watch.
‘I’ve got to go and check a length of fence up on one of the high fields,’ he said. ‘One of our loutish rams had a go at it last night. Like to come?’
In truth, he couldn’t imagine Lily at his side, swaying through the uncropped grass, listening to his plans of how best to repair the broken fence. He rather hoped she would not want to come. It was a job he could accomplish quickly on his own. With Lily by his side he would be distracted. He would want her to sit beside him on the grass, look at the views of this corner of England which he loved like nowhere else in the world. Hold her hand. Stroke the back of her neck. Kiss her again.
‘Listen, George,’ she was saying, ‘you’ve not to bother one bit about me. If you remember, last time, I was pretty good at entertaining myself, wasn’t I? I’ll do that again, not get in your way. Though of course when you have a moment I want to see everything: changes, the new lambs, whatever. This afternoon I’ll plant out the herbs in that pot by the back door – is that all right? Then I’ll unpack my books. I’ve brought quite a few. I might read a bit, go for a walk.’
George smiled. Relief joined his general state of happiness. He could see ahead the whole enchanted state of coming and going – in and out of the house, meeting, parting, parting, meeting …
‘Nell’s thrilled you’re back,’ he said. ‘She wants you to ring her, arrange to go riding.’
‘I’ll do that this evening. It’ll be lovely seeing her again. And riding again. I’ve brought proper boots this time. I’ve come altogether more equipped for farm life.’
‘Good,’ said George. He wondered if she had any idea of the lightness in his heart – or if she was disappointed, perhaps, in his lack of demonstration. She had responded so keenly last night when he had held her: today, in bright sunlight, there seemed to be no opportunity. But it was imperative not to dash her expectations: this time, he was determined she should be in no doubt of his feelings, even if his words could never match them. He got up, bent to kiss her on the forehead. To his surprise there was a movement fast as a whiplash and her arms were tight round his neck. For some time they remained in an awkward position arched over the table in a dizzying embrace. At last George pulled away, before allowing himself to be further, blissfully detained. He saw that her cheeks held the same highlights as hollyberries, as did her eyes. Quickly he left. Striding up the hill, sun warm on his back, he tried very hard to think about the broken fence.
Prodge, to whom the success of his farm, the excellence of his cattle, were his life, found himself oddly disturbed by the purchase of his new leather jacket, the most expensive thing he had ever bought. A measure of guilt underlined his pleasure, but not so much as to force him to stop thinking about it. Never before, so far as he could remember, had he ever felt the smack of vanity. But now, looking at the jacket on a hanger in the hall, it assailed him. He had a huge, bloody stupid desire to put the thing on, walk about in it, get the feel of it. All he wanted was to take a quick look in the mirror, then, just, well… keep walking about in it, here and there, nowhere in particular.
Prodge knew what he would see in the mirror. He wasn’t bad looking. Bit on the hefty side, but nice eyes, Nell always said. The jacket would do wonders for him, raise his stock for miles around. When he had tried it on in the shop it had seemed at once like an old friend. It was comfortable, challenging. The shiny black leather was like armour, and yet not too stiff. It was the sort of jacket to give a man status. But in the shop mirrors, crowded with reflections of other men in less superior jackets, he had not been able to admire the sight of himself clearly: he had had to trust his instinct. So now, this sunny afternoon, all he wanted was to make quite sure: glance at himself, undistracted by others in the glass, then try the thing out for a bit.
The plan would have been impossible had Nell been around: she would have laughed at him, as she did last night when he brought the jacket home. But she had gone to the village, would be away for a good hour. There was no one to catch him out, and he had a spare half-hour before he had to check the bags of cattle feed.
Prodge rolled down his sleeves, drew on the jacket. He went to the scullery – his mother had always called it the scullery; in fact it was a rickety extension on the back of the house crammed with junk that would never be sorted out. An old mirror hung high at an angle on one wall. Among its freckles all Prodge could see was a smeary version of his own disappointed face, and the collar and shoulders of the jacket. But even in so useless a mirror he was able to confirm the excellence of the leather, shining and glinting so fiercely that its blackness blazed with a sheen of white. Wow, he thought. It’s quite something.
His mind raced round the few rooms in the house: no, there wasn’t a decent mirror in any of them. He doubted Nell ever gave herself more than a passing glance in the one in the bathroom, and his mother, from whom Nell had inherited her lack of vanity, would have scoffed at the very idea of anyone wasting time appraising their reflection. For the first time in his life – and the thought was so odd and so out of character that Prodge found himself smiling – he was annoyed by the fact that this ruddy, chaotic farmhouse did not have a decent looking glass.
Prodge stomped out of the kitchen, hands weighing down the pockets, enjoying the softness of their lining. The sun, strangely warm for so early in the year, burned down through the leather. The zip – a great corker of a zip – he had judged best to leave at half-mast: something sexy about a half-undone jacket, he thought, not that sexiness was going to get him anywhere in a field full of nothing but sheep. Prodge moved his arms. The jacket creaked. He felt as if he had been listening to the friendly sound his entire life.
To get the feel of the jacket, to test its bending power, Prodge strode quickly over a couple of meadows towards the river. All he needed now was the bike. Wow, what could he not do on a bloody great Harley-Davidson. John Prodger: the one with the jacket and the bike. But that was a dream so far off it was beyond a dream: it was a pathetic hope.
When Prodge reached the bank of the river he stopped, sat down, lit a cigarette. This is all very unusual, he said to himself: he could see the humour of the situation. John Prodger, tenant farmer dedicated to nothing but farming, loving every inch of the land, every cow, every sheep, every hour of his working day, suddenly taking a half-hour break, mid-afternoon, lighting up, sitting on a river bank in a new black leather jacket that cost the same as half a dozen good ewes. Madness! What had come over him? Still, not a bad idea occasionally to act so completely out of character that you surprised yourself. Every man was entitled to experiment with change. So long as nobody caught him, there was nothing wrong with this stolen half-hour. Prodge took a long drag on his cigarette, sucked it deep into his lungs, let the smoke slowly out in a spire that wavered against the sky, then disappeared. If a Harley-Davidson had been parked beside him, he would have been completely happy.
Prodge pulled faster on his cigarette. He let his eyes drag along the water with the fast current of the river. They rose again to the bank on his side, some hundred yards further along from where he was sitting. There he saw a creature, a vision, a woman, walking slowly towards him. This, he knew at once, was the wife he was looking for in his black leather jacket. Funny thing was, she’d arrived far quicker than he’d ever expected. And not through a crowd in the pub, as he had imagined, but all alone in Longer Meadow.
The glorious certainty withered within seconds. There was madness everywhere this afternoon, Prodge realised. Maybe it was the cigarette. He hadn’t had one for a week or so. Must have been the Marlboro. Gone to his head. Disappointment struck. He thought he recognised the girl: the Lily girl who’d come to stay with George some time back, and Nell said was returning. They’d only met once, briefly. He hadn’t thought her right for George, her in a fancy scarf in the country: but then he’d never thought any girl right for George. Not that there was any reason to suppose George was on the lookout. It was he, John Prodger, in his helpful black jacket, who was in search of a wife. He threw the half-smoked cigarette into the river, pulled himself to his feet. Awkward, now, was what he felt.
‘Hello,’ Lily called out. She was only a few yards away.
‘Afternoon.’
‘I’m Lily Crichton. Don’t know if you remember – we met briefly last time I was here.’
‘I remember. I do.’ She was right by him now, holding out her hand. Pretty daft thing to do on a river bank miles from anywhere, Prodge thought. But he also liked the idea: all rather Captain Livingstone, British. They shook hands. ‘Nell’s gone up the village,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell her you were looking for her.’ The one thing he did not want was for Lily to suggest coming up to the farmhouse with him and waiting for Nell to return. Christ, he’d not be able to walk straight.
Lily smiled. Some looker, thought Prodge. Perhaps George had got lucky this time. ‘What a fantastic jacket,’ she said.
The mind-blowing event of Lily appearing from nowhere into the landscape, exuding beauty and friendship in equal measure, had blasted Prodge’s jacket completely from his mind. Now it came to his rescue, gave him the self-assurance he had always known black leather would give a man.
‘You like it?’ he said. ‘I got it only yesterday. I was sort of … trying it out.’ He smiled. ‘Hadn’t reckoned on bumping into anyone. Looks a bit silly, doesn’t it? A farmer in this sort of clobber, a Tuesday afternoon. Should be hosing down the yard
‘I think it looks brilliant. Suits you to perfection.’
‘Really?’
Prodge, still feeling that he was hallucinating, wanted to summon a golden chariot from his childhood story books, put this goddess inside it and drive her across the skies. Or take her to the village shop where they did cream teas out the back in a nice little whitewashed courtyard, or to the pub for wine or beer, or just walk with her into the copse, bluebells not far off now, and lay her down on his jacket in a private dell, moss and new grass their bed.
‘Cigarette?’ he said.
‘I don’t smoke, thanks.’
If she didn’t want one, then he didn’t want one either.
‘You here long, then?’
Lily turned away from him, eyes bouncing along the water. He could see her profile. God Almighty. ‘Plans aren’t at all firmed up,’ she said, quietly. ‘I just thought it was time to come back.’
‘Right.’ If ever a girl of even half the beauty of this Lily decided it would be right to return to him, thought Prodge – well, it would be a miracle. Not the finest black leather jacket in the world could make that happen. Suddenly, hands roaming in the pockets that had so recently given him pleasure, he saw his new purchase as nothing more than a cheap gimmick. He felt sickened by the thought of the money he had spent. Sickened in general. ‘I must get back to work,’ he said.
‘Will you tell Nell I’m longing to ride? Soon as she has a moment. I’ll ring her tonight.’
‘I’ll do that.’ She looked on him with such piercing gentleness and understanding that Prodge knew there was nothing about him she did not know. In another world, another time, they could have melded (was that the word? Perhaps it was moulded) together as one, like couples in toshy films. He felt close to tears, uncertain, in the brightness of the afternoon, of what was real, what was throbbing fantasy.
Lily gave him a small, waist-high wave: a rather prissy little wave, he thought, but maybe that was all part of his misjudgement. Perhaps it was really a wave that signalled she was aware of some – well, something, between them. She turned away, started to walk back towards George’s farm. Prodge, dissatisfaction prickling his skin, headed towards home. He tried to make a mental list of the things he had to do, but all he could think of was lying in a grassy bed, ravishing the girl who had returned to his best friend, George.
Prodge’s hope of seeing no one in his black jacket was dashed a second time. As he walked through the farmyard gate, George drew up in his car. He wound down the window, smiled widely.
‘Christ!’ he said.
Caught off his guard, Prodge had no time to decide whether or not to say anything about his meeting with Lily. A little giddied by the approval in George’s face, he decided not. A man must sometimes have an innocent secret to keep him going.
‘Like it?’
‘It’s terrific’ George grinned. His approbation was the undoing of Prodge’s resolution.
‘Lily thought so too.’ Lily, for sure, would report back to George. Silly to think the meeting might have been their secret. She would be bound to report it: it meant nothing to her.
‘Lily?’
‘I just ran into her down by the river. She was on her way over to find Nell. Told her Nell was in the village so she went back to your place.’
‘Prodge …’ George paused, decided to enjoy a tease. ‘What were you doing in that magnificent jacket in the middle of a working afternoon down by the river? Hoping to run into a wife?’
‘Something like that.’ How the hell did George know the reason for the jacket in the first place? He was something of a mind-reader, sometimes. Spooky. ‘As a matter of fact, I did run into a wife.’ He now decided to carry on the tease. ‘Your visitor. Now there’s the kind of woman I wouldn’t say no to.’
‘Ah.’
‘But bugger me, you got there first.’
‘I haven’t got anywhere with Lily, Prodge. She’s just a friend. Invited herself to stay’
Invited herself? Why should George be the receiver of such luck?
‘Right. Still, she’s out of my class. All I can hope for is some sub-Lily comes my way, takes to my jacket.’
George laughed. ‘Nell was saying you’re seriously thinking about marriage.’
‘So it’s Nell been telling tales? Serious as I can be about anything beyond the farm, I suppose. I mean, time’s come I wouldn’t mind a few kids running round the place, a good woman by my side. Take a bit of pressure off Nell.’
‘Quite.’
‘How long’s she staying?’ Prodge cursed himself for this question. He didn’t want George to see which way his mind was jumping.
‘She hasn’t said. A week or two, perhaps. Nell’s glad she’s back. They like riding together. Talking.’
‘So Nell said. How’s this for a zip?’ Prodge pulled the huge zip up and down several times. It made an expensive sizzling sound. ‘Ever seen one like it?’
George, impressed, smiled. ‘This is a side of you I’ve not seen before,’ he said.
‘I done too much growing up too fast these last years.’ Prodge frowned, suddenly serious. ‘This is my youth-flash. Probably too late, but I want to have a go. Anyway, I got cows to milk. Can’t stand here all day talking to the gentleman farmer.’ It was an old joke between them: often they called each other by their titles – gentleman farmer, tenant farmer. George laughed again and started the engine. Prodge, hurrying now, late, guilty – you should never keep a cow waiting – decided that the best way to disguise the fantasy that had so unexpectedly hit him this afternoon was to make the whole thing into a joke. Pretend he fancied Lily like crazy. Be quite open about it. That way, he would have an opportunity to flirt with her, and because the whole idea of him and Lily was so unlikely, so outrageous, so jokey, George and Nell would never guess the truth.
‘I ran into Prodge on my way over to Nell this afternoon,’ Lily said that evening. ‘He was wearing this extraordinarily beautiful black leather jacket. Bit bizarre, mid-afternoon down by the river. But he said he was trying it out. I admired it and he seemed pleased. Odd: he doesn’t look the sort of man to be struck by vanity’
‘He’s not usually,’ said George. ‘The jacket is just a little experiment, a little whim, a fantasy he’s given in to and he’s enjoying it no end. I ran into him, too. He said he’d met you. You rather dazzled him, I think. Well, meeting you unexpectedly on a river bank would dazzle anyone.’
‘Nonsense! Don’t be so silly’
She was moving about again, in her fluid way, from table to fridge to dresser: opening cupboards, taking out bowls and jars and returning them – preparing, it seemed, something that would be added to the cottage pie Dusty had left in the low oven. George remembered that on her previous visit Lily had not acted like this: she had been a more passive visitor, making no suggestions about food, not offering to cook, just accepting whatever was put on the table. She had spent a lot of time sitting by the fire, drink in hand, ankle twirling. George hoped she would resume this former stillness once they had eaten. It was all he could do not to interrupt one of her small journeys and demand she forget about cooking while he kissed her. But he remained standing, motionless, watching her, fascinated by the way she could quarry silence with her movements. The kitchen spun again.
‘I’ve made a – well, I hope Dusty won’t be offended. Perhaps she won’t find out. I’ve made an aubergine mousse, first course. Hope you don’t mind.’
‘Mind?’ said George. The evening sun, intent on catching her, singling her out from the shadows, made her into a pyre of light. A halo danced round her head, shoulders, skirt. The dusting of tiny hairs on her arms were sleek with transitory gold. George sipped his drink, wondering if the wine was the begetter of this vision. Then he shut his eyes, unable to believe.
There followed a couple of days of unseasonably high wind and rain. Lily reported a leak in the ceiling of her bedroom. George said he knew there were loose tiles on the roof: he would ring the man who supplied replacement tiles and mend it.
On the second gusty afternoon George returned from the afternoon milking to find a ladder propped up against the front of the house. He looked up to see Lily balanced against the slope of the roof, intent on work at the tiles. Alarmed, George ran to the ladder, called up to her.
‘Lily! What on earth—’
She turned to him. ‘The man didn’t turn up. I waited for ages then decided to have a go myself. I found a couple of spare tiles in the barn.’
‘Don’t be … ridiculous. You could fall. Come on down.’
‘I’ve almost finished. It was nothing serious.’ The wind made her voice dip and sway like seagulls flying over waves.
‘Please, Lily’ George knew he sounded exasperated, had a feeling he was being unreasonable. ‘What do you know about mending roofs?’
‘We’ve a tiled roof like this at home. Tiles often blow off, Norfolk winds. I often put them back.’ She turned away, raised her arm to check the tile she had been securing.
George cautiously mounted the first three rungs of the ladder. It juddered. Lily snapped her head round again, hair a stiff mask over her face. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Please, Lily’
‘I’ve almost finished. Coming down in a minute.’
George, helpless, all too aware of his foolish stance two feet from the ground and gripping the ladder, kept his eyes on her every finely balanced movement. Certainly she seemed to know what she was doing. Very odd. But he wished she’d come down now. A gust of wind carried a new squall of rain that freckled his upturned face with stinging cold.
‘Please,’ he shouted once again. Lily gave no sign of having heard. Instead, to his horror, he saw her beginning to climb higher. The ladder reached almost to the spine of the roof. When she arrived at the top, Lily swung one leg over so that suddenly she was astride the house. George gave a wordless scream.
Lily now rode the house like a horse, her visible leg kicking at the flank of firm tiles. Her jacket billowed in the wind, her hair was a stiff flag. She looked down at George laughing, shouting something he could not hear. Then she took her hands from the withers of the roof, flung them in the air.
She’s mad, thought George. Mad and wonderful. There’s only one thing for it.
On his own journey up the ladder the icy wind and rain blew all sense of Lily’s danger from him. He began to enjoy himself. As he passed the patch of tiles that Lily had repaired he saw that, amazingly, she had done a good job of it. He was proud of her.
On reaching the top – less adroitly than Lily – George swung his leg over so that he, too, was astride the house. Lily roared with delight, though her actual words, despite her nearness, he could not hear. In her balloon jacket she was an absurd, happy figure: face aglitter with rain, hands reddened with cold. George joined her laughter.
He had no sense of how long they stayed riding the roof that wild afternoon. George had the impression they were trapped in a cloud. Mists roved about them so that there was no wide view of the landscape: only, in the frayed edges of the mist, the ghostly tops of trees.
Lily at last swung herself back on to the ladder and climbed quickly down. She held on to its sides to steady George’s descent. On terra firma again, they moved towards each other simultaneously. George’s waxed jacket creaked as he opened his arms. They stood hugging each other, shaky and cold and laughing under the vicious rain.
‘Finish off a pheasant, mend a roof – anything else you can do?’ asked George, as they drew apart.
‘You’ll see,’ said Lily, licking the raindrops from her top lip. ‘Come on: hot baths, dry clothes.’
‘Did you set out to astonish me, or did—?’ But Lily already running to the door, didn’t hear, so George got no answer to his question.
Lily’s presence so enchanted and jumbled the next few days that, looking back, George was unable to remember precisely how long she had been there when the evening of the pictures came about. He had come in later than usual, having waited a long time for the vet who had been called to see a cow with mastitis. A light rain was shredding the kitchen window, and Lily had lighted two candles – fine church candles that she would not have found in any drawer. She must have been out shopping again. Over supper they had talked about the perils of farming, animal welfare, the rotation of crops (Lily seemed keen to learn as much as she could), Wordsworth, Ted Hughes, Auden, Nell’s bantams’ eggs, the forthcoming agricultural show where Prodge hoped once again to win several prizes – shifting from one thing to another, but always avoiding the subject of themselves or future plans. Then suddenly Lily put a hand over George’s and said, as seriously as she could manage, ‘You know, there are an awful lot of pictures all over the house. I’d like a proper tour, a proper look. Explanations.’
George hesitated. Then he laughed. ‘I was hoping you weren’t going to show an interest in them. The collection was built up with great pride by my father who always had an eye for a bad picture. You couldn’t argue with him. He came from the school of “I like what I like” and nothing could budge him. I didn’t have the knowledge and skill to explain the difference between art and rubbish, and my mother didn’t try. She simply put all the worst pictures in rooms that weren’t much used – spare rooms.’
‘So that’s why there’s a sort of hard-boiled egg of a podgy naked girl in my room?’
‘Exactly. I’m sorry. I’d forgotten about that. You could take it down.’
‘No, no. I’m getting used to her. Soon I’ll be quite fond of her.’ She jumped up, pushing away her half-finished coffee. ‘Come on! I want to see them all.’
George followed her out of the kitchen. They went first to the old dining room, last used long ago, before Mrs Elkin died. The peppery smell of a room that had witnessed hundreds of heavy meals over the years greeted them as George opened the door. In the solemn hush of elaborate oak chairs regimented round a civic-looking table, a bowl of wax fruit, dimmed by dust imitating the bloom of skin, was the only contribution to frivolity. The windows were low and small, admitting a grainy brown wash of light – poor illumination for the many pictures on the dark walls.
‘Shall I put on a light?’ asked George.
‘No, no. It’s probably better, not being able to see them too clearly.’ Lily smiled and moved down the room, eyes passing from the contents of one dull gold frame to another. ‘He was a chiefly a landscape man, then, your father,’ she said at last.
‘He was.’
‘Such terrible, terrible landscapes. Can’t have done much for a man who loved the country so much.’
‘But at least they never cost very much. He was always picking things up in junk shops, declaring he’d bought a real investment.’
‘Oh? He was that kind of a collector? He didn’t buy paintings for the love of them?’
‘I think he loved them too. He was very proud of them. If you think these are bad, wait till we get upstairs. The long passage probably houses the most dire collection of pastoral art in Britain.’
Going up the staircase, side by side, George put his arm round Lily’s waist. Thus bound they moved slowly down the dim passage, which creaked like a boat beneath them. They paused at each elaborately framed view – bland sunsets, rustic gates, bare elms of the sort that painters of rural scenes for calendars sacrifice their eyesight for in their conscientious attention to each twig. There was even a sub-Constable haywain beside a drear pond. George smiled.
‘The funny thing is,’ he said, ‘although I can see they’re all absolutely dreadful, I can’t quite explain why. Give me just a few reasons.’
Lily sighed. Her head was tilted to one side, just touching George’s shoulder.
‘For a start,’ she said, ‘and I won’t bore you with a long lecture, if paint is applied in exactly the same way to sky, earth, trees, water, whatever, the result is a mush of sameness that drains all life. Look at that soup of a pond, stagnant water of exactly the same density as that dull blob of hay. The hay would be just as good in the pond, the water on the wagon.’ George laughed, suddenly seeing. ‘Take that horse.’ She pointed to a bloodless-looking animal in the shafts of the haywain. ‘It’s not made of flesh and blood. It’s a stuffed toy. There’s no life there. No vitality. All these pictures are not only so badly painted it’s laughable, they’re dead.’
‘But perhaps the artists enjoyed painting them, felt they were saying something?’
‘Perhaps they did. Everyone’s entitled to have a go at painting if it gives them pleasure. They world’s full of happy amateurs who call themselves artists to give themselves status. What I find puzzling is why most people can’t see pictures – the good, the bad, what doesn’t work, what makes your spine tingle. That’s why I want to try to teach children to look, try to encourage people how to look – surely one of the most important gifts there is. It’s such a waste, missing so much of what’s there, isn’t it? Such a bonus if you can see … or even think you can see.’
Oh God: here was the message that she was soon to be on her way back. Back to work. Off again. George took his arm from her waist, a sudden melancholy trawling through him. He sat down on a hump-backed trunk that had stood in the passage for as long as he could remember. Lily sat beside him.
‘It’s so odd, when you see the solutions of genius,’ she went on. ‘You think: he’s solved it – why can’t others? But of course that’s a silly question. Genius can’t be copied, can only inspire, show, make it look easy, which is perhaps why so many people want to have a go. And while painters of little talent can of course improve, they can never produce that indefinable thing that’s always recognisable as great art.’ She sighed. George put his arm round her waist again. ‘Genius,’ she went on (George didn’t care if she never stopped). ‘What is it? Think. It’s Rembrandt’s light on a steel helmet: the steel hard, the light intangible. How does he do it? You can look through a magnifying glass at the brush strokes and still not have a clue. Ingres: fat fleshy hands resting on rich material – Ingres is absolutely certain of the difference between silk, satin, velvet, lace, all lightness and sheen, while the flesh they support is heavy, real flesh of a completely different texture. Then think of Vermeer, painter of absolute silence, of weight. The girl pouring milk from a pitcher. You can feel the weight of that pitcher. You can hear the silence. How did he manage that? How did he paint the sound of sploshing milk, the strain in the girl’s arm, supporting the weight? How did he? Genius. I could go on and on with examples of things people are blind to, but I won’t. I don’t want to bore you.’
‘You’re not boring me. But don’t you think that possibly you see all these things because you have an acuter than average perception?’
‘No. Because I don’t think I do. It’s artists who have the perception. It’s up to the viewers to see – to learn to see.’
Night had lowered itself through the windows by now. The passage was husky with darkness, the pictures almost invisible: just the dull glow of gold from the haywain’s frame. The trunk on which they sat had become uncomfortable. Lily stood up. She took George’s hands.
‘Come on: your room now. What great art have you hidden there?’
Lily, George could just see, was smiling again. He led her to his room.
‘Nothing much to offend here,’ he said. ‘Just a few fish. At one time my father became a keen fisherman, went through a phase of fish pictures. Later on he took up shooting, hence the dozens of precisely feathered pheasants you probably noticed in the study’ He switched on the bedside light. ‘I have to admit, I’m rather fond of that old dolphin – the last picture, I think, my father bought. From some student show, I think, in London.’
Lily went to the fireplace and looked up at the picture of a plump green dolphin tumbling in a lace of aquamarine water.
‘I could grow fond of him too,’ she said. ‘He’s full of life, and look at that water. The student understands about painting water She trailed off, turned to glance without interest at the rigid fish framed on other walls. Then she met George’s eye. ‘Time for you to explain the woman in my room,’ she said.
‘Can’t say I can be of much help, there.’
They stood side by side looking at the naked young girl lying back on rich Victorian cushions, though plainly the painting had been done in the fifties. Lily had put on a single light on the dressing table: the low wattage (one of Mrs Elkin’s singular economies, inherited by he son) leant no clarity to the painting.
‘Whoever painted her confused skin with enamel,’ said Lily, at last. ‘Look at the hardness. That’s not flesh. It’s painted in exactly the same way as the cushions.’
‘I see what you mean.’ George thought for a moment. After the long attack on his father’s pictures, he decided to make a stab at supporting the naked woman, if only to provoke Lily to more of her fierce reactions. ‘All the same,’ he said, ‘I do rather like the provocative way her leg’s bent.’
‘Terrible cliche,’ Lily answered. ‘But why not? Quite entertaining. There has to be something entertaining in so stilted a gathering of brushstrokes.’ She said this lightly, smilingly.
‘You’re a very harsh critic,’ George said.
‘Not really’
‘I remember the day my father brought her home. “I’ve found an Aphrodite”, he said. My mother took one look and brought her up here. Could be my father had had their bedroom in mind
Lily laughed. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I suppose if there’s anything appealing at all about the poor girl, it’s that she’s quite sexy’
‘She is,’ said George. ‘And you probably won’t believe me, but I’d worked that one out for myself before you pointed it out.’
‘You’re learning.’ Lily tipped her head towards George, smiling. There was a small silence between them before he kissed her. Then, when he drew back, thinking it was time to return downstairs now, she said, as if from a long way off, ‘I’ve been here over a week, now, George. And—’
‘Is that the go-ahead. Does that mean—?’
Lily looked at him quizzically. ‘Bet you’ve never seen the naked lady with the morning sun on her.’
There’s nothing like looking at a picture in early light,’ she said.
‘Oh, shut up about art.’ He kissed her. ‘The time’s come.’ Too quickly for her to protest, George picked her up and carried her to the bed.