George would like to have lingered in bed next morning with Lily, but duty made that impossible. He allowed himself to lie looking at her for a few moments – head on a bent arm, childlike, lashes that made a lengthening shadow on her cheek so it was hard to tell where lash ended and shadow began. Her hair was scattered randomly over the pillow. Despite the dullness of the room behind the thin drawn curtains, its familiar lights flickered a little as she stirred. George marvelled. Then he left her sleeping.
Prodge had suggested to him that a few pigs would add to the variety of the farm: this morning he was off to buy a couple of Gloucester Old Spots, a distinguished, rare old breed of considerable virtue. They fared very nicely without hormones, growth promoters or appetite stimulants, all things George would not abide on his farm, and they were known to be good mothers. There was also no need for tail docking, teeth clipping or castration, cruelties he equally could not contemplate, so in the experiment with pigs the Gloucester Old Spots were the answer. George looked forward to their arrival.
As he ate his breakfast he could not help smiling to himself: in the choice this morning between remaining with Lily and going to fetch a couple of pigs, the farming instinct won. She would understand, he thought. Heaven knew how she would spend her morning, but it was possible she would be looking forward to his return, late morning, as keenly as he was. And maybe her heart would beat as fast as his beat now, remembering their night.
Three hours later George returned to the farm in the Land Rover, two large pigs in the trailer behind him. To his astonishment he saw Lily crossing the yard, a pitchfork of straw trembling above her head, pieces falling on to her hair and shoulders, making for the shed where the pigs were to be lodged. At the sight of George she waved the pitchfork. The straw fell to the ground. She laughed.
George, after a quick glance round to make sure neither Saul nor Ben was about, dashed across the yard. He wanted to kiss her, to touch her, but took the pitchfork from her instead. They stood on a small gold island of straw. The sound of pigs grunting and squealing came from the trailer.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ George asked.
‘I asked Saul if there was anything I could do to help. He looked at me in complete disbelief, couldn’t believe I meant it. But when I persuaded him I did, he said, All right, you can bed down the pigsty. So …’ She smiled up at him, pleased with herself.
‘You’re even dressed like a farmer.’ For the first time, Lily was wearing old jeans and gumboots.
‘Thought it might encourage him.’
George was almost overwhelmed by a desire to leave the pigs in the trailer and carry the new farm help into the house. He said, ‘You pick up this straw. I’ll back the trailer up to the shed.’
She tried hopelessly to scrape up the straw with the pitchfork, then picked it up by hand. Her eagerness, her wild joy in this minor chore, was plain to see. George’s own sense of exhilaration made him clumsy He had to make several attempts to line the trailer with the open door of the shed.
The two pigs moved down the ramp into their new lodgings with great dignity. A fine launching, it was, said Lily: they were as stately as ships. Only the champagne was missing.
‘We could have a bottle for lunch,’ said George. ‘I mean, it would be a suitable thing to do, wouldn’t it? On this rather unusual day.’
He and Lily stood side by side looking over the door at the Gloucester Old Spots as they examined their new habitat. They were magnificent animals, their coarse pinkish bulk broken up by a pattern of large black spots. There was something of the china ornament about them, and also something admirable about their interest in their small new world. They took no notice of their audience, but rootled about with satisfied grunts, deciding which corner of the shed would be their sleeping quarters. George and Lily watched them in silence, fascinated by the efficient manner in which they made themselves comfortable. George, glancing at Lily, wondered whether she regarded pigs in the same critical way that she looked at pictures. He wondered whether she saw all sorts of things that evaded his own eyes.
‘No AI for them,’ he said. ‘Out in the field with the boar.’
‘You’re going to breed, then?’
‘Of course. An average litter should bring us about nine to twelve piglets. In five months they should reach some sixty-five kilogrammes live weight—’
Lily laughed. ‘How on earth do you know all this? I thought you’d never kept pigs before.’
‘I did a certain amount of research before going down this new road. Of course, I know Old Spots’ meat isn’t that popular – Saul did his best to persuade me I was mad. All that fat, he said. No one wants to eat that, these days. But I liked the idea of them.’
‘You’re a farmer not entirely ruled by your head, then,’ said Lily.
‘For the moment I can afford a non-profitable little whim like this. But there could be bad times round the corner. You can never be sure of anything in farming.’
This note of seriousness did nothing to quell their spirits: for the moment anything other than this untroubled happiness was beyond imagining. They walked back to the kitchen arm in arm.
There were new cheeses on the table, and a salad. George loved the way Lily’s mysterious mornings produced such lunches. He looked at his watch.
‘Twelve-thirty,’ he said. ‘I could do half an hour at my desk, or I could open a half-bottle of champagne and we could have it upstairs. What do you think?’
Drawing the curtains in Lily’s room, George hoped that Saul and Ben were still occupied with sowing and would not come knocking at the kitchen door. Lily was in bed by the time he turned round. She sat in a great flurry of whiteness, breasts resting on the sheet, struggling to open the champagne. George hurried over to help her. But he became deflected – as a farmer might, he said to himself, by such a girl as Lily Crichton in her bed at lunchtime, freckled with dancing shadows, laughing. In the end they did not bother with the drink.
At two o’clock they came downstairs for lunch, both hungry and in a hurry. George had a dentist’s appointment nine miles away, Lily was to meet Nell at three to go riding.
George, watching Lily as she ate and floated to the fridge to collect water, feared her obvious deliquescence would be apparent to everyone. Her apparent happiness, her ease, her exuberance shimmied over her, a gold dust so powerful it would surely brush off everywhere she went. Nell, in her instinctive way, would know at once.
‘You won’t say anything to Nell,’ he said.
‘Of course not.’
‘It’s just that you look so – well, as if you’d been … that she’s bound to guess.’
Lily laughed. ‘That’s entirely your imagination. I may not feel normal, but I’m sure I look it. I’ll tell her I’ve had a hard morning laying straw for the pigs. We mostly talk about horses when we’re riding. Or she tells me about the people who live in the farms we pass. I love all that. She never asks me intrusive questions.’
‘Good. Because Nell will find out one day. I think she’s probably expecting it. But in a sisterly way she’s quite jealous of my time and my affection beyond her. It’ll be a delicate matter, breaking the news.’
‘What news?’
‘I don’t mean just that we’re lovers, now. I mean
In too much of a hurry to work out what exactly he did mean, George kissed her on the forehead and hurried out.
A short time later Lily, about to set off to the Prodgers’ farm, discovered the battery in her car was dead. She could walk the mile, but would keep Nell – who always stuck vigilantly to her schedule – waiting. She telephoned: explained the problem. Nell, all sympathy, said she’d ask Prodge to come down and either jumpstart the batteries or drive her over himself. Lily sat down at the kitchen table to read the paper.
When Nell delivered the message to her brother, his heart battered so fast he feared she would see something was the matter. He turned away from her so she would not see the reddening heat that had swarmed over his face. His shaky hands he hid in his pockets.
Since that afternoon on the river bank Prodge had suffered all the symptoms of a man poised between lustful fantasy and painful reality. He had dreamt of Lily: he had ravished her in his dreams and woken up out of breath. He had taken every chance he could to catch sight of her, visiting George with some petty excuse more often than usual. A few words had been exchanged, but never had they been alone again for a moment. Now, here was his chance. As Prodge drove perilously fast along the lane to the Elkin farm, he knew he must take advantage of it. Say something: what? He didn’t know. But something to suggest to the goddess Lily what she meant to him. She might be flattered, not believe him. She might laugh, scoff. She might be angry. Whatever: he had to risk her reaction, for no longer could he contain the restlessness that raged through him, night and day, in his heart and body.
Not ten minutes after Lily’s call Prodge appeared in George’s kitchen, scarlet in the face. The flush reached right up into his hairline. He looked feverish. Before Lily could ask what was the matter, or rise to go with him to the car, he had sat down beside her. His hands, clenched into fists on the table, visibly shook. A crest of sweat appeared on his brow.
‘What’s your trouble, then?’
‘Battery. It’s very sweet of you to come over, Prodge. So busy and everything. But George’s gone to—’
‘That’s all right. Soon sort it out.’ He gave a small gasp, like someone with asthma.
‘Is there anything wrong? You look—’
‘Nothing wrong, thanks very much. Well, maybe a touch of some bug.’
‘Shall I get you a glass of water?’
‘Don’t want to put you to any trouble. But I am a bit overheated, yes.’ He ran a fist over his forehead, banishing the sweat. ‘Please.’
In the sun-warm silence, Lily rose and fetched a glass, filled it with water from the tap. Prodge took three long gulps.
‘That’s better. Thanks for that.’
Lily was regarding him anxiously. It occurred to Prodge that she must think he’d been struck by some mysterious illness. But very quickly, having drunk the water, his whole body unclenched, his taut face slackened. He was calm again, though a hint of hostility darkened his eyes.
Suddenly, with no warning, he put one of his huge hands over hers.
‘Lily Crichton,’ he said at last, so quietly that she had to strain to hear him. ‘I have to tell you this. You are the most … extraordinary woman I’ve ever had the chance to meet. There’s no one like you round these parts. No one like you for miles. It wouldn’t be that strange, I don’t suppose, should it happen to a farmer like me – and I’m not one for chances to get into the wider world – should it happen that a man like me were to run into a goddess like you on a river bank …’ With each convolution of his declaration, Prodge’s face turned more deeply scarlet. He paused, pressed his hand harder on to hers. ‘Well, in the unlikely event of all that happening, I think it would be a case of… I can’t find the right word, exactly. But he’d be knocked out. Smitten. Wrecked. Troubled. Something like that.’ He looked at her, hurried from the abstract to the truth. ‘Because you’re exactly the sort of woman I’ve always had in mind, and you’re not available. George got there first. Almost everything, all our lives, except for prize Friesians, George got there first.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘But if another one like you came along, daresay I’d make a play for her.’
Lily laughed gently, still did not move her hand. ‘Oh, Prodge,’ she said, ‘I’m flattered. I hardly know what to say. I—’
‘Well, I know exactly what to say, though I seem to be tying myself in knots a bit.’ His voice was stronger now. He removed his hand from Lily’s, reclenched it. ‘I been tossing and turning all night, thinking about it. What I been thinking was: best to get it over. Put my cards on the table, tell her what’s going on.’ He banged his chest. ‘I’m a strong man, physically. I can muck-spread all day and not an ache in my back. I can plough all God’s daylight hours and more besides, no trouble. But I’ve never been hit like this before – just the one sighting, the few words we had, and down I went.’
‘Prodge,’ Lily said again. There were tears in her eyes.
‘Silly isn’t it?’ he went on. ‘But nothing I can do about it. I been on the lookout for a good woman for some time – thought the jacket might help. And by God it did, but in quite the wrong way.’ This time his smile was wry. ‘You’re light years from any woman I’ve ever seen or spoken to in all my life. Not surprising, really, you’ve brought me down.’
‘I’m sure I haven’t brought you down.’
‘No, in a sense you haven’t, of course.’ A determined energy strengthened his voice. ‘Outwardly things’ll go on as ever. No one will ever guess what’s bugging me, and I swear on my life I won’t bother you with it all.’ He paused. ‘Trouble is, and it’s why I’m confessing all this now – and thank God for your car playing up, I didn’t know how the hell I was going to get to see you – is that strong as I am, like I say, I couldn’t live the rest of my life with this secret. I had to tell just one person. Lighten the burden, that way, if you see what I mean.’
‘I understand.’
‘All I ask is that you take a bit of care. Don’t make it hard for me – throw your arms round my neck at some Christmas party, something. Don’t kiss me in the general kissing on a New Year’s Eve, that sort of thing. I couldn’t take that: might undo me. And one other thing, please say nothing to Nell or to George. Not a word. That’s more important than anything.’
‘I promise,’ she said.
‘Thanks. Fact is, a man can be struck down, like by bloody lightning, when he’s least expecting it. That’s something I’ve learnt. I’ve never had much time to think about the whole love business: too busy on the farm. The odd girl, the odd night – that’s been me up till now. Not very satisfactory. But not much alternative, living here. I always assumed the right sort of girl would come along, share the farm with me, help Nell out, be my wife and mother of my children. Well, that girl will turn up one day. No doubt about that at all. But one thing she’ll never know: one April afternoon I fell in love with a girl called Lily, and that love will never change.’
‘Prodge – I’m sorry. I understand what you’re feeling. But these things are so easy to imagine, especially if subconsciously you’re half wanting them.’
‘This is nothing to do with imagination, believe me. This is real.’
‘I’ll do everything you ask, of course. I don’t know what else to say, except that I’m sure that—’
‘Don’t you say anything,’ Prodge answered. ‘There’s nothing you have to say. There. That’s over.’ He pushed his chair back from the table, stood up. Chains had fallen from him. He was strong with resolve. ‘Everything said. I’ll never mention it again, I promise you that.’
Lily, too, stood up.
‘Just the once,’ said Prodge quietly, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘with your permission, I’d like to touch you.’ His request was delivered with such dignity, such restraint, that Lily, seeing the charge behind it, again felt close to tears. Filled as she was with all the surety of the last twenty-four hours, and a small hope of certainty with George, she knew there was no danger. To allow the wretched Prodge a single moment of contact would be a minimal kindness. She gave the slightest nod, permitting. Prodge cupped a hand under her chin, fingers splayed across her cheek. ‘Just to remember,’ he said.
His touch lasted for no more than a second. He swiped away his hand like a man burned. Then his eyes travelled the whole room before resettling on Lily.
‘I suppose you’re thinking of staying a while?’ he said. ‘Well I’ll not bother you, I promise you that. We’ll never mention all this again. George’s a lucky bugger, always has been.’ He stood up, stretched. ‘But thanks for listening.’ He lifted both arms high above his head as if to grab a bale of straw. ‘It’s a weight off my mind. As a matter of fact, it’s more than that.’ He lowered the invisible bale. ‘Confessing it to you seems to have brought me to my senses, got rid of it – almost. I can feel the whole daft business floating away, honest. – Now, this battery.’ They went out to the car.
An hour later, riding up the hill, Lily had no eyes for the April green of the valley below or ears for the insect drone of the distant tractor she knew Prodge was driving. Her mind was overloaded with thoughts of George, the immense change that had taken place in the last twenty-four hours. And of Prodge’s strange, sad declaration. Perhaps it was one of the few disadvantages of living so far from others. A man starved of much human contact is prone to a hawk-like imagination inclined to swoop upon the odd rare prey. Prodge’s disturbed state, for all his assurance about casting it off, troubled her. She hoped that the impossibility of it all would mean it would soon fade: fantasy, passion, whatever it was, rarely thrives on arid ground. It was something he had to live with until it vanished. For her part, she must grow accustomed to the guilt it had induced in her. Honour would forbid her to tell George what had happened: she could not break Prodge’s trust, but only believe the mad illusion that assailed him might pass.
Nell, turning to indicate that they would have a canter, observed that her friend was unusually pale and pensive. She imagined there had been some kind of dispute with George, but it did not occur to her to ask questions.
The change in George and Lily’s lives, once they had become lovers, wrought other changes. So gradually that George could never pinpoint exactly when and how they happened, he was aware of differences taking place. He would catch sight of Lily pushing a huge barrow of manure from the yard to the garden. He would see her digging, planting. She would speak of lettuces, cabbages, beans: there would be daffodils and tulips next spring, she said. Indoors there was a shift, too: Lily took it upon herself to cook, thus releasing the grateful Dusty from her least favourite duty: she continued to clean and polish the house, which she enjoyed, and deal with the laundry. Lily would drive twenty miles to a market to find the cheeses George loved, home-made jams and organic meat. Often she helped him with the paperwork, making light of it, going efficiently through it in a way George had never quite managed, for all his legal training.
There was a feeling of unreality about the new arrangement, George sometimes thought: it suddenly occurred to him that it was because they had never discussed money. Occasionally he had given Lily a wodge of notes to pay for the shopping. But she had never asked for it. Eventually, with some guilt, he realised she must have spent far more than he had paid for.
‘Lily: there’s the serious matter of money,’ he said one morning at breakfast. ‘God knows what I owe you. You’ve been paying for food and plants for weeks.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m fine till my stash runs out. Besides, I have to make some contribution. I’m staying here. I’m a long-term guest...’
She paused. This was an area neither of them had dared to approach, or wanted to. It had arrived unbidden. But having done so, George knew he must face it.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘we should put things on some sort of regular footing. I should give you a regular amount to buy the food and stuff. It’s ridiculous that you should pay for any of that.’
‘Oh, George, don’t let’s talk about all that sort of thing. It’s so … binding.’ She turned her head from him, leading him into a difficult silence.
Binding! Her word hung in the air, threatening. Was binding the last thing she wanted? But they remained locked in their own visions for only a moment. Lily broke the tension with one of her sudden smiles. She turned to George.
‘But if you could afford it,’ she said, ‘I would love to make a few … improvements to the house.’ She looked up at the blistered ceiling, the stained walls, a cracked windowpane. ‘What do you think?’
George, who was not a man who would ever have considered altering anything in the house he was used to and loved, experienced the swiftest change of heart he had ever known.
‘Of course I can afford it,’ he said. ‘I’m reasonably well off, having sold the firm. That’s a good idea. You’re quite right: the place could do with a lick of paint. You get so used to somewhere you don’t notice … All I ask is that you don’t want my opinion about curtains and so on. I’m no good at that sort of thing. But I trust you absolutely. You do whatever you like. Just nothing too drastic.’
‘Of course not! Oh, that’s so exciting. That’s a wonderful project to get off the ground.’
And to keep you here, thought George.
‘Prodge has a friend not too far away who’s a good builder,’ he said. ‘You’d better get on to him.’
There was no more talk of money, and in the weeks that followed George, very busy on the farm vaccinating the lambs, then shearing the ewes and rams, spent little time indoors. When he was there he noticed, as if through a mist, that there were things going on which were no business of his: there were two builders, ladders, pots of paint crowding the floors, dust sheets over furniture. For a while he and Lily took their supper on the small table in the study: the kitchen was temporarily uninhabitable while the walls were being painted. On two occasions Lily went to London for twenty-four hours, leaving George to go back to his own, empty bed, and he yearned for her. She returned with her small car full of drums of paint and rolls of material. He asked no questions, but quietly enjoyed her excitement.
By mid-June the builders had left. The house was theirs again – a different house, but not so drastically changed, as Lily had promised, as to unnerve George. After being so long accustomed to its shadows, its murky darkness and crumbling corners, he saw that light, previously spurned, was now welcomed by the colours Lily had chosen: they caught it, bounced it back, played with it. The long passages were now brighter, though the floorboards still creaked and Lily had not replaced the old carpet. Functional curtains, bought in the choiceless era of the post-war years, were replaced by cotton and linen which, again, received the light rather than hindered it.
George was delighted by all Lily had achieved. Proud of her skills, he invited Prodge and Nell to see the finished result. The four of them toured the house. Lily pointed out the changes in each room, lest they should overlook them. They were polite, but showed no enthusiasm. Prodge kept running a finger inside his collar, twisting his head from side to side, awkwardly. This was not the sort of thing that interested him, and, like George, he didn’t go for change in certain areas. The house had been fine for years, in his book: why bother to change it? Besides which, all the tarting-up was surely a signal that Lily intended to stay. Although he had fought hard against his secret passion, and had managed to seduce several itinerant girls since his confession in the kitchen, the idea of Lily staying troubled him deeply.
‘You’ve not messed up the study, I hope,’ he said, as the four of them returned downstairs.
‘Prodge,’ said Nell, ‘Lily hasn’t messed up anywhere. It’s all a … great improvement.’
‘All that’s happened there,’ said Lily, ‘is a bit of cleaning. The walls have a new coat of limewash, as near to the old colour as I could find. So it’s just… brighter.’ They went to the study.
‘That’s all right, then,’ said Prodge, having scoured the room with blow-torch eyes. ‘Wouldn’t have wanted you to get rid of that old sofa. I’ve sat on that sofa all my life.’
Despite the relief of his low-key approbation, supper was not easy. Lily had gone to great trouble with the food, candles, a jug of pansies of seething blue. But the lack of ease persisted. It was the first time, George realised, all four of them had sat down together since Lily’s arrival. Although she and Nell apparently enjoyed each other’s company when they went riding, and on the few occasions she ran into Prodge she went some way towards winning over his natural gruffness, the evening was haunted by past evenings when it was just the three of them. It was impossible to ignore the resentment, caused by Lily’s presence, that burrowed within the depths of Nell and her brother. They tried to disguise it, but to George it was a tangible thing. His heart cried out to Lily, knowing she must be aware of it too. It wasn’t that they disliked her, of course: that would have been impossible. It was the difference they resented.
Lily, throughout the evening, was at her most enchanting, and the effort she made touched George profoundly. She exchanged no looks with him, made no shorthand references, kept up the face of a mere visitor. But George knew that no effort on earth would dissuade his old friends from the obvious truth. His own attempts at assuming a certain distance would never convince them. They knew him too well. It would have been very odd if they had failed to see that he loved her.
Prodge spurned George’s wine, both red and white, and drank several pints of beer. He grew redder in the face, more taciturn, and sweated in the way Lily remembered he had that afternoon here at the table. When he refused her chocolate mousse, saying no thanks, he never touched chocolate, George noticed a momentary disappointment cross Lily’s face. She refilled her glass of wine before George had a chance to do so.
When they had finished eating, Nell announced she was feeling too hot. She pulled off her home-made jersey of Jacob’s sheep’s wool. Beneath it she wore an old T-shirt the colour of an aged salmon which reflected nastily on to her neck.
‘We can’t all be glamorous,’ she said, suddenly turning on Lily. ‘We haven’t all got the time or the reason to bother.’
In the silence that followed George realised that Nell, too, had drunk far more than she was used to, and knew not what she said. For the first time he exchanged a look with Lily: don’t rise, it said. Then Prodge made a ponderous statement, the words skidding.
‘I’m not used to all this, yet,’ he said. ‘All this fancy stuff.’ He looked at the newly painted walls. ‘All very nice, Lily, but I’m not used to it. These bright walls, fancy flowers – didn’t used to be like this. In Mr Elkin’s day it was good and plain, none of this tablecloth business.’
‘But it was all pretty elegant in my mother’s day, if you remember,’ said George, lightly. ‘It was just that Dad and I couldn’t keep up her standards.’ He could see Prodge was brewing up to one of his occasional rages: deflection was needed, but he couldn’t think how. Prodge stood up, held the back of his chair. He swayed a little.
‘True,’ he said at last.
‘So it was,’ said Nell. ‘You remember, Prodge, she always had silver napkin rings. You said the only rings you knew about went through a bull’s nose. You made her laugh.’ George saw this appeasement was by way of apology for her rudeness to Lily: and hoped Lily saw it that way, too.
‘True,’ he said again, and turned to Lily.
‘Look, I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn. I meant no offence. It’s just a matter of… well, getting used to George’s new kitchen and so on.’
‘Of course,’ said Lily. ‘Of course I understand.’
‘I’ll drive you home,’ said George.
‘No you won’t. We’ll walk, Nell ‘n me. We’ll fetch the car in the morning.’
There were curt thanks: it would not have been in the nature of either brother or sister to make any attempt at false appreciation. George saw them to the door.
He returned to find Lily had once again filled her glass. On one who normally drank so little, it had had its effect. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes dizzied by candle flames. But she was smiling, giggling.
‘Not a success,’ she said. ‘A huge, huge failure. Where did we go wrong, George.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ George sat down beside her. ‘Disaster. After all your effort. I don’t know what got into them – drink. But the reason was the truthful reason they gave. Change. I suppose although they honestly are glad for me, all this takes a bit of getting used to.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about any of it,’ said Lily, airily. ‘It’s not important. I like Nell, I like Prodge. I’m the intruder, but I don’t think they dislike me. It’s just that I’m still new. I upset the old balance. It’s all completely understandable.’
‘You were brilliant this evening,’ said George. ‘And they behaved like louts, my old friends. Though of course that doesn’t make one jot of difference to my love of them.’
‘Of course not.’ Lily pushed her chair away from the table, stood up. She held up her glass, looked down at George a little uncertainly.
‘I want to drink a toast to you, George,’ she said. ‘I want to make you a little speech. If I was completely sober I could never do this. But I’ve had more than I’m used to tonight, so it’s not so hard.’
She paused, giggled. George folded his arms, sat back to watch her, enchanted.
‘I want to tell you, George Elkin, that I’ve never been so happy in all my life. Now happiness is very difficult – impossible – to describe, as you probably know. All you can do is say the word and hope the other person believes you, and can imagine how you feel. So I won’t try to be more explicit.’ She giggled again, paused to let smiles chase smiles. ‘But I want you to know that it’s a lovely jumble of sensations going on all the time, every moment of the day. I wake up with you every morning feeling so excited about being alive – I think that’s it – and great gusts of exuberance sweep me about. I don’t know how better to describe it, the utter joy of every day with you. I don’t know where it comes from, or why it came to me. But I’ve a funny feeling it’s something to do with a kind of love that’s quite new to me.’
‘Could be,’ said George, smiling.
‘What d’you think, George? Am I right? And I tell you another thing, quite certain. I love this place, this house, your animals, this corner of England, your land. I’ve explored every inch of it – the old ash coppice, the oaks. I’ve lain among the bluebells and the betony and the meadowsweet and the cow parsley: I’ve listened to the stonechats and warblers and skylarks – at least I think they were skylarks. I couldn’t actually see them. And one day by the river a kingfisher flashed by me – I forgot to tell you. Oh, George, I love it all.’
She stopped. Her voice had run almost to nothing. She sat down again, rested her chin in her hands. A seriousness was gathering in her face. George’s heart missed a beat. ‘But you know what? This is all the stuff of dreams. It’s not real life, not for me. I’m used to independence, to working, to earning my own living. I hate to admit this, but I’m running out of money. Much though I love it here, much though I’ve loved doing a bit to the whole place for you, it’s time for me to go back to work, earn my way.’
George was silent for a minute. ‘No,’ he said at last.
‘But I must. Be practical.’
‘Would there not be a solution …’ George hesitated, at a loss as to how to put the idea that had struck him blindingly. ‘Would there not be a solution if we could formalise things a little?’
‘How do you mean, formalise? That’s a civic word I’ve never heard you use.’ She laughed.
‘I mean …’ George pulled one of her hands away from her cheek and held it. He needed time, but there was no time. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t have to worry about earning money, working, if you stayed here for ever. I’ve plenty for the two of us.’
‘Is that your meaning of formalise?’
‘It could be, yes.’ George nodded, smiling. ‘Is it becoming clear to you, what I’m trying to say? That I don’t want you ever to go? I want you to stay here always, as my wife.’
He saw that this suggestion had the effect of sobering Lily astonishingly fast. His proposal acted as powerfully as black coffee on the alcohol in her blood. First she cradled her head in her hands, tossing it about so that sparks of candlelight swarmed over her hair. Then she looked up, her eyes shut, with the kind of half smile that suggested that, if she gave it full rein, her total happiness would escape.
‘Me? A farmer’s wife?’
For a terrible moment George did not know whether this question meant the absolute impossibility of such a state. Quickly he countered, ‘In a sense. But of course it wouldn’t mean your giving up all the reviewing and writing and teaching and looking’ – they both smiled – ‘that you wanted. Once you were my wife I could let you go for a few days. It wouldn’t be so hard, knowing you were coming back—’
‘Oh, George,’ she interrupted, ‘don’t let’s be practical. There’s all the time in the world to arrange that sort of thing. Besides, I love work on the farm. I could do more. I only suggested going back to my kind of work because I was worried—’
‘But you’re not any more?’
‘No, no. I daresay I could get used to being supported, at least for a while, so long as I was making some useful contribution to your life.’
‘So, is that – well, settled?’
‘Of course it is. But let’s make it soon. No hanging about. Harvest Festival. What about then?’
‘Oh God, I love you, Lily Crichton,’ said George, pulling her towards him.
For two days George and Lily kept the news of their intended marriage to themselves. Telling Nell, George knew, would not be easy. She would be pleased for him, of course, as would Prodge. But it would change things, and they had already seen, that night at supper, that the Prodgers were shaken by change.
Procrastination does not make for ease of mind, and after two days of fretting about what words to employ, George set off on foot for the Prodgers’ farm. He calculated that he would arrive at the time Nell normally groomed her horses, and thought that a horse between them might make things easier.
It was a warm summer’s morning, though drifts of rain, thin as vapour, billowed through the air and touched his clothes with a light sheen, but did not wet them. George strode fast along the edges of several of his own fields until he crossed a stile on to Prodge’s land, every inch of the way so familiar it was burned into his inner eye. He could have walked the whole way in his imagination, never missing a tree, a bush, a length of fencing and its history. This was the short-cut between the farms that he and Prodge and Nell had used as children. This morning, the old feeling of joy, knowing he would see their farm just over the ridge, did not come to him.
In the yard, he found Nell’s bay gelding looking over the stable door. The door of the second stable was open and Nell, as he knew she would be, was grooming the grey inside. She was a large, dappled mare with a gentle eye. Nell, back to the door, whistling to herself as she ran the dandy brush over the horse’s withers, was unaware of George’s presence for a moment. He stood looking at her: the strong weatherbeaten arms beneath the rolled-up sleeves of her shirt, the powerful shoulders, the uncared for blonde curls snapped back from her face in a rubber band. His heart went into overdrive: he dreaded speaking.
‘Nell.’
She turned her head. Her powerful brush strokes did not stop. ‘George! What’re you doing here so early?’
‘I’ve come with news for you.’
At once she stopped her work, turned to face him. ‘Oh yes? It can only be bad, a voice like that.’
‘No. It’s good.’ He gave a half-laugh which, when he met her enquiring eye, petered out. ‘Lily and I are going to be married.’
As, wretchedly, he looked at her, the solidity of Nell became transparent: he could see a hundred reactions within her, clouding her, confusing, clashing. But she tossed her head brightly.
‘When?’ she asked at last.
‘Harvest Festival, thereabouts.’
‘Well, that’s very, very good news. Lily’s wonderful. You know how much I like her.’ Her long smile conveyed the real pleasure George’s news gave her. Relief, though not pure, surged through him.
‘It’s vital to me that whoever I marry has your approval.’ He tried for lightness. ‘You know how much that means to me.’
Nell, with a flash of defiance that George found almost unbearably moving, looked him straight in the eye. ‘Do you love her absolutely? Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure, yes. I’ve never known anything remotely like this. So I take it to be the real thing.’
‘I expect it is. You’re a good judge. You’d know.’
Nell took a few steps forward, plunging through the bed of straw that came up to her knees. She lifted her arms. George clasped her to him: her head just reached his chest. His chin lay on top of it: they always hugged like this. Her hair smelt of oats and horses. He could feel her inwardly quivering.
‘I’m so glad,’ she whispered after their long, entwined silence. ‘I’m so glad it’s turned out like this for you.’ She pulled away from him. ‘Would Prodge could be so lucky.’
‘He’ll find someone, in that jacket.’
Nell gave the faintest smile, moved back to her grooming. ‘Have you told him?’
‘Not yet.’
‘He’s over on Mawkin’s Field.’
‘I’ll go over there now.’
‘And I’d best be getting on. Lot to do before I meet Lily to ride this afternoon – I mean, do you think she’ll still want to?’
‘I’m sure she will.’
‘Good. And at least as your wife she won’t suddenly disappear. She’ll be here. I’ll have a friend to ride with, a permanent friend.’ She sounded more cheerful.
‘Quite,’ said George. ‘I’ll go and find Prodge.’
Nell nodded at him then turned back to the mare. She began her long brush strokes over the dappled shoulder. Although her gestures – calm, strong, rhythmic – were the same as when George had arrived, there was a hint of disorder now. She moved from the horse’s withers to its hocks, then back again to its neck. George walked away. From a few yards off he turned and glanced back into the stable again. He saw Nell was still brushing, hard.
George had no time to reflect on their encounter. He found Prodge in the high, narrow pasture that ran from the top of a hill down to the river – Mawkin’s Field, so named because Prodge’s father had once owned an outstanding sheepdog named Mawkin, much loved by the children. The field was where his talents had been discovered as a young dog. When he died, he was buried there in a ceremony of elaborate solemnity devised by the three of them. George remembered it as he hurried towards Prodge. At the burial Nell had brought a wreath of cowslips while Prodge put a bone on the grave. The headstone was financed by both sets of parents. George’s own contribution had been a poem which came to him from nowhere, which he read with unfaltering voice at the end of the service over the small mound of newly dug earth.
Prodge was standing by a tall hedge running from north to south that divided Mawkin’s from the adjoining pasture. His father had planted it many years ago to provide a windbreak for ewes and lambs. It was a magnificent hedge, dense and strong, towering above the other three boundaries which were purposely kept short to reduce shadow at haymaking.
‘I was just wondering,’ he said, ‘when I’ll be able to afford another one of these. I’d like to plant one along Ridge Hill. But to lay it like this one, fence it each side and that – well, you could be looking at near a thousand pounds for a hundred metres. How’m I going to find money like that?’
George’s mind raced happily from the matter he had come to discuss.
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘a good place for another of these would be between Hemp Hill and Lark’s Meadow …’ These two fields were the only ones where George’s land, and Prodge’s rented land, joined. At the suggestion Prodge tossed back his head, a movement so like his sister’s moments ago. He was a proud man. He wanted no help from George nor anyone.
‘We could talk about it,’ he said, forced to acknowledge the sense of the idea. ‘Come to think of it, it could be of benefit to both of us. Perhaps we’d find some compromise, the money side of things. What are you doing up here so early?’
‘I dropped in on Nell. Had some news for her – for you both.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Lily and I are getting married.’
Prodge gave a sharp swing of the small scythe he was holding.
‘You and Lily are getting married,’ he repeated flatly. ‘Well, what a thing. I suppose not a surprise. That’s good, George. That’ll be good for you. She’s a rare girl.’
‘I’m bloody lucky,’ George agreed.
‘How did Nell take it?’
‘She seemed pleased.’
‘Daresay that’s the case. Daresay she is. Though in her heart… Well, you know Nell. All of us brought up together, used to our threesome. Must be a bit of a shock for her. Besides … and she’s never said a word of this to me, but I’ve always imagined, and you know I’m not overburdened when it comes to imagination – that she might have had a secret hope … I mean, she loves you. She’s always loved you.’
‘And I love her. Always have, too. Always will. Nothing’ll change, really. Except she’ll have a friend near by – she likes Lily.’
‘That’s right. That’s good.’ Prodge screwed up his eyes against a brightening sun. The rain had stopped. The grass was sparkling. ‘Wouldn’t want anything to change too much.’
‘It won’t. And you like her?’
Prodge looked him full in the eye. ‘What I’ve seen of her, she’s a good ‘un. She won me over that day she caught me out in my jacket down by river. She didn’t laugh. Seemed to be all sympathy. Reckon you’ve got a proper one there, George. Sort of thing I’d like to find myself. Not much chance. My congratulations.’
He moved the short distance between himself and George, held out his hand. The two men shook, something they had never done in their lives before. But it seemed appropriate to both of them. It covered the spell of silence, rampant with different imagings of the future, that fell upon them. Then George said it was high time he got back to work, and Prodge agreed.
‘Let’s think about that hedge,’ he said.
George turned back towards home, his step lighter than it had been on his outward journey. Despite their years of close friendship, there were some things about Prodge and Nell’s hopes and fears that he had never known, and he judged it best to continue in his innocence.
Prodge stood looking at his friend move quickly into the distance. The scythe hung slack in his hand.
In accordance with both their wishes, Lily and George’s wedding was a very quiet affair. Lily’s mother and brother were to come, but only two of her oldest friends. The others were scattered too far away. George invited the local farmers, old Mr Anderson and Miss Hollow, and various villagers he had known all his life.
They were married on a hot day soon after the harvest had been gathered. In the church, where George’s parents were buried, stooks of corn, bunched in the old-fashioned way before combine harvesters changed their shape, were propped up on the altar. The only flowers were poppies. Lily had organised them, in dozens of jam jars and vases, on every available ledge – scarlet, pink, orange against whitewashed stone. On their short honeymoon in the Shetland Isles she confessed her choice of flowers had been a mistake. Unable to withstand the heat, their fragile petals had fallen to the ground, crumpled, making natural confetti on the stone floor. They should have had roses and daisies, Lily said.
As they walked across the northern treeless hills, wiry with heather, they enjoyed reliving moments of their wedding day, reminding each other of details that had alighted, then flown, at the time. George confessed that in his daze he had scarcely noticed the flowers. His entire concentration, he said, had been on his wife, and the promises he made to her.