‘Sometimes they need a bit of a wigging, these chaps.’ She permitted herself a broad grin. ‘I know the type, you see.’
I turned towards the child, waiting alone above us on the ridge, and beckoned her down the hill. ‘You can take her back to school in my vehicle if you wish,’ I told Mrs Dennis. ‘William and I are used to walking all the roads around here, in Upton and Barrow End.’
I handed her the Land Rover keys. Then I embraced the child. ‘I will always be delighted to see you, Penny Lacey.’
‘Can I come to tea soon?’ Her eyebrows were raised in excitement at the possibility. ‘I could bring my David Bowie record!’
If I were the parent of a child who was so easily pleased, I reflected, I would not want to spend a day out of her company.
‘I shall look forward to that,’ I said. ‘Very much indeed.’
William stood by me, holding his hat in front of him like a soldier in mourning, the wind buffeting the corn stubble of his hair.
‘This light,’ I said to him. ‘It reminds me of the Absaloms. That spring, when we had the broken tap.’
He nodded. ‘The sun would be the same. A yellow old thing, low in the south.’
We turned and made our way down from the summit. The narrow path was in deep shadow and I held out my arm for him so that he wouldn’t stumble. When we reached the top of the track I said, ‘I’m going on round the hill.’
‘Ellen, it’s getting dark.’
‘On this side of the hill it is. But the sun’s not set. I’m going round to the southern road. There’ll be light for a good while yet.’
‘You’ll catch your death.’
‘I’m a grown-up woman.’
‘A stubborn one.’
I spoke softly. ‘Go home, William.’
I could see his grin in the lowering light, his shake of the head. ‘Just like Ma. She wouldn’t be told, either.’
The road in front of me was dull, the sun going down behind the refinery.
I remembered the time I had walked this road the other way, back from Southampton and the offices of Raymond & Rose. My mother was with me: the man with the ledger had called us Calthrop. We had left in the heat, caught the bus from Southampton to Waltham. But we had no money for the journey from Waltham to Upton, so we rested at the bus shelter in Waltham and gathered our strength for the walk home. It was so pleasant and cool in the shade of the tiled roof. I remembered looking at Mother’s shoe, the toe in the sunshine, the rest of the foot in the shade, and the shoe and stocking dusty.
We didn’t want to be seen dragging ourselves along the main street so we climbed the stiles over the fields to the graveyard where honeysuckle grew abundant in the hedgerow. We spent some time picking the flowers, biting off the small button at the base and sipping the nectar. Each sip a minim of sweetness, and the flesh of the trumpet tube sweet as well. Then we went on to the Absaloms and dipped our cups into the bucket and drank and drank, water streaming from the cups over our hands and down our arms as we lifted them to our lips.
No hunger or thirst of my youth was as strong as my love for my child. We’d never be apart, not completely. Even after death we’d find each other. Our atoms would be released into the earth, air, water and they’d find each other, even if it took a hundred years. One atom of her and one of me would mingle in a sun-shot blade of grass, and so we’d embrace again. And a millennium later we’d kiss in a raindrop seeding in a cloud, and after an aeon we’d be hugging tightly in the scale of a fish in the sea. It would be so for ever.
Down on the coast the yellow light dwindled. My steps slowed. I wished suddenly that William was here. How lion-like he had been, calling me to my senses. How steadfast, standing by me, the light catching the side of his face, his temple and cheek. But if I felt lonely now, I only had myself to blame. I could be down at Upton Hall with him, sharing a pot of tea.
His ma was the same, was she? Stubborn, like me? I remembered her portrait, hanging high on the wall in his room. That softly shadowed, but nonetheless firm, jawline. Men, in their pride, were wont to call women stubborn, when in fact we were no such thing. When the truth was that we simply knew our own minds. I could imagine sharing a few hearty words with her on the subject. I should take William to task. But she would have done that already. I could already see him smiling as I began to chide him, saying, Yes. My mother used to tell me that.
I came to a halt in the road, my mouth open. My breath misting in the air.
Then I turned back towards Upton.
*
The following morning the air was still and mild. The kitchen garden at Upton Hall lay in low relief under the weak sunshine. A giant hand could measure it out, the fingers spanning the beds, stroking the smooth, worn lineaments of the paths. William was bent over one tomb of a bed, stripping away turf. The sod lifted up cleanly over the turfing iron and the soil was rich beneath. ‘It’s all in there, still,’ he said between breaths. ‘Generations of beautiful compost. Just needs turning.’
‘Surely the girls can help you,’ I said.
I was happy to look at the soil, to talk to him about it. I had spent a night sleepless, wide-eyed at the enormity of it, of the realization that waited, like a breath held, just beyond my grasping. For I hadn’t come to it yet. I couldn’t, not on my own.
William pushed his hat back and wiped his brow. ‘Oh, those girls are going to learn double-digging, weeding, the lot. Gardening school, you see. Potatoes, cabbage, carrot, onion. A few flowers. Mrs Dennis likes dahlias.’
‘So did Sir Michael.’
‘That he did.’
‘William …’
‘How about a cuppa?’ he said, avoiding my gaze.
There was no shed. Just the trunk of a fallen beech, broad and high, to sit on. And a sawn-up limb of the same tree smoking on an open-fire patch, the ash white in the weak winter sunlight. And a Thermos flask.
‘It was the day of the thunderstorm, wasn’t it,’ I said. ‘When you took me into the barn and we waited out the rain. You were standing by the barn door and I was sitting on a hay-bale. Crop-haired, of course. No tresses falling around my cheeks.’
He poured tea from the flask, handed me the tin mug in a pincered grip. Every minute, every second I sat beside him made me more certain.
‘Am I right, William? Was it then?’
With the tip of the turfing iron he nudged a branch further into the fire. ‘This iron is forty-five years old. Sir Michael bought it from Skelton in Southsea. I should not be putting it in the fire.’
‘William, please!’
‘Yes!’ He laughed loudly. ‘It was that day.’
‘Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why did you wait for it to dawn on me?’
‘You might not have wanted to see it. Not want it to be true.’
I watched the small flames lick at the tree bark, pale in the sunlight. The smell of woodsmoke filled me, sharp and wholesome. Mother had come here. It was not so bad, to think of her in this crisp aromatic air.
‘So my mother came here and sat with you, and looked at your hand and didn’t flinch,’ I said. ‘Was that when it began?’
‘No. She first set eyes on me in nineteen fifteen. Before I went to war.’ For the first time he met my eyes. ‘I wasn’t always this rum old cove, you know, Ellen Parr. All string and bones. I was something to look at.’
‘You are no such rum cove. And she was something to look at, too.’
‘So she was.’
‘She watched me beat out the plumage of the weathercock. Her hands over her ears – she was laughing. She’d come to my workshop, to ask me if I wanted cider jars. Your cellars were full of them, you see. Godfrey Stour had left them – Godfrey and his father and grandfather no doubt. So I came to your house with a handcart. She welcomed me in. We went to fetch the jars from the apple press. So I stood with her in there and I …’
‘You kissed her.’
‘She was so beautiful with that mass of hair. So fine.’
I frowned. ‘I don’t remember that.’
‘She cut it off. At that early time she wore her hair in the old style. All gathered up behind, but low on the neck.’