Meadowland

‘Oh. Yes please.’ I passed my cup and saucer.

‘Eventually it will all come to you of course …’ Mother transferred her attention to the milk jug. Then she looked up brightly. ‘If you need anything at the moment …?’

‘No, no. I’m fine.’

The telephone rang – someone checking the Meals-on-Wheels rota, it became apparent. Mother could oblige on Tuesday, but Wednesday was her library run, and Friday … She certainly kept herself occupied, I reflected. What with her good works and her keep-fit classes and her keen membership of the local fuchsia society. I’d asked her once whether she’d ever considered taking a part-time job; like so many other mothers, I’d suggested. She’d stared at me in bewilderment. ‘But how would I ever find the time? And in any case there’s no need.’ There wasn’t, of course. Feminist ideas, I reflected, hadn’t percolated through to Mother – not as far as she personally was concerned anyway.

She was still chatting. I leaned back, idly surveying the room. The furniture was arranged as it had always been, each chair and table nailed by habit to its decreed position. The usual pile of magazines sat to attention on the shelf beneath the occasional table, and my parents’ wedding photograph, set at its precise angle, continued to grace the top of the bureau. It was all comfortingly familiar and reliable. In contrast, the gap where my father’s pipe-rack had always stood seemed, as soon as I identified it, as substantial as the physical object itself.

‘You’ve made a start on sorting Father’s things, then?’ I observed when my mother eventually replaced the receiver.

‘I’ve done more than that. I’ve been through the entire house. Easier done straightaway. It’s all in the garage waiting to go down to the charity shop or be collected for the Scouts’ jumble sale.’

I nodded. ‘Well done.’

She looked at me doubtfully. ‘I can’t imagine there’s anything you’d want? I told Harold to take anything he could use …’

‘Quite right.’

I took my bag upstairs and dumped it on the bed. The bedspread was the one I’d so painstakingly crocheted with oddments of wool while I was still at junior school. I’d resisted regular suggestions by my mother that it was about time to throw it out. The colours had faded and in places the wool had worn thin, springing into holes. Gingerly I fingered them. They could be darned – if I was prepared to take time and trouble.

‘I think,’ I said to my mother before I left on the Sunday, ‘I’ll take that old bedspread back with me. If that’s OK with you?’

‘I’ll be glad to see the back of it.’ She laughed. ‘You are funny. Is there anything else you want?’

I lied. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ For some reason I didn’t feel inclined to own to having already stashed three fishing rods and a red tin box in the boot of the car.

They were still there, wedged against the slope of the back seat; offering, in some way, an excuse for the route I was now taking. All I needed – I grinned wryly – was a pair of green wellies and a Barbour. I indulged the entertaining image of myself so dressed; standing by the open boot, rods in hand – smiling for a cameraman from one of the up-market glossies. I laughed aloud. My mother would love that. Her daughter: ‘… relaxing at the weekend on Lord Whatsit’s estate,’ she’d read out delightedly from the blurb alongside.

‘And you could have had it all,’ I mentally parodied her, ‘if you’d married Mark.’ Yes, well, I didn’t.

There was a sweep of bare earth to the side of the road where it curved to approach a bridge. I pulled on to it and wound down the window. The silence flowed in, cocooning me more effectively than pressed metal and reinforced glass ever could. Two children, glancing sideways in momentary curiosity, rattled past on bicycles. They paused on the hump of the bridge and, standing astride their crossbars, peered over its low parapet. Their voices piped towards me, then wafted away into the stillness. When I glanced again, they were weaving their way up the hill beyond. And were gone. The occasional car swooped or, according to its driver’s temperament, drawled past – like flies across the pages of a book. I lit a cigarette and leaned back. There was no hurry.

No hurry for what exactly? What was I planning; what did I expect to happen? It was as though the valley were a stage and I a member of the audience – the sole member of the audience – waiting for the curtain to rise. Had I come to observe, or – as at the pantomime so many years ago – to take part?

I jerked round in my seat, for a split second experiencing the almost physical presence of my father beside me – his smiling warmth, his bulk. The vision melted and I shivered, turning back and trying to ignore the sense of Mother behind me frowning disapproval.

Abruptly I switched on the ignition and, pausing only to grind out my cigarette, pulled the wheel sharply over as the car moved forward. I was going home; the time for fantasy was long gone.

The screech of brakes as I nosed at right angles on to the road was real enough though. I slammed on my own and watched helplessly as the other car veered towards the hedge opposite and buried its bonnet in the branches ten yards or so further along.

Somehow it didn’t surprise me at all that it was a familiar figure who clambered out across the passenger seat of the Volvo. Father, I reflected later, could be said to have had his way this time too. There was no opting out of this scene.

Still clutching the wheel, engine running, I watched as Andrew peered across the bonnet of his car at the offside wing. I wondered, guiltily, how much damage had been done.

He shrugged, then turned and walked unhurriedly towards me. ‘Could be worse,’ he announced. He bent to peer in. ‘Good God, it’s you.’ His eyebrows lifted, and he laughed. ‘You’re an absolute menace with this thing, aren’t you?’ He patted the roof just above my head.

I shifted in my seat. ‘I’m terribly sorry …’

The grin was still there. ‘Don’t worry. I doubt there’s anything a bit of touch-up can’t put right. In any case, I was probably driving too fast.’

‘Even so …’ I reached for my bag, intent on producing insurance documents.

He cut across. ‘Been to see Flora, have you?’

‘No.’ I kept my tone carefully neutral. I produced my wallet, opened it and took out the certificate. ‘You’ll want to make a note of this.’

‘I doubt it. Here, let me get the thing off the road-’ he straightened up – ‘and then we can consider.’

He bounded across to his car, climbed in and reversed. Branches sprang back into place; uprooted strands of grass clung to his front wheels. He steered the car efficiently on to the rough beside the Astra and crunched up the handbrake.

I got out and went to meet him. Together we surveyed scratches to the paintwork and an ugly three-inch-long dent just behind the headlight. I ran my hand over it. ‘Soon knock that out,’ said Andrew.

‘Are you sure?’ I looked at him uncertainly. He stood there, as relaxed in a suit by the side of the road as in a pullover lounging in Flora’s kitchen.

‘It’s honestly not worth making a thing about. Can we drop it?’

I gave in – gracefully, I hoped. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘But I owe you.’

‘Good. Then come back and have a cup of tea.’ He waved his arm towards a boxful of files on the back seat of the car. ‘Help me put off the evil moment when I have to start wading through all those.’

CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_2f012329-7848-5c29-a3f4-2ab3378c9b0f)

‘My curiosity,’ said Andrew, leaning back and crossing his legs, ‘is getting the better of me. If you didn’t come to see Flora …?’

We were sitting in his garden, the sun throwing a patchwork of light through the branches of a horse-chestnut on to our afternoon-tea scene. It was all very Rupert Brooke somehow – fine china set out on a silver tray, garden trestle and chairs casually occupying an oasis of close-mown grass bounded by flower-beds and an orchard.

I’d had time, as I followed the Volvo along the route I’d taken in February, to prepare myself for the inevitable question. By the time we reached the T-junction, turning right rather than left this time, I’d decided to be honest. More or less.

I explained my visit to the hotel; and the start of my drive back to London. ‘I suddenly saw the sign,’ I said. ‘It was just one of those spur-of-the-moment things.’

‘But you didn’t go to Wood Edge?’

‘No. Where you “found” me –’ I grimaced at the euphemism – ‘was as far as I’d gone. I was turning to go back.’

‘Why?’

I shrugged and reached towards the table. ‘May I help myself to a biscuit?’

‘Sorry.’ He leaned forward and passed the plate. I selected a Bourbon. Andrew picked out one with a dollop of jam at its centre. ‘Come to think of it,’ he said, pausing to swallow, ‘you probably wouldn’t have found her at home anyway. I’ve an idea this is her week for going to see Donald.’

‘Donald?’

He threw his last piece of biscuit to a blackbird that had been eyeing him hopefully, and watched as it scooped the titbit up and flew off. Then he glanced across at me. ‘Her brother.’

‘Oh.’

In the silence that followed I smoothed my skirt and tried not to consider that I could, and should, have been halfway back to London by now. Andrew, sitting sideways on to me, appeared totally at ease. He’d taken off his jacket and tie as soon as we arrived. One arm was flung over the back of the garden chair; with the other hand he balanced his cup and saucer on his thigh.