Josephine Cox Sunday Times Bestsellers Collection

Having been pummelled about and then quizzed for what seemed an age, Barney dressed behind the screens and came out to stand before the man’s desk. ‘What’s the verdict then, Doctor?’ he asked. He needed to know, but was dreading the answer. Not for nothing had Raymond Lucas called in his colleague from the other consulting room, and each in turn had examined Barney yet again; in quiet tones discussing his condition while he quickly dressed.

The doctor smiled. ‘Sit down, Mr Davidson.’ His quick smile was not a reassuring one; instead, to Barney it seemed more of a consoling smile, and sure enough with his next words he confirmed Barney’s suspicions. ‘I’m afraid it’s not good news.’

Suppressing the fear inside him, Barney asked tremulously, ‘It’s my heart, isn’t it?’

Dr Lucas slowly nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’ Quickly adding, ‘But it’s not all bad news. With proper medication and rest, you could go on for years yet.’

Shocked to the soul, Barney interrupted him. ‘What you’re saying is, if I stop work and spend the rest of my life doing nothing, then I might live a few years more?’

‘Well, I’m not suggesting you should do nothing. I’m saying you will have to take things a lot easier. No more building haystacks, or driving in the sheep on a frosty winter’s morning. You have a damaged heart. It isn’t functioning as it should and that’s a dangerous thing, especially for an active man such as yourself, whose very livelihood depends on him using his strength to carry out his work.’

A note of impatience marbled his advice. ‘From now on, you must be sensible in everything you do, and I cannot emphasise that strongly enough.’

Barney wasn’t listening. By now he was seeing the future in his own mind, and what he saw was more crippling than anything he had so far endured. ‘Tell me, Dr Lucas …’ he paused, hoping against hope that he might receive the answer he needed. ‘Is there anything you can do to repair the damage?’

The doctor shook his head. ‘I’m afraid the damage seems to be quite considerable. The breathlessness, the pain and sickness … it all has to do with the heart not doing its work. As far as we can tell, there is little that can be done, except to give you the advice I’ve just given, and for you to follow it to the letter.’ He bent his head to his desk and taking out a notepad, began scribbling furiously. ‘I can carry out any number of tests and no doubt get a fuller picture. But the heart is a complex organ and often it can be more dangerous to interfere with it, than to leave it alone.’

Looking up, he added in a serious voice, ‘My opinion and that of my colleague is for us to treat the symptoms, and for you to do your part … follow my advice, and take the medicine prescribed. That way, it’s certainly possible that you may enjoy a few more good years.’

Handing Barney the folded paper, he told him, ‘I’ve made an appointment for you to be admitted into the Infirmary first thing in the morning.’ His smile was sympathetic. ‘I’m sorry the news was not what you might have expected, Mr Davidson, but we’ll do the best we can – as indeed you must.’

Barney was devastated.

In a kind of half-drunken stupor he left the surgery and made his way to the horse and cart, which he had tethered outside. Without his usual greeting to the old horse, he climbed aboard, took up the reins and clicking the horse away, sat back on his slatted wooden bench and turned his thoughts to Vicky and the family.

As he left the village behind and came into the open countryside, he stopped the horse in its tracks, and climbing down off the bench, stood at the top of the valley, from where he could see the whole world.

He stood for a long time, his mind numbed and his heart sore, and when the doctor’s words flooded back … It’s possible you may enjoy a few good years … he lifted his face to the skies and with the tears streaming down his face, he accused that Great Master somewhere in the heavens: ‘Every step of my life I’ve always trusted You, and now when my life seems to be taking a turn for the better, You snatch it away.’ Anger roared through him. ‘WHAT TERRIBLE THING DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?’ Sobbing, he fell to the ground.

In his mind’s eye he could see Vicky, and his children. He saw the joy in their eyes and the excitement in their voices as they spoke of their imminent new life in Boston, and it was as though a knife was twisting his soul.

Sobered by the prospect of telling them, he climbed back onto the cart, but he did not take up the reins. Instead he sat hunched and desolate, without hope; without a future.

Adam was sitting on the doorstep smoking his pipe when he saw Barney coming up the lane. ‘At last!’ He had almost given him up. Knocking out his pipe on the porch column, he laid it beside his empty beer mug and ran out to meet his old friend. ‘Where’ve you been? You’ve been gone an age,’ he told him as Barney wearily climbed down. ‘I thought you were never coming back.’

Half an hour later, the dreadful news imparted and shared, tears shed and dried, and a pint pot of beer swallowed, Barney turned to Adam and confided his chief worry.

‘How on earth can I go off to farm in Boston when I’m in this state, fit for nowt? I can’t see myself sitting about like an old-timer, gazing across the land, watching while the others work their fingers to the bone.’

When his voice broke, it took a moment to compose himself before he could go on. ‘I couldn’t do that to them, Adam, and I won’t do it to myself. I think I’ve known these past few months that my time on earth is short, but it’s so hard to think of leaving Vicky and our children. But I’ll have to! Dear Lord, somehow I’ll have to.’

When he now turned to look at Adam, the latter saw the sorrow in his eyes and the bitterness in the hard edge of his mouth. ‘You above all people know I can’t do it,’ Barney confided. ‘I can’t not bring in the harvest or go out in the tractor when the earth is just waking, seeing the dew sparkle like jewels on the ground and the night creatures running before me as I plough the furrows.’

As he spoke his eyes lit up. ‘The joy of my life is bringing in the sheep, collecting the apples from the branches where Vicky can’t reach, tending the land from first light to darkness. It’s in my nature, it’s in my blood, Adam – you know that! If I can’t do it, my life might just as well be over.’

As he stood up to leave, Barney placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder. ‘This is just between you and me, old friend,’ he said quietly. ‘No one else need ever know.’

Slumped forward, shocked by Barney’s news, Adam was lost for words. There was no man on this earth could change Barney’s mind once it was made up.

He knew Barney better than most, apart from Vicky who knew him like she knew herself. And he was aware that, whatever Barney decided to do, he would not embark on it without a great deal of thought and much agonising.

Fixing his gaze on the clumps of mud he had earlier walked onto the path, Adam nodded. ‘I shall be here if you need me,’ he said simply.

It was little enough, he thought. But at a time like this, God help him, what else could he do?

Chapter 15 (#ulink_5825c55c-998d-58fc-bd73-ffd7f5a1c5fd)

THROUGHOUT THE FOLLOWING week, Barney carried on as usual, though sometimes when he was out in the fields alone, he would take time to rest, not because he wanted to, but because he was tired, and ill, and stubborn as he had ever been.

He had always loved the onset of winter, with the crisp clean air coming up the valley to pinch his face and make him feel alive, but on this particular day he found it all too much. His whole body ached, and for the first time in an age, he had felt the need to wear an overcoat.

‘Things aren’t the same, are they, old fella?’ He wrapped his arms round the thick hairy neck of his four-legged pal. ‘I thought I had years to go yet. I’m not old, only in my mid-forties, and I still have ambition in me. I thought I might be going on the greatest adventure of my life, taking the whole family to America and starting all over again. But I’m useless now, and growing more useless by the day.’

His voice carried a sense of irony. ‘In horse years, you must be as old as the hills.’ He gave a wry little laugh. ‘But summat tells me you’ll still be here, long after I’ve gone.’

Drawing away, he went to the back of the cart and took down a nosebag of hay. After he’d tied it round the horse’s ears, he walked to the top of the hill, where he stood and gazed around him, imprinting that familiar, magnificent panorama in his mind, in case he might never see it again.

Lost in memories and regret, he did not hear the footsteps drawing closer. ‘Hello, Barney. Vicky told me where I might find you.’

Startled, Barney swung round to find Dr Lucas there. ‘I was out walking,’ he told Barney. ‘Being that it was on my way, I thought I’d call in at Overhill Farm and have a little chat with you, but you’d already gone.’ He glanced at the cart, which was loaded down with branches, half-trees and all manner of debris, and wagging a finger at Barney, he said, ‘I sincerely hope someone helped you on with that load?’

Barney didn’t answer. His mind was still with the doctor’s greeting, and he was horrified. ‘You say you’ve been to the house?’

‘I called in, yes.’

‘You haven’t told Vicky anything, have you? She doesn’t know yet.’

‘No, Barney. I haven’t told anyone. You specifically asked me not to betray your confidence, and I won’t. I can’t.’ Raymond Lucas knew how badly Barney had taken the news – and who could blame him? ‘It’s you I’m concerned about. Twice now, over the course of the past week, I’ve seen you from a distance, standing up here, on the edge of this very hill.’ He frowned. ‘Today, I thought I might come and chat awhile.’

Barney couldn’t help but chuckle. ‘You thought I might throw myself over the edge, is that it?’

Dr Lucas shook his head. ‘I would never think that of you, Barney. Whatever obstacle life puts in your way, I know you’ll face it head on.’ He smiled. ‘Given the same disturbing news, some people might well throw themselves over the edge. But not you.’

Looking down, Barney nodded. ‘Don’t think I haven’t considered it,’ he said truthfully, kicking the ground. ‘Because I have.’

The other man said nothing. Instead, he walked back to the cart with Barney, and listened to what he had to say.

‘It’s the family I fear for,’ Barney confided. ‘I don’t know how to prepare them. I know I should tell them, but I don’t want them to know. We’ve allus been close – too close, mebbe, because that makes it all the more painful. As for my Vicky …’ He sighed heavily. ‘She’s been my reason for living ever since the day I first saw her.’

When his voice began to waver, he stopped, composed himself and when he was ready he looked up at Dr Lucas. ‘I’ve searched my heart and I’ve turned every which way, to think of how I might break the news. Then I imagine what it will do to them, and I can’t … I just can’t do it!’

They walked on in silence for a moment, the doctor filled with sadness, and Barney hurting like he had never hurt before. ‘I’m not sure yet how to deal with it all, but I will,’ he said softly, as though talking to himself. ‘I’ll find a way!’

Not for the first time, Raymond Lucas felt helpless. In latter years, there had been significant strides forward in medicine, but as yet, there was no way to renew a heart that was damaged beyond repair. ‘I’m sorry, Barney. I hope you know that.’

Barney slowly nodded his head. ‘So am I,’ he said, and then he had a question. ‘If I had come into the Infirmary like you wanted, could you have made me healthy again? Would I have come home, being able to do all the things I’ve allus done?’

The other man shook his head decisively. ‘No.’