Secrets of the Heart

15

Dead on schedule, the film convoy of a van and three cars eased its way down the track to the farmhouse, where Andrew was waiting by the back door. Agnes rolled down the car window and he leaned in.

‘Do you always travel with an army?’

She laughed. ‘Showbiz.’

‘Lucky I have the space.’ His eyes told her that he was pleased to see her. ‘Can you ask them to park over there? Otherwise they’ll get in the way of the animals.’

Agnes parked and got out. Groaning theatrically, Bel emerged from her car. ‘It’s a long way from civilization.’

‘I heard that,’ said Andrew, as the others decanted from various vehicles.

The group, who knew each other well, made straight for the back of Ted’s catering van, which was already open and dispensing hot drinks. Clutching their clipboards, they stood around drinking and making bad banter. It was the ritual that eased them into the slog ahead.

‘Eat, eat,’ exhorted Ted, whose life’s work was to stuff film crews with unnecessary food. ‘Eat, my darlings.’

‘OK,’ said Agnes eventually, ‘it’s time to start.’

Jed hefted his camera equipment on to his shoulder and he, Agnes, Bel and Andrew made for the north field, from which an uninterrupted view of the house could be had. They spent a lot of time discussing opening shots and assessing the light, with Andrew watching and listening. They were lucky and netted an opening sequence first time off, a pastoral composition of the cattle grazing in the field and the farmhouse behind. But filming is unpredictable, and Agnes knew this beginner’s luck meant nothing.

After a while, she came and stood beside Andrew. ‘Jed is just wrapping up some shots.’ She glanced up to check the sky.

‘I don’t recognize you,’ said Andrew. ‘You look and sound different.’

It was a remark that frequently came her way. ‘Aren’t you different at work?’ she asked.

He considered. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

Jed signalled to Agnes, who consulted her clipboard. ‘Andrew, in this bit, the voiceover will describe your farm and its philosophy. And we’ll do some shots with you tending the animals. Can you spare the time?’

‘Oh, I have the time.’ Andrew’s mouth had set in a such a firm line that little white patches appeared in the corners. ‘I’ll make it. Look, Agnes.’ He bent down and scooped some earth into the ball of his hand and thrust it under her nose. ‘I’m not going to let anyone build on that.’

The earth was thick and dark with a fretwork of red tints. Andrew squeezed his hand shut. This was an angry man.

In the early evening, Bel and Agnes plodded back to the farmhouse while the bed-and-breakfast contingent headed off for baths and beer. Bel went inside to make some phone calls and write up notes but Agnes picked her way across the yard and discovered Andrew in the shed, occupied with stacking sacks of feed. She thought he was not aware of her presence until he said, without looking up, ‘Finished for the day?’

She leaned against the concrete wall and scuffed the dust with her feet. ‘We’ve made a promising start.’

‘Good.’ He hefted the last sack into place and leaned on the pile. She was riveted by an ugly slash over the fleshy part of one of his broken fingers. It was imperfectly healed, and the skin still weeping. ‘Do you want to see something special?’ The blue eyes were speculative.

She dragged her gaze from his damaged hand. ‘Sure.’

He beckoned to her, led her round the shed and pointed to the sky. He placed his hands on her shoulders, propelled her round in a half-circle and said, ‘Look at that.’

Agnes inhaled sharply. To the north, the moor rose like a giant phantom, but to the west, the sky was washed with rose pink and fire orange. Just at the edge of this palette of colour was the dark.

Surely this was the domain of the old gods who stalked through the rocks and trees. She explained the fancy to Andrew and his fingers gripped her shoulders. ‘That’s right. This land belongs to them, but I don’t expect city dwellers to see it that way.’

She was startled and a little offended by his hostility. ‘Why shouldn’t they understand? After all, it’s what the film is about.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ He dropped his hands. ‘I get carried away sometimes.’

As they headed back to the farmhouse, he said ‘I’m sorry Penny isn’t here. It makes catering a bit awkward.’ He stooped to pick up his axe, which was propped up against the van. ‘You’ve never been married, have you?’

‘No.’

‘I wish…’ again Agnes caught the roil of anger under the surface ‘… that I had done things differently.’ He put the axe in the back of the van and closed its doors.

Bel was waiting for them in the kitchen where Penny’s rule was still in evidence but under attack from Andrew’s careless habits. Lists were tacked up on a noticeboard, a small pair of rubber gloves hung from a peg by the basin, handcream stood by the soap tray and a row of knives had been arranged in descending size on a magnetic strip above the work surface.

But on the table there was a large, untidy stack of papers, which Andrew piled on a chair in the corner. ‘That’s all the planning-inquiry stuff. Masses of it. Then I have to send out copies to the organic farmers’ defence group, who want me to keep them up-to-date.’ He had a go at stabilizing the pile, gave up and dumped half on the floor. ‘After a piece in the local papers, I got sent all sorts of strange things – pamphlets on self-defence, on making Molotov cocktails, instructions on passive resistance from the Gandhi Self-helpers. I had no idea there were so many interests boiling over.’

‘There were a couple of phone calls.’ Bel uncurled herself from her foetal slump. ‘Whoever it was wanted to know the date of the planning inquiry. I’ve written the names down. I didn’t know what to do about food.’ She had not discarded her parka and shivered impolitely.

‘Believe it or not, Penny came over the other day and left me food for you all.’ Andrew padded over to the fridge and extracted a tin-foil container labelled ‘Tuesday’.

‘It’s Wednesday,’ Bel pointed out.

‘Is it? I must have forgotten to eat.’ Andrew looked around helplessly. Sighing, Bel removed the container from his hand.

‘We’ll do the supper,’ said Agnes. ‘Tell me how to drive the oven.’

Bel addressed Andrew: ‘You don’t know Agnes’s cooking.’

Andrew said he would take the risk and went over to the cupboard, extracted glasses and opened a bottle of wine.

‘Is a bath an impossibility?’ asked Bel, in a manner that suggested she supposed it was.

Andrew took her upstairs, and Agnes hunted around in the drawers and cupboards for the correct utensils. Everything was in immaculate order; even the cake tins were wrapped up in oiled greaseproof paper and tied with string. Agnes stared at them. Penny’s care was infinitely touching. It said: Even the smallest things are worth doing well.

Having got the stew under way, she searched in the fridge for some vegetables, failed to find any and called up the stairs to Andrew.

‘Carrots are in the outhouse. To the right of the back door. In a paper sack.’ Andrew materialized at the top of the stairs. He had stripped to the waist, and in the electric light his flesh seemed to gleam, sinewy with use and health. It was a surprisingly delicately fashioned body but lean and strong-looking.

Agnes swallowed. ‘Thanks.’

On her return, a fully dressed Andrew was finishing laying the kitchen table.

Agnes washed the carrots. ‘After her husband died an aunt of mine said it was like having her stomach removed. She still functioned but nothing nourished her.’

He put the final knife in place and reached for his tobacco pouch. ‘Funnily enough, I haven’t really found it to be so.’ He glanced at the strip of knives. ‘Actually, I castigate myself for finding it so easy.’ Fascinated, Agnes watched out of the corner of her eye as he selected and rolled the shreds of tobacco into the correct shape.

He folded up the pouch. ‘The strange thing is, the marriage might never have been. Twenty years have just vanished, short-circuited in the memory, and now I can’t really remember what it was like having Penny here.’ The match flared. ‘I don’t know what that says about marriage – or me, for that matter.’

Agnes inspected a stone crock by the stove, which proved to hold salt, and dusted a pinch into the stew. ‘I don’t know.’ She kept her back turned. ‘But a short memory can be life-saving, I suppose.’

‘It’s the watching over me, the fussing, from Bob’s home where she’s now living, that I can’t cope with,’ said Andrew.

There was an embarrassed pause. It was growing dark in the kitchen. Andrew got up to switch on a lamp in the corner of the room and nudged the pile of magazines lying beside it. ‘Penny doesn’t want to be here with me, yet she can’t quite… Either she’s left me or she hasn’t.’

Agnes tested the stew. ‘Delicious.’

Andrew regarded the magazines with a thoughtful expression. Then he picked up an armful and dropped them into the wastepaper basket. ‘Penny was obsessed by these damn things. Agnes, can you still make the film if we haven’t tied up who Jack and Mary were exactly?’

Agnes chopped up a carrot into nice, neat slices. ‘We will find out who Jack and Mary are. It’s a question of understanding where to look.’

‘Good.’ Andrew picked up the overflowing waste-paper basket and carted it outside. From out of the kitchen window, Agnes watched him lift the lid of the dustbin and, with one swift movement, tip in the magazines.

When Bel reappeared, with a face bare of makeup – ‘Behold, my country look’ – the meal was ready. Afterwards they drank coffee and whisky, and the two women regaled Andrew with tales of filming on location.

‘Do you get frightened?’ he asked, after the story of the sinking boat on the whaling trip.

‘Not really’ Without her painted-in eyebrows, Bel looked sweetly, and deceptively, childlike. ‘There are worse things than a perishing cold sea. Like a BBC budget meeting.’

‘Liar,’ said Agnes fondly.

‘I’m frightened that I’m going to lose the farm,’ said Andrew, gazing into his glass. ‘Very frightened.’ The whisky had obviously clocked in. ‘I hate builders, planners and landlords who think they can do what they like.’

He refilled his glass.

Bel had thought of something. ‘You need Gordon the Gladiator. He organizes peaceful opposition to builders. I’ll give you his address. We did a quickie fill-in on the eco-warriors not so long ago. He’s probably up a tree, but don’t worry, he runs a mobile off his social security’

‘Good,’ said Andrew blearily. ‘Up a tree, you said?’ The idea of the tree-borne gladiator appeared to strike him as funny. His shoulders shook and he dropped his head into his hands. And, very slowly, Andrew collapsed on to the table.

Agnes and Bel looked at each other. Bel staggered to her feet. ‘Come on, Ag. Upstairs with this one.’

They manhandled Andrew into his bedroom, laid him on the bed and closed the door. Bel backed theatrically into the minute third bedroom, which, Andrew had explained earlier, was once designated the nursery. Agnes had been put in the spare room.

Considering the amount of land surrounding it, the architect had been over-zealous in saving space in the house. This room was small, too, with a low ceiling and only just enough space to accommodate two single beds with a chest of drawers wedged between them. There was no room for a chair, the cupboard was too narrow for a coat-hanger, and every swish of water from the bathroom next door was audible.

Despite a dredging of dust on the chest of drawers, the room had been scrupulously maintained, and the absent Penny was evident in the clever curtains and bedspreads. Folded at the end of each bed were knitted rugs, of the kind often seen in charity shops. Agnes touched one. They reminded her of Bea, for it was the kind of thing she liked.

Someone had placed a vase of wild flowers and grasses on the chest of drawers with a lace mat to prevent the water staining the wood. It was a woman’s gesture. Penny’s, she imagined. The Penny who was performing the double act of both quitting and defending her territory. Andrew implied that you slough the skin of a marriage, just like that. Obviously Penny felt differently. Penny had made the dash for freedom and fresh air, but found her roots too strong and painful to pull up in one mighty heave.

After her parents had been killed, Agnes had not known in which hemisphere she would end up. At night, she curled up in bed, hands tucked between her thighs for comfort. She knew she had strayed into a bad story but she was sure that the mistake would be sorted out -if she was patient enough.

Perhaps that was what Penny felt. That she had strayed into the wrong story and she was keeping open her options. Or perhaps it was guilt that made Penny cook a stew, ladle it into tin-foil containers and bring it over to her abandoned husband.

Agnes lay with an unfamiliar pillow denting her cheek, and Julian crept into the bed. Tender and importunate, weary and bothered. Go away, she said. I have not invited you. But she had. She had, because she longed for him.

‘Comment?’, Maud would say, and ‘Tiens’, for Maud had the survivor’s trick of trading through the bad times. Not a bad thing to possess.

Agnes thought about the grace she so desired, how it would feel and how she must set about attaining it. She twisted on to her other side and pressed her hand to her hot cheek. The nag of what might have been had never been so sharp.

She was woken by a crash in the passage. Sodden with sleep, she got out of bed and encountered Andrew sitting on the top stair. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I slipped.’

She regarded him blearily. ‘What time is it?’

‘I’m afraid it’s only four o’clock.’ Agnes emitted a little groan. ‘I needed some water and thought I’d make less noise if I went down to the kitchen.’

‘And an aspirin?’

‘No.’ He placed a hand on the stair rail. ‘Go back to bed. We’ll wake Bel.’

He looked terrible. Agnes grabbed him by the arm. ‘You do need an aspirin. Come with me.’

He edged into the bedroom and she flipped open a pocket of her rucksack. ‘Double strength.’ She shelled two pills into his open hand and offered him her toothmug of water. He swallowed the pills and drank all the water.

Agnes slipped back into bed and Andrew slumped down at its foot. His fist struck a tattoo on his forehead. ‘I’m sorry. Whisky always does me in. Was I obstreperous? Rude?’

He seemed eaten up by an intensely private emotion and Agnes’s pity leaped into the breach. This was someone who needed care and comfort, which she could give at this precise moment. It was not easy to lose a spouse or, God knew – Agnes knew – to lose a lover.

He got up and opened the window to let in the air. Outside, it was quite still and he stepped aside to allow Agnes to see the first fingers of light trickling over the oak canopies.

The tousled hair and the curve of his back were unfamiliar but the thought, This man is available, swam into her mind, taking her by surprise. The night always performed tricks and did strange things. As a general rule, Agnes’s history demonstrated that she did not get involved easily or lightly. That was her trouble.

Andrew turned and leaned back on the edge of the window-sill. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about you, Agnes. I’ve never met anyone who understands exactly what I am doing at Tithings. Do you mind me saying it?’

It was strange compliment. ‘Thank you.’

She must have sounded a trifle wary for he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to pounce.’ Andrew shoved his hands up the sleeves of his dressing-gown. ‘Look, no hands. Apart from anything else, booze kills my performance.’ He was beginning to shiver noticeably.

He turned to her and his whole body was shuddering. ‘I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t know what to do.’

This was a cry for help. Agnes pulled back the sheets. ‘Get in or you’ll get pneumonia.’

‘Are you sure? I have some sense of decency left.’

‘Look, you get in under the blankets, I’m under the sheets. Will that do?’ Andrew did not require further encouragement and his shaking, gelid body slid in beside hers, insulated by a couple of blankets. Feet. Thighs. Long, lean back. Unfamiliar bones.

‘Sorry,’ said Andrew, in the dark. ‘You must forget this conversation and this drunken display. Whisky talk.’

She shifted her back against the wall. ‘Don’t worry.’ She felt him relax a little. ‘I was taken to a reception the other day. There was champagne and powerful people, intent on carving up land like yours. The talk was of the future. But it was a limited future for it was all their future. So we have to make sure your sort of future is given a chance.’

‘Didn’t Jack say something like that?’

She smiled. ‘Did he?’

They lay quietly, their breath steadying into a shared rhythm, Andrew growing heavy against Agnes, he seeking the comfort of being close to another human, she dispensing it. It was the solidarity of body against body, ranged against the terrors and anxieties of the night: a strange, unimaginable intimacy, which sometimes happens between people.

The alarm clock tore Agnes awake. Cramped and exhausted, she frowned, puzzling out the events of the night. Andrew had vanished. She pulled back the sheets and stumbled over to the open window.

It was a glorious early-summer day, so beautiful that her heart lifted. The sun was already warm and the air was clean, so clean.

Green and flower-strewn, Andrew’s fields unfolded around the farmhouse towards a horizon that dipped and curved with female lushness. In the distance were the glimmering white squares of the beehives and beyond them the moor.

Poppies and cornflowers, whispering grass, herbs… Agnes cupped her chin in her hands and, voluptuous and life-enhancing, the sun warmed her. The canvas outside the window was a dialogue between man and nature. A clever con trick, for what was artificial had become natural. A master craftsman – no, an artist – had created such a wild and joyous sight. Andrew was the artist.

He came into sight round the corner of the house and, leaning out of the window, Agnes called to him and told him so.