Meadowland

A robin hopped across the driveway in front of me as I crunched towards the front door, then darted to the branch of a straggling buddleia where it bounced round to face me, twittering. Sparrows rustled in the bushes and overhead a pair of wood pigeons flapped lazily towards some unknown destination. There was no other sound or sight of movement. For the first time, the possibility occurred to me that Flora might not be at home.

The front door, approached by three stone steps built into the abrupt rise, was firmly shut. There was no bell; just an old and tarnished brass knocker. I lifted it and banged twice. The sound echoed. I waited, then knocked again, this time with greater force. As the reverberations faded, there was silence.

I retreated down the steps and surveyed the frontage. One of the upstairs casements was ajar. In the country that probably didn’t mean anything. What now? Presumably I could find somewhere to leave the books. A note through the door … I struggled with a sense of anticlimax.

Then: ‘Come on, Columbus. We have a visitor.’ The voice floated from somewhere along the side of the house. Footsteps sounded.

From under the ivy-clad overhang at the corner, a tallish and solidly built figure, in what I’d guess were her late fifties, appeared. She strolled towards me along the upper path, a somnolent cat, knitted into the design of her heavy jumper, undulating across her bosom as though rocked on a gently rolling sea. At her feet padded a ginger tom, tail erect, rubbing confidently against the green of her scuffed cords. This presumably was the companion I had heard her addressing; but addressing in a tone startlingly softer than the one she now directed at me.

‘Yes?’ Short; to the point; unsmiling.

The cat turned slit eyes towards me and stared. Flora’s own were wide and brown and framed by waves of greyed hair among which glints of auburn provided curious contrast. In one hand she held an ancient trug, half-filled with mud-smeared potatoes and knobbly shapes that might have been swedes; in the other a garden fork. Wooden sabots hugged her feet which she planted firmly on the top of the bank.

I looked up at her; never in all my childhood imaginings had I visualised her thus.

I resisted an instinctive step backwards. ‘You’re …’ I hesitated over the informality ‘… Flora?’

‘Yes.’ The same clipped neutrality.

I took a deep breath. ‘I’m Charissa,’ I said, glad of the extra stature I felt my full, and somewhat distinctive, name gave me. Then, as her eyes roved over me, ‘I came to return these.’ I held the bundle of books out towards her.

There was a pause, while she continued to size me up. ‘So you are. Spitting image of your father of course.’ The merest hesitation before, just a shade less abruptly: ‘You’d better come in.’

Ignoring the proffered parcel, she turned on her heel and started round the house, Columbus falling into step behind her. ‘Never use the front door,’ she announced, leaving me to catch the words as they floated back on the air. It seemed I had no alternative but to follow.

In Indian file, the three of us made our way to a paint-chipped door. It gave access to a lobby cluttered with gardening paraphernalia. Flora deposited trug and fork, kicked off her shoes and pushed the kitchen door wide. A wave of warmth billowed to greet me.

Moving straight to the Aga at the far side, she lifted one of the heavy circular lids and slid the kettle across on to the hotplate beneath. Columbus bounded on to an elderly chesterfield and took possession.

Flora turned, leaning against the rail over which teatowels were drying, and looked at me, arms folded.

‘Well, come in then.’

I took a step across the threshold. The room, unlike the exterior of the house, had a cared-for look; that is to say, not clinically scrubbed as my mother always kept her kitchen, but comfortably clean and ordered. And, yes, cheerful. A first glance took in an antique Welsh dresser hung with good quality china, a large oak kitchen table, the near end of which was home to a pile of shuffled papers, and a set of cupboards and work surfaces along the length of the window wall. Dotted here and there, but always looking as though they belonged, were the bits and pieces that gave the room its lived-in feel – table lamps, a busy Lizzie draped from the window sill, a magazine lying open.

‘Push Columbus over,’ Flora instructed, noting my hesitation. ‘Oh, and …’ she nodded towards the bundle I was still carrying ‘… put those down somewhere. By the bookcase will do.’

It stood against the wall immediately to the right of the doorway, out of vision until I entered and moved towards the sofa.

On its top shelf, and flanked by a rosebowl on one side and a pair of silver candlesticks on the other, stood a large framed photograph of my father. It brought me up short.

‘Tea or coffee?’

I looked across at Flora. Her face was expressionless. ‘Coffee, please. Black.’

Turning back, I stared at the picture again. It had been taken in the garden, presumably at the rear of the house; and, as was clear from the fit of my father’s familiar brown tweed jacket, long before his illness began to take hold. He was standing beneath the branches of an apple tree in full fruit, laughing. That sparkle in his eyes … I hadn’t seen it since …

I bit my lip. Flora – I glanced in her direction – was spooning coffee. I placed the books on the floor as directed and squeezed a place for myself beside the already slumbering ball of ginger fur.

The photograph drew my gaze inexorably. I forced myself to lower it and study instead the contents of the shelves. They held an eclectic collection, bundled in together with the familiarity of use.

Books of poetry rubbed shoulders with a Dickens or two, some Nevil Shute, tomes on subjects ranging from philosophy to the peoples of the Pacific, the odd cookery book, one on pruning roses. All interspersed with a range of current paperbacks. The equally varied selection I’d returned would slip back in comfortably.

I raised my eyes to my father’s picture again. What was it, I wondered – at that moment more perplexed than resentful – that had not only drawn him here, but brought such a look of relaxed contentment to his face?

‘It’s a good likeness.’ Flora had glided across the room in her stockinged feet and was standing over me, a mug in each hand. She passed me one, then swivelled a dining chair and sat down.

I nodded agreement, and waited for her to initiate further conversation. She didn’t.

‘Nice part of the country, here,’ I offered eventually. ‘Very peaceful.’ I forced a light laugh. ‘Makes a pleasant change to get away from London traffic.’

She inclined her head.

‘Had quite a good run down,’ I suggested. I prattled on about the time it had taken me, the weather …

I tried a different tack. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘About my father’s death, I mean.’

This time she did comment. ‘So I should imagine.’

I stared at her. ‘What I meant was …’

‘Yes?’

Confusion stoked animosity. ‘I meant you must miss him.’ It came out angrily, attempts at civility swept aside.

There was a flicker of something indefinable at the corners of her mouth. Eventually she said, as though having considered the matter, ‘Yes, I miss him.’

‘I suppose –’ I managed to soften again as the thought struck me – ‘I suppose we might have invited you to the funeral.’

‘I came anyway.’

I felt my eyebrows shoot up. But then I hadn’t really been aware of anyone but family among the congregation, and I wouldn’t have known who half of them were anyway. I could hardly have been expected to notice a stranger – Flora – in their midst. And maybe, in any case, she’d slipped out before we turned to leave. Must have done, or surely she’d have recognised me more quickly when I arrived.

‘Tell me –’ Flora changed the subject abruptly – ‘why have you come?’

It wasn’t a question I was expecting. I twisted my mind back. ‘My father asked me to.’ I nodded towards the books. Then defensively, pushed into elaboration by a lack of response, ‘One doesn’t refuse a dying wish.’

‘Oh, no. One doesn’t, does one.’ Flora’s tone was bland. She leaned back, that considering look on her face again. Then: ‘Was that the only reason?’ The question, though mildly put, felt nonetheless to prise into me.

The hurt of years surged suddenly in a wave of hatred. How dare she interrogate me! With great control, I rose from my seat, placed the coffee cup carefully beside the photograph of my father and looked her squarely in the eye. ‘Of course. What other reason could there be? Thank you for the coffee. I must be on my way.’ It was, I prided myself, a dignified little speech. I reached for my bag.

‘Sit down.’ Again quietly said; but, given the discomposing effect she was having on me, she might as well have delivered a karate chop to the back of my knees.

I sank back on to the cushions.

Taking her time, she asked casually, ‘Do you always run away from the truth?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

She repeated the query.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Then maybe –’ there was the faintest lift of an eyebrow – ‘you have a thing or two to learn.’

‘But not from you!’ The retort, satisfyingly, seemed to fire itself without any conscious effort on my part.

Flora’s expression didn’t change, and my momentary sense of triumph evaporated as I felt caught up in a childhood game of ‘stare as stare can’. I yielded and looked away.

‘I really must go.’ But the words sounded petulant.

Flora, unperturbed, got up. ‘I expect you’d like something to eat first. I take it you’re going back to London? How about some soup?’ Her tone was matter of fact.

A sick feeling in my stomach identified itself at least partly as hunger. To my astonishment, I found myself accepting.

Unhurriedly, Flora set about the preparations. ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘if you want to wash your hands there’s one the other side of the lobby, or the bathroom’s upstairs.’

I opted for the lobby. On my return, I wandered over to the window and stared out. Beyond the bushes and bare-branched trees bounding the garden, the top of the haybarn I’d passed earlier was outlined against the pink-tinged clouds of early evening. ‘Shepherd’s delight,’ I murmured automatically.

‘We’ll have a beautiful sunset.’ The observation floated from behind me.

I turned. Flora was stirring a pan.

Grabbing for the relief of small talk, I said, ‘I was admiring your crocuses.’

‘None of my doing.’ Abruptness had returned to her voice. She poured the soup into a bowl and transferred it to the table, indicating to me to seat myself.

This time, I decided, I would be the one to ignore a comment. I picked up the spoon. The soup smelled good. I tasted it. It was thick with fresh vegetables, just peppery enough to bring out their flavour. Flora placed a farmhouse loaf and the butter dish before me. ‘Help yourself.’ She took the chair opposite. Columbus, wakened by the activity, descended from his bed and sauntered, yawning and stretching, towards the table. He raised his front paws on to Flora’s knee and leapt up. She fondled his ears.

I saw an opportunity for conversation again. Nodding towards the cat, I asked, ‘How did he get his name?’

‘Your father gave it to him. We found him down by the river, soaking wet. He said he looked as though he’d swum the Atlantic.’

‘So he was a stray?’

‘Yes.’

Her monosyllabic response left me scant scope.

‘Was my father fond of cats?’ I regretted the question as soon as it was uttered.

‘He loved animals. Didn’t you know?’

I took a mouthful of soup to delay replying. Columbus purred complacently.

I decided to go on the offensive. ‘The fact that I didn’t know him as well as I should,’ I said carefully, ‘is hardly my fault.’ I stressed the ‘my’.

‘Does anyone say it is?’

She had missed the point. Or had she? Flora didn’t strike me as unintelligent. Far from it. All right, then; if she wanted me to spell it out …

‘Don’t bother,’ she forestalled me. Her eyes were glinting with something. Not anger – I could have coped with that; more an amused, or perhaps merely patient, tolerance.

I put my spoon down. ‘Look,’ I tried. ‘I’ve come all this way …’

‘And I’m supposed to be correspondingly grateful?’ She paused. ‘I can’t think why. You could have consigned the delivery to the Post Office.’ Again, that indecipherable expression. I heaved a sigh; this was getting us nowhere.

‘I take it,’ Flora continued consideringly, ‘that I’m not reacting in whatever way you’ve decided would be appropriate to the … er … circumstances. Which, I would remind you –’ she fixed me with one of her unwavering looks – ‘you have created.’

‘I have created?’

‘You chose to come.’

Her calm only fuelled my indignation.

‘And what about the circumstances you’ve created!’ I thumped the table and the tingle ran up my arm and into my shoulder. ‘Don’t you have any feelings about what you’ve done to us? Don’t you realise how our lives have been devastated by your relationship with my father?’

A level glance met my furious one. ‘I realise it’s affected yours.’

So she acknowledged it. Something snapped inside me. ‘Then what,’ I heard myself explode, ‘do you intend doing about it?’

Throughout the exchange, Flora had scarcely moved a muscle. Now she slowly lifted Columbus from her lap and deposited him on the floor. Then she leaned forward, forearms on the table. The knitted cat nestled into the dip between her breasts.

‘So is that why you came?’

Taken aback, I glared at her. ‘How do you mean? No, of course not. It was just –’ I shrugged – ‘a figure of speech.’

‘Was it?’ She sat back again, fixing me with eyes that seemed to bore deep inside me.

‘If anything –’ I cast around for a more acceptable explanation – ‘it was curiosity.’

She nodded. ‘That, too, I can well believe.’

The conversation was again becoming intolerable. I swallowed the last of the soup, stood up and moved over to the window. The sky had darkened and a deep crimson, interlaced with streaks of purple, had replaced the earlier, lighter colouring. There were no shadows; just shades of grey.

I turned back, my hands grasping the edge of the sink behind me for support. Flora was still seated, immobile. In the subdued light, she no longer looked quite so formidable.

‘Have some more coffee.’ She rose to fetch it.

I sat down at the table again, aware of fiddling with my bracelet. It was the gold one my parents had given me on my twelfth birthday.

‘Your father chose it,’ my mother had said. ‘I’m not sure it’s really suitable for someone your age.’

Father had winked at me over her shoulder.

‘I’ll look after it,’ I’d promised.

I had. Most of the time it sat in the brocade box I’d rather grandly, when I was younger, called my jewel case. It contained only a couple of other items of value. I seldom wore any of them. My decision today, to clasp Father’s gift – I always thought of it as his – around my wrist, had been an impulsive one.

‘Yes, I suppose possibly I was curious,’ I admitted.

Flora had, I was sure, heard me, but she said nothing, merely returning with freshly filled mugs. Her chair scraped lightly on the tiled floor as she resumed her place. Then there was silence. As my ears accustomed themselves to it, I became aware of a clock ticking. I wasn’t sure whether the sound came from within the room or somewhere outside it. I didn’t care to raise my head to discover which.

I ran my fingers over the hard circle on my arm – and began to remember.

I remembered the taste of trout.

I remembered the time, long before Father’s fishing days, when he used to joggle me around the garden piggyback style. I remembered visits to the zoo and clutching his hand as a lion raised its head and yawned, baring ferocious fangs; I saw him down on his hands and knees on wet sand enthusiastically constructing forts which he then pretended to defend from the incoming tide with Canute-like imperatives; I heard again his ostentatious applause when, having ignored my mother’s remonstrations, he’d urged me up on to the pantomime stage and I returned to my seat beside him, flushed with pleasure. I recalled … oh, I recalled so many little incidents – delicious moments of companionship and laughter when I revelled in the certainty that my father found me the most wonderful little girl in the world.

‘He did love me,’ I murmured.

And he’d loved my mother, too. Or I’d thought he did. They used to sit side by side watching television, he with his arm draped over her shoulders as she knitted, or crocheted, or sewed. Sometimes I would try to squeeze in between them; then my father would lift me on to his lap and, as I snuggled against the warmth of his vast chest, his spare arm would slip back to rest around my mother.

He was, altogether, a big man, my mother slim and neat. They made a handsome pair. And I was their princess.

‘But then everything changed.’ I realised I’d spoken aloud.

Slowly, carefully, hesitating over my words, I began to slot the jigsaw pieces of my experience together.

‘It wasn’t as if he just upped and left us. I could have understood that. Not why, but at least the fact of it. But he hadn’t gone. Not physically anyway. Even when he was … away, his coat still hung in the hall; his razor stared at me from the bathroom shelf; his favourite biscuits were always there in the tin; Saturday’s post stood propped on the bureau all weekend.

‘But he had gone. Once he knew that I knew – what little I did know – he never quite seemed to meet my eye again. Oh, he tried to behave normally during those weekday evenings. Sometimes he helped me with my homework, occasionally we even played a game of chess or draughts. But he never … we were never … close again; never did things together any more, not in the way we used to. It was as though he’d handed me over to my mother.

‘She was marvellous, so brave about it all. She never complained. Just got on with the business of running the house and looking after me.’

I paused. Columbus materialised as if from nowhere, and sprang on to my knee. I stroked his fur and he snuggled down.

‘It was as though my father had died, yet I couldn’t tell anyone, talk to anyone about it; I had to go on pretending he was still there. But he wasn’t. Not my real father. The man who called himself my father was a weekday lodger, a stranger.’

Columbus was kneading my thigh with his paws in a slow, steady rhythm. I sat there, allowing my thoughts to tumble over one another.

‘And now he really is gone.’ The words seemed to float towards me across the table. They were spoken so quietly that if there had been any other sound I might not have heard them.

My control shattered. Great sobs, starting way down in the pit of my stomach, forced their way up through my chest, constricted as though by a steel band, and exploded outwards. My elbows involuntarily moved forward on to the table to support my head as it fell forward into my hands. I was vaguely aware of a scrabbling in my lap as Columbus, alarmed, leapt down.

‘There, there. It’s all right.’ I neither knew nor cared whether it was me or the cat Flora was reassuring.

Eventually as the racking subsided, I raised my head. The room was in virtual darkness. Flora’s shape loomed upwards. ‘You need a brandy,’ she said.

CHAPTER 3

The alcohol calmed my shivering. Flora had switched on the lamps as she fetched it, and the glow they cast harmonised with the warmth spreading inside me. As I drained the tumbler, she stretched out a hand to the bottle and raised an eyebrow in query.

‘I’d better not,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to drive.’

‘There’s a spare bed made up if you’d prefer to wait and make the journey in daylight.’ There was nothing in her tone to persuade me one way or the other.

I didn’t need to turn my head to be aware of the blackness outside. I hesitated only momentarily; then nodded. ‘Thanks.’ I drowned the waves of unease at my decision in a second generous tot.

It was all becoming increasingly unreal somehow – and Flora’s down-to-earth practicality did nothing to dispel that feeling. It was as though I’d strayed into another world; one in which I was neither approved nor disapproved of – merely accepted; where I was neither guest nor intruder. My mind, hazed at least in part by alcohol, struggled with the problem of how to behave and gave up. It was simpler to sit back and let fate take over.

And it did seem to be something more ethereal than Flora to which I was relinquishing control. For a moment, I had a vision in my head of my father.

Flora placed both hands on the table and pushed herself to her feet. ‘I have things to do,’ she said. I was vaguely aware of her shrugging on shoes and coat; and then of the beam of a torch as she opened the back door and closed it again behind her.

I pressed the stopper back on the brandy, then rinsed my glass under the tap, staring out through the window as I did so. The night, I realised now that my back was to the lights in the room, was not as dark as I’d imagined. As my eyes accustomed themselves to the dimness, pinpricks of stars enlarged into dancing crystals. I started as a shadow streaked across my line of vision. A bat, maybe? Hardly. Not this early in the year.

But the thought had stirred an image; myself, cringing; and Father sweeping me up in his arms, laughing away my fears. ‘They’re only bats, silly,’ I heard him say, his voice deep and comfortable. When could that have been, I wondered.

Now I could discern branches stirring gently and, in the distance, the shimmer of headlights. I watched them approaching, turning into the lane and lighting it up with powerful beams. There was a squeal of brakes and the sound of tyres swerving on gravel as the vehicle swept round and up to the house. The lights were extinguished.

I retreated towards the table. A metallic bang was followed by heavy footsteps. A broad shape passed the window. Then, with no more than a token knock, the same man who had spoken to me earlier in the day from his Land Rover pushed open the door and stood in the entrance.

He gave a swift glance round the room before addressing me. ‘Flora in?’ Then he looked at me more closely. ‘Oh, it’s you. Nearly ran into your car out there.’ He shook his head tolerantly. ‘Do you always park in damn fool places?’

I clapped my hand to my mouth. ‘Oh, I’m sorry … no lights. I hadn’t thought …’

‘If you give me the keys, I’ll move it.’

I scrabbled in my bag and produced them. ‘That’s very kind of you.’

‘Self-interest. By the way, where’s Flora?’

I hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. I mean, she didn’t actually say.’

He gave me a bemused look. ‘Probably shutting up the hens.’ He jiggled the keys in his hand. ‘Right. I’ll just go and do this.’ He strode out.

Aware that my face was probably still showing traces of my recent outburst, I reached for my make-up. As I touched up, Flora returned.

‘I see Andrew’s here,’ she said from the lobby. She stepped into the kitchen. ‘Where is he?’

‘Moving my car.’ My words were accompanied by the sound of its engine starting up.

She nodded and went to the sink to wash her hands.

When he came back, she introduced us.

‘Not …?’ He hesitated and looked questioningly at Flora.

‘Yes. That’s right. Hugh’s daughter.’

His reaction on discovering my identity was totally different from Flora’s. His eyes lit up in greeting as he moved forward to grasp my hand. ‘Really?’

I responded gratefully.

Andrew turned to Flora. ‘You didn’t tell me …’

‘I didn’t know.’ Flora stood leaning against the cupboard, arms relaxed at her sides.

‘You mean … you just …?’ He swivelled his head from one to the other of us, seeking clarification.