Coming Home (160 page)

When she returned, at a quarter to one, the kitchen was filled with the good smell of the rabbit pie, and Phyllis was putting a pan of Brussels sprouts on to boil. Judith set her laden baskets on the end of the scrubbed table and unloaded her loot. ‘I managed to get some fresh mackerel, we can have them for supper. And a marrowbone for soup. And our sugar and butter rations. They seem to get smaller every week.’

‘Has Mr Callender got a ration card?’

‘I'll have to ask him. I don't suppose he has.’

‘He's going to need one,’ Phyllis warned. ‘Man that size, he'll eat twice as much as we do.’

‘We'll have to fill him with potatoes. Is he up?’

‘Yes, up and about. Came in here to say hello, and then went out into the garden for a bit. He's in the drawing-room now, reading the paper. Told him to keep the fire up. Put a log on every now and again.’

‘How do you think he's looking?’

‘Some thin, isn't he? Poor soul. Doesn't bear thinking of, what he's been through.’

Judith said, ‘No.’ The last of the groceries were unloaded, and all that remained were the things that she had bought for Gus. She gathered them up and went in search of him, and found him looking entirely at home in the depths of Biddy's armchair, reading the paper. When she appeared, he set this aside.

‘My conscience is already pricking, because I'm being so lazy.’

‘That's what you're meant to be. Do you want a drink or something? I think there's a bottle of beer.’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Here are your things.’ She sat on the fireside stool and handed them to him one by one, out of a well-used paper bag. ‘Yardley's Lavender shaving soap in a cedarwood bowl, no less. They'd got them in for Christmas, and the chemist produced it from under the counter. And a badger brush. And cigarettes. And this is a present from me.’

‘Judith! What is it?’

‘Look and see.’

It was a large and quite heavy parcel, wrapped in white paper and tied with twine. He took it onto his knee and unknotted the string and tore away the paper, revealing the thick pad of foolscap cartridge paper, the box of H.B. pencils, the black enamel Winsor and Newton paint-box, the three beautiful sable brushes.

She said quickly, ‘I know you don't feel like painting just now, but I'm sure you will soon. I hope it's all right. I got it all in the art shop. The paper probably isn't the quality you'd like, but it was the best they had…’

‘It's perfect, a wonderful present.’ He leaned forward and put his hand on her shoulder and drew her towards him, and kissed her cheek. ‘You are the sweetest person. Thank you.’

‘I won't boss and interfere any more. I promise.’

‘I don't think I'd mind too much even if you did.’

They had lunch, the three of them, in the warm kitchen, and after the pie and bottled plums with top-of-the-milk cream, Judith and Gus put on waterproof jackets and went out into the windy, showery afternoon. And they walked, not down to the sea, but on up the hill from Rosemullion on the road that led to the moors. Then they left the road, and struck off across the waste of winter grass, brown bracken and heather clumps, taking the winding sheep tracks that led to the cairn on the summit of the slope. And cloud shadows chased them up from the sea. There were gulls and curlews flying about overhead, and when they finally scrambled up the rock and stood, braced against the wind, all of the country was spread about them, and they were encircled by the horizon.

They returned home by a different route which made it a very long walk indeed, and it was half past four and darkness had fallen before they finally turned in through The Dower House gate. Anna was home from school, diligently sitting at the kitchen table and struggling with her homework. As they appeared, wind-blown and exhausted, through the door, she laid her pencil aside and looked up, intrigued to meet at last the strange man who had come to stay, and about whom her mother had told her so much.

Phyllis had the kettle on, for tea.

‘You've been some time. You must be dead on your feet.’

‘It feels funny going for a walk without Morag. We'll have to get a dog of our own. Hello, Anna. This is Gus Callender. You haven't met him yet, have you?’

Gus, unravelling himself from his muffler, smiled at her. ‘Hello, Anna.’

Anna became suffused with shyness. ‘Hello.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Homework. Sums.’

He pulled up a chair and sat beside her. ‘Money sums. Those were always the most difficult…’

Phyllis was spreading slices of saffron bread with margarine. She said, not looking up, ‘Jeremy Wells rang, from Nancherrow.’

Judith felt her heart give an involuntary leap and was instantly much annoyed with it, for being so foolish. ‘What did he want?’

‘Oh, nothing much.’ Another slice and more margarine. ‘Just asking if you'd got back. Said you had. Said you and Mr Callender had gone for a walk.’

‘How did the coming-home party go?’

‘Mrs Carey-Lewis put it off. You couldn't be there and Walter had some business or other.’

Judith waited for Phyllis to elaborate on this, but she didn't. She was clearly still a bit peeved about the whole business of Jeremy. To placate her, ‘Does he want me to call?’ Judith asked.

‘No, he said not to bother. Didn't matter. Nothing important.’

Eleven o'clock, an hour from midnight, and still he had not returned.

Loveday, curled up in a corner of the sofa, sat and watched the face of the clock, and the slow minutes ticking by. The wind had got up, pouring in from the sea, to howl at the windows of the little house and set the doors rattling. From time to time, from the kennels, she could hear Walter's dogs barking, but did not venture out to investigate what had disturbed them. A fox, maybe. Or a badger, rootling around in the dustbins.

He had gone at seven. Finished the milking, washed up and changed, and was away in the car, not stopping even to eat the shepherd's pie she had made for his tea. It was still there, in the bottom oven, probably by now congealed and dried out. It didn't matter. She had let him go, holding a sulky silence, because if she had said anything, made objections, protestations, demanded explanations, she knew that there would be a blow-up — yet another row between them, concluded by the ear-stopping slamming of the door as he took himself off. They seemed to have nothing left to say that was remotely constructive, and all that was left were cruel and hurtful words to be exchanged.

Her mother's blithe invitation to Jeremy Wells's coming-home dinner party at Nancherrow had filled Loveday with something like panic, because, in his present state of mind, she could not trust Walter to put on his best face, and if he didn't, then her parents could not help but sense ill feeling, and would start to ask questions. Even telling Walter about the invitation needed a bit of courage, and it was almost a relief when he said he had better things to do than go to fancy dinner parties, and anyway, he had already made his plans for that evening.

‘You used to like Jeremy.’

‘He's all right.’

‘Don't you want to see him again?’

‘Will soon enough. And if he wants to see me, he can come up to the farm and find me here.’

So Loveday had telephoned her mother, with excuses for Walter, only to be told that the little party had been cancelled for the time being, because Judith couldn't come either.

‘What's she doing?’ Loveday had asked.

‘She's gone to London.’

‘London? What for?’

‘Oh, I don't know. Christmas shopping? Anyway, darling, it's all off for the moment. We'll have it another night. How's Nat?’

‘He's fine.’

‘Kiss him for me.’

So that was one thing not to worry about, but there was still plenty else.

Since the afternoon when Judith had come for tea, and Loveday had confided in her, relations between her and Walter had deteriorated at an alarming rate, and she was beginning to believe that he didn't just not love her any more, but actually hated her. He hadn't spoken kindly to Nat for four or five days, and if they did all sit down to a meal together, Walter endured it in silence, reading a newspaper or thumbing over the pages of the latest
Farmer's Weekly.
At first, she had tried asking questions about the farm and the animals — about all they had in common now — but he responded with monosyllables, and she was left defeated. Lately, she hadn't even tried to break through his sullen and quite frightening antipathy. She had the terrible feeling that, if she pushed too far, he might actually stand up and hit her.

A quarter past eleven. Restless, Loveday decided to make a mug of cocoa. She got off the sofa and put a pan of milk on the range to heat, and then, for company, switched on the wireless. Radio Luxembourg was always good for a bit of music. She heard Bing Crosby singing ‘Deep Purple’, Athena's favourite tune of that last summer before the war. When Gus had come to Nancherrow.

She thought about Gus. Most of the time she didn't think about him, because memories of what she had done filled her with such anguish and regret and self-disgust that she was sure that that must be exactly how
he
was thinking of her. At nineteen, she now realised, she had been pathetically feeble, and at the same time, childishly set on getting, as always, her own way. Refusing to countenance the fact that perhaps she was mistaken in her unshakable conviction that Gus had died in Singapore; totally determined to stay forever at Nancherrow, and never be torn from the loving arms of her family; grabbing at the first straw which came her drowning way, which happened to be Walter. With hindsight, she knew now that Arabella Lumb was simply a sort of catalyst, bringing everything to a head. If it hadn't been Arabella, it would have been something, or someone, else. The only really good thing that had come out of the entire disaster was Nat.

She was pretty sure that she would never see Gus again.
I don't want him to come here,
she had told Judith, but it wasn't because she didn't
want
to see him, simply that she was so ashamed of what she had done to him. And if
she
thought all these lowering things about herself, then what could
he
be thinking? Love, without the strength of faith, and trust, was not much good to anybody. If, by now, he had put her out of his mind, and set his face in a totally different direction, then she could not blame him. She only blamed herself.

But it had been a lovely time.