Full Circle (3 page)

What had happened to reserved, conventional Louisa? Perhaps her confidence had been given a jolt by her companion's remark, giving her credit for having experience. For the truth was that at thirty years old she had never even had a boyfriend. Walking at the younger girl's side, her five-foot-six-inch body made taller by the four-inch heels of her russet-coloured court shoes so right with her scarf and leather handbag, she was unaware of the elegant image she created. There was nothing new in the way she wore her tailored clothes, and partly it was her classically austere attire combined with her solitary lifestyle that had frightened off many when she'd been younger. Now, at thirty, even her work colleagues looked on her as frigid and prim. A clever, humourless woman destined for spinsterhood was their unspoken opinion – with a rider that it was a good body wasted.

Her young companion's easy chatter was a new experience. In ordinary circumstances she would have had no time for someone who gave an initial impression of being empty-headed and naïve. But today's circumstances were anything but ordinary.

‘If you live so far away I suppose you haven't any friends here?' Louisa tried to sound more interested than she really was, for in truth it was as if she stood outside herself, heard herself speak, but her heart and mind weren't quite with her.

‘No, but usually I'm with Leo and soon there'll be the baby. I've left him to talk to his dad now. I thought Dad would like to have him to himself, and anyway I needed some exercise – we'd been in the car for what seemed like hours. I don't really care for car journeys, although Leo is an excellent driver,' she added in case her new friend got the wrong impression. ‘Now tell me about you. Do you work – well, you must do, I suppose, if you're not married? And these days lots of married women work anyway. With a baby coming, of course, I don't. But I'm lucky: Leo is in the family business with David, and I suppose it's because of being older that David likes to think he's King of the Castle. Not that Leo cares too much. He's an engineer, and lots of the things they make for use on the farm are his design. Sometimes he decides not to go in to the works – Leo, I mean, not his brother. David gets very boot-faced, but that's not fair because Leo always does a lot of work when he stays at home. What he would really like is to be using the implements he designs. But, you know, I think to David they are just a means to make money; he has his eye on the running of the factory – profits and losses are his interest – and I don't think he would notice if they made bicycles instead of farm stuff. They're not a bit alike, Leo and David. And, do you know, although they're brothers and both in the business, I'm sure they don't even like each other much. And I just
know
that David and Lily, his wife, think that when Leo married me he stooped and picked up nothing.'

‘It's what Leo thinks that matters,' Louisa said, feeling an unexpected stab of sympathy for her outspoken young companion.

‘Yes, of course,' Bella answered, her confidence back in place. ‘And right from the start I could tell that his parents liked me. It was so sad, his mum dying like that. David can't be
all
bad, I suppose; he was really cut up at her funeral. Leo said they'd always been very close, Mum and David. Leo and Dad are good pals, although since Mum died I can tell that Leo can't get as close to him. Poor Dad, it's as if there's a wall of misery holding everyone away.'

‘If your husband would rather be using the machines he designs, doesn't he consider coming to work on the farm here?' Louisa instilled more interest into her voice than she felt. The truth was that, from what she had heard of the two brothers so far, she had a natural sympathy with David rather than Leo. What was the matter with the man? It sounded to her as if he was using the family business for an easy ride.

Bella chuckled as she answered. ‘I expect Leo and David are more alike than they seem: if he came home to the farm he and Dad would both want to be King of the Castle. They are ever so fond of each other – not that Leo ever says so, but you can always tell, can't you? He's been away from home for far too long to go back to not having his own place. He couldn't be a farmer's boy to his father. He got a degree in engineering and then there was his time in the army during the war, although he wouldn't have been called up on account of growing food being so vital during the war. I expect what he ought to have done was to strike out on his own when he was demobbed, but somehow he went into the family business.'

‘Farmers have a pretty tough life and, from what one hears, there isn't any great wealth to be made from a small farm.'

‘All one needs – don't you think? – is to make enough to live on. Leo knows much more about the things they actually
make
than David does – or Dad either – but on paper Dad is top of the tree although, except for the Annual General Meeting, he only comes up to the factory once in a while and doesn't actually
do
anything, so Leo says. Have you ever heard of Carters? In the farming world they are quite a big name. They make farm implements, things like muck spreaders, potato diggers, cultivators, mowers – that sort of thing, not huge machines. I'm getting to know quite a lot – I feel I ought to as it's a family business. Dad went into it just like his own father, but in the beginning the things they made were much simpler; farming must have been achingly hard work. But I was about to tell you how Dad came to work away from the family business: he married Leo's mum and stayed here on the farm. It had been in her family for simply years. But, like I said, he is officially the chairman of Carters' now that he's head of the clan. He's not really keen on the business side of it, though, not like David is.' Then, with a chuckle, ‘Dad and Leo are so alike. They both believe that life is for enjoying. That's what Leo says.' And if that's what the perfect Leo says, then it must be right, her tone implied.

By Louisa's standards he became less appealing by the minute, but her expression gave away none of her thoughts.

They had reached the post box. ‘Oh, good,' Louisa said as she dropped her letter in, ‘there's a Saturday collection at five o'clock. They'll get that on Monday morning. I am taking a day's leave and I have things to organize in Gloucester.'

‘What do you do?' Bella seemed genuinely interested. ‘Are you a shorthand typist? No, I bet you're someone's personal secretary.'

‘I'm an accountant. I check figures for annual audit.'

‘Goodness!' Clearly her young friend was impressed. ‘It sounds awfully important. I thought those sort of jobs were for men. You must have taken exams and all that. Goodness.' Then, on a brighter and more confident note, ‘But it still keeps you cooped up. So you're going to give it all up and be free.'

‘Yes and no. I'm going to leave the firm I've always worked for. I shall still do the same work once I can get established here working for myself. It's not really dull work – it's challenging.'

‘But the people in the village are quite ordinary; they wouldn't have enough money to need someone to check their figures. Are you sure you're doing the right thing giving up your job? Maybe the place has thrown fairy dust in your eyes. But that won't pay the bills.'

Louisa looked at her afresh: a lovely girl, with the innocent candour that made her vulnerable, yes, but also with an unexpected streak of common sense.

‘I think fairy dust was what I needed. But right now what I need is some shopping. Can you wait while I go into that shop opposite? There's nothing in the house; I must buy enough for the weekend.'

‘Are you allowed to do that? You've only been to look at it.'

‘It'll be mine when all the paperwork is done. I promise you, no one is going to prevent me sleeping there. By the time I've worked my notice I shall be in honest possession.'

Soon they turned back towards home, saying very little as they walked. But the silence was easy. Two women, poles apart in lifestyle and ambition but, on that late afternoon, content to accept the difference and perhaps each draw something from the other. Still, Louisa told herself, we're hardly likely to see each other very often, if at all. At the gate of The Retreat they parted company and it was only as Louisa went back into the house that she realized that neither of them had enquired the other's name. Already her thoughts were running ahead of her; she was imagining herself becoming established in her profession, the little workroom becoming her office with its window facing the large empty space of field-like garden.

‘I've had a lovely time,' Bella told Leo when she got back to the farm and found him with the bonnet of the car open, checking the water in the radiator. ‘Did you know, Leo, that the house at the end of the lane is sold? Well, it's as good as sold. A nice woman is moving in. We walked to the village together.' There was a ring of pride in her voice as she went on, ‘She was on her way to post a letter quitting her job. She said she was taking some holiday and had things to arrange in Gloucester. But guess what she does for a living – no, you'll never guess. She is an accountant, something to do with auditing; properly qualified – exams and all that. A woman! Have you ever heard of that before? By the time she's worked her notice the house will be properly hers.'

‘Damn it,' Leo said, screwing on the radiator cap. ‘Where is she staying, Bella? In the village somewhere?'

‘No, at the house. Just for the weekend, or maybe just tonight, I'm not sure.'

‘But she has no business to stay at the house until there's completion on the sale.'

‘She's a very smart sort of person; she won't make a mess or hurt anything, I'm sure. Just think how good it'll be for Dad to have someone nice close by. Where is he? I must go and tell him the good news.'

‘No, don't do that. I've been trying to persuade him he ought to buy the house back and get a manager here. As it is, even with the two chaps who work here, he is always tied to the place. A break away might cheer him up. Leave it with me, Bella. He doesn't seem against the idea so I'll try and persuade him to talk to the agent who's dealing with the sale. If this woman has already put down a deposit it might be possible to pay her out. He can't be tied here by himself in the house, not in his depressed state, and it would be good for him to have a manager living there again.'

She could see the logic in having a manager once again, but it was such a shame when she had got on so well with the nice woman she'd met. But if that's what Leo wanted then she wouldn't say anything to his father. Watching him checking the engine, she thought, as she had a thousand times, how much she loved him, and she sent up a silent thank you for the way her life had worked out. Thinking back to her birthday on New Year's Eve – such a perfect evening, dinner at the sort of hotel she'd never been to before, wine, champagne … perhaps she'd even been a little bit tiddly but she had been walking on air when he'd taken her back to his flat. Together they'd stood at the open window and let in the year that was to see her life change. When he'd kissed her she'd felt weak with love and longing. And in the first hour of 1957 she had become truly his.

Her hero had been proved not to have feet of clay, for three weeks later when she had told him she was worried because she was a week late he'd wasted no time in getting a licence so that they could be married immediately. No three weeks to wait while the banns were read, simply a visit to the local registry office where an office clerk and a cleaner came in to act as witnesses. Any dreams she had had of a white wedding melted, but no bride could have been happier or more proud. The following day they had driven to Lexleigh and he had introduced her to his parents. Such darlings, both of them; so lovely, in fact, that she had forgotten what Leo had said about not saying anything straight away about the baby and before she could stop herself she had told them everything. Dear Mum, she had been so excited. How dreadfully sad it was that she wouldn't be there to be a granny.

Louisa had arrived at the house seeing it through the eyes of someone sizing it up for sale. But she looked at her surroundings differently now. This would be her home, her very own home. It wasn't something rented, it was
hers.
If she wanted to paint the ceilings midnight blue dotted with golden stars no one could prevent her doing so – not that she did want to.

Now that her letter of resignation was in the post she set about waking her home from its slumbers. She found the mains water tap under the sink in the kitchen and turned it on; next came the electricity, and by the end of the afternoon in the dusk of March she'd flooded the place with light. But even on a day of such importance she was ever practical and, having gone from room to room switching on the lights, she made a second trip upstairs to turn them off. One thing lacking was warmth, but at any rate in the sitting room that was soon rectified by the electric fire standing in the grate, attempting to give the impression it was heated by burning coal. With the immersion heater preparing the water for a bath, she unpacked her shopping and made herself an uninspiring meal of tinned soup followed by scrambled eggs on toast.

By that time the last of daylight had gone and when she went to close the curtains, the new moon was riding high. She switched out the light to better see the sky. She was a practical woman who'd never let herself waste time daydreaming, but gazing out across the overgrown garden to the farmland beyond, raising her glance to the crescent moon and the first hint of a few stars in the darkening sky, she felt that this must surely be an omen.

Later, she stepped into the steaming bath, the room filled with the perfume of Violet's expensive bath salts – something Louisa never used at home, but they expressed as clearly as anything the step she was taking from her old life to her new. Another thing completely out of character was for her to lie in the bath while the water cooled and the steam condensed and trickled down the tiled walls. She wouldn't do it again, she told herself. After she let the water away she would open the window wide, but just for the moment she was enveloped in luxury that had never been part of her life.