Homeland (43 page)

‘You don’t mind the George?’ he asked as they started down the road.

‘Course not.’

‘When I get some transport we can try some other places.’

‘
Transport.
’

‘Don’t get excited. It’ll be a van, second-hand.’

She laughed. ‘Well, so long as it goes all right.’

‘Oh, it’ll go all right. With me around, it won’t have much option.’

There were four people in the saloon bar, none he knew. He chose a table in the corner, away from curious eyes that might peer round the edge of the partition separating them from the public
bar. Annie asked for a dry sherry while Billy treated himself to a double Scotch from the solitary bottle on the shelf behind the bar. They sat on a settle, Billy swivelled sideways in his seat so
as to see her better.

He said, ‘So what’s been happening while I was away?’

She made a show of racking her brains. ‘Ohh, you know how it is – nothing much happens round here.’ She was teasing him, throwing one of his more arrogant remarks back at him.
‘No, we were cut off for quite a while in the blizzards. No trains, no buses, only tractors could get through. And no electricity in the afternoons, of course. The school closed down, and
then we had no post for a while. But you know how people are here – they like a bit of a challenge. They like to feel they can cope with anything.’

‘What about you?’

‘Me?’ she echoed innocently, understanding his meaning all too well but choosing to ignore it. ‘Even less happening with me.’

He questioned her anyway, about the child, going into the sort of detail he hoped would please her, and the new job, and what she’d been doing; and all the time her tone, her looks and
gestures were sending the message he wanted to hear, that there was no one else, that she was here for the same reason he was, to give it a go between them.

He bought another round. With the second drink the last of his tensions ebbed away, he felt a quiet, insistent elation. She was the right one for him, she always had been. Over the rim of his
glass he drank in the sight of her long white neck, the curve of her breast under the woollen cardigan, the way her hair glinted with beams of colour, and the dark slant of her eyes looking across
at him, sending their message.

Finishing her news, she said with pretended annoyance, ‘I warned you there was nothing to tell. I want to hear about you and this business of yours.’

So he told her, first in outline, then in detail, about his idea to make large utility baskets to order for some of the bigger customers in London and the major cities, and deliver them direct
to their doors, cutting out two sets of middlemen. ‘It’s just a matter of making the right contacts,’ he said, ‘and offering the right price. I’ve already got some
interest from a laundry that looks after some of the big hotels. And an introduction to this bloke at Billingsgate Market.’

‘It’s a wonderful idea, Billy.’

‘Course it is. It’s going to make me rich.’

She choked back a bubbling laugh. ‘It is, is it?’

‘Well, there’s no sense in working yourself half to death without making money, is there?’

‘None at all!’ Then, on a thoughtful note, she added, ‘I’ll say this . . . if anyone can do it, it’s you, Billy.’

He wasn’t used to votes of confidence; his chest swelled, his throat jammed, and he reached busily for his drink.

Misreading his silence, or understanding it too well, she said, ‘I mean it.’

Not knowing what to say, he took refuge in practicalities. ‘Can’t get the thing off the ground without basket-makers, though.’

‘Well, you’ve got Polish Stan, haven’t you?’ she said immediately. ‘There’s bound to be more where he came from. The Middlezoy Camp’s full to
busting.’

He wasn’t sure it was going to be as simple as that, but her confidence swept him forward all the same. She made him feel everything was possible. On an impulse he told her so.

‘It’s because I believe it.’

He laughed, he couldn’t have said why, and leaning forward said in a low voice, ‘If you’re not careful I’ll rope you in to help.’

‘Will you now?’ she breathed. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say no to the work.’

‘I couldn’t pay much.’

‘I can wait till you’re rich.’

As he leant slowly towards her she held his gaze, closing her eyes only at the last minute. He kissed her softly, and felt her lips part under his. Drawing back a little, he whispered,
‘So, Annie?’

‘So,’ she murmured.

They walked back to the cottage arm in arm. A low moon cast long strips of pale light across their path. He felt her shoulder press against his, and squeezed her arm closer. When they reached
the porch he drew her to one side. He said through the thickness in his throat, ‘You know, don’t you – it wasn’t just the business I came back for.’

Her face, pale and moon-washed, tilted up at him. ‘No?’

He shook his head.

She murmured, ‘What else was it then?’

‘You know all right.’

She said nothing, but reached up and touched his hair.

He prompted, ‘You’re glad I came back then?’

‘Yes, I’m glad.’

‘We’re on then, are we – you and me?’

She tilted her head to one side. ‘So long as . . .’

‘What?’

‘You don’t want to own me.’

Barely listening, he kissed her lightly. ‘Own you?’

‘Stop me working. Having my own life. I couldn’t take that. I’d go mad.’

‘Can’t have you going mad.’ He slipped his hand round her waist but exerted no pressure. ‘So – we’re on, are we?’ He needed to hear her say it.

She swayed closer and said in a low voice, ‘Yes, we’re on.’

She began to say more but he stopped her with a kiss. Their tongues met, they kissed greedily, and she made a sighing sound. Her thighs came up against his and he felt a shudder of lust. Pulling
at her coat he reached for her breast, but she drew back and gasped, ‘Wait round the corner while I get rid of Margaret.’

As soon as the babysitter was safely out of sight, he slipped back to the door and she drew him inside. In the light from the landing they kissed hungrily again, before half falling into the
darkened living room. Dragging at each other’s clothes, they staggered to a settee before sliding down to the greater freedom of the floor. But he didn’t want it to be hurried,
unsatisfactory. He waited a moment, his mouth just above hers, breathing her breath, and watched her eyes open, liquid and black in the dim light. Sitting up, he pulled her up beside him and slowly
removed the last of her clothes, kissing each new area of flesh as he did so. Then, dragging some cushions from the settee, he laid her on them and went slowly down her body with his lips and
tongue, exploring the contours of her breast, the smooth belly, the dark secret places.

‘We need to be careful,’ she whispered as he finally rose above her.

But he was prepared. Nothing, however, had prepared him for the joy he felt when the moment came, the sense of rightness, of coming home after a long time away.

When Billy got down to the kitchen next morning Flor was already in her chair by the range and the breakfast cleared away.

He bent down and gave her a smile. ‘How are you, Flor?’

She reached for his hand and gripped it.

‘No more tears?’

She shook her head.

‘Was it the lifting up and down stairs you were worried about? ‘’Cause I can do that just as well, you know.’ He curled his arm in an impression of Charles Atlas.
‘Big and strong, that’s me.’

She gave her crazy lopsided smile, and on impulse he kissed her papery cheek.

On his way up to the withy shed he saw Stan leaning over the side of the pigsty emptying the contents of a bucket into the trough.

He called, ‘What you got in there then?’

‘Well, what in hell do you think? A weasel?’

Billy laughed aloud, and was amazed at this elation that had not dimmed or soured overnight.

He found the Polacks in the withy shed, lounging around, talking to an old round-shouldered man sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, in the process of making a basket.

Jozef glowered at Billy’s cheerful greeting, while Wladyslaw gazed at him curiously.

‘And you must be Polish Stan?’

The old man smiled and gave a casual salute.

‘Can he make large baskets?’ Billy asked Wladyslaw.

‘You wish me to ask him?’

‘Please.’

The two men talked in Polish, then Wladyslaw asked, ‘How large is large?’ After Billy had explained, they talked some more. ‘He says yes,’ Wladyslaw announced at last.
‘But he would be slow. It is trouble in his bones. Large baskets will be difficult for him.’

‘Does he know any other basket-makers in the camp?’

Further consultation. ‘He knows one, maybe two, but after so long they try other things. One man is going to Canada soon. The other, he tries for work on fishing boats.’

‘I’ll pay a good wage.’

A last burst of Polish, then Wladyslaw said, ‘He will ask. But it is best if you go to camp and ask the administrators. They will know if there are more basket-makers.’

Billy clapped him on the arm. ‘Good man!’

Wladyslaw looked at him as if he were slightly mad, and perhaps he was just then.

Billy spent the rest of the day dismantling, oiling and reassembling the stripping machine. At six he bathed and put on his new suit. After downing a quick glass of cider he went up to the
village hall, a place he had visited only once before at the age of seventeen, under considerable protest.

The woman on the door said proudly, ‘We’re sold out.’

‘That’s all right,’ Billy said, handing over his one and six. ‘I’ll stand.’

Inside, a tinny piano was thumping out the accompaniment to a man and woman singing an old-fashioned duet. Billy combed the audience for the head of dark shining hair but couldn’t see it.
He wandered up the side, examining each row in turn. Then, just as he was beginning to think she wasn’t there, she emerged from a room on the other side of the hall and crept into a seat in
the second row. Moving forward, he leant against the wall where she couldn’t fail to see him when she glanced round.

On the platform the end of the duet seemed a long time coming as the stolid couple warbled over and around the melody like two people forever in search of the right notes. When the applause
finally sounded, Annie looked across and spotted him. She waved, then made a teasing face as if she couldn’t believe he’d actually come.

He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it either.

After that the show seemed very slow. A choir came on and sang interminable songs in an unwieldy harmony of bass and treble that reflected the singers’ ages, old or very young with nothing
much in between. Those in their twenties, Billy hardly needed reminding, were in the pubs. The choir was followed by a pianist performing a medley of popular tunes. And then, just when Billy
thought the show must surely be coming to an end, a large woman wearing a lacy dress with a panel that hung over her ample bosom like a lampshade strode onto the platform and announced she was
going to sing ‘They Call Me Mimi’ from the opera
La Bohème
. Billy had no way of telling if her voice was up to scratch – anything in this vein sounded like a screech
to him – but her mannerisms caused a gurgle of laughter to rise perilously fast in his chest. The coquettish tilt of the head, the girlish hand pressed to the bosom, the coy, fast-fluttering
eyelashes had him clamping a hand to his mouth to choke back explosions of laughter. He didn’t dare look at Annie until the song was over. From the way she was biting her lip he guessed she
had been battling too.

The raffle was drawn, everyone stood up to sing ‘Jerusalem’, and then at last it was over. As the audience began to move, Annie stationed herself with some other women behind a line
of trestle tables and began pouring tea.

‘You nearly had me going there,’ she hissed in mock anger when he reached her side. ‘That lady came all the way from Bridgwater to sing for us.’

‘Best entertainment I’ve had in a long time,’ Billy said truthfully.

‘You’re a bad influence,’ she said.

‘I do my best.’

Her eyes laughed at him. ‘Would you like some tea?’

‘I’d prefer a beer.’

‘And while there’s no beer?’

‘Then I’ll have tea.’

She was kept busy after that. He watched her fetching a fresh pot, measuring milk into the next line of cups, finding extra sugar for an old boy who swore that anything short of three lumps gave
him a turn. He saw with pride that she had a natural way with people, that even the old codgers couldn’t help but warm to her, and he felt a fresh surge of astonishment and well-being at the
thought that this woman could be –
was
– his.

During a lull in her tea pouring she told him she would have to stay and help clear up afterwards. ‘I might be a while,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go off to the pub and
have a drink?’

‘Trying to get rid of me?’

She gave her slow, wide smile. ‘I don’t want you saying you’ve been deprived, that’s all.’

‘There’s only one thing that could make me feel deprived.’

‘Is that so?’ she murmured. ‘In that case you’ll just have to make do with the cider from my kitchen, won’t you?’

She was called away then. Wandering off, he was drawn into a group of old boys complaining about the floods and the need for more pumps. No sooner had he escaped them than he was cornered by
Stan’s neighbour from Sculley Farm blathering on about fencing and vermin. Barely listening, he was all the time alive to Annie’s presence just a few feet away, to the fact that she too
was counting off the minutes till they could slip away to the cottage. Every so often he stole a glance at her. Twice, she caught his gaze and he felt a surge of excitement and longing at what was
to come.

When he next looked round she had disappeared. At first he thought she must have taken a tray of dirty cups away, but when she hadn’t reappeared after five minutes he went looking for her.
In the side room a band of women were washing and stacking teacups, but Annie wasn’t among them. She wasn’t among the group shifting the piano either, nor the people stacking away the
rows of chairs. He wandered onto the stage but the threadbare curtains concealed nothing but bare walls. He made his way down the hall to the entrance lobby where the ticket seller was counting the
takings. He saw the door marked Ladies’ Toilet and feeling foolish realised where Annie must be. Not wanting to embarrass her he began to retreat, only to hear the door open and see a strange
woman emerge.