The Lives She Left Behind (32 page)

‘Do you remember this?’ he asked. ‘If you want proof it’s really ours, you couldn’t ask for better.’

It was a large painting in a gilt frame. ‘It’s Bagstone,’ she said.

‘Not just Bagstone. Do you see the people at the gate?’

She stepped forward to look at the two small figures. ‘Oh. You and me.’

‘You and me, in the place where we belong. You remember it?’ Ferney thought back to the disconsolate artist he had found in the field, taking his irritation out on his easel.
‘He called himself John Poorman, remember that? Back in eighteen hundred and something, that was. Look at us, there forever as we have every right to be. Come upstairs with me now.’

She climbed to the floor above, where the eaves curved in to claim her with their old familiarity. He let her go ahead, looking in on Mike’s room which had been theirs and closing the door
quickly, then on to the spare room where she stood staring at the bed with tears coming.

She turned and said, ‘Here. We will bring life back here,’ so that he came into the room and they lay down together and let the evening slowly wrap itself around their bed.

When Gally opened her eyes again she was startled to find that ceiling above her with sunrise slipping through the window and an arm across her breasts and breath warming and
cooling on her neck in the even pulses of sleep. She knew that she had woken there under many older roofs and she heard Ferney’s breathing change as he joined her in the new day. She gently
turned her head to look at her lover’s body and his eyes opened so that there was nothing else there but the thin river of light between their eyes.

‘I was dreaming,’ he said.

‘A good dream?’

‘Yes, but far better to be awake with you.’

She lifted the blanket and looked down the length of both their bodies to remind herself. ‘I must go and find the herbs.’ She recited the old country names – Lord’s Balm,
Maiden’s Blessing and the rest.

He laughed. ‘Your morning-after method. The natural way.’

She was silent, thinking of other, harsher herbs, and that led her back to Rosie and the boys, children who had died. ‘Do you remember them well, our lovely sons?’

He saw tears starting to bead in the corners of her eyes. ‘It was a thousand years ago,’ he said. ‘You’ve mourned them fully, in thought and in deed.’ He knew the
old sorrow was still tangled into this much more recent past and felt the dangerous depth of her sadness.

She turned and wrapped her arms around him and they held each other through the memory of the memory of the echoes of that old tragedy.

‘What do you mean I mourned them in deed?’ she asked.

‘You always told me there’s no hope for humans while we still slaughter each other.’

‘Did I? Yes, I still believe that.’

‘You said the world stumbles backwards every time we spill life. Few things would make me go to war.’

‘Young men beware, to make you fight they first must make you hate . . .’ She stopped. What is that?’

‘That’s the man who made you better. I said we’d get to that part. I think this is the time. He was called Guy and we didn’t know him when he first came.’

Gally sprang off the bed, put her clothes on in a moment, urged him on. ‘Come downstairs,’ she said. ‘I have a glimpse of it.’

She had the front door open when he caught up with her. ‘We were standing here. We were looking out at the puddles by the gate . . .’

It had been a wet night and now those puddles were turning to mist in the morning sun. ‘Listen,’ said Ferney. ‘There’s a horse on the lane.’

He meant an unknown horse or he would have said ‘There’s Thomas’s cob coming’ or ‘That’s the Wyncaleton cart’. In those days, they had a good ear for
strange footsteps and strange hoofbeats. He took up the thick staff that stood ready for unexpected visitors, gestured her to stay back while he held the door just far enough open to look. The
horse and its rider walked into the yard. The man swung down, hitched the reins to a post and looked towards the house.

‘Is anyone at home?’ he called.

‘I’m here,’ Ferney answered. ‘What’s your business with me?’

The stranger faced the door but came no nearer. He smiled. He had a weather-beaten, open face and he wore a leather jerkin over wool. The sword at his belt had a soldier’s plain grip and a
strong and simple scabbard.

‘I’m your new Lord,’ he said, ‘in a manner of speaking.’

‘That’s not Molyns,’ said Gally behind him. ‘Open the door, Ferney.’

They walked out into the sunlight, though he kept hold of the staff.

‘My name is Guy de Bryan,’ said the man.

‘Of the King’s household?’

‘You’ve heard of me?’

‘I’ve heard nothing but good,’ said Ferney. ‘This is my wife, Gally, and it surprises us that you say you are our Lord.’

‘Sir John Molyns has incurred the King’s displeasure,’ said the other man drily. ‘His manor of Stoke Trister and the attached lands at Chaffeymoor and this end of the
ridge have been put in my keeping for the time being. I hope that comes as good news to you because we have some business together.’

‘Very good news,’ said Ferney. ‘Come inside and share what we have.’

In their parlour, the man politely refused everything they offered from their small supplies until he wrinkled his nose and enquired after the source of the smell from the kettle on the
fire.

‘That’s mint, my Lord,’ said Gally. ‘An infusion.’

‘Then that’s what I should like. You may have heard that Molyns has gone into hiding?’

‘It takes time for news to reach us here,’ said Ferney, ‘and longer to make sure it’s true, but we heard something like that, yes. I would be pleased to hear the reasons.
He was not much loved around here.’

‘Or anywhere else. King Edward sent him home from the French campaign to raise money to pay the army. A royal and urgent mission. Instead, Molyns dived straight into the Treasury like a
robber’s dog, feathered his own nest and left the king trapped across the Channel, a hostage to his own mercenaries and to the Archbishop of Trier who seized the great crown of England as
security for his debts. Imagine that. The king was forced to escape by ignoble means. Molyns is now on the run and hotly sought.’

‘And nobody knows where he is?’

De Bryan gave Ferney a sharp look. ‘Not too far from here, if I am not mistaken, but well protected by a powerful patron. I’m making enquiries and I will discover him if my
suspicions are correct.’

‘In the Montacute household perhaps?’

‘Your words, and probably wise words, but not yet mine and not yet proven.’ He gave a tiny shrug and Ferney knew there was need to tread lightly. Montacute, Earl of Salisbury had a
strange weakness for his violent henchman Molyns. He knew there was a long history between Molyns and de Bryan. Rumour had it that de Bryan’s estranged son, wanted for a dozen misdeeds and
turned against his father these many years by Molyns’ coaxing, also had sanctuary in the Earl’s household.

‘You say we have business?’

‘I would like to understand the estate before I go knocking on my tenants’ doors. The accounts show some of them are slow payers.’

‘I’m not one of those. I rent a barn, that is all. The house is ours.’

‘Indeed I know that and I believe I owe
you
a duty because I see your barn roof needs patching. I have come to you simply because whenever I ask who is the authority on the
history and workings of the area, yours is the only name I ever hear. I want you to tell me which of my tenants deserve my patience and which are only pretending to poverty.’

‘I can answer the first part. I am not one for blaming so you will have to search for answers to the second part in the gaps in what I say.’

Gally left them to go about her business in the village and the two men talked on about the history of the ridge, the special problems of the eastern slopes and the chance of any worthwhile
return from renewed quarrying in the greenstone pits.

‘I’ve enjoyed our time and I will come back if I may,’ said de Bryan in the end, ‘but I have to go to Stavordale. Will you direct me?’

Ferney told him the way through Cockroad Wood past the Norman castle.

‘Wake up, Emily,’ de Bryan said to his horse. ‘I look forward to talking again.’

He had been gone a short while when Gally came flying in through the door, shouting for Ferney.

‘There are men chasing after him,’ she said. ‘Three men with swords, running through the fields. They mean no good, I can tell you that for sure.’

‘Where are they?’

‘Heading for Cockroad.’

Ferney took his staff and went as hard as he knew how, running, then walking, then running again as soon as his breath allowed, only slowing when he came into the wood and saw the corpse of the
great horse Emily, flat down on her side with the tail of an arrow sticking upwards. Thirty paces on, a man was curled around a leaking sword wound, quite dead. Into the trees, collapsed into a
bush was another man, equally dead. Both had cloths tied round their mouths to disguise their faces. Ferney went on, gripping his staff, and heard the slow clashes and grunts of battle continuing.
He saw de Bryan, white in the face, bleeding badly from his right shoulder but still holding his sword with a loose grip, prodding and swinging to keep at bay a man with his back to Ferney. The man
was jeering at him, playing with him. De Bryan looked past him, saw Ferney coming, seemed about to say something. His adversary laughed, said, ‘You don’t fool me. There’s no one
to rescue you, Guy, and you have just committed mortal sin,’ and was still laughing when Ferney brought his staff down hard on the man’s skull.

They were still standing outside the cottage door. ‘I remember you bringing him home,’ said Gally. ‘I met you by the church. Someone helped us carry
him.’

Someone did, thought Ferney – some nameless villager amongst all the bit-part players.

‘You nursed him,’ he said as they went back inside.

‘What year was that?’

He thought for a moment. ‘The fight? The third of the Edwards. The French wars. Six hundred and sixty years ago give or take a bit. He was quite young then.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I need breakfast, then I’ll tell you the bit that matters.’

‘What day is it?’ Gally asked as they looked for food in Mike’s meagre cupboards. She was happy again.

‘The day after yesterday. The day before tomorrow. The first day of our new life, with just you and me and nobody in the way. Heat hanging from a high, blue morning and the old birds
singing.’

‘Old?’

‘Who’s to say they’re not? They sound the same as ever and they look the same as ever.’

When the phone rang, she answered it without thinking. It seemed so natural. It was her phone and her house. By the time she realised that was wrong, she had already recognised the voice at the
other end.

‘
Jo?
’ it said, ‘Is that you?’

She nearly said no but before she could, the voice had dragged her back through the ploughed-up soil of the past day to the point where she had to say yes.

‘Where are you?’

‘Outside the church. Stay there. I’m coming. How do I get to you?’

‘No. Don’t come here.’ She didn’t want her here, in their house. ‘I’ll come and find you.’

‘But I—’

‘No. I’m going there now.’

In the last hundred yards of her walk, seeing her mother’s car by the church gate, Gally stopped in her tracks with pity in her heart trying to be Jo again. What could she say? She had
thought she could work out some way to deal with this given a week. There wasn’t a week, there were thirty seconds. She had been here, walking on this same tarmac with Ali and Lucy when she
was still partly Jo. She pulled a bit of that old self into the here and now, searching for more as if a butterfly could remember how to be a caterpillar.

Her mother was out of the car, looking all around her, giving her agitation away in the staccato speed of her movements.

‘Hello,’ Jo called. ‘I’m here.’

‘Jo, oh Jo!’ Her mother ran towards her, seized her as if she wanted to shake her, then stepped back to look hard at her, holding on to her shoulders. ‘What on earth have you
been up to?’

‘I’m fine. I’m sorry they rang you. There was no need.’

‘Oh, I think there definitely was.’

‘What about your conference?’

‘I had to abandon it. I could murder you.’

‘I was going to call you.’

‘It’s a bit late to say that. Now, come on, Jo. What’s been going on?’

‘Shall we go and sit down?’

‘In the car?’

‘In the church porch. There’s a seat.’

So they sat under the old king and queen and both pairs stared at each other blankly. Gally looked at this stranger next to her and the part that was Jo was just as baffled, unable to remember
whether the space between them had always felt so unbridgeable.

‘I don’t get it, Jo.’ There was barely contained anger in her mother’s voice. ‘Lucy and Ali said you met a boy you knew. I couldn’t think of anyone that could
possibly be.’

‘You haven’t met him. It’s quite hard to explain.’

‘I don’t care how hard it is. I have just had a horrid day, driving all the way down, then sitting around at the police station for hours, then I had to stay the night in some
ghastly little bed and breakfast hovel.’

‘The police station? Why?’

‘Because I came to that man’s house and the next minute the police arrived and arrested him.’

‘What man?’

‘Martin or whatever he’s called.’

‘They arrested him?’ Gally could only think of what Ferney must have known, what he had concealed from her. She felt sick at the knowledge. ‘What for?’

‘You don’t know? For murder, that’s all – for murdering his wife and his child. What on earth has he got to do with you and why were you at his house? He could have
killed you too. Now, what is all this about?’ and Gally, head spinning, could see no way to tell her or not to tell her.

‘You won’t believe it,’ she said.

‘Try me.’

She looked up at the two stone heads and they gave her no help. ‘All right. You’ve never been here before, have you?’