Torn (51 page)

‘It's much smaller than Gore.' He attempted to point out the boundaries; to her it seemed quite big enough.

‘And the majority is rented to neighbouring farmers?'

‘Yeah, not that he … we get much from it. It's not very profitable, but then it's not very profitable to sell either, not unless you can wangle a change in the planning regs, like James Warwick's bound to.'

‘Some people have more than their fair share of luck.'

‘Bet he's good in bed as well.' This was the first time Danny had ever referred to what had happened between her and James. For the moment she let it pass, and carried on talking.

‘… though he's had to bite his nails a bit just recently.'

‘Can't say that makes me want to weep.'

Jessica smiled at him. ‘Danny, you told me when you were a kid you used to bunk off school and work on the farm. Didn't your dad realise and send you back?'

‘I didn't come back here! I wasn't that dumb! Of course he'd have sent me back to school. Well, he might've tried. I never took the chance. I'd go down to Earl's farm.' Danny pointed out a cluster of buildings further down the hill. ‘He used to keep a few horses to breed in those days, as well as the sheep and so on. He always found stuff for me to do. With him I learned about looking after ewes and helped with the lambing. I was good at that because I had small hands, still have, I suppose.' He contemplated them. ‘Earl taught me to drive the tractor, haymaking, laying hedges, and … just about everything, really. When I did start helping out more regularly on our farm Dad just took it for granted I seemed to know what I was doing. But by the time I'd officially left school, Dad had given up, sold the cattle, rented out the land. So I went back to work for Earl, only he couldn't afford to pay me.'

‘Didn't the school ever complain that you were never there? And what about open evenings? Your mother was a deputy head teacher herself?'

‘Different school.'

‘But she must have been told about your absences … did she never query them with you?'

Danny was frowning now, eyes squinting against a sudden bar of sunlight between the clouds. ‘I can't remember her ever going to an open evening. Doesn't mean she didn't, but she never mentioned anything to me, apart from telling me I was stupid. And a curse and an accident. She told me that a lot.'

‘But that's outrageous! Did she never try to help you?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Sit down with you, with your books, and go through the things you found difficult. The things that put you off going to school. Maths … reading … writing.' Jess sensed him tense. She was trying to be subtle but it was proving difficult. What she wanted was to draw the admission from him, not confront him baldly with her knowledge. He screwed his face up, then sighed.

‘I have some early memories, before I started school, of her trying to teach me stuff. But I couldn't get the hang of it. I remember her shouting at me. Throwing the books across the room. She must have given up in disgust in the end. Both Pete and Helen were reading before they went to school, so she knew I was the thicko of the family. That's what she meant by me being a curse, I s'pose.'

‘Danny, grasping reading at a specific age is not an indicator of overall IQ! There is no right or wrong age. All kids are different. Rory is still well behind Sasha. Perhaps I'm biased, but their innate intelligence seems fairly equal. My theory is that he's slower because he's too impatient, and too lazy. He gets frustrated … wants the story instantly. Trying to work it out for himself takes too long.'

‘I can understand how he feels.'

This was impossible. She could wait forever for him to make the crucial admission, and anyway, today was not the time to try to winkle it out of him. The clouds had knitted back together again and the sky was darkening almost perceptibly as they sat there. A miracle that the almost constant rain had held off for this long.

‘What a shame that you and your mother didn't get on better.'

‘Better?' Danny queried. ‘Didn't get on, full stop. It was always a bad vibe. She always kept me at arm's length. Perhaps she could only love clever kids.'

‘But your father? Ted, was a good bloke? You and he …?'

‘Yeah,' His voice thickened and he was silent for a while. ‘I think he cared about me, but he wasn't one for … telling you he loved you … or giving you a hug or anything …'

‘Of course he cared.'

‘But I got there too late,' he said, abruptly. ‘He didn't know I was there. I so wish I'd been there when he –'

‘Death is cruel, not many people are given the chance to say goodbye.' Jessica saw the emotion which tightened his face and tried to draw him back to the previous subject. ‘So what was his take on your problems with school?'

‘School was Mum's department. Dad never told me off about getting bad grades … no grades … but then he never expected anything of me either. I was who I was. He just accepted me.'

‘He loved you,' Jessica said, then seeing his mouth twitch down again, added, ‘Weather doesn't look too promising for later on.'

Danny closed his eyes for a moment as if imagining the scene yet to be faced.

‘Whose decision was it … an interment rather than cremation?'

‘Oh … that was me. Pete and Helen weren't bothered one way or the other. Except they wouldn't agree to a wicker coffin.'

Jess smiled in response to this. ‘It'll be harder on you. The graveside ceremony and everything.'

‘I'm so not looking forward to that. But he worked with the earth, with the cycle of nature most of his life. He loved farming. It broke his heart when he had to give it up. Him being buried feels right to me … the natural way … what he would have wanted.'

‘I'll be there, Danny.'

He turned and smiled at her ‘Thank you. I really appreciate it.'

‘Don't thank me.'

Danny's gaze shifted from Jessica's face to the landscape in front of them, its hills and vales, the thick fleece of woodland, the distant muddy river. ‘There's a natural balance to life. So … when Dad goes back into the earth it's like a … completion. He's kind of phys'cally and spir'tually reunited with the mother goddess, and all that's gone before. But I don't really believe in an afterlife, not like a Heaven or Nirvana.'

‘Don't think I do either,' said Jessica, looking up to the heavens in disgust as the first cold heavy drops plummeted down.

The Porsche was in the yard when they got back to the farm, and the smell of fish and chips filled the kitchen. Piers withdrew the tray from the oven. The paper wrapping the four parcels was curling back, brown-edged and smoking.

‘Did you get on all right at the solicitors?'

‘Don't ask.' Piers told his brother. ‘Me? Don't care. But Helen? Pretty pissed off.'

‘What about?'

‘You don't know? Helen thinks you must, but –'

‘Does everything go to Mum?'

‘Leave it for now. Get today behind us. Family conflab later.'

Chapter Thirty

In Helen's view there was a protocol to funerals. Imogen was allowed to accompany Piers because they were in a long-term relationship. And she, of course, was accompanied by husband Grant. But Danny was not allowed to have a mere friend accompany him when there were other close relatives, their aunt for instance, who could take that place in the funeral car. Jessica was not prepared to argue the point and it seemed natural, in the circumstances, to offer a lift to James. When they arrived at the church, the flower-covered coffin was set up in the aisle, and the front few rows of seats were already filled with the close family. She and James slotted in next to one another, several rows back.

It was a post-war congregational church – red brick, with little ornamentation. No pews, just fold up removable chairs. The windows were plain glass, and garishly coloured wall-hangings – appliqué abstractions from biblical scenes sewn by members of the congregation – were the only decoration. On the notice board was parish news, details of the cleaning and flower rotas, plus postcards, photos, and newsletters of a sister community in Africa. There was nothing, in short, to distract Jessica's attention from the hollow, unrelieved ache.

She read through the order of service several times. The hymns were accompanied on a tinny piano, ploddingly played. The congregation was too small to sing with enough gusto to make her want to join in. Though she tried to follow the minister's words – to find something in them which brought life to the unknown man she was here to mourn – it was hopeless. He was doing his best, she was sure, but his best just wasn't good enough to illuminate this dreary occasion.

Perhaps she was fidgeting, or sighing, or scratching – even through the lining the heavily textured wool of her suit irritated her skin – but James suddenly laid his hand over hers and squeezed gently. She gave him a small smile and rather than move her hand away she curled her fingers around his.

James had arrived at the house with Imogen, just after they'd eaten as much as they could manage of the food Piers had brought in. Just from the look of Danny's battered veggie burger Jess was unsurprised he ate little. Imogen had driven down to Gore Farm in the morning and James had driven her Alfa Romeo Spider from there onwards. Several suit carrying cases and overnight bags were unloaded and taken up to the bedrooms which had been allocated. Piers and Imogen in the parents' room, James in Piers' old room.

Now, both James and Piers were dressed in the dark business suits and plain dark ties which had been inside those carrying cases. Imogen too was soberly, yet stylishly attired in a black dress and coat and a small brimmed, black hat on her red-brown hair. A reasonably smart but casual black jacket had even been found for Danny. He wore it over one of Piers' shirts, and a new pair of dark chinos which Piers had bought for him. No trousers James or Piers could lend him would have been slim enough in the hips and waist, or long enough in the leg.

The service was drawing to a close and the pall bearers moved forward down the aisle to carry out the coffin. The front rows filed out after it. Jessica drooped her head and closed her eyes briefly; she couldn't bear to watch.

Their car had been at the back of the cortege which wound slowly through the countryside from the church, and now, having stopped at the gate for James to light a cigarette, they were amongst the last to walk up the incline through the large cemetery to where the others had gathered. It was cold and the sharp wind which swept across the exposed site was needled with rain. It struck Jess again how odd it was that she was still accompanying James, for all the world like an established couple, when she'd come here for another's sake. James disposed of the cigarette, less than half smoked, as they arrived at the graveside.

A shock rocked through her, undermining her sense of reality and equilibrium. It was as if she saw Danny for the first time. Her hand flew out and grabbed at James just to steady herself. Misinterpreting the gesture he pulled her arm through his. Danny had the collar of his jacket turned up, his clean shaven face unnaturally pale against the dark frame. His expression and his stance, arms folded tautly across his chest, betrayed far more of the inner turmoil of his feelings than was evident in anyone else.

Perhaps it was just the unfamiliar black jacket, but all at once, it was as if he was older, broader, more substantial; as if recent events had finally kicked him over that boundary into manhood. Jessica's pulse still raced unaccountably, her breathing constricted. She could endlessly analyse the changes in him, which had gone unappreciated until this precise moment – they'd been sitting side by side up on the hill above the farm only hours before – but could find no explanation for that shattering jolt when her eyes discovered him.

She saw Piers lean towards him and speak. Danny looked up and frowned. Jess followed his gaze. Coming slowly up the path were three women. Two nuns in the head-dresses and uniforms of a nursing order and between them, arms linked, a stooping woman in a dark green coat, with a floss of white hair which haloed her face like a dandelion clock. There were others too, who'd not been in the church. Amongst them a tall man, taller than anyone present, except Danny. He stood with an equally tall woman of a similar age, whose iron grey hair was pulled into a knot at the nape of her neck.

Having spotted him, Jessica's eyes were drawn back several times. For his age, fifty or more, he was a good-looking man, in a craggy, weather-beaten style. But take away the broadening of the jaw, the deeply drawn expression-lines, the years of exposure to wind and weather, and the likeness was marked. His hair was receding, but it was thick and springy and brushed back from a high forehead in a silvery beige mane. This man was evidently a blood relative, one of Danny's uncles perhaps. And the other? The fuzzy-haired woman in the green coat? At last Jessica thought she understood Piers' reference to their ‘cloistered mother'.

The graveside ceremony ended, but the mourners remained for a while, shifting from group to group, shaking hands, renewing old acquaintances. From her vantage point Jessica was surprised to see none of the other family members making their way over to the man she'd identified. Nor did he move in their direction. After a while he did walk over to the woman accompanied by the nuns. She looked up at him suspiciously, she allowed her hand to be grasped but then pulled away. He retreated.

I'll talk to him and his wife, in the absence of anyone else and make sure they know they're welcome back at the house, Jess thought. Without a backward glance to James she walked across to the couple who still stood on their own.

‘My name is Jessica Avery. I'm a friend of –'

‘Danny.' He shook her hand warmly. ‘He's told me about you. You weren't hard to spot amongst this crowd, look. This is Jane.' He indicated the woman at his side. ‘I'm Eddie.'