My first sight of Maude knocked me sideways. In a sheep pen just off the lane which led to the house a skinny young man, his hair and clothes soaked by the rain which continued to fall relentlessly, appeared to be losing the battle to hoist a reluctant ewe into a sheep dip. As Robin pulled the BMW to a halt, across the yard, determinedly splashing through the puddles, a strapping six-foot-plus farmworker of undetermined age — wearing an Australian bush hat, a full-length riding Barbour and mud-encrusted Wellington boots — waved a disinterested greeting at us and proceeded to berate the skinny young man.
‘For God’s sake, Colin lad, get a hold of the bitch, can’t you.’
The voice was the first surprise — the accent was broad flat Yorkshire, and the speaker was undoubtedly a woman, who with smooth agility half-vaulted half-climbed the fence to the sheep pen, unceremoniously grabbed the ewe at both ends and, with Colin only going through the motions of helping, tossed the struggling beast into the dip.
I got out of the car and stood by it staring. I was not wearing a coat but I hardly noticed the rain. The job done the woman turned towards us.
‘Sorry ’bout that,’ she said. ‘Half the farm’s down with flu. We’re all behind. Don’t normally do this kind of work on a Sunday.’
Without apparent effort she propelled herself over the fence once again and walked towards us. Her face broke into a wide smile. I was mesmerised. It was Robin’s smile.
‘You must be Rose,’ she said. ‘I’m Maude. Welcome to Northgate. Lunch in an hour. Roger’s not back from church yet. James is on his way. Right. Let’s get a drink, shall we?’
Without giving either of us chance to speak she headed for the house, gesturing for us to follow. I glanced at Robin in amazement. He had been quietly watching his mother’s performance and my reaction. He came to my side to offer me the protection of the multi-coloured golfing umbrella he always kept in his car. His lips were twitching at the corners and he looked quite smug.
‘I thought you said she was seventy-seven,’ I whispered, still getting used to the spectacle of a fence-vaulting future mother-in-law.
‘She is,’ he said into my ear. ‘You wait. You ain’t seen nothing yet.’
Maude took us through the back door into the kitchen. The floor was slate-tiled and higgledy-piggledy — in common I was later to discover, with the whole house, which did not seem to have a straight line anywhere. The smell of roast beef wafted enticingly from a big cream Aga.
‘Take a pew,’ invited Maude, waving vaguely at an ill-assorted selection of wooden chairs arranged haphazardly around a huge kitchen table.
We obediently sat while she threw off her bush hat — flamboyantly tossing it at a hook on the wall in a manner vaguely reminiscent of James Bond. An abundance of blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders. I stared. At her age the colour had to come out of a bottle, surely, but it was pretty damn impressive nonetheless.
She kicked off her boots and removed the dripping wet waxed coat. Underneath she was wearing a cream cashmere sweater and tan slacks. She slipped her stockinged feet into a pair of black suede loafers and looked every bit ready for lunch at Claridges, let alone in an Exmoor farmhouse. The transformation was remarkable. I studied her face. Her skin was tanned and weathered but remarkably unlined. Age had been kind to her. I could detect no sign of make-up, yet she would have passed for a good fifteen years less than her years. She was a big, big woman, built like a stevedore. She had shoulders like a man, but her waist tapered nicely and her legs were long and slim. In spite of her size she was unmistakably feminine.
Robin was staring at her with undisguised admiration, and I didn’t blame him. ‘Meet mother,’ he said laconically, leaning back in his chair.
‘We’ve met, you fool,’ said Maude, and then to me: ‘You’re a brave woman to marry a Davey.’
She swiftly produced a bottle of champagne from a fridge in the corner and five crystal glasses from an old pine dresser. To me she said, with Robin’s smile again: ‘Congratulations and welcome.’ Then she turned to Robin. ‘Well done, lad,’ she told him.
Robin grinned hugely. I didn’t think I had ever seen him look quite so happy.
As if on cue Roger Croft-Maple arrived just in time to share the champagne. He turned out to be a benign charmer of a man a couple of years younger than his wife, who seemed to be just as unreservedly proud of Maude as was Robin. Minutes later James Davey arrived, and he so strongly resembled his elder brother that he could have been Robin’s twin. But I realised quickly that the resemblance ended with their looks. James, who had never married, was an artist and a dreamer, with none of Robin’s drive, and, I suspected, not a great deal of his energy. Like his brother, he was a charmer though.
Without ceremony dishes of vegetables, and ultimately a huge sirloin of beef on the bone were loaded onto the table, and as Roger carved the meat into thickly succulent pink slices I glanced appreciatively at Maude. ‘I’ll bet you’ve never stopped eating beef on the bone, even when it’s been banned,’ I remarked.
‘Got an arrangement with the butcher,’ she said in reply.
I bet you have, I thought.
‘Apparently the correct phraseology is to ask for a nice sirloin for the dog,’ grinned Roger.
Lunch was a pleasant and relaxed meal, washed down with a thoroughly decent claret. I couldn’t believe how at ease I felt. The conversation was light and unchallenging. It was a wonderful introduction to a new family, and as the meal progressed I learned more about Robin and his driving force than ever before.
‘He was just a boy when his father died, but he grew up straight away,’ said Maude. ‘He was only thirteen, yet he ran the place as much as I did from that time on. He was always so intense about Abri. That island is his life, you do know that, Rose, don’t you?’
Robin shifted uncomfortably in his chair in the way that sons and daughters of all ages invariably do when a parent talks about them. ‘Oh, mother,’ he said.
I ignored him. ‘Yes Maude, I do know,’ I said.
She nodded approvingly. ‘It was only a couple of years after Robin’s father died that I met Roger,’ she went on. ‘There’s not many of us get two chances to love, but I didn’t know what to do. I had two young sons and our home was an island in the Bristol Channel, and I didn’t see how I could build a new life with an Exmoor farmer. Robin did. He was sixteen. He insisted on leaving school to run Abri. He said it was all he had ever wanted to do anyway.
‘He told me to get on with my life. So I did. I married Roger and brought James here with me to live on Exmoor. James has never cared where he lived as long as he was free to paint — nor about anything much apart from painting. Right, James?’
Her younger son continued to munch contentedly, quite untroubled. ‘Aren’t you always right, mother?’ he responded through a mouthful of beef.
She smiled at him warmly. Maude Croft-Maple, I was to learn, possessed the rare gift of being able to love people for what they were, and not what she wanted them to be.
‘I still adore Abri, and I go back whenever I can,’ she went on. ‘But it’s Robin’s island. Always has been, always will be.’
I was fascinated. Robin eventually managed to manoeuvre the conversation on to topics he obviously found considerably less embarrassing — sheep, the state of the nation, movies, almost anything that was not personal in fact — but what Maude had said about his early life did make me fret again about how Robin and I were actually going to manage the mechanics of marriage. Currently he was spending four days a week on Abri Island, and three with me in Bristol. It wasn’t ideal and I sometimes wondered how long Robin would be prepared to carry on like that, or even able to. I knew already that running Abri was a full-time occupation and that before me Robin had devoted all his energies to it. I also realised, listening to Maude, that I must overcome my reservations about the island and make time to return there with Robin, although I didn’t know when — not with the job I had on at the moment. And for the first time since I had arrived at Northgate my thoughts turned uneasily to missing Stephen Jeffries. But I told myself that I was not going to let any of my worries spoil this day, and made myself concentrate on the conversation around the table which was light, bright and witty, and the food, which was quite delicious.