Sylvie suddenly recalls. ‘My mum says, can we have the windfalls to make scrumpy with?’
‘Course she can,’ says John, and Sylvie stays in the shed while the men go out and toil. Sylvie is breaking off her split ends and talking to George. ‘My God, I’m such a skiver, I’m terrible, really I am. Maybe I should have been a gardener instead of a stable girl and then I wouldn’t have a conscience about being in here. The truth is, George, I just like being in here because it’s where Alan sometimes is. That’s the chair where his bum goes, and I can sneak a look in his dinner box, and he’s having honey sandwiches again, that he made himself. And his shoes down in the corner, all abandoned and lonely-looking. Do you think I’m stupid, George? I do. I wish I wasn’t so stupid. I mean, sometimes I look at myself in the mirror, like when I’m combing my hair, and suddenly I get a little shock. I think, “Sylvie, you’re so ignorant, you just don’t know anything, and all you think about is horses and saddle sores and bridles and martingales, and you’re nineteen years old, and life is just beginning, really.” And I just know that there’s a great mountain of life out there somewhere, but I don’t know where it is and I don’t know how to climb it.’ Sylvie goes to the window, whose glass is encrusted with lichen, and she looks at it rather than through it, leaning on the bench, always talking to George. ‘I get this feeling sometimes when I’m up on one of the horses, and it’s just after dawn, and the mist is lifting up from the grass, and the daddy-long-legs are like little helicopters, and I’m galloping the horse in all that chilliness, and the steam rises up from the horse’s neck, and I feel as though I’m flowing and flying, and the horse knows what I’m thinking, and I know what the horse is thinking. His mind is all full of alertness and interest, and there’s really nothing in there at all except happiness. Happiness about being a horse, and doing horsey things, like just galloping, and making the world roll underneath you, and looking forward to a bag of pony nuts. And for a few moments I know what it’s like to have perfect pleasure, and I feel so happy with the horse’s happiness that it makes me want to cry, and the horse’s hooves are thudding on the turf with a sound as if the earth is hollow, and the leather’s creaking, and there’s the musty smell of the horse’s sweat, and the horse is nodding its head up and down with the motion of galloping, and I think, “Yes, this is it, this is it, this is what it’s all about.” And then the moment’s over, and I’m just me again, and I’ve lost all that exhilaration and I don’t know when it’ll come back, and I feel stupid and silly.’ Sylvie picks up one of Alan’s shoes, noting the shape that is the ghost of his foot, and says, ‘I always wanted to count for something, and I don’t think I ever will. I don’t think I’ll even be happy. ’Spose I’d better go and do some mucking out.’ She puts the shoe down, and shakes her head. ‘My God, look at me. When I’m not talking to a horse, I’m talking to a bleeding spider.’ The door scrapes as she leaves, and she says to George, ‘See you anyway.’
Alan is out on the vegetable patch, digging deep rows and turning dung into the trenches. His wellington boots are clogged with manure and rich earth, and he has a blackbird, a mistle thrush and a robin in attendance. He tosses them worms in turn, but each time they pounce and squabble. Alan is weary, his back and thighs ache from his work, and he is longing for his meagre honey sandwiches. He pauses often, hoping for rain that is too heavy to work in.
John is glad of a young man to break the soil. He has been gathering golden-skinned passion fruit from the house front and the trellises, and now he is back in the shed, talking to George. ‘A whole basket,’ he gloats. ‘What about that, then? Harvest of a good long summer. Bluebottles for you, passion fruit for me, God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world. Makes you believe, though, doesn’t it? Lookin’ at a passion flower. That purple, and that bit o’ yellow, and that white. And those tendrils that won’t let go. And leaves like dark-green hands. And the funny stamens with wobbly crosspieces on top. Looks as if it’s made by Him Above in a good mood. I suppose that if you’re a spider, then you think that God is too. That would explain the number of bloody insects, any road. Wonder where Sylvie is. I’ll tell you something else, Georgie boy; I reckon he fancies her as much as she fancies him. And another thing. I’m jealous. Sixty-seven year old, and I’m jealous.
‘Ridiculous, that’s what I am. Don’t suppose you think about such things, eh? Build yourself a sticky little web and sit back and reckon that you got it sorted. All right for some.’
A sharp wind springs up, and those outdoors shiver and look up at the sky, which darkens suddenly. Thunder roars overhead. A torrent commences, as if a giant has overturned his bath, and Alan rushes into the shed. John is pleased with himself. ‘Said it would rain, didn’t I? Was I right? I certainly was.’
‘You’re always right,’ says Alan. ‘Bloody weathermen, though. I didn’t bring my waterproofs because of them.’
‘You’re gullible, you are,’ says John, still pleased about the accuracy of his prognostications, pleased that he knows a few things that Alan will never know, even if he goes to university. ‘Put the kettle on, boy, and make some for Sylv.’
The kettle begins to hum, and Alan ladles tea leaves into the pot, which is so ingrained with tannin that its original cream-coloured interior has become completely brown. Like all respectable gardeners’ teapots, it has a chip out of the tip of the spout, and the lid has broken in half and been glued back together.
‘I think I could mend that door,’ says Alan. ‘The pins through the hinges are worn out. I could probably replace them with sawn-off six-inch nails.’
John is smoking his pipe and enjoying the feeling of being warm and safe inside while outside the world is drowning. ‘Bright lad,’ he says, ‘but mind you don’t go disturbing George.’
‘One of the threads goes to the back of that hinge,’ says Alan, scrutinising a long thread of gossamer that glistens with dust. ‘Christ,’ he exclaims, instinctively ducking as the thunder crashes directly overhead. He opens the door to observe the deluge, and the lightning crackles again. The thunder unrolls instantaneously, and Alan is excited. ‘What a corker. Cor, did you see that? Right overhead. It’s amazing, the rain’s actually bouncing on the ground.’
John is being knowing again, as is his right as an older man, and a countryman. ‘When it rains like this, we get a flood. I told that pop star and the Shah of Iran, and I’ve told Mr Gull ’n’ all, I said, “We need a gulley along the drive, ’cause it’s clay here, and the water sits and sits before it soaks away.” Anyway, that pop star feller only knew how to say “Far out”. No, I lie, sometimes he said, “Heavy, man, heavy.” He died in the end, did I tell you? Choked on his own vomit, so they say, somewhere in America. Anyway, the Shah just says, “We’ll do it, God willing,” and then his country got all political, ’cause things were happening over there, see? And Mr Gull just says, “I’m considering it,” and while he’s considering it, we get wet.’
‘Hi, boys,’ cries Sylvie exuberantly, as she lunges in through the doorway, her hair lank and dark with water, which is also dripping from her eyelashes and the end of her nose, which has gone pink about the edges of her nostrils. ‘God, it’s raining cats and dogs, horses and donkeys, giraffes and elephants. I’m absobloodylutely soaked. Shelter, you’ve got to give me shelter. If I try for the stable I’ll drown.’