The road was steep and narrow with overgrown verges and for several minutes she thought of nothing but keeping the bike upright and getting to the top of the hill. She had to get off there to let a tractor pass in the opposite direction. She feared that Ernie Bowles might be the driver, then saw that the tractor was spanking new and the man in the cab was young with a Walkman plugged into his ears. Peter Richardson from Long Edge Farm. Thinking about Ernie Bowles made her angry again. Her face was flushed from all the exercise and she realized that hot tears were scalding her cheeks.
Bloody Ernie Bowles, she thought. What a bastard that man is!
The farm was up a track, so pot-holed that she had to walk it. She wondered sometimes how he made a living. Did he have any regular income apart from the rent they paid for the caravan? When they’d first arrived they had thought the place was magical, old-fashioned, like something out of a child’s story book. No factory farming here. There were hens scratching around the yard, pigs in a sty, cows waiting patiently to be milked. They had thought Ernie had taken a moral stand against intensive farming. But it was laziness not morality which had motivated him.
Why couldn’t we see what he was like then, that first time? she thought. Were we so blind?
Daniel had always said that it was Ernie’s mother who had done all the work round the place. When she died the place began to collapse around him. And so it had seemed to Lily, observing from the caravan. Animals sent to market were not replaced, machines which broke down were left to rot where they stood.
He’ll go bust, she thought, now pushing the bike defiantly through the mucky farmyard. Then what’ll become of us?
The caravan stood in the corner of a small meadow. It was painted green but even from here she could see the rust around the door. The mild spring and the rain had made the grass come on suddenly and in places the cow-parsley was almost waist high. She left her bike by the gate and pushed a path through the grass. They had seen the caravan first in full summer with the meadow dry and the hay mixed with poppies. They had thought how lovely it was and had not considered practicalities like lugging Calor Gas cylinders from the track, or wet feet.
There was no sign of Sean but that did not surprise her. When they had first moved to the caravan he had spent most of the day there, in front of the portable typewriter which was the only material possession he would allow himself to get attached to. He had impressed her when they had first met by calling himself a writer and showing her a few things he’d had published in alternative magazines. That had been two years ago. There’d been a gang of them then, all travelling together, moving from festival to festival. She’d joined up with them somewhere in Mid Wales. Montgomery was it? Newtown? Kerry? They’d been moved on so often that she couldn’t quite remember.
The group had let her tag along. Sean had a pink Ford van with flowers painted on the bonnet and a sleeping bag and the typewriter in the back. Very hip. Very sixties. But she’d loved it all the same. The group were her family and it was her home. There’d been a London taxi and a purple hearse in the convoy too, but when the weather turned cold its owners had drifted off to a squat in Cardiff and Sean and Lily had been left on the road, still in the pink van in those days, sleeping in the back even when it snowed. When the Mittingford pigs had considered it as un road-worthy and they’d sold it as scrap she’d been heartbroken.
When they first came to the caravan Sean had talked about writing a novel, the New Age novel, and had bashed away at it day and night. But recently he’d taken to disappearing during the day, evading her questions when she asked what he got up to. He seemed to have shrunk since she had first met him, to be thinner, quieter, altogether different. She worried about him occasionally but she thought he’d always been better than her at coping and when he said he was all right she supposed she would have to believe him.
Just moody, she thought. Then she said out loud, her anger returning, “Bloody men!”
Why should I stay? she thought suddenly, and was immediately surprised that she had not asked the question before. What’s keeping me here after all? Sean? What bloody good’s he ever done me? I could leave now, cycle back to town. Someone in Mittingford would put me up. Win and Daniel. Or Magda. She’d understand.
But she stood, looking out of the open door of the caravan and she did not move. Sean had rescued her. She felt a kind of loyalty. Instead she turned her back on the meadow and the open door. She filled a kettle from the water container under the sink and lit the Calor to make some tea.
Chapter Two
From behind grey net curtains Ernie Bowles watched Lilyjackman cross the yard. He always seemed to know what time she would arrive back from work. It had become his habit to be in the house to watch her. Sometimes she wore shorts so he could see her long brown legs and a sleeveless T-shirt which left nothing to the imagination. Today it was a skirt and a loose, shapeless top, which was disappointing. Still the glimpse of her, bent over the bicycle, excited him. He watched her through the gate and into the meadow.
It was his dream, a fantasy so delicious that he could hardly acknowledge it himself, that she would give Sean the push and move in with him. The possibility lurked on the edge of his consciousness and made him restless. It wasn’t that he would take advantage of her. Marriage was at the heart of his vague, barely formed plans. Marriage had been on his mind a lot lately.
He hadn’t thought much about it while his mother was alive. No one could match up to her and he couldn’t imagine two women in the house. Even toward the end, when she was crippled with arthritis and nothing seemed to ease the pain, his mother had kept him straight and organized. He wasn’t lazy, whatever people thought. He didn’t mind work. He’d done all that needed seeing to on the farm. But his mother had told him what to do. Every morning at breakfast she’d set it out for him:
“Those lambs’ll need dipping,” she’d say. Or: “You won’t forget that the tanker will be early today.”
And she’d come out and look at what he was doing, pulling herself along on that Zimmer frame she’d got from the hospital. She would check that it was all in order. It had never really occurred to him that she might die. Not so soon. Whoever heard of arthritis killing someone?
He’d thought at first that it would be all right on his own. No one to boss him. No one waiting up when he got in late from the town to tell him that drink belonged to the devil and if he spent any more time in the Sheep’s Head, he’d go to hell. No one to drag him to chapel on a Sunday to repent. But he couldn’t see to everything on his own, that soon became clear. Not the house and the farm. And he deserved some comfort, a meal in his belly after a day in the fields, clean sheets on his bed once in a while.
So he watched Lily and dreamed. Then the restlessness she provoked made him take a more practical step to find a wife. If he couldn’t have Lily he supposed someone else would do. He’d seen the lonely hearts columns in the farming magazines, had read them surreptitiously when his mother wasn’t looking. He’d considered at first placing an advert there himself but had decided that that wasn’t the way to go on. He wanted a local girl. Someone he didn’t have to travel too far to see. So he contacted an agency in Otterbridge, sent a photograph, filled in a form. And tonight he was going to meet a woman.
Lily had long since disappeared from sight and he turned back to the room. It was tidy enough. He liked to keep things tidy. If he’d known the word he’d have called it an obsession. During his National Service he’d been an officer’s batman. He knew about standards. But he didn’t seem to be able to keep it clean. A film of fine ash dust from the boiler covered the surfaces, and the lino beneath his feet was tacky with spilled food. He needed a wife to look after him, he thought, like every other man he knew. It was what he deserved.