Part of the Furniture (9 page)

Grinning, Ann said, ‘Right away.’ From the yard where Bert and John had removed themselves there was a burst of raucous laughter. Ann grinned. ‘That put paid to them,’ she said and was pleased to hear Robert laugh out loud as he led Juno away.

‘I
WILL JUST GET
the fire going, gee it up a bit.’

Robert felt ridiculously nervous of this vulnerable-looking girl, yet she had made him laugh. He knelt on the hearthrug, rearranging logs in the fireplace. They glowed pink, then red on their bed of ash.

‘It’s fiendishly cold out on the hill this morning, always is when it begins to thaw, don’t you agree?’

‘Yes.’ Juno watched him. ‘I—’

‘I like to ride out early, see for myself that all’s well.’ Carefully he laid fresh logs across those already burning.

Watching him, Juno compared his actions with those of a giant playing spillikins, each log balanced with precision to catch alight and meld with the others.

‘Like riding, do you?’ Robert balanced the last log. ‘Fond of horses?’

‘I can ride.’ She watched a puff of wood smoke blow down the chimney past Robert’s head to be sucked back by the draught.

‘Then I come in.’ Robert sat back on his heels. ‘I eat my breakfast with a quiet conscience, or that’s what I hope, before tackling my post and the day’s minutiae.’

Kneeling, Robert patted the pockets of his shabby tweed jacket. Where had he put Evelyn’s letter? What was it Evelyn had said besides that bit which stuck in his mind about reward? Rewarding? Had Evelyn explained the girl? Must have. God help us, I can’t remember! Where did I put it? Getting a letter from him when I have just come from his funeral is so—so what? Unbalancing, ghastly, upsetting, mad.

‘I got back late last night,’ he said. ‘That should do now, don’t you think? Are you an expert on log fires?’

‘I love—’

‘I had rather a longer journey from London than is usual after—well, I won’t bother you with that, with why I went. No, no need to go into it now.’

Robert shied away from the object of his journey. How could he tell this girl what he had felt as Evelyn’s coffin slid into the furnace? He hardly knew himself what his feelings had been.

‘I felt numb,’ he said out loud, ‘perhaps it’s a good thing. Perhaps it’s nature’s anaesthetic, what do you think?’

‘I—’

‘Then after, the train journey. Really, the people who run the railways these days are magnificent, don’t you agree? The station at Plymouth had been hit yet again, so we all walked along the line in the dark, with the Navy and Royal Marines helping people with their luggage. Everyone so cheerful! If it were not so serious, you’d think they were enjoying it, enjoying the war!’ Robert lurched to his feet. He was tall, taller than his son.

So I am somewhere near Plymouth, thought Juno. I remember now, the train stopped and voices shouted ‘Plymouth’ in the dark and the official at Reading had said, she remembered, ‘It’s way beyond Plymouth, but you change trains further on.’

Robert was feeling in his pockets, frowning. ‘I’ve mislaid it—’ he muttered, ‘confound it.’ Then, louder, ‘The worst bit of course was the last. The hill was snowed up, I had to walk, I borrowed Bert’s boots at the farm. Did you get through the moor gate when you came? I hope you did not have to walk?’

‘I held it against the wind for the taxi to drive through.’

‘Good for you. Ah, here comes Ann with our much-needed breakfast, let me help.’ Robert surged towards the door, through which Ann was manoeuvring a large tray. ‘Let me take the tray. Ann.’

‘You’ll spill things. Just clear a space on the table, you’ve cluttered it up again.’ Ann bumped the door shut with her bottom and advanced into the room. ‘Coffee, toast and scrambled eggs,’ she said. ‘Hurry up, this weighs a ton.’

Robert sprang to sweep a heap of letters and papers aside. ‘It’s all unnecessary forms from the Min of Ag. Think of the waste of paper, time and trees!’

‘Think of your breakfast while it’s hot’ Ann unloaded the tray, placing knives, forks, spoons, coffee-pots and plates of scrambled egg in neat precision. ‘Come on now,’ she ordered, ‘eat!’

Robert drew a chair for Juno and another for himself. ‘Please sit here.’

Juno sat.

‘Ann, I’ve mislaid that letter. Have you seen it?’

‘You were wearing your London suit.’

‘Ah! Of course I was—’

‘And Bert’s taken back his boots, made a fuss because you got snow in them—’

‘It was deep, tell him I’m sorry.’

‘Not to worry, he has others which are dry. There’s more coffee. Should you want it, shout.’ Ann left the room.

Robert poured coffee and handed a cup to Juno. ‘Bert is Ann’s husband, she bullies us both.’

‘Oh.’

‘Bert lives at the farm. Ann lives here in the house.’ Robert shot Juno a glance. ‘They prefer it that way.’

Juno gulped coffee and said, ‘Delicious.’

Robert began eating his scrambled eggs. Juno followed suit, discovering as she did so that she was ragingly hungry.

There was silence except for the click of knife or fork on their plates and the gurgle of coffee as Robert replenished their cups.

I have talked too much, chattered from nerves like a young man. He glanced surreptitiously at Juno. She did not look, he thought, at all like the usual run of Evelyn’s girls. Come to think of it, there had never yet been a dark-haired girl. He looked away, not wanting to pry yet longing to, afraid she might catch him at it, make him feel a fool.

A log shifted with a crisp whisper; a flame flared and lit Juno’s face. ‘I hope you were warm enough in …’ He hesitated, then said, ‘in your room.’

‘Thank you, it was wonderful.’

‘And Jessie has moved in with you?’

‘I was so glad to find her there, and the puppies.’

‘Animals have good sense. Of course, apart from the kitchen, hall and this room, the house is dreadfully cold, but you had a fire?’

‘It was lovely.’ It would be easier to talk to this man if he did not look so like his son. ‘I woke in the night and looked out at—at the silence.’

‘And you saw? Heard?’

‘The stream. I wanted to follow it, discover where it goes—’

‘To the sea, it winds to the sea.’

‘How wonderful.’

What had Evelyn told her? Not much, it seemed. What had he said in the letter? Where was it? There would be an explanation in spite of his habitual brevity. Why can I not remember? I am talking too much. I can’t stop. But perhaps it will draw her out?

‘We had a bunch of evacuees at the start of the war, but they hardly stayed five minutes. The silence terrified them; they panicked and left almost as fast as they had come. The noise of bombs, it seems, was preferable …’

Juno smiled.

‘Then we had the landgirl, but that did not work, which reminds me.’ Robert began to laugh. ‘What inspired you to suggest you can milk a cow?’

‘Because I can.’

The Johnsons and Murrays shared a farm run by a manager; Murray and Johnson land adjoined. The boundary between Johnsons’s and Murrays’s was a turgid, murky stream which harboured coot and moorhen, eels, perch and roach, preyed upon by a heron, who, when surprised, would leap into the air to fly off with slow flaps trailing excessive legs.

Jonty and Francis were not interested in the stream or the heron; when they wanted to fish they stayed with friends in the Test Valley, preying on trout and salmon, and Juno, awaiting their return, wandered solitary about the fields.

It was on one such occasion that the farm manager had shown her ‘the new contraption’ his employers were ‘wasting their money on’. Juno remembered his voice; he came from the North, despising the soft Home Counties. The ‘new contraption’ was a moveable milking parlour, a thing made of steel struts and bars, propped on wheels.

‘Idea is to move it from field to field, save the cows walking back to the milking shed; they don’t like it.’

‘Why not?’ she had asked, egging him on.

Cows enjoyed routine, she was told. It was good for them to walk in and out twice a day from their pasture. The ‘new contraption’ was draughty and cold out there in the open. Not that he, the manager, objected, the manager assured her as he made clear he did; it was ‘chilly too for them as did the milking, it would have shown more sense to give the workers a rise.’

On impulse she asked whether he would let her learn to milk and the manager, perhaps sorry for her solitude, more probably to irritate his employers—she had not known at the time that he was under notice—had deputed one of the men to show her.

When Jonty and Francis returned from their piscatorial trip she had boasted of her new powers and they, disbelieving and teasing, had insisted on immediate proof, hurrying her to the farm at milking-time.

It was dusk, she remembered, the cows in their shed lined up, each chained to the manger chewing the cud, waiting to be milked. Proudly she had picked up a stool, taken a pail and begun milking the first cow. But Jonty or Francis cried, ‘That’s a very quiet cow, she doesn’t count, try another, try this one.’ And even when she was again successful they went on teasing, pretending not to be satisfied, ‘You will never manage to milk the new beast father bought last week, she’s there in that separate box, see if you can milk that one.’

In the half-dark she had taken the pail and stool into the box, run her hand along the animal’s flank, settled herself on her stool, reached for its udder.

Arriving at that moment, the farm manager interrupted Francis’s and Jonty’s laughter. Reaching into the box he had yanked her out to fall on the cobbles, with pail and stool clattering about. What he shouted at Francis and Jonty was unrepeatable, so violent was his anger, ‘Bloody fucking young fools, she might have been killed,’ was the mildest sentence.

She had not waited for the diatribe to end but taken to her heels, and running across the field had leapt the murky brook and, leaping, misjudged the distance, landing in mud up to her knees. She remembered that, and what a mess the mud made of her skirt. But what she remembered with perfect clarity was the incredible softness, the silky satiny feel of the bull’s testicles when, feeling for a teat, she had held them in her hands.

Watching Juno, Robert Copplestone thought, She’s far away, gone miles. My God, she looks sad. She is numb, as numb as I am. Then, seeing tears well suddenly up and stream unchecked down her cheeks onto her jersey, he thought, Oh good, that’s better, let her weep, wish I could, and reached into his breast pocket for a handkerchief.

But she was already finding her own tucked up a sleeve, taking a deep breath, blowing her nose, wiping her eyes, saying, ‘Sorry, I was remembering something. Should we not get on with the milking? Cows hate being kept waiting.’ Her voice was almost steady.

Robert said, ‘Yes, yes, of course. If you are ready, I will take you down to the farm, show you the way. You had better borrow a pair of Ann’s boots, they will probably fit,’ and, ‘You sure you have had enough breakfast?’ and, ‘Although it is thawing, the snow is still lying in places,’ and, ‘My cows are Jerseys, I hope you like them,’ and, ‘We’d better ask Ann to lend you an overall.’

A little later, as they walked down to the farm, Juno’s feet shifting uncomfortably in Ann’s too large boots, he said, ‘I am talking too much,’ and was grateful when she said, ‘No.’ But all the same he kept silent for several minutes, only asking, as they reached the farm and he opened the farmyard gate, ‘How old were you when you learned to milk?’

Juno said, ‘About ten. Yes, ten.’ Jonty and Francis had been seventeen? Their last year at school? About that. And the moveable milking parlour—she had not thought of it for years—so hated by the farm manager, had stood rusting and despised, unused in the corner of a field. Remembering this Juno giggled, and Robert was reminded of the word ‘rewarding’ in Evelyn’s letter.

Suddenly Juno asked, ‘What is the name of this place?’

‘Copplestone.’ He was puzzled by her question.

‘Of course. Copplestone. Like you, Copplestone. Oh, good.’ She laughed again. ‘I brought you a letter, did you get it all right?’

‘Yes. But I can’t find it, I forget where I put it. Can you tell me what Evelyn said?’

‘No! He wrote something and stuck up the envelope. Is it important? I mean, all I know is that he told me to give it to you.’ Juno frowned. ‘If he had meant me to post it, he would have stuck on a stamp, wouldn’t he?’ she queried anxiously. ‘I—’

‘You’m going to keep those cows waiting till Michaelmas?’ Bert shouted from the byre. ‘Or not?’ His tone was disagreeable.

‘Not. We’re coming,’ Robert yelled back. ‘On our way. Bother him.’

‘May I go in alone?’ Juno’s voice was gentle.

Robert watched her back as she clumped across the farmyard. One or two of Evelyn’s blondes had been dizzy; there had been one who was dumb. This dark girl was neither. He walked thoughtfully back up the hill to the house. As he came within earshot, Ann was shouting, ‘Telephone.’ He forgot what he had intended to do and hastened to answer it.

Juno told herself there was no need to be afraid, she had offered to help and her offer had been accepted, but she felt uncertain as she walked towards the cowshed. Bert watched her approach, making her sharply aware that she was treading on his territory.

Walking towards the man, she wished she had not parted so abruptly from Robert, long-legged and comforting with a nice rumbling voice; a person she might, unlike her mother, be able to talk to without fear of verbal reprisal. But now here was Bert. He was short and broad and bow-legged. He wore corduroy trousers and heavy boots; his collarless shirt was fastened at the neck by a stud. Above the stud a large adam’s apple worked up and down his weathered throat and his half-open mouth showed yellow teeth.

My mother, Juno thought, would make him an appointment with the dentist, she being a stickler for teeth. A stickler for health in general, if it came to that, taking immense care of all that was physical but leaving the spirit to fend for itself. Perhaps if she had not cared so well for my hair and teeth, Juno found herself thinking, I might have been able to confide?

This improbable idea made Juno smile. Bert did not smile in return but continued to watch her, small eyes of blueish grey peering from under a ridge of eyebrow.