The Benefits of Passion (16 page)

CHAPTER 15

It was the middle of the night. Annie was curled up near the sitting-room window, looking out. The cottage was quiet. Sometimes the wind murmured around the chimney pot or in the old pine tree in the garden. The fields and hills were silvery in the moonlight. She took another sip of chamomile tea. At the other side of the village the chapel clock chimed tinnily. Three o'clock. Will was asleep in the next room, having been persuaded to stay the night . . . Annie pricked up her ears. What was that? Was it panting? There was a clatter of doggy claws on the floor.
Libby! I thought you'd gone for good, girl!
Annie knew she must banish her at once to her cold kennel outside, but she hadn't the heart.

The events of the afternoon and evening chased round her brain. What had William been about to say when Edward interrupted them? Surely it had been a declaration of some sort? It was just as well that he had been prevented. It gave her time to marshal her resistance. Here was her opportunity to get it right; like Jonah, spewed up on dry land and given a second chance to denounce Nineveh. She really mustn't –
must not –
fail God a second time. And wasn't Penny right? Annie had caught the tail end of a comment she made to Ted: ‘. . .
serious bad news for any woman who got involved with him
.' But all the same . . .
Ow-ow-ow-ooo!
Stop it, Libby, or you'll be outside!

The man was so dangerously irresistible. Fifty pence in the Sankey box for humming ‘Yield Not to Temptation.' Annie had watched him enslaving Ted's daughters. His appeal could be broken down into three component parts: 80 per cent indifference, 17 per cent rudeness and 3 per cent devastating charm. She pictured him again, kneeling on the hearth trying to light the fire, keeping up a
sotto voce
stream of profanities as the damp wood failed to light and Edward tried to take over. Hayley and Lisa sat nudging and daring one another until at last Hayley picked up the Sankey box and rattled it at him. He turned and treated them to his icy stare. They shrank back, giggling.

‘Do you take Access?' he asked. He gave them his ravishing smile and calmly reeled off every obscenity Annie had ever heard. The girls screamed.

‘Stop that!' barked Edward. ‘I'm not standing for it!'

‘It's my house,' Will pointed out.

‘That won't stop me throwing you out,' said Edward, towering over him. ‘You bloody apologize right now! What?' he demanded, as everyone laughed. Hayley rattled the Sankey box at him.

William apologized with wheedling insincerity. It was shameless, but the girls found it irresistible. Edward glared, but was forced to be content. Annie saw Ted and Penny exchange glances, and realized how deeply uneasy they were about Will's effect on their daughters. Later he beat everyone at Scrabble – despite an embargo on obscenities and medical terms – and scandalized the Watts family by deliberately blocking off the triple word scores.

Afterwards everyone sat reading and chatting round the fire. Hayley and Lisa had rattled away in their private language.

‘What are they on about?' demanded Edward, irritated at last. Ted and Penny shrugged.

‘They're speculating about my sexual orientation,' replied William, without looking up from his book. He was right, for the girls shrieked and fled from the room leaving Edward looking baffled.

Hayley and Lisa had giggled for hours under the bedclothes as they went over the day's incidents, comparing and contrasting the merits of Crunch and Dr Sex. They wept with mirth to discover that the first three and last two letters of William's surname spelt penis. Annie lay awake long after their whispering had dwindled into sleep, before creeping downstairs to make a drink. They thought she was in love with Edward. Looking back she could see why. It was Edward who had apparently driven her from the house in tears. She feared they must have tackled him about his heartlessness, because he had cornered her on her own and said, ‘Gosh, Annie. I hope I . . . um, haven't been making you unhappy.'

She had shrugged. ‘It's just one of those things, Edward.'

To the end of her life, Annie knew, she would be ashamed of that cowardly sentence. It sprang from relief that he hadn't guessed the truth. The image of him standing there repeating, ‘Gosh, Annie,' in stricken tones made her squirm. But in self-justification she could think of several occasions in the past when he had made her very unhappy indeed.

She hugged her shabby dressing gown closer. Her feet were cold in the school hockey socks she was wearing. This must rate as the world's least glamorous nightwear ensemble, she thought. The old T-shirt that served as a nightie was that much-loved shade of grey achieved by adding a single black sock to the white load. She got up and groped around the sofa and chairs hoping to find a blanket or something. Her fingers found someone's sweater. She wrapped it round her shoulders and sat down again. It was Will's. She leant her face against the sleeve, smelling his smell in the soft wool.
How-owl!

Well, Libby was in fine fettle. Annie could see her bounding fluidly across the fields like a red setter in a dog-food advert. Not a particularly intelligent hound, she had to admit, but one with a certain sly cunning to her stupidity. The kind of dog who would eat your shopping on the way home from Sainsbury's and then be sick all over the back seat of the car. It was good to have her around again. She sat begging, lead in mouth, and at last Annie gave in. The two of them went bounding off, over hill and down dale, until they found themselves in Derbyshire, where Barney had taken Isabella to meet his family.

‘I wish you'd kept the sports car,' pouted Isabella, as he drove her from the station to his parents' farm.

Barney grinned. They were passing through what looked like a run-down ex-mining area, but at any moment Isabella was confident they would emerge into spectacular countryside.

‘Nearly there,' said Barney. They went through a sprawling village. Isabella gazed in disappointment. It was all so scruffy. The urban and the rural seemed to be jumbled up together: factories, fields, terraced housing. The hills of the Peak District were visible, but depressingly distant. She saw a sign above a shop:
Hardstaff Family Butchers.

‘Oh! Is that your family?'

‘Yep.' Hermione would shudder. Good God! Associating with tradesmen! But at least the farm might be picturesque. Barney got out to open a gate. They drove up a long bumpy lane until they reached an assortment of buildings and barns with corrugated aluminium roofs. The farmhouse itself couldn't have been more than forty years old. Isabella philosophically ditched her ivy-clad Georgian mental image. It didn't matter, so long as she was with Barney. He stopped the car and they got out.

It was a blazing August afternoon, but Isabella perceived at once that skimpy sundresses and high heels were not what one wore on a farm. She glanced at Barney's ancient jeans and open-necked shirt. Damn it. They went into the house and found his parents in the kitchen.

‘Well, well, well. My word,' said Barney's father, coming forward rubbing his hands together. He planted a smacking kiss on Isabella's cheek. ‘Yes, that'll do nicely, I'd say, son. She looks good enough to eat.'

‘Go and make yourself useful,' said Barney's mother. She was peeling off her rubber gloves. ‘Take Isabella's bag up to the spare room.'

‘The spare room!' repeated Barney's father. ‘They'll want to be together. She's not come all this way just to hold his hand. The spare room it is!' He retreated hastily before his wife's venomous glare.

Isabella found herself blushing. She handed Barney's mother the bunch of flowers she had brought.

‘That's nice of you,' said Mrs Hardstaff. Her tone sounded ironic. Orange lilies suddenly seemed as frivolous as sundresses. Mrs Hardstaff put them down on the breakfast bar. ‘Now, how about a cup of tea? Turn that off, Barnaby.'

‘In a minute,' said Barney, fiddling with the radio. He tuned it to the cricket. ‘I want to catch the score.'

His mother reached over, but he retreated with the radio. ‘You've got a guest,' she said.

‘I'm just waiting for the score.' He fended off his mother.

‘I don't mind,' said Isabella.

‘Hmmph.' Mrs Hardstaff began to clatter cups and saucers noisily.

‘And England are a hundred and twenty-seven for four on the first day of the second test here at Edgbaston . . .'

Barney turned it off and put his arms round his mother. ‘Happy now?' he asked, trying to kiss her.

She pushed him away. ‘Get off. You've not shaved.'

‘I'm on holiday.'

‘You can still make an effort.'

‘Oh, I think people can please themselves on holiday,' put in Isabella, feeling it was time Barney was defended.

‘He pleases himself every blessed day of the year,' said his mother. ‘Go and get the milk, Barnaby.' He went. Mrs Hardstaff treated Isabella to another ironic glance. You don't know you're born, young lady.

‘Well, I think you have a very sweet-natured son, Mrs Hardstaff.'

‘Oh, yes. He's sweet-natured, all right.' She filled the teapot. Isabella could see she was brimming with amusement. ‘Provided he gets his own way.'

At that point Mr Hardstaff reappeared and they all sat round the kitchen table drinking tea. There was a lot of talk about Grandad Hardstaff's birthday celebrations the following day – who was bringing what food, when Great-Aunty Betty was to be picked up, whether there would be enough cold chicken for everyone. By the time the discussion had turned to farming matters, Isabella was beginning to feel rather small and homesick. Barney seemed to sense this and gave her one of his beautiful smiles.

‘So what've you got lined up for Isabella, then, son?' asked Mr Hardstaff. His tone implied a row of haystacks.

Barney yawned and stretched. ‘I thought we might slump in front of the cricket.'

Mrs Hardstaff cuffed him.

‘No, no, no. That won't do at all,' protested his father. ‘She'll want to look round. I'll bet she's never been on a farm before, have you, Isabella? Yes, you show her round, son. There's that cat with a litter of kittens in the hayloft. She'll want to see them.' He took a last slurp of tea and got to his feet. ‘Well, that top field wants baling. Otherwise I'd show her myself.'

His wife shot him another look and he went out chuckling.

Barney reached for the radio again, but Mrs Hardstaff was too quick for him.

‘If you've nothing better to do you can go and get me a couple of chickens for tomorrow.'

‘OK.' Barney stretched again and got up.

‘I'll go with you,' said Isabella, suddenly desperate to escape from the farm. She caught a swiftly suppressed grin on his mother's face and paused.

‘You do that, Isabella,' said Mrs Hardstaff.

Isabella followed Barney out into the yard. A red-haired man was climbing on to a tractor. He doffed an imaginary cap to Isabella and ran his eyes over her. She cast him a sunny smile.

‘Hey up, Barnaby,' he said. ‘One of your choir girls? Don't forget to show her the kittens.' Barney grinned, and Isabella suddenly perceived that the kittens were a family euphemism. The tractor roared then puttered off towards the fields. There was a huge cow on the other side of the fence. It had blond curly hair and a placid expression. And a ring in its nose. Isabella bent down to look at its tackle. ‘Lucky cows,' she remarked, tottering after Barney, trying not to turn an ankle on the rutted yard.

He paused. There was a strange expression on his face. ‘Isabella, you do realize I'm not going to the supermarket?'

‘Where are you going, then?'

‘To the henhouse.'

‘The . . .' She stared at him aghast.

‘This is a
farm
, Isabella,' he said impatiently.

‘You're going to
kill some hens
?'

‘Well, you eat meat, don't you?'

‘Only the sort that comes on polystyrene trays covered in clingfilm.'

‘Hypocrite.' So that's what his mother had been laughing at. ‘Look, why don't you wait here?' He led her to a wall. ‘Talk to Brenda.' Isabella peered over and saw a very large sow stretched out on her side asleep. ‘Won't be long.'

He disappeared round a corner. There was some frenzied clucking and Isabella put her hands over her ears. I'm in love with a man who wrings birds' necks! Watch yourself, Brenda girl. Brenda's muddy pink sides rose and fell peacefully. Isabella liked pigs. She even liked their smell. There was something very satisfying about their straightforward appetites. After a while she heard footsteps behind her.

‘All done,' said Barney.

Her eyes strayed to the things that dangled from his left hand. One of them flapped. Isabella shrieked.

‘Down, girl,' he said sternly to the hens.

She looked over the wall at Brenda again. ‘Why Brenda?'

‘My mother's idea. After the Avon lady.'

‘Do all the animals have names?'

‘Not the cows. Too many of them.'

‘What's the bull called?'

There was a fractional pause. ‘I'm not telling you.'

‘Not
Barney
!' She whooped. ‘It is! You're blushing!'

‘I'm not. The goat's called Betty after my great-aunt.' He held up the dead hens. ‘Susan and Angela.' Isabella shrieked again. ‘Only kidding.' He was smiling down at her. He looked like a stranger; a farm labourer, unshaved, shirt half open. Brenda made a happy snortling sound in her sleep.

‘I like Brenda,' said Isabella. ‘I feel a certain affinity to pigs, somehow.'

‘Why?'

‘Because I've got piggy eyes, I suppose.'

‘You've got beautiful eyes.'

‘And kissable lips?'

‘Very.'