Far From My Father's House (28 page)

‘I was too angry. I didn’t think. Are you hungry?’

‘Starving.’

‘It’s all the walking. I’ll go and see what there is.’

Annie found half a cold chicken in the pantry and plenty of bread. The level on the whisky bottle went down steadily.

They sat on the sofa with pillows in the corners and blankets over them.

‘Can I ask you something?’ Annie said.

‘What?’

‘Are you having an affair with Pauline Kington?’

Blake started to laugh.

‘Whatever made you think that?’

‘You pay her a lot of attention.’

‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘Wouldn’t you? I thought you might. I thought you might well before now.’

‘It’s not that easy. I’m just a country boy at heart, I have to live with myself.’

‘But you have thought about it?’

‘Yes, but I’ve never done anything about it.’

‘You treat me as though I don’t matter, like I’m just a doll all dressed up to look good beside you. I hate it.’

‘I thought that was what you wanted.’

‘No—’

‘Yes, it was. That was what you married me for, so that you could be rich. It was all you ever wanted. So now you’ve got what you wanted, clothes, jewellery, furs, cars, a big house, the sort of people who know things, a good school for your daughter.’

‘I thought I would be treated with respect.’

‘Respect?’ Blake put down his glass and laughed. ‘Respect isn’t an automatic gain, my flower.’

‘I’m not your flower.’

‘No, you’re more like a nasty little thorn in the side. Just answer me one thing. If I’d been poor would you still have married me?’

‘I didn’t intend to marry you, Blake.’

‘It was the money.’

‘It wasn’t just the money. Susan likes you. She has no father and you can give her such a lot.’

‘I wish we were at home now.’

‘What, Western Isle?’

‘No, Sunderland. I haven’t got a bloody home here any more. I know where I am there.’

‘Who you are,’ Annie corrected him. ‘All-important David Blake.’

‘At least I’m me there. I don’t have Alistair Vane to live up to every time I breathe.’

‘That’s not true. You never had to.’

‘Isn’t it? Even that day in the barn just after I got to your place, the day I knocked Tommy down for you, it was Alistair.’

‘Blake, I went out to the hayshed in the night for you.’

‘But you went out riding with Alistair and let him kiss you.’

‘How did you know that?’

‘He told me. He told me he was the first person who ever kissed you.’

‘I was impressed, that’s all. He was older than me and he had a nice horse.’

‘A nice horse?’

‘These things matter when you’re thirteen. It doesn’t matter now.’

‘It is the matter now. He gets in my way more now he’s dead than he did when he was alive.’

Annie tried to hit him for that and he stopped her and the glasses and the whisky went flying.

‘I hate you. You’re horrible,’ she said, struggling.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it. I just feel so awful about it, that’s all. He has no right to be dead. I can’t hate him now.’

‘You hated him?’

‘Of course I did. He took you and now look. I’ve ended up with his wife, his child, even his bloody farm. How do you think that makes me feel? I didn’t even want Western Isle. I wanted to sit there and let it drop to pieces . . . and then I couldn’t because of him. He never even knew, he thought I was just an upstart from a shabby little hillfarm.’

‘You were,’ Annie said and she took him into her arms and kissed him.

Blake pushed her from him.

‘I suppose you think it’s a proper house now it has a bathroom. You bloody ruined it.’

‘We did not! Your family had done nothing to the house.’

‘They never had any money to do anything. They barely survived and they never owned it either. You seem to forget that.’

‘Then you should be pleased that somebody did more than that.’

‘With Charles Vane’s bloody money? You think that pleases me?’

‘Why won’t you let it rest, forget it? He’s dead.’

‘I can’t forget it. He ruined my family.’

‘Yes but you got the better of him, didn’t you? You got exactly what you wanted and do you know why? Because you’re exactly like him, that’s why. Alistair was like his mother but you – you’re just like him!’

‘If I am then it’s your fault. You did it. You took from me the only thing I had left that mattered. You went to Alistair because he was a better prospect than me—’

‘I’ve paid for it then, haven’t I?’ Annie said and got up from the sofa and ran into the kitchen, crying over the Rayburn so that the tears sizzled on top. And when he followed her there she said, ‘Yes, I loved you. When you went away I thought that the world had ended and the only thing that helped, the only person who made any difference was Alistair. I – I made him into you as best I could until I didn’t need to any more. He was good enough all by himself and you – as far as I was concerned you were just a clerk in a shipping office and you were never going to be anything else and it mattered. Before you went away you were the only person who ever made me feel loved, right from the beginning, right from the day that you knocked Tommy down in the old byre. I thought you were the best thing that ever happened to the world.’

‘But you let me go.’

‘Yes. Yes!’

She would have run away up the stairs and into the freezing bedroom where she had spent so many nights with Alistair but he got hold of her when she tried to get past him and said gently, ‘I loved you too, always. Don’t run from me.’

Annie put her arms up around his neck and this time he kissed her and after that he kissed her again and they went back into the room by the fire and this time it was like it should have been all those years ago, before anybody got in the way. There was nobody now, no ghosts, no memories, no past, no future, nothing to spoil things, just the little house as it was, snowbound and quiet. They even went to bed eventually and slept in each other’s arms.

In the middle of the night when Annie awoke he woke up too, asking sleepily, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Being thankful that Alistair and I put in a bathroom and I don’t have to go down the yard,’ she said and he chuckled a little bit and went back to sleep.

When she came back from the bathroom she stood for a few seconds beside the window. The snow had stopped completely and a large moon graced the sky, decorated with a few stars in a blue-black scene. The fields were covered, the trees were starkly white and drifts were leaning in curves against the stone walls. Annie thought she had never seen the little farm look so peaceful and there was not a sound of any kind in the still night.

When she got back into bed he put his arms around her again as if she had never left him, even though he was asleep.

*  *  *

The following morning the walk was all downhill to Western Isle though the snow was so deep it made Annie’s legs tired. The roads had been ploughed by then and when they reached the farm it felt so civilised with its neat yard and buildings. The children tumbled out of the house. Sylvester and Hetty came to the door.

They were to stay at Western Isle for the full week but long before the week was over Annie was ready to leave. She didn’t want to be there in the dale in the quiet, she wanted to get on with her life and her marriage. They left on New Year’s Eve and it was such a relief to go that she didn’t even look back to see any of the farms.

Sunderland was a homecoming. There wasn’t nearly as much snow there to Annie’s relief and the children’s disappointment. The air seemed so fresh, she thought it must be the sea and when Blake went back to work the following day and the weather was not so bad she took the car and drove to the nearest beach and walked a long way before turning back as the tide crashed halfway down the sand.

Blake came back when it was dark and he called Anthony into the drawing-room.

‘I bought you a present,’ he said.

‘But I already had my presents.’

‘This is special,’ Blake said and he went into the hall and came back with an easel, water paints, oil paints, drawing pads, charcoal pencils and everything else which a would-be painter might need.

The boy fell on it all exclaiming excitedly and Susan came in.

‘Is it for me too?’ she asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ Blake said.

The children went off, Anthony dragging the easel with him. Annie looked at Blake.

‘Be careful,’ she said, smiling, ‘you’re turning into a person.’

He sat down on the big sofa by the fire and she brought him a glass of whisky. He pulled her down on to his knee and kissed her.

‘I cancelled the boarding school,’ he said.

Annie hugged him so hard that she nearly knocked the glass out of his hand. He put it down to appreciate the hug better and Annie kissed him all over his face.

Fifteen minutes later when she went into the kitchen to check the dinner she peeped in at the sitting-room where the children had gone with their new art things. They were both drawing in front of the fire. Annie ventured nearer. Anthony was drawing a horse and making a good job of it but Susan’s drawing was indecipherable.

‘What is it?’ Annie asked.

‘It’s Daddy’s works of course. That’s a ship about to be built and that’s me helping Daddy. It’s nearly finished. Do you think he’d like to see it?’

‘I’m sure he’d love to.’

Susan scrambled to her feet and disappeared in the direction of the drawing-room and Annie went off towards the kitchen, smiling.