Haweswater (11 page)

– Do you see me?

– I don’t know. Not really. Thank you fer helping me. Yer a bonny lass. I can tell.

He was a large, quiet man, easily encouraged to laughter by the other patients. At night he made no cries, did not suffer from dreaming visions, and she had no reason to pity him. He was not haunted by memories, but by his own, inexplicable survival, and he seemed to be living as if he did not quite know whether or not he should be. He would eat only half-portions of food, as if the simple act brought guilt. Once, Ella found him in the early morning sitting on the bed of a dead soldier. He had stumbled blindly in the direction of the man’s gentle pleading for someone to give him company, falling once against a metal bed-rail and slicing his palms. He had not been able to find his way back to bed after the man had drifted from pain to silence, his bearings lost in the room. He had not wanted to dislodge vital tubes and equipment as he searched for the empty cot. The dressings over his eyes had slipped down, but his hands, too painful, had not been able to move them back on his head. He was speaking in a low voice to the soldier, talking of sheep and market prices, a constant deluge of mundane conversation, not realizing the man had passed away.

In the spring, Ella led Samuel around the hospital gardens by an arm. There were daffodils growing along the walls and he wanted her to gather some for him to give back to her. He had never smelled a daffodil, he said, had never fancied to. Now he thought he might quite like it. She held one to him, the fresh, light fragrance was at first not detected because of the chemical burns in his nostrils and throat. But after a while it came, and with it his confession.

His voice was raw as he began asking her the meaning of his being alive, that it must have been some crime against his fellow soldiers, he saved, and all of them gone. God had spared him, she said, he had no choice now but to live well, in His name. Samuel said the quiet behind his eyes was like a gift he could accept for such mercy, such love, and if he could
not see again he would understand it to be only the residue of God’s choice to keep him on the earth.

He bent to kiss her cheek, blindly, untidily. His eyes monstrous behind the gauze. She hesitated at first, then directed his kiss, her fingers finding a brass button to hold on his long military coat as she swayed against him. By the last week of April his vision was almost restored and he said that he had been right to call her bonny. His discharge papers were being completed, and she told him about the empty farm that had been tended by her grandmother until her death a year before the outbreak of war. It was remote. It was quiet, a place of recovery, a place of new life.

– There’s talk of another war, Samuel.
Cumberland Herald
’s full of it. Hitler’s defied Treaty. It’s only the start. They say he’s opening fact’ries to manufacture planes. It’s all cumin’ again, Sam, in time.

Samuel sighed and unbuttoned his heavy tweed jacket as if he was only now coming back into his home, out of the cold. His wife was sitting opposite him, her brow furrowed. As with many women of her generation, it had taken Ella a long time to get over the war, and even now there remained a deeply unsettled part of her which clenched like a tight fist if it was touched by a memory, a suggestion of that same abhorrence. To broach the subject herself was almost unheard of. He nodded slowly, took her hand.

– I know it.

– Plenty o’ lads from t’dale will be outa work if dam goes up. Not minny choices left after.

– It’s all talk as yet, Ella. Nuthin’s settled.

– Mind the men in t’Bull get it settled tonight. Mind it, Sam. Summet’s to be dun. And mind fellas don’t get thee as drunk as last year’s birthday! Or you’ll have a poorly head for the market tomorrow.

She stood and stirred the cooling stew with a spoon, called to her children. They came in with the bread and sat at the table, Isaac now dressed in a dry woollen shirt. Ella stood to give the grace. She did not bow her head or close her eyes, but kept them open and looked directly at her husband as she spoke. Her body held itself up, strong, like a stout pillar of oak. Her daughter’s eyes remained open also, fixed on a loose point in space.

– Dear Lord, we thank Thee fer the food on the table and ask You to give strength to our community in this time when it is cast over with darkness. Keep us safe. In Your name Lord, Amen.

They ate the food quietly, without mention of the dam, though it weighed heavy on them, for it was a celebration night, after all. During the meal Janet and Isaac gave gifts to their father. He watched the pleasure in their faces as he took them, the exchange of smiles, his neck warming. Their eyes were bright, their laughter rooking. His own laughter was self-conscious and lit with enjoyment and embarrassment in equal measures. From his son, a picture. He watched the watery excited eyes of the boy as he took it and slowly turned it over. His small pudgy hands were gripping the table edge and Samuel could see he was about to explode.

– Hah! Chase, eh! Clever lad.

Isaac let out a squeal of a laugh. Samuel looked at his daughter. Her smile was almost feline, contained. The corners of her mouth upturned by only a small black part of the lips. Even her hair, blue-blonde and long and full, made him think of a lion, and in the shadows between her collarbone and the sweep of hair might have been carcasses hanging off trees in the savannah. He detected a dark mood pushing at her surface, though she tried hard to be glib.

– It’s a book of poetry by Emmett Thompson. He’s uncle t’ Hazel Bowman and lives over in Kirby Thorpe. I think he was … there too. Y’might read some after supper, if y’like. Or get Zac to. He’s bin practising all day. Haven’t yer, Zac?

– Your father has better uses of his time just now, Janet. There’s a lame calf in t’top field and I’m sure some ewes are about ready to drop. Can’t afford to lose as minny as last year.

Her mother’s tone was imbued with tension. But Janet had a wild cut to her. She had her father’s neck between her teeth and wouldn’t let it go.

– It’s a first edition. There is a signature in the front cover. Mr Thompson visited the Bluebell bookshop in Kendal last month; I met him. He has a lot of interesting things to say. About what t’give up … and what t’keep. And why. In one poem he talks about how passing something away from you is like receiving the full weight of understanding what the object truly represented. That when you put on your own empty hands, they are about the same weight as a bird lifting from the water. I don’t remember exactly. But I loved that line.

– Thanks, lass. Thanks, Jan.

At the sink, Ella banged down the empty pot with emphasis. Her daughter did not flinch.

Samuel stood up and walked round the table. He bent slowly and kissed his daughter’s hair. She smelled like the rain coming on to dry earth. She smelled of the lily soap that he had been bringing her from town since her hair grew long, bought once a month, a secret expense. By the hearth, Chase pricked up her tufted ears, and a second later was by her master’s feet. Samuel picked up his cap from the rocking chair and pulled it on to his head.

– Grand stew, Ella. Grand as owt. Time to sort out city fella.

As his thumb pressed the door latch down he heard his wife’s voice, charged and warning.

– He’s bringing ill. He’s a messenger of nowt but darkness and ill. I just know it, Sam, I know it here.

She was holding a hand over her chest, her jaw working at her cheek. Then the cool damp air was sliding past Samuel’s neck outside the cottage door.

As he reached the top of the steep field he found Nathaniel Holme repairing a hole in one of the drystone walls which bordered the two men’s properties. By the old man’s feet was a selection of good-shaped rocks for the task, some flat and short for bridging, others dense and high for volume, stones for the body of the wall. As he approached, Samuel heard the familiar, soft thwock-thwock of stone being set down against more stone, followed by a harsh scraping as it was turned into place. The old man’s breathing was laboured and loud, as if the air was running on loose shale from his lungs to his mouth. He grunted as he lifted another piece of the wall.

– There’s a couple spots need tending down by our barn when yer dun, if y’like.

Nathaniel turned. His voice was thick in reply.

– Git out, yer sly bugger. Watch a fella bildin’ up fell en cum up en stick a stree in his hat!

Samuel hitched his trouser knees up and knelt down on the chill, recently thawed ground, next to his old friend. He picked up the biggest stone from the grass and hefted it into the uneven cavity of the wall, glancing at Nathaniel from the corner of one eye. Chase whined and bent to lick the back of Samuel’s hand as he worked. Then she took off up the field, paws bounding off the ground, a streak of black and white fur. Nathaniel examined his companion’s work and tutted.

– Never could wall out, thee. Look at that gap in t’middle. Fat Jake down yonder could fit through t’hole. What yer dyan up hea so late, any road, yer daft bugger.

– Same as you, yer daft bugger.

– Aye well, it’s ower fuckin’ late fer buggerin’ about. I’m going tu t’Bull. Cumin’?

– Aye. Go on, then.

– Sam, th’ knows my mind at Bull. Give ower talk of stoppin’ in t’dale. Pointless, like.

Nathaniel spoke quietly, slowly, slowly, breathing hard. A
pause in the conversation left only the sharp and blunt sounds of stone on stone as Samuel continued with the walling.

Nathaniel was seventy-one, arthritic, and could not work as he once had. His body was near to seizing completely with swellings and there was a bad cough deep in him that had gathered strength over this last winter, turning heavier, taking over the old man’s chest and robbing him of air as it shook itself free. Nathaniel’s two sons had died in the war and his wife Angela had passed away a decade before. There was nobody left to work at Goosemire, except one part-time farmhand, a few itinerants in the busy seasons if he could afford to pay them, and Nathaniel undertook most of the farm work himself.

Samuel sighed and rubbed his hands together, brushing off shards of slate.

– Dam’s not coming off. It’s all in that laddie’s heed.

He tapped the side of his own skull with two fingers for emphasis.

– Besides, it took years fu’ t’uther dam in Thirlmere to git finish. Wilf Martin at Hinter Hall farmed up until last block went in, eh?

– Aye. But, git finish it did, Sam. Git finish it did.

Nathaniel’s eyes were hazel-yellow and old and tired as he turned to look at Samuel. He was nodding as he leaned forward on to the wall, taking the weight of his wiry upper body on to his arms. Then he cleared his throat lengthily, spitting on the grass. Samuel knew the noise was a precursor, it usually meant the old man was preparing to give a speech, speak his mind. He was not mistaken.

– Sam, lad. That M’nchister fella’s wearin’ a suit as costs as much as thee’s house, if Lordie felt like sellin’ up. Fella’s not up fu’ t’scenery, nor buying a cottage fer lil’ kiddies to grow up in. He’s got some mighty weight, mighty weight. His face’ll tell thee that. Next time w’see young fella, he’ll niver be laffin’ like t’uther day. But it suits me grand, in a way; mine are all gone. Purchase order’s dun on t’farm. Notta fella more
hard priss to leave t’dale than me. And thee’s young enough to start ova agen. That wee un’ll git gud schoolin’. Janit can teach in town. Zac’s not up t’farmin’. Too much watter in t’lad’s heed binow. And that bonny lassie’ll not fetch up wid a complete git fer a husband if she’s out of Shap’s v’cinity. Betta selection in Penrith, like. Lordie’s not gonna renew, Sam; bugger’s not losin’ out, neither. I tell thee, th’ll be compensation plenty fu’ t’auld bugger. Nowt fer thee.

Samuel sighed.

– Cheerful auld bugger, in’t ya?

Nathaniel grinned at Samuel with a mouth of brown and missing teeth.

– I am. I am.

Then he stood up painfully, lifted off his cap and wiped his brow of sweat with a sleeve and replaced the cap in one movement. With a gnarled, arthritic hand he took a pipe out of his jacket pocket and a tin of loose tobacco. He filled the pipe and left it in his mouth, but he would not light it until he was inside, out of the wind. Nathaniel was a practical, wise old man. He was endlessly jovial, respected and admired throughout the region.