Once a Land Girl (32 page)

‘You get some like that,’ the barman said.

Prue asked for another gin, paid for her own drinks and settled the old woman’s bill. ‘Does it liven up here later?’ she asked.

The barman looked offended. ‘Yes and no,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t exactly throb on a Tuesday. You’d do better to try Saturday.’

Saturday was too far away even to think about. Prue thanked him, glanced at the card players and left the pub. By now the gin had tempered all the jarring sensations caused by the cheerless
flat. She planned to cook the chop and heat a tin of peas, read her magazine and look out of the sitting-room window at the stars. She wanted to try to work out why they were so important to
Rudolph. Perhaps she would open the champagne, drink herself into further protection against the hideous furniture, the darkness that swirled round the dim lights, the persistent smells.

Solitude, she thought. Not worth giving it a chance, really, though she would try to think hard about it one last time. Bloody solitude.

Back in the flat she poured the champagne. Whoever Barry had hired to furnish the place had provided an elegant glass from which to drink it. That was something of a puzzle, but it wasn’t
worth pondering on: the time had come to put her mind to higher things.

Prue had a vague idea that, through the ages, people had found inspiration in the stars. Their mystery had been an eternal inspiration to many besides Rudolph. So now, here in
the horrible little flat, on a chair by the window, she was going to try. See if something would come to her. Some wise message about what she should do. She took a large gulp of champagne, swilled
it round her mouth trying to get rid of the taste of tinned peas and the fatty chop. All that came to her was ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’: her mother jumping up and down in the kitchen, a bowl
of jelly in her hand, singing the nursery rhyme. When at last she had stopped, she had said to Prue, ‘I am a star, you know, darling. You’ll be a star one day. Everyone should try to be
a star.’ Prue had had no idea what she meant. She just knew her mother looked daft, with a bit of jelly on her chin, her cheeks a funny colour and her eyes slurping about all over the
place.

So much for stars. Bloody solitude.

But then, looking again at the flat black sea speared with a dagger of moonlight, and at the sprinkling of stars in the enormity of the black sky, something happened. It happened in an orderly
sort of way, considering the gin and the half-bottle of champagne. First, she remembered the night – well, most of the night – she had spent under the stars with Rudolph, in a nest in
the dunes. The strength of their mutual passion that night was unique in her (many) experiences, as she confessed to him, and he had smiled his smile, white as the half-moon. When at last they had
exhausted themselves, and huddled together against the cold, Rudolph had begun to tell her about life in America, his family and friends in Georgia. A picture of it all had come to her: exciting,
appealing. Had he suggested leaving within the hour, she would have agreed at once. As it was, in the days left to them, reasonable doubts had annoyingly pushed their way into her calculations,
blurring her imaginings of a new life far from home.

But now the old excitement returned without warning. She did some very quick weighing up. What would she miss if she put Rudolph out of his misery and agreed to go with him to the States, become
his wife? She would miss Stella and Ag – not that they were often able to meet, but just knowing they were there and she could always go to them was an invaluable security in her life. She
would miss England, the seasons she had learnt so much about as a land girl, the trees that seemed to differ from county to county in their shapes, their variations on green. Bluebells – were
there bluebells in America? Well, if not, she could probably live without them, and even without primroses. The Light Programme, her mother’s bread-and-butter pudding, though perhaps she
could find the recipe. Her mother? Not really. She was fond of her, but didn’t quite love her. There would be no mother-love on offer once Prue was married to a black man. Mrs Lumley would
disown her: she had none of Mrs Lawrence’s qualities – strength, dignity, quiet sympathy and understanding, things that Prue had always believed a mother should have. As for Barry and
The Larches, they were already in the past. Johnny, her friend . . . well, he’d been kind but outrageous. She would soon cease to miss him.

Instead she would thrive on a new life, married to a farmer, several children running about the place learning about animals. Rudolph would show her a new country impossible to imagine –
for geography had not been pursued very hard at Prue’s school.
Gone with the Wind
was her only knowledge of America. But she knew quite clearly in her dancing head that there were
times you had to make a hard choice: this was one of them. As far as she could tell, now, she loved Rudolph. He loved her. It would be foolish not to take her chance, be left in grim post-war
England endlessly visiting pubs in the hope of finding a lovable soldier looking for a wife.

So, her mind was made up. She would go. New country, new life. The stars had worked their magic.

Prue stumbled to her room. Without undressing she lay on the eiderdown, was asleep in a moment.

A few hours later she woke, terrified, not knowing where she was. Still half webbed in the nightmare, she switched on her light. She had dreamt of pigs, thousands of them, their snouts jostling
her, trapping her, planning how best to attack her. Their mean little eyes were laughing. The blue veins in their ears were lighted, as if by an electric current. Their fat scrubby bodies barged
into her. Their orchestra of screams and grunts hurt her ears.

Prue sat up, head on bent knees, trying to stop their raging in her mind. Then she remembered: Rudolph had said his family had a pig farm. Hundreds of pigs. Good animals if you treated them
well. It was unlikely he would abandon them, no matter how much he loved her. And it all became clear: twice as clear as the star-induced plan of a few hours ago. She could never cope with pigs
again, not after the real experience and the nightmare. She could never leave England, Stella, Ag. She wanted to visit Mr Lawrence as he grew older. She must have been mad.

For the rest of the night Prue reflected on her own foolishness. She got up at six. She knew Johnny would be awake. He liked writing his poetry at dawn, before feeding the hens.

She went to the sitting room, asked the dozy woman at the exchange for the long-distance number he had given her.

‘You’re an early caller,’ he said. ‘Where are you?’

‘In Brighton. Some flat Barry found for me. But bugger solitude. I’ve had it.’

Johnny laughed. ‘How long have you been there?’

‘Not quite twenty-four hours.’

‘Not quite a real test.’

‘No: but enough to know it’s not for me.’

‘I can imagine that.’ His voice was not as light as Prue remembered it. It was thicker somehow.

‘Could I come and be your lodger? Any rent you like.’ There was a pause. ‘I mean, just till I’ve found somewhere of my own . . .’

‘Of course you can. I’d like that. You might be just what I need to stop me reverting to old bad habits.’

‘What old bad habits?’

There was a pause, a slight laugh. ‘Have you got a pencil? I’ll give you directions.’

Within ten minutes Prue was on her way. The dread of arriving in Brighton, which had weighed so heavily on her yesterday, had disappeared. The sadness at leaving Rudolph had also receded, though
there was still a shadow in her heart. But it was a bright spring morning. She drove fast, concentrating on the road. She was looking forward to seeing Johnny, and did not give a thought to his
mysterious bad habits.

W
hen Prue arrived Johnny was standing at the gate waiting for her. He was leaning against it as if for support. There was something about the set
of his body that made her think he had been there for a long time. His hands fidgeted in his pockets. He was pale and unshaven, and his eyes were bloodshot. But he smiled as Prue got out of the
car. ‘You drive faster than you used to,’ he said.

‘I do. I enjoy it.’

‘I’m looking forward to another spin in the Sunbeam.’

They kissed briefly on the cheek. Johnny patted her shoulder. He looked very tired. ‘So glad you’ve come,’ he said. ‘Let’s take a look at the chickens before we go
in.’

Prue followed him round to the back of the cottage, a jumble of overgrown herbaceous borders and rampant weeds. But the chicken houses were in place. A couple of dozen hens were clucking away as
they pecked at grubs in their large run. ‘You’ve put all this up very quickly,’ she said.

‘Had to. I worked pretty hard, managed it in a couple of days. Now I can get down to restoring the vegetable garden. I’ll enjoy that. We’ll be able to have vegetable
stews.’

‘We will.’ Prue smiled up at him. ‘It’s good here,’ she said.

‘I love the Downs. We’ll go for walks.’ He blinked fast.

‘That’ll be lovely.’

‘Let’s take in your stuff. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mess.’

The mess was familiar from Johnny’s Manchester flat: the ailing old chairs, quantities of papers and books piled on the floor, dirty plates and saucepans piled in the small sink.

‘I’ll help you sort it out. It won’t take long,’ Prue said, more sprightly than she felt. Her eyes went to a shelf by the stove. Three bottles of vodka stood there, two
full and one half empty.

‘I know, I know,’ said Johnny. ‘But don’t worry, I’m dealing with it. It’ll be easier with you here.’

He showed her the sitting room, which was no less bedraggled and cheerless than the kitchen, though the view from the window, to farmland that rose up to meet the Downs, was enchanting. Her
bedroom, which had the same view, was very small, barely furnished.

‘There’s a cupboard you could use on the landing,’ Johnny said, in a voice that suggested any further practical help with her comfort would be too much for him. ‘I just
sling my clothes on a chair in my room.’ Prue glanced through a half-open door and felt lucky that his own chaos was not something she would have to clear up. The primitive bathroom, with
cracked walls, cracked floor, cracked bath and basin, all so reminiscent of the one she had recently run from, was not something she looked forward to, but she wasn’t fussy. ‘My cousin
didn’t seem to notice the inside of houses,’ Johnny explained. ‘The outside was what mattered to him. The thatch, as you may have seen, is in very good shape, and the
window-frames were recently repainted.’

They returned to the kitchen. Prue was hungry. She opened the antique fridge. There was half a bottle of milk, and a slab of butter peppered with toast crumbs.

‘I’m so sorry. Not much of a welcome. I meant to go shopping before you arrived. The morning just slipped through my fingers.’ He sounded near to tears.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll go and buy things this afternoon. Let’s just have a cup of tea and a biscuit.’

‘I know there’s a tin of sardines somewhere.’ His tone conveyed little hope. He went to a musty-smelling cupboard, took the tin from a small group of others. After a desolate
hunt in another cupboard he found two clean plates, but no biscuits. ‘Shall I hard-boil a couple of eggs? At least we’re not short of those.’

They sat at the table in the window, sharing a single clean fork and mopping up the sardine oil with a chunk of stale bread.

‘So what’s the matter? What’s happened?’ asked Prue.

Johnny ran shaky hands through his hair, summoning the right words to answer the question. ‘I don’t want to bore you with the whole business, but I don’t think it’s going
to work. Moving here, I mean . . . Big mistake.’

‘But you’ve only been here a couple of weeks. Much too soon to make up your mind.’

‘You know at once whether you can work in a place. I haven’t written a line since I’ve been here. Nor have I made anything, which is frustrating because there’s masses of
wonderful elm round here, very cheap. But so far no commissions.’

‘Patience, Johnny,’ Prue said. ‘You’ll have to put the word around. People always want good carpenters.’

‘I know, I know. But I haven’t managed to work up the impetus to advertise myself. Not a week after I moved into this gloomy place I went into a decline.’ He paused. ‘And
so after five years without touching a drop . . .’ He looked towards the vodka bottles. ‘I’m back on it, Prue, and I’ve got to stop. You’ve got to help me.’

‘I didn’t know. You never told me.’ Prue touched his hand. He flinched. ‘Of course I’ll try to help you.’

‘I didn’t tell you because I thought I’d beaten it. And I had, for all that time. But there’s another thing to add to the good news. I’m totally, utterly broke.
Four and sixpence left from selling a few eggs, and that’s it. I’d been making a huge gate for someone before leaving Manchester. I was rather proud of it. I delivered it, the man
seemed delighted, gave me a large cheque. I could have lived off it for months. But it bounced, and he’s disappeared off the face of the earth. House deserted, no one has a clue where he is.
So . . .’ He shrugged.

‘That’s awful,’ said Prue. ‘The bastard. But you don’t have to worry about money while I’m here. Barry’s put the equivalent of gold bars in my account.
I’ve been wondering what to spend it on. I’ll start by going shopping now. Food, cleaning things – what else do we need? Why don’t I get an electric iron? And I’ve got
my ration book. Stella said she didn’t need it in Norfolk. So give me yours and I’ll be able to stock up. And as for rent, why don’t I pay you three pounds a week?’

‘Three pounds a week? You can’t possibly.’

‘I can, and I’d like to. I like the thought of providing for an artist like you.’

‘You’re an angel.’ Johnny touched her hand, then quickly snatched his away. He seemed shaken by her generosity.

‘Tonight we’ll have supper in a pub,’ Prue went on, ‘wherever you choose. On condition you shave first, and put on a clean shirt.’ They both laughed. They were
uncertain, still, in these new circumstances, how to approach each other.