Robbie's Wife (4 page)

As she poured the water she reached up with her other hand and undid the rubber band around her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders. She did it absently, as if she were unconscious of what she was doing, and then she reached back to the nape of her neck with one hand, gathering her hair in it, continuing to talk and, as if the hand had a mind of its own, it separated the hair into three strands, her thumb folding one strand over another, a finger lifting the third strand, braiding her hair effortlessly without thought or direction.

“And, you’re wandering around Dorset in the rain spending your afternoon drinking with yabboes and looking for a story?”

“What’s a yabbo?”

“A turnip. The Strykers were the kind of boys the headmaster might have called a bit thick. ‘Mrs. Stryker, the lads are a bit thick, but they’re good lads and they don’t mean no harm.’”

She had adopted a broad Dorset accent and Terry was looking up at her, fascinated.

So was I. I was captivated by her, and I could feel her grace and her wit and the fluid movement with which she changed character and I wished desperately that I were twenty years younger and that she was not married to the handsome black-bearded man who had answered the door.

She poured tea into the mug in front of me. “Drink that. It clears out the cobwebs. For the English it’s what cures everything. They’re bombing London? Have a cuppa tea. Can’t get your life together? Have a cuppa tea.” She drew out a chair and sat down, leaning forward, hands on her chin, looking directly at me. “Now, Mr. Jack Stone, tell us about your exciting life in Los Angeles and all the movie stars you’ve met and the wild women who love you and what Clint Eastwood is really like.” She reached over and tousled Terry’s hair again. He didn’t look up. “But keep in mind that Terry is still working on Roman hill forts so you’ll have to edit the wild women part accordingly.”

I didn’t know what to say.

I had supper with the Barlows, a casserole that Robbie called Shepherd’s Pie which, he said, contained whatever leftovers Maggie had found, maybe it’s rabbit or a pork chop she’s minced up and possibly that rotten cat that’s been lagging around the shed, maybe the boot that Terry can’t find the mate to, we don’t stand on ceremony here, you eat whatever we’ve got. The pie was covered in a deep layer of mashed potatoes, browned and crisp around the edges, and whatever Maggie had put in it, it was delicious.

I didn’t say much, listened while they bantered and Robbie quizzed Terry on school, made him read his essay on the hill forts aloud, and I thought it was quite good for a ten year old. I said so but Robbie said no, it’s got a ways to go, he should go walk on Eggerton tomorrow, take Jack here with you, show him where the Saxons fought the Romans.

“You don’t need to go off early, do you Jack?” he asked. “Be a shame if you don’t see Eggerton.”

“Which is?”

“It’s a hill fort built by the Iron Agers. Trenches as deep as this house.”

I watched Maggie clear away the table. Still barefoot, she had changed into a white blouse and denim pants and when she reached up to put something on a high shelf I could see her small breasts tight against the white cotton and I thought, Robbie, you’re a lucky bugger and I said, “I was thinking of staying another night if that’s all right with you.”

“Fine. The room’s yours,” Robbie said. “How about it, Terry? Take Mr. Stone up Eggerton tomorrow? It’s Saturday.”

“Why don’t you take him, dad?”

I could tell that Terry wasn’t excited about the prospect of guiding the old American on a day off from school, but he was trying to be polite.

“Because I’ve got to go to market in Wintercombe, look for a calf.”

Robbie was gone by the time I came down to breakfast and Terry was gone, too.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said. “Your tour guide of Eggerton seems to have gone off with Jack.” She paused. “The other Jack. Four-legged Jack. The one with the English accent and brown fur.” She laughed.

“Robbie’s gone to market.” She set two mugs of tea on the table and sat in the chair opposite. “I’m curious, Mr. Jack Stone. What made you decide to stay on another night? There’s nothing in particular around here to see. No cathedrals or monuments or wee churches where Ethelred spent the night. We’re in the back of beyond. Except for Eggerton, which is, I must admit, rather grand, but it’s a windswept earthworks and not something I suspect you came looking for.”

She sipped her tea. She had on the same blue sweater and the same ragged skirt and she was, again, barefoot.

“I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea.”

“And this morning it’s not? There’s a lot of ideas that don’t look so good the next morning. I’ve had a few myself.”

“No, I feel good here. Maybe I can write something. Maybe I’ll write about you.”

“Is that what writers do? Wander around the countryside looking for farm wives to write about? What would you write about me, Jack Stone?”

“Why not just call me Jack?”

“Because every time I’ve said Jack for the last half dozen years something knee-high comes lagging round my legs and gooses me. Somehow you don’t fit that category.”

“And if you call me Jack and I come lagging around your legs and goose you, what will happen?”

“You’ll likely get a kick up the backside, which is what Jack the dog gets. So, Jack Stone, what would you write about me?”

I didn’t know how to answer that one. I’d write about how you float across the floor and how your breasts pressed against your blouse when you reached into the cupboard last night and how I lay awake imagining you down the hall, lying in bed with Robbie and I said, “That’s a hard question. I like to listen to people talk and file it away in the back of my head and I never know when something will come bubbling up. It isn’t so much the writing itself, it’s like filling a scrapbook with snapshots, never knowing which one will come alive on paper.”

“You were taking notes all that time you were pretending to love my Shepherd’s Pie, were you?”

“Something like that. You can’t trust writers. Anything you say or do is fair game to us. We dress you up in a different gown and use your words and your hair and your eyes and steal your soul.”

“And what would you do with my soul, Jack Stone? Sell it off to the highest bidder? What do you think it would fetch?”

“I’d keep it under my pillow.”

Christ, what possessed me? I barely knew the woman but something about her compelled the truth. There was no subterfuge in the face that watched me intently from across the scarred kitchen table. In Los Angeles everyone lied about everything. They lied about the amount of money they earned or who they slept with, the size of their dick; they lied with such skill and ease that they no longer knew what was true and what was not. And I was one of the liars, only now I wanted to tell her the truth, tell her how beautiful she was and how I was mesmerized by the way she walked and how I wanted to reach across the table and touch her hand that carelessly stroked the lip of her mug of tea.

“Well, Jack Stone, you flatter me. I’m not that much, you know. You can dress me up in a fancy gown and give me eyes like Nefertiti’s cat and I’ll still be a Dorset farm wife in an old blue jumper.”

“I think not. You said you were a dancer. You move that way in this kitchen, as if you’re still dancing to some orchestra the rest of us can’t hear.”

She traced her finger around the rim of the mug, watching me intently.

“You must be a good writer, Jack Stone, to see that in me. But I think you see what might have been, not what is.” She sipped her tea, still leaning forward so that she pressed against the table, then straightened, taking her long hair in one hand and reaching back with the other to knot it loosely at her neck.

“You’re an interesting man. Will I ever see what you write about me?”

“Perhaps.”

“And not much of a talker. But I suspect you listen well. There’s not much escapes you, is there, Jack Stone?”

“Now you flatter me.”

There was a sudden flurry at the window, a rattling, like gravel thrown against the pane, and Maggie turned to look. “Rain again,” she said. “Coming down stair rods. They’ll be soaked, all three of them. More tea?”

I shook my head.

“Then I’ll leave you to go upstairs and steal my soul. Or, you can write down here if you like. You’ll have the run of the house. I’ve got to go into the village and shop for tea.” She reached out and touched my hand.

“I like you, Jack Stone.” She turned and went to the hallway at the back of the kitchen, took down a raincoat from the row of hooks and put it on. She turned again toward me. “But I like Jack, the dog, too, and if you come lagging around me and try to goose me, you’ll still get a kick up the backside, same as him.” She bent, slipping her bare feet into her green Wellington boots, straightened and pulled the hood of her coat up over her head. “But I’d probably take my Wellies off first,” she added.

I did as she suggested, went back up to my room and got out the laptop. I sat there, watching the screen for a while, typing in an occasional word to keep it from going to sleep, and I wrote down the Stryker brothers, reporting them as they sat in the pub drinking, and I was surprised how well I remembered the conversation, and I thought perhaps it could be worked into the coast-watcher story, the one I had invented for Nigel. But I found myself thinking of Maggie, reconstructing her, jotting down phrases I had heard her utter at the dinner table, the way her blouse pressed against her when she reached into the cupboard, the way her voice fell at the end of each sentence.

I worked that way the rest of the morning and when I stopped I looked again at what I had done. They were paragraphs, disconnected, no story there, only scenes, like sketches an artist might make as a study for some painting that hadn’t yet formed in his mind. There was Mr. Orchard in his yellow slicker, and his cloudy-eyed dog, and Robbie at the table, and Maggie putting on her coat. But they were good, that much I knew, and I wanted to share them with someone. It felt as if I were on the verge of something new and I felt energized as I had not felt in more than a year.

I went downstairs to the kitchen but it was empty. I went outside into the farmyard. The Land Rover wasn’t there, so evidently both Maggie and Robbie were still off someplace. I was hungry now, and I thought about getting in my car and going in to the village to the pub, but I felt hesitant, as if that would break the spell, and I would come back to find my paragraphs dull and lifeless. I explored the farmyard, looking into the big shed where a cow shifted in a stall, and a pool of water glistened on the stone floor. Beyond the shed was a low stone wall and beyond that the field rose, gently at first, then steeper, and there were sheep dotted on it, as if someone had taken a salt shaker and sprinkled the green slope with them.

Back inside the house I found the remains of the Shepherd’s Pie in the refrigerator and spooned some onto a plate. Although it was cold, it still tasted good, and I made myself a cup of tea. When I was finished, I washed the plate and cup, carefully replaced them and went back up to my laptop, but I found myself watching out the window, and eventually I saw Terry turn in through the gate and heard the door below open and close.

I unplugged the laptop and carried it downstairs. Terry was at the kitchen table, his copybook open, laboriously working on his drawing.

“Mind if I join you?” I asked.

“No, sir,” he said, without looking up.

I set the laptop on the table, opened it. The screen glowed blue and Terry glanced at it.

“Want to learn how to write a screenplay?” I asked.

He looked at me.

“The script for a movie film. It’s how movies start. Somebody writes it all down and then the actors and actresses act it out and the director films it. It’s what I do for a living.”

“Is it hard?” he asked.

“Not really. Here. It works like this.”

I opened the program, keyed in
CHARACTER
and then typed in
JACK
.

“There,” I said. “There’s one character. That’s Jack. Now, all I have to do is put down what Jack says.”

I typed in,
Hello Terry. How was your day?

I touched the character key again, and typed in
TERRY
. “Now I’ve got two characters. Here. You do it. Put in what Terry says.” I swiveled the laptop in front of him.

“You don’t have to plug this in, then, do you?”

“No, it’s got batteries inside. We could do this for the next six hours before I have to charge it up again. Go on, tell us what Terry says.”

He paused, looking at the screen, then with one finger he pecked out:
OK. How was your day?

I swiveled the laptop back, hit the key and JACK popped up. “See, it remembers who I am.” I typed in:
I went to London, bought a new Aston Martin, drove down the motorway at a hundred miles an hour and had lunch in the Flying Monk.

“You did that?” Terry asked.

“No, I’m making it up. That’s the fun in this sort of thing. You can make up whatever you want. You don’t have to put down the way things really are. You can put down anything the way you want it to be.”

“How do I get Terry back?”

“Here, press this.”

He did and
TERRY
popped up. He carefully pecked out:
Did you get pissed again?

At that moment the door opened and Maggie came in, carrying bags of groceries. We both watched while she set them on the counter, shucked her coat.

“Well,” she said. “What are you two doing?”

“We’re writing a movie,” Terry said. “Mr. Stone and I are writing a movie story.”

“Will we all be rich when it’s finished, Jack Stone?”

“We have to finish it first. Then my agent has to sell it. Then some producer has to make it into a movie and Terry will be at university by the time your ship comes in.”

She smiled and began putting the groceries away. Terry was pecking away again at the keyboard and I watched her as she brushed her hair back over her shoulders, bent to put cans in a cupboard, reached up to take a pot from above the stove. As she did so, her sweater rose and I could see the roundness of her stomach and where the old skirt hung against her hips and I thought, there’s another scene I can write and then she turned and looked at me and I looked back at Terry, suddenly feeling I had been caught out.