Indian Summer Page 15

  ‘There,’ he says. ‘That feels good, doesn’t it? Nice and cool. That’ll do the trick. Now you hold it in place for a minute.’

  Joe watches, fascinated, and obediently presses the leaf against his knee. It’s at this moment that Star appears in the yard, gives a bark and comes to investigate. Joe drops the leaf and hurries to meet her, his woes forgotten, though Emma calls to him to wait.

  ‘She won’t hurt him,’ Philip says. ‘No need to worry about Star. She was raised from a pup with children crawling all over her. Mungo was here earlier. He told me you’d moved in. Let me know if you need logs later on. My grandson’s clearing a bit of old woodland further down the valley.’

  Joe has now discovered the chickens scratching around in the stables and is calling to Emma to come and see them. Philip takes a chance.

  ‘Like to have a look around?’ he offers rather shyly. ‘My brother, Billy’s, sitting in the orchard. Like I said, he hasn’t been too well. He’s had a stroke but he’s recovering and he loves a bit of company. Come and say “hello” to him.’

  Emma hesitates and then nods. ‘Thank you. Why not? If you’re sure we’re not in the way. Have you always lived here?’

  ‘Born here,’ he tells her as they cross the yard. ‘And my father before that.’

  ‘How lovely,’ she says rather wistfully. ‘It must be good to feel that you really belong somewhere. I’ve never known that.’

  Suddenly he is struck by her resemblance to Izzy. It’s not just the short dark hair, the lovely face, the thin boyish figure. He recognizes that particular warmth, combined with a longing to be loved and accepted, which invoked in him such a sense of protectiveness towards Izzy. He remembers Mungo telling him that Emma’s husband is away with the Commandos in Afghanistan and he wonders how much she must miss him and worry about him.

  Billy is sitting in his wheelchair amongst the apple trees, watching them approach, and Philip raises a hand to him, indicating that all is well; nothing to be alarmed about. To his intense pleasure Emma goes at once to Billy, kneeling on the grass beside him, showing him the baby. Joe has found an old ball, which he throws for Star, boy and dog running in and out of the trees. Flickering light and shade, the sweet scent of new-mown grass, small green apples warming and ripening in the sun; Philip watches the little scene, his fingers smoothing the grainy roughness of an overhanging branch. He is oddly moved between tears and a sense of joy. Emma glances up at him, eyebrows raised, as if to say: ‘Is this OK?’ and he nods encouragingly, as if saying: ‘Stay with us. Don’t go yet.’

  The girl’s kneeling figure, the old man stretching unsteady hands to the baby, the small boy bending to stroke the dog – they transform the orchard into something special: a painting or a scene from a play. Then, all in a moment, the ball is thrown too wildly and hits Billy’s chair, Emma starts back in alarm and shouts at Joe, and the baby begins to cry. The scene breaks and reforms, and Philip moves forward.

  ‘No harm done,’ he says. ‘Nothing to get upset about.’

  But Emma is on her feet, apologizing to Billy, consoling Dora, calling to Joe.

  ‘We must be going,’ she says. ‘It’s tea-time. I hope we haven’t tired Billy.’

  ‘You’ll have done him good,’ he tells her. ‘I hope you’ll come again.’

  ‘I’d really like that,’ she says – and he knows she means it.

  They all walk to the gate together and he watches the little family set off down the lane. Joe turns and waves and Philip raises his hand in return, and then Emma turns and waves, too, and he’s filled with that old unreasoning sense of joy.

  He goes back to Billy, wanting to make sure he’s all right, to prime him before Mags turns up for the evening shift. He doesn’t want old ferret woman asking questions about their visitors; judging them with her green-glass, glinty eyes, mouth pursed.

  ‘Nice little maid,’ Billy says. He cocks an eye up at his brother. ‘Remind you of someone?’

  Philip nods. He wonders if Mungo has seen Emma’s likeness to Izzy.

  ‘Keep it to ourselves,’ he says. ‘Don’t want Mags getting in on the act.’

  Billy laughs his silent, wheezy laugh. ‘Don’t worry, boy,’ he says. ‘I shan’t say nort.’

  As Emma opens the kitchen door the telephone is ringing and she hurries to answer it. She has no fear of the telephone. Marcus has only her mobile number. It is Camilla.

  ‘Now, Emma,’ she says. ‘About tomorrow. All my grandchildren are well out of the nappies-and-baby-food stage so don’t forget to bring what I shall need for Dora.’

  She talks on for a while and Emma listens, still feeling strangely cheered by her meeting with Philip and his brother. Presently, when Camilla is satisfied that she will have everything she needs for the next morning, Emma tells her about them.

  ‘They were so sweet,’ she said. ‘So kind.’ She wants to add that Philip must have been a real looker when young, and how she had the oddest desire to fling herself on his chest and ask him to look after them all, but she knows Camilla won’t understand such weird emotions and that it might actually worry her. She is quite certain that Camilla would never be prey to insecurities and anxiety attacks. ‘Philip has said he’ll get me logs when the winter comes,’ she says instead.

  ‘Philip is the most useful man,’ says Camilla. ‘Archie always said he was the brightest of all the boys around here, streets ahead of old Billy. He passed the eleven-plus and he had a first-class grammar school education. Philip’s one of the most practical men I know. He’s run that logging business since he was not much more than a boy and he’ll always help you out if you have a problem. You’ll be quite safe with him or with his grandson, Andy.’

  Safe, thinks Emma, as she puts down the phone. How wonderful it must be to feel safe.

  She wonders if it is because her father left her mother and their two small children for his mistress that she’s always had a tendency to look to older people to shore up her confidence or confirm her decisions. Her mother is neither strong nor capable, she bounces from one disastrous relationship to another, and sometimes Emma is anxious that she herself is rather like her. Take this madness with Marcus, for instance; surely this is the same kind of instability from which her mother suffers? Emma loves her mother, who is cheerful, funny, generous, but she shows that same insecurity that Emma felt earlier when she responded to Philip’s calm strength. Perhaps this is what her mother looks for in her relationships but never quite finds.

  Joe has switched on the television and Dora is gurning quietly in her chair so that, just for a moment, Emma can relax and remember that odd moment in the orchard when she felt surrounded by love; by peace. With those two old boys, the sunlight slanting down between the branches of the apple trees, the warm late summer scents, she felt peaceful for the first time for months. She wanted to cling to Philip’s muscular suntanned arm and cry: ‘Tell me what to do.’

  She’s seen Andy astride his quad bike, with his corn-yellow hair and cornflower-blue eyes, the height and the strength of him, and she knows exactly what Philip must have looked like as a young man.

  ‘Awesome,’ she says to herself, perching for a moment on the arm of the sofa, and Joe glances at her sideways, frowning.

  ‘What?’ he asks. ‘What’s awesome?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she says. She feels stronger, surrounded by friends, and her anxiety about meeting Marcus tomorrow morning fades a little. Maybe she will be able to be firm with him: to tell him that things have got out of hand and it’s best that it all stops now. She imagines herself saying this to him and her heart quails a little. In her mind’s eye she sees his focused grey stare, the intensity of his body. Marcus won’t give up easily. Yet there’s not much to give up on, after all: a few significant eye-meets to begin with, some silly light-hearted exchanges with a sexy undertow, then a few ‘accidental’ meetings. He’s behaving as if there has been something really special between them for a long time, which now, at last, has been allowed to surface – but this
isn’t so. She admits to a kind of long-term flirtation that often happens between a woman and her husband’s close friend, but nothing that Rob isn’t fully aware of and perfectly happy with. So what tipped that flirtation into this intense relationship? On her part it was to do with feeling low in spirits after Dora’s birth, Rob’s grumpiness, a sense of being unappreciated. Marcus’ attention was the equivalent of a tonic but she doesn’t require it as permanent medication. The really stupid thing is that she’s gone along with it; let him believe that there might be some future in it.

  Emma gets up and goes out into the kitchen. She needs to move about, to try to walk away from the thought of Marcus and those silly texts on his mobile phone that would be so difficult to explain to Rob. Suppose somebody were to see them together and tell Rob? Mungo and Kit saw them; who else might? The foolishness of this silly affair forcibly reveals itself with a clarity that has been dimmed and disguised by her vanity and immaturity. She’s seen it as a romantic fling to which she is entitled because life hasn’t been quite as kind as she deserves. She is putting her marriage and her children at risk for a few moments of self-gratification. Emma folds both arms across her ribcage and groans with mortification.

  Tomorrow she will end it. She will see Marcus this one last time and explain how she feels – and if he tells Rob then she will have to do her best to make him understand the real truth of it. Thinking of Rob far away, surrounded by danger and hardship, fills her with misery and her eyes brim with tears.

  ‘Are you all right, Mummy?’

  Joe is at the door, watching her, and she quickly straightens up and smiles at him.

  ‘I was missing Daddy,’ she says truthfully and, rather to her surprise, he looks almost relieved; as if he is glad.

  A new terror grips her: supposing Joe were to guess, to suspect? How foolish and blind she’s been in imagining that he is too young to understand.

  ‘Come and watch Shaun the Sheep,’ he says sympathetically, taking her hand, towing her back into the sitting-room. ‘It’s really funny. Come on, Mummy. You’ll be all right.’

  She’s touched by his care, by his love for her, and they sit close together on the sofa with Dora beside them whilst Emma stares unseeingly at the television screen and prays that she can put things right.

  By the time Mags turns up Philip has wheeled Billy back into the kitchen and is peeling potatoes for supper.

  ‘I could have done that,’ she says, just like he knew she would. How she would love for him to be more dependent: to need her. ‘I got the steak and kidney pie out of the freezer. Did you see it?’

  Off she goes, ferreting about, peering into the fridge. He glances at Billy and gives him a wink. Old Billy sits placidly, one hand tremblingly smoothing Star’s head, smiling to himself.

  ‘I saw Archie,’ she says, bringing out the pie. ‘In the lane with those dogs of his. He’s looking a bit frail, if you ask me.’

  But they’re not asking her and Philip remains silent, washing the potatoes under the tap, slicing them on the board.

  ‘Have you thought what you’d do if him and Camilla couldn’t manage the estate any longer? Supposing they wanted to downsize? They’d sell it all up and then what? Where would you go?’

  Philip hides the flicker of fear, the sinking of his gut, beneath a shrug.

  ‘Why should he?’ He feels angry because suddenly he’s frightened – and he doesn’t want Billy to be upset. ‘Archie’s not going anywhere.’

  She makes a face – smug, knowing – and he wants to slap it.

  ‘You hope,’ she says. ‘Anyway, it might suit him to sell up. It must cost a packet trying to keep it all together. Or he could do a bit of development, convert the stables. Or the orchard. You’d get quite a few houses in the orchard the way they pack them in these days.’

  Philip’s hands are stilled; he thinks of the diggers moving in, turning the earth, the cries of discovery and the inevitable scandal.

  ‘It’ll never happen,’ he says, but his voice is uncertain.

  She stands beside him, peering up at him, pleased that she’s unsettled him.

  ‘You were always soft about that old orchard,’ she says.

  He looks at Billy, ready to warn him in case he bursts out with something, but Billy is dozing. Mags follows his glance.

  ‘You didn’t expect him to have a stroke, did you?’ she mutters, almost triumphantly. ‘But it happened. You can’t tell what’s round the next corner.’

  ‘Oh, stop your croaking,’ he says angrily, keeping his voice down. ‘Go home, Mags. We don’t need you here any more. He’s doing all right, Billy is. We’ve got the community nurse coming in regular now. Just leave us alone.’

  ‘How d’you know he won’t have another stroke?’ she says. ‘I know you’ve got family just up the lane but they won’t be much help if Billy has another stroke or if Archie decides to sell up. Always so cocky, you and Billy, weren’t you? Well, he isn’t so cocky now, is he?’

  ‘That’s enough.’

  He’s very angry now and she hesitates, knowing she’s gone too far, unwilling to back down. He puts his face close to hers, so that she flinches.

  ‘Get out,’ he says, ‘and don’t come back.’

  She grabs her bag, flounces out to the car, while he watches from the kitchen window.

  ‘Got rid of her, boy?’ says Billy. He’s wide awake, eyes bright. ‘I didn’t say nort.’

  ‘No.’ Philip sits down at the table. ‘She’s right, though, isn’t she?’ He looks to Billy for the reassurance he’s had from him since he was a tiny boy. ‘Archie’s getting old like the rest of us and it’s possible that he might decide to develop the orchard. What shall we do?’

  ‘Only one thing we can do,’ Billy answers. ‘Told you before but you wouldn’t have it.’

  ‘Tell Mungo?’

  Billy nods. ‘Can’t leave it to chance any longer. Time’s right.’

  Philip sits in silence. He feels sick. Deep down, though, he knows Billy’s right. Earlier, talking to Mungo about the past, he wanted to share the burden. He looked at him, almost hoping that Mungo might have guessed, had some suspicion. Sometimes, when they’ve been talking about Izzy and Ralph, he’s believed that Mungo has always known the truth – an odd expression in Mungo’s eyes, a kind of wariness – and has gone along with it in silence. This hope has enabled Philip to push it out of sight but he can’t count on it much longer. Mags has dragged it into the open and forced him to look at the truth.

  Philip stares at his clasped hands, imagining ways that he can explain to Mungo that Ralph Stead’s body is buried in the orchard. He thinks of telling Archie, and puts his head in his hands.

  ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself,’ Billy advises. ‘Step at a time. You tell Mungo I did it.’

  Philip shakes his head. ‘No. If I tell him anything I shall tell him the truth. Exactly as it happened.’

  ‘And can you remember?’ asks Billy softly. ‘Can you remember exactly how it happened? All those years ago?’

  Oh, yes. He can remember. He can remember the icy cold of that February day: snow on the moor, ice in the lanes, snowdrops smelling of honey growing under the garden wall. They went out after breakfast to check the pregnant ewes, to fill the racks with hay, to carry on with the clearing of the orchard where some old trees had been taken out and new were to be planted later in the season.

  Mungo drove down to the smithy for the weekend with Izzy and Ralph. He phoned to ask Philip to get some heating going, to light the solid-fuel Rayburn, as he always did in the winter when he made these sudden visits. Philip saw Mungo’s car go past and, later, he saw Izzy walking in the lane and went out to talk to her. She looked tired, her small face pinched and pale, her arms wrapped about herself as though to keep herself warm. He wanted to put his own arms round her, to protect her, but stuck his hands in his pockets instead. She smiled at him, such a sweet, tender smile he could almost believe that she loved him. She did love him. Izzy loved everyone. She took his arm.


  ‘Walk back with me,’ she said coaxingly, though he needed no encouragement. ‘We haven’t seen you this time. How are you and Billy? How’s Smudgy? Did you find homes for the kittens? I wish I could have had one but I’m not allowed to have pets in my flat.’

  She talked to him, clinging to his arm, occasionally slipping on the ice and laughing. But he wasn’t fooled by the chatter and the laughter. He bent his head to catch that familiar flowery smell of her and was seized by love and longing.

  ‘And how are you?’ he asked at last. He stopped and looked down at her – she was so tiny, so beautiful – and she tried to smile back at him but her mouth went all crooked like a child’s about to cry.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask me, Philip. Don’t be kind to me. I can’t bear it. Come on.’

  She made them walk on until they reached the smithy and then she reached up and kissed him, her lips just touching the corner of his mouth.

  ‘We’re not going back until tomorrow,’ she said. ‘We’re all going back in the car with Mungo. ’Bye, Philip. Take care of yourself. Give my love to Billy and Smudgy.’

  Which was why it was such a surprise when the phone rang later and Mungo asked if he could take Ralph to the train that evening. He sounded angry and when Philip asked what time he wanted him to come up with the Land Rover, Mungo said abruptly: ‘The bastard can walk down,’ and hung up.

  Mungo could be touchy and difficult, but clearly something was really wrong between these three old friends. Philip thought about Izzy’s pinched expression, the way she’d talked, and decided to see for himself.

  ‘There’s been some kind of row,’ he said to Billy. ‘Izzy was in a state when I saw her earlier and now Mungo’s chucking Ralph out, by the sound of it. He’s asked me to drive him into Newton to get the train. I think I’ll just take a stroll down and see what’s going on.’

  It was nearly dark, freezing hard. The cobbles in Mungo’s courtyard were like glass under his feet. The light was on in the kitchen and the three of them were framed in the window like a scene in a play. Izzy was facing him and he kept back in the shadows, watching, drawn by the tension that held the three figures. Mungo was leaning forward, his weight resting on his hands, speaking to Ralph, who watched him from the other side of the table, smiling a little, his arms crossed. Izzy stood between them, her face anguished. Suddenly she put both hands to her belly, a tender, protective gesture, and at that moment Philip understood it all.