Country Lovers (6 page)

“I'm sorry. Duncan?”

He raised his face from looking at his dinner plate, and she saw the pain there. The skein of his hair, which always fell across his forehead despite his efforts, was brushed impatiently back from his face and he said, “One day, you know, all hope will be gone for us.”

“Hope?”

“All hope that one day it will be me you love.”

“But I do.”

“No, Joy, you don't. You cling helplessly to your feelings for Mungo, uselessly really, as well you know. Why can't you see that?”

“I can. But I can't help it. And I do love you.”

“Not like I want it. Rather more like you'd love a devoted spaniel. Not with fire.” Duncan clenched his fist and held it up and shook it to demonstrate the strength of his feelings. “Not with deep desire. Not with overwhelming desire for
me.
” He thumped his clenched fist against his chest. “Your love isn't even a comforting, all-embracing, cuddling kind of love. That might be tolerable. What we have isn't even that.”

Joy remained silent, well aware of the truth of what he said. If only she could love him as he wanted. But she couldn't. “I do try.”

Duncan's face registered such disappointment at the word “try” that Joy felt as though she'd been whipped. “Joy! I was fool enough to believe when we married that your love for me would grow, and all it would need was patience on my part. But I've worked to fan the flames. Recently I've come to realize there isn't even one small jet of flame to fan. And still the years roll on. I believe you when you say you try, but you shouldn't have to
try
! Now…now, I'm reaching a point where I don't care a damn whether you do or not.”

“You've given up on me? Is that it?”

Duncan nodded. “You could say that. I've waited and I've just run out of time and patience.”

“But what shall I do? What can I do?”

“Abandon Mungo. Love me instead.”

“But look at the times you've ignored me for weeks on end. When it's been like living with the walking dead? Work! Work! Work! That's all it's been for weeks on end. What about those times? Eh?”

“It's never been as bad as that.”

“But it has. It has from where I'm standing.”

“I can't help it if my work drives me and drives me till I hardly know I exist as a person. It's the only way I have of earning a living, even though I know I get right to the wire with it, time after time. But then it gets better when I've resolved the problems.”

“Oh yes. It gets better, but not better enough. You're still withdrawn, still an odd bod. At the practice they know what you're like—don't want to go anywhere, don't want to socialize. They've asked you times without number to go out for a drink to celebrate something or another, but Duncan go? Oh no! You're so arrogant, so self-obssessed, you don't care what people think of you. Not one jot. And for you to tell Mungo I love him, that…that, I cannot forgive. I bet you enjoyed the telling, didn't you? Mmm? Relished it. I bet you did. Not caring how much you upset him. Not thinking about how he'd cope, how
he'd
feel. Oh no!”

“Why
ever
should
I
give Mungo's feelings even a moment of consideration when he's stolen my marriage from me? Tell me one reason why I should. Come to think of it, though, there wasn't anything to steal; it wasn't a real marriage in the first place, was it? You loved him even then. It's all been a complete lie. It leaves a very bitter taste. Why should I have to feel
grateful
if I rouse the smallest response from you when we make love? Make love? Ha! That's a misnomer if ever there was one.
Love.
Ha!”

Joy couldn't find an answer and wondered how on earth she had arrived at this desolate bleakness of soul. Duncan stood for a moment, looking down at her, then he left the table and went to stand outside in the garden, looking at the lights of Barleybridge far below, hunched up, feeling crucified.

Joy cleared the meal away and found washing that needed putting in the machine. She needed to take a bath to relax her and was asleep in bed before Duncan came up. When she awoke the next morning, he was gone. A note said:
“Gone walkabout. Yours for always, Duncan.”
It sounded so final. She was used to his leaving to walk alone to clear his thinking processes, but he'd never written
“Yours for always.”
Never, ever. When he said “walkabout” he meant walking for the day; sometimes he rang her and asked her to pick him up from somewhere, and he'd be refreshed and more like himself. It always did him good to walk alone for mile upon mile. So perhaps he'd ring her tonight.

Occasionally he would mean longer than a day, but he had his present contract to fulfill so he'd have to be back. She sighed with relief. Obviously he did mean just for the day. Of course, just for the day. All the same, Joy checked his sock drawer and found he'd taken several pairs of his walking socks, changes of underwear, sweaters. So he was going for a while. Something akin to a pain filled her chest.

         

A
PHONE
call as soon as she arrived at the practice that morning put all thoughts of Mungo and Duncan out of her head. She raced out of her office calling, “Anyone seen Dan? Has he gone?”

Colin answered her. “He's here, sorting his mail in the staff room.”

Joy found him reading a letter from the laboratory, punching the air with delight.

“I knew I was right! I knew it! This letter proves it.” Dan looked up and raised an eyebrow at Joy. “Yes?”

“Crispy Chickens?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Bridge Farm is protesting because the State Veterinary Service intends culling all the farm's flock.”

“Why?”

“Because I've just had a call to say that since Crispy Chickens has now got Newcastle disease and all its flock is about to be slaughtered, there's a strong chance you might have carried the disease to Bridge Farm.”

“I knew I was right. The idiots. Anyway, I disinfected myself before I went to Bridge Farm.”

“They say it's because of your going straight there, you could have carried it.”

I'll ring Bridge Farm straightaway. There's absolutely no need for that flock to be slaughtered. I'll tell them I'm standing up for them. It's wholesale murder it is.”

Before Joy could stop him, Dan had phoned Bridge Farm and told them his position. He followed that with a call to Bryan Buckland and another to the Veterinary Service. By the time he came off the phone, he was boiling with temper. “It is sheer blind stupidity. Sheer stupidity. I don't know when I've been more angry. Think of all the people who've visited, all the lorries that have delivered to Crispy Chickens in the week since I was there. They've all to be traced. It's criminal. Absolutely criminal. There could be an epidemic. What's the point of reporting a notifiable disease if they can't recognize it when they see it?”

Joy tried to calm him down. “Dan! Dan!” By now he was pacing the staff room like a caged lion, planning terrible revenge.

“There's one thing for certain—they're not culling all those chickens at Bridge Farm on my account. I'm not having it. Definitely not.”

“I don't see how you can stop it.”

“Neither do I at the moment, but something must be done.” Muttering threats of drawing and quartering Mike Allport and hanging Bryan Buckland from his extractor fans, Dan stormed out to start his calls.

“Dan! Don't do anything stupid, will you? Speak to Mungo first. Right?”

She heard him call out, “I will.” And hoped to heaven he wouldn't do anything too damaging. Joy followed him out into the car park. “Look here. Mungo will decide on the right course of action when he's had a chance to talk things through with you. Don't whatever you do go to Crispy Chickens, will you?”

“No, because I might murder Buckland. A whole week! God!”

“Exactly. So…leave it with me. Right? I mean it!” She began to return indoors but turned back to say, “And whatever you do, don't go to Bridge Farm either. Do you hear me? Mungo will know what action to take. OK?”

“Of course, you're right. But it's dammed urgent if we're going to stop them. First, I'm going to see Phil Parsons's new bull.”

Dan went off with his list of calls, in no mood to suffer fools gladly. As he turned onto the track that led to the Parsons's Applegate Farm, he determinedly pushed his anger to the back of his mind. He parked in his usual place, on the track and not in the yard, and changed into his boots before he got out. The farm was just as muddy and chaotic as it had always been, but there was Phil leaning on the gate waiting for him, grinning cheerfully. “Wait till you see this one, Dan! He's a beauty.”

Phil's cat came running to greet him, and Dan bent down to stroke her. “Morning, Scott. Morning, Phil. Well, lead me to this magnificent beast.” Phil led him across the filthy yard into the barn he'd renovated with such loving care for his old bull, Sunny Boy. The barn was still immaculate, a fitting setting for a prize bull. The new bull graced it equally as well as its previous occupant. He was young but already showing the signs of a perfectly splendid adult. There was a sheen to his black coat, which only good breeding and good food could have brought about. He was restless, moving about and stamping his feet with a kind of pent-up vigor that was a pleasure to witness.

Dan leaned on the wall and admired him in silence.

Anxious for an opinion to corroborate his own, Phil asked, “Well, what do you think?”

“I think he's a prime specimen. Indeed. Yes. A prime specimen. Where the devil did you pick him up, Phil?”

“At an auction. Farmer packing up, selling everything, including the farmhouse—fed up to the back teeth with not making money at the job, and I went along.” He tapped the side of his nose, well, more accurately tapped his balaclava in the area of where his nose would be if one could see it. “Heard a rumor, you know how it is, glad to be shut of the lot and everything might be going cheap. So Blossom and me went along and there he was, one of the last lots. Blossom nudged me and I nudged her and told her not to look too enthusiastic, but you know Blossom. Anyways, things went according to plan, and I got him for a song. What do you reckon?”

“I reckon you've got a gem. An absolute gem. What have you called him?”

“Blossom's named him Star. What do you think?”

“Spot on. Oh yes. Spot on. Star! I like that.”

“Well, he is, isn't he? A star.”

“He certainly is. Is he friendly?”

“Hamish is training him.”

“How is Hamish?”

Phil looked at Dan as though pondering what to say. “He's OK. Got over Sunny Boy goring him, but the youth still isn't up to scratch in here.” Phil banged his chest.

“Not talking yet, then?”

Phil shook his head. “Not yet, but Blossom keeps hoping. The youth's been through something terrible, that's for sure; what, we don't know, and we can't ask the authorities for any help else they'll be for taking him away and that wouldn't do. He's happy and that's what matters, after all. One day it'll come when he's been loved enough.” Phil fell silent after his final perceptive statement, and the two of them leaned companionably on the wall watching Star.

Dan heard the rapid tap tap tap of Blossom's high-heeled shoes, and she appeared carrying a tray with three glasses on it. She and Phil were so totally mismatched, Dan found it hard to believe that this peroxided, heavily made-up, dazzlingly dressed, twiglike person could possibly be the wife of stout, rotund, good-natured, shambling old Phil. She held out the tray. “Here we are—take one. A whisky to toast our new bull. Isn't he brilliant, Dan?”

“He most certainly is, Mrs. Parsons. I reckon Phil's got an eye for a good bull. He doesn't get taken in by a lot of show but recognizes stamina and good breeding when he sees it, and that counts.” Dan raised his glass. “To Star. Long may he reign!”

“To a perfect physical specimen!” Blossom clinked Dan's glass with hers and by the twinkle in her eyes when she winked at him, it wasn't only the bull she was toasting. Time he went, Dan thought.

“How's your son and heir, Dan? Doing well? And Rose? We'd love to meet them both.”

“Well, perhaps sometime when I'm calling I'll pick them up and bring them along. I'm sure Rose would like to meet you too. Must go. Other calls.” His visit with Star had cheered him considerably, but at the back of his mind was the problem at Bridge Farm.

         

A
FTER
Dan left, Joy sat pondering the situation with Newcastle disease and what it would mean at Bridge Farm. It would be a terrible shame if their chickens had to be slaughtered; after all, they weren't any old chickens but a pedigreed flock. It would have to be dealt with very delicately. Thinking of delicate problems reminded her of Duncan. She wondered how he was, striding out over the hills in his steady, relentless pace.

Joy took the photographs she had picked up on her lunch hour out of her bag. There was a particularly striking one of Duncan leaning on a fence looking ahead, apparently oblivious to the camera. She'd caught him in profile and focused on him so that the camera was looking slightly upward at him. Anyone else would have admired the drama of that shot, and briefly so too did she. He really was eye-catching. Almost handsome, with his high cheekbones and…Help! She wouldn't tell anyone he'd gone. They'd never notice. They all knew how withdrawn he was. She hastily put away the photographs and went to see if Mungo was free for five minutes to talk about Bridge Farm and its problems, not knowing that Dan was already on his way there.

He deliberately pulled up in the lane and didn't drive into the farmyard, which he would normally have done. The farmhouse was on the roadside with a short path between lawns and flowerbeds leading to the house. There wasn't a single sound of chickens. His heart sank. Surely they hadn't already been to slaughter them? He got out of his car and stood listening. A voice shouted from the farmhouse window. “Dan!”