Full Circle (6 page)

At last the day came when, with her portmanteau collected by the carrier from the railway station, she locked her front door, returned the key to the agent and then walked briskly to the station. This was the beginning of a new life; no longer would her days be ruled by the clock. She had always accepted the town she had grown up in, the sound of the biscuit factory hooter at the beginning and end of the working day, the vinegary smell from the much smaller factory where sauce was made, the swish of the trolley buses which had replaced the old tramcars whose tracks had been just the width to trap her bicycle wheel when she'd been a child. In her last week she'd become aware of all the sights and sounds and smells she had lived amongst and hardly noticed.

But as the train shuddered into life and pulled away from the station, she had no feeling of nostalgia. Ought she to be scared of what the future held? Perhaps she would find no one wanted to entrust their accounts to a woman! Well, if that were the case she would do something else. Her life had been orderly and unchanging, just as she'd taken for granted it would continue. Now, instead of being frightened of the uncertainty of what lay ahead, it brought a challenge that was the most exciting thing that had ever happened. It was up to her to make a place for herself in Lexleigh, just as it was up to her to become recognised in her profession.

She had closed the door on The Retreat on a windy Monday morning at the end of March; she turned the key in the lock and took her first step into her own home on the first day of July. Her portmanteau wouldn't be delivered until the following day so all she had to unpack from the weekend bag were the necessities for one night, food for the evening and toiletries. All this was now officially hers. Tomorrow she would look in all the drawers and cupboards, not prying into someone else's life but knowing that she owned every stick and stone of it. And tomorrow, too, she would walk up to the farm and tell Mr Carter that she was living here now. Perhaps she was being fanciful, she told herself, but because he and Violet had been so close it made her feel that already she had fitted into a slot here.

So next morning that's what she did, seeing Ridgeway farmhouse for the first time.

A middle-aged man came across the yard to meet her as she approached, touching the peak of his battered trilby hat as he spoke.

‘'Morning, ma'm,' he said, seeming to scrutinize her as he came nearer. ‘Can I be of any assistance?'

‘Good morning. Yes, please, you can if you can tell me where I can find Mr Carter. Would he be in the house or in the fields somewhere?'

‘You're a week too late. His son took him off to have a break with him and his wife. Offhand I can't tell you his address, but if you like to bang on the door of the cottage, the one with the well in the front garden, my missus has got it written down.'

‘No, never mind. I've just moved into The Retreat.'

‘Well, I'm damned. But I might have guessed. One look at you and I might have guessed.'

‘Mr Carter said I looked like my aunt, but you can never see resemblances yourself, can you?'

‘You'll know him quite well, I suppose, after all the years they …' the sentence trailed into silence.

‘No, not that well.' Today Louisa might have left her old life behind her but her new-found freedom didn't stretch to discussing with this stranger the evening she had met Harold Carter. But, hearing the tone of her reply as curt, she added, ‘I've met Bella. Do they come often?'

‘They did, in the early days after it happened …'

‘After Mrs Carter died so suddenly, yes, Bella told me about that. She said they tried to get here at the weekends. But of course that left him alone all through the week. So they've taken him back with them. And you're looking after things here?'

‘Ay. You could say that, I suppose. They've been trying to carry him off with them every time they came, but he couldn't be persuaded. What the difference was this time I can't tell you but he went off like an obedient child. I dare say he realized that Bella's time was getting closer and feared they wouldn't keep getting here so often. To be honest, it makes no difference to the work whether he's here or there.' He thrust the prongs of his fork into the ground, seeming to indicate he was settling for a chat. ‘He and I are much of an age and when he married and came here to his wife's family's place, her dad was really the guv'nor, although his old father was still alive too at that time. Crippled with arthritis the old man was, so not much use on the land. Both of us new to producing veg to the scale we do here, his father-in-law took the two of us in hand; fine man, he was. Pity Mrs Carter hadn't been born a boy – she would have been just such a one. But Harold Carter, he blew hot and cold, if you understand my meaning. Picked the job up quick as you like and for a while seemed to have his heart in it right enough, but he never was the staying kind. Now me, I wouldn't do anything else. Best job in the world, if you ask me. But after a few years, with the old man (and granddad too) gone and him left in charge, that's when he took fright, if you ask me. Looked ahead and saw the rest of his life never changing, season after season, crop after crop each year – ah, that's when he got fidgety. I couldn't help feeling sorry for him, even if I couldn't understand. Takes all sorts, I suppose, but just look around; can you tell me of a better way to earn a crust?'

‘I'm not qualified to answer that,' Louisa told him with a laugh. ‘This is the first time I've ever been on a farm of any sort. But I expect Mr Carter must have been glad to know he could go away now and leave you to look after things here.'

‘More than forty-one years I've been here – since just after him who's guv'nor now got wed. Him and Miss Alice as I thought of her in those days were happy enough and no couple was more proud of their kids than they were when the boys were born. David, he came first, and eighteen months later there was young Leo. Never a sight or sound of David here at the farm these days; not since his mother passed away. She always spoke about him with such pride – the way he runs that factory place where they make the tools and implements.' Then with a laugh that held more affection than humour, ‘Good thing the firm doesn't rely on Leo. Full of fun, always was and, like they say, a leopard doesn't change its spots. Anyway, when Leo said he wanted to take his dad with them I told him he could leave things just as they were here. Me and the boss get along well but, between you and me, his heart isn't in farming. Funny, Leo is like him all over again – restless, flighty I might say; will-o'-the-wisp, that's what Eva, my missus calls him. Says it with affection, mind you. I dare say she sizes him up right – she's usually pretty cute about things, but to my mind he's a chap who might settle down real happy here. Queer how it is with people, you know. A string of real red-lips girls he's had over the years, none of them for more than a few months. Then he marries a sweet little soul like Bella. And I bet you another thing: it would be the same if he settled down to take his place as guv'nor here. I bet working on the land he'd
find
himself, if you get my meaning, 'cos I'm damned that he has in that factory place.'

Nothing he'd said had needed an answer from Louisa, but she'd nodded occasionally to let him know she was listening. It seemed he might continue for the rest of the afternoon if she didn't stop him, so she said, ‘I've not met Leo, but Bella told me he would rather be using the implements than designing them. I must go; I've a lot of sorting out to do. I'm sorry Mr Carter isn't here, but when he's had a break I expect he'll be back. I've enjoyed our talk, Mr—?'

‘Mr Nothing. I'm Ted Johnson. Just Ted.'

She held out her hand as she said, ‘And I'm Louisa Harding. Do you know, after working where everyone was mister or miss, I like the thought of Christian names.'

Before he took the hand she offered him he wiped his own on his trousers, although it was doubtful if it was any the cleaner for it.

‘If there are any little jobs you're stuck for or anything you want moved in the house, give me a shout. Either young Geoff – he's taken the truck to collect a bit we wanted for the 'tato digger – yes, either Geoff or me'll slip down and see to things for you.'

Louisa realized as she walked back down the lane that she had come to find Harold because despite her eagerness for the future she had needed a friend to talk to. She felt she had found one in Ted Johnson, and imagined the rest of the village would be as welcoming.

It didn't take long for her to realize her mistake. But despite the way she knew she was being stared at with unsmiling interest, her bubble of optimism didn't burst. Had she had more time to dwell on the villagers' unfriendly curiosity she might have been cast down, but time was one thing she couldn't afford. During her first week she changed the position of the furniture, ordered another wardrobe for one of the spare bedrooms and hung her clothes away in it, for those inherited from Violet filled the rails already there. When she walked to the grocer's, wearing a dress which she might have chosen for herself but had been her aunt's, purchased the previous summer, she was aware of the head-turning of three women who stood talking as she approached. As she passed, one of them said in a loud whisper obviously intended to be heard, ‘Thought it was a ghost,' to which another replied in the same vein, ‘
Her
trouble was that she was frightened to let herself be her age, frightened of losing her fancy man.'

Louisa gave no sign of hearing, let alone understanding the comments, as with her head high and shoulders straight she walked on along the road.

I don't care, she told herself. I wouldn't have anything in common with a lot of village gossipers. Anyway, what business is it of theirs what Aunt Violet did? Just think of Harold Carter, he loved her – and he knew her, which is more than people like that ever did. Even so, the comments had made their mark and taken away some of her joy in the freedom of the summer morning.

But the village was only one part of Louisa's life through the next weeks. She typed out an article which she took to the offices of the
Weekly Western Gazette
announcing that she had moved into the area and intended to work on a freelance basis. She knew it was a forlorn hope that they would find the space but her idea was that if it could be printed on the same page as her advertisement saying where she could be contacted it might bring her first clients. Fate was with her. There may have been other female accountants in town, but none of them were setting up in business for themselves and the idea appealed to the editor. The upshot was that at the end of the week when the paper was published it carried her article and, at the editor's suggestion, a photograph of her. Local businesses didn't keep her telephone ringing, but by the week following the publication of the paper she was contacted by the owner of a pharmacy wanting her to audit his books; whether it was her photograph or her qualifications that had made him decide to entrust his work to a woman could only be guessed at. Her new life was evolving on the lines she intended.

She had realized that transport would be essential and during her final three months in Reading she had taken driving lessons and had passed her test just before she moved. So one of the first things she had to do was have the ownership of Violet's one-year-old car transferred to her name. With some pride she arranged insurance and then she was free to take the vehicle on the road alone. She was probably as nervous as any new driver would have been, but Louisa had learnt long ago not to show her feelings so, walking with confidence she was far from feeling, she opened the double gates leading on to the track to the farm, then, praying she would do everything right and thankful that the car started straight away, reversed out and set off to explore the surrounding country. A stop at a garage to have the tank filled, then two hours driving to nowhere in particular and she returned home with new confidence.

That dingy office in Reading might have been on another planet. Miss Louisa Harding had the world at her fingertips.

In the first month she had one or two enquiries from the advertisement in the weekly paper. She drove into Gloucester in answer to one, and to a nearby village to respond to another. In each case she was given the work and by the end of August the little room she had earmarked as an office had come into its own. Louisa realized it would be some time before she earned as much as she had when she'd been employed in a busy accountancy firm but, thanks to half-remembered Violet, she wasn't worried.

Letters continued to pass between Jess and her, Jess regaling her with descriptions of where she and Matt, her husband of some eighteen months, had been camping and the doings of her everyday life. In the past Louisa had always been aware of how dull her replies were. But all that had changed now, again thanks to Violet. She took photographs of each room in the house, one of the car, and even the garden, although what was intended to be lawn was no more than a rough patch of grass, dandelions and moss (which fortunately didn't show up in the photo). For five years now Jess had been in Australia, but they still felt as close as they had through the years of their childhood.

On an unusually hot day towards the end of August, Louisa was thinking about her friend as she knelt on her weedy would-be lawn digging out the dandelions. If the two of them had been doing the job together it would have turned a chore into fun. There was no logic in it, yet imagining the two of them together brought home to Louisa how alone she was. Jess was happily married; remembering all they had shared as they were growing up wouldn't give her the empty, lonely feeling that suddenly cast a cloud on Louisa's afternoon. Sitting back on her heels she gazed at the house, unable to push away images of Violet and Harold. They had known real, consuming love, love that had lasted more than thirty years and would never fade from that poor man's mind. What did it matter that the family had cast her out? What if the villagers had looked on her as a scarlet woman? Surely if you found someone who was a soul mate, someone who gave you love like theirs, what would anything or anyone else matter?