Northern Spirit (7 page)

When they were still at school, other children used to tease him about
his red hair. And Tony had reasoned that when you have a so-called defect it
was best to laugh about it, so he became a joker. And he believed Linzi hated
him for that, so how could he expect her to like him when he really didn’t like
himself? Tony knew David would never ask him along unless he put the thought
there himself. He doubted Linzi would want him there anyway. She would be tired
from travelling and in one of her moods perhaps. He decided he’d better wait
until later to see her and let David take all the sulking. He could handle it.
He was used to it. Maybe, he wouldn’t even notice.

In complete resignation, Tony slouched down in his chair, grabbed his
knife and ate the last sausage.

And so it was to be: David left Keld Head alone to meet his sister.

*       
*        *

David was glad to be away from the farm, as he sped up the familiar
Raise to Keswick. He looked across to Helvellyn and could see the summit
wrapped in a blanket of snow, which hadn’t yet caused any lasting effects to
the lower fells. He felt pleased with himself now. He had solved his problem
with Tony. His mother seemed to be happy. Linzi would be home for the weekend.
Yes, things looked much brighter. David put his foot down hard on the
accelerator, and the car responded as he enjoyed the feel of the Rover’s
powerful engine surging on up the open road.

As he approached Keswick, it started to rain.

*       
*        *

Linzi Keldas sat upstairs on the bus and was glad to be away. But for
her it was the tedium of college life. She was anxious at the thought of seeing
her family again, wondering what the atmosphere would be like at home without
her father’s dominant presence. She looked out through the dirty windows on the
bus, as the landscape became familiar. The rain started to fall as she
approached Keswick. That was hardly a surprise.

The bus pulled into the station and Linzi saw David sitting in the car
waiting for her and she was pleased he was alone.

The rain fell heavier as she ran from the bus to the waiting car,
clumsily hauling some carrier bags and luggage with her. She jumped into the
car and flung her arms around David’s neck, wetting his face with hers. They
started to drive away, when David hesitated. He saw a young woman watching them
from the confines of a bus shelter. The car lunged forward again as he put his
foot down on the accelerator and drove on.

‘Who was that?’ Linzi asked.

David wanted to stay quiet but she persisted. ‘Who is it Davey?’

‘Oh . . . she’s Barry’s new student,’ he said at last, his voice husky.

‘Shouldn’t we pick her up then? She’ll be waiting for the 555.’ Linzi
looked back over her shoulder to get a better look at the girl.

‘It’s too late now. I’m not going back.’ But it wasn’t too late at all.

*       
*        *

Hannah Robson had been watching David and hoped he hadn’t seen her. She
leant back behind the bus shelter and peered out. She had watched him rest back
in his seat and read the paper, and wondered who he was waiting for. She was
surprised to see this dark and attractive young woman rush off the bus and be
so enamoured with him. She felt embarrassed when she realised he had spotted
her, and now David’s manner had done nothing to change her opinion of him,
leaving her standing in the cold and damp. She was pleased he didn’t stop.

*       
*        *

‘Davey, your hair’s a mess. You look like a thug,’ Linzi teased, half
looking at him, and half arranging some carrier bags at her feet.

‘Now when do I ever get time to go and get it cut?’

‘Then I’ll do it for you this weekend.’

‘No you won’t . . . ! I’ll get it cut next week sometime.’

‘Well, see you do.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like Mum,’ David said as he tried to
concentrate on the volume of traffic.

‘Huh. . . . She doesn’t say enough to you. She’s always quick to find
fault and criticise me. She never questions you!’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ David replied knowing well that his mother was
always interfering with his life; pushing him into things he didn’t
particularly want to do.

‘Anyway, how is she?’

‘Bearing up well I suppose.’ David had to shout a little now as the
noise of the wiper blades and the speed of the roaring engine muffled their
voices. ‘In fact, too well, if that’s possible. I think she’s switched off.
It’s as if nothing’s ever happened. I can’t understand her.’ David felt himself
becoming agitated again at his mother’s indifference.

‘Maybe it’s just self-preservation.’

‘Aye, maybe,’ David softly replied then said, ‘You should have come to
the funeral, Linzi.’ He had to say it; he hoped Linzi hadn’t heard him, but she
had.

‘Don’t start preaching to me, David! You know I couldn’t face it.’

‘Who am I to preach?’ he sighed. ‘I had enough preaching from the
vicar. His eyes never left mine during the whole of the service. It was like he
was only talking to me, and to no one else.’ David gripped the steering wheel a
little harder.

‘Oh, you’re just beginning to sound paranoid like Dad. Or maybe it’s a
guilty conscience!’

‘What do you mean? What happened wasn’t my fault, Linzi!’

‘Calm down . . . I was only teasing.’ She now wanted to cry.

‘Well, that’s not a bit funny, and you know it.’

They didn’t speak for some time and, as curtains of rain fell steadily,
sweeping across them in drifts, they continued their journey south. The
mountaintops became invisible and again shrouded in mist. Linzi leant back,
shut her eyes, and attempted to restore her breathing so she didn’t burst into
tears. She tried to picture where exactly she was on the route, wondering if
they had passed the Castle Rock yet, or were they anywhere near Thirlmere.

It was David who broke the silence with a gesture of peace. ‘Shall we
all go out tonight?’

‘Who do you mean by all?’ Linzi was reticent.

‘Well, us two . . . Darren Watson, Tony and maybe Joanne.’

‘Only if Jo’s coming. I was hoping to see her this weekend. Is she
still working at the nursery?’

David found it hard to talk about Joanne, and now a guilty conscience
did begin to creep in, but not the one that Linzi had intended. This one he
guessed she knew nothing of, and so he pretended not to hear.

Linzi also stayed quiet. She’d guessed for some time that Joanne loved
David, but had kept this idea to herself. She knew David would never understand
women’s intuition. It was a strange thing but she believed it to be true. She
thought that she was certainly more intuitive than David, and that wouldn’t be
difficult. David appeared to her to go through life with his head in the
clouds. He would never assume anything. Maybe she was just more observant than
him and she had seen the signs many times. Like she also knew that Tony Milton
liked her, but he had never dared to tell her.

David drove up the hill and into the farmyard. Once again, and much to
Linzi’s surprise, the yard gate was wide open. Tom and Sarah were playing in
the old tower and ignoring the rain, ran out to meet her, asking countless
questions but never giving her time to reply.

*       
*        *

Later that afternoon as he had promised, David tried to ring Tony to
arrange the evening out. He was taken aback when Joanne answered the phone.
This he hadn’t considered. Too slow to think this might have happened, and not
even considering this young woman’s feelings, he blindly continued on his
course of destruction and invited her and her brother out for a drink.

The intuition of a man certainly failed in David’s case. The basic
instincts were there: the need for love, the hunger, the thirst, satisfaction
of a hard day’s work and a good night’s sleep. David was an elementary man and
in many ways lacked very little. He was a man of his time. He went along with
the changes in morality that had started to spread from the 60’s, neither
knowing if they were good or bad. But as for the understanding of women, well,
that was not only something he hadn’t yet considered, he was to learn it would
be completely beyond him; way out of his grasp.

Joanne was elated to hear David’s voice. She didn’t note that the
hesitation in his voice was any different from his usual indecisive manner.

So what does a young woman do at four o’clock in the afternoon when the
man she loves has just invited her out? She spends the next three hours
day-dreaming. She spends ages in the bath, then in front of the mirror, then
rummaging in the wardrobe, and finally trying to get in the right mood. She
listens to some of her favourite music. She listens to some of David’s
favourite music. She pulls out her box of cherished photographs. She looks
through all her keepsakes and reads her diary, and writes in it a further
inscription. She irritates her family by becoming preoccupied and not eating.
The hours in the pub with her friends will be enjoyed, but that isn’t the time
she’s waiting for. Yes, she will look at David, delighted to be in his company.
She will watch him laugh. She’ll listen as Tony pulls him down, and David not
always understanding, or even if he does understand hardly ever retaliating.
She will watch him lean back in his chair stretching his legs in front of him.
Then she will watch him throw his body forward when he wants to speak, but that
would be seldom. He would sit and absorb the insults, and rest his beer glass
in his usual manner on his folded arm.

She will understand nothing could be done in gesture by him to show the
others how he feels about her. That would have to remain their secret. But poor
Joanne wasn’t aware of the conversation that had occurred between David and her
brother. She had been misled and was an innocent victim; not realising that
soon her expectations would be erased.

*       
*        *

By eight thirty, the young friends were all installed in the pub. Linzi
talked mostly of college in Newcastle and the boredom of her Business Studies
and the peculiarities of the Geordie folk with their strange and
incomprehensible accent.

David remembered Hannah Robson again and thought how likeable her
accent was.

Joanne watched the clock and wished time would hurry. She could hardly
bear to wait until closing time. She would walk back up the hill much as they
had done the night before and then she would wait for the others to leave, and
then sit on the wall once again with David. She would hold him and kiss him.
She would encourage him and tell him how much she really loved him.

But Tony had other ideas. He had no delusions of romance for himself,
and understood that he must see David and his sister separated. He must
preserve his friendship and protect Joanne from becoming prey to David’s needs
again. And by eleven-thirty, he had succeeded. Joanne lay crying in her bedroom
and Linzi and David were sitting in the farmhouse kitchen talking with their
mother about old times, unaware of the gloom that shrouded the bungalow down
the lane.

*       
*        *

Joanne Milton rolled off her bed, and grunted back the liquid from the
tears she’d shed. She fumbled on top of the wardrobe and pulled down a black
and chrome camera. It was her father’s old one. She dragged open a drawer in
her dressing table, and rummaging through it, untidying underwear, tights, and
packets of tampons. She found a small box full of paperclips and clutter, and
pulled out a new roll of film.

‘Yes . . . yes,’ she whispered.

4

THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN

Linzi heard from her bedroom the sound of the milking machine engine
stop; it was a noise she’d lived with all her life. It was reassuring for her
to know David was up and working. She’d resisted getting up any sooner before
he came in for breakfast, because she didn’t want to be alone with her mother
and risk having a confrontation. David had always been the peacemaker when
there had been any trouble between their mother and father; Linzi had depended
on him then and she depended on him now.

She had skilfully managed to distance herself from the problems of her
family and in some ways this had been a blessing, and being away at college
sheltered her. She dearly loved her father because he dearly loved her. But
there were many things she didn’t know about him and many things she refused to
believe.

Linzi knew their father spoilt her and Sarah but she didn’t realise the
magnitude of it; she just soaked up the adoration. And like Tom, Linzi couldn’t
understand why her father hated David. How could anyone hate David? And yet,
she believed that people with no apparent imperfection could be infuriating at
times. She was certain that David was no angel, yet he surely didn’t deserve
all his father’s contempt; she should have taken a share of it.

If only her father had known what she got up to in Newcastle, far away
from his restraint. And yet, she guessed his cavalier nature had brushed off on
her more than it had David. And that perhaps her father hated David because he
was too cautious, too indecisive and, as she had heard him once say, too meek.
She therefore assumed that David should hate her. She would certainly despise
him and be deeply jealous if things were the other way around. But somehow
David wasn’t; he was as noble and faithful to her as a brother possibly could
be.

She didn’t know if David ever sat and worked things out like she did.
But perhaps he never even noticed the lack of love, and that would be as well.
Or maybe it was worse; maybe he didn’t even care.

*       
*        *

David wandered in for his breakfast humming some song he’d probably
just heard on the radio. He slid off his wellingtons and pulled loose pieces of
hay and straw from his socks and went to the wash basin to scrub his hands,
satisfied with a steady morning’s work. He enjoyed his breakfast and was sat
reading the paper, when Linzi, came downstairs still dressed in her nightie,
her black hair falling untidily and unbrushed about her face. She sat down on
the sofa next to David, curling her slim legs beneath her, and snuggled closer
to him. All was peaceful, all was quiet, and then, carelessly, Kathy changed
the feel of the whole day.