The Heart of the Country (17 page)

Sonia too knows what it is to love Natalie, to want to raise a spot of red on the porcelain cheek.

Bargains

In the meantime, Bernard has gone up to Arthur’s, there in the shadow of Gurney Castle where the cobbled streets meet the ancient castle walls, and all is grey, grey, grey, except for Arthur’s yellow waistcoat when he comes outside to arrange his wares. Bernard dresses in leather, and other mirk, as befits today’s dustbin young. It’s their elders who bounce about on lively polished toes in bright, soft wools and won’t be defeated. Bernard had brought with him the leather bucket recently appropriated by Flora; his purpose was to flog it to Arthur.

In order to enter the shop Bernard had to pass through Arthur’s outside wares – today including a rather pleasant but battered games table: a japan box with broken drawers and an over-varnished pig bench with a cracked basin and ewer upon it. Arthur would put such bargains out of doors, hoping to get rid of them quickly, before their sorry state finally defeated him, and he sent them off to the restorers, spending more on them than he was ever likely to get back.

A certain Sandra Radlett came out of the shop as Bernard went in. She was twenty-two or so, with a clear skin and wide-apart blank blue eyes: like a doll, Bernard thought. He wondered what she was on that had made her pupils enlarge. (The young notice things like this.) He supposed sex could do it. Arthur pecked Sandra Radlett on the cheek, patted her on the bottom and said:

‘Now don’t get serious. We’re in this for laughs.’ She tittered obligingly, nervous of Bernard, and left. Sandra worked in the bank, and took a late lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Jane no longer lived above the shop, of course, but Arthur was a man of habit.

Arthur did not seem pleased to see Bernard. He knew trouble when he saw it.

‘Why aren’t you up at Avon Farmers?’

‘I’m on nights.’

‘That’s promotion! Time and a half! Congratulations.’

‘It’s okay if you’ve got no principles,’ said Bernard, and Arthur thought he was joking, but Bernard was serious, and taller than Arthur, what’s more. ‘Trouble is, I have.’

‘Cheap food for the millions,’ said Arthur. ‘That’s what this country wants, that’s what this country gets. Down there at Avon Farmers you’re doing your bit for Britain.’ And he laughed.

But Bernard just went on staring, so Arthur stooped and took the leather bucket. ‘Funny old bucket,’ he said.

‘Georgian, I reckon,’ said Bernard.

‘George the Sixth, yes.’

‘Leather. Not many of these about.’

‘They’re all over the place,’ said Arthur. ‘Common as mud.’

‘Twenty quid to you,’ said Bernard.

‘You’re joking. Couldn’t raise a tenner on it. It’s been about. I’ve seen it somewhere.’

‘Couldn’t have,’ said Bernard. ‘Turned up on the dump. If you’re not interested, I’ll take it somewhere else.’

‘You’re going too fast,’ said Arthur. ‘That’s for when I say twelve and you come down to eighteen, and neither of us will say fifteen. You’re losing your cool. But you have an instinct. Tell you what, we’ll make it fifteen, and when you’re finished at Avon Farmers I’ll take you on as my assistant.’

‘Finished? Is there something you know I don’t know?’

‘All good things come to an end,’ said Arthur. ‘Even Avon Farmers.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Bernard. ‘Nerve poison?’

Arthur sighed pointedly and handed over three five-pound notes for the bucket and Bernard said:

‘And another eighteen. That’s what Mrs Harris owes Flora and never paid.’

‘Why should I pay Natalie Harris’ debts?’ Arthur was afraid of the answer but couldn’t help asking.

‘Because you bought her house for sixty thousand and a couple of months on you’re selling at one hundred and twenty, and that’s sixty thousand clear profit and I reckon you can afford it.’

Arthur paid up.

‘I worry about you, boy,’ he said. ‘Good thing there’s no Mafia round here or you’d end up head first in a drainage dyke.’

Ah, the heart of the country!

Gratitude-Schmatitude

Natalie’s job. She shouldn’t have taken it and I told her so. She had no social conscience at all – or else she was just naive. Up at the quarry they were lowering the going rate every month. Now it was down to just two pounds a week more than the basic benefit and women like Natalie still turned up to take it, beaming their gratitude.

‘It’s better than being on the dole,’ said Natalie to Sonia.

‘No it isn’t,’ I said. ‘Did he mention Family Income Supplement?’

‘Yes.’

I explained and explained that FIS was a hidden supplement for employers, but she couldn’t seem to grasp it. Somewhere inside herself she was still on the employers’ side. A good night’s sleep or so and some help with the children and a suitor to reject, and she bounced right back and looked and acted as if she belonged to the haves and not the have-nots. FIS, I explained, was for nuclear families, the inept but good, not the abandoned mothers, the sloppy and bad. I asked her who was going to look after the kids – me? And she said she’d manage, and I said she meant I would. I asked her how she was going to get to work each morning. I asked her where she was going to live because it certainly wasn’t going to be with me, because people were saying she and I were lesbians and although I for one didn’t have anything against lesbians, I didn’t want Stephen to turn up and take away the children because of my immoral life.

I got a spot of pink on her cheeks all right. I got her waving her arms around, bright pink and shouting stop it, stop it, stop it. I put my arms round her because I was sorry I’d done it and she pushed me away, saying:

‘Don’t
do
that,’ and I hated her. This love business doesn’t flow the same way round all the time
.
The energy flows the other way and you hate.

There’s a lot of energy floating around here. It pours out of the Tor, on just a few days every year – you can feel it
.
Even though the sun’s rising in the east and the Tor’s in the west it still manages to cast some kind of shadow over you. On those days I’d keep the kids off school and we’d all go off to Weston or somewhere for the day. You can hardly swim, it’s not the South of France, but you can watch the rip tides, and look up the numbers drowned that year. That day I didn’t have the fare to Weston – they’d put the fares up again.
I just had to stay home and face myself and by and meet the energy from the Tor. The house is bang on a leyline. Not good. It’s better to be just off it. Open the front door and the back, on some days, and you can practically see, feel, touch the Powers walking through it, pacing on their march from here to there, balancing the Universe. Nonsense, but true. Or as they say of the cream cakes – naughty but nice. On other days, open both doors and all you get is a draught and a flurry of waste paper.

While Natalie was screaming her head off in my house and thinking perhaps Angus was a better bargain than sharing with a lesbian lunatic, Bernard had gone back up to Flora with a bottle of champagne. I’m glad her life then wasn’t all bad. I say that, but actually think champagne’s acidy stuff and not a patch on a good claret. My father (allegedly) drank himself to death on good claret. Bernard was talking, as men will, about the moral dilemma he found himself in and Flora, as women will, was suggesting he just got on with the job in hand and stopped yacketing and boring her to death.

‘They wouldn’t be allowed to sell it if it wasn’t safe,’ she said.

‘They aren’t allowed to sell it. They just do. Preferably by night, because then the customers think they’re getting a bargain.’

‘It’s just business,’ said Flora. ‘Private enterprise.’

‘I suppose it’s regular employment,’ he said. It was an attempt to cheer himself up, but it didn’t.

‘Just be careful,’ she said, ‘not to get any of it on you.’

She put down her glass and wandered over to her little patch of cultivated garden, where a bumblebee hummed amongst some rather exotic triple tulips. She’d brought the bulbs home from Dunbarton in the brief interregnum between Natalie and Jane. The limey soil at the base of the quarry seemed to suit them, or was it just having their freedom, for now they were out of their plastic pots and into the wild windy spaces, and they were doing very nicely indeed.

Bernard began to laugh.

‘Now what?’ she asked. It was getting dark. The bumblebee buzzed off home.

‘I sold old man Arthur his own blinking bucket back,’ said Bernard.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said, and she shivered. ‘You’re too clever by half. It’s unlucky, that kind of thing. Something always comes back and hits you in the face.’

‘You’re soft,’ he said. ‘Daft.’

Arthur took the bucket home to Jane. He thought she’d like it. He’d sold her Victorian-over-Georgian silver teapot the week before and she’d wept. It was a hideous ornate thing but obviously exactly what one particular buyer from Maryland, over on a visit, would pay well over the odds for. Such an opportunity was not likely to come Arthur’s way again for some time.

‘But it looked so nice on the mantelpiece,’ she moaned.

‘It looked terrible,’ he said. ‘And you know it’s stock; only borrowed for the house.’

‘Everything’s stock,’ she said. ‘Everything I like at any rate. You do it on purpose. I expect you think in your heart I’m stock too, and you’d sell me given half a chance.’

He would, too, he thought, but he knew better than to say so. What’s more, you could find a buyer for almost anything in this world, if you just waited. There is almost nothing nobody wants. People would buy half an old shoelace, if they thought it was a bargain, and use it to tie a rose tree to a stake. A lot of people would think Jane a bargain, and he knew it. Loyal and true and concerned.

‘Jane,’ said Arthur, producing the bucket, ‘I thought you might like this. Georgian. Lovely piece of leather work.’

Jane laughed and laughed. Arthur wriggled.

‘You’ve been had!’ she said. ‘Someone’s finally sold you back your own property and you’ve been too greedy to notice. How much did you pay for it?’

‘Practically nothing,’ said Arthur, but he was lying, as we know. As it happened, he
had
paid well over the odds, being partly afraid, partly admiring of Bernard. The swagger of mirky leather jackets, the gleam of buckles and zips, strike awe and envy into the soft bright elderly. That’s why it’s done.

Arthur didn’t stay in that evening. He said he had to stocktake, and young Sandra Radlett came round to the shop after the bank closed and Jane wept alone amongst her parquet floors. Wives shouldn’t gloat and be nasty, especially when their husband’s professional pride is at stake.

Angus, passing Arthur’s shop that night, saw a light on and knocked. Arthur peered out from the back and, seeing Angus, came out and let him in. Sandra Radlett had just left. She had to be home before her husband. Angus caught a glimpse of narrow skirt and neat legs as she departed. Sandra favoured navy blue, white, pearls and low-heeled shoes. But she had lots of long hair she wore up, the better for her husband (and Arthur, and others) to let down.

‘Stocktaking?’ asked Angus, full of envy.

‘What else!’ said Arthur, and both men laughed.

‘I’ve come about the low image of estate agents, developers and so forth,’ said Angus. ‘WAEADA’s got to do something.’

‘Oh-um,’ said Arthur. ‘What do you really mean?’

‘I mean,’ said Angus, ‘the Young Farmers are backing out of the carnival. They’re sulking about milk quotas.’

‘Quotas kill,’ said Arthur, ‘and all that.’

‘All that,’ said Angus. ‘So there’s a half-built float going cheap. WAEADA can take it over.’

‘Who’s got time to do it?’ asked Arthur. ‘Not me!’

‘You might find time,’ said Angus. ‘Cut down on the extra-curricular activities.’

Arthur owed Angus quite a big favour, what with the sale of Dunbarton, the king-size bed with its memories of Natalie, and so on.

‘I couldn’t do that, Angus!’ protested Arthur. ‘What do I know about carnival floats?’

‘Put the women onto it,’ said Angus. ‘Keep them out of trouble. Give Jane an occupation. Poor Jane!’ He smirked. Arthur writhed. What could he say?

‘Bill Radlett’s a member of WAEADA,’ added Angus. ‘Just joined.’

‘I’d no idea,’ said Arthur. ‘But his wife’s not. That’s the main thing! A carnival float! It’ll cost money,’ he added, hopefully.

‘Waley
and Rightly have a Carnival Fund,’ said Angus. ‘As from today. You won’t be out of pocket. You could put Natalie Harris in charge.’

‘Ah,’ said Arthur.

‘Get young Bernard to tow the float up to Avon Farmers,’ said Angus. ‘They can use the spare barn up there.’

‘Is that wise?’ Arthur worried about what was in the sacks. Bernard wasn’t the only one. Everyone has a conscience. Only the sum at which it cuts out differs.

‘Safe as houses,’ said Angus. ‘We’re switching to the orthodox stuff, anyway. Legit growth promoters, cut-price fertilizers, all that. Then we’ll phase out altogether. Someone wants the site for a Garden Centre, come the autumn.’

‘Thank God for that,’ said Arthur, whose land it was, leased to Angus, bought cheap on a lucky impulse some years back.

‘It’s Greenpeace here and Friends of the Earth there and who’s to say they’re not right?’

‘Agitators and alarmists,’ said Angus. ‘What do they know about agriculture? Now Hinkley Point! There’s something to really worry about. If something happens at Hinkley Point what happens to property prices round here?’

Hinkley Point is the local nuclear power station. Various incidents in the past have rendered a number of its concrete pipes twisted and crooked, but British Nuclear Fuels assures everyone this in itself is no kind of hazard and who is to say they are not right? Environmental groups disagree, but then this is in their natures. Local newspapers run the story bottom left on the second page if it happens to come up. But that was where Angus always looked for really significant stories. He wasn’t daft.

Submission

Natalie had finished work for the day. Her second week’s pay packet was in her pocket. The total was twenty-three pounds fifty-six pence, after National Insurance money and tax at the emergency rate had been deducted. She was walking home, since the one bus which passed the quarry gate came at eight minutes before the 6 o’clock siren went, and it was Natalie who was expected to push the button for the siren. It was raining. Natalie wore an old raincoat (two pounds seventy-five pence) and rain hat (seventy-five pence) and a pair of walking boots (one pound twenty-five pence) bought from Oxfam with Sonia’s help. The hat was inadequate and the rain made pasty runnels down her face, where quarry dust still lingered. There was no shower on site, and if there had been it would not have been available to females, in the interests of common decency. The job was terrible. Natalie’s task was to run here and there in the rain with cups of tea and messages, diving for shelter when the dynamite sirens went. Someone else was always there to push those – that was fun. When the sun came out others did the messenging and Natalie was put in the sweltering Portakabin to work the switchboard. Gnarled men clumped about disliking her, and younger, redder ones muttered about women taking the bread out of the mouths of family men. Nobody even whistled at her.