The Japanese Girl (19 page)

It seems to me that a great many people have this ambition at some time in their lives, especially in years of tribulation. Their yeoman ancestry comes out; they want to own a few acres and see things grow.

Many no doubt give up after a while. But I was lucky enough to find one.

It was Philippa who suggested we should try the West Country. She'd a fancy for the milder side of England and had a few relatives scattered about who might help. I began in Wiltshire and worked my way zig-zag in a series of knight's moves farther and farther west, gathering disillusionment.

I'm no stickler for absolute cleanliness and order, but it depressed me to discover the squalor in which so many people live. Or perhaps it is only people who want to sell their houses who live that way. It also depressed me to discover the wickedness of estate agents. After a time one gets tired of being shown into the ‘ well-equipped' kitchen to find it dominated by an enormous stove installed about the year of Gladstone's wedding and smoking from every crack; then, coughing heartily and with eyes smarting, to be led through a broken glass door into the ‘conservatory' which in fact is a lean-to shed with a little stove of its own where all the real cooking is done and ventilation is by way of a sloping tin funnel. No more desirable is the ‘ desirable residence' which turns out to be a paper-thin bungalow divided from the cowsheds by an hour-glass pool of liquid manure, while the sacks of chicken meal are piled in the lavatory and double carpeting in the hall fails to hide the dry rot.

And these, mind you, properties for which large sums of hard-earned money are asked, sums requiring sober visits to grey-faced bank managers, and swearing one's life away, and the long yoke of mortgaging. When I reached Cornwall I was nearly giving up, because there was no farther to go unless one jumped into the sea.

And then a word over a glass of beer in a local pub sent me across country to the south coast looking for a farm called Pencarrion.

I found it, empty and for sale.

This wasn't the sort of place I'd been looking for either. The farmhouse was really an old Elizabethan house come down in the world. In parts ‘ come down' were the operative words. One room had a sycamore growing out of the roof. And there was no market town near. But it had 40 acres of pasture and 9 of woodland, some fruit trees in the ruins of a walled garden and a short drive bordered with blue hydrangeas. In the skirts of the woodland was the chimney of an old tin-mine. The place had been empty about a year, but a neighbouring farmer had used the land, so it came near to being in the ‘good heart' that one reads so much about in the advertisements.

The price was not unreasonable for these days, I mean not more than would have bought a country estate and a mansion twenty years ago. But it was a third less than most of the other ruins I had been inspecting, so I sent a soberly worded telegram to Philippa. When she came it took her exactly seven minutes to make up her mind, which was three minutes less than I had reckoned on. Only once, just before the contracts were exchanged, she said to the local solicitor who was acting for both parties:

‘I hope there's no snag that we don't know about – a plague of rats, for instance, or too much arsenic In the subsoil …'

It's quite unusual these days to see false teeth as regular as piano keys – they're going out at last – but he gave us a good view of his.

‘Nothing to our knowledge, madam. It was the big house of the district at one time, and the old men seldom made mistakes where they built their homes.'

Well, we moved in. There
was
nothing wrong, except what neglect and weather had done. It was probably the collapsed north end of the house that had scared away buyers, but in fact we solved that pretty quickly. Two bricklayers in a matter of weeks sealed off the end and we were left with half a house that was quite reasonably weatherproof and cosy. We took on two local men, one called Bray and one called Aukett, and we got down to the hard business of making a living.

At first the district was strange. There are parts of Cornwall which are still foreign to the Anglo-Saxon. It took time to get used to the antiquity of the house itself. I used to look round sometimes and speculate that the masons who had laid these stones had perhaps been doing so while Anne Boleyn was an up-and-coming young deb at the court of Henry. Men living then might have remembered Bosworth Field. It was difficult to realize. I would have liked to find out more about the Pencarrions who had first settled here and who for three centuries had been masters of the district, but Philippa said no.

‘Let's take it as it stands,' she said. ‘It has no memories for us. Why should we try to create them?'

Sound enough advice, probably. But as it happened it was she who made the first real discovery about the people who had lived here.

No one had touched the apple trees in the semi-walled garden for about five years, and before the leaves had fallen I was at them with saw and pruning knife and creosote, not because I believed this occupation would ease our financial stress but for pure love of aesthetic form. Nothing looks worse than an apple tree gone to overgrowth, nothing better than one pruned back to its fruiting spurs.

It was while I was at this scarecrow occupation, balanced in a ridiculous posture fifteen feet in the air while sawdust blew in my eyes and the branches whipped and jabbed, that I saw right across the farmyard to where Philippa was in earnest conversation with Aukett. The conversation roused my curiosity because it went on so long.

Over supper that night I asked her about it. She seemed to want to put me off, and then when I wouldn't be, she said:

‘What was the name of the last owner here?'

‘Tredinnick.'

‘And before that?'

‘Boduel, I think.'

‘That's it. Boduel. Aukett was telling me about Boduel. He went raving mad.'

I said: ‘He must have banged his head once too often on that lavatory door.'

‘No, seriously. This was about seven years ago. They'd only been living here about 2 years at the time. Boduel was a Cornishman, Aukett says, who'd made a lot of money in London and came to retire here. He came down with his wife from London, and they brought a couple of servants with them.' Philippa looked round the room. ‘It was Boduel who renovated the place.'

‘He did
what
?'

‘Well, apparently he did quite a lot. It was even more of a ruin when he bought it. You were saying to me yesterday that
somebody'd
spent money on it before us …'

‘Yes, I know … It's certainly been patched up.'

‘Apparently Boduel came down here and bought this house mainly to please his wife – and then about eighteen months after they got settled in she left him. She just took a suitcase and some personal jewellery with her. Aukett says the village were pretty sure she'd run away with another man – a poet who'd been living round here – but Boduel wouldn't give anything away. He took it very hard and put it out that she was expected back at any time. But she never came, and after a bit he began to speculate on the Stock Exchange and lost his money. So one night he tried to hang himself. He tried to hang himself in our bedroom, Aukett says.'

‘A bit of local colour. These old chaps are great on the personal touch.'

‘Anyway, he was cut down in time, but afterwards he was examined by doctors and certified insane. After he was taken away the Tredinnicks got the place for a song; but they were all great drinkers and let the house go completely to pot.'

That ended the conversation, and we began to look through a tractor catalogue. But when we went up to bed that night she said:

‘I wonder which beam he used.'

Philippa isn't in the least a neurotic girl, and the Boduel story dropped between us like a stone and left no apparent trace. Anyway there was too much to do. When you take over a place that's been neglected, the pressure builds up to do everything at once. The land had to take precedence because while you can board up a window or knock in a few extra slates at any time, nature's like a damned obstinate old man who won't be hurried. If you miss one season you've got to wait twelve months until the chance comes round again. I sighed for thirty men and three bulldozers.

So we were too busy to think about anything else. All the same I'm glad she was away in December when the rest happened.

Aukett and Bray and the woman who did for us lived in the hamlet of Pencarrion at the foot of the hill, so while Philippa was visiting her mother I slept in the house alone, and rather liked it. I always like being in a house alone. I think one somehow gets to know it better, and I wasn't troubled by a fear of meeting ten generations of dead Pencarrions on the stairs, or even waking one morning and hearing the creak of a rope.

But I did wake and hear something one morning nevertheless.

It was the fifth night I'd been alone, and for the two previous days a gale had been striding across the land, birch-brooming the hills and the valleys with angry rain. For two days chimneys had boomed, windows had rattled, everything that could bang had banged, everything that could leak had leaked, cobbles oozed liquid mud, mats wriggled like snakes, and there had been no peace in the world.

Usually I wake about six-thirty, and when I woke this morning I knew we had been left behind at last by the storm. It was very quiet, a quiet such as one only gets in the country, and in the winter when the birds are still. Although the room was dark, you could see the pale oblongs of the windows with their pear-shaped architraves. If allowed, Pencarrion was very free from creaks and other noises. The early Tudors knew how to build.

And, just as I was thinking that, I heard a very distinct creak in one corner of the room. It was in the alcove beyond the windows and therefore in the greatest darkness. In this alcove was an easy chair and a table with some books.

The creaking stopped, but I lay there listening for some time, not quite so sure of myself as usual. It's surprising how quickly confidence ebbs away when the untoward seems about to happen.

Well, dawn was breaking and the light began to grow. It was infinitely silent. My breathing grew longer again. There would be a lot of work to do today, making up two days of lost time. Philippa was returning tomorrow and would be bringing …

Just for final reassurance I pulled the bedclothes quietly down so that I could stare into the corner. It was still shadowy there, but now something was coming into view.

The first thing I was certain of was a hand with a gold signet ring. Then the light seemed to catch on a shoe. Farther back and higher up you could just see a faint oval blur.

When I had swallowed back about a pound of gut, I sat up in bed with a jerk.

‘
Who's there
?'

No reply. In the distance now a faint wind moved like an echo of yesterday.

‘Who's there? What the hell d'you mean coming into my room?'

A man's voice said: ‘ I might ask you the same question.'

In spite of what my eyes could see, the fact that somebody actually answered shocked me still further.

I was sitting stark upright in bed now. I couldn't move any farther. My muscles were in a sort of cramp.

‘But then,' the voice said, ‘ I suppose you're the present owner.'

It was going to be a bright morning, and light was coming quickly. The man sat with his legs crossed. In his right hand he was holding something below the level of the table.

‘What d'you want?' I croaked, and stopped. My throat was constricted as if someone were holding it.

He said: ‘As a matter of fact I'd forgotten all about anyone else being here. But we won't dispute the ownership. My name's Frank Boduel. Does that mean anything to you? Ah, I see it does.'

He was about fifty-five, bald, with intent watchful eyes, and a few days unshaven. His clothes were curiously old-fashioned without conforming to a period. His loose tie was not unlike a stock. His buckle shoes were either a hundred years old or in the height of fashion.

He said: ‘I bought this house once but never really had a chance of enjoying it. Last night when – when I was able to free myself I came back. Can you blame me?'

The shock wave was at last receding and leaving the hard pebbles of anger behind. I made a move to get out of bed, and for the first time he stirred. He lifted his right hand. In it was a butcher's knife.

‘Since I've been certified insane by all sorts of doctors I must claim the advantages of the complaint. Lie down.'

I lay down. I needed the rest. It wasn't a nice position. No one would be coming to the house yet.

He said: ‘You seem to have made a thorough mess of the garden. What
did
you do with the ash tree?'

After he had repeated the question, I realized he required an answer. ‘I cut it down.'

‘I
planted
that. Good God, you vandals from up country don't realize how hard it is to grow trees in this country with the winds that blow. And that depressed-looking little hedge. Whatever is it?'

‘Which hedge?'

‘The one by the gate.'

‘Pittasporum.'

He grunted. ‘ You'll not rear it. All this salt in the air.'

There was silence.

‘I won't try to persuade you I'm not insane,' he said, and gave a brief dry laugh. ‘The word means nothing anyway. One is persecuted for taking an unpopular view, that's all. So were the saints.'

I said: ‘ Why were you persecuted?' If he would go on talking long enough Aukett would come.

‘Ah, you must know all the ordinary details. I'm sure I'm still talked of in the district.'

‘I've been here only a few months. I don't go to the village.'

‘Are you married?'

‘Yes. But my wife's away.'

He smiled slightly and put down the knife. ‘Are you sure she'll return?'