Уильям Николсон - Motherland

‘You asked me why I came here,’ Larry says. ‘I came out to India because the girl I was in love with went off with another man. It seemed to be the end of the world then. Now it seems of no importance at all.’

‘Why do you tell me that?’ she says.

‘I don’t know, really.’

‘It was the same for me,’ she says. ‘There was a man I loved very much. I thought we were going to be married. Then he told me he was going away. He never said why.’

‘He’s the loser,’ says Larry.

‘No,’ says Geraldine simply. ‘I was the loser.’

Tarkhan now wakes, and looks at the road, and then checks his watch.

‘We’ll be back in good time for dinner,’ he says.

Ed Avenell descends the flank of Edenfield Hill, steadily tramping down the sheep path that cuts a diagonal into the valley. The evening sun, low in the sky, casts deep shadows over the bowls and billows of the Downs. As he goes the lines of the song run in his head, round and round.

If I didn’t care

More than words can say

If I didn’t care

Would I feel this way?

Sometimes he walks the Downs for hours looking and not seeing, wanting only to stop caring, to stop feeling. There’s a state he can sometimes reach if he walks long and far enough that is very like intoxication, a state in which he loses all sense of himself. Rabbits scuttle into the gorse as he passes; sheep lumber away. He envies them their lives. You only have to look at a sheep to know it has no idea at all that it’s a sheep, or even that it has an existence. It does what it needs to do, eats, sleeps, flees from danger, tends its young, all from instinct. People talk of animals as being innocent, and incapable of sin. Even when they see a fox eat a rabbit alive, they say it’s obeying its nature. But animals aren’t innocent, they’re merely moral blanks. There’s no more evil in a fox than in an earthquake. And no more good, either. This is what Ed envies. They have sidestepped the judgement. They know nothing of the speeding car that will crush them on the road, or the slaughterhouse at the end of the country lane.

Not to care. Not to feel. That’s the trick. Then to return home as empty as a discarded wine bottle, and to see, beyond the opening door, her questioning eyes. How is he this time? Is he drunk or sober? Does he love me or does he not?

All it takes is a few simple words, but the words don’t come. What paralysis is it that has him in its grip? If she could hear the crying in his head she would be reassured, but also dismayed. I love you, I love you, I love you , constant as the west wind. And relentless as the wind from the east comes the other cry. All for nothing, all for nothing .

The path leads him down to America Cottage, which has been unlived-in for many years now. The way to the coach road runs between the cottage and the collection of barns beside it, where the tenant of Home Farm stores his hay. Ed is passing round the end of the long barn when he hears voices, and comes to a stop to listen. There are two voices, a man’s and a woman’s. From where he stands he can’t see into the barn, but the voices come clearly through the thin board walls.

The man’s voice says, ‘Baby wants cuddles.’

The woman’s voice says, ‘Bad baby wants spanky-spank.’

There follows a scuffling sound, mingled with gasping and laughter. Then the man’s voice says, ‘Bare botty! Bare botty! Spanky-spank!’ More scuffling and panting. Then the woman, ‘What’s Georgy got here? What’s this then? Where’s this come from?’

Ed is frozen to the spot, afraid of drawing attention to himself. If he walks on to the coach road he’ll pass the open front of the barn and they’ll see him. His only option is to retrace his steps as quietly as possible. Instead, he moves a little closer to the barn wall, where there’s a gap in the boards. He doesn’t mean to spy, and doesn’t think of himself as spying, but he is compelled by a powerful impulse to understand.

‘Baby wants cuddles,’ the man is saying, more urgently now.

‘Bad baby,’ says the woman. ‘Bad baby with his trousers down.’

Ed can see now, through the gap in the boards, through a fringe of hay, a large pink thigh, a rucked-up dress, a writhing half-undressed form beyond.

‘Baby wants cuddles,’ says the man, his voice choking.

‘Bad baby,’ says the woman, soothing, chanting, spreading her legs. ‘Bad baby.’

After this there are no more words, only the gasping sounds of the man and the creaking and scratching of the hay that is their bed. Ed moves quietly away.

He knows both of them. The man is George Holland, Lord Edenfield. The woman is Gwen Willis, who comes twice a week to the farmhouse to clean and do the ironing. Ed knows her as a simple kindly woman in her mid-forties.

He reaches the sunken coach road and moves out of sight behind its fringe of trees. Here for no reason he comes to a stop. There’s a fallen tree that offers its trunk as a bench, shaded by the canopy of the other trees. Ed sits himself down and waits.

What am I waiting for?

Not to shame poor George, that he’s sure of. And yet he is waiting for George. He wants to touch and be touched by that simple urgent delight that he spied on in the barn. He wants to know that it’s real. For all its absurdity, Ed senses that he has been a witness to a powerful force, one strong enough to override all convention, all good sense, and every instinct of self-preservation. George is riding the life force itself.

In time he hears voices again, then footsteps. Mrs Willis appears in the coach road, walking fast, alone. She throws him a startled look, and hurries past without a word. Some moments pass. Then George appears, strolling with an aimless air.

He too jumps when he sees Ed.

‘Oh!’ he says.

‘Hello, George,’ says Ed. ‘Lovely evening for a walk.’

‘Yes,’ says George, going bright red.

Ed gets up off his tree trunk and joins George, ambling slowly down the track.

‘Look, Ed,’ says George at last. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘You don’t need to say anything, old chap,’ says Ed. ‘Nor do I.’

‘Really?’

‘None of my business.’

This evidently gives George much-needed relief.

‘I appreciate that,’ he says.

They walk on. Ahead through the trees loom the roofs and pinnacles of Edenfield Place.

‘I say, Ed,’ says George.

‘Yes, George?’ says Ed.

‘It’s not the way it looks, you know.’

‘If you say so, George.’

‘Look, stop for a moment, will you?’

They stop. George peers earnestly at Ed through his glasses, then looks equally earnestly at the stones of the track.

‘This is nothing whatsoever to do with Louisa,’ he says.

‘I wouldn’t dream of saying a word,’ says Ed.

‘No, I mean it really is nothing to do with her. I love her dearly. George Holland will always be a good and faithful husband to her. Always.’

‘Right,’ says Ed.

‘But you see, there’s someone else. There’s Georgy.’

It’s clear from the earnestness with which he speaks that George needs him to understand what he’s confessing to him.

‘Georgy’s quite different. Georgy likes to play games. Georgy isn’t shy or afraid of making a fool of himself, not with his Doll. Georgy is happy, Ed.’

‘Right,’ says Ed.

‘Happier than I’ve ever been. And Georgy can do things I can’t do. There’s no real harm in that, is there? If Georgy can do it with Doll, then you never know. Maybe …’

‘Why not?’ says Ed.

‘I expect I seem a bit of a joke to you. I’m a bit of a joke to most people.’