Rachel Cusk - The Country Life

‘A man?’

I nodded.

‘Well, what sort of man?’ said Pamela finally. She appeared exasperated. ‘Didn’t you ask who he was?’

‘I don’t see that I had the right to ask,’ I said. ‘It was a public footpath, as I said.’ This was not, I suddenly remembered, strictly true — the man had approached me right over the field. ‘He pointed out,’ I continued, mounting a new offensive, ‘that a step had broken on the ladder over the fence. I had been about to stand on it and he wanted to prevent me hurting myself. That was all.’

‘What did he look like?’ persisted Pamela. I should probably have noticed that her interest in him was unnatural; but the fact that I myself wanted to know who he was gave Pamela’s curiosity the illusion of being merely an extension of my own.

‘Very odd,’ I said. I couldn’t think how to describe him, so instead I placed both hands over my face so that they formed a sort of vertical roof. ‘Like that.’

‘Oh, that was Mr Trimmer,’ said Pamela quickly. She sounded relieved. After a moment she smiled. ‘I should watch out if I were you. He’s probably taken a fancy to you. He’s absolutely notorious. Of course, he’s terribly sweet, but simply desperate for a girlfriend. I shouldn’t think there’s a woman in a twenty-mile radius that hasn’t been asked out by Mr Trimmer.’

I was beginning to feel rather offended that Mr Trimmer hadn’t in fact asked me out, and then remembered that I’d run off before he’d had the chance. It irritated me, nonetheless, that Pamela was so keen to ridicule the notion of someone taking an interest in me. I realized that I had felt flattered by Mr Trimmer’s heroic run across the top field, which now had been diminished to public comedy.

‘I thought he was nice,’ I said. ‘He looks peculiar, but there must be plenty of people who don’t mind that.’

Martin’s head shot up disconcertingly at this remark.

‘Oh, he’s terribly nice,’ intervened Pamela. She did not, I sensed, wish to be thought unkind; although I had the feeling that this was for reasons more of vanity than conscience. ‘No, he’s an absolute darling. The problem is with his mother.’

‘His mother?’

‘Yes, he lives with his mother,’ said Pamela, in a confidential tone. ‘Mrs Trimmer. Dora. She’s a real old battleaxe. She’s got poor Jack utterly under her thumb and scares off anyone who comes near him. She thinks they’re after his money.’

‘Has he got any?’

‘Oh, not really. They live in this wonderful house, though. It’s an absolute pit inside, but it must be worth a fortune. Jack’s father left it to him when he died, and Dora’s worried that if he mames, his wife will boot her out. So she tells him the most dreadful things about everyone he meets — simply makes things up!’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Oh, you know, that they’ve all got horrible diseases, that sort of thing. She got into terrible trouble once’ — Pamela lowered her voice, as if someone might be eavesdropping — ‘for saying that a girl in the village was a convicted thief. Poor Jack had been quite taken by her, so he stuck his neck out and brought her round for tea anyway. Afterwards Dora said that some silver had gone missing from the house, so what did he do but go marching over there in the middle of the night to demand it back!’ Pamela shrieked with laughter. ‘There was the most terrible set-to with her father, right out in Hilltop High Street!’

Martin yawned conspicuously. I saw the moist, red cavern of his mouth.

‘He’s Mr Madden’s manager, isn’t he?’ I said, only then remembering why his name was familiar to me. The creature had mentioned him in connection with the shooting of Geoff.

‘That’s right. Piers adores him. Couldn’t do without him. And Dora has given us her seal of approval, so there’s no trouble from her. Old George Trimmer, her husband, worked here for years.’

There was a pause. The house ticked and creaked around us. Outside, through the window, shadows surreptitiously advanced across the lawn in the cooling afternoon.

‘Right!’ said Pamela briskly, standing up. I wondered if she was offended that she had not been implored to continue with her narrative. ‘I’d better get on. Can you two amuse yourselves until supper?’

‘I — yes,’ I said firmly. I had been about to say ‘I think so’, before remembering Pamela’s aversion to qualified statements. ‘What would you like to do?’ I said, to Martin.

‘Dunno,’ he ungraciously replied.

‘Well,’ said Pamela tersely. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll get on.’

I realized that, having achieved the first steep slope of novelty with regard to looking after Martin, I had slackened off slightly in the efforts I was making to fill his time. It is one of the difficulties of change that the work of one’s own accommodation with it can obscure any real assessment of success or failure; and of unhappiness that improvements or otherwise in spirit become the focus, and dictate the sense of outcome, of a day’s work. Suffering from both, I had neglected Martin in favour of tending myself; and I saw another ascent rise before me as I acknowledged within the triumph of my own survival the inadequacy of its accomplishments.

‘How about a walk?’ I said. I tried to sound enthusiastic, but my eyes still itched a little, and my throat was thick. ‘Or do you want to carry on with that?’

I was intensely aware of Pamela, who was now busying herself with her back to us at one of the kitchen counters. I could tell from the tense set of her shoulders that she was listening, and willed Martin to respond in an obliging fashion.

‘No, I’ve done enough,’ he said, his manner all at once remarkably pleasant. ‘Let’s go out while it’s still light.’

Once outside, Martin’s amiability persisted.

‘Are you feeling better?’ he enquired.

‘Yes, thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been allergic to anything before. I don’t know why it should have happened just then.’

‘Maybe you were allergic to Trimmer.’

‘As I said, I thought he was nice.’

It was now early evening, and as I pushed Martin along the gravel path at the side of the house, I was struck by how lovely the hot days were in retreat. The air was as thick and soft as the faded petals of the rose garden, and induced a feeling of wistful calm; a curiously alloyed sense of contentment, as if through the sudden stillness the noise of distant troubles could all at once be heard.

I had for some time been shamefully mindful of Toby’s supposed visit to the cottage; an intention so vague that I felt I would have to spread my net wide to catch it. Since my return from my walk, a worm of anxiety had been gradually working its way across my thoughts, as events had trespassed further and further into the swath of time with which I had hoped to surround the possibility; and now I began to search deviously for a means of luring Martin to the cottage garden so that I would be able to take up my vigil. I was not fully conscious of the development of this matter in my mind from the seed of suggestion to full-blown expectation; indeed, it was probably for this reason that it had been permitted to grow unchecked. Once or twice I had examined its deleterious progress and hacked it back, appalled; but as soon as I turned my thoughts to other things it would continue its subtle creep through my heart. I did not really like Toby; and if I had dug at the soil beneath these wild hopes I would probably have found the desire for them not to be fulfilled. His attraction was all in the moment, like the taste of something sweet on the tongue.

‘Where would you like to go?’ I said to Martin, pausing at the junction where the path to the cottage snaked away between the hedges. ‘We could go and sit in my garden if you like. It gets the sun in the evenings.’