Tessa Hadley - The Past

Mikey was emollient and affable, joking with the children, shaking hands and chatting with Sophy. Perhaps there was more of the estate agent in him than Jill had allowed for, when she had thought he might be shy. Flustered, she wanted to show off her children and at the same time regretted that he had to meet them, because when she was talking to him in his office she had felt weightless and carefree, as if she could go back to a bright, hard, selfish time when she had only herself to think about. And she worried uneasily that she might have put on the wrong clothes for looking around properties: she had made up her face and done her hair and sprayed on perfume as if Mikey had invited her for a date. Because the weather was warmer, she had left off her winter coat and was wearing a light anorak; when she climbed into the car passenger seat she pulled at her short skirt and smoothed it down as if she could make it longer. Every time Mikey changed gear — very competently and smoothly, not jabbing the gearstick in the way Tom did — she was aware of her thighs exposed so close beside his hand, as if she had meant to entice him: which perhaps she had, though now this didn’t seem such a good idea.

— I expect I seem an ancient old woman to you, she said. — Now that you’ve seen my great grown children, one of them in school already.

— They look like nice kids, Mikey said. — I never really know what to say when people want me to admire their children. It’s a whole world I don’t know about.

Jill said he was under no obligation to admire them; she didn’t point out that her question hadn’t really been about the children. They were driving in one of the winding lanes that led down into the valley, and then up out of it again on the other side; the lane was so narrow that the wet growth in the tall hedgerows brushed against the sides of the car and sappy sharp smells of spring blew in through the open windows. Late primroses were half-hidden at the foot of the mossy banks, purple foxgloves with their pale speckled throats soared up like flares, the hedges were fretted with herb robert and red campion. Dunnocks and yellowhammers broke out on the road ahead of them in little spurts of flight. If they met any vehicle coming the other way, then one driver or the other had to reverse until they reached a passing place: this kind of driving couldn’t sink away into a background awareness, Jill and Mikey were involved in it together, Jill craning back over her shoulder to advise him. They talked about her taking driving lessons, if she did move down here.

— I might be leaving my husband, so I need to learn to fend for myself, Jill said, while Mikey was involved in one particularly tricky manoeuvre, getting past a Roddings farm cart. Jill waved at one of the Smith boys driving the tractor, she wasn’t sure which. She thought that Mikey was startled by her announcement, crashing the gear change uncharacteristically, then annoyed with himself for bungling.

— I’m sorry to hear that, he said with formal politeness.

— Why should you be sorry? I’m not. I mean I am, of course, for the children and everything. But I’m not sorry to be leaving Tom. He’s not really cut out for family life, he’s made me quite unhappy.

— Then, why shouldn’t you have another chance?

— At happiness? Yes.

She had told him much more than she ought to; just because they had been children together, she mustn’t presume that Mikey was interested in her present life. He didn’t seem keen to talk about it, anyway, but got on fairly eagerly to the subject of the rentals they were going to visit, explaining things in his practised professional voice, pleasantly reassuring but not selling anything too hard. The first place they looked at was a cottage tucked into a curve in the lane, just before it met the road above: it was ghastly, poky and dark and done up with painted beams and fake bottle-glass window-panes and an inglenook fireplace — and in any case it was far too expensive. The existing tenant showed them round and Jill praised things in her most Oxford voice, eager to get away.

Then Mikey drove fast on to the next one — on the two-lane road which ran along the top of the valley and then left it behind. They hardly met any other cars. Last year’s withered leaves hung on in the sombre beech hedges either side of the road, where the the new leaves coming through were a rich bronze-green. In places the hedges had been newly laid: above the woody old masses at the tree roots, thick stems had been gashed across and bent down at right angles, trained to grow parallel to the road. The light flickered behind this tracery, punctuated at intervals by the sturdy grey trunks that had been left to grow straight up. The upland scenery had a sober grandeur, different to the intricacy and intimacy of the valley behind.

The second house they saw was empty and Jill liked it much better: an austere stone box set back from the road, two-up two-down, unfurnished. The empty square rooms, where light shifted on the limewashed walls, seemed hardly differentiated from outdoors — in fact there was ivy growing through one corner under the roof, which Jill didn’t mind. She had an excited idea that a life lived up here would be purged of everything unnecessary and distracting: in the evenings when the children were asleep she would be able to write something at last, go back to her Greek translations. She and Mikey stood together at an opened window upstairs, looking out past the woods and Forestry Commission plantations of pine, towards the bare tops of the moor, where the sunlight was falling mildly and sweetly, bringing out the colour of the heather. Jill said she thought she’d be happy in this house. There seemed some question about exactly what the rent was, but she might be able to afford it.

— It’s a long way from anywhere, Mikey warned her. — The weather’s not always as nice as this. You could get snowed up in the winter. What would you do to get around until you’d passed your driving test?

— I’m sure there must be a bus, Jill said gaily. — We could get bikes. I could put the baby on the back of mine.

She was staring out at that far-off sunlit patch of colour on top of the moor, and found herself longing to be transported there — as if it were a scene of Elysian pleasures, exempted from heaviness and difficulty. Gravely Mikey was considering her suggestion about the bikes. He said that some of the hills round here were pretty steep, for cycling. — Sorry to be such a wet blanket.

Jill drew her gaze away reluctantly. — You’re right. The bikes are an awful idea, we’d probably all be killed. Am I being a terrible nuisance? You’ve probably got things you ought to be doing in the office.

— Oh, don’t worry about me, he said, surprised. — I’m happy. I’d rather be outdoors on a day like this.

— Perhaps this house isn’t really practicable. You think I’m not serious about renting, don’t you? But I didn’t mean to waste your time. I’m at my wits’ end, I don’t know what else to do.

— That’s all right. There are other places to see. Nobody finds their ideal home first time. We’ll make a note of this one, I don’t think there’s been much interest in it, so there’s no great hurry. Not everyone’s keen on ivy growing through the roof. We could check which buses go past. Or you may turn out to be brilliant at driving, and pass your test first time, you never know.

— But I can’t afford the lessons, Jill said. — Or the car.

She turned from the window to face him ruefully, as if across these infinite complications, lifting her hands towards him, palms up in a fatalistic gesture, giving up the lost cause of herself, expressing the comedy of her predicament. Only as she turned toward him he was also turning and opening his hands out, perhaps to console her, and it was as if they combined in an intention that neither had actually intended. Their kiss — just the lightest, delighted hanging on to one another and brushing of lips, at first — was so unexpected that it floated free for a few moments from their real lives, as if it was hardly happening. It was all mixed up, in Jill’s sensations, with the tobacco-brown irresponsibility she had imagined on the moor. And because they had had no time to prepare for this kissing, it was surprisingly skilful and suave, not the usual clumsily deliberate thing. It wasn’t truly passionate or sexual either, to begin with: tender, like a kiss in a dream. They really were in the middle of nowhere. Afterwards they stepped apart in the strange room with its greenish light, and were quite confused and shy; Mikey apologised.