For a few exciting days I had seen myself at a new beginning, but by the time I was finally settled in the cottage all I could think was that I had reached an end.
It was a time for contemplation, for inwardness. Nothing was what I wanted, but all of it had been given to me.
2
The cottage lay in agricultural countryside, about two hundred yards down an unmade lane leading off the road between Weobley and Hereford. It was secluded and private, being surrounded by trees and hedges. The house itself was on two storeys, slate-roofed, whitewashed, mullion-windowed and stable-doored. It had about half an acre of garden, running down at the back to a clean-flowing brook. The previous owners had cultivated fruit and vegetables, but everything was now overgrown. There were small lawns behind and in front of the house, and several flowerbeds. By the brook was an orchard. The trees needed pruning, and all the plants and flowers would have to be cut back and weeded.
I felt possessive of the cottage from the moment I arrived. It was mine in every sense except legal ownership, and without meaning to I began to make plans for it. I imagined weekend parties, my friends driving down from London to enjoy good country food and rural peace, and I saw myself toughening up for the rigours of a less civilized existence. Perhaps I would get a dog, gum-boots, fishing equipment. I determined to learn country crafts: weaving, woodwork, pottery. As for the house, I would soon transform it into the sort of bucolic heaven most townsmen could only dream about.
There was much to be done. As Edwin had told me, the wiring was ancient and inefficient; only two power- sockets worked in the whole house. The pipes gave out a loud knocking whenever I ran the taps, and there was no hot water.
The lavatory was blocked. Some of the rooms were damp; the entire place, inside and out, needed repainting. The floor in the downstairs rooms showed signs of woodworm, and upstairs there was damp-rot in the roof beams.
For the first three days I worked hard at settling in. I opened all the windows, swept the floors, wiped down shelves and cupboards. I poked a long piece of wire down the lavatory, and afterwards peered cautiously under the rusting metal lid of the septic tank. I attacked the garden with more energy than expertise, pulling up by its roots anything I thought might be a weed. At the same time, I made myself known to the general store in Weobley, and arranged for weekly deliveries of groceries to be made. I bought all sorts of tools and utensils I had never needed before: pliers, brushes, a putty-knife, a saw, and for the kitchen a few pots and pans. Then the first weekend arrived. Edwin and Marge came to visit me, and at once my energetic mood vanished.
It was obvious that Edwin's generosity was not shared by Marge. When they arrived I realized that Edwin had been made to regret his friendly offer to me. He stayed apologetically in the background while Marge took control.
She made it clear from the outset that she had her own plans for the cottage, and they did not include someone like me living there. It was nothing she said, it was just implicit in her every glance, every comment.
I barely remembered Marge. In the old days, when they had visited us, it was Edwin who had been dominant. Marge then had been someone who drank tea, talked about her back trouble and helped with the washing up. Now she was a plump and prosaic person, full of conversation and opinions. She had plenty of advice on how to clean the place up, but did none of it herself. In the garden she did more, pointing out what was to be saved, what to be sacrificed to the compost heap. Later, I helped them unload the numerous pots of undercoat and paint they had brought in the car, and Marge explained exactly which colours were to go on which walls. I wrote it all down, and she checked it through.
There was nowhere they could stay in the house, so they had to take a room over the pub in the village. On the Sunday morning, Edwin took me aside and explained that because of a strike of petrol-tanker drivers there were long queues at the motorway filling stations, and if I didn't mind they would leave soon after lunch. It was the only thing he said to me all weekend, and I was sorry.
When they were gone I felt dispirited and disappointed. It had been a painful, difficult weekend. I had felt trapped by them: my gratitude to Edwin, my awkward realization that he had got into hot water with Marge because of it, my continual urges to justify and explain myself. I had had to please them, and I hated the unctuousness I heard creeping into nw voice when I spoke to Marge. They had reminded me of the temporary nature of my residence in the house, that the cleaning up and repairs I was starting were not in the end for myself, but a form of rent.
I was sensitive to the slightest upset. For three days I had forgotten my troubles, but after the visit I rehearsed my recent preoccupations, particularly my loss of Gracia. Her disappearing from my life in such a way--anger, tears, unfinished sentiments--was profoundly upsetting, especially after so long a time together.
I started to brood about the other things I had left behind me: friends, hooks, records, television. I grew lonely, and acutely aware that the nearest telephone was in the village. I waited illogically for the morning mail to arrive, even though I had given my new address to only a few friends and expected to hear from none of them. While in London I had been extensively aware of the world, through reading a daily newspaper, buying several weekly magazines, keeping in touch with friends and listening to the radio or watching television. Now I was cut off from all that. It was through my own designs, and yet, unreasonably, I missed it all and felt deprived. I could of course have bought a newspaper in the village, and once or twice I did, but I discovered my needs were not external. The emptiness was in myself.
As the days passed my gloomy preoccupations intensified. I became careless of my surroundings. I wore the same clothes day after day, I stopped washing or shaving and I ate only the simplest and most convenient food. I slept late every morning, and for many of the days I was plagued by headaches and a general stiffness in my body. I felt ill and looked ill, although I was sure there was nothing physically wrong with me.
It was by now the beginning of May, and spring was advancing. Since I had moved into the cottage the weather had been mostly grey, with occasional days of light rain. Now, suddenly, the weather improved: the blossom was late in the orchard, the flowers began to open. I saw bees, hoverflies, a wasp or two, In the evenings, clouds of gnats hung around the doorways and under the trees. I became aware of the sounds of birds, especially in the mornings. For the first time in my life I was sensitive to the mysterious organisms of nature; a lifetime in city apartments, or uncaring childhood visits to the countryside, had ill prepared me for the commonplaces of nature.
Something stirred inside me, and I felt restless to be free of my introspection. Yet it continued, a counterpoint to the other gladness.
In an attempt to purge both the restlessness and the depression, I made a serious attempt to start work. I hardly knew how I should begin. In the garden, for instance, it seemed that no sooner had I weeded one patch than what I had done a few days before became just as overgrown and untidy. In the house, the work of redecoration was one that had apparently endless ramifications. It would be a long time before I could start painting, because there were so many preliminary repairs to make.
