Agnes parked and got out. Groaning theatrically, Bel emerged from her car. ‘It’s a long way from civilization.’
‘I heard that,’ said Andrew, as the others decanted from various vehicles.
The group, who knew each other well, made straight for the back of Ted’s catering van, which was already open and dispensing hot drinks. Clutching their clipboards, they stood around drinking and making bad banter. It was the ritual that eased them into the slog ahead.
‘Eat, eat,’ exhorted Ted, whose life’s work was to stuff film crews with unnecessary food. ‘Eat, my darlings.’
‘OK,’ said Agnes eventually, ‘it’s time to start.’
Jed hefted his camera equipment on to his shoulder and he, Agnes, Bel and Andrew made for the north field, from which an uninterrupted view of the house could be had. They spent a lot of time discussing opening shots and assessing the light, with Andrew watching and listening. They were lucky and netted an opening sequence first time off, a pastoral composition of the cattle grazing in the field and the farmhouse behind. But filming is unpredictable, and Agnes knew this beginner’s luck meant nothing.
After a while, she came and stood beside Andrew. ‘Jed is just wrapping up some shots.’ She glanced up to check the sky.
‘I don’t recognize you,’ said Andrew. ‘You look and sound different.’
It was a remark that frequently came her way. ‘Aren’t you different at work?’ she asked.
He considered. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
Jed signalled to Agnes, who consulted her clipboard. ‘Andrew, in this bit, the voiceover will describe your farm and its philosophy. And we’ll do some shots with you tending the animals. Can you spare the time?’
‘Oh, I have the time.’ Andrew’s mouth had set in a such a firm line that little white patches appeared in the corners. ‘I’ll make it. Look, Agnes.’ He bent down and scooped some earth into the ball of his hand and thrust it under her nose. ‘I’m not going to let anyone build on that.’
The earth was thick and dark with a fretwork of red tints. Andrew squeezed his hand shut. This was an angry man.
In the early evening, Bel and Agnes plodded back to the farmhouse while the bed-and-breakfast contingent headed off for baths and beer. Bel went inside to make some phone calls and write up notes but Agnes picked her way across the yard and discovered Andrew in the shed, occupied with stacking sacks of feed. She thought he was not aware of her presence until he said, without looking up, ‘Finished for the day?’
She leaned against the concrete wall and scuffed the dust with her feet. ‘We’ve made a promising start.’
‘Good.’ He hefted the last sack into place and leaned on the pile. She was riveted by an ugly slash over the fleshy part of one of his broken fingers. It was imperfectly healed, and the skin still weeping. ‘Do you want to see something special?’ The blue eyes were speculative.
She dragged her gaze from his damaged hand. ‘Sure.’
He beckoned to her, led her round the shed and pointed to the sky. He placed his hands on her shoulders, propelled her round in a half-circle and said, ‘Look at that.’
Agnes inhaled sharply. To the north, the moor rose like a giant phantom, but to the west, the sky was washed with rose pink and fire orange. Just at the edge of this palette of colour was the dark.
Surely this was the domain of the old gods who stalked through the rocks and trees. She explained the fancy to Andrew and his fingers gripped her shoulders. ‘That’s right. This land belongs to them, but I don’t expect city dwellers to see it that way.’
She was startled and a little offended by his hostility. ‘Why shouldn’t they understand? After all, it’s what the film is about.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ He dropped his hands. ‘I get carried away sometimes.’
As they headed back to the farmhouse, he said ‘I’m sorry Penny isn’t here. It makes catering a bit awkward.’ He stooped to pick up his axe, which was propped up against the van. ‘You’ve never been married, have you?’
‘No.’
‘I wish…’ again Agnes caught the roil of anger under the surface ‘… that I had done things differently.’ He put the axe in the back of the van and closed its doors.
Bel was waiting for them in the kitchen where Penny’s rule was still in evidence but under attack from Andrew’s careless habits. Lists were tacked up on a noticeboard, a small pair of rubber gloves hung from a peg by the basin, handcream stood by the soap tray and a row of knives had been arranged in descending size on a magnetic strip above the work surface.
But on the table there was a large, untidy stack of papers, which Andrew piled on a chair in the corner. ‘That’s all the planning-inquiry stuff. Masses of it. Then I have to send out copies to the organic farmers’ defence group, who want me to keep them up-to-date.’ He had a go at stabilizing the pile, gave up and dumped half on the floor. ‘After a piece in the local papers, I got sent all sorts of strange things – pamphlets on self-defence, on making Molotov cocktails, instructions on passive resistance from the Gandhi Self-helpers. I had no idea there were so many interests boiling over.’
‘There were a couple of phone calls.’ Bel uncurled herself from her foetal slump. ‘Whoever it was wanted to know the date of the planning inquiry. I’ve written the names down. I didn’t know what to do about food.’ She had not discarded her parka and shivered impolitely.
‘Believe it or not, Penny came over the other day and left me food for you all.’ Andrew padded over to the fridge and extracted a tin-foil container labelled ‘Tuesday’.
‘It’s Wednesday,’ Bel pointed out.
‘Is it? I must have forgotten to eat.’ Andrew looked around helplessly. Sighing, Bel removed the container from his hand.
‘We’ll do the supper,’ said Agnes. ‘Tell me how to drive the oven.’
Bel addressed Andrew: ‘You don’t know Agnes’s cooking.’
Andrew said he would take the risk and went over to the cupboard, extracted glasses and opened a bottle of wine.
‘Is a bath an impossibility?’ asked Bel, in a manner that suggested she supposed it was.
Andrew took her upstairs, and Agnes hunted around in the drawers and cupboards for the correct utensils. Everything was in immaculate order; even the cake tins were wrapped up in oiled greaseproof paper and tied with string. Agnes stared at them. Penny’s care was infinitely touching. It said: Even the smallest things are worth doing well.
Having got the stew under way, she searched in the fridge for some vegetables, failed to find any and called up the stairs to Andrew.
‘Carrots are in the outhouse. To the right of the back door. In a paper sack.’ Andrew materialized at the top of the stairs. He had stripped to the waist, and in the electric light his flesh seemed to gleam, sinewy with use and health. It was a surprisingly delicately fashioned body but lean and strong-looking.
Agnes swallowed. ‘Thanks.’
On her return, a fully dressed Andrew was finishing laying the kitchen table.
Agnes washed the carrots. ‘After her husband died an aunt of mine said it was like having her stomach removed. She still functioned but nothing nourished her.’
He put the final knife in place and reached for his tobacco pouch. ‘Funnily enough, I haven’t really found it to be so.’ He glanced at the strip of knives. ‘Actually, I castigate myself for finding it so easy.’ Fascinated, Agnes watched out of the corner of her eye as he selected and rolled the shreds of tobacco into the correct shape.
He folded up the pouch. ‘The strange thing is, the marriage might never have been. Twenty years have just vanished, short-circuited in the memory, and now I can’t really remember what it was like having Penny here.’ The match flared. ‘I don’t know what that says about marriage – or me, for that matter.’
Agnes inspected a stone crock by the stove, which proved to hold salt, and dusted a pinch into the stew. ‘I don’t know.’ She kept her back turned. ‘But a short memory can be life-saving, I suppose.’
‘It’s the watching over me, the fussing, from Bob’s home where she’s now living, that I can’t cope with,’ said Andrew.
There was an embarrassed pause. It was growing dark in the kitchen. Andrew got up to switch on a lamp in the corner of the room and nudged the pile of magazines lying beside it. ‘Penny doesn’t want to be here with me, yet she can’t quite… Either she’s left me or she hasn’t.’
