Secrets of the Heart

abattoir and she could be on her own in the house for a little. Just for a little. Penny’s homesickness nagged at her and undermined the value that she placed on herself – for she was used to thinking of herself as practical and sensible. A make-0001do-and-mend woman.

The first thing she noticed was the absence of magazines. That hurt too, but after making a cup of tea and some reflection, she reckoned that it was fair enough. Andrew had always hated them and her reliance on their bright, glossy certainties. A virgin edition of her favourite was in the car and she was tempted to retrieve it but decided to resist. Instead, Penny flicked through the script of the letters programme, which happened to be lying on the table. Agnes’s business card was attached to it. On it she had written, ‘This is the third draft, and it’s shaping up nicely’

Agnes did not interest Penny – as far as Penny was concerned, she was a woman from another planet – but she was greedy to read everything to do with the letters. The letters that, in her view, had sent Andrew off- course.

Everywhere I smell scent – of pollens, flowers, grasses and early fruit. The world is awash with it, and with the clacking summer noises of animals, insects and birds. There is nowhere more beautiful than this moor…

This Jack person wanted his brains examining. He only wrote about the half. What about the endless mud? The precarious roads, dropped so tightly between hedges that it was impossible to see where you were going? What about the neighbours, the gossip, the endless work, the cold, the damp, the snip, snip of penny-pinching? The gut- wrenching business of watching animals sicken and die, harvests turning black with disease, the stretching and pulling of muscle and sinew into premature old age? What about the disappointments?

Nature may be beautiful, Penny conceded, but it didn’t alter the fact that all the red soil and cream teas did not make the countryside an easy place in which to earn a living.

Penny closed the file, resumed her vigil and tried not to notice the state of the kitchen, so sullied, so changed, so untidy. But second nature won and, after a short tussle, she bounced up and opened the tea-towel drawer. It was empty, and she slammed it shut with the fury of someone who had discovered exactly what they expected.

She forced herself to sit down and do nothing.

The van drove into the yard and Andrew emerged into the kitchen. ‘Here again?’

He eyed her dispassionately – and that hurt too. Surely he could manage to look cross, jealous, sad, something?

‘Has Bob got tired of you?

Andrew and Bob had first run up against each other years ago over EC farm quotas and, since then, they had enjoyed developing a fine vintage hatred. Sometimes Penny wondered if that was why she had chosen Bob. To get a response. She riposted angrily, ‘I suppose I deserve. that remark.’

‘Well…’ Andrew sounded marginally less hostile. ‘What can I do for you?’

Penny folded her hands over her empty tea-cup. ‘I came over because I knew today was the first day of the appeal. To give my support.’ I have surprised him, she thought, with a catch at her throat.

Andrew sat down heavily at the table. ‘That was nice, Pen. I didn’t expect it. I thought I’d been abandoned lock, stock and barrel for the magnificent Bob.’

His softening made Penny’s eyes fill and she looked down at the table. ‘Will Stone be there?’

‘No. He won’t. That fat bastard has taken himself off on holiday’

It was unlike Andrew to swear. Penny scrubbed surreptitiously at her eyes and asked, ‘Are you all right? Will you cope by yourself?’

His reply surprised her. ‘Are you all right, Penny?’

She flinched and told him the truth. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I’m pretty nervous about this afternoon.’

‘I’ll make some coffee.’ Penny hauled herself to her feet and searched for the jar in the kitchen which, once upon a time, she had known better than her own hands. Now, it was foreign territory – and the situation was of her own making.

Andrew inspected the mug she slid over to him. ‘Tell me one thing, Pen, did you really prefer Bob to me? I find that… difficult. The one person I dislike and despise. Was it deliberate?’

Penny visualized her empty tea-towel drawer and the old wounds bled. How like a man to think of his pride. ‘Dear Marge, the only reason my husband is sorry I left him is because it makes him look foolish…’ She shrugged. ‘Day after day, year after year, I did what was expected. I cooked, I cleaned and all the rest. But you never talked to me, Andrew. I bet you told more things to that girl from television.’ She flicked him a look from under her short, colourless lashes. ‘Bob wanted me, or he said he did, and I felt a bit – a bit desperate.’

‘A fine time to choose, wasn’t it?’

‘It wasn’t meant to be like that.’

Her distress must have got through to him and he had the grace to look shamefaced. ‘Other people are always easier to talk to.’

‘Even so. I was – am your wife. I thought we were meant to share everything.’

Andrew shoved the coffee aside, and said in a kind, measured manner, ‘I’m sorry, Penny, if I failed you. You should have told me sooner what you were feeling. I was so sure that you were with me, and understood how I felt.’

‘I did. If you remember.’

They had not talked so openly for years. Andrew looked out of the window. ‘But it’s a bit late now, isn’t it, Pen? The horse has bolted.’

‘Has it?’ she asked pitifully.

Where do I go from here? She drew in a panicky breath. She had read her magazines and the advice they gave on retrieving crumbling marriages or setting up with a new lover, but now that she was actually between the frying-pan and the fire, the advice did not seem so pertinent, nor as authoritative as she had imagined. How do you build a bridge to a spouse who is so dispassionate?

Andrew slid his hand across the table towards Penny. Being pitched out of a marriage was new to them both, and both were stumbling. ‘Don’t cry, Pen,’ he said.

Her hand crept out towards his. ‘Have you got someone else?’

His determined smile told her everything. ‘I may have found someone else, Penny, so there is no need to worry about me any more. I wish you well with Bob.’

In times of stress, Penny reverted to habit. Snatching back her hand, she fumbled for her notebook in her plastic shoulder-bag. ‘Right. I’ll make a list, then, of things we need to do.’

Andrew left Penny shovelling aside the clutter in her car to make space for another armload of her clothes. He watched as sweaters and jeans, faded and ravelled from too much washing, the men’s desert boots and men’s striped pyjamas that Penny favoured were stuffed angrily on to the back seat. Eventually Penny stood upright and slammed the car door. ‘I dunno. It’s those bloody letters,’ she said. ‘They’ve caused all the trouble. If you hadn’t found them, we would be fine.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It was happening long before that.’

‘Well,’ she got into the car, ‘I’m very happy with Bob. He suits me just fine.’

After Penny had driven off, Andrew went to inspect the cattle in the north field. The South Devons had clustered in one clump, the Welsh Blacks milled around over by the hedgerow. ‘You racists,’ he called affectionately. They butted and nuzzled him, and he bent down to examine a South Devon cow’s udder, which looked a bit pink. Luckily, nothing too suspect. All the time, Penny’s worn, angry face bothered him.

At two thirty that afternoon, dressed in a jacket and tie, he sat in Exbury’s celebrated and elegant eighteenth- century town hall, ready to listen to the opening arguments as to why the proposed housing development, to be built on his farm, would or would not benefit the community. The officials were busy and the inspector, who wore tortoiseshell glasses that were too small for his face, conferred with his clerk. The audience was buzzing with interest – in some cases, self-interest.

The developers, Arcadian Villages (‘Built by and for the people’) had been clever. They had listened to the locals and their objections, noted them down, modified their plans, offered lures in return. During the opening proceedings, the ominous term ‘planning gain’ was mentioned more than once.

Andrew swallowed.

Increased traffic? Not a problem, said the smooth, expensive barrister representing Arcadian Villages. The main