Harvest

time like that), and the bunnies scattering away from them. And if they hadn’t been there, then they wouldn’t be in the spinney either. Jess raised her head. Come on, Jess, let’s go for a walk. The dog rose, and she put on her boots and this time it was she who took up the lead, not attaching it, only putting it into her pocket, just in case, since she was walking blind, did not know where they were going and whether or not they would chance to meet livestock or find themselves walking along a road where the lead would be needed, and went out. The sky was a deep blue September sky but smudged low across the landscape here and there where men were burning stubble. There was barely a wind, only the highest leaves of the trees faintly moving and a tinge of burning in the air. It felt as still outdoors as it had been in the house, where only she had moved and the dog, but in the distance she could see that the men were taking advantage of the stillness to get the burning done, setting thick bands of smoke flowing across the fields. When she got to the Five Acre it was already burnt, the ground satin black. No pickings left for the birds. Jackson must have burnt it just the day before. Always quick on the job, old Jackson, Charlie used to say. Doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet – or the stubble lie. Jackson had been quick to take up a contract on the land. Charlie would have expected that, would have expected him to take over the farm and would probably have thought him the best man for the job. He’s a bit of a hard man, but a good farmer, Jackson, Charlie would say, looking over at his neighbour’s fields. Why was it that Charlie’s voice kept coming back to her now, ringing in her ears? Well it was gone now, the last of the last crop that he had planted. She felt hard as Jackson. Tougher now that it was burnt and gone.

Flakes of black straw hung in the hedges. Her walking stirred the ground so that she had the taste of ash on her lips. The spinney was up ahead. No, not that way, Jess, not today. We’ll go back the way we came.

She went back and worked all of the rest of the day in the garden. That day, and the ones that followed. Never did she work so hard in the garden as in that time after the boys went away to school. It was early for lifting and dividing and replanting, but if she did it with care the plants would not mind. Besides, it was so much easier to imagine how they would look in their new positions, next year, how the border might be rearranged, when the plants still had their leaves to them and a touch of colour, and one could see the form of the clumps. So much of gardening was that, the labour carrying one outside of the present moment and into the future, imagining how the garden would be, next year, another year, any year but this one.

She felt a shadow above her as if someone was standing there. Charlie darling, she said without looking up, yet she knew even as she spoke, but only a piece of her knew, that the shadow was not made by Charlie there but only a branch of the crabapple which she had moved beneath as she forked up weeds. So much she used to talk to Charlie about her plans for the garden.

Autumn crocuses, that’s what we are missing. I wonder when it’s best to plant them? In the winter, do you think, like the cyclamen? Look how well the cyclamen I planted the first year are doing, under the cherry tree, they’ve begun to naturalise, the clump bigger now every year. And Charlie might say, But I thought crocuses came in the spring. And she would say, with a flash of irritation, That’s why these are called autumn ones, silly. I thought you knew about that sort of thing.

She had thought he knew. But he didn’t know. And he had brought her here.

Then she would fall within herself. She would feel herself falling, and have to grip the fork and work the harder. In the night, too, she would feel herself falling, when she woke in the night, or in the morning when she woke so early, she would feel herself falling behind closed lids and have to pull herself up before she could open her eyes to the day.

They had worked so hard at it all, learning all they had learnt, softening it with banter, he learning to farm, she making it her job to make things light, learning at the same time whatever it was she had to do, to be a good wife to him however he was, to cook, to be a housewife, a mother; and they had been happy, hadn’t they, for a time? Was that as happy as one was supposed to be, all things considered? Surely it was, as happy as others were, as others anyway appeared to be? They were doing whatever it was they were supposed to be doing, then, at that time, and what others were doing; but it wasn’t ever quite right. Normal, so normal; but they were in the wrong life. Charlie in the wrong life, trying to make the farm work, to be what such a man was supposed to be, then, at that time. She too. Had she known it even then, at the beginning? Had he? Or had it only come to him later, to make it clear to them both? To make it clear, and clear off, leave her behind. And now she was the one here, still here, doing it all still, for her boys.

Take the plunge, others