Bob summons his workforce by banging on the farmhouse door knocker, persistent knocks, enough to penetrate the deepest dream. Recently he’s taken to putting on music. The Who on full power chivvies awake even the most sleep-fogged. Julian, David, Maggie and Simon grumble as they trudge over to the cottage.
But Amy will already be gone. Early each morning she slips from the bed to follow Daisy’s swaying body from the field. Even when dry-mouthed and hungover, the thought of the cow waiting patiently, her udder ballooning with milk, drives Amy from under the duvet. For there is solace when her face is pressed to the cow’s flank. Her fingers turning tingly-warm as they cover the rubbery teats. Her ears rejoicing in the satisfying ping of the milk hitting the pail. The curdy smell.
A time when she can grieve for her mother. A place where she can rail about her father.
Few people visit; the cold, it seems, keeps them away. So in the evenings it’s only the five of them who press up to the range, their feet fighting for space in the lower oven, squabbling about whose turn it is to make supper. Even Gerald does not appear. When the hash runs out, they do not phone him; no one has the money to pay for more. David complains to her in bed that they’re becoming middle-aged. There is a quiet rhythm to the dark mornings and early nights that Amy appreciates. She does not admit this to anyone.
A postcard arrives. It shows a sunny beach and a sparkling sea. It is from Seymour who is working abroad or escaping the winter; it is not clear. Addressed to Pepper, the message reads that ‘they’ will bring back a tropical fish for the cat to enjoy. Amy feels envious: who is he with? She props the card on the dresser and imagines Seymour on a hot beach. He will be turning brown in the sun.
16
‘Take a right turn at the next junction,’ says the examiner, making notes with his stubby pencil.
It is hard to tell the man’s age for his terrible brown suit and shoes are at odds with his hair which just touches his shirt collar. His boss can’t approve of that.
‘Pull up on the left beyond the blue van and park up, please.’
Amy adjusts her skirt. It is the one her father bought her to wear at her mother’s funeral; it has ridden up her thighs. She dressed carefully for the test; everyone had said she should. The instructor, a man in all likelihood, will be susceptible to feminine wiles.
So last Saturday, David let her drive the Land Rover to a jumble sale in a village some ten miles away. Amy rummaged through the heaps of clothes on the trestle table. She found a pale pink blouse with a small nick on the sleeve for a few pence and a boy’s school mackintosh. Last night she washed her hair and slept with it in plaits so that in the morning it bounces with curls. Simon said she looked just like F-f-f-arrah Fawcett-M-M-Major.
The instructor gave her an approving look when he met her in the driving school office. She listened attentively to his instructions; she is determined to pass the test.
‘Your three-point turn,’ he says shaking his head, ‘was not strong. You didn’t go for the full lock of the wheel. Hence it was a four-point turn.’
When he clears his throat, his Adam’s apple moves up and down like a lift.
‘Then changing down a gear, there is…’ He reaches out to touch the gearstick and as he does, his hand brushes her thigh. ‘…more practice needed there, eh?’
She assents silently, her curls bobbing.
‘Your command of the road is tentative, Miss Tinker, but...’
She steels herself for disappointment. The examiner has turned to face her. Surely he is closer than is strictly necessary?
‘Taylor,’ she corrects and slips down in her seat.
‘Of course, yes, apologies. Miss Taylor.’
He makes a mark on his sheet.
‘I must inform you that, I have decided that…’ and now he is smiling and she sees a piece of dried food on the edge of his mouth and she can’t help staring as it moves to and fro, ‘…that you have passed the driving test. Well done.’
He leans back in his seat. ‘Would you accept my invitation to a celebratory drink in the pub?’
‘We’re going to the village, Mrs Morle. Is there anything I can get you while we’re there?’ Amy calls from the Land Rover.
Those girls spend more time driving around in that vehicle than they do working on the cottage. Mrs Morle shakes her head. She shuts her cottage door firmly. She does need preserving sugar for her marmalade but she’ll add it to the list she’ll give to Andrew Bishop when he comes to say he’s passing by the village shop. No doubt he’ll be going in a day or two and there’s no hurry. The gutting knife and meat cleaver clatter as she puts them back into the drawer. She’d used the tools yesterday to gut three rabbits that Andrew left in the farmhouse pantry. Would have been a waste to leave the animals, heads and feet still on and not yet cleaned for eating.
‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ Amy was pouring milk into a jug when Mrs Morle came in that Monday morning. ‘I don’t know what to do with these rabbits, Mrs Morle, do you? Colin said they’re good to eat but they need skinning and so on. But, I mean, how? Do you… would you mind showing me how to do it?’
Mrs Morle didn’t like being in contact with Julian’s lot. But she and Lynn loved a bit of rabbit and there’d be enough for everyone.
‘Alright, I will. Harry, that was my husband, he always gutted rabbit out in the field soon as he’d shot ‘em,’ Mrs Morle said. ‘They’ll go off quick with
