But for now, no one said anything, which sometimes happens when there is too much to say.
O
n the day of the first Open Garden, Dickie Hoyland came home, unannounced. He arrived inconspicuously with the crowds, which was no one’s fault but his own, for forgetting to herald his arrival, but, being Dickie, he took it in his stride. He had never been a demanding fellow and had never expected – or particularly received – any great ceremony at his comings and goings, so he didn’t mind at all that it was now at least half an hour after his surprise appearance and the only person who knew he was back was Parkinson. Parkinson was also the only person who knew that Dickie was married. He had on his arm a small, plump, vivacious Italian girl whom he introduced to the butler as ‘Antonietta, my lovely wife’.
Since Parkinson had survived the regatta, he now believed he could cope with anything. He didn’t even very much mind the townsfolk tramping up the long gravel drive and making free with the outdoor furniture, especially since he happened to know that the bailiff, Mr Blandford, had made a full inventory of statuary and moveables. No: Mr Parkinson had added to his attributes the ability to expect the unexpected. So the fact that young Master Dickie – he was ever thus, in Parkinson’s mind – had returned from a three-and-a-half-year absence on the Italian Riviera with a wife, was an entirely manageable revelation. Dickie looked swarthy; with his hair slicked back and darkened by Brilliantine he could pass for an Italian himself. Antonietta, if anything, was paler-skinned than her husband, but her hair was a lavish, shining black and her eyes, which were deep liquid brown, reminded Parkinson of the countess’s spaniels. Also, like them, she was frisky: she pouted and giggled, and – he was almost certain – once or twice pinched her husband’s posterior.
It was all hands to the pumps, the butler explained. The family was outside for the cricket match. Mrs Powell-Hughes and Mrs Pickersgill were serving cakes in the pavilion. ‘Pavilion?’ Dickie said. ‘Temporary, sir,’ Parkinson replied. ‘At the top of the south lawns.’ He would accompany them, he explained, but regretfully he must remain on duty at the hall in case anyone from the town should misinterpret the invitation. ‘Open garden,’ he said to Dickie, ‘does not mean open house.’ Fear of invasion, then, kept him at his post, so Dickie and Antonietta went off together, first of all to startle Mrs Powell-Hughes and eat buns, and then to find a few family members and startle them too. Parkinson watched them bounce off down the steps, heads close, laughing at the marvellous jape of their marriage and surprise appearance, and he allowed himself a brief, indulgent moment of mourning for the gravitas and dignity of Netherwood Hall, which had died with the sixth earl. Then, he took a deep, fortifying breath and braced himself for what remained of the afternoon.
Ruby hadn’t wanted to come. It was too soon, she said, and too much. At Ravenscliffe she felt comfortable. It stood alone on the common, and she could sit in the garden and slowly continue the process of adjusting to the surroundings while letting the surroundings adjust to her. She realised what a splash of colour she was in a drab town. The yellows and blues of her Jamaican dresses seemed brighter here, and her skin a darker shade of brown. She had walked with Eve to a shop called the Co-op, and people had put down their shopping the better to stare. Eve had introduced her to the manager, a Mr Everard Holt, who wore a brown shop coat but behaved like a gentleman. They had talked about all the vegetables he didn’t stock, and the paltry few that he did. He had never heard of a sweet potato, and found the very idea of one amusing. Mangoes, he said, he
had
heard of, but he believed they were only available in tins, suspended in syrup. She told him about the mango tree by her own little house, and he had marvelled and said, ‘Well I never, isn’t the world a wonderful place?’ But Mr Holt had been the only success: no one else had been brave enough to meet her, which was why she felt it was preferable to confine herself to the small world of Ravenscliffe and its garden, for the present. If a person wandered by, as sometimes happened, they would stare, she would smile and greet them, and they – out of politeness, shock or genuine friendliness, she never knew which – would usually return her greeting. If it took a year or two of meeting people one at a time, so be it. What she couldn’t imagine was placing herself in the thick of an event at Netherwood Hall, where her fear was that she would be mistaken for a sideshow.
But Roscoe longed to go, and he wouldn’t go without her, so his wishes prevailed. Lilly Pickering, the sour stick of a woman who was paid by Eve and Daniel for doing mysteriously little, had told her not to worry. ‘We get all sorts ’ere,’ she had said flatly, which seemed a curious sort of encouragement. In the end, Ruby had walked at the centre of a protective cordon, with Anna and Eve on either side and Daniel in front. Roscoe applied his usual philosophy – which was if he loved the world, the world would love him back – and ran ahead to get there early with Eliza and Ellen, and a protesting Angus pleading with them to slow down. Angus was nostalgic for Jamaica, where he’d had Roscoe to himself. Now Eliza and Ellen knew about Anansi the clever spider too, and Angus wasn’t sure this was a good thing.
At the gates Daniel had to leave the three women in order to marshal his gardeners and protect the beds. Anna moved closer to Ruby and tucked an arm into hers.
‘Once,’ she said, ‘Eve walked up this very drive quite alone and asked the earl to invest his money in her business. Before that she’d sold what she cooked to passers-by at her front door.’
Ruby liked Anna. She had an inclusive way about her; she was generous with her time and her friendship. ‘In Jamaica, we call such a person a higgler,’ she said. ‘It’s perfectly respectable, although perhaps it doesn’t sound it.’
Eve said, ‘I was shaking, and ’e made a whole long speech to me and I ’ad no idea what ’e’d said.’
‘And now there are four shops,’ Anna said.
‘No more ’iggling,’ said Eve.
Ruby gazed around her as they walked. ‘These gardens are wonderful,’ she said. ‘I wish Bernard could see them.’
‘Bernard’d recognise a lot of these plants,’ Eve said. ‘’e’s pulled enough of ’em up.’ Ruby smiled, so Anna did too, although she didn’t follow. Sometimes Ruby and Eve seemed to forget that she hadn’t been in Port Antonio with them.
They were making their way to the south lawns, where the cricket match was being held. The New Mill Colliery XI had had an unbeaten season and Amos had taken ninety-one wickets, but he’d continued to allow Lord Netherwood to think he’d had to cobble a team together for the event. Without ever putting words into the earl’s mouth he had managed to give him quite the wrong impression, or at least, had let the wrong impression go uncorrected. This amused Amos no end. He knew it wasn’t a stunt he could have pulled on the earl’s father in his day: probably couldn’t have pulled it on his big sister either, who knew pit business like her brother knew the contents of his wine cellar. But Tobias Hoyland had a true aristocrat’s blithe spirit and stayed away from the mucky end of his estate’s business. This made him fair game, and vulnerable to big hitters and fast bowlers who practised twice a week, whether or not they’d just emerged from a shift at the seam. Amos could hardly wait.
Ruby, Anna and Eve settled on a rug at what was being called, today, the pavilion end, the pavilion being a pretty canvas awning trimmed with fluttering pennants, under which refreshments were being served. People stared at Ruby, which was tiresome, but only to be expected.
‘If you’d come with a parrot on your shoulder or an iguana on your arm they would stare too,’ Ruby said.
‘Just smile,’ Anna said. ‘And if they don’t smile back, stuff them.’
Eve laughed. She felt immeasurably grateful to Anna for immediately including Ruby in their friendship. Anna carried with her the right mix of idealism and pragmatism, so that with her support you might attempt the apparently impossible and make it work. It was Anna who had said, don’t explain Ruby’s presence in Netherwood, just say she’s a good friend from Jamaica. ‘Don’t mention Silas, and all of that,’ had been her advice, ‘and before very long she’ll be part of the furniture.’
‘A very unusual, rather exotic, piece of furniture,’ Daniel had said privately to Eve. ‘She’s welcome here as far as I’m concerned, and so’s her wee lad, but I don’t think folk’ll ever stop staring.’ And Eve said nothing, only hoped for the best. Soon she planned to show Ruby her shops: the ones in Netherwood and Barnsley, at least. She saw bammies on the counters, and curry goat, and sweet potato pudding.
The wicket, though recently made, was perfectly prepared, but a perfect wicket is perfect for the batsman, not for the bowler. Amos walked the length of it and saw that it was dry, but not too dry, green, but not too green: ideal batting conditions, but a bowler wishing to take scalps would have to be at his wily best. The earl had billed the match as Lords
v.
Miners, which had raised the hackles among the New Mill boys, and that was no bad thing, thought Amos. Fire in the belly was always a help. Their opposition was an effete-looking lot, he thought: striped blazers and silk cravats, and a collection of shared physical characteristics – long limbs, flushed complexions, aquiline noses – that came from only breeding with their own. They all looked as though they’d have valets to carry their bats. There’d been a big rumpus earlier, a giddy five minutes of braying and backslapping, when Dickie Hoyland, the second son, came jogging out on to the pitch, fresh back from a three-year holiday in Italy. Now he was in flannels too, and was loafing around in front of the pavilion as if he’d never been away.
The captains were tossing a coin to determine which side would bat first; Sam Bamford called heads and lost. The earl, eager to wield the willow, was pleased. He lifted his arm for silence and welcomed the cheerful crowd to the Netherwood Hall Open Garden and Inaugural Cricket Match. There was a ripple of applause.
‘I’d like to thank Mr Sykes over there for putting together a team so splendidly at such dashed short notice, and I think it’s true to say that what you fellows lack in experience you will more than make up for in enthusiasm.’ He paused, expecting another ripple, and was surprised to hear considerable laughter. On he ploughed.
‘The Lords won the toss, and although it may seem immodest and my skill as a batsman hardly merits it, I have been prevailed upon to open the innings. So, without further ado, may I say best of luck to everyone, and may the best team win!’
He took off his cap and, looking for the countess in the crowd, he skimmed it deftly through the air so that it landed in her lap, then strode out to the wicket. Thea laughed, and promptly took off her own hat and put on his. Maya, who was sitting next to her, thought she had looked much prettier in the straw bonnet. Thea said, ‘Look, how funny, your pop’s going to bowl.’
Maya looked anxiously at the pitch. Amos was walking away from the crease so she couldn’t see his face.
‘Did he look cross?’ she said.
‘What’s that, honey?’
‘My dad. Did he look mean?’
Thea chuckled. Maya was such a sweetie. She came out with such funny, unconnected statements.
‘I didn’t really see, I was admiring my husband. Look, here we go.’
Sam Bamford was fielding at cover point, and as Amos turned, rocked and began his run-up, Sam moved in closer and listened hard for the sound of the bowler’s feet on the grass. Sometimes you could hear Amos coming, and on those occasions you knew the batsman might just get the chance to hook the ball over square leg. Other times, his approach was entirely silent; he would come in on his toes, lethal like a speeding arrow, and he might have been barefoot for all the noise he made on the turf. This was such a time. Sam glanced at the earl and thought, You’re a split-second away from trouble, my son. He almost pitied him for not understanding that this was a duel; for not being ready.
Amos released the beautiful weight of the ball. He felt it leave his fingers like a smooth, red grenade. He put his heart, soul and the devil into it. He put his thirty years of mining into it, all of his political convictions, his personal loathings, his continued and endless sorrow at the deaths of Arthur Williams, Lew Sylvester, Victor Pickering and countless others who were gone, as well as those whose time had not yet come but certainly would: all of this passion, all of this bitterness, was wound tight and compressed into the seamed leather casing of that ball.
He pitched it short, and it hit the ground then rose high and fast at its target. Tobias had expected the delivery to be wide, or to land sweetly on his bat to be sent sailing to the boundary, and because of this misapprehension he reacted a second too slowly. When the penny did drop he reared up from his batting stance like a startled colt and almost dodged the ball, but it caught him full on the shoulder. The impact threw him off his feet so that he crumpled backwards into the stumps. There was a sharp, communal gasp from the spectators, like at a circus when the trapeze artist falls, and then, together, they held their breath for the outcome.
‘I say,’ someone said on the pitch. ‘If that had been his head, he’d be a goner.’
Amos waited patiently for the ball, and for the dismissed batsman to walk. The earl was on all fours now and Dickie, eager to be of use so soon after his homecoming, sprinted over to help him up. As Tobias rose – unsteady on his feet, green stains on his cream flannels, a bruise the size of a saucer blooming across his left shoulder – he looked at Amos, who smiled grimly and said, ‘Beginner’s luck.’
Tobias stared into his hostile eyes then, like a man who’d just seen the future and found it wasn’t to his taste, turned and limped disconsolately back to the pavilion, and hoped that, come the Day of Judgment, Amos Sykes would rot in hell.
Amos, wishing much the same thing for the earl, turned and walked in the opposite direction. He would ease off with the next ball. He didn’t want to simply skittle them out; there was no sport for the crowd in that. Anyway, he’d made his point; his job was done, for now. There would be other opportunities to shine. He tossed the ball up high into the late summer sky and watched it plummet back down into the cradle of his hand. Then he turned on his heel, ready to face the next man.