In the Springtime of the Year (10 page)

And Easter was not long away, and she could not tell if it would matter to her now.

Early in the morning, she came out of some half-sleep, half-death, aching and shivering with cold and exhaustion, but still she could not move, she lay all through the morning, her eyes open, staring at the dead ashes in the grate, and she had never known, until now, what it was truly to despair.

Jo came. Saw her. Knelt down and touched her. She said nothing. He left her, she heard him doing the jobs he always did, and she thought dimly that she should get up, because he, too, needed help, love, and perhaps she frightened or disgusted him.

She closed her eyes again to shut out the dank, grubby daylight, and the sight of the cold ashes, and put her hands up to her ears to muffle the sound of the endless rain. And through her head, the same words. He is dead. He is nothing. He is nowhere. He is dead. He is dead. She made clutching movements with her fists, as if she could somehow take hold again of her old belief or hope, but there was only the empty air.

She did get up, though there seemed no reason for it, and washed herself and her hair, and stared at the water coming from the tap – water, which she had always thought beautiful, in its clearness and suppleness, any water, sea or stream, rain or pond; and now it was like everything else, dead, and when it dribbled
away
, dirtied by its contact with her own skin and hair, she was repelled by it.

*

In the kitchen, Jo stood beside the range, feeling the heat coming off it, but it did not warm him, he shivered because he was so afraid for Ruth, he so loved her, and was helpless, there was nothing he could do or say, no way he could reach her. No one else could share this with him. At Foss Lane, her name was never spoken, and his mother, her own crying ended now, dragged herself about the house, an old woman, his father came and went to work, ate and drank, said nothing,

What should he do?

‘God,’ he said, ‘God, please …’

What? He was not sure. ‘Make her well again. Make her well.’ But in his heart he thought that nothing could make her well, except Ben, the old life.

He saw the rose-quartz, still on the table, and touched it and felt, as when he first saw it, some kind of truth which emanated from the crystal and was bound up with the shaping of it. Then, he could not believe in death. He knew that it was not so, had always known. But how to tell Ruth? How to make her believe it? He had thought that she did. Yesterday, when there had been such a stillness and peace in the house, and in her, her voice and touch, yesterday, relief
had
spurted up within him, because she was well again, she knew, something had happened.

And now, today …

He put the kettle on the range and boiled it and made tea, cupping his hands around the china and holding it close to his face for warmth. He heard the door of the bedroom close and dare not go up to her with a drink, because somehow, her fear and despair and misery might reach out and enter him, eat away at his own strength and belief.

And so, he tidied up and put some food on a covered plate, and a note on the kitchen table, and left, to walk, in the rain across the fields and over the ridge, where he could breathe again, take hold of himself, where all the fear and unhappiness drained out of him. Because always, here, he sensed that Ben was with him, and be was healed by the contact.

He prayed, looking over the misty fields and black wet woods, that his deepest fear of all would not come true. That Ruth would not kill herself.

*

She asked for nothing, expected nothing. And so, this second day came to her as a gift, and she was startled out of her-self, but accepted it gladly, and it shone out ever afterwards, like some golden coin lying among dull pebbles.

The sun woke her, it filled the room, and was
bright
on her face and her arms, stretched above her head, and when she went to the window, she saw a shimmering blue sky and the last of the raindrops like baubles of glass on the hedge. Aconites and snowdrops were clustered here and there under the bushes.

She had an overwhelming desire to get away from here, to slough off all the days and nights of weeping and the memories of death. She washed and dressed, and felt an odd excitement, like a tingling under the skin.

Jo was walking up the garden with the scoop full of eggs, and when she called to him, he hesitated, anxious, for they had scarcely spoken these last days, he had come and gone like a shadow. And now, she stood in the doorway in a fresh blue dress, her face changed, softened.

‘Happy,’ Jo thought, ‘she looks happy.’ And he wanted to cry with relief, for she was Ruth again, the Ruth he knew, he could reach her. She had not killed herself. Every morning, be had dreaded reaching the house, for fear of what he might find there.

‘Twelve eggs,’ he said, ‘two of the hens are broody, I think.’

‘Jo …’ But she did not know how to tell him of what she felt, how to thank him for having come here so faithfully and done the work and asked no questions, never tried to intrude. She loved him now, as she loved no one else in the world.

He held the eggs out to her.

‘Jo, let’s go somewhere.’

He frowned.

‘I don’t want to be here, not today, I’m so tired of it – upstairs – all the rain. But I woke up and saw the sun – I want to go out.’

‘It’s the market at Thefton.’

‘Oh no.’

No, not there. For what she wanted was not to remember, not to have any of the past thrown up before her eyes, but to forget, just for this one day, to get away, somewhere else, somewhere new. She knew that this was a day which would not come again, that the grieving was not over but only suspended in time, so that she might take a breath, recover something of herself.

‘Jo, we’ll go …’

She hesitated. Everywhere about this countryside, all the fields and woods and valleys, even as far as the river, held memories, were too close.

‘We’ll go to the sea.’

‘The sea?’ He sounded unsure.

‘On the train. We can walk to Thefton. And have a whole day – at Hadwell Bay.’

‘That’s where we went for our holiday. Where I found the stones. Hadwell Bay!’

It was still early, seven o’clock, there would be a train sometime that morning.

‘Ruth …’

They had gone into the sun-filled kitchen. Jo was putting the eggs away. She turned.

‘I was afraid… I was afraid you’d never be well.’

‘Jo … Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t think of you. You come up here every day and I don’t talk to you, I …’

‘No, it was …’ He shook his head.

‘A dream?’

‘No.’

“What is it?’

‘Sometimes, in the night, the house is so quiet. And they don’t know if I’m there or not. They don’t know anything. Then, I think about you.’

‘Do you think about Ben? Do you miss him?’

‘I – it’s strange.’

‘How?’

‘I go over there, up on the ridge and then I see – then I think about him. Over there. It’s all right. I know it is. Ben was different. He wasn’t like us.’

‘Yes. He was like you.’

‘When I was seven, I killed a rabbit. There was a boy I knew – he lived at Hedgely – and he borrowed his father’s gun – or took it. He said he knew how to shoot and I didn’t. I never would. It made me angry. I said I could, I could do anything he did, anything in the world. So I had to show him, and he gave me the gun. It was very heavy. I didn’t think guns were so heavy. It hurt my arm. But I saw a rabbit – it wasn’t very far away and it didn’t move. And I shot it. I heard it squeal, I … And that was the only truly wicked thing
I
’ve ever done in my life. I can remember it – the sound it made. And it was my fault.’

He was standing a few feet away from her, holding himself stiffly.

‘I cried in the night,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t stop hearing it. I dreamed about it. Ben came. I told Ben. I’ve never told anyone else.’

There was nothing she could say, but she realised then as never before how close he had been to his brother, how much Ben’s death had affected him.

The kitchen was warm, it smelled of something fresh, clean. She looked around her and saw how tidy Jo had made it, how he had arranged the pans and dishes on the shelves, and polished the top of the range until it shone. What would she have done, how could she have lived, without Jo?

She said, ‘Shall we go to the sea?’

‘If – I’ll do what you want.’

He searched her face and saw her excitement, her hope of pleasure, said, ‘Yes. We’ll go.’ And abruptly, he came and put his arms round her, she heard him say, ‘The sea!’ and his voice was full of wonder.

The sun rose higher and shone like a disc of metal out of a transparent sky.

They might have been the only people in the world. Hadwell Bay curved out in front of them, the sea far, far out, the sand flat and pale and, closer to them, the rocks glistening wet, with small, secret pools hidden in their clefts, as though cupped between two hands. It
was
very still, quite warm and at the rim of the horizon, the sky was silver-white.

Jo stood, looking, as if he could not believe in any of it.

He said, ‘It’s the same. It smells the same … it’s …’ He pressed his arms to his sides tightly, and released them again.

‘What can we do?’

‘Anything. You say.’

Already, for Ruth, the day had taken on the quality of a dream, she was in it and yet outside of it, but whatever happened, she must hold hard on to every moment, nothing must slip past her unnoticed.

They walked very slowly down on to the beach and the sand made a rasping sound as they stepped on it, the imprints of their feet strung out behind them, like small, following animals. There was no wind, but everywhere, a particular smell of salt and fish and the curious reek of the black ribbon seaweed, scattered with small blisters, which Jo went for, and carried over his arm.

‘If you take it and hang it outside the door, you can tell the weather – if it’s going to be wet or dry, by how the seaweed feels in your hand.’

And then he left her again, to climb over some pinkish brown rocks. A different weed was draped over them like green hair, slimy to touch.

‘Sea anemones,’ he called, and she followed him, they bent down together and saw their own two faces
reflected
in the rock pool, their eyes dark and shining in pale moons. And again, breathing up the sea smell, she thought, I shall never forget this, and I shall never come here again, in case it is spoiled, changed. She put her finger down into the cold water and touched a fronded anemone and it closed over the tip like the pink wet mouth of an infant suckling a nipple.

‘They’re alive,’ Jo said, ‘they’re not just plants, they’re really a kind of animal.’

He was happy, released from the anxiety and strain of the past days. Looking at him, Ruth thought that if she had done nothing else, at least she had given him this.

They walked and walked along the rim of the sea, which only shifted a little, and the sun shone on to them and on to the cliffs above them, the sky was spread thin as new paint, Jo found shells, razors and conches and an abalone, and very small, smooth pink pebbles, and stored them all away in his pockets. She did not wish for Ben to be here, it was enough that she had Jo, they were held together in this capsule of quiet, sunlit pleasure.

They lay on the sand, and Ruth half closed her eyes, so that the sea and sky danced together, were incandescent, it was a magic world and time went on forever.

*

It was dark, and much colder. Coming up the lane, her body seemed to be floating and her head was full of the sound of the waves, she felt washed clean by the salt air and sunlight, the reflections off the water. She was vividly awake, every nerve was vibrating, she heard every sound very clearly, like the ringing of bells; their own footsteps on the road, the creak of a tree branch, the quick dart of some animal in the ditch. When she breathed, it was as though the fresh air passed through every vein.

The moon was full, papery pale as a circle of honesty.

Jo was tired and silent, hugging the brightness and joy of the day close to himself. At the bottom of the slope, they stopped. He should turn right to the village, and Ruth would go on, up to the common. But perhaps she should go with him to Foss Lane, perhaps, in this mood, she would be able to say something to them, break through the barriers of hostility and mistrust.

‘They don’t know where you’ve been. I ought to come with you, tell them.’

‘They don’t care.’

‘But…’

‘Nobody notices. Don’t come, Ruth, don’t.’

His voice was tense.

‘I ought to talk to them.’

‘No. And I don’t want them to know anything about today. It’s private, I don’t want it to be spoiled and if they know, it will be. Don’t come.’

She sensed that he was trying to protect her from them and that there were other, hidden reasons of his own.

‘I’ll come tomorrow.’

He turned away from her, then back again, he hugged her tightly for a second. He said, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ and reached into his pocket, took out one of the shells, the abalone, and gave it to her.

‘Jo – don’t forget today. Don’t forget anything about it.’

But she had no need of a reply.

He walked off and she stayed there, holding the shell, listening to his footsteps, and did not want to go back to the cottage, because once there she would know that the day was over, and that what she had deliberately put out of her mind would be waiting for her in the empty rooms. And a sudden picture of Ben, walking towards her across the common, filled her head and she cried out, because he was not there, because she was alone in the dark lane, she wanted to be with him and there was no way, no way.

There was a way.

As she came to the top of the hill, she began to run, as though time mattered and she might somehow be too late, might find him gone. And she blamed herself for having stayed away so long, she had to make up for all the days and nights of neglect.

She had imagined him to be with her, in the
cottage
or else gone somewhere beyond her reach, but now, she faced what seemed to be the only truth, that this was where they had brought, and left him. Had others been here? Had Dora Bryce and Alice and the black mourners, the neighbours and relatives? If they had, she resented it, she wished this to be a private place, a locked garden to which only she had the key. But it was open, anyone might walk in and view, as they had all stared down upon him in the open coffin.