Proud Harvest

Her mother made a dismissing gesture. ‘I’m going to lie down. Don’t bother about making me a meal. I’ll get something later, if I’m hungry.’

Lesley watched her mother’s progress across the room with troubled eyes. Not least among the many things that troubled her was the realisation that her mother could hide a thing like that from her—and for how long? That was another of the questions that still needed answering. With a despairing sigh, she sank down on to a low couch and pushed back the heavy weight of her hair with both hands. Was she really so unfeeling? Was she so wrapped up in her own affairs that she had no time for anyone else? She had never thought so, but now … It seemed incredible that that morning she had had no notion of what plans her mother had been nurturing, or indeed that even as she lunched in the staff canteen at W.L.T.V. Carne was at that moment driving down the M.1. from Yorkshire, intent on keeping an appointment which must have been made days ago. It hurt to think her mother could deceive her, and while she didn’t seriously believe there had been other meetings, nevertheless a little of her trust had been undermined.

Leaving the cluttered paraphernalia of the living room, Lesley went into her bedroom, the room she shared with Jeremy when he was home. She supposed that situation would not be approved by a court of law, but as the flat only had two bedrooms, there was no other alternative. Short of sharing her mother’s bedroom, of course, but naturally Mrs Matthews wanted a room to herself. If Lesley had thought of what might happen in the future, as Jeremy got too old to share her room, it was along the lines of them perhaps acquiring a larger apartment, but she had never really considered what she would do if her mother should object. Carne was right, in one way. Her independence did depend on her mother to a large extent at the moment, but once Jeremy was old enough to be left alone, she supposed there was no reason why they shouldn’t get a flat of their own. But all these things had been hazy, nebulous, distant possibilities that would work themselves out in the natural order of things. Now all that had been changed, and suddenly she was faced with the practicalities of the present, and with the disturbing realisation that her mother had put all their futures into Carne’s hands.

The bathroom was vacant and she turned on the taps to silence the frenzied screaming of her nerves. Sprinkling essence liberally into the bath water, she watched the deep green liquid melt and dissolve, to rise again as balls of foam that made a fluffy white carpet over the surface. What could she say to Carne to make him see that by reappearing in Jeremy’s life now, he could only confuse the boy again? Confuse? Her lips twisted. She was confused. Carne already knew that. By springing her mother’s illness upon her, he had successfully diluted her arguments, just as the bath water had diluted the essence.

It was a marvellous relief to sink down into the heated suds, and allow the softened water to probe every pore of her tense body. She needed to relax, to think coherently. She needed to restore every shred of composure before encountering her husband again.

It didn’t help to realise that seeing him again had upset her more than she had expected. In the early days after their break-up she had seen him on several occasions, but always in the company of her mother and Jeremy, and in the aftermath of that final devastating row which had ended with her bundling Jeremy into her car and leaving, a defensive numbness had coated the more vulnerable areas of her emotions.

Maybe if she had had warning of the meeting, if she had had time to gather herself, so to speak, so that when she faced him she had behaved with coolness and sophistication, and not given in to those entirely schoolgirlish taunts and provocations. Maybe then she would not be feeling so raw now, so exposed to all the pain and misery that had both preceded and followed her separation from Carne.

She lay in the bath too long and had to hurry with her dressing. Somehow she had accepted that she had to have dinner with him, if only to prevent her mother any more distress. That she had brought the distress on herself meant less than Lesley’s guilty neglect of her mother’s health, and after satisfying herself that she looked neither too young nor too sophisticated, she went into Mrs Matthews’ bedroom.

Her mother was lying on the bed reading a magazine, and judging from her appearance, she seemed to have recovered from her earlier upset. Lesley hesitated in the doorway, not quite knowing what to say, and then she casually flicked the skirt of her flared jersey dress.

‘Does this look all right?’

Mrs Matthews regarded her critically for a moment, over the top of the magazine. ‘Shouldn’t you wear a long gown?’ she enquired, and Lesley expelled her breath on a long sigh.

‘I don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘After all, I don’t know where we’re going, do I?’

‘I thought most young people wore long clothes these days,’ averred her mother rather peevishly, and Lesley wondered if she was being deliberately obstructive.

‘How are you feeling now?’ she asked, changing the subject, but Mrs Matthews was still looking at her dress.

‘I suppose it is pretty material,’ she decided grudgingly. ‘You always did suit blue and gold. But don’t you think those sandals are too high? You may have to walk. Carne will probably leave his car at the hotel.’

Lesley examined the slender heels of the leather strapped sandals on her narrow feet. ‘I thought they looked rather nice,’ she murmured doubtfully, then, as the doorbell rang: ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘Don’t start worrying about me now, Lesley,’ her mother retorted shortly. ‘You never have cared about anyone but yourself.’

The accusation was so hurtful that for a moment Lesley could only stare at her. Then the doorbell rang again, more peremptorily this time, and with a helpless shake of her head, she went to answer it.

But at least her mother’s barb had one effect. It stiffened Lesley’s failing resolve and the feeling of injustice that filled her gave her confidence to face whatever was to come.

Carne was leaning against the wall beside the door when she opened it, but he straightened at her appearance and she thought with a pang how like old times this was. Their attraction had been immediate and mutual, and every spare moment he had had, or could make, Carne had driven the two hundred or so miles to see her.

But that was all in the past. The Carne Radley who accepted her stiff invitation to step into the flat this evening was older and infinitely more mature, his dark brown mohair lounge suit as immaculate as his jeans had been casual earlier. A special occasion, then, she thought, with bitter humour. Carne didn’t put on his best clothes for everybody. His detached gaze barely registered her appearance and she wondered if she’d not bothered to change whether he would have noticed.

Mrs Matthews appeared as Lesley went to collect a lacy scarf to put about her shoulders. She greeted Carne warmly, and Lesley wondered if she had any real feelings for Jeremy at all. Didn’t her mother realise that by forcing her hand, she might create a situation none of them could control? Jeremy had a mind of his own, but he was too young to be forced to choose. Carne had bowed out of his obligations. Why wouldn’t her mother accept that?

When she came back, Carne was handing her mother a glass of the sherry she kept for special visitors, but Lesley noticed he wasn’t drinking himself. Mrs Matthews sipped the glowing brown liquid delicately and asked whether all the rain they had been having had caused any problems. Carne explained that the ground had been very dry from the previous year and the absence of snow through the winter that followed, but he agreed he had got tired of wading through acres of mud.

Listening to them, Lesley felt a pang. When she first went to Raventhorpe paddling about in Wellingtons had been all part of the marvellous sense of freedom she had experienced. After years of academic slog, it had been fun to help bring in the cows or feed a motherless lamb with a baby’s feeding bottle. She had tramped the fields with Carne, and gone with him to market. She had drunk halves of bitter in the Red Lion, and listened to the talk about crops and feed stuffs and if she had had to share Carne’s attention with the other men, she had cherished the thought that when their bedroom door closed that night, she would have him all to herself for hours and hours and hours …

Those were the days before she had Jeremy to care for, when she hadn’t had the time to listen to Mrs Radley’s continual barbs or care if she ridiculed her naïve attempts to accomplish some task Carne’s mother tackled without effort. She had been free to come and go as she pleased, and only as her pregnancy began to weigh her down was she forced to spend more and more time in the house. She had a hard time having Jeremy, and although Carne had insisted she have the child in the maternity hospital in Thirsk, it was weeks before she felt physically strong again. Another black mark against her, she thought now, remembering how Mrs Radley had jeered because she had not been able to feed the baby, and maintained that she had had her four children without complications and been out in the fields again with them sucking at her breast. Lesley hadn’t disbelieved her. Carne’s mother seemed capable of anything. Except liking her … Maybe if he had married the daughter of one of the local farmers, she would have felt differently. Marion Harvey had obviously expected to occupy Lesley’s position, and even though Carne was married had lost no opportunity to spend time with him. They had had a different set of values from her, Lesley decided coldly. No doubt Marion was still around. The wonder was that Carne hadn’t asked for a divorce before this and married her. Unless she had married someone else, of course. That was always possible. And it didn’t necessarily mean there would be any drastic change in their association. Marion had lived on a farm all her life. She knew all there was to know about the relationship between the male and the female of the species. No doubt she’d learned it first hand from an early age, thought Lesley spitefully, remembering how Marion and Mrs Radley had laughed when she had asked why the bull spent its days tethered while the cows ran freely in the pasture. No, she had been all wrong with Carne. She was city born and city bred and, in Mrs Radley’s opinion, too soft to cope with life in the Yorkshire dales.

She dragged her thoughts back to the present as Carne’s cool eyes turned in her direction. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked quietly, and she inclined her head. She doubted she would ever be, but she looked at her mother and murmured: ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘Don’t hurry back on my account,’ Mrs Matthews averred, apparently determined to be awkward, and Lesley’s twitching lips scarcely formed a smile as she walked towards the door.

She walked quickly along the corridor to the lift, and to her relief it was already occupied when it stopped at their floor. She and Carne squeezed inside, and the door closed behind them creating an absurd intimacy that would have been suffocating without the presence of other people.

It was an escape to cross the entrance hall and emerge into the cool evening air. It was pleasantly warm now, not so humid as it had been earlier in the day, and Lesley allowed the scarf to fall loosely about her waist and over her forearms.

Realising she could not continue leading the way as she had been doing, she looked up at Carne as they reached the bottom of the apartment building steps, eyebrows raised in polite question. There was no sign of the station wagon she saw apprehensively, and she was very much afraid her mother was going to be right about him leaving it at his hotel.

‘I’ve booked a table at a small Italian restaurant in Greek Street,’ he informed her. ‘Do you feel up to the walk, or shall I hail a taxi?’

There was a challenge in his eyes, and before she could help herself Lesley exclaimed: ‘I can walk!’ although her feet quailed at the anticipation of nearly a mile in the sandals she was wearing. She should have accepted her mother’s advice for the good sense it was instead of assuming she was just being obstructive, but she determined that Carne should not suspect she had doubts.

By the time they were passing the railed environs of the British Museum, she was almost ready to concede defeat. Carne had kept up a blistering pace, striding along beside her with a complete disregard for the length of her legs when compared to his. She was not a small girl, but she was not an Amazon either, and she was not accustomed to walking much anywhere, although she would never admit it to him. She should have dressed in a sweat shirt and cords and Wellingtons, she thought resentfully. Obviously he imagined he was out on the Fells, and that his dinner would get cold if he didn’t get back in time to eat it!

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to keep pace with him, but she was never so relieved than when St Giles Circus hove into view. The towering mass of Centre Point was ringed by traffic lights, and they crossed with a crowd of other people to go down Charing Cross Road.

Antonionis was not a new restaurant, but Lesley had not been there before. She couldn’t help wondering how Carne had known about it, but she had no intention of asking. It was no business of hers how often he chose to come to London, but she did wonder if he came alone.

The lighting in the restaurant was low and discreet, the tables set between trellises twined with climbing shrubs and vines. There was music provided by two men who played an assortment of instruments between them, but mostly arranged for piano and guitar.

Seated on the low banquette that made a horseshoe round the table, Lesley surreptitiously slipped off her sandals and pressed her burning soles against the coolly tiled floor. She closed her eyes for a moment, the relief was so great, but opened them again hurriedly when Carne asked: ‘Are you feeling ill?’

‘What?’ Lesley’s response was guilty. ‘Oh, no. No.’ She swallowed. ‘I—er—I’ve never been here before.’

Carne studied her slightly embarrassed features for a few moments longer, and then transferred his attention to the white-coated waiter hovering at his side.

‘We’ll have the wine list,’ he said, speaking with the cool assurance Lesley had always admired. ‘And bring us two Campari and sodas to be going on with.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The waiter withdrew and Carne’s attention turned back to Lesley. But she had had a few seconds to compose herself, and to shuffle along the velvet seat so that now they were seated at right angles to one another. It was easier than facing him, although she was conscious that if she moved her feet too recklessly they would touch his ankle.

‘So,’ he said, toying with his dessert fork. ‘Isn’t this civilised?’

Lesley decided there was nothing to be gained by antagonising him again, and forced a faint smile. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘And how is he?’

‘How is who?’

For a moment her mind had gone blank, but Carne patently didn’t believe her. ‘Well. I don’t mean Lance Petrie,’ he retorted coldly. ‘Or your latest boy-friend.’

‘I don’t have a boy-friend!’ exclaimed Lesley indignantly, and then cursing herself for allowing him to get under her skin, went on more evenly: ‘I’m sorry, I was miles away. You mean Jeremy, of course.’ She paused, striving for control. ‘Well—he’s fine. So far as I know.’

‘What do you mean? So far as you know?’

Lesley sighed. ‘I mean I get a weekly letter from him. All the boys are expected to write home at least once a week. It’s not much of a letter usually,’ she reminisced, forgetting for a moment to whom she was speaking, and then recovering again, added: ‘He was all right when he wrote a week ago.’