The Banker's Niece 11: William 2

The quad bike turns out to be nothing more threatening than a motorbike with four wheels, which is obvious when you think about it. Jane is pleased to discover that William’s version has two seats side by side, as she had uncomfortable visions of climbing up behind him and putting her arms round his waist.

    Thankfully William is looking the other way when she hoicks up her skirt in order to step in. Jasper leaps in after her and she only just manages to appropriate the seat before he does. With the stoicism of all dogs however (not that Jane's an expert), he settles with a thump on the floor between her legs.
    There’s nothing at the front or side to hold on to so she grips Jasper with her knees and wraps her fingers round the seat cushion – and not a moment too soon as the bike takes off like a greyhound.

    It roars up the track, thudding into holes and flying off bumps, reminding her of rough weather on her father’s yacht. Brother Ollie, she remembers, would be in the cockpit eating chocolate biscuits and grinning with excitement, his hair plastered to his head from spray, while she would be down below on a bunk, vomiting.

    And she wishes she hasn’t remembered that, but luckily, before memory turns to reality, the bike reaches the farmyard.

    Well, it’s a yard attached to a farm, but only one building, a new redbrick one, appears to be in use. Jane wonders if that’s where William does the milking. The rest are in varying stages of disrepair, with caved-in roofs and a surrounding litter of brown rocks and whiteish plaster. The cobbled driveway is barely visible under moss, dried mud and a forest of nettles. Again, Jane regrets her sandals and skirt.

    How can you run a farm from such a slum? Is this what farming's really like? It doesn’t look much fun. Even though she was brought up on a farm, her experience is limited as her father let the fields and worked in London running the family company. And, while the outbuildings on her family's farm were far from perfect, they were kept in a reasonable state of repair and all used for something – cars, tools, mowers.

    As soon as William switches the engine off she is struck by the silence, except that is for the birds whose trills, twitters and squeaks form a dense background, like a carpet in an empty room. A cluster of mature trees rustles gently behind some of the ruined barns. Like the barns, they appear to have escaped human interference for decades. Torn branches hang down, others are dead, others have grown into the ruins. 
    Jasper leaps off the bike, landing heavily on all four feet, and bustles through the nettles along what Jane realises with relief is a well-trampled route. She follows him towards a long white house with sash windows and an overgrowth of roses and wisteria. It shines out of the debris like the Madonna lily she once saw blooming in a dark Greek pinewood.
    This place, she thinks, could be worth a fortune – but it might need a fortune spending on it.

‘Go through,’ says William, stripping off his overalls and leaving them in a heap on the floor of what Jane’s mother would probably call a scullery and anyone else a utility room, even though there isn’t much useful about it: cracked flagstones; an original Belfast sink, stained brown; one rusty tap; a corner piled with sacks of dogfood and crates of lager.

   He could do with a clothes makeover as well as a haircut, she thinks, seeing the shapeless jeans and creased white shirt he’s wearing under the overalls.

    She loves those makeover programmes on television. She loves seeing people’s lives transformed. It’s pathetic really and not something she would ever confess to her friends – like so much else these days.

    And he’s too thin. She can see his shoulder-blades through his shirt, and his jeans are bunched into a belt as if he’s shrunk since he bought them.

    But then she’s a fine one to talk as she has, since her menopause a few years ago, lost two stone and reverted to the weight of her anorexic teens. She doesn’t think she’s anorexic again however as she eats regularly. Mostly. Sometimes she finds it hard to swallow, especially if she hasn’t had a glass of wine first to relax her muscles. It’s almost as if she has a permanent lump in her throat.

Given the contradictions of the yard, the kitchen isn’t a surprise.

    There’s a battered cream Aga, with a mound of old grey blankets beside it on to which Jasper throws himself with happy grunts. In the centre of the room there’s a beautiful pale-oak table, piled with bills and bank statements with just one chair pulled up to it at the Aga end. There’s a magnificent window half-obscured by chintz curtains, heavy but torn as if rejects from some stately home. In the shaft of sunlight next to the window there's a shapely armchair covered in the same tattered chintz. Its undercarriage rests on the floor like the stomach of an overweight cat.
    There are two anomalies: a cheap-looking chest-of-drawers with a small television perched in the dust on top of it, and some pictures. These hang in several neat rows on a far wall in semi-darkness and as Jane gets closer to them she sees that they are exquisite watercolours of British birds, simply framed in pine.

    She longs to ask about them but now doesn’t seem the moment. They look private somehow, like a locked diary or the stash of porn that adolescent boys keep hidden under their bed. Not that dear Ollie ever did as far as she knows but male friends have confessed.

William scrambles the eggs and burns the toast while Jane – with great care - makes the coffee with a cafetière she finds in a cupboard and some ready-ground William has in the freezer.

    ‘Left over from when my children were supposed to be coming to stay,’ he says.

    ‘Ah,’ she says.

    She remembers the ex-wife from her mother's telephone call, and senses a long and maybe sad story there, but again she doesn’t like to pry. She hates it when people subject her to a barrage of questions.

    William finds a second chair and pushes the papers away and they sit together at the end of the table chatting about this and that – the beautiful weather, Jane’s new job, the area, the cottage even. Not that Jane wants to get William’s hopes up at this stage. She doesn’t even know what the place costs and she needs to go to the estate agent in South Molton to find out all the boring details about services (if there are any) and surveys.

    He gives her a few funny looks but she decides to put them down to shyness rather than lust.

    Jasper hauls himself off his blankets and hoovers up the crumbs under their feet.

    It’s quite companionable really.

    ‘So you were in the army?’ she says, as they mop their plates with bread - white, out of a packet, but Jane isn’t complaining; she’s so hungry everything tastes like ambrosia.

    She can’t imagine William in the army. It seems far too brutal for him. Do they even take people with stammers?

    But then farming isn’t much better from what she’s read –  the unnatural conditions in which animals are kept, slaughterhouses, the separation of young animals and their mothers. She keeps thinking she ought to turn vegan, but she never quite manages it. She likes butter too much.

    William’s face shuts down. ‘Family t-tradition,’ he grunts.

    ‘But you got out?’

    ‘Yeah. Wanted to spend more time with my family.’

    Jane nods. ‘Of course.’

    It’s the standard answer when you don’t want to reveal the truth.

    She’s itching to ask more but William is wiping his plate assiduously with his bread and concentrating on leaving it squeaky clean.

    ‘Didn’t work though,’ he mutters unexpectedly.

    For a moment Jane doesn’t know what to say. Is he confiding in her? Does he want to say more? Is she being too reticent?

    ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, feeling inadequate.

    There’s an awkward silence. Not for the first time she wishes she were one of those fluffy women who drip emotions. Maybe she and William are too alike, she thinks. It’s not a comfortable thought.

    ‘I’d better go,’ she says, standing up. ‘Thank you so much for breakfast. It was a lifesaver. I’ll let you know about the cottage.’

    William starts throwing their dirty plates into the sink, and while he’s occupied she seizes the opportunity to question him in a casual way.   

    She points to the pictures. ‘What are these?’

    ‘What?’ asks William, his back to her.

    ‘These paintings,’ says Jane. ‘They’re lovely, but there’s no signature. Where did you get them?’

    ‘Oh, those,’ says William turning round. He’s blushing again.

    Jane doesn’t think she’s ever seen a man blush before, or certainly not as often as William does.

    ‘Actually, they’re mine. I did them,’ he says.

    ‘You did them!’ she exclaims. ‘But why aren’t you an artist? You should be doing this full time. You could easily make a living.’

    ‘It was a long time ago,’ he says. ‘Before I went into the army.’

    ‘But you could have gone to art school, done anything.’

    She can’t bear the waste of such talent. He needs shaking.

    ‘F-family wouldn’t have it,’ he mumbles.

    Family, she thinks in disgust.

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