The house is cool when I get back inside so I stoke up the Rayburn with coppiced willow and I take a rest on the bed upstairs. He lets me rest for half an hour in the daytime on account of the ‘youngen’. I lie with my hands on my child, on my stomach, my hard ever-changing lower belly. What will become of this unmoving little person? How will I bring them into this world, this place; how will I care for them? I’ve asked Lenn about seeing a doctor or a midwife and he said ‘ain’t likely’. I asked him about nappies and a crib, about baby clothes, about the things I know or think I know this child will need. He ignores my questions. The pills make my head throb, but they help my ankle. It’s a perilous balancing act. When I have ten minutes left of my rest break I fall into a deep sleep and then I wake up and the clock says ten to five. I scramble, panicking, across to the banister and, holding it tightly in my armpit, inching down as if descending some mountain pass, I make it to the bottom just before he arrives in the entrance hall and takes off his blue-marked overalls and boots and his wool hat.
‘I can’t smell no pie? Summat wrong?’
‘I’ve stoked up the fire, it’ll be ready soon.’
He goes into the bathroom and closes the door behind him.
I take the pie from the fridge. I made it last night with leftovers from the dry roast chicken, and place it as high as possible in the main oven of the Rayburn. I fill the fire box with wood and open the vents and blow to get the fire going.
Lenn walks back in and sits at the computer to review the tapes.
‘You didn’t clean that sink proper,’ he says. ‘Mother used to bleach it every day, scrub it after.’
‘OK,’ I say.
‘Hang on.’
I check the pie in the oven, some impulse telling me the smell of it cooking might appease him.
‘How long did you put your feet up for then?’
I look at him.
‘You do that again and I’ll have them letters off you, all right? This ain’t no bleedin’ holiday camp, me mother used to work her fingers to bone out here and then you come, rent-free, not a care in world, waltzed right into this country, into this house, and just lay about.’ He turns and looks straight at me. ‘Won’t have it, Jane.’
My name is not Jane.
‘I’m off to feed pigs, have me pie on table by time I get back in.’
I check on the pie when he’s gone and it’s warming up, the pastry colouring, but the insides are probably still cool. He took my ID card last month. I’d forgotten to place out his towel, the small one he uses after he makes me have a bath. I’d not taken it out of the linen cabinet or placed it on his side of the bed, and when it came time for him to finish, he’d groaned a different groan to normal. Like he was in pain without that towel. And then he took me downstairs and he made me put my three remaining possessions on the plastic-wrapped sofa and he’d made me pick one, and now I’m afraid that if things keep going on like this I’ll forget my real name, my birthday, my place of birth, and I won’t have my ID card to remind me.
There’s a light out front.
I hobble to the window and wipe the condensation with my hand. It’s a truck up by the locked halfway gate. I open the front door and a chill air cools my arms and sends my hairs standing up and my flesh all bumped.
It’s a fire engine.
Men are getting out of the cab at the front.
I step outside.
They’re shouting something but I can’t hear them.
They’re in uniform, official uniforms, hats, reflective jackets, boots.
There are three or four of them. Walking towards me. I hold out my hand and then their voices get drowned out by the screaming engine of Lenn’s quad as he races up to meet them. I watch them talk. They look over at me and one of them shakes Lenn’s hand and then they climb back into their fire truck and turn and drive away.
Chapter 8
It’s Easter weekend and he’s planting oilseed rape. He says it’s his most important crop of the year.
I’ve been helping Lenn with the farm paperwork, subsidy forms and reordering. I’m better with numbers than he is and this keeps him off my back. He expects me to scrub and clean and cook the same as I always do, but with my bump, and my back as bad as it is, and my ankle more swollen than ever, I need to sit down more. I use the desktop PC, him watching me.
Frank Trussock’s son is a firefighter. Lenn never told me what the fire engine was doing here, but I did overhear him on the phone that night. He was talking to Frank. He was asking about the new woman in the village, the woman with red hair.
The skies are at their most interesting at this time of year. The colours and also the depth. Swirls and wafers and false worlds. Layers of cloud like sedimentary rock strata built up over the ages. Earlier this morning everything above soil level was rose pink.
‘Get chips on,’ says Lenn as he walks in, the door frame behind him twilight grey. ‘And don’t dry them eggs too hard, keep them yellas runny.’
He sits down to review the day’s tapes as I get the oven chips out of the freezer.
‘You know you said about that woman,’ I say.
He grunts and keeps his watery eyes on the screen.
‘For the baby.’
‘What you talkin’ about?’
‘The woman. You said—’
‘Ain’t no woman needed, changed me mind. Ain’t nothing I can’t do myself.’ He looks over at me. ‘Get chips in stove and come here.’
I do it.
‘Get them films up.’
‘Which films?
He moves aside and I sit down at the PC.
‘All them you showed me. Short films. When I fixed washin’ machine that time. Them videos tellin’ you how to fix this thing and that.’
‘YouTube?’
‘That’s it.’
I google YouTube and because the Internet’s so slow the homepage take minutes to load. The smell of hot oil starts to fill the room.
‘When it coming out of you?’
I touch my stomach.
He looks down and says, ‘When’s he comin’ out, Jane?’
‘Soon.’
‘Get video up on how to do it. Me mother did it with me, mothers have been doin’ it for thousands of years, can’t be nowt to it. Find a good video and get on with them eggs.’
‘But you said you know a woman.’ He looks agitated. ‘Please, Lenn. We need proper help.’
‘You get video up or else we won’t know nothin’, will we? Find a gooden.’
I search for DIY home births and wait for the results.
‘That’s them,’ he says.
I select one and click on it.
‘That’s it,’ he says.
I vacate the chair and start to fry ham and eggs on the top of the Rayburn in his mother’s cast-iron skillet. The oil spits and burns my wrist and I watch it redden and I let it.
‘Film’s not workin’,’ he says. ‘Ah, it’s comin’ now.’
I can’t watch.
I stand at the stove, the heat from the fire warming my bump, and watch the egg whites bubble and shake.
Screams pour out of the computer.
Lenn’s entranced, he has his head close to the monitor, his hands gripping the table.