mystery.
Jack never knew if she was just joking or saying it to niggle him, or if what she really meant was that this mystery man ought actually to be him. If he would only
do
something. Whatever that might be. So how about it, Jacko? It was all right somehow when she said it when they were only seventeen, but when she said it again when they were past twenty, when she said it after those cattle had been bolt-gunned down on both their farms, it was different, it was troubling.
At some point he’d started having the thought that what Ellie was really waiting for was for her father to die.Not that she was actually hoping he would have one of the several forms of fatal accident open to farmers, but it might be her only ticket out. And it might be a long wait. Merrick was as tough as a thistle, all twinkle and wire. And it seemed that people couldn’t catch the cow disease, or not in a hurry anyway.
And then again, not having to live with him round the clock, Jack couldn’t actually hate Jimmy (but then, did Ellie?), as sometimes he could hate his own father. Jimmy, after all, had let them have all those afternoons. And God knows when Jimmy would have last had intimate female company of his own. But clearly that didn’t of itself cause a man to waste away and die. Or God help us all.
But, as it happened, Jimmy did start to waste away. And die. And not so long after Michael died.
7
‘WE’D BETTER cancel St Lucia.’
Ellie had looked at him and he’d known he shouldn’t have said it, or not then. He should have waited for the right moment. It was a secondary consideration—and it went, surely, without saying.
But he’d blurted it out straight away, like some clumsy gesture of reparation. And Ellie had looked at him and he’d known even then, with the letter back in his hands again after she’d read it, that this thing that had arrived out of the blue would drive a wedge—he could hear the blows of the hammer striking it—between them.
There was a separate mail box at the site and Jack would go down most mornings to check it, except during those mid-winter weeks when they’d be away and would arrange for their post to be held back (and suppose this letter had come then). Not much mail came directly to the cottage.
But that morning, a dank, grey early-November morning nine days ago, a red post-office van had swung up the narrow winding road he looks at now, to bring the private mail, including one very private letter, though the envelopebore the words ‘Ministry of Defence’. And it must have been redirected by someone with a long memory since it also bore the original, now lapsed address ‘Jebb Farm, Marleston’.
And Jack had known, before he’d opened it.
Once he
had
opened it and truly did know, there was no way he could prove that he’d known beforehand, and it didn’t matter. Yet he’d known, even as he held the unopened envelope. His mind was no longer the usual slow mechanism. It was quick as a switch, it had turned electric. His big, heavy body, on the other hand, seemed to be draining through the floor and leaving him powerless. The roof of his mouth went dry. In the same bright flash of knowing, he thought, absurdly, of his long-dead mother, raised in a post office.
Even before he’d opened the envelope he’d called out, ‘Ellie! Ell! Where are you? Come here.’
She’d been up here, in this bedroom, changing that duvet cover. By the time she was with him, he still hadn’t opened the letter.
And now that it lay opened between them and he’d said what he’d said and Ellie had given him that uncooperative look, he thought, seeing it all again, of the last time a letter, seeming to change everything, had lain between them. A letter to Ellie that time, and she’d been waiting—she’d certainly picked her moment—to show it to him. They’d both been stark naked at the time and he’d wondered where the hell she’d been hiding it.
He saw again Ellie’s tits sway as she handed
Jack never knew if she was just joking or saying it to niggle him, or if what she really meant was that this mystery man ought actually to be him. If he would only
do
something. Whatever that might be. So how about it, Jacko? It was all right somehow when she said it when they were only seventeen, but when she said it again when they were past twenty, when she said it after those cattle had been bolt-gunned down on both their farms, it was different, it was troubling.
At some point he’d started having the thought that what Ellie was really waiting for was for her father to die.Not that she was actually hoping he would have one of the several forms of fatal accident open to farmers, but it might be her only ticket out. And it might be a long wait. Merrick was as tough as a thistle, all twinkle and wire. And it seemed that people couldn’t catch the cow disease, or not in a hurry anyway.
And then again, not having to live with him round the clock, Jack couldn’t actually hate Jimmy (but then, did Ellie?), as sometimes he could hate his own father. Jimmy, after all, had let them have all those afternoons. And God knows when Jimmy would have last had intimate female company of his own. But clearly that didn’t of itself cause a man to waste away and die. Or God help us all.
But, as it happened, Jimmy did start to waste away. And die. And not so long after Michael died.
7
‘WE’D BETTER cancel St Lucia.’
Ellie had looked at him and he’d known he shouldn’t have said it, or not then. He should have waited for the right moment. It was a secondary consideration—and it went, surely, without saying.
But he’d blurted it out straight away, like some clumsy gesture of reparation. And Ellie had looked at him and he’d known even then, with the letter back in his hands again after she’d read it, that this thing that had arrived out of the blue would drive a wedge—he could hear the blows of the hammer striking it—between them.
There was a separate mail box at the site and Jack would go down most mornings to check it, except during those mid-winter weeks when they’d be away and would arrange for their post to be held back (and suppose this letter had come then). Not much mail came directly to the cottage.
But that morning, a dank, grey early-November morning nine days ago, a red post-office van had swung up the narrow winding road he looks at now, to bring the private mail, including one very private letter, though the envelopebore the words ‘Ministry of Defence’. And it must have been redirected by someone with a long memory since it also bore the original, now lapsed address ‘Jebb Farm, Marleston’.
And Jack had known, before he’d opened it.
Once he
had
opened it and truly did know, there was no way he could prove that he’d known beforehand, and it didn’t matter. Yet he’d known, even as he held the unopened envelope. His mind was no longer the usual slow mechanism. It was quick as a switch, it had turned electric. His big, heavy body, on the other hand, seemed to be draining through the floor and leaving him powerless. The roof of his mouth went dry. In the same bright flash of knowing, he thought, absurdly, of his long-dead mother, raised in a post office.
Even before he’d opened the envelope he’d called out, ‘Ellie! Ell! Where are you? Come here.’
She’d been up here, in this bedroom, changing that duvet cover. By the time she was with him, he still hadn’t opened the letter.
And now that it lay opened between them and he’d said what he’d said and Ellie had given him that uncooperative look, he thought, seeing it all again, of the last time a letter, seeming to change everything, had lain between them. A letter to Ellie that time, and she’d been waiting—she’d certainly picked her moment—to show it to him. They’d both been stark naked at the time and he’d wondered where the hell she’d been hiding it.
He saw again Ellie’s tits sway as she handed
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