Bethany (12 page)

Sometimes there was nothing on the page except, in the top right-hand corner, a note of the weather by Simon. However, the page for the second Thursday in June was almost filled.

First, in Dao's surprisingly bold writing, whose only hint of un-Englishness was the little spiral, like the start of the treble clef, with which she prefixed her capital I's: ‘5.30 a.m. saw the red car. Very nice indeed. It means Alex has come back.'

From these two lines could be deduced several things: that Dao got up early, that she was fond of Alex, and that Alex had returned after Dao had gone to bed. In fact Dao habitually went to bed shortly after eight o'clock in the evening, at the same time as the children, and she was always up before anyone else. She liked to get up before six and meditate for half an hour on the grassy slope in front of the house. Then she brought us tea, or whatever we liked. Most people liked a herb tea, but I was reluctant to wake up to anything but Assam. Dao herself rarely drank anything but boiled water which had been allowed to cool until tepid: occasionally she would squeeze a drop of lemon juice into it.

Underneath Dao's entry Simon had written in his neat hand: ‘Simon, Pete, Dao, Coral and the children went to see Harriet and baby at the hospital.' On the next line Coral had written: ‘Afterwards, went to Manuela's.' And then after a space, ‘The
atmosphere in the city is poisonous and the people are suffering.'

The lower half of the page was taken up with Simon's notes on the weekly finance meeting. These meetings always followed the same form. I would open the proceedings by stating how much had been spent in the past week. Shopping for the group was done by whoever happened to be going into town (in fact I usually did it in my lunch-hour), and the expenditure was written in the cash book. Every Thursday I added up the total expenditure and divided it by three or four (depending on whether Alex was paying a share that week), and people who had done shopping were reimbursed or asked for the balance according to whether the amount they had spent was more or less than their share. I also collected money for the running costs of the house. This money, the kitty, was kept in a tin box and from it the bills were paid.

The arithmetic involved was not complex but it was enough to oppress me, and after the first week I bought a battery for Alex's pocket calculator. I put the battery down as group expenditure, on the principle that it was in nobody's interests if the Bursar got her sums wrong.

Having given a statement of expenditure and collected the money for the kitty, I would raise any other matters relating to the finances. When the financial business was completed Simon would take over the meeting and ask if anyone else had anything to say. When everyone had finished, Simon himself would speak.

His chairmanship was superb. By turns patient, humorous and incisive, he guided us through an agenda which, item by item, he reduced to its essentials. Every view was equally weighed and no suggested course of action was dismissed simply because it was inconvenient. He made sure that a decision of some kind was always taken, and was taken with the full, considered assent of all members of the group. There were no majority decisions: if anyone disagreed, the matter was examined until a course was found that satisfied everyone. It
was no small achievement. In any normal committee it would be impossible: it was made possible because we had no personal ends to pursue.

Simon's notes for the second Thursday evening in June ran as follows: ‘Finance meeting,' followed by the sum we had spent that week. It was rather higher than usual because Alex had bought food in London which we could not obtain locally. Under this Simon had written ‘Agreed': and three items. The first two were ‘Hay and hay barns' and ‘Roof'.

The hay was a yearly ordeal for Alex and me. Would we be able to get a contractor to harvest our modest six acres of hay when all around us were farmers struggling to get a hundred acres cut, turned, baled and under cover before it rained? Somehow it was always managed, and each time it seemed a miracle.

This year matters were in the hands of the group. Pete opened the discussion by asking, ‘Why do people cut hay?'

Alex explained that if you didn't either graze a grass field or cut it for hay the field would quickly revert to weeds and brambles and eventually scrubland. We considered whether there was anything wrong with scrubland and decided there was not, but that equally there was nothing wrong with hay either, and that as the hay was there it would be a waste not to cut it since the goats and ponies would be glad of it in the winter.

We discussed briefly whether it might be possible to process grass into milk without first drying it and feeding it to a goat, and then, by logical progression, whether it might be possible simply to eat the grass. I said I had tasted fresh hay and it was very palatable, but I did not think the human digestion could cope with it. The latter part of this statement was challenged, and Simon said it would simplify life considerably if we could come in to supper and find a bale of hay on the table. Having noticed how Simon's jokes had a way of turning into realities I did not find this as amusing as the others.

The decision was therefore taken to cut the hay and Alex was
asked to find someone to do it. I then raised the question of where we were going to store it. The red barn would hold ten tons, but half of it was unusable because of the huge gap in the roof and the other half was filled with timber and building materials. We would have to use the coach-house. One end of it was almost entirely occupied by a decaying pine dresser which had once been used as a rabbit-hutch, and the other end housed gardening tools and Alex's collection of non-functioning electric motors. There was a loft over, but its floor was rotten. There was nothing for it but to find somewhere else to put the rabbit-hutch, the gardening tools and the electric motors.

The second item, ‘Roof', was music to me in its terseness. It meant that they had decided to start work on what Alex and I dryly referred to as ‘the west wing' (the group had adopted the phrase without a smile).

The question of what to do about the west wing, or whether to do anything at all, had rumbled on for weeks. Now a decision was being requested by Dao. She was worried about the structural condition of the bedroom in which she, Simon and the children slept: it adjoined the west wing and had an inch-wide crack down the wall. It was quite safe, because Alex had had a steel tie put through the house to hold it; but Dao, with the safety of her young at stake, was not to be reassured.

Another disadvantage of the bedroom was that the section of roof above it was only partially slated and the room tended to be damp, which was not important in mid-summer but soon would be. An unsatisfactory discussion had already been held on the subject, opened by Pete with the question of why people slated roofs. He could see no reason for not patching up the leaks with anything that came to hand, and Simon observed that there were several sheets of galvanised iron lying around.

Alex rather tartly remarked that the house was a substantial one and with luck would outlast us, and we ought to be thinking about its next occupants as well. At this point Dao said that, far from being substantial, it seemed to her to be in immediate danger of falling apart. Simon mildly remarked that houses
were only a lot of stones piled on top of one another and sooner or later the stones would again assume a horizontal position, and the timing of this event should not arouse emotion. For several hours after this exchange I observed between Dao and Simon what was known in the group as a ‘communication break'.

When the group first formed Alex had suggested that we should finish the west wing for Simon and Dao to live in. Although accepted in principle, the idea had not been seriously developed. Dao now revived it, and, looking at it, we saw what an excellent idea it was. There was a lot of work to be done, but it could be done before the winter. All the external structural work had been completed: it was just a question of finishing the slating, glazing the windows, and putting in a new floor and ceiling. Part of the wing was already fit for occupation: that was my study, a nervous outpost of civilisation in a waste of sawn timber, bags of nails and sacks of petrified cement. I would of course vacate it as soon as the rest of the wing was completed, but meanwhile it was too small a room to be useful to anyone but me.

It was agreed to make a start on the roof of the west wing the following day. The first thing to do was erect scaffolding. While Simon and Pete were doing that, Alex, Coral and I would sort the slates into sizes. Hearing the plans made, I could scarcely believe that a problem which had oppressed me for so long could be so quickly solved.

The third decision was expressed simply as: ‘Partnership from June 30th'.

The idea that the group should be legally constituted as a partnership had been put forward by Alex at an early stage. It fulfilled a number of purposes: it gave us a solid base on which to organise our financial affairs, including any commercial undertakings in which we wished to engage; it defined the basis on which we were living together and assured equal rights to everyone; and (with luck) it would mean that the house could be regarded as belonging to the group rather than to Alex,
which would make it more difficult for the bank to force its sale.

Alex's trip to London had not, needless to say, solved the problem of the roofless property and the £18,000 overdraft. She had managed to stall the bank manager for a little longer. She spoke briefly about the situation in reply to a question from Pete. With problems on all fronts – architects, solicitors, builders, district surveyors, quantity surveyors, planning officials and vindictive neighbours all adding their quota of obstructiveness – it was by now so unbelievably complicated that I could only with difficulty keep up with it myself, and that was with the aid of background knowledge and regular bulletins from Alex.

I could see that while Simon grasped the situation perfectly, Dao, Pete and Coral were completely out of their depth. After several more questions, to which they received answers that confused them further, they subsided into a puzzled silence. I was sorry that Alex had not managed to communicate, but secretly relieved that I was not the only person to be baffled by the labyrinths into which she got herself.

While in London Alex had spoken to her solicitor about the formation of a partnership, and he had said that all that was required was for the prospective members to agree to form one. With the consent of all parties, the partnership then came into being. However, if any member withdrew, the partnership then automatically ceased, and had to be reconstituted.

The simplicity of it was part of its attraction. It was really no more than a formalisation of the group in terms which the world would understand. For tax purposes it would have to be formed before the end of the month. We agreed to hold a meeting on the 29th of June to discuss the details, and to constitute the partnership on the day following.

It was hot and sultry the afternoon we sorted the slates. Coral helped for twenty minutes, then went in to feed the baby and did not reappear. Alex and I made stacks of long and thin, short and fat, squared and irregular, Welsh and Delabole, while
Pete and Simon put up the scaffolding. I admired the ease with which they did it – ease, that is, compared with the way Alex and I did it, with Alex crouching on a pole twenty feet up, cursing like a navvy as she just missed locating the end in the socket, and me, never happy with heights, trembling on a pole ten feet up as a hundredweight of iron swung six inches from my ear.

I found it difficult to keep my eyes away from Simon for long. Even as, with my back to him, I measured the slates and shifted them around, I could feel his presence behind me. In the space of a few days I seemed to have fallen under a spell, and I could not decide whether it was for good or bad. Obviously my being in love with him might prove very disruptive unless handled with discretion, but for me it was surely an important achievement? It signified a freedom I had thought I would never attain. It was a gift he had made me: he had shown me that I was as able to love a man as a woman.

What about Alex? I did not think about Alex, or indeed about anyone else. It seemed irrelevant, and in any case I did not feel capable of answering any of the questions raised by my emotional state.

One question though I would have to answer: was I going to tell him? In ordinary circumstances, since I had no wish to supplant Dao even if I had been able to, the answer would have been no: but these were not ordinary circumstances. In the first place, absolute truthfulness was the bedrock of the group; in the second, Simon missed nothing and would eventually ask me what was wrong; in the third, even if he did not, he would inevitably ask me at the beginning of my next Session, as he always did, ‘Is there a present-time problem?' and to lie in a Session would be like lying in the Confessional – pointless, and a blasphemy. I would have to tell him, and how could I dare?

‘My brain feels as if there's a cement mixer inside it,' I said.

I had been sitting dumbly for nearly ten minutes while my
thoughts tumbled in all directions and Simon waited, to my left and slightly behind me, pen poised.

‘Perhaps I should come back when I have something to say and won't be wasting your time,' I said.

After another long silence Simon said, ‘Is there something you don't like?'

I admired the penetrative power of this question even as I tried to evade it. I evaded it by saying nothing.

In the end I said, ‘I'm having a bit of trouble with my emotions.'

‘Okay,' said Simon. ‘So, is there something you don't like?'

I considered very carefully. ‘I don't think so,' I said.

‘I will read you a list of emotions,' said Simon. ‘Tell me if you are experiencing any of them.' He paused. ‘Anger.'

‘No,' I said.

‘Jealousy.'

I swallowed. ‘Yes.'