Robbie's Wife (6 page)

“For me?” I asked.

“You look like you need it,” she said. “And where were you walking to at this hour of the morning?”

“No place in particular.”

“I came down just in time to see you go across the field,” she said. “I almost went after you. Would you have minded the company?”

“Not at all. I wish you had.”

“Perhaps later, we’ll take a proper walk before you go,” she said.

She busied herself making breakfast and Robbie appeared. He asked me if I had slept well.

“No,” I said. “It was a restless night. Sorry if I woke you.”

“Didn’t wake me,” he said. “I heard the sheep and I listened. Sometimes there’s something worrying them, maybe a dog. Sets off an alarm in my head.”

“Was it anything?”

“No, they were just complaining. Pissed off that they’re sheep and not lions.” He pulled up a chair. “Well, Jack,” he said. “You’re off this morning?”

“It looks like it.”

“Bound for where?”

“I have no idea.”

“Must be lovely to be footloose and fancy free, come to a crossroads and flip a coin.”

“I came here to work,” I said. “I thought I’d be able to write something new, get a fresh start, but it doesn’t seem to be working out.”

We finished breakfast and it wasn’t until Robbie had left to take the flat tire into Gillingham for repair, shaking my hand and wishing me luck as he went out the door, that I realized Maggie had said nothing since Robbie had entered the kitchen. Terry went off to school and I was left in the kitchen with Maggie, who busied herself clearing up the dishes, washing them, stacking them on the counter to drain.

“I’d like to take that walk with you,” I said.

She smiled at me. “All right. Give me a minute to put something on,” and she went upstairs. I waited at the table, noticing that Terry’s copybook was still there, open to the essay on Roman hill forts. I turned it around and there was a careful drawing of the fort with stick figures loading a rock thrower and others with spears climbing over an earthen bulwark. Underneath were the words, “bugger off shouted Hadrian’s men.”

Maggie came into the kitchen wearing pale yellow corduroy trousers and a red sweater with a red scarf around her neck.

“No chance of losing sight of you,” I said.

“When it’s gray like this, I sometimes crave a bit of color. Otherwise I’m afraid I might disappear.”

“Not much chance of that.”

Maggie stopped by the kitchen door to pull on her Wellington boots and said to me, “Here, put on Robbie’s. Otherwise you’ll be mired in muck before we get back.”

We crossed the farmyard and went up the hill, the same direction she had gone the day before, and she was quick, moving up the slope easily. I felt my chest tighten but I tried not to let on. I was glad when the slope leveled off at the top and we turned toward the trees on the far side.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “I’m a bit of a mountain goat, so if we’re going too fast, just pull on my leash.”

Jack, the dog, had come with us, and he was ranging in front, head down, working back and forth as if he were on the hunt for something.

We paused to look down at the farm and I said, “You were quiet during breakfast. I don’t think you spoke a word.”

“There wasn’t much to say.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just that. There are times when I think words just fill the air. Robbie did enough talking for the both of us.”

“He didn’t say much.”

“He said enough. I’m glad you wanted to walk with me.”

“And why is that?”

“I like you, Jack Stone. You have a kind face and a kind manner and I feel easy with you.”

“You can’t know me.”

“I think I do. I think you’re the kind of man who would listen to me if I wanted to tell you something important.”

“And what would that be?”

She continued to look down at the farmhouse. It was misting again, and the farmhouse began to disappear as we watched, as if it were being erased by some unseen hand. I pulled the hood of my jacket over my head but Maggie stood still, her hair wet and shining.

“Perhaps it’s because you’re a stranger and I know that you’ll leave and I’ll never see you again. So I can tell you things that I can’t tell someone who will see me tomorrow.”

“And what would you tell me?”

“That sometimes a black cloud comes over me and I see the women in the store in the village and I see myself standing among them and I cannot stand the idea of being that kind of a woman and there seems to be no way out.”

“Somehow I don’t see you becoming that sort of woman.”

“You don’t know what it’s like. It’s like quicksand. Only it sucks the life out of you and you end up standing there on the corner watching them go into the pub and you’re talking about which one is shagging that girl with the short skirt in the next-but-one council house and that’s what’s left of your life.”

“Why don’t you and Robbie leave?”

“I’d go in a flash. With Robbie it’s different. I keep waiting, hoping it’s not too late.”

She turned toward me, pulling her wet hair back with one hand, touching my cheek with the other. “So, Jack Stone,” she said, “here you are with a woman who sounds as if she’s auditioning for the National Theater, or, more likely, an episode of
East Enders
on the telly. Didn’t bargain for this when you asked me if I wanted to walk, did you?”

She took her hand away. “Enough of this. You wanted a walk,” and she turned, striding off along the top of the field. I watched for a moment, and even in the bulky jacket and boots and trousers she had a grace that quickened me. If it were in my power I would take such a woman away from the village, find her a sun-streaked place where she could be what she wanted to be. Which was, I quickly thought, the kind of foolish fantasy that old men have when they watch a graceful younger woman walk along the top of a field in the gathering rain. I hurried to catch up with her.

She didn’t talk about herself again. She questioned me about my life in Los Angeles, why I had come to Dorset to write, what it was like to make up stories. She seemed genuinely interested in me and I found it easy to talk with her. We came down out of the field at a weir in a small stream and stood for a while listening to the water rush over the lip, brown and foaming.

“I come here often,” Maggie said. “I like that sound. It quiets the demons.”

“It’s hard to imagine demons in a place like this.”

“They’re all around us.” She hugged her arms to her chest and spoke to the foaming weir.

We crossed a narrow iron footbridge with a rusted gate, and came out onto a road that eventually led us back through the village. At the post office store there were three women who stood, watching us approach. “The witches of Endor, Robbie calls them,” Maggie said. “I could fit right in.”

“I doubt it,” I said.

“You’re a kind man, Jack Stone. It’s an endearing quality. Here,” she said, and took my hand. “Give them something to talk about. Give them half an hour and the whole village will think you’ve got a leg over me.”

That afternoon I wrote out my walk with Maggie, made it a scene in which the two characters, Jack and Maggie, stood looking down at the farmhouse, and I gave her Maggie’s words exactly as she had given them to me and then I added the scene where the three women stood on the edge of the road in front of the store:

THE WOMEN’S POV:

Jack and Maggie walk toward them down the road and Maggie reaches out and takes Jack’s hand.

JACK AND MAGGIE’S POV:

Three women stand, heads together, apparently gossiping. The pavement is wet and they wear dresses with bulky jackets over them. One has a baby in her arms.

CUT TO: MAGGIE AND JACK’S CLASPED HANDS

MAGGIE:

This will give them something to talk about. Give them a half hour and the whole village will think you’ve got a leg over me.

JACK:

And Robbie?

MAGGIE:

He’ll think it’s a lark. He calls them the witches of Endor.

But I didn’t stop there. I went on to the farm, saw Maggie go up the stairs, followed her and she undressed and I wrote it out, each detail of her body as I imagined it, and then I stopped, thought, Jesus, Jack, You’re sixty fucking years old and she’s young enough to be your daughter and it’s time you packed up and moved on.

When I came into the kitchen with my duffel bag, Maggie was at the table, writing. She looked up and said, “I was leaving you a note. I’m off to do some shopping in Gillingham. You’re off?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Where’s your next stop?”

“I have no idea.”

“You’re welcome to stay on. We enjoy your company.”

“Thanks. I feel comfortable here. What do I owe you?”

“Sixty pounds will do.”

“No,” I said, “I had supper with you three nights. It’s more like seventy-five.”

“Suppers weren’t much, Jack Stone. I’d feel badly charging you for Shepherd’s Pie.”

I laid the money on the kitchen table. “I feel as if I’m taking advantage of you,” I said.

She smiled. “It would cost you more than sixty quid to take advantage of me.”

Then she did something that surprised me. She rose and came to me, putting her arms around me, holding me tightly for a moment before drawing back and saying, for the third time, “I like you Jack Stone.”

“And I like you, Maggie.”

“Come back and take another walk with me,” she said.

There was an awkward moment and I said, “Tell Robbie thanks for me,” and I went out into the farmyard. There was no sign of Robbie or Jack the dog, or the Land Rover. I drove through the empty village and turned toward Sturminster Newton, where I bought a sausage roll at a bakery and a bottle of beer in a little grocery store and I had lunch beside an old mill pond and as I listened to the rush of water over the stone lip I was reminded of Maggie and what she had said at the weir the day before. And I tried to remember if I had put my arms around Maggie when she had held me. I could still feel her body pressed against mine.

I drove north to Glastonbury, a two hour drive, and found the High Tor, a stone tower on a hill outside of town. I parked along the edge of the road and crossed the field, climbing the rutted slope, slipping in the muddy earth until I was at the top, sweating, my trousers wet to the knees, and I waited in the lee of the tower until my chest stopped heaving. There was no magic in this place, only a cutting wind and a few sheep far below. It was growing dark and what I wanted was to be warm and I stumbled back to the car, changed into dry socks and trousers and at the first pub I saw, I parked and went in. It was hot inside, noisy, and I ordered Shepherd’s Pie but it wasn’t like Maggie’s. This one was a thick crust covering a shallow bowl of gravy with bits of gristly meat and chunks of soft potato. But it was hot and I washed it down with a pint and had another and then nursed a third one while I watched noisy darts players in the smoke-filled room, half-dozing until finally I went to the toilet and found myself leaning against the wall above a stone trough, trying not to piss on my shoes. When I asked the bartender, he told me they had no rooms, wasn’t sure at this hour who would, and I realized it was past eleven.

It was raining again when I went outside but the cold air felt good and I sat in my car, knowing that I was in no condition to drive. I would nap for a bit, and was almost immediately asleep.

At first I thought it was a nightmare. I was rocking back and forth violently and there were dimly shouted words but I couldn’t tell where they were coming from. Then I realized that I was still in my car and it was rocking from side to side and there were figures outside, men who were heaving the car back and forth and one of them hit the window on the passenger’s side with his fist and the glass turned to spidery cracks. I was awake now, and frightened, and the car seemed as if it would turn on its side when there was another voice and a whistle and shouts.

“Off! All you lot! Piss off!” And someone shouted “Coppers!” and the car settled and the figures were gone.

The windows were fogged, apparently from my breathing inside the car while I had slept and the flashlight beam that came to the driver’s side made the glass a brilliant opaque white.

“You in there,” the voice called out. “You all right?”

“Yes,” I managed to reply.

“Roll down your window.”

I fumbled with the key, putting it in the ignition, felt for the window button and finally the window slid down. I still couldn’t see a face, but the flashlight was full on me, then roamed inside the car.

“Would you mind stepping outside, sir? Keep your hands where I can see them.”

I opened the door and stepped out, stumbling as I did. Unseen hands caught and steadied me.

I was aware that there was a second man on the far side of the car, examining the shattered window. The man in front of me lowered the flashlight and in the dim light of the pub car park I could see that they were two policemen. A police car with a blue pulsing light was only a few feet from my car.

“Would you mind telling us what you were doing here at this hour?”

“Apparently I fell asleep. I had supper in the pub and a few beers and when I came out I didn’t think I should drive. I thought I’d take a short nap.”

“Not a particularly good idea to be here at this hour,” he said.

“What time is it?”

“After two. Just your bad luck to have that lot find you.”

“What were they trying to do?”

“A bit of fun. Turn your car on its side. Turn you turtle is what they call it. You’re lucky we spotted them.”

“Thank God you did.”

“Would you mind showing us a bit of identification, sir?”