Chapter 26
Elizabeth drove to Birch Farm through a milky morning mist that was gradually being dissipated by the sun.
It was nestled in the next valley, amidst rolling pasture dotted with Rory’s Belted Galloways.
He was a good farmer who looked after both his land and his cattle well.
His hedges, walls and fences were immaculate, his fields beautifully tended, his animals plump and content.
It occurred to Elizabeth that she didn’t know her son-in-law all that well.
He was always good-natured, perhaps not brimming with personality or imagination, but perhaps she should try to dig a little deeper.
After all, her mission today was to get to the bottom of what was troubling Diana, and to see if she could do something to help.
And Rory was probably key to some, if not all, of the solution.
All she wanted, really, was for Diana to be happy, and it was apparent by her behaviour these days that she wasn’t.
The trouble was, when people started turning into monsters, everyone tiptoed around them and they ended up getting away with it.
Diana didn’t deserve to be a monster. She was better than that and enough was enough.
Elizabeth had been so wrapped up in her own grief and her own obsession to see what was happening, but now she had dealt with Jasper, it was time to do what she should have done a long time ago.
She parked the car in front of the farmhouse and made her way round to the stable yard.
She heard the ring of hooves on concrete and saw Diana lead a handsome grey hunter towards his stable.
She was always up at the crack of dawn to exercise, and she went out with the West Somerset Vale twice a week.
Perhaps she should take up riding again, thought Elizabeth.
They used to ride together when Diana was small.
Once she’d put the horse back in its stable, Diana strode across the yard, hands in her pockets, hunched up inside her hacking jacket, her eyes half closed against the wind that was whipping its way across the valley. She came to a halt in front of her mother.
‘To what do I owe the honour?’ There was open hostility in her face.
‘I just wanted to come and see how you are.’
‘Really?’ Her tone was dry. ‘Let’s go inside. It’s brass monkeys out here.’
She led her through the back door and into the farm kitchen.
Elizabeth was shocked. It was even worse than the last time she’d been; an absolute rat’s nest. Washing up everywhere, paperwork all over the table, dog bowls, dog hair, horse blankets, bits of tack, bits of equipment that Elizabeth was too nervous to enquire about but looked as if they might involve chopping off an extremity.
It seemed at odds with the way Rory kept the land or Diana kept the yard, but perhaps they had less respect for themselves than they did their animals, or simply didn’t see the mess.
Maybe that was Diana’s fatal flaw? She simply didn’t see the mess she made.
‘Tea?’ said Diana, picking up a kettle.
‘Actually, I won’t. I’ve not long had one,’ Elizabeth lied, not able to see a cup she could bring herself to drink out of. ‘The thing is, darling. I’m terribly worried about you. You don’t seem happy.’
‘No. I’m not, particularly. But I’m not sure what anyone can do about it.’
Diana lit the gas burner with a match but her hand was shaking. She was obviously more unsettled than she was making out, thought Elizabeth. She took in a deep breath.
‘Well, I’d like to try and help. If I can.’
‘What’s brought this on?’
‘I’m your mother.’
‘And you want to know why you’re not a grandmother yet?’
‘Absolutely not!’ Elizabeth was horrified Diana might think that.
Diana sank into a chair with a sigh. ‘I just don’t see the point of myself anymore.’
‘That’s an awful thing to say.’
‘Tell me, then. What the point of me is? Who actually cares?’
‘Please, darling, try not to—’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry if you find the truth upsetting.’
Her voice was harsh and Elizabeth flinched. It was very tempting to change the subject, but she knew she had to try to persevere.
‘Everyone cares, darling. Daddy and I do, very much. And Rory, of course.’
Diana gave something between a tut and a humph, with a roll of her eyes.
‘Don’t dismiss him. He’s your husband, and he loves you.’
‘Does he, though? I wouldn’t love me if I was him. I’m horrible to him.’
‘But why? He’s so kind. Isn’t he?’ Perhaps he wasn’t? Perhaps she really didn’t know the real Rory.
Diana stared at her. ‘Of course he is. And I don’t know why,’ she said, a crack in her voice. ‘And you and Daddy only love me because you have to.’
‘That’s simply not true.’
‘And Alfie definitely doesn’t give a monkey’s about me. Not now he’s got Princess Clementine.’
‘Of course he does. You can love more than one person, you know.’
‘Can you?’ There was so much sarcasm in Diana’s voice that Elizabeth knew exactly what she was driving at, and she couldn’t help her cheeks colouring. She wasn’t going to be blown off course by one of Diana’s barbed remarks.
‘What would make you happy?’ she said.
‘What would make me happy?’ Diana looked up at the ceiling. ‘Let’s see. How about … Edwin walking back into the room?’
Elizabeth put her face in her hands. This was going to be even harder than she’d thought. When she looked back up at her daughter, there were tears in her eyes.
‘That’s not fair,’ she said. ‘We all want that.’
Diana had the grace to look shamefaced. ‘I know. But I miss him so much.’ Her face crumpled. ‘He made me feel like somebody. When we were out on the horses, flying across the fields, over the fences … I can’t even think about him, it hurts so much.’
‘Come here.’ Elizabeth stood up, walked around to her and opened her arms. Diana fell into them, and all her grief came pouring out, years of sorrow and abandonment and bewilderment.
And although Elizabeth felt torn apart too, and at any given moment could be subsumed by her own grief, for once she had to be strong.
The pain was intense, but she would walk through fire for her children, even now they were grown up, even if they behaved as badly as Diana had been behaving.
She held her until she stopped sobbing, then detached herself gently to make the tea that had been forgotten, putting a cup in front of her daughter.
‘I don’t like seeing you like this,’ she said, heading for the biscuit tin and pulling out a few digestives.
She put them on a plate and set them on the table.
‘It would be wrong of me, as your mother, to watch you torturing yourself. Because you’re not yourself, Diana.
You’ve always had a sharp tongue, but you used to be funny.
Now you can be rather cruel. And I don’t think you mean to be. So let’s find a way to get you back.’
Diana picked up a digestive and stared at it.
‘I don’t know how to be me. That’s the awful thing.
Because I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.
My life doesn’t fit anymore.’ Her voice was desolate.
‘We’re supposed to be trying for a baby.
But I just can’t face … it.’ She gave an exaggerated shudder.
‘Because I’m scared, about bringing someone into the world, when I don’t even like myself.
And poor Rory. I know he thinks it’s him I don’t like, when it comes to the bedroom.
But it isn’t.’ She snapped a bit of biscuit off and put it in her mouth.
‘I’ve been so worried, that he might go off with the barmaid at the Trout, or something.
Because you can’t just ignore men, can you? Isn’t that where the trouble starts?’
‘Oh dear,’ said Elizabeth. ‘We have got a lot of un-tangling to do.’
Elizabeth thought this was probably the first time Diana had told anyone how she truly felt. And she had to be very gentle with her. No doubt Edwin’s dying was at the root of it. She hadn’t come to terms with it, not at all.
‘You’ve been through so much, losing Edwin, and I don’t think you, or anyone, has realised how much it’s affected you,’ Elizabeth told her now, reaching across the table to stroke her hand, and Diana gave another little sob.
‘You’ve spent so long fighting your feelings, and it’s all become so much worse than it needs to be.
Not that it wasn’t awful. Of course it was.
But you can’t carry on thinking these terrible things, about yourself and everyone else. ’
‘I know. It’s all just a muddle in my head.’ She looked over at her mother, and although she looked awful, red-eyed and bedraggled, she managed a smile of appreciation. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’m your mother. It’s my job. But you must trust me.
Now.’ Elizabeth tapped the table with her Chair of the Village Fête authority.
‘I think one of the problems is you’re bored.
You’ve got no sense of purpose. I think once we give you something to think about, you might feel better about everything. ’
‘Maybe.’
‘How would you feel about going back to work?’
‘Work?’
‘At the factory. I know your father’s struggling to keep apace at the moment. And you and he were so brilliant together during the war. You ran that place like clockwork. He always said he couldn’t have done it without you.’
‘He couldn’t,’ Diana said stoutly. ‘Those women were all over the place until I licked them into shape.’
‘Exactly. So why don’t we see if you can go back? Even if it’s only for a short time.’
‘But what about Alfie? He’s the one destined to take over. The son and heir.’ There it was again, that bitterness.
‘There’s plenty of room for both of you.’
‘I don’t think he’ll like it.’
‘Why not? And even if he doesn’t, it’s not up to him.’
Diana set to work on her second biscuit. ‘I loved working at the factory.’
‘Well, there you are.’
‘Will you ask Daddy for me?’
‘I think you should ask him.’ Elizabeth had never believed in spoon-feeding her children. ‘I think he’ll welcome you with open arms. I’m sure you could be a great help.’