The young accomplice, p.1
The Young Accomplice, page 1
Benjamin Wood
* * *
THE YOUNG ACCOMPLICE
Contents
PART ONE: The Mayhoods June 1952
August 1952
May 1939
August 1952
September 1952
October 1933
PART TWO: The Savigears October 1952
November 1952
December 1952
December 1952
PART THREE: The Reasons June 1955
April 1956
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Benjamin Wood’s first novel, The Bellwether Revivals, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and won Le Prix du Roman Fnac. He was a finalist for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and his other works have been shortlisted for the Encore Award, the CWA Gold Dagger Award and the European Union Prize for Literature. He is a senior lecturer in creative writing at King’s College London, and lives in Surrey with his wife and sons.
By the same author
A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better
The Ecliptic
The Bellwether Revivals
For Isaac and Oren
‘We do not learn much by our successes: we learn more by failures – our own and others’, especially if we see the failures properly corrected. To see a failure changed to a success – there is what I call Education.’
Frank Lloyd Wright
Part One
* * *
THE MAYHOODS
June 1952
The old man had been treading couch grass in the field since dawn, halting now and then to hack a nettle stalk with his dull scythe. Sometimes, he’d inspect the heads of flowering weeds and peer back, agonized, towards the house, as though he’d sighted a pernicious species long presumed extinct. Arthur Mayhood watched him from the steps of his back porch. It was the sort of clear, bright morning that made him recognize how close he was to happiness – a wholesome sunlight over Ockham that seemed as thick as tallow, and the verdancy of every acre in his view like something rendered for a postcard. If he looked far enough into the distance, he could forget the dire state of his farm and feel good about himself again, remember what it was that brought him out here in the first place. There was so much to do at Leventree that he’d not anticipated. It had been less than a year, all told, and the house was in good order, but trying to restore the land had broken him, one fruitless day after another. A stubborn part of him used to believe he was invulnerable to the drudge of manual labour: for as long as he still had the use of one good arm, he could manage twice the work of anyone. Well, that streak in him was gone now, too. Lately, he’d resolved to take whatever crumb of help or wisdom anyone could throw at him. The old man was a case in point.
His name was Hollis and he’d shown up in the yard at six a.m., as promised, wearing a large straw sunhat on a string across his back. A glower had set upon his face as he’d considered the condition of the fields a moment, but his feelings had remained unspoken. In the dawn light, he’d seemed thinner than he had the day before, his complexion rough as grout. He’d said he wouldn’t mind a cup of tea himself before they made a start on things – ‘Seeing as you’ve got one on the go already’ – so they’d stepped into the kitchen, eyeing one another, for as long as it had taken to drink up. There’d been some discussion of the lovely weather they’d been having, but the topic had run dry.
Hollis had glanced up towards the ceiling. ‘Mrs Mayhood a late riser, is she?’
‘Not usually,’ Arthur had replied.
‘Thought I’d say hello while I was here.’
‘She’s gone to town to fetch a part. How loud’s your voice?’
The old man had snickered. ‘Saw your tractor out there in the garage. If it were a horse, I’d shoot it.’
‘Wish I had the luxury.’
‘What’s the part she’s after?’
‘Damned if I know.’
‘Just to Leatherhead, she’s gone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could’ve put it in the post for you.’
‘I think she wants to barter down the price.’
‘Well, good for her.’
This had been as much of an exchange as could be wrung from the old man. There was a dourness to him that seemed reflexive, born of wretched luck in days gone by. Civility and candour were the best assurances for men like Hollis – it had been the same with lads in borstal and a fair few of the sergeants in his company – while others favoured toadying and politicking. In Arthur’s view, a bit of gruffness in a fella was a sign he wanted to be taken seriously. As they’d gone out to the yard together, he’d suggested that the windbreak was the place to start: ‘I think it might be causing us more problems than it’s helping.’
The old man had nodded. ‘If you say so.’ They’d moved off together, heading for the bank of ash trees at the far side of the meadow, but then Hollis had stopped walking. ‘There are two ways we can go about this. Either I can tell you what you want to hear or I can tell you what I really think – which one suits you best?’
‘The truth is all I need for now.’
‘Then stay put here. I’ll have a wander on my own.’
There was a time, barely a week ago, when Arthur might’ve been embarrassed to expose the dearth of progress he had made at Leventree. He didn’t like to advertise his limitations, even if he could admit to them. But replenishing the grounds of this old place – just making the land functional again – was going to take more than his reserves of industry and patience. It required native wisdom. Men like Hollis had a vast resource of local knowledge and experience to draw from, inherited from their fathers and grandfathers. It was in their bones and blood. They could gauge the character of a soil by sight and feel. But Arthur had no instinct for this type of work. He’d learned the rudiments from books and tried to put the complicated business into practice. He’d scrutinized the survey map a hundred times, inserted augers to determine depth, variety, but ask him the condition of his soil today – the very thing upon which Leventree relied – and he couldn’t give an answer. Florence always said he ought to be more tolerant of his failings and celebrate his talents: ‘You’re not a farmer, you’re an architect. There’s not a man round here who knows the right end of a T-square, let alone could run a farm and keep a practice going all at once – you’re too hard on yourself.’ Still, he couldn’t help suspecting there were people back in London who were taking a dim view of him already. Another city exile with delusions he could work the land: the countryside was teeming with them.
Florence had been first to notice he was struggling. Was there anything she couldn’t glean from the small shifts in his behaviour, or had he just become transparent? Two, three months ago, he’d been out scything nettles in the north field, more or less where Hollis was hunched over now, and she’d whistled in that way she always did when summoning him in for supper: a spike of noise that sent birds bolting from the hedges. He’d traipsed in and washed the dirt from his fingers, then sat down at the kitchen table, where she’d laid out a spread of Sunday’s leftovers and a fresh-baked loaf for him to tear the crust off. Bringing the water jug, she’d said, ‘You want to get a proper tool for it, or borrow one. Won’t be hard to find if you’d just ask around. It’s not the sort of work that you can do without the right equipment.’
The mere mention of the dismal job that he was doing out there in the weeds was injuring, and he’d not taken kindly to her suggestions for improvement. He’d found the old scythe in the hay barn with a box of other ancient implements, none of which he knew the purpose of, or even how to hold correctly. ‘It’d go a damn sight quicker if I understood what I was doing,’ he’d said. ‘Perhaps I’m letting them all seed by cutting them. They’ll likely reach our doorstep by next year, you watch.’
‘I wish you’d let me help you.’
‘You’ve enough to do. We need that tractor working.’
‘I’ve still got the extras notice for the Proctors to type up.’
‘Leave it. I can get to that tonight.’
‘As well as their corrections? You’re exhausted.’
‘One big pot of coffee, I’ll be fine. See if you can’t get that engine going while I’m at it.’
She’d gone quiet then, busying herself at the range, wiping down the surfaces.
‘What is it, Flo?’
‘I’m just wondering when I agreed to being the resident mechanic. We were supposed to share the work. I thought that was the point.’
He’d set his fork down a little abruptly. ‘The tractor’s a priority and you’re the only one who’s got the nous to fix it.’
‘Yes, but I can still do other things. The letter to the subcontractor – let me do that, surely?’
‘Suit yourself.’
She’d gone quiet again. ‘I was thinking we could sell the Austin.’
‘Don’t be daft. We can’t be driving to meet clients in the wagon.’
‘Why not? We’d get something a bit more modest, spend the difference on the tractor.’
‘Your father wouldn’t like that very much, God rest him.’
‘No, I know, but –’ She’d slung the dishcloth into the sink. ‘Maybe you could wait until the Savigears arrive? Attack those weeds together?’
‘I’m not going to give them that impression.’
‘What impression?’
‘That I let a pile of weeds defeat me.’
‘Well, I don’t wis
‘You bloody well are not.’
But his wife knew better than to listen when he got indignant. She’d never been too proud to ask for help, because she rarely needed it – Florence was the most proficient person in his life and also the least interested in other people’s judgements. Her face was known to everyone from Ockham to West Horsley, and that was all the currency she needed. One afternoon, while he was hacking at the weeds again, she’d taken it upon herself to go into the village and announce their problems to the landlord at the Barley Mow. Arthur had begun receiving visitors soon afterwards.
At first there’d been a few well-meaning strangers, asking for a daily rate: strawberry pickers, orchard workers, planters with chapped faces and bruised fingernails – he’d turned them all away. Then his neighbour to the east had rolled into the front yard in a flatbed wagon, honking the horn. He’d had a team of farmhands sitting in the back with a variety of tools, and an expression like a tank commander sizing up a bridge. ‘We heard you had a weed problem,’ he’d said, scanning the north field. ‘That where you want us to begin?’
But Arthur’s self-defensiveness had overtaken him; a coldness had spread slowly through his body. ‘I think I’ve got to grips with it now, thank you.’
‘Doesn’t look that way from where I’m standing. Let us pitch in with you.’
The men had all been staring down at him from the back of the wagon, half-amused, about to jump.
‘No,’ he’d said. ‘Thanks very much, but no.’
His neighbour had climbed out, ensnaring both his thumbs inside his belt loops. ‘Seems to me as though you’ve got a lot of couch grass there that needs uprooting. Thistles, brambles, nettles, all sorts on the verges. That’d take me near enough a fortnight to sort out by myself, and I’m not half as –’ He’d paused to find the right articulation. ‘As encumbered as you are, so … Look, the offer stands. Between the six of us, we’ll have it weeded out by supper.’
‘It’s all right, I’ll manage.’
‘Are you sure? Don’t let your pride get in the way.’
But grand gestures of charity, when made like this, were only meant to glorify the giver – that was something Arthur had learned in his youth. ‘Sorry to waste your time,’ he’d said.
His neighbour had sucked in the air and spat a disc of phlegm towards the ground. ‘Is your wife home? I’ve known Flo since she was –’
‘Florence knows my feelings on the subject.’
‘All right, then, we’ll leave you to it. But tell Flo we dropped in.’
‘Will do.’
He’d guessed that she was somewhere in the house, observing from a window. The four men in the back had turned away, laughing, and his neighbour had thrown up his hands and climbed into the driver’s seat. They’d semicircled in the yard and rolled off in a spray of dust.
Later, when he’d tried to justify his actions to his wife, he’d found her strangely muted on the subject. All she’d said was, ‘Better get an early start on it tomorrow, then. We’ve other jobs that you’re neglecting.’ And so he had. In the cool of dawn, he’d gone out with a scythe and spade to pulverize the beanstalk nettles on the fringes of the fields, some of which had grown above six feet, and he’d razed them all by sunset, dug them out, come in with his cheeks and ears stinging, bubbled with an orange-peel texture, his palm raw with blisters underneath the glove, the whole of his good arm pulsing. It had been a satisfying day, but the worst of it was still ahead. Couch grass was a dogged weed to shift. According to his books, the only certain means of purging it (without the use of chemicals, which he and Florence were opposed to) was to tease it out with a hand fork, one devious white root at a time. The north field was almost three acres.
He’d tried not to wake up in a defeated frame of mind. He’d tried to ignore the aches and pains and rashes. He’d tried to pull his boots on and stride out every morning, steeled, envisioning the north field bare and primed for cultivation by week’s end. But the couch grass had conquered him slowly, drained his energy and self-esteem. There were certain tasks that didn’t lend themselves to single-handed men: he’d struggled to get purchase on the fork to prise the roots out, and when he’d finally managed it, they’d broken into fragments, leaving him to forage in the dirt on bended knee. His prosthetic had been useless, slipping, hanging by its straps; a more secure appliance for the job was needed. The muscles all along his back had locked up. His knuckles had begun to seize: they’d swollen to the size of chestnuts. After three days, he’d carved out a channel, running east to west, about the width of a cinema aisle – and he couldn’t bear to look in its direction, let alone pick up his fork and carry on again tomorrow.
So, that evening, he’d driven to West Horsley, walked into the Barley Mow, and heard the conversations fade as he came through the doorway. He’d ordered a pint of mild and the landlord had prepared it for him wordlessly, taking his payment and returning his change. Then: ‘How’re things going at your place? I heard you had some trouble.’
‘Nothing that some petrol and a lighter couldn’t fix,’ he’d answered.
The landlord had winced. ‘That bad, eh?’
‘At the moment.’
‘Well, perhaps you shouldn’t be so stubborn. Let folk help you out a bit.’
‘You’re right, I know. And I appreciate them taking pity on me.’ He’d sipped his mild, which tasted watered-down. ‘But there’s a trick to learning, isn’t there? I mean, you can’t depend on other people all the time. You’ve got to put the graft in, work it out alone, even if you get it wrong.’ He’d paused then, getting the impression he was being listened to for listening’s sake. ‘What I’m saying is, if I’m going to fail at something, I like to know exactly why. And now I do.’
‘How’s that?’
He’d lifted up the baggy sleeve on his right side, patting at the space where his arm used to be. ‘I need to wait till this grows back, you see.’
The landlord’s grin had been uncertain. ‘Best keep watering it, then.’
‘Exactly. One pint at a time.’
He’d seen a lot of dingy public houses, growing up, and never understood the fuss that people made about them; but sitting there at the bright counter with his glass of Truman’s, speaking his mind amid the rumbling conversations, he’d felt somewhat consoled. The landlord had returned to the back pages of his Advertiser, browsing the classifieds with one lens of his spectacles held up to the print; he’d had a pencil viced inside the hinges of his jaw and, now and then, Arthur could hear the shucking noise of him inhaling his own drool. At some point, years ago, this man had been a patient of Flo’s father. It was strange to think that every filling in that mouth – and likely everybody else’s in the building – had a faint connection to his wife. As a child, she used to help her mother mix the mercury amalgam. There were people in these parts who still canted their heads when they addressed her, lightening their voices, as though she was that kindly little girl with plaits who’d sat at the reception desk in summer holidays. But Arthur had no such associations. Everyone he knew when he was young was either dead or far away or out of touch.
He’d been counting out his pennies for another pint when a voice had carried to him from along the bar: ‘You must be that architect I’ve heard so much about. Doing up that place of Mr Greaves’s.’ And he’d turned to find a weary-looking fella on a stool, hunched over an ashtray with a mound of fag ends large enough to fill an urn. This old man had smoked his rollie with a pleasing eccentricity, clamping it between his thumb and middle finger like a dart.
‘I am. Who’s asking?’
‘Hollis. Geoffrey Hollis.’ The old man had stared back at him, but softly. ‘Used to know your in-laws a long time ago.’
