The whites of his eyes looked yellow under the moonlight.
It was hard to understand who he was, and why he had been on the road in the middle of the night. Why he was dead now. It was hard to know what to do. George knelt beside him, looking out across the fields, up at the sky, at his fathers car, his shaking hands, the sky.
He had his reasons, he says. Hes often regretted it, and hes often thought that his reasons werent enough, but he thinks he would do the same again.
If hed been older when he made that journey then perhaps he would have been stronger; perhaps his thoughts would have been clearer. But he was seventeen, and he had never knelt beside a dead man before. So he drove away. He stood up, and turned away from the man, and walked back to his fathers car, and drove away. He didnt look in the rear-view mirror, and he didnt turn around when he slowed for the junction.
I suppose it was at that stage that I began to realise what had happened what I had done.
That was how he put it, when he told her, walking out on the path beside the canal after lunch, the dogs running along ahead of them with their claws clicking on the tarmac strip. I suppose.
He had driven his fathers car into a man, and then over him, and now that man was dead. He felt a sort of sickness, a watery dread, starting somewhere down in his guts and rising to the back of his throat. His hands were locked on the wheel. He couldnt even blink.
And he knew, even before he got back to his fathers house, that he would have to return to the man. He couldnt leave him laid out on the road like that, with his legs neatly folded under his back. He knew, or he thought he knew, that when the man was found then somehow he would be found too, and the girl whod drawn upon his bare chest wouldnt even look him in the eye.
So it was her fault as well, it seems.
He fetched a shovel from a barn at his fathers farm and drove back to where hed hit the man. It sounds so terrible now. Cowardly? He carried the shovel down the embankment to the field below the road and took off his jumper and began to dig.
He was used to digging. The field had only recently been harvested, and the stubble was still in the ground, so he lay sections of topsoil to one side to be replaced. He was thinking clearly, working quickly but properly, ignoring the purpose of the hole. Once, knee-deep in the ground, he looked up the bank and realised what he was doing. But he couldnt see the man up on the road, so he managed to swallow the rising sickness and dig some more. And all this time, the sound of metal on soil, the sky above.
And then it was deep enough. It was done. So long as it was further beneath the surface than the plough-blades would reach then it was deep enough, most probably. He climbed up the embankment to the road, wanting to hurry and get it done but holding back from what he had to do, from the fact of having to touch him, having to pick him up and carry him down the bank and into the hole he had made. The death he had made in the hole he had made in the earth. He bent down to take the mans arms. He could smell whisky. He stopped, unwilling to touch him, unwilling to go through with what hed found reason to do. They were good reasons, but they didnt seem enough. But then he remembered her skin on his, and her eyes, and he knew, he said, that he could do anything not to lose that.
Shed made him do it, then. That was how it had happened.
He gripped the mans elbows and lifted them up to his waist. He backed away towards the embankment and the mans legs unfolded from beneath him, his head rolling down into his armpit, his half-bottle of whisky falling from his pocket and breaking on the road. He didnt stop. He kept dragging him away, away from the road, down the bank, into the field.
Shed said, when he finally told her all this, that she wanted to know it all. How it was done. How it had felt. So now she knew.
He laid the man down beside the hole in the earth and rolled him into it. The man fell face down, and he felt bad about that, about the mans face being in the mud. He went back to the place on the road and picked up the pieces of glass. He threw them down on to the mans back, and then he took the shovel and began to pile the earth back into the hole.
Shed said, when he finally told her all this, that she wanted to know it all. How it was done. How it had felt. So now she knew.
He laid the man down beside the hole in the earth and rolled him into it. The man fell face down, and he felt bad about that, about the mans face being in the mud. He went back to the place on the road and picked up the pieces of glass. He threw them down on to the mans back, and then he took the shovel and began to pile the earth back into the hole.
He threw soil over the man until he was gone, until the soil pressed down on him so that he was no longer a man or a body or a victim or anything. Just an absence, hidden under the ground. It was only then that he looked up at the sky, dark and silent over him, the moon hidden by a cloud. He drove past her house in March again, and then back to his fathers house. He put the car-keys away in the kitchen drawer, and the shovel in the barn, and he stood in the shower until the hot-water tank had emptied and he was left standing beneath a trickle of water as cold as stone.
So now she knew.
They were married before either of them had the chance to go to university: his father retired early, after a heart attack, and he had to take over the farm. It only made sense for Joanna to move in and help. George had been there when his father collapsed: hed heard the dogs barking at the tractor in the yard, and gone outside to see his father clutching at his chest and turning pale. Hed dragged him from the cab into the mud and begun hammering on his chest. I didnt want to lose him to the land as well. Hed beaten his fathers heart with his fist, and forced air into his lungs, and called out for help. She was there with him. She rang the ambulance, and watched him save his fathers life, and decided she would marry him. She can remember very clearly, standing there and deciding that. And he still thinks he was the one who asked her.
When she remembers it now, its always from a height, as if she can see it the way the sky saw it: George kneeling over his father in the mud of the yard, shouting at him to hold on, the dogs circling and barking.
And now this giant of a man sits in an armchair clutching a hot-water bottle and watching the sky change colour outside. He refuses to watch television, listening instead to the radio while he keeps watch on the land and the sky. He claims to take no interest in the running of the farm: he signed everything over to them almost immediately, and has rarely offered an opinion. But she knows that he watches. She has seen him looking at a newly ploughed field from the upstairs window, or running a hand along a piece of machinery in the yard, or lingering by the kitchen table while she does the accounts. She has seen the faint smiles and nods which indicate that he is well pleased. She hopes that George has noticed; she suspects that he has not. Sometimes, when George takes his father his evening meal, his father will talk about something hes heard on the radio: a concert recording, a weather forecast, a news report. Often theyll just sit, and George will listen to his fathers short creaking breaths, thankful to have him there still. She doesnt sit with them at these times. She reads, or deals with paperwork, or goes back to her writing, waiting for him to reassure himself that his father is well.
Theyve never had children, and this has
Theyve never talked about it, and yet
In this way, their lives together had settled into something like a routine. He was up first, feeding the dogs, bringing her a cup of tea, eating his breakfast and leaving his dishes on the table. She dressed, and ate her breakfast, and cleared the table, and waited until she heard the radio in his fathers bedroom before going to help him dress.
Caring for his father had taken up more and more of their time over the years. His health was poor enough to justify moving him into a nursing home. There was one over in March; she had a friend whose mother was there, and had heard good reports. But it was obvious that his father would refuse to go. And she had been unable to find a way of bringing it up with George. There were so many things she was unable to bring up with him. Sometimes it felt as though they only related to each other through talking about work, about the business. As business partners, they have been close, communicative, collaborative. All those good words.
In the mornings and the afternoons, they worked in the fields. That wasnt really true. It might have been true once, in the very early days, when theyd had to work hard all the hours of daylight to try and pull the business out of the hole his father had dug it into. Thered been no money to employ extra labour, and theyd had to do everything themselves. There was less land then, but it was still a struggle and they were always exhausted by the time they found their way to bed.
But things had changed, gradually. Theyd bought more land, secured more grants and loans. Diversified. And almost without noticing, theyd stopped being farmers and become managers. Most of the field-work was done by labourers hired by sub-contractors, people they never spoke to. George still liked to do some of the work himself the ploughing, the ditch-digging, the heavy machine-based jobs but there was no real need. For the most part they spent their days on the phone, or filling out forms, buying supplies, dealing with inspectors, negotiating with the water authorities. Discussions about drainage and flood defences seemed to take more and more of her time now. The floods seemed to be coming more often, covering more land, taking longer to drain. Maybe we should switch to rice, George had started saying, and she wasnt sure whether or not this was a joke.
All of which meant that when he said he wanted to tell her something, and that they should take the time to walk out along the path beside the canal after lunch, it was no real interruption to the running of the farm. Down in the few fields which werent yet flooded, the workers carried on, their backs bent low, and she was able to stop him and put her hand to his chest and ask what it was he wanted to say.