to eat. Saliva filled his mouth as he took the first mouthful of beef stew. The remains from yesterday having been reheated, the flavours had mingled appetisingly. They ate in companionable silence; they were close enough not to feel the need to make inconsequential conversation.
When they had finished Dorothy cleared away the plates and made tea. She wished she knew what was troubling her son.
‘Anyone been here?’ Martin asked so abruptly that she jumped and the tea leaves on the spoon scattered over the wooden draining-board instead of into the pot.
Dorothy bit her lip. ‘No,’ she said hesitantly for there were some things she did not want Martin to know, not just yet. ‘But Mrs Trevelyan’s coming tomorrow. Why?’
‘Oh, ’er’s all right. I mean anyone else?’
‘No. You know only Fred Meecham and Rose come, and Jobber Hicks to give me a lift now and then. What’s got into you, Martin?’
‘That’s all right then.’ He avoided an answer but seemed to be relieved as his shoulders unhunched and he pushed back a lock of brown hair. He drank his tea and thanked his mother for the meal then left by the back door, heading up over the rough ground in the direction of his caravan where he intended getting his head down for at least eight hours.
Dorothy remained at the table, her hands clasped around her pint mug as if she was cold. She felt vaguely sick. She had never lied to Martin before. There had been a visitor and she now understood what had brought that particular person to her door. Martin had not been able to keep his mouth shut. However, inadvertently he had done himself a favour and now Dorothy was returning it by keeping quiet.
Outside the night enveloped the house like a cloak. All that could be heard were the familiar creakings of the building. Through the kitchen windows the outlines of boulders became shadowy shapes until they merged completely into the blackness. Clouds hid the stars and there was no street-lighting for a long way. In a couple more days she would need to light a fire. There was a good supply of wood stacked against the side of one of the outbuildings. Martin had cut it for her in the spring and left it there to weather. Fresh wood with the sap still running burned longer but was no good for giving off heat. Dorothy smiled. She liked the winter when gales made the windows rattle and the wind relentlessly but unsuccessfully pounded away at the house which had stood undamaged for the best part of two hundred years. Only once had she needed someone to come and replace a couple of roof slates.
When the dark evenings arrived Dorothy took herself to bed early and read, her mind always partly aware of the screaming elements outside. When a strong westerly brought rain it lashed against the bedroom window but the sound was comforting, a part of all she had ever known. She would lie contentedly beneath the sheet and blankets and the patchwork quilt her mother had stitched and give thanks for her life.
She was, she realised, a woman of extremes. She liked summer and winter, understood only good or evil and had no time for people who dithered because they couldn’t decide the best thing to do. Everything in life was black or white to her and this outlook reflected both her character and her surroundings. She loved the harshness of the scenery outside and could never have lived in one of the picturesque villages which attracted tourists. Even as a girl she had avoided crowds, walking the cliff paths alone or with friends from the village. They would lie amongst the rough grasses and the thrift, its pink flowers bobbing in the soft breezes, and plan their futures, futures modelled on their parents’ lives. They knew only open spaces and the moods of the Atlantic Ocean as it battered the coastline or caressed the golden sand. Time was measured by the storms and the baking heat of summer. Their food came from the sea and the surrounding farms, their bread from their mothers’ kitchens and their only entertainment was listening to the stories passed down through the generations or hearing one of the choirs sing in the church.
Progress, she thought. What has it brought us but people in a hurry with their fast cars and their televisions and computers which were called, she believed, technology communication? ‘Communication!’ she spluttered. ‘They things does the