Viola had told her tale of woe to the woman in the Lost Children hut, who immediately took charge, alerting the coastguard, the local lifeboat and the police and several other unidentified people, most of whom milled around on the promenade, excited by the drama but disappointed that there was nothing to see. It seemed a lot for one lone swimmer lost at sea.
Viola had related the facts. They were sparse. Dominic had said, “I’m going for a swim,” run down to the sea, plunged in, arms and legs waving, and never come back. There was no more to be wrung out of this statement and so the two burly policemen took them back to Adam’s Acre. A fractious Sunny had to be prised off the body of the woman in the Lost Children hut like a limpet from a rock. “The poor little pet,” the woman said and Viola said, “You can keep him if you want,” which obviously the Lost-Children-hut woman thought was a joke.
The door of the farmhouse flew open as the panda car drew up and Dorothy appeared, glared at Viola and said, “You brought the pigs to my door?” The two policemen clearly resented being addressed in this disrespectful fashion by a woman who was, let’s face it, kaftan notwithstanding, an old-age pensioner and should have known better.
“You can’t come in without a warrant,” Dorothy said imperiously.
“We weren’t planning on coming in,” one of the policemen said, sniffing the air ostentatiously, although the only smell was the reek of Dorothy’s patchouli rather than drugs, even though drugs there were a-plenty on the premises.
Dorothy had by now moved out into the farmyard and was standing arms akimbo, defending her territory. “You shall not pass,” she said as if she were defending a barricade.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Viola said. She was far too worn out for this kind of nonsense.
“Where on earth have you been, Viola? We wondered what had happened to you. Dominic’s in his studio, he’s been back for hours.”
“He’s back? Here?” Viola said.
“Well, where else would he be?”
“This is Mr. Villiers we’re talking about?” one of the policemen intervened. “Mr. Dominic Villiers?”
“The gentleman we’re conducting a massive air-sea search for?” the other one said. “The one we’ve scrambled an RAF rescue helicopter for?”
And so he came back from his dip in the sea and couldn’t find you? And he just drove home?” the farmer puzzled.
“In his swimming trunks?” the farmer’s wife said, shaking her head in disbelief at this fact. Viola could see that she’d pushed the pair of them to the edge of their imaginations. They would never behave like Dominic because they were normal people.
She had packed a bag, taken all the money from the kitty when no one was looking and walked over to the neighbouring farm. No one had even noticed she had gone. She had been prepared to run the gauntlet of the geese but they seemed to have gone to bed for the night.
“Oh, it’s you,” the farmer said. This morning seemed a long way away to all of them.
The farmer’s wife bathed the children and they emerged from the bathroom wrapped in towels looking clean and polished, like new, before being dressed in the pyjamas that the farmer’s wife kept for her grandchildren when they visited. She had heated up stew and potatoes and Viola and her children came to a mute agreement that no one would mention the fact that they were vegetarians. Viola felt she had enough on her plate (ha!) without this added ethical complication (they were on a farm, she excused herself). Afterwards, the farmer’s wife produced junket that she’d made with cream from the burnished red cows and Viola didn’t say, “Don’t eat that! It’s made with rennet which comes from an enzyme in a cow’s stomach!” which was how she normally greeted cheese and instead let it quietly slip down her throat. It was delicious.
They slept there, between clean old sheets, the children in a double bed. From an early age, almost before she had words for doing it, Bertie had been a sleeptalker, mumbling her way through the night, but tonight, to Sunny’s relief, she slept without a murmur. He placed a pebble beneath his pillow for comfort. When he woke next morning it was the first thing he reached for. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Viola said when he put it next to his breakfast plate.
They ate scrambled eggs as yellow as the sun and then were dressed again by the farmer’s wife in more clothes from her cache. Sunny sported clean short trousers and a little Aertex shirt while Bertie wore a print dress with a smocked bodice and a white Peter Pan collar. They looked like someone else’s children.
The farmer drove them to the station, where they took a train to London, and from King’s Cross they took another train to York.
“Hello,” Teddy said when he opened his front door and saw the little group of refugees standing on the doorstep. “This is a nice surprise.”
1947
This Unforgiving Winter
February
The Snowdrop in purest white array
First rears her head on Candlemas Day