Married Love by Tessa Hadley

Author:Tessa Hadley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Windsor
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Aa was young and lusty aa was fair and clear

Aa was young and lusty many’s a long year

When I was five and twenty a could loup a dyke

Noo a’m five and sixty aa can barely step a syke.

Thus spoke the ould man to the oak tree

Sair fyeld is aa sin a kenned thee!

Julie caught the eye of Cordelia’s boyfriend and knew that he was watching them all, uncertain how to fit in with this family and their unashamed grand gestures.

–Do you remember that one, Nana? Ed called to Vera down the table. – Did you use to sing that up in Newcastle when Dad was a kid?

–I don’t think so, pet, said Vera vaguely.

Later, when the children had gone off with Stella to feed the horses, and Julie and Ed were stacking the dishes from the table in a big basket to carry into the kitchen, Ed put his arms around her from behind, and kissed her on her back, naked where her dress plunged down. “Aa was young and lusty many’s a long year” he imitated, muffled against her skin, so that she knew he had been listening to his father even though he had pretended only to be weary at his showing off. She also knew that he was apologising for his moodiness earlier, and perhaps for the remark about taking her top off, although he might have just thought that was sensible advice. She wasn’t really angry with him; she had talked with Stella about how it was difficult for Ed, trying to make a career as a critic and writer and trying to do it differently from Colin—Ed wanted to be more subtle, more sceptical, less ripe—but always having to operate in the blurring, broad shadow of his father. It was no wonder he behaved badly sometimes, returned into his parents’ orbit.

At the end of the afternoon Julie went for a walk by herself. The curtains were pulled shut across the windows in the living room again, and the children were watching a film, something Colin had been sent that was only just out in the cinemas. Stella and Cordelia had taken the horses out, Rose was with the children, Ivan was practising, Ed and Colin both had articles to finish. Julie had only meant to step outside for a few minutes, but once she began to walk down the path that led along the fields and through the copse of beech trees, there seemed no reason to turn back; they could all manage without her for half an hour. Alone, she felt returned with intensity inside herself, aware of the breathing lifting her chest and the suddenly awakened noise of her thoughts rushing in the hollow of her skull. Yellow light slanted low across the path from between the trees; little birds scuffled in the undergrowth or flitted among the leaves like tricks of sight. A woodpigeon took off from a branch with a startling racket, its wingbeats like shots. It was a lovely English

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