Changes in a Landscape

By Keith Blackburn

One of the bonuses of youth is that it has not accumulated enough decisions to regret. But, as age creeps in, future possibilities of regret become sparser, and decisions more urgent. At the age of forty, Steve Verity, part-time painter and part-time tutor in arts and crafts slightly balding, beer-paunch-ridden and generally unsatisfied with his lot, needs to re-invigorate his perspective on life. To rub salt in his wounds, he has just been given marching orders from his comfortable cottage home by his other half of four years standing. It is fair to say that it is time for a thorough self-re-assessment.

Notwithstanding strong support around him, which includes, ironically, his estranged partner, Rebecca, as well as his long-term friend, colleague and fellow-artist, the larger-than-life Dai (not to discount new love interests), Steve has to re-discover his true bearings. It becomes clear that he has new paths to take and different directions to choose but will his choices be the appropriate ones? It seems as though the material surroundings that bear down on Steve are as much part of his discontent as any of his existential conundrums.

In style, Changes in a Landscape plays upon the kitchen-sink-drama rawness of earlier, important 20th century doom-mongering novels, but adds an element of hope as it tackles the issues of self-identity and place in a subtle and absorbing way. What is most poignant, even frightening, however, is that no matter how irritating Steves low self-esteem and inability to act is, and how much you would like to give him a kick up his Prufrockian back-side, there are glimmers of him in all of us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477268964

Keith Blackburn

The son of a sculptor and monumental mason, Keith Blackburn was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, and studied art at Wakefield Technical and Art College. Later he trained as a teacher and became a lecturer in arts and crafts while painting and writing in his spare time. He became a full-time artist in 1989 and has since lived in Cornwall and Holland where he has held several one-man exhibitions of his painting. He wrote his first novel at the age of twenty-one and has since combined working as a painter with writing. His first published novel was Between Septembers in 1994. This was followed in 1997 by a collection of short stories, Lamentations of a Young Pig. His other novels include, Feathers for Laura, Grandma’s Garden and a surrealistic novel entitled: The Auguste.

Book preview

PART ONE

Chapter One

January, 1983. Over, finished, done with. That was the position in a nutshell this cold blustery morning and he ought to have left first thing, at the latest by nine. Yet here he was, half past eleven for Godsake, still dithering and doddering as usual, worrying over every trivial detail imaginable, like going to the trouble of having a bath because when the hell would there be chance of another once he was out of this little abode? No hot water at his brother’s and as for Edna’s . . . ! He visualised the single coldwater tap above the grimy metal sink and the weather enough to freeze the proverbials at this time of year.

So, it was over, four years washed from his life like the grey scum floating over the steaming surface of the bathwater. Fate, destiny, or whatever, had chosen his path to cross with that of a certain irascible young lady by the name of Miss Rebecca Hemming, and for three of those four years theirs had been an affair without the basic mechanics of an affair, and all those other bits of nonsense and worldly delight. He and she had lived together, existed together in their rut of non-togetherness for so long neither could recall nor care anymore what had once been or should be in a relationship.

They were both to blame of course, though each blamed the other. Rebecca had her opinions, strong ones it must be emphasised, while he had his. Simply, she thought she was right every time while he thought she was wrong every time, only Rebecca, wishing to prove how right she was, set out each time to make things difficult, being bloody-minded for the sake of it and playing cuckoo in the nest. And why shouldn’t she? might be her self-righteous cry. After all, it was her nest.

He rinsed himself with a final splashing, heaved his body from the relative warmth and comfort of the bathwater, and made an urgent grab for a towel, clutching it to him. Here he remained for the moment, transfixed by his emergence, teeth making their merry chatter while the steam coiled leisurely from his goose-pimpled flesh. The towel offered little warmth, cold and damp as it was, like everything else in the bathroom. Even the heat from the bathwater had failed to make any impression, except to add to the general condensation and fill the air with a lingering mist.

The bathroom and its dampness! Another of the many side-piercing thorns Rebecca had nagged and niggled about, the damp, the ever-prevailing damp, not only in the bathroom but also in the kitchen and along the walls in the lounge. This and the generous expanse of mould which accompanied it were another lost cause in her struggle to maintain those standards she required of a home. And whatever tactics she used in order to defeat it, applying fungicides, anti-damp paints, or pasting thin sheets of polystyrene beneath her expensive choices of wallpaper, the black mould returned each time with a vengeance to lend its own patterns and textures to her pastel-shade designs.

Perhaps the tide’s been a high one, he would suggest. Maybe you ought to start cultivating mushrooms instead of hanging wallpaper.

To which Rebecca responded with typical disdain, never appreciating his hands-in-pockets attempt to make light of her disasters. For a brief while, however, before the inevitable worrying and nattering, he could feel sorry for her in her quiet disappointment when more effort and expense had proved to no avail. But no matter how sorry he might feel, he could never summon much enthusiasm for the DIY side of things. Those weekends were anathema to him, a tiresome ratio of the accustomed and comfortable humdrum days. They were the Saturdays and Sundays of Rebecca’s determination to get things done about the cottage, of his shutting off his mind to trail brain-dead behind her through the synthetic resin aromas of DIY centres and superstores. They were weekends of answering monosyllabic her enthusing comments while they passed by a tableau of modern bathrooms and fitted kitchens, or toured dusty departments full of prefabricated windows and prefabricated doors. He had simulated interest so as not to upset the unsteady applecart. He had tagged along with the rest of the weekend enthusiasts, selecting various tools, lengths of knotty timber or pre-packed plastic packs of assorted screws or nails, afterwards to join the ranks at the checkout, balancing boxes of white tiles for the bathroom, and tins of ready-to-use cement and grouting. Then there were those tedious hours spent with a glass-cutter and pliers, trimming the awkward pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, shouting and cursing volumes when they broke or didn’t fit.

He regarded the many he’d fitted floor-to-ceiling, admiring their precision despite the shouting and the swearing, and the dog’s hind-leg unevenness of the walls. There was still more to be completed, particularly the difficult spot behind the toilet and the cistern, and the grouting too, but that, he reasoned, was her problem from now on.

He turned from the tiling to the mirror above the washbasin, wiping a hand over the condensation and destroying its grainy flatness. The wet remained, blurring and distorting his image in a residue of filmy streaks, and just as well it did. That was another losing battle if anything was, the crowfeet wrinkles, bags and dimples, his golden locks of youth parting company like a pink stain spreading outward from the crown.

Ah, God, could the rooster crow without a tail? He was almost forty, beer-gutted, thinning on top and almost forty. He’d grown taller. So much taller he was growing out of the top of his hair. The mirror showed everything beneath the bright spotlight glare of the bathroom light. Rebecca’s mirrors were cruel, unflattering, unsparing.

He braced himself, took another deep breath then threw aside the towel to rub himself vigorously dry with it. He, Stephen Verity, part-time lecturer in art and crafts (and artist sometimes), was almost forty, and as was written of certain individuals such as kings and noblemen in the textbooks of history, without issue. Nor had he much in the way of prospects, and even less since pretty, petite Miss Hemming, schoolteacher, had chosen to kick him out of her two-up, two-down-with-mod-cons abode. Extricated like a bug from the warm carpet pile, all because the question of money, or rather why he wasn’t coughing up more of it, had raised its perishing head yet again.

So, how much more are you expecting? he’d cried, cornered, his voice rising until Sonia, Rebecca’s golden retriever, had shot up from her favourite spot on the hearthrug to set up her barking.

Rebecca tried to quieten her. You don’t need me to keep repeating it, do you? she’d retorted in that haughty schoolma’am-to-ignorant-schoolboy way that never failed to set his hackles rising. I’ve told you till I’m sick of telling you, I have bills to pay, gas bills, electricity bills, phone bills, a car to run, a mortgage to pay. Where do you suppose the money comes from? Do you think it all appears out of thin air by magic?

He’d stared benumbed at her urchin-like short-cropped black hair, her elfin face, flawless and pale like alabaster, her large dark eyes alert, darting at him like those of a perturbed little animal.

What about the cheque I gave you the other day? had been his helpless protest. What about the cash I hand over each Saturday, your ‘grocery money’ as you call it, as opposed to your ‘bill money’, and for what? Tins and tins of bleeding dog food and huge big bags of biscuits for the doggie.

He lifted a foot, threatening the dog as she continued to bark at his ankles. Shut it, bloody thing!

Don’t you dare kick her, don’t you dare! Rebecca had warned.

Kick her? he whispered, fit to burst. I’ll ff . . .

Yes, that’s right, make way for the abuse and the swearing, it just about sums you up. What an ignorant man you really are.

She bent to pat the barking dog. Hush, Sonia, hush, there’s a good girl.

He clenched himself, longing to break every neat bone in her delicate body. Listen, I’m clearing out of here first thing tomorrow and I’m not coming back.

Rebecca uttered a sharp laugh. So you’ve kept saying for I don’t know how long. You know where the door is, you won’t find it locked. By the way, you might be good enough to leave the key when you go, I’ll be needing it.

He thought of throwing it at her, but: No, he decided. I’ll need it for when I come to collect the rest of my stuff then I won’t have to impose on you.

Impose on me? Another harsh laugh. What do you think you’ve been doing all this while, you base parasite?

Oh, go stick a finger in a light socket while I flick the switch, he told her. Only don’t forget to lick it first. God, when I think of all I’ve done for you!

You haven’t done anything . . .

Haven’t done anything? What about the tiling, what about all the wallpapering and cleaning and painting? Who the hell helped you with that?

If you’ll let me finish, and if you’ll listen, she answered calmly. What I was about to say was, you haven’t done anything more than any bloke might do in the house he lives in. Do you expect me to do it all on my own while you sit around on your backside? You’ve helped me, yes, but do you have to keep reminding me of every little effort you make? Do you need to sit begging like a little puppy, wanting a reward and your tummy tickled every time you do anything? It’s part of living together, Steve. That’s something you never seem to have grasped.

There had been little opportunity then for either of them to elaborate further on their personal grievances relating to domestic finances. Rebecca had chosen the right moment as far as she was concerned to broach this highly volatile subject—namely the one before bedtime while they were drinking cocoa, and decidedly the wrong one for him. Soon a seething rage had overtaken them both, she rearing against what she regarded as his constant negative attitude towards her reasonable expectations, and he teeth-gnashing against what he believed were her unreasonable demands.

Sonia, meanwhile, caught in the middle, had continued to leap and bark at whoever happened to be shouting the loudest, and while Rebecca proceeded to belabour him with her tongue, accusing him of having not the slightest inkling of what it meant to run a home, he’d remained the inarticulate schoolboy, convinced she was in the wrong but unable to express how much he felt her to be in the wrong. Such was the force and logic of her argument. When at last he’d managed to voice an opinion, it had come with a further torrent of swearing which finally decided Rebecca that she too was short on words. Seizing up her mug of cocoa, she’d sent it hurtling to bounce off the wall within inches of his head (amazingly without breaking). Obligingly he’d returned it.

Get out of my house! she shrieked as the mug exploded against the wall behind her, showering her with its debris. Take whatever belongs to you and leave my home.

His final night at Rebecca’s had been spent as it had on many an occasion during their passionately angry life together, down amongst the dog hairs on the carpet, a cushion for a pillow and his overcoat for blankets.

An all too familiar tense, not-speaking silence had followed this morning. She fed the dog, made a cup of tea without pouring one for him, and then set about preparing herself and her face for another teaching day. Before setting off she took Sonia for a quick run in the field behind the cottage. Normally this was his duty, mornings and evenings, but whenever they fought beyond repair she considered it expedient to relieve him of it.

She stopped only once on the point of leaving to admit her awareness of his presence. He expected her to say something grudging, half forgiving, but not this time. She glared icily over the rims of her spectacles, gave Sonia a goodbye pat then went, closing the door finally and softly behind her.

*

He left off packing a few necessities into a plastic carrier, suddenly remembering the already opened pack of bacon that was in the fridge. The pre-packed pack of middle-back had been amongst their supermarket shopping of Saturday afternoon, and Rebecca being a vegetarian, he knew where it would end if he left it. The concern for the bacon and its probable demise in Sonia’s bowl was one more detail threatening his resolve. He became aware of the complaisant track his mind was following, the alternatives pivoting on a few rashers of bacon. There was the evening meal before the telly, the homely comfort of the armchair, the dog stretched out before the glowing warmth of the gas fire. He could return, ride the storm, tread softly as he usually did during these frequent crises.

He took a grip, knowing too well the pattern, how resolve borne on the anger of a rejected night usually fizzled away by dawn. He grilled the bacon in the fridge-humming quiet of the kitchen and devoured it between two slices of bread in the silence of the lounge.

Sonia, crouching on her haunches before him, took note of every detail, the way he lifted, the way he bit and chewed. She was short on memory concerning the night before, unaware of the gravity of the situation which was about to separate them forever. Chop-licking alert, her sole regard was for the rapidly diminishing sandwich.

Push off, bloody dog, he muttered, shoving the last bite into his mouth.

Chapter Two

Hamsley, once a small mining village, was now an expanse of a new housing estate swamping the original few streets of terraced houses which had centred round the mine. It lay about three miles beyond Grintley where Rebecca lived, and was one of several old mining communities set, like Grintley, in the rural area bordering South and West Yorkshire. Apart from the colliery, closed sometime in the 1960’s following an explosion in the pit, the only significant landmark on the Hamsley map was the old junior school which stood by the main road as you entered the village. This late-Victorian edifice served as a centre for further education, and it was where, concurrent with his involvement with Rebecca, he’d managed to survive, skin-of-the-teeth, with a job over the past four years.

He didn’t look too closely as the bus drew to a halt by the familiar green wrought-iron gates. Hamsley F.E. Centre was a reminder of his inertia, of time having passed and various people having gone their separate ways. Nor did he wish to be seen by anyone who might recognize him. Today was Wednesday, his free day, and just as well under the circumstances. At times like these when the home front, or the lack of it, generated such a sense of upheaval, it was space to lick the wounds that was required, and Edna’s, that more recent and far more significant landmark on the map, would hopefully provide it.

A few of the children from the nearby primary school on Salter Lane, those who had been home for lunch, were already returning when he alighted from the bus at the other end of the village. He followed with them, leaning into the icy gusts as he headed down the lane. Screams of laughter reached him as he went by the school, skipping ropes twirling and games of chasing. The noise from the swarming playground filled him with envy for the children and their loud carefree innocence. It came with the feelings of regret which had been hovering since he left Rebecca’s.

He hurried on, his long brown overcoat flapping about him like a sail in the wind. In better days he had seen the overcoat in a far more stylistic, romantic light. Now he saw it as pathetic, not romantic, more in keeping with a wino or a geriatric tramp’s. The plastic carrier stuffed with his few belongings intensified the image, making the reality of separation all the more poignant.

Edna’s stood amongst a row of ancient cottages further down the lane. A moderately sized, L-shaped house, its lower storey had been converted into two shops, a chemist’s and a barber’s. A sandstone plaque, set in the brickwork at one gable end, proclaimed the legend, EDNOR in deep cut letters and underneath the date: 1885. Upstairs were the studios.

The two shops were closed as yet for lunch. There was an air of dereliction about their stark unlit windows, a locked-and-bolted dereliction about the house itself. He followed round by the barber’s with its modest window display of faded adverts for hair creams, and turned left into the alley between the house and the butcher’s shop next door. He searched in the torn lining of his overcoat pockets, snorted with impatience when he his fingers groped and found nothing, then sighed with relief when he felt the key.

A cold gentle foistiness touched his nostrils as soon as he entered, a faint mustiness of emptiness and neglect. He knew from the silence that Dai wasn’t there. Closing and locking the door behind him, he climbed the narrow stairs to a small dim corridor that divided their rooms. He glanced briefly at the door on his left at the top of the stairs, saw no sign of life behind its frosted half-glass panels, and continued to his own room, shrinking from the cold damp air that hit him like walking into a freezer.

He slung the carrier onto a sagging divan then went over to draw the curtains. The divan, draped with a loud flowery cover, had been given to him by Mrs Tranter, one of the elderly ladies from his Thursday afternoon painting class. It was hardly the ideal prop on which to seduce a willing and voluptuous model, even if chance was ever to prove such a fine thing, but to Mrs Tranter it made a perfect studio couch.

Still, it’s the thought that counts, he told himself, finally bringing his attention to the unfinished landscape propped on his easel, a two by three-foot canvas, hills and a valley under a rain swept sky. The sight of it made him immediately despair. Last night, in the light of a 150-watt bulb, the paint had positively glowed on the canvas, but now in the daylight, or the little that the grey day allowed, the whole lot looked chalky and dull.

Despondency made him turn to other matters, anything to delay taking the tops off paints. There was still the chimney to be sorted, and the cold reminded him of it. Mr Siddle, their landlord, had left the necessary tackle, a long bundle wrapped with a piece silk curtain which had been lying next to the fireplace for weeks. He contemplated the empty fire grate and the bundle. He’d tried using the fireplace only once, but the paper and the kindling had barely flickered while the smoke had come billowing into the room in a thick blue cloud.

It was Mr Siddle who had suggested cleaning the chimney. The upstairs rooms hadn’t been used as bedrooms since before the war, he’d said, delighted to have two real artists as tenants. The chimney wasn’t blocked off but simply blocked. It hadn’t been swept in years.

Unfastening the tapes securing the bundle, Steve picked up one of the soot-engrained rods lying incongruously against the material of the curtain. The moment seemed as good as any and sweeping the chimney was all part of the process of moving in, a process that had been ongoing since November when he’d taken over the room. Dai, of course, had not spent as much time moving into his, but that was Dai, never one for too much fuss-arsing and pratting around. As soon as he had somewhere to contemplate his navel, or navval as he referred to it, it had taken him only a day or two with a dustpan and broom, and a quick lick of paint here and there.

Dai was the one who had found Edna’s (name inspired by the plaque). He wanted to get back to some serious work, he said, needed space and quiet to spread himself. He’d placed an ad in the local newsagent’s window for a studio and when Mr Siddle responded with three rooms on offer, needing only one, he’d given first refusal on one of the others to Steve.

Well, are you interested or aren’t you? he’d demanded, seeing the