The Levels by Peter Benson Page A

the Brendons, climbing to Exmoor; the Quantocks, the Blackdowns in the south, and the villages and towns strung out towards Taunton. I grew hot, and the moisture, in the grass, in heating, released a sweet smell.
    I made her follow my finger as I pointed out the border, following the course of a river, weaving along a hedge, through gates and farms. I did not bore her. For a moment, she laid her hand on my arm, to stop me as I talked, and asked about something I was pointing at.
    â€˜What’s that?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Where you’re pointing.’
    â€˜The farm?’
    â€˜Up against the barn.’
    â€˜The machine?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜I don’t know.’ She smiled.
    â€˜It’s hotter than ever.’ She reached up and pulled off her jumper, tossed it behind her head and lay back. ‘Hotter,’ she said, and ran a hand over her forehead, while I stared at a herd of red cows, rubies in the grass, chewing the cud below us. A gull flew by, rooks, the ground softened and full of worms grazed the fields.
    Muriel fell asleep, and I watched her in this, her body hardly moving, a whisper of hair blowing gently across her face. Her eyes quivered, and she made a small sound. I sipped some beer. I lit another cigarette. She said something in her sleep, but I couldn’t hear. Then she became restless, but that was all.
    I finished the sandwiches, stood up, and left her, to walk to the crest of the hill and down the other side. In a sheltered corner of the field, growing from a banked hedge, primroses, in fat, yellow clumps. I collected enough to fill my fist, wandering along, spilling red earth out of the bank as I picked. Where the wind and rain had washed the place, the roots of hazels and elders had been exposed to the sun, and bleached white, like bones.
    I carried the flowers back to where she lay, still asleep, I put them by her face, she twitched her nose, and brought up a hand to brush them away.
    â€˜Ah,’ she went. ‘Mmm.’
    â€˜Hello?’
    â€˜Billy!’
    â€˜I picked them for you.’
    â€˜Primroses. Billy. Flowers and more flowers.’
    â€˜You like them?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜You fell asleep. I picked them down there,’ I pointed.
    â€˜You should have woken me.’
    â€˜You looked so peaceful.’
    â€˜So you left me to the mercies of the, the ...’ She spread her arms.
    â€˜Sheep?’ I said.
    â€˜Sheep?’
    â€˜Mauled by a sheep. It happens all the time.’
    I drove, Muriel relaxed, the van was hot, the drive home too short. I have memories, stored for future comfort, and these stand up to the best. Wheeling birds, golden leaves, a butterfly, warming itself on the bonnet. What a beautiful day. She rolled me a cigarette. I could scent her tobacco; we met a wagon of hay, the driver waved us past, and gave me a wink, like he was Cupid.

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    A thing to make my mother mad, hot weather. It was a hot week.
    â€˜Weather for it!’ my father said, his arm around my mother’s waist, his head resting in her armpit.
    â€˜Aagh!’ she let out, pushed him away, went to the store, the galvanized lid banged back and the chickens started. The egg man was ill, a different one got lost at Long Load. My mother had fifty pallets stacked under sacking in the workshop. She moved them in without a word; I didn’t mind. I was piling willow in the shed when Dick turned up. Chedzoy had given him a job: go to Langport and buy three buckets. Chedzoy had made a joke. He said Dick could wear the buckets on his head on the way home. Dick rode into the yard with three buckets on his head.
    â€˜Aaagh!’ yelled my mother, as he slewed to a halt beside me.
    â€˜Hey!’ he said, ‘I’ve come from Langport like this!’ Taking the bend at Huish, the buckets had slipped down the helmet to cover his eyes, but he hadn’t cared, and rode into a wall. His front mudguard