Chapter 6

After the meal, as they sat on each side of the stove in the living room, Angela was almost loth to break the peace. Each had a glass of red wine from dinner, for Joseph had brought the bottle in from the kitchen. Bob lay between them snoring in the heat of the fire.

She could not help it, though. She had to break into the silence and ask.

"Joseph," she said quite tentatively, "What happens when you meditate?"

"What happened with you?" he asked in return.

"Lots of ideas," she said, "they just kept coming."

"And?"

"Well, I didn't know what to do about them."

"So?"

"I thought about them and realised that for most of my life I've been a really selfish bitch."

Silence. Joseph was looking at her kindly. Waiting.

"As a child, I had to have the latest games, and later, in teenage I wanted the latest craze and fashion. I'd shout and stamp and slam doors until I got what I wanted. Dad would slip me the money without my mother knowing. I took it as a right, I don't think I even thanked him.

"Then I remembered how I used boys and they used me. I dated rich boys and demanded the best from them, and they demanded blow-jobs and sex. I hated the blow-jobs, and most of them were no good in bed – or the back of their cars.

"Then there was the memory of when I got pregnant. It was inevitable really – so much activity, even if I made the boys use condoms, they're not foolproof."

She stopped ashamed and uncertain as to how he would react.

"And?" he asked. His eyes were gentle and she felt more confident.

"I had an abortion. He – or she – would be nine now. I still feel guilty at taking that life away."

He nodded, but his gentle expression never changed. She continued.

"I went with Gerard because he had money. He was charming at first, but he turned out very jealous. No, that's not quite true, he is still very loving and caring, but he has a jealous streak and a temper.

"He is also very autocratic; he orders me about. I think when he left me before you found me (OK, when Bob found me)," she smiled when she saw his attempt to correct her. He would never take credit for saving her, she thought. "It was temper. We had a row; I can't even remember what about."

"So," he prompted, "What came out of your hour?"

"I'm not a very nice person to know," she said, and stopped.

Did she expect him to deny it? To say, 'No, You're a very nice person'? It didn't happen.

"That's a start," is what he said.

"What d'you mean?" She was disappointed at his acceptance of her statement.

He did not answer the question, but seemed to go off at a tangent.

"When I began meditating," he said, "I spent hour after hour resenting my wife and Trevor. Not just resenting: hating. I became more and more aware of my hatred and resentment, and eventually, behind all that anger, I noticed self-pity. I had not expected that. I learned, very slowly, that all these feelings were in me not them, and that I had to find a way to escape from the prison my own feelings had put me in. What they had done would never change; it had happened. It was further and further in the past. I was prolonging the agony in myself. You understand?"

"And you did," she said, "change I mean."

"Very slowly, yes, I learned to let it go; to forgive. The old feelings would rise in me from time to time, but yes, eventually it was put to bed. I was free. Only then did my meditation change.

"Now is not the time to tell you about that," he said gently. "Perhaps one day when you've done a little more meditating, you'll know what I'm talking about. I don't think you would now."

"So, what about me?"

"You're just starting out. You have issues and your meditation will bring them out. It will not always be comfortable. After a meditation session you have to confront what you experienced, judge it and try to act on it."

"I don't want to be a selfish bitch any more."

"Then don't be. You haven't been selfish – or bitchy -- while you've been here." He smiled and she knew he was gently mocking her.

"You bring out the best in me." she said.

He smiled again, and picked up the book he had been reading. Angela went to the study and found one of P D James's crime novels and brought it back to the living room. They spent the rest of the evening reading.

Joseph only broke the peace by letting Bob out of the front door, and closing it after the dog had returned.

"It is very cold tonight," he said. "Do you want a hot water bottle?"

"Please," she said.

He went to kitchen and prepared the bottle, taking it to the bedroom and knocking on the partially open door. She came to the door wearing a pair of silk pyjamas, and took the bottle from him, placing it on the dresser. Then she hugged him and lifted her face to kiss him. He was surprised, but bent to her and their lips met in a gentle embrace.

"Thank you for a wonderful day," she whispered.

"I glad you enjoyed it," he said, smiling shyly at her. "Tomorrow the weather may not be so pleasant. Clouds are arriving: it looks like snow."

She bent and picked up the hot water bottle, allowing her pyjama top to gape and her breasts to be partially on show. He wondered if she did it on purpose, but he was grateful for the gift of the show. He felt a definite stirring at the hug and display. He was grateful for that too.

She smiled at him and he thought he detected a mischievous glint in her eye. He smiled back, turned and went to the study and his comfortable chair.

Monday

For the first time in a long time, Joseph's meditation next morning was plagued with distractions and they all centred on Angela. He had not given their hug and her display the previous night any thought and had fallen asleep immediately in his chair.

Now he was plagued by visions of her neat firm rounded breasts hanging proud beneath her pyjama top as she bent. Then there was her rear, her perfectly formed behind, followed by a memory of her legs and thighs when he was treating her sprained ankle. He witnessed these images and let them go their way, but they kept coming back!

There were her comments about herself and her relationships, she hinting that she liked him more and more and was enjoying being with him. She seemed to be idolising him. He was not comfortable with that, but again he watched the ideas go by and let them go.

Finally came questions. They seemed to come from his wife as he looked at her photo and that of their little daughter.

'Are you attracted to her, Joseph?' He considered it. Yes.

'Do you want her, Joseph?' Yes.

'What are you going to do about it, Joseph?'

This caused a good deal of heart-searching, and his meditation was over early. He decided to leave the question unanswered for the time being and get on with seeing to the livestock. At least they didn't ruin his meditation! He knew that the idea of a ruined meditation was a joke; he was sure that everything that came to a meditation was important and had a message for him.

There was a stiff freezing breeze in the air, blowing from the north east. The clouds were slate grey as they processed across the sky, and there was a wisp of dampness in the air.

Bob arrived as usual as soon as the candle was extinguished, and he let the dog out before making porridge, leaving it to cook gently in the oven, and setting the kettle to boil for tea when he returned.

He had only just finished boxing up the eggs when Barry arrived for the goats' milk and the surplus eggs. Joseph made tea and they sat together as was their wont at the kitchen table.

"'appen there'll be snow ere too long," said Barry, breaking the silence. "Wind's set to veer due east. It'll blow reet up yer valley. Tha knows what that means."

"OK for me," said Joseph, "I can last a month or more. It won't be the first time, and certainly not the last!"

"Reckon I'll need t'tractor to get here t'morrer," said the farmer.

"Aye," agreed Joseph, "It'll be quiet enough if we're snowed in."

"They say power lines could come down, but you're sat well, with yer technology!"

Barry said the word as if he were talking of magic, in spite of having the latest machinery on his farm, but he was grinning as he said it.

Joseph laughed, and wondered why Barry hadn't mentioned the strange car out front.

Barry finished his tea and drove off as Angela arrived in the kitchen, still in her silk pyjamas. They brushed against her body showing her shape in flashes, especially her breasts and bottom and the curve of her waist. It was captivating for Joseph, who smiled broadly.

"You just missed Barry," he said. "You would have cheered him up wearing that!"

She looked disconcerted for a moment, after all he had never made a flirting remark before. She realised she liked it: he was a real man after all!

"I missed morning meditation," she lamented.

"You can do it any time," he said. "Just go in the living room and shut the door. But first, have some porridge with a spot of honey, and some tea. The weather is closing in, so I need to sort out the animals and batten down the hatches. I'll be out most of the morning and you'll be left in peace."

Once the simple warming meal was over, Angela told him she would wash up and he gratefully went out into the cloudy windy morning. She watched him striding strongly out, and as he did so the first snow flakes sped horizontally past the kitchen window.

By the time she finished washing up she could not see across the yard, the snow was falling so thick and heavy. It blew horizontally and then eddied as the wind dropped for a moment before blowing across again. She had thought she knew what a blizzard was like before, but this was a whiteout. She felt all the warmer in the kitchen for that, but felt for Joseph having to be out in it.