The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [73]
Patty Dace said that that was an excellent idea. She thought for a moment or two, and then said that the Methleys were very keen on their smallholding and were enthusiastic gardeners. If they didn’t answer the doorbell, they could usually be found by walking round into the garden at the back.
They pedalled the East Guldeford road in a companionable silence, and found their way to Wantsum Farm, which was hardly large enough to be called a farm, but supported a few sheep, some ducks, a pair of goats and a small orchard. The farmhouse was squat, with small windows and an ill-fitting door. They rang the bell, and when no one answered, did as Miss Dace had suggested, and went along the path round to the back of the house, across a rough lawn with a diminutive duckpond, and through a gate in a wall into the kitchen garden.
They made their way to the centre of this space between high rows of peas and beans, growing up poles with supporting netting. These screening plants explained why they came upon the Methleys, quite suddenly, in a sheltered spot at the centre of the radiating paths. They were sitting side by side upon the grass. Herbert Methley was holding up a book and Phoebe Methley was shelling peas and broad beans into a colander on her lap.
Both of them were naked. Both wore spectacles.
Everyone stared.
Neither Arthur Dobbin nor Frank Mallett had seen a naked woman during his adult life, though Frank had visited sweaty sick or dying ladies in dishevelled nightgowns.
Both Methleys had sun-roughed and reddened noses, necks and wrists. Both were otherwise lean and pale. Herbert Methley was dark, with flopping fine hair, and a luxuriant black growth under his armpits and round his relaxed member. He was quite sinewy, with thin but muscular arms and legs, and a spattering of wiry hair on his chest. Phoebe Methley had sandy hair tied up in a knot with a broad band. Her breasts—they saw her breasts first, to the exclusion of the rest of her—were flattening mounds, hanging over her rib-cage, with nipples the colour of dog-roses, not sticking out, but retracted. They saw that she too had a lower bush of hair, a brighter ginger than her head, and averted their eyes. She had a long neck, and the skin on it was just beginning to crease into folds. She had big eyes—very big behind the glasses—which if she had been clothed might have been the first thing they would have noticed. They startled her into upsetting the colander, which had been resting on her thighs, so that hard bright green spheres of peas, and grey-green kidney-shaped broad beans rolled everywhere on flesh and earth.
Neither Frank nor Dobbin, curiously, felt urged to back off, or retreat in disorder. Herbert Methley said, easily,
“You have caught us taking the sun. Sun-worshipping, in fact. It is our habit, when we can, and this is truly flaming June.”
Frank Mallett murmured that he had been told they would find them in the garden. Innate caution led him not to say by whom he had been told. There had been a glitter in Miss Dace’s eye.
Phoebe Methley rolled on her hip to gather up the peas and beans. Dobbin felt impelled to help her with this task, and impelled to turn his head away. He did neither, but continued to study her naked flesh. Frank Mallett said
“Perhaps we should return another time. We came to ask about a lecture series in the autumn. We hoped you might…”
Herbert Methley stood up, stolid on his naked feet, and reached from a camping stool some folded garments that turned out to be two embroidered gowns in the form of kimonos. He held one out to his wife, who stood up, in a practised movement, and held out her arms for the sleeves. She did up her sash, and went down on her knees to continue the gathering of the peas and beans. Herbert Methley said