A Way Through the Wood

by Nigel Balchin

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

A psychological study of marriage, loyalty and justice, A WAY THROUGH THE WOOD is a remarkable post-war novel. James Manning is perfectly content. He has a successful life as a businessman in the city, a bright young thing of a wife, Jill, and an idyllic home in the countryside, where he is a local magistrate. The only fly in the ointment as far as he can see is the 'Honbill' - the Honourable William Stephen Fitzharding Bule, a gentleman with too much time on his hands. When a young man is knocked off his bicycle and subsequently dies, James is sure that the culprit is Bule - after all, he saw a scratch on his car the day of the accident and the car matches the description to a T. But events take an unexpected turn when James discovers that it was really Jill driving the car that day, and he is torn between obligations of class, loyalty and justice. A WAY THROUGH THE WOOD was the inspiration for SEPARATE LIES, a 2005 British drama film adapted by Academy Award-winning writer Julian Fellowes and starring Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson and Rupert Everett.

Release date: March 10, 2016

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Print pages: 251

Sample

I first came across Nigel Balchin’s novel, A Way Through the Wood, from which Separate Lies was made, thanks to an old friend, Jenni Hopkins. She knew I had been looking for a ‘moral maze’ story and one day she telephoned suggesting this one. I wanted a subject where you are never quite sure whose side you are on. Where good people do bad things. Where bad (or baddish) people do good things. Where the reader changes his or her mind. I enjoy American films enormously but I am sometimes unconvinced by their polemic; the heroes are invariably heroic and one is told who the ‘bad guys’ are right from the start. Life, it seems to me anyway, is a little more complicated than this. In Separate Lies we have a couple, James and Jill Manning, who are apparently leading the dream life. He has an important job in the City, they live in a charming house. Their childlessness is the only clue to the fact that all may not be as perfect as it seems. Then comes a chance meeting followed by an accident, and everything is changed, or rather unravelled. On the face of it, the story may appear to concern itself with the events of one unfortunate night, but much more than this, it is a study of an apparently flawless relationshp that is, in reality, deeply flawed. The novel is a study of the couple’s journey towards that bitter truth.

Of course the Mannings are very fortunate – the settings in which they lead their lives are glamorous and beautiful and, as such, it might seem that their problems belong to the few rather than the many – but I would like to think that their story resonates at a more universal level. The Mannings’ problems are not, after all, unique to the privileged. Anyone who has ever lost themselves in a relationship because it seemed easier than fighting, anyone who has ever had to choose between their own misery and lack of fulfilment and bringing unhappiness to those they love, will understand the quandary that Jill faces. And anyone who has discovered that the love they had based their lives on was a fiction of their own imagination will understand James.

As for the accident that does so much to destabilise their lives, who has never chosen badly in a moment of panic and then lived to regret that unwise choice? If you have, then you will be able to sympathise with the predicament of all three main characters. Lies are reproductive. One lie, told in a guilty hurry, will soon spawn others until a sticky, dishonest web engulfs the teller. On some level or other, most of us have done it and regretted it. Which of us is really entitled to condemn these characters for doing the same?

At any rate, these were the themes that interested me when I read the book. Just as they are the themes that interest me in much of Nigel Balchin’s work. Widely recognised and praised in his lifetime, Balchin has been absurdly overlooked for too long. If this edition of the novel, if my film, can help to restore him to his proper place among the great masters of English fiction, then I could not be happier. He certainly belongs there.

Julian FellowesJuly 2004

I suppose the psychologists would say that this story has its real beginnings before I was born. Or thirty-seven years ago when I was two. Alternatively, you could say it began eleven years ago when I married Jill. Or after the war when we moved to the country. Things like this don’t begin neatly any more than they end neatly.

But for practical purposes it began in the early spring of last year, and I always tend to date it from Easter Monday. I’m not quite sure why, except that that was the day of the fête, and I can remember it better than other days round that time.

I don’t know who first thought of having the annual fête in aid of Maidley Village Sports Club on Easter Monday; but by the time I knew the place it was a tradition, and nothing could alter it. It meant that about two years out of three it was a showery day, and the organisers had to decide whether to go on with it on the Manor lawn and let everybody get wet, or move into the village hall, which made it dull and pointless.

But last year it was a lovely day right from the start. I got up about half-past seven and went and walked round the garden. There was a brilliant sun, and I stood and looked at the house, and thought again that Crossways had the most beautiful Queen Anne façade I had ever seen. There was a nip in the air, and I was afraid there might have been a frost which would have messed up the outdoor peaches. But the maximum and minimum thermometer had never gone below thirty-four.

It was so lovely that I decided to go and rout Jill out and make her come and look. I went back to the bedroom, and she was still asleep, looking about seventeen and rather grave. I sat on the bed and looked at her for a few moments and then kissed her and said, ‘Come on, hog. Wake up.’ She half-opened her eyes and said, ‘Oh – hallo. What time is it?’

‘About quarter to eight.’

She said, ‘Oh. That’s all right,’ and shut her eyes and curled up again.

I said, ‘No, it isn’t all right. It’s Easter Monday and I’ve got to be Queen of the May, and it’s lovely outside. So wake up, or I shall pull the bedclothes off and smack you.’

Jill said, ‘You wouldn’t do that, darling. That wouldn’t be kind.’ She grinned and stretched and said, ‘Do you really want me to get up. Now?’

‘Yes. Now. Come and look at the house with the sun on the front. It’s lovely.’

‘Can’t I say it’s lovely from here?’

‘No.’

She shook her head and said resignedly, ‘All right. If that’s what life’s like, then that’s what life’s like.’

When we were having breakfast Jill said, ‘I’ve got a conscience about to-day. I ought to have looked after the catering. The President’s wife always looks after the catering.’

I said, ‘Of course you ought. But it’s no use having a conscience about it now. Anyhow Mrs Milray loves doing it. You look after your nice darts and make a lot of money. Did you fix up with Harry about the stand?’

‘Yes. And I got the board and a thing to put the money in, and a book to enter the scores. I don’t want anything else, do I?’

‘Well, you want some darts, but I assume you’ve got those.’

There was a moment’s silence and then Jill said, ‘My God …!’

I said gently, ‘Do I take it that you haven’t got any darts?’

‘I clean forgot about them. Darling, what on earth am I to do?’

‘Well, as it happens, you can borrow them from the pub. But really, Jilly …’

‘I know. I’m so sorry. I had a sort of idea that people brought their own. They do in the “George”. Still it was inefficient of me. Sorry all.’

I said, ‘I’ve always wanted to know what it is you think about all the time.’

‘How d’you mean, darling?’

‘The thing that takes your mind off the matter in hand.’

Jill said, ‘Just a blank, darling. Just a blank. Where d’you think I’d better try for them? The “George” or the “Sisters”?’

I went down to the Manor immediately after breakfast. There was still a lot to do, but most of the stalls and sideshows had been put up on the Saturday, and it wasn’t too bad. There were about thirty people there, milling about, a dozen getting on with the job and the rest wandering about looking for something they had lost, or asking everybody how they could possibly be expected to do X if nobody would provide Y. As soon as I got there they stopped asking one another and came and asked me. Jack Early and Teddy Wigan were driving in the posts for the coco-nut shies with sledges. The vicar came teetering over, with those very small steps which always make him look as though he is walking on something very slippery and dangerous. He said to Jack and Teddy, ‘I wonder if you fellows would be good enough to help me over to the Jumble Stall with this?’ ‘This’ was a very small light form, about three feet long. I said, ‘No – don’t take them off the job, padre. I’ll bring it over.’ I picked the thing up and put it under one arm and said rather pointedly, ‘Is there anything else to come?’

‘No, no,’ he said blandly. ‘Just that. It’s very kind of you, Mr Manning. Only I find it tiring standing up all day …’ He teetered along beside me quite happily as I carried the thing over to his stall. I got a broad grin from Jack and Teddy as we went off. The vicar is famous for calling for volunteers even if it is to walk ten yards and post a letter. When we got to his stall he looked carefully over my head, as he always does in conversation, and said, ‘Where is your lady? Is she here?’

I said, ‘No. She’s coming later. She’s running the darts.’

‘Oh,’ he said, obviously disappointed. ‘I had wondered whether it might be possible for her to have come and relieved me later on. I have several things to …’ I put his form down and said firmly, ‘I’m afraid she’ll be pretty busy herself.’

He said, ‘Oh, well – at least we’ve been blessed with fine weather. Last year I caught a chill that hung about me for months.’

Prior, the schoolmaster, who was running the concert, came up and said, ‘That man Payne, who was coming to sing, has cried off. Sprained his ankle. D’you think we dare put in George Wade?’

I said, ‘Not if you can possibly help it. Surely there’s somebody else who can do something?’

‘It looks like George or Miss Radley singing.’

‘Oh God – then make it George.’

Phyllis Gouldy said, ‘Mr Manning – there isn’t a bucket for throwing the tennis balls into the bucket.’

The whole morning was like that. My worst trouble was Hunt, the head gardener at the Manor. He always hates the fête, and you can see why. It takes him the whole summer to get the lawn back into shape. Old Lady Freeth, who owns the place, is nearly ninety, and she will insist on having the show on her lawn, and then forgets it has happened and grumbles at Hunt about the state of the grass. About every quarter of an hour he came up to complain that people were wrecking the place, and I had to go and smooth things over.

Jill turned up about half-past twelve. She had borrowed some darts from the ‘George’ but had forgotten the box to put the money in. We set up her stand with the dart board on it, and after that I was uncommonly glad to go and have a glass of beer and a sandwich in the tent.

Jill said, ‘Anyhow, Mrs Milray has forgotten the teaspoons.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘I went and asked her if everything was all right, hoping she might have forgotten something, and she said she’d forgotten the teaspoons. So it isn’t only me.’

I said, ‘Not a comparable case. You can have tea without teaspoons but you can’t play darts without darts.’

Doc Frewen was in the tent, drinking a glass of stout. He came ambling over looking as huge and pink and shining as ever and said, ‘Hallo, Jill. My, you look pretty. Doesn’t she look pretty, Jim?’ He always greets Jill like that. I said, ‘She may be pretty but she isn’t at all good.’

Jill said, ‘I’m in disgrace for forgetting the darts and leaving the money-box behind.’

Doc put an arm round her and said, ‘Never mind, my dear. We can’t all be efficient, and some of us can’t even be nice to look at.’

It was rather pleasant standing there looking out at the Manor gardens and drinking beer. I was just thinking that I was rather happy when Jill said almost crossly, ‘I can never see why all this has to happen on Easter Monday.’

I said, ‘Why not, honey?’

‘Well, it completely mucks up Easter, which is the only time when you get a long week-end.’

‘It’s fun in a way.’

‘Some bits of it are. But I’ve hardly seen you since you got home on Thursday night. And now to-morrow will be Tuesday and you’ll be going back to the office. Do we have to go to the dance to-night? It’s always a bit grim, and I shall have to dance with Dicky Lewis and he treads on you.’

I said, ‘I don’t suppose you must come if you don’t want to. But I shall have to go, being President of the thing.’

After a moment Jill said, ‘I tell you what we shall have to do soon, and that’s have some people in for drinks. We owe drinks to every bore in the district.’

The people started to come about two o’clock, and by three everything was in full swing. I went over to Jill’s stand. She had two small boys and was letting them throw from half-way and putting in the money for them herself. I said, ‘That’s a profitable operation. How are you doing?’

‘Not badly. Bit slow.’

‘You want to yell “Warkup warkup,” or have a rattle or something. Salesmanship – that’s what’s needed. There’s the Honbill. Let’s make him have a go.’

The Honourable William Stephen Fitzharding Bule had just come in sight, looking very country gentleman in a Harris Tweed suit and a red waistcoat with brass buttons. I called, ‘Hey – Bill. Come and win a pig.’

He came over with his long-legged lounging walk and said, ‘Hallo, my dears. I say – this is an event, isn’t it? Is it always like this?’

Jill said, ‘Yes. Except that it usually rains as well.’

‘Well, I was in the refreshment tent a minute ago and a completely strange character with a bow tie and a whisky breath came up to me and said “You’re Bule.” I said “Yes” and he said “Do you shoot?” I said “Only if someone else starts something,” and he nodded and said “Ah” and went away quite satisfied.’

I said, ‘That’ll have been Eastman.’

‘It may have been Eastman or it may not, James. I don’t know Eastman. But it struck me as a nice piece of dialogue.’

‘He probably wanted you to go and shoot at his place. It’s a very good shoot too.’

Bule shook his head and said, ‘I once shot at a chaffinch with an airgun when I was ten, and hit it. I’ve never cared for shooting since.’

Jill said, ‘Have a go at this. Three darts for threepence. You might win a pig.’

Bule threw and scored about twenty. He turned to Jill and said, ‘Pig?’

‘Not a hope. I’ve had somebody already who’s scored a hundred and ten.’

‘In that case I shall have another three-pennyworth with the object of scoring a hundred and eleven.’

He spent about half a crown and never scored more than fifty. As I left them he was saying to Jill, ‘I tell you what – you have a go. Only costs you threepence. You might win a pig.’

The afternoon was hard work but fairly uneventful, except that the small tent in which Miss Armitage was telling fortunes blew down on top of her. About half-past four Jill handed over the darts to somebody else and we went and had tea with Doc Frewen and his wife. Mrs Doc had been helping with the Jumble Stall and apparently the vicar had been complaining all the afternoon that most of the stuff was ‘very inferior jumble.’ We spent quite a long time working out our various ideas of what would be superior jumble. To everybody’s great pleasure Phyllis Scott, wearing a bow tie and a man’s trilby, stopped at our table just long enough to say to Jill, ‘Marvellous tea, Jill darling. You must have slaved over it,’ and then went away before anybody could disillusion her. Jill said, ‘That’s another of the people we owe drinks.’

I looked round for Bill Bule, but he wasn’t in the tent. Doc said he had gone but that he was coming back for the concert. I asked Jill if he’d won the pig, but apparently though he’d spent nearly ten shillings at threepence a go he had never scored more than eighty. Mrs Doc said in her simple way, ‘You know, I think Mr Bule rather laughs at village things like this.’

Doc said, ‘So do I. What are we supposed to do? Cry at them? Anyhow he’s been very good this afternoon going round and taking part in things.’

Jill said, ‘I think he’s been enjoying himself. He and Mr Evans and Jack Millett have been the backbone of the darts’ takings.’

I said, ‘I should think he’ll like George Wade, if he comes to the concert. He won’t have heard George before.’

Jill said in horror, ‘George Wade? Jim – he isn’t going to recite?’

‘Yes, he is.’

‘Then, darling, I mustn’t come. I can’t take it. Last time I heard George I felt sick from not giggling.’

‘Oh, come – George is fine as long as you don’t look at him. Keep your eyes on the floor and think about something else and you’ll be all right.’

The concert was at five-thirty. As President, I had to sit in the front row. When we got in we found Bule already there in the seat next to ours, and like a fool I put Jill next to him so that she was between us.

The next hour or so was one of the most agonising I have ever spent. I have been to a few village concerts in my time but this will always be the one that sticks in my memory. It began perfectly normally with Mrs Prior, the schoolmaster’s wife, playing a couple of short pieces by Chopin quite competently, and then she and Prior played something by Corelli for piano and violin. It was then that the trouble started. The next performer was a visitor – a stout woman with one of those plummy contralto voices, and for some reason she chose to sing I’m Seventeen come Sunday. It was funny, but no funnier than many an Isolde that I have heard at Covent Garden, and hardly funny at all as village concerts go. But it started Jill giggling, and after that she just giggled more and more the longer it went on. During George’s recitation she got her head well down and stared at the floor, but her shoulders were shaking, and I was afraid not only the audience but George himself would see, because we were slap in the middle of the front row. I must say that Bule behaved beautifully. Throughout the whole of George’s performance of ‘He fell among thieves,’ Bule sat and looked at him, with his head slightly on one side and an expression of mild concern, as though somebody had just told him their aunt had died. But Jill was so bad that I was rather cross with her, and when George had finished I said, ‘Look, darling, if you’re going to laugh as much as that you’d better go out. People must be able to see …’

She sat up and said, ‘I’m sorry. I’ve stopped now. I just got …’ She blew her nose and I could see her deliberately pursing her lips into shape, and she looked round with a sort of guilty dignity, with the tears still in her eyes. Bule said without a flicker of a smile, ‘Of course, it isn’t really easy, James. I’m feeling a certain sense of strain myself.’

‘So am I if it comes to that. Never mind. We don’t have George again.’

After that we got through two more items and all would have been well if it hadn’t been for old Stuart’s announcement of his cornet solo. He is very old now, and I believe he was a very good bandsman in his day. Anyhow, he always plays a cornet solo at all these things, and he was greeted with loud applause. He is a rather odd-looking little man with pince-nez, and stepping forward he said confidentially, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, some of you know what’s happened to my teeth, but I’m going to try The Lost Chord.’ Before the applause could come and drown her, Jill let out a loud resounding snort and dived into her handkerchief. I saw old Stuart’s eyes come down to her for a second in surprise, and then he looked round with a rather wistful smile and stepped back and lifted his cornet. I think Jill realised she had gone a bit far, because she stopped laughing and sat and listened quite seriously. But I knew the old boy had seen her and been hurt, and I didn’t like it.

Jill knew I was angry. As we came out she said, ‘I’m awfully sorry about that. I couldn’t help it.’

I said, ‘Darling, if you must behave like a giggly schoolgirl I suppose you must.’

Bule said very solemnly, ‘Bad show, Jill. Bad show.’

‘Well, it was the bit about the teeth and then The Lost Chord …’

‘I dare say, but you must learn to control yourself. After all, I was remembering that Dan Leno used to begin that song “Seated one day on the organ …” but I didn’t snort. And I’m not the President’s wife.’

I said rather curtly, ‘Are you coming to the dance?’

Bule said, ‘No, James. That I can’t do. I must go home and rest after this whirl of pleasure-seeking. Good-bye, my dears. See you soon.’

After he had gone Jill said, ‘Are you angry with me, Jim?’ And I said, ‘No, of course not. But you are an old ass sometimes. Now what are we going to do about this dance? There’s no need to come if it’s going to bore you.’

She looked at me anxiously with big mud-coloured eyes and said very solemnly, ‘But I want to come – if you’ll take me.’

Jill being repentant is always too much for me. So I grinned and said, ‘All right. Then you damned well shall come, and be trodden on by Dicky Lewis, and be bored stiff, and have to do a lovely President’s wife act, and serve you right, awful.’

I think Jill must really have thought I was angry with her, because at the dance she was very good, and I knew it must be an effort for her. She is too shy to be a good mixer, and this makes the village boys shy of her. She is about as far from being a snob as anybody could be, but she has never picked up the knack of living in the country, and at this sort of show she is still liable to act like a very polite but shy nineteen-year-old. I should think Jill is the only person in the district who addresses old Peter Fenn as ‘Mr Fenn.’

But this evening she really set out to do a job, and danced all the time, and went and sat with her partners instead of coming back all the time to me or to Doc and Mrs Frewen or the Marriots. And when it came to a ‘Ladies’ Choice’ dance she made a bee-line for poor little Dicky Lewis, who has one leg shorter than the other and is about five foot high. I danced with her myself soon after and said, ‘Now that was a nice girl.’

‘Who?’

‘You. Choosing Dicky.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said rather bitterly. ‘Hell of a nice girl.’ After a moment she said, ‘He’s sweet really, is Dicky. Very gentle. I wish I wasn’t such a bitch, darling.’

I said, ‘You’re not a bitch.’

She shook her head moodily. ‘Oh, yes, I am … Look – you haven’t danced with Miss Lovett and she’ll be hurt if you don’t.’

We had to stay to the end, because I had to make a speech winding up the whole thing and thanking everybody who had helped and announcing that the fête had raised over fifty pounds for the Sports Club and so on. It was after two when we got home. It had been a long day and I think we were both very tired. We sat and drank a cup of tea for a few minutes before we went to bed. Jill said, ‘Oh – by the way – I’ve asked a few people in for a drink next Friday. Is that all right? We do owe it them.’

‘Friday’s my Board day. But I should think we shall be through all right. How many?’

‘Only. . .