A Month in the Country

It is a dreary, rainy morning in July 1920 at a train station in the rural north England town of Oxgodby. A lone passenger, twenty-something Thomas Birkin, steps off the train. No one is there to greet him, although he takes comfort in the happy face of child staring at him through the rain-streaked window of the station. He has come to Oxgodby to work, his first employment since being discharged from the Army after nearly two years serving in the mud and confusion in France and Belgium. Birkin was a part of the long, bloody siege at Passchendaele. He served as a signaler who maintained a high-risk position along the front lines armed only with communications devices, relaying troop movements back to officers far behind the line.

Given his background in architectural studies at London Art College, combined with the fact that he is a “stone-fancier” (6), Birkin has been retained by the local church to restore a Medieval mural believed to be beneath centuries of careless whitewash on the church’s wall above an archway over the altar.

Despite the rain, Birkin begins the short walk to the church. Noting its ancient cemetery, Birkin decides to check out the church. He admires the tidy, unprepossessing structure: “By and large, it was what I guessed it might be—a stone-slabbed floor, three squat pillars on each side of the nave, two low aisles, and, beyond, a chancel” (7). Examining the prominent position of the archway, Birkin is certain the mural must depict the Last Judgment: “It was bound to be a Judgment because they always got the plum spots where parishioners couldn’t avoid seeing the God-awful-things that would happen to them if they didn’t fork out their tithes or marry girls they got with child” (17). Birkin is greeted by the parson, Reverend J. G. Keach, a cheerless man about his age. The parson makes clear he does not support the idea of restoring the mural. He is only following the eccentric instructions left by one of the parish’s wealthier members, the lately deceased spinster Adelaide Hebron. According to her estate managers, to secure the money she left to the church—the equivalent of more than $10,000—her estate demanded two projects be completed over the summer: the first, the restoration of the church mural, and the other, an excavation effort to locate the grave of one of Adelaide’s more illustrious ancestors, Piers Hebron. Piers was excommunicated nearly five centuries earlier and, because he could not be buried in sacred ground, was presumably buried somewhere in the fields about the church.

The parson objects to Birkin’s decision to stay in the church’s belfry while he restores the mural. The church would then be responsible for heating the bell tower, an expense not covered by their deal, and the stove was noisy and would distract from services. For a penurious Birkin, however, the decision was simply a matter of financial necessity.

That night, Birkin falls asleep quickly, his sleep undisturbed by dreams of the battlefield. The next morning, he awakens refreshed and eager to work. He surveys the Yorkshire countryside from his belfry perch, calling it “a vast and magnificent landscape” (19). Birkin is determined during his stay to be happy, to live frugally, to devote himself to working on the mural, and to put the war and his fractured marriage behind him. His wife, Vinny, left him while he was overseas: “This is what I need, I thought—a new start and, afterwards, maybe I won’t be a casualty anymore” (20).

That first morning, even as he assesses the mural wall with his kit of tools and restoration solutions, he meets Charles Moon, a happy-go-lucky fellow veteran who has been hired to locate the grave of Piers Hebron. Moon has pitched a tent near an open pit where he believes the body might be. An aerial sweep provided to him by one of his old Royal Air Force (RAF) buddies has shown him the foundations of what he believes might have been a chapel centuries ago. He has little hope of finding the actual bones but is content to give over the summer to the endeavor in the hopes of uncovering the foundation. He has told no one about his hunch. Over morning tea, the two open up about their war experiences. Moon notices Birkin’s facial twitching and his occasional stammer, common signs of combat fatigue. He makes a joke. “It’s like old times,” Moon says. “I developed a great affection for holes. You up your ladder in your tower, me down my hole…we’re survivors” (28).

Birkin cannot be so sanguine. Before he turns to begin work on the wall, he meditates darkly on the transitory nature of life, and how quickly a life comes and goes with no evident purpose. “We look blankly at each other. Here I am, here you are. What are we doing here? What do you suppose it’s all about? Let’s dream on” (31).