‘I didn’t go ga-ga,’ I point out. ‘I didn’t even know who he was.’
‘That’s because you’re a weirdo,’ Lucas says.
I risk giving him a swift kiss on the cheek. ‘Takes one to know one.’
Channelling his inner five-year-old, Lucas rubs away my kiss and stomps off to the shower.
I smile to myself. Boy, girl or whatever, Lucas is bringing a friend home and that’s a big step. He must be very keen. When we moved here, he had a brief flirtation with a young actress, but that didn’t progress much beyond lengthy phone calls and the occasional WhatsApp chat session. It would be nice if he’d found himself a friend. He’s a loner, like me, and that’s not always all it’s cracked up to be.
Chapter Ten
I fluff up my hair, put some mascara on and don a clean jumper and jeans. Even Bev would deem me presentable. However, I’m not sure Shelby will recognise me if he turns up now.
I check on dinner, drain the rice and keep it warm in the oven. The dish of cooked peppers goes in there too. There’s still no sign of Lucas – who’s yet to reappear from the shower – and there’s no word from Shelby either, so I twiddle my thumbs for a few minutes before deciding to quickly nip out to check on the animals. I know that Bev was in charge of the evening feed, but I like to say goodnight to all my boys and girls before bedtime. I realise that I should have thought of this before I changed into my ‘good’ clothes, but needs must and I’ll only be five minutes. I can’t get dirty just looking at animals.
I shout out to Lucas, ‘Back in five!’ and pull on my waxed jacket and my welly boots. The temperature has dropped again and as I step out of the warmth of the caravan, my breath billows out in front of me in blousy white clouds. The inky sky is studded with a mass of stars. Who needs Christmas decorations when you’ve got this?
I hurry over to the barn. Everyone is already settled for the night. All is calm, all is bright – as they say. There’s a lovely fug of animal smells in the air, the odd snuffle and the rustle of the hay as bodies shift and vie for space. This is, of course, when I’m at my happiest.
‘Hi, everyone,’ I whisper. ‘Just came to see if you were all OK.’
The sheep have been brought into the barn as it’s cold and they look like fluffy hummocks as they’re all squashed together in sleep. Even Anthony is settled – though kept apart from everyone else – and he raises his head in acknowledgement. Then I hear a goat bleat. Our pygmy goats – four of them now – are housed further along the barn in their own escape-proof pen, allegedly. Dumb and Dumber were our original pair and they’ve been joined by two more rescue goats, Laurel and Hardy. They are talented escape artists, all of them, and I swear that they egg each other on. Another bleat and it definitely sounds a bit off. A goat in distress rather than a cheery one. Damn.
I leave the sheep and hurry along to their pen and, sure enough, Dumb has somehow managed to get himself stuck in the cargo net that forms part of their – rather optimistically named – adventure playground. His front legs are tangled in the net and his frantic wriggling is only making it worse. At this moment, I should stop to think about the situation and the fact that I’m wearing inappropriate clothing for goat-wrangling, but I don’t. Instead, I charge straight in, thinking only of getting the distressed goat unravelled.
‘Come on, boy,’ I say soothingly. ‘How the heck have you managed to do this to yourself?’
Dumb kicks against me. The other goats, convinced I’m trying to murder him rather than release him, start to charge and headbutt me in the knees. Laurel is taking particular umbrage at my well-intentioned interference. I could do with Lucas’s help, but I don’t think he’d hear me even if I shouted and, obviously, I didn’t think to bring anything as useful as my phone. Not that I’ve got enough free arms to use it.
‘Stop that,’ I say, crossly as I try to hold Laurel at bay with one leg while clinging onto Dumb with both arms and all of my strength. ‘I’m trying to help.’
I manage to heave Dumb out of the net despite him struggling and kicking his hooves at the air. For a little goat, he’s surprisingly heavy. So I turn him round and put his front legs over my shoulders and hang on to his little goaty bottom. In his excitement at being released, Dumb decides to wee all down my front and distracted by the warmth of his grateful outpouring through my nice, clean clothes, I don’t notice that, from the far side of the pen, Laurel has his head down and is taking a run at me.
Before I know what’s happening, the horns of a tiny goat have connected with the back of my knees and I crumple to the floor amid the straw and goat droppings. Dumb lands softly but right on top of me, squeezing all the air out of my lungs. Dumber and Hardy, seizing their opportunity, hit me when I’m down and I get a muddy hoof to the face.
‘Ouff!’ I lie there, breathless in the dirt with a bleating goat on my chest, wondering how much I’ll ache tomorrow.
Laurel, his work done in disarming me, starts to eat my hair.
At that moment, there’s the honk of a car horn from the gate. This is Shelby. With such perfect timing, it has to be. So, instead of greeting him in my nice clothes with my nice hair, I’m covered in straw, dirt, goat wee and poo.
Bev will be very cross when I tell her.
Chapter Eleven
By the time I’ve re-asserted my authority over the goats and have sorted them out, Lucas has gone to open the gate and let Shelby in. Already, this isn’t going quite as I’d imagined. I don’t know much about romance, but I’d thought that, having had an absence of nearly a week, we might rush straight into each other’s arms.
Instead, covered in goat and barn detritus, I approach Shelby rather more cautiously as he’s climbing out of his shiny red Bentley. From the day he first rocked up in it, that car is something that never ceases to look incongruous in my farmyard. He always looks out of place too with his swept back, dirty-blond hair, movie star looks and immaculate clothes. Shelby is tall and handsome. I think if you saw him in the street, even if you didn’t know he was a soap star, you’d think he was someone special. He has that air.
‘What the hell . . . ?’ Shelby says when he sees the state of me. The look of delight I had hoped for on his face is closer to horror.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Very sorry. Animal issues.’
‘What else?’ He shuts his car door with more of a slam than I think necessary.
Lucas, leaning on the gate, says, ‘Jesus, Molly. Even for you . . .’
‘I know. I know.’ I try brushing myself down, but I’m not sure how much difference it makes. Whatever the opposite is of ‘immaculately groomed’, I’m it. ‘I could have done with an extra pair of hands. Four tiny goats overpowered me.’
In fairness to Shelby, his eyes say that he might like to hug me, but his body is backing away from me.
‘I’ll take a quick shower,’ I promise – fully appreciating how easy it is for me to do that these days. ‘Dinner is ready. I won’t be five minutes.’
Shelby stifles a sigh. It’s obviously not the welcome he’d hoped for either – though it may have been the one he expected. I think Bev’s right when she says he likes to have top billing rather than be at the bottom behind alpacas, pigs, sheep, cats, dogs, horses, ducks, goats, hens, etc.
We head to the caravan and I try to keep downwind of him. Goat wee has a fragrance all of its own. When we’re inside, I say, ‘I’ll literally be five minutes. Help yourself to tea, a glass of plonk or whatever. I’ll dish up dinner when I’m back.’
I leave Shelby and Lucas looking awkward with each other.
In the bedroom, I strip off and realise that I don’t have any clean jeans or shirts. I go through at least one set of clothes a day and my mammoth laundry session was planned for tomorrow. As I jump into the shower, I wonder what I can wear. I can hardly go out there in my pyjamas. I quickly wash myself down, using a ton of minty shower gel to try to minimise the eau de goat wee. I do my hair too just in case Dumb’s aim wasn’t true. When I’m dry, I fling my
wardrobe door open and look despairingly at the contents. The only thing still hanging there is the beautiful charity shop dress that I bought back in the summer for Shelby’s posh fundraiser. It’s a gorgeous wisp of a dress – black with pastel-coloured roses and with a floaty skirt. I put it on and feel a million dollars, if slightly overdressed for the occasion of Mexican-style wraps in a caravan.
I pull a brush through my wet hair – it will have to air-dry – and venture back out into the living area. Shelby and Lucas are sitting by the window, both of them on their phones. They look up when I enter and both of them seem rather startled.
‘Going somewhere nice?’ Shelby asks.
‘I’ve run out of clothes,’ I admit. ‘It was this or nothing.’
His smile and the twinkle in his eyes say that he might have liked it to be nothing but as Lucas is here – even if he is engrossed in social media once again – we check ourselves.
‘I could take the three of us out,’ Shelby offers. ‘You look beautiful. Seems a shame to waste it. We could go to the local pub?’
‘No.’ Lucas looks up from his phone. ‘I can’t bear the pantomime of you turning up in a pub. Everyone stares at us.’
I have to say that Lucas is right. You can’t go anywhere with Shelby and him not be recognised. Even if people don’t directly approach him, they giggle behind their hands and try to take surreptitious selfies with him in the background. Shelby doesn’t seem to mind all that much. I guess he’s got used to it, but I find it traumatising and I know that Lucas absolutely hates it too. He’s had many years of being overshadowed by his father’s fame and, while things are on a reasonably stable footing, I don’t want to put their fragile relationship in jeopardy.
‘The food’s ready,’ I say. ‘All I have to do is dish up.’
Lucas returns to his phone and I make a placating face at Shelby. ‘Do you mind?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Not at all.’ But he does sound a bit grudging. ‘It will be nice to have some family time.’
I put the wraps, the rice and the veggies on the table between us. I like it when we eat together. It’s a rare occasion and sometimes Lucas forgets to be cross and actually talks to his father. This is one of those times – though they steer clear of Lucas’s poetry, which is always a bone of contention.
‘How’s the coursework going?’ Shelby asks as he helps himself to rice.
Lucas shrugs. ‘Good.’
‘He’s doing very well,’ I chip in.
Shelby smiles at his son and the pride in his eyes is unmistakable. I only wish that Lucas could recognise it. Shelby might not be the best dad in the world, but he does try and Lucas cuts him no slack. It’s a tightrope we all walk.
As I look across at Shelby, I realise that he does need to be loved. Overtly. It must be down to all the adoration he’s had over the years. He’s shown me some of the letters he gets from his fan club. These ladies are seriously dedicated. They adore him. Some of the things they say to him are . . . er . . . quite personal. One of the original attractions of little old me and my basic lifestyle was that he could be real, be himself. There are no trappings of stardom here – far from it. The animals and the kids don’t care who Shelby is. And, if I’m honest with you, I don’t either. I love him for who he is, not what his job is. But it bothers me that his default setting might be ‘adoration’. He says it’s not, but how can I know for sure? Do I show him enough how I feel?
We finish dinner and Lucas disappears to his bedroom.
‘Alone, at last,’ Shelby says in the manner of a Victorian villain.
‘I don’t like to get smoochy when Lucas is here.’
‘You don’t like to get smoochy at all,’ Shelby points out.
It’s true that I’m not a cuddly person, generally. I can do it with friends, but I find it harder when it comes to lurrrrrve. Even after all this time with Shelby, I’m awkward with displays of affection, though I understand that in his profession they are much more open and free.
‘We could go for a walk,’ I suggest.
‘It’s freezing out there.’ Shelby looks less enthralled than I am by the idea.
‘We could wrap up warm. There’s a full moon. It might be romantic.’
‘OK.’ He still doesn’t look convinced. ‘I suppose I’ll be all the more grateful for the warmth when we get back.’
‘You’re staying tonight?’
‘I have my supply of antihistamine and an overnight bag in the boot.’
‘That’s great.’
‘Well . . .’ he says, hesitantly. ‘There’s something that we need to talk about.’
‘Right.’ That doesn’t sound good. ‘I’ll get our coats.’
Instantly, my tribe of dogs appear, having clocked the word ‘walk’. With a sigh in his voice, Shelby says, ‘Looks like it’ll be a romantic walk for five.’
Chapter Twelve
Shelby and I step out into the night and the dogs run ahead of us as we cross the yard and climb over the stile. I’ve brought a torch, but I don’t think we’ll need it as the moon is full and bright and our eyes will soon adjust to the darkness.
It’s cold and I wish I was wearing my usual jeans and jumper rather than a floaty dress with my wellies. There’s a very good reason why I don’t usually dress like this. We hold hands as we walk across the field, down to the river, and it’s good to feel Shelby’s strong fingers curled around mine. The ground is hard with frost beneath our feet. The air is sharp, fresh and freezes your lungs if you breathe too deeply.
Shelby shivers. ‘To think we could be in a nice warm pub.’
‘This is better for you. Bracing.’
‘It’s that all right,’ he agrees.
‘Townie,’ I tease.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I need to talk to you about that.’
I wait with bated breath and a thousand things go through my mind. There’s something off kilter and I know it. I’m just not sure out of several choices, which issue is most pressing in Shelby’s mind.
We walk on and it’s a few moments before Shelby speaks. When he does, he starts with a weary sigh. ‘Molly, I’ve tried not to let it affect me, but I can’t. It grieves me that Homewood Manor stands empty for most of the time. It’s a beautiful house and it should be lived in.’
Ah. This one. I don’t really want to comment as I know what’s coming next. We’ve had this conversation several times before.
‘You could move in with me,’ he ventures. I go to put my case, but he raises a hand to stop me before continuing, ‘There’s a housekeeper and a gardener. I know that housework isn’t your thing. You wouldn’t have to lift a finger.’
‘I like my van,’ I remind him. ‘I love it.’
‘I should never have bought it for you.’
‘You should. Lucas and I are both very comfortable here. It has all we need.’
Look at this place. The vast expanse of unbroken sky, the glitter of stars above us. There’s not a sound here at night except for those of nature. When there’s not a full moon it’s as black as pitch. Why would you ever want to be anywhere else?
‘Is Lucas happy?’ Shelby asks. ‘I can never tell.’
‘He’s as happy as any highly sensitive teenager can be. But, yes, he loves it here too and I know he doesn’t like to talk about it, but he’s doing so well with his studies.’
‘He doesn’t want to talk about anything with me,’ Shelby complains.
‘I know. It’s not easy to get Lucas to open up.’ I’ve bought a firepit and we both like to sit out at night in our deckchairs, staring into the flames – or, more likely, Lucas at his phone. We don’t talk much, but sometimes you don’t need to. I wish Shelby could get that.
‘Does he have friends?’
‘Yes,’ I say, cautiously. I’m not going to break Lucas’s trust and tell Shelby about Aurora who seems to be the new girlfriend-not-girlfriend.
An owl hoots in a nearby tree and wild rabbits dart for their burrows when they see us approach. In the far
field, there’s the sound of a diminutive Muntjac deer barking and the dogs prick their ears. When they realise that he’s no threat, they return to their sniffing.
‘I have no idea what’s going on in his life.’
‘He tells me very little too,’ I admit. ‘He’s a private person. You have to cherish the rare days when he is in a chatty mood.’
‘And I’m never here to catch those.’
‘You do the best you can. I know that. You have a lot of demands on your time.’
‘I’m not sure that my son sees it like that,’ Shelby says sadly. ‘I feel as if I’m in the way when I come here.’
‘You’re not.’ I’m horrified that he should think that way. ‘Never think that.’
‘You and Lucas have formed such a tight bond that I feel as if I’m encroaching into your special little bubble.’
‘That’s not how it is at all.’
‘I confess that I’m a little jealous of how well you two get along.’ He laughs but I realise there’s a kernel of truth in his words. ‘I feel surplus to requirements. I never expected that you’d become so involved in his life.’
‘Aren’t you glad that I care for him?’
‘God, yes. I know that these things don’t always go as smoothly. But he’s close to you in a way that we lost when his mum died. You don’t know how sad that makes me.’
‘Lucas might not show it, but we’d both love to have you here more often.’
‘I can’t move in here, Molly,’ he says. ‘I like the animals well enough, but I don’t love them like you do. I am trying but, as yet, I don’t think it’s cute when I wake up with a dog’s bottom on my face.’
‘The dogs never come into the bedroom.’ My lover gives me side-eye. ‘Hardly ever,’ I correct. ‘I’m also trying. I do understand that while I’ve been brought up on a farm, getting up close and personal with animals is a new thing for you.’
Even on Flinton’s Farm, Shelby is kept well away from the animals with a body double standing in for him when contact is necessary.
Christmas for Beginners: Fall in love with the ultimate festive read from the Sunday Times bestseller Page 5
