‘I just wanted another hour of you all to myself.’ Shelby sighs. ‘I love Lucas, but I can’t face his disapproval again. Not now.’
I do know what he means, but the longer he avoids Lucas, the worse it gets. ‘Come back to the caravan. Stay over.’
‘I took all my stuff home. Remember?’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘I’ll get Ken to drop you off.’
‘Thanks.’
Shelby texts his driver and pays the bill. The waiter appears with my coat and, with much fawning over Shelby, we head towards the door. It feels to have been more of an ordeal than a date night.
When we’re out on the street, Shelby takes me in his arms and kisses me. I want to respond, but I’m aware that Ken is sitting in the car just a few metres away and I’m not prone to public displays of affection.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘That was lovely.’
We both know that I’m lying.
‘I’m sorry I dropped that on you,’ he says. ‘I had to get it off my chest.’
‘It’s fine. And I am pleased for you.’
Shelby stares earnestly at me. ‘Friends?’
‘Always,’ I tell him.
We walk to the car hand-in-hand. ‘Do you mind if Ken drops me off first? I’ve got an early start.’
‘No problem.’ I don’t point out that I’m up every day at 5.30 a.m. to feed impatient animals.
So Ken takes Shelby home to Homewood Manor, the gravel of the sweeping drive crunching beneath the tyres. It’s a beautiful house and, if I was a normal person, surely I’d move in like a shot.
Shelby kisses me again and, as he gets out of the car, says, ‘You won’t change your mind?’
Sadly, I shake my head. He looks lonely as he closes the door and heads towards the house, which is all in darkness. I can hardly bear to watch him go. I worry constantly about Lucas, but I know that Shelby is still grieving too and needs someone there for him. I know that I’m not giving him what he needs. When he’s done with all this panto stuff, we do need to discuss our living arrangements, or is it too soon to do that? I want Lucas to have a stable home base, and Shelby should want that too. I hope that living in my caravan with me is providing that, but I think we all need to talk about the future. I want to reassure Shelby that he is at the top of my list – or, at least, very near it.
Ken drives me back to Hope Farm. As I’m still sitting in the back we don’t chat, so I close my eyes and let the fuggy warmth of the car soothe me. We’re soon at my gate.
‘Goodnight, Molly,’ Ken says. ‘See you next time.’
‘Thanks, Ken. I appreciate the lift.’
‘He needs looking after,’ Ken adds.
‘I know.’ I get out of the car, worrying that even Shelby’s driver is pointing out my shortcomings. Perhaps everyone is used to pandering to Shelby’s every whim.
I should feel light after our evening out but, instead, I’m heavy of heart. As I cross the yard, I see that Aurora’s car is parked by the caravan. I didn’t know she was coming over tonight, but why shouldn’t Lucas have friends to visit? This, to all intents and purposes, is his home now.
The dogs bark when they hear me and just that simple thing makes me instantly feel much better. As I open the caravan door, the living room is in darkness, but I can hear scuffling sounds. Puzzled, I click on the light. On the sofa by the table, Aurora and Lucas are . . . oh . . . ah . . . er . . . getting ‘friendly’. Really very friendly. I stand, frozen, blinking like a mad thing.
Lucas is lying down while she is sitting astride him, her hands on his bare chest. Aurora and her jumper also appear to have parted company. Her bra is on the floor. Oh my giddy aunt. I only met her for the first time last night and now I’m acquainted with her . . . well, you don’t need me to spell it out.
Lucas looks suitably horrified, but maybe still not as horrified as me. ‘What are you doing home?’
‘I live here,’ I remind him.
Aurora is covering her boobs with her hands – which aren’t quite big enough to do a proper job. ‘Hi, Molly.’
Then we all just stay like statues, unable to break the moment.
Finally, I manage to mobilise my brain. ‘I just have to see to the animals,’ I say, hurriedly. ‘It will take me a while. Ten minutes, maybe longer. Bye.’
I bolt out of the door, taking the dogs with me. I stand with my back to the caravan and can hear myself breathing heavily. That was terrible, awful, traumatic. Did I really just see what I thought I saw? I did. Christ alive. I wanted to get to know Aurora better, but not that well.
I hear movement in the van behind me, frantic scrabbling. I hope that means they’re getting dressed. True to my word, I plan to stay out here for as long as it takes. So I totter across the yard in my ridiculous shoes as I didn’t hang around long enough to put my wellies on. The dogs, however, are happy that they’re out of the confines of the caravan, whatever the circumstances. Yet, now I’m out here, I don’t quite know what to do with myself, so I head into the barn to take a bit of solace with my beloved animals. I’m wearing a dress and silly shoes and it’s the weather for a big parka and boots.
The animals are all snuggled up asleep. Only Tina Turner rouses when I go to their pens. She stands up and comes over to me, ever hopeful that a midnight snack might be on offer.
‘Oh, Tina. What shall I do now?’ I lean against her neck and she lets me. She must know that I’m troubled as she doesn’t even try to eat my hair or my dress.
Never in a million years did I think that, while I was away, Lucas would be doing . . . that. He’s only known Aurora for five minutes. My heart is pounding in my chest. I never expected this to happen, not yet, not on my watch. What would Shelby do? What would he say? Lucas might be of legal age to . . . well. But he’s just a child. And not even my child. Oh, bollocky bollocks.
I stroke Tina’s neck and she tolerates it. Bringing up animals, it seems, is less fraught than bringing up a kid.
A few minutes later, just as deep shivering is setting in, I hear the slam of Aurora’s car door and her engine starts up. Then the gate closes after her and she heads up the lane. I need to catch my breath and marshal my thoughts before I speak to Lucas. I can’t ignore this, but I’m not sure that I’m equipped to deal with it either.
Chapter Twenty-Five
As I’m still pondering my quandary, Lucas appears. He’s got my big coat and my wellies.
‘It’s cold out here,’ he says as he hands them to me.
‘Yes.’ I shrug on my coat, kick off my shoes and slip my cold feet into fur-lined boots.
‘Aurora’s gone.’
‘I heard.’
‘We could walk up the field,’ he offers. ‘If you want to.’
‘OK.’
So we head out of the barn, Lucas shining a torch at the ground as we climb the stile. The dogs squeeze through the gap in the hedge and run ahead chasing each other, so pleased to be on an impromptu walk. I’m not sure whether I am or not. It’s a still night, but it’s freezing out. We walk in silence.
Eventually, Lucas turns to me in the darkness. ‘Well? Aren’t you going to say something?’
‘Fuck, Lucas,’ is all I manage.
‘We did, thanks,’ he says sarcastically.
‘I know!’
‘It’s no big deal.’ He sounds defensive. ‘Everyone does it.’
‘You’ve only known her a short while. You keep insisting that she’s not even your girlfriend. It was the last thing I imagined. I didn’t expect to see you like that.’
‘It just happened.’ Lucas shrugs. ‘What can I say?’
‘I thought I could trust you at home alone.’
‘You can. It’s only sex. I didn’t burn the place down.’
We both let that hang in the air. The reason Lucas came here is that he was accused of arson at his last school, but he swears he wasn’t responsible.
‘Bad choice of words,’ he says after a moment.
‘I care for you. I want you
to be safe. I’m responsible for you while you’re here. I don’t want you getting into trouble.’
‘I know what I’m doing.’
I stop walking and face him. ‘Do you?’ Our breath puffs out into the air, mingling into a cloud of angry steam. Lucas’s eyes are glittering with tears. ‘Did you use contraception?’
‘I’m not a kid.’
‘You are. That’s kind of my point.’
He holds up a hand. ‘I don’t want to be having this conversation with you.’
‘If you think you’re old enough to have sex, then you’re old enough to talk about it. Did you?’
He grinds his toe into the frosty ground, unable to meet my eyes. Sometimes he’s more like his father than he thinks. Eventually, he says, ‘We didn’t actually . . . I was just . . . It was only a bit . . .’ Lucas dries up at this point. ‘You arrived too soon, if you really want to know.’
Or in the nick of time. I hide my smile in the darkness. ‘Has your dad ever sat you down and given you The Talk?’
‘What? No! We can’t even discuss what to have for dinner without getting into a row. Don’t tell him, Molly. Please don’t tell him.’
‘One minute you’re insisting that you’re not a kid, then next you’re begging me not to tell your dad. Make your mind up, Lucas. Which is it to be? A kid or an adult?’
‘We were only dry humping,’ he says. ‘Then I don’t know what happened. It went a bit further.’
‘Dry humping?’
He scowls at me, his face as dark as the night. ‘Work it out.’
I do. Then we both smile warily at each other. ‘Oh, Lucas.’
‘Fuck off,’ he says.
‘I’m worried that Aurora is older and more worldly than you.’
‘You don’t like her?’
‘I do, but is she the right person for you?’ I don’t like to tell him that I still see him as vulnerable. But he is. Although Lucas has made great progress, he’s not out of the woods yet.
‘Girls my age are just kids,’ he complains. ‘I like that she’s older.’
‘Let’s go back to the van and finish this conversation over tea. We do need to talk about the birds and the bees. I want you to understand what you’re getting into.’
‘You shag my father,’ he says, but not unkindly. ‘You’re not exactly a role model.’
I let it pass, even though it wounds. Lucas is a master of the sharp cut. ‘I want your first experience to be positive, with someone you love who loves you back.’
‘I’m a teenage boy. I’m taking what I can get.’
We turn back towards the yard and I throw my arm round his scrawny shoulders. ‘Do you love her?’
‘Yeah. I think so. I don’t know. I really like her.’
Is sixteen too young to experience true love? It was for me, but is it the same for everyone? Is it what Lucas is searching for? I know that he still has a terrible emptiness in his heart after losing his mum, but I’m scared that the first chance of love he has might not be right for him. How do I tell him all that?
We climb the stile and Lucas holds out a hand to help me over even though he knows that I don’t really need it.
‘What does love feel like?’ he asks.
I stand and put my hands on his shoulders. He looks sadder than he should. ‘It feels like the other person makes you a better version of yourself. They make you tremble inside and every minute without them is torture.’
He looks at me. ‘Is that how you feel about Dad?’
That catches me off balance for a second. I think of the stilted evening I’ve had with Shelby, the fact that he’s heading off to Birmingham for a couple of months without a backward glance or any thought of what I or Lucas might do. Is that love? Do I feel love? But, as I think Lucas has got more than enough on his plate to deal with, despite my misgivings, I say, ‘Yes, it is.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Relationships all round feel strained. Lucas is stomping about being cross about everything. With much cajoling, I manage to get him to agree to sit down and talk about sex. I try to tell Lucas about contraception, responsibility, respect, boundaries – everything I can think of. To his credit, he does sit and listen to me. I think. I hope.
‘How old were you when you first had sex?’ he asks.
‘I don’t want to have that conversation with you,’ I reply, feeling a bit hot under the collar.
‘That’s what I hate about adults.’ He scowls at me to indicate that I’m the particular adult he hates right now. ‘You think you can preach to me and have “grown up” chats where you pick through my sex life, but you don’t want to do the same for me.’
‘I was a late-starter,’ I concede. ‘By today’s standards.’
‘What? Twenties? Thirties? So you think that should be the same for me?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘I have surging hormones. I can’t wait that long.’
‘This is all about wanting to protect you. I don’t want to see you hurt, Lucas.’
‘Aurora isn’t like that,’ he insists.
And I don’t want to stamp on a tender heart, so we leave our discussion at that – but that doesn’t stop me from worrying.
This, of course, should be Shelby’s job, but he’s currently absent as he’s busy shuttling between Flinton’s Farm and panto rehearsals in Birmingham. It’s nigh on impossible to even catch him on the phone and our recent conversations have been snatched and unsatisfactory. Lucas says it’s a relief that Shelby’s not here and takes every opportunity he can find to call him a ‘dickhead’. He’s obviously smarting that Shelby has gone away. Me? I’m missing him terribly.
I don’t know if the students can sense that the atmosphere is not as laid-back as usual, but we seem to be having more than our fair share of problems. The run-up to Christmas is so often difficult for people with autism, whether adults or children – the forced air of excitement and disruption to routine can be very unsettling for them. So we’re trying to manage it here and, while making it a fun thing, keep the preparations for our open day as calm and structured as possible. But there are always issues. Jack, who has been with us for years, may not have his funding for much longer. The council are threatening to withdraw it and his parents certainly can’t pay for him. I wonder, not for the first time, if we could take him on as staff as I know the possible disruption to his future is troubling him greatly. Another of our long-term students, who’s been doing so well, suffers a terrible setback. Tamara, who has a history of self-harming, cuts herself badly for the first time in over a year and is now in hospital. I’m worried that she might be sectioned. The news saddens and distresses everyone and for those who can’t process emotions well, it results in a lot of challenging behaviour. Penny, in particular, is argumentative and difficult. I vow to make more of an effort to spend some quality time with her – I don’t know how things are at home, but it doesn’t look like it’s improving.
Even the animals are playing up today. Anthony manages to escape his pen and spends half an hour careening round the farmyard until, finally, Asha puts on an impressive spurt and catches him. Johnny Rotten bites Jody on the elbow when she goes to fuss him and he has to be entered into the accident book – again. Harriet and Hilda haven’t stopped braying at the top of their voices all morning. At first, their incessant heehawing is amusing and then it just becomes a terrible, ear-splitting din. Nothing I can do settles them. Betty Bad Dog knocks over all the feed bins and then makes herself sick by eating pig nuts. I’ve spent the last hour clearing it all up. I feel as if I’m being stretched to breaking point and have the headache to end all headaches.
The only upside is that today it’s bright and relatively warm – given that we seem to have our own microclimate here, which always makes it chillier than anywhere else. A bit of physical activity is always a good thing on their difficult days, so the students are in the big barn helping to make wooden planters for our planned kitchen garden. I’ve been threatening to do a bit of g
row-your-own since we were at our last home, and I’m determined we’ll be ready to plant up some herbs and a few vegetables in time for next spring. We inherited some decking from a friend of a friend who was remodelling their garden, which has proved ideal. Alan has supervised the sawing of the planks and nailing them together. No one has lost a finger or an eye, so that’s all good. Now the kids are all suitably overall-clad and are painting them up in rainbow colours. You’d think that it might be a nice activity, a change from things involving mud and manure, but they’re all squabbling like mad. There’s paint everywhere – more on the kids than the planters. Lucas is supposed to be in charge, but I see him flick his hood up on his sweatshirt and march off across the fields. Clearly he’s had enough of them. My instinct is to follow him, but perhaps it would be good for him to have a bit of time on his own, so I let him be.
Aurora has been here a few times since ‘that night’ but she’s more cautious around me now and they disappear straight into Lucas’s bedroom the minute she arrives. I try not to stress over the amount of giggling that I hear through the closed door. I can’t watch him every minute of the day and I know that he sees her at the poetry nights too. I have my fingers crossed that it all works out well for him.
The only light relief is that Alan and Bev are still so loved up. It’s a joy to see. There’s a sparkle in Bev’s eyes that has been missing for a long time and who would have thought that our strong, silent Alan would have been the one to rekindle her flame. I tell you, the world is a strange place. The whole love thing is even more weird. They say that love makes the world go round, but I’m not so sure. It just seems to fuck it up, if you ask me.
Currently, Alan and Bev are canoodling by the Kunekune pigs. Well, Bev is twined round Alan coochy-cooing at him, while he grins benignly at her. It brings a smile to my own face too.
Bev turns round. ‘That’s known as voyeurism, Molly.’
‘I can’t avoid it.’ I laugh. ‘You two are like teenagers.’ And I should know, having recently experienced teenagers in action.
Christmas for Beginners: Fall in love with the ultimate festive read from the Sunday Times bestseller Page 11
