by Carmen Reid
‘I didn’t think you gave an arse about any of it. What’s converted you all of a sudden?’ Lachlan asked.
‘Maybe you,’ was all the answer she gave him as she pulled on her jeans and stuffed her feet into her shoes, glad that her car was here and she could go.
Dave had eaten supper by himself after the message from his wife that she was working late at the cottages, then maybe going on for a drink in town. She hadn’t said with whom. Maybe her current clients, Lachlan and Rosie, maybe Ingrid; maybe she was buying John a drink.
He didn’t mind, he had a project of his own for tonight. He hadn’t been able to find out nearly enough about what was going on at his neighbour’s farm and why it was making his streams green. But he did know that once a month, tankers arrived at the farm for three or four evenings in a row and made a delivery. Tonight he was going to wait off road, then follow one of those tankers back.
He got his night’s spying kit together: flask of tea, book to read, binoculars, boots, keys to the beaten-up old Land Rover he’d bought himself because Pamela was always away with the car now.
A small, high road wound from his farm up into the woodlands on top of the hill, where he’d discovered a reasonable vantage point over his neighbour’s place. There were two diggers regularly at work on one of the largest fields close to the sheds on the farm. But always at night – under cover of darkness. It seemed very odd. He knew farmers were busy people who worked all hours, but whenever he’d driven up here in the daytime, he’d never seen the diggers active.
After forty minutes or so of waiting, close to 10 p.m., he saw the silvery sheen and heard the rumble of one of the tankers heading up towards his neighbour’s land.
It took almost an hour before the vehicle had been relieved of its load, and even with the binoculars he hadn’t been able to make much out. A hose had been attached to the tank but he couldn’t see where it led. It had of course occurred to Dave, sitting in his Land Rover, binoculars clamped to his head, that this was all for nothing . . . just his imagination . . . his paranoia running wild. In a way he hoped it was, he didn’t like the thought of some big problem next door that would be hard to solve.
As the tanker began to travel back down the farm road, he started the Land Rover up and drove down the hill to follow it as discreetly as he could. He hung back a good 500 yards until the tanker made it to the dual carriageway, then drove closer to see if there were any markings on it. Nothing that he recognized, but he tried to memorize the name and telephone numbers.
About three or four miles had passed before the tanker began to indicate left. Dave did likewise and let his car drop right back.
They turned and were on another small B road. He recognized it as the road he took to Harry and Ingrid’s farm. Left at a fork in the road; on a bit further. He was glad of the dark, was sure the tanker driver knew another car was behind him but couldn’t know it was the car that had been on his tail since the farm.
Passing a lay-by, Dave slowed down, craning his neck to take another look at what he thought he’d just seen there. Their car. No lights on, parked up, but he was sure it was the Saab. The tanker mystery would have to wait till another day. He felt a wave of panic about his wife. Where was she? Why was their car empty on this deserted road?
He pulled the Land Rover up, made a hasty three-point turn in the road, then roared back down to the lay-by where he jumped out and ran to look into the Saab. It was locked and when he bent down to peer inside everything looked normal . . . maps and magazines in a pile on the driver’s seat.
Dave stood up and looked helplessly around. Pitch darkness. He did a second sweep of the landscape and this time spotted another vehicle, only 100 metres or so away, parked in a small clump of trees down a farm track. A big black 4 x 4 dimly lit by the driver’s light inside. It looked just like Lachlan Murray’s Isuzu. A rush of bewilderment followed Dave’s momentary relief at the recognition. Pamela and Lachlan? Out here? In the dark? What the hell was going on?
He reached for the binoculars that were still swinging from his neck, and with a very bad feeling raised them to his eyes.
Framed in the grainy circle in front of him was an image which would, against his will, be with him for a very long time. His wife, head thrown back, hair loose, breasts, bare white breasts framed with thin black straps, tipped up into the face of another man. His wife making love with another man. The other man, he could tell by the falling gold hair, was Lachlan.
He might have stood watching for as long as it took. He might have walked over to the Isuzu and tapped on the window. He might have waited crouched down beside her car to surprise her when she came back, but the headlamps of another car swung into view in the distance and he didn’t want to be seen here, not by anyone.
He let go of the binoculars and fled to his Land Rover, ducking down behind the steering wheel while the other car passed at speed. Then he started the engine and drove off as quickly as he could, suddenly desperate to be nowhere near this . . . nowhere near her and him.
When Pamela returned home that night, she found Dave in the sitting room watching TV with an empty wine bottle beside him.
‘You were thirsty,’ she teased.
‘Hot weather,’ he answered, but not with his usual jokiness. In fact, he looked unusually serious.‘How was your drink?’ he asked.‘Who did you go with?’
She didn’t come into the room, but stayed by the door, one hand on her hip, one up on the door frame. He took in how pretty she looked: tight vest and jeans, visible rose-coloured bra straps, hair bundled up, and so obvious to him now, the post-coital pink flush and full lips.
‘Lachlan, just business . . . there are a few glitches with the kitchen. Kitchen glitches . . . klitchen gitches . . .’ Big smile for him.‘So we talked them through. Sorted it out.’
‘Was Jeff in?’ He wondered what lie she would offer him next.
‘Oh, we didn’t go there. Some hotel bar in town, that Lachlan knew. I wasn’t paying very much attention.’
She gave a sniff at her armpit and an exaggerated grimace.‘Phew, I’m desperate for a bath.’ Of course she was . . . Jesus Christ.
Once she’d gone upstairs, he drained the very last from his glass and set it down on the arm of the sofa. He thought he’d been giving her the space she needed before they could slowly put their marriage back together again. Now, he felt like an idiot – a stupid, cheated idiot. Would his marriage end? He had often asked himself that question, almost always assuring himself that no, somehow they would make it. But now he saw that he’d been wrong.
Chapter Twenty-seven
LACHLAN’S WIFE AND even his children were out in the fields picking strawberries in the light rain that had finally arrived today, breaking three weeks of dry heat. There had been some sort of disagreement he knew nothing about and most of his Polish student workforce had upped and left. Buggered off to London or somewhere without even a day’s notice. He was fucked. Fields full of berries waiting to go, rain lashing down to spoil them and contracts to meet. They had to be picked today. But here he was driving to the woodland trail car park to meet his lover.
Lover? Lover?? How had this happened? He hadn’t meant to do this. He really hadn’t. He’d been tempted, given in and had meant it to be a one-off aberration. But had found, to his surprise, he had to go back for more. And now look at the possible consequences. Rosie, Jesus God, Rosie. If she ever found out . . . and the little people who depended on him, who were in the fields right now, picking his crop in the rain. What kind of a shit was he?
Pamela had phoned up and demanded to see him! Straight away, she’d insisted. No, it couldn’t wait and it wouldn’t take long. This was the day when he was going to have to call a halt to the insanity. But, sliding the Isuzu into fourth, accelerating into the straight stretch ahead, he realized he was nervous about how she would take it. Would she stop the work she was doing for them? Should he wait until she’d finished the cottages? Was she a bunny boiler? What was the best way
to do this? Christ, why had he forgotten how awkwardly the other little ‘flings’ had ended? All so easy to kindle, so hard to put out.
Pamela was already there in her Saab, waiting for him. As soon as he drew up, she got out of the car and stood in the rain, a sweatshirt held over her head. Once he was parked, she swung open the passenger door and climbed in beside him. His eyes slid over her denim skirt and bare legs, wet with rain.
‘OK,’ he said, smiling, trying to remain calm, once the hellos were over, ‘Why am I here?’ The rain was getting heavier . . . He had to get back.‘I’m very busy right now –’ he didn’t wait for her reply – ‘The berries are ready to go . . . two-thirds of my picking squad has just cleared off. It’s a pretty difficult time.’
‘I’m sure the great Lachlan Murray can get new pickers for his super-berries,’ she snapped.
‘Not straight away, no. And not today, when the order is sitting out in the field, ready to rot in the rain, with some fuckhead of a buyer phoning me up every ten minutes to know when it’s going to arrive. Every single strawberry in that field now and for the rest of the summer is under a contract that dictates how big it is, how sweet it is, how red it is, how bloody firm it is and when it gets picked.’
She’d never seen him angry before, this person she had kissed, licked, tasted, felt her way all around. He was still so unknown to her.
‘You have no idea what it’s like,’ he continued.‘We are the very bottom of the food chain, I can tell you that. Just one mistake and the whole deal will be off. I’ll be driving a lorryload of strawberries all around Norfolk trying to find anyone who’ll take them off me. If the buyers don’t want my berries because they’ve got in a job lot of rubbish from Eastern Europe, they’ll just make something up. And we’ll all be fucked.’
He was rubbing his forehead, eyes dark, deeply agitated. Pamela was here to tell him she didn’t want to see him again, well, not in the way they’d been seeing each other lately. And suddenly she didn’t want to do it, didn’t want him to go.
‘You’ve been doing this for years. ’ She put a hand on his arm.‘Everyone round here talks about what a big success you are.’
‘Well, they’ve no idea how close to the wind we sail every year. If this summer doesn’t go well, we’re backs to the wall. And we all work very hard, all year long. Me, Rosie . . . even the kids are out picking today.’
There was a pause, a drawing in of breath, rain lashing down unchecked on the Isuzu’s windscreen. Then they both began together:
‘I think . . .’
‘We can’t . . .’
They stopped and looked at each other. She’d thought she’d manage to be so cool, so unaffected by this and now that the moment was here, she realized it was going to be harder than she’d imagined.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.‘It’s been great . . . but we can’t do this any more, can we?’
There it was, out loud, lying bald and naked between them.
‘No,’ she answered.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. As if that made it any better.
‘No, it’s fine. It’s what I was going to say.’ She’d wanted very much to sound grown-up and together about this. He was only – not even an affair – a fling, a fuck, a casual thing. No head messing . . . remember?
But it still hurt.
She felt his arm around her shoulders and hoped she wouldn’t cry.
‘Pamela, it’s OK.’ She didn’t detect any hint of upset in his voice. He was probably relieved.
‘It’s not,’ she heard herself reply.‘I have no idea what’s going on . . .’ She was fumbling in her bag for tissues, about to run with tears. Hideous.
‘Please think of a nice thing to say about me,’ she asked him after blowing her nose.‘That would help.’
He passed her a box from the back seat and that made her cry even more. Because it was probably his children’s box of tissues.
There was a Lachlan-length pause, she recognized now, as he tried to examine what he felt and summon up words to express it.
‘You’re a great girl,’ he said finally.‘But we both have people better than us to get back to.’
Wow, she acknowledged, mid-sniff, the outback cowboy gets emotional. People better than us. Of course they were: Rosie and Dave, people better than them.
‘Yup,’ she said, wiping at the corner of her eyes.‘Well, I suppose this is goodbye then.’ She held out her hand. But he ignored that, leaned over and kissed her mouth. One last taste of all the wildness she’d shared with him. The tunnel full of strawberries . . . she would remember that for ever.
He watched her car pull out onto the road and felt a little sorry, yes. But overriding that was how much he wanted to be back at the farm with his wife and children. Glancing at his phone, he saw that there was no signal. Crap.
Rosie was looking down the long row ahead of her. Still all that to do. Bloody hell. She and the two remaining Polish girls had picked almost half a field between them. Manda was finally asleep in the buggy underneath the rain cover and she had just angrily given in to Willy and Pete’s nagging to go and play in the garden because they were bored.
Her sons had managed almost two whole rows between them before they’d begun to whinge and whine.
‘Oh all right then,’ she’d exploded at them.‘Don’t you want to help Daddy? Daddy is very, very busy and he needs us to pick the strawberries for him today. They’ll be too ripe if we leave it till tomorrow.’
The boys had hung their heads and scratched their wellies about in the earth.‘We’ll just go for a bit. Then we’ll come back and help you,’ Pete had offered.
‘Oh just go,’ she’d said, then turned back to her row, not nearly as angry with them as she was with their father. Where the bloody hell was he when there was all this to do? Off to get some urgent machinery repaired, he’d said. The vague bubble of suspicion was threatening to surface and she was doing all she could to hold it down. Because when she let it come up, when she really thought about it, really worried about whether or not her husband was screwing Pamela Carr, it made her feel physically sick and she was too busy for that right now.
Too busy . . . too busy . . . She bent back down to the berries and felt the wet of tears as well as rain on her hands. She was too frightened to ask him about it; she was too frightened not to. She was terrified of the whole thing. What if he was? What if this whole elaborate picture she’d concocted in her head of her husband and that woman in the back of his car, in fields, even in the cottages she was renovating, what if it was true?? Rosie tried to comfort herself again with the thought that she was being ridiculous, she was making the whole thing up.
She tried to focus on the fruit, keep busy, busy with picking the fruit, filling the plastic punnets, working down the row. Another fifteen minutes passed, another row was finished and she started on the next.
She was way ahead of Ursula and Andrea. They’d been here for two months, so they wouldn’t be sore and stiff right down the back of their legs tomorrow, but they would need years of practice to be as quick as her. Rosie was sure they would dream of picking berries in their sleep tonight. She wondered what they must make of it, two young, pale, leggy students from Gdansk. Had they even been to a farm before?
‘Mum!’ She was ripped from her thoughts by Willy bellowing for her in a way that stopped her heart.
He was flying down the length of the field, pelting towards her.
‘MU-UUUM!’ he roared again.
She stood up and shouted back: ‘What is it?’
But he kept on running, until he threw himself against her legs and through a hail of tears sobbed out: ‘It’s Pete. Pete is dead.’
She dropped to her knees and gripped his upper arms, pulling him away from her legs: ‘What are you talking about? What do you mean?’ The words came out harshly because she was terrified. She had never seen Willy look so ashen.
‘I hit him on the head . . . by accident,’ Willy wailed.
‘What with?�
� She was gripping him too hard now, willing him to stop crying.
‘A golf club, we were playing golf.’
‘Jesus,’ she leapt up.‘Where is he?’
‘In the garden.’ She began to run. Run and run, hearing the slap of her wellingtons against her shins, the sound of Willy crying and running behind her, not able to keep up.
She ran up the drive of the house, hammering heart threatening to leap right out of her throat. Already the accusations crowding in on her: she should never have let them go back to the garden on their own. She should have told them not to play golf without Daddy. She should never have let Lachlan buy golf clubs for them . . . She should have . . . shouldn’t have . . . The gravel flew out behind her boots as she ran towards the big lawn.
‘Pete! Pete!’ she heard herself screaming in a voice that didn’t even sound like hers.
She didn’t see him at first, was looking wildly round for a boy standing up, then realized the bundle of something she’d passed over in her first scan of the grass was her son.
Her legs wobbled so dangerously in the race to get to him, she almost stumbled and fell on top of him.
At first glance, she thought Willy was right. Her son was lying on his back, eyes closed, motionless, the grey white of a stone with a dark, ominously trickling dent, a dent in his right temple.
‘Pete, Pete . . . Petie.’ She picked up his wrist and tried to find a pulse but her hands were shaking so much, she had no idea what she could feel. Then he made the smallest of groans and she saw a flicker of eyelid. Oh God, thank you God, thank you, he isn’t dead. She had to get help.
Willy was up on the lawn now, still crying.
‘Willy, shut up!’ she shouted.‘It’s OK. He’s going to be OK.’ She said this to try and convince herself.
Calm, calm – how the hell were you supposed to say calm at a time like this? Why didn’t logical thoughts want to form in her mind? She took her phone out of her pocket and jabbed on the speed dial for Lachlan. She needed him first.
