‘You must still miss him.’
He looked up thoughtfully. ‘I suppose it might be missing him, but it’s more like I have this empty feeling in my stomach and it came on the night he went and is still there now, so I’ve always assumed that only he can fill it and I’d like it to be gone. It stops me eating, it stops me from feeling warm and it’ – he moved his splayed fingers in the air – ‘it makes everything feel unsettled.’
‘Have you asked your mum where he went?’
‘I did when I was younger, when he first left.’
‘What did she say?’ Hitch ran her finger daringly over the back of his hand.
‘She said he’d gone to hell in a handcart and good fucking riddance! I know now it was just the wine talking, but it’s just something we don’t discuss. I try not to say anything that’s going to set her off.’
‘That must be hard, not being able to talk about him.’ Hitch took the two steps towards him and placed her fingers on his arm. She watched his long fingers land over her hand and his touch felt incandescent on her skin, her stomach weighted with desire and the wish that he would hold her tightly against him. This longing was a new sensation and felt a lot like sickness.
Grayson again shook his head. ‘It’s got easier, but at first—’ Again he paused. ‘There are only two things that my mum and dad have ever said to me that have stuck, really stuck. Words that play like records in my head, and I think about them a lot.’ He coughed to clear his throat. ‘My mum said, “If you ever mention him, it will kill me. I will die. I will kill myself. I will.” And my dad said, “Look after your mum for me.” And so here I am, stuck in the middle. Not mentioning him for her and looking after her for him.’
There was a moment or two of silence, until she spoke, aware of the catch to her voice. She stared at him. ‘And what do you want, Grayson?’
‘What do I want?’ He looked a little blank, wide-eyed, suggesting that the thought rarely occurred to him, and she remembered what he had said, how it was all about getting through the day and trying to get through the night and then trying to get through the day and then trying to get through the night . . .
‘Yes.’ She moved a little closer to him and felt the brush of her hip on his thigh, a feeling so exquisite that she felt a flare of longing that she never wanted to end. ‘What do you want, Grayson?’
‘I don’t think too much about what I want, but since being here . . .’ He paused.
‘Go on,’ she urged, willing him to voice all the unfeasible, impossible thoughts that rang loudly in her head.
‘Since being here and meeting you . . .’
‘Yesterday,’ she reminded him, ‘that was only yesterday.’
He looked skyward, as if sharing her utter disbelief at this indisputable fact. ‘I feel like—’ He paused again, drawing breath and looping his fringe from his face. ‘I feel like you’re the kind of person who can find the gaps, fill in the missing pieces and solve the puzzle of my happiness.’
Hitch stared at the man who had awoken something within her, and if it were not such a ridiculous notion, she would have said that it felt a lot like love. ‘Maybe I can. Maybe I’m as clever as you after all, Mr Potts.’
‘Maybe you are.’ He leaned forward and, without the sweet encouragement of cider, he gently kissed her again on the mouth and again she saw . . . fireworks.
‘Outside shithouse is blocked!’ Emery yelled loudly from the yard, quite destroying the moment and making Grayson chuckle. With the spell broken, the two made their way over to Big Barn.
‘Do you look like your dad?’ she asked, almost casually.
‘My mum says I look like her uncle, my grandad’s brother, but I don’t, not really. I found a photograph of my dad inside a book cover when he was younger and he looked like me. So yeah, I do look like my dad.’ He smiled.
‘So he was handsome then?’ she said, kicking the grass and looking down at her feet in their heavy boots.
Grayson stared at her. ‘Do you think I’m handsome?’ he asked, not in the manner of someone who was fishing for the compliment, but rather as if this was something that had never occurred to him.
‘I do.’
Grayson placed his hand on his stomach and she wondered if the empty feeling that they had been talking about only minutes before had disappeared. She hoped so. She hoped that she was able to do for him what he did for her, fill her up with the moon and stars.
‘What do you want to do this afternoon, Grayson?’ she almost whispered.
‘I want to be with you. That’s all, really.’ He spoke steadily, confidently. ‘You make me feel ten feet tall.’
‘Can I take the pickup, Dad?’ Hitch called into the tractor barn as she leaned on the door, trying to keep the enquiry casual, fully aware of Emery listening while pretending to focus on the greasy nut and cloth in his hands.
‘’Course you can, my lovely. I reckon I’ll be in here most of the day. We’re not making much progress and this engine isn’t going to fix itself. You off to town?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She deliberately kept her response vague, torn between not wanting to lie to her dad and not letting Emery know where she was heading and with whom. ‘Chickens are fed and happy, washing’s out and calves have had their morning milk. Guest room’s been cleaned and there’s cold lamb in the fridge for your lunch. Mum’s put a loaf in the oven – you know where the pickles are.’
‘You taking that lanky girl out with you?’ her cousin said, without looking up.
‘See you in a bit, Dad.’ She ignored Emery, but her breath stuttered in her throat nonetheless.
Weaving along the country lanes, Hitch glanced to her left, taking in the sight of Grayson Potts with his head leaning out of the open window as the wind lifted his hair, eyes closed, shirtsleeves rolled above the elbow, and with an expression that looked something close to bliss. He reminded her of Buddy when he was allowed to travel up front. There was something about this man – and curiously, she suspected that the magical thing was how he made her feel about herself. The sensation of his mouth pressed to hers, an act committed without hesitation and with such sincerity the memory of it was enough to make her heart swell, even now.
‘I’m worried you’ll get into trouble for not going to your work thing. I mean, isn’t that why they sent you down here in the first place?’
‘Yes and yes.’ He pulled his head in from the window and looked at her. ‘That is why they sent me down here, and my boss Mr Jenks has already sent me lots of texts.’ He didn’t seem overly perturbed.
‘Oh God! What do they say?’ She watched as he reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out his phone, pressing in the code and scrolling through the texts with his thumb.
‘I’ll read them in order.’ He paused and gave a small cough before reading them aloud.
ARE YOU RUNNING LATE GRAYSON? IF SO NO WORRIES, I CAN HOLD THE FORT FOR TEN MINUTES OR SO.
WHERE ARE YOU, GRAYSON?
PICK UP YOUR PHONE!
IS THERE A PROBLEM I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT? SHOULD I BE CONCERNED OR MERELY PISSED OFF!
OKAY, POTTS. CALL ME OR GET YOUR SORRY BUTT OVER HERE IN THE NEXT TEN MINUTES OR THERE WILL BE FALLOUT. WTF?
‘And finally . . .’
ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?
‘Oh my God! He sounds really mad! What did you say to him?’ She felt the mild rumble of guilt that she was the cause of this discord and was at the same time absurdly flattered.
‘I didn’t say anything to him. I haven’t called him yet. I’ll go and see him when I get back to London.’
‘Might he fire you?’
‘Yes,’ Grayson said with a nod, ‘but he probably won’t.’
‘God! That would be terrible if you lost your job just so we could hang out for a day.’
‘I would lose my job for less than that,’ he said, looking at her, ‘but I make them a lot of money. I make myself a lot of money too, but I make them a fortune and I don’t think they would fire me because of one
day. Jenks will probably just shout at me a bit.’
‘I’d hate that, knowing someone was waiting to shout at me.’
‘Me too, but to be honest, an hour, five minutes, any time with you would be worth it.’
Hitch felt the blush bloom on her cheeks. ‘You say the nicest things to me, Grayson. And tomorrow you will leave, head back to your noisy night-times and your flat with a cage and your shouty boss who wants to know your magic trick.’
‘I don’t want to think about that right now, Thomasina. I don’t want to think about work or Mr Jenks or going home. It will spoil the day for me.’
She liked his sweet, honest way of putting things. ‘I get that – it would spoil the day for me too.’
Tomorrow . . . You will leave tomorrow, go back to your big city with its hard surfaces, nowhere soft to sit and your murderous neighbour who stands outside without shoes, and I’ll be stuck here with my girls . . . and Emery.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked, sitting back in the seat.
‘Chew Valley Lake – it’s a lovely spot and we get to walk around it then have the best fish and chips you’ve ever tasted at Salt & Malt – are you up for that?’
‘I am. I never walk for the sake of walking.’
‘But you do walk?’
‘Yes, but it’s always walking to get somewhere or from the station to the office and back again. I never think of going for a walk in a circle just to walk.’
‘I walk a lot,’ Hitch said, picturing the lonely miles she covered in her heavy boots. She walked in all weathers with Buddy lumbering at her side or racing ahead as she pounded the earth, trying to sort through her jumble of thoughts. ‘It helps me think.’
‘What do you think about?’
She paused and tried to rank the thoughts that occupied her mind. ‘Lots of things. I think about what it might be like if we lose the farm—’
‘Lose it how?’ he interrupted her, asking with a crease of confusion at the top of his nose.
‘I mean if my dad has to sell it. Things are tough for us right now – in fact, not just right now, they’ve been tough for a while, and so when I walk I try to imagine a life where I wake up somewhere else, in a world where I might have to do different work and where my chickens might have to live somewhere else.’
‘Can you imagine that?’
She shook her head. ‘No. No, I can’t.’
‘You love your chickens.’
‘I do, Grayson. I really do.’
He seemed to let this permeate before asking, ‘What else do you think about?’
‘Well, I think about what my life might be like if we don’t sell the farm. I think about the time passing by faster and faster each year and I think about waking up one day and suddenly I’m the same age as my mum is now and everything is as it has always been. I’m older, but still walking the fields, feeding the animals, chatting to my chickens and clearing up shit, and nothing has changed for me. Nothing at all.’ She gripped the steering wheel.
Grayson turned in his seat to look at her. ‘Thomasina?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m thinking about what you said and I’m not sure if losing the farm would make you sad or if staying on the farm would make you sad.’
She smiled at his accurate summary. ‘The truth is, I’m not sure either.’ It felt good to be able to talk this openly about the emotional subject to someone who had no vested interest either way. ‘I guess I don’t want to have the decision made for me about whether I stay or go. Selfishly, I suppose, I want to know the farm is there, just as it has always been. I love it,’ she said with passion, ‘but I don’t want my parents to struggle, and it feels like they’ve run out of ideas or luck. And I definitely don’t want to be there with Emery, and I couldn’t be there alone with him after my parents . . .’ She swallowed.
‘After your parents have died?’
‘Yes.’ She cursed the sting at the back of her throat. ‘And that’s assuming my brother Jonathan doesn’t come home. Which I hope he will.’
‘Do you think he will – come home, that is?’
She shook her head, recalling the tone of his postcard: happy, settled, home . . . ‘I don’t know. I kid myself that he will. I talk as though he will, but truthfully, I think he’s made a life in the sunshine and that’s where he might choose to stay, more’s the pity. I don’t like the set-up at Waycott Farm right now.’
‘So it’s all about Emery?’
‘Not all, no, but it’s a lot about him. He doesn’t deserve Waycott and he’s such a pig to me. I see the way he laughs behind my dad’s back and I could thump him!’
‘Do your mum and dad know how you feel?’ he asked.
Hitch closed her eyes briefly and could smell the cranberries bubbling away on the top of the range, her mum stirring the vast, blackened pot with a wooden spoon and tipping in cups of brown sugar with her spare hand. She saw her ten-year-old self twisting her good foot into the flagstones as she sought out the words.
‘Mummy . . .’
‘What?’
‘I don’t like Emery.’
‘Don’t be daft, little one, he’s your cousin and he’s not going anywhere. He’ll pop up like a bad penny every Christmas, birthday, Easter, wedding and funeral, so you’d best get used to him!’
She tasted the salt of her tears, which clogged her nose and throat, speaking quickly, looking over her shoulder, lest he should be lurking.
‘He’s mean to me.’
‘All boys are mean. Just ignore him!’
‘But . . . he . . . he’s really, really mean to me, Mum. He calls me names and he does an impression of my voice . . .’
‘For the love of God, Hitch! Go and play nicely! He’s your cousin and we don’t get to choose our kin, and when all is said and done he would stand up for you, he would! I’ll have a little word with him if you want . . .’
She blinked away the memory of that day when she had tried to explain just how much it hurt her to hear Emery’s jibes and how every moment in his company was spent with a knot of ugly anticipation in her gut, waiting to see what he said or did next. It was one thing to hear the cruel taunts of the kids at school and strangers, but quite another to hear it from Emery, kin, in her home, her refuge.
‘I think they know how I feel – I find it hard to lie about my feelings – but I don’t think they fully know how much it bothers me.’ She sighed deeply. ‘I just want more, Grayson.’
‘More what?’
Hitch shook her head and concentrated on the road, wary of another vehicle coming in the opposite direction, which would mean she had to pull into a lay-by or mount the verge.
‘Just more. My own life. My own kitchen. It’s as if my parents have set my boundaries, and I know they mean well, but . . .’
‘It can be stifling.’ He finished the sentence with a faraway look on his face and she wondered about his mum, who was not ill, but needy.
Quiet filled the car and, for the first time since Mr Grayson Potts had arrived, she wondered if this was a good idea – what had Emery said about ‘fraternising with the guests’? What did she think was going to happen? By this time tomorrow he’d be gone and she would be alone again, walking, pacing, working and thinking, and the loss of him, this man who had all of her attention, this man she was opening up to, well, it might just be harder to live with the gap he was going to leave behind than if he had never arrived.
She swung the Subaru into the car park and jumped down from the cab. Chew Valley Lake was peaceful, even the water calm. Birds pecked for morsels in the shallows, shaking their feathers like preening ballerinas to keep dry. Gulls squawked overhead and the air was heavy with the threat of rain brewing in the clouds that gathered ominously overhead, spreading a dark bruise over the day. It threatened to further dampen the mood.
‘This is incredible!’ Grayson’s enthusiasm rekindled the bright spark of happiness within her. There was something intoxicating about his excitement. It made her forget her maudlin refle
ctions and enjoy the moment.
‘Look – a fish just jumped! This place is brilliant.’ He walked with a slight skip to his gait.
‘I can’t imagine not having places like this to come to when you want to clear your head. Can’t imagine living in a big city. I bring Bud up here sometimes.’
‘There are places to walk in the city – lakes, ponds and a path along the river. And out where I live, near the Isle of Dogs, there’s been a lot of regeneration because it’s where some of the Olympics were held.’
‘Of course.’ Hitch remembered the velodrome and the swimming events that she had watched on the small, temperamental TV in the kitchen. ‘But you still don’t go out walking?’
‘No, I have a very different life to this usually. I keep my head down and I get on with it.’
‘Same. My mum couldn’t believe it when I told her I was having a couple of hours off!’ She smiled at him, as thunder rolled in the distance and a fork of lightning split the dark sky, flashing bright and orange, like a brief flourish of peach flesh. ‘D’you want to go and get fish and chips or carry on walking in the rain?’
He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky. ‘Let’s walk in the rain and then go and get fish and chips.’
‘Okay.’ She shrugged, tucking her hands into the pockets of her waxed jacket as the warm bullets of water started to hit her skin and hair, leaving her drenched yet happy. It felt reckless, foolhardy and all the more fun because of it. The two continued their leisurely stroll along the path, which quickly turned to mud beneath their feet. The surface of the lake danced with a million tiny ripples from the bouncing droplets.
Later, they ate fish and chips in the car with the windows steamed up, their greasy fingers reaching for piping-hot, batter-crisped fillets of cod and fat, golden chips, liberally doused in salt and malt. The food was, she thought, all the more delicious when eaten in the rain with the heater blowing warm air on to their chilly feet and with their damp bottoms sticking to the grubby leather seats of the Subaru.
The Things I Know Page 11
