‘I feel as though you’ve been here for a very long time.’ She licked her fingers clean and reached for the next chip.
‘I know. I do too.’
‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ She licked her fingers once more. ‘I don’t really know you, I can’t. And yet . . .’ She let this hang, unable even to voice the extraordinary way she felt – as though he had been parachuted into her life at her request.
‘It’s the same for me.’ He traced a raindrop with the tip of his finger down the inside of the window.
‘And I think about how exciting this is, and then I remember that this time tomorrow you’ll be back in London.’
He looked across at her and swallowed his mouthful, folding the lid down on the box of fish and chips he could plainly no longer stomach.
‘Oh no! We agreed not to mention it and now I’ve put you off your fish and chips!’
‘You were right, though. It was the best fish and chips I’ve ever tasted.’
‘But you don’t want to finish it?’ She looked at the scrunched-up parcel in his hands.
‘I can’t. I can’t eat when I think too much. It’s as if my stomach is connected to my brain and, if my brain has to work too hard, my stomach shrinks up and sits just about here.’ He touched his fingertips to the base of his throat.
‘I know what you mean.’ She sighed as her own appetite faded, and she tucked in the lid of her cardboard container.
They drove home in near silence. Grayson seemed deep in thought as he scoured the hedgerows and looked up at the sky, searching for what, she did not know.
‘I have some chores to do this afternoon.’ She spoke a little curtly, knowing it was the best way to stop this silliness before the awkward matter of the goodbye tomorrow. It was about self-preservation and the nagging lack of self-esteem that ate away at her confidence. She knew it was probably best for them both if he simply went back to London and found a girl like himself who was sweet and nice and who lived in a domino block of flats close by, one he could see whenever the fancy took him and who didn’t feel tied to a piece of muddy land on the banks of a river.
‘I can help you, if you like.’ He turned to look at her. His hair was plastered to his head and his face flushed with the exertion of walking in the rain. He had lost his pastiness and looked handsome.
She shook her head. ‘No, that’s fine, Grayson. I really should get on. I need to clean out the girls and give them their afternoon corn, and there are a few jobs my mum wants doing, and supper to cook.’
He stared at her and she watched his eyebrows rise and knit. His mouth opened a little and he looked . . . desolate, crushed, cheated, and she felt like shit. The instant change in his demeanour and the fast-paced beat of her heart at the prospect of not seeing him again was more than she could stand. Letting him down might have been the right thing to do for them both, but it was not the easy thing, and she knew at that moment that all she wanted was one more second of him, one more kiss, one more feeling of his palm resting on hers.
‘But . . . but if you like and, as it’s your last night,’ she said, swallowing, ‘we could go to the pub later after supper?’
His smile slowly crept back across his face. His eyes crinkled into happiness and his mouth lifted in an expression of pure joy. ‘I would very much like to go to the pub later.’
He sat back in his seat, and just like that, with the equilibrium restored, the atmosphere in the pickup changed. The air was softer, the temperature warmer and she was sure that, if she looked close enough, she would see small sparkles of delight leaving Grayson with every breath he exuded. These sparkles, she was certain, flew in her direction and she inhaled them until they filled her right up.
‘Nice day, my love?’ her dad asked, raising the next forkful of ham hock to his mouth.
‘Yes. Nice.’ She hoped he’d leave it at that, wary of the heat of Emery’s occasional glare.
‘The Reedleys have got red mite,’ her mother announced with a sigh.
Hitch pictured the Reedleys’ farm, a good six miles away over in Wattingbrook. Julie Reedley had been in her class at school, not that they were ever friends.
‘I’ve been putting down the powder twice a day and can’t see anything that’s bothering me,’ she said earnestly, the care of her chicken girls of vital importance to her.
‘Sure you’re not a bit distracted?’ Her mum looked briefly at Emery and then back to her plate.
Hitch thought about their guest eating his supper, as requested, alone in the dining room next door. ‘No, Mum, I’m not distracted, and even if I was, generally these distractions have a habit of disappearing after a day or two, so no harm done.’ She felt the burn of anger on her cheeks. How dare he try to cause trouble, telling tales, and probably false ones at that, to her mum?
‘Best keep your eye on them birds,’ Emery suggested.
‘I don’t need you to tell me that.’ She looked daggers at him.
‘For the love of God, can’t I have one meal without you two bickering like kids!’ Her mum threw down her cutlery and rested her elbows on the table. ‘Emery’s only trying to help, love. He works hard here, Hitch, and you don’t give him an inch! He’s family, and I know he’s not your brother, but he’s still family!’
Hitch stared at Emery, whose smile was subtle. ‘Can I take the pickup, Dad?’
‘Off again?’ Emery asked, almost casually.
‘Drop dead, Emery!’
‘Hitch, please!’
‘For the love of God!’
Her mum and dad shouted at her almost simultaneously as she grabbed the car keys and her jacket and walked through to the dining room, where Mr Grayson Potts, their soon-to-be-departing guest, sat with his hands folded on the table, in front of an empty plate with the white linen napkin tucked into his shirt collar.
‘Are we going to the pub or what?’ she asked loudly, caring little if her family on the other side of the dining-room wall heard or not.
The Barley Mow had the usual crowd in. Hitch kept her eyes on the bar, deliberately away from Tarran Buttermore, Digger Whelks and their whole pathetic crew, who now crowded around the pool table, heckling and waiting impatiently for their turn on the cue, sipping warm, flat lager between goes and nipping outside for a smoke every now and then.
‘All right, Hitch?’ Shelley stood behind the bar and might have been addressing her, but her eyes were very firmly on Grayson.
‘Yep, you, Shell?’
‘Not bad.’ She chewed her gum with her mouth open. ‘Who’s this?’ she said, addressing Hitch but continuing to stare at Grayson.
‘This is my friend Grayson.’
He gave the customary lift of his hand in greeting.
‘All right?’ Shelley said with a nod.
‘What would you like to drink?’ Hitch asked Grayson, who looked around the pub with confidence, seeming keen to take it all in.
‘Whatever you’re having.’
‘Two ciders, please, Shell.’ Hitch pulled the small fold of banknotes from her jeans pocket and paid.
She handed Grayson his pint and walked to the table in the corner, a wonky table, but the one with the clearest view of the room; she didn’t want her back to anyone. Tarran’s snicker was loud and her heart raced in her chest. She sidled on to the red faux-leather padded bench and shot him a look, intimidated by the way he and the boys were laughing, red-faced and with shoulders hunched, their behaviour juvenile and unbecoming. The source of their comedy, she realised, was Grayson, who walked slowly with his pint in his outstretched hand, creeping at a snail’s pace with his tongue out, as if there might be a penalty for spilling even a droplet of his pint. She smiled at him and he widened his eyes in her direction, an acknowledgment of her encouragement, but still he didn’t deviate from his mission.
Finally he sat down, pushing his long fringe across his forehead and behind his left ear. ‘So this is your local?’
‘Yep.’ She sipped her drink, wondering why she had thought it a goo
d idea to bring him here, knowing deep down it was partly to show Tarran and his shitty gang that she had a friend. The realisation now that at some level tonight she was using Grayson as collateral filled her with self-loathing. He was sweet, lovely and deserved more.
‘Drink up!’ she smiled, nodding at his pint. ‘I think we should go somewhere else.’
‘Somewhere else?’ He stared at her with a small laugh on his lips, as if he had missed the point. ‘We’ve only just sat down.’
‘It’s boring in here.’ She drank quickly.
‘We can make it less boring. We can chat.’
‘What do you want to chat about?’ The edge to her tone was almost instinctive and she watched him shrink back against the chair.
He shrugged. ‘I don’t mind.’
As she formulated the words of apology to explain that it was her anxiety talking, the door opened and her heart sank as Emery walked in.
‘Hey, big man!’ Tarran shouted from behind the pool table. Emery raised his hand in greeting and walked straight over to the wonky table in the corner.
‘Fancy meeting you here!’ he said, winking at his cousin. ‘And you’re our guest at Waycott Farm. Sorry I didn’t get the chance to say hello properly earlier.’ He held out his hand. Grayson reached up to offer his own. Hitch watched as Emery shook it with such force that, when released, Grayson sported a white imprint of the man’s fingertips.
‘What is it you want, Emery?’ she demanded, not only dreading him mocking her in front of this man she liked, but also feeling a pulse of protection towards Grayson and wanting to get him as far away from her enemy as possible.
‘Now is that any way to greet your own family?’ He shook his head in mock-distress. ‘That’s not nice, is it, Mr . . . ?’
‘Potts.’
‘Mr Potts, what d’you think of that?’ Emery jerked his head towards Hitch. ‘Anyone listening would think she doesn’t like me!’
‘I don’t think she does like you.’ Grayson took a sip of his pint.
Emery laughed loudly. ‘Is that right?’ he said, running his tongue under his top lip and around his gums. ‘That’s the funny thing, because all I’ve done is help out – you’d think she’d be more grateful! Saving her dad’s sorry butt. He’d be on his knees by now, what with Jonathan golden-balls sodding gone off to play cowboys.’
Grayson looked from Hitch to Emery, and she wished he hadn’t been drawn into this, certain that he would now be glad to get back to his needy mum and tiny flat tomorrow. Tomorrow . . . It will be here soon enough and yet here we are, wasting time in the bloody pub . . .
Emery continued, ‘I don’t think she’s ever liked me.’
‘Because you’ve always been a dickhead,’ she spat.
Tard . . . Fuckwit . . . Rabbitmouth . . . Whassamatta, Hitch, going to cry?
Emery ignored her. ‘But I’ll tell you who she does like – she likes Tarran, don’t you, cuz?’ He pointed at the pool table, pausing and holding her gaze, while she silently implored him to shut his horrible mouth.
‘Come on, Grayson, we’re going.’ She drained her glass and thumped it hard on the table.
Grayson drank a couple of mouthfuls and stood.
‘Surely you’re not going without buying me a pint?’ Emery placed his hand on his chest, suggesting that this wounded him.
‘Oh!’
She watched as sweet Grayson Potts put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small, stiff, brown, horseshoe-shaped leather pouch. He tilted it and coins dropped into the leather lip with a satisfying plink. ‘How much is a pint here?’ he asked out loud.
His kindness and sweet nature again lit the flame of shame in her chest. She had brought him here and now she had to get him out.
‘You’ll get a little bit of change out of four quid,’ Shelley called out from behind the bar.
Grayson smiled at her and counted out four pound coins and placed them in a neat tower on the sticky tabletop. ‘There you go.’
Emery stared at the pile of money. ‘What the fuck is that thing in your hand?’ he said, pointing.
Grayson lifted the brown leather pouch. ‘Oh, it’s my change purse. It was my grandad’s.’
Emery could barely contain the laughter that escaped his pursed wet lips. ‘Change purse!’ he repeated with a titter, as he walked forward and gathered the coins into his hand before giving them back to Grayson. ‘You keep this, son. Is it from your paper round?’
‘No, I haven’t got a paper round.’ Grayson held the money in his palm, seemingly unsure of what to do with it.
‘Come on, Grayson!’ Hitch held the door open and walked briskly out into the cool evening air.
‘I’m not sure what that was all about.’ He peered over his shoulder, looking back at the pub with confusion.
‘What it’s all about is that my cousin is a shit and the people in that pub are shits and I don’t want to spend my last ever evening with you in their company. I’d rather go somewhere we can be alone and kiss some more without being disturbed. How about that?’ She threw the car keys into the air and caught them. Her relief at being out of the threatening environment of the pub was sweet and instant.
‘Okay.’ He smiled at her and climbed into the cab of the pickup. ‘What’s wrong with my change purse? Or the term “change purse”, for that matter?’ he mused.
‘Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s plenty wrong with them idiots.’ She revved the car and swung it across the uneven surface of the car park. The gear stick felt the full force of her frustrations.
‘Do you really think that?’
‘Think what?’ she kept her eyes on the road.
‘That this will be our last ever evening together?’ Disappointment dripped from his words and she understood, feeling it too.
‘I think yes, it probably is.’ She took a deep breath, feeling the cold creep of reality wrap itself around her. ‘I mean, you live in London and I live here and we have such different lives. I can’t see the point at which they cross over, can you?’
She glanced at him as he apparently considered this.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I guess I can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t, not really.’
‘Me neither. If I was someone who caught your bus or you worked on a farm in the area, well, then I’d see you every day!’ she beamed, ‘and I would really, really like that, but I’m not on your bus and you’re not working on a farm and so that’s that.’
‘So that’s that,’ he repeated, his tone so melancholic that it made her want to weep.
‘So let’s just enjoy right now, okay?’ She found brightness and lavished it on her words.
‘Okay,’ he whispered without conviction. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Back to my place.’ She smiled at him with false conviction and put her foot down.
Hitch cut the engine and switched off the lights, letting the Subaru idle down the last of the hill before coming to rest on the verge at the foot of the driveway. She quietly ratcheted up the handbrake and silently climbed from the cab. Looking at Grayson, she held her finger over her lips, indicating to him to keep quiet. The last thing she wanted was her mum and dad coming out and disturbing their peace. He nodded, watching as she reached into the back of the pickup for the tartan rug they had placed on the flat rock earlier and the bottle of cider she had taken from the larder, just in case. Keeping close to the hedgerow, with her phone flashlight showing the way, and with the bottle under her arm, she walked soundlessly along the paddock boundary with Grayson following closely behind. He too shone his phone at the ground. She felt him stumble a couple of times in the dark behind her and they both giggled softly into the night air. She found his ineptitude when standing on anything other than a flat, grey paving slab quite endearing, and the irony wasn’t lost on her that it was he with his two good feet who couldn’t remain upright. With expert precision and showing off a little, she kicked her leg up to climb over a sturdy stile and waited for him to do lik
ewise, smiling at his cumbersome execution of a task so familiar to her.
Finally they walked on the stone-strewn path to the edge of the lower paddock, out of earshot of the farmhouse.
‘That’s some sky, huh?’ She looked up at the large full moon which striped the grass and surrounding woodland with its silver glare, the clear indigo, starry cape of the heavens providing a dazzling backdrop to this, their last adventure. She breathed in the cool night air and felt the ball of tension that had appeared in the pub ease in her gut.
‘It is.’ He nodded. ‘When I was little, if I looked up with one eye closed out of a certain part of the window behind my bed, I could see a slice of the moon, and I liked the fact it was the same moon that my dad could see wherever he was.’
Her heart shredded at the image of Grayson as a small boy, so thoroughly abandoned. ‘I used to look at the moon and try to understand how it was the same moon that people all over the world could see. People in places I wanted to go to – America, Norway, India.’ Places I still want to go to. One day, maybe . . .
‘Well, I used to wonder if my dad was looking at it too, thinking about me.’
‘I’m sure he was.’ She offered the salve. ‘Don’t you think?’ It was hard for her to imagine adults parenting differently to her mum and dad, who loved her, loved her unequivocally.
‘I’m not so sure,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I think, if he thought about me at all, then he would have contacted me or come to see me. Don’t you?’
She hated the note of desperation in his question. ‘Not necessarily. I don’t know – maybe it was hard for him. I obviously don’t know much about it, but by the sounds of it you only have a little bit of the story. You only know what you saw and heard, but you were just a little kid, so there were probably lots of things going on that you didn’t know about, adult stuff. And maybe that made it hard for him to come back or keep in touch.’ She put forward the thin rationale in an effort to ease his pain.
‘I guess.’ Grayson walked by her side and she heard his deep, slow intake of breath, as if what came next might require courage. ‘I haven’t said this out loud before, but I understand why he went.’
The Things I Know Page 12
