She loved her grandson. He was a loose canon; he’d always been the naughtiest of the three grandchildren, with far too much undirected energy for his own good. But he was charismatic and charming. However, and on this point she was certain, Charlie’s heart was not in farming.
With the aid of the knife and a long spoon, she dug into the centre of the marrow, pulling out the seed and membrane.
The trouble was he farmed because he had never thought of doing anything else.
She discarded the seeds and gave the marrow a sharp tap on its bottom, ensuring all the seeds were out.
Charlie was not without abilities. In many ways, he was a lot brighter than his brother. The trouble was, he lacked direction, and farming didn’t seem to be providing it, which was why Elsie had told him to find a wife.
She stood the marrow on end and started to stuff it with soft, golden demerera sugar.
However, unlike Stephen, it didn’t appear as if a wife was in the offing, and she couldn’t have him jeopardising Stephen’s plans and exposing Marsh Farm to the likes of the Lesters.
She poured a cup of liquefied yeast into the neck of the marrow.
There was no help for it. She, Elsie, would have to intervene.
The top of the marrow was replaced, sealed down with sticky tape, and placed in a tall glass jug, then covered with a cloth.
Grunting with satisfaction at the outcome of her morning’s labours, she washed her hands and went back to the house to telephone her solicitor.
* * *
After the heavy rain the day before, the ground was sticky and very slippery underfoot. Walking along the river, with Duchess racing here, there and everywhere in pursuit of pheasants, real and imaginary, Simon felt relaxed and cheerful. ‘It’s not just being out of London,’ he thought, looking with pleasure at the steam rising from the sodden ground, at the drops of water suspended, sparkling, on leaf and berry, and at a flock of martins squeaking shrilly just over his head as they swooped and dived in a frenzy of feeding, the change in the weather having produced an influx of insects. ‘No, it’s the Tuckers. They think I’m the one that’s doing all the helping; if they only knew how much they’re helping me.’
Marcus shared his enthusiasm for the family, and said as much to Simon when he had left that morning, at the crack of dawn. ‘They’re great – particularly Granny - anything else I can do to help defeat the enemy, Simon, I will. I won’t say anything more for the moment, but if my idea comes off, we can ensure the future of Marsh Farm, for a while at least.’
The next thing for Simon to do was find out what was troubling Alison. It had been obvious, even to Marcus who had never met her before, that she was unhappy. ‘It’s a pity I’ve got this meeting today,’ he thought, ‘but if I get back early enough, I’ll take her out, see if I can persuade her to tell me what’s wrong. I’m pretty certain it’s nothing to do with the Lesters.’
The Lesters. He sighed, whistled for Duchess and headed for home. He didn’t have to see Harriet Flood again, for which he was heartily grateful, but Veronica Lester… She had left four or five messages on his answer-phone and he’d been in no hurry to get back to her. But he had to maintain this charade of being interested in her until he had found out who her contact was at the Tuckers’ bank.
Veronica was handsome enough, though at least ten years older than Simon, and her nose was too long and sharp. Her assumption that just because she found him attractive he would become her toy boy disgusted him, and he had experienced, at first hand, how devious she could be in getting whatever she wanted. His mind lingered on the image of the man she had lost her game of tennis to. He was clearly infatuated with her and she, equally clearly, held him in contempt. Why had she deliberately lost? To put him off wanting to play tennis with her again? Or because she wanted something from him?’
He reached the back door of the cottage.
‘In you go, Duchess, there’s a good girl.’ Simon pulled off his muddy boots, left them by the kitchen door and padded over to the front door mat to pick up his post. Duchess danced around him with as much energy as she’d had at the start of their four-mile hike. He laughed, threw the letters on the kitchen table and looked ruefully at the mud on the floor. ‘I should have hosed you down before letting you in, you filthy animal. I’m going to have to advertise for a cleaner if we stay here. OK, OK. I’ll feed you, don’t worry.’
He collected the can opener and a fresh tin of dog meat, took them over to the table and started to open the can. As he did so, his eye fell on one of the letters scattered across the table.
He froze.
* * *
Lenny didn’t make The Grapes on Sunday evening. So exhausted was he by dancing all night on Saturday, having to get up early to go and see Hugh Lester on Sunday, then drive his drunken mother-in-law home and put both Paula and the children to bed, not even the thought of a free pint could keep him awake.
Charlie left him a message on his mobile to meet at the pub on Monday lunchtime, after which he proposed they should spend the afternoon clearing up after the storm. When Lenny walked into The Grapes on Monday, he stopped and stared. His astonishment at seeing Charlie behind the bar was surpassed only by the fact that the Charlie he had last seen struggling with the ash tree the day before was a substantially different-looking Charlie from the one behind the bar Monday lunchtime. At first, Lenny couldn’t work out what was so different, and then he realised. ‘Your whiskers! Charlie – you shaved your whiskers! Why on earth have you gone and done that?’
Charlie, very self-conscious and looking, in Lenny’s opinion, about ten years old, said, ‘Yeah, Lenny. I decided it was time for a change. I’ve had those whiskers since I was a kid. What do you think?’
Lenny stared hard at Charlie before he gave his reply. Charlie’s face, lean and brown, was flanked by two strange, broad, triangular-shaped white shadows, making him look both very young and very gaunt at the same time. Like someone returning from overseas, Lenny thought, with a strange disease. But what was gone, was gone, and there was no sense, in Lenny’s opinion, in giving Charlie any unnecessary grief.
‘Well, mate, I wished you’d asked me, before you stripped them off. I liked them – they was you. But what’s done’s done. I’ll get used to it. Now, Charlie, cop a load of this…’ and at long last, he told Charlie what he’d seen and heard at the Lester’s on Sunday.
Charlie’s reaction was loud and furious. ‘You’re kiddin’ me!’ He shook his head with disbelief. ‘Nobbled the bank? You’ve gotta be jokin’?’
‘And tried to bribe me into not workin’ for yer – as if he could. Desert me ol’ mate, Charlie Tucker. He don’t know nothin’ about me an’ you; we go back a long way, we do… Now where’s this pint you promised me?’
Charlie fumed as he pulled Lenny a pint. ‘I know he wanted us to sell, but to stoop to those sorts of tricks, he must want Marsh Farm really bad, the bastard!’
‘Lucky fer you Paula and me was there. Whad’yer gonna do, Charlie?’
‘Apart from putting my hands round his scrawny neck and squeezing the life out of his stinking body, I dunno. But what really gets up my nose, Lenny, is the bloody bank jumping to his tune…’
‘That were his missus’ doing, as far as I could make out. Young Anthony as good as called her a tart – that’s when old Hugh weighed in to wallop him and got a shiner for his trouble.’
‘I’d give him more than a shiner if I get the chance…if they’d not nobbled the bank, we’d’ve had the money for a new bike. I tell yer, it breaks my heart havin’ to pay that little lot over.’
‘Yeah, what a bummer!’ A deep gloom settled over them both. They had both dreamed, one day, of getting a bike that didn’t fall to pieces at the end of every race; they had been so close, and they had lost their chance, through no fault of their own. That hurt.
‘So what are you gonna do? Just because me and Paul
a got wind of what they’re up to don’t mean they’re gonna stop.’
‘No.’ Charlie was thoughtful. ‘Listen, Lenny, don’t say anything to anyone about this. Not yet. I’ve gotta think this one through.’
‘Fair enough. Are you gonna stand me another pint, seein’ as Linda’s not about? Where is she, by the way, and what are you doin’ behind the bar?’
‘She and Stan have split. She’s off seeing her solicitor this morning, so I said I’d open up for her.’
Lenny whistled. ‘Split have they? It were pretty obvious he was having a fling with that tasty barmaid, but I didn’t know things had got that bad. Well Charlie, me ol’ mate, you’ve lost no time getting’ yer feet under the table, ’ave yer?’
* * *
With a sigh, Alison put her book down. It was no use, she was finding it impossible to concentrate. Her mobile had jingled a number of times that morning, Hannah could be put off no longer. She wondered, not for the first time, whether Al might have tried to get in touch. Today, presumably, he was on his way to France; but yesterday, perhaps? She no longer felt so angry – tired rather, and very low in spirits.
There was a text message from him, sent the previous evening:
‘I DIDN’T KNOW. BELIEVE ME. LOVE.’
A shouted text. Alison shook her head. Perhaps he hadn’t known? She so desperately wanted that to be the case, but that was her being weak and she hardened her heart – he must have known.
The other messages were mainly from Hannah, who couldn’t believe that Alison hadn’t got in touch with her, and which ranged from the indignant to the plaintive. Alison braced herself for the inevitable cross-examination.
‘Hi, Hannah, it’s me, Ali…’
‘Ali, thank God! Why haven’t you rung me? What’s going on? What happened with you and Al? He was fuming on Saturday night. What was he on? He wanted to know who you were! Talk about weird. Didn’t he know? Then Frank phoned and said he, Rob, Ben and Ian had been over at yours, sandbagging the house against a flood. Are you all right? Are you under water?’
Alison felt a constriction in her chest. ‘You saw Al on Saturday night?’
‘Yeah. We bumped into him; he looked ghastly. Before I could ask him where you were, he asked me what your name was and where you lived. I thought he must be joking, but he was deadly serious. So I told him. Then he left, without saying anything. What’s going on, Ali, and what about this flood?’
‘That happened yesterday, and it wasn’t at ours. It was over at the manor, in the village, occupied by some old biddies. My brother needed help, so I called up the gang.’
‘Why didn’t you call me? Sounds like they had fun.’
Alison smiled, in spite of herself. ‘I knew you’d be out with Nick, and I don’t think your nails would have survived those sandbags, Hannah… Listen, Hannah, this is really important, but I have to know – are you sure that, before Saturday night, neither you, nor Nick, told Al that my surname was Tucker and that I lived on Marsh Farm?’
By the end of the call, Alison had been convinced that, whether or not Al was complicit in his parents’ scheming, he’d had no idea that she was a member of the Tucker family.
‘Oh no!’ she wailed, when Hannah had rung off. ‘What on earth do I do now?’
She desperately wanted to talk to him; she needed him to tell her that not only was he not involved, but that he didn’t know anything about his parents’ plans; but Al would be in France by now, and she wasn’t ready to text him with messages of contrition until she had proof he wasn’t a conniving rat.
She regarded her text books with despair. She wasn’t going to get any work done in this frame of mind. Simon’s jumper lay over a chair. He’d lent it to her the evening before. She picked it up. He’d probably be at work, but she so wanted to talk to him. ‘I’ll go and see if Gran needs a hand with the wine,’ she thought to herself, ‘and if she doesn’t, I’ll take Bumble out. I’ll go over to Simon’s later.’
There was no sign of her gran, so she saddled up her fat old pony and went to see what damage the storm and the flood might have caused. She knew Charlie had been out, first thing, doing just that, so she wasn’t surprised to see him and Lenny on the riverbank, stripping the fallen ash. Alison had a sentimental affection for all the trees on the farm, and seeing the fate of the old tree, lying where it had been half-dragged onto the riverbank and stripped of its branches, her depression deepened. She turned Bumble away. She didn’t feel like talking at the moment, least of all to Charlie and Lenny.
Lenny noticed her. ‘ Does Ali know about her boyfriend beating up his dad?’
Charlie, who was sawing a branch, momentarily stopped and shrugged his shoulders, ‘I dunno. I tell you, Lenny, it makes me sick to think my sister is going out with Lester’s son. What’s she on about? Sleeping with the enemy, that’s what!’
Lenny gave a crack of laughter. ‘Imagine havin’ the Lesters as yer in-laws!’
‘Over my dead body!’ Charlie, not very amused, resumed his labours.
‘Yeah, and over theirs too, I expect! I’d love to see their faces when their son and heir tells ’em he’s courtin’ a Tucker…’ He chuckled at the thought, and Charlie grinned, in spite of himself. ‘So Charlie, ’ave you decided what yer gonna do?’
Charlie straightened up. ‘The way I see it is,’ he began slowly, ‘Hugh Lester must want my farm real bad to go to all these tricks, and the more he tries it on, the more we’re going dig our heels in. It’s a vicious circle, Lenny, and unless we can catch him doing something illegal, I have a horrible feeling we might lose in the end. He’s got money and a finger in every pie in this county on his side. And what have we got? Certainly not money, and who is there to give a toss about the fate of the Tuckers? So what I thought, Lenny, and you must keep this under your hat, is give him a price…’
‘What? Sell out? Give him what he wants?’ Lenny was flabbergasted.
‘If it comes to it. But at a price, Lenny, at my price. Thing is, if he wants it bad enough, he’ll find the money…’
‘But Charlie, you wouldn’t sell Marsh Farm? What would you do? What’d Stephen do? And Ali, and Elsie? They’d never agree…’
‘Maybe not at the moment, but they might, Lenny, they might if the money is right. I know it’s a gamble and it’ll be hard to persuade them, but I’ve been thinking’ – we could raise a fair packet – I know the farm is a bit run down…’
‘A bit!’
‘But the land is valuable, and what’s more, the house is. I know it’s a bit shabby, but it’s got six bedrooms, Lenny. At today’s prices, that’s six hundred K, without blinking. I know Stephen’s trying to think up ways we might save the farm, but nothing is going to be quick, is it? The bank have us in a stranglehold. Where’s the money coming from to pay the extra three thousand at the end of October, and the month after that, and the month after that? So the way I see it, we could set our price, pay off the bank, divvy it up. Stephen should have enough, with the others as partners, to buy somewhere cheaper…’
Lenny stared at Charlie. ‘And what about you, Charlie? What would you do with your share?’
Charlie shrugged again. ‘I’m thinking about it. Could be an opportunity to move into something different… We might set up a business together, Lenny…’
Lenny whistled. ‘Blimey! What a turn-up. I wouldn’t never have thought that you’d even think of sellin’ to that bastard!’
‘No, and I tell you, I feel a bit sick even thinking about it. But we’ve got to be realistic. Someone’s going to win out, and I don’t want to end up a complete loser. I know it’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try. I phoned old Lester this afternoon, to tell him I was onto his schemes. But he was out. I’ve arranged for an agent to come over on Wednesday.’
‘What’s Stephen gonna say?’
‘It’s Market day, Len. Stephen’ll be out of the way.’
> * * *
‘Off you go, Snuffles.’ Jeff lifted the fat little pug off the table and placed him on the floor. He patted Snuffles’ owner, a plump, elderly lady, on her shoulder. ‘He should be fine now, Mrs Dunning, but you must be careful not to overfeed him. Cut out the tit-bits and you’ll be doing him a favour.’
He closed the door behind Mrs Dunning and pulled a face at Monica, his nurse. ‘She doesn’t take any notice of me. One day that little dog will explode. Is that the lot for this afternoon?’
‘Yes, Mr Babbington.’ The nurse started to clean down the table.
Jeff glanced at his watch. ‘That leaves forty-five minutes before this evening’s surgery. No time for anything. I’ll go out for fish and chips and bring them back here.’
‘It’s Monday, Mr Babbington. The chippie’s closed.’
Jeff cursed under his breath. He was hungry; it’d been a long day. He should have thought ahead and brought in some sandwiches. He knew that’s what his partner did, but then his partner had a wife who made them for him, and would have a nice hot casserole, or something equivalent, waiting for him when he got home.
He thought of this again, when he was in the pub, the relic of a lunchtime roll sitting in front of him. His wife had died so long ago now, he’d become self-sufficient, but every now and then he thought wistfully of how it would be to have someone at home waiting for him. He thought of Jenny, and grinned. If he was going to depend on her to make his sandwiches and cook him casseroles, then he’d better think again… But just the thought of her made him feel different: warm somehow, tingly.
What had started out as an act of sympathy on his part, the visit to the rare-breed farm that Sunday two weeks ago, had escalated, rapidly and unexpectedly, from a long-term companionable friendship into a relationship, which he was enjoying hugely, and which, he suspected, was going to make a substantial difference to his life. The occasional woman friend had shared his bed but it had never occurred to him that he might one day want to be with another woman enough to consider living with her; it certainly had never occurred to him that Jenny Tucker might be such a woman.
A Tangled Summer Page 34
