by Rona Halsall
Luke gazed around the table at the faces of his family. Drug producers. He was lost for words, unable, for the moment, to process what he’d been told.
‘It’s alright, son,’ his dad said, sensing Luke’s unease. ‘You don’t have to give us an answer now. We can talk again in the morning when you’ve had time to think it over. But the truth is, you couldn’t have come back at a better time. We need your help if we’re going to be able to keep the farm going. Not just with the animals. We need you to help sell the cannabis capsules too.’
Luke’s mum looked at him, uncertainty in her eyes, scanning his face to see if there was an answer. ‘It’s a lot to ask. We know that. But we wouldn’t get you involved unless we had to.’ She put a hand on his arm and he covered it with his, while he searched his moral code for an answer.
The conversation changed tack, as his father started telling him about the organic certification they had just received and how both the sheep and cows would now earn a premium for their meat, which would help to counter some of the reduction in subsidies. Luke listened and realised that the family had done everything they could to make the traditional side of the farm work. He understood that there were few options to fill the income gap, but still he wasn’t comfortable, wasn’t convinced.
Later, as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling when sleep refused to come, he thought of all his ex-colleagues, the ones who went into the danger zones, who saw things that no person should ever see and would never forget. He knew so many with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Plenty who had lost limbs, taken shrapnel wounds and lived with permanent pain. Maybe this was a way of helping them. Wouldn’t that be a worthwhile thing to do? And anyway, if he didn’t agree, he had nowhere else to go. This was his family, the only one he had, and now he was home, he was sure in his mind that he didn’t want to leave them ever again. If I want this to be home for the kids I’ve got no choice.
With the decision made and his conscience salved by the idea that he would be doing good, rather than committing a crime, he finally fell asleep, sure that he’d do whatever his family needed to keep their farm going.
He thought he’d come home to solve his problems.
If only he’d known it would be the start of them.
Fifteen
Luke gritted his teeth, fists clenched as he walked away from Ted’s rant on how to load the pickup properly. ‘For God’s sake,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Does it really matter?’ They were going to sort out some broken fencing round the bottom pastures, a job that needed doing before they could let the lambs out, and it was a fag to come back if they’d forgotten anything. He understood that, but Ted liked everything to be in its particular place so he could double check before they set off, and Luke had apparently got it all wrong. Again. Talk about OCD! Ted had made it into a fine art, and he got so worked up and aggressive if things weren’t exactly right he was a pain to be around.
After a month back at the farm, Luke was wondering if he’d done the right thing. Can you ever move back home once you’ve been away for so long? Every day, the reasons why he’d left all those years ago came into sharper focus; the claustrophobic nature of living and working with family, the remoteness of the farm, the lack of social interaction. It all simmered within him, making him edgy and irritable. He hooked his hands in his pockets to stop himself from hitting something, or someone, and went back into the house, needing to calm himself down before he could trust himself to go and work with Ted for hours on end.
His mum and dad were making the cannabis capsules in one of the outbuildings and only Ceri was in the house. Which was an opportunity he’d been waiting for. There were several things that had puzzled him since he’d come home, especially with regards to Ceri, who had turned from a bubbly extrovert into a little mouse, who scurried around looking after everyone’s needs and very rarely spoke, except to the children or the animals. He wanted to ask what had happened but he was never alone with her for any length of time and the right moment hadn’t presented itself. But now here she was, in the kitchen, on her own, sorting out the crates of shopping that had just been delivered from the supermarket. He could hear a voice chattering in the next room and knew that’s where his nephew and niece would be, watching some home-schooling video that Ceri had put on for them. Tessa and Callum were at school. This was the best chance he was going to get.
She looked up and frowned as he walked in.
‘I thought you were fencing with Ted this morning.’
Luke gave her a quick smile. ‘Yes, well, I will be once he gets his head out of his arse. He’s just thrown a fit because I wasn’t loading the pickup properly.’ He sank into a chair by the kitchen table. ‘Tosser.’
Ceri giggled and he realised that it was a sound he’d rarely heard since he’d arrived. What’s going on with her? He decided to find out. ‘So how are things with you, Ceri?’
She looked at him, flummoxed, as though she had no idea how to answer his question.
‘Look, tell me I’m being nosy if you like, but how come you’re here on your own? What happened to the father of your kids?’ She’d never really mentioned him in her messages, but Luke had seen pictures of him when the babies were born, recognised him as a guy he used to go to school with, but couldn’t quite remember his name. He’d assumed he would still be around, given that she’d never said anything to the contrary.
Ceri put the tin of tomatoes she was holding on the table. Then unloaded another and another, keeping her eyes away from Luke’s keen gaze. A blush coloured her cheeks and he could see that he’d made her feel awkward.
‘It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.’ His voice was gentle. ‘I don’t want to upset you. I was just curious.’ Luke stood and started loading the tins into the cupboards while Ceri carried on emptying the crates, an uneasy silence surrounding them as they worked.
‘I suppose I better get back to Lord Muck before he starts making a fuss,’ Luke said when they were finished. He watched Ted through the kitchen window as he checked over the contents of the pickup, adjusting the position of things.
‘Wait, Luke.’ Ceri grabbed his arm. ‘We probably need to have a quick chat before you go.’
‘Okay, but I don’t suppose I’ve got long before Ted comes looking for me.’
She swallowed. ‘The children’s father… Dylan. You remember his dad had the music shop in town?’
Luke nodded. ‘Oh yeah, I know who you mean, just couldn’t quite get to his name.’
Ceri sighed, a wistful expression on her face. ‘It worked for a little while. Us living here was only supposed to be temporary, while we got some money together to travel. Then the babies came along, which added a different dimension to everything and…’ She looked down at her hands. ‘Well, he wanted to be a DJ. Not a lot of work round here, so he had to travel away and was doing well. He started to earn some good money, but the more he was away, the harder Ted made it for him to come back.’ She looked up at Luke. ‘Basically, he and Ted didn’t get on and it all got a bit nasty. That’s why he’s not here.’
‘What? Ted scared him away?’ Luke sounded incredulous and he wondered how extreme Ted’s behaviour must have been to make a father want to leave his children.
‘It was a bit more complicated than that. There were other reasons why it wasn’t going to work.’ She shook her head, sadly. ‘He wasn’t ready to settle down and be a dad. That was the main problem. And Ted’s always been so protective of the kids, Dylan couldn’t live up to his standards.’ She let out a big sigh, laced with regret. ‘Anyway… what I wanted to say was… there’s no point winding Ted up. It just makes him lash out. Just… try and get along, will you? For your own sake. If you want to stay here, you’re going to have to let him be in charge. Then everything will be fine.’
Luke huffed. ‘What? I’ve got to let him treat me like shit, is that what you’re saying?’
Ceri frowned, her voice snappy. ‘No. No, I’m not saying that, but he’d be a lot nicer to you an
d life would be better for all of us if you two could stop sniping at each other all the time.’ She put a hand to her forehead. ‘I can’t cope with it. And it might set Mum off and we really can’t have that happening. Stress is the one thing that makes her struggle, you know? Emotionally as well as physically.’ She gazed at him and he saw the weariness in her eyes. ‘You haven’t been here to see it, but she’s been getting worse, and now the cannabis isn’t working as well as it used to and Dad won’t let her take the tablets the doctor has given her, not after what the last lot did to her.’ She took a big breath. ‘So, do it for Mum, Luke.’ She took his hand, her voice quivering, on the edge of tears. ‘Please?’
He felt bad then that he hadn’t been thinking about anyone else and how the niggling between him and Ted would affect them, hadn’t considered the repercussions, just slipped back into their old patterns of behaviour. But he could see it now and squirmed inside.
He nodded and squeezed her hand. ‘God, I’m sorry, Ceri. I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you. Or Mum. It’s…’ He stopped himself from justifying his behaviour and sighed. ‘I’ll try harder. I will, I promise.’
And that’s what he did.
He tried not to rise to the bait when Ted goaded and belittled him, told everyone how useless he was. He tried. But he was only human and it didn’t always work. Even though he could hear the annoyance in his mum’s voice when she had to act as referee, there was something in him that couldn’t let Ted get away with being a bully, trying to control everyone’s lives. To his shame, there were times when he did lash out, and he was back to being a teenager again, scrapping with Ted, spurred on by a rage in his heart that he couldn’t control.
Over the weeks, the tension built like thunder clouds gathering in the sky, threatening one humdinger of a storm, the air crackling with things unsaid and pent-up emotion. On several occasions, he saw his mother talking to Ted – animated conversations that he couldn’t hear – and Luke knew they were talking about him, that some form of negotiation was in process. Luke was coming to realise that he resented Ted’s dominance and he hated the flurry of anger that swirled within him. Instead of settling in to farm life, it seemed to itch at him like a rough shirt, making him twitchy and unsettled.
The kids loved life on the farm, though, and it was so different from the suburbs where they’d lived in Aberdeen, it made a proper new start for them, with plenty of distractions. Not least their two cousins, Ella and Finn. Callum loved five-year-old Finn, and was delighted to have a playmate younger than him, who he could boss about. Tessa, on the other hand, was all about the animals. She’d adopted one of the ponies as her own and Ceri was showing her how to look after it. They had a bit of girl time together every morning – no boys allowed, she’d earnestly told her father, when he’d asked if he could come along. Yes, the kids were happy enough. School was a bit tough though, given that they were taught in Welsh, but on the whole they’d settled in well. Even Bernie had made himself at home, and clearly enjoyed having the farm dogs to play with when they weren’t working. It was Luke who was struggling, each day making him feel more and more like a trapped animal, pacing around his cage, unable to escape.
I can’t stay, he realised after four months at the farm. With the best will in the world, I can’t stand it much longer. And that was a problem, because he had nowhere else to go.
Sixteen
Luke felt nervous as he walked into the school building in Bangor, his stomach griping and growling. It was a long time since he’d done anything like this. What if I can’t sing anymore? It was a distinct possibility and he turned to go back out of the door, bumping into a woman coming the other way, who’d been rummaging in her handbag and hadn’t noticed him.
‘Christ, I’m so sorry,’ she said and smiled. She had perfect teeth, he noticed, olive-coloured skin and very shiny dark hair, which swung round her face in a shoulder-length cut, a fringe shading brown eyes. She was tiny, with a delicate frame; even in heels she only came up to his shoulder. Just like Anna, he thought, his heart pumping so hard it hurt for a moment.
‘No, no, my fault.’ Luke looked over her shoulder at the door and his escape route.
‘Are you here for the choir?’
Luke hesitated, told himself to stop being such a wuss and smiled at her. ‘That’s right. I thought I might be in the wrong place.’
‘No, right place. We’re down here.’ She pointed down the corridor and now he was trapped, obliged to go, which was good, because his mum would have been disappointed if he’d gone home early.
It was just over a year since Anna had died and now the anniversary had passed, his mum had been trying to encourage him to move on with his life.
‘You need a hobby, Luke. Something to take your mind off things. Something that’s just for you. Nothing to do with the kids. And –’ she’d checked behind her to make sure they weren’t overheard – ‘something to give you a bit of space from Ted.’
He’d jumped at the idea and decided to start with singing. He’d loved singing when he was younger and he thought it might be a good way to get rid of some of the emotions that filled him to bursting, threatening to overflow whenever he was around his cousin. His mum was right, he decided, and maybe if he had a bit of time doing something just for him, the farm might not feel quite so claustrophobic.
Luke smiled to himself now, excitement thrumming in his belly as he followed the woman, noticing the confidence in her walk, sensing a lively presence about her that seemed to fill the corridor. They entered what must be the assembly hall, with a stage at one end and a piano in the corner.
She turned and gave him a beaming smile. ‘Silly me, I didn’t introduce myself, did I? Just left you following along like a lost puppy! I’m so sorry. I’m Mel.’ She held out her hand.
‘Luke.’ Her handshake was firm and warm, no nonsense, which he liked. He could smell her perfume, not overpowering, just a floral scent in the background. Clean and wholesome. Nice.
‘So, we’re a bit sexist here. Men are over there.’ She pointed to the opposite side of the hall, where half a dozen men stood chatting. ‘Women over here. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Geraint, our choir master. He’ll sort you out with the song sheets.’ She gave him that wonderful smile again. ‘What do you sing, by the way?’
‘To be honest, I haven’t really sung since I was at school and my voice hadn’t broken then.’ He shrugged, gave a nervous laugh. ‘It’s going to be a bit of a surprise to everyone, including me.’
Mel laughed. ‘Well, you can guarantee it won’t be as high as me. I’m soprano all the way.’
The choir master welcomed him with enthusiasm, the men being outnumbered by the women by at least two to one. ‘We’re all out of balance,’ Geraint said with a shake of his head. ‘Let’s hope you’re a strong tenor. Ours aren’t the youngest and their voices have seen better days.’
Luke looked at the huddle of men gathered at the right-hand side of the stage. Ten of them now and apart from a young man in his twenties, the age range did seem to fit in the pensioner bracket, whereas the women were a complete mix of ages. Mel had settled herself in the front row of the ladies’ group and when he caught her eye, she smiled and gave him the thumbs up. He smiled back, a burst of heat making his cheeks glow.
Over the course of the evening, it was surprising how quickly he found his voice again and it was, indeed, a tenor. The music swelled through him, smoothing the rough edges of his ragged emotions, and after a couple of songs, he started to relax. They were singing a mixture of gospel and pop anthems, many of which he knew. But he could read music, so even the songs he didn’t know weren’t too much of a problem.
‘Final song,’ Geraint said after what seemed like ten minutes, but was really an hour and a half. ‘Luke, I wonder if you’d do the solo on this one? “You Raise Me Up”. You must know it?’ He peered at Luke over the top of his glasses. ‘If you’d come down to the front here. And Mel, if you do the other solo? You know how it goes, d
on’t you?’
Mel nodded and walked over, so they were standing facing each other. She winked at him, eyes shining. She really is a gorgeous woman, he thought, and before he knew what he was doing it, he winked back. His heart was pounding. It must be twenty years since he’d sung solo, but he’d done a lot of it at school and had competed at the local music festivals, the Eisteddfodau. This was no different, he told himself, and took a few deep breaths as Geraint played the introduction, then he gave the song everything he’d got, his voice blending with Mel’s harmonies like sugar and spice.
When they finished there was silence for a moment and then an enthusiastic round of applause. He was tingling from head to toe and felt like he’d grown six inches taller. That was brilliant, he thought. Absolutely bloody brilliant. Mel took his hand and started bowing, like they’d done a proper performance, hamming it up, and he joined in, his cheeks flushed, and for the first time since Anna had died, he felt a flutter of happiness rise up in his chest, like a bird taking flight.
‘Do you fancy a drink?’ Mel said when they were all packing up. ‘A few of us go to the pub after practice. You’d be very welcome. Get to know some of the others.’
‘Oh, um, I should probably get back,’ he said, quickly. Then he wondered what the rush was. The rest of his family were at home and given that it was half eight, the kids were probably already tucked up in bed. Mel gazed at him, her large brown eyes clear and bright and he found he couldn’t look away. He smiled. ‘Okay then, why not?’
Seventeen
Around two months later, Luke put down the hay bale he was loading into the back of the pickup truck and answered his phone, a shiver of excitement working down his spine when he saw the name of the caller.
‘Hey, Nick. How’s things?’
‘Pretty good, mate. Pretty damned good.’
