At Monkpark you were lucky if it was just mice in the larder. I’d once had to eject a full-grown deer that had been at the spuds.
‘Plus, hot prat.’ Julia was looking him over now too and I gave her a jab in the ribs. Julia’s ‘types’ included everything from Richard Armitage down to the lean young work-experience boy who trimmed the hedges, so her fancying our new boss wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it was going to make life awkward. Jules had a tendency to go off in full pursuit of any man that took her fancy like a whippet after a sausage. I was usually recruited to ride shotgun on these quests, providing advice, reassurance, tissues and, occasionally, sandwiches, if it looked like being a long job. It was a role I’d been born to. Next to Julia – oh, all right, even without Julia – I was the kind of girl that men’s eyes just seemed to slide off. Nondescript. Chunky, serviceable body, brownish hair, blueish eyes … if anyone had ever had to produce a ‘Wanted’ poster featuring me, they could have used ‘ish’ as my main descriptive factor.
‘Mind on the job, Jules.’
‘I’m sure you will all have been expecting me before now, but it turns out that the vagaries of North Yorkshire roads are beyond the reach of satnav.’ Pause for laughter, some of which was a little raucous because of the free wine … ‘My name is Edmund Evershott and I’m here to take over management of Monkpark Hall on behalf of the Heritage Trust.’
New Boss began giving a speech about how he hoped this would usher in a new era in customer service and an increase in visitor numbers – the usual sort of talk you get when someone takes on an enterprise and wants to Make Their Mark. To be honest, I was too busy keeping an eye on Julia, who was using the speech-time to hitch her Edwardian skirt up to reveal her ankles, to really listen to his words, until he rounded off with ‘and I hope we’ll all work together very smoothly’, which I only heard because I’d stopped looking at her and was looking at the slowly opening door under the staircase, which led into the Library from the hallway beyond. The door creaked wide, and Josh came through, the errant Bane, now hooded, on his fist. Josh walked into the crowd of wine drinkers, hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and walked on, causing New Boss’s final words to stammer off into silence as he stared at the falconer and his bird wandering through the assembled throng towards the opposite door.
‘Excuse me?’ Edmund raised his voice, beautifully modulated, to carry across. ‘Why are you walking through the Library?’
Josh didn’t even slow down. He just raised his arm a little higher, to indicate the falcon perched on it and said, ‘Short cut, mate,’ then closed the door behind him without turning round. Everyone was so used to Josh and his vagaries that nobody reacted, because nobody else thought this was strange behaviour, apart from New Boss Edmund, who took off his glasses and stared at the door, then raised an eyebrow.
‘Ooh, the eyebrow thing,’ Julia whispered. ‘Deeply sexy, that is.’
I gripped her elbow. ‘It’s only sexy when Mr Spock does it.’
I looked around the Library so as not to have to watch Jules doing her ‘soft, interested smile, catch eye, bigger smile, head toss’ routine. I’d been watching it in action since we were fourteen, when she’d made me start sitting behind her on the school bus so that the seat alongside was empty for her latest conquest. I hadn’t minded as much as you might think, the school was a three quarters of an hour bus ride away, and I used to get a phenomenal amount of homework done on the journey, plus having it driven home to me on a daily basis how impossibly superficial XY chromosomes seemed to make you.
‘Could Miss Amy Knowles and Miss Julia Neville stay behind please, everyone else, you are dismissed.’ Edmund came down from his ‘addressing the crowd’ position on the staircase, slowly descending the polished oak treads as though he was going for maximum impact. There was a kind of smugness about him, as if he was used to having women follow him with their eyes, and their mouths going droopily slack. Jules was illustrating his point nicely, in fact.
People began milling around near the doors, everyone trying to head home without leaving any wine surplus so there were little knots of congestion in the doorways as glasses were emptied, sometimes repeatedly.
Julia’s eyes had widened. ‘Wow. Singled out already, Ames, we are good.’
But I’d already felt the conflict tightening in my chest, pulling me away. ‘It’s nearly six. You know I can’t stay, the agreement is that I work until six and I never do overtime without prior arrangement …’ My voice was rising in panic. Even the thought of leaving Julia unattended in the vicinity of someone who signed our pay cheques wasn’t enough to sever the tie that dragged at my heart, coupled me up between the cafe and home as though the weight of obligation and love hauled the two buildings together like a stone on a rubber sheet. ‘We work in a teashop. There shouldn’t be overtime. Once the scones are gone, it’s lights out, goodnight Vienna.’
‘What?’
‘Just an expression that Gran … never mind. And I had to walk up this morning ’cos the bike had a puncture, so I have to get off or I’ll be late.’
Julia pulled the ‘sensible one’ trick, a move so rare that it was probably endangered. ‘Look. It’s not six yet. Give him a couple of minutes, he may only want to check us out – well, we can hope, can’t we? Or maybe he wants our “insider perspective” into working at Monkpark, but either way, just hang around a bit, Ames.’ Then, hitting home, ‘We both need the job, we can’t afford to go upsetting the new boss at this stage, can we?’
I closed my eyes for a second. Played the alternative scenarios in my head. ‘Okay, you’re right, I can’t just disappear, but please, don’t keep him talking.’
She was already heading across the polished wooden floor towards Edmund. Her heels clattered over the waxed and shiny boards, attracting his attention to our approach, while my sensible flats squealed and squeaked like distressed hamsters. ‘Oh, don’t worry so much,’ she muttered over her shoulder. ‘You are sooo boring sometimes, Ames.’
I bit my lip so as not to remind her that she knew exactly why I was ‘boring’, but she was already drawing up in front of Edmund, who’d replaced his glasses and was consulting an iPad, so she’d wasted the head tossing and the catwalk stride she’d used across the wooden floor. But, then again, in our Edwardian maid costumes, she’d looked less like Zooey Deschanel and more like a Dalek given a hearty shove. ‘Ah. You would be …’
‘Julia Neville.’ She didn’t bother to introduce me, but then I suppose someone who can’t work things out from a process of deduction on a list of two isn’t really management potential. ‘How can we help you …’ Toying with the idea of using his first name, but even Julia, with her blonde hair and long legs, couldn’t be quite sure of a conquest. ‘… Mister Evershott?’
I fidgeted and looked down at my feet. The elastic of my cap was loosening, I could feel the whole thing beginning to ride up my head and preparing to sit on the top of my hair like a knotted hanky on the beach.
‘You two run the cafe on behalf of the Heritage Trust?’ He had pale blue eyes behind those thin-rimmed glasses, and a slightly chilly expression that made them look paler still, like bluebells in a frost. ‘And the premises are part of Monkpark Hall …’
Julia launched into an explanation of how we’d set up the cafe in the old stable block when the Heritage Trust had restored the building six years ago, how we baked all our own produce on site, how she and I lived in the estate village … she stopped short of giving him her bra size and phone number, but I had the feeling it was only his slightly cool reaction to her spiel that prevented her.
‘Hmm.’ Edmund tilted back his chin and looked at us down his cheekbones like someone sighting down a rifle. ‘Well, this is just a friendly warning then … I’m thinking of giving up the cafe and turning the stables into an education room.’
As he finished speaking I heard the dread sound of the clock on
the top of the old coachhouse begin its pre-chime whirring sound, and the first strike of six o’clock rang its hollow tone out across the sheep-dotted Monkpark acres. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go …’
I was already turning, my rubber soles announcing my intentions to the room. ‘But, Miss Knowles, we need to discuss—’
‘I’m sorry, I have to.’ I broke into a run and, as I did so, my Edwardian maid’s cap gave up the last of its pretence of elasticity and pinged off my head, flying off to land somewhere behind me. I didn’t bother to go back for it; instead I careered out of the main house doors and out along the gravelled driveway like a cheap Cinderella with time management issues, my shoes now crunching my departure as I fled towards home.
CHAPTER TWO
Josh
It’s a weird place, this. Not weird weird, I mean, buildings are all right, it’s the people. Not all of them, some are okay, some are more than okay, but the rest? Just weird.
It’s like they don’t understand the birds. They seem to think we’re just some kind of tourist attraction thing, as if the birds fly to order to look pretty, draw in the customers, they don’t realise that these things are hunters, not decorations. That I’m here to try to show that, to try to stop people taking these birds and pretending like they’re pets, keeping them all shut up in cages where they can’t even stretch out their wings, let alone take off. I’m here to show that if you keep them right and train them right, then they’ll fly for you …
Well. Usually. Bane now, she’s a bit of a case, but she’s coming round, she comes back more often than not, well … more often than she used to, anyway. And there’s Skrillex, well, he’ll never fly ’cos owls and cars don’t mix and his wing’ll never be right but he walks pretty and does the eye thing and people like him.
And I know they think I’m weird too. Maybe that’s why I came here, because maybe weird attracts weird, but I know they’d never have found anyone else to live in this caravan, where the toilet is basically a bucket down the field and if you want a shower your best bet is to get your clothes off and hope for rain. But it’s a roof, and there’s a decent place for the birds, and the cafe’s always got spare buns hanging around, so, yeah, could be worse. Just wish I knew why all people want to do is sit around and chat about stuff that means nothing; the weather, what’s on TV, all things that we can’t do anything about. Why does nobody talk about the things we can change? About cruelty and loneliness and isolation and crap like that? It’s like they don’t want to mention anything that might want changing, just in case someone expects them to do something, but I reckon it’s enough just to acknowledge that there are things out there beyond Hollyoaks and if it’s going to rain at the weekend. But they all love to sit and chatter, all hunched up together like the rooks that sit in the high points of the trees.
Amy – she’s different. She doesn’t gossip with the girls who come in to clean, or the room guides that show the crowds around the old place. She keeps herself separate, she’s like Bane. Like she doesn’t need any of this stuff … So when I saw her running out of the house on the stroke of six just as I’d got the bike ready for a run into town, I didn’t think twice.
‘Jump on.’
‘Josh, I haven’t got a helmet.’
‘Private land and I’m not going to crash. Jump on.’
She hesitated, but I could see that look in her eye, that look that said she was panicked enough not to worry about how legal it was. Then she was climbing up behind me, all cautious in that Edwardian maid’s uniform that she and Julia wear in the cafe, I guess she was trying not to show her knickers to the world.
‘Put your arms round my waist.’
‘What?’
‘Otherwise you’ll tip off.’
She did it, but really slowly and all sort of loose, like she didn’t really want to make contact with the jacket or me, but once I kicked the bike on and it did the slide on the gravel as the wheels tried for grip, she grabbed a lot tighter. I throttled back, compensating for the extra weight and the way she couldn’t lean to counterbalance us and we crunched up the mile of drive that Monkpark is so proud of at no more than sixty. Over the cattle grid at the end, out onto the little country road linking us with the nearest town, then right and down the hill to the estate village. Geared down, braked and pulled up outside the cottage by the oak tree.
She gradually let go of the back of my jacket, sort of peeling off like she’d been sticking to me. Didn’t think I’d been that scary, it was a slow old ride with the grit and the grid and then the hills, but I guess if you’ve not been on the back of a bike before it’s a bit windy.
‘You’re home.’
‘Thank you.’ She sounded a bit breathless, and when I flipped the visor to look at her she’d got her hair all sticking backwards. She’s got that kind of half straight hair, where it goes all curly at the ends and all sort of thick and crazy, but now it looked more like it was trying to be released into the wild. ‘Seriously, thanks, Josh.’
I wanted to smile. Seriously, I wanted to give her a grin that said, ‘Any time, just ask,’ but she looked busy, like her mind was already on something else and I didn’t want to intrude on whatever it was. I know, with the birds, when they’re hunting they are so single-minded, so focussed that there’s not really any point in trying to call them in, and she looked like that. So I flipped down the visor and just sort of nodded. Felt a bit of a dick, really, I mean, could have said something, but what was the point? So I just gunned the bike and headed off to the supermarket.
CHAPTER THREE
Amy
I was lucky, Gran was just home from the day centre. I could tell from the way she was still walking around the room, tweaking everything into order even though nobody had been in all day and it was still as tidy as it had been when she left.
‘Someone’s been in, look at these curtains. Left these curtains hanging straight, now look at them! And someone’s been fiddling with my spoons, comes to something when even your spoons aren’t left alone. Place is a mess …’
‘It’s all right, Gran, I’ll sort it out in a minute.’ I went through to the kitchen to put the kettle on, but she followed me. She always did, as though she was worried that if she let me out of her sight I’d be through the little window and heading for Scunthorpe as fast as my pedals would go. To be fair, she had a point.
‘Let it boil properly this time. And two tea bags, one isn’t enough.’
‘Yes, Gran.’
‘Did I see you on the back of that motorbike?’
I sighed. I’d been hoping against all knowledge of my grandmother that she hadn’t seen my arrival. ‘Josh gave me a lift back; my bike had a puncture this morning so I’d have had to walk back otherwise.’
‘They’re dangerous, those things. And this “Josh”, who’s he when he’s at home? You’re not going to start going out with some boy, are you? I mean, we know nothing about him, or his family, could be anyone. Could be one of these murdering incomers they’re always on about, trying to get you to go off in the woods and you’re never seen again.’
‘You know who Josh is, he’s been at the Hall for six months, he does the flying demonstrations with his birds of prey … anyway, we’ve just got a new boss!’ Distraction usually worked. Replace one menace with another. She couldn’t cope with more than one train of thought at a time which was something to be grateful for, and she didn’t mean any of it, not really, she couldn’t help being this way.
‘Mary left, has she?’
I poured the boiling water into the teapot, being careful to get it to exactly the point where the spout started, no more, no less. ‘Gran, Mary left before I started. It was John running the place, remember? He’s gone to Scotland to manage a house up there. Anyway, the new guy is called Edmund Evershott, and I’ve got a horrible feeling …’
No Amy, don’t. Don’t even mention what
he said about closing the cafe, she’ll only start to worry…
‘… that Julia fancies him.’ I managed to deflect myself.
Gran sniffed. ‘That young lady is all fur coat and no knickers. She’ll find herself in trouble one of these days, mark my words. Her mother was just the same as a girl, of course, eyes roaming around the entire male population of North Yorkshire, wasn’t a man safe from young Annie in those days.’
I smiled and let her talk while I finished making the tea. Gran had been born and brought up here, not just here, but in this house; she’d worked on the estate back in the days when it had still been a family seat, before it had been handed over to the Heritage Trust in 1976. She’d met Grandad when he’d come in to advise on the gardens and my mother had followed her mother into working in the house. I was as much a product of Monkpark Hall as the orchard apples.
As always, we had tea, watched television until half past seven, and then Gran, with the air of one surprised by the sound of the clock striking said, as always, ‘Well, been a busy day. Better get my beauty sleep.’
And then I, as I always did, got her a glass of milk, a cheese sandwich and the purple tablets for her heart. Watched her eat and drink, gave her the usual reassurances that the tablets were fresh out of the packet, no, nobody could have tampered with them, I’d taken them out of the blister pack myself, and kissed her goodnight. Listened to the sound of her moving about in her bedroom, which was like a cross between a cave and a Christmas bazaar, straightening the ornaments and pictures on the bedside table, the creak of the old metal bedstead as she climbed in, and let my breath out on the descending quiet.
Living in the Past Page 29
