Homecoming

by Susie Steiner

  ‘Arh, Barry Jordan,’ says Joe. ‘It’s no business of his.’

  ‘It is when he’s balancing our accounts,’ says Ann. ‘Anyway, you’re not the one has to go and see him.’

  ‘You’ll live,’ says Joe. ‘I’m going to ring Bartholomew. See how he’s getting on.’ He walks out to the hall and comes back holding the entire telephone unit, dragging the long wire behind him. He sets it on the table and sits down.

  Bartholomew picks up, just as Ann sets a bacon-and-egg sandwich down in front of him.

  ‘Bartholomew!’ says Joe, over-loud.

  ‘Hello,’ says Bartholomew. His small voice seems such a long way away.

  ‘We’re all here, so we thought we’d ring you!’ bellows Joe.

  *

  Bartholomew jerks his head away from the handset.

  ‘Hello,’ he says, bringing it closer but still not touching his ear. He’s standing at the counter, looking out of the warehouse window to the car park where he can see a van pulling up. The driver, a bald man with a pencil behind his ear, gets out then opens the van’s double doors before going round to the passenger seat. He picks up a clipboard and examines it. Bartholomew casts around the room for Leonard.

  ‘You’re all there, are you,’ he says into the phone, craning to look down the corridor.

  ‘We are, son. Here, your mother and Max want to hear you too.’

  ‘Just don’t put me on spea—’

  He can hear the echo already. The line fills up with the sound of clattering plates and frying.

  ‘There you go, love!’ shouts Ann. ‘You’re on the speakerphone!’

  They always did this – called him when they were all together and he wasn’t. As if it was their great gift to him – the sounds of family life speeding down wires the length of the country, north to south, thanks to the technological brilliance of the speakerphone. For them, he supposed, it was a way of having him at the table. And they couldn’t understand why he’d be itching to get off the line.

  The delivery-man has approached the counter, ignoring the fact that Bartholomew is on the phone. ‘Where do you want your bare rooters?’ he says. ‘I’ve got fifty cherries, and . . .’ he looks at his clipboard, ‘various apples. Hundred in all.’

  Bartholomew scans again for Leonard, puts a hand over the mouthpiece and nods at the corner of the warehouse. ‘Just drop them over there.’

  He returns to the phone call and its white noise. He can hear cutlery on plates, chairs scraping, his mother saying, ‘Another slice, Max?’

  ‘Lift the beet alright did ye?’ he says, hearing his voice repeat down the line.

  ‘Nearly there,’ says Joe. ‘No thanks to your brother. Says he were waiting for a gap in the wet.’ His father laughs. ‘Had to sort it myself in the end.’

  Bartholomew can picture Max reddening.

  Joe seems to realise he’s gone too far and quickly says, ‘It were no bother. We’ll finish by end of today, won’t, we son?’

  ‘If she doesn’t clog,’ says Max. ‘You should see the rust bucket he’s hired off Ted Wilson.’

  ‘Must be hardgoing,’ says Bartholomew. ‘It’s bad enough driving those things in the dry.’ He pictures Joe, small and hunched, and five hectares of fodder beet in the melting land to lift.

  But Joe is snorting. ‘Nah, it lifted those beet like it were hoovering up crumbs.’

  There was no helping him when he was bluff like this. There was no helping him at all, not from way down here.

  ‘How many lambs are you selling at Slingsby?’ Bartholomew asks.

  ‘More ’an two hundred,’ says Max. ‘Right fine they are too, the girls.’

  ‘And another two-hundred-odd stores,’ says Joe.

  Bartholomew watches the delivery-man bring in the last of the saplings, each about four foot high, their roots wrapped in hessian sacks like Christmas puddings. Bartholomew signs the docket, mouths ‘Thanks’ and watches him leave.

  ‘Any news about Maguires?’ Ann shouts, from somewhere in the kitchen, probably the stove. ‘Are they still opening up near you?’ He’d only told her about it a week ago and now she’s wanting hourly bulletins. ‘Maybe you could get a little job with them. Something nice and secure.’

  Bartholomew doesn’t bother responding. The spattering down the line is giving him a headache.

  ‘How are the petunias?’ asks Joe.

  Max is quick to join in: ‘Has the bottom fallen out of the pansy market yet?’

  He hears his mother saying, ‘Shurrup you two.’

  ‘Fine, can I go now?’ says Bartholomew. He’s always letting this one go. Joe has never visited the garden centre and their conversations about it end badly.

  ‘OK son,’ says Joe.

  ‘Bye lovey!’ he hears Ann shouting in the background. ‘And let me know about Maguires.’

  He puts the phone down before she’s finished and marches to the back of the warehouse, peering down the dark corridor at the end of which is a door with a mottled glass panel. A light glows dimly from the room and he can make out the outline of Leonard, who is sat with the newspaper open, elbows on knees. He’d seen the headline earlier that morning. ‘Councillor Brands Shopping Trolleys “a Menace” ’. The perfect marriage of man and reading material.

  Bartholomew hears a distant flush and Leonard emerges from the corridor, newspaper folded under his arm.

  ‘These need putting outside,’ he says to Leonard. ‘I don’t know why I got him to bring them in. Would’ve helped if you’d taken the delivery.’

  Leonard has returned to his stool behind the counter and his shanty town of order books.

  ‘God it’s cold,’ says Bartholomew. ‘Have you lit the stove?’

  ‘And what did your last slave die of?’

  ‘The burner’s right next to you,’ says Bartholomew.

  ‘Well it is now. Looks like you’ve got a visitor,’ says Leonard, and they both look out of the warehouse window to see Ruby’s pea-green coat at the main gate. Her hair is the colour of marmalade shot through with sunlight. Bartholomew hurries towards her.

  *

  She sees him coming round the side of the building, walking towards her energetically in his bottle-green fleece and heavy boots. He looks lovely and outdoorsy, she thinks. Lovely curls. Unbrushed. And immediately she regrets last night. He’d been sat there hunched over his laptop for what seemed like hours while she’d twittered on about this, that and nothing. And she’d got fed up of him not responding, especially when she was treading so carefully, fighting so hard not to mention Christmas and whether they were going to spend it together, tiptoeing around it in her head and forcibly stopping herself from saying, ‘I might go travelling actually. Round Asia.’ Because there was always a risk she’d have to go and she can’t think of anything she wants to do less. She wants to watch Only Fools and Horses together and eat his mother’s turkey dinner. Walk across the fell holding hands. It’d been such a gathering strain, not saying all this, that she’d exploded with the words: ‘I’m going back to my flat if you don’t get off that bloody laptop.’

  And he’d looked up, bewildered, saying, ‘Sorry, I was just reading an email.’ But he’d been distracted the rest of the evening, like he was somewhere else altogether. In the night, he’d thrashed about, fighting wildly for the duvet, throwing her off when she tried to curl her body around his back.

  ‘Hello,’ he says, smiling at her.

  ‘There was a letter for you this morning, so I thought I’d drop it by.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he says.

  ‘Who’s it from?’ she asks, peering at it.

  ‘Dunno, looks official.’

  He puts the envelope in the back pocket of his jeans. They stand for a moment and then he points over his shoulder with one thumb.

  ‘I’ve got a lot on, Rube.’

  ‘OK,’ she says. But she doesn’t shift. ‘Shall we go to the pub later?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she as
ks.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

  ‘You seem moody.’

  ‘I’m not moody. You’re moody.’

  ‘Alright, calm down.’ The wind blows her hair over her face and lifts her hood, which only adds to a feeling of general discomfort. ‘OK, well, see you later.’ She hunches her shoulders, waves a cramped wave and walks out of the garden-centre gates.

  *

  He walks down the central path to the lower boundary and looks out over the rough and the rolling downs that fall away at the bottom of his land. Benign fields, like a sea without surf. He can see the beauty of it, this garden of England, but it doesn’t stir him the way North Yorkshire does.

  He takes the letter out of his back pocket and tears at it with his thumb. It is from Maguires suggesting a meeting to discuss its expansion plans.

  Maguires does not believe in aggressive marketplace domination. We believe there is room for all kinds of enterprise, offering customers a diversity of experience – from small independents such as yourself, to the bigger chains. We believe your business can thrive alongside the new 100,000-square-foot garden and DIY destination due to open next spring at West Tilsey. Please come to our Powerpoint presentation at our head office, where we will fully inform you of developments, and share a glass of champagne with regional centre manager Carl Snape.

  Nice, he thinks. Happy to wine and dine me while putting me out of business.

  ‘Excuse me, do you work here?’ says a voice. Bartholomew looks up to see a woman in a woollen grey coat and brown boots, with sunglasses on her head.

  ‘I do, yes,’ says Bartholomew. ‘Can I help with something?’

  ‘Can you advise me what I can plant now? Or do I have to wait until spring?’

  ‘No, not at all. There’s lots you can put in now – some wonderful hardy perennials.’ He begins to lead her to a trough filled with rows of black plastic pots. ‘Here we’ve got geraniums and pelargoniums. Or there’s columbines or bear’s breeches. Put any of these in now and they’ll get a head start before spring.’

  The woman is frowning. ‘But these are just pots of earth.’

  ‘Well, yes, it looks like that. But they’ll come bursting up in spring.’

  ‘I’m not paying good money for a pot of earth.’

  ‘They’re not pots of earth, they’re perennials.’

  ‘Still. I want something that looks nice. And something that doesn’t need looking after. Something neat.’

  Bartholomew sighs. ‘Come on, I’ll show you the skimmias.’

  He leaves the woman at the till with Leonard and walks back down the main path, eyeing up the troughs on either side which are filled with bedraggled stems and desiccated leaves or bare earth. Joe wouldn’t reckon much on the place, not if he saw it now, he thinks, taking out a pair of secateurs from his back pocket. He climbs to the back of a bed, towards a tangle of rose stems whipped about by a rampant honeysuckle. He’s allowed himself these pockets of planting around the garden centre – his artistic eye at work.

  He squeezes the secateurs in his right hand, pulling at the tangle with his left. Perhaps Joe’ll visit next summer, and by then he can have it looking better. If he’s still in business. He’d known about Maguires of course – had seen the articles in Leonard’s Chronicle about planning rows and the campaign against out-of-town giants by pensioners in socks and sandals. ‘We’ll support you,’ his regular customers said, like it was terminal. It was only a matter of time before some local hack called him ‘plucky’.

  He is pulling at vast canopies of growth, when his phone vibrates in his pocket. Three texts from Ruby.

  Oi, grumpy trousers. How you?

  The second says:

  Taken out rage on petunias yet?

  What’s the bloody obsession with petunias?

  Fancy quiz at Crown 2nite? Starts 6pm.

  He hurriedly texts back:

  Can’t get off that early. Pint at Three Kings instead?

  He puts his phone back in his pocket and goes at the stems again with the secateurs. He is standing awkwardly, one leg in the midst of the plant, pulling and clipping, when his phone vibrates. He curses and climbs out of the bed.

  R: Right u r. Shame. Would hve thrashed you on sport.

  B: Yeah right

  R: Ask me anything

  Wearily, he sets his thumbs working.

  B: OK. Here is classic. Swedish boxer, world heavyweight champion. 1959?

  R: Gawd. Ingemar Johansson?

  B: r u on Wikipedia?

  R: Nope, I say Ingemar Johannson to anything Swedish

  B: Good work

  He puts his phone back in his pocket and looks at the pile of stems he has thrown onto the path. His pocket vibrates. Bloody hell Ruby, he thinks. Two texts.

  Man at table 5 eating bogies behind FT. NICE.

  Then the second one says:

  I love texting

  He smiles to himself and begins to text back, just as Leonard walks up the path towards him carrying a mug of tea.

  I know you do

  ‘Ooof,’ Leonard says, taking a sip. ‘What’s that rose ever done to you?’

  *

  A ham is boiling, sending steam into the yellowish light of Max and Primrose’s kitchen.

  ‘How was the beet?’ she asks, as he walks in from his wet day.

  ‘Like wading through treacle.’

  He takes off his Barbour and hangs it on the back of a chair where it drips onto the lino. She wonders if he’ll do what he usually does – reserve the gloom for her. But the room is warm and filled with the sweet and smoky smell of the ham and she is happy, standing at the stove, stirring the pan. She wants things to stay nice, knows better than to ask why Joe took the beet job off him. Things’ll change now, anyway.

  ‘Dad hired a right hunk o’rust for the job,’ says Max. ‘You should’ve seen it. Bloody miracle we lifted it.’

  ‘Well that’s good then, that you lifted it in a day. That’s one less pressure for the month.’

  He has sat down on a chair, his legs spread wide and one forearm resting on the table top. If he’d walked into a bank that day, and shot all the people inside it, she’d have the fewest theories as to his state of mind in the run-up to the incident. They functioned on the practicalities, she and Max: things that needed fixing or buying; a family lunch to go to; starting a family because they were two years into marriage and the time was right. This evening, with a ham boiling and the kitchen’s electric light yellow against the grey descending night outside, things are uncommonly content between them. She looks at him, her big man sat at the table. He is saying something else about the fodder beet. His black hair – long and curly – is wet from the rain. She never thought she’d have a big man like that of her own. And she suspects he never thought he’d have a woman for himself. And the achievement, for both of them, is a bolster in a world that seemed to have overlooked them. Like they’d planted their flag in the ground, just like other people. And now this news. She is bringing plates to the table and smiling to herself. She is rich with new information. And everything around her seems new, too: the table she’s laying; their kitchen, which only this morning seemed all worn out. She’s cleared away her tools – she knows how it annoys him, her wiring – because she wants nothing to spoil the moment. Ever since she’d found out, she’d been rehearsing how she’d tell him and his lines too, adjusting them until he said just the things she wanted.

  ‘It’s just a nightmare, is October,’ he says over her thoughts. ‘And this rain’s not making anything easier.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is that from Alan Tench?’ he says, peering up into the pan on the stove.

  He might look at her differently, once he knows. He might touch her differently. With reverence. She’s fizzing with it. Because the tingling was something – not just an idea in her imagination. A real thing had happened. And big things – things that changed the course of your life – well, they hardly ever happened.

  ‘Yes,’ s
he says. ‘He brought it round yesterday.’ She strokes a hand across his shoulder as she turns back towards the stove and he looks up, surprised.

  ‘Looks nice and pink,’ he says.

  ‘It’s a good one,’ she says. ‘It were positive. I did a test today and it were positive.’

  ‘Really?’

  She can see his mind whirring. There’s a slight flicker in his eyeballs, left and right. The news is going in.

  ‘Really?’ he says to her. ‘It were really positive?’

  ‘It was.’ And she waits for him to get up, like he might have done in a film, dance her round the kitchen, his hands on her hips. Or hold her face in his hands and kiss her with a passion he’s never expressed before.

  ‘Well then,’ says Max, and he is smiling, she’ll give him that, but he’s still seated. He has sat up straighter and he begins to pat the table top with the flat of his hand. Pat pat pat. Agitated.

  ‘Well,’ he says again.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ll ring dad and tell ’im. They’ll be cock-a-hoop.’

  ‘I’m not three months yet,’ she says. ‘You’re not supposed to tell anyone until you’re three months.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m telling dad.’

  ‘Wait a little bit, will ye? It’s very early.’

  ‘When then?’

  ‘Next month. Tell ’im next month.’

  ‘Alright then. I’m going for a wash.’

  ‘OK,’ she says. ‘Tea’s ten minutes.’

  He stops in the doorway. ‘Prim?’ he says. ‘It’s good in’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  Primrose stands at the counter, sawing slices of bread. The loaf collapses under her hand. He’s pleased, she can see that, and maybe that should be enough – a husband pleased to be having a bairn. She sits down at the kitchen table, her mind readjusting itself. It won’t be quite the together thing, not like she’d thought. And the disappointment soaks in at the base of her, like yard mud. It’ll be a private thing, like all her other private things. This is not us, not really. It’s me. And she closes down, as she has so often before, not in a petulant way, but just practical, so the nerve endings aren’t exposed. Like insulation tape round a wire.