Homecoming

by Susie Steiner

  ‘Only natural,’ says Ron, ‘if he’s to have a little ’un.’

  Joe flinches, hadn’t realised how much this talk would rankle. ‘He’s a lot to learn. We’ll do it gradual like.’

  ‘Not too gradual I hope,’ says Eric. ‘Children are not known for their patience.’

  ‘No, well, I’m not out of the picture just yet,’ says Joe. ‘Let’s just see how he goes.’

  *

  Bartholomew straightens himself, his breathing heavy, and holds the brush’s wooden handle with both hands. He’s built up a sweat clearing the leaves and has taken off his fleece.Behind him is a whole avenue of plants which need potting; and everywhere a mess of dried stems which must be pruned off. Wonderful work, if only there was time. But in an hour the sun will plop below the horizon and the interminable winter evening will set in. Nothing depressed him more than 4 p.m. darkness. Even with floodlights or dragging plants into the warehouse, it was a struggle to keep the life of the garden centre ignited in the winter months.

  He remembers a general slump which took over his family in the run-up to the clocks going back at the end of October, when all the jobs on the farm became a strain – the discomfort of cold, the dark mornings, the tripping up on unseen stones and the way the wet penetrated your bones. Even the laborious pulling-on of winter gear: waterproof trousers, hats, gloves that were stiff and scratchy, three pairs of socks inside heavy boots, so that you were tired before you’d even stepped out of the door. And then, in summer, the sloughing-off of this second skin. As early as March, they all began to breathe out, their bodies relaxing into lighter anoraks and wellingtons. And the physical lightness of stepping out in an ever-warming spring seemed to give the whole family an exuberance.

  Not just the family. He remembers hearing it in the jovial conversations in the streets in Lipton or in the Fox of an evening. Everyone looking forward to lambing and then a warm May. And the smell of foliage straining forward and the grass so green it made your eyes water with happiness.

  He starts sweeping again, aware that the light is fading. He stops and takes out his phone, switching it on. Three messages from Ruby, mostly pictures of food.

  Sturdy but too much salt. R.

  Winstanton in shock as soufflé rises. R.

  Mung beans actually not disgusting. Who knew? R.

  He takes off one glove and texts her back.

  Running late. B.

  *

  ‘So that’s a pot of tea for two. Anything to eat? I’ve got a lovely carrot cake. Come on ladies, you know you want to,’ says Ruby. She feels her phone vibrate in her apron pocket. The two women look at each other, then hunch their shoulders in delight.

  ‘Oooh go on then. We really shouldn’t. One slice to share.’

  ‘Right you are,’ says Ruby.

  The café has its usual smattering of teatime customers: the two ladies who will giggle and chat conspiratorially; the balding man who always takes the most secluded corner, setting out his laptop, looking up at Ruby often, as if in need of confirmation that his work – whatever it is he’s writing – is important. There’s a young woman at another table, texting on her phone. Next to her is a pram, entirely shrouded in a blanket and with a seeming exclusion zone around it, as if it’s a bomb that could detonate at any moment. The woman texts with her arms close to her sides and she keeps on her coat. Ruby gives the pram a wide berth as she walks down the long room to the back kitchen.

  She puts the kettle on and takes down a metal teapot from a high cupboard. She puts this and two cups and saucers onto a tray. She is facing into the room, working on a counter which forms part of an open serving hatch between the kitchen and the tea room. The café window is now an oblong of purplish blue, smeared with lights from the street outside. As she waits for the kettle to boil, she surveys the Christmas decorations she’s been arranging in the window: several loops of flashing multicoloured fairy lights; a row of powdery snowmen figures in a row, each one smaller than the last; some spray snow at the corners of the window; a series of low-hanging golden paper lanterns (a bit torn, admittedly), which bob from the ceiling.

  Needs something more, she thinks. Then she remembers the buzz from her apron pocket and takes out her phone.

  Running late. B.

  He was always keeping her waiting, always a flat hand up to her exuberance. She’d wanted to go with him to that Maguires thingy. No, I’d best go alone he’d said. She wanted them to move in together. We will do in time, he said. And now there was Christmas, hanging there like a big torn sodding lantern. Grown-up couples, she felt, spent Christmas together. They didn’t act like they were still seventeen with pants in separate flats. She’s exhausted, she realises looking at his text, with walking this tightrope with him. Hoping for more, that he’ll come to it in time. Staying because she loves him. Trying to hold herself back but then boiling underneath with the feeling that she’s disguising herself. And then back to the beginning again. Careful. Cautious. Because she wants him. She doesn’t want to lose him.

  She goes to the fridge and pulls out the carrot cake, its foil hat jostling against the others. She hurriedly takes the tea tray to the ladies and marches back to the kitchen, acknowledging the pram woman, who has raised her hand. That edge looks a bit messy, she says to herself, looking at the carrot cake. She cuts a slither and turns her back to the café room, tumbling crumbs into her upturned mouth.

  Ruby had tried diets, but she found it hard to come to terms with restraint as a way of life. She wanted to finish the slab, lick the bowl, hoover up the crumbs, take it to the next layer. Dieting, she felt, was a bit like spending months learning a new and difficult language when you knew you were only going to visit the country for a couple of weeks; you were never going to live there. She couldn’t inhabit the land of smaller portions.

  She takes pram woman her bill, standing beside the table while the lady counts out her coins. She watches a half-socked foot, poking out from under the pram’s blanket, begin to twitch.

  ‘Ruby Dalton as I live and breathe!’ says a voice in the doorway.

  She sees a big man, buff, in a navy pea coat with gold buttons and charcoal wool scarf knotted at the neck. Well turned out. He is clean-shaven – a rather forgettable face – and hair slicked back with wet-look gel. Where does she know him from? Not one of those customers, she hopes, who couldn’t take the hint. Someone from her book club? Her mind is whirring, trying to place him. Yes.

  It is Dave Garside, she realises, without much pleasure. Dave from school. Brave Dave (he was always rock-climbing or bungee-jumping or risking his life in one way or another). What was he doing down south?

  ‘What brings you here?’ she says as he bends towards her, putting his cheek to hers. The double. She hates kissing relative strangers. Always feels it like an invasion of her privacy. She doesn’t want to smell people up close. What’s Brave Dave doing air-kissing, any road? They never did that back in Leeds.

  ‘Just moved here for work. I’ve been living in Guildford but the firm’s moved me to the Winstanton office. I’m just getting my bearings.’

  ‘Come in and have a brew,’ says Ruby, injecting generosity into her voice.

  Dave follows her down the long room, stooping to dodge the gold lanterns but hitting them anyway. He pulls up a stool on the café side of the hatch and Ruby puts the kettle on.

  ‘This is a nice surprise. I’d never have put you down south,’ he says. ‘When did you move here?’

  ‘About two years ago. I like it. It’s small. Friendly too.’

  She hands him his tea.

  ‘So this is your headquarters,’ Dave says, looking around the café room. Ruby can see him taking in the worn carpets and scratched tables. ‘Very impressive.’

  ‘’Scuse us,’ she says, and goes to attend to the two ladies who are preparing to leave.

  The café is emptying as the clock ticks towards closing time, but Dave shows no sign of hopping it. She wants to pull out the Hoover and cash up but he’s sitt
ing there, on his high stool, looking down at a folded newspaper that someone has discarded. He’s taken her pen from the corner of the hatch.

  ‘Seven letters,’ he says. ‘I’m tremendously keen to dissipate fat and I can.’ She sucks in her stomach and tugs on the back of her skirt. ‘No idea, Dave,’ she says. She bends to fill the dishwasher, still holding in her tummy, the crumbs mingling with slurries of strawberry sauce.

  ‘Fan-at-ic,’ he says, filling it in with her pen. ‘Fanatic.’

  He was always like this at school. Superior.

  ‘So whereabouts are you living?’ he asks.

  ‘Theobald Road. It’s just along the river from here. I’ve got a little flat. And my boyfriend lives in the same street.’ She throws it in, airily.

  ‘Nice. You’re all set up then. Are you going home for Christmas? Or spending it with your fella?’

  She flinches. ‘Oh no, god no, it’s early days. Haven’t really decided.’

  ‘I can’t wait to go back,’ says Dave.

  ‘You got a girlfriend?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Haven’t met the right girl yet.’ And he winks at her, then goes back to his crossword. He really is very muscly.

  ‘Brazilian music, Ruby. “The Girl from Ipanema”.’

  Ruby turns from the dishwasher and starts to sing, sashaying and smiling. ‘Tall and tan and da-da-da something, the girl from Ipanema goes walking.’

  Dave is drinking her in.

  ‘Do you know,’ she says, glittering a bit under his gaze. ‘I think that’s bossa nova. Would that fit?’

  *

  Bartholomew props his bicycle against the wall outside the café. He is covered in a sheen of sweat, having pedalled hard from the garden centre on the outskirts of town, past the castle and through the abbey gardens to the centre – Market Street, where her café is. It’s a shabby place – the sort that serves toasted cheese sandwiches with shavings of carrot on the side. A waste of her talents, he always thinks. Ruby’s cooking is so much better than that: monkfish with pancetta, risottos and soufflés, steamed asparagus topped with perfect poached eggs. All of it tried out on him at home. She’s the sort of cook who stoops over the plate.

  It is fully dark now and Ruby’s fairy lights trip out their coloured rhythm, doggedly. He can see her dancing in the back kitchen, a man sat on a high stool. His very broad back. He seems to be writing something. He sees them laugh together.

  Bartholomew pushes open the door.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, kissing him on the cheek. ‘Come and meet Dave. Bartholomew Hartle, Dave Garside. Dave Garside, Bartholomew Hartle.’

  ‘Bartholomew,’ says broad-backed Dave. ‘That’s an unusual name. Bit of a mouthful.’

  Fuck off, thinks Bartholomew. ‘You’re from the north, too,’ he says.

  ‘Ruby and I were at school together. This is my new local,’ says Dave. ‘I didn’t realise the food was so good.’

  ‘Ruby’s a good cook.’

  ‘You’re lucky.’

  ‘I am, yes. Shall we go, Rube?’

  ‘I have to lock up.’

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ says Dave. ‘I’m off. See you soon, Ruby – tomorrow probably.’

  Bartholomew watches his huge outline disappear out of the door.

  ‘He’s buff,’ he says.

  ‘He works out,’ says Ruby, absently, pulling a fistful of keys from her bag.

  Bartholomew wheels his bicycle slowly along the smooth tarmac of the riverside path. The air is tinkling now with a light drizzle which pinks and plocks onto the surface of the river and patters through the tall trees. Ruby is walking on his left, the hood of her pea-green coat up so that all he can see is one shiny red cheek and the way her hair has curled with the moisture in the air. Every now and then she sniffs as a drip gathers at the end of her nose.

  He has to wheel unnaturally slowly to keep pace with her and she sometimes, during this regular walk home together, remarks on how awkward it is. ‘Makes me feel you’d rather be off freewheeling,’ she’ll say. This evening she is talking animatedly about her day.

  ‘Do you have any idea how many people are mad?’ she says. ‘It’s like 78 per cent.’

  ‘Is that a statistical fact, or something you made up?’

  ‘It’s a statistical fact.’ He raises his eyebrows at her. ‘Which I just made up. I read this brilliant thing today in my magazine. It was by an agony aunt. She said she’d printed a letter from a man who could only, you know, climax if someone stuck Sellotape to ’im and ripped it off really fast.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘But the funniest thing about it was that six other readers wrote in to say, “Thank goodness. I thought I was the only one.”’

  Bartholomew laughs. She laughs too.

  ‘Had some news today,’ he says.

  She looks at him.

  ‘Max and Primrose are having a baby.’

  He thinks he can detect something nervous – a flinch – but she just smiles, a thin, tight smile.

  ‘Mum and dad are right excited,’ he says.

  ‘I’ll bet. What about you?’

  ‘Aye, I think it’s nice. Primrose though. She’s a funny one.’

  ‘You don’t think she’ll be a good mother?’

  ‘It’s not that. She’s just not that . . . open, I s’pose.’

  ‘D’ye think they’re ready?’ she says.

  ‘When is anyone ready?’ he says. ‘You just have to get on and do it, don’t you?’

  She looks at him now and her smile is full and open. He can feel all her natural warmth emanate towards him.

  *

  They clatter into the communal hallway outside Bartholomew’s flat. She makes her way to his kitchen at the rear – a cold, hard room she’s always thought, with faux-wooden units lit by a sixty-watt bulb. He’s never made any attempt to prettify his home – no lamps or flowers or rugs. It half appals her and half seems an opportunity for her to provide something at some later date. She knows that part of him feels more comfortable at her cosy flat than he does here, even though he won’t let go of it.

  ‘Dave was askin’ me about Christmas,’ she shouts to the hallway, where he is taking off his cycling gear. She’s been emboldened by the baby comment. Perhaps he is coming round. ‘And my mum asked about it, too. Wants to know what I’m doing.’

  There is no reply. Ruby stops. She is squatting beside the fridge, wondering how this is going to go and whether she’d be better off steering clear. She curses herself, as she does when she knows she’s sent too many text messages.

  He has come in and is sitting at the kitchen table, still in his cagoule. He fingers some takeaway flyers which lie on the table top among unopened post. She is searching through his tiny fridge and filling her arms with minced beef, celery and mushrooms.

  ‘This is past its sell-by date but I’m sure it’s fine,’ she says, looking at the beef. She gets up and takes a knife from the drawer, slitting open the packaging to smell the contents.

  ‘Smells fine,’ she says, and she pushes it under his nose for a second opinion. He nods.

  ‘If you don’t want to come to Leeds,’ she says, ‘I could come and spend it with your family.’ She has her back to him now, her whole body tense, but she keeps moving, taking out a chopping board and starting on an onion, not looking at him.

  ‘It’s a bit short notice,’ he says.

  ‘It’s November.’

  ‘There’s not much room at ours. The house is a bit cramped.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about it now.’

  She closes her eyes, presses the heel of her hand into one eyelid, still clutching the knife, and sucks in through her teeth.

  ‘Bloody onions,’ she says.

  *

  Joe stands under the cathedral-like rafters of his hay barn, in the far corner of a quadrangle of outbuildings. The air is dusty – November is turning out that dry. It is making the dogs sneeze as they snuffle about the base o
f the bales. He must check they’re nice and dry, the bales, and the additional pellets he’s bought in that have cost him so dear. His winter feed. If the hay’s musty, or just doesn’t smell right, the ewes could turn their noses up and they need their feed from now and for the four months till lambing. He’ll need to increase their nutrition as their time gets near: lots of good home-made hay and silage, then cereal cake and ewe rolls when they’re big with pregnancy. He’ll be feeding them twice a day up on the fell, when the lambs start to press on their stomachs so they can’t take in so much bulk. Especially those carrying twins – they’ll need food that’s small and rich with molasses.

  The bales are stacked, perhaps forty feet, bathed in a weak, pastel light. He hears a crow’s caw, giving an abrupt measure of the height and volume of the sky. The low-slung sun sends a burnished outline onto the beams inside the barn. There are gaps in the rafters, patch-worked with corrugated plastic, which cast golden squares onto the straw. Here you could find God, thinks Joe, taking in the sheer scale of the place as if for the first time, if you were looking for Him.

  Joe begins running his hand along the hay bales to feel for patches of damp. He is clambering now, among the bales, sliding his hand between the tight rows. Too tight, perhaps, but the yield had been good at baling last June, when the hedgerows had been thick with cow parsley and elder, the uncut grass at the roadside swaying, soft as fur. He marvels that summer goodness can be stored like this – baled for the lean times, when the fell was covered in snow and pickings were slim.

  He feels the hay blades prick into his skin. It is hard to feel the damp when the air is cold. He begins to forget what he’s feeling for. And hay always feels warm to the touch. He looks up at the rafters and recalls Eric’s suggestion, just after baling, to get a professional re-roofing job done while the beams were dry. Typical Eric. He’d been that sort of farmer, too – a great one for hiring in labour. Liked to keep his shoes clean. Hoovering his Nissan Micra. Getting Dennis Lunn to paint his windows.

  ‘You’re playing with fire there,’ Eric had said, squinting up at the barn, rocking on his heels.