‘Gladys, Gladys.’ Raine closed her short stubby hand over Gladys’s large and warm one. ‘Look what happened the last time I interfered with fate.’
‘You saved thirteen lives,’ Gladys remonstrated with her.
‘I condemned a whole village,’ Raine replied. ‘Because of my presence the village sealed itself away, girls were no longer born, people sacrificed their own happiness to protect me. That was never my intention. It was duty and honour gone mad.’
‘They wanted to, though. They loved you. We all still love you. There wasn’t a family in the village that wasn’t related to one of those thirteen men. Everyone owed you their loyalty and allegiance.’
‘What will be, will be, Gladys. I’m tired.’
Gladys’s face was full of concern. ‘I’m going to ask again and again until you say yes. Let us move you down to the village. None of us think you’re safe up here. Cliffs are falling into the sea all the time. You’re too near to the edge and there’s no barrier.’
‘Promise me something, Gladys. If anything happens to me, you’ll make sure Albert has a good home. He hasn’t long left. I’d like his last days to be happy ones.’
Gladys gasped. ‘You’re scaring me, Raine.’
‘Promise me.’
‘I’ll look after Albert. You know I will.’
Raine let loose a tinkly laugh, then leaned over and gave Gladys a kiss on the cheek. ‘You’re a good friend. You must not worry. Now, would you do me a favour, Gladys? I have a letter to write and I can’t find any paper or pencils. The day ladies sometimes put things I don’t use in the top cupboards in the kitchen. Would you have a look in there for me?’
Chapter 75
Over their meal May, Clare and Lara completely overhauled Ren Dullem, carefully, though, so as not to ruin its quaintness. Any new builds would have to be made from old stone, the car park would have to be on the edge of the village, leaving the centre a pedestrian-only zone, except for authorized vehicles – they couldn’t exactly deny access to lovely Frank’s van. The fly-tippers’ dream area on the road into Ren Dullem would be totally cleaned up and widened, the ice-cream parlour would have an upstairs café affording a view of the harbour, and Unwin’s coffee kiosk would be boarded up with big nails. With all the Unwin family trapped inside.
They were just giggling about that last touch when the door opened and in walked Pauline Unwin, pulling her cousin’s chair.
‘Talk of the devil,’ muttered Lara.
‘Bloody marvellous,’ said Daisy in a whisper louder than anyone else’s shout.
Jenny arrived at the table with three large slices of her homemade chocolate truffle cheesecake, clotted cream on the side. They noticed that her whole demeanour changed when Daisy entered. Jenny scurried over to her table to set it with cutlery and give it an extra clean.
‘That Daisy sure brings in an atmosphere with her, doesn’t she?’ said Lara.
‘Ignore her,’ replied Clare, sticking her fork into the muddy depths of the cheesecake. ‘Oh, my, I’ve just died and gone to heaven.’ Lud loved cheesecake. Lud Lud Lud.
‘Soon be back to normal, Pauline. That funny smell will have gone.’ Daisy spoke much more loudly than she needed to, since Pauline was inches away from her.
Clare giggled. ‘How old is she? Ten?’
There was a clattering as Jenny dropped some cutlery.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, get us some more,’ yelled Daisy. ‘You always were a clumsy cow.’
Lara spun around in her seat; she’d heard enough. ‘Don’t talk to her like that.’
Daisy looked as if she had been slapped in the face and Pauline’s mouth had dropped into such a large ‘O’ she could have stepped straight out of ‘The Scream’.
‘What?’
‘I said don’t talk to Jenny like that.’
May and Clare were silent. They didn’t interfere when Lara’s hackles were up.
Daisy’s mouth fell into a variety of different shapes as if she were trying out some choice words before delivering them. ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ she spat eventually. ‘Can’t you see how I am?’ She stabbed her finger at her legs.
Lara was turning very red.
‘I can see very well how you are disposed, though what that has to do with talking to someone as if they’re crap is anyone’s guess.’
‘And what are you doing to do about it?’
Daisy’s face morphed into Cassandra Wath’s from Lara’s schooldays. Lara had just asked her to lay off pulling a first year’s hair in the toilet. And what are you going to do about it? Cassandra had said. This, Lara had replied, and she’d dragged Cassandra over to the nearest toilet and flushed her head down it. Lara contemplated the logistics of getting Daisy into the loo. Unfortunately it was a no-goer.
‘Look at you, threatening the disabled. I saw you looking at that jug of water as if you were going to throw it over me,’ cried Daisy, as if she were performing to an audience.
‘What jug of water?’ said Lara.
‘The one on the counter.’
Lara shook her head in disbelief. Daisy was joking, surely. Lara wasn’t even looking in that direction.
‘Let’s just go,’ suggested May. They couldn’t finish their nice lunch in peace, and now it had been spoiled.
Clare stood and picked up her handbag. She took some notes out of her purse and handed them to Jenny.
‘Keep the change, Jenny. Thanks.’
Jenny looked upset.
‘And you, Scarface –’ quick as a flash Daisy wheeled over and straight into May’s legs – ‘stop looking at my Francis. I’ve seen you, tart. He’s mine. Piss off back down south and leave us alone.’
Lara pushed Daisy’s chair away with her crutch and pushed May forwards to safety.
Before they shut the door they heard Daisy screech: ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish.’
This was followed by a rather weak echo from Pauline: ‘Yeah. Rubbish.’ Clearly she wasn’t quite brave enough to say anything in support, but even less brave about saying nothing.
‘You okay?’ asked Clare, bending down to look at May’s legs, one of which was bleeding across the shin.
‘That hurt,’ replied May. There were tears in her eyes. Clare suspected they were caused as much by Daisy’s reference to her scar, if not more.
‘Want to borrow my crutch?’ asked Lara with a soft smile, rubbing her friend’s arm.
‘I don’t know how Frank puts up with her,’ Clare said, shaking her head.
‘Let’s go and have an ice cream instead,’ suggested Lara. ‘I was really enjoying that cheesecake, as well. I shan’t be sorry to be saying goodbye to her.’
May and Clare nodded their heads. The trouble was, there were too many things they really would be sorry to say goodbye to. Whilst they weren’t looking, Ren Dullem had sneaked into their hearts.
The ice-cream boy-man looked just as petrified to be serving offcumdens as he had been before.
‘We shall have to send him for confidence lessons when we take over the village,’ decided Lara. ‘He’s going to waste all the profits in dropped cornets.’
They sat on the harbour front taking in the view and listening to the seagulls clamouring for attention, or fish, they weren’t quite sure. There was a small boat in the distance bobbing on the gently cresting waves which were twinkling in the sunshine. Some old people were asleep on deckchairs on the small line of sand to the left. Milton Bird was one of them, a knotted handkerchief on his head and his trouser legs rolled up. His pink pumps stood side by side next to his long thin feet. He had fallen asleep mid-cornet; the ice cream was still in his hand, but it was melting onto the sand.
Lara smiled. ‘Bless the mad old thing. He looks totally blissed out.’
‘I’m glad you cocked up this holiday, Lars,’ said Clare, her head tilted back. She felt as if the sun were holding her face in its hands.
‘Yes, well done, Lars,’ said May, taking a glug from a bottle of Diet Coke. ‘This was your f
inest hour.’
‘I don’t want to go home,’ announced Clare.
‘You’re okay.’ Lara gave a little laugh. ‘You’re the only one with something to go back for.’
Clare didn’t put them right. She bit down on her lip to counter the rise of emotion welling up within her. ‘I’m going for a swim in the lagoon,’ she said.
‘I’ll walk with you,’ said Lara, reaching for her crutch. ‘I’ll sit outside and read my book. Let’s get a couple of bottles of red wine from Hubbard’s Cupboard and get wankered later.’
‘I’ll see you up there,’ said May. ‘I’m going to sit here and enjoy the sun whilst those stupid clouds aren’t around.’
‘I’m the only one without a leg injury,’ said Clare as she helped Lara to her feet. ‘I feel left out.’
‘We could go back to Jenny’s to retrieve the cheesecake and you could call Daisy a twat. I’m sure you’d get a ramming for that.’
‘Cheers, Lara. On second thoughts, let me stay as the unique oddity that I am.’
Chapter 76
May stayed on the bench for another half an hour doing nothing but absorbing the quiet and the warmth. ‘Busy doing nothing’ was the expression that came to mind. She was always too busy to do nothing. Even when she was physically resting, her brain was usually a hive of activity, worrying about work, worrying about Michael, worrying about Susan. It was surprisingly easy not to think about Michael here. It would be harder not to think about Frank when she was back in London.
She wondered what his farm looked like from close up and thought she might have a sneak peek. She crossed the square, endured the evil eye from Mr Unwin in his coffee kiosk and walked towards the lane that led to Hathersage Farm. Frank’s truck was parked so awkwardly in the first lay-by that she wasn’t sure if he had crashed or not.
May looked in the window and saw Frank slumped over the driver’s wheel. She rapped hard on the glass, calling his name.
‘Frank, are you all right?’ She opened his door and shook him gently but he hardly responded. ‘Frank, what’s wrong?’
She needed to get in the van with him. She ran around to the passenger door but it was wedged against a thick and prickly hedge and she really had to jerk hard to get it open far enough for her to climb inside. Her face and arms were stinging with scratches and she re-opened the wound on her leg by catching it on the step.
Once in the truck, she was in a position to push Frank backwards away from the wheel in order to see his face. He was a dead-weight. She thought he had bumped his head and knocked himself out. Then, when she saw his face, she wondered if he was drunk. His eyes were bloodshot, the lids drooping as if daylight was hurting him, and he was so very pale.
‘Frank, have you crashed? Are you hurt?’
‘No,’ he said, his big farmer’s hands reaching upwards to his head. ‘Migraine.’
‘Frank, I’ve got tablets,’ said May, plunging her hand into her bag and pulling out the capsule which Lara had bought her for her birthday. It contained a pair of tights, a sewing kit, a pen, pair of scissors, nail file, emergency five-pound note and some Ibuprofen. She popped two out and put them in his hand. He swallowed them dry. Then May remembered the small bottle of Diet Coke in her bag. By now it was warm and rather flat but it was good enough for washing some tablets down. She used to get a lot of migraines and knew how debilitating they were. She still did get the odd one, but they were rare these days.
‘Thanks.’ Frank could talk no more. He had sunk forwards again, and his hands were cradling his head, but that was bringing him only a modicum of comfort and May knew that the best thing was to make no noise until the tablets kicked in. If his migraines were anything like hers used to be, he’d be ultrasensitive to light and sound. She sat with him, waiting silently, not disturbing him, letting him concentrate on existing through the pain. She could imagine the thump thump thump in his temple and pitied him.
After fifteen minutes, Frank shifted position.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ replied May.
‘They come on so fast and I have to stop driving or I’d crash.’
‘I thought you had crashed.’
Frank twisted his head slowly around to her. ‘Thanks, May. I usually carry some tablets on me but I stupidly ran out and forgot to buy some more.’
‘Here.’ May put the packet of Ibuprofen in his glove compartment. ‘Keep these. Just in case.’
He looked absolutely shocking. His face was drained of colour and his usually cheerful brown eyes were dead.
‘Can I drive the truck up to the farm for you?’ asked May.
‘No, it’s fine,’ replied Frank.
‘Well, it obviously isn’t. Shift over here.’
May struggled out of the passenger seat again and walked around to the driver’s side, this time snagging her face on a fierce bramble. She was cut to ribbons. Maybe she should have kept two of those Ibuprofen back. She bullied Frank into the passenger side and then got in where he had been sitting and adjusted the seat slightly forwards.
‘And just in case you think I don’t know what I’m doing, you’d be wrong. Dad was a car mechanic. I can drive anything from minis to Luton vans.’
She slipped off the handbrake, reversed out of the bush and forward up the hill. This is one way of seeing the farm, she realized. Though not the way she had originally planned.
She pulled right down the lane, as directed by the ‘Hathersage Farm This Way – Slow Ducks’ sign. Two ducks waddled noisily across the lane in front of them as if protesting about their presence. May pulled up in an obvious parking space at the side of a very nice classic Jaguar, presumably his ‘going out in’ vehicle, when he was taking Daisy to her posh French restaurant, although she doubted they’d be going tonight. The house was even prettier close up. It was painted the colour of fresh creamy butter and the heads of bright red flowers bobbed in sea-green painted boxes at the windows.
Frank stumbled out of the truck and in through the unlocked farmhouse door, May following him into a large square kitchen and really hoping Daisy wasn’t around to witness this. Not that May had any intentions of doing anything more than wringing out a cold cloth and applying it to Frank’s head, as she used to do for herself.
Frank had crumpled onto a seat at a wooden table.
‘Here, hold this,’ said May, moving his hand and pressing the cloth against his forehead. He groaned a thank you.
What a lovely house, thought May. It was delightfully old-fashioned and simple but comfy and inviting. The broad kitchen window afforded a beautiful view of the cove. It was like looking out at a painting.
‘Can I get you anything? A cup of tea or some water or something?’ asked May.
‘Tea would be grand, please. I always crave tea when I have one of these,’ he replied, still in pain. May used to have all sorts of funny cravings when she had a migraine: lettuce sprinkled with vinegar, fruit pastilles, even the smell of Imperial Leather soap. She put the kettle on and dropped a tea bag from a tin on the work surface into each of two clean cups she found on the draining board. She remembered he took a single sugar and small splash of milk.
‘Thank you, May,’ he said. His face was recovering its colour, she noted. ‘I might have been down there for hours. They’re getting worse.’
‘Have you been to see a doctor?’ asked May gently.
‘Yes. They’re definitely migraines. I’ve had all the tests. Stress-heads. Not that I have a particularly stressful life, so I can’t really understand it.’
Whatever he said, Frank Hathersage was a man with the world on his shoulders and the weight was breaking him.
‘Frank . . .’ May started. She had to bite her lip to stop herself, then found she was unable to keep her mouth shut. ‘You’re not okay. Any idiot can see that.’
And, to her surprise, she watched Frank’s head shake slowly from side to side and heard him admit: ‘No, you’re right, I’m not.’
She let him
talk; he knew she was listening.
‘I’m not in love with Daisy. God forgive me, I don’t even like her. I owe her, though, after what I did to her and I have to look after her. But the thought of marrying her . . . yet I half-killed her. I’ve crippled her.’ He was trying to cover up the fact that his eyes were wet. May’s heart almost leapt with her desire to console him.
‘There has to be another way of helping her rather than by sacrificing your whole life, Frank.’
‘It’s what we do here. We look after our own.’
‘Not to the extent of making yourself ill, surely,’ said May. ‘You can’t marry Daisy if you don’t love her. It wouldn’t be fair on her either.’
‘She knows I don’t love her,’ Frank admitted. ‘But her family think it’s my duty to do the decent thing. She loves me. Unless I run away I have to do what is expected of me. And if I did run away I’d never live with myself for being a coward.’
‘Oh, Frank. You can’t carry on like this. You’ll make yourself ill. Look at what the strain is doing to you.’ May’s hand instinctively reached for his to offer him comfort. His fingers closed around hers and she watched him lifting them, touching them, examining them.
‘I really thought I could do it. I’d marry her, do my duty by her, move heaven and earth to get her walking again, and then maybe I could leave.’
‘Is there a chance she could walk again?’
‘It’s a slight one, but yes.’
‘And do you . . . do you . . . live together yet?’
Frank knew what she meant. ‘No. We’re waiting until after the wedding,’ he said, closing his eyes against the thought.
God, what a joy to come, thought May.
‘So, anyway, I thought I could do it. Then I saw you and you blew all my good intentions out of the water,’ said Frank, so quietly and matter-of-factly that May almost missed hearing it.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know what hit me that morning I first met you but it really did strike me like lightning. My legs actually started to shake. I knew I could never get into a bed with Daisy Unwin feeling what I did about another woman. I put it down to momentary madness, but I feel the same every time I see you.’
It's Raining Men Page 31
