Follow Me Home

by Cathy Woodman

  ‘There’s no need to keep reminding me. Go on, off you go.’

  I take the profiteroles, still warm in a tin, pins a pot of cream and chocolate for the sauce, up to the farm, where Emily, dressed in trackies, is frantically trying to peel potatoes with Daisy in one arm and Poppy ‘helping’. She smiles wearily and I wonder if we should all have descended on her like this so soon after she’s given birth. It’s only been a couple of weeks, after all.

  Poppy stands on a chair and drops peeled potatoes into a saucepan on the floor from a great height.

  ‘Splosh.’ She grins at me through her curls when I walk in.‘I’m making a mess.’

  ‘So I see. Emily, let me have the peeler.’

  ‘Oh no, you can spend some quality time with Daisy.’ She hands me the baby who takes one look at me and bursts into tears.

  ‘Oh, Daisy,’ I coo as I hold her close. ‘That’s no way to greet your auntie.’

  ‘She’s teething unusually early, just like Poppy did,’ Emily explains. ‘Actually, she’s driving me mad because I can’t put her down and I’ve got all these veg to prepare. I feel like I’m having a meltdown.’

  ‘Mum said we should have had lunch with her and Dad at their house. It’s too much for you.’ I rock Daisy gently, wiping her cheek with the corner of her blanket. ‘There, there, that’s better.’

  ‘Are you talking to me or Daisy?’ Emily chuckles in spite of everything. ‘OMG, I’m cackling like a madwoman. Poppy, can you leave that now and feed the lamb instead? There’s a bottle in the fridge. He can have it cold. Remember to use Larry’s bottle, not Daisy’s this time.’

  Poppy clambers down from the chair, hauls the fridge door open and stares at the array of bottles on the shelf.

  ‘Which one, Mummy?’

  ‘That one with the blue top.’

  ‘Which blue top?’

  ‘There is only one.’ Emily runs wet hands through her hair as I take the bottle out for Poppy. ‘Sometimes I think it’s easier to do everything yourself.’

  Poppy heads out to the utility room to feed the lamb, which I notice is confined to an area penned off with crates and boxes.

  ‘Can’t he go back outside with the others?’ I ask, looking out through the rear window across the lawn where the daffodils are on the verge of flowering, and the buds are beginning to appear on the fruit trees. Beyond, the first batch of lambs are gambolling in the field with their mothers.

  ‘Murray’s gone soft and said he can stay here as Poppy’s pet until it’s time for him to go off for you-know-what . . .’

  I make Emily sit down with Daisy while I finish the potatoes and bring them to the boil for a few minutes before draining them, scoring the tops and placing them in a tray of hot oil then into the oven. I try not to think about the cute little lamb that Lewis carried in under his arm going off to become some other family’s Sunday roast.

  ‘What next?’ I ask.

  ‘Cabbage and carrots, and Yorkshire pudding.’

  I prepare the rest of the main course before counting out the place settings for the table with Poppy. We make it seven, but Emily disagrees.

  ‘You need one extra, Poppy,’ she says. ‘How many does that make?’

  Poppy counts laboriously on her fingers before coming up with eight.

  ‘Clever girl,’ Emily says fondly before looking straight at me. ‘Lewis is joining us. He wasn’t doing anything else so I thought, why not? He’s always asking when you’re coming up to the farm so he can hang around and make sheep’s eyes at you, Zara.’

  ‘He doesn’t?’ A fork thuds against the table as I lose my grip.

  ‘Why is your face red, Auntie Zara?’ says Poppy.

  ‘Because it’s getting hot in here.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says.

  ‘Emily, this thing about Lewis is in your imagination.’

  ‘Is it really?’ My sister raises one eyebrow.

  ‘Well, the other night when he picked up his coat, it felt like he was chatting me up,’ I admit.

  ‘There you go then.’

  ‘He’s very outgoing. Flirting seems to come naturally to him . I expect he’s the same with everyone.’

  ‘Yes, he’s a young lad, but give him a chance,’ Emily sighs.

  ‘We hardly know each other and yes, he is attractive.’ I’m being economical with the truth here. If he really wanted to start something with me, I don’t think I could resist. In fact, I wouldn’t. ‘But I’m a few years older than him and there’s no way he’ll ever be interested in me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I shrug.

  ‘You’re always putting yourself down. Paul has a lot to answer for. He really rocked your confidence.’

  ‘He did not.’

  ‘There you go, defending him again. He could be pretty sharp with you about your looks and your weight. You are beautiful, and it’s time you remembered that. Men like women who like themselves.’ Emily grins. ‘Lecture over. Let the onslaught begin.’

  The onslaught – consisting of Murray, Lewis, and Mum and Dad, who bring Gran with them – begins an hour later when they descend on the kitchen.

  ‘There’s a seating plan,’ Emily says as Dad carves the joint and I drain the carrots, sending up a cloud of steam, at which my father has to remove his glasses and wipe them on the sleeve of his golf sweater, flashing the gold ring on his little finger at the same time. I don’t ask, but I can’t help wondering if he’s dyed what’s left of his hair – it seems a darker, bluer grey than when I last saw him.

  ‘Since when?’ Murray walks through from the utility room, leaving brown prints on a white towel as he dries his hands.

  ‘I thought Gran and Zara would sit on either side of Lewis to mix up the conversation a bit. I don’t want you and him talking sheep all day.’

  ‘It isn’t every day I get to sit down beside a nice young man,’ Gran pipes up as she rocks Daisy rather violently in her arms.

  ‘Don’t let her have any more sherry, Emily,’ Mum whispers as she straps the booster cushion to Poppy’s chair.

  ‘I heard that. There’s nothing wrong with my hearing. And I’ve had one glass, that’s all, and it was no more than a thimbleful.’

  The sherry continues to flow – for Gran, anyway – and so does the conversation as we settle down to eat. I pick at a carrot. Sitting beside Lewis is somewhat distracting, and I seem to have lost my appetite. I find myself casting glances his way, wondering if Emily could possibly be right, that he does fancy me just a little.

  ‘You and Zara must have quite a lot in common, Lewis, seeing you’re both involved in making deliveries,’ Emily begins.

  ‘It’s a bit different dealing with people rather than sheep,’I point out.

  ‘Yes, none of my sheep think they’re too posh to push,’ Lewis says.

  ‘I can’t imagine you have many worrying about their bikini lines when they have to have C-sections either,’ I say, smiling.

  ‘Please don’t start, Zara,’ my mother interrupts. ‘I know it’s perfectly normal to you, but I don’t want to hear any gory talk of blood and afterbirth while we’re eating.’

  ‘I did have someone make a smoothie out of their placenta recently,’ I say, winding her up.

  ‘Don’t upset your mother,’ Dad says.

  ‘I’ve heard that one before, sis. Haven’t you got any new stories?’

  ‘One of my ladies who has piercings in various places on her body told me she was scared of needles, and when I took a blood, she fainted.’

  ‘That’s pretty tame,’ Emily says.

  ‘Anyone for ketchup?’ Murray asks.

  ‘Me, Daddy,’ Poppy says, putting her hand up.

  ‘You don’t have to put your hand up, darling,’ Mum says.’You aren’t at nursery now.’

  ‘What’s the magic word?’Murray asks.

  ‘Which? Oh, I know.’ Poppy’s hand is in the air again as she goes on, ‘Please.’

  Murray fetches the ketchup for Poppy, who promptly squeezes out m
ost of the bottle onto her plate; we continue to eat until Gran excuses herself to go and powder her nose.

  ‘She means she’s going for a wee,’ Poppy announces.

  ‘I’m sorry. You can’t do anything discreetly with a four year old in the house,’ Emily says.

  ‘Poppy tells it like it is.’ Lewis smiles at me and my heart lurches.

  ‘So how is Gran really, Zara?’ Mum asks once she’s left the room. ‘I can never get any sense out of her.’

  ‘She’s all right,’ I say.

  ‘Well, I worry about her. I don’t like her working like this at her age. She can’t go on for ever.’

  ‘It feels like she’s going to,’ Dad grimaces, the lines at the side of his mouth deepening and his whiskery brows twitching.

  ‘Your father has a bad back from sitting in a car day in, day out for all those years, and he could really do without the runs to the cash and carry,’ Mum says.

  ‘That’s true,’ Dad agrees, and the realisation that, although he’s nowhere nearly as old as Gran, he is sixty-eight, comes with a jolt to me. I suppose he should be enjoying retirement, playing golf and spending time with his grandchildren, not running around after my grandmother.

  ‘If she sold the shop,’ Mum continues, ‘she’d have more than enough money to live by the sea, with some left over.’

  ‘It’s a dying business,’ Dad adds. ‘The Village News is losing money and that can’t continue for much longer.’

  ‘Because you can see Sarah’s inheritance disappearing,’ Gran interrupts as she walks back into the kitchen. ‘Jim’s always wanted to get his hands on my money.’

  ‘You know that isn’t true.’ My father is genuinely upset.

  ‘What are you doing, creeping up on us like that?’ says Mum crossly.

  ‘I thought I heard my name being mentioned in vain, so I listened behind the door – it’s a bad habit of mine. I know you’re talking about me. If you have something to say, you can say it in front of me to my face. I’m not stupid. I’m perfectly compost mentis.’ Gran pauses. ‘I will not leave the shop until I’m carried out in a box. I promised your granddad I’d look after it for him.’

  ‘Nobody’s interfering,’ I say. ‘Mum’s only trying to help. She’s right in a way. You should be enjoying a slower pace of life, not sorting newspapers at six o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Why?’ Gran frowns. ‘I enjoy it.’

  ‘You could take it easier, though. You could take up a new hobby – gardening, for instance.’

  ‘What on earth would I want to do that for? I don’t need to grow tomatoes when there’s a greengrocer just down the road. And why on earth would I go and live anywhere else when all my old friends are in Talyton St George . . . or dead?’ she adds, matter-of-factly.

  ‘Gran,’ I say, ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk about dying like that.’

  ‘Death is part of life. Birth is the capital letter at the beginning of a sentence, death is the full stop. That’s how I see it.’ Her tone hardens. ‘I’m not going into a home by the sea. I won’t go and live in a home anywhere. They’re for old people.’

  ‘Sarah and I went to have a look around the one in Talymouth a couple of weeks ago,’ my father says tactlessly.

  ‘It was so different from what we expected,’ Mum says,’wasn’t it, Jim?’

  I’m not sure which of us is most upset, me or Gran, at this discussion of her future.

  ‘I don’t think this is any of your business – it’s up to Gran what she does.’ I give my mother a look which means ‘shut up and not in front of Lewis’, but she’s on a mission. I glance towards Emily who shakes her head. Nothing is going to stop her.

  ‘It was light and modern and it didn’t smell. Every room had en-suite facilities and the food options included pasta and Thai curry.’

  ‘Curry? I’ve never had a curry in my life and I don’t intend to start now,’ Gran says.

  ‘You’d have access to Wi-fi and multichannel TV.’

  ‘Why on earth would Gran want Wi-fi?’ Emily exclaims. ‘She hasn’t got a computer.’

  ‘I might want to get myself on the Interweb one day but not in an old people’s home, thank you very much,’ Gran cuts in.’I have a smartphone.’

  ‘You haven’t learned to drive it yet,’ I say.

  ‘I can make a phone call and text. That’s all I need.’ Gran turns from me to my parents. ‘I don’t want to hear any more about it. If you like this home so much, then go and live there yourselves. Zara, I’d like you to give me a lift back to the shop this afternoon, please.’ Gran might have had the final word on the matter for now, but I’m afraid this is probably just the beginning.

  ‘That’s no problem.’ I smile to break the tension, adding lightly, ‘I’m going that way myself.’

  ‘Daddy, I bored,’ Poppy says, and Murray jumps at an excuse to leave the table. He looks towards Lewis.

  ‘Why don’t you take Zara up to the lambing shed?’

  ‘You two really know how to show a girl a good time,’ Emily says with a mock sigh.

  ‘Can I come?’ Poppy asks, and I’m just about to say ‘why not?’ when Emily interrupts.

  ‘You and Daddy are going to change Daisy’s nappy and then you can play.’

  ‘How about a game of hide and seek?’ Murray says lightly.

  ‘Without the seek part,’ Emily says.

  ‘What are you saying, Mummy?’ Poppy asks, kneeling up on her chair.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ Emily giggles. ‘This is Mummy and Daddy stuff. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Zara, I’d be happy to show you around,’ Lewis says shyly. ‘I’ve left the dogs in the annexe.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Any excuse to get away from my parents and grandmother, find out more about him, and – a tiny shiver of anticipation runs down my spine – enjoy some more light-hearted flirting, if I’m lucky.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Shepherd’s Delight

  ‘I’m sorry about my family,’ I say to Lewis as I tramp across to the lambing shed in one of Emily’s old coats and a pair of her boots. ‘That was really cringeworthy.’

  ‘Isn’t that what families are for – to embarrass each other?’ He grins. ‘Come on. I could use the skills of a country midwife.’ As soon as he pushes the barn door open, the sheep start bleating.

  ‘They think I’m going to feed them.’ He closes the door behind us. ‘Oh, there’s someone in trouble.’ He steps over one of the hurdles that keep the sheep confined in small groups and approaches the ewe which is standing panting in the corner.

  ‘I should have come out here between courses.’ Swearing, Lewis gets down with the ewe, then turns back to me. ‘Would you mind hanging on to this one?’

  I clamber into the pen and cross the straw, kneeling down beside the ewe, rather gingerly because the straw isn’t completely clean.

  ‘I’m sorry, I should have asked you if you’d mind. I just assumed . . .’

  ‘I’ve seen Emily lamb a ewe before, but I haven’t a clue what I’m doing here. They’re so woolly I can hardly tell which end is which.’

  ‘If you push her into the corner and keep your knee pressed against her shoulder, she can’t run away. Put her in a headlock if that’s easier.’

  I gaze at the ewe. From the look in her eyes, I’d say she was in agony.

  ‘The poor lamb,’ I say gently.

  ‘This is the ewe. The lamb’s in there,’ Lewis says, smiling and pointing to the ewe’s belly. ‘I can usually lamb them myself, but this one’s a really twitchy character.’

  ‘It seems odd to describe sheep as having character. I always thought they were pretty much the same, a bit dense. That’s what Murray always tells me, anyway.’ I struggle to keep the ewe still – she’s much stronger than I imagined – and I find that I have to get up close and personal with my arm around her neck and my weight pushing her against the hurdle.

  ‘They’re all different. You get to know them individually when you’re with them all day. The
y’re quite bright too – they recognise the members of their own flock. Some are bold; others shy and retiring, like me.’ Lewis’s tone is teasing as he squirts some lubricant from a bottle onto his gloved hands and starts examining the ewe. ‘The lamb’s breech. I need to push it back in and catch the back legs so they come out before the tail, but there isn’t much room in here.’ The ewe groans and strains as if in agreement and, a few minutes later, Lewis delivers a wet lamb onto the straw.

  ‘Is it breathing?’ I ask anxiously, caught up in the drama.

  Lewis picks it up by the hind legs and swings it back and forth to drain any fluid from its lungs before he lays it down again and rubs its chest vigorously with a handful of straw. He pauses and, seconds later, the lamb lifts its head and looks around, trembling as if it’s just woken from a deep sleep.

  ‘You can let her go now, Zara.’

  I release the ewe, which turns and bleats at her baby, nudging it and licking its face. Lewis squats to check the umbilical stump and spray it with purple spray, and I find my eyes drawn to a lightly tanned band of muscular loin.

  He looks up and raises one eyebrow. Blushing at being caught out, I try to cover it up.

  ‘Don’t you get cold?’ I stammer. ‘I mean, you’re out here and it’s freezing and you aren’t wearing a coat and . . .’ I stop abruptly, feeling like a complete idiot.

  ‘And I’m wearing low-rise jeans,’ he finishes for me. ‘I’m used to working outdoors. I don’t feel the cold.’ Chuckling, he stands up and pulls his sweater down.

  ‘What next?’ I ask.

  ‘What would you do?’ he says.

  ‘Weigh and measure the baby, check mum’s comfortable and make sure breastfeeding is established.’ I smile. ‘Sometimes I have to pick dad off the floor too.’

  ‘We don’t normally weigh and measure, but I do need to make sure the lamb feeds before I leave them to it.’ Lewis reaches for my hand and pulls me up, holding onto my hand a few seconds longer than necessary.

  ‘You’d make a good shepherdess, like your sister. You have small hands.’

  ‘It’s good to know I have that option, but I’m not planning to change careers any time soon,’ I say.

  ‘What made you go into midwifery?’ he asks as we watch the lamb struggle to its feet.