A Country Escape

by Katie Fforde

  Fran and Seb were waiting for Antony who’d been delayed. ‘So what is it he does, actually?’ Fran asked Seb. She might not have felt brave enough to be so direct if it hadn’t been for the cocktails.

  ‘He does a fair few things. The farm is run by a manager, although Ant does know his stuff there. Mostly, he works in the City, but what really floats his boat is his directorship of a wine-importing business. He likes going out to find the small vineyards that no one knows about,’ said Seb. ‘I like those road trips, they’re a lot of fun.’

  Fran realised she didn’t know Antony well enough to think of him as fun. But she was very glad that Seb did.

  ‘So, how do you come to be Antony’s driver? I mean did you just apply for the job in the normal way?’

  Seb shook his head. ‘Ant and I were at uni together. He happened to mention he needed a driver just when I’d mentioned I needed a job. Works perfectly. I live up above the garages at Park House. Nice little flat and room for me to follow my passion, which is making music.’ He grinned. ‘Works well for both of us.’

  Fran slept most of the way home. She got in the back next to Antony and started by pretending to sleep, so she wouldn’t have to tell him that things hadn’t gone as swimmingly as she’d planned (given that no one wanted her to supply them with soft cheese), and then, exhausted by the whole process and two strong drinks, the real thing followed.

  Although she had sounded upbeat to Issi – and when she was with her she always felt upbeat – finding premises that would meet the hygiene requirements so she could make and sell her cheese wouldn’t be easy. Getting the old dairy into shape would take capital, and she didn’t have any of that.

  She woke up just at the end of the motorway.

  ‘Do you want a drink of water?’ said Antony, offering an unopened bottle.

  ‘No thank you,’ said Fran. He’d witnessed her sleeping; she didn’t want him now to watch her chugging water from a bottle – it seemed an unattractive thing to be seen doing.

  ‘So how did your day go?’

  She had been about to say, ‘Really well, thank you,’ but in the dark of the back of the car she found herself saying, ‘Not as well as I’d hoped.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘None of the pubs I tried – where I used to work, for example – wanted soft cheese. And the big supplier in Fitzrovia really wants a hard cheese, too. I’m fairly sure I could learn to make that, but where? The buildings on the farm would cost a lot to bring up to hygienic standards. I don’t have the capital.’

  He didn’t answer for a few minutes. Fran watched the hedgerows passing, looking out for signposts to give her clue of how near home she was.

  ‘Look, why don’t you come back to mine for some supper? I’ll run you back afterwards. We need to talk.’

  ‘Do we? Aren’t we talking now?’

  ‘We are, but we need to talk more seriously.’

  ‘OK. I mean, that would be nice. I think.’

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  ‘No. When people say “we need to talk” it usually means they’re going to sack you or break up with you. Although obviously, not in this case.’

  ‘Then why the doubts?’

  ‘I think you know,’ she said quietly. Maybe Antony had somehow forgotten that as far as she was concerned, he was the enemy. And if she liked him – he was quite kind – it didn’t make her hobnobbing with him any more acceptable. Not really.

  Seb drove them up the driveway to Antony’s house, which Fran had been longing to see, but would have preferred to do it in daylight. Still, there were a number of security lights, which helped.

  It was, she had concluded before they’d even stopped in front of the door, not to her taste. If she had the millions she assumed he had, she’d have had a gorgeous period property, not this fifties-style house, which seemed designed to show off wealth rather than taste.

  Pleased she could dismiss his house so easily, she got out of the car with a certain amount of grace.

  ‘Was there any cheese left?’ asked Seb, retrieving the cool boxes from the boot.

  ‘No. It all went.’ Fran was quite pleased about this. No one really wanted to buy her cheese but at least they were happy to eat it.

  ‘Oh, shame,’ he said. ‘I was hoping to try some.’

  Fran felt awful. Seb had been so kind to her. ‘Next batch, I’ll bring some over. Which kind do you particularly like?’

  ‘Any of them. And when you do get round to making Cheddar, I love that!’

  She smiled. ‘You’ll be the first to have some, if and when I ever manage to make it.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll make sure you don’t forget.’

  By the time Seb was walking back down the drive to his cottage, Antony had opened the door. ‘Come in. Now, would you like a proper drink? I’ve been overdosing on coffee all day and could do with a little alcohol.’

  Fran might have had two strong cocktails with Issi but she didn’t think tea would be enough of a prop to take her through a conversation she suspected was going to be awkward. He was going to offer her help and she would have to refuse.

  ‘I’ll have what you’re having.’

  ‘Good choice. Then let’s go through to the sitting room. The wood burner should be going.’

  The sitting room wasn’t cosy. It had very high ceilings and a lot of panelling. The fireplace was surrounded by small red bricks and reminded Fran of her doll’s house, which had been her mother’s. It was fine in a doll’s house, she concluded, but not so good full-sized.

  ‘Do sit down.’ Antony gestured to the huge leather sofas that were pulled up near the wood burner.

  ‘How come your fire is lit when you’ve been away all day?’ she asked.

  ‘Staff,’ he said ruefully. ‘And the housekeeper will have left supper, too. There will be enough for both of us. I’ll heat it up and we can have it in here. The dining room is a bit gloomy and will be cold.’ He handed her a tumbler half full of a golden liquid. ‘It’s my favourite single malt. I hope you like it.’

  She waited until he had revved up the fire, put on another log, and sat down before she sipped. ‘It’s delicious. Smoky. Strong.’

  ‘I know. I think we need it. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘Did your day not go well, either?’

  ‘It went fine. I just don’t much like being in London. Well, I don’t mind it sometimes, but today was all work.’

  ‘Shall we get the “having a word with” over with?’ suggested Fran. ‘Otherwise it’ll be hanging over me.’

  ‘You don’t want to eat first? I’m starving myself. Everything seems more daunting if you’re hungry.’

  ‘It seems more daunting because you’re putting it off!’ said Fran.

  He chuckled. ‘It really isn’t. There – that was the microwave. Drink your whisky and I’ll bring through our supper.’

  Considering they didn’t really know each other and eating off one’s lap was usually only something you did with close friends, Fran did find herself relaxing. The sofas (they had one each) were very comfortable, if rather unattractive. He handed her a plate of beef stew and mashed potatoes with green beans and set a glass of red wine on the coffee table in front of her.

  As she wasn’t looking forward to the ‘we must talk’ part of the evening she decided to hold it off with light conversation, also known as nosy questioning, while she ate.

  ‘Have you lived here long?’ she asked.

  ‘All my life, on and off. My grandfather bought the farm and had this house built.’

  ‘It’s very – grand.’

  He laughed. ‘It’s the vision of a man who made his money quite quickly and wanted to show it all off. Not really my taste but it’s home.’

  ‘You could have it all extensively remodelled,’ said Fran, thinking that was what she would do if she had as much money as he seemed to have.

  ‘I could but I can’t quite face the upheaval and don’t know exactly what I’d do to replace it all.’

/>   ‘You’d get a good designer to do that,’ Fran said, sipping her wine and thinking how delicious it was.

  ‘There’s still the upheaval.’

  ‘Yes, well, you’d have to go on an extended holiday to get away from it all.’

  ‘Which I’m not likely to do.’

  ‘But you said you liked it down here? Living in the country, I mean. Why don’t you make your living space nicer?’

  Antony shrugged. ‘It’s OK. It’s comfortable. Now, enough quizzing about interior-decoration choices, I want to talk about you.’

  Just for a second Fran allowed herself to imagine what it would be like if he really wanted to talk about her and not Hill Top Farm. It was a pleasant second, she acknowledged, and then she snapped back into reality.

  ‘OK,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘I know you don’t want my help. I know that Amy has said I’m a bad person who only wants to get my greedy hands on her little corner of heaven – and some of that is true.’

  ‘Which part?’ Fran couldn’t help this little dig.

  ‘I really do want to get my hands on your little corner of heaven,’ he said smiling, yet serious. ‘But I’m not a bad man. I just think you’ve been given a task that’s very hard indeed for anyone who hasn’t a huge amount of experience or capital.’

  ‘That’s probably true, but I have been given the task. I have accepted it. I have to do my absolute best.’

  ‘That’s great! I really admire that. But will you please accept a little help?’

  ‘Help often comes with strings attached,’ Fran said. ‘If you help me I’ll be indebted to you. I won’t like that. And nor will Amy.’

  Antony didn’t answer immediately. ‘I get that. I wouldn’t like that either if I was you, but I’m finding it really hard watching you struggle when I could help you so easily.’

  ‘We all have our crosses to bear.’ She smiled at him.

  ‘You’re not helping.’

  ‘Nor are you.’

  ‘I am at least trying to! More wine?’ He got up and came back with the bottle and put some in her glass. ‘I was going to do Dry January but now I’ve decided Dry February is better.’

  ‘Oh, me too! Only I might take the weekends off.’

  ‘So we’re not going to drink during the week for four weeks at most,’ said Antony. ‘Not very taxing.’

  ‘And less taxing for me. I haven’t got a cellar full of delicious wine to tempt me.’

  ‘I’ll leave bottles of it on your doorstep so we’re both tempted.’

  She laughed. ‘I could save the bottles up until Friday night.’

  ‘We’re going off the point,’ said Antony, suddenly serious. ‘If I could think of a way you could pay me back for my help would you let me?’

  ‘What do you want to do to help?’

  ‘I want to have your track done.’

  ‘So, in your mind, when I sell the farm to you there’ll be one less job to do.’

  ‘True. I also want to help you have a building converted into somewhere you could make cheese that is hygienic, so you could sell it.’ He raised his eyebrow at her. ‘You can’t say I’d do that so I’d have somewhere to make cheese when I buy the farm.’

  ‘All right, but I expect a nicely done-up building would be useful for something.’

  He sighed. ‘You are exasperating! If I did those things for you, you’d at least be in with a chance of making that farm profitable.’

  ‘I agree, and it would be really, really kind of you—’

  ‘I promise you I can afford it. I wouldn’t have to go without a single new car or foreign holiday or anything else people spend their money on.’

  ‘You could have your house remodelled?’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to. What do you say? Will you let me do that?’

  ‘Only if you can think of some way, or something – or many things – that I could do to pay you back.’

  ‘You won’t be able to pay me back financially, even if Amy has an undiscovered insurance policy lying in a drawer.’

  As Fran was fairly sure Amy hadn’t got an undiscovered anything in that line, she nodded. ‘I accept that. So, what can I do? Or do you need time to think about it?’

  ‘Actually, I think I know. Have you finished eating?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Come with me for a minute. We’ll have some cheese with the rest of the wine later, if you can face it, of course. But I think you could be the one to solve a problem I’ve had for months.’

  She followed him through the kitchen (massive, not her taste at all) into an equally vast integral garage. ‘Here,’ he said, gesturing to a vast chest freezer.

  ‘What about it? It doesn’t look problematic to me.’

  He opened it.

  ‘There isn’t a body in there you want me to dispose of?’ She was joking but as she said the words she wondered. After all, he was suggesting spending thousands on the farm with no hope of return. If a job was going to repay that it would have to be pretty enormous. But although Amy had said how wicked he was, Fran was fairly sure the word ‘murderer’ had never been used.

  ‘In a manner of speaking. Look.’

  She went over and peered into the enormous chest freezer. In it were rows and rows of frozen packages not instantly recognisable.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s pheasants. And some grouse.’

  ‘Where on earth did they come from? Did they fall off the back of a shoot or something?’

  Antony looked sheepish. ‘It was a bit like that.’

  ‘I think you have to explain further.’ Having Antony on the back foot was not a situation to be wasted.

  ‘A friend had them. I felt obliged to help out.’

  ‘You bought them? Why?’

  ‘Because …’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a long story.’ He looked at her appealingly. ‘Can you get rid of them for me?’

  ‘You could just hire a digger and bury them.’

  He made a sound indicating outrage. ‘What a waste that would be! You’re the woman who can’t throw away milk that has hardly any value. No,’ Antony went on, still sounding cross, ‘I’m happy to help you with money to fix the track and do up a building but—’

  Fran put up a peace-making hand. ‘I was joking! You’re quite right. I hate waste and I hate to pass up free stuff. What I’ll do is make pies.’

  ‘Pies?’

  Fran nodded. ‘I spent today in pubs who want good home-made food, something a bit different. I was offering them cheese, but they didn’t want mozzarella – or at least not much of it – but pies? Oh yes. They’d want pies.’ She paused. ‘I happen to make rather wonderful puff pastry. Not that I’m one to boast.’

  ‘But boasting anyway!’ Antony laughed teasingly. ‘I think pies are an excellent idea! It’ll give you some form of income when the cows go dry.’ He looked at her. ‘You did know that cows go dry about three months before they calve?’

  She forced a smile. ‘Oh yes. Of course I did.’ But she knew he knew she was lying.

  Chapter Seven

  Although she was extremely tired, Fran wrote Issi a quick email as soon as she got back. We need to do the supper club quite soon I think so we can start to raise some money. Let me know when you could get down here and we can get going on publicity.

  A few minutes later she sent another email. Any chance you could bring your KitchenAid?

  Not on the train, no, came Issi’s reply. Talk in the morning.

  As she snuggled down to sleep Fran decided she’d have to buy her own food processor, and possibly a printer, too. Unless, the thought crept in just before she drifted off, Antony had one she could use.

  She was up and into her unsuitable wellington boots early the next morning. She wanted to talk to Tig.

  ‘Morning!’ she said gaily as she found him ushering the herd into the milking parlour. She admired the huge brown- and white-flecked beasts whose coats seemed curly, almost woolly, but she kept out of their way. ‘
I need to ask you a few things.’

  ‘Can it wait until after milking or won’t it take long?’ he asked.

  ‘No, it’s really quick.’

  He nodded, indicating she should say what she wanted. He wasn’t a man to waste movements or words. She liked that. He had a good strong nose, she noticed, that set off his eyes and his weathered skin.

  ‘Firstly, I need to know when the cows go dry and for how long.’

  ‘Late March. Three months. Usually.’ He seemed about to elaborate but Fran hurried on, conscious she was keeping him from his cows.

  ‘Fine. The second thing is, I’d really love to talk to your mother about making hard cheese. The soft cheese I’ve made already, while delicious, isn’t what the major wholesaler wants. I need to know about proper cheese.’

  He nodded again. ‘She’s your woman for that. I’ll let her know you want to talk to her and she’ll come up. But she’s due to visit her sister soon.’

  Fran shook her head. ‘I think it would be better if I went to her. Perhaps she could come up later if she’s got time, and we can find the equipment that may be here, but I think I’d like to visit her first.’

  ‘And the third thing?’ he asked.

  ‘How did you know there was a third thing?’ She was surprised. He didn’t usually initiate conversation, he just replied when she talked to him.

  ‘You’re still here, not rushing off.’

  Fran laughed. ‘OK, well, you’re right, there is a third thing. When I last saw Amy she mentioned an old quarry. She said it would be good for ripening the cheese but I haven’t found it.’

  ‘Can’t help you there. You need to look for it yourself.’ He seemed amused. ‘You need to walk the land, miss—’

  ‘Fran—’

  ‘Fran. “The best manure on a farm is the sole of the farmer’s boot.” It’s an old saying.’

  ‘Really?

  ‘And talking of boots, you should get yourself a decent pair.’

  She looked down at her Cath Kidstons and thought maybe he was right.