Homecoming (7 page)

The pregnant ewes are staying down-valley, sheltered and fed until their lambs are established inside them. They’ll go up onto the fell next month. That was the beauty of Swaledales. Could withstand all weathers. Yes, he has a sense of the future before him, with the farm at full tilt and the baby coming. And then some sadness behind it. He’d been so quick to offer the farm up to Max, that he hadn’t considered what it’d mean for him to let it go. As soon as he’d said it, even though it was what they’d always taken for granted, as soon as he said it, he’d wanted to take it back. The image of himself as the grey-haired man on the back seat – well, it didn’t fit with how he felt inside, which was still young.

He pushes open the door of Lipton Conservative Club. ‘Club’ is a pompous term for it. There were no button-back leather chairs and suchlike. It was open to most anyone unless you were a newcomer, in which case you’d be greeted with a raised eyebrow and a wall of silence. Mostly it was for barnacles like Joe and Eric Blakely. Conservative? Well, they didn’t like this
Labour
lot, with their agri-stewardship-whatever schemes. Didn’t like change, mostly.

To the club’s inner door is pinned a yellowing notice. ‘At the last meeting of the Committee,’ it says, ‘it was agreed that “tailored shorts” could be worn in the Club at lunchtimes only, and that tracksuits would not be suitable clothing for members to wear. Signed, K. Simms, Secretary.’ Joe looks down at his muddied corduroys and even muddier boots, and at the royal-blue carpet of the club hallway, freshly vacuumed. He brushes himself ineffectually, then walks into the ‘bar’ – a muffled room with red Formica tables, floral curtains and cream-painted woodchip on the walls. Eric stands with Ron Chappell, their pint glasses full. Ron had been a tenant farmer like Joe – same landlord, the water board, which owned most of the land round here. He’d gone under after foot-and-mouth and now he did odd jobs. Eric always bought Ron’s pints.

‘What are you having, Joe?’ says Eric, one arm resting on his belly where he holds his pint, the other jangling keys in his trouser pocket. Joe thinks Eric resembles one of those life-size fibreglass men, wearing striped aprons, which used to stand outside butcher’s shops.

‘You’re alright Eric, I’ll get them in,’ says Joe.

‘Don’t be silly man, I’m buying.’ Eric smiles, his voice jovial as always. ‘A pint for Joe,’ he calls to Keith Tindall, who is busying himself in the kitchen to the rear of the bar.

‘That was a wet harvest,’ says Ron, whose thinness is accentuated by standing next to Eric.

‘Mudbath,’ says Joe. He takes off his Barbour and hangs it on a wall hook. ‘Total mudbath.’ He notices that Eric’s shoes are new. Smooth brown loafers, unmuddied.

‘Did you lift the beet alright?’ asks Eric.

‘We did, and in a day. The soil was that sticky, but a good harvest it was. Thanks Keith,’ Joe says, taking his pint from Keith, who quickly disappears again.

‘And tupping?’ says Eric, like he’s hungry for news of his old life. ‘Good tups this year?’

‘Very good, yes, very good,’ says Joe.

‘Those lamb prices at Slingsby were shocking, so I’ve heard,’ says Ron. ‘Stores going for under a tenner.’

‘It’s the cheap foreign imports,’ says Eric, shaking his head.

‘What can ye do?’ says Ron.

They look into their pints.

‘Bomb New Zealand?’ says Joe, and they all laugh. ‘It’ll pick up, you watch. Farmers have gone through this type of strife before.’

‘Not as bad as this,’ says Eric.

‘Aye and worse,’ says Joe. ‘You wait till lambing and you’ll both be round mine, rubbernecking over the fence at my prize gimmers and tups.’

‘At least I’ll not be up against ye at the shows, Joe,’ says Eric. ‘I could never beat you.’

‘You nearly killed yourself trying. You and your tweezers.’ And Joe thinks back to the Fadmoor show, must have been eight-odd years ago now. Their rivalry was friendly back then, but with a serious edge. Those rosettes affected the price you got. Joe had walked round behind one of the livestock trailers and caught Eric bent over a Swale with a pair of tweezers.

‘Now that is truly pathetic,’ Joe’d said.

‘Ah now man, don’t say owt,’ said Eric. ‘I’ve seen you do the same. Just a couple of grey hairs –’

Then Eric had stood back, admiring his ewe. ‘She doesn’t need any help, this one. She’s nigh-on perfect.’

But Joe had won top prize and Eric had taken it with his usual good grace. Perhaps you were dealt the hand you could best cope with, Joe thinks now. Eric had got out of farming not long after – in 2001, after the foot-and-mouth culls, like Ron. But while Ron was driven out, for Eric, it was the assault on his feelings that he couldn’t take. Seeing those pyres had finished him off. ‘I admire you, Joe. Restocking, carrying on,’ he’d said. And Joe had put an arm round him, saying, ‘Could be the stupidest thing I ever do.’ Now Eric was rich as Croesus, the smile all over his face. And with smart new shoes.

‘How are your boys, Joe?’ says Ron, interrupting his thoughts.

‘Not so bad,’ says Joe. ‘Bartholomew’s garden centre’s going great guns by all accounts. And you’ve heard about the baby.’

‘Smashing news,’ says Eric.

‘It’ll be nice to have a little one around the place again,’ says Joe. He sees Eric’s face go slack, the darkness come over it like a shadow. The son Eric and Lauren had lost. Joe kicks himself for bringing Eric’s lost child into the room. Say something, he thinks, but Eric’s face is re-animating already, the sad lines stretching over another tight smile.

‘Have you been down to Bartholomew’s place then?’ asks Ron.

‘Not me, no. Ann’s visited. She’s says it’s a nice place he’s got down there. But the south’s not my thing – too crowded. I’d sooner stay up here and hear about it on the telephone. Anyway, Bartholomew’s none too keen on my advice, no matter how I give it.’

‘Ah, they never are Joe, they never are,’ says Eric. ‘My Sylvie’s marrying the biggest layabout this side of the Pennines, but she’ll not hear a word about it from me. And Lauren shuts me up before I try.’

‘You’re best off without them, Ron,’ says Joe. ‘Nothing but worry.’

There is an awkward silence until Ron says: ‘So Max’ll be
taking
over the farm then, I hear.’

‘Do you now?’ says Joe. ‘It’s early days.’

‘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.

He takes off one glove and texts her back.

‘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.

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.’