The Daughter

by Michelle Frances

Kate opened an eye and smiled. ‘OK, maybe a bit patronizing. But perhaps he was trying to make conversation.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Tim turned and put an arm around her. ‘I didn’t mean to spoil it for you.’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘There’s just something about the way he was trying to buy me off. Like he could throw money at everything.’

  ‘Do you mean the bursary?’

  ‘No! Sorry. I think that’s an amazing thing. Something for Becky’s memory.’ He leaned up on his elbow, looked sheepish. ‘Maybe I’m just a bit jealous. Me in my scruffs and him all suited and booted.’

  ‘Hmm, you were overdressed in my view.’ She ran a hand over his bare chest. ‘I prefer this look.’

  Kate closed her eyes again and he stroked her forehead. ‘Another headache?’

  ‘Yeah. And I only had one glass of champagne.’

  ‘That’s two days in a row now.’ Tim leaned over and switched off the bedside lamp. ‘Too much country air!’

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ said Iris the next morning. She was holding onto the side of the shopping trolley as Kate pushed it around the supermarket.

  ‘I’m fine,’ insisted Kate. The headache had left her a bit listless. She kicked herself for mentioning it, as it was nothing compared to Iris’s fall. She’d tripped on the rug in her living room that morning and had been unable to get up, instead dragging herself to the phone over the course of what must have been about half an hour (Iris only knew this because her Mediterranean property programme had played through to the credits) and had called Kate, downplaying it as usual.

  ‘It’s nothing much, I just think I’ve bumped my elbow. I was wondering if you could pop over, love?’

  ‘Sure, I’ll come now,’ Kate had said.

  ‘Just one thing. If you could bring your key . . . I don’t think I can get to the door.’

  Kate had hurried over immediately, let herself in and helped Iris get up into her chair. She was more apologetic than anything and, having swallowed some paracetamol, had insisted on walking again after a bit of a rest.

  Kate looked down at the list. ‘Which coffee would you like? I don’t know why you didn’t just let me do the shopping and bring it to you.’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t have got out of the house,’ said Iris. ‘And believe me, when you get to my age, you take any opportunity to get out. Anyway, I have my stick. And you. The decaf, please, love. I’m going to try a new health and fitness regime.’

  Kate put a jar into the trolley. ‘Just as long as you don’t forget to use me. No being a martyr and trying to manage when you genuinely need help.’

  ‘Yes, love,’ said Iris automatically.

  ‘I mean it. It’s our pledge, remember?’

  ‘Oh yes, I do. Twenty-first of September, 1995. You had to go back to work, bless you, and I took care of Becky.’

  ‘Yes, and in return, because you’d hardly take any money—’

  ‘You didn’t have any, love.’

  ‘I promised to take care of you when you—’

  ‘Became an old codger.’

  ‘Didn’t say that.’

  ‘Didn’t need to. We both know it’s true.’ She put a hand on Kate’s. ‘And you do know I appreciate it, don’t you?’

  Kate nodded and looked at the list. ‘Sushi? Really?’

  ‘Like I said. Clean living. Oh, I do think it’s great how that man is setting up that bursary. When does it start?’

  ‘This year. He wants to advertise next month and then we’ll be going through the applications together. He wants me to do the interviews with him too. Me! I’ve never interviewed anyone in my life.’

  ‘Think you’ll be good at it?’

  Kate thought for a moment. ‘I know what a passionate journalist looks like.’

  ‘There you are then. So, you’ll be spending a lot of time with him.’

  ‘Who? Greg? I guess so.’

  Iris pulled a face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know men. How they can read something into nothing.’

  ‘How did you know? Tim was a little . . . wobbly last night.’

  Iris smiled knowingly. ‘They’re all the same. My Geoff was never keen on me working at the dispatch centre. Specially as I was mostly on nightshifts. All those male drivers hanging about waiting for a job.’

  ‘Yeah, but you didn’t—’

  ‘I did my crosswords. And entered competitions. Won us a washing machine. Still going, it is, too. You know, as much as I wasn’t keen on his jealous streak, it was nice to feel loved. He was never possessive, never stifling. The irony was he always wanted me home of an evening and then the minute I retired – early mind, so we could spend some time together – he went and took up with the angels. Never been so lonely as that first night at home without him. I suppose I was getting a taste of what he’d had all those years.’

  Kate squeezed her arm.

  ‘And I’ve never really said this, but it was only you turning up with your Becky that stopped me from sinking low. Gave me someone else to look after.’

  ‘Let’s just say we saved each other’s bacon,’ said Kate.

  They’d stopped at the chilled aisle.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Iris, pointing at some plastic filled trays.

  ‘Sushi.’

  ‘It looks like fish.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Is it raw?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Iris pulled a face. ‘Stick it in the trolley. Maybe you could do with some as well.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Those headaches.’

  ‘There haven’t been that many.’

  ‘Two in a row? Funny how it’s been both times after you’ve come back from that place. Ramsbourne, did you say it was?’

  ‘That’s right. Yes, I suppose it has.’

  ‘Maybe it’s an ill place.’

  Kate snorted. ‘Don’t be daft. Not the whole village is ill.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, must be just that part of the village then.’

  Kate pondered. ‘I think you just hold a deep suspicion for the countryside.’

  ‘Never lived anywhere but south London and never seen the need to. Except maybe Spain,’ she said wistfully. ‘Always fancied trying that flamenco. Had a good pair of legs in my time.’ She looked into the trolley. ‘Are we done? I could do with a cup of decaffeinated and an organic rice cake.’

  After Kate had escorted Iris back on the bus and put her shopping away for her, she headed home. She felt at a loose end. In truth she wasn’t used to having so much time off. An email pinged in her inbox and she saw it was from Greg, inviting her to check over the wording for the press release for the bursary. He’d suggested it might be called the Becky Ellis Foundation and she agreed and emailed him to say so. He answered back straight away, saying how glad he was that she approved. Then the computer went silent. There didn’t seem to be anything to do and she was distracted, unsettled. All those ill people . . . she couldn’t get it out of her head.

  She idly googled Ramsbourne and clicked on a map of the village. She found her way around the lanes, going from house to house, looking at all the ones she had visited, and realized that they were all in the same part of the village, to the south. She zoomed in. What else was around there? Nothing. Only a farm and a small river that ran further south. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for and sighed; it was silly, really. She’d let Iris’s words get to her.

  Realizing she was wasting a day inside when the sun was gently warming everything, she decided to make the most of it. Changing into an old bikini she’d bought when she’d taken Becky on her first holiday, she dragged the moth-eaten sun-lounger cushion from under the stairs, and took her sunglasses, a lemonade and her still-unfinished book out into the tiny garden.

  The weather was glorious and after a few minutes she put the book down and closed her eyes. Her skin f
elt warm and caressed. She could feel herself dozing, the sounds from the world outside fading as she drifted off: distant traffic, shouts and laughter from some young people from the college, a grass-cutting machine in the local park at the end of the road. She listened to the thrum of the engine as it got closer and then faded away again as it turned and headed in the opposite direction. She was almost asleep when it returned for its next loop and she found herself getting irritated at it for preventing her from napping. Such an incessant noise. It was getting louder and louder as it approached. Familiar. The noise mentally poking her: you remember me. Round and round, up and down. Grace’s back garden. A tractor looping the field again and again. She suddenly opened her eyes. A weird thought.

  The farm.

  The tractor.

  The crop-spraying. The smell. The headaches.

  Kate sat up. It couldn’t be. Could it?

  She went back inside to her computer and typed ‘crop-spraying in the countryside’ into the search engine. Boom – there it was. Article upon article staring her in the face:

  Crop Sprays Damage Health

  Pesticides Campaign

  Links Between Herbicides and Cancer

  It went on and on. There were pages of them.

  ‘I know it’s quite late,’ said Kate as Grace opened the front door, surprised to see her.

  ‘The boys are outside,’ said Grace, and Kate waved through to Arnie and John playing football in the garden. ‘Time for a coffee?’

  ‘Love one.’ As Kate waited, she was drawn towards the open patio doors, and watched the twins play in the garden. On the other side of the chain-link fence was the field. There was no buffer, nothing to protect them. The spray would come right into the garden, most likely up to the house, carried on any breeze. This would happen again and again, every time the tractor did a loop of the field. And how many times a year? Fifteen? Twenty? And that wasn’t the only field – there were acres of them.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said as a mug was handed to her.

  ‘It’s especially beautiful at this time,’ said Grace, looking outside. ‘Evenings growing lighter and the crops still new.’ She smiled. ‘So, what brings you here? Did you find Becky’s article? Double-page spread on how I swapped a career in accounting for making dodgy Swiss rolls?’

  Kate didn’t answer straight away. She didn’t know how to, what to say. She was beginning to wonder if she had made a mistake coming, but then . . . if what she thought was true, how could she not say anything? Grace was looking at her expectantly.

  ‘Yes. About that article. I think it might have been about something else.’

  ‘Something else?’ repeated Grace.

  Kate paused. ‘I . . . you may not know this, but Becky always wanted to be an investigative journalist. Someone who would root out the truth. She liked stories that exposed corruption or wrongdoing.’

  Grace smiled.

  Kate ploughed on. ‘I went to see all the other families here in the village that Becky had been visiting. Not just the ones you mentioned, there were others, too.’

  ‘Right. I’m still not following.’

  ‘Did you know that there are five cases of cancer just in the few streets in the south of Ramsbourne?’

  Grace frowned. ‘Five?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What has this got to do with us?’

  ‘I think the reason Becky was here is that she was investigating something serious. I think she was trying to prove a link between the illnesses in the village and –’ Kate turned her eyes to the field of glowing yellow – ‘that.’

  Grace followed her gaze. Could see nothing. ‘What?’

  ‘The crops. Or rather, what’s sprayed on the crops. The pesticides and herbicides.’

  ‘What?’ Grace laughed. ‘No. I mean, I know it doesn’t smell too good, but it can’t be dangerous. It’s right outside. Near our home. I mean, it’s a metre or so from the garden. It’s going on our food. No, this is all wrong.’

  ‘Have you ever heard of something called glyphosate?’

  ‘Er . . . yes . . . vaguely. Isn’t it some sort of weedkiller?’

  ‘It’s a chemical used in a large number of pesticides and herbicides. It’s classified by the World Health Organization as “probably carcinogenic to humans”. There are other chemicals too. Sometimes – quite often – they’re mixed up. Various combinations are sprayed.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re telling me. We’re being poisoned by what’s going on the crops? You do realize how mad that sounds?’ challenged Grace.

  ‘I know it sounds far-fetched. But there’s scientific evidence that exposure to pesticides can cause cancer and other diseases, too. Parkinson’s, birth defects, damage to the nervous system.’

  Grace shook her head stubbornly. ‘But . . . this can’t be right. Not here. You must be talking about somewhere overseas. Where the regulations aren’t as tight. No one would allow something like that to happen here.’

  ‘I know it’s hard to take in,’ said Kate anxiously. ‘But I think they have – they do. I’ve been looking into it.’

  ‘Hang on, but what about the doctors? Why haven’t they picked this up? No one’s once said that Arnie is ill because of what they’re putting on the crops at the end of our garden.’ Grace was struggling. ‘And the children play outside all the time.’ She suddenly became triumphant. ‘No, no, you see, they both do, so why is one ill and not the other?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry, Grace, I wasn’t sure what was best to do but I really do believe this is what Becky was investigating. I thought you ought to know.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Have you told the others?’ asked Grace, and Kate sensed a defensive tone in her voice.

  ‘No. I just came to you. I haven’t . . .’ Kate suddenly deflated. Then, a rumbling sound in the distance. It grew steadily louder: it was mechanical, an engine. A tractor appeared on the brow of the hill, making its way across the field towards them. Behind it was a large boom that stretched out several metres over the crops, and from the entire length of that boom emanated a light mist. It drenched the crops and rolled across the air, a continuous hissing discharge, and as the tractor grew closer, a distinct chemical smell began to filter through to the garden.

  Grace stared, apprehension contorting her face. She shot an agitated look at Kate, unsure of what to say, what to do. Kate could begin to taste something foul in her mouth and she involuntarily recoiled. The shouts from the boys as they played their game of football were still audible above the tractor – just. The machinery continued to approach, getting louder and ever closer.

  ‘Get in, get in!’ shouted Grace suddenly, running towards her children in panic. They stopped kicking the ball, bewildered by the look on their mother’s face. She grabbed each of them by the hand and pulled them back into the house, Kate bringing up the rear.

  The patio door slammed shut, and Kate saw that Grace was shaking. They watched as the tractor drove past the perimeter of the field and the spray meandered gently across the garden. Then, a few minutes later, as quickly as it had appeared, the tractor vanished, back down the hill in another loop around the field. It would only be a matter of minutes before it returned.

  ‘Ah, Mum, I was about to score!’ complained John.

  ‘It’s bath time,’ said Grace quickly. She looked up at Kate. ‘So, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’

  Kate started. ‘Of course.’

  It was a swift goodbye and Kate took the train straight back to London. As it raced past the innocent-looking, glorious yellow fields, she thought about Grace, her twins. She thought about the terrible thing she had just imparted and felt guilty. But she knew she hadn’t read all those reports wrongly. She also had the sense that she had only touched on the tip of the iceberg.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Tim, pouring Kate a cold beer as she sat at her computer. ‘How can farmers be allowed to spray this stuff? Surely it’s i
llegal?’

  ‘You’d think, eh? But look – it’s here,’ she said, pointing at the screen. ‘There’s this rule the regulators use – is it safe according to the “Bystander risk assessment”? In other words, they assume that there’ll only be occasional, short-term exposure to these chemicals, just a few minutes, say. They don’t take into account if you live next door to a farm where it’s being sprayed regularly. Sometimes more than twenty times in a season.’

  ‘This is here? In this country?’

  ‘I know it’s hard to believe.’ She came away from the computer and sat down next to him on the sofa, sinking into the worn cushions in the middle. ‘But think about it. What’s gonna happen if suddenly someone owns up to the fact that this is a national scandal? Think about the payouts.’ Kate took a sip of her drink. ‘I read this story. About this retired guy who was in his driveway that backed onto a field when the sprayers came past. He was sorting something under his car, couldn’t get out in time. His mouth and chest were burned by the chemicals. His vocal cords collapsed and now he can hardly speak.’

  Tim’s mouth dropped open. ‘That’s . . . horrific. And the industry and the government know about this but still do nothing?’

  ‘Yep. There’s loads more, too. I’ve found story after story of people who’ve suffered – kids, old people – some of them fatally.’

  ‘But . . .’ Tim shook his head, bewildered. ‘They can’t do that.’

  ‘Except they do.’ Kate exhaled. ‘It’s awful. What d’you do?’

  ‘What can you do? Apart from don’t buy a house next to a farm.’

  ‘But that’s so wrong. What about all those people who didn’t know about this when they bought their homes? Who still don’t know about it? Whose children, families, are getting ill. It’s not just houses you know, some schools back onto the fields. Imagine your kid playing outside at breaktime every summer for twelve years, breathing this stuff in. Getting it on their skin. There’s been reports of sickness, rashes on children—’ Kate was interrupted by her phone. She looked at the cracked screen, bit her lip. ‘It’s Grace. I think I really upset her today. I shouldn’t have just gone down there, wading in with this.’