The Things I Know

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘I’m thinking bigger things, and everything is a little clearer, as if I can see further ahead than the next step, the next corner.’

  She felt another tie of kinship, knowing that this was how she lived her life, one wobbly step at a time.

  ‘I like being here,’ he said with a sniff.

  ‘Well, I like you being here.’ She spoke to the horizon but still sensed the delight he took in her comment.

  Buddy mirrored her happy state, scampering in and out of puddles and over stones, running and leaping like an adventurous pup, exuding joy, sniffing out scents, pawing at anything of interest and urinating more than she had ever seen any dog urinate before at one time.

  ‘It’s as though this is the first time he’s been here,’ Grayson observed.

  ‘That’s another lovely thing about dogs. They might walk the same route a thousand times, but to them it’s a brand-new adventure and never the same twice. I think life would be much better if we could all learn to be a bit more like Buddy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s a pub you can go to for supper later, if you want, or I can set you a place with us in the kitchen, or you can eat in the dining room. It’s only pie – nothing fancy – but you’d be very welcome.’

  Grayson seemed to falter and shifted awkwardly on the spot. She wondered if the suggestion seemed a little overfamiliar, despite their happy connection, and felt the sour tang of regret on her tongue. A picture of Tarran Buttermore bloomed in her mind: his smile of rejection, the way he’d high-fived Digger . . .

  ‘I always eat alone, so I think I’d be more comfortable in the dining room, if that’s okay?’

  ‘Of course!’ She exhaled her relief. ‘Why don’t you eat with your mum?’

  ‘I don’t know. She doesn’t really eat proper meals. She’s quite fat, but she mainly grazes, on salted peanuts and toast and butter. I think she overeats during the day when I’m at work. I often find empty sausage packets, chocolate wrappers and paper bags from the local shops torn open and in the bin. I saw her once put her hand in and pull out a bag to lick the frosting that was stuck to the paper. The cake long gone. She didn’t know I was watching.’

  ‘I can’t imagine that. We always eat together. I do most of the cooking, and I quite like it. I don’t really watch TV but, if I do, I watch cookery programmes and pick up tips. It’s nice watching a handful of things from around the kitchen turn into a meal that tastes good.’

  ‘Like magic.’ He glanced at her.

  ‘Yes, like magic! I’d like to go to other countries and learn about the food, cook somewhere where I’ve never heard of half the ingredients. And I want to go to New York. Have you ever been?’

  ‘No, but we have offices there, so I could go.’

  ‘You’re so lucky.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone has ever thought I was lucky before.’ He pushed his fringe from his forehead.

  ‘So that’s my thing – to travel to New York.’ That and to have a kitchen of my own where I have my own cake tins, and someone to bake for . . . ‘What would you like to do? If you could do anything?’

  ‘I just want to be happy and be free to live my life,’ he offered without guile, and her heart boomed.

  Hitch wanted to pry further but, aware of the intrusive nature of her questions, instead she smiled at him and walked along slowly, with the man at her side concentrating on his footing as they walked a little further along the wide sweep of the water’s edge. It was second nature to her to tread among the gently rounded boulders, kissed by the Severn’s current, that littered their path, along with the smaller rocks and flattened stones, which skidded now under the smooth soles of Grayson’s shoes. He walked with his arms outstretched, reminding her of a tightrope walker, teetering to the left and right in an effort to remain upright.

  ‘You need heavy boots like these with a grippy sole.’ Hitch lifted her foot.

  ‘I only have these shoes and my trainers, which I wear if I go up the shops or anything or if I go walking, but I only walk on pavements to get from A to B and so slipping over is not really a problem.’

  She tried to imagine a world where all she might need was a pair of sparkly red shoes and, even though she couldn’t, not easily, she felt a flutter in her chest at the possibility, thinking it would be nice to own them.

  ‘What’s wrong with your foot?’ It was his turn to be direct.

  ‘I was born with this too. It’s like a claw foot. I kind of walk on tiptoe.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes, in the cold weather or at the end of the day.’

  ‘Do you want to go back?’ He pointed in the direction of the farmhouse and she was happy about his misplaced concern.

  ‘No,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’m good, thank you. I was just thinking about you sitting by yourself. I can’t imagine eating on my own. We eat together, my mum and dad and my pig of a cousin.’

  ‘The one I have to ignore.’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded at the floor. ‘I have a brother too, Jonathan, but he’s in America – cowboy country! He works on a ranch.’

  ‘Oh. I don’t know what you do all day on a ranch. I can’t really picture any life that isn’t spent travelling to and sitting in an office or a shop or a factory and then travelling home again for tea. And to answer your question, I don’t know if I’d like my mum to eat with me.’ It was obviously now on his mind too. ‘I think it’s better that she watches TV and leaves me in peace. She talks a lot. In fact, she never stops and it’s’ – he placed his hands briefly over his ears – ‘it’s terrible.’

  ‘My mum hardly talks at all, not about anything that matters. But she constantly asks me if I’m okay, or tells me everything is okay, as though she doesn’t think I’m capable of anything. It drives me crazy.’ She gave a forced laugh.

  Grayson looked at her with an expression that looked a lot like sadness. ‘I’ve only known you for a few hours but I think you’re the type of person who is capable of just about anything.’

  She stared at this man, whose words meant more than he could ever possibly know.

  The two slowed and came to a standstill on the gritty, damp bank, looking out over the water, which was moving, churning and busy. Tiny waves broke into a foamy white froth on the banks and where the currents converged in the river. Fish flipped and darted, breaking the surface with a satisfying plop. Birds chattered, swooped and hovered overhead, no doubt hopeful of grabbing one of the flipping, darting fish, or at the very least ogling them with watering mouths.

  ‘I never, ever get tired of the view,’ Hitch said. ‘It’s even different from one hour to the next. The sky changes colour from greenish grey to the clearest blue and the clouds are like brushstrokes in the sky. The water is murky or clear, moving or still. It’s like a painting that’s never finished. Sometimes I come and sit here of an evening and just watch: it’s my favourite thing to do. The sunset at certain times of the year is orange – bright, bright orange, like you see in a film or a photo – and I always think that’s the way the sun is supposed to look, like a great ball of fire, just out of reach.’

  ‘It’s quiet here.’

  ‘I thought it was very noisy in London when I went. Is it hard for you to get to sleep? It would be for me.’

  ‘No. I’m used to it.’

  ‘I guess you must be.’

  ‘In fact,’ he said, swallowing, ‘I sometimes find it hard to get to sleep if it’s too quiet. I’m used to the sirens, dog barks, shouts, TV noises from other flats, whistles in the stairwell and the drone of traffic. It’s like an urban lullaby that soothes me to sleep as surely as any nursery rhyme whispered from a rocking chair.’

  There he was again with his poetry.

  ‘I like the way you say things.’

  ‘Thank you, Thomasina.’

  Again the sound of her name on his lips almost moved her to tears. It was overwhelming, respectful and beautiful all at once.

  ‘You want to sit down?’ She c
oughed, pointing at a large, flat rock that looked like a table cast by nature.

  ‘Sure.’

  She nimbly trod the path and sat down on the rock, which still had some warmth to it. She ran her fingers over the soft grey surface.

  ‘I think living in the countryside is so great because you have so many places to sit down,’ Grayson said suddenly.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Buddy looked over in his mistress’s direction, his expression quizzical, as though he were checking on her well-being.

  ‘I mean that, in the city, the only places where I can sit are on the bus, in my flat, on my chair at work, on a bench if there’s an empty spot, or maybe a wall. But here you can sit anywhere. On the grass, a hay bale, the bottom or the top of a hill, even at the side of the road. No one is going to ask you to move because you’re cluttering up a verge or a rock.’ Grayson patted the soft rock on which they perched. ‘Can you imagine if I just sat in the middle of the pavement?’

  ‘Actually, I can’t,’ Hitch said, shaking her head.

  ‘No. Everything about the countryside is soft.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She screwed up her face, picking up a flat pebble and holding it in her hand.

  ‘The air tastes soft, without the dark tang of pollution. The buildings are imperfect with walls made of stones, all thick and sloping in places and irregular. You’ve got grass, not concrete. If the city is hard and grey, I think here it’s soft, green, rounded, forgiving.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  A man called to his son much further along the path and the boy turned and ran back to him. ‘Even when people shout here, it’s a long, echoey, sing-song sound, and it doesn’t sound angry. Where I live, the shouts are short, sharp, aggressive, fast, as if people need to call out but know everyone is listening. Here, it’s as if the person is happy to shout out across the fields or the river, letting their sound carry on the wind; they don’t mind being heard.’

  Hitch stood up and, with surprising force, lobbed the pebble, which skimmed the surface – one, two, three, four, five times – before disappearing beneath the water.

  ‘I think you’re right, Grayson.’

  ‘About everywhere being softer?’

  ‘No, what you said earlier, about you noticing some weird stuff.’ She smiled at him, letting him know that her observation on this and just about every other aspect of him was something she liked very much.

  He threw his head back and laughed. ‘I do, I know I do, and tomorrow I get to do it in front of an audience.’

  ‘Are you nervous?’ She swung her good leg back and forth, the sole of her boot scuffing the stone-strewn path.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you like your job?’ She twisted one foot beneath her, facing him, and watched his face colour under her scrutiny.

  ‘I like getting it right.’

  ‘But do you like getting up and going in every day to do it?’ She twirled the ends of her hair around her fingers.

  ‘What else would I do?’

  ‘I don’t know – I don’t know you! A different job? Lie in bed? Go to the seaside?’ Hitch raised her arms and let them fall by her side, exasperated not by the exchange but at how easy she found it to make suggestions she was too scared to implement herself.

  He seemed to think about this. ‘I like the routine and I like going to bed knowing what to expect the next day, so I guess it suits me. I don’t think about it too much.’

  ‘I understand that. It’s a bit different for me – my job is my life and my life is my job. It’s like that in farming. You can’t easily see the join where one stops and the other starts.’

  ‘So if someone asks you what your job is, what do you say?’

  ‘I say I’m an egg collector. That’s my responsibility: my girls.’

  ‘And you like it? Don’t mind getting up to do it every day?’

  She saw the flicker of something in his eyes, challenging her. ‘It’s complicated. I love it. I love them. But living here is hard a lot of the time. There aren’t many days like this when I get to chat and have a bit of time to myself. There’s always something that needs doing and it’s always me that needs to do it.’

  ‘And you live here with your cousin, who I have to ignore, and with your mum and dad?’

  ‘Yep, and casual labour in the summer months and when we’re busy – mainly people we call up from the village and other farming families.’

  ‘And has your cousin lived here all his life?’

  ‘God, no. My cousin is horrible!’ she spat, as she whipped her head around. She could see that the ferocity of her response threw him a little. She wasn’t finished and her words flew from her mouth. ‘He thinks he owns the place, but he doesn’t! It’s my mum and dad’s farm and when they give it up it’ll go to my brother, Jonathan.’

  ‘And what will you do then?’

  ‘I’ll work for him, maybe, collect the eggs and carry on like I do now, but I’ll probably have my own home by then. Or I might do something else altogether.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She sighed and he changed the topic.

  ‘Why don’t you like your cousin?’

  ‘Because he’s disrespectful to my parents and he’s teased me my whole life. Each individual thing he says doesn’t bother me so much, but when I string them all together his insults are loud inside my head and it’s not fair and he’s not nice. Like I said, he’s horrible.’

  Her words changed the atmosphere, peppered their happy conversation with angry dots of frustration. The water now looked foggy and the breeze that whipped around them was no longer invigorating but instead left her feeling a little cold. She noticed the shiver to his limbs and the way he rubbed the tops of his arms, seeking warmth.

  ‘I suppose we’d better think about getting back.’ She stood and wiped the back of her jeans, whistling Buddy to heel as they began the walk home.

  I know I’ve met someone I like.

  I know Mr Grayson Potts is a little bit odd but he’s also a little bit lovely.

  I know he makes my stomach feel like there’s a bubble of something in it, something like happiness.

  I know I want to look at him and talk to him.

  I know this should not be the case, as I’ve only just met him, but it is the case. This I know.

  What I don’t know is if he likes me back or if I’ve blown it by talking absolute nonsense.

  FIVE

  It was strange for her to feel the pull of concern directed at the guest who ate his supper alone on the other side of the kitchen wall – or, more accurately, concern and a little fascination. He had again declined the offer to eat with her and her family and she now pictured him sitting at the head of the dark wooden table where her great-great-grandparents had taken their wedding breakfast and wondered if he too was enjoying the steak pie with the same smacking of lips and moans of appreciation offered by her parents and Emery. Her own appetite was diminished, as subtle feelings of anticipation that she couldn’t quite yet place filled her stomach. It was a rare thing to feel connected to someone she had only known for a matter of hours and yet this was exactly how it was: a connection of sorts, strings of recognition and interest threaded through the wall to Mr Grayson Potts and back again.

  She pictured him in profile earlier, seated on the flat rock at the river’s edge, looking around in wonder like a child who had seen the sea for the first time.

  It was ridiculous, yes.

  But no less true for it.

  ‘We got a good price per head on the calves today,’ her mother said, head down, moving her face to meet the spoon loaded with meat and the rich, dark gravy and not, as most people would do, lifting the spoon to her lips.

  ‘Market busy?’ Emery’s voice, loud as ever, in her ears.

  ‘Usual, really,’ her mum muttered, as she reached for a chunk of bread to clean the bowl, mopping up the scraps and not wasting a lick of pie sauce. ‘And how have you been, my lov
ely? Everything all right?’ Her mum held her bread still, as if waiting for the all-clear, always expecting Hitch to be one step away from a disaster that never came. How she wished her mum would relax, so they all could.

  ‘Yep, all good, Mum.’

  ‘Guest settled in?’

  Hitch nodded.

  ‘More than settled in, eh, Hitch?’ Emery chortled.

  ‘We bumped into Thurston Buttermore at the market,’ her dad piped up, smiling and nodding, as was his way – a kind man who treasured any and each interaction within the farming community to which he belonged.

  Hitch felt her cheeks flame pink and the prickly heat of embarrassment bloom on her chest, thinking about the previous night in the pub and wondering how much Thurston’s son had shared with his father.

  ‘Oh?’ Emery pricked up his ears, interested in what might have been happening over at the Buttermores’ farm, the biggest in the area, with the family well known for their abundance of cash and love of any new gadgetry. They farmed within the protection of a large supermarket, the representatives of which bought their produce and cosied up to Buttermore senior at a lavish annual dinner where palms were greased, brandy was sipped and tender, tender meat was served in front of a roaring fire.

  The thought of Tarran Buttermore stole the last of Hitch’s appetite. She placed her fork on the table and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. In her mind she heard the three toots of Digger Whelks’s car horn and swallowed the shame that soured her tongue. Rubbing her arms, she tried to ward off the unexpected chill that snaked down her bones, and at that moment was glad that Mr Grayson Potts was on the other side of the wall.

  ‘You done?’ Emery nodded towards her food.

  She nodded. Without waiting for further invitation, he reached across the table and grabbed her plate, tipping her leftover pie unceremoniously on to his own.

  ‘You were saying you saw Thurston Buttermore?’ Emery reminded her dad.

  ‘Yes!’ Her dad gave a chuckle. ‘He reminded me I was getting on a bit, cheeky beggar, and said how sweet this spot is, right by the river. More or less said he’d give me a pretty price for Waycott should I ever change my mind about selling. You see, he might have the acreage and a fancy shed full of machinery, but he hasn’t got our view or this beautiful old house, has he?’