‘Or until I can figure all that out . . .’ she said, matching his sentiment, reminding him that this was a two-way thing, tired of the feeling that her parents steered her own ship of fate, as surely as if they were on the high seas in a boat crafted from the timbers that held up the roof of the farm. It was, she realised, maybe about time she became the captain of her own vessel, forged her own future. After all, if she was, as Grayson said, a good person, smart and beautiful, what was to stop her?
‘Can I ask you to do something?’ he said, with a catch to his voice.
‘What?’
He held her gaze and reached for both of her hands. ‘Tell people not to call you Hitch – tell them your name is Thomasina.’
‘Why?’ She freed one hand to swipe the tears defiantly from the top of her cheekbone with her fingertips and then placed her fingers back in his palm.
‘Because it’s important.’
She laughed and shook her head. ‘But it’s not important, Grayson, not really.’
‘It is to me. And it should be to you.’ He gazed deep into her eyes, as if thinking about what else he wanted to say, his parting words. He thumbed the skin on the back of her hands. ‘I feel sick, sick and sad. I can’t help it. I want more of you, Thomasina, more time, more sex, more everything. You are amazing,’ he whispered now, leaning forward to kiss her again on the mouth and run his fingers through her long hair. ‘I can’t think that I won’t see you again.’
‘Well, you must. It’s for the best – like you said, it’s not straightforward. It’s life, it’s geography and circumstance . . .’ she paraphrased.
‘Goodbye, Thom.’ He let go of her hands and walked slowly back towards the farmhouse, where he would gather his bag and climb into a wretched taxi that would carry him away from their fairy tale.
‘Goodbye, Gray,’ she whispered into the ether, as the chickens clucked and the cattle lowed, as if they too sensed a shift in the air, picking up on the fact that, suddenly, all was not right in their world.
I know I have a pain in my chest and my heart.
I know I feel a little lost.
I now know that the phrase I have heard since my childhood is a big fat lie.
I know it is not better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, because I now know what I’m missing and what I’m missing is Grayson Potts.
EIGHT
Grayson Potts left, and Hitch felt down in the days following. But this was different from her usual lows – she felt sadder and more lonely than before she ever knew of his existence. Changing the bed linen now in readiness for a new guest, she slowly ran her fingers over the pillow on which he had laid his clever head and pictured him swiping his long fringe with his finger and tucking it behind his ear.
‘I’ve written my address on a piece of paper and left it by the side of the bed.’ She practised her cockney accent. ‘If you need anything, if you want to come and visit or if you’re ever passing . . . as if I’d ever be passing! What d’you think, Grayson, that I just click my heels and, hey presto?’ She shook her head.
‘Who are you talking to, darlin’?’ Her mum’s voice took her by surprise.
‘Myself,’ she admitted.
Her mum stared at her from the doorway with her hands on her hips and a duster in her hand. ‘You do that a lot, my love.’ Her tone was at best accusatory, at worst suspicious, undercut with a cloying note of pity that made Hitch want to scream.
‘I do.’ She laughed. ‘I have no one else to talk to.’
‘You have me and your dad and Emery.’
Hitch rolled her eyes. ‘As if I’d want to talk to Emery about anything, and you and Dad are too busy to talk about anything that matters . . .’ She let this trail.
‘What is it you want to talk about that matters?’
‘Lots of things!’ she fired.
‘Like what?’ Her mum looked a little perplexed.
‘Well, I don’t know!’ she shouted. Her mum again stared at her with a quizzical lift to her eyebrow.
‘Is this about that young man who stayed?’
‘Partly.’
And partly because I want to make plans and I don’t know where to start, and partly because I have big ideas. I want to travel, but if I stay here, I can’t earn enough money to make any changes. And partly because I’m done with it all!
‘For the love of God, Hitch, you only knew him for five minutes! He probably does it all over the country: goes and stays somewhere, chats up the ladies, and then on to the next! And I’m not saying you shouldn’t have fun – I think you should – but you can’t put any stock in it.’
‘I don’t think he’s like that, Mum.’ She pictured his earnest expression, his lack of guile, his unsuitable footwear and the sight of him bending low, trying to make friends with Daphne. ‘Not him. He was different.’
‘Well, if you say so, and when you figure out what it is you want to talk about that’s so important, come and find me. Everything is going to be okay, I promise.’
She smiled at her mum’s sweet, if irritating, cliché and would have found this invitation to confide in her heartening, were it not for the slow shake of her mum’s head that again suggested her exasperation.
Hitch flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
‘I liked you being here, Grayson.’ She reached for the square of paper in her jeans pocket with his address on it, signed with a single kiss. ‘I liked being near you and I liked talking to you,’ she whispered into the atmosphere.
‘Hitch?’ her mum shouted from the bottom of the stairs.
‘What?’ She sighed, closing her eyes and wishing she could take a few more minutes to reflect on the man she missed and the exquisite feeling of his mouth on hers . . .
‘There’s something up with the chickens.’
She jumped up from the bed as if scalded and raced down the narrow staircase. She might lack the energy and enthusiasm for much else, but where her girls were concerned, she had rocket fuel in her feet and a devotion that was sky-high.
‘What’s up with them?’ she asked, a little breathless, as she fastened her fleece jacket. Her mind ran riot with all the possibilities – another raid by a fox, sickness or escapees.
‘One of them is sitting on the eggs, proper broody,’ said her mum, waiting in the kitchen.
‘Oh no, which one?’ Hitch asked, as she held the back door open.
‘How should I know? Dad’s gone back up to the coop.’
Hitch whistled for Buddy to come as she trotted across the yard, out over the back grass and towards the paddock. If a hen got broody, it was bad news. Broody hens wanted to sit on eggs and raise a clutch of chicks; what they didn’t want to do was lay other eggs.
She saw her dad pulling a small crate to the edge of the run.
‘I’ve separated her from the others, love, but she’s pulled out some of her chest feathers to line her nest. Gave me a right pecking, she did, when I had to move her.’
‘Which one is it?’ She bent low and peered through the gaps in the crate at Daphne. ‘Oh, Daph, my poor love.’ She looked up at her dad. ‘That’s not like her. She’s not aggressive – none of them are.’
‘No, but if she thinks I’m going to harm her little ’uns . . .’ He sighed. ‘She was warm and so I’ve given her water. It’s important she stays hydrated. There were a few eggs under her, Hitch. Have you been collecting as regularly as you should?’ he asked softly.
‘I think so, maybe missed once or twice while I was, erm, while I was . . .’ She struggled to think of how to phrase her preoccupation.
‘While you took a shine to that London chap?’
‘Yes.’ She bit the inside of her cheek. The idea that her girls might have suffered because of something she might have done or not done was more than she could stand.
‘It can just happen, love, whether you collect regular or not,’ he said, smiling at her, her sweet dad. ‘Trouble is, it can be contagious – one broody hen can lead to two and
then three, and they sit on all the eggs and stop laying, and then they’re not layers, not paying their keep, and they’re just costing us time and money.’ He shook his head.
‘That won’t happen.’ She tried to hide her note of panic, knowing the consequence for a chicken that did not lay. ‘Daphne’s smart. She’ll figure it out, get back on track.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’ He winked at her.
‘Poor little thing, it’s not much to ask, is it? To be allowed to have a little one of your own, to live in your own house and to be a mum, especially when that’s all we ask of her, to lay eggs.’
‘It’s the nature of it, darlin’.’ He patted the crate. ‘Was he nice then, that London chap?’
Hitch nodded. ‘He was. Really nice.’
‘Might he come back again?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. He works for a kind of bank, he’s busy and he’s far away.’
‘Well, even people who work in kind of banks and live far away need holidays!’
His attempt to cheer her had the opposite effect. She felt her tears pool.
‘I liked him, Pops.’
‘I could tell – you carried the scent of joy with you, and it was lovely. Well, if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.’ He walked over and ruffled the top of her hair, like he had when she was a child.
‘Do you think Jonathan might come home soon?’ She sniffed. On top of everything else, she missed her brother, wishing he were here and cursing the moment she had asked the question, knowing that to put her brother’s absence in her dad’s mind was unfair.
What is wrong with you, Thomasina?
Her dad took his time in replying, letting his eyes sweep across the land over which he was king. ‘I don’t know. I think he’s happy and he likes life in the sunshine, and who knows – maybe there’ll be nothing for him to come home to?’
‘Please don’t say that!’ She cursed the tears that fell, crying for several reasons.
‘Truth is, I’ve had an enquiry, a very generous enquiry, via a lawyer chap in Bristol. He phoned me yesterday. As I’ve said, I have to think of all the options.’
‘Them bloody Buttermores, chucking their money at us – well, we are not for sale! We are not!’ she hissed, balling her fingers into fists.
‘We might not have any choice, my little love,’ he offered solemnly. ‘Besides, we don’t know it’s the Buttermores.’
‘Who else would it be?’ She stared at the crate in which her little hen clucked forlornly. ‘I feel like everything’s unravelling, Pops, and I don’t know what to do.’
‘You’ll be fine, and we’ll be fine, you’ll see.’ He pulled her into his arms and held her close – her dad, the only man in the world she trusted to tell her the truth and to treat her right. Unbidden, an image of Grayson rose in her mind and her tears fell afresh.
Plunging the large serving spoon into the hotpot casserole, she heard the satisfying crack of crisped golden potatoes on top of the rich meat and gravy as she heaped a portion on to the plate, alongside buttered peas and hot steamed cabbage.
‘Smells good.’ Her dad smacked his lips. ‘Where’s Emery? Not like him to be late for supper.’
Her mum shrugged. ‘No matter, his plate’ll keep in the warming oven.’ She lifted her own cutlery in readiness for her food. Hitch placed the bowls in front of her parents and went back to the range to serve her own.
‘Anything important you want to talk about tonight, my lovely?’ her mum asked flatly, and Hitch couldn’t tell if she was taking her earlier request seriously.
‘Actually, yes,’ she said with a cough. ‘There is something.’
‘Well, we are all ears!’ Her mum smiled at her husband across the table and she felt a warm stir of memory that this was what life had been like before Emery had pitched up permanently. How she had missed it!
She coughed again to clear her throat, attempting to give her announcement gravitas. ‘I don’t want you to call me Hitch any more. I want you to call me Thomasina.’ She spoke with as much authority as she could muster, turning to face them with her portion of hotpot in her hands, taking her seat at the table and smiling as she tucked in.
‘Ooh, this is good!’ She chewed the soft lumps of meat and forked a number of peas in for good measure.
‘But everyone calls you Hitch!’ Her mum stared at her. ‘They always have.’
‘I know, and now I want everyone to call me by my name, Thomasina. The name you gave me!’ she reminded them both.
‘Do you know, you’re right, love, you are absolutely right.’ Her dad chuckled and her mum followed suit. ‘Thomasina it is.’
‘Reckon I might forget while I’m getting used to it.’
‘That’s okay, Mum, as long as we get there in the end.’
‘This is a lovely hotpot. Thank you, Thomasina,’ her mum said with a smile.
‘It really is – one of the best, Thomasina,’ said her dad, joining in.
‘Could you pass the salt please, Thomasina,’ her mum said with a giggle.
‘And I’ll take the pepper, Thomasina,’ her dad snickered.
‘All right, you two – pack it in!’ Thomasina laughed – at least she had got her message across.
She and her beloved mum and dad sat around the table, the legs of which had worn wells in the flagstones over the years, as generations of Waycotts before them did likewise. Buddy slept by the hearth, and with bowls of good food in front of them it was as near perfect an evening as they had had in a while.
The back door opened suddenly with force, slamming against the wall as if taken by the wind.
Emery stood in the doorway, the great hulking brute, with his fat, pale face and his hands of ham. Without uttering a single word, he sucked all the warmth and joy from the room. Thomasina felt her smile fade and discomfort return to her gut.
‘You’re late.’ Her mum nodded at the clock. ‘There’s a plate of hotpot in the warming oven.’
Emery nodded and walked in, closing the door behind him. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news.’
He spoke slowly, sincerely, and the words would have seemed innocuous to anyone other than Thomasina, who knew enough of him to recognise the slight twinkle in his eye and the almost imperceptible lift to his top lip, as if something had greatly amused him.
‘What’s that, son?’ Her dad let his spoon drop into the bowl and all three turned to face her cousin.
‘I found this.’
Thomasina looked up almost casually, expecting to see a broken piece of fence post, part of a breached pen or a discarded tractor bolt, the usual rusted, soiled or fractured detritus of farm life. Instead her heart boomed in her chest as the wail left her throat. In his big hand lay the limp body of a chicken – and not just any chicken, but her lovely Daphne, the little broody hen who had spent the day in a crate, away from her feathery friends, dreaming fruitlessly of motherhood.
‘No! No!’ she shouted, as she jumped up from the table, abandoning supper. ‘What did you do to her?’ She grabbed the hen from his grip and cradled her to her chest, and the feel of her tiny head lolling over her thumb was almost more than she could bear. ‘I said, what did you do? You pig!’ She couldn’t control her rage.
‘I didn’t do anything!’ He spoke with an underlying hint of laughter that sent a spike of anger through her.
‘I don’t believe you! You did this to her!’ she yelled.
‘For God’s sake, calm down, it’s only one hen!’
‘Only one hen?’ she screamed at her cousin. ‘How can you say that? They’re more than just hens to me! Much more.’ She turned to her mum, pointing at her cousin as her tears fell. ‘I know he did it on purpose! I just know it!’
‘Why would I do it on purpose?’ Again he laughed and she launched herself at him, punching him with the free hand that didn’t cradle Daphne.
‘I fucking hate you! I hate you! I hate you!’ she screamed, until her voice was hoarse.
‘Jesus Christ! Enou
gh, Hitch! Enough!’ Her dad jumped up and stood between her and Emery.
With a racing pulse and her heart hammering in her chest, she turned to her dad, ‘I told you, my name is Thomasina!’
‘Thomasina . . .’ Her dad spoke gently, as if calling to her.
She shook her head and rubbed the little feathered breast that lay in her palm. ‘I can’t do it any more, Dad. I can’t. I’m so fed up. I want more, more time, more everything. I’m stuck! And I understand that all Daphne wanted was a chick of her own, I get it, but how can she, when no one thinks she’s capable of anything other than changing the beds and cooking a bloody hotpot!’
She saw her mum and dad exchange a quizzical look and then lower their eyes to the floor, as they tried to piece together the words of her outburst and the muddle of her mind.
‘I’m going out,’ she sniffed. Grabbing her wallet and phone, she made for the back door and ran up to the coop. Crouching down with Daphne in her arms, she spoke to the rest of the birds, who were unsettled, their behaviour a little odd. Daisy Duke had pecked some of her own feathers and Little Darling was squawking with her chest pushed out.
‘It’s okay, it’s okay, girls. I know you’re scared, but it’s all going to be okay. You have nothing to be scared of. It will all be fine. You’ll see.’
With Daphne in her hands, Thomasina jogged back across the yard, past the house, and turned right at the bottom of the yard, through the five-bar gate and up the narrow lane.
She carried on walking as dusk began to bite. With her tears subsiding and Daphne now cool in her hand, she made it to the pub. Her plan was to get very drunk. She immediately cried at the thought of her last pub visit with Grayson by her side, her gut folded in longing as she pictured the lanky, long-fringed man who lived in a domino flat far, far away.
She pushed on the door and walked to the bar. Some of the boys were playing pool and a few older farmers were sitting in their usual spots with caps on their heads, gripping warm pints in calloused hands with dirty fingernails.
Shelley looked up. ‘Jesus, Hitch, you look like shit!’
‘Good,’ she said, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. ‘I feel like shit.’
The Things I Know Page 14