by A. L. Lester
Laurie grinned, unwillingly. “Mr McManus…” he said.
“Phil,” the other man interrupted. “Please. Call me Phil.”
“Laurie, then,” Laurie said. They stared at one another for a moment. McManus…Phil…had something guarded and careful about his gaze, but probably no more than Laurie had about his own.
“Pleased to meet you, Laurie,” McManus said.
Laurie nodded at him, acquiescing. “The kettle’s probably full,” he said, sitting carefully in the chair Phil had pulled out. “The tea’s in the caddy there, on the edge of the Rayburn. And the milk’s in the pantry.” He gestured to the door. “The fridge is tucked under the cold slab.”
He watched as McManus lifted the lid of the Rayburn and slid the kettle on to the boiling plate. The range was nice and hot. Sally made it up when she arrived in the morning and she usually kept the heat up so she could stick something in the oven for dinner.
“What time is it?” he asked, twisting round to look at the clock on the wall. “They’ll be in for dinner at one.” He’d forgotten to wind his watch with all the kerfuffle this morning.
“Half past eleven. You’ve time yet.”
McManus efficiently retrieved the jug of milk from the fridge, filled the teapot, and brought everything over to the table, snagging mugs from the draining board as he did so.
“How do you like it?” he asked, committing sacrilege by stirring the teapot with the spoon from the sugar bowl in the middle of the table.
“As it comes,” Laurie replied. “No sugar, thanks.”
As it comes was strong, like tar, given how much it had been mashed about. He sipped it carefully. It was hot and restorative, despite the aluminum aftertaste. McManus poured his own and drank it with evident relish.
They sat in fairly companionable silence for a few moments. The dogs were out around the farm, busy with whatever was going on this morning. Laurie thought Paul was spreading muck in the bottom field now it had dried off a bit, and Jimmy and Thomas would be checking the ewes and cows.
“Better?” Phil asked, after a while.
Laurie thought for a moment. “I think so?” It came out sounding unsure. “I’m…never quite sure how I feel now, to be honest. Just. Not quite right all the time.”
“I can understand that. It must be very difficult.” His tone was one of quiet understanding rather than overt and cloying sympathy and Laurie appreciated it.
“I’m sick of everyone asking me how I am,” he said, aloud, following on from his unspoken thought.
“I can understand that, too,” McManus…Phil said. “It gets wearing after a while, all the sympathy.” He stopped abruptly, as if he hadn’t meant to say that.
“Have you been ill too?” Laurie asked, cautiously. The other man could always fob him off like he’d done earlier.
“No…not ill. But my…” he broke off to cough, “…ended. We worked together. It was…messy.”
“Ah.” Laurie didn’t say anything else. No-one wanted to talk about their divorce with a complete stranger.
“You work in the City, Sally said?”
“Not at the moment,” Phil said. “I was with Parker, Horbon, and Dreville. Stockbrokers,” he added, when he realised Laurie was baffled. He went on. “But circumstances dictated a bit of a career break.” He smiled bitterly and added, “Perhaps a permanent one. At forty it’s difficult to start somewhere else. And I suppose I don’t need to work at all, if I’m honest. I’ve got some investments and I’ve been careful.”
Laurie nodded. “A man of leisure, then,” he said.
“I’m not sure about that. I don’t like having nothing to do.”
Laurie nodded more fervently. “It’s driving me crazy. They all pretend that they need me to manage every little thing that there is to do round and about, despite the fact they all coped perfectly well while I was in hospital.” He took another swig of tea. “They ask my opinion about things. They already know my opinion.” He shuddered. “It’s depressing. I just want them to leave me to get on with it on my own and stop just popping back because they forgot something.”
Phil eyed him consideringly. “That’s why I rented the cottage. I couldn’t bear seeing the pity in their eyes.” He stopped himself abruptly. “Well. Yes. That.” He looked embarrassed.
“It’s easier to talk to someone you don’t know very well, sometimes,” Laurie said, to fill the awkward pause.
Phil busied himself pouring out more tea, avoiding his eyes. “What time will Sally be back?” he asked.
“About twelve I should think. It’s Monday, isn’t it? It’s usually liver and bacon on a Monday. That doesn’t take long to cook.”
* * * *
McManus…Phil left soon after that. He seemed a nice bloke, if a bit odd. It seemed peculiar that he’d left his job because he didn’t want to work with his ex-wife. But if he didn’t need to work and she did, perhaps it was a kindness on his part to leave the field open for her at his old company. It didn’t sound like there were any children involved. Laurie didn’t know how divorce settlements worked, but he assumed if both parties were working and there were no offspring then financial settlements weren’t necessary. Or perhaps they hadn’t been married that long.
Whatever it was, it was none of his business, anyway.
It had been nice, though, for someone to look at him afresh and really see him. Him, Laurie, not poor old Laurie who’d had a stroke and nearly died in the top field. Poor old Laurie who sometimes needed help putting his shoes on and couldn’t help with the lambing this year because he’d fall flat on his arse if one of them knocked in to him. Laurie who couldn’t cook his own dinner or get himself in to the bath without a lot of help, Laurie who sometimes still drooled out of the left side of his mouth when he got tired, Laurie who’s hand was cramped and starting to turn in to a claw by the end of the day if he didn’t keep it moving.
He’d wondered for a minute if McManus was that way, too, from the look in his eyes once or twice as they were talking. Appreciative. He’d been married, though. And Laurie really didn’t think there was much to appreciate about himself at the moment. He’d never had much trouble finding blokes for a quick encounter on his trips to Bristol, but he didn’t think he had much to offer in that department at the moment.
Sally knew about him, but he didn’t think anyone else had guessed. Most people probably thought he and Sal were an item. They’d been thrown together when Laurie came to the farm permanently at sixteen. She was a couple of years younger. They had established a sibling relationship after a few months of circling round each other like nervous dogs. She’d resented him coming on to what she regarded as her territory.
Her Aunt Emily had ruled the roost in the big farmhouse for more than forty years and her duties had gradually devolved to Sally as she became frailer. It wasn’t quite the same as having Aunt Emily Beelock in charge of the house and kitchen, but Sally had been a good friend to him over the years and hadn’t treated him any differently when she’d realised why her teenage crush on him wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’d be a hypocrite,” she’d said one day, when they touched on it. “Mr Webber and Mr Curland are that way, aren’t they? No-one says anything about them. Everyone just pretends Mr Curland lives in the house because it was more convenient than him living in the barn like the farm men used to do. But I changes the sheets! I know they only use the one bed. And it’s none of anyone’s business but theirs.”
Uncle Matthew and Uncle Rob were now buried side-by-side in the churchyard at Cothelstone and Aunt Emily Beelock had joined them there in her family plot soon afterward.
Laurie’s own parents over the hill in Bridgewater were gone. They’d not really wanted much to do with him after they found him with another boy anyway. If Matthew hadn’t spoken up for him and taken him on, he’d have probably been on the streets. It was different now, a bit, he supposed. But back then, fifteen, twenty years ago, it had been hard going for teenagers whose parents didn’t like who they fancied. H
e’d been lucky.
He stood up and shuffled over to the sink, using the table-edge for balance. He’d rinse the mugs on his own and not leave them for Sally to do. And then he’d try and make himself useful and start on lunch.
* * * *
It didn’t quite work like that, but he managed to empty the teapot without breaking it and was in the pantry contemplating the fridge when Sally breezed back in. There was indeed liver and bacon ready to go into the Rayburn. He was bending down awkwardly to get it out of the fridge when she came in behind him and hauled the bags of shopping she was carrying up on to the cold slab to decant.
“You managed it, then?” she said, as he straightened up.
“Yes, it was all fine,” he lied enthusiastically, stepping back so she could put a slab of cheese and three pounds of sausages in the fridge. “No problems at all!”
She eyed him suspiciously. “So you say. I stopped at the Post Office on the way home to see whether you wanted a lift back. Patsy said you went all peculiar and Mr McManus gave you a lift.”
“I just needed a bit of a rest when I got there,” he replied with affronted dignity. “Nothing much at all. And I was admiring his car. He offered me a lift to see how she went. I could have walked back perfectly well.”
“Of course you could.” She humoured him. “What do you think of him, then? Mr McManus?”
He could feel himself flushing. “He seems like a nice bloke,” he said. “Is he paying you on time?”
She nodded. “Move over,” she said, hip-bumping him out of the way to put the tins of baked beans up on the top shelf where they lived. “Yes, every week, on the dot. I’ve been cleaning round for him a couple of times a week and changing the bed and that. He’s tidy. And clean. Not like that couple who had it before.” She shuddered. They’d been awful, he remembered. She’d spent a whole day scrubbing the bathroom when they left.
He sat himself back at the kitchen table and watched her familiar dance between the larder and sink and Rayburn. She put another pot of tea on and he poured them both cups as she worked. It was a comfortable kind of silence. Soothing. He’d enjoyed talking to McManus, but he was tired now. He’d need to sleep after dinner.
“There’s a girl in the barn,” he said, after a while, absently.
“Pardon?” Sally’s response was sharp and she turned from the onions she was frying on the Rayburn to look at him.
Oh. He was perhaps more muzzy-headed than he’d realised. He didn’t really mean to say that aloud. But he had and she wouldn’t let it go now. Better go for it.
“A girl. There’s a girl in the barn.”
“What? A girl? What do you mean, a girl?”
“A girl. The dogs were making a hell of a noise yesterday morning at breakfast time. I went out to see what was going on and she was there. In the barn.”
“And?”
“And I asked her in for breakfast.”
Sally raised her eyebrows.
“When you say a girl…how old?”
“Not sure. She’s a bit tatty round the edges. I should think she’s sixteen or so. Looked like she’d been sleeping rough.”
“Laurie…” Her tone was long-suffering.
“Well, I couldn’t just leave her.” He winced. His tone sounded more apologetic than he would have ideally liked.
“Where did she come from? Who is she?” Sally asked.
Laurie shook his head. “I don’t know. She said to call her Cat. She’d been sleeping upstairs in the old bedroom where Rob started out. Where the labourers used to sleep?” Sally nodded. “She said she’d been roughing it before then, but it was cold and she tried to find somewhere she could be inside and not be seen. She said she’d found the old box of blankets up there and had been using the water in the end sink in the old sitting room. It was still pretty cold though, I expect.” He rubbed his face, alarmed suddenly. “I hope she doesn’t light the stove. I don’t know what the chimney’s like. Although I suppose she won’t, she doesn’t seem to want people to know she’s there.”
Sally looked at him and then came and sat down beside him at the table and put a hand on his arm. “Laurie, you know she’s there,” she said. “It could mean trouble if she’s a runaway.”
He sighed and wrapped his good hand round his mug. “I know. And she did look like a runaway. She was really thin. That’s why I asked her to come and eat.”
Sally thought for a moment, chewing her lip. “Well, if she’s got nowhere to go, then she needs somewhere to stay, if you’re not bothered.”
Laurie shook his head. “I’m not bothered.”
“Shall I see if she wants to come in and have some liver, then?” Sally said.
Laurie shook his head again. “She won’t come in I don’t think, ‘specially not with the men here. She was like a rabbit ready to run.” He thought. “Do a plate up for her. When everyone’s gone home I’ll see if she wants to come in and eat and have a proper talk. See if I can get her to tell me more about herself.”
Sally nodded. “All right, then. But what if she’s got people looking for her? Family?”
Laurie shook his head again. “I don’t know. She must be on the road for a reason. Surely it’s better that she’s here safe than under a hedge somewhere. It’s not the weather for it, for a start. And a girl on her own…”
Sally chewed her lip some more. “Yes, you’re right,” she said, finally. “I’ll go and ask her.”
Laurie looked up at her. “Don’t scare her off, will you, Sal?” Somehow the girl had become the epitome of his own loss. She was alone and frightened and off balance and didn’t know where she fitted in. Laurie could understand that.
“I won’t,” Sally said.
* * * *
It wasn’t long before she came back. Laurie found he couldn’t stay still, wondering what she’d say to the girl, and had slid the onions on again in her absence and was poking at them in a desultory fashion.
“Oh sit down, will you,” she said, irritably, when she saw what he was doing. “It’s my job anyway. And you’re knackered.”
“Was she there?” he asked.
Sally nodded. “Yes. She wouldn’t talk to me, though. I don’t think she’s eighteen, Laurie. I told her I was plating her up some liver and bacon and if she wanted to, when everyone had gone home, she could come in and you’d heat it up for her.”
“What did she say?” Laurie asked.
Sally grinned, sharply. “She said she’d think about it. She did look hungry though. And I told her she could use the bathroom to wash. Was that all right?”
He nodded. “I said that to her yesterday, but she wouldn’t. I got the impression she was too frightened. More frightened of men though, I reckon.”
Sally agreed. “I would say so.”
“Did she tell you who she was?”
She shook her head. “No. Just said to call her Cat.”
“Did you tell her not to use the stove until I’d had a chance to get the chimney checked? I don’t want her burning the barn down.”
She nodded. “Yes. I just said it was due for a sweep and he’d be out in the next day or two and she was just to stay upstairs if she wanted when he came.”
Laurie nodded. “Okay, that’ll do. Bloody hell, Sally.”
“I think she’s from Devon,” Sally said. “Her accent. “Plymouth, maybe?”
He nodded. “Yes, that makes sense now you’ve said it. She wants work, she said.”
“Does she? Well, I suppose we could do with an extra hand in the house at the moment.” She glanced at him sideways. “Not that you’re any more trouble, before you think that.”
“No, she said she wanted to work on the farm like the men.”
Sally chewed her lip. “More fool her, then. I guess you could use another pair of hands?” She looked at him sideways again. “You aren’t around out there so much and we’re coming up from spring and summer.” She paused. “Or. You could just send her on her way, Laurie. Threaten to get the police if she doesn�
��t go. Or just call the police anyway and get them to take her.”
Laurie shook his head violently. “No. Not that. It’s not like she’s being any trouble. She’s been there at least a week already and I didn’t know. I hate the idea of her being cold and lonely and not having a place for herself to fit.”
Bloody hell, he thought, listening to himself. Self-aware much, Laurie?
“Well, you can tell the men when they come in for dinner. Not to try to talk to her or scare her off. That you know all about her and she’s staying for now.”
“I need to go and have a rest,” he said.
She looked at him assessingly. “You’ve done a lot today. Did Mr McManus stay when he dropped you back?”
Laurie nodded. “For a little while. He’s all right, isn’t he?”
Sally agreed. “Yes, I think so. Seems straight up and down, anyway. And he’s never tried it on with me.”
“I didn’t realise that was part of the landlady-tenant agreement,” Laurie said.
She whacked him on the head with the spoon she was using to stir the onions. “It’s not,” she said, quellingly.
Chapter 10: Visiting
Phil found his feet turning almost without thought up the lane toward Webber’s Farm a couple of days after his meeting with Laurie Henshaw. He had got into the habit of walking regularly early on in his sojourn in the cottage. Some days he took sandwiches in the knapsack he’d bought and went up the footpath at the top of the lane and headed off into the winter woods. It was quiet and peaceful and he found that if he could get in to a swinging rhythm, one foot in front of the other, the swirl of anger and betrayal that seemed to accompany him like a cloud quieted, gradually draining down in to the earth as he walked.
Today though, rather than his feet taking him up the hill into the burgeoning spring, they took him down toward the farm. Henshaw…Laurie…had grabbed his interest in a way that nobody had for months. The man had been on his last legs sitting in the Post Office and his frustration with himself had been obvious. Phil had enjoyed coaxing a smile out of him. Sitting in the farmhouse kitchen with the quiet warmth of the Rayburn at his back, he’d spoken more about his personal life to a complete stranger than he had opened up to anyone since that awful day when Adrian had got him out of the police station.