by A. L. Lester
Laurie had thought for a moment and said, “Sure, yes, why not?”
* * * *
They hadn’t taken the car after all, though, when it came down to it. Laurie had wanted to try for the pool. It wasn’t that far. It was Laurie’s thinking place. Rob had first brought him up here when he’d arrived at the farm twenty years ago, angry with himself, bewildered and angry with his parents and the world.
Uncle Matthew and Rob had given him the space to find out who he was and what he wanted. They’d made the space in their own bachelor lives—although not bachelors really, Laurie had later come to understand. They were as much a couple as his parents were. More so, really. They’d been together longer that many couples Laurie knew.
They didn’t argue. Not about things that mattered. They argued about books, places they’d visited. Ideas they had. But in all the ways that mattered they were solid.
They didn’t shout at each other about money or about talking to other women in the pub. And he’d never seen either of them raise a hand to each other. They treated him with an ineffable kindness. Steady and quiet, much like their care for the land under their hands.
They kept it free of weeds, trimmed around the edges, and gave the plants space to grow. A few weeks after he’d first arrived, when he’d written to his mother and had no reply, Matty had suggested that he phone her.
“Why are you ringing?” she’d said.
“To see how you all are,” he’d answered. “To let you know how I’m getting on.”
“I don’t care how you’re getting on,” she’d said. “I’m busy. I’ve got a lot to do. You chose to go. You made your bed. You’ve got to lie on it now.” She hung up the phone. And that was that.
Rob hadn’t heard the conversation of course, but he’d been in the kitchen when Laurie came back in, face white and shocked. He looked at him and said, “Sit down, lad. Was it bad? What did she say?”
Laurie nodded and sat down on the kitchen chair Rob had nodded to. “It was bad,” he said. “I didn’t know she felt like that. She never said. I thought it was just Dad.”
Rob shook his head, pulled at his ear. Laurie already realised that’s what he did when he was thinking. “Well,” he’d said. “You sort of knew, didn’t you? When he came to get you back, that first week. You didn’t have many options really. Going home wasn’t one of them, anyway, unless you wanted to pretend to be something you’re not.”
Laurie rubbed his face. “I suppose not,” he’d said. “But Rob…I’m still their son. Why would she be like that?”
Rob shook his head. “I don’t know, lad,” he’d said. “It’s a mystery to me, other people. It’s why I don’t get out much, especially these days. Come on, drink your tea. You look like you could do with some fresh air.”
That was ridiculous, both of them had had about as much fresh air as they could stand, despite it being Sunday. The cows still needed milking and they’d been moving the sheep this morning. Laurie looked at him.
“No, really,” he’d said. “Come on, get your cap.”
And they’d walked through the farmyard, and opened the gate into the top field.
“Where are we going,” Laurie had asked.
“Somewhere I come when I need to think,” Rob had said. “Come on.”
It was spring and the buttercups were starting to come in the hedges. There was a touch of campion, the pink early kind. The white came later. The blossom was blowing off the apple trees down in the orchard in the slight breeze, but it was warm enough. They followed the grassy track. It ran along the hedge, nodding full of cow parsley along the bottom of the top field and then it turned upward across the sward of the pasture. Laurie hadn’t been this far yet. He’d mostly been working in the bottom fields and around the barns.
“Shut the gate,” Rob said as they went through into the far field. “I like to keep this grass for later in the summer when the lambs are bigger.”
The path here didn’t go around the edge, it cut straight across the middle of the field. And then through another hedge, full of blackthorn, where they had to climb over a rough stile. As he looked up from his feet, Laurie saw that they were in a medium-sized field that sloped away from the wooded crown of the hill, with a spur of woodland extending like a pointing finger downward, trees surrounding a medium-sized pool.
Rob waved an explanatory hand. “It’s a spring. And the pool.” Laurie nodded. He could see. “It’s good for the stock when it’s hot, the shelter of the trees. But when there’s no stock in here—or even if there is, sometimes—I come here just to sit. There’s the stone, you see.”
He gestured again as they stepped through the trees, close to the edge of the water. The pool wasn’t large. About twenty or thirty feet across in all directions. Following the direction of his waving arm, Laurie saw to one side of the pool, a standing stone, nearly as tall as he was. It wasn’t like the ones he’d seen pictures of at Stonehenge. It wasn’t as assuming as that.
It was the width of a thin woman and it tilted to one side, tapering slightly to the top. He walked over to it and touched it. It felt a bit staticky under his fingers, like touching a battery with your tongue to see whether it was charged. Along one edge there were lines, notches, cut in the stone. He ran his fingers over them, thoughtfully.
“What’s this then?” he said.
“Don’t know,” Rob said. “Seems like it’s chipped, or carved maybe. It’s old, though.”
Laurie nodded.
Rob came closer and rested his hand on the top of the stone, like he’d do to the shoulder of an old friend, in greeting. “Been here thousands of years, I shouldn’t wonder,” he said. “I tried to read up on it a bit, but there’s no record of it anywhere. People who know it’s here just call it ‘the stone’. It’s a good place to sit and let your thoughts settle, Laurie. If I feel angry or sad or happy, sometimes, even, I come up here and I sit with my back to it and I look over the valley. It steadies me.” He paused again. “I thought it might do the same for you.”
Laurie turned round. He could see all the way across the Vale to the Blackdowns in the clear May light.
* * * *
After that, after what was clearly an invitation, Laurie had gone there when he needed to get away. When the angry buzzing under his skin at his treatment by his family became too much. Sometimes he’d gone with Rob, sometimes with Rob and Matty at the same time. Never with just Matty alone for some reason.
They’d sit on the grass by the pond and not speak. For two decades it had been his place, lying back on the rabbit-cropped turf, sun on his face, listening to the kee-kee of the buzzards above him, listening to the sheep and the cattle make quiet sounds of conversation in the lower fields. Sometimes hearing Sally shout across the farmyard, or the ring of the dinner-bell which meant he’d have to hurry back down else he’d get a bollocking.
“It’s something I miss,” he said to Phil. “It’s only fifteen minutes’ walk.”
Phil looked at him. “And the rest,” he said. “Could we take the Land Rover?”
Laurie shook his head. “No. I mean, in theory, yes. But, no. I need to walk.”
Fifteen minutes turned in to an hour and twenty, with frequent rests and leaning on Phil’s arm. But when he got there, when Phil helped him over the stile and arranged him so that he was sat at the base of the stone with his back to it, feet pointing down the hill toward the valley that was his home, he knew it had been the right thing to do. He had been right to come.
Phil stood for a moment with his arms crossed, looking at him. He was wearing a tan leather jacket today against the morning chill, and casual jeans. There was a glint of unshaven beard on his jaw. “Are you happy now?” he said.
Laurie looked up at him and smiled. “I’m happy now,” he said. “Thank you.”
Phil sank down beside him, lying back on an elbow. It was a beautiful, sunny late May morning. They’d picked this week for dipping so the sheep would dry off quickly and not get cold. Laurie could hea
r them in the midst of it down in the farmyard. The bark of the dogs. The calling of the men. The baa-ing of the sheep as the ewes tried to collect their milling lambs. It sounded and smelled like home.
Phil shivered. “What is this place?” he asked. “It feels…old.”
Laurie shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Rob brought me up here first. He said he’d tried to find out about it but couldn’t find any records anywhere. The little spring at the back of the pond…” he gestured with his chin, “…there’s a low stone wall that forces the spring to pool a bit back there that’s been repaired and repaired and repaired. Rob said it was there when he came to the farm and that was 1880’s or 90’s, I think. And sometimes you can find old things in that bit of the water. Offerings, from days gone by, maybe?
“I come here a lot. Or I used to. It’s peaceful.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the warm stone behind him.
“Feels old,” said Phil. And he subsided into silence, too.
It was still quite early, midmorning at the latest. With his head tilted back against the stone, Laurie shut his eyes and allowed himself, for the first time since it had happened, to feel the bones of the land underneath him. There was a blackbird singing in one of the trees over the pool. The far-away baa-ing of the sheep was a constant. The almost permanent kee-kee of the buzzard further along the ridge, catching the thermals and circling to look for prey, being moved along by the mobbing crows, they were all sounds as familiar to him as his own breathing.
The sunlight was becoming stronger now and he could feel it on his face. And the dapples of the beech-leaves as they moved in the light breeze that swept up the side of the hill, filtering the sunlight and then shifting out of the way again, caused the light behind his eyes to change from white to pale green.
He breathed out and he felt himself relax for the first time in months. Beside him, he was aware of Phil. Very aware of Phil. The other man had laid flat-out on the cropped grass at his side and Laurie could hear him breathing. It was nice. Just the two of them. Peaceful together.
He spent a lot of the time he was with Phil being peaceful, he realised. Phil had a kind of innate steadiness about him that not only made him an easy person to confide in, but also made silences like this one easy. Laurie appreciated it even more now.
* * * *
After a while he became aware that he must have dozed off. He wasn’t conscious of falling asleep, only of waking. A gradual, unhurried climb to consciousness. The kind that happened only when the body was rested enough to emerge from sleep naturally. He luxuriated in it. Nothing was hurting or cramped. He was comfortable in the sun. Not too hot. But the sun was on his face, still dappled through the leaves.
He opened his eyes slowly and turned his head to the side, still resting back against the stone.
Phil was propped up on one elbow, turning a stalk of grass seeds over and over in his fingers, watching him. He saw Laurie was awake and smiled that gentle smile. “All right?” he asked. “Good sleep?”
Laurie smiled back. “Very good,” he said. “Although I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“We’re not in any rush,” Phil said.
Laurie looked at him some more. He really was a very handsome man. “I suppose we’re not,” Laurie said. And with very little effort, he managed to turn himself down so he lay facing Phil, propped on his good side. And very carefully, he put his twisted hand on Phil’s waist and leaned across and kissed him.
Phil let it happen. It wasn’t a kiss of passion. It was a declaration. An acceptance. That there was something there. Something between them.
Laurie shut his eyes and allowed himself to feel the warmth of Phil’s mouth under his. The softness, the plushness that, if he was honest with himself, he’d been wondering about for some time now.
Phil wasn’t quiescent. He responded with the same deliberate, accepting acknowledgment that Laurie was trying to express. But he let Laurie set the pace. Laurie was grateful. There weren’t many areas of his life where he could do that anymore.
When he drew back, Phil didn’t chase his mouth. He retreated too. For a long moment they just looked at each other, silly little smiles on their mouths, until Phil said, “Well.” And Laurie smiled at him, a bubble of joy bursting up and popping inside him in the same way the spring bubbled up in the pool just behind them.
“Well,” Laurie replied.
Phil reclined fully onto his back, one hand behind his head, twining the fingers of his right hand with those of Laurie’s hated, gimpy left and tugging very slightly, encouraging Laurie to lie across his chest.
Neither of them said any more. They lay there together in the sun under the beech trees and all of a sudden, Laurie started to think that perhaps, just perhaps, he wasn’t so far away from a normal life as he had feared.
Chapter 15: Shearing
Late May 1972
Laurie was the quickest shearer they had, usually. Not this year though.
“You coming up, then?” Paul Rider, the youngest of the farmhands asked him, chucking his leather bike jacket on the back of a chair and pinching a piece of toast off Laurie’s plate. He was on his way to get a mug of tea from the pot on the range.
“Wasn’t going to,” Laurie replied. “I’ll only be in the way.” He shoved the sugar across the table toward Paul as he poured his mug of tea. The men usually came in for a cup before they started work, a sort of unofficial briefing.
“You should come on up,” the other man said. “I know you’re probably cross as hell you can’t be on the shears, but they’re your sheep. You’re still in charge of the team.”
Laurie looked at him. Paul was unconcernedly stirring an obscene amount of sugar in to his tea. He was very carefully not meeting Laurie’s eyes.
“Paul?” Laurie said. “What’s going on?”
Paul shoved the final bit of his stolen toast in to his mouth and chewed it thoroughly. Then he swallowed and said, “You’re being really stupid, Laurie,” as he dived across the table to filch another bit off Laurie’s plate.
“Pardon?” Laurie said. “And stop it, I was going to eat that!”
“I’ll make you some more. You’ve got plenty left, anyway.” He took a defiant mouthful. “You’re being really stupid because you’re sat in here all day feeling sorry for yourself and thinking you’re useless. You’ve turned in to a bloody tortoise.”
Laurie stared at him.
Paul Rider was in his mid-twenties and a bit of a lad. He used his motorbike and his long hair like a weapon with the women he went out with, slouching around in jeans and his leather jackets and boots and pulling the girls with a nod and a wink. He always seemed to have a couple of girlfriends on the go at the same time and there never seemed to be any hard feelings when he moved on to someone else. He wasn’t the type of person Laurie would have thought of to give anyone an emotional pep talk. He’d been at the farm since he left school and lived with his parents in the village.
“What?” Laurie said. “I….” He petered out.
“Mr McManus is gonna come and learn,” Paul continued. He shot Laurie a glance and a sly grin across the table. “Going to be a warm day, I reckon. I expect we’ll all be stripped down soon enough.”
Laurie blushed to his roots. He gaped at Paul, who was now openly laughing at him across the table.
Phil had been spending quite a bit of time in the farm kitchen over the last couple of weeks, sat at the table with all the accounts spread out around him while he piled through six months of incomprehensible invoices and receipts. Laurie had sat with him, keeping him supplied with the revoltingly strong tea he insisted he preferred and providing answers to questions about the farm that he hadn’t ever thought might not be obvious.
“Pardon?” he said again, when he found his voice, making it as severe as possible.
“Oh come on, Laurie. I was only joking. He’s a nice bloke. You could do a lot worse,” Paul said. “Don’t worry about it.” He got up and start
ed making another couple of bits of toast on top of the range, speaking with his back to Laurie. “I’d probably have a crack at him myself if he wasn’t so old. And fixed on you.” He paused. “And if I wasn’t going out with Marcia at the moment, I suppose.”
He coughed as he turned round with the toast. “Here you go,” he said, chucking a piece across the table.
Laurie raised his good hand up to catch it automatically and then realised his mouth was hanging open.
“Does…” he started, then swallowed. “Does everyone know?”
“What? That you’re bent as a nine bob note?” Paul looked at him, head tilted to one side. “Don’t know. Maybe? Nobody says anything, if they do. I reckon a lot of people in the village reckon you’re knocking off Sal.” He smiled and winked at him. “I notice these things though…got to know who’s on the team, eh?”
Laurie swallowed again. “I don’t want everyone to know,” he said. He rubbed his hands on the table either side of his plate, nervously, looking at his toast. Paul had done it to golden perfection and it had little cross-hatches from being pressed inside the toaster under the lid of the hot plate.
“Hey, hey. You haven’t got anything to worry about from me,” Paul came round the table and briefly put a hand on his shoulder as he grabbed for the butter dish. “This is nearly empty. Shall I get another one out?”
“Yes, in the fridge,” Laurie replied absently, still processing.
Paul spoke from deep in pantry, voice muffled by his head in the fridge. “I like it here, Laurie. It’s a good place to work and we’re all mates. Even Tommy’s not too bad once you get past the fact that he’s a miserable bastard.”
“Jesus.” Laurie sat up straight. “Does Tommy know?” Tom Carter was their other full-time man and was gradually taking over more of his cousin Jimmy’s work now the older man was partially retired. He was older than Laurie, married and a bit…set in his ways. That was the kindest way to put it. Not a bad man. Just…he didn’t think much, as far as Laurie could see. He was kind enough to Laurie, and always had been, but Laurie also remembered him saying it was a waste of MP’s time when the decriminalization act had gone through in sixty-seven. He’d worked for Matty and Rob for nearly thirty years, though, so he couldn’t be that much of a bigot.