by A. L. Lester
“Calm down! I wish I hadn’t said anything now!” Paul emerged from the pantry with the butter. “You looked so bloody miserable though. And you have done for weeks, until he turned up.” He plonked the butter on the table and began to unwrap it to put it in the dish.
“Sal will skin you if you put that in there on top of the old stuff without washing it out,” Laurie said, absently.
“Yeah, well, I won’t be here, will I? She’ll think it was you.” Paul grinned at him. “Look, Laurie. It doesn’t matter. Whether you are Mr McManus are doing the wild thing or not. None of anyone’s business except your own. Except. You looked like something the cat dragged in when you came out of hospital. Not surprising, really. But since he turned up, you’ve come back to life a bit. And that’s good. That girl isn’t bad for you, either.”
“You leave her alone,” Laurie warned. “She’s too young for you. And that’s another thing Sal will skin you for. And me.”
“No fear,” Paul said. “Don’t shit where you eat, that’s my motto. She’s not bad with the animals, you know. Is she going to stay?”
“Hope so,” Laurie said, relieved the conversation had turned. “I’ve started paying her. We need to sort the barn out a bit better for her at some point. She won’t take a room in the house.”
Paul nodded, biting his lip thoughtfully. “I’ll speak to Tommy and Jimmy. We can come and do it one weekend. They both like her. Jimmy says she’s ‘spunky’, whatever that means.”
“She’s had a hard time of it, I think,” Laurie said. “She hasn’t said much, but it sounds like her Dad wasn’t very kind to her and she left. Was living rough for a bit.”
Paul frowned. “Not good, girl on her own.”
“No. And if she’s as good with the animals as you all say, then she’ll be a help. I’m not going to get back to how I was, I don’t reckon.”
Paul looked at him. “Doesn’t matter whether you do or not, mate. You’re still the gaffer.”
Laurie drew in a breath to say something…anything, he didn’t know what, about how useless he felt, but Paul continued on, stopping him.
“Doesn’t matter how much you can do, Laurie. We can pick up what you can’t do. Looks like Mr McManus thinks that too. And you’ve got ten minutes to get your arse into the Land Rover so I can drive you up to the yard. Put your boots on.”
Laurie sighed, and complied.
* * * *
“Aye aye! It’s the gaffer! Watch out!” Laurie heard Tommy’s voice echoing over the baa-ing of the ewes as he slid cautiously out of the Land Rover and found his feet. “What are you doing up here, lad? We thought you’d taken to your bed!”
“No mate, just taking it steady!” Laurie shouted back. “I’ve come to check up on you, see you don’t cut any legs off!”
“Miserable bastard!” Tommy yelled back cheerfully and went back to shooing a recalcitrant ewe in to a pen.
“See,” said Paul, who’d made his way round the bonnet of the Land Rover. “Told you.”
“Hmm,” Laurie said, quietly. “All right. I should probably get out of the way. They’ll take me over if they knock me.”
“Tom reckoned you could sit on the wall and lean against the chestnut tree,” Paul said. “I’ll give you a hand up. Come on. King of all you survey, up there.”
There were actually stepping stones embedded in the wall in a precarious ladder-type fashion, and with Paul’s help Laurie found himself comfortably perched up there, five feet above everyone else. It was somewhere he’d often sat before and he had a good view of everything going on in the yard. They had the two hundred sheep penned in a fold behind the yard buildings and there were three shearing stations set up, the electric shears plugged in to a jerry-rigged cable run in from the lighting.
It was chaos. Jimmy was currently on the shears and Tom was catching the sheep one at a time and bringing them across to him to lie on a sheet laid out on the dry, clean, red soil of the low, ancient, open-sided barn. It took him about five minutes to shear each one and then release it through the gate at the end, in to field to run baa-ing across to its friends.
Jimmy waved across at him and he waved back. Cat was watching Jimmy. He seemed to be explaining to her what he was doing. She dipped her chin in acknowledgment when Laurie expanded his wave to include her. She was a reticent little thing. It was good that the others had taken her under their collective wings.
At that point, Sally and Phil arrived. Sally passed Phil’s cottage on her way down the lane from her little house to the farm and must have waited for him. He was dressed in jeans and a tight Tt-shirt and Laurie’s mouth went dry remembering the kisses they’d shared yesterday evening before Phil had left for home. They hadn’t gone further than that in the fortnight since their walk up to the pool. Laurie didn’t feel he had the stamina for it, quite frankly. But they were good kisses.
Phil noticed him staring—perhaps the head of Laurie’s gaze had alerted him—and looked over. He smiled at Laurie and raised a hand, walking round the sheep hurdles to get to him. Sally waved, but didn’t follow him.
“Morning!” Phil said as he reached the foot of the tree. He dug his hands in to his pockets and tilted his head up to look at Laurie. He was backlit by the morning sun and his brown hair was a halo around his head where the light was shining through it. He looked like a very prosaic, slightly lascivious angel.
“Morning,” Laurie replied, grinning down at him, suddenly cheerful. “I hear you’re going to learn how to shear. Paul said you’d be taking your shirt off.”
Phil’s cheeks heated and his eyes widened, but he didn’t take his hands out of his pockets or look away. “I wasn’t aware being naked was compulsory,” he said, grinning back. He paused. “But I’m sure I can oblige if the gaffer asks.”
Laurie couldn’t stop grinning. His cheeks hurt. “We’ll see how you go,” he said. “My decisions are based on performance.”
Phil clearly couldn’t stop grinning either. “I’ll do my best to meet your high standards,” he said.
They both stared at each other a moment longer and then Tommy yelled across the yard, “Get yourself over here, Phil! Jimmy’s showing Cat what to do! He doesn’t want to through it twice!”
“Got to go,” Phil said, not turning away.
“I’ll be here,” Laurie replied.
Neither of them looked away.
“Bloody hell, you two!” Tommy again. “Come on!”
Phil finally made a moue and laughed and turned away. “Hold that thought,” he threw over his shoulder, as he went to join them in the barn.
* * * *
It was always a long, hard, sweaty day’s work. Laurie didn’t do anything other than watch from his perch and help Sally go back down to the house and bring up sandwiches at dinner time and he was exhausted anyway. The wool was stacked in the big bags in the barn ready for collection by the Wool Marketing Board. The ewes were all out in the field, milling round anxiously shouting for their lambs to come to foot immediately and stop mucking about.
Sally had been hauling ewes around with the best of them after she’d sorted out lunch and she drove him back down to the house while the others walked the few hundred yards. He stumbled getting out of the door of the Land Rover and she caught him under the elbow, steadying him. “Come on,” she said. “You must be knackered. Really good that you came up though. You’d have been missed if you hadn’t.”
“Doubt that,” he said. “I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s not the point,” she said. “That’s really not the point, Laurie.” She opened the back door and maneuvered them through it. He was leaning on her quite unashamedly. “Ugh,” she said. “I need a bath. That big ewe pissed all over me.”
“That Lleyn I bought in before Christmas? She put up a real fight,” Laurie said. “Don’t think she’d been handled much.” He wobbled down in to one of the kitchen chairs as everyone else piled in to the kitchen behind them.
“Where’s the cider then, young Sal?
” Tommy asked, slapping her jeans-clad bottom as he passed her to wash in the sink.
“Keep your octopus hands to yourself thank you, Thomas Carter, else I’ll be telling your lady wife on you,” she said tartly. “And it’s in the larder. You can get it out for me, once you’ve washed.” She turned to Cat, standing shyly just inside the kitchen door. “Go and wash in the bathroom, my love. Leave this lot to me.”
Cat nodded silently and backed out.
“Good maid, that,” Jimmy said, taking his turn at the sink as the door closed behind her. “She worked hard today. And she picks things up quick.”
“And the animals like her,” Tommy added. “Makes a big difference.” He plunged in to the larder to get the barrel of cider that Sally traditionally stashed there to crack after days like this one.
Phil took his place at the sink. He’d put his shirt back on now. Laurie had quite enjoyed the afternoon. He hadn’t done badly on the shears, either.
“You got quite fast by the end of the day, Phil,” Tommy said, putting the barrel on the table and starting to fill the tankards that Sally got out of the cupboard and passed to him.
“I thought I was doing better,” Phil said. “And I only got head-butted in the balls the once.”
They were all laughing as Cat edged back in the door.
“Here maid, you come and sit by me and have a drink before you run away back to your barn,” Jimmy said. “And then tomorrow, we’ll come and sort out your door and make it tidy for you, all right?”
Cat looked dubious but did as he asked and there were general murmurs of agreement.
Laurie sipped his cider in contentment. It had been a good day.
Chapter 16: London
“Do you want to come to town with me one day next week?”
Phil had been thinking about it for a while and the words sort of tumbled out without him processing them too much as his attention drifted from the farm accounts he was supposed to be streamlining.
They were in the sitting room. Laurie was laid out on the settee, tired after an excursion across the yard to the barn to check on a heifer about to produce her first calf that had turned in to a bit of a performance. It had only ended happily because of the appearance of Cat, whose small hands had eased the new calf into the world with no trouble. Laurie was cross with himself because he hadn’t been able to help the cow himself, but between them, he and Cat had done pretty well in Phil’s opinion.
It had set him thinking. He’d been spending more and more time here at the farm and he and Laurie were building something together. It was obvious to both of them. He didn’t know what it was, quite. There was heat between them, but there was no hurry. He’d never had that before. Admittedly his formative years had been spent under the fear of arrest and disgrace if anyone had realised his proclivities and he’d always been very careful—as had Laurie by the sound of it, when they had touched on the past briefly.
He had no idea what he was doing. With work, with his life in general. None of it. He didn’t need to go back to the firm, whatever the result of this ridiculous investigation. His private income was small, but enough to live on. He could sell his Barbican flat if it came to it. He’d more or less written it all off. In his head he had no job, all his colleagues had found out that he was a homosexual, and his comfortable, familiar round of social acquaintance was blown to smithereens.
His friends were still there—he’d been writing to Adrian and Percy and one or two others, and to his Aunt Mary. But they were less important at the moment than whatever was growing between him and Laurie.
Neither of them was pushing to move it forward. He had an idea that if he tried, Laurie would run a mile. But they were spending more and more time together. They hadn’t done anything other than a few kisses. But more was coming, when Laurie was ready. Phil could feel it.
His well-planned and not at all last-minute exodus from London had not included a great deal of sensible packing. If he was going to stay her for a while, he could do with some more clothes from his flat, and maybe some of his books. And perhaps his violin…he hadn’t played in a while—Richard hadn’t liked it—and he had plenty of time now.
Laurie looked at him from where he was lying on the settee with his bad leg stretched out to try and take some of the ache out of it. “Taunton? I can’t say I’m that keen. I went down to the market on Saturday. Tom drove me. It was a bit of a trial. People kept knocking into me. And I didn’t much like having to answer everyone’s questions about how I was, or what I was doing with a strange girl about the place.”
“No, not Taunton. London. If you fancy it.” Phil suddenly got cold feet. What if Laurie thought he was pretentious, trying to impress?”
Laurie snorted. “London? Are you thinking about going back then?”
“The opposite. I want to pick some things up from the flat. I thought we could leave early, collect what I need, have a nice lunch in a pub somewhere, come back.” He gave Laurie a knowing smile. “You’d get to see how the Vixen goes on the motorway.”
Laurie shut his eyes and threw his arm over them. “Tempting,” he said. “How long does it take? I’ve never been to London.”
“About four hours, without stops. Maybe less if the roads are clear. If we left really early, six-ish, we could stop for breakfast somewhere and still be there by late morning.”
He put the ledger he was holding on his knee and ostensibly working on down on the coffee table in front of him and stretched out his legs.
“That’s not really early, Phil. That’s normal getting up time!” Laurie’s voice was dry, but Phil could see that he was smiling under his arm.
“What do you say?”
“Yes, all right. When were you thinking?”
“Whenever you like. Tomorrow?”
* * * *
It was an easy trip. Any worries Phil had about what they’d talk about trapped in the car together for four hours each way dissipated by the time they stopped for breakfast at a greasy spoon on the A303.
“I’ve never seen Stonehenge,” Laurie confided over the biggest sausage sandwich Phil had ever seen. “Do you think we’ll have time to stop on the way back?”
“We should do,” Phil said. “I want to pick up a suitcase of clothes and some books, that’s pretty much all. We could get a sandwich and leave straight away and get back in plenty of time. And if we’re too tired we can just come another day?”
Laurie was still self-conscious about the way he needed to rest regularly. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” he said. “It’s a long drive, there and back, though.”
Phil grinned. “I’m really enjoying myself. I haven’t had a chance to open her up properly for ages. Not since I came down.”
Laurie grinned back. “Best get on, then. Show me what the two of you can do.”
* * * *
“Bloody hell!” Laurie said under his breath, as Phil put the key in his front door. He was looking out at the gardens over the edge of the marbled walkway. “This is a bit smart, Phil. I’d have worn my suit if you’d told me it was this posh!”
Phil glanced at him and then down at his own jeans. “No need,” he said. “There’s all types live here. Three doors down there are two girls who seem to wear only kaftans or gold lame hot pants. Not my thing, but it’s all very…relaxed.” He pushed the door and stood back to let Laurie inside first. “I bought it when they first started building. I had a look at the architect’s drawings. It seemed like it was going to be a nice place, and it’s close to work.” He corrected himself. “Was close to work.”
Laurie glanced at him from where he was standing by the arched window, looking out at the lake.
“But you said your friend Adrian was sorting it out? So you’ll be able to go back once it’s all done and dusted.”
“Yes, that’s the plan. But it’s not moving quickly at all. They’re having trouble following the money. And it’s the money that nails these cases down.”
“But you said they know it wasn’
t you? So why can’t you just go back?”
“There’s not enough evidence against anyone else. Against Richard, I suppose. It’s only my word against his at the moment. And if they ditch him, then he’ll make a huge fuss and make the company look bad.”
All of a sudden Phil felt glum. He’d been happy, excited even about showing Laurie his home. But now they were here it didn’t seem like a home at all…not as much as the chaotic and busy kitchen at Webber’s or even tiny Caster’s Cottage.
He grimaced. “Portnoy—my boss—can rely on my discretion. I don’t want everyone to know I was living with Richard. I don’t want them all to know I’m queer. He’s younger, I don’t think he cares. And if it is him, if he’s set me up like Adrian and I think he has…then he’s got to stick it out now, they’ll be watching him. I don’t want to go back to that atmosphere. It’s not that important to me.”
And it wasn’t, he realised.
* * * *
A suitcase, a box of books, and sheet music and his violin in the little boot of the Vixen and they made good time back down the A303 to Stonehenge. Laurie was tired. He dozed for some of the way and the cloud that had settled around Phil’s heart lifted again as he gunned his little green car away from London and toward Somerset.
By the time he pulled into the field gateway just past the ring of stones, Laurie was awake again.
“It looks really small from here,” he commented, as they got out of the car.
“It’s massive close up. I went a few years ago with Aunt Mary. Shall we climb over the fence? I should think the ticket office is shut now, it’s gone six.”
They made their way slowly over the grass. It was close-cropped by a flock of sheep that watched them incuriously as they walked. Laurie was having trouble keeping his balance.
“I’m stiff,” he muttered, leaning heavily on his stick. “Sorry.”