‘Charlie, I’m sorry …’
I told him all about my opening deadline, the builders and the drains, and how if I didn’t comply with three thousand regulations the environmental health inspector wouldn’t give me a certificate. To be fair to the poor love, he did ‘mmm’ and ‘I see’ quite a bit while I was justifying my position as World’s Worst Girlfriend.
‘I get it, Freya. You’re doing a brilliant job. But please come, you can’t work every day of the week.’ He sighed.
‘That’s what farmers do.’
‘You’re not a farmer,’ said Charlie, ‘you’re my girl. Who I love. And miss. And if I don’t see you soon I’ll have completely forgotten what you look like.’
‘I’m exactly the same. Only with frizzier hair at the moment because of all the rain,’ I said softly, willing him to smile again. ‘And I love you.’
Charlie sighed down the phone. The seconds ticked by and I became increasingly desperate for him to say something.
‘Look, I’ll try to get back soon, or you could come up to me. It’ll only be for six months.’
‘Six months?’ he said, sounding shocked.
Oh God. I hadn’t told him, had I?
I was all swollen-tongued with nerves but I explained about Uncle Arthur and Auntie Sue’s retirement plan for the end of the year, adding that it might get cut short if they sold the farm to Julian’s evil investor but that, for me, would be a travesty.
And when I stopped talking there was nothing. Not a sound from him.
‘You don’t want to come home, do you?’ he said eventually. And bless him, his tone wasn’t even harsh or mad. It was just sad.
I thought about it for a moment. Home. That was the problem. Kingsfield had never really felt like home. It was a nice place and all that, and of course it had its attractions – Charlie and Ollie, Anna, Tilly, Gemma and all the Shenton Road Café crew.
Be honest, Freya. Tell him the truth.
‘I do want to see you, Charlie. But … remember when we were walking around the lake and I said that I felt more alive when I’m here?’ I began.
‘Yeah, I do. And I suppose I knew then, really.’
‘Knew what?’ My heart was pounding, as if it guessed that something really bad was about to happen, even though my brain was in total denial.
‘Me here, you there. It was never going to work for long.’
‘That’s not true,’ I gasped. Although even as I said it I wondered if I was just kidding myself. ‘Charlie? Are …’ My mouth suddenly went dry and I croaked, ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’
‘Babe, I think about you all the time. “I must remember to tell Freya,” I say to myself. Or I’ll walk past the café and automatically look for you. Or I’ll sniff that T-shirt that you wore in bed the night before you went to Paris.’
‘Oh, Charlie, you are a sweetie,’ I said, remembering the night I’d spent in his flat before going to see my parents. That was before Appleby Farm had got under my skin like it had now, though. Now I barely had time to think about anything other than the tea rooms. An idea occurred to me suddenly.
‘Look, what about tonight? We could each drive halfway and meet in the middle. At least then—’
‘No, Freya, I can’t do this long-distance thing,’ Charlie continued softly. ‘Between your crazy hours up there and my shifts in Kingsfield, we’re never going to have time for each other. I’m sorry, babe, but it doesn’t work – for me or for you. So yes, I think it’s best if we stop seeing us other. Because I think deep down you’re where you want to be and there’s nothing I can say or do that will change it.’
I hadn’t realized I was crying until I felt the tickle of a teardrop on my chin.
‘I’m so sorry, Charlie,’ I gasped. ‘You’re right: I need to be here at the moment.’
‘Hey, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Life just got in the way for us. Two different lives, in two different places. I still stand by everything I said before; I’m proud of you, Freya. Keep me posted, won’t you?’
We said our goodbyes and did all the promising to keep in touch stuff and all the time I was shouting at myself inwardly to stop it, to not let him go, to argue that we could make it work and that six months, in the grand scheme of things, was nothing. And that this was crazy!
And then he was gone. I put the phone down and stared at it. Did that really just happen?
I laid my head down on the desk and prepared myself for a huge sob-fest but the door opened and Goat waded in without knocking, brandishing a can of spray paint. ‘Where do you want your sockets, then?’
I spent a good hour with Goat, shuffling from wall to wall and spraying a dot of paint where I guessed I’d need an electricity point (two dots for a double) and if he noticed me sniffling every so often, he didn’t mention it. It was very soothing, actually, and by the time I emerged into the yard it was eleven o’clock and the tears and the rain had stopped.
No point trying to work on the menu now, it would soon be lunchtime, courtesy of Auntie Sue’s gluten-free experiments. There was, however, time for a restorative ride on Skye, so I took myself off to the stables.
I was still some way away when I heard the unmistakeable tones of Lizzie belting out a grunty version of ‘Don’t Cha’.
Lizzie was sponging Skye’s body with a sweet-smelling lavender wash, swinging her hips to the chorus.
I coughed and she clutched at her throat.
‘Jeepers creepers, Freya! Hey, what’s with the swollen eyes? Hayfever? Do you want an antihistamine? I’ve got one in my bag, somewhere.’
She dropped her sponge back in the bucket as I held my arms out and started to cry.
‘I need a hug.’
Lizzie was a great hugger. In fact, even Skye got in on the act, pushing her brown and white splodged nose in between the two of us as I relayed the whole story. And even though I was sobbing again, it felt nice to be able to talk to someone about it.
After a few minutes I noticed that Lizzie wasn’t breathing.
‘Lizzie?’ I disentangled myself from her arms, which I’d just realized had got quite tight.
She screwed up her face and fanned her hand in front of her eyes.
‘We’re doomed,’ she said in a strangled voice.
‘Who?’ I held on to her shoulders, a bit bewildered.
‘Me and Ross.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if you and Charlie can’t make it long distance, how can we?’
My eyes darted to Calf’s Close, the field behind us, where Ross was mending fences both literally and metaphorically.
Yesterday there had been a bit of an incident.
At about nine o’clock Harry had raced into the yard while I was collecting the eggs. I’d beamed, waved and put my egg basket down. He called in most days for something or other and I enjoyed our chats. We generally shared a sparky bit of banter at each other’s expense but there was always a more tender moment, too, when he’d ask me for news on Julian or how Uncle Arthur was and whether there was anything he could do to help.
But yesterday he hadn’t stopped to make small talk.
‘Is your uncle in?’ he’d shouted, jumping out of his pick-up truck, looking all serious.
I’d wiped the smile off my face, sharpish. ‘He’s having a rest. Can I help?’
There wasn’t much I didn’t know about the detail of the farm now. I knew what was in each field, I knew which crops had been sprayed with what and I knew the plans for harvesting. I had an up-to-date file of all the Herefords’ details and I could lay my hands on Gloria and Gaynor’s milk yield in a nanosecond.
Harry obviously hadn’t thought so, though. He’d stared at me, a glimmer of a smile playing at his lips. ‘I’m sure you can. Your cows have escaped and they’re running free on Lovedale Lane. Can you give me a hand to round them up?’
Ah. So maybe I didn’t know how to do everything.
‘I’ll get Uncle Arthur,’ I’d said hastily.
&nb
sp; In hindsight I wished I’d videoed the carry-on – we’d have made a fortune on one of those funny film-clips programmes. One cow had ended up on the village petrol station forecourt, two had trampled through Hilary-in-the-post-office’s garden, we found one paddling in the beck and a couple of others had, very honourably, turned themselves in at the handling pen. We had all helped to round them up but Harry had been our hero: calm in a crisis and totally unfazed by holding up the traffic as he drove a line of panicky cows up the middle of Lovedale Lane back to the farm.
Anyway, Ross had spent this morning going round the village making good the damage, and, at this precise moment, was only a very short distance away from Lizzie mending the bit of wall through which the herd had made their escape.
‘Yeah, I know he’s there now,’ she said, pressing a finger under each eye to blot her tears. ‘But come September he’ll be miles away at uni in Shropshire. For a year! Surrounded by clever types. He’ll forget all about me.’
‘He won’t,’ I cried. ‘Besides, it’s a student year, don’t forget. They have their own separate calendars. Their months are like one of our weeks. In fact, their holidays are longer than their terms. And he’ll spend all his holidays with you, I know he will, and weekends probably.’
‘Do you think?’ she hiccupped.
She gazed over at Ross through tear-filled eyes and I put my arm around her.
‘Deffo. Anyway, you’re not doomed because … because …’ I gulped in some air and Lizzie blinked at me, waiting for me to finish.
I’d been trying to pin down my thoughts since I got off the phone from Charlie and they’d kept escaping me. Suddenly, there they were, laid out in a row in front of me like a batch of Auntie Sue’s perfectly formed scones.
‘Charlie and I are different,’ I said, holding up a finger as Lizzie opened her mouth to object. ‘But you and Ross are the same.’
‘Huh?’ Lizzie frowned.
‘Think about it,’ I said. ‘You love farmers, he loves farms and you both want to live in The Lakes. You two are on the same path.’
‘True.’ She nodded.
Whereas Charlie and I, I realized with a sharp jolt, whilst we had a great time together, were on totally separate journeys. We were like something astrological – meteorites or asteroids perhaps – that had collided, sparked along together for a while and then bounced off on completely different trajectories. It was bound to happen … written in the stars, even.
At the end of the day I wasn’t Charlie’s perfect match and he wasn’t mine. I wanted a home in the country, filled with my own children; he wanted to stay in Kingsfield and was content with Ollie.
And these things were deal-breakers. For both of us.
On some level, I’d always known this and suddenly it all made sense. He was a great friend and I wanted it to stay that way. Maybe in the future when I didn’t feel quite so emotional about it, he could be the sort of big brother that I’d always wanted.
‘Hey, Lizzie, there’s something I’ve got to do. I’ll see you later.’
I leaned back against the damp bench in the orchard, circled my tense shoulders and read through the letter one more time. It had taken me three attempts to get the tone right, but I thought I’d finally cracked it.
Dear Charlie,
The six months I spent in Kingsfield were great. The four months I spent in Kingsfield with you were amazing.
I am a lucky girl to have had you as my boyfriend since Christmas. You are a wonderful human being, a gorgeous man and a fantastic role model for Ollie.
Today when you ended our relationship it felt like a piece of my heart was being torn away. But I just want you to know that I think you did the right thing. A kind and brave thing. And I’ll always thank you for that.
We had fun, didn’t we?
Love and hugs
Freya xx
PS I hope you still think of me when your Outdoor Girl tomatoes are ready x
I still felt sad and lonely, and I knew it would be a while before I stopped missing him and before I stopped thinking ‘ooh, I must remember to tell Charlie’ whenever something funny happened, but I felt better. I folded the letter and sealed the envelope.
And that, as they say in the American TV shows, was closure.
Chapter 24
I was still sitting in the orchard, holding my letter to Charlie and wondering whether we could do something with all these apples in September (organic cider being my favourite idea) when Uncle Arthur lowered himself on to the bench beside me.
‘Word has it that you’ve had a rough morning.’ He patted my thigh. ‘Everyone’s in the kitchen gluing their jaws together with your auntie’s gluten-free biscuits and Lizzie passed on your news about Charlie. I’m sorry to hear that. Feel a bit responsible, too. Me and my dicky ticker,’ he tutted.
I slipped the envelope into my pocket and leaned my head on his shoulder.
‘You mustn’t feel guilty. I’m here because I want to be. I made my own choices. And you know what?’ I smiled shakily at him. ‘I don’t regret a single thing.’
‘That’s my girl.’
We sat in companionable silence. The birds were singing again and directly above us the sun was beginning to tunnel its way down through the swollen clouds.
‘I love this orchard.’ I sighed. ‘It’s so peaceful and pretty, and there’s something timeless about it.’
‘I know what you mean. I remember climbing these trees when I was still in short trousers. They’re bigger now, of course.’
‘What are – the trees or your trousers?’ I teased.
He waggled his eyebrows. ‘Well, if you’re still making jokes, you’ll survive.’
‘Oh, I’ll survive all right.’ I nudged him with my shoulder. ‘So. Is it just apple trees or do you have any pears?’
Uncle Arthur’s body began to shake and I peeled myself off him to find him chuckling.
‘What?’
‘You asked me that when you were eleven!’
‘Did I? And what did you answer?’
‘I said no, we had no pears. But I planted a pear tree especially for you and for three years nothing happened. Not a single pear. And the next year – whoosh. We had tons of them. I’ll show you.’
We stood up from the bench and made our way past some pecking hens to the smallest tree in the corner of the orchard.
‘Oh, yes,’ I laughed, ‘I remember now. Don’t remember a bumper crop, though.’
‘No. That was the summer you didn’t come to the farm. You went to visit your parents in Australia when you were about fourteen.’ His warm eyes met mine. ‘It was a quiet one that year.’
I thought of the two of them picking pears with no one to eat them and my heart pinged with love. And suddenly I had an urge to hear more stories – happy ones, preferably – about the farm. I felt as if time was running out and I needed to collect all his memories and store them up, like when you collect shells from a beach and later turn them over, one at a time, in your hand and remember just how perfect the day was.
I glanced back up at the tree and looped my arm through his. ‘There’s loads of fruit on it this year and I’ll definitely be here to eat them. Come on, fancy taking a walk round your farm with me?’
His face lit up. ‘I’d like that very much.’
We decided to take a route across the fields rather than back through the farmyard and along the track, and as I unlatched the gate into High Field I turned and noticed a great ball of greenery in the centre of one of the apple trees. And in the tree next to it and … all the trees except the pear tree, in fact.
‘Is that ivy, up in the trees?’ I asked.
Uncle Arthur squinted to follow my pointing finger. ‘Mistletoe. Grows in big clumps like that. It’s a nuisance really.’
‘Oh, how lovely! The orchard must look so romantic in winter when the trees have lost their leaves.’
‘I suppose so. But not the most romantic place on my farm,’ he chuckled, ushering me through the ga
te.
‘Really! You mean there’s somewhere more romantic than this? Lead on!’ I smiled, mentally adding ‘sell mistletoe at Christmas market’ to my growing list of new business ideas.
We reached the edge of Oak Field where some of the cows were grazing and stopped for Uncle Arthur to get his breath back. He took a bottle of water out of his jacket pocket and sipped at it.
‘Look at those little fellas,’ he chuckled.
Two calves were frolicking around, kicking up their back legs and headbutting one another.
‘Cute!’ I took my phone out and snapped a couple of pictures. They’d do for the Facebook page. When we had one.
‘Probably sounds daft, but my animals are like family. I’ll miss seeing cattle in my fields when they’re all gone.’ He sighed. He pocketed his water and we carried on trudging uphill.
‘How was the cattle auction?’ I asked, trying to keep the conversation light.
‘Good. Well, good to be part of the action again and see livestock changing hands. Harry didn’t spot anything he fancied. I had my eye on a lovely Hereford bull, but …’ He shrugged and pushed his hands deep into his pockets. ‘I suppose my days of buying beasts at auction are behind me.’
I put my arm lightly around his waist and hugged him.
No animals were allowed to enter or leave the farm whilst the TB movement restriction was still in place. But even without that, Uncle Arthur had no use for a new bull; from the end of the year, he wouldn’t be farming beef any more. It seemed such a sad end to his career.
I scanned the fields around me and my heart squeezed. What would be here in twelve months’ time? The idea of no Appleby Farm was too awful to contemplate.
‘But you don’t have any regrets, do you, about being a farmer all your life? I mean, who wouldn’t want to own this?’ I spread my arms out.
‘You never really own land, lass. If anything it owns you – your soul, at any rate. You can be its guardian but that’s about all.’
He stopped and bent over, resting his hands on his thighs, and my stomach lurched.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked, touching his arm.
He stood up and stretched. ‘I’m fine. But my heart attack was like a tap on the shoulder to remind me that every day is a gift. And this farm … it’s a gift, too, and one day soon I’ll have to pass it on. Farming is a young man’s game. And you know what?’ He blinked at me and I shook my head. ‘I felt old at the auction today. There were only a few old men like me left. Harry knew everyone.’
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