Coming Home To Holly Close Farm

by Julie Houston

  ‘Auntie Madge?’

  Granny peered closely at the woman, scrutinising her features for clues as to who she might be.

  ‘I’m sorry…?’

  ‘It’s Harriet,’ the woman smiled a little nervously. ‘Lydia’s granddaughter.’

  ‘My Lydia? My sister, Lydia?’ Madge seemed puzzled.

  ‘Oh,’ Mum said. ‘You’re Keturah’s daughter?’ She turned to Madge. ‘It’s one of Keturah’s daughters, Granny. You know. Gosh, Harriet, I’ve not seen you for years.’ She paused. ‘It must have been at Aunt Lydia’s funeral, what, ten years ago?’

  Daisy and I exchanged looks. Blimey, how many more grannies and aunties were there? They seemed to be coming out of the woodwork at an amazing rate. I was totally lost as to who they all were.

  ‘Lydia’s been dead twelve years now,’ Harriet said, reaching for the bundle of baby from the younger woman as it began to make snuffling noises.

  ‘My great-aunt Lydia was your Granny Madge’s older sister,’ Mum explained, pulling up a chair for Harriet and the baby. ‘She was quite a bit older than you wasn’t she, Granny?’

  ‘Oh, yes, much older. There were five of us: Lydia was the eldest and I was the youngest. There was a good twelve years between us. By the time I was eight or nine, Lydia was newly married and living over towards Colnefirth.’

  ‘I’m trying to work out how we’re all related,’ I said, smiling at the younger woman, who was looking as perplexed as I felt.

  ‘Oh, sorry, how rude of me.’ Harriet laughed. ‘This is my daughter, Liberty… Libby.’

  ‘So, you girls and Liberty must be eighth cousins loads of times removed then. Sorry, can’t work it all out,’ Mum smiled. ‘I was never very good at maths.’

  ‘We’re vaguely related. Probably best if we leave it at that.’ Liberty grinned at Daisy and Me. ‘Oh, and this is Lysander.’ She took the baby back from her mother and pointed him proudly in our direction.

  ‘Lysander? Golly, that’s a good strong noble name,’ I said. ‘What’s that song we used to sing at school? Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules; Of Hector and Lysander diddle um tum diddle iddle um… Sorry, can’t remember the rest.’

  ‘“The British Grenadiers”,’ Granny Madge tutted crossly before launching loudly and tunefully into song: ‘But of all the world’s great heroes, there’s none that can compare, With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, to the British Grenadier.’

  The old chap who, up until then, had been nodding peacefully in his armchair in the far corner of the residents’ lounge, suddenly shot out of his chair, saluted Granny, shouted, ‘Damn good soldiers. Bless ’em all,’ and then, just as suddenly, sat back down and began to snore loudly.

  ‘Silly old fool,’ Granny Madge tutted again. ‘I tell you, they’re all mad in here. I need to get out before I become as crackers as they are. I’m sure it must be catching.’

  Harriet smiled and cleared her throat. ‘There’s something we, well, Liberty really, wanted to ask you.’

  ‘You know, Harriet, one of the last times I saw your granny Lydia was one Monday night at bingo. Can’t abide the game myself, but Lydia went every week without fail. Her neighbour who usually drove her there was ill, so I said I’d drive her there and drop her off.’

  ‘Are you still driving now?’ Liberty asked, surprised.

  ‘Of course,’ Granny Madge said firmly. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? And this was twelve years ago when I was a mere youngster. Anyway, I didn’t like to leave Lydia by herself, so I went in with her. “I can’t get comfortable, Madge,” she kept saying. “I can’t concentrate on the numbers…” She was up and down in her seat like a lousy stocking. People behind were tutting at her, telling her to be quiet and sit down. “I’m going to have to go home, Madge,” she said – she was almost in tears. “I think I’ve got something wrong with me: I can feel a huge lump.” Well, as soon as the first game was over I took her down to the Ladies. “What is it, Madge?” she kept asking, obviously frightened. “Have I got a growth? Our Isaac died of a growth, you know.” She had so many layers on: vest, petticoat, corset, blouse… Anyway, I had a good root around her back and yes, there was something.’

  ‘I didn’t know Great-aunt Lydia died of some sort of growth,’ Mum said sympathetically. ‘Poor thing.’

  ‘It was her bloody slipper,’ Granny Madge hooted in great delight. ‘She’d obviously sat on the chair to pull on her corset and her slipper had caught in it and when she pulled it up, her slipper doubled up and came too. We laughed until we cried – actually, I seem to remember Lydia wetting her pants; she was prone to that. I do miss her.’

  ‘So, Auntie Madge, the thing is…’ Harriet stopped again, flustered.

  ‘It’s about your house,’ Liberty said, obviously embarrassed, but with a steely determination to say what she and Harriet had come for.

  ‘My house?’ Granny Madge sat still and looked intently at Liberty. She was a pretty girl with long blond hair and huge eyes and, despite having a tiny baby, immaculately dressed. I felt quite scruffy in my pink Timberlands and Mum’s dog-walking jacket, my face devoid of any make-up. The last thing I’d wanted to do, once Mum had decreed the day ahead of us, was tart myself up. For whom? I’d asked myself bad-temperedly. Granddad’s ashes and the mumbling inmates of some care home? ‘What about my house?’ Granny Madge was continuing to look calmly at Liberty and I could see she was beginning to struggle under her close scrutiny.

  ‘I love it… we love it,’ Liberty said somewhat breathlessly. ‘We’re really hoping you might consider selling it to us.’

  Granny Madge’s bungalow? Daisy and I exchanged glances and then stared at Liberty and Harriet, who were both leaning forwards, waiting intently for Granny to speak. Why on would anyone fall in love with that horrible bungalow? OK, it was in a rather upmarket village and the garden was wonderful. Maybe that was Liberty’s plan? To knock the bungalow down and develop the land?

  ‘I’m sorry, Liberty, there’s absolutely no way I’m giving up my bungalow and garden. I’m only here, in this place, temporarily. I shall be returning home in the next few months.’ Madge smiled rather grandly. ‘Once I’m in that great garden in the sky, then of course you’re free to make an offer to my daughter, Nancy. I’m sure Nancy would be absolutely delighted to get rid of it without the bother of going through an estate agent.’

  ‘Oh…’ Liberty tried to interrupt but was browbeaten into silence by Granny patting her hand rather patronisingly.

  ‘But, as I have absolutely no intention of giving St Peter any of my gardening tips for at least another ten years,’ Madge went on. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to be patient or look elsewhere.’

  ‘Oh no, Auntie Madge, it’s not the bungalow Liberty and Seb have fallen in love with.’ Harriet was shaking her head.

  ‘Seb?’

  ‘My partner, Lysander’s father.’ Liberty took over from her mother. ‘It’s not the bungalow we’re desperate to have.’ She spoke with the passion and excitement of a child eliciting her Christmas present list.

  ‘The garden and land then, presumably?’ I can see why you might want to knock down the bungalow.’

  ‘No, really. I don’t even know where your bungalow is. It’s your house we love. You know, your other house.’

  Granny Madge sat back in her chair, placing her hands neatly in her lap. She might have been over ninety but she was as alert and shrewd as she’d always been, contemplating the rest of us with an inscrutable gaze as we sat uncomfortably in front of her. At last, she said calmly and clearly, ‘I’m sorry, Liberty. My house will never be for sale while I’m alive. And there’s an end to it.’

  *

  ‘What house, Mum? What was Granny Madge talking about?’ Daisy, Mum and I had spent another half-hour with Granny, making small talk over a cup of quite revolting weak tea and hard, dry scones, once Harriet and Liberty had left. Liberty had been near to tears but had shaken Granny Madge’s hand politely as she stood. Granny had patted her hand
once more, but seemingly been unable to give Liberty any hope that what she and Harriet had come to see her about could ever be resolved.

  Mum frowned as she reversed her car into the dark of a wet, misty November afternoon, narrowly missing the back of a black Mini. ‘Jesus, why do people have black cars in November? How the hell are you supposed to see them?’

  ‘Presumably they’re OK in December when it snows? Daisy murmured idly. ‘Come on, Mum, what house? Did Granny Madge mean the bungalow?’

  ‘Darling, I really don’t know what the three of them were talking about. They obviously know something we don’t. My mum has hinted at something over the years, but then refused to divulge any more. You know what she’s like. She’ll offer so much and then keep you guessing. I always got the impression that there was some big family secret she was ashamed of.’ Mum took her eyes from the road and turned to where I was sitting in the back. ‘She didn’t have it easy, you know.’

  ‘Neither did you,’ I protested. ‘She almost abandoned you to Madge once she and your father divorced when you were little.’

  Mum smiled at me through the driving mirror. ‘Well, that’s the way she was. She was single once my father had left and gone to Manchester. She needed to get out and about with people; she’d have loved to have married again really. My mum was a real party animal in the early seventies and there were always lots of different boyfriends.’

  ‘I’m amazed she didn’t remarry then if that’s what she was after.’

  ‘I’m not sure why Mum married my father in the first place – they really had very little in common – and then, according to Granny Madge, she was never overly impressed with the men from round here. I think she thought they were beneath her, so any chance she had, she’d be off to London; Paris even. My junior school was very near to Madge’s bungalow so it was easier just to have my tea with her and then, if my mum was going out or was abroad with one of her men friends, it made more sense to sleep at the bungalow. I didn’t feel I missed out; I loved being with Granny Madge – she taught me a lot.’

  ‘Well, she’s certainly a lot less scratchy than Granny Nancy, who really, let’s face it, is a bit of a snob, isn’t she?’ I’d always found my mum’s mum hard work. Whereas Madge would hug you to death and have you out in the garden, getting dirty, Granny Nancy was terrified you’d ladder her tights or smudge her nail varnish. Now in her mid-seventies, she still spent a lot of time away from Midhope, rarely getting in touch with either her mother – Granny Madge – or her daughter – my mum.

  ‘So,’ Daisy turned to me as Mum pulled into our drive, ‘shall we hit the town tonight, you and me? It’s ages since we’ve had a night out together?’

  ‘We were out a couple of weeks ago when you flew into Gatwick.’ The last thing I wanted was to get dressed up and pretend I was having a good time. Depression seemed to be descending once more with the lowering November teatime skies. What the hell was I going to do with the rest of my life?

  ‘Well, yes, but you had Dominic in tow then.’

  ‘And that’s supposed to make me feel better?’ I just wanted to go to my room and curl up and think of him and let the tears that had been about to fall all day have their head.

  ‘Not at all,’ Daisy said seriously. ‘I just think lying on your bed all evening thinking of that…’ Daisy lowered her voice ‘…that wanker …’

  ‘Oy, do you mind, Daisy Maddison?’ Mum opened the car door. ‘I can hear you.’

  ‘You need to get out and forget him. I’m going to pop down to Clementine’s and see if she has any temporary work for me – just until I decide what I’m going to do next – and then I thought we could have a drink at the Jolly Sailor?’

  I groaned. ‘Oh God, Daisy, that’s the last thing I want to do…’

  ‘Well, maybe the first thing you can do is peel some potatoes for supper?’ Mum smiled encouragingly. ‘We have to eat, you know.’

  *

  ‘Madge has just phoned, Kate.’ Dad, watching some vet programme on the tiny TV set in the kitchen while sharing a packet of Hobnobs with Malvolio, shouted to Mum as she made to go into the downstairs loo to take off her coat.

  Mum turned, surprised. ‘We’ve only just come from there. What did she want?’

  ‘Charlie, apparently.’

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Yep.’ Dad was watching the TV screen with mounting incredulity.

  ‘Charlie’s just been with us.’ Mum said. ‘We’ve all just been to see her.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t handle that bloody cow like that,’ Dad shouted in disgust at the screen. He turned from the TV. ‘I don’t know, Kate. She just said she wanted to speak to Charlie and said to give her a ring when you got in.’

  I frowned. ‘She was all right when we left, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Give her a ring, darling,’ Mum said, reaching for a bag of potatoes.

  I walked back down the hall to the telephone, which had sat on the same polished walnut table ever since I could remember, and dialled the number Mum shouted from the kitchen. When I was eventually put through to Granny Madge, she said, almost immediately, ‘Are you insured to drive your mother’s car?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Why?’

  ‘Well, darling, I’d like you to come and pick me up tomorrow, if you would, and then take me out for a little drive. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going, but I’d like to show you something. About ten thirty, after breakfast?’

  Before I could answer she’d hung up, leaving me looking at the phone like some ham actor in one of Vivienne’s amateur productions down at Westenbury village hall.

  5

  I’d loved Sunday mornings in London, with or without Dominic. Before I moved into the flat with him, I’d relished the luxury of being able to stay in bed with a good book and endless mugs of tea. Once I’d packed up my few things and moved from my flat in Bayswater to his place in Bloomsbury, it wasn’t books that kept me awake on those – admittedly few – long, languorous, Sunday mornings, but Dominic and his magic hands and wonderful body.

  But how the hell had he managed to spend even that many weekends of the summer just gone with me when he had a wife and kids waiting in the wings? Why hadn’t his wife kicked off when he wasn’t at home with her and the children? Oh, silly me. What do middle-class families do once the children have broken up from school? Of course, they decamp to their place in Cornwall, or Devon, or Norfolk or somewhere for eight weeks. But didn’t the dads usually escape the dirt and stress of London and join their families for the weekends for a couple of days en famille before heading back to the grindstone – and their waiting illicit lovers – just forty-eight hours later? Dominic had spent a couple weekends away in the summer – on business, he’d said – but most week nights had been spent with me.

  How did you manage it, Dominic?

  Where was your wife all summer? Abersoch? Rock?

  I emailed, before heading for the shower.

  Twenty minutes later I’d washed the last of the London dirt out of my hair and was back in my bedroom, towelling it dry. I really couldn’t be arsed to start blow-drying it, seeing as I was only taking Granny Madge out for a Sunday spin in the country.

  Daisy was lying on my bed, my laptop on her knee.

  ‘Oy, do you mind? Do you always read people’s emails?’ I snapped crossly, pulling the laptop from out of her reach.

  ‘Only when they’re corkers like this one,’ Daisy retorted, eyebrows raised.

  I grabbed the laptop, feverishly reading Dominic’s reply:

  Turkey, actually. My parents own a wonderful place in Kalkan. Now, would you please stop emailing my husband and get it into your thick head that he’s been well and truly caught with his pants down. No more emails, or I’ll have you for harassment.

  Ah, so not from Dominic then.

  ‘Let me reply to her,’ Daisy was saying as I read it for a second time. ‘I’m sure we can think of something suitably cutting. Something like: “Instead of sending threateni
ng emails why don’t you make sure you know where your husband is at night?”’

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Daisy,’ I said, my voice wobbling slightly as I tried not to cry. ‘I have some dignity, you know.’

  ‘OK, OK. Well, let’s do something to take your mind off it. I’m glad to see you’ve finally had a shower; we could go into Leeds for the afternoon. It is nearly Christmas and I bet you’ve not done any Christmas shopping yet?’

  ‘Daisy, the last thing I want to do is Christmas shopping.’

  ‘But I bet you haven’t done any, have you?’

  Only the beautiful gold cufflinks on which I’d spent an obscene amount of last month’s salary and which were, even now, nestling in their little blue box wrapped in dark-red paper with green ribbon in the bottom drawer of my desk in the office. What a waste of my hard-earned cash.

  ‘I’m already going out,’ I said, taking a deep breath and rubbing my hair furiously while desperately trying to eradicate a seemingly indelible picture of Dominic and me exchanging Christmas presents under a huge Christmas tree from my mind. Was that a beautiful ring in the little box he’d just handed to me while kissing me…?

  ‘Charlie…?’

  ‘What?’ I surfaced from the towel to find Daisy shaking one end of it at me.

  ‘Oh my God, you have got it bad, haven’t you? I said, “Where?”’

  ‘Where what?’

  Daisy sighed crossly, slapping the wet towel round my bare backside. ‘Where are you going?’

  I had to think for a split second. ‘Out with Granny Madge. You know, she rang me yesterday as soon as we got in?’

  ‘Where does she want you to take her?’

  ‘I really don’t know, Daisy. Probably to the bungalow to pick up a few things. Can’t be anything to do with her garden – she’d have wanted you to take her for that, I suppose.’

  ‘OK, well, if you’re not coming to Leeds with me, then you can join me tomorrow night. I’ve booked us into an evening of delight and excitement.’