Homecoming (30 page)

‘Well fortunately, he’s dead, so that’s one less thing to worry about.’

‘I feel like someone’s moving my guts around,’ he says.

‘Nine thousand, am I bid nine thousand? Nine thousand thank you. A fine ram this, first prize at Leyburn show.’

Ann and Joe lift their heads up to stare at each other. Eric is rocking fulsomely on his heels, the grin all over his face.

‘Nine thousand and fifty am I bid? Nine thousand and twenty five, then, nine thousand and fifty? Thank you, nine thousand and fifty, nine thousand and fifty, nine thousand and fifty. Gone. You’ve done well there, Dugmore.’

‘What the hell was that?’ asks Joe.

‘A prize tup you had among your fattening stores,’ says Eric, hopping up and down, dancing, giving Lauren a hug. ‘Adrian spotted him back in April, checked the parentage in your log. Took him to the country shows earlier this month and he got more rosettes pinned on ’im than Miss World.’

People around them are hugging. Eric walks around the table to clap Joe on the shoulder. ‘You were always good, Joe – there were never a better man for breeding sheep. I think I’ll hold you to that pint now, if it’s all the same.’

Bartholomew and Ruby are hugging, Adrian and Eric are hugging, even Bartholomew and Max clap each other heartily on the shoulders. Ann is standing in a daze, looking across the trestle at Lauren.

‘Suppose that flat’s a goer now,’ says Lauren.

‘Yes,’ says Ann, ‘suppose it is.’

Ann is sat on a folding canvas chair behind the trestle table, so low that her bottom almost touches the grass. She shuts her eyes, enjoying the light burn of the sun on her forehead. Four prize tups – three that they’d bought last October and the one found in the flock by Adrian. That’s brought us thirteen thousand pounds alone. And another twenty thousand for the remaining sheep. And ten to fifteen thousand for hardware and vehicles – that’s what the auctioneer’s going through now. Minus the loan they’ve got. Should clear forty thousand give or take. Enough for that flat and a mortgage that won’t cripple us. Max can pay his share. We’ve survived, she thinks.

She looks at the crowd of backs, which is all she can see from a place so low. All these people, she thinks, I should be more of a host. She makes a move to heave herself out of the canvas chair but feels Lauren’s hand applying pressure on her shoulder.

‘No you don’t. Here, drink this.’ Lauren hands Ann a steaming cup of tea in a chipped, rose-covered mug.

‘This has seen better days.’

‘Haven’t we all?’ says Lauren, opening another canvas chair in a blur to the side, and letting out a huge sigh as she heaves down into it. ‘Flamin’ heck,’ she says, ‘might as well ’ave sat on the grass.’

At the edge of the group of backs, Ann can see Brenda Farley, pushing her face upwards against the lowering force of her hump. Her hair is so white it is almost luminous. She is wearing a navy cardigan over a floral shirt which is buttoned to the neck. Her best for a day out, bless her.

‘Farm machinery, implements and sundries now,’ says the auctioneer. ‘Bomford Scimitar pasture topper, Graham Edwards livestock trailer – about twelve foot this one – complete with foldaway sheep decks.’

Ann watches the strain on Brenda’s face, her creased forehead. She is listening intently, as if the auctioneer is reading out her own will and testament. The strings of her neck are pulled like strands of dough.

‘Quad trailer,’ continues the auctioneer, ‘sheep troughs, ring feeders, electric-fence unit. And one for your mutton chops, Granville – Lister sheep shears.’ Ann hears the crowd laugh. She watches the delayed reaction on Brenda Farley’s face: the mouth still slightly open, the laughter drifting towards her; the smile as she looks to the people surrounding her and sees them laughing. It is as if this woman lives on a distant shore and everything laps onto her beach that little bit later than it does everyone else.

She feels Lauren put a hand on hers.

‘I’m going to give that woman my chair,’ says Ann, making to get up.

‘She’s alright,’ says Lauren, stopping her arm. ‘Any road, if she got in it, she’d never get out again. You rest a bit.’

‘Christ Lauren, is that all that’s ahead of us?’

They both watch as Brenda attempts to lift her head again, her jaw slack with fresh confusion.

‘Not such a bad life,’ says Lauren. ‘Gas fire on the full setting.
Countdown
on the telly. Incontinence pants on, nice and snug up to the armpits. Could do worse.’

‘But for time to run out, Lauren,’ Ann whispers. ‘I never expected it. Thought I’d be thirty for ever. It’s like I didn’t see it coming. And now it’s here.’

‘I don’t think we’ll be carrying you out in a box just yet,’ says Lauren. ‘We’ve got that flat to sort out first.’

Evening the following day and Ann thinks the washing-up will never end. This must be her sixth lot at least. Her hands are dry with it, reptilian when she’d looked at them in bed last night. Must get some of that Vaseline hand cream, she thinks, but that’s another trip into Lipton I haven’t got time for and then her mind goes to the flat, as it does constantly, and she smiles to herself while looking out the window because soon, touch wood, she’ll be able to walk to the shops.

The evening sun is everywhere, casting the yard in an orange light that seems artificial, and sliding in through the window. It bathes Lauren’s face so that she looks impossibly tanned as she stands next to Ann, drying a cup with a tea towel that’s as good as sodden. Ann is feeling about in the sink, noticing the silky suds as they coat her hands. Pleasing it is, the slide of it as she turns the cup in the water, much as it dries out her skin.

Their silence is amiable, through all the rounds of washing-up they’ve done together. Lauren has been by her side these last two days, helping with the catering marathon that accompanied the auction – all the cups and plates from the day itself, then the folk that stayed on past the afternoon into sunset, either sat in her kitchen or taking tea out to the yard. And then the smaller group who stayed to dinner – Ruby cooked another of her excellent stews with baked potatoes to feed the five thousand (that girl is really a marvel in the kitchen): Max and Bartholomew of course, Max sullen but she thought that was because he was off the drink and feeling the pull of it, Bartholomew eating as usual like it was his last; Eric and Lauren; Dennis Lunn, who’d helped so much with the penning and moving the sheep about. And on it went, even today – every time another person arrived to pick up some livestock or machinery, they popped in for a brew and a slice of fruit cake or a bacon sandwich.

‘Only this stack to go,’ says Lauren, bringing a pile of plates over from the kitchen table and putting them next to Ann on the counter.

Ann had managed, late this morning, to peel Joe away from the to-ings and fro-ings and take him to Lipton to see the flat. He’d harrumphed all the way up the stairs, complained about the smell, the size, the state of the place but she could see some sparkle in his face, a covered-up interest in it when he said, ‘I’ll have to pull this lino up.’ She could see him thinking, ‘There’s a job for me here,’ which was a pleasure to him (much as he wouldn’t admit it) after saying goodbye to so much.

‘Look Joe,’ she’d said, standing at the window. ‘You could go to the club in your slippers.’

‘I’m not that old yet that I can’t put me shoes on,’ he’d grumbled. But he’d stood next to her looking around the room and she could feel it coming off him – something similar to what she felt, a new start, a new type of life that would be interesting and different to the one they’d had.

Upstairs, they’d stood in the second bedroom with the sun streaming in through muddy glass and she’d said, ‘Max could go in here, you see.’

‘Is he going to be back with us till he’s fifty?’ Joe said.

‘No,’ she’d scoffed. ‘Don’t be daft. Just till he’s back on his feet, settled at Talbot’s, and off the drink. He’s hurt, Joe. We have to look after him.’

‘You’ve changed your tune.’

‘Yes, well,’ she’d said, venturing back down the stairs.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew they’d struggle with it: leaving Marpleton and the house her children had grown up in and the work of the farm and that connection with the land and the fell. But she also had the sense that the worst was behind them, and that the changes were most painful when you resisted them or in the run-up. It was gone now, and a rest would do them no harm. They could be snug in this place, without auction or feed prices to worry about. She’d even snuck into Al’s Electrical to see about the price of halogen down-lighters while Joe went for a loaf to Greggs.

She hands Lauren a plate and the drips tickle down Ann’s bare forearm.

‘That’s doing nothing,’ she says, nodding at the sodden rag Lauren is holding. ‘There’s a clean one in the drawer.’

Lauren turns and while she’s bent over the drawer she says, ‘There’s some news actually.’

Ann looks at her friend but she’s only half present, her mind feeling its way endlessly over the new landscape she’s moving through. She says, ‘Don’t tell me, you’re pregnant.’

‘That’s it,’ Lauren says, shaking out a tea towel with sheep breeds on it. ‘I’m just pretending to be in me sixties. Hanging out with you geriatric old farts makes me feel good about
meself
.’

‘What then?’

‘Sylvie’s pregnant.’

Ann stops, both wet hands in the air. ‘Oh Lauren!’

She puts her arms around her, keeping her hands out and feeling tears prick in the corners of her eyes.

‘A baby, Ann,’ says Lauren. ‘A baby that’s just a little bit mine.’

‘More ’an a bit. A quarter.’

‘After Jack . . .’

‘I know.’

‘I thought,’ Lauren is breaking up, ‘I thought I’d never hold a baby again and be that in love wi’ it.’

‘And now you will.’

Lauren is sobbing now, heaving with it. It’s come sudden, out of nowhere –perhaps she’s been turning it over in her mind with all the drying-up she’s been doing.

‘When it happened,’ she is saying, between little gasps, ‘when it happened, Ann, I thought life would never go on, and now . . .’ She sniffs, laughing at herself. ‘I’m already scared. What if he gets sick? What if I love ’im too much and he gets sick?’

Ann shakes her head at Lauren as if to say, ‘Don’t be daft
woman
.’

‘I don’t even think Sylvie wants this baby,’ Lauren blurts, in the relief of tears that are better out than in. ‘I think she’s doing it for me and I don’t care, I want it that much.’ She wipes her eyes with the tea towel.

‘Well, it’s the least she can do after you bought her that car.’

‘Yes,’ says Lauren. ‘Absolutely.’

They return to their positions, Ann at the sink, Lauren waiting with her tea towel for the next plate.

‘Where’s Ruby got to?’ asks Lauren.

‘Gone upstairs to read her book.’

They are silent for a time, then Ann says, ‘Happen I could get that baby gym back off Primrose.’

‘Don’t you dare. I can afford another baby gym. God, you’re tight. Any road, sounds like Primrose might need it herself
before
long.’

Ann turns to her in surprise, and Lauren holds up her tea towel in defence. ‘Only a rumour,’ she says.

‘Poor Max,’ says Ann sadly.

‘He’ll be alright Ann. He will. He’ll be better off at Talbot’s. He’ll meet someone, someone more suited. I’ve always thought Max needed a right bossy woman – someone to knock him into shape. Take charge.’

‘Someone like his mother you mean,’ Ann says.

‘Not that bossy, no,’ says Lauren, giving Ann a squeeze about the shoulders. ‘Here, shall we go back and see the flat again tomorrow? Do some measuring?’

‘You can’t take Baby Lamb to that flat,’ says Bartholomew.

‘So your mother keeps telling me,’ says Joe.

They are leaning on a fence looking out across the in-bye, each with a boot on the bottom rung and Baby Lamb nipping the grass at their feet. The field is set with empty metal pens, the stock having been loaded into various trailers and transported to new farms. A burger van stands like a stranded white box with its hatch padlocked, waiting to be towed away.

‘When’s Alan coming for that?’ asks Bartholomew.

‘Dunno,’ says Joe. ‘Said there was no hurry.’

‘What’ll you do wi’ it then? Baby Lamb, I mean.’

‘What’ll I do with
him
you mean?’ says Joe. ‘Max says he’ll tek him. Says Talbot’ll find a spot in his farmyard with the petting animals. Very progressive is Talbot – tamed animals for kids to stroke. A visitor centre he calls it but I’ve seen it – just a yard it is.’

‘You get good subsidies for that, teaching schoolkids about hedgerows and lambing, all that,’ says Bartholomew. He notices his Yorkshire has become thicker since being home, or perhaps just in conversation with his father.

‘Aye and grows fuel crops,’ Joe says. ‘Tries out all sorts does Talbot. There’s no flies on him.’

There is something in Joe’s voice – is it impatience with his son, or contempt for Talbot? Bartholomew can’t quite make it out – some cynicism as least, about other people’s efforts. Understandable, he thinks, Joe’s defensiveness towards Talbot, the farmer who is still farming and soon to be the focus of Max’s needy gaze. Yes, he should be understanding, but instead he says: ‘Still doing your bidding then, Max.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Well, taking Baby Lamb off your hands. Staying on up here, farming with Talbot, moving into the flat with you and mum.’

‘You’d have him leave us too, would ye?’

‘No, I . . .’

‘We can’t all be as perfect as you, Bartholomew. Some of us know our limitations. Important that – to know your limits. We all have them, you know. Even you.’

‘What you mean is,
you
know our limits – mine, Talbot’s, Max’s. No one’s allowed to exceed you.’ And as he says it, Bartholomew feels he’s trespassing where he shouldn’t – on the rightful order of things – but he can’t stop himself. He looks nervously across the in-bye, avoiding Joe’s gaze.

‘Exceed me? Big word that,’ Joe says.

‘Do well then, do better. Would that be so terrible?’