Appleby Farm (8 page)

‘I’m off to tackle that veggie patch near the orchard,’ said Auntie Sue, pulling a pair of secateurs from her apron pocket. ‘I haven’t even cut my raspberry canes back yet. At this rate my home-grown raspberry-ripple ice cream won’t be home-grown, it’ll be via Sainsbury’s.’

‘And Lizzie and I are making an honesty box to put down on Lovedale Lane,’ I said, zipping up my jacket. Auntie Sue had more eggs than she could sell on, so I’d come up with the idea of turning an old henhouse into a road-side help-yourself shop. Plenty of cars came past the farm entrance and this would be a chance to make a bit of extra cash and sell our surplus produce.

‘Right, see you back at dinner.’ Uncle Arthur slapped his hands on the desk and we all dispersed.

Lizzie and I grunted and heaved as we wheeled the disused henhouse out of the shed and into the yard. It was tiny compared to the one Auntie Sue used now and worked like a big wheelbarrow with two large rusty wheels underneath, a wooden strut to help it stand upright and double doors at the front, which would open up to make our little shop.

‘Let’s set up it at the edge of the orchard,’ Lizzie suggested breathlessly, steering us along past the barn.

‘But here is so much closer to the tap,’ I panted. And the orchard was completely impractical to work in.

‘Come on,’ said Lizzie, putting her back into it with grim determination. ‘It’s got a lovely view and we get to smell the apple blossom while we work.’

At the edge of the orchard I flopped down on to the grass, exhausted. She was right; the white and pink apple blossom flowers had a lovely delicate scent. In front of us was Calf’s Close, the field where Uncle Arthur was currently weaving in and out of his herd with an attentive Ross at his side.

‘See,’ giggled Lizzie, collapsing beside me. ‘I told you the view was great.’

The first job was the worst: scraping off several years’ worth of chicken poo. For the next half an hour we distracted ourselves with a game of ‘would you rather …’ in which we tested each other’s preferences for random things. We found to our delight that we shared a love for Harry Potter and cinnamon on cappuccino but clashed over Brussels sprouts (I could eat them by the plateful).

‘Sorry,’ Lizzie declared finally. She held up a hand and made a choking noise. ‘But I’m not choosing between gherkins and pickled onions. Neither should be fed to humans.’ She screwed up her nose. ‘Nor animals, come to that.’

‘Ha!’ I dropped my disinfectant spray on the floor and threw my arms round her neck. ‘You passed my friend test, Lizzie, because that one was a red herring. I’m with you there one hundred per cent. Ooh, you’re buzzing.’

I stood back to let her retrieve her phone from her bra. ‘No pockets,’ she giggled, followed by a grimace, eye-roll and stab at the phone.

‘Victoria,’ she said, her face losing its customary warmth. ‘What do you want?’ This last uttered in a flat, un-Lizzie-like tone.

I raised my eyebrows but she just frowned, so I left her to it and wandered back into the yard to wash my hands. Odd that she’d got mobile phone reception in the yard. Must remember that. I was just contemplating popping into the kitchen to stick the kettle on, when Eddy arrived in the yard on the tractor, pulling the fertilizing unit behind it.

‘Dinner time already?’ I called as Eddy got closer.

‘No, your uncle’s radioed me over,’ Eddy shouted above the fut-fut-fut of the tractor engine. ‘He’s here, look.’

I turned to see Uncle Arthur and Ross, both of them with hands wedged in pockets, striding towards us.

‘Crofters Field was looking a bit churned up,’ said Eddy, jumping down off the tractor. ‘So I’ve moved the cows to Oak Field. That OK, Arthur?’

‘Ay.’ Uncle Arthur pushed up his cap and scratched his forehead. The stitches were starting to pull and it was driving him crazy. ‘Ground’s heavy up there after last week’s rain.’

‘What’s up, then?’ said Eddy. ‘I’ve only done half of one field.’

‘Come and take a look at this calf.’

‘Problem?’ I said, traipsing behind the men as we headed back to Calf’s Close.

‘One of the calves isn’t doing too well,’ said Uncle Arthur. ‘Her ears are back and judging by the mother’s full udders, she’s not feeding.’

‘I spotted it,’ added Ross proudly.

‘Well, that has ruined my day,’ Lizzie said with a scowl as she fell into step beside me. ‘Ruined it. Where we going, by the way?’

‘Calf’s Close to see a poorly cow,’ I said, linking my arm through hers. ‘What has ruined your day and who’s Victoria?’

‘My older sister. She’s only sodding-well moving back to The Lakes from Liverpool. I thought I’d got rid of her once she got a job on Liver FM. Honestly,’ Lizzie huffed, ‘she’s got a mean streak longer than Lake Windermere, that one. If she was here now, she’d try to steal you off me.’

I felt a rush of warmth for my lovely new friend and her unexpected insecurity. ‘She wouldn’t, would she?’

She widened her eyes. ‘Yep.’
And him
, she mouthed, nodding at Ross. ‘Even if she didn’t fancy him herself, she’d flirt with him just to scupper my chances.’

‘Is this the one with a pony called Star?’

Lizzie’s face softened. ‘No, that’s Poppy. She’s only twelve. I love her to bits.’

I did a rough sum. Lizzie was twenty-five. Not quite as big an age gap as Julian and I but a completely different relationship by the sound of it. ‘Twelve! I bet your mum was shocked when she found out she was pregnant again.’ Mine certainly had been, by all accounts.

‘Hardly,’ said Lizzie, pulling an as-if face. ‘She idolizes that child. Calls her her precious miracle.’

Precious miracle.

I too was an unplanned baby who had turned up late in my mum’s life. How different would my life have been if my mother had cherished me like that? I wondered.

‘But your dad,’ I probed, determined to find a chink in their armour of perfect parenting, ‘I guess he’d thought the days of nappies and no sleep were well behind him?’

She puffed out her cheeks. ‘He didn’t mind. All my dad says when somebody points that out is that nine months before Poppy’s surprise arrival was “one bloody good weekend”. Parents.’ She tutted in disgust.

I thought her dad sounded fun. But perhaps other people’s families always sound more fun than your own.

‘Anyway,’ Lizzie sighed, ‘the point is that Victoria will be back in The Lakes in one month’s time to start a new job as a radio presenter on Radio Lakeland and she’ll try to muscle in on my life. Again.’

‘I won’t let her. Promise,’ I said, giving her arm a squeeze.

Lizzie and I followed them as far as the gate. Ross closed the gate behind them and as soon as the older men were out of earshot, he blinked furiously at Lizzie and turned crimson. ‘Don’t suppose you fancy going for a drink tonight, do you?’

In a flash she jumped up on to the bottom bar of the gate, grabbed Ross’s face and kissed him noisily on the lips.

‘Is that a yes, then?’ he gasped.

‘Yes!’ Lizzie squealed, making thirty Hereford cows and their calves leap into the air.

Day not entirely ruined then.

Almost before I knew it, my five days in Lovedale were up. It was weird, I thought, as I bumped my rucksack down the stairs on my last morning, I wanted to stay, but I was ready to leave, too. My stomach felt jittery and a lump kept rising in my throat. I felt as if I were homesick for both places at once: Kingsfield where Charlie and my job were, and the farm where I felt needed and so at home.

Lizzie and I had finished the honesty box and now it sat at the entrance to the farm with its hand-painted sign, proudly displaying Appleby Farm’s wares. Only free-range eggs at the moment, but soon there would be fruit and vegetables from Auntie Sue’s veggie patch and apples by the tonne in autumn. We had made ten pounds on the first day alone!

The last two days had flashed by in a busy blur as new life seemed to spring up from all quarters around the farm, from chicks hatching, now sunning themselves under a heat lamp in the barn, to the last and final calf being born to Auntie Sue’s beloved Jersey cow, Gaynor. Lizzie and I had been tasked with naming both the Jersey calves and had come up with Kim and Kanye, which went over Auntie Sue’s head but gave us hours of amusement. The barley was shooting up in Bottom Field, the grass was flourishing after a couple of days of unbroken sunshine and, of course – hot news – there was a new romance blooming between Ross and Lizzie.

As much as I was going to miss being part of the family at Appleby Farm, seeing the two of them together had made me miss Charlie even more. He would be working an early shift when my train arrived back into Kingsfield, so I’d have to wait until the evening to show him exactly how much. And I planned to leave him in no doubt about my feelings on the matter.

‘It’ll be quiet without you, lass,’ sighed Auntie Sue as I entered the kitchen. She was packing a cake, jam, a still-warm loaf, half a dozen eggs and some leftover hotpot into plastic tubs for me to take back with me. Uncle Arthur sat at the table reading
Farmer’s Weekly
magazine.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed her plump cheek. ‘I’ll come back very soon, I promise. With Charlie, hopefully.’ I crossed my fingers.

‘Make sure you do,’ said Uncle Arthur. ‘You’ve been a breath of fresh air for us, hasn’t she, Sue?’

‘I’ve loved it,’ I said, swallowing that pesky lump that had returned to my throat. I walked over to him and peered over his shoulder. ‘Is that calf all right now?’

The little calf who hadn’t been feeding had needed a vet’s visit. Lizzie and I had been hoping we’d have to bring her in and bottle feed her back to health, but the less intervention the better, Ross had informed us, and he seemed to know what he was talking about.

‘Yes, love, she’s brighter today and she’s feeding now. The cow’s a good mother, she’ll be fine.’

‘Good.’ I was going to miss all this – the cows and the hens, these two lovely people, Lizzie …

I pressed my face against my uncle’s bristly cheek. ‘Take care of yourself,’ I said, kissing him tenderly. ‘And go easy on the beer, OK?’

There was a knock at the door and Madge and I fell over each other to answer it. Madge, because she had a vendetta against the postman for some reason and me, because I was expecting Eddy to arrive any second to take me to the station.

Madge won. I scooped her up with some difficulty and opened the door. The postman, a thin and unsurprisingly nervous man wearing shorts and a woolly hat, held out a letter. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Eddy’s van pull into the yard. My heart bounced. Time to go.

‘Recorded delivery,’ said the postman. ‘Needs signing for.’

‘I’ll sign!’ Auntie Sue bustled over, tutting affectionately at the writhing dog I was doing my best to hold on to.

Both of us saw the official-looking red stamp on the envelope at the same time. Auntie Sue bundled the postman and his letter outside on to the step and I dropped the dog to the floor.

Ten seconds later, she came back in.

‘Auntie Sue?’

She flashed me a silencing stare and darted off towards the office. ‘Forget you saw that,’ she said quietly over her shoulder.

FINAL NOTICE in large red letters wasn’t that easy to forget. And the fact that she
wanted
me to forget hardly put my mind at rest. I frowned and opened my mouth to say something but the front door flew open again and Eddy’s face appeared.

‘Make haste, lass, or you’ll miss this train!’

Anna was waiting for me outside the station in Kingsfield as planned. She wrinkled up her nose as I climbed into the passenger seat of her Mini Cooper and gave her a hug.

‘Poo! You stink,’ she laughed, extracting herself from my arms and turning on the engine.

I scooped up the ends of my hair and sniffed it. ‘Of what?’

‘Well, not to put too fine a point on it, animal poop.’ Anna put the car into reverse, pulled out of the parking spot and accelerated away rather quickly.

‘Oops. Soz about that.’ I looked down at my boots, which were pretty disgusting. And the little mats in her car were immaculate, or had been at any rate. ‘That could be cow pat, chicken poo or horse manure.’

Anna grinned at me. ‘It has been so boring without you.’

On the surface, Anna and I were unlikely mates. I was outgoing and she was not. She was neat and orderly and I was not. If she were one of my uncle’s herd, she’d be the timid one, the one most likely to hang back and miss out on all the food, whereas I’d be the troublemaker, the one encouraging the rest of the herd to join me on the rampage, breaking for freedom at the earliest opportunity.

We met at a music festival a few years ago. The girl I had gone with had had to go to the first-aid tent after only a few hours, suffering from sunstroke. Her parents had come to collect her, leaving me on my own. As luck would have it, Anna had pitched up next to my spot on the campsite, only to realize she’d left her tent poles at home. I’d offered her room in my little pop-up thing and we’d been friends ever since.

The Mini hurtled round a corner and I grabbed on to her shoulder as I was flung towards her.

‘Sorry.’ She grimaced. ‘In a bit of a rush. I’m on a deadline and I’ve fallen behind.’

‘Really? That’s not like you.’ I studied her out of the corner of my eye. Was it my imagination or did she look a bit shifty? ‘What are you working on at the moment?’

‘A new website for tickle my fancy dot com.’

I snorted with laughter. ‘You’re kidding, tell me more!’

I love hearing about Anna’s business. She specializes in creating websites for the nichiest of niches in the online dating world and has come up with some corkers since I’d been living with her.

Anna flicked a grin at me and put her foot down to get across the traffic lights before they changed to red. ‘It’s for women who love men with facial hair.’

The two of us burst out laughing. I’d stopped being surprised by the weird and wonderful dating websites that Anna told me about. I mean, for example, who would have thought there would be a niche for those whose overriding criteria in finding a mate was a shared passion for the ukulele?