Last Christmas (10 page)

Noel stumped his way through a sodden, windswept field and wondered who on earth could have thought this godforsaken place was a good location for an eco town. As soon as the sheep had gone (which had caused him much silent laughter), and they’d got out of the car to inspect the site, the rain had come down in sheets. Of course, he hadn’t thought to bring wellies or a decent overcoat, and he was soaked through. Only Ralph Nicholas seemed prepared in his oilskins and ancient galoshes. It was almost as if he knew it would happen. And yet, no rain had been forecast…His grandson and Matt looked even more ridiculous than Noel felt, both of them having eschewed something as sensible as a coat for expensive suits—Luke’s probably came from Savile Row—and shiny shoes. At least Noel’s had some kind of tread in them, which had so far stopped him from going arse over tit in the mud.

He realised as soon as he stood in the field what the problem the architects had mentioned was, and wondered why Matt hadn’t seen fit to comment on it. If, indeed, he even realised what it was. The fields where the proposed town was to be built were in a flat valley surrounded by bleak-looking hills, though Luke had been quick to assure them everything looked different in the sunshine. But most importantly it was a valley, with a river running through
it, a river that came off the hillside and sloped downhill towards the fields. They were, if he wasn’t mistaken, standing on a flood plain. It was a disastrous place to do any building on.

‘Erm, Matt, can I have a word?’ Noel found himself shouting over the wind and it took three attempts before Matt heard him.

‘Sorry, what’s that?’ Matt looked as though he were turning blue from the cold.

‘I think this is a flood plain,’ shouted Noel. ‘I’m not sure that anything should be built here, let alone a village.’

Matt looked at him in incomprehension.

‘It can’t be!’ he yelled. ‘Luke assured me himself this was perfect building land.’

‘Look at it!’ Noel said. ‘The fields are so wet you could grow rice in them. Would
you
want to live here?’

Matt had no answer for that, and Noel trudged back to the car. This was madness, it could only be Matt’s inexperience and determination to look good in front of the CEO that had kept the project going so long.

But when they got back to the posh manor house that Ralph Nicholas apparently owned, and where they were treated to an incredibly lavish three-course meal, Noel discovered to his dismay that Matt had no intention of discussing the issue of the site’s suitability. Instead, he and Luke seemed to be formalising plans for work to begin.

‘Whoa, don’t you think you’re jumping the gun a bit?’ Noel said as they waited for their puddings. ‘I’m not sure that that site is incredibly suitable for building on.’

‘Why ever not?’ Luke directed a charming smile at him. ‘I know you didn’t see it at its best today, but every house will have stunning views, with a decent garden, not to forget the magnificent playing fields we’re planning and the
wonderful leisure centre, which will be the heart of our new community.’

It was clearly a well-practised spiel, but it cut no ice with Noel, who’d heard enough of this kind of guff to last him a lifetime.

‘Oh, I’m sure you’re right,’ said Noel. ‘It will be a wonderful development, but you’re building it in the wrong place. It’s got a sodding great river running through it, which at the moment looks as if it’s about to burst its banks. How often does that happen?’

For the first time that day Luke looked slightly uneasy. ‘We
have
had an unusual amount of rainfall for the time of year,’ he conceded.

‘The fields are flooded,’ said Noel. ‘Is this a common occurrence?’

‘Well, er…It certainly doesn’t happen
every
year…’

‘Oh, come now, Luke,’ said his grandfather, from the far end of the table. ‘We both know those fields flood regularly.’

‘So it
is
a flood plain?’ said Noel. ‘In the government draft planning statement it clearly states that eco towns are not to be built in areas where flooding is a problem.’

‘No, of course it’s not a flood plain,’ said Luke, who quite clearly had never read any government guidelines about anything. ‘I’d never propose such a thing. There is, I grant you, a problem with flooding from time to time, but we’ve looked into it and we think by building barriers further upstream, or possibly diverting the river, we can prevent this from recurring. Once the water is pumped out of the ground we should reduce the risk of dampness.’

‘Thereby increasing the risk of subsidence,’ interrupted Noel. ‘It’s clay—once it dries out it will crack up. No, I can’t accept that this is a decent site to build on. It goes
against all the government guidelines. I’m afraid I’m going to recommend to GRB that we don’t proceed.’

There was a stunned silence. Noel got up to get his coat.

‘Coming, Matt?’ he said.

‘I think I just need to go over a few things with Luke,’ said Matt hurriedly, looking pale.

I bet you do, thought Noel, as he was shown to the lobby where he waited an uncomfortable half an hour before a cab appeared to take him to the station. He had a horrible feeling that he might just have marked his card for good. Despite this being a really bad investment, he’d seen enough dodgy constructions in his time to know this would probably go ahead with or without his intervention. The company couldn’t afford in these straitened times to turn down such a potentially lucrative deal. This time he’d
really
blown it.

Marianne was walking in the rain. There was something satisfyingly cleansing about Shropshire rain: even when it was cold, there was an invigorating quality to it that walking through rain-drenched London streets lacked. If she was suffering from the Heathcliff effect, she may as well act like a Brontë heroine and catch consumption or something. She’d always found the idea of that very romantic as a kid, although as an adult it seemed somewhat less appealing. And, given that Luke wasn’t exactly likely to rush to her bedside stricken with guilt and laden with red roses, there wasn’t much point getting a terminal disease.

But walking in the rain was a good purge of her spirits. Despite her assurances to Pippa that now she’d really accept things were over between her and Luke, Marianne actually felt worse than ever. The way Luke had looked through her, like she meant nothing, nothing at all, had cut her to the quick. He used to look at her as if she set his world on fire.
He’d told her that she meant everything to him, that a life without her wasn’t worth living. And he hadn’t meant one single solitary word. Whereas she had. She’d really believed she and Luke were destined to be together forever. Walking out in the pouring rain, her thoughts churned over and over to no helpful purpose. And she realised with a jolt that she was crying, really crying for the first time in months. Great racking sobs were coming out of her, and she found herself shaking violently. How was she ever going to get over this? It was the greatest betrayal of her life.

She didn’t notice at first she’d strayed into the edges of Gabriel’s land. Slowly but surely she was beginning to work out the geography of the area and, as she walked down footpaths that meandered through the farms dotted about the hills, she was beginning to know which farms were which, and whose sheep belonged to whom. Gabriel’s, she knew, were a medium-sized sheep with black faces known as Shropshires, but only because Pippa had told her. She also recognised the telltale blue brand mark that signified they belonged to Gabriel’s farm.

Only not today. She’d been so preoccupied that she’d failed to notice there weren’t any sheep on the hillside at all. Where were they all? Ever since she’d been here, a feature of her walks had been the sheep who wandered across her path willy-nilly or fled up the hillside at her approach. She’d been spooked by the sheep at first, as she found the way they suddenly ambled in front of her on the paths a bit unnerving, but had gradually got used to them and now a walk wasn’t complete if she hadn’t said hello to a few sheep on the way. But today there were none.

A noise caught her attention. A bleating sound that didn’t seem quite right. It was coming from a little way down the hill and, as Marianne walked down the steep path that led to the fields, the noise became more urgent and panicky.
Maybe there was a sheep in trouble. She scrambled to the edge of the path, and looked down. In a dip in the hillside was a sheep, bleating frantically. A very pregnant sheep. Somehow it must have fallen over the edge and got stuck. The poor thing kept trying to get up and collapsing again. Hang on…Marianne cast her mind back to a nature programme she’d watched a while back, from which she’d learnt that when sheep are about to give birth they keep standing up and sitting down. As if on cue, the sheep stood up and its waters broke. Holy cow. Now what was she supposed to do?

Catherine was sitting down in the lounge with a well-deserved glass of wine by the time Noel got home. She was exhausted. Magda had gone out for the evening and Cat had had a fraught teatime during which Melanie had left the table in tears because Paige had ‘looked at her in a nasty way’. The advent of hormones and secondary school had rendered her eldest daughter sensitive in the extreme. Cat didn’t know what had got into her, but was struggling to come to terms with the fact that the little girl she loved was approaching womanhood faster than her mother would like. A few more years and she’d be leaving home, her life just beginning, while Cat’s would be contracting. She felt an oddly jealous pang when she thought of the future that Mel had before her. Was that normal, she wondered, or was she going to turn into a bitter old hag as her daughter shone young and bright and beautiful in front of her? She hoped not. For the first time in her life when she read Ruby fairy tales, she was starting to sympathise with the wicked stepmother more than the beautiful princess. That couldn’t be right.

At least all the fraughtness had stopped her thinking about the rest of her utterly stressful day. It had started
badly when she’d turned up to see Mum for a cup of coffee, and been confronted with a furious rant about Cat interfering in her business.

‘How dare you ask Auntie Eileen if I had any money worries?’ Mum said. ‘I’m not a child. I have managed my own finances pretty successfully all these years, you know.’

‘I know,’ said Cat, ‘it was just with you having your electricity cut off, and seeing all those red bills last time I was here, I was worried about you.’

‘How dare you spy on me!’ Mum was bright red in the face. Cat had never seen her like this before. She backed down at a million miles an hour.

‘I’m so sorry, Mum, I didn’t mean to pry. I was concerned, that’s all.’

‘Well, there’s no need to be,’ retorted Mum. ‘I made a mistake. It’s not like I can’t cope.’

‘I’ve never said you couldn’t,’ said Cat. ‘But are you sure you’ve got enough money?’

‘Of course I have,’ Mum looked perplexed. ‘You know I have a good pension.’

‘So there’s nothing wrong?’ said Cat.

‘Repeat after me, “Everything is fine”,’ said Mum. ‘Cat, you worry too much and you don’t need to worry about
me.
’

So that was that. But the niggle of worry remained. She sipped her glass of wine and cuddled up to Noel watching the news. She didn’t mention her concerns about Mum, as Noel had already made it clear that he thought she was overreacting. Maybe she was. In every other way her mother was perfectly fine. Cat tried to convince herself that there was nothing to worry about, but the growing knot of anxiety in her stomach told her she hadn’t succeeded.

Gabriel was scouring the hillside in the rain. One of his ewes was missing. In the palaver of getting round Luke’s car,
he hadn’t noticed. He only realised his mistake when he got back to the farm and herded the sheep into the shed. She must have wandered off. It was one of the ewes who was close to lambing. Gabriel knew he should have had them all in by now but since Eve had left he had found it increasingly difficult to juggle everything, and now he was cursing himself for his lack of planning. Though there were rarely problems with Shropshire sheep at lambing time, this particular ewe had been rather large and he suspected she was carrying triplets. If something went wrong she might die on that hillside, and he couldn’t risk that happening. So now he was out searching for her with all the kit he needed in case she gave birth: rubber gloves, string, Vaseline, were all stowed away in his backpack.

He heard a shout and saw Marianne scrabbling towards him.

‘I think one of your sheep might be about to give birth,’ she was calling.

Gabriel raced towards Marianne, who showed him where the ewe was stuck. It was an awkward clamber, but Gabriel managed to lower himself down onto the ledge where the sheep was.

‘There, there, girl,’ he said, patting the sheep on the back. He gently eased his way round behind her and, after putting on his rubber gloves, had a feel to see what was going on.

‘Damn,’he said,‘it’s a big one,and I think there’s a smaller twin. Marianne, there’s some string in my backpack, can you get it for me?’

Gabriel felt inside the sheep again and found the lamb’s front legs. He pulled them towards him, and looped the string around the legs. Gently he pulled the lamb out in time with the contractions. It slipped back for a moment, and he had to loop the string around its legs again. Eventually he could feel it coming and teased it out of the
ewe. It flopped out onto the ground and didn’t move. Oh no. Please, not that. This happened sometimes, but not often. Gabriel grabbed some grass and tickled the lamb’s nose to try and get it to sneeze. Nothing.

‘Is everything all right?’ Marianne climbed down beside him, looking worried.

‘Wait a sec,’ said Gabriel. He picked the lamb up by its hind legs, swinging it gently to try and get it to breathe. Still nothing.

The ewe, sensing something was wrong, bleated her distress. Gabriel patted her again.

‘Sorry, old girl, there’s nothing I can do,’ Gabriel felt her pain. He hated losing lambs. The miracle of birth was one of the most precious moments of his job, and it was heartbreaking when it went wrong.