Writing to Ryan was always difficult. An attraction for him vied with a fear of misunderstanding his feelings for her, making her afraid of looking foolish. She realized that through this lack of confidence she could lose him, but she couldn’t relax and feel easy about their growing fondness.
After several attempts at a casual letter that each time tangled into a muddle of over-cautious politenesses, she went to the shop and bought a couple of postcards showing local views. A sentence saying only that Owen had promised Sarah a solution to her housing problem seemed so ridiculous that she tore it up and threw it away. Whatever she and Daphne suspected, the bald facts would tell him nothing.
Later that day she again scribbled the brief facts on a postcard and pushed it into the post box before she could change her mind.
Sarah and Bertie’s move went easily. With so many helping the decorating was swiftly done. Geoff had contributed some tins of paint, and had even found some suitable wallpaper amid his old stock. With Connie’s help he painted and put up wallpaper. Bob and Colin dealt with the garden. Owen didn’t appear. ‘So much for his “revived affection” and his promise to care,’ Sarah said to Sophie.
‘Just as well, there wouldn’t be room here for any more helpers, would there?’
Everyone worked well together and in ten days the place was clean and the garden under control, with Colin and Bob conferring with Bertie about where his vegetable garden would go and the position of his swing.
They didn’t have many possessions and most of them arrived on Tommy’s farm van. As usual when friends were involved there was a party mood from the moment Sarah gave Bertie the key to open their door. Tea was immediately made for the inevitable breaks, but it was still only midday by the time everything was in place.
The last item to arrive was the newly covered armchair, pushed amid great hilarity by Bertie and some of his school friends, guided by a patient Bob Jennings. The oddments of furniture looked lost in the rooms. Floors had been varnished, and on the front doorstep red tiles shone like new. Sarah felt a mild panic at the thought of sitting in the orderly but soulless place. Somehow it reminded her how alone she was. Friends were wonderful but she feared the silence that would inevitably descend when the door closed for the last time and Bertie was asleep in his own bedroom.
She thought of Owen and his revived attentions and wondered whether life with him would be better than loneliness, but shook her head with irritation. She wasn’t that desperate: she wasn’t yet thirty, hardly an old woman! There was plenty of time to think about remarrying. She made up her mind to urge Owen to make haste with the divorce. This was a time for new beginnings.
Sophie often went to the old farmhouse, beside which the ruins of her one-time cottage home still remained. The months since she had left had added to the look of decay, the rotten wood with the crumbly consistency of biscuits providing homes for myriad insects, the old stories weathered into various shades of green, grey and yellow by lichen: miniature fields over which snails grazed.
She had explored the farmhouse, which was now seldom locked, and had sheltered there sometimes when rain tempted her into its protection. The place was still sound, with the exception of one window, now boarded. The cupboards were empty, their bare wooden shelves ridged with years of scrubbing. She wondered idly whether anyone would live there again.
Outside, nature had taken everything back with the exception of the fruit bushes and the neat herb garden that she had nurtured. Rosemary and sage bushes, fennel, lovage, chives and the three different kinds of mint that had to be controlled from taking over the rest. She looked after them and used them in all in her cooking.
To her surprise she heard someone coming, singing an old but still popular song, ‘Sing a song of sunbeams, let the notes fall where they may…’
She stepped away from the farmhouse and waited until Sarah came into view, then sang along with her.
‘Oh! Hello, Sophie, I didn’t expect to see anyone out here.’
‘I’ve come to collect a few herbs,’ Sophie said, showing her the bunch she had picked.
‘I don’t know why I’m here. I just set off for a walk after a bit of gardening. Bertie’s with Kitty and Bob. I found myself on the muddy track and became curious to see the place where Owen and I once lived. Having a house of my own after all this time, I suppose.’
‘Fred Yates’s cottage has gone. It fell about my ears! But the farmhouse is still sound,’ Sophie told her and together they wandered through its echoing rooms.
‘I’ve been thinking a lot about Owen in the past few days, and perhaps I wanted a gentle wander down memory lane. We lived here when Rachel and Tommy moved to the new house, and we were happy here, for a while.’
‘Pity everything has to change.’
‘It didn’t just change, I caused it all to fall apart.’ Sarah didn’t sound angry, just sad.
‘Is there no hope of mending it?’
‘Owen is more civil these days, and he made that half promise to help us find a new home, but he’d never accept Bertie even if we did think of giving it a try.’
‘He enjoys his company more these days, I think. He’s taken him for a walk around the fields once or twice. Answering Bertie’s endless questions, pointing out things of interest. He must know none of this is Bertie’s fault.’
‘Maybe, but there’s no logic in anger, is there?’
There were a few odd cups on a shelf, covered with dust. They had been discarded by Sophie when she left the cottage. She washed them under the outside tap and offered Sarah a drink of water. They sat silently looking round them at the residue of generations of living and loving. Hollow rooms and a garden left to disappear under layers of summer growth. There had been paths but they were gone, choked by rampant grasses and wild flowers. Without thought, Sarah began to pull at some of the larger plants until the paving stones beneath were revealed.
Sophie helped and after an hour they smiled in delight at what they had achieved. The area between two line posts was cleared.
‘At least the ghosts can now hang out their washing,’ Sarah said, as they washed the worst of the dirt from their hands.
Sophie saw Sarah turn to look sadly back at the place that held the ghosts of her marriage. ‘Why haven’t you and Owen divorced?’ she dared to ask.
Sarah frowned. ‘I don’t really know. It’s never been discussed until recently, and then Owen didn’t follow it through. Neither of us has met anyone else, I suppose.’
‘You still love him, after all this time?’
‘I don’t think what I feel for him is love. I let him down, hurt him dreadfully. Anyway, I’ve asked him to sort it out, arrange a divorce. He seems unwilling,’ she frowned. ‘Strange how the marriage vows are such a strong tie, isn’t it?’
‘And Owen, has he ever…?’ she left the sentence unfinished.
‘I thought for a while that he and Daphne might care for each other. In fact, I thought meeting her was what led him to see a solicitor, discuss divorce. But nothing seems to have come of it. I don’t know what’s happening, but he hints about leaving the farm. He wants me to go with him and start again somewhere else. Do you know if it’s true, that the Treweathers are selling and he’s going away?’
‘There are so many rumours, but I can’t imagine Rachel and Tommy sending him away. It’s his home as well as his job. He’s one of the family.’
‘He isn’t always treated as though he is, mind. I’ve never understood why.’
They walked back up the field and through the wood, Sarah reminiscing about her childhood, and the time she and Owen had lived at the farmhouse. Sophie listened, adding an occasional word to encourage further memories, and occasionally thinking about the life she herself had once led, a happy family life that had been so cruelly ended.
‘Haven’t you ever met anyone you wanted to marry?’ Sarah asked as they left the wood opposite Badgers Brook.
‘Once, but he changed his mind and I waited at the church in vain.’
‘You mean he jilted you!?’ Sarah was shocked. ‘But why?’
Sophie smiled sadly. ‘That’s one of the many things in my past that I can’t understand. If I knew why, I might one day feel free of it.’
‘What an unlucky pair we are.’
‘Unlucky? In your case, yes. In mine, my disasters have been because I thought I knew best. Lacking confidence can bring unhappiness but having too much can be far worse.’ She didn’t explain, and Sarah knew better than to ask.
Ryan called to see Sophie, leaving his parents and Owen and a newly re-employed Harry Sutton to run the farm. She accepted his kiss with more ease but still moved away from him when he sat on the couch, and sat on a chair near the window. They discussed the note she had written and Ryan teased her. ‘When I read it out to Gareth he said it was like a newspaper report and remarked that you aren’t too generous with love and kisses. Why is that, Sophie? I had hoped you were beginning to feel the way I do.’
‘There are problems I have to resolve.’
‘You know I’m here for you, if you want me to help. I want to always be here for you.’
She walked across and touched his cheek with her lips and went into the kitchen to find them a drink of wine. Handing it to him, she said, 'Let’s talk about Owen and his mysterious plans, shall we?’
‘Gareth and I are both worried but were afraid to discuss the problems in front of our parents. Gareth feels that Owen is planning something we won’t like. We’ve discussed ways of dealing with Owen, but not knowing what – if anything – he was planning, we decided that Gareth would stay on the farm and report anything of importance to me, while I go back to complete my studies.’
‘Daphne and I will visit when we can. I don’t think your mother objects to me like she did at first, so we can just call without waiting for an invitation.’
‘I’ve only a few more days to do at the school where I’m observing, but I don’t want Owen to know exactly where I am, or how long I’ll be away. Just watch him, please, Sophie.’
‘I will,’ she promised.
‘And think about us, too.’
Seeing her frown, he said, ‘Whatever it is, don’t worry, just think about us and our future. There’s nothing we can’t sort out. Love conquers all, doesn’t it?’
The kiss as he left her was gentle, but they stayed in each other’s arms for a long time. As she watched him leave she felt the stirrings of hope, a promise of better things.
Geoffrey Francis was not far from Cwm Derw. He had finished his calls for the day and was idly walking about one of the small towns nearby, doing a little shopping, buying a gift for his wife’s birthday and something for their baby daughter. Without much hope he asked at a few of the shops for someone called Sophie Daniels. No one he asked could help. He knew that it was likely she was married and her name would have changed. It seemed hopeless, but something made him keep trying.
He wasn’t far from the seaside, and although the day was glowering, with clouds low and filled with rain, he drove towards Barry, a few miles away, thinking that a walk on the sea front might be pleasant. He stopped in Cwm Derw, on the main road, and went into the newsagents to buy a magazine to read later.
‘Geoffrey?’
‘Daphne? I don’t believe it. What luck!’
‘What are you doing so far from London?’
‘Enjoying a change. And you?’
They talked briefly, then Geoffrey asked, ‘I don’t suppose you know where Sophie went, do you? I know her family used to live near here and I’ve asked in several places without any luck.’
‘Why are you looking for her?’
‘I don’t expect a loving reunion, that’s for certain. I just wanted to explain. I feel so guilty about what happened. I’m married now and very content, but what happened on that day still haunts me.’
‘Sophie too, I imagine.’
‘Exactly, which is why I’m trying to find her. Can you tell me where she is?’
‘No. But if you tell me where you’re staying, I’ll tell her where you are. Right?’
‘Perhaps we could meet this evening? The three of us?’
He wrote on a piece of paper the address of the guest-house and Daphne nodded. ‘Elsie Clements’s – er – Connors’s place. Yes, we’ll meet you there at seven. All right?’
‘Thank you.’ He walked back to the car, the walk along the beach forgotten. He needed to prepare what he would say to Sophie in a few hours’ time.
Sophie was at the farm, having arranged with Rachel to measure and list the furniture as a preliminary to deciding what they would need for the small bungalow she and Tommy intended to buy.
‘I have to remember that both Gareth and Ryan will want to keep some, so it’s probably only the very large items we’ll have to sell,’ Rachel said, touching the huge wardrobe that stood on the landing. ‘We were lucky to fit these things in here, but if we buy one of the new bungalows they don’t stand a chance.’
‘I went to look at the old farm yesterday and I met Sarah there,’ Sophie told her. ‘It’s still sound apart from one boarded-up window.’
‘Silly, I know, but I sometimes wish we were back there. I don’t mean move there when we leave here, that wouldn’t be sensible – too far away from everything and too much work – but everything seemed so simple when we lived in that old place, and I wish those days could return.’
‘I dream of going back in time, too. But in actual fact there’s nothing to go back for, not even a building. I lost everyone I loved.’
‘Have you ever gone back, to see where they’re resting? Talk to old friends?’
‘There aren’t any. What would be the point of going back? They all disappeared on that terrible day.’
‘But to walk along the roads, see the places they knew, wouldn’t it help?’
‘I didn’t even attend their funerals. I didn’t know until it was all over. So no, it wouldn’t help.’
‘Would you like some of these chairs?’ Rachel, surprised at the revelation, changed the subject to avoid distressing Sophie further. A dozen bentwood chairs were tucked away in one of the spare rooms. ‘In my mother’s day we had huge farm suppers to celebrate success at the sales and shows, or the retirement of one of the men or women who had worked here all their lives, or the birth of a child, and, of course, there were the annual suppers to celebrate harvest home. A great long table groaning with food and home-brewed beer. Laughter, good friendships, we were all a part of a wonderful team. We needed all these chairs then and still didn’t have enough. And now it will all end with Gareth and Ryan turning away from all that has been.’
‘What about Owen, doesn’t he plan to stay, follow on the traditions of the Treweathers?’
‘That’s never been the plan and he’s known that all his life. We gave him a home and a good living, but it’s always been made clear that the inheritance wasn’t his and never would be.’
‘He doesn’t resent that?’
‘Why should he? He’s been very lucky.’
There was a tightness about Rachel’s lips that forbade further questions. They went on listing and measuring in companionable silence. They decided to offer the chairs to the local community hall, and started on the linen.
Rachel gave Sophie a lift home, and when she walked up the path she saw she had a visitor. The gas light was glowing in the kitchen, and as she approached she smelled the tempting aroma of onions cooking.
‘Daphne? What’s happening?’
‘I’m making us some cheese and onion patties. Betty gave me some stale cheese and I found some onions and potatoes in your larder.’
‘Lovely, but why?’
‘We have to go out at a quarter to seven.’
‘Pictures? Lovely! Shall we invite Sarah and Bertie?’
‘No.’ She turned the heat low under the frying pan and held Sophie’s arms. ‘Look, I don’t want you to flip, but we’re meeting someone from your past.’
At once Sophie began to back away, shaking her head. ‘No, Daphne, you know how I hate surprises.’
‘Not a surprise, more a shock. It’s Geoffrey. He’s been searching for you – not to rekindle a romance,’ she added quickly. ‘In fact, he’s happily married. He wants to see you and explain.’ She released her hold on Sophie’s arms, and added, ‘I know you don’t owe him a thing, but I do think you need to listen to what he has to say. Lay one of your demons to rest, eh?’
It took a long time but she eventually persuaded her friend to go with her and meet the man who had hurt her so badly and contributed to her feelings of guilt.
Walking into Elsie’s lounge was like walking in treacle, her feet seemed so reluctant to take her forward to face the man who had hurt her. She had fleeting visions of herself waiting in a borrowed bridal gown and veil outside the church and she felt again the chill of that moment when she knew he wasn’t going to appear. She saw again the faces filled with both sympathy and embarrassment, and felt unable to breathe.
Sensing her anguish, Daphne said, ‘Remember this is to make him feel better. You’ve long ago risen above it all.’
Head held high, a false smile on her lips, she stepped into the room as Geoffrey leaped out of a chair and stood to face her.
Geoffrey hadn’t changed much, except that it was strange to see him in civvies, having imagined him in RAF uniform whenever she thought of him. She took in the worried frown, the slight tremor in his voice as he greeted her, then relaxed. Daphne was right, for her it was over.
Geoffrey spoke in jerky sentences as he admitted to losing his nerve, feeling pressured, wanting to cancel the wedding. ‘I was a coward, I admit that, but when I tried to tell you I wanted to wait I couldn’t. Then as I was about to leave for the church that morning I was called back to camp. I couldn’t get through on the phone and I left a message with the local police, begging them to contact you and explain, but I learned later that they failed to deliver it.
‘I was superstitious, I suppose, so many of my friends had been killed. I thought that marrying and making plans for when it was over would seal my fate and I’d join my friends and be nothing more than a name on a memorial.’
‘I pressured you.’
‘No, absolutely not! I pushed things too fast and I lost my nerve. You did nothing to deserve what happened. Nothing.’
Listening to him, taking in the halting words, Sophie felt the weight of the memory eased away. They didn’t stay long, just enough time to admire photographs of Geoffrey’s wife and baby daughter, and for Geoffrey to say, ‘I was so sorry to hear about your parents, and your brother and sister. I was fond of them.’
‘All my family being wiped out in a moment is still hard to accept.’
He was about to argue that it wasn’t the entire family, but presumed she had been referring to the immediate family and said nothing, not wanting to dwell on her sad memories.
Feeling some relief, comforted by Geoffrey’s kind words, Sophie walked back to Badgers Brook in the darkness of the September evening. As always the house wrapped itself around her, welcoming her. She stirred the fire and added fuel, and sat beside it trying to think more positively about her role in the hastily planned and sadly aborted marriage. Despite Geoffrey’s words, she knew that she had rushed him, but allowed herself to accept that he had wanted it too.
Everything had been frantic during those years; people grasped at happiness afraid that the morrow would see it disappear, like a rainbow, perfect and wonderful one moment, the next fading and vanishing for ever. She felt more cheerful than she had for a long time. The guilt over rushing the marriage arrangements and the humiliating outcome were drifting away. She knew the one thing left to do was visit the graves of her family, face up to that guilt, too. Then perhaps she would be free.
Surprisingly, the dream of the air raid returned that night. Meeting Geoffrey had revived more than memories of her disastrous wedding day. Although some of the guilt had been chipped away there was still the thought that if she hadn’t persuaded her family that the dangers were over and they would be better staying together, at least her brother and sister and grandparents might have survived.
She woke at about three a.m., tearful and choking with regrets, and got up to make a hot drink. She opened the back door and from the wood across the lane came the eerie sound of an owl. Apart from the lone hunter wandering the sky, and occasional rustlings of small creature on their own search for food, everything was quiet, and the peace of the early hour calmed her. But, afraid of a return to the dream, she sat up and read beside the still warm ashes of the fire for an hour before returning to bed.
Gareth left his friends to deal with the purchase of the farm, knowing that in a year he’d have his share of the money from the sale of Treweather Farm, which they would spend on rebuilding and stocking the place. Until then, Gareth, Brian and his wife would find work, live in the farmhouse, in truly primitive conditions, and wait. Before finding work he needed to find out what was happening at home; the occasional letters and phone calls created more queries than the solved.
‘I’ll stay a while,’ Gareth told his brother on the phone that evening, ‘and bemoan the fact that I’m desperate for money and Brian Powell is pestering me for my fifty per cent investment. If Owen is being secretive it has to be about money, so I’ll sympathize, complain about Dad’s meanness, even ask him to suggest a way of getting money out of him.’
‘I’ll stay here and pretend everything is smooth.’
‘No, Ryan. Let him hear us rowing, then storm off as though you don’t intend to come back.’
They discussed this for a while and made their plans.
When Ryan telephoned to tell his parents he would be home at the weekend, Rachel had answered. She explained with forced cheerfulness that she and Sophie were sorting out the house contents to decide what she would take to the new bungalow. ‘I’m glad you’re coming,’ she said. ‘While you’re here you can choose what you want from the list of unwanted pieces. We can always put them in store if you aren’t ready to take them.’
‘Have you given Owen the chance to pick what he wants?’
‘Oh yes, your father asked him but he said, rather huffily, that he doesn’t need a thing.’
Ryan’s expression was grim when he replaced the phone. With his cousin’s constant reminders of how attached he was to the family and its traditions, it didn’t make sense that he didn’t want a few mementoes.
Gareth and Ryan found it easy to create arguments every time Owen was near, and on Sunday morning Ryan built up a row that resulted in him leaving the farm before lunch, to which Daphne and Sophie had been invited.
It began with Gareth asking him for a loan. Making sure Owen was able to hear, Gareth pleaded at first, then accused his brother of selfishness, greed and a determination to ruin his chances.
‘I can’t expect Brian to wait for ever. Dad refuses to help me and you’re my last hope. I need the cash before next year if I’m to stop Brian taking another partner. He’s had several offers from people could can put the money up immediately. Men with supportive families. Not like mine, who resent my not wanting to stay and are making me suffer for it.’
The row went on and finally Ryan shouted, ‘I’m going back. I don’t have to listen to this. The farm in France is your choice and you should be dealing with the finances, not pestering the rest of us.’
‘But you’re my brother and I’m asking for your help.’
‘I’m leaving. If you wait a year you’ll have the money as Dad promised, but no, you have to have everything now, this minute! Well I’m not putting up with your miserable complaints any longer.’ He stomped up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door behind him. Then he stood, all pretence at anger gone, hoping that Owen had heard enough.
Then he stormed out of the house and drove off in a car he had borrowed. He was sorry not to see Sophie at their Sunday lunch, but he had another visit planned, one that wouldn’t wait. He stopped at Badgers Brook and explained what he and Gareth were planning, thanked her again for her help, kissed her lightly and left.
When he had found a place to stay the night he went straight to the flats and knocked on Victoria Morgan’s door. There was a heart-stopping silence and it wasn’t until he’d knocked three times that the door opened a crack and a carefully made-up lady with a smart hairstyle and carrying a cat under her arm peered out.
‘You don’t know me,’ he began, but she had obviously been informed.
‘You’re enquiring about Sophie, I understand? You’d better come in.’
For no particular reason, he had been expecting a frail old lady like the two he’d recently met in the area, but this lady was attractive and beautifully dressed. There was no sign of a stoop, in fact she stood upright and seemed to challenge him with her bright, intelligent eyes. Her grey hair, with its hint of the fairness it might once have had, fell about her ears in soft waves in defiance of the combs with which she tried to control it. She had an air of authority as she demanded. ‘You’d better tell me why you’ve been trying to find me.’
‘Are you connected in any way to Sophie Daniels?’
The hazel eyes, so like Sophie’s, widened, but she said calmly, ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘She told me every single member of her family was killed when a V2 rocket landed on the street where they lived. She was in the WAAFs and didn’t know about it until the funerals had taken place. She blames herself, having persuaded them all to stay together as the war was almost over, and, well, she’s never been back. She can’t face that row of graves for which she feels responsible.’
‘She never came back to see me, and I’ve wondered why. Now I know. She thought I was dead like all the others.’
‘You’re a relative? She believes they all died that night.’
‘Young man, I am her grandmother.’
‘But I don’t understand. I – she – thought you all died. Why wasn’t she told?’
‘She didn’t come back or she’d have found me. I was in hospital for a while, then in a temporary room while the shop was repaired. When the shop was reopened, I didn’t want to stay there. I waited long enough to realize she wasn’t coming back and then I closed it, leaving my name there in case she did come looking for me. More than two years I waited, then I took this place, still hoping she’d walk in one day.’
‘But how did it happen? You surviving, the others all gone?’
‘Stupid really. I’d gone with a neighbour to get us some fish and chips. The shop was closed and we went further afield, caught a bus to the next one and, well, we didn’t get our fish and chips that night, but we survived.
‘I dodged the wardens and went into the ruin of the house, hoping to find them, and I was hurt when part of a wall that was teetering fell on me.’
He listened, staring at her in amazement, allowing her to talk about the night she had lost almost everyone she cared about. Then he said, ‘How do I tell Sophie?’
They discussed the best way of breaking the news, both aware that Sophie would blame herself once again, this time for not going back to find out what had happened. Being unable to face the sight of that row of graves had deprived her of her grandmother for more than four precious years. When Ryan left he felt sadness at leaving her all alone, her sad memories revived by his visit – but at least he had given her hope.
‘I’ll see you very soon,’ he promised. ‘With your granddaughter.’
Gareth waited anxiously for an opportunity to speak to Owen – he had no wish for his parents to give away the fact that there was no real rift in the family. He found Owen in the hay barn tidying up the bales and said, ‘If there’s a way of getting money out of this place before next year, I’d take it.’
He saw a tremor cross Owen’s face and knew he’d touched a nerve. ‘Like I suspect you have,’ he added, grabbing Owen’s arm.
‘Don’t talk rubbish! What could I do? I’ll be leaving this place with nothing more than the few hundred pounds I’ve managed to save.’
‘Don’t take me for a fool. You changed accountants, and solicitors, d’you expect me to believe there wasn’t a reason for that? Since when have you taken decisions like that?’
‘I saw a way to save a few pounds, that’s all. I do the accounts and always look for ways of saving your father’s money. It’s my job.’
And although Gareth continued to press him, he still didn’t manage to get anything out of him.
The next morning a letter came and Gareth picked it up as Rachel made the postman a cup of coffee. It looked official and bore the name of a firm of insurers. As the postmark was not a local one, he read it then handed it to Tommy and made his father promise to keep the contents to himself.
He was smiling when he found Owen in one of the top fields. There were stone-built pens up there, which they used during the annual sheep-shearing and lambing, and he was sitting against a wall, eating his sandwiches.
‘How much d’you hope to get away with?’ Gareth asked conversationally.
‘What are you talking about now?’
‘Enough to buy a place in Somerset?’
This time Owen failed to hide his alarm.
‘Unfortunate, you having an accident with the van, wasn’t it?’
‘Somerset? I’ve never been there. When do I go as far from home as Somerset? A visit to Barry Island feels like a safari! I never go anywhere. When did I last have a holiday? Answer me that?’ Owen replied, panicking, as he realized that the man must have reported the accident after all.
‘Your honeymoon, I suppose. Dad’s tried to persuade you to get away, offered to pay for a week somewhere of your choice, but you’ve never wanted to go. You preferred to stay around playing the part of the poor relation in some Victorian melodrama! Making yourself indispensable, hoping for a share of this place.’
He handed him the letter with the insurance claim and saw from Owen’s drooping shoulders that he was ready to admit
‘All right, I did go, but it was to see a woman,’ he said. ‘I met her in the Ship and Compass, one of those tourists on bicycles, like Daphne. But she didn’t want to know, so I won’t be going there again. Now, satisfied?’
‘No, I’m not. Look, Owen, whatever you’re planning, you can count me in. I’m desperate too.’
Gareth spoke quietly and after a few more threats, as he exaggerated what he actually knew, Owen said, ‘All right, I’ve taken out a small mortgage that your father doesn’t know about. You can have half of it. I’m entitled to something after all these years, aren’t I? I need something put away from my old age.’
‘How did you plan to cover it up?’
‘I deal with the accounts, don’t I? It would have been easy, once the farm is sold. The price they get won’t be what they’d hoped for and I’ll be long gone.’
‘To Somerset?’
‘No! Not Somerset. Why are you obsessed with Somerset? I want something on a larger scale. Yorkshire probably. North never south.’
Gareth was convinced that Somerset was the place. He wrote to the insurance company, as the owner of the van, and asked for the exact details of the accident. If he knew where it happened, he might be able to learn something by going there.
Owen felt he needed someone to share his worries. He had always been a self-sufficient man, well able to cope with difficulties as they arose without the need to discuss every small problem, but this was different. He needed a family. Not for ever, just until he had settled into his new life.
He knocked on Sarah’s door and smiled as it was opened by Bertie, who returned his smile with a frown.
‘Is your mum there?’
‘No, she’s at work, and I’ve just come back from work too.’
‘Work?’ Owen questioned.
‘I work with Mr Jennings, and Mr Jones, too, sometimes. Gardener,’ he added impatiently. He was given confidence by having Sophie there, unseen by Owen.
‘Oh, I see. Well done. Tell your mum I called, will you?’
‘If I remember,’ Bertie said, closing the door.
Owen went to the ladies’ dress shop and asked to speak to Sarah. ‘I called at the little terraced place,’ he said disparagingly, ‘and found your son there alone.’
‘Sophie’s with him. She walked him home early as she’s helping him to cook a meal for me,’ she explained. ‘My son isn’t neglected.’
‘Oh, I didn’t see her. I’m sorry. Can we meet when the shop closes? There’s something I want to discuss with you, in private.’
They arranged to meet at five thirty and he would drive her home. He parked the van outside the house and switched off the engine.
‘I can’t stay long, mind, I don’t want to spoil Bertie’s meal.’
‘I want you to come with me when I move.’
She turned to stare at him. ‘What?’
‘We haven’t divorced, we’re still man and wife, and we could try living under the same roof, with your son, see if we could make it work.’
‘We can’t! I know that without trying!’
‘There’s something else.’ He brought out some papers and tapped them. ‘I’m increasing the payment I make for you and your – and Bertie. I agree to pay the larger amount until he’s twenty-one.’
‘What’s the catch?’
‘There isn’t one. I want to do something more for you, make you think more kindly of me as well, if you think that’s a catch. All you have to do is sign here.’
He opened the pages and she glanced at the legalese and nodded. ‘However we feel about each other, I won’t deprive Bertie of extra money. Where do I sign?’
He folded the pages, keeping some of them out of sight, and handed her a fountain pen. She innocently signed the agreement to buy the farm near Portishead in the name of Sarah Grange.
Through the window Bertie watched as his mother and Owen Treweather talked. He was impatient; the pie, which was golden brown with potatoes mashed and then patiently ridged with a large fork, was just perfect, so why didn’t she come in? Sophie had gone, leaving him to proudly present the meal, although she had warned him not to take it out of the oven.
He knocked on the window but inside the van he could see them still talking, unaware of his anxiety. Opening the door he walked down the path, shielded by overgrown privet.
Owen had tried again to persuade Sarah to leave with him, and the first thing Bertie heard was his mother shouting, ‘But it’s ridiculous, Owen. I can’t just walk away from everything here. Bertie has to be considered. I know you pretend, but you can’t really accept him, and I won’t go without him.’
‘Just think about it, and keep it to yourself,’ Owen said as she stepped out of the dirty old van. ‘He’d be all right – there are plenty of people to look after him while we get settled. Sophie loves him and he’ll be happy with her. I need you more than he does.’
Bertie ran in and closed the door. He was sobbing as he grabbed a thick padded cloth, lifted the beautiful vegetable pie from the hot oven and threw it to the floor. As Sarah came through the door he pushed past her shouting, ‘I hate you!’ and ran, unseeing, towards Badgers Brook.