Richard Serrailler watched the last cars go out through the gate and away. It was still hot, the air heavy.
“Dad.” Cat came up and took his arm. “Come with me while I feed the pony.”
“No. I would like to get back home.”
“You can’t go home by yourself. Not tonight. Stay here. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
“Why would I do that?”
Cat sighed. Why was it that he had always, always to be like this, always confrontational, always asking for the exact, the rational explanation behind a vague remark? He had never had small talk, never been able to ease himself into a conversation or a friendship. She wondered how her mother had sustained over forty years of marriage to someone so … Simon would say pig-headed.
“I don’t like to think of you going back to Hallam House on your own tonight.”
“I have been there every night on my own since your mother died. I see no difference.”
“OK. You know best.”
He smiled slightly. “Thank you for preparing the funeral baked meats. I never understand why they are provided but you provided them admirably.” He looked at the gate as if expecting a car to drive in. “A great many people came,” he said. “I suppose some out of curiosity. There are professional funeral-goers.”
“No, Dad. People came who knew and respected and liked and admired her. People came who wanted to say goodbye. Their feelings were genuine. Why must you be so cynical?”
She turned away, choking on her own tears. The funeral, conducted by the Dean, with Jane Fitzroy assisting, and the full cathedral choir, had overwhelmed her. The music, the words, the presence of so many people who had worked with Meriel through her professional life, and who represented the charities she had given her retirement to, the pale, awed faces of Sam and Hannah.
Simon had wept and Sam, standing beside him, had reached out and taken his hand.
And throughout it all, through his own Bible reading, through the committal at the cemetery afterwards, through greeting the dozens who had come back to the farmhouse, their father had been silent, straight-backed, tight-lipped. Unfathomable.
Cat wanted to beat him with her fists, to scream at him, to ask if he had loved her, if he was distressed, how much he missed her, whether the future frightened him, but could say none of it.
“Just come with me while I do the animals.”
He shrugged slightly, but after a long moment turned and walked with her to the paddock gate.
“The children behaved well.”
“Of course they did. They know how to. Besides, the whole thing overwhelmed them.”
She unbolted the feed store. Somehow, she had to tell him about Australia. But Australia today meant Ivo, who had not flown over for the funeral. Cat could barely bring herself to think about it. She did not think she could possibly begin to talk about their going out to the same country as her brother. Richard had shrugged off Ivo’s absence with barely a word. Simon had raged and blamed. Cat knew Ivo’s absence had nothing to do with Meriel. It had to do with distancing himself from his entire family, physically since the age of twenty but in every other sense since early adolescence, for complex reasons of his own and because of quarrels he himself had always instigated.
Meriel had been the one who had kept him in the family loop, with letters, phone calls, and then emails and several visits out to see him on her own. Cat and Chris had been a couple of times, Simon once.
Simon did not know about Australia either.
She scooped stud-mix into a bucket, worrying. How could she tell either of them, today, that they were leaving Lafferton for half a year? But if not today, when? There was never going to be a good day.
“Let me carry that.”
“I’m fine.”
“Just stubborn.”
“And I wonder where I get that from?”
They smiled at one another quickly and then Meriel stood between them, Cat felt her presence as strongly as if she could see her. Tell me what to do, she asked. Help me out here, Ma.
The grey pony was waiting. Cat unlatched the gate and pushed him gently away to let her pour the food into the metal holder. The hens scratched round his feet waiting for any grains that fell, though few ever did.
“Why you saddle yourself with all this I’ll never know. As if a husband and three children and half a general practice were not enough.”
“As if.”
She handed him the empty bucket and bolted the gate. Then she said, “There’s something else.”
He waited in silence, giving her no help. From the farmhouse she heard Felix let out a long wail, of rage rather than distress.
“Well?”
“We’re going to Australia. We’ve found a couple who will take over the practice and Derek will do locum. We’re going for six months. It—”
Richard Serrailler began to walk away from the gate so that she had to scurry to catch up with him.
“Dad?”
She felt six years old again.
“Say something, for God’s sake, tell me what you think.”
“I think your children will run wild.”
“You know what I mean.”
Silence.
“If it’s too soon … if you’d rather we didn’t go, of course we wouldn’t dream of it. Or maybe you could come with us.”
“I think not. I will have a busy winter. The journal continues. There will be a great deal of work for the lodge.”
“But you’ll be on your own. Of course you’ll be busy, of course you have friends, but you won’t have Mother or us. Family.”
“Oh, come,” he said, glancing at her slyly. “I shall have Simon.”