Ian Hogg heard the familiar rapid rattle of the Land Rover coming over the cattle grid at the bottom of the yard. He looked out of the farmhouse kitchen window just in time to see the ancient station wagon pull up on the far side of the concrete. Patrick Bardwell climbed down stiffly from the cab.
Hogg let his eyes track the other man as he unlocked the converted byre. Beside the door, a splash of red geraniums and violet aubretia now tumbled from the galvanised steel trough where the cattle had once stopped for water.
Bardwell’s slightly shambling gait made Hogg frown. Now there’s a man who knows pain in greater quantities than he’s a right to.
Hogg was no stranger to pain himself. After his parents were killed in a car accident, he’d left the farm in his younger brother’s care and answered calls from God and country to be ordained as an army chaplain. Until his last tour in the Balkans, when he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and seen two men he’d counted as friends blown to fragments before his eyes.
One moment they’d all been laughing and joking at the doorway to an abandoned house. The next, the world split apart in an outrageous crump of heat and light and sound. The explosion blew Hogg ten yards off his feet, partially stripped him, knocked him flat and sat on his chest to keep him down.
It was only when he tried to rise he realised the damage to his leg. They’d told him he’d been lucky not to lose it. When the pain kept him awake night after night he wondered if that were so.
But of the two soldiers, almost nothing remained. Two more sealed coffins coming home weighted with memories and sand.
Then, while he was in rehab, his brother drowned—a freak accident. The unfair shock of it, on top of everything else, made him put aside both vows and commission. He returned to Cumbria and became the country landowner he’d sworn never to be.
His brother had already converted most of the outbuildings into holiday lets after his livestock fell to the last outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Offering the accommodation to lost souls rather than tourists seemed a small transition, but one that dovetailed into circumstance and soothed Hogg’s conscience. Visitors had returned to the Lakes only slowly, making business fitful anyway.
Patrick Bardwell had written to him six weeks previously. A short brittle note explaining that he’d been given Hogg’s name by someone he’d served with in Bosnia. That he found himself suddenly adrift and in need of a place of refuge. Hogg had read as much into the spaces between the painfully scripted words as the words themselves. He offered welcome without reserve.
Bardwell travelled up to the tiny railway station at Oxenholme just outside Kendal—the only one locally on the London to Glasgow mainline. Hogg drove to meet him in the old Land Rover and found Bardwell waiting outside with his kit bag and his Bergen. A big unkempt man, long-haired and full-bearded, he was surrounded by a milling crowd and yet totally isolated. Hogg glimpsed someone at odds with whatever remained of his humanity, and perhaps in danger of losing his grip on it altogether.
He’d greeted Bardwell with calm restraint, made comfortably idle talk during the drive back up to the Retreat, filling the silences when he judged it prudent, letting them linger when he sensed the other man needed time to take it all in.
Bardwell had been subdued, thoughtful. A man who gave each question due weight and consideration. One who hadn’t been allowed to speak his mind often enough to waste the opportunity with inconsequential chatter when it presented itself. But his few words revealed the residue of a quick mind and a quiet wit. Hogg found that he liked him.
Now, he sighed and glanced at the wall clock. He had a doctor’s appointment in Kendal but there was just time to tell Patrick about Edith.
Sometimes that girl’s more trouble than she’s worth. Even as the thought formed, Hogg felt guilt follow.
Edith wasn’t the kind of robust country wench he would have employed at the Retreat if he’d had much of a choice. The truth was, however, that finding staff willing to work this far out of town, and for what he could offer, was no easy task. He’d been obliged to take what he could get.
When they deigned to turn up, that is.
Trouble at home. That was the reason Jim Airey had given for Edith’s unexpected absence yesterday. She’d be down first thing and do what was needed, without pay, he’d added in an ominous tone that made Hogg wary of inquiring further. He wouldn’t get any kind of explanation out of the girl once she arrived, that much he knew. And she was already late—again.
He unhooked his cane from the edge of the sink, scooped his pipe and tobacco into a pocket, and moved across the worn stone flags to fumble into his wellington boots by the back door. The routine action immediately woke the elderly Jack Russell terrier from her basket by the Aga. She jumped up, staggering in half-sleep until she got her legs under her. Hogg waited patiently, holding the door open.
The terrier circled his heels as he limped slowly across the yard. Bardwell must have seen him coming. He stepped out of the doorway and waited without emotion as Hogg made his careful progress across the uneven ground, as though he’d remained a long time at the convenience of others.
Wanting to break that cycle, Hogg increased his pace, bumped his foot against the terrier as she crossed before him, slipped and almost fell. The cane went clattering onto the cobbles and Hogg flinched instinctively from the pain he knew would follow.
He never saw Bardwell move. One moment the man was yards away, the next he’d caught Hogg under the armpits, hauling him up before his ruined knee touched the ground.
Hogg had a moment to recognise the strength required for that effortless rescue. Then he was swung round and set down perched on the rear bumper of the Land Rover, his cane propped next to him against the tow hitch before he’d even got his breath.
When his mind finally caught up with the averted disaster, Hogg blinked a few times, found Bardwell crouched a few feet away, comforting the dog. The terrier was lying on her side, showing her belly in abject submission as he smoothed her rough coat.
After a second, Bardwell glanced up and briefly met his gaze.
“Thank you, Patrick.” Hogg was breathless and quietly shaken. “I thought I’d had it there. Stupid thing to do. Should have known my running days are over.”
Bardwell shrugged, almost defensive. “Easy done,” he said, and turned his attention back to the dog.
For a moment neither of them spoke. Hogg waited until his breathing had regulated before he picked up the cane and got awkwardly to his feet, still lightheaded. Relief, probably.
He tried a couple of unsteady steps, and leaned gratefully against the stonework by the front door of the byre, reaching into his pocket for his pipe. The terrier twitched out from under Bardwell’s hands and rolled to her feet, rubbing apologetically round Hogg’s legs. Bardwell rose, arms hanging loosely and face blank above the full beard.
Watching him now, Hogg could hardly credit the man’s speed. He shook his head a little as he leaned down to fuss the terrier.
“So, how’s the old girl behaving herself?” He strove for the mundane as he nodded to the Land Rover. “Everything all right?”
“She’s a sturdy old barge,” Bardwell responded, matching his tone. He leaned his hip against the front wing where bare aluminium showed through the flaking paint, and folded his arms. “Was thinking I might do a bit of patching up on her, though, if that’s all right?”
“Patching up?” Hogg’s frown was one of concern rather than disapproval. “I didn’t think she needed anything. Got through her MOT a couple of months ago without a murmur.”
Bardwell shrugged. “There’s a couple of bits of chassis rail looking a tad scabby. This age, they can break their backs easy if you let ’em rot too far.”
Hogg tapped out his pipe into the corner of the galvanised trough outside the cowshed door, lifting the trailing foliage to reach the steel. As he did so, he spotted a thin black cord reaching over the edge of the trough and disappearing into the soft earth. Puzzled, he wrapped it around his fingers, preparing to tug it free.
“Don’t.” The anxious note in Bardwell’s voice had Hogg looking up, surprised. “Spare key.” One corner of Bardwell’s mouth lifted fractionally. “Always lose ’em. Better than leaving it under the mat.”
“Yes…I suppose it is.” Still troubled, Hogg let go of the cord and straightened, jamming the empty pipe back into his mouth. He hadn’t sensed the agitation in Bardwell before, but he knew there had to be plenty. It was there in all of them. Time and space, he thought. That’s all he needs.
“Tell you what, why don’t you leave it with me?” He nodded to the Land Rover again. “I’ll drop her into the garage next time I’m through and they can sort her out. If they missed something important, they should be the ones to fix it, don’t you think?”
“S’no trouble,” Bardwell said, quickly enough to have Hogg rubbing reflectively at his chin. “Only, I noticed you’ve got an old MIG-welding set-up in the barn there. I used to be a bit of a dab hand with that kind of stuff. Thought I could get back into it again.”
He must have seen Hogg’s uncertainty because he added with a bashful candour, “I thought, if it’s only a bit of chassis, it wouldn’t matter too much if it was workmanlike rather than pretty, like. Just ’til I get my eye in again.”
The doubt cleared. “Of course,” Hogg pushed himself away from the wall, found his balance again, smiling. “Help yourself—and let me know how you get on. I’ve a wheelbarrow that lets more through than it holds, if you need a bigger challenge.”
Bardwell ducked his head and Hogg began to move away, clicking his fingers to the terrier.
“Well, that’s a good sign, isn’t it?” he murmured when they were out of earshot. The terrier looked up at him with adoration, hanging on his every word. “Our Patrick is taking an interest, thinking of the future.”
It was only as he bumped down the potholed driveway twenty minutes later, he realised he had forgotten to warn Bardwell of Edith’s late arrival.
He braked, glanced back, but the farm buildings were already out of sight. Hogg contemplated turning round, but hesitated. Bardwell was an intensely private man. Today’s exchange was far more than he usually ventured. Hogg had no wish to overcrowd him.
If Bardwell didn’t want to be disturbed, well, the man was more than capable of telling Edith to come back to change his bed linen and clean another time. He checked the dashboard clock. He was already cutting it fine. Perhaps, this time, he would let Edith make her own excuses.