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Matt stepped in through the back door and into a huge kitchen-cum-dining room. The low beams and antiquated furnishings made the room feel ancient, even for a farmer’s kitchen. Calham gestured for Matt to take a seat at the huge, worn oak dining table that dominated the centre of the room. Matt sat and let his eyes roam around the glut of hoarded bric-a-brac cluttering the walls. Piles of faded magazines and old toys competed with rusted farm tools, dusty jars, bottles and mugs for scant shelf space. Calham filled a kettle from the sink and lit the gas on top of the stove with a match. He opened the oven to check on a roasting joint of beef, wafting warm air around the kitchen. Matt smelt the aroma of cooking meat mix with the old scent of musty papers, as his eyes fell on Duke, curled up in a basket in the corner. He began to lose himself again in his mind and the search for lost memories, trying to sift familiarity from fact.
“...and sugar?” said Calham.
“Sorry?” said Matt.
The burly farmer turned around from the kitchen work surface and fixed an impatient gaze on Matt.
“I said, milk and sugar?”
“Yes,” said Matt. “Two please.”
Calham brewed up two mugs of tea and put one down in front of Matt. He then returned to the sink and began washing plates and cutlery. Matt reached for the mug, but hesitated. He checked the farmer wasn’t watching, then leaned forwards and inspected the tea, sniffing it. When he looked up again, he saw Calham silhouetted against the window, watching him closely. Matt’s features began to redden, so he slowly took a sip of tea and winced.
“Hot,” said Matt.
“Do you want some food to go with that?” said Calham.
“No,” said Matt. “I’m fine, thanks.”
Calham turned his attention back to the sink and resumed washing up plates, ignoring Matt’s reply.
“I’ll do you some,” said Calham. “I’ve already cooked anyway.”
The farmer emptied water from the washing up bowl and leaned back against the sink, drying more plates as he continued to watch Matt. Matt began to feel more and more uncomfortable under the weight of his host’s silent stare.
“So,” said Matt. “You always been a farmer?”
Calham nodded slowly.
“Is it just you?” said Matt.
Calham nodded again.
“It must be difficult. On your own. I mean, there’s a lot of land.”
“Oh, I don’t work it like I used to,” said Calham. He stacked the last dry plate with the others on the side and raised a long-bladed carving knife from the draining board. Matt watched nervously as the farmer began to carefully dry the blade with half a wry smile playing on his face.
“Let me ask you a question...err...?”
“Matt,” said Matt. “Matt Sadler.”
“...Mr Sadler,” continued Calham. “You ever been on a farm before?”
“No,” said Matt. “Never.”
“Then what the hell would you know about farming?”
Silence.
Matt looked anxiously from Calham’s lazy smirk to the knife blade and back again. Calham began to quietly chuckle to himself. He put the dried knife on the side and coughed into his hand to halt his laughter.
Matt tensed up.
“Sorry, Mr. Sadler,” said Calham. “I don’t get many visitors. I know most you city fellas think farmers like me are gun-toting nut-jobs, that we shoot anyone stepping foot on our land.”
“Well...”
“Like I said, I don’t get many callers. Just having a little fun with you that’s all.”
Matt mustered a slight, nervous laugh, too late to sound convincing, and nodded in agreement. Calham picked up a far less threatening cluster of spoons and began drying them, suddenly looking relaxed, almost friendly.
“So where are you from, Matt?”
“Shrewsbury.”
Calham nodded in reply and raised an eyebrow.
“Nice,” he said. “Nice place.”
Calham held Matt’s gaze for slightly too long, before finally speaking again.
“So what really brings you all the way out here?” he said. “You didn’t break down did you?”
Matt shifted uneasily in his chair.
“What makes you think that?”
“Well,” said Calham. “I don’t know any man that would be fool enough not to look under the bonnet of his car when he’d broken down, especially if it was out in the middle of nowhere without a phone. And your hands, Matt; your hands are as clean as a whistle.”
Matt held his breath. He tried to think of something convincing to say, but couldn’t.
“You said you didn’t have a phone, right?”
Matt nodded a little too quickly.
“Well?” continued Calham.
“I was just out for a ride,” said Matt. “Really.”
Matt sighed and stared back at the farmer.
He didn’t even sound convincing to himself.
What the hell. He had to tell someone; he was starting to go crazy.
“I’ve been having...episodes...blackouts.” he began. “I’m not a heavy drinker, I don’t use drugs...”
“So?” said Calham.
“Well I had a feeling driving near here,” said Matt. “Déjà vu or something. So I pulled over and started looking around. I thought maybe I’d been around here before. I followed a trail in the woods and popped out at your place.”
Calham crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back against the sink thoughtfully.
“And have you?” said Calham. “Been round here before?”
“No,” said Matt.
“Well, I’m no expert on these things,” said Calham. “But it sounds like you should see a doctor.”
“Now that phrase has got Déjà vu written all over it,” said Matt.
Calham smiled and went back to drying the crockery matter of factly.
“Well,” he said. “You might as well stay for something to eat anyway.”
Matt wearily rose from his chair, feeling embarrassed. He made a show of stretching and affected a yawn. He glanced out through the kitchen window at the light failing outside.
“No thanks,” said Matt. “I better be going. It’s almost dark and I need to find my way back to the car.”
“Fair enough,” said Calham.
It was then that something caught Matt’s eye in the far corner of the room. He immediately walked over to the tangle of wires and metal animal shapes dangling from the shelf, instantly transfixed by it. He lifted the child’s mobile and let it hang straight out in front of him. Various outlines of ducks, cows, sheep, pigs and other farmyard animals, crudely rendered from sheet metal, began to twirl on their separate wires suspended from the mobile. Matt stared at the rotating shapes as they caught the dying light spilling in through the kitchen window.
“Cute,” said Matt. “Did you make this?”
Calham appeared behind Matt, drying his hands on a tea towel. Matt was still completely focused on the cluster of twirling metal shapes, unsure of its significance, but certain that it meant something to him.
“Yeah,” said Calham.
“Who’s it for?” said Matt. “I thought you said you live alone?”
Matt’s eye was then drawn to one of the metal silhouettes in particular; the figure of a farmer carrying a shotgun.
Then it hit him.
Matt suddenly knew he’d been here before.
No doubt about it.
Calham raised the carving knife from under the cover of the tea towel, as this thought fired in the younger man’s brain. He stepped in behind Matt and quickly drew the blade across his throat.
A look of surprise hit Matt and his eyes grew wide as his throat opened up. Then his legs buckled beneath him and he crumbled to the ground like a freshly slaughtered calf.
Matt lay there on his back, on the kitchen floor, with bright blood bubbling up from his sliced throat, hyperventilating, staring up at Calham in confusion. The farmer just stood over him, watching, shaking his head.
Finally Calham knelt down over Matt’s shivering body and raised the knife again.
“When will you learn to stay away?” he said, tutting.
Calham leaned forwards and abruptly drove the knife down hard into Matt’s forehead, putting his whole weight on to it, until the blade was buried all the way up to the handle. Calham slowly stood up and returned to the sink, as Matt’s dying body continued to tremble.
The farmer sipped his tea and stared out through the window across the fallow field. Behind him, Matt’s body finally stopped twitching.