Appleby Farm Read online

‘Oh fine, fine, fine.’ She flicked a hand. ‘But let’s talk about Freya and her amazing return to the farm.’

  ‘Aww, thanks. I must admit, I am glad to be back, except for the circumstances.’

  Lizzie nodded.

  ‘Ooh, before I forget, that really nice farmer was asking about you earlier.’

  ‘Who, that mate of Uncle Arthur’s with the bald head and odd wellingtons?’

  ‘No!’ Lizzie giggled. ‘The good-looking one who’s always drumming his fingers on the bar and whistling. In fact …’ She scanned the pub. ‘No, looks like you’ve missed him.’ She pulled a disappointed face. ‘Harry. Don’t know his surname. Next farm to you.’

  I knew exactly who that was: the boy who’d wanted to be a drummer when he grew up. I clapped a hand over my mouth.

  ‘Harry Graythwaite.’ I felt a flush of guilt. ‘What must he think of me not going to see him? We were inseparable as teenagers.’

  ‘I bet. You lucky thing.’ She arched an eyebrow suggestively.

  ‘Shame I missed him,’ I said, blatantly ignoring Lizzie’s innuendos.

  ‘Mmm, I used to have a bit of a soft spot for him myself. Until I saw Ross’s face. And then it was, like, swoon!’ She pretended to stagger, presumably under the effect of Ross’s good looks. ‘I swear that boy could have been a model.’ She sighed dreamily, propping her chin up on her palm.

  ‘What did Harry want, anyway?’ I asked, taking some money out of my pocket.

  ‘Um,’ Lizzie gazed up at the ceiling. ‘Asked if you were back for good. I said probably not because you had a boyfriend at home. Which is right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course.’ I waved a five-pound note at her. ‘I’m sooo thirsty.’

  ‘Oops, sorry,’ she said. ‘My head is in the clouds at the moment. You know what it’s like when you first get together with someone. It won’t last.’

  ‘No …’ I agreed, tongue in cheek.

  ‘Won’t it?’ She looked at me aghast.

  I giggled. ‘I’m joking, you two seem great together. By the way, how come you got mobile phone service at the farm? I have to virtually climb Mount Everest for mine to work.’

  Lizzie tapped her nose. ‘There’s a new phone mast gone up the other side of Colton Woods. I’ve changed network and now my phone works. Simple. You get money for having a phone mast, you know. You should get one on the farm.’

  ‘Funny you should say that …’ I leaned across the bar and lowered my voice. ‘I need to raise some money – quickly, without going to a loan shark.’

  Lizzie’s eyebrows shot skywards and her jaw dropped. She poured my half pint in silence and placed it in front of me, opening a bottle of orange juice for herself.

  ‘I’ve got to pay off some … well, quite a lot actually …’ My words caught in my throat and I pressed my lips together.

  If it was just about me, I’d have no qualms about confiding in Lizzie, but it wasn’t and I didn’t think Auntie Sue and Uncle Arthur would take too kindly to me broadcasting to the entire pub that Appleby Farm was up to its eyeballs in debt.

  Lizzie slurped her drink, checked to see where Bill was and added a shot of vodka.

  ‘Aww, credit cards?’ She wrinkled her nose in sympathy. ‘Know the feeling. It’s tempting, isn’t it? I once went on a shopping spree with mine and bought a new saddle for Skye and a leather jacket for me. Two grand, I spent. Mind you, we both looked gorgeous. Still paying it off, actually.’ She gave me a cheeky grin and lifted one shoulder.

  ‘Something like that,’ I said, sipping my cider. Not terribly ladylike, I know, but I’ve never been a fan of wine; it’s those spindly little glasses that worry me – so easy to knock over with clumsy hands like mine.

  I sighed. Two thousand pounds. If only the farm’s debts were so small. Add a nought, double it, then add some more …

  ‘Ah well, it’s only money.’ She giggled. ‘But to answer your question. I suppose I’d go to the Bank of Mum and Dad.’

  ‘Oh no.’ I shuddered. ‘I can’t do that.’ Even the thought of asking my parents for money made my scalp prickle.

  ‘Yeah, it is a bit embarrassing. But at the end of the day, they are family. My parents would be devastated if I had money troubles and I didn’t go to them about it. Although that’s unlikely to happen – my mum knows everything about my life cos I speak to her every day. Oh my God!’ She paled and clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘That was tactless, Freya. I’m so sorry, honey.’

  I choked on my cider. ‘What was tactless?’

  Lizzie blinked at me. She’d gone quite heavy on the eyeliner today and had an air of ‘mournful bushbaby’ about her. ‘Well, me saying “Bank of Mum and Dad”, “talk to her every day”.’ She wagged her head from side to side mimicking herself. ‘And there’s you – an orphan. Sometimes my mouth goes galloping off before my brain has even grasped the reins. Please forgive me.’

  ‘I’m not an orphan,’ I gasped. ‘I’m just not close to my parents. Literally. They’ve lived abroad all my life and I was sent to boarding school when I was seven. I spent most of my school holidays on the farm.’

  ‘Sent away!’ She shook her head incredulously. ‘I assumed Sue and Arthur brought you up because they had to.’

  I shook my head. ‘Sometimes I stayed at the farm because the flight to where Mum and Dad were living was too long for me to do on my own. Other times I chose to stay because I preferred it here.’

  I stared into my glass. What I didn’t say was that my aunt and uncle brought me up because a child would have stood in the way of my parents’ busy lives. Consequently they felt like distant relatives and my aunt and uncle were my close family. And on the odd occasion I did spend a school holiday with my parents, they knew so little about my interests, my friends and my life that they didn’t know what to do with me or say to me. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t bother me, but I was twenty-seven and old enough to move on. Anyway, would I really have wanted to miss out on all the adventures I’d had at Appleby Farm?

  No. Not for all the lakes in Cumbria. But sometimes, as Lizzie so eloquently put it, I felt a bit … orphan-like.

  ‘So.’ She held her hands out with a cheeky smile as if presenting me with my answer. ‘Bank of Mum and Dad!’

  I swallowed the last of my cider and pushed my empty glass towards her. ‘Maybe. As an absolute last resort. Listen, I’ll have to go. Eddy’s taking Auntie Sue to the hospital tonight and I want to pick her brains before she goes.’

  I stopped off at the henhouse honesty box on the way back to the farm. This afternoon Auntie Sue and I had picked bunches of herbs, tied them with raffia and arranged them in a vase next to the eggs. Fresh thyme, chives, mint and rosemary at one pound a bunch. Only one slightly weary-looking bunch of chives and half a dozen eggs remained and there were fifteen pounds in the old toffee tin we used as a cash box.

  I removed the chives and pocketed the money to give to Auntie Sue. It was a nice little extra cash but the merest drop in the ocean compared to the size of Uncle Arthur’s tractor loan. And it wasn’t just the loan that was worrying me. There were bills to pay right now and I still had to find out how much it would cost to subcontract the silage job to help Eddy out.

  I traipsed up the farm track, racking my brains for bright ideas. What the farm needed was a way of earning more money without making extra work for Auntie Sue and Uncle Arthur. A source of income that someone else could manage for them.

  The obvious answer, of course, was to sell the farm.

  I paused and leaned on the wooden fence that bordered the track. The sun was low in the sky and glinted off the top of the slate roof of the farmhouse. Some of the cattle and their calves were grazing in Calf’s Close, heads down, tails swishing as they ambled along looking for the sweetest grass. In the orchard the apple trees were in full leaf and several fat brown hens were pecking amongst them. I spotted neat lines of some sort of root crop – swedes or turnips, I could never tell the difference – in one of the flatter fields and fronds of gr
een barley beyond. The whole farm was so perfect, so much a part of me, of my family, that my chest heaved with panic at the thought of letting it go.

  Selling all this … I swallowed the lump in my throat and carried on walking … No, not an option at all.

  As I walked across the yard, my head still buzzing, I heard a faint mewing noise. I stopped and strained my ears.

  ‘Mia-a-a-ow.’

  One of the cats must be trapped somewhere, poor thing. I walked over to the shed and opened the door, expecting Benny or Björn to run out. But there was no one in there. I froze and listened again.

  This time the little voice appeared to be coming from further away, so I headed for the barns at the side of the house, pausing every few seconds to listen for sounds.

  There were two barns: one was open and used to store hay, straw and cattle feed. The other was a more substantial building with huge double doors, some small windows high up in the stone walls and a slate roof. At one end was a flight of stairs leading up to a pretty wooden gallery and at the far side was a primitive little loo, presumably providing the original facilities for the farmhouse before the days of indoor plumbing.

  The plaintive feline sound was getting louder. With some difficulty I wrenched open the heavy wooden doors and out scrambled a very grateful cat, accompanied by a cloud of hay-dust.

  ‘Hello, sausage,’ I said, bending to stroke his head as he wended through my legs affectionately. I counted the white socks: three. ‘How did you get in there, Benny?’

  With one final miaow, the cat trotted off in the direction of the farmhouse and probably his supper, leaving me to explore the barn. I stepped inside the cool building and looked around slowly.

  It was vast and empty except for a pile of stuff shrouded in dust sheets, which lurked in one corner. Disused farm machinery, I guessed. Huge old oak beams spanned the width of the barn and bright rays of sunshine from the windows sliced through the dim light and bounced on the warm stone floors. At one end was a sort of wooden platform; I wandered over and perched on the edge, my brain whirring. The barn had been used for parties in the past but I hadn’t been in here for years. Auntie Sue and Uncle Arthur’s golden wedding anniversary had been a really lovely do and several of my birthdays had been celebrated in here, too.

  This could be it. This could be the source of income that I was looking for. The barn was just too good a space not to use. I hugged my knees to my chest.

  Think, Freya. How can the barn make us money?

  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the space full of people. What were they doing? Working? Playing? Dancing?

  And whatever it was, how could I raise the funds to transform it into something special?

  I opened my eyes again and walked back out into the yard. Whichever way I looked at it, everything came down to money. Having money had simply never mattered to me before and now I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  When I hadn’t followed some high-flying career path, Dad was quite clear on his position: ‘Don’t expect me to bail you out,’ he had warned. ‘You’ll have to live on what you earn, so choose wisely.’

  And I had. Lived on what I earned, that is. Some of my choices cannot truthfully be classed as ‘wise’.

  But, technically speaking, I didn’t need money for myself, so …

  The Bank of Mum and Dad. I couldn’t. Could I?

  I found Auntie Sue in her bedroom, sifting through a pile of pyjamas on Uncle Arthur’s half of the bed.

  She looked up and gave me a twinkly smile. ‘I’ll have to pop into Marks and Spencer in Kendal if he stays in hospital much longer. He’ll be done for indecent exposure with most of this lot.’

  We both chuckled and I picked up her perfume bottle from the dressing table. It was one of those old-fashioned ones with a satin tassel and the squeezy bit that puffed out scented air.

  ‘I found that dead badger,’ I said, spraying my neck with a lovely floral scent.

  ‘Filthy things.’ She grimaced. ‘And you still fancy yourself as a farmer after that?’

  ‘I do, as it happens.’ I grinned, throwing myself on to her bed and landing on my side.

  I resisted the urge to bounce – just. I’d always loved bouncing on this bed with its satisfyingly creaky springs. Once I’d brought Harry up here to have a go and between us we’d bounced so hard that the bed had suddenly disappeared from under us. One of its legs had cracked the floorboards and poked through the kitchen ceiling, sending a shower of plaster dust onto my aunt below. We had both apologized through a fit of giggles and Harry had scuttled home still snorting with laughter.

  Auntie Sue had kept her lips pressed together for the entire afternoon, muttering, ‘Wait till your uncle gets home.’

  But when he’d seen the leg sticking through the ceiling, Uncle Arthur had laughed until he couldn’t breathe. And so had Auntie Sue. It turned out she’d been trying to keep a straight face for hours. Happy times.

  ‘In fact, next time you milk Gloria and Gaynor, can you show me how to do it?’ I rolled on to my stomach and smiled. ‘That’ll be another job off your list.’

  Auntie Sue stopped folding pyjamas and clasped them to her chest. ‘Oh, Freya. You are an angel, you really are. You’ve been like a daughter to me and you’ve brought so much happiness into mine and Artie’s lives.’

  ‘I’m glad I’m like a daughter to someone,’ I muttered. I rolled off the bed and moved to the window, running my fingers over the faded flowery curtains.

  ‘Oh now, shush,’ tutted Auntie Sue. ‘We’ll have less of that. Your mother loves you very much and it pains me to hear you talk about Margo like that.’

  The window sill was as deep as the one in my room. I sat down on it to face her and folded my arms.

  ‘Really? She has a funny way of showing it,’ I grunted. ‘She didn’t even want me around. Boarding school at seven years old? You’ve been a better mum to me than she ever has.’

  Auntie Sue stopped what she was doing and took a deep breath. ‘Oh, Freya, that’s a wonderful thing to say, lass, and I’m glad you feel that way. But things aren’t always as cut and dried as you think. For all her money and fancy houses, your mother hasn’t always been happy. She did what she thought was best at the time but she has always felt guilty about sending you away.’ She turned her back on me and started stuffing the discarded pyjamas back into the drawer messily.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She stared at me for a long, steady moment. ‘Follow me,’ she said finally.

  My heart was in my mouth as the two of us climbed the stairs, Auntie Sue hobbling and me pressing closely behind her impatiently.

  ‘Oh, give me a bungalow any day of the week,’ she panted, rubbing her knee when we reached the top floor. ‘All these stairs play havoc with my arthritis.’

  There was no loft in the farmhouse as the roof space was taken up with my bedroom and one other: a room opposite mine that I always remembered being locked. Over the years, I’d just accepted I wasn’t allowed in.

  Now she pointed to the top of the door frame. ‘There should be a key up there.’

  I reached up on my tiptoes and felt along the edge of the frame through the dust until my fingertips met with something metal. I handed her the key and stood back.

  Auntie Sue unlocked the door and gestured for me to go in. ‘Go on,’ she chuckled, sensing my discomfort. ‘It’s only the nursery, not Miss Havisham’s boudoir.’

  The nursery.

  I swallowed my nerves and stepped inside. The room was a study in 1970s décor. The pale-yellow walls had a frieze of little people and animals painted around the edge and as I got closer I saw they were all taken from nursery rhymes: Little Miss Muffet, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Jack and Jill, Mary Mary Quite Contrary …

  ‘These are beautiful,’ I murmured, tracing the figures with my fingertip. ‘Did … did you paint these?’

  ‘All my own work,’ she said hoarsely. I shot her a look; her eyes were glittering.

  All this ti
me I’d been sleeping in the room next door and I’d had no idea …

  The room was completely empty except for a stack of brown luggage trunks and a white wooden cot with a gorgeous scene of three gambolling rabbits painted on each end. I looked from the cot to my aunt.

  ‘Who was this for?’ I asked.

  ‘For the baby who never lived,’ whispered Auntie Sue, pleating her apron between her fingers. The sadness on her face broke my heart.

  ‘Oh, Auntie Sue.’

  I opened my arms and she stepped into them. I tried dismally to hold back the tears while she sobbed into my neck.

  ‘Listen to me, silly old fool,’ she sniffled. ‘I’m doing nothing but cry at the moment.’

  ‘Not at all, crying is perfectly understandable,’ I murmured, pressing my cheek into her soft white hair. ‘Do you know, I’d always wondered why you didn’t have children. I think I must have guessed that it wasn’t through choice.’

  ‘I couldn’t carry a baby full-term, Freya. Nobody knew why, it was just one of those things. I used to spend hours in here, painting and sewing and imagining what it would be like to hold a baby in my arms and put him down to sleep in this cot.’

  ‘Oh, Auntie Sue, I’m so sorry. You would have made a fantastic mum and you’re the best auntie a girl could have.’

  ‘Thank you, love. I would have given everything to have a baby. Everything.’ She pulled away and dabbed at her eyes with her apron. ‘It didn’t matter as much to your uncle, but to me the house felt so empty and quiet without a child.’

  She looked up at me with a watery smile. ‘Until you arrived.’

  My heart seemed too big for my body all of a sudden.

  ‘So Mum sent me to England for you? So you could have a child to look after?’

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. The intention was well meant but I couldn’t help feeling a bit like a library book, lent out to a good home.

  Auntie Sue took hold of my face with her hands and pinched my cheeks. ‘Oh, love, there was more to it than that. Your mum had her reasons. But that’s something you need to talk to her about.’

  Talking to Mum had never been easy. I was resentful of being sent away and the times we did spend together were usually awkward and strained. But maybe it was time to do something about that.