The Things I Know(13)
‘Aaaaaaaaaagh!’
Her cry was loud and unrestrained, the sound of distress, frustration and sadness expressed in the only way she knew how. Out here at this time of night, she knew it would carry, possibly even scare the girls.
But that was just too bad. As her mum had reminded her earlier, the hens weren’t girls, they weren’t her friends.
They were bloody chickens.
‘You all right, my girlie?’
It was, she knew, the closest her mum would come to admitting she had heard Hitch crying in the kitchen the previous evening when she arrived home from the pub. Hitch had recognised the soft creak of her tread on the stairs and pictured her hovering in her nightgown on the step, pulling her wine-coloured velvet bathrobe together at the neck, debating whether to come down or stay hidden in the shadows. Her mum had chosen the latter, not that Hitch minded, preferring to face her misery alone, and what could her mum possibly have said that might in any way have thrown light on how she felt? How could she begin to explain her secret desire to seek moments of solace beneath someone like Tarran Buttermore, a man she didn’t even really like and who didn’t like her, just trying to feel . . . something?
‘Yep,’ Hitch answered, bending forward as she scooped the soft cow shit on to the wide shovel, dumping it into the wheelbarrow, which wobbled on the cold, concrete floor.
‘Reckon weather’s picking up – that’ll be better for your foot. I know it’s uncomfortable in the cold.’
‘Yep.’
Immune now to the repulsive stink of the manure, she banged the shovel on the edge of the barrow to free the stubborn lumps stuck to the side.
‘We’ve got one guest in today, a corporate booking, man from London – a banker, if memory serves. You’ll get on with the room after that?’
‘Yep.’
‘You need a hand, my darlin’?’
‘Nope.’
Her mum finally walked away and Hitch felt her shoulders sag. She took a deep breath, her stomach folding with embarrassment when she pictured herself giving simpering looks of invitation to Tarran, who had been laughing at her, sharing the joke with his friends. She had woken with sadness on her chest like a weight and a slow chill that started in her gut and spread throughout her limbs. Today she had got out of bed with great reluctance, trying to rid herself of the cold, lingering feeling of nothingness. Her mum was right: Hitch’s foot ached to the point of pain and her spirits were low. She had stared in the bathroom mirror, looking intently at the face that stared back, just to make sure she was really there.
Even Buddy, in tune with her emotions, seemed to have lost his playful bounce and had earlier crept by her side across the yard with his head low, ears back, as if able to sense her malaise, so in love with her that her sadness crushed him.
Austley Morton was a small village, and everyone knew everyone else, and everyone went to the Barley Mow, and everyone knew the mouthy Buttermores, and everyone would know that she had put on her perfume, made herself available, only to be knocked back . . . Word travelled fast when there was little else to talk about. Gossip like this was rich social fodder. She shuddered at the thought.
Bending low, she scooped again at the dung, the irritating scrape of the sharp metal shovel on the concrete enough to set her teeth on edge. She was shivering, despite the fact that her mum was right: the weather was picking up. With the big spade in her hand, she stood briefly at the entrance to the cowshed and leaned on it, looking out over the brow of the fields and down to the river, where the sun rose, touching everything that grew on God’s green earth with a golden finger. It was, as ever, uniquely beautiful, fleeting, and all the more moving for it.
She tried to imagine the view that greeted Jonathan each morning, no doubt sun-grazed, snow-capped mountains, shiny, lean horses, white picket fences and that big, big, blue sky! Her gaze fell on the shit-splattered spade in her hand – how could she blame him for trading this for that? It was a horrible realisation that part of her frustration with him and his actions lay in old-fashioned jealousy.
Her baby brother had done it.
He had used his initiative and escaped.
Hitch felt her tears fall and cuffed them away, having learned long ago that crying solved nothing. As a child, no matter how much her sobs soaked her pillow after a tough day, in the morning her foot would still be crooked, her fingers curled and her darn lip just as ugly. Now her body railed against trying to hold back her emotions and she cried hard, long, lingering sobs that robbed her of breath and bothered the calves, who mooed loudly behind her.
She let her head fall on to her chest and found herself temporarily paralysed with sadness. Was this it? Was this to be her life? What was the point in keeping family heirlooms, vintage cake tins, hand-scrawled recipes and deeds for houses if she was never going to have anyone to hand it on to? Would Emery – the ungrateful pig – become the custodian? The thought sent a tremor right through her. How was her life ever going to change when each day was spent on this exhausting hamster wheel? Only now, after all these years, did she fully understand that the faster she ran, the quicker she got nowhere and all that happened was that she collapsed at the end of every day, exhausted and still very much alone, trying to figure out her place in the world. All she wanted – all she had ever wanted – was a chance at happiness, to reach her full potential. That, and the opportunity to have what others took for granted: someone to talk to, someone to love who might love her right back.