The Things I Know(17)
‘So why don’t you get it fixed again if they could do a better job now?’ He held her gaze, his expression earnest, his tone enquiring but not mocking. It felt as if the question came from a place of genuine interest. In return, it was surprisingly easy to be open.
‘Because . . . because I’m scared to.’
‘Why are you?’
She gripped the banister and ran her free hand over her mouth, remembering what it felt like to wake with searing fire in her face and crying to be put back under, convinced she might die from the pain that felt like hot knives in her skin.
Don’t cry, little ’un. Everything is okay . . .
‘Because it might hurt – it hurt before. A lot,’ she whispered. ‘And I don’t want to go through that again. I couldn’t. It’s worse when you know what to expect.’
He gave a stiff nod of understanding.
‘Who calls you Hitch?’
She shrugged. ‘Everyone.’
‘I’d never call you that. I think it sounds mean.’
The way he spat the words suggested that meanness, indeed bullying, was something he not only understood but detested, and she liked him all the more for it.
‘Okay.’ She resumed climbing the stairs.
‘I’ve never heard the name Thomasina, which is kind of funny, as you’ve never heard the name Grayson.’
‘Does anyone ever shorten Grayson?’
‘My dad, to Gray.’
‘Gray,’ she repeated, glancing back at him, and for a reason she didn’t fully understand Grayson Potts looked a little overcome with emotion.
‘Thom,’ he suggested, and again their laughter burbled in unison. She looked up and was convinced she saw a rainbow-tinted cloud of happiness, as soft as feathers, dancing over their heads.
Hitch opened the bedroom door and showed the guest from London into the room. He was odd, for sure, yet fascinating to her – not weirdly odd, but different. She watched as he placed his bag on the chair in the corner and then walked straight over to the window. Most guests sat on the bed, or at the very least leaned on it to test its softness, or they opened the wardrobe with a hopeful expression, maybe thinking Narnia might be waiting, or they asked where the bathroom was, or for directions to the pub, the number of a local cab firm . . . but it seemed as if these things might all be secondary to him, as he stood with his hands in his pockets and stared out over the rolling fields, drinking in the view all the way down to the bend in the River Severn.
‘Are there any street lights?’ he asked eventually.
‘Street lights?’ It was a question she had not been expecting.
He nodded. ‘I like street lights.’
‘Er . . . no, not here on the lane, but the farm always has lights on so it’s easy to find if you go out and about.’
He turned to look at her and she again took in his quirky appearance. She studied his rather odd haircut properly for the first time, a short back and sides that was quite neat, but the top and fringe . . . she wondered if the barber had given up the ghost halfway through or been called away. As if he felt her staring, he again used his index finger to scoot his fringe away from his forehead and over his left ear. It was a look that might have been incredibly trendy were it not for his clothes, which suggested anything but. Mr Grayson Potts was, she decided, a curious character; he was at once reserved, edgy and yet spoke frankly and without guile. She noticed that he looked at her hair, her eyes, seeming to take in her whole face and not doing what most people did – stare at her jagged lip or make a great show of looking somewhere else altogether. His eyes swept over her face and body without any hint of embarrassment or of trying to be subtle about it; it was more in an appraising way, and one she didn’t mind at all.
‘I’ll leave you to get unpacked and whatnot.’
He looked at her with an expression of bewilderment. ‘Thank you.’
Holding his gaze, she felt compelled to say more. ‘If you’re at a loose end, I’ll be around the farm. Come and find me, if you like.’ This wasn’t something she usually offered, but she got the distinct feeling that Mr Potts was unused to being away from home alone, and she felt a certain kinship for his apparent sense of uncertainty.
‘Okay.’ He nodded, giving no indication as to whether this suggestion had been well received or not.
Hitch left the room quickly, racing down to the kitchen to prepare the steak pie for supper. Their guest remained in her thoughts. It was odd, as if, having started off by breaking all convention – coming to find her on the farm and not waiting on the doorstep to be shown inside – and then talking so freely, they had quickly smudged the boundaries, changed the rules a little. She felt a touch sorry for him, thinking that, for people like Mr and Mrs Silvioni, who had support and company, a break on a farm was probably great fun, but Mr Potts seemed very alone, and it bothered her.
She pulled the large china mixing bowl from the shelf above the range and set it on the sideboard. After making the pastry, she rolled it out on to the marble slab and lined the pie tin, leaving a good overhang, which she would trim later. After grabbing a handful of carrots, peas, a fat onion and two lumpy potatoes, she worked deftly, peeling and dicing the veggies and lobbing them into the heavy pan on the hotplate. Next she added the large slab of diced stewing steak from the butcher that her mum had taken delivery of earlier, leaving the meat to brown in the pan. She added seasoning to the pot, along with a handful of fresh herbs, before giving the mixture a stir and beginning the prep on the gravy. It all smelled wonderful. Finally she tipped the meat and veggie mixture into the pastry case, along with the sauce, and topped it off with a lid of pastry, which she washed with beaten egg before shoving it in the medium-hot oven, where it would turn golden brown.