The Things I Know(4)
She looked again at her brother, taking in his happy expression. It was, she realised, almost as if his dream came at the expense of hers. She squashed the thought before it really took root.
‘Well, say you’re pleased for me, excited at least!’ His words shook her from her musings. ‘This is my great adventure!’
‘I’m pleased for you, it’s just not what I expected. I’ll miss you – we all will.’ She winced, seeing her opportunity for a little independence fade away before it had even started.
‘You’ll be okay,’ he offered unconvincingly.
Hitch stared ahead at the dark lane before starting the engine. Fatigue now bit, falling over her like a heavy curtain under which she felt crushed. With his revelation, all the joy of the evening was sucked from the cab of the pickup and thrown out of the window, wrapped in the two words from her brother that had changed absolutely everything: I’m leaving . . .
I know that I shall miss my brother.
I know that my mum and dad will be shattered that he’s going.
I also know they will try to hide it.
I know he won’t think of us half as often as we think of him.
I know life is NOT BLOODY FAIR!
TWO
Twelve months later
Hitch wiggled her stockinged feet on the flagstone floor and rested her bottom on the ancient huge range, letting the gentle heat permeate through her jeans and into her bones. It eased the ache from her left foot and ankle. If there was any sensation half as nice as leaning against the toasty range early on a cold, cold morning, then she was yet to experience it. In fact, the mere thought of it was often enough incentive to pull her out from under her duvet and the soft dip in the ancient mattress in the bedroom, where her breath cut through the chilly air like a knife through butter.
Buddy came over and pushed his muzzle into her palm. She crouched down and lifted his handsome face in her cupped hands.
‘Hello, you. Good morning, beautiful boy.’
She placed her head alongside that of the black-and-white collie cross and they shared the moment, just as they did every morning. ‘Another busy day, eh?’ She loved the scent of him, something akin to warm biscuits.
She stood at the sound of the wooden treads creaking overhead on one of the two staircases in Waycott Farm, the West Country farmhouse in which she had been born. This smaller staircase led straight off the kitchen to the rooms one flight up. On this side of the house each of the bedrooms was strung with sturdy beams that a taller person needed to duck to avoid. Small windows peeped out from the ancient, moss-ridden, sloping red pantile roof, and the whole place seemed to list to the left as if it might tumble, not that anyone seemed too worried by the prospect. The original parts of the building had stood since the late sixteen hundreds. Old sepia photos of her great-grandparents, the upright Walter Waycott and his ferocious wife, Mimi, standing by the front door nearly a century ago, showed the building in a very similar state, and everyone figured that if it was going to collapse into a heap of rubble, it would have done so by now.
Lined with dark wood, the landing and hallways had a feel and smell all their own. Legend had it that the timber had been hewn more than two hundred years ago from boats whose sailing days were done. She sometimes ran her hand over the gnarled, knotty wood around which the house had been built and, closing her eyes, could hear the tales they whispered of journeys over rough and unconquered seas. She could almost smell the salt-tinged breeze through which they cut and feel the slight beat of a heart that pulsed in longing for the life on the ocean waves it had left behind. And she knew how this felt, to be anchored to this place and this building.
The heavy footfall above told her it was the lofty Emery who was up and about. Gathering her long, dark hair over her shoulder, she nimbly twisted a hasty braid and fastened it with a band of red elastic she kept on her wrist before walking to the back door and pulling on her sturdy boots. They were comfortingly heavy, with a thick sole and a sheepskin inner. At two years old and encrusted with mud and the shit of several different animals, they fitted her perfectly, as if hand-made to her exact measurements. In truth, she was so used to wearing them in all weathers that she walked better in them than without. They were familiar, warm and comfortable all at once, and certainly helped correct her awkward, leaning gait, caused by that one damn foot that arched upwards, insisting she walk on tiptoe. She yawned and looked at the clock above the Belfast sink. It was nearly five a.m., time she got out and started gathering before beginning the morning feeds. She heard her cousin’s feet quicken their pace on the stairs before he burst into the room. As was his habit, Emery banged his flat fingertips in double time on the beam at the bottom of the stairs and swung into the large, square kitchen, landing with a solid thud on the flagstones.
‘Morning, ugly dog. Morning, Buddy!’
She sighed at his pathetic idea of humour and looked down, lacing her boots before reaching for her battered khaki Barbour, as he stood at the sink and sniffed and hawked while running a glass of water. It mattered little that he did this every day. Each morning it made her stomach shrink in revulsion and caused bile to rise in her throat, as if it were the very first time she had heard it. It was yet another way he was so very different from Jonathan and her beloved Pops.
‘Do you have to make that noise?’
‘What noise?’ he said, laughing.
She ignored him, finding his predictable ribbing no more than an annoyance. Emery had been around for over a year, arriving shortly after Jonathan had left for his glorious U S of A, where farms could be as big as this whole county. A quick phone call from Pops and his sister, Auntie Lynne, who’d married an electrician and now lived in the West Midlands, had sent the wayward Emery to help out. Her cousin provided much-needed labour, and here he was, sleeping in Jonathan’s bed and turning up for work each day, while never missing a chance to have a verbal dig at her, as if it were his sport or hobby. It had always been this way, ever since he’d first come to stay as a small boy and all the summers since.