The Things I Know(60)
She thought about the shiny red shoes that lived in her mind and a wave of sadness threatened to engulf her. It was such a sweet and simple desire from a man who had worked so very hard yet was struggling to buy his wife this one simple thing.
‘I don’t need a new frock! Never go anywhere to wear a new frock!’ her mum offered affectionately, her eyes on the soup.
‘That’s not the point!’
He spoke a little more forcefully than Thomasina was used to, and it jarred, reminding her that, however hard the whole idea of giving up the family farm might be for her and her brother, for her dad, it was a whole lot more painful. And her heart flexed for him.
He continued, quieter now. ‘I want choices. I want a holiday! I want change.’ It didn’t seem like much to ask.
Thomasina put her mug on the table. The theme of change seemed to be a recurring one, and she understood. ‘How much are they offering?’ She couldn’t believe they were getting down to the detail, making it real, and yet here they were.
‘Enough for us to sell the farmhouse and most of the land and to retain a couple of acres we can build a bungalow on.’
‘A bungalow?’ She tried to picture her mum and dad in a new house – well-nigh impossible when she’d always thought of them as part of the fabric of this old building. A bit like the legend of the ravens deserting the Tower of London foretelling doom and disaster, she wondered what might happen if the Waycotts left.
‘Yes,’ her mum said, picking up the thread. ‘A little place with straight walls, central heating, hot water on demand from an efficient boiler, new carpet, double-glazed windows that keep out the draughts and don’t rattle at the first breath of wind, and new furniture – things from Ikea!’
‘Ikea!’ Thomasina rubbed her face, trying to picture this compact, glossy, neat, square world her parents were trying to paint.
‘It means we can retire happy, safe and warm without worry. Can you imagine what that would feel like, not to have the worry?’ Again her father looked at his wife.
Thomasina realised that they deserved this reward for all the hard physical labour over the years. But no matter that this was what she told herself, the thought of handing over the keys that had jangled in the pocket of her great-grandmother’s apron – and handing them over to the Buttermores, no less – was enough to bring a swirl of nausea to her gut. She pictured Tarran swinging a hammer on this rickety kitchen, radio blaring as he set to work replacing the worn wooden cupboard doors and ancient range with something sharp, modern and shiny. It was almost unthinkable, and yet it was on the verge of happening.
‘And I could get my own place . . .’ She spoke with a hard-summoned nod of enthusiasm that she did not feel.
‘A place of your own? You daft thing, you’d be with us, of course!’ her mum tutted, as if nothing else could be a possibility.
‘You know, I’d be all right on my own. I’ve just travelled to London and back and I managed just fine. I—’
‘But supposing you had a bad fall,’ her mum interrupted breathlessly, ‘like you did when you slipped on the top stair – that was terrible! I won’t ever forget the sight of you lying on the flagstones with your leg all bruised and your face bleeding!’
‘I was twelve, Mum!’
‘Or supposing you had another turn with your heart? I’m the one who has to give you your pills and keep an eye on you!’ She bit her lip.
‘But, Mum, I’m not a kid any more. You don’t need to keep an eye on me. I can take my own pills. I need to spread my wings . . . get my own bloody cake tins!’ A torrent of frustration and sadness flooded through her. Her dad might now regard her as a fully grown woman, but her mum clearly still had a little catching up to do.
Her parents stared at her open-mouthed, as if she’d lost the plot.
Thomasina tried to picture herself in a new house, away from her square room with the saggy mattress on the brass bed and the damp patch on the ceiling that in certain lights looked like a map of Australia. Her childhood bookshelves crammed with Anna Sewell, Enid Blyton and Joyce Lankester Brisley, each page glued together with dust – particles of her whole lifetime. The secret space behind the chest of drawers where she’d written I hate Jonathan, aged about six, and then tried to colour it over with red felt-tip. She smiled at the thought of her evil deed being revealed after all these years. And yes, it would mean walking away from her childhood home, her history, but this was a new chapter. She remembered the tractor pedal beneath her feet and the wide steering wheel in her hands when she was nine and that feeling, as if she could put her foot down and keep going, smashing through fences, fields and across rivers, just keep on going, in charge of her own destiny, free to go wherever the fancy took her . . .
‘I can’t lie – it breaks my heart, the thought of seeing another family, especially one like the Buttermores, living in our house, but I can see that it’s not worth it, not worth carrying on when you can have a different life, a better life for you now. You deserve a rest, Pops, you do. And you, Mum, you deserve a new frock.’
Her dad nodded and took her hand in his across the table. ‘Thank you, Thomasina.’
There was the unmistakable sound of sniffing from the range: her mum, showing a rare flash of emotion at this most emotive of subjects.
‘Who wants soup?’ she asked, a little more aggressively than was necessary, banging the ladle down on top of the range as if this might counteract the sentimental display.