The Things I Know(74)
THINKING OF KEEPING CHICKENS BUT DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START?
NEED A CHICKEN-SITTER WHILE YOU’RE AWAY?
CALL THOMASINA WAYCOTT, ‘THE CHICKEN EXPERT’
REASONABLE RATES.
‘This is brilliant!’ he enthused.
‘Is it?’ She pulled a face.
‘Yes, it’s great – a really good idea, and, as you say, it’ll get you started.’
‘That’s what I thought, and while we still have the farm I can work here, help out, like always, but also it’s like starting my own business, doing something for myself. I was thinking, one day, I could even get a van!’
‘You could! Where are you going to put the card?’ he queried.
‘I know just the place,’ she said with a smile. ‘Plus, it’s where we’re heading anyway.’
‘The flat rock?’ He looked at her quizzically.
‘The flat rock eventually, but first I want to buy you a present, Grayson.’
‘I don’t need a present!’ he protested, while his tone and the way he almost jumped up and down on the spot suggested he might be more than a little thrilled at the prospect. She suspected that a present was a rare and lovely thing – especially for a boy who had never had a birthday party.
‘Why do you want to buy me a present? What’s the occasion?’
‘No reason and no occasion. It’s a “just because” present.’
‘I don’t think I need a “just because” present,’ he said, beaming.
‘Well, that’s too bad, because I’m getting you one anyway. Don’t you want to know what it is?’
He shrugged, embarrassed.
‘It’s a pair of wellingtons,’ she said, putting him out of his misery. ‘We can’t have you tramping all over the farm in your fancy lace-up London pavement shoes now, can we?’
Thomasina and Grayson drove over to the country store on the outskirts of Thornbury to stock up on chicken feed, place her card on the wanted-ads board and purchase a new pair of wellington boots for him. These were not only new, but his first adult pair, apparently, and ridiculously exciting.
‘ My very own pair of puddle-jumpers. That’s what my dad used to call them. I could only have been about three, but I can see myself holding my dad’s big hand and him swinging me by the arm along the path in the park, making sure I landed with a splash in the shallow puddles.’ He looked at her and laughed, and she loved that he was sharing his childhood with her. ‘I quickly sussed the game and tried to jump down hard, feet first in my little yellow wellingtons.’
‘I’m picturing you doing just that.’ She glanced across at him and smiled.
‘It’s these memories that are confusing for me,’ he said, and paused. ‘Such lovely moments, and I remember feeling loved, yet this was the man who ran away. Who just left, and that was it, all I got.’ He coughed. ‘I’d liked to have introduced him to you.’
‘I’d have liked that too,’ she said sincerely in return.
She swung the Subaru into the roughly paved car park. No sooner had they jumped down from the cab than she espied one of Thurston Buttermore’s contemporaries, loading sacks into the back of a van and wearing the khaki-and-mustard uniform of the country set.
He called out across the yard, ‘How’s things, Hitch? Heard you had a bit of trouble at home yesterday evening?’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘no trouble, Randall. But thanks for asking.’
That would be down to Emery, the blabbermouth!
‘Righto. Well, give my best to your dad,’ he offered, his gaze lingering on Grayson before he jumped into the van.
Grayson caught up to walk alongside her. ‘How do people know what happened yesterday? It happened in the kitchen and we haven’t seen anyone!’
‘Welcome to country life. Everyone knows everything. If a farmer shits in Chepstow, we get the scent of it over in Austley Morton before he’s had a chance to wipe his backside.’
He laughed at her delicate turn of phrase.
Thomasina liked this place, had been coming here since she was a small child with her dad, and it always felt like a bit of an adventure. The store was actually more of a warehouse, with a concrete floor and metal roof, crammed with shelves and racks stacked high with plastic sacks of farm feed, compost, sawdust, tools, wooden stakes, fencing, wire, country attire and all manner of paraphernalia. It smelled like a cross between a garden centre and a sawmill. Thomasina watched Grayson taking it all in. ‘A bit different to your local corner shop, eh, Grayson?’
‘Just a bit.’ He smiled. ‘No crisps, magazines or energy drinks!’
She watched with something close to fascination as he ran his fingers over the long counter where gardening gloves, bolts, locks and, surprisingly, Kendal Mint Cake were on display – and then caught sight of Tarran leaning on one elbow, chatting to the girl behind the till.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
‘So, Hitch?’ he called out when he saw them, straightening with a look of glee on his face. It was the kind of smile given by someone who took joy in the misfortune of others and she felt a wave of dislike for this man and his despicable nature. ‘I heard Emery’s been chucked out?’