The Things I Know(75)

‘Did you now?’ she called back dismissively and, with her back to him, as she ran her fingers over the rack of wellington boots, some with fancy tartan lining, others in wild shades of grape and blue. ‘What size are you, Grayson?’

He smiled as he told her, seeming to like the way she took control, choosing something for him as if they’d known each other for years and she knew his taste. Thomasina concentrated on the job in hand, just as if they were any old couple.

Apparently, Tarran didn’t like being ignored and strode over. She felt her heart race.

‘All right?’ he said, nodding confidently at Grayson.

‘Yes, thank you.’ Grayson looked briefly at Thomasina and she knew he recognised the man from the pub, the one she had confessed to having slept with. Her mouth felt dry.

‘Come on, Hitch, what happened? Don’t be shy – that’s not like you. I heard you got your cousin thrown off his own farm in the dead of night, in the rain. Now that’s not something that happens every day.’

‘Well, Tarran, firstly it’s not “his own farm”, it’s my dad’s, as well you know, and secondly, you shouldn’t believe everything you hear. He wasn’t thrown out. I think, more accurately, he went to the pub for the evening and then came back and packed his bag. Sorry there’s nothing more dramatic to add.’

‘Is that right?’ Tarran eyed Grayson with thinly veiled dislike, no doubt having been fed a line by Emery.

‘Yes, that’s right.’ She smiled sweetly, with a feeling close to triumph at how she felt able to stand up to him.

‘And I heard you were involved in the hostilities?’ Tarran now addressed Grayson directly.

‘In a way.’ Grayson nodded, giving the most succinct and harmless response he could.

‘What d’you mean, “in a way”?’ Tarran pushed.

‘I mean, I did tell him what I thought of him because I don’t like him – more specifically, I don’t like the way he treats Thomasina.’

Tarran’s smile faded and he bit the inside of his cheek. ‘I see. You don’t like the way he treats Thomasina,’ he repeated, with the hint of a mocking chuckle. ‘You do that a lot, do you? Throw your weight around when there’s someone you don’t like?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t be hostile to someone I did like, would I?’

Now it was Thomasina’s turn to laugh.

‘You trying to be funny?’ Tarran jerked his head forward.

Grayson shook his head but held his gaze steady. ‘No.’

‘You like guns?’ Tarran folded his arms across his chest.

‘No.’

‘You ever fired a gun?’

‘No.’

‘Because we’re big on guns around here, air rifles and shotguns. We like to go out and let off a bit of steam, practise our aim.’

Grayson narrowed his eyes in confusion, as if he could not tell if the man was trying to make polite conversation or was threatening him. ‘I’ve never had a gun, never held a gun, but my next-door neighbour had one.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Tarran hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and looked for all the world like a gunslinger in the Wild West with Stetson cocked and a muzzle resting in a fancy leather holster against his thigh. She wondered how Grayson, the novice, would fare in a duel. Not very well, she suspected. ‘What does your next-door neighbour shoot – clays? Targets? Rabbits?’

‘Erm, people, mainly. Well, one person for sure. He got twenty-six years, which is a very long time.’

She saw the swagger disappear from Tarran’s stance, along with the smirk on his face.

‘How about these?’ Thomasina held up a tiny pair of green wellingtons with little frog-eyes sticking up on the front.

‘Perfect.’ He smiled at her, his girl.



‘His face!’ Thomasina squealed with laughter as they drove back along the lanes with Grayson’s new wellingtons – a plain green pair without frog-eyes – nestling on the rear seat of the pickup.

‘I only told him the truth!’

‘Like you always do, Grayson.’

‘Like I always do.’

The atmosphere was charged with their joy and a tone of hope and new beginnings.

‘Think I’ll get any calls?’ Thomasina pictured her postcard, pinned centrally amid the advertisements for farm equipment for sale and leaflets inviting entries for the county show in all manner of categories.

‘I think you will.’ He looked out of the window.

‘I love being with you.’

He snatched her compliment from the air and returned it: ‘I love being with you, and I’m thinking about how to make it happen, how to be here with you every day.’

‘There are banks in Bristol, you know.’ She grinned as excitement rose within her like a fountain.

‘There are, and maybe that’s the answer, but I don’t know.’

‘Are you fed up with your puzzle-solving?’

‘Something like that. I need a change of scenery. I want to climb off the conveyor belt that carries me straight back to that flat every night. I’d certainly get to do that in Bristol – for some people, it might as well be the Bahamas or Borneo!’

‘So I’ve heard.’ She chuckled.