The Things I Know(9)
‘Louise hasn’t invited me to her party, Mummy, and she invited the whole class!’
‘Don’t cry, my little love. Everything is okay . . .’
‘No one picked me, Mum! We had to make pairs for country dancing and I had to do it on my own because no one would hold my hand!’
‘Well, it’s their loss. Everything is okay, my little one . . .’
‘No one’s asked me to Prom – I’m not going, what’s the point?’
‘Don’t cry my, little love. Prom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Everything is okay . . .’
‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’ came the call up the back stairs.
‘You all right to go and make it?’ her mum enquired, with a look that made Hitch want to scream.
‘Sure.’
She stood and watched as her mother muttered beneath her breath, as if offering up a silent prayer, as she trod the creaking corridor back towards the rear bedroom.
Hitch made her way down to the kitchen, carrying the basket of dirty linen to take out to Big Barn, where the washing machine, the tumble dryer with the dodgy door and the ironing board lived. She looked up at the darkening sky, sorry that today there would be no pegging out. It was a job she loved in the summer months or when the weather allowed. In the sunshine she would make her way to the paddock, where a long washing line supported by a slender wooden pole was strung between tall posts across the field. Today, as if burdened by its redundancy, the line sagged forlornly and moved slowly in the saddest dance, taken by the wind. Instead she would be working indoors in the gloom: inhaling the scent of clean cotton; turning over the fresh, warm sheets and towels; folding them with precision and stacking them in a neat pile as the breeze came in through the open window. More than once during such sessions a butterfly or a little bird would fly in and perch on a sill or rafter, watching her at work. She would howl with laughter. ‘Who am I – Snow White?’
Sometimes she would put the radio on and have a little bop. But in these colder, greyer times of year, with the farm in the grip of autumn, it was a different story. On certain days the wind whistled up from the river and over the bottom levels, cold enough to strip the flesh from her bones and leave her hands red and aching with the chill, and on those days she didn’t enjoy the chore half as much. She put the basket outside the back door.
Buddy loped over and stood next to her, his favourite place to be.
‘Hello, my boy,’ she said, reaching down to pet his warm flank.
Pops and Emery shucked off their boots and took their afternoon break at the kitchen table, flexing their toes inside their heavy socks. Giving the sigh of the weary, they stretched their aching arms over their heads, turning to draw warmth from the open door of the range as they yawned and cricked their necks. With the Gazette spread open between them on the table, they combed articles, following the print with busted, dirty fingernails, enjoying the respite from the hard physical work in the fields.
‘All right, Pops?’ Hitch smiled at the man she loved, while filling the flat-bottomed kettle and placing it on the hot plate of the stove.
‘Not bad, my little lovely, not bad. Mum got any of her cake lying around?’ He pointed his nose in the direction of the mismatched cake tins stacked around the almost redundant microwave.
‘For you.’ She lifted and shook the tins, some now quite worn in places, but heirlooms in their own way. Her Grandma Elsie used to say, ‘No cake can be made without love . . .’ and Hitch knew that each of these tins had contained a succession of cakes, while endless tea was poured from the pot, all made with love by her kin. Tea and cake was not so much a treat as part of their working lives. It was not Hitch, however, but her mum who was the baker of the house. She had told Hitch many years ago that one of her essential tasks, as with her mother before her, was to bake for the man she loved. It was a rare affectionate expression from a woman who spoke, lived and stared at her husband as if she were constantly exasperated. But love him she must, as the fruit cake, lemon drizzle, ginger loaf, coffee and walnut or carrot cake, almond sponge, apple and walnut loaf and many others just kept on coming.
Hitch handled the cake tins with care, more than aware that not only had she not quite mastered the art of baking herself but also that she had no one to bake for. There was no man she loved, other than Pops and her brother. Not that she had time for such thoughts today. She rooted around until she found a hunk of fruit cake and cut her dad a generous wedge, placing it in front of him on one of her Grandma Elsie’s old green side plates. It was a little chipped and the glaze had worn thin in places, but the fluted gilt edge and exquisite art deco grooves meant it carried the echo of past grandeur and was still a thing of beauty, to her at least.
‘That’s my girl!’ He patted her arm as she put the plate in front of him. She saw the ever-closer creep of age on her dad’s skin, and it bothered her, his weather-beaten face, deep furrows etched on his brow from rain, sun and worry. Farming was a risky business and it never seemed to get any easier. It was as if, year after year, they scrabbled in the stones, trying to get a foothold, slipping in the mud as their hands reached for the solid brick that crumbled beneath their touch.
Her whole life long they had lurched from famine to feast and back again. The bed-and-breakfast brought in a pretty sum but, in the grand scheme of things, barely enough to run the oil for the range. It had always felt this way, as if they hung on by a thread, stitching each small sum of money from so many different ventures – selling eggs and fresh-cut flowers, the bed-and-breakfast, cattle, crops, even running tractor repairs – into a patchwork quilt to wrap themselves in as they tried to keep the cold from the door. Every penny went into the coffer that was never even close to full. They lived with the flutter of anxiety in their chests, knowing that one bout of bad weather, one ruined crop, one change in the season, sun or rain arriving too early or too late, and they just might sink into the furrows that surrounded them. They all worked very hard, just to stand still.