Chapter 23 #2
Jono and Laine and Laine’s pet goat, Gruff, were waiting in the driveway when they arrived.
They must have heard the car’s tyres crunch on the gravel, or perhaps they had been watching for them.
Laine waved her arm enthusiastically, as if she was hailing an aircraft in to land.
Julia thought Jono looked a bit awkward, perhaps nervous – as his father had been – about the meeting of the parents.
He had his hands pushed into his pockets and his shoulders rounded, but he gave them a warm and welcoming smile.
The goat turned its yellow slitted eyes towards the car.
‘They’re funny beasts, goats, aren’t they?
’ Sean said quietly, as if the beast might take offence.
Laine’s parents, who they knew to be called Marcia and Mike, were in the kitchen in matching red and white striped aprons.
When the visitors walked in, Marcia had just taken a large, golden farm chicken in a roasting pan out of the oven, and was basting it with the pan juices.
Her glasses were steaming up. Julia felt her salivary glands spring into action and realised she was starving, or maybe it was that the chicken looked delicious.
Mike, who was constructing a salad on a big, lipped platter, layering leaves and sliced vegetables in an artistic arrangement, lowered his knife and wiped his hands on a red and white checked kitchen cloth.
‘Welcome!’ he boomed. ‘Julia, Sean! We meet at last! Come on in.’
Marcia put down her spoon, wiped her hands on her apron, and took off her glasses.
She came to greet them. ‘It’s so good to meet you.
I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to get you round.
We’ve heard so much about you. And we are so very fond of dear Jono.
’ At this, they all beamed at Jono, who grinned and turned pink and muttered in the direction of his shoes.
‘So good to meet you. Thank you for the kind lunch invitation. And likewise, Laine. She’s a fine young woman, and we are pleased to know her,’ said Sean, who had a tendency to slip into funny old-fashioned phrasing when expressing emotion.
Laine laughed an embarrassed laugh and smiled warmly at him.
Julia broke the awkward moment, turning the blaze of parental attention away from the young couple. ‘What a fantastic smell in here. That chicken looks delicious. And the salad, gosh. All those lovely fresh herbs.’
‘Everything’s home-grown,’ said Mike. ‘We eat as much as we can from the land.’
‘If only we could grow wine and coffee and washing-up liquid, we’d be sorted,’ said Marcia, which got a good laugh.
‘Speaking of wine.’ Sean handed over the bottle to an appreciative Mike.
‘I suspect you don’t grow chocolate either,’ said Julia, handing over a box of her home-made brownies.
‘Oooh, now there’s a treat, thank you.’
‘The chicken needs half an hour. How are the spuds doing?’
Jono, who was on potato duty, said, ‘I put them in ten minutes ago, so I reckon they’ll be done by the time the chicken has rested.’
‘Would you like to take a walk around the farm before lunch?’ asked Marcia.
‘Love to!’ said Julia.
Laine picked up a bowl of kitchen scraps and led the way, ushering them out of the kitchen door where Gruff was waiting. ‘Now, why does this fellow get to walk about like he owns the place, and trot around Berrywick like a spaniel?’ asked Sean.
Laine scratched the goat’s hard little head and said, ‘First of all, she’s not a fellow. She’s a female. Her mother died when she was born and I hand-reared her. So we’re friends for life now.’
‘Laine fed her with a bottle every couple of hours, like a newborn baby,’ said Marcia. ‘This was halfway through Laine’s final year at school. We’re still amazed that she passed her exams.’
‘That’s how I passed. I explained the syllabus to her. She’s an expert on the Tudors, and knows all there is to know about photosynthesis, don’t you, Gruff?’ She pulled a carrot top from the bowl and held it out. The goat picked it up delicately with its yellow teeth and began to crunch through it.
‘I’m pleased she has the good sense to keep her learning to herself,’ said Mike, and guffawed at his own good joke.
They set off around the garden in the direction of the goats who were not schooled in the ways of photosynthesis and the Tudor kings.
They looked perfectly content in their ignorance, gambolling up to the fence for a hello.
Laine let Gruff in to join them and dropped in the kitchen scraps to some enthusiasm.
‘We started with two rescue goats that I saw when I was volunteering at the RSPCA when I was still at school. People think it’s a good idea to get goats, especially the pygmy goats because they’re so cute.
But they need looking after. A bit more than people realise.
Anyway, I fell in love with them, and we had the space, so… ’
‘So she begged and cried and cajoled and promised until her parents agreed to allow her to adopt them,’ said Marcia.
She put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze, to show she was teasing affectionately.
‘We like them, though. They’re sweet. Every now and then, we take on another one in need of a home.
We’re up to five now. And I work from home quite a bit, so I’m here to keep an eye on them. ’
‘Do I remember right that you work in the financial world?’ Sean asked. They watched the goats snacking happily on the scraps.
‘That’s right. I’m a bookkeeper. I do all the books and the invoicing, that kind of thing, for three local businesses. It’s nice work. It keeps me busy, but not too busy, and keeps the old brain working.’ She tapped at her temple. ‘And it pays the bills.’
‘That sounds perfect,’ said Julia. ‘Do you enjoy working from home?’
‘I like having a mix. I work for two of my clients remotely, with occasional meetings. And I go into the office of one client two days a week. They like to have me onsite, and the new boss is touchy about having their files and things taken off the premises. And it’s nice to be out in the world.’
‘That sounds like a good arrangement – the flexibility of working from home and the stimulation of being out in the world.’
‘It has been great, but I don’t know how long it will last. One of my clients is in a bit of trouble, so that’s stressful. They might even have to close the company.’
‘Which one is that, Mum?’ asked Laine.
‘The property development client,’ she said. Julia had the mad thought that it might be Eco Evolve, who owned the meadow. What a coincidence that would be. But Marcia said, ‘Murdoch Enterprises. Come on, let’s head back to the kitchen. That chicken will be ready.’
‘Tricky business, property development,’ said Mike, as they walked across the lawn to the house.
‘Land is so expensive around here these days. And then there’s all the regulations – ecological surveys, noise assessments, land contamination assessments, and so on.
But of course, there’s a lot of money to be made if everything falls into place. ’
‘I can imagine,’ said Julia. ‘There’s a shopping centre about to be built on a meadow near where we live and there’s been a lot of opposition to it. Birders, dog walkers, neighbours…’
Marcia stopped in her tracks, looking at Julia in amazement, ‘Oh, I know that site well. In fact, that development has caused the company I work for no end of problems.’
‘Ha! The opposition!’ said Mike, rubbing his hands together.
Marcia looked a little annoyed at the interruption, but continued. ‘Murdoch Enterprises, my client, raised money to buy a big piece of land—’
‘When she says money, she means a lot,’ said Mike, widening his eyes dramatically.
‘Murdoch wanted to build a shopping centre on their land, only it wasn’t passed for development – but Meadow Court got the go-ahead to build.’
What a strange coincidence. Julia wondered if things might have played out differently for Basil Crow if Meadow Court had been refused permission like Marcia’s client.
Probably not. Either way, she was eager to move off the subject before she was in a position in which she’d have to fess up to personally finding the body.
‘Wait, are you talking about the meadow where you and your neighbours found that man’s body?’ said Jono, dashing Julia’s hopes of anonymity in that regard.
‘Yes.’
‘You found Basil Crow at the meadow in Berrywick?’ said Marcia. ‘Goodness, that poor man. Such a sad situation and, as far as I know, the police haven’t arrested anyone yet.’
‘Did you know him, Marcia?’
‘Murdoch Enterprises dealt with him from time to time, but I didn’t know him personally.
I know he was very devoted to his work; he cared a lot about the land and the wildlife.
Very principled and straightforward. He could be rude, apparently, and upset some people, but you always knew where you stood with him. ’
‘A rare quality in the world of property development,’ said Mike.
‘And then the environmental officer, the young woman, died in a drowning accident,’ Marcia went on. ‘I saw it in the paper, what was her name again?’
‘Esmeralda Gray,’ said Julia.
She shot Jono a look which he correctly interpreted as ‘Don’t mention my part in this’.
‘That’s the name,’ said Marcia. ‘Awful, so awful. And not that this is the worst part of it at all, but losing two senior people has caused a lot of delays at the council office. The developers are all waiting for surveys and permissions.’
‘That’s Marcia’s polite way of saying that her client is going hopping mad with frustration,’ said Mike. ‘They’ve got a housing project waiting to go, which has been held up by the delays. The whole future of the business depends on it. Especially since the shopping centre wasn’t passed.’
‘Enough about work,’ said Marcia. ‘Now, who’s hungry?’