Chapter 28
Over the next two weeks, the wind picks up even more, biting at my extremities, and the temperature drops, freezing me to the bone.
It seems to be punishing me for imagining I could stick this out on my own.
It’s freezing in the field every morning when I move the ewes, feed and count them.
Afterwards Dad and I drive to the cattle market.
It’s bitter, and my mood is darker by the day.
Each day, about mid-morning, we set up the lorry and turn on the fairy lights.
My mood isn’t helped by WhatsApp messages from Matthew, telling me he’s been offered the Seattle job, my job, to take up the area manager post there, instead of just hotel manager.
It’s a step up, overseeing the hotel and others they hope to acquire.
He hopes I don’t mind. He’s moving seamlessly into the post I created, with the frameworks I put in place, filling the gap I left behind, like a footprint in the mud that is filled with water and no longer there at all.
I had tried to make my mark, only for it to be erased and filled in by someone I thought I’d have as my wingman.
Turns out he was more interested in taking the pilot’s position.
He didn’t want me, the real me, just the potential I could give him, the life he wanted.
Well, he got it, and I gave him the leg up to get him there.
But it’s not Matthew on my mind. It’s Llew Griffiths.
I’m wondering if he’s mulling over his time on the farm or if his comfy office is where he wants to be.
He’s been gone for ten days with no contact, keeping to his word that he wouldn’t contact me about the solar panels but would let me and Dad make our own decision.
Despite the weather, the queue outside the lorry is growing. A line of people is holding up cameras, photographing us and posting. Then three things happen.
Mae and I can barely move around each other. She has more dishes of fillings and I’ve doubled up on shepherd’s pies and made a hogget curry, which Nan used to make, and brought that with me, thinking it could work with the jacket potatoes.
‘It’s no good, you’ll have to move up a bit!’ she says, as we juggle everything on the table at the back of the lorry, with us behind it. ‘I’m going to need more space.’
‘I can’t,’ I reply tetchily. ‘I need that space there too.’
Our tempers are fraying.
The wind whips up and into the lorry, and the atmosphere feels as frosty as the bite from the icy air outside. It doesn’t stop there. As the wind whooshes, the lorry even starts to sway.
‘Let’s just get going,’ I say to Mae, keen for the lunchtime rush to be over and to get back to the farmhouse. The wind is making everything hard, including keeping the food warm.
‘I need the generator so that I can warm up the beans on the hotplate,’ says Mae.
‘I’ll have to heat the curry too,’ I reply, wrapping my hands around the cooling pot.
Outside people are getting impatient, standing in the wind and rain. The generator noisily does its best to keep up with the portable stove we’ve got there, and the lights and speakers for the music.
I lift my phone to tell people we’re here, what’s on the menu, and that Myfanwy is taking orders for Welsh cakes and sourdough.
‘It’s not like it is on social media,’ I hear someone in the queue say. And I listen. ‘They don’t seem nearly as friendly.’
‘I heard their portions aren’t as big as they make out,’ says another.
‘I heard there’s a big chain behind them and it’s all a publicity stunt.’
I’m about to go out and tell them that’s rubbish, that we’re just trying to do what we can to make a living and keep local business and farming going, when there’s a bang.
With that, the generator gives up and everything switches off with an exhausted sigh.
‘Excuse me, are you in charge here?’
‘Yes? Me and my friend,’ I say, looking out into the windswept cattle market at the bottom of the ramp to see a familiar and unwelcome face.
‘I’m Deborah Atkins, from the estate agents who are selling this site.’ She’s the dog-walker from the cottage at the end of the farm drive.
‘I know you,’ I say. ‘You’re the woman staying in the cottage near Hollybush Farm.’
‘God, the place with the vicious ram and horse!’
‘He’s not vicious, and she’s a pony.’
She narrows her eyes at me. ‘Do I know you?’
‘I’m the owner’s daughter. And you’re the woman with the out-of-control dogs you walk in our fields, terrorizing the flock.’
She sniffs. ‘I’m afraid I have to shut down this little hobby of yours. The owners have asked if you could move your lorry. They have an interested buyer for the site and I’ve been sent to arrange for the locks to be changed on the gate.’