Chapter 37
New Year’s Eve
It’s pitch black, as Llew and I check and feed the ewes.
The last day of the year. And what a year!
I would never have expected to end up back at the farm, with a man I’ve only just met, but with whom I may be falling very much in love.
I glance at him as we lay fresh straw in the pen for the ewe and her lamb, still wearing one of Evie’s unique jumpers.
I remember how I managed to tell Llew how I was feeling.
Took the leap of faith. It took me two years and three months to admit to Matthew how I thought I felt about him, and look how wrong I got that.
Turned out I was just part of his plan for the perfect couple on his Facebook page.
The power couple, about to start their new life in Seattle.
‘Living the dream’. Well, I know now it wasn’t my dream.
My dream is here … What he wanted was my job.
The life in Seattle, come what may! The corporate couple.
We never discussed having a family: it wasn’t on the cards.
And now more than anything I want to stay here, and build on the little family we have.
Dad and Myfanwy. Mae, the boys and Josh.
Owen, Evie and Jess. And I may be taking a leap of faith, but I’ve never felt so happy, relaxed or myself.
Just being me, where I want to be, with the person I want to be with.
Back in the kitchen, the lights are on, warm and welcoming.
Owen and Evie are already there, Jess wearing her cone around her neck, with a festive scarf from Evie.
Dad and Myfanwy arrive from her farmhouse across Gramps’s field, the fairy lights still lit up, and join us in the kitchen.
As tea and toast are made, the kitchen fills with the scent of caramelizing bread.
Between us we fill the toast rack and keep the toast coming from on top of the range.
There’s butter in a dish on the worn pine table, which has more stories to tell than I care to think about, from the chew marks left by different puppies, the paint stains from when I was a child and the burn from the pot of chilli I made on my eighteenth birthday.
It’s like all my past is here … and possibly my future.
‘Right. The weather. It looks like it’ll be cold and clear,’ says Owen. ‘The ground’s hard, but that’ll work in our favour with the trucks.’
‘If they come.’ I feel a wave of uncertainty.
‘All the people from the Christmas Eve feast have said they’re coming.’
‘So it’s just the customers we need,’ I say, feeling anxious. ‘What if no one comes?’
And none of us has an answer to that. We just have to do our best and hope.
Later that morning we head to Gramps’s field.
Evie is putting up signs with arrows from the road to the car park at Myfanwy’s.
The lorry is by Gramps’s bench. Owen is organizing generators and the festoon lighting from the yard to the field and to Myfanwy’s.
He and Llew have their heads together, planning where each food truck should set up and where they can feed off the electricity.
Josh and the boys are collecting wood for a firepit in the middle of the yard.
Myfanwy is running up bunting and stringing it around the place.
I pick up my phone and start filming the activity in the yard and on Gramps’s field. Bertie, Harriet and the ewes are watching with interest. Ffion and Jess wander the yard together, like the sisters they are, taking comfort from each other’s company.
‘We should ask everyone coming to bring a lantern to help with lighting,’ I say suddenly, imagining how this place will look all lit up.
‘Great idea,’ says Llew. ‘Put it on social media!’ I kiss him quickly and hurry up to the shed, where I put together a little reel and tell people that the trucks will be open from five and to bring lanterns and torches.
The video gets loads of likes and reposts and I hope that means this will work, for Jess’s sake, and the farm’s.
This could be the start of bringing back the community to the area and starting a whole new future.
At four o’clock the first of the trucks arrives, checked off the list by Llew and directed into place by Owen. It’s a beautifully decorated horsebox, with fake flowers and lights, selling homemade cakes and honeycomb.
‘Hi, welcome to Hope Food Festival,’ I say, to the young woman. ‘I love your truck.’
‘Thanks. I’m just starting out, so I wasn’t sure if I’d be the right fit here.’
‘You’ll be perfect! We’re here for all the comfort food.’ I smile. ‘If you need anything, just ask us. And thank you for coming,’ I say, as she hands me her pitch fee.
She’s followed by the boys from the tractor run.
They’re going to do hot dogs again, on Gramps’s field, on the big oil-drum barbecue.
And others follow, the macaroni-cheese truck, crêpes sold by members of the Young Farmers with their parents.
The kids are test-running the chocolate spread and seem to have it all over their faces.
The lorry is set up to serve shepherd’s pies, hogget curry and cawl, with homemade bread; the trailer next to it, with Mae’s jacket potatoes, boasts pots of grated cheese, beans, tuna and a vegetarian chilli.
At twenty to five, the firepit is lit. The festoon lighting from Gramps’s field to the yard is turned on. All the food trucks have battery-operated fairy lights and smoke is spiralling upwards from the fire. The barbecue and the sweet crêpes smell amazing. The scene looks and feels fantastic.
‘Something you created,’ Llew says. ‘It’s amazing.’
‘What if it’s not enough? What if no one comes?’
He pulls me close. ‘Then you will at least have tried.’ He kisses me. ‘One last thing to do,’ he says, and disappears towards the field where the cars are parked. I can see him and Myfanwy in conversation.
Later I do a mental check that everything is set. Now all we need is customers. I take a deep breath and look around for Llew. He went off about half an hour ago with Myfanwy.
‘Jem!’ I hear a shout. It’s Mae. She’s standing on the edge of the yard, looking over the field towards the end of the drive. Like fireflies in the night, there are lanterns and torches flickering at the bottom of the drive. I can hear the chug of a tractor.
‘It’s Llew and Myfanwy. They took the tractor and trailer to town to pick up people from outside Coffi Poeth,’ she shouts, coming towards me. ‘Myfanwy’s driving! Llew put it online! A tractor ride to the farm!’
‘But he hates all that online stuff!’
She beams. ‘Looks like he realized maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all.’
And there, coming up the drive, is the tractor with lights all over it, and a group of young revellers flourishing phone torches, riding in the trailer with Llew pointing out where everything is and the parking in Myfanwy’s field to the left. Cars are backed up behind the tractor.
‘They came,’ I say, quietly at first, then look at Mae.
‘THEY CAME!’ we shout.
‘It’s like the Three Wise Men, a bit late, but they’ve followed the star and made it.’ She throws her head back and laughs.
Llew is standing in the trailer, holding up a lantern and waving at me.
The tractor stops in Gramps’s field and Llew jumps down, helping people off the trailer and pointing them towards the festoon lighting that is showing the path up to the firepit in the yard where there are straw bales to sit on, at a suitable distance from the fire.
It has a pen around it, organized by Owen.
People start to wander up towards the yard, some stopping at the barbecue for their range of hot dogs: chilli dogs, hot dogs with cheese, and even a veggie dog.
Music is playing and it’s crisp and cold.
‘Hello, you!’ says Llew, pulling me close to him.
‘Thank you!’ I say, feeling choked. Now. I should tell him now. Tell him I want him to stay here, with me. Make this work one way or another. Run a farmer’s market every month, maybe a farm shop from one of the barns, sell our produce and other local farmers’, with Mae running a café here.
‘Llew, I …’ I lift my face to look at his. I know this is what I want. I want to tell him, right now. I lean in closer to be nearer his face and his lips. I want to ask him to stay. Tell him I’ve never felt more certain about anything.
‘You’ve got a queue,’ he says. ‘Need a hand?’
I turn to see people waiting by the cattle lorry. ‘Yes!’ I say, and we hurry up the ramp and start serving under the dark but glorious starry night. The very last of the year.
As the queue quietens, I pull out my phone and look at all the pictures shared, loved and liked on social media of the Hope Food Festival. I look around for Llew. I need to tell him what’s on my mind.
‘Excuse me?’ says a young man, holding up a lantern. ‘Is it true you’re going to rent out studio space in your barn?’
I give a little laugh. ‘Word travels fast,’ I say. ‘I’m certainly thinking about it.’
‘I’d be interested. I make chopping boards from wood. I’m with the cake lady,’ he says, pointing to the pretty horsebox. ‘I’ve been looking for somewhere to set up, but I can’t find anything I can afford.’
‘Well, give me your number and, if all goes well, hopefully, we’ll make these events a regular thing and find some space for young entrepreneurs like yourself.’
‘I could do workshops too. Oh, and I do IT for a big company, if that helps.’
‘It does,’ I say. ‘We all share our skills, so I think we could make this work.’
As we’re swapping numbers I hear the laughter first, then a voice I recognize. I freeze.
‘You wouldn’t think this was the same place, honestly. When I first came here it was like something from Cold Comfort Farm!’
My mouth drops open in surprise. I close it and collect myself. ‘Matthew!’ I say. ‘What are you doing here?’