Chapter 5
Now
‘Where are you off to so early?’ I call.
Grandad jumps at the sound of my voice. I sit in the dark at the kitchen table, where I have been for the last hour or so, unable to sleep, or even to rest. I tried listening to Freya’s ten-minute voice note about how her week has been, but I couldn’t focus after the fourth minute.
I’m not sure if it’s being back here without Granny, or the thoughts of Jacob playing on my mind, but it felt easier to sit down here with a cup of tea than to keep tossing and turning in bed.
‘Christ, you scared me. Could’ve given me a heart attack.’ Grandad clutches his chest with one hand whilst he holds his boots in the other.
‘Sorry,’ I say, getting up to flick on the kettle again.
‘Couldn’t sleep either?’ Grandad asks, as he steals my seat to pull on his shoes, not looking at me as he ties his laces.
I hum in response and we both fall quiet to the sound of the bubbling kettle. When it reaches boiling, I take a mug and pour him a cup. He accepts it with a smile that doesn’t quite trigger the deep wrinkles that he’s earned after decades of laughter.
‘Look at him smiling out on that tractor, eh?’ Granny used to say as we’d watch him as he’d weave up and down the east field, his grin so broad we could see it all the way back at the kitchen window. ‘Nothing this man loves more than farming.’ She’d shake her head with a laugh.
I know that’s not true. Even when I was fifteen, I knew it. I saw the way Grandad looked at her from across the dinner table, or when he’d wave to her from leagues away, making sure he could always keep her in his sights. No, there was something Grandad loved more than farming: Granny.
‘You make tea like your Granny. Strong and sweet. Just like the both of you,’ Grandad says between swigs from his steaming mug.
I don’t think he realises how gut-wrenching his words are, or at least he doesn’t want to acknowledge it.
He just stares into his mug without looking at me for a moment, before he finally looks up.
‘I’m off out on the tractor. You fancy a ride? ’
‘Yes, please.’ I haven’t felt the hum of a tractor under me for so long – the way it rattles my bones as we slice through the earth, or the unending bounce along the road until my coccyx is on fire. It doesn’t sound so appealing put that way, but I’ve missed it.
‘Come on then. Bring that packet of biscuits with you as well if you want.’ He poses it like it’s a choice, but Grandad doesn’t play when it comes to his snacks. If he isn’t covered in crumbs, he isn’t happy.
So, with a packet of digestives in tow, I follow him out the back and wait patiently at the shed for him to strike up the tractor.
It grumbles and coughs a little before kicking into life.
It’s an old bit of kit, but it’s got him through plenty of harvests.
There’s nothing Grandad can’t fix with a bit of duct tape and his unwavering tightfistedness.
He would rather push the thing through the field than call a mechanic out, though I know Lizzie has lent him a hand on occasion.
When he manoeuvres it out of the barn doors, I close them behind him and hop up into the cab. There isn’t quite enough room for two, so my thigh presses against the door painfully, but I don’t protest.
‘You were a bit smaller the last time you sat up here with your old man.’ Grandad looks over to me as we chug through the yard.
‘I remember the days I could get you, your brother, and a lame sheep in here all at once.’ As we begin to trundle over the rough earth, I hit my head against a bar or two, but still, I only smile.
‘Remember that time we found that goat out in the west field? I had to bear hug it the whole way home so it didn’t leap out,’ I reminisce. Grandad has a ghostly smile on his face.
‘Aye. You’ve always been a strong old lass. I always remember you beating all the Thorogood boys at their arm wrestling. Dave told me their Will started going to the gym after you handed him his arse.’
‘He always played the big man.’ I chuckle at the memory. ‘He’s never underestimated me since, that’s for certain. I don’t think I’d be able to beat him now.’
‘You’d still beat Alfie, I reckon.’
‘Oh, without a doubt.’ We settle into a comfortable silence as Grandad concentrates on the open land ahead of him.
Tearing into the packet, I hand him a biscuit and we both crunch in tandem as the sun begins to peek from behind the horizon, bathing the wide sky in purples and oranges.
The sunrises here are unlike any I’ve seen elsewhere.
Without buildings, motorways, and a million commuters interrupting the wide expanses of land, the sunrise engulfs you.
It’s as though we’re standing on the stone of a peach, surrounded entirely by its colours.
‘How’s things going with your sewing and bits?’ Grandad asks as we watch the sky, making an attempt to talk about my escapades in fashion. He has as much knowledge of the subject that a seventy-year-old farmer who has worn the same woolly jumpers for three decades can possibly have.
‘It’s okay,’ I reply, looking out of the window to avoid any eye contact. ‘The college here doesn’t offer fashion, so it’s going to be a lot harder than it was back home.’
Grandad sighs audibly. ‘I’m sorry, duckie.’
‘Not your fault. Dave is probably right, though – the chances of me getting any sort of job in fashion now, especially now we’re not in London, are pretty slim.
’ I haven’t said any of these doubts out loud to anyone else.
How can I tell Mum that the breakdown of her relationship is making me to miss out on my dream?
I heard her crying last night in the bedroom beside mine, when she could finally drop her brave face.
That was one of the reasons I couldn’t sleep.
Sometimes, it’s hard to tell that behind her business jargon and pantsuits, she’s a real person, with real feelings.
She tries so hard to make everyone believe she has it together all of the time, that she doesn’t think maybe showing a little heart might be exactly what we all need.
Maybe I should have gone in to her, hugged her and told her it was all okay, but I couldn’t bring myself to.
All I could do was listen to her sobs through the walls and stifle my own.
And what about Dad? Is he burying himself in his work like always? Or is he crying himself to sleep as well? Or – worst of all – does he even care? He’s texted me a couple of times to check if we’re settling in okay, but I can’t bring myself to answer.
‘Don’t listen to Dave.’ Grandad’s voice interrupts the thought.
‘All he knows is brussel sprouts and chicken feed. And he’s got all boys.
’ He shakes his head and I find myself giggling at his jibe.
‘I may be well past it, but I saw what you managed to do with your Granny’s sewing machine.
You have a special talent, and I know your Granny would hate you talking so pessimistic. ’
It never gets easier hearing him mention her. The pain of losing her is still as raw as it was two years ago. Each one of his words sit heavy on my chest, as though just the memory of her can suck all of the life from me until the idea of ever being happy again feels completely out of reach.
Grandad, though his voice cracks at the mention of her, continues, ‘And even if it does all go wrong – after you go away to your fancy school, if you don’t have a job, or you realise you hate it – even then you’ll always have a home at my farm.
It may not be your dream, but you’ll always have a place to belong, even after I’m long gone.
’ He takes his eyes off the track ahead for a moment to look at me with glassy eyes, and I know that no one has ever meant anything more in their life.
Unable to speak without the threat of tears falling, I rest my head on his shoulder like I did in this very tractor when I was younger, and he tenses a little at my touch before relaxing again into his seat.
‘Anyway.’ He says clearing his throat as though uncomfortable at his own soppiness. ‘I have a load of trousers and bits for you to patch up for me, if you would? I went down the pub looking like I’d been in a fight with a hundred moths the other day.’
I sit back upright to answer him. ‘Of course.’ My fingers already itch at the thought of getting back to the sewing machine.
It was always Granny that did his repairs, so whilst I revel in the honour of being asked, I can’t help but feel that pang in my chest again knowing that she isn’t here to do it any more.
‘I never realised just how much your Granny did for me … everything feels like it’s falling to bits these days.’ His rare moment of candour breaks my heart a little more.
‘Well, we’re here now. You haven’t got to worry about holes in your trousers any more.’
Before either one of us can be even more uncharacteristically mushy, Grandad pulls up to the orchard trees and kills the engine of the tractor. ‘Gotta get these apples and pears in before the birds get to them,’ he mumbles and we both hop out of the cab and harvest the fruit without another word.
Grandad doesn’t work to the standard clock, or even the phases of the sun. No, for as long as I can remember, he has worked to the sound of his stomach. So, on its first grumble at 8:47 a.m., he sets downs his tools and announces that we must return home for breakfast.
Once all of the crates of apples and pears are filled and loaded into the trailer, we both climb back into the cab to head back to the farm. But with one cough, and a few grinding splutters, the tractor doesn’t start.
‘Don’t worry, she does this sometimes.’ Grandad persists for a few minutes, still insisting that a whack on the steering wheel and the flicking of a random buttons will make her kick back into life.
He only gives up hope when another audible growl of his stomach echoes around the cab. With a huff, he opens a little side compartment and picks up an ancient-looking phone. Several buttons have been taped off so he’s in no danger of pressing the wrong ones.
‘You know how to text?’ I joke, though I’m still a little dumbfounded. I’ve never seen him use any technology more advanced than his microwave until now.
‘Not really, but the boys at Hope Farm got me this phone last year so I can call for help if I get myself in a pickle.’ The mention of ‘the boys’, and knowing who is included among them, makes me swallow hard, but I don’t linger on the feeling too long.
They’ve bought my grandad a phone. Granted, it looks as though it’s been found in an archaeological dig, but that means they’ve been looking out for him.
A little guilt wedges itself between the warm feeling that thought brings.
It should have been me here, helping him, keeping him afloat.
Every year, he had Granny, Callum and me to help him, and yet, when he lost Granny, I neglected him too.
Too clouded by my own grief, I never even stopped to think about the farm, or how Grandad would be working himself to the bone doing the work of the two that left him behind.
I’m just glad that the Thorogoods are better people than I could even think to be.
Basking in the September sun, I climb out of the cab and sit at the bottom of the apple tree as Grandad hits various parts of the tractor with his cane, waiting for whoever he called a few moments ago.
Before he can do any more damage, a truck rumbles in the distance. ‘About time,’ Grandad grumbles as he walks up to meet his saviour.
The dark flat-bed pulls to a stop. The window rolls down and an arm leans over the door. ‘What mess you got yourself into this time, Harry?’ The voice is rough, deep, but just barely recognisable.
‘Jacob?’ I can’t stop myself from springing to my feet to catch a glimpse of him for the first time in so long. I should act unbothered – cool, calm, collected – but something about him makes me throw all sense of ‘should’ out the window.
He looks almost the same – the same shaggy, messy hair, stained clothes, and deep dark eyes that are framed by freckles.
And yet, he’s grown. There’s something distinctly masculine about him now, no trace of boyhood left on his face, with his jawline sharper than ever and splattered with a covering of stubble.
I thought my heart would race, or I’d go into a sweating frenzy at the sight of him. But strangely, I feel nothing but careful anticipation, almost as if all of the turmoil of expectation leading up to our meeting has melted away. It’s like my body suddenly remembers that it’s home.
Without missing a beat, he opens the door and comes to greet me at his full height.
Now he well and truly towers over me in a frame that seems to have doubled since the last time we met.
‘Kitty.’ He says my old nickname so casually, as if pointing out a landmark on a long drive, and it knocks the wind out of me completely. No one has called me that for so long.
‘I didn’t know you could drive,’ is the only thing I can think to say as I look up at him. All I see reflected is ten years of adventures with a friend, and I settle into a version of myself that feels more like me.
He watches me so closely, not once flinching away at the intensity of our meeting or even seeming ruffled by any memories. ‘You’ve missed a lot.’