CHAPTER 2
Harriet
Dorset
So, Joanna was coming home. It was a bit sudden – why on earth hadn’t she said?
And why was she coming by train? Joanna almost always came to Dorset by car.
Living in London, it was probably the only time they used the thing.
Harriet sighed. Her younger sister was so selfish.
It didn’t occur to her that a visitor descending out of the blue meant food to prepare, a bed to make, a room to dust. Harriet peeled another potato and dropped it in the saucepan.
Fortunately, beef casserole could always be stretched with more vegetables from the kitchen garden and some extra mash.
But if she hadn’t phoned Joanna when she did – when had her sister intended to tell her she was on her way?
Harriet heaved the saucepan onto the hob and turned her attention to the onions.
Joanna would be at Axminster station in an hour, so she just had time to get the casserole into the oven and have a quick whisk round upstairs.
She’d only phoned because it had all got too much for her today.
She’d intended to tell her sister – at length – what had been going on with Mother.
She’d meant to insist – forcibly – that something had to change.
She’d wanted to knock on the door of Joanna’s perfectly ordered life, she supposed, even perhaps break into it, and demand that her younger sister took some of the responsibility that weighed so heavily on her own shoulders.
Instead, though, Joanna had sounded so .
. . Harriet frowned as she tried to locate the word .
. . vulnerable, that she stopped before she began.
Plus, of course, Joanna was on the train.
Harriet peeled and sliced the onions in seconds – no crying for her – took the broom from the cupboard and gave the kitchen a quick sweep.
She didn’t have the time or energy to be house-proud and Joanna was family, but she owed it to her father’s memory not to let things slide – things that, she supposed, included Mother.
She grimaced. As for Joanna, she had always been unpredictable, but she’d never been quite this spontaneous when it came to visits home.
No matter. It would be a chance for Harriet to tell her how bad things really were.
She put away the broom and shoved the ironing pile – dark, misshapen T-shirts, jeans and sweaters (Harriet’s) and a paler more slippery pile of silk blouses, chiffony dresses and angora cardigans (Mother’s) – into a cupboard.
Out of sight, out of mind, she hoped, at least for a day or two.
Mother had never been exactly a jeans and wellies sort of person, but when Father was alive, she had at least been practical – Harriet could recall her in thick winter tights and a wrap-around pinny, in cotton summer dresses and sandals, a scarf tied around her hair. Laughing.
Armed with a cloth and cleaning spray for Joanna’s room, Harriet glanced into the living room as she passed by.
Her mother, dressed today in a voluminous white skirt and ruffled blouse of pale pink, was draped across the threadbare green sofa, eyes closed.
When she woke up, Harriet would tell her that Joanna was on her way home.
That should bring a smile to her face, at least.
Harriet went upstairs. Looking back over the past seven years, she couldn’t pick a defining moment when their mother had changed.
After Father’s death she had seemed bereft, as she gradually relinquished all the household chores.
At the same time, she became more eccentric, more needy, more desperate for attention.
And she seemed to be getting worse, not better, as yesterday’s events had proved . . .
At the top of the stairs, Harriet stuck her head round the door of Father’s study.
The two of them had sat here together so often: reading, talking, putting the world outside Mulberry Farm Cottage to rights.
The room continued to hold his presence – Harriet would swear she could still smell his pipe tobacco, feel the rough wool of his favourite brown crew-neck sweater.
She swallowed hard. How she missed him .
. . The study was now Harriet’s sanctuary, filled no longer by her father but by her computer.
Thank God she’d bought that when there had been a bit of money spare, taught herself how to use it, arranged to get the Internet.
‘What do you do on that computer?’ Mother sometimes asked her. ‘I really can’t imagine.’
Which was a good thing. What she did was for Harriet to know and her mother never to find out. It was her secret. She’d die of embarrassment if Mother ever discovered the truth – or Joanna come to that. Or anyone.
It had become her lifeline now. She allowed herself a small smile of pleasure. Later, Harriet promised herself. When everyone else was safely tucked up in bed . . .
Next to the study were a small guest room and Joanna’s bedroom; they still called it this though it was fourteen years since her sister had lived with them.
Harriet went in and gave it a quick going over.
The room, with its small double bed, wardrobe and old-fashioned dressing table, seemed poised, as if waiting for Joanna’s return.
‘She’s on her way,’ she told it. On the far wall, the painting of a wooden bridge in a gilt frame was in shadow.
Venice. Joanna and Martin had gone there when they were first together.
Harriet had never had the chance – when did she get to go away anywhere?
There was always far too much to do at home.
Harriet put clean sheets on the bed and a towel on top of the covers.
Of course, it would be good to see her sister, and if Joanna spent some time with their mother, it would certainly give Harriet a break, but .
. . Oh, well, it was complicated. It was just that Joanna seemed to have it so easy. While Harriet . . .
On the other side of the cottage, overlooking the farmyard, were the bathroom, Harriet’s bedroom and her mother’s room.
Harriet went in here, wrinkling her nose at the familiar smell of musty lavender cologne.
She avoided looking into her mother’s dressing table mirror as she passed.
She knew already that she looked angry and tired, that her hair was frizzing and had premature strands of grey.
She should take more care with her appearance, she supposed.
But somehow everything else took over and she never quite found the time.
She crossed to the window, pulled on the sash, desperate to let some fresh air into the room.
It creaked and gave under her fingers, the paintwork cracked and splintering.
Below, the farmyard rested, damp and silent, but for the rooting of the pigs, the rustle of the hens bobbing in and out of Little Barn, scratching at the dusty ground.
There had only been five eggs in the nesting boxes when she looked before breakfast. What was wrong with the Rhode Island Reds?
OK, so the light was getting low – it was September after all – but they should go on laying well for longer.
Maybe they were stressed? Why not? Everyone else was.
Maybe that damn fox was hanging around again.
Whatever, five eggs a day wouldn’t keep them going – even with ‘organic, free range’ stamped on the box.
She leant out. The mulberry tree was a shroud of jagged green below, the bank of grass wet, sparse, muddy; the pond water dimmed by plant life.
Harriet breathed in deeply. Fresh farmyard air.
Lovely. She turned back to the room. The wardrobe door had been left open to reveal Mother’s collection of dresses, a rack of elegant, old-fashioned shoes and a pair of pink fluffy mules.
Harriet felt an unexpected lump in her throat.
Mother never got rid of anything. She sighed as she closed the door. But if it made her happy . . .
There were some stockings on the bed. She touched them. Filmy and full of static, the nylons clung and snagged on her rough skin. Working hands. But it had been her choice – hadn’t it?
Next to the nylons was her mother’s cavernous black bag, which she seemed to have owned forever.
Harriet remembered Mother taking it to Torquay when she and Joanna were children.
Inside, it held everything they could ever need on a day out: hankies, eau de cologne, Germolene, even a flask of tea.
She remembered Mother opening it with a snap, producing a precious bar of chocolate for them to share as they sat in deckchairs on the beach.
Father, his newspaper on his lap; Mother’s contented smile; Harriet and Joanna with their skinny legs dangling, eager to run off to the sand, the sea.
Poking out of the bag was a slip of paper, tucked between two glossy catalogues.
Harriet plucked it out. It was an invoice for servicing the boiler.
She clicked her tongue. But it wasn’t too bad, and after all, that old thing hadn’t been serviced for years – she always just vacuumed inside and crossed her fingers.
She glanced at the brochures. One was advertising neat, wall-mounted boilers and the other, luxury bathroom suites.
Inside this was an estimate for central heating that took her breath away.
Ye Gods. In your dreams, Mother . . . Harriet had missed the plumber’s visit completely – she’d have to be more on the ball.
In her bid for attention, Mother had taken to phoning tradesmen, asking them to come round to give her a quote for work that needed to be done.
And yes, work did need to be done, but as Harriet kept reminding her, they couldn’t afford for work to be done.
Mother liked to dress the part, make them tea, give them cake, have a little chat, as if she were the lady of the manor.
She drew them into her web with promises, leaving Harriet to disentangle them with apologies.
It might sound amusing to some. But it was becoming more of a problem with every day that went by.
Harriet shoved everything back in the bag. She’d told her mother before, You shouldn’t waste people’s time. I don’t like tradesmen coming to the house when I’m not around. We don’t have the money . . . But—
‘What are you doing, Harriet?’
Harriet spun round. Her mother was standing in the doorway.
Her fine grey hair was swept into a chignon and with her almond-shaped eyes and high cheekbones, she had an almost aristocratic air as if she were of some exotic heritage and had been dropped here on the farm accidentally.
She looked as if she’d never done a day’s work in her life. But she had. Harriet remembered.
‘Nothing.’ May as well try her mother’s tactics – they worked for her. Harriet felt about twelve.
‘Are you going through my things?’ Sometimes, just sometimes, Audrey Shepherd at seventy-six could become the mother she had been before. The mother Harriet had respected, had tried to understand and longed to love. Now was one of those times.
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I was only clearing up.’
‘I would like to think,’ her mother said, ‘that I still have some privacy in this house.’
Even though I’m old and useless, Harriet thought.
‘Even though I’m old and useless,’ her mother said. ‘At least in your eyes.’
Where had Harriet gone wrong with Mother?
How could she tell? Harriet hadn’t gone to university – unlike Joanna.
She had stayed here on the farm looking after things – not only Mother, but also the hens, the pigs, the small orchard, the organic veg she sold to Bloomers restaurant and the pub, making jam and chutney for the local post office and general store, running the café she’d set up in Big Barn doing cream teas and cakes in the summer.
Why had she ever, in those far-off days, assumed it was temporary?
Had she really imagined that Joanna – lucky Joanna – was going to come back to Warren Down and take over the responsibility of the place?
Of course not. Her sister had always been shielded from responsibility.
She had a different life to live – a working life in the city.
Although it was the place in which she had grown up, Joanna knew very little about what needed to be done on a farm.
Her sister hadn’t made any promises, as Harriet had. She was free to do as she liked.
‘Come on now, Mother,’ she said. She must stay calm. What was the point in bitterness?
‘Look after your mother,’ he had said. ‘Promise me you’ll do that.’
‘Yes, Father,’ she had told him. ‘I will.’
And she had tried. She worked hard to keep everything going, she hardly stopped.
‘If you wanted to see anything in my room,’ her mother said sadly, ‘you only had to ask.’
Harriet crossed again to the window. Outside, the sky was pale grey, layered with silver. Were they in for more rain? She pulled the window shut and the room wrapped itself around her once more. How had it got to be this way?
Her mother was sitting on the bed looking at one of the plumber’s brochures.
‘Don’t get upset, Mother.’ Harriet sat down beside her.
After Father died, so many things had changed – not just Mother.
That’s when Harriet had started having the dream too – the dream that haunted so many of her nights.
But she wouldn’t think about that now. ‘I’ve got a nice surprise for you. Joanna’s on her way.’
Her mother’s eyes lit up. ‘Really? Joanna’s coming home?’
Harriet pushed away the demons. ‘Yes, she is. Now, let’s go downstairs and I’ll make us a nice cup of tea before I go and pick her up from the station.’
And then Harriet would try to work out where the money for the boiler service was going to come from, she thought. How she could stop herself from feeling so trapped. How she could go on. And how much, exactly, she was going to tell Joanna.