CHAPTER 3 #2
Clear as a bell. Crikey, thought Harriet again, was she coming back to Mulberry Farm Cottage forever?
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ She hoped not.
Harriet knew nothing about men. She was her sister and they should be able to discuss such things.
But Joanna’s sad eyes were making her feel out of her depth.
‘Not really.’ Joanna’s mouth wobbled.
Oh, dear. Harriet took the bend too fast. The narrow lane was shady and lush, shrouded by ferns and nettles, the trees in autumnal leaf meeting in the middle to form a golden tunnel. They drove past the pub and the first of the stone cottages. She slowed.
Ahead of them, their neighbour, Owen Matthews, was driving his tractor and there was no room to overtake.
Typical. He flashed his hazard lights in greeting.
Harriet tapped her fingers on the dashboard.
There was a farm gateway just coming up.
‘Move over then, you great lummox,’ she muttered.
What was it about this place she’d grown up in, this place whose hills and valleys were as familiar to her as her own skin . . . ?
‘That’s Owen,’ Joanna said, waving. As if Harriet didn’t know.
Harriet waved too, nodded, smiled, absolutely the genial neighbour. And perhaps that was it. Perhaps it was that very familiarity that gnawed away at her sense of well-being. The knowledge that here everyone knew everyone else.
They were crawling along now, inching up the lane between the high banks and stone walls bound with ivy.
She was trapped. There was no getting away from Linda at the pub, from Mother, from Owen, from the whole lot of them.
Harriet was clamped into their landscape.
She belonged, whether she liked it or not – she really had been given no choice.
She knew everything about them and they knew everything about her.
Well . . . almost. In front of them the tractor trundled along.
And there was no escape – at least not for now.
‘Perhaps I could help?’ Had Joanna read her mind?
She wanted to sound the hooter again; she wanted to get past Owen and his tractor. She wanted to scream. Harriet was suddenly worried that she was losing her mind. ‘Help?’
Joanna waved vaguely at the road ahead. The wall was low now; on the other side Harriet could see the stream, lined with reeds and rushes. ‘With the cottage,’ she said. ‘With Mother.’
Harriet breathed deeply. ‘Maybe.’ She knew she sounded grudging. Was she never satisfied? And yet what would Joanna do exactly? She couldn’t see her baking bread, making jam, even feeding the hens – not in those boots. And as for Mother . . .
‘While I’m around, you could go away – for a weekend or something,’ said Joanna.
Harriet braked – much too sharply – as Owen squeezed the tractor into a passing place.
At last. She overtook, noticed out of the corner of her eye the way he grinned at Joanna.
‘Where?’ She blinked at the empty lane ahead.
If they kept going, they would pass the country hotel and end up at the sea. In the sea, actually.
‘Anywhere.’ Joanna laughed, but it was a flat sound. ‘The world is your oyster, Harriet.’
Harriet snorted. ‘Apart from the fact that we can’t afford it, who’d do the fruit and veg and look after the pigs?
’ Not to mention Mother and the rest of it.
She swung right onto the track that led to Mulberry Farm Cottage and Owen’s farm.
Joanna had always been a dreamer. Harriet was the practical one.
Only now, she was going much too fast down the rutted track and she and Joanna were bouncing around in the pick-up like a couple of punk rockers.
Only the approaching cattle grid made her slow down.
Joanna gave her a long look.
Harriet fidgeted uncomfortably, controlling the steering wheel with two fingers. ‘What?’
‘You’re scared,’ Joanna said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Harriet turned an abrupt left onto the muddy front driveway and slammed on the brakes with much more force than necessary. How dare she say that? How dare she turn up here and . . . say that.
‘Sorry, Harriet.’ Joanna looked repentant. ‘I thought that you could do with a break, that’s all. I know you’re not scared. It’s just—’
‘Come on.’ Harriet was out of the pick-up before she could elaborate. And suddenly she didn’t have the energy to argue. ‘She’s waiting to see you. All dressed up like a dog’s dinner.’
They exchanged a rare complicit smile.
‘OK.’ Joanna touched her arm as she came round to her side of the truck. ‘But think about it, Harriet, please? It would do you good. And we could manage without you for a few days, don’t you think?’
‘Mother would love it.’ But would her sister be able to keep the tradesmen at bay?
‘Then do it.’ Joanna’s eyes were bright now although the sadness still clung to her mouth. ‘Do something. Just for a few days. Get away. Go somewhere.’
Somewhere . . . ‘Maybe.’ Harriet straightened up.
It had stopped raining and the clouds were dispersing.
In the distance the sun was low over the grey of the horizon, lighting up the honey-gold stone of Mulberry Farm Cottage, casting afternoon shadows on the green hills where Owen’s sheep were grazing.
She thought of the world online that she escaped to every evening when the chores were done.
Beyond the hills the sea stretched out, cool and inviting, like a promise. ‘Maybe I will,’ she said.