Chapter Thirteen
Jamie
Watching Will eat charcuterie in the most sexual way imaginable, I was having a hard time putting my thoughts in a coherent order, let alone finding a way to voice them. I was never going to allow Will near cheese again.
“Everything was starting to feel pointless,” I said, tearing my eyes away from Will to look down into my glass of wine.
Then I wouldn’t have to see the disdain on his face when I inevitably sounded like a spoilt prick.
“I don’t know why. I just started to feel hollow. Nothing really appealed anymore.”
I sighed and took a long sip of wine, trying to figure out my next words.
Despite the fact I’d come to Heather Bay to figure this shit out, I’d gotten no closer to the source of my emptiness.
Maybe it was because I hadn’t actually tried.
For all my insistence that this week would be about self-reflection, I’d done very little.
The prospect was too painful to consider because I wasn’t sure I’d like the outcome if I actually started looking at myself and my life with a critical eye.
“How do you mean?” Will asked. “In a bored of your routine kind of way or in a life is pointless kind of way?”
“Is there a difference?” I asked, attempting to play off the moment with levity, but when I glanced up, Will looked more serious than I expected.
“Yeah, actually, there can be a big one.”
“I suppose it’s more of the boredom one,” I said as I mulled the question over.
“My life is the one everyone wants, but I’m bored of it.
I’m bored of the parties and the clubs and the endless hedonism, which isn’t a phrase I ever thought I’d say aloud, but…
I am. Everything just feels the same, and I’m tired of it.
I want something different… something more.
I just have no idea what that is or how to find it.
It’s not something I can just walk into Selfridges and buy, although it would be so much easier if I could. ”
“Purpose,” Will said quietly. “You’re looking for purpose, something to give your life meaning. To give you a reason to get out of bed in the morning.”
His answer caught me off guard because it was so simple and yet so stunningly true.
The closest I’d ever had to a purpose was being good at sex and making my partners feel good, but I doubted that counted.
“Yes, I suppose I am. But, like I said, I don’t think I can just walk into a shop and hand over my credit card to acquire some. ”
“No, not really.” Will shook his head, his lip twitching, and I wondered what he was thinking.
“Well, if you have any advice on how to find a purpose, I’m all ears.”
“I don’t know if I’m the best person to talk to.”
“Why not? You seem to have an abundance of the stuff. Doesn’t farming give you purpose?” I frowned, unsure where I’d gone wrong in my thinking. Was there a hidden stumbling block I’d missed?
“It does, and I wouldn’t change it, but there’s a difference between getting to choose what you do and where you go in life and having it chosen for you.” He looked at me with such a heart-breaking expression that I felt my chest clench.
“You’re rich, Jamie, so rich I don’t think you even understand how much most people would kill for what you probably spend on a night out.
Now, I’m not judging you for it because that’s not for me to do, but you’ve never had to do a day’s work in your life, and if it wasn’t for this sudden crisis of faith, you’d probably never have to.
And that means you get to choose what you do with your life, with the unconscious knowledge that you have the money and freedom to do whatever you want because even if it goes wrong, it’s not going to be the be all and end all.
You can just try again and spend your time finding something you enjoy doing without having to worry about whether it makes you money or not because you don’t have the threat of bills and financial insecurity hanging over your head. ”
Every word of what he was saying rang clearer than a bell, and even though, deep down, I’d known it all along, it was like I was hearing it for the first time.
A small part of me wanted to be angry and lash out like a wounded animal backed into a corner, but the rest of me knew there was no point in fighting.
What would I be fighting about? The fact that I hated that every word Will was saying was true?
Or was it the fact that he’d turned a spotlight on my life, shining a light into all the dark crevices I’d ignored.
“You can hate me for saying it,” Will continued, clearly expecting a certain reaction.
“And whether that would be right or wrong of you isn’t for me to say.
But you have to understand that most people don’t get the choices you do and that most of us have to weigh up a lot more factors before we make decisions about our lives.
For some of us, there aren’t even that many options: it’s do this or perish.
Nobody’s coming to our rescue if we don’t. ”
“You said you wouldn’t change it,” I said. “The farming. But does that mean it isn’t something you wanted? Sorry, I know I must sound like I’m trying to avoid your point, but I’m just… Fuck…”
I knew I sounded ridiculous. How could I not? How could I have gotten to this point in life without going through any of these realisations? Had my bubble of privilege protected me to the point that I couldn’t even see outside it anymore?
I didn’t need to answer that question. I already knew it was true.
I’d always been so wrapped up in my life that I’d never stopped to really consider how different things were for other people outside the superficial differences I could judge in the blink of an eye.
It was so easy to assume everyone had the same level of choice as the people in my social circle when the reality was anything but.
Maybe that was why so many of the people I knew were so judgemental of the rest of the world. They just assumed everyone’s reality was the same, and that a lack of “success” was someone’s fault for not trying hard enough.
I was starting to understand what people meant when they said eat the rich.
Will grimaced, picking up a couple of plump green olives and popping them into his mouth one at a time. “It’s complicated.”
“Can you explain it? Please.”
“Are you sure? It’s a heavy topic for an evening that was just supposed to be about food and sex.”
I chuckled. “Seems a bit late to stop now. You’ve already pointed out my staggering inability to grasp the way the world functions for everyone outside my champagne bubble, so we might as well keep going.
Then we can drink all the wine and fuck to forget all our problems. It’s always worked for me. ”
Will huffed out a laugh and shook his head. He walked over to the oven and opened the door to check the lasagne. I poured the rest of the first bottle of wine into our glasses and helped myself to a couple slices of salami. For all the heaviness of the conversation, I felt weirdly liberated.
This was a discussion I’d never expected to have, and yet here I was with a man whose warm, gruff charm belied the way he seemed to be able to see straight through me and cut through my carefully composed exterior with a verbal accuracy that could only be compared to the sharpest precision of Japanese kitchen knives.
“This farm has been in my family for generations,” Will said eventually.
“My father ran it and before that his father, and his father before him, and at least another two generations before that. Every one of them has had their struggles, but the farm is still here, and it even belongs to us now since my great-grandfather managed to cobble the money together to buy it off the Hareford family when they were on the verge of bankruptcy and sold off the land to make ends meet.”
“It’s an impressive legacy,” I said.
“Aye, it is. And there’s always been a Foster on this farm, and I won’t be the one to break that chain.”
“Don’t you have other family who could take it over?”
“No. I’m an only child since having me was enough of a struggle for my parents, and although I’ve got a couple of cousins, only a couple are interested in farming, and one already runs one down in the Dales.
With my parents getting on in years, it’s mostly on me to keep the place running,” Will said.
“I could have walked away, and I won’t lie, I considered it once or twice, but I don’t know what else I’d do with my life. Farming is in my blood.”
I nodded, still wrapping my head around what he’d said. I knew plenty of people with family businesses but none that had been built like this one had—with blood, tears, and sheer stubbornness. Finally, I said, “Can I ask you something?”
“You’ll find a way to ask it anyway,” Will said, a glimmer of dry humour in his voice. “Might as well ask it now.”
“What made you want to walk away? Was it just the money? The amount of work?”
“No… It was seeing the way it broke my father.” He sighed and took a long sip of his wine like he was considering whether to continue. “Do you remember the foot-and-mouth outbreak back in 2001?”
“Maybe?” I tried to search my memory for something that fit, but nothing came to mind.
“I was nearly eleven,” Will said. “I don’t remember much about the start, but I remember Dad being worried.
Then it started spreading across the country.
It’s highly infectious you see, so it spreads quickly and is easily transmissible.
Mostly it affects cloven-hoofed stock, so cows, sheep, pigs, goats, things like that.
The government shut down rights of way, livestock sales, and then they started culling. ”
I could see where this was going, and I knew it was going to break my heart. I almost didn’t want to hear Will say it.
“We didn’t have any cases here, but it was a contagious cull policy, so any animals within a couple miles of known cases would be slaughtered to prevent the spread.
Dad brought everyone in, but then we got word there was a case at Long Hill, just up the road, and that was it.
Mum made me stay in the house when they came, but they burned all the bodies on-site, piled them up in a trench Dad had to dig and made a pyre…
Sometimes I can still smell it on the wind…
” His voice trailed off, the matter-of-fact tone he’d started off with replaced by one full of sorrow.
I put my arm out and pulled him into a hug, squeezing him as tightly as I could manage. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “That must have been horrific.”
“The worst part was afterwards,” Will said.
“Couldn’t buy any more sheep to start with, and everything had to be deep cleaned.
And my dad just… He withdrew. It was like there was nothing there.
I know now he was depressed, but back then I was so scared and confused.
In the stroke of two months, everything changed, and I didn’t know if he was going to come back. ”
“Did he get help?” I asked quietly. “Did you?”
“Me? No, I was just expected to be good and help out where I could. Dad, yeah eventually. I think my mum eventually told him that she’d already lost the farm, she wasn’t going to lose him too.
They don’t really talk about it, at least not to me.
” He was still wrapped in my arms, his head resting on my shoulder.
“That was the thing that made me want to walk away—the idea that everything could be taken away so quickly and leave nothing behind but ash. I didn’t want to get my heart broken again. ”
“Then what made you stay?”
“My parents rebuilt this farm into what it is today. I still remember the first lambing two years after we lost everything, and I remember my dad giving me one to hold that he’d had to bring in and telling me this was our legacy.
That we had to hold on to it and take care of it, no matter what happened.
And I wasn’t going to end that. It might not make sense to you, but it’s something I won’t change.
” He lifted his head, a tiny smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m a stubborn bastard, and whether I like it or not, this place is mine to protect, so I’m going to do just that. ”
“You’re an incredible man, Will Foster. I don’t know many people who’d do what you do.”
“You stay round here and you’ll meet plenty of them,” he said. “I’m nothing special.”
He kissed my forehead and slowly pulled away, walking over to the oven to check on our food while a new sensation bubbled in my chest.
Will might not have thought he was special, but I did. It was clear his family’s legacy weighed heavily on his shoulders, a crushing pressure he refused to give in to. He was the complete opposite of me in so many ways, and I was utterly intrigued.
And as he bent down to retrieve our dinner from the oven, I already knew I didn’t want to go back to London. There was something about Will pulling at my heart, and I wasn’t leaving until I figured out what it was.