Six
Sally sat in Frida, in front of the farmhouse, and looked at it through the windscreen. The grey overhead clouds didn’t help to bathe the building in any glory. Yes, she could still sense the loneliness she’d picked up before but there was more to it than that. Something else was in the mix but… what?
She stared at the house, wondering what it was she was feeling until, suddenly, it hit her.
Neglect!
Unloved, lonely, and neglected – that’s what was emanating from it. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her own unloved, lonely, and neglected face looking back. She gave a small start at this sudden realisation and sat up straighter in her seat. The sun visor above the steering wheel was slowly lowered and she slid back the little cover to expose the mirror. For the first time since Steve’s death, she looked at herself in the mirror. As in, really looked at herself, not a quick glance to check she was tidy for work but a proper, hard look and noticed her own appearance after three years of neglect. Her medium brown hair was scraped back in a low ponytail, her fringe – courtesy of the kitchen scissors – sat straight across her eyebrows. The warm, honey-coloured highlights which had accentuated her sharp, shoulder-length bob had long disappeared as she’d trimmed the ends that now reached halfway down her back.
Her clear, soft green eyes took in the pale, pasty complexion that was no longer adorned with a plethora of beautifying products but which now only ever saw soap, water, and moisturiser. There wasn’t even a hint of concealer to hide the dark shadows which gave away her inability to have a decent night’s sleep.
In this wake-up moment of self-realisation, Sally saw the shadow of herself that she had become. She glanced over at the house. They were both shadows of their former selves and somewhere, deep in her chest, she felt her heart turn itself back on. It was only the smallest of flickers but for someone who’d been emotionally dormant as long as she had, it was enough. It was the first sign of life her soul had felt after she’d locked away all the pain and hurt brought on by Steve’s death and she could feel herself grappling to hold onto it, trying to breathe life into it in the same way you would try to coax the smallest of flames in the fireplace as you encourage it to grow into something bigger.
‘Well, sitting here isn’t going to do it, girl,’ she muttered to her reflection. With a deep intake of breath, she opened the car door, stepped out and gathered up the garden shears and gloves she’d brought along before walking across to stand on the few, visible, cobbled rows of a pathway that disappeared beneath the thick thorny bush she was now glaring at as she prepared herself to do battle with it.
She tightened the scrunchie holding her hair back, pulled on a sweatshirt with a hood for added protection and donned the pair of thick garden gloves although now that she was face to face with the solid curtain of green wilderness, she was beginning to think chainmail might have been a better option.
‘Right, buster, here goes. You are the only thing standing between me and that footpath and I refuse to be beaten.’
She launched herself at the bush and began to sever the branches closest to her. Slowly but surely, she made headway through the greenery, her shears cutting at everything around her. Finally, she’d made enough of a tunnel which enabled her to pass through the thicket without sustaining any grievous bodily harm.
She kicked the stems she’d trimmed off underneath the bush and followed the cobbled path along the side of the house, through a gate and down a flight of moss-coated, stone steps. She passed some low-level windows along the side but their coverings had stayed in-situ and there was no chance of seeing in.
To her right, she glimpsed some wooden fencing which had toppled over. Sally stopped for a closer look and saw what she thought may have been either a little cottage-type garden or, perhaps, a herb garden. It was also very overgrown but some lavender could be seen on the far side and she spotted one or two cobbled areas which could be pathways.
She turned back and continued along the side of the farmhouse until she came to a second gate – one which had once been white but now had just a few flakes of paint left on it. She leant over, undid the latch, and walked into the courtyard she’d seen in the aerial shots.
This close, she could see the cobbles underfoot but the weeds and grasses had grown up between them and they added to the air of neglect.
She turned to look at the rear of the farmhouse and was momentarily surprised to see it was on three levels at the back. She’d been expecting two, in keeping with the front. This explained why the rooftop went further back on the overhead images.
The lower ground-level windows had wooden shutters over them and when she gave them a tug, they remained firmly closed. She bent over sideways and looked up from the underside where she was able to see they were bolted from the inside. The door, less ornate than the main one at the front, was also locked.
Sally slowly spun around to face the yard and surveyed the outbuildings before making her way over to the first building on her left which, looking at the split doors along the front, had probably once been stables. She walked along the front of it, trying each door as she passed until, much to her surprise, one of the upper partitions swung open. She stuck her head over and saw the old wooden stalls still standing in position. The smell of hay and leather loitered in the air.
She pushed the half-door closed again and walked over to the barn which was, in comparison, massive!
Two five-bar gates stretched diagonally across the gap between the stables and the barn with a small kissing gate to the side. Next to the kissing gate was a flight of stone steps leading up to a peeling, green painted, wooden door which she thought may lead to a hayloft. A hefty padlock held the gates firmly together but as she could see the grass-filled ruts on the other side, she guessed this was the route the tractors would have taken out to the farmland beyond.
The barn was also securely locked up and she couldn’t find a gap anywhere for a cheeky peek inside.
The third and final building turned out to be old workshops. None of the doors were locked and some of the benches held old, rusted pieces of small machinery and hand tools. The last one had become a storage unit for old crap – broken chairs, a mottled fridge with its door open, old wooden buckets and other odds and sods.
Sally turned away and walked into the middle of the yard where she stood looking at the upper floors of the farmhouse. Suddenly, as she raised her eyes to look at the upper storey windows, the clouds parted and the pale afternoon sun lit up the back of the house, bathing it in a bright yellow light which instantly made it look welcoming and peaceful.
‘Oh baby,’ she whispered, ‘you are beautiful.’
As she stood on the weed-filled cobbles, she felt a sense of peace wash over her, almost as though the house was reaching out to embrace her, wrapping its arms around her and telling her that everything was going to be okay.
In the still, soothing atmosphere, with the birds chirruping around her and the trees quietly whispering in the gentle breeze, the non-stop tumbling in her stomach, which had first materialised when she’d opened the door to find the police on her doorstep, slipped away. The eternal clattering of the recriminating thoughts in her head had ceased and her mind was finally quiet for the first time since Steve had died.