Chapter 21
CALLUM
He dried the last handful of cutlery, wondering how Tasha had managed to persuade him to let her put his name forward.
He had no interest in acting. The few adverts he’d filmed had been bad enough.
Slow and boring was what he mostly recalled about doing them.
He frowned. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, he mused.
He would be able to see Tasha when they were recording.
She was always somewhere nearby Riley when she was working.
He might even be surprised and enjoy himself.
Feeling calmer about the whole thing, his mind wandered to Erin.
He hoped his sister was doing all right and getting on with Riley, seeing as she seemed to like him an awful lot.
She would be fine, too, he decided. He put each piece of cutlery neatly away in the kitchen drawer, feeling much better than he had shortly before.
His phone buzzed and, seeing it was a message from Lettie, Callum put down the cutlery and read it.
Why don’t you bring Tasha and pop round for a bit. It would be lovely to see you both and you can tell us how the party went. L
Happy to have a reason to visit the farm again, Callum hung up the tea towel before he turned to his father. ‘I thought I’d pop by and visit a couple of friends while Grandad is out with his friends for lunch. I have something I need to ask them but shouldn’t be too long.’
‘Take your time. Your grandfather has several people wanting to meet up with him. I’ll see you later.’
He got into his car and was about to drive off when he thought of Lettie’s message and decided that if Riley was out somewhere, Tasha would be alone at the cottage and might want to join him for his visit to the farm.
He turned left and drove the short way down to the cottage, pressing the hooter twice in quick succession.
Tasha appeared from the garden, a questioning look on her face. ‘You’ve not changed your mind, I hope?’
He shook his head. ‘Not at all. I just wondered whether you might like to come with me for an hour or so. If you’re not too busy, that is?’
She stared at him thoughtfully for a couple of seconds, then raised a finger in the air. ‘Wait there. I’ll be two minutes.’
Unable to help himself, Callum smiled. Maybe today was going to be brighter than he had expected. She came running out of the house carrying her phone and sunglasses and got into the car.
‘That was quick.’ He laughed.
‘I wanted to escape before Riley gets back.’ She tapped the dashboard. ‘Quick, let’s get a move on.’
He put the car into gear and slowly drove back up the driveway, having to pull over when he saw a taxi coming from the opposite direction. Callum watched it pass by, frowning. ‘I wonder who that was?’
‘Sorry?’ Tasha looked up from her mobile. ‘I didn’t see them, I’m afraid. Too busy checking my emails for the hundredth time this morning.’
He drove on and after checking nothing was coming turned onto the main road. ‘You must get a lot of them.’
She groaned. ‘They seem never-ending.’ Then, smiling at him, added, ‘But it’s my job to keep on top of all the correspondence, so I shouldn’t moan.’ She placed her phone onto her lap and looked out of the window, breathing in deeply. ‘The air here seems so much fresher than at home.’
‘Maybe it’s because we’re so near the sea.’
‘I suppose it could be that.’ She opened the window fully and rested her arm on the door. ‘You never mentioned where we’re going.’
‘Didn’t I?’ He loved that she had readily agreed to join him without knowing where.
‘Is it to the farm?’
‘It is. I thought I could show it to you when there aren’t a pile of people and vans there.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
They drove on in silence and Callum loved how comfortable they were with each other. He was beginning to get excited to show her the farm as it usually was.
‘Here we are,’ he said, slowing down and turning into the driveway. Someone was buying bags of vegetables from the honesty box and Callum had to drive around their badly parked car.
Tasha laughed when the old man shouted at Callum to slow down. ‘You were barely moving.’
‘I know. And he was the one parked so badly too. Cheeky devil.’
He continued down the driveway smiling as Tasha oohed and ahhed at the animals.
‘How come I hadn’t realised there were alpacas?’
‘Because Lettie will have kept them well out of the way, knowing her.’
‘Will I be able to see some Jersey cows this time?’
‘Yes. Did you know all the animals at Hollyhock Farm are either rescues or retired?’ he said, proud of his friends for giving these animals such an amazing life.
‘I love it more like this than I did before.’
He slowed right down. ‘You must have seen the farmhouse from a distance,’ he said, pointing ahead to get her attention from the animals in the field to their left.
‘No, I haven’t. We were told to turn off the driveway before we reached the yard so that we kept away from the barns and went straight up to the larger fields at the back for any filming. We’d done some filming in the woods, of course.’
Callum hadn’t realised that was the case. Anticipating her reaction, he slowed and turned into the yard and immediately heard Tasha gasp. ‘What do you think?’
‘Those hollyhocks either side of the front door and along the wall are breathtaking,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a pretty farmhouse.’
‘It is pretty special, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ She sighed. ‘And your friends own this place, is that right?’
‘Lettie’s only been running this place for the past year since her father retired. Her parents now spend a lot of their time travelling.’
‘It’s so pretty. Like one of those pictures I remember from books with nursery rhymes when I was a child. What an incredible place this must be to live. Shall we get out?’
‘Yes, let’s do that.’ He couldn’t wait to show her around. Not only would the place be perfect, at least he hoped it would, but Callum presumed there might be an additional payment involved for filming at the farmhouse and he was sure Lettie would welcome the extra income.
‘Oh, look, there’s Lettie,’ Tasha said as Lettie came out of the farmhouse, her little girl on one hip and her farm dog Spud walking slightly ahead of them.
Lettie waved. ‘Hi, guys.’ She kissed him on the cheek and then Tasha. ‘Welcome to Hollyhock Farm.’
‘This place really is so full of character.’
‘That’s kind of you to say.’ She glanced at the hollyhocks. ‘This is my favourite time of year when they’re out. Gorgeous, aren’t they?’
‘Absolutely stunning.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I only agreed to allow filming here if they agreed to keep away from the barns and the animals. Most of them are quite old and I didn’t want them to become stressed by too much noise or unnecessary numbers of people.’
‘I presume they’ve been good keeping to the zones marked in the contract.’
‘They have,’ Lettie said. ‘I made it one of my stipulations of them coming here.’
‘Why don’t you show Tasha around, Callum. Then come inside and I’ll make you both something to drink.’
‘Thank you, that’s really kind of you.’ Tasha smiled up at him and he wished he had more opportunities to see her this happy.
‘Right,’ Lettie said, shifting the baby slightly higher onto her hip. ‘I’ll leave you both to it and see you in a bit.’
‘I’d like to show you other parts of the farm that you won’t have seen yet.’ Callum took Tasha’s hand. ‘Let’s go and have a look, shall we?’
He led her past the barns and, taking their time, accompanied her to the top field and pointed out the views across more fields and out to the sea.
‘Oh, this is breathtaking up here.’ Tasha sighed. ‘I wouldn’t mind living here myself.’
‘You’re not the only one.’ Callum laughed. ‘I’ll take you down to the wildflower meadow.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
He waited for Tasha to take more photos by the stream and then walked back with her to the farmhouse so she could speak to Lettie.
‘I think Lettie is happy with the extra bit of money coming in. She has a lot of animals to keep fed.’
‘They must pay reasonably well, I imagine,’ Tasha said. ‘Although I don’t know the figures, so I might be wrong about that.’
Lettie must have been watching for them as they approached and came out of the front door just as they entered the yard. ‘So, what’s the verdict?’
‘I think I’ve now found my favourite place ever,’ Tasha said. ‘It’s certainly picturesque.’
‘I’m glad you think so,’ Lettie said, smiling. ‘Right, let’s get that drink. Follow me.’
Any tiredness Callum had felt earlier that day after the party and ensuing drama between Riley and his sister vanished.
He had enjoyed spending a bit more time with Tasha.
Maybe agreeing to film a couple of scenes wouldn’t be all that bad after all.
He thought of his sister and recalled a dream she had once had to work on actors’ hair on a film set.
‘Lettie, would you mind me asking something of you?’
‘I’m intrigued. Go on, what is it?’
‘Could you keep Erin in mind should there be a hairdressing vacancy on set, do you think?’
Lettie looked surprised. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to ask that. Of course I will.’
‘Thank you.’ He shrugged. ‘I doubt it’ll happen but she’ll never forgive me if I come here and don’t think to mention it, just in case it does.’