Chapter Nineteen #2
At this, Shaz barks with laughter and grabs at Tamara’s extremely well-pressed coat. ‘Oh my god, is it really?’
‘Really really,’ confirms Tamara, wearing a very un-politician-like gleeful smile.
‘I didn’t think they were still fighting! How mad that she’s trying to help him out?’
‘That’s the really strange bit to me, though. Don’t you think it’s strange?’
‘I’d have thought she’d be glad he’d freeze his willy off.’
‘Please don’t make me think about his willy.’
‘Too late.’
‘Sorry to interrupt this charming discussion about willies,’ Nash says, feeling Christopher physically panic as he says that word, ‘but can you guys explain what on earth is going on?’
‘Let me tell it, please?’ Shaz presses her hands in prayer at Tamara, who gives her a gesture of ‘Go ahead’.
‘Okay, so the key players in this story are Dai and Thelma. They both come from farming families, and so they were always in each other’s orbit growing up.
Inseparable as kids apparently – obviously neither of us were alive then. But when they were teenagers . . .’
She pauses for effect for just a little too long.
‘Sorry—’ begins Christopher, who is immediately interrupted by Shaz yelling, ‘THEY FELL IN LOVE.’
‘Oooohh,’ Nash replies, evoking his very best Dr Phil audience member, like he’s in a studio audience and someone held up a sign that says, ‘React excitedly.’
‘And they were courting for like years, right?’ Shaz continues. ‘But then, something happened between them, that we’ve never really got to the bottom of. Like a really, really terrible break-up. The kind where people pick sides, and everyone becomes sworn enemies.’
‘My mam said it was like they unanimously agreed to never speak again,’ Tamara confirms.
‘And they never did. It’s been like fifty years or something?’ Shaz adds.
‘Holding a grudge for fifty years?’ cries Christopher, which seems a little ironic to Nash, because if anyone has the emotional capacity to hold a pointless grudge for too long, he thinks it would be Christopher. ‘Crikey.’
‘Crikey indeed. They’re both . . . you know, rather elderly now.
Still running their farms and that. But whenever they’re in the same room together, they completely blank each other.
Not even a “Tell that man over there” type message thing.
As far as they’re concerned, the other person is dead to them. ’
‘Intense,’ whispers Nash. ‘Did they ever date anyone else?’
Shaz nods. ‘Oh yeah, of course they did. Both of them married other people. Thelma’s husband Eric died about ten years ago now. Their son, Liam moved up to London.’
‘Hang on, isn’t London south of here?’ Nash asks.
‘London is definitely south. It’s just how she says it,’ Christopher explains.
‘For a moment there I was worried I was more lost than I thought.’
And he can’t help but feel a little relieved that Christopher said something kind of normal to him. Nothing like reuniting some ornery old people to bring them together. Well, as long as Nash doesn’t accidentally scream a swear word again.
‘And Dai married my mother’s sister Miriam, but they divorced a long time ago. I must have been barely ten,’ adds Tamara. ‘Honestly I don’t think he got over Thelma underneath it all. As much as they love to act like they hate each other.’
‘And so, it’s dead weird that she is, like, breaking that unbreakable pact to tell you to go sort him out,’ muses Shaz.
‘Precisely what’s worrying me.’ Tamara spins the ring on her fourth finger.
‘As far as I know, nothing before has driven them to speak to each other. Neither death nor divorce, so I’m worried.
She might act like he’s dead in her own reality, but she must care enough to not want him to, you know . . .’
‘Freeze his willy off.’
‘Quite. But I’m also worried she might not be okay either. After all, giving up on your lifelong grudges feels quite . . . you know . . .’
‘Big stuff.’
Tamara leans down to look at something on the computer.
‘I just thought, if she is having some difficulties, she might be trying to deal with it on her own, which means we should check in on her. She’s always been fiercely independent.
She still drives that bloody enormous tractor around herself, but she really is getting on a bit now.
And it’s not like we can propose putting either of them up in any of the local care homes because they would never leave the animals anyway. ’
‘So, I guess we’ll just have to find another way to help them.’
Tamara nods, her mind elsewhere. She must be worried. ‘I know it’s a tricky situation but it’s odd for her to reach out.’
‘We’ll go help,’ says Christopher. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Thank you. I’d go up with you but—’
‘You need to stay here and make sure Ursula doesn’t take over,’ mutters Shaz, which sparks the smallest of grins from Tamara.
‘I need to just help make sure things are running and it helps that I’m the councillor, as most people know me or at least my name.
People like to know who they can ask for help, so it makes sense for me to be here.
They’re both a little like family.’ She takes a deep breath.
‘And credit to her, the reason I know there’s any capacity in the care homes in general is because Ursula, who runs the big one down on the seafront, went through their books to see if they could take anyone particularly vulnerable who needs some extra help. ’
Shaz hmms, clearly not yet willing to give Ursula any credit.
‘I can go, if you want to stay here,’ Christopher murmurs to Nash, hoping the others won’t hear it. He’s giving him an out, an opportunity for a break from each other. Perhaps they need this.
‘Why?’ Tamara says, making Christopher wince. ‘You’ve been doing everything together. You’re the dream duo, I’ve heard.’
Well. So much for that.
* * *
Tamara hands them some directions and they head back to the van straight away. As it snowed a little bit overnight, Nash takes the opportunity to do some checks before they head off, but everything seems to be running well.
‘Where first?’ he asks, clipping his seatbelt in.
‘Dai, I presume? Find out what’s wrong, and then when we’ve fixed it, we can go check in on Thelma? You’ll have to navigate on the map, if that’s all right?’ He faces forward as though watching the road, even though they’re still stationary.
‘It’s what we’ve been doing the whole time, Calloway.’ He had hoped this familiarity might break some of the tension, but Christopher seems stiff in the bad way again. ‘Did we need anything else for the prepper bag before we go?’
‘You’re the one who put a saw in the back of the van. I think we’ll be okay.’
Nash manages to find the farms on the map thanks to the directions Tamara wrote down for them. Always good to have both to hand in a snowstorm.
He laughs to himself. ‘It’s all the Boy Scout skills at play this Christmas. If I’d known, I’d have done a refresher course or something.’
‘I’m not sure you can do a refresher course on Scouting as an adult.’
‘Pity. But luckily I’ve got the boy-scoutiest Boy Scout ever to scout his way in the driver’s seat.’
This, at least, rouses a small smile from Christopher.
Nash has never been a nervous driver or passenger, but the tiny winding roads up around the mountain and into the farmlands are really testing his resolve.
Even the roads in the countryside in Canada were bigger than this.
These are definitely not the freeways of LA, though they’re terrifying in a whole different way.
He technically has the ability to drive (if not the legal okay) but he’s pretty sure that nothing in his Drivers’ Ed classes would have covered piloting a recently fixed bakery truck down curiously serpentine, snowed-in Welsh roads with an uptight Englishman.
‘Hang on, can you slow down?’ he asks, peering at the road, and to the map again.
Christopher complies. ‘Do I need to turn back?’
‘No, I’m . . . just not sure this is a road. It looks like a hiker’s trail. Not that I can tell from all the snow.’
‘I think, unfortunately, it is a proper road.’
Nash retraces their steps on the map, and it does appear to be an actual road for people to drive down, in theory. ‘Drive on, I guess,’ he says, a little nervously.
There’s barely room for their truck, and as they drive, they take bits of snow-topped hedge from both sides with them. Beside him, Christopher winces at the occasional scraping sound on metal.
‘It’ll buff out,’ Nash says, unsure if it will.
How do people even use these roads in normal weather? If another vehicle comes along, one of them will have to reverse because there’s no room to pass each other.
And that’s to say nothing of the visibility.
Everything is white, and it’s taking all their concentration to determine what bits of white are road, hedge or the huge dip that runs along the edge of the road.
It’s like driving in a meringue. As if to really get the point across, a few ominous snowflakes land on the windscreen.
Quickly followed by a lot more.
‘Uh-oh,’ whispers Christopher, turning on the windscreen wiper, which squeaks as it tries to furiously wipe away the snow.
‘Uh-oh indeed,’ murmurs Nash, clutching at the map for dear life. ‘Maybe we should speed up a little? We’re going to get snowed in here at this rate.’
‘I don’t think it’s safe to drive any faster,’ Christopher says quietly, concentrating hard on driving.
‘The snow is falling faster than we’re moving.’ Nash bites his lip.
Without taking his eyes off the road and with a clenched jaw, Christopher mutters, ‘Please stop backseat-driving me, Nash. I need to concentrate.’
‘I’m not in the backseat. I’m shotgun.’