Chapter 6
Beatrice
‘Get in the back,’ I say through the window, not bothering to get back out of the truck. Arthur looks around the dented bodywork as though searching for another door that doesn’t exist.
After another few awkward seconds of wordless searching, he comes back to the window. ‘Do you mean the boot?’
‘I suppose I do, yes,’ I say, a tight smile on my face as he thrusts his cases into the back and then after a second of deliberation, hops in himself with a thump.
Ms Riches huffs beside me and I try and hide the amusement from my face at the sight of them both, drenched like pigs in muck.
‘Bloody boy,’ she mutters, and there’s a feeling of righteousness that overcomes me at the thought that there is someone else in this village who sees Arthur Cavendish for who he truly is: a grade-A twat.
Watching him in the rear-view mirror, he looks about the truck bed like a young boy, lost and confused. ‘Um,’ he begins reluctantly, ‘where do I sit?’
Ms Riches shakes her head again and I can’t help but laugh.
Pressing down the accelerator and wheel spinning through the mud, the speed of the motion soon sees Arthur Cavendish on his arse and clinging on tight without me needing to hold his hand through the process.
And hearing the thwack against the truck and his subsequent swearing really does improve my mood, which has travelled through all of the stages of hurt and anger since I left the Big Apple.
The drive back to the farm is only a matter of minutes, but I’ve been sat in a trailer bouncing over a ploughed field enough times to know that his coccyx will be on fire and this will feel like the longest journey of his life.
I still can’t bring myself to feel guilty though.
His grandmother doesn’t seem to either, as she sits beside me, a light smile at her wrinkled lips as she catches a glimpse of her grandson in the mirror.
The novelty of sitting beside Edward Cavendish’s mother never wears thin, no matter how many years I’ve been helping out on her farm.
She doesn’t work her land much these days, so my role has been to be her odd-job, handy gal and just keep the place ticking over.
Since her divorce from Arthur’s grandfather, she has devoted her life to being fiercely independent, so when the time came that she was too old to do it all by herself, of course she wasn’t going to ask a man for help like everyone else around here would.
Honestly, it’s rare I even see her; she spends much of her days walking or painting and doesn’t particularly enjoy company.
So, I maintain Big Apple Farm through my own instincts and the odd handwritten note she leaves around the place for me to find.
You’d think it would be quite a leap going from working on film sets in London to fixing tractors, but honestly executive producers are really just stubborn machinery too.
At least in this job I can hit things with a hammer when they piss me off.
I’ll admit that I thought this would be my way back in, or out: buddy up with the mother of the biggest actor in the British Isles and he will offer me a job when he comes to visit.
Alas, Ms Riches has never so much as mentioned her son, and he has never visited.
The only proof that he’s even related to her is the shrine of all of his achievements in one of her back bedrooms that no one else is allowed in.
I ended up in there accidentally three summers ago.
I was desperately looking for a toilet after a rather interesting night in the pub ended with me cycling six miles into town for a kebab that eventually tortured my insides, but that’s not the point.
I made it to the loo just in time, but my curiosity was too intense for me to not revisit that room.
Newspaper clippings, photos new and old, magazine covers, everything Edward Cavendish covered that room from floor to ceiling.
The only furniture in there is an old armchair pushed right into the corner, as though Ms Riches sits with her son in that room in her evenings.
Looking over at her, her hard face smeared with mud as she stares out of the window, I pity her.
She must be lonely in that house by herself, talking to the walls.
Still, she doesn’t show it if she is. But then I too have managed to keep my secrets in the same village that seems to know exactly how many toilet rolls you use in a week, so perhaps this community isn’t as good at knowing everyone’s business as they think they are.
As we pull into the yard, no one has spoken for the duration of the journey. Even Arthur in the back has kept his moaning and clunking to a minimum.
Ms Riches hops down as soon as I draw to a stop. ‘Hose him down, would you, lass?’ she says simply before slamming the door and hobbling into the house. By the time Arthur and I have disembarked, she is out of sight and I am left only with my instructions and the guilty eyes of her grandson.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ he says simply, taking his muddied cases and following in the direction of his grandmother.
‘You can’t go in there like that.’ I chuckle, listening to his shoeless feet slap against the concrete.
‘Christ, don’t tell me I have to sleep in a sodding barn or something too?’ He stops and turns, rubbing a hand down his face and the drying mud flakes off with the motion.
‘Nope,’ I say, grabbing the industrial hose from beside the grain store that is usually used for cleaning down telehandlers, general farm machinery, and the odd animal.
‘Haha. Hilarious.’ Arthur shakes his head at the sight of it. When my face doesn’t move from its unsmiling expression, his drops. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Grandmother’s orders.’ I shrug, though the worried furrow in his brow does make me hesitate for a moment. It’s February. It’s cold. He’s had a day from hell by the looks of things. Perhaps I should just hose down his cases and let him get changed.
‘Are any of you normal in this place?’ He laughs manically, shaking his head.
‘You’re insane, utterly insane.’ And that’s all the reminder I need to recall that he’s a dick.
Without giving him a second to catch his breath, I switch the hose onto its softest setting (I’m not a total bitch) and blast it at his chest, the splashback firing straight into his open mouth.
I think the whole village will be grateful that Ms Riches doesn’t have any neighbours by the volume at which he yells his curses.
His grandmother opens the top window of the old cottage and simply shouts, ‘Language!’ before slamming the pane shut again and allowing me to get back to work.
‘It’s so cold.’ Arthur shivers and the guilt creeps in once again.
His white shirt has become translucent with the deluge and his whole body tenses beneath it.
Muscle ripples under the fabric, and his skin practically glows with a tan so healthy it’s clear he hasn’t spent long in these parts where our sun practically sucks the vitamin D from you like some sort of backwards vampire.
I’d be a fool to deny that he is a beautiful man; though it’s clear he has never done a day’s labour in his life, he’s managed to acquire a build that doesn’t reflect it.
He’s lean, but not in the plastic, all for show sort of way you find with these young stars; rather he looks as though he has the strength to go with it.
Perhaps all of these years of carrying the weight of his overly enlarged head has actually done him some good.
Swallowing whatever the feeling is that climbs in my throat and dries it out, I attempt to speak, though at first my voice comes out hoarse, as though it’s been unused for an age.
‘Look, this is not how I want to spend my evening, but there’s no way she’s letting you in the house like that.
The quicker we get this done, the faster you can go to bed and I can go home. ’
Arthur narrows his eyes at me, then looks down at his mud-caked frame, then again at the hose.
Deliberating for a moment, he unbuttons the first few buttons of his shirt and peels it off his body, then does the same with his trousers until all of his clothes, aside from his underwear, sit in a puddle in the yard.
‘I suppose I’ve seen your underwear today, so it’s only fair.
’ He shrugs. My throat is now so dry, I debate spraying myself with the hose just to give my body back a little bit of moisture, or, failing that at least cool me down.
Snap out of it, Beatrice, frigging hell.
The man is an arsehole. A handsome arsehole, I will admit.
Very handsome. And I haven’t seen a man so close to my age, so … close in a very long time.
Lifting up his arms as if in surrender, he gestures for me to continue my attack, so I steady my shaking hands and use the spray that bounces from his taut chest back into my face to cool my burning cheeks.
‘That’ll do,’ I say once my view of him is entirely unrestricted by any more splatters of filth. I switch off the hose, quickly returning it to its place before hopping back into my truck.
‘Night then.’ He lifts a sopping hand to wave me off and I speed so quickly back down the driveway in reverse that I don’t give myself another second to glance at him.