Page 114 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘You shut up, our Wayne,’ Saul snapped. ‘You’ll be sorry if I ever find out you spoke a word of it outside this house.’
‘Look, can we keep this short and civilized?’ I said brusquely. ‘I assume you’ve realized I’m your sister Martha’s daughter?’
‘Her bastard,’ Saul nodded. ‘Knew it was by an Eyetie, too.’
‘He means an Italian,’ Wayne translated, in case I hadn’t got it.
‘So, how did you recognize me?’
‘Our Wayne said you looked foreign, but sort of familiar and that set me wondering, even though your name was different. And then, when I saw you, I knew. Our mam kept a school photo of Martha hidden away – I found it after she died – and you look just like her. Same eyes, too.’
My likeness to her didn’t seem to be a recommendation, since he practically spat the words out.
‘That explains it, then. I wasn’t sure at the time that you’d realized who I was, but I hoped not,’ I said frankly.
‘I told Dad you and Ned were sweet on each other, but he wouldn’t have been so keen to take you on, even as gardener, if he’d known who you were,’ Wayne said unpleasantly. ‘He might fancy you now, but things’d change if he knew what we know.’
‘But what’s it to you?’ I said, turning to Saul. ‘I know the Vanes disowned my mother when she was pregnant, so presumably you want as little to do with me as I do with you?’
Saul continued to glower silently at me from under his bushy eyebrows, so I added: ‘I’m not interested in you, or your family, so let’s just forget the relationship, right?’
‘It’s not that easy, now you’re here – and I thought your mam would have warned you off ever coming back.’
‘She did, but I didn’t come back to thefarm, I came to the valley because I was offered a job here.’
‘You came sneaking in under another name, to see what pickings were in it for you,’ he said harshly. ‘You heard the pig farm was prospering and thought you might get a share of it.’
I stared at him in astonishment. ‘Of course I didn’t! I didn’t even know it was a pig farm till I got here, and I’d no intention of telling you who I was, let alone coming to the farm.’
‘So you say.’ His jaw was working and a fat vein throbbed in his forehead like a mad worm. ‘And maybe you’ll put your money where your mouth is and sign that paper on the table, saying you give over any property rights in Cross Ways Farm to me.’
I felt a wave of relief. ‘Of course I’ll sign it, if you want me to, but I’m sure I don’thaveany rights anyway – and I don’twantthem. Or better still, let’s get a solicitor to draw up a more official document and I’ll sign that, too, if you’re really worried about it!’
‘Ah, but then you’d have time to think things over and change your mind.’
‘OK, then I’ll sign this one, now,’ I said, picking up the sheet of handwritten paper and glancing over it, before signing it with a biro that lay near. I was unsure how legally binding an unwitnessed document like that would be, but if it made him happy …
He watched me sign, then said, ‘Good. The lawyers didn’t know Martha had a child and I didn’t think you’d any rights in the farm, but I found out later you had. Got someone to ask for me.’
He got up, glaring fiercely at me and I took a step back.
‘You, by-blow of my sister, to take what I worked all my life to build up? That’s to pass on to our Sam, when I’m gone?’
His eyes burned with hate in his mad prophet face and he took a step towards me, pointing, as if he expected a thunderbolt to shoot out from his fingertip and annihilate me.
‘Now, Dad,’ said Wayne, sounding nervous. ‘She’s signed the bit of paper, hasn’t she? And she’s got bigger fish to fry now. She won’t want us to tell Ned who she is and spoil her chances.’
‘Maybe … maybe not. But it might be best to make sure,’ Saul said in a low voice that made my blood run cold. ‘I told Martha if she or her bastard ever turned up on the farm again, I’d feed her to the pigs. There’d be nothing to show you’d ever been here, by morning.’
‘Now, our dad!’ exclaimed Wayne, horrified. ‘You shouldn’t say stuff like that!’
‘I’ll say what I like – and I’ll do what I like. This might be the best way …’
He took another step towards me and I backed off, though Wayne still blocked the door.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, with a shaky laugh. ‘We’re not living in a Stephen King novel. I’ve signed your paper and that’s an end of it. I never want to see any of you again, or set foot on your farm, either.’
‘So you say now, but it might be a different story if I let you get away,’ Saul said, and I was just about to tell him that his threats were empty, because Treena was waiting for me in the layby, when it suddenly occurred to me that then he might send Wayne to fetch her on some pretext, which would putherin danger too!
