Page 64 of Christmas at Hollybush Farm
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know anything about your company. Or any of that. I’m certainly not a journalist.’ She pauses, as if gathering her thoughts. ‘I just want to tell you to keep doing what you’re doing. My name is Janet. I follow you on social media.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘So does my son. He’s beenworking on a farm. He’s had a … hard time. It’s been a tough year for all of us. But your posts have helped him, sharing what daily life is like on the farm, how you have to adapt, learn, try to find your way, and letting other farmers know they’re not alone. You’ve created a community, a supportive one. I just wanted to say thank you.’
I’m stopped in my tracks. There are tears in her eyes.
‘You made him understand he wasn’t on his own.’ She lets out a little hiccup, trying to keep the tears back.
‘Oh.’ I don’t know what else to say, so I step out from behind the table and hug the woman. ‘Is he okay?’ I ask, letting her go.
She nods and sniffs, and Evie hands her a tissue. ‘He’s going to get some help too, find someone to talk to about his dark thoughts.’
‘I can recommend some places,’ says Evie, gently, standing beside us, her hand on the woman’s back, the three of us in a triangle.
She wipes her tears. ‘That would be kind. Thank you.’
We’ve done something good here, I think. And it suddenly feels worthwhile.
‘Thank you again, for what you’re doing,’ she says.
I hug her once more and wish her well. ‘We need to be there for each other,’ I say. ‘We’re stronger together.’
‘We are,’ she says. ‘You’re doing something valuable.’
‘Looks like we’ll be back here tomorrow,’ I say to Mae.
‘We will!’ says Mae, and I look at Llew.
He turns away from his phone. He takes a deep breath. ‘It’s my car. The garage. It’s ready. They’re looking for me,’ he says, staring at me, just as his car comes into the cattle market, delivered back to him: the scars from the crash and the time we’ve spent together might never have happened.
I can’t step away from where I am now, beside the woman who has taken so much strength from connecting with us on social media. I look up at Llew. I can’t tell him how I feel. That I want him to stay. Or can I?
I wonder what he’s feeling right now. But I can’t just walk away from this conversation. I raise a hand and wish him well. He raises his, and with that, awkwardly, he turns to leave.
‘Happy Christmas,’ I call after him. And I mean it.
I just wish he was spending Christmas here with me.
28
Over the next two weeks, the wind picks up even more, biting at my extremities, and the temperature drops, freezing me to the bone. It seems to be punishing me for imagining I could stick this out on my own. It’s freezing in the field every morning when I move the ewes, feed and count them. Afterwards Dad and I drive to the cattle market. It’s bitter, and my mood is darker by the day.
Each day, about mid-morning, we set up the lorry and turn on the fairy lights. My mood isn’t helped by WhatsApp messages from Matthew, telling me he’s been offered the Seattle job, my job, to take up the area manager post there, instead of just hotel manager. It’s a step up, overseeing the hotel and others they hope to acquire. He hopes I don’t mind. He’s moving seamlessly into the post Icreated, with the frameworks I put in place, filling the gap I left behind, like a footprint in the mud that is filled with water and no longer there at all. I had tried to make my mark, only for it to be erased and filled in by someone I thought I’d have as my wingman. Turns out he was more interested in taking the pilot’s position. He didn’t want me, the real me, just the potential I could give him, the life he wanted. Well, he got it, and I gave him the leg up to get him there.
But it’s not Matthew on my mind. It’s Llew Griffiths. I’m wondering if he’s mulling over his time on the farm or if his comfy office is where he wants to be. He’s been gone for ten days with no contact, keeping to his word that he wouldn’t contact me about the solar panels but would let me and Dad make our own decision.
Despite the weather, the queue outside the lorry is growing. A line of people is holding up cameras, photographing us and posting. Then three things happen.
Mae and I can barely move around each other. She has more dishes of fillings and I’ve doubled up on shepherd’s pies and made a hogget curry, which Nan used to make, and brought that with me, thinking it could work with the jacket potatoes.
‘It’s no good, you’ll have to move up a bit!’ she says, as we juggle everything on the table at the backof the lorry, with us behind it. ‘I’m going to need more space.’
‘I can’t,’ I reply tetchily. ‘I need that space there too.’
Our tempers are fraying.
The wind whips up and into the lorry, and the atmosphere feels as frosty as the bite from the icy air outside. It doesn’t stop there. As the wind whooshes, the lorry even starts to sway.
‘Let’s just get going,’ I say to Mae, keen for the lunchtime rush to be over and to get back to the farmhouse. The wind is making everything hard, including keeping the food warm.
‘I need the generator so that I can warm up the beans on the hotplate,’ says Mae.
