Page 26 of Christmas at Hollybush Farm
‘Really, I’ll pay it off soon.’ He’s frowning and I wonder if I should offer to pay, but, knowing Owen, that would only offend.
My phone rings. ‘Oh, it’s Matthew,’ I say, but it stops. I’m keen to hear his voice.
‘Good to see you, Jem,’ says Owen.
‘Give my best to Rhi and the girls,’ I say, not knowing his children’s names.
‘Yeah,’ he says, frowning again.
He takes the jacket potato in silver foil and leaves, climbing into his truck.
Evie and the waitress are looking at each other.
‘Did I say something?’ I ask.
‘Owen … Rhi left him. About a year ago now,’ Mae says quietly.
Evie nods. ‘Before Christmas. Took the girls. Went off with someone else’s husband,’ she says.
Mae’s face darkens. ‘Just like mine did.’
‘He’s finding it hard,’ says Evie.
‘Aren’t we all!’ says Mae. ‘While Rhi and her newman are planning trips to Disneyland Paris in the new year, we’re having to check the times at the food bank.’ She peers at her phone.
‘I didn’t know. But it seems there’s a lot been going on here I didn’t know about,’ I say, remembering Llew Griffiths and his attempts to buy Dad’s land.
‘You planning on staying around?’ asks Evie.
I shake my head. ‘Just until Dad is on the mend, and I know everything is as it should be at the farm.’
‘It’s tough out there at the moment.’
‘But at least the house is warm again and he’s happy there,’ I reply. But for how much longer? I should do something I should have done ages ago. It’s time I took a look at the farm accounts.
13
After confirming what I suspected, during a depressing couple of hours with the farm accounts, my stomach rumbles. I stand up, leaving paperwork strewn over the kitchen table. The day is darkening. I need to make something for Dad to eat. He can’t live on Welsh cakes and toast. I did a quick spin by the new supermarket on the outskirts of town on my way back from Beti’s. The car park was chock-a-block. No wonder there’s no one left in town. I bought essentials, tea, coffee, toilet rolls, but couldn’t wait to get out of there. I’m not even sure I have the makings of a meal. It was so busy, light, bright and artificial, that I suddenly craved the quiet of the farm, a place of calm and sanctuary.
I go to the back door, shoving on a hat and my splitting boots, pulling my jumper up around myears, the dogs at my feet, and stride to the shed behind the farmhouse where the chest freezer lives. The vegetable plot, despite the cold and wet, looks as tidy as ever and ready for a new year after its winter rest.
I open the door and breathe in the earthy smell: bags of potatoes, carrots, leeks and strings of onions, boxes of apples wrapped in newspaper. I open the chest freezer and my suspicions are confirmed. There may not have been much in the cupboards in the kitchen, but there’s plenty out here and in the freezer. No one seems to be buying hogget or mutton right now.
I take out a bag of chopped meat, grab some potatoes, onions, carrots and leeks and take them back to the warmth of the kitchen, where I put them all on the table. For a moment, I’m not sure where to start, but then I remember. I sit down and start to prepare the vegetables. If there’s one thing that can make us feel better it’s a home-cooked meal, I realize, thinking of the jacket potato I had earlier. So simple, but so tasty and pleasing.
The comfort I feel when the chopped onions hit the pan, sizzle, soften and begin to caramelize is overwhelming. I’m right back to when I was younger, when Nan would be in the kitchen making cawl or shepherd’s pie. In later years, Dad would do the same; those were his two go-to meals, ready andwarm on the range for when we got in from the yard at whatever time of day or night it might have been. The cawl or shepherd’s pie would have been in the bottom oven, staying warm. Sometimes there would be a weekend curry, with rice, and on special occasions, a roast.
I put the radio on. The kitchen is warm and I pour a glass of red wine from the bottle I brought, hoping it will give me some ideas to help the farm. I can’t let Llew Griffiths’s idea be the only offer on the table. There has to be another way.
With the cawl in the oven, I put on my coat, add a hat and the head torch and walk up to the feed shed with the dogs, where I settle into the corner by the window, on the straw bales, covered with sheepskins, and ring Matthew.
‘Hey,’ he says.
Suddenly I have an overwhelming urge to tell him everything I feel about the farm. How I’m scared for its future. For Dad’s future. And if he can’t make the farm pay for itself … What are other farmers doing? Where will our food come from?
‘Everything okay?’ he asks. And I falter, not knowing where to start.
‘Yes, fine … Well, not really, no.’
