Page 42 of The Price of Love
‘I know the realities.’ I felt somehow that I was being got at.
‘And Luke? Does he know? Does he have any idea what it’s like to have to get up at four to milk the cow, fight to get the Aga lit, chip the ice off the water trough before work, bring animals in, fetch animals out, all up to your thighs in mud? Nothing ever clean, nothing ever dry, everything full of bits of hay and mouse shit in the larder? Becausethatis winter up here.Iknow and I love it. Will you? Willhe?’
‘I thought you only spent your summer holidays here?’
Cal sat down like a folding deckchair, dropped his head forward and let his hair hide his face. Winnie was fascinated. ‘Yeah. I lied about that,’ he said as though challenging me to say anything. ‘I grew up here. My great-aunt adopted me when I was five, when . . .’ Shaky territory, obviously, because he suddenly pushed his hair back and grinned up at me. ‘If you reach out now, you can grab her collar.’
Without looking, I stretched my hand sideways and closed it around the leather belt. Winnie curled her lip in contempt and took off at a trot. Fortunately our joint inertia forced us gradually to the bottom of the hillside until we reached the lane. Winnie was puffing at the exertion of dragging me, size ten of pure muscle and thirty years of chocolate, and I was glad that I’d kept my footing. I was sure she’d deliberately headed through every cowpat and gorse bush she could see. Farther up the slope I could see Cal edging his way down, using his stick as a brake, anchor and occasional flail on the thistle-strewn pasture. It seemed somehow demeaning to watch so, taking advantage of Winnie’s momentary breathlessness, I hauled on her collar until she moved into the gateway to the paddock, then wrestled the gate open and shoved her through. My previous experience with ponies had taught me that once they’d found an escape route, they’d be out every chance they got, until the escape hatch was firmly closed with wire, preferably in Winnie’s case, electric and running off the mains.
‘What did she do, jump?’ I asked, completing my circuit of the small field to find Cal leaning on the gate, trying to look as though he wasn’t gasping for breath. ‘I can’t find a hole anywhere big enough for her to have got through. Although I wouldn’t put it past her to have tunnelled.’
‘She got out through the gate.’
I looked disbelievingly at the solid, five-bar gate he was resting against. It was a good five-foot tall, conventionally built with no gaps big enough for a solidly constructed Toggenburg to have squeezed through. ‘What, with a crowbar?’
‘No.’ Cal pulled open the gate, standing aside. Winnie, on the other side of the field, raised her head and I barely managed to drag the gate shut before she hit it at a dead run.
‘You let her out? Why?’
‘Firstly because she’s a total cow and I hoped the local foxes would form some sort of association to bring her down, and secondly, would you have come, otherwise?’
‘What? Yes, of course I would!’
‘If you say so. Shall we go back? Your other half will be wondering what we’re up to.’
We wandered slowly through the yard and into the house, to find that Luke was up in the loft, tapping at timbers with a Swiss army knife and muttering about woodworm. He barely noticed me appear in the hatchway and disappear just as quickly.
‘He’s happy,’ I reported. ‘Can I borrow your mobile? I want to ring home to check that my sister hasn’t popped her infant out without due regard for the seventy-eight-hour labour she’s been warning us she’s got in store. Mind you, if she had, I think Ash’s hysterical shrieking would have been audible from here.’
‘I didn’t bring my mobile. There’s no signal in the valley.’ Cal put the kettle on the Aga plate to boil and leaned his back against the stove. ‘Where’s yours?’
‘Flint broke it.’
‘Oh. Can’t you use . . .’ A gesture towards the ceiling.
‘I never use his phone. Anyway, you said there’s no signal.’
‘If you walk up to the road, you can get two bars, apparently. I’ve got satellite broadband out in the barn, if it helps.’
We were both trying to avoid looking at Luke’s jacket (pure wool, impeccably tailored) hanging on the back of one of the spindle-legged chairs.
‘I could email, but it might take ages for anyone to pick up.’ Another sliding glance. Cal grinned.
‘Sod it, no one’s going to die if you borrow it for one quick call, are they?’
The tiny sliver of phone was tucked into an inside pocket, with Luke’s credit card. It felt warm, the jacket smelled of him. I stroked the sleeves back into place as I removed the mobile, feeling comforted by the softness under my fingers.
‘Come on. I’ll come with you up the hill. He’s going to be ages yet. What was he doing, exactly?’
‘Prodding the beams.’
‘He’s not one of these mild-mannered sales assistant by day, super surveyor by night types, is he? What’s wrong with the beams?’
‘Just woodworm, I think. They look sound enough.’
Cal muttered something and hauled away up across the meadow, outdistancing me. ‘What?’ I asked, catching up.
‘I said, I’ve never been up there. Can’t. Ladders, d’you see.’
