Page 34 of Once Upon a Thyme
In my pocket my phone buzzed a text. I didn’t look. I knew who it would be from and most likely what it would say. Zeb refocussed that dark stare which was becoming uncomfortable.
‘But neither Napoleon nor Henry make up half your DNA,’ he said quietly. ‘You have a right to be curious.’
‘But it doesn’tmatter.’ I slithered out of Granny’s chair. ‘I’m me and I live and work here. I know whoIam, Zeb, and that’s the only thing that’s important.’
I hoped he wouldn’t point out all that research and all those printouts that decorated my bedroom walls. My knowing of myself had so obviously been made up from a lot of piecemeal reading and other people’s experiences that I knew more about than I knew about my own. Now, to distract myself from the way his eyes were flickering over my face, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. As I’d thought, Mum.
Natalie, darling, could you pop over? I’ve nothing in the cupboard and I can’t go out today, I’m feeling too ill. I went shopping yesterday but I seem to have forgotten bread and potatoes and I’d like some of that lovely soup they do in the shop.
She didn’t sign it or leave a kiss, but that was typical. When Mum was ill she could barely summon the energy to type, other than to list what she wanted.
‘Your mother?’ Zeb raised an eyebrow.
‘Yes. I’d better get over there. Well, I’ll go via the shop, she needs a few things.’
‘Finish your tea first.’ Zeb moved out of his chair and lifted my mug into my hand.
‘Oh, but…’
‘She’s not going to get worse if you stop and drink your tea.’ His voice was firm. ‘You should take better care of yourself, Tallie. What’s the saying, “put on your own oxygen mask before you help others with theirs”?’
In the crowded shadow of my little kitchen, still smelling of last night’s food, Zeb sounded more serious than I’d ever known him.
‘Idotake care of myself,’ I muttered.
‘You ate last night as though you hadn’t seen solid food for weeks. I’ve only ever seen you make yourself toast, and you’re out in the garden from dawn ’til dusk. You’re too thin, your clothes are hanging off you and – forgive me for this – you don’t look as though you’ve had a proper haircut for years,’ Zeb said, then added, ‘Sorry,’ as though he realised how much his words would sting.
‘I…’ I began, then realised I couldn’t refute any of this. To launch into an explanation of how hard it was to eat when the shop was busy and I was the only one available to man the till, how my hands were usually too full of planting or weeding to make it worthwhile making a sandwich, how I hadn’t had a chance to do any clothes shopping for ages or to get to the hairdresser and anyway I couldn’t really afford it would take too long and I needed to get some shopping over to Mum. ‘I’m going out,’ was all I said, putting my half-drunk tea on the table now. ‘To get Mum her food.’
‘I’ll come with you.’ Zeb put his tea down, equally as definitely.
‘What? No! You stay here, the band will be arriving soon.’
The thought of Zeb following me around the shop and then over to Mum’s house and wandering around her kitchen while I checked she had everything she needed, filled me with horror.
‘The band will do their thing, they don’t need anyone here. And I’ve been to your mother’s before, remember? She likes me. I might perk her up a bit.’
‘You might drive her into a relapse.’
‘Ah, come on, if I’m going to work for you I’m going to have to help out with chores for your mother.’ Zeb patted my shoulder. It reminded me, uncomfortably, of the way he’d slapped Big Pig’s rump last night. More gentle, obviously, but still.
‘You’re coming to work with the animals.’ I sounded mutinous, as though I was thrown back to my questioning teenage self, trying to ask why I wasn’t allowed to go into town, why I couldn’t go to the local school, why I had to go all the way to the private school two towns over. Why I was soisolated.
Questions I’d only dared to mutter in the silence of my bedroom. Asking them out loud would have been to invite Mum’s illness to take over our lives again, and for Granny to alternate worrying with censure. Zeb was company. He was annoying and pushy and he pried into areas of my life that evenIdidn’t look at, but he wasthere.
‘All right.’
‘I’ll drop Simon a message so they don’t worry when we’re not here. I think they’re doing some pick-up shots today, joining bits together and maybe filming a couple of tracks.’ Zeb seemed to take my acquiescence as a given and trotted alongside me as I closed up the cottage, went through to the front and got in my car.
‘She’s not well,’ I said, steering us out into the narrow lane.
‘I know, you’ve said. Do you know where your dad died? Where the crash was, I mean?’ Zeb turned his head from side to side as though the narrow innocence of the flower-crowded hedge banks were about to close in on us and squeeze us to death, like a horror film, and replay those tragic events.
‘No. Somewhere near the village.’
‘And his car hit a tractor?’
I concentrated on driving.
