‘Everything all right there? Quick, before the money runs out.’
‘Just made myself a fortune of six pounds and forty-two p,’ David replied cheerfully, ‘and I was about to go and feed the chickens. What time shall I expect you?’
‘In about an hour. Two piglets on board. Did the plumber come to find out why the water’s not getting through to the sheep trough?’
‘Yes, apparently there was a leak about ten yards out, but he’s fixed it, so no bucket line tomorrow. Tell Shelley I thought I’d make a salad for tea that we can eat outside with the weather being so nice. The lettuces are lovely and crisp and the early-ripened tomatoes are as sweet as peaches. I made some bread, tell her, and I was thinking about baking a cake but then I thought you might have bought one.’
‘Try six,’ Jack responded wryly. ‘We’ve also got a mountain of cheese, a ton of different pâtés, half a Wiltshire ham and that’s just for starters. Nate wants to know if Perry’s all right?’ he added, referring to his brother’s two-year-old son, who loved nothing more than being number one assistant to his grandpa.
‘Fast asleep on the dog’s sofa,’ David replied. ‘The dog’s on the floor. Oh, before I forget, Giles came over. He seemed a bit worried about something. He wants you to call when you get back.’
‘Did he mention what it was?’ Jack asked curiously.
‘No. I thought maybe he needed a vet, but that’s not what he said.’
‘OK, I’ll try him now, and if I don’t get an answer …’ He broke off as the pips went and, remembering he didn’t have any more coins, he pushed open the heavy door and returned to the car.
‘Mm,’ Shelley muttered after he told her that Giles wanted them to be in touch.
Jack glanced at her, puzzled, until, realizing she didn’t want to say anything in front of the children, he put the car back in gear and started up a lively rendition of ‘One Man Went to Mow’ as they continued the drive home.
Something was wrong. He could feel it now; Shelley had just got there before him.
By the time they turned into the dirt track that wound through many fields and a bluebell wood to Deerwood Farm the girls were half asleep in the back, but Shelley still didn’t voice her concerns about Giles’s visit. Instead she kept them to herself, hoping she was wrong, and gazed around at their undulating patchwork of fields that stretched in both directions as far as the eye could see. Some were dotted with fat, woolly sheep and their fast-growing lambs, while many of the gates between hedges were wide open to allow them to roam freely. She and Jack had worked harder than they ever had since coming here, and she was more than happy to know that they would continue to. Even the winter months were fulfilling in their way, especially when the lambing season got going for there was something truly exhilarating about helping their ewes to bring new little creatures into the world. It seemed to bond the family even tighter together and make the daft and lovable flock even more a part of it as time passed.
Less enjoyable at that time of year was the pruning of fruit trees and brambled hedgerows in freezing winds, and poring over accounts that never added up. However, there was always the roaring fire to come home to and gather around on stormy nights, and an endless number of games to play and movies to watch now they had a new VCR. (It had taken Jack almost a week to figure out how to connect it, and his normally mild temper had been tested many times since by the machine’s refusal to obey the handbook.)
‘Is that Giles’s new Range Rover?’ Shelley asked, as they crossed the humpback bridge at the end of the drive, and the farmhouse in all its summer glory came into view. Its many windows and doors had been carefully repaired, refitted and painted a gleaming white, while the centuries-old grey stone walls had been livened up by demossing and repointing. The old, Grade II listed roofs now lay snugly under the protection of the brand-new non-leaky red tiles that Jack and Nate had helped to lay. It was, in her opinion, a dream home that always seemed to smile when they came into view, as though wanting them to know how thrilled it was with the rose-covered porch they’d installed around the white front door, and the colourful beds Shelley was bringing on each side of it. The fact that it overlooked a scruffy, cluttered yard full of potholes, tractors and all sorts of rusted paraphernalia simply honoured its status as a farmhouse. As did the barns that faced it, and the creaking iron gates that opened into the fields.
‘Yep, that looks like it,’ Jack murmured, as they pulled up next to the Range Rover. ‘Seems like he couldn’t wait for us to ring.’ There were several other cars around too, which wasn’t a big surprise, for over the past three years Deerwood had gained a reputation for being a place where everyone was welcome. Hardly a day passed without someone dropping in, or ringing up to ask if they could come. Jack, with his irrepressible good humour and eagerness to listen and laugh at stories long and tall, was always at the centre of things, while Shelley kept the food and booze coming, or hit on someone for advice on whatever farm problem was bothering her that day.
As they came to a stop the children woke up and leapt out of the cars, ready to start unloading the squealing piglets and prize-winning Milady. Dodgy wasted no time in coming to help sort things out, and was ably assisted by Nate and Kat, while Jack and Shelley went into the house.
After the blazing sunlight outside, the flagstone entrance hall where a newly constructed oak staircase rose between the kitchen and family room seemed dark at first, but Shelley’s eyes soon adjusted to find the place empty of people, but nevertheless welcoming. It was stuffed full of the charm and quirkiness that she loved. There was a brand-new Aga now, black, powerful and all-dominant in a vast inglenook fireplace where copper pots and pans hung from a thick wooden lintel that was almost as high as the ceiling. The battered rectory table at the centre of the room was, they’d been told at a local flea market, as old as the house, and had once belonged to a duke. As if they’d ever know if that were true, and as if they’d care. It suited them perfectly, as did all the other second-hand furniture scattered about the place that some would call antiques, but they considered new old friends. A magnificent triple-fronted beechwood sideboard that Shelley had found under a pile of junk in the main barn and lovingly restored stood against one wall. Its convenient surface had become resting places for various keys, animal treats, junk mail, stray jigsaw pieces, hair combs and even a couple of baby teeth. In pride of place, in a specially constructed niche above the sideboard, were the precious bronze figurines that belonged together as surely as if they were actually attached. Shelley often recalled the night she and Jack had first placed them there, almost reverently. Then they’d danced, romantically and effortlessly, to Nat King Cole’s ‘Unforgettable’, as though they were continuing the fluidity of movement the sculptor had captured.
‘That’s my mum and dad,’ Hanna would often say if anyone asked about the figures, and neither Jack nor Shelley corrected her, for in a way it did feel like them.
Hearing voices in the back garden, Shelley followed Jack out of the kitchen stable door onto the cracked and weedy stone patio where David was sharing a beer with Giles at a large wooden table under a dilapidated gazebo. There was still plenty of work to be done out here, but it didn’t stop them enjoying the rambling garden with its ragged hedges and overgrown shrubs, or the pond at the far end (home to the ducks), and the various climbing frames, swings and slides for the kids.
‘Everything all right?’ Jack asked, grabbing a handful of sheep nuts as Steven and Petunia trotted from the shade of a weeping willow and across the lawn to greet him.
‘I don’t know,’ Giles replied gravely. ‘I’ve sent a couple of my lads to check up on it, but I’m still waiting to hear.’ He nodded towards the walkie-talkie that would connect him to his farmhands as soon as they had some news to share.
‘Is it travellers?’ Shelley asked worriedly, realizing that the extra vehicles out front must belong to Giles’s