Appleby Farm (25 page)

I clutched at my heart. ‘Appleby Farm,’ I gasped.

‘Hey, Green Eyes.’

‘Charlie!’

I sat up straight in my chair as love and guilt played ping-pong somewhere above my head.

I hadn’t phoned him to invite him up as Lizzie had suggested. In fact, I hadn’t phoned him at all. I’d been totally immersed in my own little bubble, bouncing from one job to the next. Some – like choosing the lovely glossy tiles for the new loos – were fun, others – like booking a visit from the environmental health department – less so. I’d hardly had time to think, let alone talk.

And now he’d phoned me.

‘Listen, this is just a quick call, I’m on duty and I might have to dash off at any minute.’

‘My hero,’ I laughed. ‘Well, it’s lovely to hear from you while it lasts.’

His voice was sexy and boyish and full of energy. There was the sound of men laughing somewhere in the distance behind him and I imagined the other fire officers teasing him for making a call to his girlfriend at work.

‘There’s a charity barbecue here at the fire station on Saturday night. There’s a band playing, a few stalls, raffle and, you know, the usual. Vic, our cook, is doing the food, so it should be good. So what do you say? Fancy it? You could come home for the weekend?’

My heart sank. It sounded such fun and I could tell by his voice that he really, really wanted me to say yes. But I couldn’t possibly go.

The builders were working over the weekend, digging the new drains for the plumbing in the tea rooms. I had to be on site to check everything was in the right place.

On the other hand, I hadn’t seen him for weeks. Perhaps I could travel down on Saturday, go to the barbecue, then we could spend the whole of Sunday in bed together having fun and only getting up to make toast like we used to, when fun was my main goal in life. But now I had new goals. I had a business to get up and running.

What to do …

‘Freya?’

I pictured the disappointment on Charlie’s face and suddenly the miles between us seemed impossible to bridge. If I could just reach out and touch him, feel his hand in mine, this would be so much easier.

‘I can’t,’ I blurted, feeling absolutely wretched. ‘I’d love to but I just can’t.’

‘Right.’ Flat, final and not a hint of his previous good humour.

‘Charlie, I’m sorry …’

I told him all about my opening deadline, the builders and the drains, and how if I didn’t comply with three thousand regulations the environmental health inspector wouldn’t give me a certificate. To be fair to the poor love, he did ‘mmm’ and ‘I see’ quite a bit while I was justifying my position as World’s Worst Girlfriend.

‘I get it, Freya. You’re doing a brilliant job. But please come, you can’t work every day of the week.’ He sighed.

‘That’s what farmers do.’

‘You’re not a farmer,’ said Charlie, ‘you’re my girl. Who I love. And miss. And if I don’t see you soon I’ll have completely forgotten what you look like.’

‘I’m exactly the same. Only with frizzier hair at the moment because of all the rain,’ I said softly, willing him to smile again. ‘And I love you.’

Charlie sighed down the phone. The seconds ticked by and I became increasingly desperate for him to say something.

‘Look, I’ll try to get back soon, or you could come up to me. It’ll only be for six months.’

‘Six months?’ he said, sounding shocked.

Oh God. I hadn’t told him, had I?

I was all swollen-tongued with nerves but I explained about Uncle Arthur and Auntie Sue’s retirement plan for the end of the year, adding that it might get cut short if they sold the farm to Julian’s evil investor but that, for me, would be a travesty.

And when I stopped talking there was nothing. Not a sound from him.

‘You don’t want to come home, do you?’ he said eventually. And bless him, his tone wasn’t even harsh or mad. It was just sad.

I thought about it for a moment.
Home.
That was the problem. Kingsfield had never really felt like home. It was a nice place and all that, and of course it had its attractions – Charlie and Ollie, Anna, Tilly, Gemma and all the Shenton Road Café crew.

Be honest, Freya. Tell him the truth.

‘I do want to see you, Charlie. But … remember when we were walking around the lake and I said that I felt more alive when I’m here?’ I began.

‘Yeah, I do. And I suppose I knew then, really.’

‘Knew what?’ My heart was pounding, as if it guessed that something really bad was about to happen, even though my brain was in total denial.

‘Me here, you there. It was never going to work for long.’

‘That’s not true,’ I gasped. Although even as I said it I wondered if I was just kidding myself. ‘Charlie? Are …’ My mouth suddenly went dry and I croaked, ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

‘Babe, I think about you all the time. “I must remember to tell Freya,” I say to myself. Or I’ll walk past the café and automatically look for you. Or I’ll sniff that T-shirt that you wore in bed the night before you went to Paris.’

‘Oh, Charlie, you are a sweetie,’ I said, remembering the night I’d spent in his flat before going to see my parents. That was before Appleby Farm had got under my skin like it had now, though. Now I barely had time to think about anything other than the tea rooms. An idea occurred to me suddenly.

‘Look, what about tonight? We could each drive halfway and meet in the middle. At least then—’

‘No, Freya, I can’t do this long-distance thing,’ Charlie continued softly. ‘Between your crazy hours up there and my shifts in Kingsfield, we’re never going to have time for each other. I’m sorry, babe, but it doesn’t work – for me or for you. So yes, I think it’s best if we stop seeing us other. Because I think deep down you’re where you want to be and there’s nothing I can say or do that will change it.’

I hadn’t realized I was crying until I felt the tickle of a teardrop on my chin.

‘I’m so sorry, Charlie,’ I gasped. ‘You’re right: I need to be here at the moment.’

‘Hey, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Life just got in the way for us. Two different lives, in two different places. I still stand by everything I said before; I’m proud of you, Freya. Keep me posted, won’t you?’

We said our goodbyes and did all the promising to keep in touch stuff and all the time I was shouting at myself inwardly to stop it, to not let him go, to argue that we could make it work and that six months, in the grand scheme of things, was
nothing.
And that this was crazy!

And then he was gone. I put the phone down and stared at it. Did that really just happen?

I laid my head down on the desk and prepared myself for a huge sob-fest but the door opened and Goat waded in without knocking, brandishing a can of spray paint. ‘Where do you want your sockets, then?’

I spent a good hour with Goat, shuffling from wall to wall and spraying a dot of paint where I guessed I’d need an electricity point (two dots for a double) and if he noticed me sniffling every so often, he didn’t mention it. It was very soothing, actually, and by the time I emerged into the yard it was eleven o’clock and the tears and the rain had stopped.

No point trying to work on the menu now, it would soon be lunchtime, courtesy of Auntie Sue’s gluten-free experiments. There was, however, time for a restorative ride on Skye, so I took myself off to the stables.

I was still some way away when I heard the unmistakeable tones of Lizzie belting out a grunty version of ‘Don’t Cha’.

Lizzie was sponging Skye’s body with a sweet-smelling lavender wash, swinging her hips to the chorus.

I coughed and she clutched at her throat.

‘Jeepers creepers, Freya! Hey, what’s with the swollen eyes? Hayfever? Do you want an antihistamine? I’ve got one in my bag, somewhere.’

She dropped her sponge back in the bucket as I held my arms out and started to cry.

‘I need a hug.’

Lizzie was a great hugger. In fact, even Skye got in on the act, pushing her brown and white splodged nose in between the two of us as I relayed the whole story. And even though I was sobbing again, it felt nice to be able to talk to someone about it.

After a few minutes I noticed that Lizzie wasn’t breathing.

‘Lizzie?’ I disentangled myself from her arms, which I’d just realized had got quite tight.

She screwed up her face and fanned her hand in front of her eyes.

‘We’re doomed,’ she said in a strangled voice.

‘Who?’ I held on to her shoulders, a bit bewildered.

‘Me and Ross.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if you and Charlie can’t make it long distance, how can we?’

My eyes darted to Calf’s Close, the field behind us, where Ross was mending fences both literally and metaphorically.

Yesterday there had been a bit of an incident.

At about nine o’clock Harry had raced into the yard while I was collecting the eggs. I’d beamed, waved and put my egg basket down. He called in most days for something or other and I enjoyed our chats. We generally shared a sparky bit of banter at each other’s expense but there was always a more tender moment, too, when he’d ask me for news on Julian or how Uncle Arthur was and whether there was anything he could do to help.

But yesterday he hadn’t stopped to make small talk.

‘Is your uncle in?’ he’d shouted, jumping out of his pick-up truck, looking all serious.

I’d wiped the smile off my face, sharpish. ‘He’s having a rest. Can I help?’

There wasn’t much I didn’t know about the detail of the farm now. I knew what was in each field, I knew which crops had been sprayed with what and I knew the plans for harvesting. I had an up-to-date file of all the Herefords’ details and I could lay my hands on Gloria and Gaynor’s milk yield in a nanosecond.

Harry obviously hadn’t thought so, though. He’d stared at me, a glimmer of a smile playing at his lips. ‘I’m sure you can. Your cows have escaped and they’re running free on Lovedale Lane. Can you give me a hand to round them up?’

Ah. So maybe I didn’t know how to do everything.

‘I’ll get Uncle Arthur,’ I’d said hastily.

In hindsight I wished I’d videoed the carry-on – we’d have made a fortune on one of those funny film-clips programmes. One cow had ended up on the village petrol station forecourt, two had trampled through Hilary-in-the-post-office’s garden, we found one paddling in the beck and a couple of others had, very honourably, turned themselves in at the handling pen. We had all helped to round them up but Harry had been our hero: calm in a crisis and totally unfazed by holding up the traffic as he drove a line of panicky cows up the middle of Lovedale Lane back to the farm.

Anyway, Ross had spent this morning going round the village making good the damage, and, at this precise moment, was only a very
short
distance away from Lizzie mending the bit of wall through which the herd had made their escape.

‘Yeah, I know he’s there now,’ she said, pressing a finger under each eye to blot her tears. ‘But come September he’ll be miles away at uni in Shropshire. For a
year
! Surrounded by clever types. He’ll forget all about me.’

‘He won’t,’ I cried. ‘Besides, it’s a student year, don’t forget. They have their own separate calendars. Their months are like one of our weeks. In fact, their holidays are longer than their terms. And he’ll spend all his holidays with you, I know he will, and weekends probably.’

‘Do you think?’ she hiccupped.

She gazed over at Ross through tear-filled eyes and I put my arm around her.

‘Deffo. Anyway, you’re not doomed because … because …’ I gulped in some air and Lizzie blinked at me, waiting for me to finish.

I’d been trying to pin down my thoughts since I got off the phone from Charlie and they’d kept escaping me. Suddenly, there they were, laid out in a row in front of me like a batch of Auntie Sue’s perfectly formed scones.

‘Charlie and I are different,’ I said, holding up a finger as Lizzie opened her mouth to object. ‘But you and Ross are the same.’

‘Huh?’ Lizzie frowned.

‘Think about it,’ I said. ‘You love farmers, he loves farms and you both want to live in The Lakes. You two are on the same path.’

‘True.’ She nodded.

Whereas Charlie and I, I realized with a sharp jolt, whilst we had a great time together, were on totally separate journeys. We were like something astrological – meteorites or asteroids perhaps – that had collided, sparked along together for a while and then bounced off on completely different trajectories. It was bound to happen … written in the stars, even.

At the end of the day I wasn’t Charlie’s perfect match and he wasn’t mine. I wanted a home in the country, filled with my own children; he wanted to stay in Kingsfield and was content with Ollie.

And these things were deal-breakers. For both of us.

On some level, I’d always known this and suddenly it all made sense. He was a great friend and I wanted it to stay that way. Maybe in the future when I didn’t feel quite so emotional about it, he could be the sort of big brother that I’d always wanted.

‘Hey, Lizzie, there’s something I’ve got to do. I’ll see you later.’

I leaned back against the damp bench in the orchard, circled my tense shoulders and read through the letter one more time. It had taken me three attempts to get the tone right, but I thought I’d finally cracked it.

Dear Charlie,

The six months I spent in Kingsfield were great. The four months I spent in Kingsfield
with you
were amazing.

I am a lucky girl to have had you as my boyfriend since Christmas. You are a wonderful human being, a gorgeous man and a fantastic role model for Ollie.

Today when you ended our relationship it felt like a piece of my heart was being torn away. But I just want you to know that I think you did the right thing. A kind and brave thing. And I’ll always thank you for that.

We had fun, didn’t we?

Love and hugs

Freya xx

PS I hope you still think of me when your Outdoor Girl tomatoes are ready x

I still felt sad and lonely, and I knew it would be a while before I stopped missing him and before I stopped thinking ‘ooh, I must remember to tell Charlie’ whenever something funny happened, but I felt better. I folded the letter and sealed the envelope.