Читать книгу A Home On Bramble Hill: A feel-good, romantic comedy to make you smile - Holly Martin - Страница 12

Chapter Five

Joy had made for the tallest peak in the range of hills. The one that looked like a face. Old Woman White, her dad used to call it or White Lady Hill to everyone else. It was a good long walk, but Darcy had enjoyed it. Joy knew, as she approached the side that held the hooked nose, she would have excellent views of the valley below. There would be the River Quail, which was nothing more than a tiny stream in this part of the country, it would curl lazily through Hollyhock Woods, down Blueberry Hill and most importantly straight past Blueberry Farm. It was the farm she was more interested in seeing than anything else. She hadn’t been brave enough to go and visit it yet. But when she did she would give the man that owned it a piece of her mind. For now she would settle for looking at it. Maybe she would sit for a while and remember.

Her dad had said that she should never look back, that dwelling on the past was a mistake. He said that time was well spent planning for the future, but more importantly it should be spent living for now, enjoying the moment, because you could never go back and change things, so there was no point wishing you could. She wondered if he would be disappointed that she had come to the farm that day, if he would be shaking his head over her plans.

As the farm came into view, she realised she had been holding her breath. She stood looking at it for a moment, then sat down to indulge in the past.

*

Finn had easily spotted her about a thousand yards ahead, her red hair flying like a scarlet banner behind her. He had followed her, slowly closing the gap between them, as she had walked with purpose across the range. As he drew closer she finally stopped and sat down, staring out on the view below. He approached, but now he was here he didn’t know whether to talk to her about the police or not. Surely it was best for both of them if he just kept walking. He really didn’t need to be there for her, or to know the reason for that sad, faraway look on her face. He would just keep on walking.

‘You see that farm down there Darcy, that’s my farm.’ Joy pointed down towards Blueberry Farm. Intrigued at the lie more than anything else, he moved to stand near her side.

She looked up, clearly embarrassed at being caught talking to her dog, and annoyed to see Finn was the one to disturb her, she moved to get up.

‘No don’t go on my account, I was just enjoying the view. Surely we can be civil enough to enjoy the same view at the same time.’

She nodded reluctantly and he sat next to her. They sat in awkward silence for a while, probably while she wondered if he had some sort of split personality disorder. He’d been scrubbing her doorstep this morning, then he refused to smile at her when she had smiled at him, and now he was sitting down next to her as if they were best friends. He was confused by it himself.

‘I… couldn’t help overhearing you telling Darcy that Blueberry Farm was yours. I know the person that actually owns it and you look nothing like him.’

He watched her jaw clench but she didn’t say anything.

‘It’s an odd thing to lie to your dog.’

Her eyes flashed. ‘It was my farm. I was born there, lived there till I was eighteen. I still consider it my home, even though it belongs to some arsehole now.’

‘Oh.’ Oh crap, thought the arsehole. The woman that had been trying to buy him out – the woman that had made repeated calls, sent many letters and emails asking him to sell his farm to her, the woman he had largely ignored for the last few months – was sitting next to him. ‘Why did you leave if you still consider it to be home?’

‘I…’ She stared back down at the farm, pulling her knees up to her chest. ‘I didn’t have much choice.’ She bit her lip, clearly considering whether to tell him or not, and every part of his brain was screaming at him to get away before she unburdened herself with her story. By the look on her face it wasn’t going to be a happy one. He was trying to ignore the need to put his arm round her and comfort her right now and he hadn’t even heard the story yet. If she started crying, that would be it, he’d be lost for good.

‘My parents died, they were killed in a car accident when I was nine.’

And there it was, he was lost, beyond the point of no return.

‘My brother raised me after they died, but there was seemingly very little money. Alex didn’t know a lot about farming, I was always the one that followed Mum and Dad around, asking loads of questions about the dairy cows. Alex was always building stuff, robots, animatronics. He did a course on it at college and was set to go to university to study special effects in film.

When they died, he had no clue how to carry on what they had started and though he had a part time job it wasn’t enough to pay the bills. I know, in the first few months after they died, he started working more hours, though he was always there to take me to school and pick me up at the end of the day. I know that he was worried about money, I heard him on the phone talking about how he was going to keep a roof over our heads. Slowly, over the years, he sold off pieces of land to neighbouring farms, sold the cattle, the crops, the machinery. The only thing we had left in the end was the farmhouse.

I found out that he had sold everything when I was about fifteen, after I had spent the last six years tramping over ground that wasn’t mine, stroking the cows that were no longer mine. I was so angry that he had practically sold everything without telling me. The other farmers never said anything, even when I’d see them working in the field I assumed they were doing it to help Alex. I was so stupid.’

‘You were a child.’

‘A child that had no idea how much things cost. I just took it for granted that there would always be electricity in our farm, that there would always be food on the table. And there was. Only looking back now I realise how hard Alex must have worked to ensure that.

When I was eighteen I applied to go to university and Alex sat me down and told me there was no money to do it. Tuition fees, rent in halls of residence, food – all that would cost money that he simply didn’t have. He told me of his dreams to go to university too, that these dreams were put on hold when our parents died. He told me that if we sold the farm, there would be enough money left over to pay for us both to go to university, to pay our fees and rent and maybe even a small deposit on a house for us once we came back out the other side. As much as I wanted to go to university I wanted my home more, I wanted to live there for the rest of my life, raise my children there. But I knew that Alex’s life had been put on hold for the last nine years, that he should have travelled the world, gone to university, got the job of his dreams… and he couldn’t because of me. As I was eighteen, I knew he should start living his life again. We sold the farm, but I vowed one day I would come back and buy it.

I’ve lived in many places since then, a few months here, a year there, but nowhere has been my home. I don’t know what I’m looking for if I’m honest, it’s just a feeling I suppose, a silly sentimental feeling.’

‘You spend eighteen years in the same place, nothing else is going to compare to it. It’s not silly at all.’

‘I was going to buy it back last year when it came up for sale but I dithered. I didn’t want to take a step back. It felt somehow that I wasn’t moving forward but still living in the past. But I decided that even if I wasn’t going to live in it, I wanted to own it. It’s belonged to the family for over seven generations and it feels wrong that it now belongs to someone else. Unfortunately I was too late, and despite very generous offers to the idiot that’s now living there, he won’t budge. Sorry if the idiot is your friend.’