Out of Step (17 page)

‘Thrushton Home Farm. Tom’s an old friend of mine. He’s lent me his chainsaw too. His wife’s ill apparently,
poor thing, so I had to hear all about her health and her forthcoming operation next month, or I would have been here much earlier. He’s a lovely man, but a terrible bletherer.’

Nell smiled. ‘And will it be difficult to fix the roof?’

‘Shouldn’t think so. You just have to take off a vertical row of tiles, which exposes a kind of ladder of battens, and then you simply walk up them one by one as you lift the tiles out of the way, to reach the skewwhiff or damaged ones. I’ve done it plenty of times before. There should be some spare tiles in a pile behind the woodstore, unless of course you’ve gentrified that area too?’

‘Oh no, I haven’t begun on the outside. Haven’t had time.’
Gentrified?
‘Biscuit?’

‘Thanks.’

Nell watched Rob over the top of her mug, still wondering why he had really come, and hoping he would explain without her having to ask. But he seemed more interested in practicalities. ‘Shouldn’t the roof be lined under the tiles?’ she asked eventually, remembering her survey.

‘Ideally yes, but it’s a pricey job and there isn’t usually a problem, except when it snows, which it virtually never does here.’

‘That reminds me – I found a sledge in the woodstore. Do you want it back?’

‘Not yet,’ Rob said. ‘I’ll wait. The ten-acre over there would be brilliant for sledging.’ He gestured to the east. ‘I’ve always thought Josh would love it.’

‘What’s happened about the children, then?’

‘Oh, the Mad Cow’s had another of her turns and has booked herself into this hugely expensive private loony bin for a rest-cure. And of course there’s no way I can have them living with me now, so the Social Services in their officiousness have decreed they can stay at home with a “friend” of Cassie’s to look after them. I even offered to take them to a hotel for the time being, but no,
“too disruptive” they said.’ He laughed shortly. ‘But I’ve scotched one of Cassie’s nastier little schemes.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. The friend is called Mic, and she wanted me to assume it was short for Michael, so I’d be jealous! I did believe it for a week or so too.’

‘But you weren’t jealous?’

‘Do me a favour! It was Rosie who let on, bless her. I’m convinced her mother told them both not to tell me – can you imagine that? – but when I asked her if she liked Mick, she said,’ Rob put on a little high voice, ‘“Yeth theeth nithe.” So then of course I knew.’

‘But you haven’t met her?’

‘Not yet. Once I knew the kids were happy with her, it didn’t seem to be so urgent. I may go round tomorrow, if I can.’ He put his mug down and got to his feet. ‘Right. Point me at the tiles.’

Nell held the bottom of the ladder and watched as Rob sorted out her roof, pushing the errant tiles back into place so that they hung firmly from their battens and overlapped each other properly at their edges. The tile that had slipped down into the gutter had a broken peg at its top, so he threw that one away and used a spare. It was all done very quickly. Then he cut the fallen ash tree in the turnaround into logs and piled up the brash for burning later on. The saw screamed and smoked but did the job very efficiently.

‘Can you stay for lunch?’ Nell asked when she could hear herself speak. She threw the last branch on to the bonfire.

‘Better not. I’ve arranged to help my site owner clear up, in return for a temporary bed at his house, and the promise of a brand-new caravan with steel guy-ropes.’ Rob grinned.

‘I was going to ask you where you were staying. I suppose you wouldn’t like to … lodge here …?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, there’s a spare room. I just thought…’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Rob said. ‘But thanks anyway.’

‘Right.’ She wanted to say something else to cover her discomfiture, but couldn’t remember what it was she had been meaning to ask him. ‘Do you know where the field poppies came from?’ she said instead. ‘After all, they’re weeds of arable land, and this isn’t corn country; yet the cottage was surrounded by them last summer. They were lovely.’

‘I’m afraid it’s a cheat,’ Rob admitted. ‘We sowed a packet of wild flower seeds, and they were the only ones that survived.’

‘Oh, I see.’

She helped him to tie the ladder back onto his roof rack, and watched as he drove away. She remembered now what it was she had been going to ask him about, and remembered also why she had decided not to bother. The cracks in her walls had all but closed up again; there was no need.

Nell decided to refuse any offers of help from him in future. She could do without feeling like this. She wished above all things that she hadn’t weakened, and invited him to stay. She remembered wryly a notice she once saw in a bar –
Please do not ask for credit, as a refusal often offends
. Too right!

Rob drove away, cursing himself for having been so brusque with Nell. Why did he always have to act like that? Anyone would think he was afraid of women. It would actually have been very pleasant to stay with her, and maybe to have helped her with other problems. It would also have provided an ideal place for a day out with his children. She had only invited him to be a short-term lodger, for heaven’s sake! He’d been unnecessarily cautious, as ever.

The next day, Sunday, he went over to Boxcombe to take Josh and Rosie out for a few hours, possibly for an afternoon walk, but he was unprepared for what he found at Cassie’s house. A short woman, with dyed pink hair and too many earrings, opened the door.

‘Yeah?’

‘You must be Mic,’ he said.

‘Who wants to know?’

‘I’m Rob Hayhoe.’

‘Oh, right.’ She was staring at his forehead.

‘I’ve come to see my children.’ He felt self-conscious about his bruises, but there was no concealing them.

‘You should’ve phoned,’ Mic said. ‘No… wait… you got a car?’

‘Transport, yes.’

‘Great. Then you can take us. We was goin’ on the bus, but it’s ever such a hassle.’

‘Where to?’

‘The Odeon. There’s some kids’ cartoon stuff on, and I promised Gav and the other two.’

‘Daddy!’ Rosie pushed past Mic and rushed into his arms. ‘We’re going to thee thome pictures. Want you to come too!’

‘Hello, piglet. How are you?’ He lifted her high, so that their faces were on a level. ‘I thought we’d all go for a walk and see what we can find.’

‘No,’ said Josh, coming out too with his coat on. ‘Me and Gav and Mic’s going to a film. You and Rosie can go for a boring walk if you want. You should’ve come yesterday!’

‘Hurt,’ Rosie said, reaching out and touching her father’s face.

‘Yes. My caravan got pushed over in the storm. We could go and see the wreck if you like, Josh.’

‘What for?’

‘Well… just so you can see how powerful the wind can be.’

‘Can’t,’ Josh said. ‘We’re going to this film. I
told
you.’

‘You should’ve phoned,’ Mic said again. ‘So, you goin’ to take us, or what?’

‘I don’t seem to have much choice.’ Rob opened the doors of the Land Rover ungraciously, and they all climbed in. Gavin and Josh scrambled in together and commandeered the bench seats in the back. Rosie sat on the small middle seat in the front, with her hand in Mic’s, and seemed entirely at home there. Rob glanced at them from time to time as they drove along – this unknown, clearly unsuitable, female and his precious daughter – and was jealous of their rapport. He tried to talk over his shoulder to Josh, but the boy was too interested in competing with Gavin.

‘My feet are bigger’n yours,’ he was boasting.

‘But I’m taller’n you,’ Gavin said.

‘My mum says I’ll most probly catch up and overtake you.’

‘I’ll always be older’n you though.’

‘Six months is nothing!’

‘Oh yes it is.’

‘Oh no it isn’t!’

‘Shut it, you two, awright?’ Mic growled, over her shoulder.

Rob’s resolve hardened. When they got to the cinema, he stopped on a double yellow line on the opposite side of the road, and they all got out. Rob took Josh and Rosie firmly by the hand as if to cross. Mic was ahead of him with Gavin. ‘Right then,’ Rob called to Mic. ‘Enjoy the film, won’t you? I’ll bring these two back around six.’ Then he opened the rear door and bundled his children back in again, Josh first.

‘Hey!’ Mic shouted, halfway across the busy road, and already committed. ‘You can’t do that!’

‘Oh, but I can.’ Rob nipped smartly round to the driver’s side, got in, and drove off without bothering
about seatbelts.

‘It’s not
fair,’
Josh wailed, fighting the child-locked back door without success. ‘I
want
to see the FILM!’ He began hitting the back of his father’s head and shoulders with small fists.

Rosie started to cry too. ‘I want Mic. I
want Mic.’

Rob drove with one hand, fending off the blows with the other. ‘Stop it, Josh! You’ll get us all killed.’

‘I
hate
you,’ Josh cried, throwing himself backwards on to one of the seats in despair. ‘Everything’s
all your fault!’

I adore snow, Nell thought as she looked out of her window one Sunday morning. I’m glad Rob was wrong!

It was now mid-December and snow had arrived overnight, all six inches of it, without warning. It lay sparkling white under the morning sun, its surface still shifting from time to time in the brisk north wind, as unstable as a sand dune. Nell went out in it, penetrating its virgin purity with her wellies and leaving ugly tracks. There was a four-foot drift right across the door of the woodstore, so she was obliged to dig her way in with a spade to get her fuel for the day ahead. She wished, not for the first time, that the damned stove would stay in overnight and not smoke so much when she first lit it. Getting one’s energy from a renewable resource was all very well, and wonderfully PC but it was also self-evidently a health hazard, apart from being bloody hard work … She looked across at the river, and saw long sheets of ice by the low-tide channel where the outgoing fresh water had frozen at its edges. The mudflats were covered in snow too. Nell’s hands, even in their woolly mittens, felt numb with the cold. She put them under her armpits and hugged them, looking about her at the transformed scenery and deciding which elements of it she would paint, once she was warm again and fed.

She wondered whether the paper shop would have
delivered her
Independent on Sunday
as usual. She would walk up to her box by the top road later on to find out. There were no sounds of distant traffic. Maybe everyone and everything had been snowed up – or should that be down? – to a standstill. Nell smiled gleefully and, gathering up logs, began ferrying them to the basket in her kitchen. The telephone rang as she was finishing her breakfast scrambled eggs. ‘Hello?’

‘It’s Rob Hayhoe. Have you got snow?’

‘Masses of it, yes. Oh, I suppose you want your sledge back?’

‘Is that a problem?’

‘Well, no, I just fancied trying it out first, if that’s all right? It’s years since I went tobogganing.’

‘When I was about twelve,’ Rob said, ‘I made myself some skis by nailing an old pair of cut-off wellingtons onto a couple of planks.’

Nell had to smile. ‘And did they work?’

‘Not really. They didn’t curve up at the front, you see, so they dug into each passing molehill and I went arse over tit every time. But I persevered, and made a special slide down the field by our house, and that worked a charm. I remember I won a quid from Bert in a bet that I couldn’t keep upright all the way down. I’ve never forgotten it, because the slide turned to ice and lasted for days after all the proper snow had melted.’

‘I’d like to have seen that.’ Why is it, Nell thought, that every time I get fed up with Rob, he goes and redeems himself by saying something endearing, and then I want to like him all over again? Well, this time I’m definitely not falling for it. ‘Do you want to collect your sledge today then?’ she asked. ‘Are the roads passable?’

‘They’ll be fine by midday. The gritters and salters are out in force. I’ll come straight after lunch, if that’s OK? That’ll give you the whole morning to use it first.’

But Nell didn’t go tobogganing. Somehow she couldn’t
bring herself to go alone. It would have seemed almost as pathetic as ballroom dancing with a chair. Instead, she sat at her window and did quick pencil sketches of the river before the light changed.

Rob arrived at 1.15, dressed for the Arctic in boots, parka and woolly hat, and with his bruises all but gone. They went together to the woodstore to collect the sledge. ‘It’s very dusty,’ Nell said. ‘I’ll just get something to brush it down.’

‘I thought you were going to try it out.’

‘It felt too silly, all by myself,’ she confessed.

‘Well… would you like to have a go with me?’

Nell barely hesitated. The lure of sledging was too strong. ‘I’d have to put something on to keep out the cold.’

‘Go on then.’

Nell found her red fleece hat with earflaps, her bright blue waterproof jacket, some khaki overtrousers, green wellingtons, and her multicoloured stripey mittens, and donned them all. ‘How do I look?’

‘Like Noddy,’ Rob said, smiling broadly. Then he pulled the sledge up the lane to the top, walking in his Land Rover tracks, which ploughed through several transverse drifts.

‘Which is the ten-acre?’ Nell asked, puffing behind him.

He led her to the long field which sloped down to the woods by the river on the east side of her lane. Then they sat on the sledge together, Rob at the back using his feet as brakes and digging his boots into the snow until Nell, holding on to the rope and with both feet on the rail, was safely seated.

‘Hold tight,’ Rob cried, putting both arms around her and letting go of the ground. He fitted his boots next to hers on the rail, and gripped her legs with his knees as though he were riding a charger. Nell felt all too aware of his closeness. The sledge gathered speed on the steepest
bit of the hillside and fairly flew downwards. She whooped with delight and felt her steamy breath snatched away in the cold air.

The snow was dry and granular, and thick enough to hide any blemishes on the broad complexion of the great field. The surface grains were still blowing up from time to time in the biggest gusts of wind, and settling at its margins in any available lee, building new flawless curving drifts. The trees at the bottom were white on their windward side and black on the other. From here the river showed black in the middle, and white at its frozen edges. Everything in this monochrome landscape was quiet and motionless, biding its time. No birds flew overhead. No mammals sought shelter behind the leaky hedges. There weren’t even any tracks.