Summer At Willow Tree Farm

Then her belly added insult to insanity by rumbling loudly enough to be heard in Dorset.

Art’s lips kicked up on one side. The tiny suggestion of a smile on his hard, taciturn face made her lungs seize – which only served to remind her she had several bruised ribs.

She hauled in a painful breath as he left the room and captured a lungful of his scent – soap, sweat and motor oil. The warm fuzzy delusion in the pit of her empty stomach returned.

She dragged herself out of the bed and headed to the door Art had come out of, to find a newly painted en suite bathroom, complete with light blue enamelled tiling and a pile of brand-new extra-fluffy towels.

Staring at her smudged face in the mirror above the sink, she splashed cold water on her cheeks.

Step away from the edge, Princess Drama. One almost compliment and an overdue apology does not make Art Dalton less of a dick.

Hearing the click of the bedroom door, she switched off the tap and returned to the bedroom with a towel in her hands.

‘Ellie, should you be out of bed?’ Her mother placed a dinner tray laden with food, a pitcher of lemonade and a small vase with a bunch of wild flowers on the dresser.

Ellie’s stomach growled again, the sight of the wild flowers making her want to weep.

What are you doing, Mum? We missed the chance for our big mother–daughter moment nineteen years ago?

‘I’m fine,’ she said.

Dee simply smiled. ‘OK, but you should eat.’ She took the plate of food off the tray. The delicious aroma of roasted garlic had Ellie’s stomach protesting even more. ‘And then get some rest.’

Ellie dumped the towel on the bed. ‘That looks delicious, but I need to go check on Josh first.’ And make sure Art’s daughter wasn’t busy encouraging her son into any other near-death experiences.

‘Josh is fine.’ Dee placed cutlery beside Ellie’s plate and a folded napkin. ‘He’s downstairs having supper — fielding lots of questions from Toto about his favourite TV shows. I can make sure he gets showered and into bed, if you want? I’ve done up the room next to mine for him,’ she continued, pouring a glass of the lemonade.

The tentative request made Ellie feel like a toad. ‘OK. I’m sure he’s loving all the attention.’ Even if she wasn’t.

‘That’s all settled then.’ Her mother smiled at the modest concession as if Ellie had just announced Rod Stewart was coming by to serenade her. ‘Now sit down and eat. Have a shower if you want.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’ Ellie took a gulp of lemonade to ease the new blockage in her throat.

‘Josh said he’s finished school for the summer, does that mean you can stay?’

Ellie still wasn’t convinced that was a great idea, but thinking of all the effort Dee had put into redecorating their bedrooms, she couldn’t quite bring herself to say no, outright.

‘I haven’t booked the return flights yet, so why don’t we see how it goes.’ She was in no hurry to return to New York, but having an exit strategy made sense.

‘That sounds like a plan,’ Dee said, seeming happy with the concession. ‘Leave the tray outside when you’re finished and I’ll pick it up later. I have to run our stall at the Artisan Market in Salisbury tomorrow, so if I’m not here when you wake up just help yourself to breakfast. Maddy and Jacob will be about if you need anything. And Art, obviously.’

Obviously.

‘But what about everyone else, don’t they live on the commune too?’ Ellie said.

‘They live in their own homes, which are dotted around the seventy acres we have here. Strictly speaking, we stopped being a commune a long time ago. We became a co-housing project about five years back.’

‘What’s the difference?’ Ellie asked. Was this the first rebranding project she’d ever encountered that actually meant something had changed for the better?

‘Each family or individual leases a plot of land from us to build their home on. But instead of paying for the leases they help out on the farm – and we all share the surplus. Rob runs the dairy herd, Mike manages the produce side of things and Art contributes his skills, too.’

What skills would those be? How to look hot in overalls?

‘Who’s “we”?’ Forget about Art and his overalls.

‘Pam left the farm to me in her will,’ Dee said. ‘But I gave a half-share to Art, when he agreed to manage things. I’m not good with paperwork.’

And Art was? Hadn’t Laura always boasted her son was too cool for school?

And now Art owned half the farm. This probably wasn’t good. Especially if… ‘Does Art have his own place too?’ she asked, hopefully.

‘No, his room is two doors down.’

Fantastic! The one person she least wanted to be bumping into in the dead of night lived down the hall.

‘He works full time on the farm,’ Dee continued. ‘And so do Mike and Rob, but everyone else has a day job, mostly in Gratesbury, or further afield. Annie and Tess, Rob and Mike’s wives, were both in Gratesbury today, which is why you didn’t meet them earlier.’

So there was no one staying in the farmhouse to run interference between her and Art except Dee and the children and the canoodling couple she’d met earlier. Super fantastic.

‘But isn’t the whole purpose of the exercise to escape the real world?’ Ellie said.

‘Not any more.’ Dee looked pensive. ‘Nowadays we run it like a proper business. The original plan was to have everyone who lived here working here, but it was never viable, so we had to compromise.’ Her mother headed to the door. ‘By the way, Josh asked if he could come to Salisbury with me and Toto tomorrow to help on the stall if he wakes up in time. Would that be OK?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said, then had a thought. ‘Could I come and help out on the stall too?’ It would be a way of paying her mother back for all her hard work in getting the rooms ready.

‘You don’t need to do that,’ Dee said. ‘You’re a guest here.’

‘I know, but I’d like to.’ Having her mother pamper her to within an inch of her life already felt awkward. And keeping busy was also a great way of avoiding the stuff she didn’t want to think about, like Dan and the divorce and her failed business… Not to mention Art Dalton and his unsettling effect on her.

‘Then, I’d love to have you there,’ her mother said. ‘If you’re sure?’

Ellie nodded. ‘Absolutely sure.’

After her mother had left the room, Ellie sat at the dresser to tuck into the plate of roasted vegetables and feta and aubergine lasagne. The salty cheese melted on her tongue.

Despite her face-plant in the woods, and the awkwardness with her mother, and Art, the nightmare she’d been fretting about on the journey here hadn’t completely materialised. Because Willow Tree Organic Farm and Co-Operative Housing Project was the polar opposite of the Rainbow Commune – give or take the odd death-trap treehouse.

She tore off a chunk of the home-made seedy bread roll beside her plate, and slathered on a layer of what looked like home-churned butter. She took a large bite and chewed, savouring the creamy taste, while trying not to savour the memory of Art’s tattooed biceps rounding out the sleeve of his oil-stained overalls and that enticing shadow of chest hair.

So what if Art had unsettled her. And she’d made a bit of a tit of herself by collapsing in the woods.

It was just an inevitable by-product of all the stress she’d been bingeing on for weeks.

Once she’d had a couple of days to get her bearings, and establish a comfortable distance with her mother, she’d be totally immune to Art again, and his half-arsed compliments and his sexy scent.

Whatever happened, Princess Drama would not be popping out to take another bow.

CHAPTER FIVE

The following morning, Dee drifted towards consciousness, her body floating in that tempting half-space between sleep and waking when she couldn’t feel all the aches and niggling pains of being a woman approaching sixty. She held on tight to her dream state, feeling Pammy’s arms around her midriff, snuggled up against her back, the way they’d woken every morning for years in the big tester bed Art had made for them. She clung on to Pammy’s scent, the seductive combination of lemon verbena and tea tree oil. But then consciousness crowded in on her, and the small dresser beside the bed came into focus.

Pammy’s keys, her purse and the hairbands she took out just before going to bed each evening were still gone, replaced by the novel Dee had been reading the night before to take her mind off all the thoughts that kept circling in her brain about Ellie’s return.

The scent of lemon verbena disappeared, overwhelmed by the scent of the lavender laundry detergent she’d used on the sheets the day before. And the echo of Pammy’s off-key whistle – as she showered and got ready to head down to the office and start filing and ordering and doing all those mysterious tasks that Dee had never bothered to know about – faded into silence.

Pammy, I need you here, so much.

Grief hit Dee like a punch to the stomach as she let the miserable memories in: the endless, tedious waits in uncomfortable hospital chairs; Pammy’s once vibrant red hair falling out in clumps as she brushed it one morning; and those miserable final days of standing over her partner’s bed in Magnolia Ward and willing the woman she no longer recognised to die, so she could be without pain.

Dee rolled over, the clutching pain accompanied by the dull ache in the middle of her back caused by a day spent cooking to welcome Ellie home.

Except this wasn’t Ellie’s home, and whatever Dee had been hoping for – that Ellie’s decision to come visit meant she was eager to try to build a new relationship – seemed even further out of reach now than it had been four years ago when Pam had found an email address for Ellie’s event-planning business and suggested contacting her in America.

Ellie and she didn’t know each other. And four years of Christmas cards and polite emails and handmade gifts, and a fevered attempt to bribe her way into her daughter’s affections with fresh paint and newly made gingham curtains wasn’t going to change that. Or absolve Dee of her selfishness that summer, when she’d chosen her lover over her daughter.

She couldn’t regret that choice, because she had loved Pam so much. But ever since she’d lost Pam, she’d imagined winning Ellie back. And now she could see exactly how selfish that was too. Especially now she suspected the reasons Ellie had come to visit had nothing to do with her.

Why had her daughter been so exhausted when she’d arrived? She looked as if she hadn’t slept properly in weeks. And why hadn’t she mentioned her husband, Josh’s father? Why hadn’t he come with them?

Oh, Pammy, what if we were wrong about this? What if Ellie’s never ready to forgive me? What if I’m not even ready to forgive myself?

Dee breathed, waiting for the sting behind her eyelids to subside, before pulling back the bedclothes and padding to the bathroom. After getting dressed, she went to wake Ellie, but her gentle tap received no answer.

Feeling like an intruder, she pushed open the door, and saw her daughter curled in the bed, so sound asleep she reminded Dee of the little girl she’d once known, and had invested so much in.

Dee’s heart expanded, with yearning and emptiness, but then she closed the door behind her. She had to make sure she didn’t do that again – expect her daughter to fill the gaps in her own life. If Ellie was only here because she was running away from something then Dee could provide a safe haven. No questions asked. After all, Dee knew exactly what it was like to be so desperately unhappy that running away seemed like the only option.

*

Ellie woke up with a start, to discover that she’d overslept. It was nearly noon.

Was her mother still here? Or had she left for Salisbury already? Ellie showered, feeling better rested than she had in weeks. Months even. She’d help herself to breakfast and then head into Salisbury. She had a vague idea where the main square was, hopefully the market would be there.

She could smell the yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread as she headed down the stairs, but jerked to a stop as she entered the farmhouse kitchen.

Heat swept through her system, making her feel like a voyeur, but she could not detach her gaze from the sight in front of her.

Wow, hotness alert.

The young couple she had met the day before were bent over the sink in an embrace that, even though they were both fully clothed, looked pretty close to requiring birth control.

The guy’s hands were kneading the girl’s backside, while her leg was hooked round his hip and her hands were fisted in his hair as if she were about to launch herself up his torso. Their lips were achieving the sort of suction that would impress a vacuum cleaner convention.

Apparently the country air around here wasn’t only good for rest and relaxation. So the activist element may have left the farm, but the free-love element hadn’t? What if Josh had walked in on them? Her son would have had a sex-ed lesson almost as graphic as the one she’d had nineteen years ago, when she’d spied on Art by the millpond.

Ellie cleared her throat, loudly.

The girl squealed, and the couple sprung apart as if Ellie had just lobbed a grenade into the room.

‘Hi, um, I’m Ellie, Dee’s daughter.’ She stumbled over the new introductions.

I can’t even remember their names and I may well have just prevented them creating their firstborn.

‘We met yesterday,’ she added.

‘This is so embarrassing.’ The girl palmed her face. ‘I’m Maddy. This is Jacob.’ She jogged her thumb towards her boyfriend, who was looking more sheepish than embarrassed. ‘And contrary to appearances we’re not into exhibitionism. We thought you’d left with your mum.’

‘Yeah, sorry about that.’ The guy finally spoke, the dimple forming in his cheek suggesting he wasn’t that sorry. ‘Maddy’s insatiable, she can’t keep her hands off me.’

Maddy elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Shut up, Jay. You’re only making it worse.’ The girl rolled her eyes. ‘I’m really sorry. Jay thinks he’s being funny.’

‘Hey?’ Jacob said, placing his hands on her hips to draw her back against him. ‘Who kissed who first?’

‘Stop it.’ Maddy slapped his hands away. ‘You douche canoe.’

‘Douche… What? Now?’

Ellie covered her mouth, but the laugh popped out anyway – at the silly insult and Jacob’s comical reaction. Maddy chuckled too.

‘Why is that funny and I’m not?’ Jacob wanted to know.

‘Will you do us a favour?’ Maddy said, when they had stopped laughing.

‘Sure,’ Ellie said, liking the couple, who were actually cute, in a pornographic sort of way, and feeling about a million years old.

When had she become such a prude?

If Josh had interrupted them, he would have been absolutely fine after he’d got over the shock.

And the only reason Josh would have found it shocking was because she doubted he’d ever caught Dan and her kissing. The thought made her feel a bit sad. But at least he had never caught them arguing either, that was the main thing. Somewhere in the last ten years, she’d stopped wanting to kiss Dan, or do much of anything else with him, but they had both made sure to protect their son from the fallout of that loss of love. Unfortunately, they’d done such a good job, Ellie was finding it next to impossible to broach the subject of the divorce with her son.

If Josh would be shocked at finding two healthy young adults kissing, he would be even more shocked by that news, and somehow explaining the situation felt like having to rob him of the last of his childhood. He’d weathered so much in recent years, thanks to the bullies at middle school, and she wanted to be able to give him a summer without stress. If things worked out in Wiltshire, why not keep him away from that truth until they returned to New York? Because she knew for sure Dan, the king of avoidance, wasn’t going to raise the subject in the weekly Skype chats they’d arranged.

‘Don’t mention you caught us to Art,’ Maddy said, interrupting Ellie’s thoughts. ‘I’m sure he already thinks I’m a nymphomaniac.’

‘Better than being a douche canoe,’ Jacob pointed out.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t say a word to Art.’ Not a hard promise to keep seeing as she intended to speak to Art as seldom as possible. ‘But I wouldn’t worry,’ she added. ‘Art’s not the shockable type.’ Or he certainly hadn’t been at fifteen. Ellie could still remember all the girls who had hung around the farm that summer trying to get his attention – and the long list of ones who had succeeded.

‘You know Art?’ Maddy’s eyes lit with interest.

‘We met when we were teenagers. I spent a summer here in the nineties,’ Ellie replied.

‘How intriguing,’ Maddy said. ‘Was he as scary then as he is now?’

Ellie coughed out a laugh, enjoying the girl’s directness – and her accurate opinion of Art. ‘Actually yes.’

‘Art’s not scary,’ Jacob said. ‘He’s a cool guy.’

‘Didn’t say he wasn’t cool,’ Maddy replied. ‘But he is intimidating. He does the whole strong silent moody thing better than Christian Bale’s Batman. Even without the aid of a black rubber onesie.’

Ellie laughed again, pleased to discover she wasn’t the only one who found Art intimidating – while trying not to imagine him in black rubber.

‘Time to haul arse, Miss Nosey Pants.’ Jacob took Maddy’s hand. ‘We’re supposed to be helping Rob bring the heifers down from the hill pasture.’

‘Nice talking to you, Ellie,’ Maddy said as Jacob dragged her towards the door. ‘We’ll keep our PDAs on the down low from now on. I promise.’

Ellie doubted that when she heard a loud slap followed by Maddy’s giggle of protest before the front door slammed.

Locating a jar of granola in the pantry, Ellie ladled out a generous helping of the toasted nuts and seeds then topped it off with some yoghurt and a selection of the freshly picked berries she found in punnets in the fridge.

Five minutes later, she was rinsing her bowl in the sink, when the crash of the door slamming open made her jump.

Batman himself charged into the kitchen holding his hand aloft, blood dripping down his forearm and splattering Dee’s sand-blasted stone.

‘Move,’ he said as he nudged her aside at the sink.

‘What happened to your hand?’ Ellie asked, as he thrust his hand under the tap.

‘I was sharpening one of the rotary blades and I nicked myself.’

Cold water gushed out, and ran red into the sink.

‘That’s more than a nick.’ Ellie leant over his shoulder – the deep ten-centimetre gash bisected his palm and sliced under his thumb. So much for Art’s useful skills, the guy couldn’t even sharpen a rotary blade without sawing off a hand.

He shot Ellie a caustic look over his shoulder, then shifted to block her view. ‘Get me a tea towel. It’ll be fine once it’s wrapped up.’

‘You’re going to need more than a tea towel,’ she said, as she checked the drawers, finally finding a pile of clean towels and fishing out a fistful. She lifted one from the top of the pile – ominously decorated with pictures of Druid worship at Stonehenge – and handed it to him, the metallic smell of fresh blood making her head swim.

Art wound the towel round his hand, tying the makeshift bandage off with his teeth. The blood started to seep through the fabric.

‘You are not serious?’ Ellie stepped into his path as he went to leave. ‘You need to get that stitched to stop the bleeding.’

‘It’s fine,’ he said through gritted teeth, the mutinous scowl reminding her of Josh when he’d been a fractious toddler. Josh, though, had never been this stubborn, or this stupid.

‘Plus it could get infected,’ she added. ‘And then you’ll lose it.’

‘Get a grip, Princess Drama.’ The old insult might have had more impact if she couldn’t see the greasy pallor beneath his scowl.

‘No I won’t, Captain Dickhead,’ she replied.

What was the guy trying to prove? That he could saw off his hand and keep on going? This was beyond ridiculous.

‘I’m not kidding,’ she continued. ‘You need to go to A and E.’

His face paled even more.

Whipping another tea towel off the pile, she took his hand and bound it more tightly in a vain attempt to stem the blood flow. His breath gushed out against her forehead. She tied two more towels together to create a makeshift sling.

‘Keep it elevated,’ she said, as she knotted the towels at his nape. ‘Until we get to Gratesbury.’

If she remembered correctly, there was a minor injuries unit there. Hopefully it was still there or they’d have to carry on to Salisbury, which was at least an hour away.

‘I’m not going to a hospital,’ he said.

‘Yes, you are, because I refuse to let you bleed out all over my mum’s kitchen.’ Taking his elbow, she led him towards the door. ‘Getting the stains out of these flagstones would be a total bitch.’

He shrugged out of her hold. ‘If I’ve got to go, I’ll drive myself.’

‘With one hand? I don’t think so.’ She grabbed his elbow again and tugged him towards the door, her temper riding roughshod over the ego slap.

So Art would rather lose a hand then spend twenty minutes in a confined space with her.

‘Wait there.’ She left him standing in the hallway, as she took the stairs two at a time to get her car keys. ‘And stop being a douche canoe.’

‘What the hell’s a douche canoe?’ he shouted after her.

‘A guy with way too much testosterone and not nearly enough common sense,’ she shouted back, taking a wild guess.

CHAPTER SIX

‘For Christ’s sake, slow down. I’m not going to bleed to death in the next ten seconds.’

Ellie slanted a look at her passenger. He clung on to the handle above the car door, sweat glistening on his forehead, the blood having soaked through the towels she’d wrapped round his other hand in scarlet blotches.

‘I don’t care if you bleed to death,’ she replied, trying to remain calm – he was a big guy, hopefully he had a few pints to spare. ‘What I do care about is you bleeding all over my rental car.’ She eased her foot off the accelerator to take the next hairpin bend in the A30. ‘I’ve got to drop it off in Salisbury in a couple of days and I don’t want to pay a fine, or have to spend hours cleaning it.’

‘If you were worried about your stupid hire car why did you insist on driving me to A and E?’

‘Because I stupidly care if you lose your stupid hand.’

‘I’m not going to lose my hand.’

‘Not on my watch you won’t.’ She braked at the roundabout on the outskirts of Gratesbury and heard him curse. She wrestled the unfamiliar stick shift into first gear. ‘Did you seriously think you were going to carry on playing dodgeball with a rotary blade with half a hand?’

She jammed her foot on the accelerator when she spotted a gap ahead of an articulated lorry.

‘Jesus!’ He slapped his uninjured hand down on the dash. ‘Who taught you to drive?’

‘Stop changing the subject.’ She took the second exit signposted Gratesbury.

She had checked on her mobile before they set off that the minor injuries unit was still there and open at weekends in the market town. Art’s breath caught as she zipped past a tractor with at least an inch to spare on the road that took them past the town’s church and secondary school.

‘What subject would you rather talk about?’ he said drily. ‘How much longer we have to live with you at the wheel?’

They headed up the town’s main street, which was furnished with a collection of charity shops, pound shops and chintzy tourist-friendly tearooms. The narrow pavements that headed up a steep hill were mostly deserted. Apparently Sunday opening hours still hadn’t made it to Gratesbury.

‘Now who’s being Princess Drama?’ she said, taking the side street at the top of the hill past the Somerfield supermarket.