Eye of the Needle - Ken Follett [19]
“I own the sheep, too,” Papa Rose said. “Shearers come over from the mainland each spring, and the wool brings in just about enough money to pay Tom McAvity’s wages. Old Tom’s the shepherd.”
“How old is he?” Lucy asked.
“Good Lord, he must be—oh, seventy?”
“I suppose he’s eccentric.” The boat turned into the bay, and Lucy could see two small figures on the jetty: a man and a dog.
“Eccentric? No more than you’d be if you’d lived alone for twenty years. He talks to his dog.”
Lucy turned to the skipper of the small boat. “How often do you call?”
“Once a fortnight, missus. I bring Tom’s shopping, which isna much, and his mail, which is even less. You just give me your list, every other Monday, and if it can be bought in Aberdeen I’ll bring it.”
He cut the motor and threw a rope to Tom. The dog barked and ran around in circles, beside himself with excitement. Lucy put one foot on the gunwale and sprang out on to the jetty.
Tom shook her hand. He had a face of leather and a huge pipe with a lid. He was shorter than she, but wide, and he looked ridiculously healthy. He wore the hairiest tweed jacket she had ever seen, with a knitted sweater that must have been made by an elderly sister somewhere, plus a checked cap and army boots. His nose was huge, red and veined. “Pleased to meet you,” he said politely, as if she was his ninth visitor today instead of the first human face he had seen in fourteen days.
“Here y’are, Tom,” said the skipper. He handed two cardboard boxes out of the boat. “No eggs this time, but there’s a letter from Devon.”
“It’ll be from ma niece.”
Lucy thought, That explains the sweater.
David was still in the boat. The skipper stood behind him and said, “Are you ready?”
Tom and Papa Rose leaned into the boat to assist, and the three of them lifted David in his wheelchair on to the jetty.
“If I don’t go now I’ll have to wait a fortnight for the next bus,” Papa Rose said with a smile. “The house has been done up quite nicely, you’ll see. All your stuff is in there. Tom will show you where everything is.” He kissed Lucy, squeezed David’s shoulder, and shook Tom’s hand. “Have a few months of rest and togetherness, get completely fit, then come back; there are important war jobs for both of you.”
They would not be going back, Lucy knew, not before the end of the war. But she had not told anyone about that yet.
Papa got back into the boat. It wheeled away in a tight circle. Lucy waved until it disappeared around the headland.
Tom pushed the wheelchair, so Lucy took his groceries. Between the landward end of the jetty and the cliff top was a long, steep, narrow ramp rising high above the beach like a bridge. Lucy would have had trouble getting the wheelchair to the top, but Tom managed without apparent exertion.
The cottage was perfect.
It was small and grey, and sheltered from the wind by a little rise in the ground. All the woodwork was freshly painted, and a wild rose bush grew beside the doorstep. Curls of smoke rose from the chimney to be whipped away by the breeze. The tiny windows looked over the bay.
Lucy said, “I love it!”
The interior had been cleaned and aired and painted, and there were thick rugs on the stone floors. It had four rooms: downstairs, a modernized kitchen and a living room with a stone fireplace; upstairs, two bedrooms. One end of the house had been carefully remodeled to take modern plumbing, with a bathroom above and a kitchen extension below.
Their clothes were in the wardrobes. There were towels in the bathroom and food in the kitchen.
Tom said, “There’s something in the barn I’ve to show you.”
It was a shed, not a barn. It lay hidden behind the cottage, and inside it was a gleaming new jeep.
“Mr. Rose says it’s been specially adapted for young Mr. Rose