The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [160]
‘Is it very painful?’
‘Very,’ he said grimacing. ‘But I'll get there. Hundreds of people walk around with artificial hips, don't they?’
‘They do, but they don't farm.’ I regarded him. He returned my look.
‘I don't farm either, Evie. Oh, I've got a few cows, and we grow a bit of wheat and dutifully get it harvested, but d'you know how much I got for it this year?’
‘How much?’ I asked, not wanting to know.
‘Twenty-three grand. That's my annual income. I have to pay Phil, obviously, because I can't do all the combining myself, and Steve, who comes to help in August, and d'you know what their wages come to?’
I didn't answer.
‘Fifteen grand. Which leaves me eight grand to run the place and to feed a family of five for a year. Ha!’ He threw back his head and gave a cracked laugh to the ceiling. I swallowed. Resumed my contemplation of the bedcover. ‘D'you know how many acres I'd need to make a profit worth talking about?’
‘How many?’
‘Fifteen hundred. D'you know how many I've got?’
‘Three hundred,’ I muttered.
He nodded. ‘Three hundred's not a farm, Evie. It's a fucking paddock. It used to be. You used to be able to make a living on a smallholding; seventy acres – less, even – but not now. Now you've got to own fucking Badminton.’
‘Which is why Caro does all this,’ I soothed, waving my hand out of the window.
He sighed. ‘Yes.’
‘And she makes a good profit?’
‘She makes a profit. I don't know about good. But she's run ragged. And I feel—’
‘I know,’ I interrupted quickly. Before he said it. Impotent.
He gave me a twisted smile. ‘It's not great, Evie, seeing your wife run herself into the ground, having your house overrun with people every weekend…’
‘Well, not actually in the house.’
‘Excuse me?’ He cocked an ear theatrically. Voices drifted up from downstairs.
‘They come in?’ I boggled.
‘To use the loo.’
‘But the Portaloos—’
‘Oh, they're not supposed to come in, we don't actually allow them, but the Portaloos get busy – or blocked – so they come up here. Don't forget, nearly everyone we entertain in our splendid house and grounds is pissed. They don't give a toss that it's your house.’
We heard the sound of a loo being flushed down the passage in the children's bathroom. Clearly the downstairs one was occupied. Then more footsteps tripped towards us and a loo seat banged down close by, next door, in fact, in Tim and Caro's ensuite, which could also be accessed via the corridor. I let my jaw drop incredulously. He raised his eyebrows back, told-you-so style.
‘One Saturday I was watching the cricket in the sitting room, and a guy came strolling through the French windows, plonked himself down beside me on the sofa and asked me what the score was.’
‘Bloody cheek.’
‘I gave him a beer, actually. He was rather nice.’
I smiled. ‘But things will improve,’ I assured him. ‘Your new hip will click in soon—’
‘Like the bionic man.’
‘Exactly, and then you can do more on your own. You won't need Phil.’
‘And get to keep all of the twenty-three thousand pounds? Gee whiz.’
‘Well, maybe – maybe wheat prices will improve? They said on Farming Today wheat prices were going up—’
‘By two pence a ton.’
‘And maybe the Europeans will have a terrible year and everyone will be gagging for English grain.’
‘And maybe a whole heap of money will just drop out of the sky, just as if – ooh, I don't know, as if Dad didn't die intestate after all, and in fact the chunk he left to Felicity should have gone to me, to run the farm. Keep the place going.’
He gave me a steady look. I gazed back.
‘Right,’ I said eventually, averting my eyes. ‘I wondered when we'd get to that.’
‘You know?’
‘I went to see Maroulla this morning.’
‘Ah.’
Another silence prevailed.
‘Ah well,’ he said lightly, ‘it's all been spent now, I imagine. So it's academic.’
‘You think?’
‘I don't know, Evie,’ he said wearily.
‘But I mean… is it legal?’
‘This bit of photocopied paper?’ He shifted on his side and brought it out of the back pocket of his jeans. ‘Who knows? It doesn't exactly start, “This is the last