The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [7]
The bumpy, erratically mown lawn, perhaps an attempt by Jack for some extra pocket money, tumbled down to the river at the bottom: in the paddocks beyond, Caro's pink and white marquee, a permanent fixture after months of haggling with the local council, flapped prettily in the breeze on the other side. Sheep were encouraged to graze around it and the huge oak tree spread benign limbs above it in the sunshine.
It all looked desperately idyllic, but I knew the reality. Knew about stumbling out there in January, across the stepping stones in a dressing gown and wellies, slipping on mercilessly hard ground, stumbling over frozen ruts to crack the ice on the troughs for the sheep, the wind stinging your cheeks as it whipped across the Vale. Knew that, just yards from this window, behind that barn, rusting old machinery, not good enough to sell and too expensive to remove, lurked menacingly, like sleeping dragons, camouflaged by weeds and grass, ready to trip the unsuspecting. I knew where the wheel-less Jeeps and tractors were parked on bricks; knew, if you found a length of barbed wire sticking out of the ground, not to pull it or a whole line of broken fencing would emerge like an earth monster. I knew the Steptoe and Son side of farming; all of which was kept from Caro's brides, of course. They saw none of this as they tripped prettily down the lane behind the hedge, fresh from the church, the congregation following on foot – no cars, that was the draw – through a pretty white gate, and straight into the bottom meadow. From that vantage point, as they sipped champagne amongst the buttercups, Church Farm was just a hazy blob on the horizon: small, compact and Georgian. You wouldn't know the masonry was crumbling, the sashes in the windows broken, or that the gutters leaked huge incontinent stains down the brickwork.
‘Bucolic Betrothals’ Caro advertised as in the local paper, and then some blurb about experiencing olde worlde charm and dipping into England's rural past, which was where all this belonged, of course: the past. It should have been sold years ago, the farm, when Dad died. Not that I'd wanted any money. I agreed with Felicity: it was Tim's inheritance, as it had been Dad's from his father, and as it was with all farming families, from father to son. But Tim could have bought himself a little business, set himself up. Keeping it was like hanging on to the trappings of an empire, for all the wrong reasons.
Ant would be kinder, I thought, as I heard Paula, roaring with laughter in the next room. I straightened up from the window seat. ‘They can't sell it, it's part of them,’ he'd say.
‘Well, it's part of me too, and I had no problems leaving.’
‘Ah, but you always had your head in a book. Never looked out of the window, let alone went outside. Never let it get to you, the land. That's what it's all about, you know. See the Romantic Poets on this. Wordsworth, Blake – they'd have plenty to say on the subject.’
It was true, I thought as I picked up a fresh plate of cocktail sausages and made to go back. I'd never really troubled the great outdoors. Too busy trying to leave. All that fresh air and I couldn't breathe. I'd always felt a great affinity with the Mitford sister who'd hoarded running-away money; had even started a collection myself. Although, as it turned out, I hadn't needed to run;