Page 43 of A Year at Appleyard Farm
‘Oh dear.’ Freya turned the gas out from under the pan. ‘That good, eh? Listen, maybe Stephen’s just had an off day.’
‘I can hardly remember when he had an ‘on’ day, it’s been so long. Don’t make excuses for him, Freya.’ He sat down wearily at the table, hunched, and still in his jacket.
Freya went over and knelt beside him, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. ‘Don’t give up on him, Sam. His pride’s hurt, that’s all. He’ll come round as soon as he realises that we’re not out to make fun of him. Our two orchards have co-existed side by side, more or less happily for decades. There’s no reason why that should change now.’
Sam stared at her. ‘You know, I really wanted things to be better between us, but actually I’m not sure that Stephen has it in him. I think he’s an arrogant sod, and deserves all that comes to him, end of.’
‘I know you don’t really mean that, Sam Henderson, so you can drop the big tough guy routine. His attitude is disappointing, admittedly, but I still think it’s a touch of bravado.’
‘Yeah, well I’m not so sure,’ he replied glumly. ‘You know, the longer I’m away from Braeburn, the more I realise how much I put up with over the years. I was happy to give Stephen a hand, only if he needed it, mind, but I don’t think he’ll ever change. If he wants to make a competition out of it, then he can have one. Right now, as far as I’m concerned, it’s every man for himself.’
Freya watched sadly as Sam took off his jacket and went to hang it up. Stephen was such a fool at times, and he made her mad enough she could slap him. It pained her to see Sam so defeated, but a sliver of unease also crept into her thoughts. She knew better than to press things now, but she would not let Appleyard become a battlefield.
20
Merry had found it hard to sleep the night before. The discovery that it was Christopher Marchmont’s daughter in the sketches she had found unnerved her for some reason. She had stood staring at the sheet of paper in her hand for so long, that eventually Tom had come to find her, still carrying the laptop she had shoved at him.
Together they sat at the dining room table trying to discover more about the man who had lost his family so young; but although there were plenty of descriptions of his early work – and photos too – it was as if time had stood still for him after the tragedy. There was not a single description of his life after their deaths, and yet it was clear that he had been hugely successful and his work much sought after. It was almost as though he had died himself.
This morning, standing in the cold, dim storeroom once more, it seemed so sad that his work had been left to rot here, and Merry thought back to the boxes of papers she had already discarded. There were hundreds of pieces of paper in some of those boxes, and whilst many of them were obviously paperwork, with hindsight she knew that a good many of them had been sketches like the one she had salvaged. She could hardly bear the thought that all of it was gone, and wondered when he had drawn them. An image came into her head of a bearded man, sitting deranged by grief, desperately trying to capture the image of a daughter whose face was fading from his memory day by day. A shiver ran the length of her spine and she had to go outside for a few minutes to clear her head.
Just as she had thought he would, Tom had dragged the last bits of furniture out of the storeroom and left them in the main shop. He had even given one of the table-tops a cursory clean, and she smiled as she saw which way her husband’s thoughts had been headed. She could hear him banging now from the other storeroom and went through to investigate.
Surprisingly, the door to this room had been locked and, having tried all the keys they had been given, Tom’s only recourse had been to remove the door to gain access. It was a smaller room than the first store, lying immediately to its left. As a room on its own, it would not be of much use other than as a store, but with the wall between the two rooms knocked down, the space would become a more attractive proposition. As Merry joined her husband, she could see he was trying to weigh things up.
‘Will it work, do you think?’
Tom was standing in the middle of the room, sandwiched between an old desk and what looked like a very distressed sideboard. His hands were on his hips, and he waggled his head from side to side, looking through the open doorway into the room beyond and trying to gauge the overall size.
‘Well, it’s wider than I thought, but maybe not quite so long. What do you reckon?’
Merry adopted her husband’s stance. ‘It’s deceptive isn’t it, but the width is good. I think you’d get a fair number of units in here. Maybe even some low island ones in the middle if there’s space to move either side of them.’ She looked back to her husband. ‘I think we should go for it. I know it means more work initially, but better to get it all done at the start than change our minds after we’re open and have to put up with the upheaval then.’
‘That’s true.’ He stared at her for a minute as if trying to deduce what she was thinking. ‘Are we completely mad?’
‘Oh, utterly,’ Merry agreed. ‘But when has that ever stopped us? I think it’s absolutely the right thing to do. General groceries is one thing, even newspapers, but I honestly believe that we need to diversify if we’re going to succeed. We need something to give us a bit of an edge…so gourmet goodies through there and gorgeous gifts through here. How does that sound?’
Tom merely smiled back at Merry, years of experience having taught him that she had an unerring eye for spotting the potential in things, and it was futile to try and change her mind. Fortunately, most of the time he agreed with her one hundred per cent.
He nudged his hip into the desk. ‘And what about this lot?’
Merry peered further into the gloom. ‘It’s hard to see what there is really, but the idea of reclaiming some of it appeals to me.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘We’ve probably got about an hour before Robyn wakes up. Shall we try to shift some of it into the main room so we can get a proper look at it?’
There seemed to be an inordinate number of broken chairs, but in among the debris, they discovered a corner cabinet, another table, a glass fronted bookcase, several kitchen type units as well as the desk and sideboard. There was also what looked like a whole set of oak balustrades. Merry could only imagine that it had all come from the main house, and although each piece of furniture was different in terms of style, colour and condition, there was something about the motley collection that fired her imagination.
‘We shouldn’t throw these away, Tom,’ said Merry, running a hand along the length of the desk. ‘I know we can’t leave them here, but could we store them in the house for a bit, in one of the spare rooms? I’m thinking thoughts here, but they’re not quite fully formed yet.’
Tom’s response was simply to smile. ‘I can see you’re thinking thoughts, Merry. You’ve got that look on your face again. The one that usually means a lot of hard work.’
Merry stuck out her tongue. ‘Isn’t that why you love me? Life would be so boring otherwise.’
Tom raked a hand through his hair, a wry smile on his face. ‘It’s one of the reasons I love you,’ he said. ‘Come on then, let’s shift what we can before our little bird needs feeding again.’
As it was, they only got the desk as far as the end of the hallway before they heard the first indignant squawks.
‘I’ll go and get her,’ replied Tom. ‘It’s probably time for a cup of tea anyway.’
‘I might even have one or two muffins left. I’ll go and see what I can find.’
