Page 95 of A Year at Appleyard Farm
A cold wet nose pushed itself onto the back of Freya’s hand several minutes later, as Boris reminded her gently of his presence. He seemed as confused about his mistress’s behaviour as she was, but Laura’s choice of a dog known for its loyalty and generosity was no coincidence. She wondered how long it had been since Laura had felt the reassurance of a human touch.
After a few moments more, Freya gently moved away, pulling Laura so that she could look at her. She had shed the tears she needed to, but her look when she met Freya’s gaze was still fearful.
‘Perhaps you should come and tell me all about it,’ said Freya. ‘If you’re ready?’
There was a weak smile, but Laura was indeed ready. She had waited a very long time to talk to someone.
‘We used to live next door to one another, had done ever since I was five and he was six, and I guess we grew up together. It wasn’t until we started secondary school that I really took any notice of him; David was simply always there. It was never serious; we went out together a few times, but that all changed when I was fourteen and diagnosed with a brain tumour.’
Freya was beginning to feel cold, and the hard, wooden chair wasn’t helping, but she sat as still as she could for fear of breaking the moment. Laura had begun to talk the moment they were back inside the church again, sitting in the same room they had left only minutes earlier. She nodded encouragingly.
‘It’s at those times that you find out who your friends really are,’ she continued. ‘I remember clearly the day when I told my best friend, Chloe, the diagnosis. I’d been in and out of hospital for weeks having various tests, and missed a fair bit of school one way or another. Chloe was brilliant. Every day I was absent, she came around to our house to fill me in with all the gossip, or help me to catch up with my homework; but the very day I was finally able to confide in her the diagnosis, she looked at me and said “So, you’re going to die then?”’
The spot on the wall held Laura’s attention for so long that Freya was tempted to look there herself, but eventually the words started again, a quiet monotone that belied Laura’s true feelings.
‘She apologised straight away of course, but I’d caught her off guard, and she’d said the first thing that had come into her head – the thing she really thought. It was what she believed, and at the time, so did I.’ She took another breath. ‘It certainly spelled the death sentence for our friendship. She didn’t walk away immediately, just sort of drifted further off each day, like a piece of flotsam caught on the outgoing tide, until I hardly saw her. And I let her go. I was too preoccupied to care, and where she and others left little holes in my life, David came and filled them.’
For the first time since she started talking, Laura raised her eyes and looked at Freya. The loneliness in her eyes was stark, as was the longing for warmth and life.
‘I’m so sorry,’ whispered Freya. ‘That must have been an awful time for you. I can’t imagine how you must have felt. School and just being fourteen are hard enough to get through, but add something like that into the mix…How ever did you cope?’
There was a slight pause as Laura weighed up what Freya had just asked.
‘Strangely enough, it got easier after that. It was just David and me against the world. We didn’t need anyone else. That’s where I went wrong of course, but at the time I didn’t think beyond the next day and the day after that; everything else was too far in the distance, and so it went on. Even when I found out about the operation and the risk to my hearing, David simply said we would learn sign language together, and so we did. It never crossed my mind that this was wrong…’
‘What do you mean wrong, Laura? I’m not sure I follow you.’ Freya put out a hand in reassurance.
It took Laura some moments before she could speak again, a sudden welling up of tears tightening her throat, and quickening her breathing. ‘Because now that he’s gone, I have nothing in my life, and no one. I built my world around him, and when he died, my foundations went too, and everything crumbled around me.’
Freya took in a sharp breath at the shock of Laura’s words. Here she was, on the threshold of sharing a life with the man she loved, and this young woman had already lived a lifetime of love and grief. She was flooded with remorse. She left her chair and knelt beside Laura, taking both of her hands and folding them in her own. They were like ice.
‘I’m so, so, sorry,’ she said, making sure that Laura could see every word. ‘I’ve been gabbling on about my own wedding without a second thought, and I never even stopped to think. I feel awful asking for your help, it was probably the most insensitive thing I could have done.’
‘And yet I want to help,’ whispered Laura, ‘I just don’t know how.’
Freya cocked her head to one side, confused.
‘I want to live,’ Laura continued, her tear-stained face pale, but more animated now. ‘I want to feel alive, to be a part of things; have friends and do things normal people do, but I’ve shut myself away for so long it feels like an impossibility.’ She clasped at Freya’s hands. ‘I’d love to help with your wedding. It’s such a wonderful celebration of life, of everything that’s important, but how do I face people again, when most of them are the reason I’ve shut myself away?’
There was something tickling at the back of Freya’s mind. Something that she should know about, a memory that should never have been forgotten. And then, as she looked at Laura’s beautiful face, it came to her. She squeezed her hand.
‘Is your last name Ashcombe?’ she asked.
There was a tiny nod as the two women leaned forward in a hug.
Five years ago, most of the farming community had turned out to attend the funeral of young David Ashcombe, a worker at the nearby Drummond Orchard, one of the largest cider producers in the area. There had been talk of dodgy working practices on the estate for years, but the general consensus was that Francis Drummond believed himself above the law and, in this case, he had seemed to get away with it. David had been killed while helping to clear damaged trees after a severe storm. The handbrake on the tractor trailer he was using had failed as he was stacking cut logs on the back. It rolled backwards crushing him to death. Laura had argued publicly that David talked frequently about badly maintained machinery, but the enquiry found it to be a simple case of operator error.
Freya’s heart went out to Laura. There was nothing simple about a death, particularly of a young man with his whole life ahead of him. And the legacy that death had left behind was far from simple either, the proof was in her arms. She straightened up.
‘Then we must do something to change your situation, Laura. I can’t think of anything better than to have you help with our wedding, but it can’t be allowed to cause you any more anguish. Let’s focus on the thing you love doing most – making amazing floral arrangements and everything else we can take step-by-step and day by day. There’s no need for you to have to meet anyoneen masse. In fact, for now it’ll just be me and Sam, and after that, well, whatever we do, you won’t be doing it alone. How does that sound?’
Laura took a deep and calming breath. ‘It sounds…a bit scary, but a lot less so than it did. I can’t thank you enough, Freya. I’m really not quite sure what came over me.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t normally make a habit of crying all over people and being quite so pathetic but—’
Freya put out her hand out to interrupt. ‘You know, I’m a firm believer that things happen for a reason…often when we least expect them. A very wise man once taught me that, and when it’s the right time, it really is the right time. Let’s go with that, shall we, and see where it takes us. I have a feeling it might be to a very good place indeed.’
52
‘And I know what you’re thinking, Stephen, but back off, okay. The last thing she needs is someone beating a path to her door and declaring his undying lust for her.’
