Page 84 of A Year at Appleyard Farm
Willow blushed, a sheepish smile on her face. ‘I’m guilty of keeping things to myself too,’ she said. ‘I’ve been exploring some new ways of expanding the business here, things that complement the fruit farm. I kind of hoped that if I got it off the ground, I’d have a viable idea to put to you…and now might be the perfect time to tell you what I’ve been up to, especially as this arrived in the post this morning.’
She handed Jude the letter with a slightly shaking hand, not yet having had a chance to fully absorb its contents herself. She waited anxiously while he read it, wondering what he was thinking. It had been so wrong not to share any of what she had been up to the past few weeks, she knew that now, but at the time it had seemed right; a decision which now seemed silly and misguided.
Jude’s raised voice broke into her thoughts.
‘Bloody hell!’ He grinned. ‘I’ve been reading about these places in one of the business magazines I subscribe to. The bloke that owns them is an organic farmer and he started with just one small guesthouse at his own place, which his wife ran, but now they have eight, very select and very exclusive small hotels, which are currently on the lips of every famous blogger and YouTuber around.’
‘I know!’ Willow grinned back. ‘I’ve been experimenting with a range of ice creams and cordials, and to cut a long story short, Merry has been sending out some sample packs to people she has contacts with.’
‘And they want to talk to you about suppling all their hotels, not just the kitchen but the guest rooms too…Willow, this is amazing!’ he burst out, excitement mounting once more. ‘I said you were a woman of spectacular talents.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I don’t suppose,’ he started, more seriously, ‘that you might need a little help from a chap who’s pretty good at marketing, and making the tea and whatever else you need, and who has suddenly become comprehensively unemployed?’
Willow beamed the smile she had been waiting a long time to deliver. ‘I don’t think there’s anything I’d like more,’ she said, holding Jude’s look. ‘I’ve no idea how all this is going to pan out, or how busy we might get, but I’d much rather be doing it with you by my side.’
She took a breath, wondering how best to frame her next question. ‘This might sound a bit weird, even for me,’ she began. ‘But I’ve had some…dreams lately, they only started a few weeks ago, but last night I woke from a particularly vivid one, only to realise that they might not have been my dreams after all…but someone else’s.’
Jude shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘And don’t ask me how, but it’s almost as if I was picking up on your thoughts…although I’m not sure thoughts is quite the right word. They were a bit stronger than that.’
‘What kind of thoughts?’
Willow pulled at the end of her plait. ‘Maybe I had better just come out with it. You’ll either laugh, or…’ She sat up a little straighter. ‘I’ve seen images of the land up beyond Henry’s house, at some point in the future I’m guessing. Only not as it is now, but torn up, built on, a mass of houses and roads and I—’
Jude visibly paled, swallowing hard. ‘How could you possibly know that?’ he whispered. ‘How could you know what I’ve seen…what frightened me more than anything in this whole business?’
Willow clutched at his hand. ‘It terrified me too, to see the meadows all gone, everything destroyed.’
‘It’ll never happen, Willow, you have my promise. I’ve seen to it that Andrew never—’
‘Andrew?’ echoed Willow, confused. With all that had happened over the past couple of days, she had forgotten her original belief that Andrew was behind the sale of their land, but now Jude had sold his share of the business, it didn’t make any sense. Her thoughts were churning.
‘But what about Andrew’s share in the business? And you’ve done some sort of a deal with Henry, I know you have. I saw you both outside the bank yesterday, shaking hands. What was that all about?’
Jude gave a wry smile. ‘Ah, Henry…’ he said. ‘Yes, that was…unexpected. But listen, let me tell you about Andrew first. As you can imagine, he wasn’t over the moon when I told him I wanted out of the business, but in the end he really had no choice.’ He cleared his throat before continuing. ‘You’ll remember the night a few weeks back when I came home really late, and in a bit of a state to put it mildly. I made out I’d been led astray by some Japanese businessman, when actually what happened was that I presented my father with the details of the sale I’d already negotiated. After a…heated discussion…we agreed that from here on in, I was no longer fit to call myself his son.’
Willow’s hand flew to her throat as her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh Jude, why didn’t you tell me?’ she said, anger flaring. ‘How could he do such a thing?’
‘Because he’s an unfeeling sanctimonious bastard I suspect. He’s never loved me, Willow, I know that now. I’ve spent my life trying to please him, to make him take notice of what I achieved in the hope that he might deign to throw me a crumb of affection, but it’s never going to happen. Now I’ve woken up to the fact, I’m rather surprised to find that I’m looking forward to taking my own decisions and living my own life without his influence.’ He smiled at Willow again. ‘Despite what he thinks, I happen to believe that I’ve made some very sound choices in my life so far.’
Willow searched Jude’s face as he regarded her calmly and with more than a little affection. He was telling the truth, and it must have taken a lot of guts to face up to it, let alone come to terms with it. Willow couldn’t pretend to be anything other than overjoyed to have Andrew out of their lives for good, even though its legacy must be hard for Jude.
‘I know he’s never liked me, but—’ She stopped suddenly as she realised what Jude’s words would actually mean for them. ‘But what about the house, and the land? My strawberries! Oh, God, Jude, we’ll have to leave and…’ She couldn’t bear the thought of it, not now, not when she had come so close to making things happen.
Jude took hold of her hands again and chuckled. ‘No, we won’t, and believe me that’s absolutely the best bit. Wonderfully ironic too; it was your strawberries that were his downfall in the end.’
Willow gave him a quizzical look.
‘There’ve been many occasions over the years when Andrew has suggested selling the meadows, but this time he’d even gone so far as to suss out the potential for getting planning permission, and snaring a buyer who was happy to do a deal on a speculative purchase. No doubt, had the sale gone ahead, Andrew would have done everything in his power to make sure planning was granted and the resultant kick back from any houses built would have netted a small fortune. There was only one problem with the proposed sale – well two actually.’
‘And they were?’
‘Well, first, that I was dead set against it, but second, and more importantly, that to build any houses on the land, you’d need to have an access route…and the only two possible routes would be through our strawberry fields or up the lane behind Henry’s house. Of course the best one would be through our fields, or rather, as Andrew put it, “through that silly little business of your wife’s”. He even asked me to have a chat with you and talk you out of running it.’ Jude held up his hand as he caught the expression on Willow’s face.
‘In the end, that was what made me stop and think. Apart from the brazen cheek of it, he made me realise how important our fields are and that in fact we have a proper future here together which is worth more to me than anything I could ever earn. It made me even more determined not to sell the land.’
Willow nodded. ‘So you needed to find a way to get Andrew out of the business…’
‘…No, the other way around. I needed to find a way to getmeout of it, and everything we have here along with me.’
