The Sister Surprise Page 8

  This isn’t strictly true. Ordinarily, the closest I get to proper nature is an evening spent watching Planet Earth with a katsu curry on my lap and the sound of foxes humping in the front garden.

  ‘Aye, you’ll get the outdoors here,’ says Kian, leaning back in his chair. ‘The days are drawing in, so we don’t get much light, but when I’m not in the fields I’m in the barns, and when I’m not there I’m here trying to get the old man’s finances in order. I’ve got two degrees and can barely make sense of them.’

  ‘There’s a good start. At the very least, I can organise these into files for you,’ I say, nodding to the precariously placed papers teetering on the edge of the shelf. ‘Don’t judge me, but the thought of having unbridled access to some hardcore filing makes me quite giddy.’

  ‘Consider the job yours,’ says Kian, smiling with tired eyes. ‘But until the chickens figure out how to clean their coop, it’s down to you and me. Then we’ve got the sheep to keep an eye on. And the pigs, they get up to all sorts of mischief. Seems like intelligence has been bred out of the ones you get on industrial farms, but our rare breeds are in a different league. What else? The flashing on the barn needs replacing, the orchard trees need paring back. Ah, Christ. A whole load really.’

  I start to feel like both he and I have been a bit short-sighted. I thought rural life was all post office robberies, village arson, and gossiping over strong tea. An anxious knot forms in my stomach, and not just about the work. This living situation is intense. Just the two of us? On a wind-battered farm bordered by sheer cliffs on three sides? Although Kian speaks with a soft drawl that would work perfectly for voiceovers in an M&S Christmas food advert, there’s also a slight chance he’s a serial killer. I didn’t even ask to see his ID before I jumped in the car.

  I thought I was getting a bed and an opportunity to find out about my Scottish family from a safe distance. I won’t lie, the idea that I could do without brushing my hair for a fortnight also appealed. But if I’ve underestimated how much goes into running a farm, Kian has overestimated how useful I’m likely to be. I’m sure he’d prefer a six-foot-two, broad-shouldered bloke who can hoick a pig under each arm and call it a laugh, but instead he’s got me; five foot nothing and on the run from a public meltdown that’s plastered all over the internet.

  When I think about it, this might be the perfect place for me to be.

  Chapter 11

  I sit up, my head leaden, and clunk the bedside lamp on, blinking as the bulb warms up to a dull, amber glow. Hearing my alarm in an unfamiliar room sets everything off-kilter. I hadn’t noticed the fusty twin beds and darkly lacquered furniture before I’d climbed beneath the sheets, exhausted. Despite being scratchy and a particularly heinous coral colour, the extra blanket I pulled out of the wardrobe kept me warm, even as gusts of wind pushed a draught through the cracks in the window sill. The radiator knob was so stiff I had to wrap my hand in a scarf to twist it on. The sound of clunking and ticking kept me up most of the night, so I had to shuffle down into a duvet cave, the covers pulled over my head to block out the sound.

  I lift the curtain and look beyond the window sill, where a floodlight is triggered by loose straw blown across the courtyard, collecting in the gutter of a hand-pump well. Beyond, darkness swathes the farm. Something doesn’t feel right.

  I heave my suitcase onto the spare single bed and attempt to co-ordinate my hands in order to pull on a pair of socks, shuffling round the room like Bruce Forsyth performing a Charleston. The farmhouse grumbles in the wind, but I can’t make out the distinct noise of Kian moving around, despite it being six o’clock. It feels like a late start for a farmer.

  Yesterday, Kian described how quickly gossip drifts up the coastline, so I want to make a good impression, in case word gets out of a Londoner freeloading at Braehead Farm. ‘If you fart in Kilroch, you’ve shit yourself by the time it’s reached Cumnaird,’ were Kian’s exact words. With my public shame quota at capacity, I’ve got to at least try and reclaim my sense of dignity. If help is what he needs, help is what he’ll get, perhaps not in expertise, but enthusiasm.

  I plop back down on the bed and scrape my hair into a rough ponytail. My nose is so cold that I’m not convinced it’s attached to me anymore. Is the potential loss of my extremities worth all this?

  No one knows specifically where I am. I barely hide anything from Mum, but I’ve long since learned to keep all thoughts about my father to myself, which makes this feel especially devious.

  I hold my shivers in, clutch the handrail, and head downstairs. In the kitchen, the radio crackles with raised voices, the hum of a political joust burring in the background as the febrile cockerel I spotted on a fence post yesterday crows from the yard. If Kian wasn’t awake before, he must be now. I’ll stick the kettle on. Strong tea wins over the heaviest of sleepers.

  I find a tablespoon of stale Darjeeling in the back of a cupboard and run it through a strainer, leaving it to swirl in a chipped teapot. At the table, I push papers aside to clear a space, stacking an envelope marked ‘FINAL NOTICE’ on top of a lopsided pile. It’s a good job Kian isn’t paying me to be here, going by the intimidating number of letter-headed bank statements scattered around.

  The clock ticks, its anchor-shaped pendulum swinging the seconds back and forth. I scrape my chair under the table, hoping the noise will wake Kian up, but when his face appears at the back door, I wobble on the spot, my foot half in my trainer.

  Air sucks through the kitchen as Kian steps inside, his cheeks ruddy, eyes crystalline blue.

  ‘Ah, you’re up! Good to see you.’

  ‘Am I late?’ I say. ‘I thought you were late.’

  ‘Nah, I didn’t want to wake you up early.’

  ‘Oh, shit. I’m so sorry. I set my alarm for six. I really thought you hadn’t started yet, or I would have come and found you.’

  ‘Pfff, can’t remember what it feels like to sleep past half four.’

  ‘That sounds … quite inhumane,’ I say, no longer wondering at the dark circles underneath his eyes.

  ‘Don’t I know it. Come find me in the barn when you’re ready,’ says Kian, holding his hands over the Aga before pulling gloves back on.

  ‘I’m ready now.’

  Kian bites his lip and tucks his tracksuit bottoms into a pair of thick socks. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind getting that mucky?’ he says, gesturing to the fluorescent orange and pink Pac-a-mac I borrowed off Mum.

  ‘Yeah, it’s fine. This is old anyway.’

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  ***

  I bow my head into the wind as I head towards the open barn door, where light leaks into the darkness of the yard. It looks every bit like the setting for a murder.

  The sound of a ripcord engine stutters into life and trips through the air. Inside the barn, Kian is kicking dried clods of mud from the underside of a quad bike chassis, an oily rag flung over his shoulder.

  When he sees me, he brushes straw from the bottom of a Thermos and hands it over, drinking from his own with a dopey smile on his face. I sniff the air.

  ‘Hey, how come you get coffee and I get peppermint tea?’ I say.

  ‘Call me a caffeine martyr. At least one of us needs to be alert when we get on these things, but we needn’t both endure a triple espresso to get outside in the mornings. It’s a slippery slope, Ava, and it ends with migraines and unpredictable bowel movements.’

  ‘Wow. Say no more.’

  ‘Sorry. Blame the guys down the cattle market. A bad influence, the lot of them,’ he says, grinning.

  ‘Is that a pub?’

  ‘Ha! No. It’s literally a market where we sell cattle. And a bunch of other things, but largely they fall within the big three: trotters, testicles, and tractor parts. The testicles are attached to the animal. The rams, bulls, cockerels, you know? They’re breeders. We rent them out.’

  ‘Like farmyard gigolos?’

  ‘Essentially, yes.’

  I draw a se
mi-circle in the muck with the toe of my trainer. ‘I’ll have to go out later to meet some of the others who live round here,’ I say, my heart quickening at the thought.

  ‘Yeah, if you like. There’s an egg delivery later in the week. Ross is on the list,’ says Kian, giving me a nudge with his elbow.

  A smile tickles my mouth, but I bite my cheek to keep it down. ‘Notable customer, is he?’ I ask, folding my arms. I must remain professional, because for all intents and purposes, I’m still working, even if the majority of my new colleagues have trotters and defecate in the same trough they eat from.

  ‘Oh, aye. Extremely notable, especially amongst female members of the community.’

  I squat and pretend to examine the overlapping tubes and wires that feed into the bike. ‘What’s the crowd like in Kilroch?’ I ask.

  ‘Mostly older. Some young families. Then there’s a big gap. There’s not a huge amount in the way of opportunities for people our age. I’ve got a couple of mates who come back for the odd weekend and a family friend who lives close by. She’s sweet.’

  ‘It’ll be nice to get a sense of the place.’

  ‘I’ll get you in the thick of it, don’t you worry. They all know about you, mind.’

  I fiddle with a length of straw and try to appear aloof. ‘How come?’

  ‘You heard of Belisha beacons? A big fire on a pole, lit to pass warnings through the Highlands quicker than a man on a horse with a scroll or whatever they wrote on back then. It’s the same concept now, except she’s called Donna and is a fifty-five-year-old woman who spends most of her time commenting on who’s left their curtains closed past seven o’clock on a weekday. It’s partly why we don’t have a constable here, there’s nothing that gets past our Donna.’

  I pull myself up and knock back my tea, which pools in my belly, warm and sweet. This farming business isn’t so bad. So far, the quantity of tea breaks is spot on.

  ‘You ready?’ says Kian, his voice strained, mid-stretch.

  ‘For what?’

  Kian twists the key to the quad bike. The ignition putters out twice before ticking over into a steady grumble. The smell of fuel fills the barn. Just when he allows himself to look smug, the engine cuts out again.

  ‘Ah, shit,’ says Kian.

  ‘Has it maybe … got enough fuel?’

  ‘Aye, a full tank.’

  Well. There goes my short-lived contribution. Kian reties the waistband of his tracksuit bottoms and kicks the chassis a few times, throwing me a frog-like smile when the engine jumps into life.

  ‘You played Mario Kart before?’ says Kian, rubbing his hands down the front of his chest.

  ‘Yeah, sure. This is basically the same, right?’ I reply, swinging my leg over the seat.

  ‘No, it’s the opposite. When you want to speed up, be really careful. The throttle is loose. I smacked my chin on the handlebars testing it out last week.’

  ‘Maybe if I ran alongside you instead?’ I suggest, as Kian wheels his own quad bike out from behind the hay stack.

  ‘You’ll be fine. Just follow me and don’t do anything drastic,’ he says. ‘This is the quickest way to get round the farm. Or you can get on the back of mine? Be warned though, you’ll get the splashback when we go through a puddle.’

  I lower myself back down onto the seat and twist the key until the engine jumps to life beneath me, sending jolts up my arms that ricochet to the back of my skull until my eyes feel loose in their sockets. Kian pulls up alongside and nods.

  ‘Let’s do this.’

  Chapter 12

  By the time I reach a speed I’m comfortable with, my sore knuckles are white from hovering over the stiff brakes and the salty wind which slaps down in stinging bursts along the back of my hand. Streaks of orange paint the underside of thick clouds as I trail behind Kian. We bounce down uneven tracks, rain cutting deep rivulets into silt-strewn ruts that I’m constantly trying to steer my wheels out of. I briefly close my eyes in the first rays of sunshine that break over the hills, the fields so green that I see emerald on the backs of my eyelids. Sheep follow us along the fence, their heads hung low, coats heavy from the rain. I slide off my quad bike and take small, shuffling steps towards Kian, careful not to step on their hooves. The ewes are far less concerned about personal space than I am.

  ‘Do they get cold?’ I ask Kian. He pulls a hay bale to the floor, the herd bleating around him like a disorganised choir as he cuts the string with a pen knife.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do they get cold?’ I look up as Kian shakes a section of hay from the bale and chucks it towards me. I clap it between my hands and sneeze as sweet-smelling dust puffs into a cloud around my face.

  ‘These lot?’ Kian laughs and gives one a dull pat on the rump. ‘No. They’re better off than you and me, and that’s without electric blankets and hot dinners.’

  What’s this? Kian’s got an electric blanket? It’s no wonder I felt exhausted this morning, I must have burnt 800 calories shivering all night.

  ‘Ouch. Hey!’ I wave my hand behind me, where a mean-looking ewe stares at me with bulbous eyes. ‘Greedy.’

  ‘Can you do a count?’ says Kian, winding the frayed string in a loop around his elbow and palm. ‘I’ll do the same.’

  Four rounds later, I’m still trying to figure out if the one with a brown eye-patch is number twenty-three or twenty-four. From behind, they appear like a crowd of Dulwich pensioners: cotton-haired ladies with tight mouths and watery eyes who complain about the same problems over the top of one another.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Thirty-nine.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes. No. Why, how many should there be?’

  ‘Forty-two.’

  ‘Really? Hang on, I’ll count again. You should give them different coloured collars or something.’ I scoot around the herd as they tiptoe between each other, nibbling at the hay that is simultaneously being eaten and trodden into the ground. ‘Do sheep wear collars?’

  ‘I believe you’re thinking of One Hundred and One Dalmatians.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Maybe.’

  I zigzag up and down and surprise myself by recognising a few of them by the way they shake their tails, or how belligerent they are about food. One such ewe clambers over her field buddy (don’t judge me, I’ve no idea how sheep use terms of endearment) and continues eating in a headstand position, her unexpectedly skinny legs pointing towards the sky amid a mass of woollen bodies. It’s like a burlesque routine, if you squint hard enough and start humming, ‘Ba da da daaaaa, ber da da daaaaa …’

  I look over at Kian, who bites his lip and taps a thigh with one hand. ‘You’re right. There’s thirty-nine. Shite.’ He walks around the herd, glaring at each sheep in accusation like a tyrannical dinner lady. ‘There’s a troublemaker amongst this lot.’

  ‘What shall we do? Make an example of them? First in line for lamb shanks?’

  ‘Ava, no,’ says Kian, his eyes narrow. Not the time to make jokes, got it. ‘I know who it is.’ I wait for the big reveal. ‘Miranda.’ Ah, there we go. I’m no better informed. ‘She’s got a reputation. Led a couple of the others astray. She can’t be trusted.’

  I step from one foot to another. My trainers are soaked through with a delightful shade of brown which I know for a fact is at least fifty per cent excrement. Who knew that some mud is preferable to others?

  ‘We’ll hop on the quads and look round the fence, see where they could have got out.’

  A few minutes later, I’ve made it over ten miles per hour. I’m scanning the fence, but the whole process is like the world’s most boring Sherlock Holmes case. I’ve seen a few bits of wool caught on barbed wire and two empty bottles of Iron Bru by the water trough, but beyond that the field looks as generically field-like as ever.

  When I reach Kian, the cause of the breakout becomes clear. The trunk of a pine tree has splintered five feet up and fallen into the field, squashing the fence and breaking the electric charge that runs th
rough it.

  ‘Must have happened overnight. I’m surprised we didn’t hear it.’

  ‘They must have hopped over,’ I say. Have no fear, Kian, Captain Obvious is on the scene.

  ‘Ah, this isn’t good. I think Miranda is carrying triplets. She’s clever enough to climb out, but she’s hardly light on her feet when it comes to getting down the cliff edge. Ah, silly sods. We need to find them soon, or we’ll be scraping them off the rocks later.’

  ‘Oh God, really?’

  ‘It’s happened before. They get spooked and dive off the side like lemmings. You head along the tree line and I’ll take the track out towards John’s pasture. If you find them, try and herd them back this way, all right?’

  ‘Err, OK, sure.’ I nod, hesitating as I walk towards my quad bike in case Kian gives me an instruction more specific than ‘stop three sheep from dive-bombing off a cliff’, but he’s already driven away by the time I twist the key. A reverse alarm bleeps unnecessarily as I drive backwards in an arc. I’m so cautious a slug would have time to slither out of the way before popping beneath the wheels.

  I copy Kian’s stance on the quad bike and stand up, hunched over the handlebars. I dip, rock, and lurch across the field, feeling braver as my knees intuitively flex in time with the bumps. I don’t know what the rules are concerning the quad bike highway code, so when I get to the gate, I stick my arm out to show I’m turning left despite the relative isolation. When I get to the woodland, I take the speed up a little higher, on the verge of enjoying myself (I push the sheep peril to one side for a moment), zigzagging between the trees, my eyes wider and more alert than they have been for months. I scan the landscape. Over the engine thrumming, I hear waves overlapping each other, crashing on the rocks below like an over-zealous drum solo.

  I scan the horizon, eyeballs wobbling in my head from the assault course of tree roots protruding from the ground, when—

  ‘Miranda!’ I shout, a flash of grey wool bounding over a stump in front of me. The sea forms a backdrop between the trees, blending with the sky in a shade I’d refer to as ‘dead salmon’, going by what I’ve seen in the Farrow & Ball catalogues that are posted through our front door in Dulwich. Fuck, where has she gone? I slow down, not wanting to spook her, and turn towards the sound of twigs breaking in the copse, where an almost spherical sheep is indelicately tiptoeing in the opposite direction. I can’t see her two pals. Maybe they lost their nerve and headed back towards Braehead. It’s what I would do. Why on earth would you want to get soaked by sea spray and eat moss for dinner when a heat lamp is on offer in the barn? I need to start thinking like a sheep. If I edge her out on this side and block her in, Miranda will have to turn back towards the farm, right?