Work for it, p.5
Work for It, page 5
At the end of the day, I wander along a near-deserted street washed in dying sunlight, the pavement dappled by shadows from the tall, blossoming trees that take up every spare inch of this village. The trill of my phone rises above the languid tweets of the birds. My sister is calling me, her timing predictably impeccable. When she was young, I used to tease her about having a sixth sense. These days, that same sixth sense is why I’ve been avoiding her more and more: time passes, my problems don’t, everything feels suffocatingly worse, and Lizzie watches me a touch too closely.
But I can’t truly ignore her, not for long, so I pick up the phone.
“Olu!” My sister’s voice in my ear is a soothing balm. My nerves are frazzled from studiously avoiding a certain human mountain all day long—but I refuse to think about him. When I do, a disgusting urge to apologise rears its ugly head.
“Hello, my lovely Lizzie. How are you?”
“I’m very well, thank you. And you?”
“Never mind me,” I say pleasantly, and it’s not just avoidance. “We’re talking about you. How goes the little mushroom?”
“The foetus,” she says, “is doing very well.”
“And how goes my little sister? Please, don’t spare a detail.”
“Olu,” she sighs, but then she humours me and launches into a medical update that I mostly memorise. My recall is the only thing that got me through law school. I’ll write it all down in my pregnancy journal later, and yes, I have a pregnancy journal, and no, I don’t think I’m overdoing it. My sister is diabetic. I am keeping an eye on this. She has eyes of her own, and a paranoid brute of a husband who loves her to distraction, and an excellent midwife, but I’m keeping an eye on this.
Of course, right now, I’m doing so from a distance. Because I have abandoned her, running from my problems and leaving her behind, just as I’ve done so many times in the past. Add it to my list of sins.
A grey squirrel scurries down the trunk of a nearby oak and I freeze, a reluctant smile curving my lips. I got one thing right, coming to Fernley: it is hard to remain miserable in this tooth-achingly wholesome environment.
“So, now that I’ve reported the colour of my snot,” Lizzie says, irritated, “perhaps we might talk about you.”
“So dramatic,” I murmur, walking again when the squirrel disappears into the woods. My lodgings above Mrs. Hartley’s garage are about ten minutes away by foot, much like everything in this village, and I’m almost halfway there. “I’m fine, sister dearest, as always.”
“Hm.” She is openly sceptical. Since I am her elder by quite a few years, and since I practically raised her—our parents certainly couldn’t be trusted to do it—I shouldn’t feel half as guilty as I do. Pseudo-parents hide things from their pseudo-children for the child’s own good. Lizzie will learn this when she pops out her little miracle in five months’ time.
“Hm, what?” I demand, in my most severe tones, which are severe indeed.
She doesn’t sound remotely intimidated. “Just Hm. Where are you?”
“Away.”
“Isaac misses you.”
In the background, I hear a familiar rough and rumbling voice. “Do I fuck,” says my sister’s husband, but there’s humour in his tone.
“I know he struggles to get on without me,” I smile, “but he’ll have to manage.”
Isaac’s voice again. “Tell him to come back to work.”
“Isaac,” Lizzie warns. “Olu doesn’t work for you anymore.”
But, as openings go, this one’s too neat to pass up. “Actually,” I interject, “I may have told someone today that I do.”
I can practically hear my sister’s silent surprise. When I found myself suddenly searching for a real job last year, my darling brother-in-law swept in and claimed he needed help with his new publishing company. I became a mostly useless in-house business and legal consultant. Though I tried my best to be worth it, the nepotism of it all pricked at my pride, so I quit. But when I bumped into Henry this morning…
“I found myself face to face with an old school friend,” I explain, aiming for an airy laugh and missing by about five hundred miles. “He asked what I was doing here—”
“Where is here?”
“Oh, really, darling, it’s nowhere. Some twee little countryside village. I wanted to…” When I say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous, which is why I couldn’t say it to Henry. “I wanted to join in with an elderflower harvest, if you can believe.”
There’s a short pause before Lizzie says, “You’re very odd sometimes, Olu. It’s my favourite thing about you.”
“I thought your favourite thing about me was my ability to mysteriously solve any and all problems,” I say. It’s a joke, of course. So why does my sister respond seriously, and why am I grateful?
“No,” she says. “No. You can be undeniably useful, but I don’t need to use you. I just love you.” She stumbles over the last word, not because she doesn’t feel it, but because we are who we are. When we were children, Lizzie and I, we didn’t hear that word much.
And yet, I force my leaden tongue to say it back, since it’s true. “I love you too.”
“So,” she says brightly, moving on from the prickling discomfort that always comes with discussing feelings. I appreciate it. “You’ve gone to God knows where to pick elderflower, and somehow bumped into an old friend. Continue.”
“Well, it turns out he owns the farm that owns the elderflower. He asked what I was doing here, and I happened to have my journal, so I told him I was interested in the local history—”
“What’s the local history?”
“Damned if I know. Anyway, I gave him my card so I’d seem a bit more authoritative and less like an unemployed wanderer who forces his presence on innocent fruit farmers. Only, the card’s outdated, so… He decided that I’m a writer. Tell Isaac, if anyone asks him about my impending travel memoirs, to nod enigmatically.”
Lizzie snorts. “I’m sure that can be arranged. And, really, Keynes, you are a writer.”
“We’ll agree to disagree.”
“You’re a pain, sometimes, brother-mine.”
“As you never fail to remind me.”
She laughs, but then her voice softens. “So… You’re travelling again.”
“Not really, darling.” I keep my tone light. “Maybe I actually will take notes and give Isaac something to publish.”
“Maybe you should. Your travel diaries have always been good.” She actually sounds serious, which is disconcerting. My journals are just a thing I do, and she’s the only one who reads them. No-one else is interested in pages of me swinging between acerbic sarcasm about the nature of man and genuine awe at the majesty of—gag—mother earth.
I turn a particular corner and amble into the garden of a pretty little three-storey house painted white. “Maybe,” I say, all non-committal, which is code for I would rather die than show my inner thoughts to the world.
Lizzie knows the code because she used to use it too, before she fell in love with a poet and learned the power of emotion or some such rubbish. “Maybe,” she echoes soothingly, promising it doesn’t matter, that I don’t have to. “Well, I have to go—I’m still holding evening pointe classes—but stay in touch.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” It’ll be no hardship. Lizzie’s much easier to fool over the phone. “And remember, if you need anything, anything at all—”
“Yes, I will call you immediately, I know the rules. Goodbye,” she says, and I slide my phone into my pocket as I approach the flat above Mrs. Hartley’s garage. Before I can jog up the side stairs, though, I spy Mrs. Hartley herself, emptying something into a wheelie bin. And she spies me.
“Keynes,” she says brightly. She’s an achingly warm sort of woman, the kind I’ve never quite understood but always enjoyed. Over the past couple of days, I’ve heard her calling to her children, through the windows. Heard them calling back. They’re wonderfully naughty and they absolutely adore her.
I see why. With the fine lines on her fair skin, the silver in her hair, the comfort in her eyes, she must be about my age—but when I was a child, I dreamed of a mother just like her, one who would hug me and ask me questions and tell me I was clever or kind. Instead of the mother I got, the one who made me in her frostbitten image.
“I can’t bear the child’s snivelling. Take him away.”
“Mrs. Hartley,” I nod, offering my best smile in return for her genuine one. It’s the least I can do.
“Call me Maria,” she says, with the sort of instant intimacy that has nothing to do with charm and everything to do with easy self-possession. “We haven’t had much of a chance to chat, since you arrived. How are you settling in?”
What she’s saying is technically true, but then, I didn’t think we needed to chat. Arrangements were made over the phone; I swapped money for keys; fin. “Very well, thank you,” I say, feeling uncomfortable. Her eyes are a mellow, summer-sky sort of blue, but they suddenly seem very piercing. Like twin microscopes studying me in fine detail.
She comes toward me, smoothing down the skirt of her long, floral dress, and I have the oddest feeling that she’s approaching me with the same caution she might a wounded animal. “I’m glad to hear it. I thought I’d mention—if you would ever like to nip down for a cup of tea, you need only to ask.”
Oh, Christ. Understanding topples over me like a pile of bricks: she is one of those tender-hearted and selfless individuals who excel at identifying damaged souls. She has honed in on me and will not rest until she nurses me back to health. I barely resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Tea is never necessary,” she says, apparently undaunted, “but it’s always a pleasure.”
How much ruder, exactly, do I need to be? “I don’t believe I’ll have much time for social calls, while I’m here.”
She cocks her head, and I see a flash of unexpected steel in her gaze. “Really? Because I noticed that you stayed in all weekend, lurking at the windows and doing an excellent impression of a lost and lonely man.”
I’m so shocked that I forget to control my laughter. It spills out, refreshing as rainfall after a drought. She smiles, a little relieved and clearly smug. And, just like that, I like her. Hm. That’s another thing that hasn’t happened in a while, liking new people. Maybe I shouldn’t avoid her. Maybe I should go down for tea.
I find myself asking, “What do you do?”
She blinks, as if surprised. “I’m a school teacher. Why?”
“Because I would’ve guessed as much.”
“Ha! And you?”
“I’m a profligate rake. It’s considered an outdated profession but I’m rather good at it.”
She blinks at me seriously, and for a moment I think that’s all I’ll get from her. But then laughter bursts from her closed mouth, as if she were trying awfully not to set it free but couldn’t help herself. “Oh, God,” she wheezes. “Really, I’m always in. Knock on the door any time.”
Perhaps I shall.
4
Griff
By Keynes’s third day on the farm, I can’t decide what’s worse; the way his presence fucks up my routine, or the way memories of him fuck up my thoughts. Whichever way you slice it, here are the facts: my work is the one place in this village where I’m actually respected, where I feel sort of free, but I’m stuck in my office like a rat in trap, doing whatever it takes to confuse my Keynes-addled mind into letting this obsession go. And when I say whatever it takes, I mean I’m checking spreadsheets. My eyes are blurry, my mind is numbed, my skin is itching for the fresh, warm air of the outdoors, and guess what? I’m still fucking thinking about him.
God only knows why. I don’t even want to see him—but for all of yesterday and most of this morning, he was everywhere I turned. Bright and constant, flashing at me from the corner of my eye the way sunlight creeps into dark rooms when you’re fighting a headache. I need mental black-out blinds strong enough to block Keynes, and the spreadsheet isn’t cutting it. Neither is Rebecca’s needling, which is how I know I’m seriously fucked.
Her teasing words are muted in the cool, empty office. “Are you gonna tell me why you’re all mean-looking today? Or should… I… guess?” Rebecca has this thing about dramatic emphasis. She watches too many musicals.
I grunt.
“Guessing it is,” she sing-songs. “I suggest your terrible mood has something to do with one Mr. Olusegun-Keynes. Am I wrong?”
Another grunt. It’s afternoon, and we’re alone. She’s sat on the edge of my desk, pulling a loose thread in her cardi and being optimistic. Those are bad habits of hers. My bad habit is being a prick, and I’m doing it right now.
She sighs. “Come on, Griff. What did he do?”
Barely anything, really. That’s what gets me the most: all he did was chuck a few sneering words my way, and I’m tied up in knots over it. I flick a dead-eyed look at her and say, “He’s trouble.” And a half.
“He’s trouble,” Rebecca mocks, lowering her voice to imitate mine. “You sound like my dad.” She can’t say I sound like my dad, because I don’t have one. And she can’t say I sound like my mum, either, because Mum never said things like that. She had this whole bit about not judging people since she couldn’t really know their hearts. Pity no-one ever gave her the same courtesy.
Bex is trying to cheer me up, but my gearstick’s stuck on ‘miserable’ so it’s not fucking working. In fact, she’s just getting on my nerves, which almost never happens. I set my jaw and come up with a massive understatement: “He just rubs me up the wrong way.”
She smiles. “But that’s the mystery I’m trying to solve—I thought he wanted to rub you up the right way.”
My glare could flatten cities, but it won’t cow my best friend. Still, a man’s got to try. “Don’t you think it’s weird that he’s shown up out of nowhere, he’s mates with Henry, but it was all some big accident? A coincidence?” I stab savagely at my keyboard and the spreadsheet freaks out, colours changing and formulas fucking up. I’ve messed with something and now I’ll have to fix it—unlikely—or email accounting for help. Because I’m actually too thick to understand shit like this, and I should stick to climbing trees and playing with dirt.
No, Griffin, I tell myself sharply. You have to be sharp, with thoughts like that, or they’ll eat you alive. I’ve had them under control for a long time now—but someone set them free with a few razor-sharp words on Sunday night.
I scowl and continue my conspiracy theory out loud. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all. I think he came here on purpose, but him and Henry are hiding why. Like, maybe he’s a… a consultant, and he’s monitoring us all to see if we’re shit at our jobs. Or maybe Henry’s not in on it and Keynes is here to… to… double-cross him. It’s some kind of rich people drama. Yeah.” I nod, certain that one way or another, the man is here for evil reasons.
Then I look up to find Rebecca staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. “That was a lot of words for someone you keep telling me doesn’t matter.”
“He doesn’t, so leave it.”
“Also, have you been watching your Mum’s old Dynasty tapes? Because, Jesus Christ, that was dramatic.”
I don’t know why, but Dynasty’s the hit that makes me crumble. “He called me stupid, okay? That’s it. I’m just pissed.” I shouldn’t be, though. I should be stone, oak, immovable earth. Earth doesn’t care who thinks it’s stupid. Why can’t I be fucking earth?
“Ah, Griff.” Rebecca abandons the thread in her cardigan and crawls across the desk, because she’s small enough to do things like that. Rising on her knees, she puts her hands on my shoulders and says, “Smack him into the ground, babe.”
Laughter is the last thing I expect, but here it is, bubbling up from my belly. She’s magic. Of course, brilliant moments never last. This one is over before it really begins.
Someone clears their throat, and I shouldn’t be able to identify a near-stranger by a low, rasping sound like that—but somehow, I do. It’s crisp, purposeful, pointed. It’s the subtle, slow and unconcerned I’m here signal of a bloke who probably thinks he owns the world. It’s Keynes.
I jump, and Rebecca jerks away from me. He lounges in the doorway watching us lazily, like a lion stretched out in the sun. My face heats because Christ—what did he overhear? Like a pillar of salt, I’m utterly still while Rebecca slides off the desk. Keynes’s steady gaze meets mine, but I can’t read him for fuck. That shouldn’t feel unusual—I can’t read anyone, and they certainly can’t read me. But with him, it’s weird.
Maybe because I read him before. I remember his hands shaking, his chest shuddering, as he tried to convince me to devour him. I wasn’t wrong. I know I wasn’t wrong. And that sudden, absolute certainty cools the burning coal beneath my breastbone, just a little bit.
“I needed you—” he begins, then cuts himself off sharply. I know, the same way I know he was shaking, that he hates what he just said. After a neat little pause, he starts over. “I have a question, and apparently, you’re the one to ask. About the elderflower harvest next week.”
For once, I don’t think before I speak. “Researching for your book, are you?”
“I’m sorry?”
Maybe I’m being ridiculous, but his surprise buoys my conspiracy theory, and I like my conspiracy theory. It gives me a reason to be wary of him beyond hurt pride. “I thought you were here to write a book.”
