I mean, I’m not stupid. There was a sympathy element there too. I was the girl with no mum….
Anyway, let’s not dwell on that. It’s Christmas Eve. I step outside the kitchen door, making my way through a cluster of chickens to breathe in the fresh West Country air. I must admit, the air is amazing here. In fact, the whole place is amazing. Dad thinks I’ve completely rejected Somerset, but I haven’t. I’ve just made a choice about how to live my life—
I close my eyes briefly. Stop it. How many imaginary conversations have I had with Dad about this? And now I’m having them when he’s standing three yards away?
I take a sip of punch and try to focus on the distant landscape rather than the farmyard, because the closer you get to the actual house, the less picturesque it becomes. Dad’s tried a lot of moneymaking wheezes over the years, none of which have worked—and all around the farmyard are the remains and detritus of them, which he’s never bothered clearing up. There’s the cider press, sitting in its barn, barely used. There’s the massage table, from when we were going to have a spa. (He couldn’t find a massage therapist cheap enough.) There’s the matching turquoise swirly eighties headboard and bedside tables that he bought off a mate, intending to set up a B&B. They’re still wrapped up in their plastic, leaning against a gate. They look terrible.
And there’s Colin the alpaca, roaming around in his little paddock, looking like the miserable sod he is. God, the alpacas were a disaster. Dad bought six of them, about three years ago, and he reckoned they were going to make our fortune. They were going to be an attraction, and we were going to set up an alpaca wool factory, and all sorts. He actually charged tickets for some school party to come and visit, but then an alpaca bit one of the kids, and he hadn’t done a risk assessment or whatever and it was all a total hassle.
Although that wasn’t as bad as his ANSTERS FARM WINTER WONDERLAND! VISIT FATHER CHRISTMAS IN HIS GROTTO! with cotton wool for snow and Poundland tat for presents and me as a fourteen-year-old resentful elf. It was twelve years ago now, but I still shudder at the memory. Those bloody green tights.
“Oh, it’s wonderful to have you home, Katie!” Biddy has come out too, holding her glass. She gives me a hug and pats my shoulder. “We miss you, darling!”
Biddy has been Dad’s girlfriend for years now. Or partner. Common-law wife, I suppose. After Mum died, for the longest time it was just Dad and me. It worked fine. I thought Dad would be on his own forever. There were a few local women, mostly blond, who came and went, and I didn’t really distinguish between them.
But then Biddy arrived, right before I went off to uni. From the start, she was different. She’s a quiet, persistent, sensible person, Biddy. She’s pretty in her own way—dark, slightly graying hair, deep-brown eyes—but she’s not flashy or trendy. There’s grit to her too. She used to be a chef at the Fox and Hounds, till the late hours got too much for her. Now she makes jam and sells it at fairs. I’ve seen her stand there patiently at her stall, six hours at a time, always pleasant, always willing to chat. She’d never overcharge a customer but never undercharge either. She’s fair. True and fair. And for some reason—I have no idea why—she puts up with Dad.
I’m only joking. Half-joking, maybe. Dad’s one of those people—sends you mad with frustration, then comes through just when you weren’t expecting it. When I was seventeen, I asked him over and over to teach me to drive. He put it off…forgot…said I was too young….Then one day, when I’d given up hope, he announced, “Right, Kitty-Kate, it’s driving day.” We spent all day in the car and he was the most kind, patient teacher you could imagine.
I mean, I still failed. Turns out Dad’s got no idea how to teach driving; in fact, the examiner stopped the test halfway because apparently I was “unsafe.” (He was particularly unimpressed by Dad’s advice: Always accelerate toward changing traffic lights, in case you can nip through.) But, anyway, the thought was there, and I’ll always remember that day.
That was Dad’s gentler, more serious side. He doesn’t always show it, but underneath the swagger and the twinkles and the flirting he’s as soft as butter. You just have to watch him at lambing. He looks after all the orphan lambs as tenderly as though they were his real babies. Or take the time I had a bad fever when I was eleven. Dad got so worried, he took my temperature about thirty times in an hour. (At last he asked Rick Farrow, the vet, to stop in and have a look at me. He said he trusted Rick over any doctor, any day. Which was fine until the story got out at school. I mean, the vet.)
I still remember Mum. Kind of. I have dim splashes of memory like an unfinished watercolor. I remember arms around me and a soft voice in my ear. Her “going out” shoes—she only had the one pair, in black patent with sensible heels. I remember her leading me around the fields on my pony, clucking fondly to both of us. Brushing my hair after bath time, in front of the telly. I still feel a sad, Mum-shaped hole in my life when I allow myself…but that’s not often. It would feel disloyal to Dad, somehow. As I’ve got older, I’ve realized how hard it must have been for him, all those years, bringing me up alone. But he never let me realize it, not once. Everything was fun, an adventure for the pair of us.
I have a memory of him when I was six, the year after Mum died: Dad sitting at the kitchen table, peering at the Littlewoods catalog, his brow furrowed, trying to pick out clothes for me. Wanting so badly to get it right. He can make you weep, he’s so kind. And then he can make you weep because he sold your precious matching bedroom-furniture set with no warning to a guy from Bruton who gave him a really good deal. (I was fifteen. And what I still don’t get is, how did the guy from Bruton even know about my bedroom furniture?)