Drawing the Line (15 page)

‘So you had a pleasant afternoon?’ Griff asked, but not as if he wanted to know. He eyed the plant I needed both arms to hold, but didn’t comment.

‘Oh, yes! Iffin Court’s lovely. No help to me at all: the owners are a couple who need to waste some of what they make in the City. But it was useful, all the same. I thought this would look nice in that planter we can’t shift,’ I said, depositing my burden on the kitchen table, ‘the Crown Devon with the crazed base.’

‘The jardinière,’ he corrected me, without smiling kindly as he usually did when he had to correct me. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

‘The whole of the enterprise,’ I continued, more and more alarmed, ‘is geared to making money. But they do it so prettily you feel grateful they’re letting you buy. Tubs and hanging baskets everywhere – they’ll be a picture in a month’s time. We’ve still got time to plant some up. And that jam you always make and we never get round to eating – we could have a corner for produce like that in the shop. You know, like the toy basket. So that even if people come in just to get out of the rain, they’re likely to buy something. And once they’ve opened their purses, they might as well buy something else.’ I was gabbling. Because there was something wrong, really wrong, and I didn’t know what it was.

Griff took his glasses off and laid them beside the plant on the table. My stomach clenched. Even with quite a stern telling off he’d peer over them. Any moment he’d rub his face and begin. If I’d been the crying sort I’d have sobbed: he was going to take away the
lovely memories of my time at Iffin and replace them with horrible ones. ‘You’re clearly a born entrepreneur,’ he began. ‘But I never thought your enthusiasm would permit you to steal other people’s trade secrets.’ He picked up the sheets of fax paper. ‘This is industrial espionage, Evelina. Unethical. There is only one thing to do with this and that’s to burn it. Can’t you imagine the harm it will do us in the trade if it gets about that you’ve got hold of Copeland’s list of contacts?’ His eyes blazed. I’d never seen him like this.

‘I didn’t “get hold of it”. Marcus sent it to me so –’

‘What a foolish boy. I presume it was in response to your blandishments.’

‘He’s a mate. I asked him to find out where Copeland had got that frontispiece from. That’s all.’

‘This is very far from “that’s all.”’ He counted out the pages, his hands shaking. ‘Eleven A4 pages of addresses. Single space.’

‘He promised it’d be just the ones down here.’

‘Is Northumbria “down here”? I think not.’ In one swift movement he balled them and opened the Aga door.

‘No!’ I made a dive but got no more than a burnt wrist for my pains. That wasn’t the pain that brought tears to my eyes as I watched the paper burn.

He slammed the door shut, standing in front of it. Did he think I was going to plunge my whole hand in? Well, I suppose I might have done.

‘That was the way to my father and you’ve destroyed it. Griff, you bastard – I hate you! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!’
I screamed a lot more than that before I finished. I told him a lot about his sex life he already knew. I said he did dreadful things I knew he didn’t. I shouted. I raged till my throat was sore. I must have done things I never remembered afterwards because I ended with earth under my fingernails.

And now I was cowering in the caravan, huddled under my sleeping bag, still crying. OK, as a dramatic gesture, the caravan was a cop-out. But what else could I do? I’d slammed out of the house. The rain had come on again, all the heavier after the sun, and I’d got soaked to the skin just running down the village street. A village isn’t like a town. The evening bus had come and gone. The railway station was nearly two miles from the centre. Thumbing a lift? Even my pounding head knew that at this time of night it was too risky: I’d get some fatherly type who’d drop me at a police station or another fatherly type who’d want to comfort me with a quick shag. No to both, thanks very much.

It was quite by chance I’d turned in the direction of the farm and the caravan field. But the idea of using Griff’s own place as a refuge struck me as brilliant revenge. He’d spend the night worrying about me – even in my blind anger I knew that – and all the time he’d be providing the shelter that meant I didn’t need to go back home. Next morning I’d trash it, just to let him know.

I couldn’t go back home. Ever. Not after all the things I’d said. Maybe things I’d done. Half of me wanted to remember; the other half made damned sure I couldn’t. My memory for detail simply shut down. It hadn’t for months, not with all those little exercises Griff used so patiently to set.

What if I’d hurt him? Dear God, what if I’d hit him the way I hit myself? I could have injured him. I was strong for my size, just as he was frail for his. I might even have killed him and not known. The things I’d said had been enough to give him a heart attack. One or two bubbled up in my memory: it was all I could do not to slap them down by punching my forehead.

I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t go back and find him lying dead because of what I’d done.

I couldn’t go back full stop.

Ever.

But I had to know he was all right. I stood in the rain trying to make my feet turn back to the village but they wouldn’t work. I didn’t realise what I was doing till the rain dripped off my nose.

I’d set out with nothing except my bag. No Tim, of course. I could have done with Tim.

No, I couldn’t. I might have put a knife through him and torn him apart.

What had I done to Griff?

My mobile. I had my mobile. Reception wasn’t good round here. But it was worth a try. The caravan itself was in a black spot. Out in the lane, in the rain again, I stared at the phone. Who was I going to contact? Griff’d never speak to me again, not after the things I’d said. He’d never speak to me again if he was dead, would he? If I’d killed him.

I closed the phone. There was no way I could phone Griff himself. No way. I couldn’t bear to hear his voice; I couldn’t bear not to hear his voice.

I scrolled through the numbers in the memory. Marcus? No, he’d started all this, him and his enthusiasm
and incompetence. Mrs Hatch? No, she disapproved of me far too much, though she never let on. Dave? Tony? Tony. He was the one. Him and his skimpy towelling robe.

‘Have you any idea what time it is?’ he asked.

‘None at all. But you’ve got to go and see that Griff’s all right.’ I cut the call.

Back to the caravan. I had enough sense to peel off my soaking clothes before huddling under the duvet. There were the towels we’d used in Harrogate: I’d not got round to washing them, of course. Nor to emptying the fridge. There was even a little water left. And there was the first aid kit for my poor burnt hand.

My phone rang. Tony. Stark naked I had to go out into the field to hear what he said.

‘He says to come home.’

‘He’s all right?’

‘OK,’ he said in the sort of voice you use when you’re not sure. ‘But he says –’

I cut the call. No. I couldn’t. Switching off the phone, I dived under the duvet again.

Thank goodness for the emergency dressing gowns we kept in the ’van. In my panic the previous night, I’d forgotten that our pitch was nearest the farmhouse, which overlooked it. Griff had chosen it for security. Now I had the insecurity of seeing all my clothes scattered about, and the knowledge that as he cleaned their teeth the farmer and his sons would be able to peer down at me.

The clothes were still sodden, of course. Horrible. But I put them on anyway. Very quickly. Now I could
check my resources. The rations we always topped up at the end of each journey were very low. But there was enough milk for a splash in my coffee and enough to dampen some breakfast cereal. There was only a tenner in my own purse, but in the one I use for business over a hundred quid in cash, most of it profit from the Harrogate sale I’d not got round to sorting into our accounts. Then there was the credit card Griff made me carry just in case there was a real emergency. Somehow I didn’t think running away from him was the right reason to use it. I could get some clean, dry clothes from a charity shop, but the shoes’d be a problem. I hated other people’s trainers with a vengeance. And then what? I’d made myself voluntarily homeless and unemployed. Nothing from the DSS for six weeks, then. Seasonal work? There were enough asylum seekers, poor sods, working for virtually nothing, to pick every vegetable in Kent, not to mention doing equally illegal hotel and café work. Begging or selling the
Big Issue
? Didn’t fancy either. Couldn’t busk to save my life. Belt-tightening was in order.

At this point the caffeine might have kicked in. I could get Marcus to let me know the best postcodes for my hunt. Who knows, by the end of the week I might be living in luxury?

If you live in a decent-sized city you take certain things for granted. Cheap and regular public transport is one of them. Living in the country, you have to plan all the time if you want to get from an A that isn’t on a railway line to a B that isn’t on a regular bus route. Journeys that would take less than half an hour by car become epic
voyages. Especially when you don’t have timetables to hand, and you’ve no idea where to start from in the first place.

At least I had a rough idea about buses to Ashford, so it was there I headed first, making sure I sat hunched, hood up and staring out of the window at the familiar countryside. It was a waste of time, I dare say – in a village like ours someone would probably have recognised me if I’d dressed in a complete gorilla outfit. At least there were plenty of charity and ordinary cheap shops in Ashford. I’d have loved to get undies from the specialist lingerie shop in what used to be the market place, or even, more realistically, from M and S. But it’d be bottom of the market stuff for me. I could just afford a new waterproof top and new, if cheap, trainers: I knew from experience that folk only gave away anoraks and raincoats when they’d lost their weatherproofing. And I simply couldn’t bear the smell of other feet. Really, truly couldn’t. Then I did a circuit of the charity shops, picking a T-shirt here, jumper there. And a couple of bits of jewellery I could sell on for four times what I paid. I’d pop the profit in one of their boxes when I had enough to survive on. I kept the receipts to remind me and also to prove to a potential buyer I hadn’t knocked them off somewhere. Local maps from W H Smith, nothing like as good as the old ones back home at Griff’s.

I mustn’t think of it as home any more.

Bus station and railway station got me travel info. And I put a call through to Marcus.

‘You’re joking!’ he gasped. ‘But you’re like father and daughter. Well, a lot better than most girls and their dads: they have rows.’

‘Griff and I had a row. Actually it was over the fax you sent. He thought I was being unethical, doing industrial espionage, blah, blah, blah.’

There was a long pause, so long I was glad I’d asked him to call me back. ‘I suppose in the wrong hands… Shit! I never thought. Sorry.’

‘So will you find me just the ones very close to Ashford or Bredeham? And Marcus – hang on – I want you to do something else, too, before you call back.’

I think it was because he was feeling guilty that Marcus did exactly what he was told fairly quickly, calling me back while I was in a loo changing. I stowed the still damp stuff into one of the now empty carriers – it’d be a pain to ferry it everywhere, but that was life. I couldn’t afford to ditch it. I’d go and have a coffee while I mulled everything over. There was a coffee shop in the market place, with a few tables in what might at any moment be feeble sunshine. There. Now I could scan Marcus’s summary of very local posh piles and their opening times this month. He’d bring a list of those further away or with irregular opening times to the next fair. How I was to be there, I’d no idea, but it was the only safe way I knew of making a living. Unless I went to college and got a qualification for my restoration work – and God knew how’d afford that – I could only get work for friends or by word of mouth. In a world without Griff’s protection you needed more than that.

The coffee I was drinking nearly came back at the thought of him. Why hadn’t he been in touch? He knew my number. I’d have expected some message – after all, I’d checked he was all right last night.

If I thought about him, I’d cry. And Lina didn’t cry. Well, not very often. I wouldn’t hit myself, either. Calmly as I could, I looked at the information I’d written down in a notebook that wasn’t quite bottom of the range, because I didn’t want any tacky, girly designs on the cover. Griff had always told me to behave professionally, and fishing out my Little Pony to record a price or whatever was going to impress no one. Plus I didn’t like any of the girly designs.

Yes! There were two places open this very afternoon. Two! One was near Tonbridge; the other was near Canterbury, not all that far from Iffin Court. I knew it was easy enough to get from Ashford to Canterbury by train. There must be a bus from Canterbury to Hythe, which was, like Bossingham Hall, due south of Canterbury. I checked. If I legged it, I might just get the Canterbury train now. Sorry – no tip. The waiter had a regular wage. I no longer did.

Legs were going to become my most valued form of transport. It was quite a step from the railway station, Canterbury West, to the bus station, but nothing motivates you more than the knowledge you’ll have to wait another two hours if you miss the next bus. But I was in luck. The bus in question actually left Stone Street, the main road south I thought it would follow, and took to the village roads to the east, yes, actually to my goal, a hamlet called Bossingham. Yes! But it was clear that Lord Elham’s pad lay a good long way from any nasty vulgar thing like a public highway. The driver seemed to stop anywhere passengers asked, and happily pulled up in the lay-by by impressive wrought iron gates.

‘Mind you, it don’t open for another hour,’ he said.
‘Why don’t you go on as far as the village? There’s a nice little pub called the Hop Pocket – you could get some lunch there.’