Chapter Two
Will Langley had always been a man of few words. He’d never minded, but now, when it was too late, he found words bubbling up inside him in a ferment of feeling, surprising and infuriating him because Esther had already left. He’d watched her Land Rover pull out of the farmyard, the hard-packed dirt glittering with frost, and then down the narrow, rutted track that led to the B-road into Thornthwaite, just over a mile away. She’d gone and bloody left him.
He still couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t accept it, even though he supposed he had to. And now it was too late to ask her to stop, wait, and then demand what on earth she was going on about, because as far as he was concerned this had come out of nowhere. Hadn’t it?
He worked all day, spending most of it in the lambing shed, with two first-time ewes who were having difficult labours, as well as looking after a weak lamb who hadn’t been able to feed from his mother. He’d docked a dozen lambs born in the last two days, the pockets of his trousers full of the rubber rings used to shorten their tails, his hands tinted a sickly yellow from iodine. The joys of lambing season.
At least the work kept him from thinking about Esther, although the knowledge of her departure, the sight of her looking so weary and resigned as she stood by the sink, was emblazoned onto his brain. Even when he was elbow-deep in an ewe he could still see it, the unfortunate movie screen in the back of his mind, his wife looking as if she couldn’t stand another minute in his house, his life, as if she’d been beaten down by it all, by him. And he hadn’t even realized.
At half past six, he stomped back into the farmhouse, ducking under the lintel as he shucked off his mud- and blood-spattered boots and trousers. The long, narrow kitchen was dark, the only sound the low, comforting rumble of the Aga. Dirty dishes were still piled in the sink, a pile of old post on the table. Toby came up to Will and whined, licking his hand; he hadn’t been fed, and he was normally given his dinner at six, by Esther, after work, while Will was still out in the fields or barns.
It was probably chauvinistic and shallow to miss the creature comforts Esther had provided, but right then, mucky and muscles aching, Will did. He missed the sight of a cosy kitchen, with something simmering on top of the Aga, a hot bath already drawn upstairs in the claw-footed tub that was a century old. He missed Esther’s smile and the brisk way she’d hand him a thick ceramic mug of tea, steeped so strong he could just about stand a spoon in it, before he’d even asked. He missed Esther.
Why on earth had she left? They’d been fine, hadn’t they? He’d thought they’d been fine. Mostly fine, anyway. Not as bad as all that. All right, yes, the last few months had been a bit… difficult. But they’d just lost a baby, and of course that had to affect Esther. It had affected him. Even now his heart clutched as he remembered how the realization had thudded through him. No baby. No more picturing a little boy or girl, a bean of a baby that would fit in the curve of his arm. No more thoughts of a family, how they would finally be one properly, after so many years of waiting and wanting.
He hadn’t talked to Esther about it, though, because they’d never been talkers, and he’d thought she wanted some space. He’d expected them to struggle through to the other side, find their balance again. He hadn’t thought it had been that bad, but apparently it had. For Esther.
Will reached for the old, dented copper kettle on top of the stove and filled it up at the deep, farmhouse sink as he stared moodily out at the farmyard, now cloaked in a soft, purple twilight. The two ewes had safely delivered their lambs, and no others had shown signs of labour, so he might actually have an evening free for once.
If Esther were here, they’d open a bottle of wine and watch a DVD box set in the sitting room, with a fire in the wood stove crackling away merrily, her feet in his lap. Simple pleasures, but they’d been good enough for him. Although if he was honest, they hadn’t done something like that in a long while.
No, with a free evening, Esther would be at the kitchen table, peering at her laptop as she filled out one of her wretched spreadsheets for work, an endless round of government box ticking, and Will might have tackled the farm’s accounts, something he was forever putting off. Or he would have watched the telly by himself—football, maybe, or a mindless crime show.
They would have spent the entire evening apart, until bedtime, when Will would have checked on the animals and Esther would have taken Toby out and turned off the lights, maybe made up a couple of fleece-covered hot water bottles to take upstairs with them.
Then they would have gone up to the antique, oak bed Will’s great-grandfather had bought his bride as a wedding present, and undressed for bed mostly in silence, although sometimes with the off comment about the farm or Esther’s work; they’d never needed many words between them.
Then they would have climbed into bed and snuggled under the duvet, Esther’s icy toes tucked up against Will’s calves, a hot-water bottle tucked between them like a baby.
The baby. That was what this had to be about, no matter what Esther had said. What else could it be? They’d been happy before then. At least Will had been happy. Now he wondered if he’d ever actually known what Esther thought or felt. He certainly hadn’t seen this coming, not ever, and the complete lack of knowledge, the utter shock he felt, rocked him more than a little.
With a sigh, he patted Toby’s head and went to fill up the dog’s bowl. The fridge was depressingly empty for Will’s own dinner; Esther was the one who did the food shopping, she obviously hadn’t for a few days. He found a heel of hardened cheddar cheese and the end of a loaf, and with a pint of Langdale bitter he called it a meal.
He’d just sat down at the table when headlights flashed across the window from the farmyard, and Toby set to barking as a Land Rover parked in front of the house. Esther. She was back. Daft woman, she regretted leaving him. Of course she did. With a sloppy grin spreading over his face, Will rose from the table, nearly tripping over Toby in his eager haste.
The knock at the door made him pause; wouldn’t Esther just come in—or was she being absurdly formal, for some reason? He opened the door, the smile wiped off his face as he saw Dan Trenton, the local vet and fiancé of Esther’s sister Rachel, standing there. Of course it wasn’t Esther. Will was an idiot.
“Dan.” He nodded his greeting. “What brings you here? All my ewes are fine and hardy.”
Dan smiled. “Good to hear it. Lambing going well?”
“Two tricky births this morning, but it ended all right.” Will stepped aside so Dan could come in; a light, needling rain was falling and the air was frigid. “What’s going on with you?”
“I was over at the Whitford farm and I saw your lights. I thought I’d stop in.”
He knew about Esther, then. Will appraised his future brother-in-law rather grimly, wondering how he’d found out. Had Esther told him? Had she told everyone? Or maybe Rachel had worked it out from Esther and then gone to Dan. Either way Will didn’t like it much. His business was his business… and Esther’s. The last thing he wanted now was to have Dan asking well-meaning questions, or worse, looking at Will with some kind of pity because he couldn’t keep a wife.
“Well, then,” he said, not meaning to be unfriendly, at least not exactly.
Dan smiled easily, as unruffled as always. “I wondered if you felt like a pint at The Bell?”
“The Bell?” The Queen’s Sorrow was the pub for most of Thornthwaite; The Bell was for day labourers and lads on a pub crawl, intent only on getting drunk and maybe having a bust-up if they’d had too much.
“Why not?” Dan shrugged. “The Queen’s Sorrow always seemed a bit posh to me, all that Barbour and Burberry makes my eyes cross.”
Dan was posh, though, even though he’d been born and bred in Thornthwaite. He’d gone off to Cambridge for uni and come back sounding like a gentleman; he wore waxed jackets and Hunter boots and was interviewed by Cumbrian Life. He embodied the gentrified side of farming life that wasn’t real, as far as Will was concerned. Will was a dying breed, a farmer born and raised, not a hobbyist who’d made his fortune in London and bought a farm for laughs with his pocket change.
“I’ve got the lambs,” he said.
Dan raised his eyebrows. “I thought you said you’d delivered two ewes this morning?”
“Yes, but…” There was no good reason why he shouldn’t spare an hour or two at The Bell, but Will resisted all the same. He didn’t want Dan, kind as he was, prying into his business. He didn’t want to talk about Esther, not when he didn’t even know what was going on, not really. Not when he felt so bloody raw from it all.
At the same time, he didn’t want to stay in this cold, dark, empty house. It felt as if all the light and life had been sucked from its thick stone walls when Esther had packed up and left. And he’d just opened his last pint of bitter.
“All right then,” Will said with a nod. “Let me wash a bit of the sheep off me, and I’ll meet you there.”
“Excellent. Shall I order us some food as well?” Smiling, Dan spared a bemused glance for the sorry bit of bread and cheese on the table.
“Might as well,” Will answered gruffly.
Fifteen minutes later he’d washed the worst of the mud and blood off him, although he still smelled like sheep—a mixture of wool, dirt, grass, and animal. He’d never get that smell off him, not during lambing season, at least.
He changed into a fresh flannel shirt and jeans, and then climbed in his own Land Rover, as beaten up as Esther’s, and started down the bumpy track towards Thornthwaite.
The Bell looked comforting, its door thrown open, the interior lit up like a Christmas candle. Will parked on the side of steep, narrow Finkle Street, and strolled down towards the pub. He paused in front, his gaze travelling instinctively over the little stone bridge towards the village church with its square, squat Norman tower, and the darkened bulk of the vicarage beyond. He saw a light winking from his father-in-law’s study window, but otherwise the vicarage looked dark and empty.
Was Esther there? What was she thinking? Feeling? Questions he’d never needed to ask before, never thought to ask. He didn’t like asking them now, and he particularly didn’t like not knowing the answers.
“Will.” Dan called to him from a booth in the back as he came into the pub, shouldering his way through a press of slick-haired footballer lads who were making a bit of a ruckus.
“Busy in here for a Wednesday night,” he remarked as he slid into the bench opposite Dan.
“West Lakes Football Club,” Dan explained. “They come here after practice every Wednesday, or so the bartender, Sam, said.”
“Right.” Will picked up his pint of bitter. “Cheers. I’ll get the next round.”
“I probably shouldn’t have more than one,” Dan said regretfully. “Driving and work tomorrow.”
Will nodded, wiping the foam from his upper lip. “Next time, then.”
Dan nodded and they put down their pints, appraising each other. Will decided to break the silence first. “So you know about Esther, then.”
Dan ducked his head. “Sorry, mate.”
“It’s all right.” Will shrugged, acting as if it was all of little consequence, which was as daft as anything he could have done. What mattered more? He had a pain in his chest, the way he suspected a heart attack would feel, but he knew it wasn’t. “You heard the crack from Rachel, I suppose?”
Dan nodded. “She saw Esther this afternoon, at the vicarage.”
Will nodded and took another sip from his pint.
“I really am sorry,” Dan said after a moment. “I know things have been tough…”
“Did you?” Will interjected abruptly, his voice harder than he’d meant it to be, that raw wound opening wider. “Because I’m not sure I did.”
Dan looed startled. “I meant with the pregnancy… the miscarriage, you know…”
“Aye, that was hard.” There was a tightening in his chest as he remembered Esther’s toneless description of what had happened. He hadn’t gone to the twelve-week ultrasound; she’d briskly told him he didn’t need to, and with things busy as ever at the farm, he’d taken her at her word, which, now that he thought about it, seemed like a bloody stupid thing to do.
And so, it had meant he’d learned that their baby had never even been by Esther matter-of-factly recounting the events of her appointment as she sat at the kitchen table peeling potatoes. Will remembered the long, brown strips of peel, the pure white of the potato, the incongruity of it all. Death and dinner. He had barely been able to choke out “Oh, Esther” before she’d risen and gone to the Aga.
“Tea will be in half an hour,” she’d said. “Why don’t you have a bath beforehand?”
Will had stared at her, at a loss. Even he wasn’t so clueless when it came to feelings that he realized this wasn’t the right or normal response to a miscarriage. It wasn’t the response he felt inside, but hell if he’d known what to say or do.
“That was hard,” Will told Dan, “but it was two months ago, and Esther hasn’t seemed…” He paused, trying to think how Esther had seemed. As brisk as ever, surely, and maybe a little remote. But not grief-stricken. Not heartbroken. “Truth be told,” he said, “Esther didn’t seem as upset as all that.” He looked down into his beer, feeling disloyal for saying such a thing, even if it was true. “At least on the surface, I mean.” And he didn’t really look much farther than that. He wasn’t sure he knew how, not when what was on the surface had made him happy.
“Sometimes these things fester though, don’t they?” Dan said, and Will stared at him blankly. Fester? Open sores on a hoof festered. Not feelings. And yet even he knew what Dan meant. A bit.
“Esther isn’t the sort to hold a grudge or anything like that,” he protested. “If she’s got a problem, she’ll tell you. Tell me.” At least he’d thought she would—and she certainly had today. Except he still didn’t feel any the wiser.
“True enough, I suppose,” Dan acknowledged with a wry smile. “She can certainly be blunt, can’t she? I got my hair cut a few weeks ago and she said it made me look like a shorn sheep.” Will smiled a little; he’d never minded the sharp side of Esther’s tongue. “But what do you think is going on, then?”
Will shrugged again. What else could he do? He had no idea what was going on, and even if he did, he didn’t think he wanted to share it with Dan. But he did know his wife, or at least he’d thought he did, and she was one of the most practical, down-to-earth, no-nonsense people he knew, and so this kind of over-the-top, abrupt, and emotional behaviour was totally unlike her. That’s what he couldn’t get his head around.
Her practical, purposeful air had been one of the things that had attracted him to her, when they’d met ten years ago at a quiz night at The Queen’s Sorrow. He’d looked at her and thought, there’s a woman who will tell you like it is. Who won’t mess you about. A woman you could build a life, a family, with. And then she’d laughed—a surprisingly deep, throaty, sexy sound, and Will had been sold.
He’d asked her out that night, they’d had dinner at a little Italian place in Keswick that weekend, and they’d been an item by Monday, engaged two years later, married the year after that. All smooth, smooth sailing, not a ripple in the water. Or so he’d thought. Now he had the uncomfortable sensation of feeling the need to question everything, doubt everything, something he never thought—or wanted—to do.
“Shall we order our food?” he asked, and Dan nodded. “I’ll go up to the bar. What would you like?”
“Fish pie for me, thanks.”
Will nodded and rose from his seat, grateful to have a short reprieve from Dan’s kind but cack-handed attempt at a man-to-man chat.
He shouldered his way to the bar; the football lads were getting a bit arsey, on their third or fourth pints by now, the raucous laughter holding a slightly menacing edge. Will leaned his forearms on the bar and gave his order to the hassled-looking barman, who was keeping an eye on the lads behind him.
“Busy tonight, eh, Sam?” Will asked.
Sam had gone to the comp with him and taken over the pub five years ago, after it had been run nearly into the ground by a bickering couple constantly on the brink of divorce. Not like him and Esther… or so he’d thought.
“A wee bit too busy, I’m thinking,” Sam answered. “Those lads need nowt more to drink. They’re well kaleyed. What are you having then, Will?”
Will gave the food order, and then waited while Sam rang it up on the till. He glanced to the man parked on a stool to the right of him, an old codger with a flat cap pulled down low over his face, his expression set and stony, his gnarled hands clasping his pint of ale.
That could be him in another thirty years, Will realized with a jolt. Coming to the pub every night for the company, never mind the beer. Living alone, with only a dog to ease his loneliness, the kind of fate he’d feared until he’d met Esther. Until he’d found a place with her, a home, damn it. He didn’t want to give that up without a fight. He couldn’t.
Staring at the old geezer next to him with his surly, set expression, he had a sudden urge, almost a compulsion, to walk out of the pub, right up to the vicarage, and take Esther by the shoulders and ask her to come home. Demand or beg, he didn’t much care which at this point. He just wanted her back.
“That’ll be sixteen fifty, Will.”
Will glanced up at Sam and nodded, his mind still on the man next to him, on the unending road of loneliness stretching in front of him, and on Esther. Always on Esther. He handed over a twenty-pound note, and as he did so the man on the stool glanced over.
“Areet, eh?” he asked in a Cumbrian accent so thick even Will struggled to understand it.
“Areet,” he answered brusquely, not quite meeting his eye, and then he took his change and headed back to his table.
Dan seemed to have taken the hint that Will wasn’t up for some kind of heart-to-heart chat, and so they talked about farming and football for the rest of the evening, and after another half-pint—since he was driving—Will managed to relax a little.
“It’ll come all right,” Dan said as they walked out of the pub; Sam was in the process of forcibly ejecting the drunk lads, taking two by the scruffs of their necks.
“What will come all right?” Will asked as he stepped out onto the pavement. The night was black and starless, the air damp and chill, full of the plaintive sound of bleating sheep, the symphony of farming life.
“You and Esther.”
“Ah.” It all came back to him with a chest-slamming thud, nearly making him take a step back into the two lads who were keyed up and drunk and no doubt looking for a fight. And Will almost thought about giving it to them, just to relieve the pressure building inside him, pressure that had nowhere to go.
“What are you staring at?” one of the lads asked rudely, his fists balling at his sides. He reeked of beer and cheap aftershave, dressed in a tight football jersey and a pair of low-slung trackie bottoms.
“What do you care, what I’m staring at?” Will growled back. He was six inches taller and at least two stone heavier.
“Hey, hey, let’s not get worked up here,” Dan said easily, and with a hand on his shoulder he steered Will towards the street. “Don’t waste your breath on those lads, mate.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Will unclenched his fists and flexed his fingers. He wasn’t a fighter. He’d only swung a punch once in his life, and he’d lived to regret it more than just about anything he’d done. But that was something he didn’t think about, a memory he’d dropped into the deep, empty well inside his mind. He never looked down there.
But right now he was angry, and he wasn’t used to it, and he didn’t know where to put it. Why the hell had Esther left him?
He swung away from The Bell and started down the pavement, only to come to a stop when he saw the two figures on the other side of the street, both of them standing stock still, looking shocked. Dan’s fiancée Rachel… and Esther.