When I walked into the kitchen, my brother Jack had his arm around his wife Ellie and she was smiling up at him.
I like Ellie a lot. She’s warm and friendly in a way that makes you feel that she really cares about you. Mam says that marrying Ellie was good for Jack because she helped to make him less agitated.
Jack is the eldest and biggest of us all and, as Dad sometimes jokes, the best looking of an ugly bunch. He is big and strong all right, but despite his blue eyes and healthy red cheeks, his black bushy eyebrows almost meet in the middle, so I’ve never agreed with that. One thing I’ve never argued with is that he managed to attract a kind and pretty wife. Ellie has hair the colour of best-quality straw three days after a good harvest, and skin that really glows in candlelight.
‘I’m leaving tomorrow morning,’ I blurted out. ‘The Spook’s coming for me at first light.’
Ellie’s face lit up. ‘You mean he’s agreed to take you on?’
I nodded. ‘He’s given me a month’s trial.’
‘Oh, well done, Tom. I’m really pleased for you,’ she said.
‘I don’t believe it!’ scoffed Jack. ‘You, apprentice to a spook! How can you do a job like that when you still can’t sleep without a candle?’
I laughed at his joke but he had a point. I sometimes saw things in the dark and a candle was the best way to keep them away so that I could get some sleep.
Jack came towards me, and with a roar got me in a head-lock and began dragging me round the kitchen table. It was his idea of a joke. I put up just enough resistance to humour him, and after a few seconds he let go of me and patted me on the back.
‘Well done, Tom,’ he said. ‘You’ll make a fortune doing that job. There’s just one problem, though…’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘You’ll need every penny you earn. Know why?’
I shrugged.
‘Because the only friends you’ll have are the ones you buy!’
I tried to smile, but there was a lot of truth in Jack’s words. A spook worked and lived alone.
‘Oh, Jack! Don’t be cruel!’ Ellie scolded.
‘It was only a joke,’ Jack replied, as if he couldn’t understand why Ellie was making so much fuss.
But Ellie was looking at me rather than Jack and I saw her face suddenly drop. ‘Oh, Tom!’ she said. ‘This means that you won’t be here when the baby’s born…’
She looked really disappointed and it made me feel sad that I wouldn’t be at home to see my new niece. Mam had said that Ellie’s baby was going to be a girl and she was never wrong about things like that.
‘I’ll come back and visit just as soon as I can,’ I promised.
Ellie tried to smile, and Jack came up and rested his arm across my shoulders. ‘You’ll always have your family,’ he said. ‘We’ll always be here if you need us.’
An hour later I sat down to supper, knowing that I’d be gone in the morning. Dad said grace as he did every evening and we all muttered ‘Amen’ except Mam. She just stared down at her food as usual, waiting politely until it was over. As the prayer ended, Mam gave me a little smile. It was a warm, special smile and I don’t think anyone else noticed. It made me feel better.
The fire was still burning in the grate, filling the kitchen with warmth. At the centre of our large wooden table was a brass candlestick, which had been polished until you could see your face in it. The candle was made of beeswax and was expensive, but Mam wouldn’t allow tallow in the kitchen because of the smell. Dad made most of the decisions on the farm, but in some things she always got her own way.
As we tucked into our big plates of steaming hotpot, it struck me how old Dad looked tonight – old and tired – and there was an expression that flickered across his face from time to time, a hint of sadness. But he brightened up a bit when he and Jack started discussing the price of pork and whether or not it was the right time to send for the pig butcher.
‘Better to wait another month or so,’ Dad said. 'The price is sure to go higher.’
Jack shook his head and they began to argue. It was a friendly argument, the kind families often have, and I could tell that Dad was enjoying it. I didn’t join in though. All that was over for me. As Dad had told me, I was finished with farming.
Mam and Ellie were chuckling together softly. I tried to catch what they were saying, but by now Jack was in full flow, his voice getting louder and louder. When Mam glanced across at him I could tell she’d had enough of his noise.
Oblivious to Mam’s glances and continuing to argue loudly. Jack reached across for the salt cellar and accidentally knocked it over, spilling a small cone of salt on the table top. Straight away he took a pinch and threw it back over his left shoulder. It is an old County superstition. By doing that you were supposed to ward off the bad luck you’d earned by spilling it.
‘Jack, you don’t need any salt on that anyway,’ Mam scolded. ‘It spoils a good hotpot and is an insult to the cook!’
‘Sorry, Mam,’ Jack apologized. ‘You’re right. It’s perfect just as it is.’
She gave him a smile then nodded towards me. ‘Anyway, nobody’s taking any notice of Tom. That’s no way to treat him on his last night at home.’
‘I’m all right, Mam,’ I told her. ‘I’m happy just to sit here and listen.’ Mam nodded. ‘Well, I’ve got a few things to say to you. After supper stay down in the kitchen and we’ll have a little talk.’
So after Jack, Ellie and Dad had gone up to bed, I sat in a chair by the fire and waited patiently to hear what Mam had to say.
Mam wasn’t a woman who made a lot of fuss; at first she didn’t say much apart from explaining what she was wrapping up for me: a spare pair of trousers, three shirts and two pairs of good socks that had only been darned once each.
I stared into the embers of the fire, tapping my feet on the flags, while Mam drew up her rocking chair and positioned it so that she was facing directly towards me. Her black hair was streaked with a few strands of grey, but apart from that she looked much the same as she had when I was just a toddler, hardly up to her knees. Her eyes were still bright, and but for her pale skin, she looked a picture of health.
‘This is the last time we’ll get to talk together for
quite a while,’ she said. ‘It’s a big step leaving home and starting out on your own. So if there’s anything you need to say, anything you need to ask, now’s the time to do it.’
I couldn’t think of a single question. In fact I couldn’t even think. Hearing her say all that had started tears pricking behind my eyes.
The silence went on for quite a while. All that could be heard was my feet tap-tapping on the flags. Finally Mam gave a little sigh. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘Has the cat got your tongue?’ I shrugged.
‘Stop fidgeting, Tom, and concentrate on what I’m saying,’ Mam warned. ‘First of all, are you looking forward to tomorrow and starting your new job?’
‘I’m not sure, Mam,’ I told her, remembering Jack’s joke about having to buy friends. ‘Nobody wants to go anywhere near a spook. I’ll have no friends. I’ll be lonely all the time.’
‘It won’t be as bad as you think,’ Mam said. ‘You’ll have your master to talk to. He’ll be your teacher, and no doubt he’ll eventually become your friend. And you’ll be busy all the time. Busy learning new things. You’ll have no time to feel lonely. Don’t you find the whole thing new and exciting?’
‘It’s exciting but the job scares me. I want to do it but I don’t know if I can. One part of me wants to travel and see places but it’ll be hard not to live here any more. I’ll miss you all. I’ll miss being at home.’
‘You can’t stay here,’ Mam said. ‘Your dad’s getting too old to work, and come next winter he’s handing the farm over to Jack. Ellie will be having her baby soon, no doubt the first of many; eventually there won’t be room for you here. No, you’d better get used to it before that happens. You can’t come home.’
Her voice seemed cold and a little sharp, and to hear her speak to me like that drove a pain deep into my chest and throat so that I could hardly breathe.
I just wanted to go to bed then, but she had a lot to say. I’d rarely heard her use so many words all in one go.
