‘It’s chilly,’ she squealed as quiet as a mouse in a trap. ‘I’ve missed you, Seymour, I want you…’
‘I’m going to have you now, my lovely girl, I’ve been thinking about you all night …’
Their love-making was frantic. It had to be. It was the day after the party and David and Julian would be returning from taking back the hired wine glasses and plates. Simon was chopping wood. The sound of his axe on wood ricocheted like gunshot round the buildings, while Maggie was, perhaps, sleeping off a hangover. They didn’t care.
As is the wont of lovers in the dangerous first flush of an affair, their drive to be together overwhelmed any scruples that might linger. Thrilled they had torn time from the fabric of life, frustrated it must be brief, they were tantalised by what they had yet to discover about each other. They hurried to the safest place they could think of, the barn. With his hand clamped over her mouth to smother her cries, they fucked against the stone wall.
Amy slithered to the floor, sated. Seymour re-arranged his clothing and watched her crawl, giggling and bare-bottomed, to collapse on a pile of hay.
‘Seymour! It’s the phone for you!’ Maggie’s shout came from the house.
‘I’m coming!’ Winking at her over his shoulder, Seymour disappeared, leaving her weak with laughter.
This was second time she had slept with him in 24 hours. Last night, sneaking away from the bonfire and up to Seymour’s room, she had the best sex she’d ever dreamed of right across the corridor from the bedroom she shared with David. What would happen if he found out? David always talked about wanting an open relationship. Now he had one. She pulled up her leggings, straightened her dress and headed for the house. It was time to make soup. It always helped her to think straight when she chopped vegetables.
‘So help me, dearest Amy.’ Julian’s eyes narrow against the smoke that curls round his head. ‘He’ll never find it growing. He says he likes the farm but does he ever actually go around it?’
Julian was right. Seymour sometimes asked Amy what she was growing in the garden. He praised her for the vegetables and fruits she produced for the table. Complimented her on the delicate aroma of early broad beans, the delight of dousing artichoke leaves into melted butter and scraping off the tender flesh, the joy of nibbling new potatoes cooked with mint. But how often did he walk along the rows of beetroot and spinach, cabbages and carrots that she hoed and weeded? Once he had helped her pick the runner beans that dangled so profusely from the trellis that it had partially collapsed. But then the phone rang and he slipped away.
He was very unlikely to visit her greenhouse though the warm air, laden with the intoxicating scent of ripening melon would have enthralled him. Why would he ever suspect cannabis sativa plants might be growing there, too?
Seymour would not be happy about Julian growing grass, of that she was sure. Occasionally he mentioned a concern about the amount of dope his son was smoking. Once he said that having the four of them living at the farmhouse meant Julian was less likely to get out of his head. Clearly Seymour was unaware of what they all got up to. Amy felt their presence fuelled Julian’s habits.
That afternoon, Amy and Julian pressed seeds into little pots of soil and set them at the back of the greenhouse. Something in her hopes they will not germinate. But within weeks, delicate serrated leaves appear and the marihuana starts to grow.
The steel cord attaching the metal box to the tractor snaps. The fastening whips through the air with a hiss like a snake under attack. Twisting past Simon’s eye, the metal bolt slices into his curved brow. A fine line of red blooms; the scar gives him a rakish look, Maggie later teases him.
They are collecting hay bales from the top field. David is chucking them onto the trailer while Maggie and Amy struggle to lift and stack them. It is back-breaking work; the bale strings cut into fingers and the dried grass slices uncovered skin. But it’s glorious to be out on the Common where the air is fresh and the view is of a green and gold patchwork fields that slope down to the coast. Simon’s holler of pain shatters the peace.
‘What’s happened?’ Blood is pouring down Simon’s cheeks. ‘Oh my God, it’s not your eye, is it?’ Maggie cries out.
Jumping up onto the tractor footplate, she begins to dab his face with her skirt.
‘Be careful…’ Simon’s voice is muffled by her ministrations.
‘Here, use this!’ Amy hands over her scarf.
It had been chosen carefully this morning to complete the ‘peasant girl’ Amy was after. The long skirt, the lace of a petticoat peeking out at the hem, the knotted shirt revealing just a flash of belly, the little boots. Amy studied herself in the mirror knowing Seymour would like it. He was expected back around tea time having been in London with Julian buying food he said was not available locally; fresh coffee beans, mozzarella, spices and virgin olive oil. David suggested cynically that the real reason was neither man could face the hard work involved in bringing in the hay. Amy said he was being mean. She wondered if he was right.
‘I think it’s only a deep cut. Thank God, he could have been blinded! The wire wasn’t fastened on properly. Was it you that fucked up?’ Maggie looks at her brother accusingly.
‘I’m f-f-fine, honestly.’
David says bullishly: ‘He’s alright, isn’t he?’
‘But it might have been worse. You have to been careful around machinery, you fool.’
‘Okay, okay. Don’t worry about what might have been, dear sister. Be ‘in the moment’. Isn’t that what your
