‘Does anyone know you’re here?’
Tasha shook her head.
‘We should let them know.’
She moved to the phone and Tasha flew up from the sofa, spilling some of the hot chocolate down the front of her lemon shorts.
‘Please don’t. Not just yet. They won’t miss me. They’ll think I’m in my room sulking. Just a few more minutes. I haven’t finished my drink yet and your film’s still going. We could sit and watch it together.’
‘And then I’ll walk you back.’
Tasha sat back down.
‘You’re like my guardian angel.’
‘That’s a lovely thing to say, thank you, but I don’t want you to be in trouble.’
‘I know, but when I’ve been here in this house and garden, and now with you, I feel that I can cope with anything. It gives me strength.’
Jules glanced around the room.
‘It’s strange how it does that to you,’ she said quietly. ‘I think it’s beginning to give me strength, too.’
Rita picked up a torch from the windowsill next to the back door and shrugged on an old coat. It wasn’t particularly cold, but she felt chilled to the bone, probably not helped by worry. She hadn’t been able to eat a thing at supper, even though she’d cooked a nice chicken casserole with peppers and sun-dried tomatoes. It had been one of George’s favourites and she could portion it up for the freezer, so she’d always got something for herself or a good warming meal when the children came back from school in the autumn. Instead, just as she’d been about to sit down, she’d heard all of that shouting coming from the yard.
‘I shouldn’t interfere,’ she’d said to Hercules whose ears were pricked, a low growl coming from deep in his throat.
Then she’d heard Tasha screaming at the top of her voice and the cows had started to low in alarm.
‘I wish you’d go away and never come back,’ she’d shouted at Christabel. By now Rita had moved to the window and was standing half hidden by the velvet curtain so she could see them standing in the doorway to the bungalow. Christabel had something in her hand and from what Rita could see she just opened her fingers and dropped it to the ground. Tasha stood stock still for a moment.
‘I hate you,’ she shouted at her mother. ‘If you won’t go away, I will.’
At that Christabel had turned and headed back into the house as Tasha stooped to scrabble on the ground to pick up what had been broken. Rita put a hand to her chest. She should go and find out what was going on, try to calm everything down, but there had been so much stress recently. She sat down on the arm of the nearest chair and stroked the top of Hercules’s head.
‘It will blow over,’ she said to the dog. ‘It has before. It will now. She doesn’t mean it. She’ll go for a walk and then she’ll be back.’
But Tasha hadn’t come back. It was ten thirty now and Alastair was heading out in the car with Will.
He said they’d searched the farmyard and for Rita to stay where she was. But Rita had never been good at sitting still. She was pretty sure that Will knew where his sister hid when life got too much.
Tasha may not have been in the barn earlier, but she could be there now.
The weathered oak door to the big building was ajar. She slipped inside, Hercules at her heels, and closed it behind her. She’d crossed the yard by the light of the moon, her feet seemingly knowing just where to place themselves, her body changing direction instinctively to avoid a rut that might turn her ankle. Now in the blackness of the barn she reached for the torch in her coat pocket and turned it on. The scent of the hay was so much stronger at night, the shadows so much deeper, her heartbeat louder, pulsating in her ears. She shone the beam of light up towards the loft.
‘Tashy,’ she called, ‘are you there, sweetheart? It’s getting late. You really need to come home now. We can sort all of this out.’
Silence.
Rita put one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and began to climb. The rungs were worn smooth from years of use. Hercules let out a little whine and balanced on his hind legs.
‘You stay there,’ she instructed. ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy.’
Rita paused at the top to listen. She heard a small rustling sound.
‘Tasha, is that you?’
No reply. She really hoped that rustling wasn’t a mouse or worse, a rat. She’d never liked vermin. They always made her edgy. Besides, they could do so much damage, eat through concrete, let alone wood and hay. They really ought to get another cat. George had said that every farm needed a cat, and he was right. She glanced down to where Hercules was waiting anxiously. If she could carry him up here, he’d soon flush it out. And suddenly, it must have been the looking down or the fact she hadn’t eaten anything, but she felt dizzy. She dug her fingers into the boards at the top of the ladder and was about to haul herself up into the roof space when something launched itself at her. The worst of the worst, a rodent with wings. She’d found one hanging upside down from the inside pocket of her school blazer once. Her mother said that story about bats getting tangled in your hair was an old wives’ tale, but Rita could never be sure. She ducked, feeling a swish of air as the bat’s wings narrowly missed her temple. She lurched to one side. She felt her ankle give way. It had never been right since she’d torn some ligaments falling off her bicycle as a girl. That fall had ended abruptly in a ditch full of nettles. The fall now down to the redbrick barn floor seemed to take forever and all she could think about was not landing on top of Hercules who was barking furiously. And thenGeorge was there, at least she thought it was George, trying to catch her around the shoulders, cushioning her fall.
