“Birdie!” Maggie puts a hand on the dog’s shoulder. The growling stops but Birdie’s muscles are tense, her hackles are up, and she doesn’t take her eyes off the biker.
He lifts his visor as he moves nearer to the driver’s side of the Land Rover. His mouth is obscured by a bandanna and his eyes are buried in shadow. “I’m looking for the Elliotts.” His accent issouthern. He’s come a long way north to be within a stone’s throw of the Scottish border.
“That’s us,” John says.
“I’ve got a package for you.”
“Parcels get left in the box by the farm gate. At the bottom of the hill.”
“I’m supposed to give it to you in person. Special instructions.”
They watch him fetch the package from the back of his bike, his movements unhurried. He hands a cardboard box to John, who passes it to Maggie. It’s unsealed, unmarked, and has some weight to it. Maggie opens the flaps to peer inside and sees another box, this one cuboid and beautifully wrapped in paper and ribbon. An envelope is tucked beside it. Maggie takes it out and retrieves her glasses from her shirt pocket so she can read the small, carefully printed words. “To Jayne, Ruth, and Emily.”
“This isn’t for us,” she says but as she speaks, she remembers. “The guest who booked the barn this weekend is called Jayne. It must be for her. For them.”
“There’s a note for you, too.” The driver hands over a sheet of paper with typed instructions on it. Maggie reads aloud.
“‘Please discard the cardboard box and place the wrapped present prominently on the kitchen table at Dark Fell Barn, facing the door, and lean the letter against it so it’ll be the first thing my friends see when they enter the room on arrival. It’s a very special surprise so I appreciate your attention to detail. Thank you.’”
It’s not signed. Maggie flips it but there’s nothing on the back.
“Aye, I suppose that’s fine,” she says. Her tension ebbs. Sometimes guests do the strangest things. “We’re on our way up to the barn now.” She still feels a little uneasy but also embarrassed for feeling so fearful earlier.
The biker nods. He closes his visor and is away as suddenly as he arrived, the bike spraying mud in its wake, leaving questions on Maggie’s lips, such as who and where he picked the box up from,and why all the effort to get it here in this way. Not her business, she supposes, but she’s curious about this “special surprise” and its “special instructions.”
“That’s a first,” she says. “How far do you think he came from?”
“We could have killed him.”
John speaks through gritted teeth. He’s angry because the near miss frightened him, Maggie thinks, and she wonders if she should take over the driving, after all, if he’s going to get himself in a state. She’s about to ask, but the words stick in her mouth. Every offer she makes to help him wounds his dignity and it hurts her to inflict pain on him.
Instead, she lifts the parcel and gives it a tentative shake. “The lengths people will go to,” she says. “I hope whatever’s in here is worth the bother.”
John glances over, shakes his head, and mutters something she can’t hear as he fixes his eyes back on the road. She notices him tighten his grip on the wheel, knuckles whitening beneath his thinning skin.
Those hands, she thinks, aware that since his diagnosis she’s been prone to moments of reflection and of nostalgia, but allowing herself the indulgence. What those hands have built and achieved. She loves the liver spots, the tendons like thick string, sees the happy years of her marriage and the challenges of their farming life in them.
But the tight grip on the wheel, the head shaking and the muttering; it’s not him. It’s more change that’s new and troubling. She’s still learning to read his symptoms, and to decipher what they might mean, and she gets a sinking feeling that today might be one of those days where he’s lost to a terrible pessimism.
“What are you shaking your head for?”
“It’s a bad thing. The parcel is.”
“What gives you that idea? How can you possibly know?”
He inclines his head. He knows, he’s saying. She tries to laughit off, but the sound coming out of her mouth is hollow, and the truth is, she finds herself taking him semi-seriously. John might drown in pessimism or despair, he might exhibit agitation, forgetfulness, and sometimes she thinks he even sees things that aren’t there, all of which is deeply troubling, but she can’t deny that for as long as she’s known him, he’s been able to sense more than the average person.
She touches the back of her neck, seeking any soreness from whiplash. Her cold fingertips trigger a shudder that runs right through her. She thinks about the parcel, about whether it’s a good or a bad thing. After a few silent moments she puts it in the footwell.
The Land Rover lurches and bumps as it climbs the rutted track. Maggie steadies the parcel with her foot when the vehicle’s movement threatens to damage it. If whatever is inside it gets broken, her guests may leave a bad review, and that’s the last thing she and John can afford.
I wrote the letter and wrapped the package, taking my time over it, to make sure it looked beautiful. I thought carefully about the instructions for the owners of Dark Fell Barn. And I arranged the delivery meticulously so that it couldn’t be traced back to me.
And now I’ve just received confirmation on my burner phone that both letter and package have been handed over, along with my instructions.
Phew.
It really is a great feeling, mostly comprised of relief, but satisfaction, too, because I take pleasure in planning. You might, I suppose, call me a control freak.
