Althoughthe visitors were very time-consuming – Fran hardly had time to make cheese – she didn’t resent their coming. Every one – or pair – had some little anecdote about Amy that helped build up a picture of what she’d been like before she got too old to work the farm properly.
Issi had gone through all the photographs and put out the ones of Amy, and these were lifted and inspected by the visitors, which was always followed by an ‘I remember when …’ or ‘I recall Amy …’ or ‘Mrs Flowers once …’, depending on how they’d addressed Amy when she was alive.
It was relaxing to sit in the sitting room, with the fire going (not that it was really cold but it was comforting to have it burning away), drinking tea, talking about Amy and sometimes weeping.
She’d been much loved in the area and even her more elderly friends found someone younger to bring them to the farm.
As Fran said to Issi, ‘It was like watching a film of Amy’s past life. Whoever gets the farm in the end, I wouldn’t have missed these days finding out about her.’
Fran had walked up to look at the quarry after one of these sessions, wanting time to process all she had learnt about Amy since her death. She couldn’t help feeling sad that she had missed Amy’s best days but there was no point in bemoaning things that couldn’t be changed, and at least sheknewa lot more about her now. Amy had been a feisty, go-ahead woman, who mixed skill with instinct and produced a prize-winning herd. She was a role model and Fran realised Amy always would be one to her, even if she didn’t inherit the farm. Amy’s strength of character was what had got her through a hard life.
Fran was admiring the wild flowers that filled the field and the hedgerows, frothy white cow parsley at the edges, yellow cowslips in the middle, knowing they were there because of Amy’s traditional farming methods, wondering how she ever found time to make wine out of the cowslips, when she heard raised voices floating up from the farm. She ran down to see what was going on.
There was a trailer in the yard with the ramp down. Roy and Tig were facing each other, both looking as if they might throw a punch at any moment. Two other men, who had obviously come with the trailer, looked on, half excited at the prospect of a fight and half confused.
‘What is going on?’ said Fran, out of breath from her rapid trip down the fields.
Roy faced her. ‘Tell Tig he has no bloody right to stop me from selling animals that are mine!’
She turned to Tig.
‘He can’t take the bull. He was born on this farm and he’ll die on it.’ Tig’s voice wasn’t loud but his words had a lot of power.
‘Idon’t understand,’ said Fran. ‘Roy? You can’t sell animals that aren’t yours.’
‘They’re as good as mine!’
‘What makes you say that? We don’t know whose they are, do we?’ Panic struck her. Had Roy already heard that he was going to inherit?
Roy exhaled deeply, as if he was facing very stupid children who needed things spelt out for them. ‘I know I’m going to inherit, OK? Now get that bloody bull into the trailer. But carefully – I’m getting a lot of money for him.’ He turned on the trailer drivers. ‘You can tell a bull from a cow, can’t you?’
‘Not sureyoucan,’ said Tig.
‘Listen, mate,’ said Roy furiously, ‘you can bugger off out of here! You’re living on my land in one of my houses. You have absolutely no right to anything. Now if you know what’s good for you you’ll help these guys get those animals into the trailer!’
‘Roy!’ Although she felt ready to tear Roy limb from limb she knew it wouldn’t help. She tried to keep calm. ‘What do you know that none of the rest of us do?’
Roy groaned. He was obviously having a trying morning; things weren’t going to plan at all. ‘I don’t know for a fact. That bloody solicitor wouldn’t tell me. But what I do know is—’
Before he could elaborate further, Issi drove up in Tig’s car, parked as best she could in the space and got out. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Thisclown’ – Tig gestured towards Roy – ‘seems to think he can sell Lorenzo and five heifers as if they were his.’ He paused, his anger almost visibly throbbing under his measured tones. ‘They haven’t even sent a big enough trailer.’
‘But Roy can’t sell the cows, can he?’ said Issi. ‘He doesn’t own them.’
‘I do own them, bar the shouting,’ said Roy, shouting.
‘What makes you say that?’ asked Issi. ‘Surely no one owns them at the moment.’
Roy swore again. ‘Wait here!’ he commanded and strode into the house.
‘As if we were going to run away and hide,’ said Fran. She paused. ‘Although I do quite like that option.’
Tig and Issi looked at her as if she wasn’t taking the situation seriously enough. She swallowed. She was frightened and it did sometimes make her flippant. She cleared her throat. ‘Surely you can’t move cattle without loads of paperwork anyway?’
‘True. And I’ve got the paperwork at my house,’ said Tig. ‘Even if he does own them he can’t move them without me agreeing.’
‘I think you had better go home,’ said Fran to the two men who were getting increasingly uneasy. ‘You’re not going to be able to take any cattle away today.’
