“No, something here. Can you hold the fort for a little while? I need to find Emma.”
Angelo seemed mystified—and more fearful than Dylan could bear—but took over the mammoth meal preparations without protest and kissed Dylan’s hand. “Hurry back. I miss you.”
* * *
Gino Giordano’s sausage and panettone stuffing was the only good thing Angelo recalled of family Christmases. Spiked with chilli, sage, and lemon, it had brightened an otherwise painful experience, and he had fond memories of stealing the leftovers with his little cousin Ludo and hiding in the cellar of the big old Romford house until it was all gone.
Life had moved on since then, of course—Angelo hadn’t seen Ludo in years—but the smell made him smile as he retrieved it from the oven and set it on the counter to cool; a welcome break from fretting over where Dylan had gone.What the fuck does he want with Emma?Two hours into Dylan’s absence, and he still had no idea.
“What on earth is that?”
Angelo jumped. Somehow he’d missed Joe coming downstairs. “Stuffing. And what are you doing in here anyway? You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“That was this morning. It’s nearly tea time now, and if I sit in that room any longer, I’m going to smother myself with a pillow.”
“Try spending a month in bed, then tell me how you really feel.”
Joe gave Angelo a one-armed hug on his way to the fridge. “I know, mate. I know. That shit smells amazing, by the way. When can we eat it?”
“Tomorrow. Harry’s ordering pizzas tonight, and he left some custard creams in the office to keep you going. He said you had some invoices to pay or something?”
“Wow. It must be fucking Christmas.” Joe sloped off to the office.
Going on past experiences, Angelo expected him to reappear fairly quickly, raging about needing a secretary. When he didn’t, Angelo stuck the kettle on and foraged for another packet of biscuits, but Dylan came back before he could resupply Joe, and Emma was a heartbeat behind him.
“We have a plan.” Dylan’s eyes blazed. “A pretty sketchy one right now, but if we can make it work, it should keep both of us busy for a while.”
“Both of us?” It took Angelo a moment to realise Dylan was talking aboutEmmaand him. “Busy doing what? You’re—uh—we’re—going home in a few days.”
“Yeah, but not for long if we can pull a long-term plan together before then.”
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Then listen.” Emma pulled up a chair at the table and dropped a stack of paperwork in the middle. “And tell us if you think of something we haven’t.”
“Are you taking the piss?”
“Just listen,” Dylan said. “Please.”
So Angelo did.
Managing money wasn’t his strong point, and he knew even less about farming, but as Dylan and Emma hashed out a plan to provide financial advice to farms and agricultural businesses all over South West England, his bewilderment faded away. “So Emma would run the contact centre from here, and you’d go out into the community?”
“That’s the basic plan.” Dylan sat back in his seat. “I mean, Emma can come out with me anytime she wants, but the point is, she doesn’t have to if she’s having a shitty time.”
Angelo nodded. Emma’s anxiety disorder was as crippling as ME—every day a constant work in progress. Hoping for the best but planning for the worst was far more practical. He nudged her gently. “Is this what you want? I thought you were set on going to Norway to do that teaching course?”
She nudged him back. “As if that’s ever going to happen—and don’t give me a positive attitude pep talk, it doesn’t help. I want to do this, Angelo. Me and Joe have nearly lost this place so many times, there’s not much I don’t know about keeping a farm above water, and other farmers call us for advice all the time. Trouble is, most of them need face-to-face communication—hours and hours to pour over their paperwork and get things in order, and I just... I justcan’t do itsome days, and that’s not fair when people are relying on you.”
Angelo understood that all too well. How many times had he let patients down when he couldn’t get out of bed? Too many to contemplate right now. “How would you get paid—” He stopped and shook his head, searching for less crude phrasing in his jumbled brain. “I mean, if you’re providing a service for struggling farmers, how is it funded?”
“DEFRA, if I can secure it,” Dylan said. “Similar to the funding system we use at Citizens Advice. It’s basically the government outsourcing support services like they do everything else.”
“Like the NHS paying Harry to take private patients?”
“Something like that.”
It didn’t make much sense to Angelo, but nothing about public funding ever did. He let it go and flicked through the list of businesses Emma already had on her list. “These are people you’ve worked with before?”
