‘Reg?’ she said as she shaded in some of the detail.
‘Hmm?’
‘Are you in a good mood today?’
‘I don’t have good moods. I’d have thought you’d know that by now.’ He looked up from the copy he was correcting. ‘What are you after this time? Not Kiltford Show again? I told you, it takes someone with farming knowledge for that. I’ll cover it myself.’
‘I wasn’t going to ask about reporting on the show. I just wanted to ask… would I be able to have some time off in August?’
Reg laughed. ‘Time off? You only came back to work six week ago.’
‘I know, but it’s Bowling Tide in Bradford the second week in August – our Wakes Week, you know – and my brother and sister are coming home on leave. It would be nice to spend some time with them, and my father too. If you like, I’ll work over Christmas to make it up.’
Reg sighed. ‘No need for that. Go on, take the week. Make sure you work all the harder the rest of the month, that’s all.’
Bobby beamed. ‘I will. Thank you. And if you did change your mind about me covering the show, I mean if your leg was too painful or something—’
Reg shook his head. ‘You’re very keen on that. I’m not sure what you’re expecting to find there. It’ll be nobbut cows’ backsides and farmers getting drunk on cheap ale.’
‘But everyone goes, don’t they? Charlie told me it’s the highlight of both the farming and the social calendar around here. I’d love to see it.’
‘And you’re welcome to go on your own time, but it’ll be me as writes it up,’ he said firmly. ‘It won’t be a patch on the usual shows this year any road. We’re lucky to be getting it at all when so many of the big shows have been stopped for the duration, but folk kicked up such a stink when they talked about cancelling that they said it could go ahead if it were cut back from the usual. Farmers still need to sell their beasts, after all.’
‘Still, it’s an important event even if it is smaller than usual, isn’t it? Charlie says so.’
‘Huh. It’ll be nowt but a glorified auction mart this year, I reckon. Worth half a page in the mag at most.’ He gave her a sharp look. ‘You know, you’d do well to pay a bit less mind to what that good-for-nothing brother of mine whispers in your ear in the moonlight and a bit more to your work.’
Bobby flushed. ‘This is about my work. I thought it would be useful for me to see what it’s all about. The show’s important to the farming communities around here and I want to get a better understanding of what makes them tick.’
‘Young lady, you might live in a barn but it don’t make you a horse. I bet you wouldn’t know a shearling from a sapling.’
‘I would. I’ve been reading up. One’s a young sheep and the other’s a young tree.’
Reg laughed. ‘Oh well, I can see you’re an expert. Listen, Bobby, all you’ll get for your trouble if I send you to the show is laughed at, and your bottom pinched by gangs of drunken old men who ought to know better. I’ll not send a young lass like you into that dissipated mob. Covering the show’s a man’s job and that’s an end of the matter.’ He softened slightly when he saw her disappointed expression. ‘Now, don’t go into a pet about it. It’s for your own good. I’ll tell you what, you can write the walk for next month’s number. How about that, eh?’
‘OK,’ Bobby said, trying not to sound too subdued. Reg knew she enjoyed writing the walks, but she really had set her heart on covering the big show. ‘If you want me to.’
‘Aye, you’ve a fair turn of phrase for a townie – maybe even because of it. It’s a while since we did a local one. Strap on your boots next week and take an afternoon’s paid time out on the fells.’ He picked up his pencil to get back to work. ‘You might even get that layabout brother of mine to go with you. He could do with the exercise.’
Bobby blinked. It wasn’t like Reg to encourage her to spend time with Charlie. Was he starting to come around to the idea of the two of them together at last?
‘Um, all right,’ she said. ‘Thanks, Reg.’
Chapter 6
Saturday afternoons, when Bobby had finished her morning’s work on the magazine and her time was her own, had become what she called her village afternoons. It had taken a long time for the Silverdale folk to accept her presence there, but they had finally welcomed her as a member of the community. Not quite as one of them – she and her father were still very much seen as the ‘off-comed-’uns’ from the city. However, these days the villagers smiled and nodded when they encountered Bobby in the village, and many of them stopped now to pass the time of day with her. She was a Silverdalian by adoption, at least, and she didn’t intend to lose that hard-won status. That was why Saturday afternoons were dedicated to seeing the few friends she’d made in the area, and occasionally going visiting with Mary.
She and her father weren’t the only off-comed-’uns in Silverdale these days. With seaside resorts and other pleasure grounds closed for the duration of the war, the countryside was starting to see a deluge of visitors from towns and cities as the weather grew warmer. It was evident who these aspiring cyclists and walkers were, in their brand-new outdoor clothing and with expressions of wondering admiration on their faces as they experienced the charms of the Dales for the first time. The villagers regarded them with a detached amusement, although the more enterprising Silverdalians had thought up ways to earn some additional income from these comparatively wealthy tourists. Signs had started to appear in cottage windows proclaiming, ‘teas a penny each’, ‘fresh vegetables’, or ‘bed and breakfast – rooms available’. Quick-thinking farmers had turned their sheep out on to the fells to offer some of their fields as camping sites, and tents had started to pop out like measles on the grass around the village.
Bobby spotted one such visitor as she approached Newby Top, the farmhouse where her elderly friend Andy Jessop lived with his new wife, Ginny. The farm was somewhat remote, a challenging ramble over rough moorland, but for the new visitors to the Dales that seemed to be half the appeal. Bobby found Andy outside the front door in an easy chair that had been placed there for him, smoking his pipe with his old dog Shep at his feet. Assorted metal items were piled up next to him for some reason. A rather pompous-looking young man with shining pink cheeks and round spectacles, dressed in the attire of a rambler, was standing talking with the old farmer while he smoked.
‘What air you have here!’ the man was saying to Andy. ‘I do envy you, Mr Jessop. I imagine people rarely die here, do they?’
‘Nay,’ Andy replied mildly. ‘Nobbut once.’
‘I’m surprised you don’t have folk from the cities rushing here to buy up your quaint little cottages so they can have a slice of paradise for themselves,’ the visitor continued obliviously.
‘It’s a place, Mr Soames, that’s all. Same as any other, only happen colder and wetter than many.’
