Free Peacock Emporium by Jojo Moyes

right that everyone gets a share in the land.’
    ‘Give it all away, shall I? Dish it out in parcels to anyone who wants it? Ask them to form a queue?’
    ‘It would still be our land, Dad. It would just enable other people to work it. We don’t even use it all properly.’
    ‘You think people round here want to work the land? Have you actually asked any of them? The young people don’t want to be ploughing and drilling. They don’t want to be out in all weathers pulling weeds and spreading muck. They want to be in the cities, listening to popular music and all sorts. Do you know how long it took me to find enough hands just to get the hay in last year?’
    ‘We’d find people. There are always people who need jobs.’
    His father jabbed at the papers with disgust. ‘This is not some social experiment. This is our blood, our sweat in this soil. I can’t believe I’ve raised a son of mine, taught him everything I know about this estate, only to have him want to give it away. Not even sell it, mind. Give it away. You – you’re worse than a girl.’
    He spat the words at his son, as if he were bilious. Douglas had rarely heard his father’s voice raised against him, and discovered he was shaking. He tried to collect his thoughts against his father’s concentrated anger and saw his mother, standing stationary in the doorway, tray in hand.
    Without a word, his father stood up and stomped past her, ramming his hat on to his head as he went.
    Douglas’s mother placed the coffee on the table, and stared at her son, whose expression wore the same look of contained shock and misery as it had when he was eight and his father had beaten him for letting one of the dogs get into the calving shed. She fought the urge to comfort him, and instead asked cautiously what had happened.
    For several minutes Douglas didn’t answer, and she wondered whether he was trying to hold back tears. He gestured towards some papers on the table. ‘I had some ideas for the estate.’ He paused, then spoke in a strangled voice: ‘Father didn’t like them.’
    ‘Shall I look?’
    ‘Feel free.’
    She sat down carefully in her husband’s chair and scanned the pages. It took her several minutes to grasp what he was proposing, and she stared at the coloured map, slowly building a picture of her son’s vision.
    She thought of her husband, and his uncharacteristic burst of rage, and her initial sympathy for her son was replaced by her own swiftly increasing anger. Young people could be so thoughtless. They never considered what previous generations had had to go through. The world was becoming a more selfish place and, despite the bone-deep love she felt for her only son, she was now filled with fury at his lack of consideration – that of his feckless, shameless wife too, and of their generation in general.
    ‘I suggest you throw these on the fire,’ she said, sweeping them into a pile.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Get rid of them. If you’re lucky, your father will forget this conversation ever happened.’
    Her son’s face was a mask of frustration and incredulity. ‘You’re not even going to consider them?’
    ‘I have considered them, Douglas, and they are . . . inappropriate.’
    ‘I’m twenty-seven years old, Mother. I deserve to have a say in the running of the estate.’
    ‘You deserve?’ Her chest was tight, and her voice came in short bursts: ‘That’s all your generation cares about – what you supposedly deserve. Your ideas are an insult to your father, and until you can comprehend that I suggest you and I end this conversation here.’
    Douglas had both hands on the table now, was leaning down on straightened arms, as if he had been almost felled by her response. ‘I can’t believe you’re both reacting like this.’
    The last ounce of maternal sympathy she had felt for him evaporated. ‘Douglas, sit down,’ she commanded, and placed herself opposite him. She took a deep breath, trying to make her words measured.