Free Homecoming by Susie Steiner

got it.’
    ‘I’ll have a look.’
    She stands at the counter, flicking through Al’s laminated catalogue while he goes out back.
    She stops on a page and reads the text more closely. Al comes back carrying a white cardboard box.
    ‘Have you got any of these in?’ asks Primrose, swivelling the catalogue.
    Al stoops, putting his glasses on to read. ‘Arh, no,’ he says. ‘Not much call for video entryphones round here.’
    ‘But if someone wanted one, you could order it in, couldn’t you?’
    ‘I don’t see why not. They’re quite fast, this supplier. Would take three to four days to come in, or thereabouts. Shall I order it now?’
    ‘No.’ Primrose hesitates, her mind is racing. ‘No, not yet. I’ll just take the junction box for now.’
    *
    Joe’s hand guides the steering wheel, turning his Land Rover right onto Lipton High Street. The low autumn sunshine flashes hard, piercing through the smears on his windscreen like shards (he must get that wiper fixed), so he pulls down the sun visor and lowers his head to look under it. He sees Primrose’s back, turning off the High Street. Going to Al’s no doubt. Sometimes Joe wonders if Primrose should have married Al, but then he remembers that for Al, it’s just a business. For Primrose . . . well, Joe doesn’t pretend to understand it.
    He has a feeling of satisfaction – not just because of the baby. Tupping has been fine this year and it’s given him a feeling of looking forward – to lambing and to the kinder weather that comes with it. They’ve let some of the fattening lambs graze on the beet tops, and defecate on them, and now those in-bye fields are taking the plough, turning this goodness over into the dark soil so that it’s brand new again. Wonderful work, ploughing.
    The pregnant ewes are staying down-valley, sheltered and fed until their lambs are established inside them. They’ll go up onto the fell next month. That was the beauty of Swaledales. Could withstand all weathers. Yes, he has a sense of the future before him, with the farm at full tilt and the baby coming. And then some sadness behind it. He’d been so quick to offer the farm up to Max, that he hadn’t considered what it’d mean for him to let it go. As soon as he’d said it, even though it was what they’d always taken for granted, as soon as he said it, he’d wanted to take it back. The image of himself as the grey-haired man on the back seat – well, it didn’t fit with how he felt inside, which was still young.
    He pushes open the door of Lipton Conservative Club. ‘Club’ is a pompous term for it. There were no button-back leather chairs and suchlike. It was open to most anyone unless you were a newcomer, in which case you’d be greeted with a raised eyebrow and a wall of silence. Mostly it was for barnacles like Joe and Eric Blakely. Conservative? Well, they didn’t like this Labour lot, with their agri-stewardship-whatever schemes. Didn’t like change, mostly.
    To the club’s inner door is pinned a yellowing notice. ‘At the last meeting of the Committee,’ it says, ‘it was agreed that “tailored shorts” could be worn in the Club at lunchtimes only, and that tracksuits would not be suitable clothing for members to wear. Signed, K. Simms, Secretary.’ Joe looks down at his muddied corduroys and even muddier boots, and at the royal-blue carpet of the club hallway, freshly vacuumed. He brushes himself ineffectually, then walks into the ‘bar’ – a muffled room with red Formica tables, floral curtains and cream-painted woodchip on the walls. Eric stands with Ron Chappell, their pint glasses full. Ron had been a tenant farmer like Joe – same landlord, the water board, which owned most of the land round here. He’d gone under after foot-and-mouth and now he did odd jobs. Eric always bought Ron’s pints.
    ‘What are you having, Joe?’ says Eric, one arm resting on his belly where he holds his pint, the other jangling keys in his trouser pocket.