Harvey turned right into the lane that would take him around the back of Barney’s property and before long pulled into the courtyard opposite the barn. ‘Home sweet home. Wait, I’ll come around to your side.’ He’d expected Barney to argue that he didn’t need any help, that he could manage just fine. But he stayed where he was and didn’t move until Harvey was there to help him out, to hold him under his arm and ensure he had his balance. ‘I’ll take you inside then I’ll grab the walking frame.’ At least they’d scared away the rain for the time being and the sun was starting to creep out from behind the murky clouds.
As they walked Barney didn’t even take in the beauty of the surrounding fields with their patchwork of greens, mustards and browns. He didn’t comment on the smell of freshly cut grass mingled with the distinctive aroma of recent rainfall, nor did he stop to enjoy the rapid burst of song from the wren perched on the big tree stump before he headed towards the house.
‘We could sit outside a while…’ Harvey suggested.
But Barney wasn’t interested. ‘I need to lie down.’
Harvey unlocked the door. ‘You’ve been in a bed for days, how about we settle you in the lounge? I could open the window so you can listen to the birds, wait for the rain to start up again.’ He looked out at the skies above and, sure enough, there were more unforgiving clouds drifting this way so the sun wasn’t likely to be out for long. ‘I know how you like to hear the rain pounding the roof of the barn.’ They’d seen some great storms in their time and as kids, Harvey and Melissa had knelt next to one another at the window in Barney’s lounge watching lightning strikes above the barn, the dark ominous clouds unleashing more rain than they thought possible.
But Barney didn’t seem interested in any of that. He shuffled past the sofa and the armchairs and out to the hall before going into his bedroom. When he was safely sitting on the bed Harvey went back to get the walking frame from his pickup. He took it inside and set it near the bed, within reach.
‘You don’t have to watch me like a hawk,’ Barney insisted. ‘I moved around the hospital just fine when the nurses made me.’
That was the thing. Ordinarily it would’ve been Barney instigating the moving, the walking, anything to get back to normal. It was as though he’d lost all his confidence in a few short days.
‘I’ll be in the lounge if you need me then. Are you hungry? There are a couple of apples in the fruit bowl in the kitchen, they still look passable.’
‘I’m not hungry, no. And I’ve got a phone by my bed, you don’t have to hang around.’
Harvey supposed he’d want some time to settle in. ‘I’ll give you some space, shall I?’
‘Please. I’ll need an hour or so, maybe two. Why don’t you come back then?’ His tone had softened, most probably to convince Harvey to let him be.
‘Fine, I’ll go out for a couple of hours and get a few things done. But do me a favour – call me when you wake up?’ He held his hands up in defence. ‘I know you don’t want the fuss but it’s day one of being home, indulge me.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ll ever go unless I agree.’
‘You know me well. And I’ll get some food organised for you, make you a late lunch. Your cupboards are empty, you’re almost out of milk. I didn’t realise you’d be coming home today so I didn’t get a chance to do a shop beforehand.’
‘And so it begins…’
‘And so what begins?’
‘Being helpless, old, past it.’
Harvey would’ve laughed if he didn’t think Barney truly believed what he was saying. He didn’t push the conversation, instead he filled a glass of water from the tap and left it beside Barney’s bed. With a couple of hours’ freedom he took the drill he’d left in the tray of his pickup over to the house that he and the rest of the loft-conversion team were working on. He’d taken the day off as soon as he knew Barney was coming home, but the other lads wouldn’t be able to let up just because he did.
Once he’d dropped the drill off he headed back to Heritage Cove, the clouds above unleashing their worst again as he drove around the corner, past the Heritage Inn, the lane that led down to open fields, the bakery, tea rooms and a gift shop, before passing a set of cottages squeezed together in a tight row, huddled against one another for warmth in the colder months, all of which now, despite the cool and decidedly wet day, had their upper windows flung open to get air circulating. He took the next left turn before the candle shop, the corner shop and the pub beyond and meandered along the bumpy track towards his own home.
Tumbleweed House had been in Harvey’s family since before he was born. It had come from his mum’s side, his grandparents having operated a small farm on site where they grew elderberry plants. The business had been successful but after Harvey’s grandparents had passed away and his mum inherited the house, most of the surrounding fields were sold off. His mum, Carol, had been a stay-at-home mum Harvey’s whole life, even when he was too old to need her there, and he wouldn’t have changed it for the world. What he would’ve changed was his dad. Harvey had long suspected that getting rid of the elderberry business was Donnie Luddington’s doing, his dad’s need for control overriding everything else – he had his wife at home where he wanted her to be while he drove around the country manipulating others with false niceties in his job as a software sales rep. But Harvey knew the truth about him, he couldn’t talk his way out of that, and Harvey had no happy memories from his childhood when it came to his dad. Instead, it was the man he’d just brought home from hospital who’d given him a reason to be happy again, who’d helped him be a normal kid while he still could.
The windscreen wipers of his pickup swished back and forth as fast as they could as Harvey pulled up outside Tumbleweed House. The exterior was covered with vigorous purple wisteria blooms that were hanging on before they’d fall again until next year. It had been a crazy few days since Barney’s fall, the stint in hospital a stark reminder of how fragile life could be, how important it was to treasure what you had before it was gone. He looked at the frontage of the home that had once been hellish, a house full of bad memories, but was now his solace. A good half-acre of land remained, much of which was taken up with elderberry bushes, and every year his mum would come over from her little cottage to help with the harvesting. He loved how her laughter mingled with his as they plucked the dark purple berries from the clusters that were ready. Most of the hard work had been done when the plants were established so there wasn’t much else to do now but maintain and enjoy them. Come late July and early August they’d pick and wash the perishable fruit before freezing and use it throughout the year. And having the elderberries was something Harvey never wanted to change. Too much had disappeared from his life already but, looking up at the house now, he knew some things had changed for the better. He no longer thought of the loft behind those roof tiles as the terrifying place where his dad had once made him go after he accidentally pulled down the curtain rod in the dining room; it was no longer the same top of the house where his brother Daniel had barricaded himself in to avoid the punishment he was going to get from their dad for being found drinking underage with his mates. When Harvey had hidden out up there on too many occasions, he’d covered his ears, rocked back and forth on the dusty boards that stopped him falling through the ceiling, as his dad ranted below, pacing up and down, heavy-footed as always and making the entire house shake, at least in Harvey’s imagination. The man had been furious his sons would go off and hide, but his rage was terrifying. Both Harvey and Daniel had regularly been torn between hiding out and going down to face the inevitable beating.
One summer after his father walked out of the family home, Harvey had returned to Tumbleweed House on a break from his job at the time as a builder’s labourer with a nearby firm and his mum had commented she had nowhere to dry the sheets. Harvey knew there was an old airer in the loft – it had long become a place to store junk – and so he’d faced his fears and gone up there to get it for her. He’d stepped over full boxes of Christmas decorations that gave the house an injection of cheer once a year and lifted them from their misery, a box of old photo albums, a broken sledge he’d used as a boy and thought he might one day pass to a son. Going up there that day had forced Harvey to confront his demons. He’d dragged the airer down, fixed it, replaced a snapped rod of wood with a new one, superglued another part, putting in a couple of screws to enable it to fold and open easily. And as he’d worked his mind had dwelt on that space at the top of the house. It was time they finally got rid of Donnie Luddington from their lives and that meant dealing with the loft. Harvey researched what could be done to make the area a habitable space and embarked on a project to make it a part of the home, and when he approached a local firm and took more than a passing interest by wondering if he could help them out during the conversion, it was the start of a whole new path for Harvey when he was offered an apprenticeship, something he didn’t expect to come by with his mediocre school grades.
Harvey looked up at the top of the house now, the loft space that was as much a part of his home as the rest of it. It was up in that loft that he’d kissed Melissa for a second time; the first had been on the beams of Barney’s barn when they were twelve years old, their lips meeting for mere seconds – any longer and they both might have fallen.
Had Melissa read his email yet? Was she even going to bother calling Barney?
With the rain still coming down, Harvey made a run for it from his pickup to the back door, greeted in the usual way the second he opened up. It wasn’t easy getting inside the house with Winnie, his nine-year-old Labrador retriever, bounding up to greet him and blocking his way through the narrow porch that led into the large eat-in kitchen. ‘Miss me? Course you did, girl.’ Harvey had got Winnie as a puppy not long after Melissa left and had put the hours in to training her. He’d needed the distraction, craved the company, and now he couldn’t imagine not having Winnie around. He rubbed the top of her head and ears vigorously, the way she liked it. ‘I guess you’ll want feeding.’ He found Winnie’s bowl from beneath the sink and dished out some canned food mixed with dried, the only way he could get her to even consider the dry food. Her interest quickly turned from him to the meal.
When his phone rang he snatched it up as Barney’s name and number flashed on the screen. ‘Everything OK?’
‘You told me to call when I woke up, I’m doing as I’m told.’
‘Right, don’t move. I’ll be over in less than half an hour. Do I have time for a shower?’
‘I’m not leaping out of bed if that’s what you think, I’m not even hungry. Please take your time, I’m happy to lie here a bit longer.’
