Before she can scold me, I kiss her again with such ferocity that I feel the pulse of her lip throbbing against mine. Only the sound of an irritated bleating makes her pull away, and when we both come to once again, the two tiny black eyes of the lamb stare back at us both, clearly irritated by the disruption to his game of tig.
‘Little shit,’ Beatrice mutters, before diving through the mud after him.
‘Take your wet clothes off and meet me in the kitchen,’ Gran shouts from the farmhouse door when she sees us arrive back in the yard.
Without admitting that it’s been on my mind, I can’t say this is exactly how I imagined seeing Beatrice in her underwear for the first time would go; sat at my grandmother’s dining table like a pair of schoolkids waiting for our uniforms to finish washing. In my fantasy, my grandmother has no involvement whatsoever, and theroom is significantly warmer, so that my nipples aren’t the most impressive appendage on my body.
‘Why are you not fazed by this?’ I whisper loudly to Beatrice across the table as she leans nonchalantly with her chin in her hand. ‘Are you often half nude in my gran’s house?’
‘I’ve been elbows deep in a sheep more times than I can count this week alone. My own body doesn’t scare me.’ She shrugs.
‘That statement is, in equal parts, both beautiful and disgusting.’ I can’t decide which part of it to focus on, so I watch her coy smile instead as she enjoys making me squirm. Her hair drips over her clavicle and traces down her skin until the raindrops disappear beneath the table. Her crooked fringe clings to her forehead and she squeezes the end of her ponytail until it drips onto the rug beneath her.
‘As much as I respect and admire Ms Riches, I do hope she hasn’t gone to fetch me one of her nighties to change into. I’d rather drive home bare cheeks on leather.’ She cringes into her seat as she whispers.
‘Okay, that is far too specific not to have happened before.’ Beatrice looks absent for a moment, then shudders before my gran returns with a pile of clothes slung over her arm. Flicking my eyes back and forth between both women, I can’t help but laugh as one wears a look of genuine fear, whilst the other is completely unaware.
‘Seeing as I am not good enough to have been cast in your little project …’ my grandmother narrows her eyes at me and dumps the clothes onto the table ‘… I thought I could contribute in another way.’
‘Technically, we haven’t filled all of the roles yet, so we could find room for you.’
‘Don’t patronise me, lad, I know where my talents lie anyway, and pretending to be someone I’m not is not one of them.’ She rolls her eyes and Beatrice smiles behind her hand as I’m taken aback. ‘Anyways, Beatrice …’ her smile quickly falls and she sits to attention as though summoned by her terrifying headmistress ‘… this look …’ Gran gestures to Beatrice as a whole ‘… not going to be doing you any favours at that fancy party.’
‘To be fair to me, Ms Riches, I will be wearing more than just my mismatched bra and pants that I’ve had since I was fifteen. You know that, right?’ My grandmother is silent as she rummages in the pile before her. ‘Right?’ Beatrice’s voice cracks and it’s my turn to laugh.
Ignoring her entirely, she finds the item she was looking for and smiles to herself. ‘There you are.’ Holding up a long, dark, burgundy dress, embroidered with beads and soft chiffon sleeves, she flings it onto Beatrice who only looks to me with furrowed brows. ‘Now it is probably a bit nicer than you’re used to, but Arthur’s grandfather bought me that after I caught him at it with the woman from the butcher’s, and I’ve always watched you working and thought it would suit you.’
Beatrice is lost for words as she skims her finger along the rows of beads, and I can tell from her face that she’s torn between taking offence and refusing to accept on grounds that it is too much. ‘I—’ she begins but my grandmother waves a hand to dismiss her.
‘Nope, no excuses. Go and stick it on and we will seehow it fits.’ Doing as she’s told, Beatrice shuffles out of the kitchen, dress clutched to her body. ‘Now,’ my grandmother addresses me as her new target, ‘this here was your dad’s.’
She unzips a suit from a bag and brushes off some lint from the lapels. It’s a very dark burgundy, almost black but as the flicker of the fire catches it, a warm glow of red and purple shimmers through it. She runs a hand down the seams; the mohair is soft to the touch and I grin at the thought of my dad wearing something so … unique. That man’s idea of pushing the boat out is wearing a coloured pocket square in his black suit, so when Gran tells me he never wore it, I’m not surprised.
‘The village made this suit when he was nominated for his first BAFTA. Everyone chipped in to have it custom-made by the tailor in town.’ She flicks open the blazer and on the inner pocket the words ‘lots of love, New York x’ are embroidered into the silk lining and a little handkerchief with a bright green apple sewn in the middle sits in the bag beside it. ‘Cost us all an arm and a leg this did, especially back then. But everyone practically threw their money into it, even when they had so little, just so he could look like the star he was that night.’
‘But he never wore it?’ I shake my head as I trace the thread lettering.
‘Nope, the ungrateful bastard never even came to see it.’ My gran’s previously soft tone extinguishes and she’s her usually bitter self once more. ‘I had to tell everyone down the Big Apple that there was a change in the dress code. They still watched him, still loved him, still do. But that was when I knew he wasn’t the boy I had raised anymore.’
She pulls out the suit and inspects the bottoms of the trousers closely. ‘Now you’re much taller than your father – he inherited your grandfather’s stubby little legs – but I reckon there’s room in these hems for me to take them down for you.’
‘You want me to wear it?’ I reply, looking again at the inscribed words of affection and feeling a little out of my depth.
‘No, I’ve just got it down from the loft for the fun of it.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Of course I want you to wear it. Come on, get it on.’
‘But it’s forhimand they’re big shoes, and a big suit, that I could never fill. They made it for Dad. Won’t they be short-changed now if you give it to me?’
‘This suit, if anything, will be too small for you, son. Both literally and figuratively. You have proven yourself a worthy man, and you still do. Plus, I reckon that all of the old beggars who haven’t forgotten about it, after all of these years, will be pleased to know it isn’t sat collecting dust anymore.’
‘Well … if you’re sure …’ I take the trousers hesitantly.
‘Why would I get it out if I wasn’t sure? God boy. Do you always have to dilly-dally about with everything? Have a bit of confidence, have a bit of fire.’ She practically throws the rest of the outfit at me as Beatrice steps back into the room.
She has released her hair entirely from its restraints and it hangs about her face in waves of wet and dry. The dress clings to her figure at the top, then billows out towards the bottom, so it is as though she floats across the lino. Thecolour is dark against her pale skin, but it seems to weave in between her dark strands like a shot of moonlight through a night sky.
‘Wow,’ is all I can bring myself to say, and my grandmother only watches her in silence with an uncharacteristic smile. Beatrice is beautiful when her hair sticks up in feral directions, when she stomps through the yard in her wellies, when she’s buried in her overalls, and she snarls at me like a protective beast. Seeing her so prim, so proper is strange. Yet she looks no better, and certainly no worse than she ever has before. She is faultless in every way she presents herself, and I am in more danger of falling in love with her than ever.
‘Would you mind?’ She sweeps her hair over one shoulder and reveals her back that’s been left bare from a zip only half finished.
