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I stare at him, unable to think what to say. Tyrrell asks me if I’m ready to go but what Sweeny just said has paralysed me. Months of dust? He’s right, it will be disastrous.
He must see his words have hit home because he ups his bombardment. “And don’t forget the noise. We’re not doing what Hemingway did, taking down stone walls by hand, we’re going to use drills, so it might feel like the entire lane is shaking.”
“And bulldozers,” Morris says. There’s all that vegetation to cut through down the hill, so you can tell Hemingway, his holiday homes will get blitzed with wood chips and thorns. For months and months. We are going to ruin you both. You should have taken the easy way out, we tried to warn you, but like all silly women, you couldn’t see sense. Now you will pay.”
“We’ll make sure of it. You and your stupid clod grandfather and his half-wit girlfriend Doris—”
“That’s enough of that.” Tyrrell, red faced and very angry, has climbed down from his seat behind the horses. “If you can’t be respectful, you better shut your mouth or there are people who’ll shut it for you.”
It’s then that I notice the small crowd we seem to have attracted. Eileen stands outside her shop, arms crossed, looking affronted. Mrs Parker on her way down from the post office, the baker, and several others. All of them with unfriendly faces.
“Oh, stand down, the lot of you,” Sweeny drawls. “We’re not going to hit a girl and an old man.”
“Are you okay?” someone says quietly beside me.
I turn and see Myles. Just for an instant, I thought it might be Hal.
“Let me help you up.” He takes my arm as I climb the steps into the caravan, and he comes with me.
Tyrrell resumes his seat and flicks the reins over the two horses. They move at once, jerking us back against the seat.
The last thing I hear, as Tyrrell drives up Mill Lane, is Morris saying, “Remember where your bread is buttered, we have lots of jobs coming up. Huge deliveries shipping in from Jersey. Tyrrell will be making lots of money off us this summer. And we have workers coming here, they’ll be renting rooms, eating dinners, drinking. All of you stand to benefit. Think about it. Who’s of more value to you, us or that old man and his Nazi neighbour, the thief?”
It is that last word that finally makes me react. I turn to Myles. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”
He meets my eyes but says nothing. His expression is blank.
“It’s about what happened at school when your brother’s watch was stolen.”
He stops me with a quick hand on my shoulder. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. I don’t want you to go on thinking—”
“Elodie, I’m not a fool. It was all a long time ago.”
“But I thought when you warned me…you know, about trusting Hal.”
“I was wrong,” he says, taking his hand away from my shoulder. “I’m not proud of that. And I’ve talked to people who worked for him, he has been more than fair in all his dealings, paying people decent wages.”
“He didn’t steal your brother’s watch.” It feels really important to me that he knows this.
He studies me for a moment. “I understand. Thank you.” Then he looks away. “How are you feeling, Hedge?” he asks, raising his voice to make sure Grandad can hear him.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Elodie
Monday morning, I wake up at five. I still wake up early, my body expecting to go out for my usual morning walk with Hal. My internal clock doesn’t know we’ve broken up.
It takes me a little time every morning to gather my courage and optimism and take on the day knowing I won’t see him. I make myself tea – coffee will now always remind me of Hal’s Costa-Rica brew steaming on my windowsill. Then, cup in hand, I go outside in front of the shop and drink my tea and smell the morning air. It never fails to revive me.
Today, I hope to catch the last day of clean air, the last of the quiet before the demolition starts next door. But when six o’clock comes round and nothing happens, then seven, then eight, my curiosity gets the better of me and I cycle to the village.
As soon as I get there, I see Morris walking into the square. He finds a chair and bench outside the pub and drags them over to the centre of the square, making a lot of noise on the cobbles. A minute later, Sweeny joins him.
Not wanting a confrontation, I nip into Appletree Dairy. Eileen is not alone, Mrs Parker from the post office is there. She’s the one everybody calls Young Parker, even though she’s clearly middle-aged, to distinguish her from her predecessor, apparently, who was Old Parker.
“You’re here early, I don’t normally see you in the morning?” Eileen welcomes me.
