Michael trudged back up the lane towards the telephone box. Was he doing the right thing leaving Sam alone in the house? It would be quicker to go by himself, and besides, he didn’t want to drag Sam around. But then again maybe that was what dads were supposed to do with sons. He just didn’t know.
Son. Such a small word, and yet he couldn’t get his head around it. It had always applied to him, the object in a sentence; but now he was in subject position wondering how the universe had performed that grammatical sleight of hand without him noticing until it was too late.
Anyway, he wouldn’t be long. The car was a problem. He needed it out of the ditch, or they’d be stuck in Hernshore for who knew how long. He also needed to get hold of Nush and find out where the hell she was. It wasn’t like her to be late. Admittedly, Hernshore wasn’t her normal ‘London and the home counties’ stomping ground, but when he told her about the land, the woods, castle ruins, and sea-front real estate, he could see her working out the commission. Once he reminded her of his parentage, the final cog clicked into place. He almost gave her a napkin for the drool. Which was doing her a disservice. He supposed the sale was his way of making things up to her. All plans put in place before Sam martialised in his life.
At the telephone box, he swung open the door. Its weight and action were familiar, and the thought of checking the change slot had already popped into his head when he pulled up short.
Bollocks! There was no phone, only the empty holes where it had once been screwed to the back panel. In an attempt to crossbreed a compost heap with a second-hand bookshop, leaves and dogeared paperbacks filled the bottom of the booth. Danielle Steel, John Grisham, and Asimov paperbacks, their tatty covers half peeled back like old rag and bone men opening their heavy cloaks to hawk their wares, lay piled atop one another. Michael stared dumbfounded for a moment, wondering partly how the world could change so radically and partly whether his luck could get any worse. Which was, he considered, literally the most stupid thing anyone could offer up to the fates as a provocation.
The gear shift and rev of a heavy diesel engine gave a throaty growl from the road at the top of the lane. He looked up to see his car, tantalisingly close, but with its nose up in the air, being towed away in a grimy cloud of dust.
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‘Oi! Wait! You fucking idiot. Wait!’
He sprinted to the middle of the road, wincing and coughing, flapping at the dust, but it was no use. The Mercedes disappeared towards Hernshore.
‘Great, just... great!’
Hands flung up in the air, he let them fall back down in exasperation. It was as if the universe was conspiring against him—and not only today. He’d been on a bad run of luck since last summer when his mother passed away with a sudden heart attack. Some of the newspapers carried obituaries for her, the once-promising Hollywood actress who married a British movie director, who also happened to be a little-known Lord. After that, his run of luck seemed to end. Jury duty, parking tickets, two speeding fines, his phone and broadband being randomly cancelled by computer error, and more besides. Lots of little things he’d always seen happening to other people, but never to Michael. Then spring came, and the Chinese consortium put a freeze on their payments into his Thames waterfront development. On a project that big, cash flow was king, and without the Chinese, he quickly ran through his reserves. Hence the need to sell the family jewels.
He paced back and forth, thinking. Hernshore wasn’t far. He could walk there in less than fifteen minutes, but that would mean going to get Sam first. On the one hand, that would take longer. Then again, it wasn’t as if he had much choice, and that was the direction his car had been taken, no doubt to whomever was the current local hick mechanic. It was old Carl Wanban back in the day, but he’d be about a hundred and three by now. Then again, maybe if Michael climbed the nearest hill, he’d get a better signal. Undoubtedly, it was wishful thinking but a better idea than the phone back at the beach house. He turned toward the hill, putting a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, and was struck by his own stupidity.
‘The Tunstall farm,’ he said out loud, but there was a softness to his voice, that drifted down into an unspoken rhythm: At Tunstall farm; Sow and reap and fill the barn. He took a deep breath of salt and earth and manure and pulled his focus away from a fragment of a folktale, back to the present.
The prospect of seeing Toby Tunstall again didn’t exactly appeal. But the simple fact was the farm was closer than Hernshore, and maybe he could find out from Toby what had happened to his car.
The walk there was as worn into the grooves of his memory as hunting for treasure in the telephone box, as the old watch around his wrist. Although, this was the first time he’d ever gone up there with anything like the thunder he felt rumbling inside of him. He wasn’t a kid anymore looking for playmates to help fill his summer holidays by roaming the fields and sun dappled spinneys. Those days died long ago, if they ever really existed at all.
