Eddie

OPENING NIGHT

MUM IS IN THE KITCHEN when I get home, wearing her old terry cloth robe and slippers and holding a mug of tea. It's nearly two a.m., I hadn't expected her to be up. But maybe I should have. She's had trouble sleeping ever since I was little. Since everything with my brother, probably.

"Where have you been, Ed?" she asks.

"Just out... down on the beach, with Lila and the others." It's not a lie.

"Drinking?"

"Nope."

"You came back along the road? Not through the woods?"

"Yeah, Mum."

"Good. But you still need to be careful. The guests going to that place have been roaring along the road since mid-morning, driving like maniacs."

"It's fine, Mum. I'm always really careful."

"Good Housekeeping did a pieceabouther. All that earth goddess stuff. It's total crap. You don't go destroying people's livelihoods and cutting off their rights of way. If you ask me, there's something evil about her. This heatwave coming... heard tomorrow will be the hottest day in sixty years. Hope it melts the lot of them, don't you?"

It's pretty shocking to hear Mum say "crap"—it's the closest she'd ever get to swearing. This is exactly why I can't tell my parents where I work. "Yeah," I say, noncommittally.

"You want some Horlicks, love?" she asks. "To take to bed with you?"

I won't drink it as it's still about twenty-five degrees out and definitely not Horlicks weather but I know she likes making it, looking after me. "Yeah, sure. Thanks."

In the kitchen she warms the milk on the old range cooker, which stinks of oil and undoubtedly makes my small room, just above it, even hotter than it already is. She slams the cupboard as she takes out the jar of Horlicks and when she turns round her cheeks are bright pink. I get it from her, the blushing, except she's not blushing now: she's angry. Dad simmers all the time, so you get used to it. But Mum is just mild, kind Mum... until she blows up out of the blue. "She's so nice, your mum," Delilah said once. And she is. But she's also pretty terrifying when you get on the wrong side of her.

"They've got some so-called farm shop there," she mutters.

"Have they?" I had a look the other day. You've never seen a strawberry so shiny and tiny and perfect (they come in these little wicker baskets) or granola with so many different "superfoods" in it (a tenner a box). Saw guests coming out today with these huge paper bags of stuff, like they'd gone for their weekly shop—I don't understand what they can be doing with it as they'll all get room service or eat in the Seashard restaurant.

"They had this whole thing about how they were going to be selling local produce."

I get a sinking feeling. "Oh—"

"Yes, I told your dad. Because what could be more local than the farm next door? He was obviously anti at first, but I think in the end he got quite enthused." I try to picture Dad "enthused" about anything these days and come up blank. "You know, what with the supermarkets messing him around, taking smaller and smaller orders, all of that. He went around with a load of cheese and milk."

I have this sudden awful image of Dad trudging into The Manor in his huge muddy work boots, stained jacket and big salt-and-pepper beard, a sackload of produce over his back like some budget Santa.

"He showed them what he'd brought and they said" (she puts on a hoity-toity voice for this bit): "‘Oh, we have our suppliers already, thank you. And we're only doing organic.' They didn't even bother to ask him if our milk was organic." (It isn't: too much red tape, Dad says, and he can't afford to make the switch anyway.)

"I guess they're just stupid snobs, Mum," I say.

She passes a hand over her face. "They're worse than that, Eds."

"What do you mean?"

"Your dad hasn't kept very good records over the years. Land registry stuff..."

"What do you mean?"

She shakes her head, like she's thought better of saying anything. "Don't worry. I'm sure it'll come to nothing."

It doesn't sound like nothing, but I can tell from the thin line of her mouth she's not going to tell me any more.

"Did Dad turn in a while ago?" I ask.

Mum's back is turned to me as she stirs the Horlicks. "No. He's not got in yet."

Where the hell is he at this time of night? There's nowhere to go in the whole of Tome after twelve. Mum pulls her robe tighter around her even though there's no way she can be cold. We look at each other and I know we're both thinking about that day years ago when Dad locked himself in the tractor shed—

"Right," Mum says, like she's chosen not to think about it anymore. She puts a steaming cup of Horlicks in front of me. Just looking at it makes sweat break out on my forehead. "Night love." She reaches to ruffle my hair. Then she turns and shuffles up the stairs. I feel bad for her, stuck waiting up for the two of us, wondering where Dad is, when she's already spent the whole day here on her own. She must get so lonely. As I watch her climb the steps, shoulders rounded, I think: she looks old. Mum and Dad had me quite late. Mum told me once (after too much Christmas sherry) that I was an accident. "But a happy one!" They didn't even think they could have kids anymore. There was a thirteen-year gap between my brother and me. It's why I never really knew him.

I HEAR THE front door creak back on its hinges an hour later. Dad's back. I wonder if Mum hears it, too. I've stayed awake listening out for him while scrolling through Delilah's socials: she's deleted all her old fitness influencer stuff and there's just a black and white picture of her on Instagram with her new darker hair, looking moody and mysterious. The text beneath reads: Watch this space. Something MAJOR soon! Same on her TikTok, too, except in this one she's turning to the camera and doing a long slow wink.

Nathan Tate,I think. Really?!

I can hear Dad stumbling about in the hallway, swearing as he struggles to take off his boots. He wears the same pair of boots year round, rain or shine: the kind you could drop an axe on without leaving a mark. I creep out and watch him from the shadows on the landing as he sways slightly. I think he must be drunk. But he can't have been at the pub, or not recently, as it shut hours ago. Does that mean he's driven from somewhere? I don't think I heard an engine outside.

He starts climbing the stairs. I reverse back into my room, I don't really want to see him when he's like this; it'll be embarrassing for both of us. And then—shit—I sneeze. It's probably Dad who's set me off because he spends so long round the cows, covered in their spit and hair.

"Who's there?" Dad says. "Eddie?"

"Er, yeah Dad. Hi." I step onto the landing. The little nightlight blinks on.

He appears at the top of the stairs. I wait for him to say where he's been, or ask what I'm doing up so late. But his eyes slide away. He looks kind of shifty, guilty even.

"Well," he says gruffly. "Night, son. Let's not stand here chit-chatting. Don't want to wake up your mum."

I watch his back as he carries on up the stairs to my parents' room in the attic. No explanation of where he's been for the last couple of hours, nothing.