Eddie

THE DAY BEFORE THE SOLSTICE

"HAVE YOU FED THE CHICKENS, Eddie?"

"Yeah."

"Good boy." Mum pours me a cup of tea while I shovel Rice Krispies into my mouth. I clock on soon—I'm working a split shift today. Dad sits in silence between us like a bear with a sore head. He should have started the milking a couple of hours ago but he's only just got up. He smells of booze. He's also wearing his work jacket, which is setting off my allergies. I've been trying so hard to hold in a sneeze that when it finally comes it's even more explosive and Rice Krispies shoot across the table.

Dad glares at me. I look down at my bowl, cheeks hot. Why do I have to be allergic to cows, of all things? No one's allergic to cows.

"You don't need A levels to drive a tractor," Dad said, when I enrolled at college. He wasn't even joking. My brother was meant to take over the farm. He would have been great at it. "Drove the tractor when he was twelve years old like he'd been driving it all his life," Dad said, once. He never talks about my brother; I guess that's why it's stuck with me. That and the fact it made me feel like such a loser.

"Yeah," I wanted to yell, "but he's gone. You're left with me, sorry. Stupid allergic Eddie who can't get anywhere near the herd."

There's a knock on the door; it's Kris, one of the two farmhands (Dad had to let the other five go because of Brexit and labor costs). Kris got citizenship—he's originally from Poland.

"Good morning, everybody," he says, politely. And then he turns to Dad. "Harold, Ivor is missing. He's not in the field, or the barn. The barn gate is open. Do you know anything about this?"

Dad shakes his head.

"Then I think," Kris pulls a face, "he may have been stolen."

Ivor is the farm's ancient bull. He's probably had sex with about a thousand cows, and in the past I've thought about how that's nine hundred and ninety-nine more than my tally—except obviously I'm talking about having sex with people, not cows, whatever they say about Dorset.

"Why would anyone steal Ivor?" I ask.

"They might not know what's wrong with him," Mum says. Ivor's got a congenital disease that's causing him quite a bit of pain so Dad'll have to take him to the knacker's yard soon enough. "And he's still a rare breed and a valuable animal. But if someone stole him, surely we'd have heard an engine, seen lights or something. Ivor weighs more than half a ton—you don't just pop an animal like that in your boot." She turns to Dad. "Did you hear anything, Harold? While you were out?"

"Nope." Dad's gaze meets hers and then slides away.

Mum sighs. "Well, I suppose I better notify the police. Leave it with me. Though whether they'll take much notice is another matter."

It's only ten minutes later when I'm upstairs, brushing my teeth, that I think: why wasn't Dad raging about Ivor being missing? Ivor might not be the bull he once was but I'd still expect Dad to be livid. Maybe even to find some way of blaming it on The Manor. He once blamed Francesca Meadows for the milk going sour: "I tell you: it's some sort of hex," he said.

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Harold," Mum told him. "Please join us back in the twenty-first century. I think it's got a lot more to do with your decrepit refrigeration system than it has with any black magic."

BOTH MUM AND Dad have disappeared by the time I get downstairs. They barely talk when it's just the two of them. The silences are worse than any argument. Sometimes I wonder if they even like each other at all. I vaguely remember when they laughed together and hugged and stuff. But that was a long, long time ago. Before our family fell apart. Before Dad locked himself in the shed that time with the tractor engine running and Graham Tate (in the days when he still ran the caravan park and wasn't a drunken mess) had to smash down the door with an axe.

It's only seven a.m. but it's already hot out and I can feel my T-shirt turning damp under my arms as I cycle the short distance to The Manor. I heard on the radio it's going to be "a scorcher" this weekend. I cycle past a load of women in yoga gear heading onto the lawn. Some of them give me a quick up and down, lingering in a few places—on my face, then my shoulders and some of them on my, er, package. This has only really started happening in the last couple of years. I still haven't got used to it.

I'm wheeling my bike round to the back of The Manor near the staff entrance for the kitchens when I see her coming in this direction: the woman from last night, carrying one of the hotel's dark green tote bags. In the light of day and without her red lipstick she looks different, a little older, but still pretty hot in that rich, slightly older woman way. When I woke up this morning it blew my mind that I'd gone back to her room like that and... yeah, everything else. I'd been hoping we wouldn't bump into each other again.

She's coming closer. I guess she must be lost. There's nothing for guests round here—just a wooden sign saying STAFF ACCESS ONLY, which I suppose she must have missed. Hard to see how, when it's right there in big capital letters.

I should go and offer to help, shouldn't I? Play it cool and professional, just step out and point her in the right direction. But I can't face it. I don't know what I'd say. I can feel my stupid blush rising just thinking about it. So before she spots me I drop my bike on the gravel and jump behind one of the big blue kitchen waste bins. I'm definitely going to be late for my shift now.

I hear the crunch of gravel as her footsteps get closer and closer. It must be obvious by now she's in the wrong place: it's just bins and generators and then beyond that the stone archway that leads round to the courtyard beneath Francesca and Owen's private lodgings. The footsteps stop. I risk peering out: she's looking at my bike. The back wheel's still spinning. She glances about, like she's seeking out whoever dropped it.

She presses on, stepping into the courtyard despite the massive wooden sign that reads PRIVATE. I shift out from behind the bin and creep a couple of paces forward until I'm at the edge of the stone arch, so I can just about peer in.

There she is at the bottom of the steps that lead up to the private apartment, her back to me. She's looking round in every direction like an animal sniffing the air, checking for a predator.

I should do something. Tell her she shouldn't be here. But then there's what happened last night. Yeah, she came on to me, but the blame would land on the member of staff. I'd totally be fired if she said something.

She's climbing the steps that lead to Francesca Meadows's private quarters. Is she going to knock? She glances over her shoulder as though checking to see if she's being watched. She seems to be fishing something out of her shoulder bag but I can't get a proper look.

Now she's coming down again. I jump back behind the bins and a minute later she hurries past me, muttering: "Shit, shit, shit."

What did she just do?

I check my watch. Bollocks. I'm fifteen minutes late. I'm just going to have to make a break for it. I'm concentrating so hard on not being spotted by Bella that I'm not really looking where I'm going and I almost crash into a cleaner coming out of the staff entrance, cap pulled down low and pushing one of those big carts they use to service the rooms.

"Hey," I say. "Morning!" I've noticed already that some of the staff treat the cleaners pretty badly, like they think they're above them or want to emphasize there's some sort of huge difference between the work they do. But I was brought up better than that.

"Eddie?"

The voice I've just heard makes no sense at all. Staring back at me is the last person I would have expected to see here. Or maybe the second last. It's... "Mum?" I say, in disbelief.

She looks just as surprised—shocked—to see me as I am to see her. "What the hell, Mum?" I say. "What are you doing here?" I feel almost angry: this is my turf. Then, finally, I process the cleaner's uniform, the cart...

"You're working here?" I say, at the same time as Mum says, "I thought you'd been spending a lot of time with Lila this last couple of weeks."

We both stop and stare at each other, lost for words.

"You can't tell your father," Mum says, quickly. "This... it would destroy him. You know how he feels about this place."

"I know!" I say. "I knew Dad would be livid. But you hate this place, too!"

Mum's face flushes a deep pink. "Well... things are hard, Eds. Your dad could do with help on the finance side, but he's too proud. Besides, I don't want to sit around idly and your father won't let me help on the farm." A few years back Mum had half the bones in her foot crushed by a rogue bullock and ever since Dad has decided it's too dangerous for her. I've often wondered if Mum feels as useless as me where the farm's concerned. "So I've told him I got a job at the Spar. He never goes in there and I've got Mags covering for me." Mags is Mum's old friend, who works behind the till.

"But why don't you work at the Spar?" That would be much better, I think. I don't like seeing Mum in a cleaner's uniform. I know that sounds kind of snobby. Maybe I'm no better than the other members of staff after all.

"They don't need anyone else right now. Not with the new automatic checkout. Look," she says, fiercely, "it doesn't mean I like this place. Far from it. But we need the money. And beggars can't be choosers." She looks genuinely disgusted. "So here I am, airing other people's dirty laundry."

I glance at the cleaning cart. There's a tight bundle of grubby-looking sheets on the top. "Is that... blood?" I ask, spotting a small stain.

Mum purses her lips. "Honestly, Eddie. You would not believe. Doesn't matter how much money they have. Quite frankly they make farm animals look like models of cleanliness." Then suddenly she laughs. "Look at the two of us," she says. "I think this is one of those moments where you have to laugh or you'd cry. Come here, love." She opens her arms. I check over my shoulder before stepping forward for a quick hug. And then she steps back, hands resting on my shoulders. "But you never said: what sort of work are you doing here?"

I'm about to say that I'm a bartender but I can't lie to Mum, and she'll probably find out anyway. "I'm on the dishes," I say. "And some odd jobs. But I'm working up to be a bartender."

Mum reaches out a hand, ruffles my hair. "Well, I'm proud of you, love." And then, softly, "I know Dad is, too. Even though he doesn't always show it."

I'm mortified to feel my eyes pricking. I cough and blink, hard. "Thanks, Mum."

"And this," she gestures between us, "is our little secret. We're agreed, yes? Because if he found out, it could kill your dad—" She stops, clocking some guests walking in our direction. "Anyway," she says, quickly. "What I mean is, there are times when it's better to keep a secret from our loved ones than to hurt them with the truth. Right?"

"Yeah." I think of Dad coming in so late last night. Long after the only pub around here had closed. Seems we're not the only ones keeping secrets.