tricky one there,’ he said, staring down into his pint glass of yellow bubbles. ‘I don’t know if Kee mentioned it…’
Actually Keenan had talked about a lot of stuff, but I’d mostly been focused on the money, so he could have mentioned anything and I might not have noticed.
‘… and it was originally a pig,’ Gabriel was continuing. ‘But I was talking about Patrick being in the orchard and he thinks a horse might work better. I mean, obviously he won’t be coming in the house, but, well. They might work Granny Mary’s van in too. So, if he could stay, just until filming finishes?’
I thought of the stomped-mud path. Of the retreating grass and the patch on the largest apple tree where Patrick rubbed his tail. Of the big face that would appear at the window and gaze balefully at me from time to time. Of the fact that Poppy kept on about riding lessons.
‘I don’t know.’ I put my glass down firmly. ‘There’s not really enough grass now. He’s going to need hay and – does your granny give him hard feed? It must take some energy to pull that van and he’s not getting that from just grass, not in winter. Does he need a rug? And a farrier will have to take his shoes off if he’s not going to be working for a while.’
Gabriel blinked at me over his drink. His glasses magnified his eyes so much that it looked like a special effect. ‘She’s not actually my granny,’ he said, and it sounded as though he’d picked on the least actionable of my statements. ‘It’s just that everyone calls her Granny Mary. She’s just been around the place ever since I was young, sort of a ubiquitous granny rather than a specific one. Sorry.’
My face had clearly fallen. I’d thought he was more intimately connected to the life of Patrick, now he was just a passer-by? ‘I see,’ I said, tightly.
‘Oh, but you’re right about him needing food, of course. I’ll… I’ll ask Granny… I mean, I’ll ask Mary about it. But, will he be all right to stay until we finish filming? It sounds as though he’s going to be an integral part of the storyline.’
Oh, bugger. I was firmly painted into a corner here. Say no to Patrick and it might risk the cottage not being used as a location, and we needed the money. Say yes, and I was stuck with a grazing machine with soup-bowl feet and a penchant for watching me boil the kettle. Plus Poppy’s growing attachment to him, which I wasn’t keen on.
Gabriel was watching me. I looked at him sideways as we sat amid the fug and chatter. There was a curious kind of stillness about him; he didn’t swivel all the time to watch the darts match or people coming and going. He just sat, hands around his pint of cider, as though life was going on around him without touching him at all. My mind briefly contrasted him with Luc, whose sociability and high-functioning boredom meant that he would have joined the darts game, bought a round for everyone in here and started at least three conversations with random strangers before we’d even sat down.
If he’d ever been so pleb as to go into a country pub, of course. Wine bars were more his thing.
I smiled. It felt stretched, as though I was forcing my face. ‘This is a nice place.’
He jerked his head in a sideways nod, but it stopped him from looking at me in that curiously concentrated way. ‘Noisy. Nearest pub to Steepleton and Landle, so it’s usually busy, but the cider is good and local.’ Then he swept a hand up and pushed his hair from his face. ‘Sorry. Am I staring?’
‘No. Well, yes, a bit.’
He gave a rueful smile and looked back down into his drink. ‘Sorry. It’s…’ He took the glasses off and laid them on the table. Without them his face looked less defensive, more classically good-looking, with the curve of cheekbones more pronounced and his eyes a more realistic size. ‘Sight’s degenerating. Even with these it’s not great, and I can’t wear them any thicker or I’ll topple over.’
I didn’t know what to say, so I just sipped my orange juice.
‘The location job is a pity posting, y’see.’ He picked up his glasses and turned them over between his fingers. ‘I’m going to be functionally blind in a few years.’ The words were matter-of-fact, but there was emotion quivering behind them. ‘So I’ve got to earn while I can.’
I had no idea what to say to that. Part of me wanted to do what I would have done with Poppy, thrown out ideas, things to be looked into and researched. But the rest of me knew that wasn’t what he wanted or needed. This wasn’t a problem to be solved, it was a life-altering reality.
‘It must be hard.’ I hoped I’d injected enough sympathy into my voice.
‘Pretty shit, yes,’ and the half-laugh in his tone told me I’d done the right thing. ‘And I’m telling you just so you know that I’m not being a total bastard about Patrick and the van. I’d help you out with him only, well, I don’t know much about horses and I can’t see well enough to pick it up on the fly.’
‘He needs some hay and a hay net, at the least. Otherwise he’s going to start losing condition, and it will be hard to tell under that winter coat he’s growing.’ I sipped down the last of the orange juice.
‘Were you one of those pony-mad children?’ He’d left his glasses off, and it was interesting watching eyes that weren’t intently fixed on something. He was looking at me directly, yet from what he’d said he couldn’t really see my face that well.
‘Something like that.’ I put my glass down firmly. ‘Well, I ought to get back. Poppy is fine left alone for a while, but she’s still a bit nervous of the quiet.’
‘Poppy’s your daughter?’
‘Yep. Fourteen and city born and bred. Although I don’t much think it matters where they are from, fourteen-year-olds have “attitude” fitted as standard.’
Gabriel smiled. It was a nice smile; it crinkled up those impeccable cheekbones and made him look more approachable. ‘There’s going to be a fair bit of noise and disruption when we film at your place. How will she cope with that?’
‘She will be in her element. Noise and disruption are what she’s all about. On her own terms, naturally.’
‘Naturally. We were all fourteen once, weren’t we?’ He put his glass on the table next to mine. ‘I’m sorry? Did I say something?’
‘No, no…’ But the cold finger of memory had stroked its way down my spine like a ghost in this warm, companionable room. ‘No, I was just… anyway, I’d better go.’
‘I’ll walk you to your car.’
He stood up too, tall enough to cause the darts players to shout, ‘Oy, shift over, lanky!’ when his height intruded on their game.
Although the shout was good-natured, Gabriel did a sort of half-hunch, where most men would probably have raised two fingers and shouted back. He scuttled alongside me out of the pub, where the night air met us clear and chilly. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘They were just being idiots.’ I unlocked my car and we stood beside it for a moment. He looked as though he was weighing up the best way to take his leave. ‘Do you need a lift anywhere?’
‘A lift?’ he asked, as though this was the most bizarre suggestion anyone had ever made.
‘Yes, you know, you sit next to me and
