From a Distance by Raffaella Barker Read Free Book Online Page B

a swimming pool so—’
    ‘A swimming pool? Really?’ he scooped another mouthful. ‘Mmmm,’ grinning at her, ‘Looks more like a car-cleaning sponge to me.’
    The Land Rover outside the window wore a patina of dust, sea salt and flecks of cut grass.
    Luisa looked from it to her husband. ‘Have you ever seen a car-cleaning sponge?’ she asked innocently.
    He pointed at the pudding. ‘I have now!’
    She laughed. ‘Go away. Why are you here anyway? You still haven’t told me.’
    ‘Those sheep.’
    ‘They’re out? Again?’ Luisa scanned her memory. She’d been in charge of catching them a couple of days ago. Did she leave the gate open? No, surely not. If she had they’d have been out even sooner. ‘They’re such a menace, this is the third time.’
    He nodded. ‘I know. Had a call from the Whites at Mill Farm. Some day-tripper in a rush found a bunch of them heading up Sleet Hill and almost ran one over. Thought they were from their yard so he went and kicked up a stink.’
    ‘Oh God, it’s the garage,’ muttered Luisa, still half-listening to her phone messages. She put it on to speakerphone. ‘Listen, Tom, it’s about the ice-cream van.’
    Jed the mechanic was intoning, ‘Welding on the front axle, some of the receptors and brake pads and could need a new front wheel arch panel, so it’s good news and bad,’ he announced with relish.
    What was the good bit? wondered Luisa.
    Tom shook his head, ‘Dunno, sounds long term to me. You’ll have to share my car, Tod.’
    ‘What are you doing?’
    Tom had taken his shirt off, throwing it in the direction of the utility room, but it landed nowhere near the door, let alone the washing machine itself.
    ‘That’s why I came home on the way,’ Tom reached into the explosion of clean laundry on a chair in the corner and pulled out a green shirt. ‘Managed to spill coffee all over my shirt when I got the sheep call. It was right in the middle of a time-tabling meeting with the Head. Some angry bloke from Newcastle or somewhere was giving the Whites a load of grief. I could hear him in the background. I’m sure the Head could too.’
    Tom pulled the shirt on over his head, Luisa noticed how his back muscles moved, working from his spine. He was tucking the shirt into his belt. He tightened the buckle and looped the leather end back through. Luisa put her finger on the belt. ‘You always loop it like this,’ she said. Tom patted her hand and moved to the other side of the table. He had moved on in his thoughts and was now talking about the mechanic. He was irritated that the work was going ahead on the ancient, rusting ice-cream van she had bought, against his advice, on eBay. Tom didn’t have time right now, to deal with it.
    ‘You can’t just write a blank cheque for a pile of rotting junk,’ he said. ‘It needs a fortune spent on it I should think.’
    ‘It’s for my business,’ she protested. ‘I need your help.’ In a way, it was a talisman, a memento of how they met, a link to the time when they were passionately in love. ‘We can sort it out together,’ she suggested.
    Tom’s mind had returned to the sheep and that phone call. ‘The guy was ranting away about whether I had insurance for this sort of incident. I had to hold the phone away from my head, and I reckon the whole meeting could hear him.’
    Tom switched on the kettle, and waited, drumming his fingers.
    ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I’ll have to come and look at the van. But don’t make any decisions until I do. I’ll get down there this week.’ He sighed. ‘Life’s too busy,’ he muttered under his breath, and began flicking through his phone messages.
    He wrote down a number and shoved his phone back in his pocket. ‘What’s the point of letting the farmland if the people who rent it just bugger off all the time? It’s a pain in the neck. Jason’s sheep are in the middle of the road, and of course sodding Jason’s on holiday in Portugal, isn’t he? Why the hell