Read The Nothing Girl for Free Online Page B

through.
    Russell set off for the exit at only just sub-light speed. Thomas lingered. ‘ Well, ’ he said, looking around one last time. ‘ Who’d have thought it? ’
    ‘Come on,’ I said, nervous about being left behind. I could easily imagine Russell driving off without us, lost in the excitement of freshly acquired buckets. There was a toot from the car park.
    I expected to be driven home, or at least dropped off outside the post office, my day over with, but he turned the other way.
    ‘Where are we going?’
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry, did you have other plans? It’s just it’s raining so hard I want to get back to catch the drips. But I can easily drop you wherever you want to be.’
    I certainly didn’t want to go home yet. ‘No, that’s fine.’
    He speeded up again and we racketed down the lanes, through Whittington, and out the other side. He turned off just past the duck pond, up a narrow lane, and there was Frogmorton Farm, exactly as I remembered it from all those years ago.
    A long, low rambling building of red brick here, and a bit of stone there, with many chimneys. Oddly shaped windows had apparently been flung at random across the exterior. Various outbuildings of strange construction and purpose huddled around a yard, which in turn opened into a large field.
    The gate was open and we pulled straight into the yard.
    ‘You don’t want to go in through the front door, do you?’
    I shook my head.
    ‘Good, because I can’t get it open. This way.’
    We divided up the buckets between us and I followed him into the house.
    I remembered the mud room and its distinctive smell of old wet coats and rubber wellies. I was hurried through and straight into the kitchen.
    ‘What ho, Mrs C! Buckets!’
    It was Mrs Crisp. She was still here. She was a little plumper and a little greyer and her eyes were a little more unfocused, but here was another one who didn’t look a lot different.
    I remembered how she used to bring us biscuits and juice and how I thought she smelled funny until Aunt Julia came back from a ‘ladies lunch’ one day, and I realised it was sherry. She turned away from stirring something on the stove, wiped her red hands on a tea-towel, and came forward.
    ‘Miss Dove, it’s very nice to see you again.’ She took my buckets off me, much to my relief.
    I smiled and nodded.
    ‘No time to chat,’ cried Russell, making for the other door. ‘Come on, Jenny.’
    She rolled her eyes. I took back the buckets and followed him out.
    ‘Something smells nice,’ I said to Thomas. ‘Do you think they’ll ask us to lunch?’
    He gave me a funny look. ‘ I’m certain of it. ’
    Up in the attics I carefully placed my buckets over the damp patches. There were depressing but oddly musical drips. Russell sighed. I looked up. Here and there, I could see tiny chinks of daylight.
    ‘It’s not so bad,’ he said defensively. ‘The tiles can stay on. The undersides need filling and a waterproof membrane putting across the joists and it’ll all be fine again. But not until the summer.’
    ‘Because of the weather?’ I asked, glad to show off a bit of knowledge.
    ‘No, that’s when the rent’s due again.’
    I must have looked surprised.
    ‘I rent most of my land to my neighbour up the lane. For his sheep. He brings them down off the moors in winter and for lambing. For which I expect they’re extremely grateful. I know I am. Anyway, this year’s rent will see to this,’ he gestured to the roof. ‘At the moment I’ve got other things on.’
    I raised my eyebrows.
    ‘Decorating. I’ve got the central heating in; that was last year’s rent. Quite a bit more than last year’s rent, actually. But that’s done, so at least we’re warm now. When I get the roof done that’s pretty well the last of the structural work. Now I’m going to slap on two coats of magnolia all over, polish up the floors, and that’s it until a chimney blows down, or I discover dry rot or something equally shitty.