Chapter 15 - Blood for breakfast at Trennels
Half term, February 1951
It was breakfast time, when Ann, with her usual terrible sense of timing, spoke up.
"But she had to say something then," Lawrie had argued afterwards, with the unexpected pragmatism that sometimes reminded people that she might, after all, be related to Nicola. "She only arrived home yesterday, and Dad's going back tomorrow. But our Ann, with a girlfriend."
Lawrie either dreaded or relished a row. This, Nicola noted, was plainly going to be one she would relish.
After Ann had left the room in floods of tears, it was Rowan who looked at their father with that cool, merciless Marlow stare (She might look like her mother, but looks were deceptive.)
"If you had bothered to listen to what she said," Rowan said, with curious, distantly polite manner, "You would realise that Ann is fully sensible of the embarrassment her feelings and actions cause you." Rowan's eyes flickered for a moment from her father to her mother. "I don't recall hearing that either of you were so very sensitive to parental feelings at that stage in your lives. She isn't standing up and proclaiming her love for her girlfriend at a hunt ball or even the Merrick's New Year party. She doesn't intend to do so at all. And she had the decency to tell you before anyone worked it out. But then Ann is decent."
"How dare you speak to me like that? I am your father."
"I wouldn't be managing this farm for anyone else. It certainly wouldn't be my first choice of career."
"If you continue to support Ann her disgusting behaviour you can leave this house."
"Geoff, don't…"
"That will suit me very well indeed. I suppose you would prefer me to work out my notice? A month is the usual time, I believe, although I don't recall there being a specific agreement. And now, if Mother will excuse me, I have to get back to work.
It probably took less than a minute, but it was, in its own way, just as significant as the (simply massive, Lawrie had said) explosion from their father that had preceded it.
"You didn't half choose a morning to go to the Merrick's for breakfast." Lawrie said.
Nicola thought, on balance that she was glad she had been invited that day.
"So what's going to happen now?" Nicola asked. Lawrie had sought her twin out, intercepting Nicola on the same little bridge where Peter had broken the news of Jon's death.
"Ann is packing her stuff now. Father said she wasn't to remain another night here. I suppose she's going back to the nurses' home. She only had 2 days leave anyway. No one said that the Dodds aren't coming for supper tonight; I suppose they still are. Rowan just went back to the lambing as if – well not exactly as if – nothing had happened. Looking grim and heroic without trying in the slightest."
Nicola knew by Lawrie's thoughtful expression that Lawrie was trying to memorise exactly how Rowan looked to help in a future role. She wished Lawrie wouldn't. There was no point in hoping that Lawrie would stop being Lawrie.
"I wish Ann hadn't said anything." Nicola said fiercely.
"I suppose she can't help it." Lawrie said. "It's what Ann does. If there's anything at all to confess Ann does it. Even when it's not her."
Nicola nodded, drawing patterns with her wet wellingtons on the drying path. Life was completely and utterly mouldy.