Page 9 of A New Family at Puddleduck Farm (Puddleduck Farm #6)

Their Saturday night couple-time date didn’t work out quite as Sam had expected because Phoebe kept looking at her watch. Even though they’d only gone to a local pub, he knew she was anxious about leaving Lily.

In the end they’d gone home early.

‘It’ll be easier next time,’ Phoebe promised as they all but ran back into Puddleduck Farm to see Lily, ‘but it was a brilliant thought, Sam. Thanks.’

* * *

On Monday morning, Sam found out what Louella and James had meant about his ma working fewer hours as soon as he got to Hendrie’s.

His father, who’d usually have been out on a kitchen-fitting job, was helping his mother carry some boxes of stock into the back storeroom when he arrived.

‘I can do that, Pa.’ He looked at him curiously. ‘Haven’t you got places to be?’

‘Not today, son.’ Ian Hendrie set the box he was carrying onto a shelf. ‘I’m – er – I’m selling the business.’

‘Since when?’ Sam felt shock ricochet through him. ‘Is something wrong? Are you OK? Is Ma OK?’

‘We’re both fine. Don’t panic.’ Ian turned round to face him.

‘It’s been on the cards for a while. It’s been getting less profitable, see.

People are pulling their belts in. They can’t afford the top-end new kitchens they used to – and as you know, that’s where the real profit is.

Lots of people don’t even have the old kitchen ripped out these days, they just do refurbs and replace all the cupboard doors instead. ’

Sam knew this. His father had complained about it before, blaming the state of the economy.

‘But can you afford to stop? Can’t you diversify?’

‘To answer your questions back to front, I could try and diversify but I don’t need to – and yes, I can. I’ve just pulled down a small private pension. Your ma and I decided it was the right time.’

Sam was speechless. He couldn’t remember his pa ever doing anything different than working with his hands, going out to customers, heading off early in his van every day, and coming back late every evening, and although he often complained about the long hours, Sam had always taken that as par for the course.

Just part of the job. It had never occurred to him that his father didn’t like what he did.

‘To be honest with you, son, I won’t miss it. It’s hard graft. It’s a young man’s game. And it’s a young man that’s buying it.’

‘But what will you do instead?’ Sam still felt a bit blindsided.

‘Work with your ma in the shop. It’ll be a nice change.’

‘Um, right…’

‘It won’t affect you, don’t worry. Unless you want it to…’ His father looked at him keenly. ‘We thought you were planning to cut down your hours. Wasn’t there talk of you being more of a hands-on – er – dad – is that the right expression, these days?’

‘There was. Yes.’ Sam could feel a pulse beating in his neck.

That was exactly what he’d told his parents before Lily had come along.

It was one of those things that had been a lot easier to say than to actually do.

When he and Phoebe had discussed it, it had seemed such a logical and obvious solution.

Sam would cut down his hours as a riding instructor, which he loved, and at Hendrie’s which was less of a vocation, but what he’d always done, and he’d look after Lily so Phoebe would go back to work full time.

But a logical and obvious solution, planned out with cool, level heads, had nothing whatsoever to do with the reality that had arrived, and now the time had come, Sam felt as if his whole life was spinning out of his control.

His whole life was changing and it was all too fast and it seemed that he didn’t even have a say in the matter. Even his parents were in on the act.

He couldn’t carry on the discussion. He couldn’t breathe.

He spun round and stormed out of the storeroom, through the shop, which had only just opened and luckily didn’t have any customers in, past his bemused ma, and out of the front door onto the main Bridgeford High Street.

A few minutes later he was striding past The Crown, one of Bridgeford’s four pubs, where the landlord was just putting out the blackboard which said ‘Open for breakfast’.

The smell of bacon and coffee drifted out onto the street, which would normally have had him pausing, but today Sam barely noticed it.

He hurried past shopkeepers unlocking their doors and getting ready for the day, and past a scattering of early commuters heading for work. Everyone was in a rush, everyone had purposeful strides, everyone knew where they were going. Everyone except him. At least that’s how it felt.

He didn’t stop until he reached the pavement at one end of the grey stone bridge that gave the town its name, its arches spanning the clear water. Then he paused and leaned over the parapet, his fingers touching the rough stone warmed by the morning sunlight.

The bridge wasn’t high; the water was only ten or twelve metres below him.

All along the riverbank were houses and restaurant fronts that were as familiar to Sam as the backs of his own hands.

Red-tiled roofs on red-brick buildings, and the white tables and chairs and pink parasols at the back of a pub that overlooked the river.

He’d lived here all his life, worked at Hendrie’s all his life too; he’d never known anything else. He didn’t want anything else.

For a moment he imagined waking up every day at Puddleduck Farm, waving Phoebe off to work, being in sole charge of their daughter, taking over the endless routines of feeding and nappy changing, with only the briefest forays into the outside world to struggle with a buggy and a supermarket trolley around the shops.

He imagined not having Ninja any more. No more rides through the cool green peace of the forest, breathing in the dappled sunlit air. No solitude, no time to call his own.

He knew suddenly that he wasn’t up to the job.

He’d never be able to do it. He’d never been good enough for Phoebe, and looking after Lily full time, being a full-time dad, was such an enormous overwhelming responsibility.

He recalled the night when he’d fallen asleep standing up in their bedroom and dreaming of yellow spotted dogs and pink horses and he imagined that moment repeating over and over.

What if that happened again? What if he made a mistake with her bottle, did something wrong, put her at risk somehow because he wasn’t up to the job?

Sam didn’t realise he’d let out an anguished groan until a passing jogger shot him an odd look, before quipping, ‘Don’t do it, mate. The water’s way too shallow.’

Sam was jolted back into the present, aware of the low rumble of the traffic on the bridge, as the jogger grinned and sped past him.

The guy was right about that. The bridge wasn’t high enough either. The most you’d get if you jumped off from here was a sprained ankle. Not that jumping off bridges was or ever had been top of his list of ‘things I’d like to do on a Monday morning’.

Blimey O’Reilly, what had got into him? What was he doing?

What had even happened just now in the shop?

Pa must have thought he was losing the plot, running out like that.

Sam gulped in a great lungful of the traffic-fumy air and lifted his hands off the rough stone.

He was exhausted, that was the truth of the matter, and it was only Monday.

Maybe lack of sleep was responsible for the panic he’d felt in the storeroom.

Was still feeling, he admitted to himself, although he now felt slightly foolish as well, standing here on the bridge, contemplating the darkness of a future that both he and Phoebe had been so desperately excited about, just a few short months ago.

Even so, he was trembling slightly as he walked back into Hendrie’s a few minutes later.

Not an obvious trembling – it hadn’t extended to his hands, he was relieved to see as he’d opened the door – but an inside trembling that seemed to have taken over his body.

He had to get a grip. This was crazy stuff. He didn’t want to worry his parents.

Not that they seemed worried. His ma shot him a keen look as he walked past her. ‘Just remembered something I left in the car,’ he offered as an explanation, and she nodded.

His pa didn’t say anything at all. The Hendries had never been big on talking about their emotions. Feelings weren’t something that were discussed, particularly negative feelings. Sam was pretty sure his parents would have been horrified if they’d known what was going on in their son’s head.

Now he’d calmed down again he was pretty horrified himself. It was definitely sleep deprivation. It would be OK. He just had to get some more caffeine inside him and get into the routines of the day.

Luckily the Monday morning rush had just started and there wasn’t time to think about anything else anyway, let alone have an uninterrupted discussion.

By the time he left that evening, his father had gone out somewhere, and the only reference his mother made to him selling the business was to say, ‘So, what do you think about Hendrie’s being a full-on family-run operation then, son? ’

‘I think it’s great news, Ma. Dad’s not getting any younger and it’ll do him the world of good cutting his hours down.’

‘And I’ll have more time to see my granddaughter growing up. I’m thinking I might join a choir too. Did you know there are mama and baby singing groups? I could take Lily.’ For a second, he saw the same sparkle he’d seen in Louella’s eyes a few days earlier.

‘That sounds brilliant, Ma.’ He patted her arm.

‘You can cut your hours too, if you want to, Sam. We can set up a new rota to fit in with childcare.’

Sam swallowed. ‘We can. That would be great.’

* * *

‘I didn’t think your dad would ever retire,’ Phoebe said when Sam told her that night. ‘Although I can see his point about it being a young man’s game. He’s sixty, isn’t he?’

‘Sixty-one, same as Ma. It was a shock to me too, but you’re right.

It had to happen sooner or later.’ He had a curious expression on his face, Phoebe saw, more worry than relief, but she carried on talking.

‘So, that’s what my mum meant when she said they could help us out with childcare.

That’s going to help a lot. We should talk about me going back to work. ’

‘What, now?’

‘Well, no, I don’t mean I should go back to work right now. I’m not planning to go back for a bit, but I’m thinking I could do a staged return. I don’t know, maybe I could go in one day a week in October.’

‘That soon?’ He shifted and didn’t quite meet her eyes.

‘Well, yes, Sam, especially if our parents are planning to help. I don’t mean I’m actually going to do much in October, but I’d really like to get on top of what’s going on with regard to any new clients we have.

Also at the moment we’ve had to hand over most of the farm call-outs to Marchwood, because Seth’s covering my work at Puddleduck Pets. And that’s costing us money.’

She knew she’d already told him this, but maybe he hadn’t taken it in. Marchwood was Seth’s former practice. Marchwood and Puddleduck Pets still did each other’s out-of-hours cover, but giving them all the farm work as well was extra.

‘Seth’s itching to get back to the farm animal side of things,’ she added when Sam still didn’t speak.

‘Yeah, I bet,’ he said at last. ‘So one day a week in October then, and I’ll still go into Hendrie’s for four.’

‘That’s what I’m thinking. Then at the beginning of November, all being well, I’ll go in two days a week, then in December I can increase it to three depending on how things are panning out, and by January, February, I can go back full time and you can cut down your hours accordingly.’

Sam was nodding slowly.

‘I mean, if that’s all OK with you?’

‘Yeah. Of course it is.’ A muscle twitched in his cheek and she had the feeling he wasn’t as on board with all this as he was saying. Maybe he was worried about finances. She was just about to ask him when her mobile pinged with a message, and, distracted, Phoebe reached for it.

It was from Natasha and was headed up ‘Great News’.

Curiously, she opened it.

Are you free for a quick chat? Fence man’s come back to me, and I think you’re going to like his quote.

‘I just need a quick chat with Natasha, Sam. Is that OK?’

‘Go for it. I need a pee.’

From upstairs, Phoebe thought she caught the sound of a thin wail.

‘I’ll see to her,’ Sam said. ‘You speak to Natasha.’

When they caught up again twenty minutes later, Phoebe was so excited she’d forgotten Sam might be worried about finances.

‘Remember I told you about our dog field plans – well, I think we might be on. That fencer Natasha knows has given us a brilliant quote. It’s even cheaper than the original quote Maggie got when we first thought of the idea of a dog field and that was years ago.’

‘What’s the catch?’ Sam asked. He had a damp patch on his shirt where he’d sponged something off it. Baby sick, Phoebe thought guiltily, but she was too excited about the dog field to comment.

‘It’s not really a catch as such. But we’re doing a kind of bartering exchange.

He’s got two Romanian rescue dogs that he can’t exercise off the lead so we’ve done a deal.

He’ll have free use of the field whenever he wants and the rest of the time it will be used by paid hirers.

Maggie’s going to be thrilled. This will be an ongoing fundraiser forever and a day.

Dog fields are super popular, and the best bit is that he reckons it’ll be done in time for us to open at Halloween. That’s only a month away.’

‘Sounds great.’ Sam remembered that she’d mentioned the dog field before. He’d been going to ask her at the time if she was sure there was enough room. The donkeys didn’t need all that space, but Ninja was in that field too.

He’d missed his chance. There was no way he could pour cold water on the idea now. Phoebe looked way too excited.

Maybe this was just another sign that he should be thinking of rehoming Ninja. Downsizing his life to accommodate the new regime. Even the word regime sounded hard and unfriendly.

It was too late to mention it now, that was for sure. Sam swallowed against the ache in his throat. It would be OK. Everyone except him was already happily on board with this new chapter in their lives. He would catch up soon. He’d always been a late starter.