Appleby Farm by Cathy Bramley

water had started to drip down my face and neck.
    I rarely lose my temper but as the seconds ticked by, my sense of humour began to desert me. Skye was getting fidgety too. I checked my phone for signal: one bar, no – no bars, ooh one bar and … damn, gone again. There was no point trying to make a call yet, I would just have to wait my turn for the top spot.
    What was this chap even talking about for so long? And why did he seem so cheerful about it? And why hadn’t I waited for the rain to stop …?
    For goodness’ sake. ‘Oi, there is a queue, you know!’ I shouted.
    I felt guilty as soon as I’d said it. How rude. Couldn’t help myself, though. I was wet, shivery and absolutely dreading making this call.
    The man turned briefly towards me, raised a hand, then jerked on his reins and rode off in the opposite direction, still apparently talking.
    OK, then. Deep breaths. I nudged Skye with my heels to walk on, picked up a measly two bars on my phone and called Julian.
    ‘Freya, I’m at work. Whatever it is, it had better be important.’
    My brother and I had never been close. He is fifteen years older than me. We share a set of parents, a surname and for three years after I was born until he’d gone to university we had shared the same address. But that was it. We were as different as two siblings could be. Julian wasn’t married. He had a partner, not that I’d ever met her. Apparently he’d looked into marriage but – and I quote – it didn’t stack up financially. Oh, the old romantic.
    ‘Hi, Julian, I’m at Appleby Farm.’
    ‘And?’
    I knew better than to indulge in small talk with my brother. He liked to get straight to the point; beating about the bush was strictly prohibited. I launched straight into the problem.
    ‘Uncle Arthur’s had an accident and he needs extra help. Auntie Sue wants him to retire. I wondered if you could advise him. You know, financially? Maybe come up for a few days and lend a hand?’
    There was a snort from the other end of the line. My heart sank. Why, why, why had I thought he might be inclined to help me out? Without some financial incentive, that is. Julian was some sort of business angel, which I think meant that he sorts out finances for businesses. Which in turn should imply that he was in a better position than I was to help Auntie Sue and Uncle Arthur. In my heart of hearts I hadn’t really thought he would come up from London and roll up his sleeves, but it was worth a shot.
    ‘Yes, Freya, here’s some advice for him. Sell up. He should have got out of farming years ago. And there’s no way I’m coming to help. You’re the one without a career; you stay and sort it out. The old duffer has always preferred you anyway.’
    ‘I just thought—’ I moved the phone from my ear and stared at the screen. He’d gone.
    I looked down to Appleby Farm, at the farmhouse surrounded by fields, bordered with century-old drystone walls, the green squares of grassland dotted with cattle, and the fields with their spring growth of barley bending under the force of the April showers. My heart squeezed at the sight of it.
    It looked like I was in this one alone.

Chapter 6
    It took me until seven thirty that evening to cheer up and thaw out. I had Auntie Sue’s cottage pie to thank for that. It was like a big hug. Right there on the plate. There should be a law, I decided as I scraped up the last delicious morsel, a cottage pie law. Everyone should be made to eat it at least once a week. It would solve a lot of the world’s problems. Although come to think of it, as comforting as my dinner was, the how-to-run-Appleby-Farm-without-Uncle-Arthur dilemma remained.
    Eddy had pressed a to-do list into my hand earlier this afternoon, as requested. There were some big jobs in the fields – like fertilizing and spraying – plus the daily maintenance of the herd: feeding, bedding and clearing the yard and cowsheds, moving them round from field to field and bringing them in at