Chapter Text
‘Hammond? Everything ok?’ Jeremy asked as he answered the phone on the first ring.
‘Hey. Yeah, just…Just needed to hear your voice,’ Richard stuttered on the other end of the line. ‘Can you just—I don’t know—tell me about your day or something?’
‘Do you want me to leave out the part where I shagged James senseless before heading off back to the farm this evening?’
‘If it’s all the same.’ Richard sighed.
‘Suit yourself. It’s a good story.’ Jeremy settled back in his desk chair in the study. ‘Well, the A303 was wall-to-wall caravans and contraflow. And James, the unsympathetic bastard, was too busy preparing for some sort of conference call or something for his silly live show to listen to me whinge about it. I was forced to rage impotently to myself the entire way to the A34. I could have called one of the children, I suppose, but as my husband, it’s really his job to pretend to listen to my ranting and he let me down badly.’
‘Coulda called me,’ Richard offered. ‘Not saying I’d have actually listened, but I would have made all of the appropriate little sounds of outrage at all the appropriate times.’
‘Oh, well, I wasn’t sure if you’d be busy at the Cog or with one of your endless motoring events or track days or whatever. But now you’ve opened yourself up for it and, mark my words, you will live to regret it. Assuming you don’t crash that little race car of yours in the meantime.’ Jeremy didn’t wait for Richard to respond to that. ‘Anyway, when I got back, the two eejits had found a fresh pile of fox shit to perfume themselves with. I swear, I’m going to blast every one of those mangy vermin into the next county. I wonder if the council would have to know if I got my hands on some dynamite to—’
‘Jeremy. The last thing you need is access to explosives of any kind for any reason.’ Richard was trying his best to respond as usual, to keep up the rapid-fire banter that characterised their conversations, but he was a little flat and a little slow and a little tense and Jeremy tucked that away for further consideration.
‘This clearly falls under the auspices of farm management. I’m sure there’s a provision for it somewhere in the—’
‘No.’ Richard insisted. ‘Just, no.’
‘Fine. Shotgun it is.’
‘Oh good god, you’re going to shoot your own foot off,’ Richard groaned.
‘Probably, but I’ll take at least one of those smug little chicken-thieving bastards with me and that’s all right.’
‘James would not approve of you committing foxy genocide.’
‘No, it’s fine. More will just move in to fill the vacuum; he need never know.’
‘Then what’s the point?’
‘It’s the principle of the thing, Hammond. You wouldn’t understand,’ Jeremy replied pompously.
‘We have chickens and Blea loves a good roll in fox poo just as much as the next dog—arguably more—and I’ve still never felt the need to embark on a full-scale offensive against the neighbourhood’s vulpine contingent.’
‘That’s because you’re entirely too soft-hearted.’
‘For not slaughtering innocent animals?’ Richard’s voice held equal parts amusement and confusion. ‘I don’t know if I’m insulted or proud.’
‘You’re insulted. They’re not innocent; they’re a scourge.’
‘Right. And those photos you sent me of the kits in your back garden this summer?’
‘Well, but they’re just so bouncy and sweeeeet,’ Jeremy countered.
‘Those sweet, bouncy kits grow up to be the very chicken-thieving bastards you so despise.’
‘No, they don’t.’
‘They do!’
‘They don’t.’
‘How d’you reckon?’
‘They just stop existing after a certain age.’
‘Jeremy. That’s ridiculous. Where do adult foxes come from, then?’
‘Hell.’
‘Oh, of course. Naturally. Just spring up fully formed, do they?’
‘Yes.’ Jeremy replied with his own particular brand of over-the-top finality. ‘So, once I got the dogs sorted, I had a million emails to delete—’
‘Aren’t you supposed to, you know, read and respond to those?’
‘God no, why would I want to do that? If it’s important, they’ll ring or send a nasty letter in the post or show up at the door or something.’
‘Sure, seems reasonable.’
‘And then I had to talk to Kaleb about the sheep and feed the pigs and—do you know, I think our cockerel is a homosexualist?’
Richard choked. ‘I’m sorry? I’m not sure I heard that correctly. Did you just say your cockerel is—’
‘—A homosexualist. Yes.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘He seems to be afraid of the hens.’
‘Being afraid of a gaggle of ill-tempered lady chickens makes him gay?’
‘Well, that and I caught him making overtures at our gander,’ Jeremy elaborated.
Richard laughed openly at this. ‘Well, maybe it is catching after all.’
‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’ Jeremy blustered indignantly.
‘Jeremy, you married a man. A man you just finished bragging about shagging senseless mere hours ago…’
Jeremy harrumphed on the other end of the line. ‘It’s not very woke of you to suggest homosexualism is a communicable disease.’
‘Yeah, well, what can I say? I’m a work in progress.’ Richard followed the comment with a quiet groan.
‘Headache?’ Jeremy asked immediately.
‘How do you and James do that? You can’t even see me,’ Richard complained.
‘We’ve known you a long time, Hammo. Comes with the territory.’ Jeremy left a pause for Richard to comment and, when he didn’t, he prodded. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Clearly, just tense. I need more of your magic fingers,’ Richard mumbled flippantly.
Jeremy left a pregnant and meaningful pause at this.
‘God, no, not like that!’ Richard spluttered when he finally recognised the implications of what he’d said.
‘All you have to do is ask,’ Jeremy snarked, a sincere offer couched in carefully calculated innuendo.
‘No, thank you,’ Richard replied quickly.
‘So?’ Jeremy prompted, serious.
‘So what?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Why does something have to be going on? I can’t just call my mate?’ Richard was clearly trying for casual, but there was an audible strain in his voice.
‘You never call just to hear my voice. And you hardly ever call at all unless you have something on your mind or we have actual business to discuss.’
‘Well, you said our relationships are shifting. So clearly anything can happen. And anyway, you told me to call.’
‘I did.’
‘I’m calling.’
‘You are.’
‘We’re talking.’
‘We are.’
Richard sighed and tried changing the subject. ‘Tell me more about this interspecies love that dare not quack its name.’
‘You first.’
‘Are you just going to keep giving me two word responses until I go mad or spill my guts?’
‘I am.’
Richard couldn’t help a weak chuckle.
‘Hammond,’ Jeremy said firmly. ‘Talk.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘You’ve called me up at eleven o’clock at night. It seems like you do.’
‘Wefuckedallright?’ Richard blurted, all in a rush.
‘Who?’
‘Me and Mindy.’
‘Right. So…’
‘So? So, it was hot and it was fucked up and it was sad and it was a huge fucking mistake. Pun very much bloody intended.’
‘So, why—?’
‘I don’t know, Jez. If I knew, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. All I do know is I was drunk and lonely. And so was she.’
‘And now?’
‘I’m not drunk anymore. And I’m talking to you, so I must still be pretty bloody lonely.’
‘Did you talk about it?’
‘Christ, no! We finished, and it was awkward as hell. She disappeared into the shower and I grabbed my clothes and scarpered back to the barn.’
‘So you don’t think this is a step towards reconciliation?’
‘I don’t— I mean— What are the odds at this point? One step forward, two steps back—that’s how every interaction for the past year has been.’
‘Do you still want it to work?’ Jeremy asked astutely.
Richard was pulled up short by this. Of course he did. Didn’t he? That was all he’d wanted since the subject had first come up over a year before. He wanted his family whole. He wanted the love of his life to want him. He wanted to be the man he’d always seen himself as—the man he’d always strived to be.
But what if that’s not possible anymore? He wondered. What if by clinging so desperately to this relationship I’m actually drifting farther and farther from myself? What if Jeremy was right back at James’s? What if I’m lost and I need help to find myself again?
But how could that be? Mindy had always been his North Star—the one constant in the ever-changing landscape of his life.
That’s not strictly true, though, is it? The little voice in the back of his head argued. Those two idiots have been by your side for almost as long, and they’re still here. They love you every bit as much as you wish she did.
And the truth was, he had no trouble admitting he loved them. Or that they loved him. It was as easy as saying he loved his girls or his brothers or Les. But he stopped short of allowing himself to think about what that could really mean.
‘Rich?’ Jeremy prompted after a protracted silence.
‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.’
‘Do you still want it to work?’ he repeated.
‘I—’ Richard hesitated. ‘I don’t know.’
Jeremy waited.
‘I don’t know how we get back from this. How we’d recover from…everything.’
‘Do you still love her?’
‘God, Jez, of course I do. For my sins.’
‘But you’re not sure if you want to stay married to her?’
‘If you’d asked me that even a month ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I would have said there was nothing I wanted more than to go back to how we were or to work everything out and be better. But now?’ He fiddled with his wedding ring, twisting it round and round on his finger, watching the light flash on its battered finish. ‘I don’t know that we could go back. Or even that it would be right. The way things were clearly wasn’t working. So the only way forward would be to build something better. But I don’t know how we get better than that.’
And why should I still want someone so much who clearly doesn’t want me anymore?
Aloud, he said, ‘How did you know James was the real thing?’
‘Huh?’ Jeremy was caught off guard by the sudden change of topic.
‘When the dust settled, and it was just him and you. How did you know?’
‘The same way I knew about Alex and Francie and I imagine the way you knew about Mindy.’
‘And none of those ended badly,’ Richard observed sarcastically.
‘The ending doesn’t make the knowing any less certain. Even a bad ending doesn’t negate the choices you made at the start. It doesn’t invalidate those feelings. If it did, you’d have to regret over twenty happy years and that way lies madness.’
‘You don’t worry about where your third marriage will lead?’
‘Oh hell, all the time!’ Jeremy laughed ironically. ‘James is, on the face of it, very independent and I worry constantly about what will happen if we ever get round to being old retired men living together full-time. He’d be sick of me within the first month. I’m needy as hell.’
‘You don’t say?’ Richard said wryly.
‘But then we actually spend time together and I realise that he’s just as needy in his own way. Maybe not constantly seeking validation or tracking me through the house to share some inane observation or to get an opinion about the wording in a column the way I do. But he needs to sit close to me on an otherwise empty sofa. Or he’ll bring me a cup of coffee and a biscuit when I’ve been holed up in the office too long and he’s noticed. Or he’ll fetch me to bed when I’ve lost track of time and he’s woken up alone. Or he’ll insist we video chat instead of just talking on the phone when we’ve been apart for a while because it’s not enough just to listen when I laugh at one of his jokes. It’s those things that remind me that no matter how much we irritate and needle each other, we actually still genuinely enjoy each other’s company.’
‘And that’s enough?’
‘To be blunt, yes. If you don’t enjoy spending time together, what’s the point?’
‘And wanting to spend time with him was enough for you to propose?’ Richard asked sceptically.
‘It was enough for him to say yes.’
‘That’s it?’
‘No, of course not. It’s a massive oversimplification. I could go into the rest—the sex is fantastic, the conversation is stimulating, we challenge each other, he’s a silver fox, I like his gin, he always stocks my favourite rosé, he smells nice, and he’s one of those rare people I can just be quiet with—but it’s all just variation on the theme. If we didn’t enjoy spending time together, none of the rest of that would matter. Well, the gin bit might. And the wine. But you don’t propose to someone you don’t want to spend time with. Or you shouldn’t, anyway.’ Jeremy paused. ‘Where was all of this going?’
‘Nowhere,’ Richard heaved a heavy sigh. ‘I should go. Early meeting tomorrow.’
‘You sure? Nothing else you need to talk about?’
‘Probably, but it’s getting late and it can wait for another time.’
‘Right.’
‘Night, Clarkson.’
‘Night, Hammond.’
- - -
A few days later, Hammond rang again, this time at a more sociable hour.
‘Hammond!’
‘Clarkson?’ Richard pulled the phone away from his ear and frowned at it. ‘What in God’s name is that racket in the background?’
‘‘M on a tractor!’
‘You’re joking! They actually let you operate heavy machinery? I thought that was just for the cameras with loads of health and safety boffins on standby.’
‘Har har. Funny man. What do you want?’
‘There’s a vintage car trial in a few weeks. Fancy coming up and entering it with me?’
‘A what? Speak up!’
‘Vintage car trial!’
‘Is that one of those ghastly events where you drive around the countryside in ludicrously outdated cars trying to get them up preposterously muddy hills?’
‘That’s the badger.’
‘When is it?’
‘Two weeks give or take—20th of December.’
‘What are we talking time-wise?’
‘Come up on Friday the 19th, so we can get some practice in with the little Austin 7 we’ll be entering, trial early on Saturday. You could be away by Saturday evening.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Wales.’
‘Naturally.’ Jeremy sighed. ‘Of course I’ll come. I’d planned some time away around then anyway—going down to Wiltshire to have a country Christmas with my mister. Should work out perfectly.’
‘Great, I’ll send you the details.’ Richard paused. ‘And Jeremy?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do try not to kill yourself.’
‘Can’t make any promises,’ Jeremy shot back. ‘See you on the 20th.’