Blackpeak Station Read Free Page B

told the story of a hand-to-mouth struggle to survive. Some years they were ahead, some behind, and any surplus funds there might be vanished into the property like light January rain.
    Six million! How was she ever going to raise half of that? How could anybody? Absentmindedly watching Luke’s pinstriped back as it receded towards the lobby, Charlotte wasn’t prepared for the moment — just as he reached the doorway — when he turned and looked back. Crap. Caught again. And there it was, that look, the one that made it feel like her dress was peeling off of its own accord. What were you supposed to do with a look like that? She’d never got one before. And then the curled-down smile, that little pouty twitch of his lip. She’d give a lot to know what he found so damn amusing.
    ‘Charles? Hello?’ Directly in front of her, Nick swayed theatrically. ‘Come on, Mum’s waving us over. She wants to go.’
    Nick drove them slowly back to Blackpeak. Conversation was once again sparse, and although he was the instigator of most of it, even Nick was more quiet than usual. Andrea stared out of the window as if she was seeing the landscape for the first time. She looked exhausted. In the back seat, Charlotte’s eyes drifted shut. She didn’t wake up until they turned off the main road onto shingle and the rain-cloaked hills of Blackpeak filled her gaze.
    Rex and Kath were already home, the lights of their cottage shining square and comforting through the trees. The lights were on at the homestead as well — they walked in to find the table set, the stove stoked up and the smell of a casserole drifting from the door. Good old Kath. She couldn’t let them come home to a cold house and an empty oven.
    The three of them ate in silence, broken only by the scrape of cutlery and the occasional clunk of the fire.
    ‘I thought we could all go up to Christchurch with Nick on Thursday,’ Andrea began, after Nick had cleared the plates. It had the ring of a speech she’d been rehearsing in her head for a while. ‘He can get his flight, and Charlotte, you can go back to university on Friday morning.’
    Charlotte started to protest that there was hardly any point going back on a Friday, and that Monday would be a far more logical time to restart, but Andrea cut across her.
    ‘And then I’m going to stay on for a while. Find a place for us to rent. You can move out of the hostel, won’t that be nice?’
    Charlotte felt herself pale. Nick sat back down. Andrea gave them a rather fixed smile.
    ‘But who’ll look after the station?’ asked Nick.
    ‘Rex, Kath, Matt … the same people who run it now. You surely don’t expect me to get out there and do the things your father used to do, do you?’
    ‘Well, no …’ faltered Nick. ‘But—’
    ‘Then there’s no problem, is there?’ Andrea sighed triumphantly, and turned her attention to Charlotte. ‘Think how much nicer it’ll be for you to live at home next year.’
    Charlotte took a deep breath. It was now or never. ‘I’m not going back to uni next year.’
    ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Charlotte,’ Andrea snapped. ‘Of course you’re going.’
    ‘No,’ said Charlotte calmly. ‘I’m not.’
    ‘Why on earth not?’ Andrea shook her head in confusion. ‘Do you mean you want to take a gap year?’ Charlotte could see the cogs begin to whir in her mother’s brain. ‘I suppose that’s not such a bad idea — a bit of travel would do you the world of good. You could stay with Aunt Ruth in London, maybe. I could go with you, help you get settled in …’
    ‘I don’t want to go to Europe.’
    Nick let out a snort of disgust, but Charlotte ignored him. ‘I’m going to stay here and work on the station.’
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Do you want to be somebody’s station hand all your life? Because that’s what’ll happen if you don’t finish your degree — and don’t think that you’ll ever own any of Blackpeak, because you won’t. Do you think I