Bring it Back Home Read Free

about needing to whack Cakes over the head with a whisky bottle. That seemed to be a detail that his family didn't need to know about.
    They listened to Lewis's tale in silence and expressed no surprise, which surprised Lewis, in turn. Then the Old Man sighed and rubbed his hand across his face.
    â€˜I knew no good would come of it,' he said. 'Didn't I, boys? Didn't I say no good would come of it all?'
    He looked at Marc and Robat who murmured and nodded in agreement but did not look at Lewis. Like twins they studied the ends of their cigarettes and Lewis reached for his tobacco on the table and rolled one too. The Old Man tutted again.
    â€˜But, listen,’ Lewis said. ‘It was you who told me to go to London in the first place. After that stuff with Manon, remember? You told me to get out of the village. Go and disappear in the city. That's what you said.'
    'Yes, and why? Because Manon's dad was on the bloody warpath. He was going to tear you limb from limb and feed you to his pigs. It was for your own protection. Getting a sixteen-year-old girl pregnant, what were you thinking of?'
    'Aye, well, it's not like I did it deliberately. And anyway I wasn't much older than that meself, was I?'
    â€˜That’s beside the point, son. Whether it was an accident or not, that's neither here nor there. How old you were is irrelevant as well. Fact is, you had to leave the village. And then when Manon miscarried…Christ, her father was looking for you with a shotgun. A bloody shotgun, boy. Told him you'd run away I did, that none of us had the first clue where you'd gone. Didn't we, boys?'
    Nods and murmurs again.
    â€˜He would've shot you. He would've killed you. You had to go.'
    â€˜Wasn't me he ended up shooting, tho’, was it?' Lewis said.
    Three heads were shook. Lewis asked: 'They had the autopsy yet?'
    â€˜Accidental death,’ Robat said. 'Seems like he was cleaning his gun or something and forgot it was loaded and…'
    â€˜Bang,’ Marc said. ‘Blew his own brains all over the barn. Lucky Manon never found him. That would've killed her.'
    'Could've been suicide of course,' Robat said. ‘No-one really knows. He never left a note, tho’.'
    'Who was it found him?' Lewis asked. 'You never told me in any of your texts. Just said he was gone, like.'
    'One of his farmhands,' Marc said. 'What a thing to find, eh? First thing of a morning as well. Jesus.'
    Marc shook his head sadly at the thought of it all. All four men sat there thinking in silence for a couple of minutes and then the Old Man said:
    'So that makes Manon an orphan. Which you three will be as well if this old feller doesn't get a few whiskies inside him in the next half hour or so. Pub's just opened. Welcome home, Lewis son.'
    Lewis put his rucksack in the locker and they all went over the road to the Miner's Arms which was already busy. Lewis was warmly greeted and bought several drinks; it seemed to him that the unpleasantness with Manon had been forgotten. The people were prepared to forgive around here, he thought, and he very quickly began to feel as if he'd never left. He and his family sat at a table by the window out of which he could see right across the valley with the thick mist rising from the trees on the far side. He could see the quartz in the rock on the hilltop catch the fading sunlight. A sense of being at home, of being safe, came into him. He was with his brothers and his father and his old friends in the place he still called home, and everything was going to be okay.
    They drank. They started to laugh. The sky grew dark outside and stars began to shine. The barman drew the curtains and shut the outside world from view. Round about the sixth pint the Old Man's mobile phone rang; he looked at his screen and pressed ‘answer’.
    'I've got to take this, boys. Could be important…' he slurred and went outside, the phone to one ear and a finger in the other.
    Robat fetched more drinks from the