Chapter 14: The Brownie Gate

The Silver convoy turned up the Brownie farm lane at ten past noon, four cars long, with Daniel's grandmother in the first.

The lane was dirt, and it had rained in the night.

Daniel's mother looked out of the window at the mud and said, "Well. We did say dress first."

She was wearing a cream suit and her pearls.

The gate stood open.

It was a plain white gate with a hand-painted sign, BROWNIE FARM, TOMATOES SAT 8-1, and a chicken sitting on top of it.

Daniel's father got the chair out of the boot.

Daniel sat in the passenger seat with Beatrice in her pot on his knees, and he did not move.

"Do you want me to push?" his father asked.

"No."

"Do you want me to go first?"

"No. Thank you." Daniel set the pot on the floor of the car, then picked it up again. "I'll take her with me."

He lowered himself into the chair, and his father stepped back.

The first wheel touched the lane and sank to the hub.

Daniel pushed.

The chair did not move.

He pushed again, and the mud made a long wet sound.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," his mother said.

She put her shoulder to the back of the chair in her cream suit.

His grandmother's cane went into the dirt up to the handle.

Behind them, the doors of the other cars opened.

The cousins who had come for the wedding stood looking at their shoes.

Daniel counted without meaning to.

One wipe for the armrests. Two for the wheel rims. Three for the hand he had just put in the mud.

He stopped at three, and his hand closed on the case in his pocket, and he left it there.

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