Happiness for Beginners

by Carole Matthews

  When Peg grows bored with me and hops off my lap, I go to see the alpacas. They, at least, will be snapped up, I’m sure. Alpacas are fashionable. They might sometimes behave like evil personified but they look undeniably cute. People like cute.

  I get the feed bucket and fill it. Tina Turner, Johnny Rotten and Rod Stewart crowd around me, all jostling for the best place.

  ‘You might be getting a new home soon,’ I tell them.

  But they don’t give a fig. They flounce their pom-pom hair, guzzle their breakfast and generally behave as if they haven’t a care in the world. I’m the one who’s weighed down with sorrow.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  I hear the wheels of a car coming up the lane. Unusually, the first car to arrive this morning is Shelby Dacre’s, so I leave the alpacas and head to unlock the gate and let him in. His sleek car sweeps into the yard.

  Lucas jumps out first and the boot lid lifts silently. ‘Wellies,’ he says, brightly, holding a pair aloft. ‘I brought loads. I said I would.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He looks up at me and is obviously disappointed by my less than enthusiastic response. ‘Don’t go too over the top.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Just a bit distracted. The wellies are fantastic. I’ll help you to put them in the barn.’

  ‘I can manage,’ Lucas snaps, so easily wounded.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I insist. ‘I’m not thinking straight. I’ve had some bad news.’

  That does make Lucas pause and, by then, Shelby is out of the car too.

  ‘What’s that? Bad news?’ Shelby says and frankly, that’s enough to make me burst into tears.

  ‘I’m sorry. So sorry.’ I wipe away my tears with my sleeve. ‘I shouldn’t be troubling you with this.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ He turns to Lucas. ‘Put the kettle on, son. This is clearly something that requires tea.’

  So Lucas abandons the wellies and heads off into the tea room. Shelby touches my arm. ‘Yesterday was a triumph,’ he says.

  ‘Yes. Thank you for that.’

  ‘No, thank you. I wanted to drop Lucas off this morning myself so that I could tell you again. The animals were a big hit. So were the students. You all did very well.’

  I think Shelby understands what a trial it had been for me.

  ‘You should have stayed for supper,’ he adds. ‘You’d have enjoyed it.’

  I wouldn’t. Perhaps he doesn’t understand at all.

  ‘Shall we go and see how Lucas is getting on with that tea and you can tell me what’s happened?’

  I nod and, to my surprise, he takes my hand and squeezes it gently. He leads me to the tea room and we both sit on the sofa. I’d very much like to curl up under one of the crocheted blankets and pull it over my head.

  When we’re settled, he says, ‘Now then?’

  Shelby frowns at me as I start to fill up and have to wait until my throat clears before I can begin to speak. All the time he holds my hand which is both disconcerting and comforting at the same time.

  ‘I’ve had a letter from my landlord’s solicitor,’ I eventually manage to tell him in a wavering voice. ‘The farm has been purchased under compulsory order to make way for the new HS2 trainline. I’ve got three months to find somewhere else.’ Which, of course, prompts a fresh deluge of tears. ‘I have no idea what to do.’

  Shelby Dacre sucks in a breath. ‘Not good.’

  ‘No.’ I can hardly disagree.

  ‘That’s shit,’ Lucas says over his shoulder. ‘Total shit.’

  I can’t disagree with that either.

  Shelby lowers his voice so that Lucas can’t hear him over the noisy boiling kettle. ‘I can tell this is a great place. Though he won’t admit it to me, I know that Lucas loves it here. I’m sure that the other kids who come to you feel the same. You only have to look at them. It’s brilliant. They can’t simply shut it down.’

  ‘Unfortunately, they can.’

  Lucas comes over, plonks down three cups of weak, milky tea and sits in the armchair opposite us, scowling.

  ‘There must be something we can do?’ Shelby says.

  That ‘something’ is not, currently, apparent. We all sit in silence.

  Shelby is the first to speak. ‘Look, I’m having some people round for supper on Friday night,’ he pipes up. ‘Some of the cast from Flinton’s Farm, some movers and shakers in the industry. Why don’t you come along too, Molly, and see if we can come up with any bright ideas? I have contacts who can make things happen.’

  ‘I don’t know … ’

  Shelby tuts at me. ‘I’ve already gathered that you hate this kind of thing, but this is how the world works. This is how you raise funds. If you want to survive, it has to be done. Lucas, you’ll come along too, won’t you?’

  Lucas looks horrified at being put on the spot. I know that he’d rather prise out his own eyeballs, yet he turns to me and says, ‘I’ll go if you’ll go.’

  ‘I have nothing to wear.’

  Lucas laughs darkly. ‘Trust me, that is the least of your problems.’

  True. And I don’t know why I even said that as my personal appearance is, as Lucas noted, a long way down my list of problems. I confess that I had a fleeting vision of Scarlett Vincent sitting across the table from me dressed head-to-toe in a white designer number with her ample charms on show. Not even my very best jumper and jeans can compete with that.

  ‘I’ll try to help you all that I can,’ Shelby promises. ‘People are suckers for animals in peril.’

  He can tell that I’m crumbling.

  ‘Say you’ll come,’ he urges.

  Despite my aversion to socialising, I’m desperate and Shelby is being very kind. So, with heaviness weighing down my heart, I say, ‘Yes.’

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  ‘Fuck,’ Bev says when I tell her. She has her head in her hands.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Bev eventually rocked up at eleven o’clock. She looks very fragile. I’m thinking the drinking must have carried on after she went home last night. Though she was quite voluble in the truck on the way back from the Shelby estate.

  Despite the hour, I still haven’t moved from the tea room. I simply can’t mobilise myself today. It’s not just my brain that’s frozen, it’s my body too. Lucas has stepped up to the plate and has taken it upon himself to organise the team. He’s supervised loading all the wellies he brought into the barn with the help of Jack and Seb. Then he popped his head round the door to say that he was taking the lads and the rest of the students who are here today up into the fields. I don’t know what he’s doing with them. I should go and check. He could be teaching them something unspeakable.

  However, instead of doing that, I put the kettle on again and make more tea – even though I’m not expecting to find my solution at the bottom of a cup. My limbs are as heavy as lead and I can no more face trekking up the hill than I can flying to the moon. Besides, Bev and I have things to discuss. If the farm has to close, it will affect her as much as it affects me.

  ‘Shelby Dacre’s asked me to go to his house for supper on Friday to talk to his influential friends about fundraising.’

  ‘He was here?’

  ‘Early. He dropped Lucas off today.’

  ‘Dammit,’ Bev mutters. ‘The one day I can’t get my back off the bed.’

  ‘I’ve agreed to go,’ I tell her. ‘But I’m terrified.’

  ‘I’ll go in your place! I had a snoop through the windows when we were at the charity day, but I’d give anything for a good old nosey round his mansion.’ She looks a bit dreamy. ‘I could play footsie with him under the dining-room table.’

  I know she’d stand in for me in a heartbeat and, in many ways, it would be much more sensible. Bev isn’t socially inept like me, she could charm the birds out of the trees given a gin and tonic or two. She wouldn’t melt like a snowflake in the face of Scarlett Vincent’s seari
ng beauty. But, in a weird way, I want to go too. ‘I should show willing,’ I say, lamely.

  ‘Wow. Hold those horses! Your enthusiasm is making me giddy.’

  ‘This is me being enthusiastic about it!’

  Bev shakes her head. ‘Gawd help us.’ She pours us both more tea. ‘It’s a good opportunity, Mols. You can rub shoulders with some celebs who are keen to flash some cash in a good cause. They’re all the same.’

  She could be right in her assessment. Bev certainly knows more about the world of celebrity than I do, even if it’s vicariously through glossy mags.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got anything to wear?’

  ‘I’m thinking jeans and wellies won’t cut it.’ When I took over the farm, I sold all my clothes at a car boot sale, just keeping what I needed for working. Space is at a premium in the caravan and I’ve no room for unwanted clutter. Not that I had much in the way of ballgowns to start with. ‘I could go to the charity shop. See what they’ve got that’s suitable for hob-nobbing with celebrities?’

  ‘No. I’ll bring something in for you.’

  ‘Nothing too … well … er … ’ She gives me a black look as I search for a word that won’t offend her. ‘Glamorous. Nothing low-cut. Nothing with diamante.’

  Bev always looks great when she goes out, but she dresses much more flashily than I ever would. She can carry it off, whereas I’d probably be mistaken for a drag queen.

  ‘Shall I bring a few bin liners and a belt?’

  I grin. ‘Maybe a little more than that.’

  ‘I’ll come and do your make-up too.’

  ‘No make-up.’ I hold up a hand. ‘It’s just not me.’

  Her stare says that she despairs of me. ‘You’ve got to look like you’ve made a bit of an effort, Mols.’

  ‘I will,’ I promise. ‘I’ll pick all of the straw out of my hair. I might even wash it.’

  ‘You kill me,’ she says and then sighs heavily. ‘We should go and see what these students are up to. Lucas is probably teaching them all swear words.’

  ‘I thought much the same.’ Though I do appreciate that he’s had the wherewithal to take over the organisation of the younger kids. He obviously appreciated that I’m in no fit state for rational thinking yet and needed some space. That’s great progress for him too. It should make him feel good that the other kids are happy to follow him without question.

  ‘He’s a nice kid,’ Bev says. ‘You can’t help but like him. He just needs someone to look after him.’

  ‘I’ve tried to tell Mr Dacre as much, but it’s all falling on deaf ears at the moment.’

  ‘He seems like a decent enough bloke,’ she says. ‘Bit self-obsessed, but what actor isn’t?’

  Again we are straying into the territory of Things-I-Know-Nothing-Of.

  ‘Had enough medicinal tea?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Bev forces herself to stand. ‘I’m not getting any younger. The menopause is a miserable bitch. Can’t tolerate alcohol these days. I just have to remind myself every now and again.’

  ‘Walk up to the field with me?’

  Bev nods. We head out of the tea room and across the yard. Bev links her arm in mine and pulls me into her. ‘We’ll sort something out,’ she says. ‘You wait and see. I don’t want you to worry.’

  But, of course I’m going to worry. What else can I do?

  ‘What was Alan wearing this morning?’ she asks.

  ‘Snow Patrol.’

  She sucks in a breath. ‘Didn’t see that one coming.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Have you told him yet?’

  ‘No,’ I admit. ‘I should go and find him. Perhaps he’s got millions stashed under his bed that he’d happily throw our way.’

  ‘You never can tell with Alan,’ Bev says sagely and with that, we stride up towards the fields.

  But as we round the corner and reach the big barn we can hear Lucas speaking loudly and we both turn to look at each other.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ I whisper.

  Bev shrugs that she’s none the wiser than me. ‘It sounds like he’s taking a class or something?’

  We tiptoe towards the sound and stand hidden by the back of the tractor. I’m surprised to see that Lucas has all the students sitting in a line on hay bales and they’re rapt with attention – which in itself is a rare thing. He’s spitting out poetry to them – the stuff he writes, I assume. Bev and I exchange another glance, eyebrows raised. He’s angry, passionate, chanting his rhymes with great panache. If you ask me, the boy is a born performer. The gangly awkwardness of his body is gone and he moves to the beat of his words, his voice is clear, strong.

  ‘His dad doesn’t even know he writes poetry,’ I whisper.

  ‘He’s good,’ Bev whispers back. ‘Didn’t see that one coming either.’

  Me neither.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Friday comes. Too soon, of course.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Bev says.

  I won’t.

  We’re in my caravan, the sun is shining and I have a ton of things to do. Every fibre of my being wants to be outside. One of the chickens, Pimms, looked a bit off-colour on my last egg collection and I want to have another look at her. Actually, I need to pop back to check on them all before I go out tonight otherwise I’d worry myself sick.

  Bev and I have left Alan in charge while we sloped off for five minutes. The supply teacher is here this afternoon for two hours so all of the students are occupied with lessons. It’s the bit they like the least and I have to sympathise. The teachers we have here are, generally, good quality but they are trying to teach pupils who have, so far, proved unteachable in the traditional manner. I’d rather have my job than theirs. Lucas is sulking more than most. He’s back in difficult child mode today, so different from the confident young man we secretly saw performing with such aplomb the other day. He’s a complex one, that’s for sure.

  While my mind is still on Lucas, Bev pulls a crumpled dress out of an Aldi carrier bag and holds it up. ‘Ta-dah!’

  It’s leopard-skin print, short and looks pretty low-cut by my standards.

  ‘It doesn’t even need ironing,’ Bev says. ‘Your body heat stretches it out. It kind of clings everywhere.’ Then she glances up at me and sees my horrified face. ‘What? Don’t give me that look. You can so carry this off. You’re not a flipping pensioner, Mols. You’re not even forty. Show some of your figure off. You’ve got a good body under those shapeless jumpers.’

  It’s so long since I’ve seen myself in a full-length mirror that I couldn’t tell you whether I have or not.

  ‘I did have something a little more conservative in mind,’ I confess. I should have taken myself off to the local charity shop as I suggested and had a good rummage on the rails. A pastime I deplore. I don’t know how people get off on shopping. I’d rather clean out a pigsty any day of the week.

  Bev tosses the dress to me. ‘Get it on, woman. Stop moaning.’

  I strip off my jeans and pull it on, wriggling it over my hips. I know how a sausage feels inside its skin.

  ‘Gorgeous,’ she pronounces. ‘Fits you like a glove.’

  A very tight glove. I try to see myself in the caravan windows, but it’s hopeless.

  ‘I’d have a shower, if I were you. The smell of horse tends to linger.’

  I wonder if I’ve got any perfume tucked in the back of a drawer somewhere. Sometimes Aunt Hettie liked a spray of Je Reviens. ‘I’m going to have a shower and wash my hair.’

  ‘All of the joys.’ She magics another carrier bag from nowhere. ‘And, despite your protests, I brought make-up.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Just a bit,’ she insists. ‘A flick of mascara. Some lippy.’

  ‘I can’t do it now. I’ve still got jobs to do.’

  ‘I’ll finish them. Or Alan can. You need time to chill, get in the mood.’

  ‘If I think about it too much, then I won’t go at all.’

  ‘Go and have your showe
r. I’m going to bring Teacup in for the night. He’s still out in the paddock with the goats. I’ll catch you later.’

  ‘OK.’ Bev leaves – her carrier of make-up discarded on the sofa. I’m tempted to hide it, but haven’t the nerve. It is easier to submit to make-up than to defy Bev.

  I put the kettle on to boil for my shower. Usually, I wait until everyone has left for the day or get up early in the morning as showering outdoors doesn’t offer the height of privacy. While the kettle boils, I nip out and manoeuvre the tractor next to the shower to provide a screen. I just hope that Alan doesn’t decide he needs it for something in the next ten minutes. In the end I bottle it and find an old swimsuit in the bottom of one of my drawers which I keep on.

  As it’s a special occasion, I fill two buckets with warm water. I hook one up to the shower attachment and then stand underneath as I tip it over me. Quickly, I wash my hair and then deploy the second bucket to rinse it. This is the equivalent of me enjoying a spa day.

  I’m drying my hair, pleased not to have flashed any of my students or distant neighbours, when Bev returns.

  ‘How’s Teacup?’

  ‘Adorable,’ she says. ‘We really should get another pig. He could do with some company.’

  ‘I thought about getting a few more pigs. We could have made a nice, piggy hollow for them near the trees in the bottom field.’ I sigh miserably. ‘It’s not going to happen now though, is it?’ I remind her. ‘We’re going to have to find new homes for everyone soon.’

  ‘Not if you knock ’em dead tonight.’ She pulls her carrier bag of make-up towards her. Damn. ‘I’ll make you look so beautiful that they’ll be throwing cash at you.’

  ‘I’m not actually sure that’s the impression I want to give.’

  ‘Ah. See what you mean,’ Bev says.

  ‘Shall I put the dress on now?’