‘OK. What’s bothering you?’
‘It’s not me. I’m fine. It’s you.’ If she was a secret superhero in her spare time, she’d be Bank Manager Girl.
My eyebrows meet in the middle. ‘What’s wrong with me?’
‘The girls are talking. They want to do a Taylor Swift song. They’re Swifties. Many of them hadn’t even started school when ‘Beggin’’ was out.’
I do the pop culture maths. She’s right.
I lace my fingers together the way my Gran used to when she was buying time with children. ‘Thank you for telling me. I shall see if I can get ‘Shake It Off’ to fit to the moves. How does that sound?’
Veronica narrows her eyes briefly. ‘Acceptable. I’ll tell the girls. Personally, I still find dancing in public a bit… unnecessary. But if it’s for the good of the group, I’ll carry on.’
I catch Veronica’s mum’s eye by the door and she shrugs as if to say ‘Sorry for whatever grilling she’s giving you, but I have to give her dinner every night so count your blessings.’
‘Duly noted, Veronica. Goodnight.’
The girls file out, still with a rhythmic bounce to their steps, and I approach the earliest parents with a jovial hello, then leap into my questions about what services they might like to see run from the Hall. But all of a sudden I seem to have gone from cosy, free childcare to unbearably chipper chugger, because they all mumble about being late, and tea getting cold, and already doing so much… ‘Anything I can do to make you happier at the Hall, let me know!’ I singsong at their disappearing backs. ‘Anything at all!’ I think someone is about to turn around at that, when I realise it’s a pervy single dad who turned up for the massage classes, so I quickly disappear myself.
I cross the room to get the broom (see, Mr Snoopy Suit, I am a great caretaker!). Five minutes later, it’s just Gurpreet left, swinging her feet from a plastic chair.
‘I’m sure Mum will be here soon, poppet.’
Gurpreet chews on the end of her long ponytail, singing to herself. ‘Yeah. Oh, actually it’s Mrs Gooderson from next door who’s coming. Cos Mum’s working late. Yeah.’ Gurpreet was one of those lovely dreamy girls you wish will never grow up and still be talking to trees and chasing birds when they’re 23.
‘What are you enjoying at school at the moment?’
‘Lunch breaks.’
‘Fair enough. And, Gurpreet love, is there anything you think we could do here at the Hall, anything that might people want to come more often?’
Desperate, yes, but she’s still technically my market. The children are our future.
Gurpreet studies her shiny Clarks shoes.
‘Do a lunch break?’
Well, it’s been a long day for everyone. The sooner Gurpreet is on her way home, the sooner I can drag myself off and to bed and to some deep comatose sleep. Some of the school crew are getting together in the pub tonight, but I’m a bit too knackered to listen to their tracker mortgage woes right now.
A buggy rounds the doorway, followed by a familiar head of fire-engine red hair. ‘Hello Mrs Gooderson!’ Gurpreet skips over and tickles Sophie under the chin. Immediately she lets out a Fairy Liquid ad giggle. ‘I can do my dance for you on the way home. Miss Duncan says we need to practise all. The. Time.’ She starts busting out The Robot, much to Sophie’s delight.
‘Me again!’ Flip gives that throaty cackle. ‘Helping out my new neighbours with pick up, seeing as I work from home. Desperate to build up some babysitting brownie points. I haven’t spent time with my husband without a baby wipe in view since… I think Gordon Brown was in power. Agh, I’m so old!’ She pulls a comedy grimace.
How she has this much energy as the sun is setting, I have no idea. Whatever’s in that red hair dye, I want some. Or maybe it’s to do with her fitted scarlet cardi? I pull at my baggie sludge-colour hoodie with a niggle of shame making its way down my back.
‘Before you go, could you just sign the log book for me? And date it Sunday? Sorry to be odd, but I forgot to ask you at the weekend. And attendance is so important to the Hall.’
I whip the book from the table by the door and flash it under her nose, biro jiggling alongside it.
‘Shame you can’t do something like sewing undies, really. I was talking about that to the WI ladies I’ve met, well the ones who don’t switch their hearing aids off within five minutes of the meeting starting. They all seemed really keen.’
‘All? How many was that?’
‘I was talking to five or six girls. And I’m sure more would come once word got around.’ Flip must have seen the creeping indecision as I bite the corner of my mouth. ‘And I could help, you know. I have sewing bits, fabric offcuts. I have two great sewing machines I could lug here. If you maybe even did just one session, I could put the word about.’ She raises her arch eyebrows a little higher.
‘We’d need more than two machines, though. I wonder if the A-level college still does a Textile course?’
Flip nods quickly, jangling her earrings. ‘Now you’re talking!’
‘They might lend us machines… And maybe the students would fancy it too? Something a bit more daring for the coursework portfolio.’
As she passes back the log book, I look at the reality of my situation: a short list of girls’ names written in glittery pen, then Flip’s below them in a barely legible scrawl. If the Hibbert estate demanded to see my books right now, which they are within their rights to do, I’d have almost nothing to show them – far from half of Hazlehurst bursting through my doors.
Gran might hate it, but then she’d hate losing the Hall even more. So much more.
I slap the book shut. ‘I’m going to do it. We’re going to do it,’ I say with more courage than I feel. I can barely control a handful of Bluebells once a week; how will I cope with adults armed with their own opinions and sharp scissors?
‘Whoop!’ Flip punches the air.
‘Whoop!’ Gurpreet joins in for kicks.
‘Here’s my number, doll.’ Flip passes over a card. Philippa Gooderson, Digital and Social PR. ‘Give me a call and we’ll talk Liberty lawns and ribbons! See you.’ She manages to air kiss and do a three-point buggy turn all at once. A proper PR person, now this could be interesting.
‘Byeee Miss!’ Gurpreet sings as she lunges her way down the path.
Knickers. Sewing knickers. Never mind Gran, what would poor old Puritan Hibbs think?!
* * *
When I get home, the lights are all off at 9.45 p.m.. This means one of two things: Mum has already gone to bed, or Mum didn’t get out of bed today. Since we lost Gran four years ago, Mum has found it really hard. She’s always had ‘black spots’ as she used to call them, with a wry smile, times when her depression pulled her under and wouldn’t let go. It started long before Mum and Dad split up when I was little, but of course that didn’t help. And when Gran passed away, even though it was peaceful and quick, Mum tumbled again, without one of her supports in life. That’s part of why I came back from Manchester. After graduating uni, I somehow sucked up to enough people to get a paid internship on a small music magazine in the city, B-Side. Though it was a small team, they all had big pretensions. At first, I think I saw it as a fun way to continue shouldering my way into the best, most exclusive gigs. And I certainly had no other inkling as to what to do with my degree. After a year I began to fancy myself a journo in the making, and wrote reviews in my spare time to gather a portfolio of work. Maybe one day I’d be such a prolific rock journalist that I could run my own festival? I had this idea of a festival that never set up in the same place twice and every year you’d have to wait with baited breath for our brightly-coloured flags to suddenly appear in your local park…
I was probably influenced in my ideas of fame and grandeur not just by the free tickets and t-shirts but also by Dell, one of the head writers. He was 28, had long blonde hair and smoked roll-ups. He pretty much came from the Rock and Roll Boyfriend textbook. Well, I thought he was my boyfriend. In my 22-
year-old mind, at least, leaving a toothbrush and a spare pair of pants at the flat of someone you slept with every other night meant you were properly committed.
When I was twenty-three and had also squeezed a hairbrush onto Dell’s bathroom shelf, a job as a junior writer came up. I thought it would be cute and bold of me to apply without telling him, emailing my portfolio to the editor when he had passed out asleep in front of Match of the Day. I had visions of us checking each other’s work over brunch pastries and laughing at something droll Pete Paphides had written. Turns out I’m as good at reading men as I am at writing copy. Which is not good. Dell grabbed my hand the next afternoon and dragged me out of the office and into a dingy pub. I’ll never forget the way his eyes narrowed when he asked me What the hell I was playing at, and Did I know what I’d done to his career?
When I spluttered in reply that I was just trying to make a career of my own he rolled those beady, narrowed eyes and said, Did I not get that I was an intern after two years for a reason? I just didn’t have ‘it’, apparently. And the reference I’d made in one my reviews to him and I going to the same gig had now got him in serious trouble for sleeping with an employee.
‘But we’re not just sleeping together…’ I started, but my voice dropped down to the sticky carpet and caught there. Dell looked anywhere but at me.
So I never went back to the B-Side office after that. I left my stapler on my desk and my spare pants at Dell’s. I registered with a temping agency the next day and spent a couple of years working for parts manufacturers, accountants – I even temped for a week at a Freemason lodge. My only stipulation was that I wouldn’t write copy, of any kind. I worked hard, I had fun with my uni mates who had stuck around too and I put all my energies into being feckless and young. At least I knew I was good at that.
Besides, I always had half an idea that I’d go back to Hazlehurst one day, if I’m honest. Not necessarily to do Gran’s job, but Mum has always needed me in a special way. I don’t feel resentful, or angry, or disappointed. I love my mum, and I want to help her if I can. Moving in after Gran passed just made loads of sense. We’re the only two left in our family now, and we Duncans stick together. And the further I was from Manchester and B-Side and the chance of ever bumping into Dell in a noisy bar back then, the happier I was.
I touch the framed picture of Gran that sits on the hall table, by the dusty telephone. ‘Almost there, Gran, the girls are nearly on the beat. And there are no shoulder shimmies, you’ll be pleased to hear. But the lightbulb went in the loo again so I’m going to have to brave that tomorrow.’ I’m almost on the verge of telling her about the new sewing class idea but I stop myself. Bonkers to keep a secret from a photograph of a woman in a twin set, but that’s the truth of it.
The answerphone light is blinking so I hit the play button. ‘Hello Jane, hello Connie. Just wondering how you both are, and if you fancied Sunday lunch soon, at The Pheasant? They have a new chef apparently. We could go and do our best Gregg Wallaces. Anyway, let me know what you think.’
It’s one of Mum’s oldest school friends, testing the waters, seeing how she’s faring. Our friends have been so good to both of us in the last few years. Living somewhere as small as Hazlehurst might not be glamorous and super cool and full of theatres or sushi bars with those little conveyor belts, but it is full of people we know and people who love us.
‘Good night?’
‘Holy crap! Mum, you scared me!’
She takes a careful step down the stairs and reaches the bottom. ‘Stop being dramatic. If I’d wanted to scare you, I would have thrown myself down from the top.’
‘That’s not funny.’ I wag a finger in her direction.
Mum scratches her hair. It looks pretty clean, which is a good sign for today. ‘If you think about it, it is funny. In a black humour kind of way. But I can happily report I went to work today. Budgens had one of the world’s finest price ringers back on duty.’ Though she has her lips pressed together, I know she’s feeling really glad about that.
As it seems to have been a less rocky day than most, I’m going to risk asking the thing that was turning around in my head the whole walk home.
‘Mum, do we still have Gran’s old electric sewing machine? And would you mind if I borrowed it?’
* * *
I honestly had every intention of an early night. But here I am at 2.13 a.m., on the sofa, accidentally digging pins into my thighs, as my old Take That tour t-shirt keeps riding up when I take big pulls of my needle and thread. (OK, so I wasn’t always an emo teen. Mark Owen’s cheeky smile held my heart long before black nail varnish and My Chemical Romance.) I woke up halfway through a dream that I was sitting my Textiles GCSE but when I started to make the kitchen apron I’d planned, I opened the paper pattern and it was a ball dress. With a corset and a tulle skirt and everything. I had that drooping feeling of not having done any homework and was waiting for the teacher to boom ‘Connie Duncan you have FAILED’ just as I jerked awake. So rather than go back to that dream, and since I turned out all of Gran’s sewing stuff with Mum earlier tonight, I thought I should make a start on the Bluebells’ Easter parade outfits. It’s just blue shorts that the girls had to bring from home (with a leotard underneath) and I’m sewing a little patch with our Bluebell emblem onto the bottom right-hand side. Both Mum and Susannah have said they could help, but I’m happy doing it on my own. Even if my stitches are far from neat and even. I look like I’m trying to sew Frankenstein up in a bit of a hurry.
When I’d first woken up at just before one, I’d turned to my old friend Phone Scrolling to shut my mind down, but the opposite happened, which it always does. It’s a bad friend, if I’m honest. A few drunken messages from the school guys out for drinks, calling me out for ‘being a bad egg’ and then mysteriously sending me random Craig David lyrics. Facebook was a mixed bag. I still followed the page for B-Side, from back when I’d set it up as an intern and seen the very first Like. I think it was a mix of pride at the 10,000-odd followers now and that dark kind of self-loathing where you want to see how great an ex is looking in holiday photos and badger yourself to exhaustion over it. So now and again it would pop up in my feed, a big interview with Chris Martin leaving a sting behind my ribs that was in no way lovely Chris’s fault. And it wasn’t the magazine’s fault, either, I’d chide myself – it wasn’t their fault that I simply wasn’t cut out for that world. Or that my ex was a pillock. At least it had taught me a lesson about knowing my limits and not falling for pretentious men who spent more time archiving their vinyl collections than chatting to real humans.
Facebook was also telling me to look back on stuff that happened on this very day and it seems eight years ago today I had a scrubbed-fresh face, leaning forward at a big pub table, a stupid grin on my face that could only have been put there by cider, and I was with my big gang of uni mates. Claire, Simon, Tallie, Vickers, Hungry Dave. All the Wainwright Road peeps. My crew.
It was such an awesome picture of us, young and bright-eyed and wearing questionable asymmetrical tops, that I hit Share before I really thought about it. And within minutes I got a ping from a comment.
Oh god this has cheered up my night feed! I’m sure it’s going to be the first of many with this hungry little dude. Can I go back and have my student sleep days again please?!?! wrote Claire.
And then another ping soon after: Sleep is for wimps! I miss that cheap cider, though. It’s the one thing you can’t find in New York (winky face). From Simon. I had heard his law firm had sent him out on secondment there. All his photo posts were of hotdogs and steaming air vents these days, jammy sod.
As I give myself a third thumb prick and snap off a thread, I realise being up on New York time isn’t going to do good things for me tomorrow, with this new evening class to arrange in a hurry. So, using the light from my phone – still showing my beloved flashback picture – I carefully climb the stairs to bed and the Mark Owen bedspread waiting for me.
Chapter 3
Going through some of Gran’s old sewing bit and pieces was a really lovely thing for Mum and me, though I’d imagined it would be like poking a recent wound. Gran wasn’t big on sewing – I think it was a bit sedentary for her and you couldn’t go off piste that much, you had to follow the patterns. But she had enjoyed making costumes for the kids in the family or for the Bluebells when need arose, because costumes could be silly and flimsy and fun, and it didn’t matter if the hem was at a 45 degree angle.
There wasn’t much in her sewing box beyond some scraps of fake fur and a few ribbons, but I had my eye on those. Her sewing machine was a real corker, though: it was pistachio green, a gorgeous sixties affair, with sleek lines and all manner of gizmos. Electric too, so at least that meant I wouldn’t develop one manly arm from turning a handle over and over. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Gran would have approved of me whipping up knickers with her stuff, but she would have agreed that anything was a worth a try if it came down to keeping Bluebell Hall up and running.
On Wednesday I’d made some fliers and persuaded Steve to photocopy them for me at school, when the head, Mrs Simmons, wasn’t around. These went up on the village noticeboards, in the cafe window, at the doctor’s surgery and anywhere else locally that I knew had a friendly patron or Bluebell parent at the helm.
Time for some big kid fun? Fancy learning to sew?
Come along to a FREE taster session of sewing classes where we’ll be learning to make a small something for ourselves, with plenty of ribbons and bows. Email [email protected] to book your place. Friday 2nd April, 7.30 p.m. till 9 p.m. Drinks and crisps included!
I emailed it round to the list of addresses I had from the visitors’ book. The first thing I did when I took over at the Hall was to annotate the ‘address’ column with a big ‘EMAIL’ but I can’t blame Gran for not thinking of that. She thought YouTube was a kind of superglue, after all.
The Bluebell Bunting Society Page 3