Steve’s eyebrows do a little dance. ‘Really? Maybe he’s teacher material.’
‘No.’ Lucy shakes her head. ‘Looking at that fancy suit he wears, he’s far too attached to material luxuries and any kind of comfort. He’s all about the money.’ She elbows me. ‘So when you were chatting to him after, were you giving him what for about the Hall? Oooh, wish I could have listened in. I missed EastEnders last night too.’
I fold my paper plate in half and then quarters, fiddling with the crease. ‘No, actually. We were talking about feminism. And he said our tent was ‘impressive’. So… Yeah.’
‘Blimey. Unexpected.’
‘You’re telling me.’
Luce sticks her finger in the air. ‘We should be extra careful. It might be a let-our-guard-down thing. He might be plotting some kind of, some kind of sabotage.’
Steve pulls her in toward him by her waist. ‘Love, you definitely missed EastEnders last night. I doubt it’ll come down to the Scout Master at the local fete with the candlestick. I mean, he might be a fat cat, but he can’t be entirely evil. He’s a feminist, it seems.’
* * *
The fete, as usual, does not disappoint. It’s so packed full of country charm that it’s like someone very timid has edited an episode of Midsommer Murders and taken out all the grisly bits. The WI have not only produced enough scones to keep a warship afloat for six months, but they’ve also been crazy busy with their knitting needles to make little teddies and dollies to run a tombola for a local children’s hospice. I see one lime green and purple striped teddy. I’m guessing it came from Flip’s craft stash.
I waste all my loose change on the coconut shy until the man running it takes mercy on me and gives me a massive bottle of dandelion and burdock. But it’s my prize and I’m happy with it. I’m lugging it to the chairs around the central arena to bag two seats for the dog show – Mum is meeting me here. I have five hot doughnuts in my pocket and at least two of them have her name on. We’ve watched this dog show together for as long as I can remember and we always root for the unruly, ugly one no one else is cheering for. We like the underdog… dog. Heck, we are the underdog dogs at the moment.
I’m settled on a stool, my litre of undrinkable stuff looking menacing on the chair next to me. No one is daring to ask if it’s free. If I ever go on a big city night out again, I’m putting dandelion and burdock in my bag for the night train home. Just as I take a bite out of an impossibly fluffy doughnut, my phone rattles in my pocket.
Mum: Not feeling bright. Heading to bed. Sorry, pet.
Oh. A lone underdog today, then. I sniff and slide the phone back into my jeans. Still, now I don’t need to explain the missing doughnuts, I suppose.
I think dog number four is my favourite this year: a Jack Russell called Terry with three legs and an unattractive lolling tongue. Terry, it’s you and me versus the world.
‘Go Terry!’ I yell, warm sugar dusting my legs as I cheer him on through the assault course. Weaving around those little sticks is no laughing matter when you can hardly stand upright. He’s a tripod, for goodness sake. But I believe in him!
Three doughnuts and impassioned dog cheerleading can make a lady quite thirsty. I’m tilting the big plastic bottle of dark fizzy stuff to my lips just as there’s a gentle ‘Ahem’ behind me. It’s Flip with a hot looking guy in grey chinos and a lumberjack shirt.
‘Hey Connie! This is Marcus, from the Mirror.’
Oh. I’d been expecting a woman with a tidy little suit and a big hairdo, for some reason. Someone who could have been an estate agent or an Avon lady just as much as a journalist writing human-interest pieces for a red top. Not a gorgeous hipster type. And he’s probably only about 25.
I’m suddenly painfully away of the crispy sugar forming a crust around my lips and try to delicately bat it away with the heel of my hand. ‘Hi! Lovely to meet you!’ I shoot up from my stool and grab his hand.
‘And you. Sorry, are we disturbing you?’ He nods towards the arena, where the contestants are making their final walk around the space.
‘Not at all. Just supporting the local community! It’s what I’m all about!’ I wince as I actually hear the exclamation points boom out through my voice.
‘He hasn’t started the interview yet,’ Flip whispers in my direction. ‘Pace yourself.’
Marcus snaps a few pictures on his iPhone. It’s one of those big ones that you can hardly fit in your hand. That’s how hipster he is. ‘This is great. Great dogs. And look at that little guy!’ He points out Terry, not taking his place in the line-up and swaying slightly in the breeze.
‘He’s my favourite, actually! Terry the three-legged wonder.’
One of the judges bends down to our man and puts a yellow ribbon on his collar.
‘Has he won!?’ Marcus keeps snapping away.
Something about how this journo is taking Terry to his heart really warms my cockles. ‘He’s won the special commendation, which is a big deal even if it isn’t technically best in show.’
Marcus smiles, and it’s one of those mega fill-your-face smiles. ‘Brilliant. Go Terry!’
‘Exactly!’
Flip points her finger between us. ‘Well now you two dog lovers are acquainted, I’m going to get back to my PR duties, fight the good fight. Marcus, thanks for coming out. Connie here will give you the whole story, I’m sure.’
As she speed-walks off behind Marcus, she gives me a big double thumbs up, with a tongue waggle for good measure. ‘Super hot!’ she mouths, with a pervy eye roll.
I give the tiniest nod to acknowledge I’ve seen her and I agree, or she could go on like that for a while. Yes. He is super hot. Almost unnervingly hot.
‘So tell me a bit about your bunting campaign. Start at the beginning and just keep going.’ Marcus sits down on a plastic chair and taps something on his phone – must be a recording app.
I’m suddenly very aware of my limbs as I try and sit smoothly back down on my stool. But I’ve crossed my legs in a blokey kind of way and now I’m too flustered to rearrange myself. Damn.
‘Yes. Well, it all starts with my Gran, actually. Rosemarie Duncan. She was the caretaker of Bluebell Hall for forty years and when she died the job sort of passed to me. And now,’ my eyes flick up to the tent, a way off in the distance but just over Marcus’s shoulder in my eyeline. It’s an explosion of colour and activity, even from over here. But an incongruous figure stands outside, legs planted far apart, arms crossed, ridiculous shorts flapping in the spring breeze. Alex. He’s staring right at me.
He must have twigged we’ve got some serious media interest and he’s fuming. I want to laugh, just as I also feel a weird flutter in my stomach.
‘Now?’ Marcus prompts.
‘And now it’s under threat. From a big corporation. So in Hazlehurst we’re coming together as a community to save it. And you’ve come just in the nick of time.’
I give what I hope is my most confident and winning smile and lean in even closer to dish my story. Hopefully by Bank Holiday morning everyone is going to know it too.
* * *
I am truly pooped. I can barely lift my arm to wave off Marcus’s taxi. He tried to book an Uber to take him back to London but I had to tell him we didn’t get the big city stuff round here. So Hazlehurst Happy Motors it is.
Giving good soundbites is surprisingly exhausting. Marcus and I chatted for over two hours as the fete played out around us – the vintage car show rumbled into the arena and tooted a selection of old horns, the Medieval re-enactment society did a very long and slow dance wearing ‘authentic’ sweaty nylon robes and every ten minutes or so I would peek over to where Steve, Luce, Susannah and Flip were busy thrusting leaflets at locals, crafting up bunting with kids and even starting up a chant of ‘Hell, no, we won’t go!’ until the local reverend came over with a bit of a cross look on his face.
I slope back towards my hardworking comrades and am rewarded with a cup of tea from Susannah’s flask and a big hug from
my fill-in gran. ‘She would have been so proud,’ she says into my ear. And we both know who she means.
‘So so so?!’ Flip dances round me, her bracelets clanking on her arms.
I rub my hands over my face and try and smooth my bob back into some sort of shape. ‘I think that went well. I think I said what we needed to say. I put the call out for more visitors in no uncertain terms. So now to cross our fingers and wait for the paper, I guess…’
Susannah and Flip exchange a now well-rehearsed fist bump and Luce squeezes Steve’s hands. Today the fete has been ours. It has been perfect.
‘Rain!’ yells Abel as he ducks under our awning and runs between his dad’s legs. ‘Rain, rain, go away, you’re on my head and I can’t play!’
Sure enough, there’s a fine mist of rain now coming down. That kind of rain that doesn’t look like much but the air is so full of it you’re soaked in seconds.
‘Well, you can’t have it all,’ Susannah says, as ever my Yoda.
More and more villagers are taking refuge in our big tent, grabbing pencils and joining in the bunting colouring or nosing at our history displays. Susannah sent the choir home a while back, when they were starting to nod off in their deckchairs.
Flip pulls me to her side. ‘Did you get his number?’
‘Oh god, did you need me to? I thought you would have had it already.’
She gives an eye roll so exasperated that I worry it’s going to compromise her jade green eyeliner. ‘No, for you. Did YOU get his number, for yourself?’
Half of the Scout troop rush in, with their annoying leader, and now there’s very little breathing space in here, let alone a quiet corner to discuss hot menfolk.
‘Um, I didn’t think of it like that. I was just thinking of him as a journalist. For the campaign.’
‘But could you think of him as a man, for the bedroom?’ Flip bites down on her bottom lip.
‘Ssshhhhh!’
‘Yes, if you wouldn’t mind keeping it down,’ Alex grumbles. ‘I am trying to teach my scouts not to think of people as sex objects, so it would be great if you could do the same.’
‘Pah!’ Flip shrugs, not even turning around to acknowledge him.
‘And can I just say as a professional that it’s hardly… fitting to talk about someone like that when they’re just doing their job. It’s not professional in itself.’
I’m a bit lost for a good rebuttal. I think he might have us on this one. But Flip just gives a killer Beyoncé ‘Boy, bye’ hand flick. ‘I don’t think someone who professionally crushes dreams should give out job advice, ’kay?’
Uh oh. Flip can’t see but I can – he’s now pushing his way determinedly through the throng of people to reach our corner.
He takes a deep breath and pushes up his sleeves. ‘Can we just get this straight? Can we, please? My job is not to crush dreams, I’m not a fat cat, I’m not a corporate robot. I advise trusts on how best to manage their assets, for the longevity of their operation. I help them, and so I help the people they employ and the people they serve. There. That’s it. I’m not a Marvel villain. I’m a man.’ He lets out a long sigh, a full lung’s worth. ‘I’m doing my job and I’m trying to be a part of this village.’
Flip’s mouth hangs a little way open. I think our professional talker is lost for words.
‘Scouts,’ he calls over his shoulder, ‘we’re off. A little rain never hurt anyone. Even corporate robots can take a bit of drizzle.’
‘Blimey,’ Flip says eventually, as the boys march off. ‘Knickers in a twist, or what?’ So Alex may not be a dream-crusher but he’s still got a way to go in being a persuasive public speaker, then.
Steve squeezes his way over to us. ‘I think this might be wind down time, guys. The Committee seem to think this rain isn’t going to clear up for a few hours and it’s 3.25 p.m., so we’ve had the best of the day. Still a big victory for Bluebell Hall!’ He shoulder barges me and the knots I’ve been carrying around between my shoulder blades are knocked away. I can relax for the first time in ages – people now know about us and they want to be part of it. We’ve had so many passionate promises of help and support today, loads of people saying they’d be coming on Monday, that we might just reach of capacity for Monday Funday! That would be a great postscript to the story, maybe another little piece for Marcus. Local Hall Saved – Villagers Unite! A Community Tied Together By Bunting! I can already hear the happy squawks of kids racing about on the parquet, the happy chatter of parents as they enjoy a cup of tea and admire the new colour scheme, the log book growing fat and stuffed with signatures. Bluebell Hall is going back to its roots: it’s going to bring everyone together.
The rain looks like it’s getting fatter and definitely settling in for a bit of a spring soaking. ‘Come on guys, the iced buns are on me.’
Chapter 14
I really couldn’t sleep last night: whether it was the big dreams I had in mind for Monday Funday (with the numbers I estimated, a conga line was just too good to resist), or imagining how the newspaper write-up would go, or maybe it was just the drum of raindrops on the roof but I tossed and turned in my spotty duvet cover until about 5 a.m., when I decided a run would sort me out.
Now I’m pounding along the Hazlehurst streets while everyone else is still rightly tucked up in bed this early on a Sunday. Just a few flickering street lights to keep me company, that and the drizzle that hasn’t really stopped since yesterday afternoon. I haven’t been for a run for so long – I used to be really keen about it when I lived in Manchester. I’d go out three or four times a week, running around the quayside, startling the first commuters into spilling their cappuccinos. It would always set me up for the day ahead, even if it was just a day of mindless spreadsheet filling. I suppose round here there are too many former A-level crushes living nearby that might just spot me in my bobbly leggings and my ungainly bouncing boobs. That kind of worry stops it being so feel-good.
But this morning I doubt I’ll bump into Kevin Morgan at 5.47 a.m. on the footpath around the local farm. Not unless he has some really dodgy habits he’s hiding. I’m making up a running route as I go along, following the funny little ‘blue plates’ of historical interest that the Village Committee put up when I was a teenager. Places of interest… to anyone born and bred in Hazlehurst, I’d say. Here’s Hibbert Park, set up by our generous benefactor because apparently he was quite fond of watching a speckle-breasted thrush and wanted to preserve them in the village. Next I’m whizzing past the Post Office, once the site of the village’s poorhouse and jail. Still sometimes a place for drawn-out suffering, if you ask me. And now round Jenny’s Corner: the corner at which the very first woman to ride a bicycle in Hazlehurst clambered on her brother’s bike, tucked her skirts up between her knees and wobbled off down the road. Rather shocking at the time, apparently – it left her ankles in plain view. By the swings and slides on the common is a blue plaque that reminds us this wasn’t always just a space for teenagers to come and eat chips on the roundabout, but back at the time of the Domesday Book it was an area for people to graze their animals and keep themselves and their families fed. That’s why, every year since then, the May Day fete has been held on the common to celebrate surviving the winter and embracing the summer to come. We just now happen to throw in a bouncy castle and afternoon tea for good measure.
The endorphins pumping through my system are perfectly drowning out all the thoughts and to-dos and what-ifs that shouted at me all night. It’s just me and my battered Asics and together we’re disappearing into fields and lanes and cut-throughs… Except that I’ve brought myself to the back of the Hall. So much for switching off. My subconscious has clearly done my laces up this morning and taken charge of the map reading on this little adventure. Right. Well, if I can’t get around my jumpy mind with a run, I’ll just have to get started on everything that needs doing. And luckily a broom doesn’t mind if you’ve only got your grubby running kit on. I want this place spick and span for all its new visitor
s tomorrow. If we’re going to turn them into regulars they need to fall in love with the Hall on sight.
But as I near the front door, I see something that breaks my heart into tiny, sharp pieces. There’s water running out from under the door. Oh cripes, not the loos again!
I open the heavy door in a hurry, taking big squelchy steps towards the bathroom. Damn these breathable trainers – absorbing every bit of old toilet water they can.
But there’s no eruption of water coming from the toilets themselves – or the sinks. What the what? I dash into the kitchen to check the sink there. And that’s when it hits me. The pigeon.
It flaps directly into my face with a wonky lunge, disturbed by my panicked sprinting, probably, and after a flustered flight around the kitchen cupboards, it disappears into the sky. Because I can see the sky. Through the big hole in the ceiling. So this is where the water is from: last night’s persistent rainfall. It must have been the final straw for the roof and now we have a skylight which is definitely not adding value.
Crumbly flakes of plaster and wood float about my ankles. And I’m crying.
* * *
God bless Luce, even at this and hour on a Sunday, she’s here ten minutes after I call her. Her North Face jacket is slung over tartan pjs and there are still smudges of yesterday’s mascara under her eyes. But when she heard my bleats down the phone, she didn’t hesitate.
‘Oh no.’ I was hoping she would tell me it wasn’t as bad as it looked, in her professional opinion as a quantity surveyor. Just a case of some new timbers, tidying up and a new emulsion. But she’s shaking her head very slowly, over and over. ‘Oh Connie. I’m so sorry. This is… this is very serious. I don’t actually like us standing here. Let’s move outside.’
I wade after her, wishing I’d asked her to bring a pair of wellies for me, too. My feet are seriously feeling the bite of cold water. But the sinking realisation of what is coming next hurts more.
The Bluebell Bunting Society Page 13