Creature Comforts

by Trisha Ashley

Lulu giggled and I gave her a look, before reluctantly grinning myself.

  ‘OK, I suppose it was quite funny, in retrospect. But at the time it wasn’t, and when I’d finished coughing up all the water I’d inhaled when he grabbed me and got my first real look at him … well, it was a bit of a shock, because for a second I thought he was Harry.’

  ‘Why, is he so like him?’

  ‘Not really, it was just a momentary impression, though he does have the exact same green eyes as Harry and Baz did, and his hair is that really dark chestnut shade when it started to dry out a bit.’

  ‘It’s hardly surprising that Baz passed his colouring down to both sons, is it? Is he nice?’

  ‘No. I think if he’d known who I was before he rescued me, he’d have let me sink instead,’ I said morosely. ‘Dan told him I’d killed his half-brother while drink-driving and of course he lapped it up.’

  ‘I don’t know what Dan’s problem is,’ Lulu said indignantly. ‘He seems to have a down not just on Debo, but you and Judy too.’

  ‘Hell hath no fury like a gardener scorned,’ I said.

  She went back to staring at her notes. ‘I’d have invited this Rufus man to the meeting anyway, if I’d known he’d moved in. What does he look like, apart from the green eyes, in case I see him about?’

  ‘Big, broad shoulders, angular sort of face with a cleft chin and a proper Roman nose. He seemed naturally sarcastic and bad-tempered – and he said I looked like a damp pixie, which didn’t exactly help to endear him to me.’

  ‘But everyone did call you Pixie Ears at school,’ she reminded me, grinning.

  ‘That was quite a long time ago, Bendy Benbow,’ I said pointedly, and she winced. ‘Those days are long behind us, and anyway, I can’t help it if my ears are a bit pointy and I’m small, can I?’

  ‘I expect he thought you looked cute.’

  ‘I hope not,’ I said, revolted, because being small and looking years younger than my age meant I’d spent all my adult working life striving to be taken seriously. ‘And he didn’t seem to like me even before he found out who I was. What’s more, he’s got Debo worried that he’ll want her to move all the new kennels off his land.’

  ‘Do you think he will?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. At the moment she’s managed to convince herself he won’t, but you know what Debo’s like, she can swing from unfounded optimism to the depths of despair in minutes … and I’ve got so much to tell you, but the rest will have to wait till we can have a good catch-up when we won’t be interrupted.

  Perhaps Cameron could join us, too,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, yes – you and Cam,’ I said meaningfully. ‘Just what happened between you two on the way back from France?’

  ‘Nothing – it was only that I needed comfort and—’ she broke off, going slightly pink. ‘Really, it was nothing, Izzy, and I don’t want anything to change the friendship between the three of us. Cam understands that. He’ll be here tonight, but he’s got an art class first, so he’ll be very late.’

  ‘All right, I won’t mention it again,’ I said, ‘though I’m sure the three of us would always be best friends, whatever happened.’

  ‘Any word from Kieran yet?’ she asked, changing the subject firmly.

  ‘Nothing, just that one nasty message after his father was arrested, then silence.’

  ‘By now I thought he’d have seen your point of view and be texting you apologies every five minutes.’

  ‘Yes, so did I, really,’ I admitted.

  ‘He’ll come round,’ she said. ‘Only if he does, I really don’t want you to leave Halfhidden, just when the three of us are back together again.’

  ‘That’s OK, because I’m not going anywhere,’ I assured her. ‘I must be mega-fickle, because I seem to have fallen right out of love with him again – and I’m sure now he was a wrong turn up a dead end, and actually I was supposed to come back and live here on my own.’

  ‘An angel voice told you so?’ she said, half joking.

  ‘Something like that, though I never actually hear a voice, you know – I just get a sort of inner feeling that something is right or wrong.’

  ‘I wish I’d had any kind of message, angel or otherwise, warning me not to go and live in France with Guy,’ Lulu said with some bitterness.

  ‘You probably did, you just weren’t listening to it. Or like me with Kieran, you only heard what you wanted to.’

  ‘Or the ding on the head made you mad as a box of frogs, so there aren’t really any angel voices at all.’

  ‘There is that,’ I conceded.

  ‘Maybe Kieran will follow you up here, you’ll go weak at the knees again and the voice will tell you to marry him and live happily ever after in Halfhidden.’

  ‘I don’t know how I would feel if I actually saw him again,’ I confessed honestly. ‘I have wondered if I’d feel differently. But that whole scenario is probably not going to happen anyway, especially once he knows I’m definitely using what’s left of my legacy to bail Debo out of her current financial crisis, because oddly enough, both he and his dreadful parents were banking on it for a house deposit.’

  ‘Then they shouldn’t have counted their chickens before they were hatched, should they? And here are Rita and Freddie with more chairs. Come on, we’ll help put them out.’

  We managed to squeeze them all in, though I hoped everyone was feeling friendly tonight, because the rows were tight. On each seat we laid a copy of a leaflet grandly entitled ‘The Halfhidden Regeneration Scheme: A Plan to Bring Prosperity to the Whole Valley, by Increased Visitor Numbers’.

  People began to arrive, first clustering curiously around the wall map, before finding a seat, though some came over to say hello and how glad they were to see me back again.

  More and more shuffled in until the room was so full that the heat was getting a bit Black Hole of Calcutta and the doors had to be opened.

  Everyone seemed to be there – or everyone in Halfhidden who mattered, for the local families were out in force, including Tom Tamblyn, his sisters, Lottie Ross from the shop, and Myra, the Sweetwell housekeeper, along with her husband, Laurie, and their son, Olly. Then there were the Ferrises – Cara’s parents, the local vets – and of course, the Tompions. It’s always a surprise to me that though there has been much intermarriage between the local clans over the centuries, the tall, flaxen-fair, blue-eyed Tamblyn genes and the stockier, dark, brown-eyed Benbow ones continually reappear.

  ‘It’s a pity your parents couldn’t make it,’ I said to Lulu. ‘I know the restaurant is open tonight, so Bruce and Kate can’t.’

  ‘I think I’d rather they weren’t here, actually, because they know all about my plans and they think I’m mad.’

  ‘The jury’s still out on that till the rest of us have heard what they are,’ I told her. ‘Go on and do you stuff – it looks like everyone’s here that’s coming and it’s time.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said, hands clenched so tightly on her notebook that her knuckles were white.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ I assured her, then went and sat in the front row next to Judy and Debo, who’d been saving me a seat. Judy pointed out some newcomers nearby, who were actors in the Cotton Common period soap drama they shot locally.

  ‘Only minor characters, though, because all the big names seem to have bought places around Middlemoss,’ she whispered. ‘They’ve stayed longer than we thought they would, too, since they made it through the winter without putting the “For Sale” notices up.’

  There was a bit of a stir as one or two latecomers arrived and slipped into the back row, and when I turned round for a quick peek, I spotted a familiar dark chestnut head that could only belong to Rufus Carlyle. Dan Clew was sitting next to him.

  Lulu walked to the front of the hall, looking horribly nervous. Her ex really had dented her self-confidence and I wasn’t sure the old Lulu would ever totally bounce back, but I hoped she would. If someone tells you for years that you’re use
less and ugly and no other man would look at you, it must be like water dripping onto a stone and wearing it away.

  Everyone was still chatting, but Tom Tamblyn, who was sitting at the end of the front row, rose to his feet, his shock of once-flaxen hair framing his face like a silvery halo, and held up his hands for silence.

  ‘Quieten down, you lot,’ he shouted without ceremony. ‘Let’s give the lass a chance to speak her piece.’

  ‘Thanks, Tom,’ she said gratefully.

  ‘Yay! Go, Lulu!’ I called and she gave me an uncertain half-smile, then stepped forward in front of the flip chart.

  Chapter 8: Haunting

  ‘First of all, a warm welcome, everyone, and especially to our newcomers,’ Lulu said, looking round the Hut, and then I think she must have caught Rufus’s eye, because she blinked and seemed to lose the thread for a moment.

  Then she turned and flipped back the top sheet of the chart on the stand to reveal, in large print, ‘POINT ONE: INCREASED VISITOR ATTRACTIONS’.

  ‘Right, I’ll begin by outlining my plan, which I’ve already discussed individually with those it would most directly affect. Basically, it’s a scheme to bring greatly increased visitor numbers to the whole valley and, with them, more money and employment. Once I’ve finished, I’ll be very interested to hear any suggestions, or answer questions, and there’ll be refreshments.’

  ‘Our Myra’s marmalade cake,’ I heard Jonas pipe up with satisfaction, and someone shouted, ‘Hurray!’

  ‘As most of you know,’ Lulu carried on, ignoring these asides, ‘the village was once much more prosperous, especially during the Victorian era, when there was a great enthusiasm for spas and that kind of thing. Day trippers travelled for miles to Halfhidden, to drink the waters. That’s why the pub was called the Spa Hotel until recently, and I’ve discovered there was once a tea garden further up from the Green, at the Old Mill.’

  ‘That’s right,’ called Hannah Blackwell, who lived there. ‘The old open-fronted glass veranda is still as it was then, but they had tables all over the lawn, too, when it was fine.’

  ‘Yes, there’s a picture of people taking tea on the Mill lawn among the copies of early photographs I’ve pinned to the board near the door, and others showing crowds of visitors walking up the path to the Spring from what was then the Spa Hotel, or picnicking by the waterfall near the alpine nursery.’

  ‘My father put a gate across the path to the falls after the Saxon Hoard was discovered, to keep away people trying to dig for more, so it’s much more overgrown than in the photos,’ said Brandon Benbow, who with his family ran the Summit Alpine Nursery. ‘The gorse and brambles soon take over.’

  ‘There are still plenty of visitors to the Lady Spring in the summer, including some of the people staying at the pub on Haunted Weekend breaks,’ Lulu said. ‘I think they’re mostly looking for Howling Hetty, after seeing the skull behind the bar and hearing the story. And it was while I was trying to think of a way of extending those Haunted Weekends into complete week-long Haunted Holidays that I suddenly saw how that could potentially benefit the whole community.’

  ‘I don’t really see how,’ said Tom Tamblyn, ‘though I’m all for it if you can.’

  Lulu flipped another page on the chart to reveal, ‘POINT TWO: MORE GHOSTS’.

  ‘We already have enough spectral goings-on at the pub to keep our visitors happy for a weekend,’ Lulu said. ‘Howling Hetty’s skull behind the bar, three haunted bedchambers and the ghostly footsteps on the backstairs.’

  ‘I don’t remember there being that many ghosts in the pub,’ Lottie Ross exclaimed, surprised.

  Lulu grinned. ‘There are now!’

  I knew from Lulu’s emails that most of her bookings were from people wanting to spend the night in a haunted chamber, so that figured.

  ‘So, my plan is to entice visitors to stay at the pub for a week, with the promise of a complete ghost trail to follow round the whole valley.’

  ‘Is there a ghost trail?’ Will Ferris, Cara’s father, one half of the local husband-and-wife vet team, asked.

  ‘No, but there will be, if everyone supports the idea. My plan is that we start by scaring visitors witless at the pub, then after that they can take the path up through the woods haunted by Howling Hetty to the Lady Spring, where Tom will curdle their blood with tales about the ghostly Roman soldiers and the pagan chanting you can hear on nights when the moon is full.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I remember Father telling us about the chanting, but I’ve never heard it myself,’ Myra said.

  ‘Nor anyone else, except Jonas,’ a farmer said drily.

  ‘It’s the truth, so help me,’ declared Jonas, half hidden in the corner. ‘I wrote about it in those pamphlets we have for sale up at the Spring.’

  ‘Of course it’s true,’ agreed Lulu.

  ‘You go on, lass – never you mind them,’ Jonas urged.

  ‘Yes, do go on, Lulu, this is fascinating,’ I said. ‘We’ve got the visitors up to the Lady Spring, where they’ll pay their money to drink the waters or even have a dip in the pool if they want to, and then as usual they’ll exit through the back of Tom’s hut, giving them a chance to buy pamphlets, postcards and souvenirs on the way. But where do they go after that?’

  ‘Up the footpath through the woods, with more possibilities to meet Howling Hetty, and on to the Green,’ she said.

  ‘That’s not a public footpath above the Spring, that’s private,’ called Dan Clew in a loud and aggressive voice, and the audience turned as one to stare at him.

  ‘Nay, you daft bugger,’ said Jonas forthrightly, ‘it’s been used by the whole village as a shortcut to Middlemoss since time immemorial, as you’d know if you were local and not an oft-comed-un.’

  Dan might have lived in the valley his entire adult life, but he was still a newcomer as far as Jonas was concerned.

  ‘Why, the Morris Men still dance the whole way up the footpath from Middlemoss to the Green on the first Sunday after May Day – always have, and always will. Aye, it’s public, right enough,’ Jonas continued, and there was a general murmur of agreement.

  ‘Not above the Spring, it isn’t,’ Dan insisted belligerently, with a sideways look at his new boss, Rufus.

  ‘You’ve been fancying yourself estate manager ever since Sweetwell was shut up, Dan Clew, and got too big for your boots,’ Tom Tamblyn told him, for there was no love lost between the men. ‘But that time you tried putting a gate across the path above Spring Cottage, someone took the lock off with bolt cutters the same day. And then next night, the gate vanished too. People won’t stand for it.’

  ‘I think we can guess who did that,’ Dan said, with an ugly look at him.

  ‘Is the path from the Spring to the Green actually marked as a public right of way on the Ordnance Survey maps?’ said the now-familiar deep voice of Rufus Carlyle, and Lulu said it was.

  ‘Though people do exit through the Sweetwell gates, instead of using the original small door in the wall further down.’

  ‘And the Ramblers Association together with local volunteers go up it every year, cutting back the brambles and weeds,’ Tom told him.

  ‘That would seem to be clear enough, then,’ Rufus said, surprisingly reasonably.

  ‘But you won’t want your property overrun with crowds of visitors if this scheme goes ahead,’ Dan objected.

  ‘Going by the overgrown state of the woods, they’d have trouble getting off the public footpath, except where it joins one of the private ones, and those are all gated, with signs on them,’ Rufus said.

  ‘Yes, and you could put another gate where the path branches off to the drive, so they come out onto the Green where they should,’ Tom Tamblyn suggested.

  ‘That’s a very good idea,’ Lulu agreed. She turned back towards her flip chart. ‘Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the visitors walk up the path and emerge onto the Green, where they’ll have an opportunity to buy drinks, sweets, more postcards and all kinds of other things at Lottie’s shop
.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ called Lottie. Then she asked, as an afterthought, ‘Postcards of what?’

  ‘Well … the local beauty spots, perhaps, maybe complete with a hint of a ghostly presence? Cam and I could probably fudge those; we’re both good with a camera.’

  ‘I expect you could,’ she agreed. ‘And then after my shop, they can go into Cam’s Hidden Hoards gallery next door. That’s where our Cam’s just opening his studio and gallery, in the old garage,’ she added, mainly for those newcomers not expected to know these things through the grapevine.

  ‘Great …’ Lulu said, making a note. ‘I don’t suppose the old garage was haunted, by any chance, was it?’

  ‘It was the blacksmith’s before it was ever a garage, so I dare say it might have been,’ Lottie said thoughtfully. ‘And maybe I’ve heard ghostly hoofs passing in the night, when there are no horses to be seen …’

  ‘My sister-in-law keeps a white horse in the paddock behind the pub where my caravan is, and it’s spooked me more than once at night, even though I knew it was there,’ Lulu said. ‘The White Horse of Halfhidden!’ She made another note. ‘OK, after they come out of Hidden Hoards, they cross the stream and go on up the hill past Stopped Clocks.’

  She looked at Rita and Freddie Tompion. ‘I don’t know if it would affect your business at all, because I know your customers come to you specially, or you go to them if it’s a museum or a big clock you have to repair in situ.’

  ‘I’ve always got a few watches and antique clocks for sale in the window,’ Rita said. ‘I could get a little more stock in.’

  ‘And I know a story about a clock that was supposed to be haunted,’ said Freddie, literally getting into the spirit of things. ‘They brought it to my grandfather to be mended, because it chimed every night at the exact time the last owner died and they couldn’t stop it. It turned out he’d been murdered, and when they hanged the man who did it, the clock stopped chiming.’

  ‘Great story,’ Lulu enthused, scribbling that down too.

  ‘It was the heir that did the foul deed, so he never came back to collect it,’ Freddie said. ‘It’s the grandfather clock with the ship face that’s in the corner by the door.’