We sat on a stone seat in the Shakespeare garden lazily chatting about whether apple pies were better with cream or ice cream, and the merits of honeycomb crunch versus cinder toffee, while the bees buzzed lazily round the flowerbeds and Stella slept in Jago’s arms, still clutching Bun and a slightly moist fuzzy mouse.
She didn’t wake up on the drive home, either. When we pulled up, Hal was weeding a flowerbed and Ma was sitting nearby, drawing and smoking a pink Sobranie. She said they were going to the pub again later, so her life is rapidly moving from a semi-hermitic existence to one of riotous dissipation.
We put Stella on her bed to have out her nap and Jago would have stayed for tea, except that David rang him and he had to go back to help him carry the last heavy boxes of flatpack furniture out of the hired van up to the flat.
It sounded as if he and Sarah had bought up the shop!
When Stella finally woke up she was well miffed to find that Jago had gone and was only cheered up when I suggested we made honeycomb crunch.
Aimee
The minute Aimee arrived at the hotel near the racecourse she’d suddenly realised who Cally Weston was: the nobody that Adam Scott had produced as his fiancée at some party years ago.
His parents lived near her father’s house in the Cotswolds and she’d known Adam all her life, even if their paths hadn’t crossed very much recently … and now she came to think of it, Adam’s parents had been round to dinner when she was spending the weekend with Daddy and the gold digger.
In fact, Lydia Scott, who’d been sitting opposite, had told her Adam was back and working in London and then gone on and on about how he’d said he was ready finally to settle down and raise a family, and they hoped he did because they would so love grandchildren and they were getting on a bit …
They’d even said something about how they’d liked that nice girl he was engaged to once and how it was unfortunate that it didn’t work out!
It was a pity she found the Scotts so boring that she hadn’t really been listening properly.
Of course, Cally looked a lot better when she’d been engaged to Adam – my God, she’d let herself go. No makeup, shabby but definitely not chic jeans, a baggy T-shirt, hair that hadn’t been near a hairdresser forever – and fat!
Of course, when Jago had called out ‘Cally!’ in that soppy voice, as if she was something special, her instincts had been to demonstrate that Jago was hers and see her rival off. But once she’d really had a good look at her, she’d realised she actually wasn’t any rival at all, so she’d annoyed Jago for nothing.
Mind you, with that soft heart of his, Cally might just manage to get her claws into him while he was helping her with all this fundraising for the little girl … had he said she was about three or four?
She cast her mind back, trying to remember how many years it was since she’d run into Adam and Cally … and thought it was about that long. Certainly long enough to drop a few hints and stir things up, anyway.
If the child was his, did he know about it, she mused. If he didn’t, then he might be interested in a ready-made family if his parents were right and he was talking about settling down. And the Scotts were well off, old money, so Cally wouldn’t need to worry about funding treatment abroad for the child. And that, in turn, would mean she wouldn’t need Jago’s help, either.
Cally would probably leap at the chance of getting Adam back again, though Aimee didn’t exactly rate her chances unless she did something drastic with her face, her figure and her messy hair!
Later, armed with the Scotts’ phone number, Aimee gave them a ring and asked them if they could give her Adam’s London contact details, because she’d love to catch up with him again.
Then she mentioned that funnily enough she’d bumped into his old fiancée, Cally Weston and added innocently how difficult it must be for them, not having any role in their granddaughter’s life …
That had set the cat among the pigeons with a vengeance, though she’d immediately backtracked and said she must have got the wrong end of the stick, because if they didn’t know anything about the child, then it couldn’t be Adam’s after all. Silly her …
Aimee was so pleased with her machinations that although she still felt furious with Jago, she was now almost ready to kiss and make up. After all, she was sure he wasn’t really romantically interested in that Cally Weston – who could be? – and anyway, with a bit of luck Cally would soon be preoccupied elsewhere and Jago would be all hers again.
Meanwhile, she thought she should cut him a bit of slack until he came to his senses, so she left him to stew in his own juice for a few days.
Chapter 25: Horse Feathers
Jago and David spent hours assembling flat pack furniture and finishing the painting and decorating. Now new carpets were about to be laid throughout the flat and poor Jago was starting to feel like a lodger. He’d taken to popping in to see us just to get a bit of peace and quiet, which luckily didn’t appear to bother Ma at all: in fact, he seemed to be wallpaper, like Hal.
‘I’m thinking of finding somewhere to stay in Sticklepond before Sarah moves in permanently,’ he told me one afternoon, on the way back from delivering one of David’s macaroon cones to a children’s party. ‘The Green Man’s a hotel, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but I think their rooms are quite pricey.’
‘Maybe not there, then, because I’ll need everything I’ve got left after paying for Honey’s for the renovations. I suppose really I ought to wait until I’ve exchanged contracts anyway, because I haven’t even had the searches back yet. What if the property’s built right on top of an old pit, or something?’
‘Part of it goes back to the seventeenth century, so I think it’s too old for that – and anyway, Sticklepond’s never been a pit village. If the searches don’t show up any major problems, then things should move very quickly, shouldn’t they?’
‘Yes, after that there’s nothing to stop it being signed, sealed and delivered …’
‘Bell, book and candle,’ I said, which sparked an idea. ‘The Falling Star, that old pub at the other end of the main street, lets rooms. Florrie Snowball and her son run it – do you remember Florrie from the fundraising meeting?’
‘I’d find it a bit hard to forget her,’ he said. ‘She’s quite a character.’
‘I noticed the sign about accommodation when I took Stella there to see the meteorite – that’s the Falling Star the pub’s named after.’
‘Really? Do I want to stay somewhere where rocks drop out of the sky?’
‘Don’t be daft, it was just the one. I don’t know how comfortable the rooms are, though, because I think they mainly cater to sales reps rather than tourists.’
‘That’s OK, I’m not a tourist, and they couldn’t be less comfortable than a flat where the carpets are being ripped up and mounds of flat-pack furniture and boxes of stuff are everywhere. I’m dreading the moment when they start taking out the kitchen.’
‘Does it really need replacing?’
‘No, but Sarah has her own ideas about interior decorating. When she’s finished making the flat perfect, she’ll probably start organising an equally perfect wedding for next spring, so I certainly need to get out of there fast. David says he likes all those shades of grey and mustard she’s decorating the flat in,’ he added gloomily, ‘but I’m finding it a bit depressing.’
‘I’m sure I would, too. Maybe we should go down and have a word with Mrs Snowball some time?’ I suggested, and Jago agreed.
It’s lovely that we’re comfortably back on our old friendly footing. In fact, now the air’s been cleared between us and I can see he really doesn’t want to get back with Aimee, we’ve become even firmer friends.
Meanwhile, he says the dreaded Aimee has apparently gone into a fit of the sulks and remains blessedly silent, so long may that continue …
Stella’s last hospital check-up had been fine, so the next Thursday they let her off, though we had our usual little outing to Ormskirk an
yway.
The first fundraising events had already started, like the Middlemoss Christmas Pudding Circle’s ‘Guess the weight of the pudding’ competition, so donations were trickling into the fund by way of Raffy and needed to be paid into the bank.
As the summer went on and the major events took place, I hoped that the trickle would turn into a raging torrent, because the Stella’s Stars account was pretty depleted after paying for the plane tickets and other major expenses.
We went for a coffee in the Blue Dog café with Jago and I wasn’t entirely surprised to see the three Graces there, at their usual table.
‘Cooee!’ they called, waving at Stella. ‘We’re not dead yet, love!’
‘I’m going to see my friends,’ Stella announced, and while she was off paying her respects, Jago and I shared a huge chunk of chocolate fudge cake with our coffee, and he told me that David was going to branch out into making traditional wedding cakes to order.
‘Only classic tiered horseshoe-shaped or round ones. You can get novelty ones anywhere these days,’ he explained, ‘and apparently there’s someone out in one of the villages, Neatslake, specialising in unusual cakes.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a horseshoe-shaped cake, it sounds lovely! But is he going to have time to make wedding cakes as well as the macaroons?’
‘I’ll be able to help, even after I’ve moved into Honey’s and got my own business going, but I think eventually he’ll need to take on a full-time bakery assistant.’
When Stella finally came back, Jago told her he knew someone even older than her friends.
‘She must be very, very old,’ she breathed, impressed.
‘She is. She’s called Miss Honey, and Mummy and I have been to visit her. She said next time we go, she’d like it if you came too.’
‘I was sort of hoping she’d forgotten about that,’ I muttered, but Stella was very taken with the idea and immediately demanded more details.
Of course, once he’d put the idea into her head, she didn’t stop pestering me to know when we were going to go and visit the very, very old lady. I’m not entirely sure that such a clash of the Titans would end happily, but if it does come off, then my money will be on Stella.
I was still trying to stockpile enough Christmas recipes, but very early the following morning, when the star sprinkled sky was still as dark as a blackcurrant puree and lit only by one pale Promethean spark of light, I did think up an interesting new twist on an old favourite.
When making your spiced Christmas star biscuits to hang on the tree, it’s very easy to give them a stained-glass effect. Simply cut out a hole in the middle (you could use a star-shaped petit four cutter, if you have one), and then place a boiled sweet or two in the space before baking in the oven. They will melt to form little translucent coloured windows that look very effective
Cally Weston: ‘Tea & Cake’
On Saturday Stella seemed extra tired, so we had a quiet day. I did the shopping early, but I couldn’t have seen Jago even if I hadn’t wanted to dash straight home, because he had two croquembouche cakes to make and deliver, while David had party pyramids orders too, so they were both up before dawn baking and then out delivering.
He’s started taking pictures of his cakes as he makes them, ready for a brochure when he’s established in the new premises – and all this waiting until he exchanges contracts is really nail-biting, because he’s set his heart on Honey’s and I couldn’t bear anything to go wrong at this stage.
He texted me a couple of times while he was out delivering the cakes, but then rang me later to say he’d spotted a nice small white van in a garage, and was going to buy it for the business, but keep his beloved Saab too.
‘I’m really looking forward to tomorrow,’ he added, because we were to go and meet Will and Celia at the Botanical Gardens in Churchtown, near Southport. ‘I deserve a rest and with Sarah around the flat on Sundays till she goes for the last train back to London, I’m certainly not going to get that here.’
‘You’re hardly likely to get a rest with us, either, what with Stella bombarding you with questions and wanting to be carried about,’ I pointed out, but he laughed and said that was a different kind of tired and he liked it.
Stella was hoping to get some more feathers for her collection at the Botanical Gardens and she did bag a long Golden Pheasant one, though the peacock huffily declined even to ruffle his lovely tail out for us.
When we’d looked at all the birds, rabbits and guinea pigs in their little enclosures, we had lunch in the café, though Stella’s was mostly a couple of chips dipped in tomato sauce, and some ice cream. Though this was better than nothing, it was hardly a nutritious balanced meal.
When we came out into the warm June sunshine, Will put Stella on his shoulders and carried her off to feed the ducks on the pond, with Celia.
‘I’m a big bold giant!’ she was screaming excitedly as Jago and I strolled leisurely after them.
‘I think she’s a bit too overexcited,’ I said.
‘Maybe, but it’s nice to see her having fun and I don’t think it’ll do her any harm, though she might sleep all the way home in the car.’
‘Do you think I fuss over her too much?’
‘No, you just want to keep her as well as possible and you know how easily she overtires. It’s natural to be worried about her.’
‘I’ll have to go down to the Mother and Toddler group tomorrow morning even if she’s still tired then, because I’m taking lots of stuff for the jumble sale. Did I tell you it’s going to be on the fourteenth of June?’
‘No, I don’t think you mentioned that. Where are they having it?’
‘In the village hall, from six o’clock onwards. I’ve already asked Jenny if she’ll baby-sit while I help out.’
‘I’ll see if I have any jumble,’ Jago promised. ‘And I could come and help.’
‘Would you have time?’
‘Yes, no problem. I could sell the bric-a-brac, perhaps.’
‘I’ll ask, but I’m sure they’ll be delighted. And if Stella’s too tired to play tomorrow I’ll just drop the things off. Unless Chloe rings me first thing to warn me that any germs are going round, in which case we won’t go at all. I don’t want any setbacks at this stage.’
‘How’s the fund doing now?’
‘Slowly filling up again.’
‘I’m sure they’ll be well over the target by the end of the summer,’ he said. ‘Just as well, because I think you’ve underestimated how much you’ll need when you’re out there.’
‘That’s what Raffy said when he popped in the other day with the cheque from the Witch Craft Gallery’s “How many beans in a jar” competition,’ I agreed. ‘He said there’d be more than enough, but if there was any left over it could be donated to some other good cause, which would be a bonus.’
‘Quite right, it would.’
Jago drove us home afterwards and stayed to dinner, though we didn’t manage to get much down Stella before she zonked out and had to be put to bed, but not before she’d told me Will said that horses had feathers on their feet.
Afterwards Ma vanished into the garden room and we watched an old film on telly and then messed about in the kitchen making rum truffles with white-iced tops like little Christmas puddings. I even found some miniature plastic sprigs of holly in the sweet tin where I store my cake decorations, to complete the effect.
When he had gone, it occurred to me that I hardly remembered any more what it was like not to know Jago and have his warm, friendly reassuring presence in my life.
Chapter 26: Jumbled
Jago rang later to tell me he’d exchanged contracts, though the searches had thrown up a couple of quirky things.
‘I’m not allowed to have a bear pit in the garden,’ he said.
‘Did you want one?’
‘Not really. I quite fancied having a few hens eventually, though, and it does say something about that. I think it was no cockerels.’
; ‘Odd, but that doesn’t mean any hens, does it? And you don’t actually need a cockerel to get eggs.’
‘That’s true,’ he said happily. ‘I wonder if one of the original owners way back had a really noisy cockerel. There must be some reason for it.’
‘Did the searches throw up anything else?’
‘Well, rewiring, which I expected; no central heating, of course, so that will have to be put in with a new boiler; new plumbing … then there’s some woodworm in the roof timbers, which needs treating. Other than that, it didn’t sound so bad, but I wondered if you’d like to go through it with me and see if I’ve missed anything important? Only if you’ve got time, though.’
‘Of course I have, and you know you can come over to Ma’s any time you like,’ I said, because those forms are complicated even if you haven’t got dyslexia.
‘Completion should be quite quick now the searches are done, and as soon as I get the keys I’ll start getting estimates for the work. I’m dying to get on with it, now,’ he said, sounding really excited.
At her next hospital appointment, Stella told the consultant very firmly that she was quite fed up with hospitals and she would be glad when she’d been cured in America and didn’t have to go there any more.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d still need to have check-ups, to make sure everything was healing and working as it should – which, please God, it would be … and, though I’d never been religious, I had begun to send up a silent prayer whenever we went down to the church, which was quite often, given Stella’s angel fixation. We lit a little candle, too, though Stella thought this was just a fun thing.
At that rate I thought I might revert back into a Strange Baptist, the sect Ma’s family belonged to before they emigrated, though there weren’t many of them left now, and the chapel in Ormskirk, where the Almonds once attended, had become a carpet warehouse.
Anyway, the consultant, Mrs Barrie, pretended to be very hurt and said she hoped Stella would pop in sometimes just to show her how well her new heart was working and Stella conceded graciously that she supposed she could, so long as they didn’t stick needles in her arm.
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