I kept Noah’s out on the dresser, though, despite feeling angry with him for so easily believing Anji’s lies about me. But unfortunately, when Libby saw the card she became convinced that he was romantically interested in me.
‘No, he’s just being silly again,’ I told her. ‘I think he was a bit piqued when I didn’t instantly fall head over heels for him after our night of passion, like all his other conquests, but we get on well enough together when he isn’t trying to flirt with me. He can obviously get anything else he needs elsewhere.’
She looked unconvinced, especially after a tiny but very ancient-looking oil painting of a chicken arrived—but so far as I know, even the Victorians didn’t ascribe any romantic meaning to poultry other than turtledoves.
Libby and Tim—and even Noah, in his way—had enriched my Neatslake life, and although I was resigned by now to always living alone, it didn’t mean that life couldn’t be fun. After Ben left, it seemed impossible that I would ever feel happy again, but after Valentine’s Day, I found my spirits rising with every day that took me closer to spring.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Spring Fever
March came in like a lamb, so I hope it isn’t going to roar out like a lion, since I’ve planted my early potatoes, sown my leeks and summer spinach and put in strawberries and some new raspberry canes. I adore raspberries! According to an elderly friend, during the war strawberry and raspberry jam was really nothing of the kind, but gooey mixed fruit, with tiny wooden pips put in, to take the place of real ones. Can that be true? Fake pips’?!
‘Cakes and Ale’
As a wet and dismal February turned to a brightly optimistic March, things started to blossom with the promise of fruition.
I supposed Mary and Olivia were doing much the same in London, for they were due to give birth some time in late April and early May…
Mary rang occasionally now, but I hadn’t asked her specifically when.
As usual, I had lots of other things to think of. There was the garden, for a start. By March I was really starting to gear up for a whole new cycle of planting and harvesting, and there was loads to do getting new beds ready and that kind of thing. Cleaning out the henhouse had also now fallen to my lot, but at least the hens were repaying me by laying again.
And then Claire Flowers and a film unit descended on me, for the first of the six episodes of Sticklepond Spring. It was very odd: at first it seemed so intrusive, all these people shoving muffs on sticks at me and pointing cameras and trailing wires, not to mention drinking my tea and eating all the cakes and biscuits. But after a while, I got sort of used to it and most of the time I just carried on as I normally would, except for falling over people’s feet. Claire didn’t even want me to put on smart clothes. She was perfectly happy with my rainbow hoodie and jeans or patchwork dungarees and spotty wellies.
The filming seemed pretty chaotic, like my days, but Claire said that didn’t matter, it would all be chopped up and rearranged later, into several programmes. They must still throw away a lot of film…or maybe it was all digital? I didn’t notice.
Anyway, they filmed me collecting eggs in the henhouse and, later, chasing Aggie across the Green. (This was not set up for the cameras—she just sneaked out and legged it again.) Violet Grace came over for eggs and was roped in too, with a glowing explanation of our barter scheme. By mid-morning, half the village was loitering outside the cottage, wondering what was going on, but must have been frustrated not to see anything, since by then all the action was going on in the garden—me digging a bed and looking over the last of the winter’s stored apples, sweet and wrinkly. The crew ate them all.
Then they did some shots where I was holding up glowing jams and marmalade against the larder window, before finally allowing me to finish icing the Pomander cake. I entirely forgot they were there while I was doing that.
I’d already covered the whole sphere in a layer of white icing and tied a wide white velvet ribbon round it, with a loop at the top, just like a real pomander. Now I began to fill in each quarter with icing rosebuds and leaves, which took rather a long time, but the end result was lovely.
Next day they filmed Harry letting out the hens, me out walking with Mac, and then with Libby at Blessings, slightly self-consciously discussing preparations for the first wedding at Old Barn Receptions. I also had to run up to Blessings to show Libby the copy of Glorious Weddings featuring my weird and wonderful cakes, even though she’d already seen it when it first arrived.
In the afternoon I delicately tinted the Pomander cake roses with pale pink and green natural food colouring, and then baked the two hexagonal cakes ready to start the Goth one.
I’d bought bride and groom figurines for the top, which I intended painting in Goth colours when the cameras had long gone, because I needed a steady hand.
All in all, it was an exhausting couple of days, especially since they asked me to do some things over and over until they were quite happy with them. And they got through a lot of cake.
They intended descending on me in April and May too, to add more material, but I thought I’d get used to it.
Libby was terribly excited about it all, much more than I was, but mainly because she thought it would give the reception business lots more publicity. She also said I’d be famous, but I still didn’t think my life was terribly exciting, and the six programmes would probably be all there ever were.
I was quite glad to settle down in relative peace and was getting quite hardened about turning down commissions for cakes if I hadn’t got the time or didn’t like the idea. It wasn’t that I didn’t like making cakes, it was just that I enjoyed doing other things too, and I never intended to do it full time!
Lola had emailed me a picture of the wedding dress a friend had made for her, so I could paint the models in black and white to match, and then stick on little wings. The groom just needed his suit and top hat painting black, and then once I’d given them pale faces and dark hair, they should look quite strikingly like the happy couple.
The gatehouse renovations were now finished and Libby let me in to have a look, before Noah finally moved in. I still felt unreasonably miffed with him, probably because he had been prepared to believe Anji’s lies about me, but I took him a house-warming gift of a tin filled with home-made biscuits and a bottle of elderberry wine. The tin was actually a catering-sized instant coffee tin that I’d begged from the Griffin, hand-painted by Violet with big colourful spots on a cream ground.
Since Noah hadn’t been down since January, he had missed all the excitement of the filming, but as I said to Libby as she let us into the gatehouse, I expect he’s quite blasé about all that kind of thing in the arty circles he moves in.
Libby said, ‘But you’re moving in them too, now!’
‘No, I’m just temporarily in the outer orbit,’ I said, but she was convinced the TV series would be a huge success and not only would I become a TV star, but Old Barn Receptions would be booked up for the next ten years. I couldn’t shake her on it.
The gatehouse had changed out of all recognition. A tiny bathroom with shower and loo had been created out of a corner of the one bedroom, and the lean-to room downstairs off the living room was now a minute galley kitchen. It must have cost Noah a fortune, but according to Libby he was rolling in money and could ask what he liked for his portraits, with people queuing up for them, not to mention his annual sell-out exhibitions of black-and-white photographs.
Libby was delighted with the work that had been done, because she’d be able to rent the gatehouse out as a tiny but intimate holiday let, once Noah didn’t need it any more.
Noah arrived next morning and came round later to thank me for the biscuits and wine. I invited him in, but it was a bit strained at first—none of the easy friendship we had shared previously. I suppose it was because at the back of his mind there was a lingering suspicion that Anji had been right, and I was having a mad, passionate fling with Rob Rafferty; and at the back of mine I su
spected he was still indulging his no-strings-attached philosophy with Anji.
But then, since I’d just taken a batch of Cornish pasties out of the oven, and it was nearly lunch time, I invited him to stay. I’d already taken one round to Harry, as a quick snack before he went to his dominoes club.
‘That’s a lot of Cornish pasties,’ Noah commented, sitting at the table. ‘Two different kinds?’
‘Actually, some of them are Chingree Puffs, like a sort of curried pasty. Lily Grace gave me the recipe. And I batch-bake because I freeze a lot of them. Some go into Harry’s freezer too. He likes to be independent and gets most of his own meals. Any excess I give to the Graces and Dorrie. All three of them are terribly proud, but I just say I can’t fit any more into my freezer because I’ve got carried away and made too many. Of course, they give me Acorns in exchange.’
Acorns?’
‘Yes, the imaginary currency we use to trade things.’
‘Of course, I’d forgotten—Libby told me all about it. You look after your friends well,’ he commented, with that attractive, slightly lopsided smile.
‘They look after me too, and anyway, I love to cook. I don’t have to worry about Dorrie so much now, though, because Libby’s always inviting her over for meals, or Gina’s popping in with containers of pasta and sauce,’ I said. ‘Plus Libby and Tim are insisting on paying her for gardening too. But I’m going to miss the Blessings grapes.’
I told him about how the last Mrs Rowland-Knowles never got to see her grapes, since Dorrie whipped them away and bartered them with me for large amounts of Acorns. Dorrie didn’t like grapes, but I loved them.
I gave Noah a Chingree Puff to try, and had just bitten into one myself when he said, According to Libby, your ex’s studio has got electricity and running water, so I wondered if you’d consider renting it to me while I’m in Neatslake?’
‘Renting it to you? What on earth for?’ I choked, having swallowed my mouthful too hastily.
‘I like to develop some of my own black-and-white pictures, and there isn’t room in the gatehouse.’
‘I—well, yes, I suppose you could. Ben used part of it as a darkroom himself sometimes, but it’s all a bit ramshackle.’
‘Ramshackle is fine. I just want somewhere I can work and spread my stuff out, and the gatehouse is bijou, to say the least.’
‘Yes, I see what you mean.’
‘I can come and go by the side gate and not disturb you. And I’ll pay you rent, of course.’
‘I don’t need rent! The studio isn’t doing anything useful at the moment, though I thought I might use it for extra storage next winter.’
‘I’ll be using your electricity and water,’ he pointed out.
‘All right then, we’ll call all that wood chopping you did for me the rent.’
‘I did that for love,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look like anyone else has.’
‘No, I’ve chopped my own as I’ve needed it,’ I said, meeting his eyes fair and square.
His light grey ones searched mine for a moment and then he smiled again, but more warmly. ‘You won’t need that much wood once it gets warmer, will you? I’ll have to pay you back some other way…’
‘Well, there’s always a lot of heavy digging at this time of year,’ I suggested, though not seriously. Some of the tension between us seemed to have evaporated at last and we were falling back into our previous casual friendship.
The reception bookings had gone from a trickle to a steady stream and, even before the official opening day at the end of March, there were clear signs that the venture would be a huge success.
That didn’t stop Libby worrying about it, though. ‘This simply has to work,’ she said, as I helped her to manoeuvre the trestle tables into a horseshoe arrangement for our very first reception the following day. ‘It’s cost us a fortune.’
I straightened my aching back and looked around the barn. ‘Everything looks wonderful. I don’t see how it can fail, do you?’
‘It had better not, because Tim’s just told his partners he’s had enough and is leaving at the end of the month!’
‘Well, that might have been a bit rash, but it shows how much faith he has in you. Did you say the bride’s mother was making the wedding cake for this first reception, Libs?’
‘Yes, that’s what she said. It’s supposed to be arriving in the morning. She’s bringing it before she goes to the hairdressers. And they’ve hired a string quartet to play during the meal, so they will arrive early too, to set up.’
‘I think I’d rather have the Mummers, even if you do have to unplug their electric violins and drag them off the stage eventually. You certainly get your money’s worth.’
Libby turned to me, looking suddenly anxious. ‘Oh, Josie, we’ve put so much into this! You do think it will take off, don’t you? You’re not just saying that?’
‘Yes, of course I do, you idiot! It will be a huge, mega-success,’ I reassured her, because Libby was normally such a tough cookie, on the surface at least, that I knew she must really be worried to ask me that. ‘Everything looks lovely, and you’ve organised it to perfection. In fact, I don’t think you really need me at all tomorrow,’ I joked. ‘Even Pia is going to be here, helping!’
‘Yes, it’s lovely how she’s taken an interest in the business,’ Libby agreed, brightening, ‘and she says she’ll work for me all over the summer holidays too, peak wedding time—though I suppose that’s with the proviso that Jasper is at home, and not off digging somewhere, or she’ll simply up sticks and shamelessly follow him.’
‘I’d like to see her getting her manicured nails full of earth in an archaeological trench,’ I said. ‘The things we do for love!’
‘You will be here nice and early tomorrow, won’t you?’
‘As soon as I’ve made sure Harry is OK and walked Mac,’ I promised. ‘Is Noah going to be around, taking pictures?’
‘Yes. He happened to be here when the mother was fussing about last-minute arrangements and asked her, and she was terribly flattered. They will all be putty in his hands, just you wait and see. In fact, practically every woman seems to be putty in his hands when he’s exerting his charm, except you, though it doesn’t seem to stop him flirting with you, I’ve noticed.’
‘I think that’s just a reflex action—I am so not his type,’ I said. ‘Rob Rafferty’s much the same. They agree to be just friends, but can’t resist trying it on sometimes to see if they get a reaction. But since I know they’re only looking for casual, uninvolved sex, that’s hardly a flattering or enticing prospect, is it?’
‘Oooh, Little Miss Blasé, with her two celebrity menfriends,’ Libby said, and I grinned.
‘I suppose it does seem a bit strange,’ I admitted, then cast a last glance around the Old Barn. ‘It all looks perfect—the stage is set, we’re just awaiting the actors! I’ve got that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I always get in a theatre, before the curtain goes up.’
‘Yes, that’s it exactly! There’s an air of hushed expectancy and I feel sort of hollow as well, though I think that’s nerves.’
‘It will be fine, you’ll see,’ I assured her again, though truth to tell her last-minute jitters were infectious and now I was feeling nervous too. ‘At least I talked you out of making me wear some kind of smart dress and tights, because a plain black T-shirt and trousers, covered by a big white pinafore, is much more my cup of tea.’
‘You’re still a bit too thin,’ Libby commented. ‘And you know what they say about thin cooks.’
‘I didn’t until Noah told me. And can you be too rich or too thin? There isn’t any meat on your bones either.’ But it was true that my clothes were still a bit loose despite my getting back my appetite. I suppose I was physically working much harder.
‘Nature made me small and thin, but she made you taller and bigger-boned. I don’t think you ought to lose any more weight.’
‘I can’t help it. I must be burning off more calories than I eat. All that di
gging and planting and hoeing…’
‘Do you need to grow so much now?’
‘Probably not, but old habits die hard. Dorrie says she and Tim will soon have Blessings fairly self-sufficient with the new fruit and vegetable garden, and what you don’t grow you can barter apples and pears with me for, like Dorrie has been doing. But maybe not the grapes.’
‘What grapes?’
‘The ones off the vine in the old greenhouse,’ I said guiltily. ‘Dorrie doesn’t like them, so she used to barter them with me. Tim’s stepmother never got to see any at all.’
‘Well, hands off my grapes from now on,’ Libby said severely.
‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘Didn’t Tim say he’d ordered a henhouse for spring?’
‘Yes, so maybe the peacocks will chase the chickens instead of me,’ she said optimistically, because one of the two lonely males had recently taken a fancy to her—Claudius, I think.
‘Really, I only need to grow enough to feed the Graces, Harry and myself. I don’t barter stuff with Mark and Stella any more. The only contact we have is by phone when I give them our co-op order, and I expect they would have dropped that, except it’s cheaper the more people come in with them to bulk buy.’
‘There’s nowt so queer as folk,’ Libby said absently, and I could see her mind had wandered away and she was picturing the scene tomorrow, with the guests milling about, the food set out on the buffet tables and champagne cooling in the ice buckets…
‘It’ll be fine, don’t worry, Libby—absolutely fine!’
* * *
That afternoon I started on a Bed of Roses wedding cake commission, which was going to be the happy couple depicted in a four-poster bed, with a coverlet of roses. Violet, who had come to collect more sugar paste, because she was making lots of the flowers and foliage, was chatting to me as I beat the mixture.
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