Little Mr Huffy.
‘I can’t believe it’s the first of May tomorrow and already we’ve been in business for over a month,’ Libby said, as we cleared up the debris after yet another reception, ready for the Dolly Mops team to come in and clean the place. ‘Why does so much food end up on the floor? Are people so drunk they miss their mouths entirely? But then, it happens at even quite sober weddings too.’
‘So far it’s been a big success and it’s going to be even busier from now on, isn’t it?’ I agreed, picking up a half-eaten bread roll, which fortunately had landed butter side up. And butter side up was the story of Libby’s life, once she’d got herself past the dodgy start, so I hadn’t really expected Old Barn Receptions to be anything but a blazing triumph.
‘Yes…and here comes high wedding season, with blossom and church bells and romance in the air,’ she said dreamily. ‘Maybe I should have a second, summery wedding?’
‘You haven’t got time, and you’d have to squeeze your reception in on an unpopular day of the week, like Wednesday, because those are the only ones we’ve got free,’ I pointed out.
‘It’s all right, I wasn’t really serious! Anyway, we need our occasional rest days to catch up with everything else, like having a life. It’s a pity there’s only one Saturday a week, because we could book those ten times over.’
‘Thank God there aren’t! I don’t really think you could cope with more receptions than you are doing now,’ I said, and she had to agree.
‘It’s the May Day celebrations on the Green tomorrow morning, Libby Do you remember what fun they were?’
She regarded me with astonishment. ‘Of course not, because I was never mad enough to leave my warm bed at that hour of day to watch some ditzy folk dancing round a painted stick! But feel free to catch a chill in the wet grass, provided you’re here later. Tomorrow’s reception is the biggest we’ve catered for yet.’
‘Yes, of course I’ll be here, though not terribly early. I’ll have to be up before dawn for the dancing round the maypole and I usually sell hot toddy to the people watching to make money for the donkey rescue centre. You should really come, you know. It’s great fun.’
She shuddered. ‘Maybe not.’
‘You don’t know what you’re missing!’
‘I think I have a good idea. I don’t expect Pia will fall out of bed in time for it either—assuming she is actually in her own bed and not over in Middlemoss tonight. Or maybe Jasper’s coming here and I’ll fall over him at breakfast instead. He’s always underfoot in the kitchen, talking recipes with Gina. She thinks he’s wonderful.’
‘You don’t mind about him and Pia, do you?’
‘Not really, he seems to be a nice boy, and the relationship’s making her change rapidly in a good, if slightly odd, way. Now she seems as fascinated by the history of food and cooking as he is, and reading all kinds of stuff about it. You know, I used to consider her a complete featherhead, but what with this research and her being so useful in the business, I’m starting to think I never knew her at all!’
‘Oh, Pia’s very like you in some ways. I mean, once she knew what it was she wanted, she went all out to get it—or maybe that should be who she wanted!’
‘You married young, Libs,’ I reminded her.
‘I’d like nothing better than to see her walk down the aisle with Jasper at some point, but she’s too young. They’re both too young, and Jasper hasn’t even finished his degree yet.’
‘You’ll just have to wait and see, and not jump your guns, Libs.’
Her face lit up. ‘Here’s Tim. He must have finished washing down the Bentley. The peacocks had left footprints all over it and they must have been jumping in muddy puddles first.’
‘At least the new ducks on the lily pond won’t do that, but they will give you eggs,’ I said.
The only point of the peacocks seemed to be that the guests often liked them to be in the photographs. Well, apart from the bride that one of them chased, that is, and I had a horrid feeling that Noah took a picture of that.
There’d been a return of that tension between us since he’d kissed me, not all due to the brisk way he distanced himself, because it was partly me doing it too. My Inner Slut was a very slippery customer.
Anyway, he’d been in London for a few days and he wasn’t due back until tomorrow, so he would miss the May Day celebrations.
Next morning I was out on the Green waiting for dawn to break with all the other mad maypolers, including the Graces and the members of the Neatslake Folk Society.
I’d set up the usual little table on the edge of the Green in front of the house, where I sold my cups of hot toddy from a sort of insulated bucket that I use every year. Harry, well wrapped up, was sitting on a folding chair next to it, taking the money. Mac was curled up underneath, twitching his eyebrows from time to time in an amused kind of way at the humans’ mad antics.
‘There’s Noah,’ Harry said, pointing across the Green.
‘So it is. But he wasn’t due to get back from London until tomorrow and I wouldn’t have thought this would be his kind of thing anyway. But I see he’s got his camera, so maybe that’s the explanation.’
Indeed, he now appeared to be taking pictures of the Graces, especially Pansy, who was dressed in a dirndl skirt and wool shawl, with a red and white spotted handkerchief over her head. She looked a bit like one of those Russian wooden matryoshka nesting dolls.
I spotted another unlikely figure too. ‘Good heavens! There’s Pia with Jasper! He must have insisted they come.’
I was right, for on spotting me they came straight over for a cup of hot toddy and Pia said, ‘What a god-forsaken hour of the morning, God-ma! But Jasper wanted to see the maypole dancing.’
‘Yes, they don’t do it in Sticklepond,’ Jasper agreed.
‘I didn’t realise it would be so cold.’ Pia shivered and he put his arm around her.
‘It’ll warm up soon, when the sun’s on the Green. It looks as if it will be a lovely day,’ I assured her.
‘A nice day for a white wedding, perhaps—and right on cue, there’s Rob Rafferty,’ she exclaimed. ‘But who is that girl he’s with? He’s all over her like a rash!’
I followed the direction of her gaze, my own eyes widening. ‘She’s called Anji and she’s a model.’
Pia turned and stared at me. ‘What, Noah’s girlfriend?’
‘Well, she was, but he says she isn’t now, and it looks like he was right.’
‘But I thought Rob was after you!’
‘Not really, not when I made it plain I only wanted to be friends.’
‘He had a pash on my mum too, at one time,’ said Jasper unexpectedly.
‘What, Rob Rafferty?’
‘Yes, but she didn’t take him seriously, thank goodness. I much prefer Nick as a stepfather!’
‘Yes, he’s much nicer,’ Pia agreed. ‘Oh, look, they seem to be leaving already. It hardly seems worth getting up if they are only staying for five minutes.’
‘From the look of them, I’d say they hadn’t been to bed yet,’ I said tartly. ‘They must have just stumbled across the May Day celebrations by accident on their way home from somewhere.’
And they were indeed on their way for, even over the music, the noisy roar of the sports car could be heard before it vanished into the distance.
‘There’s Noah too, near that oak tree,’ Pia said, waving, and he flapped a languid hand back, but didn’t move from where he was. I expect it was a good vantage point for taking snaps of the unwary, like a lion at a watering hole waiting to pounce. I wondered if he’d seen Rob and Anji, and if he had, whether he had cared…
As dawn began to warm the edges of the sky over the tall chimneys of Blessings, the dancers took their place around the pole and, as always, I felt terribly envious. I did attempt to learn how to do it once, but had to give up due to a tendency to go right instead of left, and in instead of out, tangling the whole thing irretrievably up into one huge knot.
The morris dancers shook out their handkerchiefs and formed a set nearby. Then the fiddler and an accordionist struck up—and they were off.
I love this bit; there’s something archaic and exciting about the music and the dawn, the intricate patterns of the dancers and the merry jingling of the morris men’s bells…My feet were tapping along to the rhythm of the music.
When the maypolers had finished and the morris men had performed a couple more dances, everyone formed into a big ring round the pole to dance, including all the onlookers.
‘Come on,’ said Jasper, dragging a reluctant Pia off.
I took off my apron and folded it as Noah wandered across and came to a stop in front of the table, looking at me quizzically. Then he held out his hand: ‘Come on—you know you want to!’
I laughed, because he’s a constant surprise to me, so that, as Elizabeth Bennet once said of Mr Darcy, I could never quite make his character out. I think the feeling was mutual. ‘Yes, of course, I was about to join in. I always do; it’s the high spot of my day.’
‘I’m staying here with Mac to look after the toddy,’ Harry said. ‘You can leave your camera with me, if you like. It’ll only get in your way.’
Noah, the elegant, urbane and sophisticated, threw himself into the proceedings with abandon, whirling me wildly round until I was dizzy. He had to hold me upright at the end of the dance and I’m sure I was pink in the face and hot, though he looked cool as a cucumber and his short dark hair was no more ruffled than it usually was. He might have been a little distant since we shared a kiss the other day, but now he was smiling down at me with that old, teasing expression in his light grey eyes and I was smiling right back…until out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a tall, thickset and familiar figure skulking on the edge of the onlookers.
Noah followed the direction of my gaze. ‘What is it?’
‘Ben,’ I said.
‘Ah, yes. He does a good line in glowering, doesn’t he? Very Heathcliff. It seems to be directed at me.’
‘At both of us. Perhaps I’m not supposed to have fun, any more? But even though he can’t possibly still think we’re having any kind of affair, after Mary put him straight, perhaps he still blames you for everything, in a perverse sort of way? I suppose that’s easier than blaming his own actions.’
‘Very profound, Dr Gray!’ he said.
‘I wish he would just stay away from Neatslake altogether. He should be with Olivia and the baby, not stalking me like this.’ Some of the joy seemed to have gone out of the morning and I turned and set off briskly back towards Harry.
‘Josie, wait!’ Noah said.
‘I can’t. I’ve got to pack the toddy things up,’ I tossed back over my shoulder.
‘Well, you don’t have to do a hundred-yard sprint first, do you?’ he said, following in my wake. ‘I don’t remember that being the finishing touch to any May celebrations I’ve ever been to before.’
‘That was Ben, that was,’ Harry said as we got back, ‘but Pia just went and spoke to him, and he’s gone now. I don’t know what he thinks he’s playing at, hanging around glaring at you like that. In fact, what’s he doing here at all, if he’s just become a dad, that’s what I’d like to know?’
‘I don’t think he’s taking well to marriage and fatherhood, Harry. He’s done a runner, according to Mary, and is staying up here a lot with Mark and Stella.’
I gave Mac the last biscuit from the plate and put the lid on the toddy container, which was empty apart from a few dregs and a half-drowned sprig of borage in the bottom.
‘I just told Ben he should be in London with his wife and baby,’ Pia said, arriving with Jasper in tow. The Three Graces, I noticed, were also heading in my direction, all wearing strange little rubber boots with low heels against the dampness of the grass.
‘You really shouldn’t have done,’ I told Pia.
‘Yes, but Mum said you thought he’d been hanging around watching you lately, which is creepy.’
‘He could have turned nasty, Pia,’ I said, because the old, easygoing and laid-back Ben seemed to have vanished inside this angry stranger. ‘What did he say?’
‘Mind your own business!’ she said indignantly, turning pink.
‘I told you not to,’ Jasper pointed out. ‘He’s right.’
‘Yes, it is my business. Josie’s my god-ma, and I love her!’
‘Here are the Graces—let’s not worry them with it,’ I suggested.
‘We’re stretching our legs,’ Lily cried gaily, though I would have thought they’d already stretched them, since I’d noticed all three were dancing earlier.
‘Yes, and we thought we’d help you carry everything back into the house,’ said Pansy, ‘only you seem to have lots of helpers already.’
‘But the more the merrier,’ I said.
Mac uncurled himself from under the table and I stooped and got Noah’s camera and handed it to him. ‘There you are. I suppose you’ll be taking pictures later, at the reception?’
‘I’ll look in, but they sound, from what Libby says, to be a very stuffy and uninteresting lot. I wish they could all be like Freddie’s wedding!’
‘Well, the one on Monday might be more fun,’ I said, picking up the big bin of used brightly coloured plastic tumblers, which would be washed and put away, ready for next year. ‘They’re marrying in St Cuthbert’s and there will be one of my cakes—a bed of roses. They’ve chosen a rose theme for the whole day, from rose petal confetti, like Libby had, to roses on the table and cupcakes with crystallised rose petals on them. Roses, roses, all the way.’
‘I think that is so romantic!’ Lily said.
‘Did you see your girlfriend with Rob Rafferty, Uncle Noah?’ asked Pia cheekily, and Jasper nudged her in the ribs.
‘Ex-girlfriend,’ Noah said, ‘and he is welcome to her. In fact, I’m delighted.’
Seeing Harry struggling to rise from the folding chair,he unobtrusively took his elbow and helped him to his feet, before picking up the insulated toddy container and following me into the cottage. In fact, Harry, Pia, Jasper and the Graces all trooped after me, carrying the folding chair and table and all the other bits and pieces, which made quite a crowd in the warm kitchen. Mac got under the table, out of the way.
‘I’ve told Jasper you make the best cakes in Neatslake,’ Pia said hopefully, so it was just as well there was a whole fresh fruitcake in the tin, which I have discovered is Noah’s favourite, and a malt loaf that just needed buttering.
‘What about a bacon sandwich first, lass?’ suggested Harry, putting the kettle on. It looked like becoming quite a party.
Chapter Thirty-two
Raspberries
I had the first duck eggs from my friends’ new flock—if you can call several ducks together a flock’? A gaggle, or maybe that should be a waddle, of ducks?
But anyway, they made a nice change and in return, I gave them some raspberries, since they don’t expect to be picking their own before next year.
‘Cakes and Ale’
The Bed of Roses cake was a big hit and the reception was perhaps the prettiest yet, though with an excess of pink for my personal taste. But since I’d just put pink icing on a couple of hundred cupcakes, that might have jaundiced my views slightly.
I did pop across to join the Graces outside the church before the reception, to see the bride emerge, and lovely she looked too, in a dress trimmed with palest pink silk roses and Swarovski crystals. She carried a bouquet of yet more pink roses and even the table decorations at the reception continued the theme.
Perhaps you can have too much of a good thing?
When the official photographer had gone, Noah insisted on taking some pictures of the bride in among the rose beds in the garden and, such is his charm—or maybe his fame—she did it without a second thought about the dangers of getting the hem of her dress or her white satin shoes grubby.
When I saw the photographs later, she looked as if she were trying to fight her way out
of a thorny bower, but I think that’s the effect he was after.
After May Day Ben must have gone back to London, because that feeling of being watched vanished, which was quite a relief…
It’s a pity I don’t feel the same when Noah isn’t here. Despite my best intentions, I’ve so got used to him being around, working in his studio, popping in for a chat, or doing the hard chores around the garden without being asked…especially cleaning out the henhouse, my least favourite job of all!
He says he doesn’t mind that chore in the least, because he is in love with Aggie, and wants her home to be beautiful. And actually, they do seem to have a bit of a thing going. He talks to her, and she answers, in hen language. I feel quite jealous; it used to be me she followed around all the time!
I tend to forget Noah is this smart, rich London photographer, until some sudden languidly elegant movement of his hands, or passing mention of some famous person who is going to sit for his portrait, jolts me back into remembering.
I keep telling myself that I mustn’t get too used to him being around, because once the wedding season is over at Blessings, I don’t suppose I will see much of him at all.
Harry will miss him too, but when I said as much to him he gave me a strange look and said, ‘No, I won’t, then, you daft lass,’ so either he is in denial about how much he has enjoyed Noah’s company, or he’s starting to lose his marbles.
I told Libby and she said it was me who was losing my marbles, and then asked me, if I had to design my own wedding cake, what I would choose?
That was changing the subject with a vengeance.
‘I have no idea,’ I said, staring at her in some surprise. ‘I’ve never thought about it…but it’s never likely to be a problem I have to face anyway, is it?’
* * *
Funnily enough, though, once she’d started me thinking about the subject, I kept pondering what sort of wedding cake I would like. A garden trug with trowel and secateurs? Jam jars and wine bottles supporting a tabletop covered in cakes?
Anyway, I was standing dreamily pondering this among the raspberry canes later that day, while absently stuffing my face with the fruit rather than filling the basket by my side, when Noah came through from Harry’s garden. He made me jump, because I hadn’t known he was around.
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