The Truth About You, Me and Us

by Kate Field

  ‘Fair enough.’ Joel turned an amused smile on her. ‘I’ll pay you to draw up some plans, then you’re under no obligation.’

  ‘Talking of money, it must have cost a few bob to do all this,’ Malcolm said, gesturing round at the barn. ‘This is top-quality work. Have you paid for it all?’

  ‘Malcolm!’ Fiona nudged him. ‘You can’t ask that!’

  ‘Ask what you want. I don’t have any secrets.’ Joel smiled, and returned to the rest of the group, followed by Helen. ‘I managed to get a small grant but the rest was my money.’

  ‘You must be loaded if you could afford this.’ Saskia edged nearer Joel.

  ‘Not any more.’ He laughed, and moved towards Malcolm. ‘I’ve invested some of the proceeds from the sale of my business into Church Farm.’

  ‘So you’re confident it’s going to be a success?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Of course.’ His smile grew as he looked at her again. ‘But to be honest, I’d have done it anyway. My grandparents started Church Farm. My mum and dad met here, when Mum was a potter in the Milking Parlour in the early seventies. It’s a special place for my parents and I’d do anything to bring it back to the glory days that they remember.’

  His eyes didn’t leave Helen’s as he spoke. His enthusiasm, his passion, seemed to flow straight into her, reigniting that fizz.

  ‘What a lovely family history,’ Fiona said. ‘I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’d love to be part of it.’

  ‘Depends on the price,’ Malcolm said. He rocked back and forwards on his heels. ‘Helen warned us about the inflated rent being charged here.’

  ‘Inflated rent?’ Joel repeated, eyebrows raised as he regarded Helen. ‘I thought there weren’t going to be any more wild accusations?’

  She thought he looked amused, rather than cross, but all the same she cringed with embarrassment, especially now she had heard why he was so determined to make Church Farm a success.

  ‘That was based on when I came before.’ She offered Joel an apologetic smile. He accepted it, and returned it with interest. ‘But I can’t imagine you’d improve the place to this extent and then lower the price.’

  He studied her for a moment.

  ‘I’ll offer you the first year’s rent for ten percent less than you’re paying at St Andrew’s. And a three-month trial period, terminable on two weeks’ notice.’

  ‘Does that apply to all of us?’ Saskia demanded.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you can have me. I want a space by the door. Anyone object?’

  No one dared.

  ‘I might take a night or two to think it over, if that’s okay,’ Fiona said, twisting her hands together. ‘It’s a big step.’

  ‘Take as long as you need. I didn’t expect any of you to decide today. Come back at another time and see how busy we can get. It can be packed at weekends, especially when the Farmers’ Market is on. And you should check out Helen’s option in the shopping centre, to be sure this is where you want to be.’

  ‘Have you ever been there?’ Saskia asked. ‘It’s a dive. God knows why Helen thought we’d want to move there. If it doesn’t sell for a pound, no one’s interested.’

  ‘I thought it was the only option,’ Helen said, but her heart wasn’t in her defence. She’d known it was never going to happen as soon as she’d clapped eyes on the Hay Barn, and she couldn’t mourn the loss, especially as she was buzzing with ideas for what to do here.

  ‘Are there other artists here?’ Malcolm asked. ‘Will we be scrapping for customers?’

  Helen had a sudden image of Malcolm duelling other artists with his paintbrush, and struggled to hide her smile. Joel caught her eye and his lips twitched.

  ‘There are two other artists. But,’ he continued over Malcolm’s groan, ‘one specialises in wildlife, and the other creates whimsical paintings and murals for children’s bedrooms. She’s fantastic,’ he added to Helen. ‘You should have a look for Megan.’

  ‘Does anyone else sell sewing accessories or patchwork?’ Helen could have kicked herself for not asking before. It should have been her first question, if she hadn’t been distracted by the warm stone and the warmer smiles.

  ‘No, but we do have two ladies who knit. Contemporary stuff, not tea cosies and bed socks,’ he explained, as Saskia pulled her face. ‘We’re going to supply them with wool from our sheep. Perhaps they can put on a spinning demonstration in here if we’re having an exhibition space.’

  They spent some more time looking round the Hay Barn. Fiona and Malcolm were deep in discussion, pointing around, apparently deciding where they would prefer to go. Helen paced the floor, trying to gauge the size and scribbling notes on the back of a receipt for later.

  ‘Do you need a tape measure?’ Joel asked, as Helen chewed on her pen, having lost count of the number of footsteps when Malcolm got in the way. ‘Or I have the plans with the measurements on in my office.’

  ‘That would be great, and much more accurate than this.’ She waved the receipt at him, laughing. ‘It’s obvious that any shop would be bigger than the one I have now. So would you charge me ten percent less than I pay already, or what I would have been paying for somewhere this size?’

  ‘Interesting question. Stay for lunch and I’ll think it over.’

  ‘I can’t. I have Megan.’ The words shot out as a knee-jerk response.

  ‘I was expecting her to have lunch, too.’ He laughed. ‘Surely you’re not accusing me of starving children now?’

  ‘She has a play date after lunch. We’ll need to go soon.’ It was a slightly twisted version of the truth, but he wasn’t to know that. They weren’t meeting Megan’s friend until three, so there was plenty of time. But why had he asked? Was it to talk about Church Farm, or something else entirely? She hadn’t forgotten that he had asked her out for a drink before, even though her head had been so full of Daniel over the weekend that she hadn’t given it any thought. And she couldn’t forget the odd fizz she had felt earlier, and that was bubbling away again now under the scrutiny of intense brown eyes. Lunch didn’t seem a good idea at all.

  ‘So Megan can have dates, but not you? That hardly seems fair.’

  Helen shrugged, looking away across the barn.

  ‘It doesn’t need to be fair. I’m a mother.’

  ‘I think you’re allowed to be a woman too.’

  He didn’t push the point, and walked away. A few minutes later, Helen saw him laughing with Saskia. She wondered if he was asking her to lunch instead. There was no danger Saskia would refuse him; and why shouldn’t he ask? They were both attractive, unattached, uncomplicated. It was an obvious match. Helen said a quiet goodbye to Malcolm and Fiona, and went to collect Megan.

  ‘Helen!’ Before she had even reached the Milking Parlour, Joel caught her up. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To fetch Megan. I said we needed to go soon.’ She carried on walking. He stayed at her side.

  ‘You can’t go yet. I promised to show her the animals.’

  ‘I don’t think there’ll be time today.’

  ‘But she’ll think I lied.’

  That drew Helen’s eyes to his face. There was no smile, and faint frown lines had appeared between his brows. He was serious. He genuinely was concerned about what Helen’s daughter thought of him, though she couldn’t imagine why. She didn’t reply, and he followed her into the Feed Store and through to the café. Megan was sitting quietly, entranced as Ron folded paper napkins into various origami shapes. A duck, a boat and a whale were already floating on the table, amidst a sea of gingerbread crumbs.

  ‘Time to go, sweetie,’ Helen said, kissing the top of Megan’s head. ‘Has she been good?’

  ‘She always is,’ Joan confirmed. ‘And she certainly enjoyed the gingerbread sheep. No, put your money away,’ she said, flapping her hand as Helen reached in her bag for her purse. ‘I’m going to miss her when we leave St Andrew’s. You know I’m always available to babysit, don’t you? If you want to go out one night… w
ith anyone…’

  Joan was a truly terrible actress. Helen wasn’t fooled by the innocent old-lady face. Could there be a doubt over which ‘anyone’ Joan thought she might like to go out with? She wheeled round to scrutinise Joel suspiciously, wondering if he’d cooked this up with Joan, but he had bent down to admire the napkin creatures, an unexpected flush on his cheeks.

  ‘Can we see the animals?’ Megan asked, as Helen zipped her back into her coat.

  ‘Not today, we don’t have time now.’

  ‘But I’ve been good! And he said I could!’

  ‘And you saw all those lovely sheep, didn’t you?’ Not even Helen’s jolliest voice and a big squeeze could dispel the storm clouds gathering on Megan’s face.

  ‘Why don’t I show you the very special ones, and you can see the rest of the animals next time you come?’ Joel glanced at Helen. ‘They’re in my office so you’ll be passing on the way out anyway.’

  ‘That’s a good idea, isn’t it?’ Helen said brightly and, saying goodbye to Joan and Ron, she dragged a still-frowning Megan out of the Feed Store and across into the office building opposite. She was bracing herself for fish – and Megan’s inevitable disappointment – when Joel stopped in front of a wooden door which had a sign on reading ‘JAM Design’. He crouched down in front of Megan.

  ‘We need to go in slowly and quietly so we don’t scare them, okay?’

  Megan nodded, her eyes wide in anticipation. Helen regarded the closed door with a rising sense of dread. Fish couldn’t be scared, could they? So what else might a man keep in his office? Insects? Mice? Rats? God help her – snakes?

  Helen’s fears must have been engraved on her face, because Joel’s lips were trembling in amusement as he finally opened the door to reveal a large office with a wooden floor and a picture window framing a view of fields and trees. There were two desks, one scattered with papers and the other holding a keyboard, two computer screens and a laptop. Shelves filled the wall behind this desk, and Helen was relieved to notice the lack of tanks or cages. She heard an excited squeak.

  ‘Kittens,’ Megan breathed. She was gripping Helen’s hand tightly, and staring at a basket on the floor, in which lay a fluffy cat surrounded by four tiny kittens. Joel knelt down by the basket, and stroked the cat between the ears.

  ‘She doesn’t hate cats, does she?’ he asked, when Megan didn’t move. Helen laughed.

  ‘She loves them. But she’s never seen a real kitten.’

  Smiling, Joel picked up a tortoiseshell kitten.

  ‘Do you want to come and have a look?’

  Megan nodded, and tiptoed over to Joel, having clearly taken his warning about being quiet rather too much to heart. She sat down on the floor next to him, and he held out the kitten so she could stroke it. Delight burst over her face as she touched the soft fur.

  ‘Is this your cat?’ Helen asked.

  ‘It might be more accurate to say I’m her human.’ Joel picked up the next kitten for Megan. ‘She adopted me when I moved here.’

  ‘Whether you wanted her or not?’

  ‘She must have recognised me as a lonely cat lover. I used to have two, but…’ His smile faded a notch. ‘I lost them in a custody battle.’

  ‘And now you have five!’

  ‘Yes.’ Joel grimaced, and picked up the next one for Megan. ‘I didn’t realise she hadn’t been done.’

  ‘How old are they?’

  ‘Almost four weeks. Luckily I’ve found homes for three of them, when they’re old enough to leave mum. But no one wants the runt.’ He picked up the final kitten, a black one with white patches on both front paws, which was definitely smaller and sleepier than the others.

  ‘Can we have it, Mummy?’

  How had she not seen that coming? Joel mouthed ‘sorry’ at her, as Helen wondered what excuse she could possibly make. She loved cats, but a kitten would be too much to cope with on top of everything else at the moment.

  ‘I don’t think Joel wants us to take away his last kitten,’ she said, passing the mantle firmly back to him. He obligingly picked it up.

  ‘This little one is very special,’ he told Megan, placing it carefully down in her lap. ‘I think mummy cat will want it to stay with her so she can look after it herself, like your mummy looks after you.’ He watched as Megan gently touched the kitten. ‘Would you like to choose its name?’

  ‘It’s Mr Cat.’

  ‘It’s a girl, so perhaps Miss Cat…’

  ‘No. It’s Mr Cat, isn’t it, Mummy?’

  ‘Megan’s favourite toy cat looks just like it, and is called Mr Cat,’ Helen explained.

  ‘Okay, Mr Cat it is.’

  ‘Is Mr Cat mine now?’

  ‘She can be your cat, but she’ll live here with her mummy, agreed?’ Megan nodded at Joel. ‘You can visit her whenever you want, and if your mummy gives me her phone number I’ll send you photos so you can see how she’s growing. How does that sound?’

  ‘Good,’ Megan agreed.

  Joel stood up and turned to Helen, his smile wide and dimples deep.

  ‘You’d better let me have your number.’

  Helen wrote her number on a post-it note and handed it to him. Joel watched her, still smiling.

  ‘The answer,’ he said, as she put the pen down, ‘is that you can have the largest unit for ten percent less than you pay now for your small one. Tempted?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Is there anything else I can do to persuade you?’

  ‘No. I need to work on the plans and see what space is available, and get some feedback from my customers, to find out if they would be happy to come here.’

  ‘Don’t forget I can help with your website. We can set up online sales.’

  Helen laughed.

  ‘Let me think about it, okay?’ She looked across at Megan, who was engrossed with the kittens. ‘It won’t affect the others, will it? Whatever I decide?’

  ‘No. They’d still be welcome. But I want you.’

  Helen’s eyes were irresistibly drawn to his. He gazed back, his expression serious, but with a hint of amusement about his lips. And there was something else too, about the way he was looking at her, and the way that look was making her feel, which made Helen realise there was more at stake than she had anticipated. She had to decide whether her business would survive the move to Church Farm; and on first impressions from this morning, she had begun to think it might. But would she survive the frequent contact with Joel Markham?

  CHAPTER 12

  Daniel called round after work twice over the next week, and again on Sunday afternoon, arriving so early this time that they had barely finished lunch. He patiently played monotonous games of Snap, re-did the same old jigsaws, and inevitably had to join in ‘guess the name of the doll’ until Megan rolled around on the floor in giggles as he came up with ever more outlandish suggestions.

  With each visit, Helen could see Daniel embroidering his mark on Megan, binding them together with tiny blanket stitches in a strong, almost invisible thread, that was part agony, part delight to witness. She sat in the kitchen sewing, hearing them talk, hearing them laugh and, as her needle jabbed in and out of the fabric, so the refrain poked relentlessly in her heart: is this how it might have been?

  It was a relief, during the week, to let the solid doors of St Andrew’s close behind her, shutting out all that was going on at home as she tried to focus on her work. A local independent school had commissioned her to create a metre-square wall hanging, based on a design by a Year 6 student, to celebrate the opening of a new junior school building. When the shop was quiet, she threw herself into sketching out ideas, putting together a mood board of the material she wanted to use, and embroidering some sample pieces of the school’s crest to show how it might look. Along with finishing off existing commissions and producing more items for the Christmas display, she was kept busy for most of the days, and often many hours of the night as well.

  As customers came to Crazy Little Things, Helen canvas
sed opinions on a possible move to Church Farm. Quite a number of her regulars had heard of it, and thought it was a great place for her to move to. Some of the more elderly customers were thrilled to have a different outing to look forward to. Reaction wasn’t so positive from the lunchtime shoppers, mainly younger sewers who worked all week and had commitments at the weekend: but they seemed keen on an online shop, and there was unanimous interest from all age groups about the possible workshops and classes that Helen put forward as ideas. If she could keep a decent proportion of existing customers, and attract new ones at Church Farm, she was optimistic that the move could work.

  She hadn’t given Joel a decision yet; she hadn’t spoken to him since they had gone to view the Hay Barn. She had prepared plans for the interior, and drawn pictures of how it could look, and had carried them round with her for three days, uncertain what to do next. Should she deliver them to Church Farm? She knew Joel would like them, and could imagine the way he would smile if she showed them to him. And then she felt guilt burn her skin like a rash. How could she be thinking of another man’s smile? Daniel might be long past returning her feelings, but she had never stopped loving him; he was the father of her child, in her thoughts every day, and the connection between them was irreplaceable. So she passed the plans to Joan to hand over, and tried to appear indifferent when an effusive text arrived, every word laced with a smile.

  On Friday morning, two days before the Sunday lunch with the Blakes that Helen had been trying hard not to think about, her mobile phone rang as she was packing her bags, about to head off to the independent school to present her ideas for the wall hanging.

  ‘Hello, is that Helen?’

  Helen’s bag dropped to the floor, skeins of thread rolling across the shop like colourful mice. She hadn’t recognised the number, but there was no mistaking the voice. It was Valerie Blake; and it was the last thing she needed before an important meeting.

  ‘Yes. Hello Valerie.’

  There was a momentary pause, as if Valerie had been wrong-footed by Helen guessing her identity before she could announce herself.