Fandango in the Apse!

by Jane Taylor

  ‘This garden is beautiful now,’ Alison remarked as we sat on loungers on the lawn.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘God – do you remember when we first saw it?’

  ‘Don’t remind me, I thought we would never get it straight.’

  Just then, I happened to glance up to the roof. ‘Oh! Look up there Ali… I think there’s a tile loose.’

  She shaded her eyes from the glare of the sun and squinted to where I was pointing.

  ‘Oh yeah, looks like its slipped or something. Robbie is with Mark, shall I ask him to give you a ring about it? I should see him later when he drops Mark off.’

  I ignored the little flip my traitorous stomach did at the mention of Robbie. Christ! It was ridiculous, but for some reason it always happened. Over the years I’d occasionally come into contact with him. Usually at some do or outing, Alison and Mark or our other mutual friends had arranged and usually, a good-looking woman accompanied him. Once he came to sort out a problem with the garage door, but his monosyllabic answers to perfectly normal questions pissed me off so much, I left him to it.

  ‘Yep…that would be great…he put the damn roof on in the first place.’

  Alison took a long pull on her very weak Pimms. ‘Mmm… that’s good.’

  I looked around me and couldn’t help a feeling of pride. With Sam’s now expert help with the planting, the garden had a quintessentially English feel. The beds bulged with old country garden plants and a vegetable plot, which seemed to expand each year. He now grew peas, beans and gooseberries along with salad vegetables.

  ‘It’s amazing what can be done in five years,’ I remarked more to myself than to Alison.

  ‘Five years? Is it that long? It only seems five minutes.’

  ‘That’s because we’re getting old,’ I laughed.

  ‘You speak for yourself, missus. You know what they say… you are only as old as the man you …’

  I had to groan… here we go; Alison was off on one again. ‘Pleeese don’t ruin a lovely day with your obsession with my love life or the lack thereof,’ I begged.

  Alison had made it her mission in life to try to fix me up with any eligible man that happened by. I had endured many a dinner party, feeling as uncomfortable as the poor chap Alison had chosen to reignite my dormant passion. Recently she’d given up, but obviously my relief was to be short lived.

  ‘Katie, I hate to point out the obvious, but you’ll soon be what? Thirty eight? Time’s a marching lady and if you are not careful you’ll…’

  ‘Alison?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Ok, but…’

  ‘No buts…I don’t want to hear it.

  ‘All right, but I’m not giving up,’ Alison said, as she reclined her chair and closed her eyes. I watched her for a while; the vibrant red hair of her youth had darkened over the years, but – and I smiled as I thought of this – her freckles remained prominent over every part of her body. She hated them, of course, but I found them endearing.

  ‘I wouldn’t expect anything less,’ I said after a moment.

  ‘What?’

  ‘For you not to give up, you never have, have you? I still remember you coming to my rescue in the playground that day.’ Alison laughed.

  ‘Oh bless, I felt so sorry for you with those horrendous shoes.’

  ‘Do you remember what we did?’

  Alison sat back up and grinned at me. ‘You mean, when I used to bring a pair of mine for you to change into every day?’

  I nodded.

  ‘She was a right bitch, your mother. Fancy doing that to your child? Jesus, my boys won’t leave the house unless they have branded trainers, not to mention coats and bags.’

  ‘Mine neither. You are so lucky to have a mother like yours, she was wonderful when we were kids.’

  ‘She was, wasn’t she? She still is, she’s forever posting something or other she thinks might come in useful.’

  ‘It’s a shame I only see her at Christmas, now.’

  ‘Well, whose fault is that? You know you have an open invite every time we go down there.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t like to intrude.’

  Whatever Alison was going to say was drowned out by the children’s return from the orchard. Their cries of hunger prevented further talk.

  Alison struck up the barbeque and I busied myself getting the food ready, which was a mammoth task. Five teenage boys and Missy, who now at nine, preferred her full title, Melissa, polished off food quicker than we could cook it.

  Later as we were clearing up, Alison cast an anxious look out of the kitchen window at the dark grey clouds now blotting out the sun.

  ‘Looks like rain, I think I’ll get off soon, Katie. Judging by those clouds it’s going to be quite a down pour.’

  ‘OK, I’ll send the boy’s up for their overnight things. I hope it isn’t raining tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that, they’ll all be soaked in the boat anyway. Mine always come back with a pile of soggy clothes. Sea fishing, according to Mark, is about getting wet and cold – I can’t see the fun it that, but there you go, that’s boys for you.’

  ‘Are you sure Mark doesn’t mind taking mine too? I sort of felt they had invited themselves.’

  The boys had heard Mark discussing the fishing trip to Bridlington with his sons, and cleverly let it be known they had never been fishing at sea…hence the

  invitation.

  ‘Not at all,’ Alison said now. ‘You know Mark – the more the merrier.’

  The first huge drops of rain fell as I was waving Alison’s people carrier out of the drive. I rushed around to the back garden to collect the loungers to store them in the garage and literally got soaked to the skin. Actually, that wasn’t too hard as I was still only wearing my bikini top and denim cut-offs. By the time I was back in the kitchen, the rain was coming down in sheets and I cast a despairing glance at the flowers being flattened by the deluge.

  A hot shower, I thought, as I shivered my way upstairs after a cursory towelling in the kitchen. Moments later, I stood in the bathroom looking at a large bulge in the ceiling that was swelling by the second. I climbed on the toilet and gently poked at it with a finger. You know what happened next, don’t you? You’re right…the bulge burst and spilled torrents of rainwater over me and most of the bathroom floor.

  Jesus Christ! I looked up and could see daylight. ‘Damn! Damn! DAMN! I yelled as I ran downstairs, unsure of whether the whole roof was going to cave in. Back out in the garden I looked up at the loose tile, which had now slipped down and was sitting precariously on the guttering leaving a gaping hole in its wake. I knew I had to do something, otherwise with the way the rain was coming down, the whole of upstairs would be flooded.

  My mind was working overtime as I gauged how high the roof was. From the ground, it was high, but I thought if I could get a ladder up onto the flat garage roof and slide along a bit, then I might be able to reach the hole. I dashed into the shed and not without difficulty, manoeuvred the large ladder Sam used for pruning the fruit trees, to rest against the garage wall.

  Next, I raided Toby’s toolbox and grabbed a handful of nails and a hammer. I put the nails in my pocket and shoved the hammer through a loop in my waistband. I gave a brief thought to my footwear as I started up the ladder and decided as my sandals had rubber soles they would be safe enough.

  Getting on to the garage roof was simple but dragging the ladder up behind me wasn’t so easy. My arms were aching when I finally had it place – as far to the edge of the roof as I thought safe. It took some doing, but I managed to get onto the main roof of the house. I had to shimmy a few feet to the left of the ladder and the garage roof to reach the tile and then crawl another couple of feet further up the slippery tiles to get to the hole. Are you thinking what a bloody idiot I was? I don’t blame you, so am I as I write this. But, at the time my only focus was trying to stop the upstairs carpets being ruined. The small matter
of taking my life in my hands didn’t enter my rain soaked skull.

  Ten minutes later, I had slotted the tile back into its position and nailed it down. It wasn’t much of a job but the best I could do and certainly better than nothing. Lobbing the hammer onto the patio below, I started to make my way back towards the ladder. With grazed knees from the rough tiles on my way up, I thought sliding along on my bottom was the way forward. This was fine until I had to turn around to get my foot on the top rung of the ladder. To put it bluntly… my foot slipped in my now squishy sandals, I jerked, kicked the ladder with my foot and then watched in horror as it crashed to the patio below.

  I couldn’t believe I’d just done that. ‘You Stupid, Stupid, Idiot! I yelled into the rain. So there I was, perched on top of the roof like a demented gargoyle, in the pouring rain wearing nothing but a bikini top, a pair of shorts and no way of getting down, and it was starting to get dark.

  I could feel the panic begin to creep in, and I refused to let it. Even in the chaos of my mind at that point, I knew I had to keep a straight head. ‘Right’, I said aloud,’ you got into this mess and you have to get yourself out of it’.

  I began assessing my options – shouting for help wasn’t one of them – I didn’t have neighbours. I could try to jump onto the garage roof… but it was a long jump and I might break an ankle then I’d still be stuck, but also in pain. I scrapped that option. I could try climbing down the drainpipe – but that was right at the other end of the house and meant I’d have to crawl across the whole roof and then swing myself off the edge of it and then… I definitely scrapped that one!

  So, that was it – I was screwed. I had no other option, I just had to cry, which I did for at least five minutes. It was almost dark, I was soaked, freezing cold and stuck God knows how many feet up on a roof, wouldn’t you have cried too?

  I was lying back on the roof with my feet wedged in the gutter, wondering if you could die from hypothermia in the summer, when I first heard the sound of tyres on gravel. Immediately alert, I began shouting for help as loud as my lungs would allow. I heard footsteps then someone shouted.

  ‘Katie? Where are you?

  It was Robbie. Oh-my-God, it was Robbie! ‘Up here – on the roof!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘On – the – roof!’ I looked down and could just make out a figure below.

  ‘What the hell are you doing up there?’ he shouted.

  ‘The ladder fell – I can’t get down.’ I heard the scrape of the ladder against the wall and then Robbie was on the garage roof, he looked furious.

  ‘Did you come up here to mend that tile? Are you a complete fool?’

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that if he had put in on right in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to, but in the interest of self-preservation I thought better of it. Anyway, I was so cold my teeth were chattering making speech difficult.

  ‘Can you just help me down please?’ I begged, I was crying again and had started shivering violently.

  With no more effort than if it had been a feather, Robbie dragged the ladder up and climbed until he got to me. His voice had lost its anger as he guided my feet to each rung. We followed the same procedure down from the garage roof, with Robbie directly below me on the ladder.

  I had never been so relieved to be in my kitchen a few moments later. My teeth were chattering, I was still shivering and I was still crying, but joy of joys, I was off the damned roof.

  Robbie grabbed the towel I’d used earlier and started to rub my back and arms with it, but I was so cold it hurt.

  ‘Right, let’s get you in a hot shower,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t… flooded… n-no ceiling.’

  Robbie left the kitchen and a few moments later, I heard him upstairs. I managed to move my frozen legs across the kitchen and flicked the switch on the kettle – I needed a hot drink. By the time he returned I’d made two cups of coffee.

  ‘Leave that,’ he said. ‘Put this on, you’re coming with me.’

  Really quite unaware and equally uninterested in what was happening, except that Robbie had found a thick, woolly sweater for me to wear, I watched as he took my keys from their hook and ushered me out of the door.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked, once I was in the front seat of his car.

  ‘My house.’ Hmm… that was a bit terse.

  ‘Why?

  ‘Because you need a hot bath and you can’t have one at yours.’

  The mention of the bath brought back the state of my bathroom.

  ‘Oh! I can’t go, I have to mop up…’

  ‘I’ve done it… well as much as could be done tonight, you’ll need a new ceiling though.’

  It was too much – I started blubbering again. Robbie reached over and squeezed my hand; it was an oddly comforting gesture, I wasn’t expecting it, especially from him.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s not too bad… we’ll sort it.’

  Please don’t be kind, I thought. If I had any chance of turning off the waterworks, kindness in any form, wasn’t going to help. And why was I still crying anyway? For God’s sake, I was off the roof; catastrophe had been avoided, the bathroom would be fixed. Get a hold of yourself girl, I griped silently. I took a deep breath and blew my nose with the piece of kitchen roll I had grabbed on the way out of the door.

  My voice still sounded wobbly when I eventually issued a belated thanks to Robbie for getting me off the roof.

  ‘Think nothing of it.’ He shifted gear aggressively and as his powerful car accelerated far too quickly for the road conditions, I lambasted myself for bring up the whole roof thing again. Then a thought struck me.

  ‘So how come you were there anyway?’ I asked.

  ‘I was dropping Mark off when Alison came home. She mentioned the tile.’

  ‘Didn’t she ask you to ring me? I asked her to. I wasn’t expecting you to drop everything to come over. To be honest, it didn’t look too bad until it started raining.’

  Robbie shrugged. ‘She did, but then as you say, the heaven’s opened, so I thought as you are on my way home, I’d have a quick look. Good job too,’ he growled.

  We were just pulling into Robbie’s drive as he said this, and as soon as he pulled up behind his van he got out, slammed the door with a resounding clunk and took off in the direction of the house. I presumed I was to follow him. Well you would wouldn’t you – if you were supposed to be there for a bath? I was thinking how rude this man was, when I had to make my way through the open front door alone.

  Robbie was nowhere in sight, although I could just make out the sound of running water somewhere. I had only seconds to take in the transformation of the bungalow when he came through a door to my left, followed by puffs of billowing steam.

  ‘Your bath is running,’ he said, with only a cursory glance in my direction.

  My thanks hit the back of his head as he retreated into another room and again slammed the door.

  Well! Why the door slamming? I was beginning to feel indignant; after all, I hadn’t asked to be brought here. It was his damned suggestion, so what was his problem? Only my gratitude for his earlier rescue stopped me slamming the door myself.

  The bathroom was huge and sitting in the centre was an ultra-modern version of an of an old fashioned roll top bath. It was deep and took a while to fill, but it was worth the wait when I sank into the deep bubbles a few minutes later. I tried to suppress a grin at the bubbles, but couldn’t quite manage it. Aw… even though he was mad as hell, Robbie had still remembered the bubble bath.

  I was sinking into quiet oblivion when a knock on the door startled me. I hastily swirled the bubbles into strategic positions and ducked down in the water so only my head was visible.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can I come in a sec?’

  What? Jesus… he wanted to come in?

  ‘Umm… OK.’

  Robbie appeared with a steaming cup, and what appeared to be a dressing gown slung over his forearm. Looking directly at
my face and nowhere else, he placed the cup on the side of the bath.

  ‘Drink this, it’s hot.’ Hmm… No – I am not going to say it, even if I was thinking it. But between you and me he did look good, though. He had obviously showered and was looking great in a pair of grey sweatpants and a black T-shirt.

  ‘This was a present from my sister, I’ve never worn it,’ he said, as he placed the dressing gown over a towel rail. Then, without a word, he scooped my soggy clothes from the floor and left. Oh my giddy aunt! Robbie Collins was washing my smalls. I knew my face was pink and it had nothing to do with the heat of the water.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It has to be done, I told myself, as I stared at the door. I’d been in the bathroom for at least forty-five minutes, the last five plucking up courage to actually open the door and face Robbie. Finally losing patience with my ridiculous carry on, I took a deep breath and yanked the door open.

  I was rooted to the spot by the beauty of Robbie’s home. I could now see almost all of the downstairs was open plan. Hidden lighting softly illuminated different areas. Two large sofas sat either side of a massive flat screen, while a dining table and chairs nestled on what seemed to be a purpose built plinth. The room was dotted with occasional tables, supporting either huge but elegant lamps or amazing pieces of beautifully carved wood. The overall feel of the room was warm but intensely male. Wow!

  I wandered to the back of the house following soft blue LED lights inserted low in the wall and was again surprised by the kitchen. It bore no resemblance in either size or décor to the one I remembered. Like the rest of the house, it was stunning, if a little plain for my taste. I felt a pot plant or two might not go amiss, but decided to keep my opinion to myself when I caught sight of Robbie sitting at a table in the corner of the room. The only lights on in here were the ones under the units, but I could just about make out his features and it didn’t look promising.