‘How come people booked so quickly?’ Alex asked. ‘Apparently, we offered a twenty per cent discount for a limited period,’ Emily replied, still wincing at the consequences of their drunken game. ‘I’ve been a member of that forum for years and I should have remembered how quickly people respond to things on there. Crafters are a determined bunch.’
‘No kidding,’ said Harri. ‘Well, you said you wanted to be spontaneous and seize the moment.’
Emily grimaced. ‘Don’t remind me. I used to have a good job in a bank. What on earth am I doing?’
Alex laughed. ‘Hey, listen, I know exactly how you’re feeling. When I walked out of my job I was completely scared by what lay ahead. But it’s all part of the thrill ride, Emily. Just roll with it. I lost track of the amount of times I ended up in crazy situations when I was travelling. Like the time I was in Puerto Rico and caught a local taxi in town to Vieques Airport, but my woeful Spanish meant I asked for the wrong destination. The taxi driver thought my panicky pleas for him to turn round were threatening, so he stopped the car and demanded I get out – in a village where nobody spoke English.’
Emily gasped. ‘Gracious, what did you do?’
‘I found a bar and managed to get an old guy to understand that I’d arrived in the village by mistake. He thought I was amusing so he offered me a bed for the night and his wife cooked me a wonderfully spicy mole stew. In the morning, his cousin arrived and gave me a lift to the nearest town, where I met an English teacher from the local school who arranged for his uncle to take me to Vieques. I had to wait there for twelve hours to catch a flight, but at least I was in the right place. Things generally work out – that’s what I’ve found, anyway.’
‘Wow, Harri was right about you,’ said Emily, eyes wide. Intrigued, Alex stared at Harri, who quickly stood up from the kitchen table. ‘I think we need to get cracking, don’t you? I’ll go and start unpacking the car.’
Viewed first-hand, the task ahead of them was even more daunting than Harri had anticipated. Stu walked them around the interior of the soon-to-be craft workshop, guiding them around the edges of the rubbish where it had been piled up away from the newly painted walls.
‘So this is where the main craft table is going to be – I’ve a friend working in a reclamation timber yard in Innersley making it for me as we speak. And then there will be a kind of teabreak-slash-lounge area . . . Em and I contacted a friend at the Swinford Hospice charity shop warehouse and they’ve put aside some donated sofas and chairs for us.’
Alex brushed a cobweb from his leg as they picked their way carefully around rusting bits of metal, wire and rusted remains of farm implements. ‘Sounds like it’s going to be cool, then.’
Stu wiped his brow with the sleeve of his paint-splattered rugby shirt. ‘It’d better be after all this. I’m just glad I replastered and rewired when Em quit her job. If that hadn’t been done we wouldn’t have had a hope of completing all the work in time. Fourteen hours I’ve been working since we discovered that blasted email . . . So, if you guys can get cracking on moving this I’ll sort out the painting team – well, my parents and their bridge club colleagues, to be exact. They’ve put aside their regular Saturday night meeting for this. I’m going to be reminded of that fact for years to come.’
Donning old gardening gloves, Alex and Harri set to work, clearing the detritus of years of farm labour from the former milking shed – old tractor tyres, rolls of barbed wire, grain sacks and bag upon bag of rotting rubbish – piling it all in an old skip behind the large barn, where it would be out of view of the guests.
‘Hilarious that Emily thought I was Rob, wasn’t it?’ Alex smirked as they hauled an old splintered beam into the skip. ‘We must make a lovely couple.’
Brushing wayward curls from her face, Harri smiled back. ‘Either that or she thought you looked like a soft sales executive who doesn’t like physical work.’
‘Oi! I’m every inch the capable man, thank you very much,’ he retorted. ‘She was probably amazed at what a captivating specimen of manhood I am.’
‘And so humble too!’ Laughing, Harri grabbed a handful of old hay from the skip and threw it at him.
‘Oh, you are so going to regret that! There’s only one place for you now,’ he exclaimed, grabbing her by the waist and lifting her up over the skip.
Arms and legs flailing, she protested, ‘No, Al! Don’t you dare!’
He relented and brought her back to the ground, leaning against the skip while he tried to regain his breath. ‘Emily was definitely mistaken – Rob would never try to throw you in a skip.’
‘Thank goodness!’
Alex smiled at her as he walked past. ‘But then, maybe fun stuff like that is what you guys need.’
Harri watched him go, a strange sensation passing through her. For a moment she remained where she was, unsettled by his parting shot. Then, brushing the dust from her shirt, she headed back to the milking shed.
Emily joined them an hour later after taking delivery of the table and some of the charity shop sofas that friends had brought over.
‘I can’t thank you enough for this,’ she puffed as she and Harri carried an enormous tyre out to the skip.
‘Hey, it’s fine. Glad to help.’
Emily beamed and lowered her voice a little. ‘Alex seems nice.’
Harri looked back to where Alex was helping Stu unload pots of paint from the back of someone’s car. ‘He is.’
‘I can see why you’re so protective of him,’ Emily smiled, the tiniest glint of mischief in her eyes.
‘I didn’t think I was.’
‘Oh, you so are! Worrying about him with that plastic girlfriend of his. Not that I blame you, of course. Talk about spontaneous – if I wasn’t with Stu I could more than happily be a bit spontaneous with him.’
Harri stared at her. ‘Em! I can’t believe you just said that!’ Emily shrugged, a wicked grin appearing. ‘I’m just saying, that’s all. You two seem really close, anyway.’
‘Well, Al’s a really great mate. And it’s nice to get the time to hang out with him – we haven’t been able to do that much since Chelsea arrived.’ Harri was quick to move the conversation away from Alex after that, his comment earlier still playing on her mind.
By midnight, Stu and the bridge club volunteers had painted the walls and ceilings, constructed flat-pack cupboard units to hold craft supplies and installed the new table and chairs. Meanwhile Harri, Emily and Alex swept, mopped and cleaned every surface until, at precisely one a.m, the work was completed. Celebrating with well-earned mugs of tea or beer, they all stood back to admire the fruits of their labours.
‘Well, troops, I think our work here is done,’ Stu grinned, raising his mug. ‘To the success of the inaugural Greenwell Hill Farm craft weekend!’
Cheering, they all joined the toast.
‘Emily and Stu are great,’ Alex said as they drove home. ‘Crazy, but great.’
‘You don’t regret volunteering to help, then?’ Harri asked. ‘No. I had fun.’
‘Me too.’ Harri slowed to navigate a sharp right-hand bend, which looked a lot scarier with only the headlight beams to illuminate the road. She was aware of Alex looking at her in the darkness, the glow from the dashboard lights barely defining the contours of his face. ‘What?’
‘I was just wondering what Emily meant when she said you were right about me.’
How on earth had he remembered that? Harri was thankful that he couldn’t see the blush claiming her cheeks in the darkened car. ‘She was just stirring.’
This was by no means sufficient to satisfy Alex’s curiosity. ‘No, I don’t think she was. So you’ve talked with her about me?’
‘I talk about a lot of people, Al. You, Stella, Viv . . .’
‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’
Reaching the roundabout at the lower end of Stone Yardley, Harri drove towards the High Street. As they neared Wātea, she took a deep breath. ‘I just told her that you’re
my best friend and that I envy you.’
‘Envy me? Whatever for?’
‘Just the easy way you live your life and aren’t scared by anything.’
Alex was silent as the car pulled up outside his coffee lounge. Then he turned to smile at Harri. ‘It’s been a great night. Look, there’s something I need your help with.’
‘Sure, it’s the least I can do after tonight.’
‘Excellent. How about dinner on Wednesday?’
‘Great,’ Harri answered, as an idea presented itself in her mind. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you come to mine for a change? Chelsea’s welcome too, obviously,’ she added quickly.
‘Oh, Chels is on another girls’ night out,’ he pulled a face, ‘so it’ll just be me.’
Despite her better intentions, a guilty thrill raced through her at the prospect of a Chelsea-less Alex. ‘Eight o’clock at mine, then?’
He nodded. ‘Thanks, H.’ He looked at her for a moment, then left the car.
* * *
On Monday, Harri met up with Rob after work at the Showcase cinema in Lornal. Rob had chosen an early film as he was likely to be called upon to work late nights for the remainder of the week. When Harri pulled up next to his VW Passat in the cinema car park he was leaning back in the driver’s seat, chatting animatedly on his mobile. Taking the opportunity to look at him while he was oblivious to her arrival, she noted how gorgeous he was looking in his pristine white work shirt, his tie removed and top three buttons undone. His hair had been spiked on top and a faint line of stubble peppered his jaw. Without even being close to him, she could tell he smelled good, too. There was something so intensely appealing to her about Rob in his business clothes – wearing them he was confident, relaxed and in possession of a self-assured swagger that took her breath away.
Just then, he turned, his hazel eyes sparkling as they met hers. He quickly ended the call, swinging out of the car to meet her.
‘Hey, gorgeous,’ she smiled. ‘Hey yourself, beautiful. Ready for the film?’
‘Only if you’re buying the popcorn.’
The multiplex was buzzing already, large swarms of teens moving en masse through the thickly carpeted expanse of the foyer to join the queue for tickets. Harri and Rob followed suit.
‘Alex is coming for dinner on Wednesday night. Is that OK?’ Rob moved out of the way as a screaming child ducked under the flexibarrier and made a bid for freedom, hotly pursued by an older sibling. ‘Fine by me. Is he bringing the Jordan freak with him?’
‘No, she’s out that night.’
‘Probably the highlight of the poor guy’s week then.
I couldn’t live with that, I tell you. Leave her too close to a radiator and she’d melt.’
‘Rob, that’s terrible,’ she chastised him, but her amusement was impossible to hide. ‘I think he really likes her.’
Rob pulled a face. ‘Each to his own.’
‘Absolutely. So how was work today?’
‘Busy. There’s a new contract we’re possibly going to go for when the Preston job’s finished.’
Harri stared at him. ‘Where?’
Rob fiddled with his phone. ‘Damn thing. I can’t get a signal in here.’
Recognising his lacklustre attempt at a sidestep with dismay, Harri lowered her voice. ‘Where, Rob?’
He didn’t look at her, staring defiantly ahead. ‘Edinburgh.’
‘Are they going to expect you to travel there as much as Preston?’
‘It’s possible, yeah.’
The queue moved and Rob bought their tickets while Harri fumed quietly by his side. She hadn’t considered the prospect that there might be more contracts like Preston, naively assuming that success in securing the elusive business deal would somehow exempt him from further work away.
Rob was well aware of Harri’s growing consternation, but he ignored it until they were seated in the cinema. ‘Look, Red, you knew my job was important to me when we met. That hasn’t changed.’
‘But it was never supposed to take over your entire life,’ she hissed back under her breath.
‘Maybe I want it to, have you considered that?’
She stared at him. ‘Are you serious?’
His eyes flicked back to the screen. ‘Of course not. Watch the film.’
* * *
The revelation was still irritating her on Wednesday evening as she prepared dinner. Why did he always do something like that just when she was starting to relax in their relationship? Somehow, it seemed to diminish all the good work he had been doing recently, calling every gesture and every loving word into question. Was this what Auntie Rosemary had been alluding to at the weekend? Harri had to admit that she had seen an indefinable sadness in her aunt’s eyes whenever she mentioned Rob and its appearance unnerved her. But then, with her experience of men, Auntie Rosemary could be forgiven for being cautious. Her own marriage had come crashing to an end when she discovered that Uncle Nick had not only been having an affair for twelve years, but also that he was starting a family with the woman. As a final kick in the guts, he then emigrated to Australia, breaking contact with Rosemary and – arguably worse – James and Rosie. Whilst she never made an issue of what had happened to her, Harri knew that it had broken her heart to see her own children denied a father. It was only natural, then, for her to project her experience onto Harri. But Harri wasn’t Auntie Rosemary – and, more importantly, Rob wasn’t Uncle Nick. Nevertheless, Rob’s almost pathological compulsion for work filled Harri with dread for their future. Was this how it was going to be when they got married and had kids? Would Harri be the one left holding the fort whenever a new shiny contract turned Rob’s head?
Realising she had subconsciously taken out her frustration on the carrots – which now lay in jagged, chunky orange lumps, instead of the perfectly dissected identical rounds in Nigella’s version – she decided to call them ‘rustic’ and hope Alex was convinced.
At eight o’clock Alex arrived, bearing a bottle of wine and a preoccupied expression. He refused to discuss what it was that he required Harri’s help with until after they had eaten Harri’s Provençal Chicken with roasted vegetables, and whilst on the surface he was his usual jokey self, Harri was aware of a deeper narrative going on behind his smile. When the meal was finished and plates washed and stacked in the kitchen cupboards, Harri made coffee and brought it into the living room.
Alex was looking through the collection of travel DVDs by the television. ‘You’ve got half the world in here, haven’t you?’ he grinned when she sat down. ‘It’s like Dan Beagle World.’
Harri shrugged. ‘He’s an amazing writer and presenter, that’s all.’
‘Crazy that your best friend ended up travelling with him, then. I can’t imagine Stella Smith teetering up Tibetan hills in her knock-off Jimmy Choos. Shouldn’t that have been you?’
Feeling her stomach lurch, Harri pushed down the cafetière plunger. ‘Stel’s having a fab time. I think it might just be the making of her.’
‘Maybe.’ His eyes scanned the rows of DVD spines. ‘You know, with the money you spent on these you could have actually visited some of these places.’ He looked at her. ‘I mean, why pay for somebody else’s experiences when you could see it for yourself?’
Dusting off the list of plausible excuses, Harri presented them for his perusal. ‘You know why. It just hasn’t happened for me yet. There’s always something that’s stopped me going: nobody else to travel with, Rob wanting to holiday in the UK, the recession . . .’
Alex stood and joined her on the sofa – thus incurring the feline disdain of Ron Howard, who stalked away to sit underneath the coffee table and stare in disgust at him. ‘Come on, Harri, be honest with yourself. All those fine reasons you trot out so often mean nothing here. Admit it: you’re scared to do it.’
How dare he? ‘That’s not true . . . It’s . . .’
His smile was kind even though his eyes sparked with victory. ‘You just need to believe it’s possible, that’
s all.’ He placed his warm hand over hers on the sofa cushion. ‘I believe in you.’
The effect that those four words exerted on her was immense – completely unexpected: reaching into the furthest fathoms of her being and setting tiny stars alight, spinning with mirror-ball reflections in the darkness. It was only then that she realised how much she needed to hear that – not just from him, but from anyone. While she knew that Auntie Rosemary, Viv and Stella probably felt that way, none of them had taken the time to say it out loud. And as for Rob . . . well, even in his most thoughtful moments it would have never occurred to him that the sentiment was necessary.
‘Thank you. That means a lot.’
‘Good.’ His fingers lingered on her hand a moment longer and then let go.
Suddenly uncomfortable, Harri changed the subject. ‘So, come on then. What’s this thing you need my help with?’
‘Uh, yeah, that . . .’ Looking like a shy five-year-old, Alex pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his back pocket. He took a deep breath.
‘I just need your advice, you know – being a woman and everything.’
Harri raised her eyebrows. ‘Thanks for noticing.’
‘Perceptive, me.’ He began fiddling with the zip on one of the sofa cushions. ‘It’s just that – well – I’ve given this loads of thought and I think the time is right . . . That is to say, I don’t know for sure, but . . .’
‘Al! Just spit it out!’
‘I’m going to propose to Chelsea on Valentine’s Day.’
The silence this was met with was so long and weighty it could have had its own series on BBC4. Harri knew she should have been happy for him, as supportive for his dreams as he had just been for hers, but somehow she couldn’t muster up anything but a sense of stone-cold loss, like a heavy door slamming shut somewhere. She had been waiting for seven years for Rob to make that decision and yet Alex seemed capable of making it in a matter of months. Angry at her uncharacteristic response, she cajoled a smile to sit awkwardly on her face.
Welcome to My World Page 31