Helena shrugged out of her coat and peeked into the battered tin. “I’m not sure this is the right one,” she said, pinging the metal lid off. “This isn’t a cake. This maybe was a cake. Once.”
Vicky peered down, one hand on the handle of the boiling kettle as it shook and hissed and refused to turn itself off. “Ah yes, it did get a bit battered because I jogged home, carrying it. Just dig in, fish out the biggest lumps.”
The room was now half-full of steam and Vicky had to wrench the plug free from the socket. Gradually the kettle subsided and she was able to make some cups of tea. Helena pressed the largest clumps of crumbs together and took a mouthful.
“Oh, it’s good. And hey, what do you mean, a moot?”
Vicky joined her at the table, and pushed a large mug towards her. “You mean you haven’t noticed I’m a pagan?”
“Ah!” Helena sat back, reassessing the candles, bunches of herbs, pentagram jewellery and statues of cats. “I just thought you were…”
“A mad cat lady?”
“Yes.”
“I am.”
“It explains the rumours, too. The other rumours. About naked rituals and hippies roaming the moors.”
Vicky snorted with laughter and slapped her ample belly. She was a big, solid, fit person who no doubt fell into the “overweight” category on any government chart, but who could probably outrun, out dance, and possibly out wrestle any government minister. “No, no, that’s not us. I go down to Ingholme anyway, and we have house moots. Too bloody cold and wet and dark!”
Helena was disappointed but she didn’t want to argue when she didn’t know enough about it. So she said, as mildly as she could, “Are you always inside? I would have thought… well, it’s about nature, isn’t it? Nature’s not always nice.”
“Beltane we usually get outside, that’s true, and midsummer and so on. But Cary had a cold and Jess has that thing where her fingers go white, and we did go into the garden for a while. So there’s that. No, the naked rumours are just Gaz.”
Helena paused with a crumbly mouthful halfway in the air. “Who?”
“Gaz. Bit of a naked rambler, Gaz. Harmless, but can be a surprise if you’re not expecting him. Just keep your eyes on his face, that’s all. So come on, tell me, what did our lord and master say to you?”
Helena summarised her meeting with Richard. She found herself downplaying his negativity, and emphasising the small victory she had at the end. “I was disappointed that he didn’t volunteer straight away,” she confessed. “But he does want to know more.”
Vicky laughed and outright disbelief was plain on her face. “Frankly I’m amazed he didn’t just shoot you and bury you in a midden. I thought I was a witch! Gods only know what spell you’ve cast on him.”
“I don’t know about that. He was pretty sour. Maybe he did just say it to get me to go away.”
“No, to be fair to the man, what you see is what you get. He’d have just chased you off the land right from the start if that’s what he wanted. Interesting. I think you should keep on at him. There’s definitely a chink in his armour, there, and it would be so useful to our cause if he did get on board.”
“What, exactly, is our cause, though? I realised, when he was asking me, that we don’t have firm plans yet.”
“That’s true. And that’s why we’re going to hold a village meeting!”
“We are?”
“Yes!”
“Where?”
“The school. I’ll start work on the governors, I’ll burble about community and raising achievement and I’ll try a bit of a flirt with Mr Rodgers. We’ll hold a village meeting and let the community decide what’s best for them.”
“I don’t really think the community knows what’s best for them.”
Vicky nodded. “Absolutely. That’s why we’re going to plan what’s going to happen in the meeting, right now. With some gentle persuasion, I’m sure the village will come round.”
* * *
The main hall in the village school was packed. Helena stood at the far end, and scanned the crowds filtering in. She’d spent all afternoon laying out chairs with Vicky and one of the teaching assistants who lived on the new estate, leaving her children roaming the school and giggling about being there on a weekend. Helena hardly recognised anyone - just Tom from the Post Office, her tweed-capped elderly neighbour, and two of the folks from the early morning bus. Where did everyone else come from? She was overwhelmed, and suddenly very nervous.
Vicky had been like a whirlwind, almost as if her pent up energy had just been waiting to be released by someone like Helena. She’d abused the school photocopier to run up flyers, and together they’d roamed the village, shoving the invitation through every single door. And now, it looked as if the entire village had turned up.
There had been no sign of life when they’d made their way up to the manor, so they’d shoved one leaflet in through the door and left another under the windscreen wipers of the Landrover that was parked outside. Helena searched the faces of the people taking their seats, wondering, hoping that Richard would turn up. He was vital to their new, carefully thought out plans.
He didn’t know it yet, of course. But he needed to be here, so he could be told of his role.
Helena started to feel sick and she regretted the bag of tortilla chips she’d shared earlier. Her palms were sweaty and she rubbed them on her jeans. She should have popped home to get changed. She looked down and saw she was as dusty and grubby as she felt.
Well, stuff it. They would have to take her as she was. She reminded herself of the ideals that she lived by; don’t judge by appearance. What you see is what you get. Anyone who thought less of her was not worth knowing.
Dammit but how did Vicky still look so splendid and lively? She’d obviously just slicked on a fresh coat of strident red lipstick and on her larger than life personality, it just looked perfect. She bounded up the aisle between the two blocks of chairs, bristling with excitement.
“This is amazing! We’re nearly ready for kick-off. Hey… are you all right?”
“No, I feel ill,” Helena admitted miserably.
Vicky grabbed her hands and squeezed. “I’ll start. Don’t you worry. This is just awesome!”
“Hmm.”
There was no more time for reflection, because Vicky dropped her hand and leapt to her side, standing shoulder by shoulder and facing the throng as they settled in their seats. She waited, with all the compelling aura of an experienced teacher hanging around her until the room fell into expectant silence. How do they do that? Helena wondered. That teacher power. That’s just weird.
Vicky waited one more moment, timing it just right, emphasising to the waiting crowd that she was very much in charge. Helena searched the crowd once more then felt a blush tweak her cheeks as she finally caught sight of who she was looking for, and she looked away hurriedly. Richard was at the back, lounging in a plastic chair that he’d dragged slightly to one side, sitting at an angle so that his right arm dangled over the back of the chair.
“Thank you all for coming!” Vicky began. She had some notes on the table in front of her, but she wasn’t even glancing towards them. “We’re here to talk about community regeneration and to hear your ideas on how we can breathe new life into Arkthwaite.” She picked up a marker pen and gestured to a flip chart they had set up by the table. “We know what the problems are, so let’s look at some solutions!”
“What are the problems?” someone shouted, intending to be argumentative. Vicky smiled and Helena applauded internally. It was just as Vicky had predicted, and she was all ready with her answers.
Vicky attacked the flip chart with gusto, scrawling out huge spider diagrams while shouting out various phrases and buzzwords - “unemployment” got a ripple of agreement, as did “lack of transport options” and, as a light hearted joke, “endless rain.” Soon the paper was a mess of bubbles and lines and exclamation marks and underlines.
She explained the Local Exch
ange Trading System and people started to sit forward in their chairs as she pointed to various folk. “You, Cathy, you can’t go and work in Ingholme because you’ve got to drop your kids at school at nine o’clock and collect them at three. But I know you’re a great hairdresser. We talked about it before, didn’t we, you setting up as a mobile hairdresser?”
“I can’t cope with running a business as well as being a single mum, though,” the slender woman said, fright already plain on her face. “I just can’t. Paperwork - bloody hell, Vicky, you know me. I ain’t the brightest button.”
A few kind souls hushed her and praised her but, red-faced, Cathy remained stubborn. “No, it’s not for me. Can’t.”
“This is different. It’s not a business so no money changes hands. At the simplest level, you give old Joe a haircut, and later on, he grows too many cauliflowers and you end up with a box full of caulis. Or you give Tom a haircut and he cuts your grass. And as it develops, we bring in vouchers, so you give Joe a haircut and he gives you a voucher which you give to Tom to cut your grass… do you see? No one needs money, so it doesn’t affect anyone’s benefits, and the kids can get involved too.”
She paused as a ripple of conversation passed through the hall. People leaned in to their neighbour, chewing the idea over.
Helena felt her sick feeling intensify as people began to nod, and some of them smiled and pointed up at the pair of them by the table. It might actually become real!
Vicky turned to her, then, and waved her closer to the table, before introducing her to the assembly. “Some of you have already met Helena Wright, who’s recently moved here. She’s working in Ingholme and she’s got some things to share with you all, too.”
Helena’s mouth went dry as she felt all the eyes of Arkthwaite upon her. They were in an accepting mood; Vicky had seen to that. Still, Helena thought her heart was in danger of bursting as she picked up her sheet of paper and rustled it nervously in her hands.
“I… er… thank you, thanks Vicky. Yeah. Okay so how many of you have kids that go to high school out of the village?”
A few hands were raised, not many. She had expected more but she ploughed on. “So, they get homework don’t they? That they’ve got to do online.”
“Mine stay at school and do it in the afterschool club,” someone called.
“And why is that?” Helena asked, relieved that people were still unconsciously following the script.
“Cos I work late and can’t pick them up until six.”
Ahh shit, that was not the right answer. They were supposed to cite the lack of decent internet out in Arkthwaite. Helena turned her note paper over and over, and Vicky stepped in smoothly with the next piece of the speech.
“And how many of you have to apply for a certain number of jobs each week because the jobcentre tells you to?”
“Each week? Each bloody day more like!” someone hollered, angrily.
“Exactly! And how do you apply for jobs these days? Online, that’s how. But how do you do that with the poor internet we’ve got out here?”
There were general shrugs and dismissive mutterings. Helena looked with dismay over the uninterested faces. A few teenagers had been dragged out, or come out through sheer curiosity, and they looked keen but most of the villagers had no interest at all in the wonders of the internet.
Vicky was undeterred. “It’s the future and we’re missing out! Super-fast broadband is taken for granted in the towns and in the cities. Even Ingholme has decent communications now! But can we watch a Youtube video? Or get iPlayer? Or even download a photo from an email from our family in less than an hour? No! We can’t!”
“So? Them’s as want that sort of thing can move to get it,” someone shouted and Helena looked down at the table, certain that the comment was aimed at her. She didn’t know who had said it, but it sounded like Tom from the Post Office.
“The rest of the world will leave us behind. With broadband, there’s more jobs, not just the chance to apply for jobs. People won’t have to move away. We can’t wait for the utilities companies to install it for us - what do they care about us? No, it’s up to us!”
It wasn’t as stirring as they had hoped. The assembled villagers shifted in their seats, uncertain. The LETS idea was a good one, but clearly, talk of technology was a step too far.
“Go on then, how? Cost a bloody fortune, it will.” Helena forced herself to look up. It was Tom, sitting forward in his seat, a sneer on his thin face.
“A great deal of the cost comes from getting permission from the landowner,” Helena said, her voice seeming shaky in her own ears. She looked directly past Tom and fixed her gaze on Richard. “Luckily, the biggest landowner in these parts is with us this evening.”
His eyes widened in surprise and then he folded his arms, shaking his head as everyone in the school hall turned around to stare at him.
“Well, there you go, then,” Tom said loudly over the susurration of low whispers. “So you’re doomed to fail from the start. What a load of bleeding nonsense.”
“Why’s that, exactly, Tom?” Richard said, not moving a muscle, remaining in his studied and casual pose. “How does the fact it’s mostly my land prevent broadband being installed here? I accept there are issues. There are other costs involved. But the problem of my land is…?”
Tom faced the table at the front again, frowning angrily. “Well, it’s obvious, innit,” he muttered, mostly to himself.
At the back, Richard was grinning in humourless triumph. “Feel free to dig your way over my land,” he said. “Knock yourselves out. Thing is, though, what about everything else? Digging the trenches won’t be free, for a start.”
“Got my digger, haven’t I?” called a man from the back.
“Aye, and my lad’s,” said someone else.
Helena slid a sideways glance to Vicky who was beaming at them all like a benevolent goddess. “I think we’ve got pretty much all the skills we need to lay in broadband,” she said, “and for the things we need to buy, we’ll raise money with… a fete. Yes! A summer fete!”
Where did that come from? Helena thought. But what a good idea! She started to smile too, as the infectious good feeling rose once more in the hall.
Richard unfolded his arms and stood up, stilling the crowd. His face was blank, almost as if someone was speaking through him. “You’re going to need a headquarters to co-ordinate all this activity,” he said, flatly. “So you may as well use one of my spare stable buildings for your offices.”
Vicky grabbed Helena’s hand once more and squeezed it again as the hall descended into noisy chatter and surprised exclamations. “You see?” she said under the hubbub. “And it’s even better than I’d hoped!”
Chapter Three
There was a lifetime’s worth of rubbish in the storerooms, stables and sheds that surrounded the manor. No, more than one lifetime. Generation upon generation had heaped the accumulation of their lives in the once-busy outbuildings but now dust gathered on broken wood, cracked leather, and inexplicable metal instruments that may or may not have had farming use. That, or one of his ancestors had been a colossal pervert.
Richard had chosen a room at the end of one spur of empty stables, because it had windows on two sides and was slightly less full of junk than most of the other rooms and buildings. He spent two days clearing it, and a further half-day filling it back up again, but this time with furniture and office equipment.
Maybe it was all doomed to failure. But after the meeting in the school hall, he’d gone home and done some research of his own. However, his house suffered the same lack of internet connection as the rest of the village, and he’d had to resort to his usual trick of taking his laptop and driving seven miles to a fast-food restaurant on the main road between Ingholme and Jesthorpe, where he could drink a gallon of unpleasant coffee and use their free wi-fi. It was something he’d got used to, as they all had. But then, sitting in his battered Landrover in the junk food palace’s car park, he’d began to
realise that just because they’d always done it in the past, it didn’t mean they were condemned to always do it in the future.
News websites showed him stories of remote communities banding together, laying in their own broadband. They were “human interest” features, wheeled out to inspire “ordinary people” when the daily drudge of everyday news about disasters and genocide were getting too much, even for the hardened newsreaders. Richard was surprised to find there had been so many examples of it. It wasn’t even a new or original idea, which made Tom’s curmudgeonly objections laughable.
If his degree had worked out, Richard himself could be working on initiatives like that as his career. He paused, eyes unfocused, staring out through the smeary window at the grey sky beyond. Who was he kidding? The degree had been doomed from the start. You don’t cut family ties quite that easily.
His attention returned to his task in the stables-turned-office. Damn, but that window was dirty. He pushed the filing cabinet into the corner and headed back out into the yard.
“Hello!” Helena was just rounding the corner of the house. “I rang but no one answered. There you are! Don’t you have staff?”
“Hello - and no, I bloody well don’t. Staff to do what, exactly?”
“Answer the door, that sort of thing.”
Richard gazed past her, holding his hand to his face to shield his eyes.
“What?” she demanded.
He raised his other hand to silence her, and held on for a long moment, before saying, “Nope. Sorry, for a moment there I thought there were hordes of visitors turning up at my door, demanding entrance, and here’s me with no one to open it for them! Luckily, I was mistaken.”
Bad Boys and Billionaires (The Naughty List Bundles) Page 43