The Lost Guide to Life and Love

by Sharon Griffiths

  Kate laughed. ‘You’ll find them in just about every house in the dale. That’s Granny Allen for you. She was apparently horrified at the shiftlessness of some of the families up here, especially when times were hard. If the girls could stitch and sew neatly, then they stood a better chance of getting a decent job in service. So, as if she didn’t already have more than enough to do, she started sewing lessons, first of all as part of the Sunday school, and then for some of the older girls too. God knows where she found the time. But the samplers were a sort of instant reference that the girls could show to potential employers. And, being Granny Allen, of course the mottoes had to be of a strictly improving nature.’

  ‘So they must have been, well, I don’t know, the equivalent of showing someone a diploma or something.’

  ‘Exactly. For the girls seeking jobs, a neatly stitched sampler would have been as good as a couple of A-levels. Brilliant idea really. Stitch your own reference.’

  ‘Granny Allen was pretty special.’

  ‘Very special—even if she did look a bit of a battleaxe.’

  I quickly checked my mail. Damn.

  ‘Something wrong?’ asked Kate, who was sorting out some papers on the other side of the desk.

  ‘Just two people that I’ve been trying to get hold of. They’ve come back to me at last, but they’ve both suggested the end of next week. And I should be back in London by then. One of them’s a monk—he runs the orchards at the abbey—and says he’s running a retreat so it’s a bit difficult to take time out for the media. Fair enough, I suppose. It’s hard to argue with a monk.’

  I stared at the screen helplessly. I wanted to see both these people as I thought they would make good features. ‘I suppose I could go down and come back up again for one night.’

  ‘Do you have to go back yet?’

  ‘Well, yes, though I suppose…’ I realised that I wasn’t ready to go back yet. I liked this place, felt sort of at home here, even though it was totally different from anything I’d ever known. Besides, I’d just discovered this amazing family I didn’t know I had and I longed for a greater chance of family life—now I’d almost got used to the noise. ‘I suppose I could stay for a little while longer. The magazine wouldn’t mind because I’d only be out doing features in any case. Ah, but I’ve only booked your cottage till Saturday morning…’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Look, we’ve got no one booked in until New Year. Why don’t you stay on for a week or two? Until you’ve got your interviews done? After all, you’re family. If I can’t put up a cousin for a week or two, then it’s a bad job.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ I said, and felt happy to be made welcome here; to be taken into this new family.

  ‘If you could get your mother up here as well, that would be great. Though I expect she’s a bit too old now to be balancing on the bridge.’

  I thought of my mother as I’d seen her last, tense and lined. Hard to imagine her carefree and balancing on bridges, even as a child.

  ‘It would do her good. But I doubt if I could drag her out of London.’

  ‘Well, have a try. It would be good to see her again.’

  With that, Matty came into the study, yawning. ‘Right, I’m going to collapse in the bath now,’ she said. ‘Would you like a lift up to the cottage before I do?’ she asked me.

  ‘Brilliant. Thank you,’ I said, although to be honest I didn’t want to leave this nice warm kitchen, but I said my thank-yous and goodbyes, stuffed my soaking socks into the pockets of my soaking jacket, pushed my feet into my boots and hopped up into the Land Rover, which smelt of hay and diesel and animals.

  ‘Would you like to come in, have a glass of wine?’ I asked Matty. There were so many questions I wanted to ask that I hadn’t had the chance to in the middle of all the family chat.

  ‘Nice thought, but no thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m shattered.’ And then grinned and said quickly, ‘Oh, go on, why not?’

  She tugged off her boots and wandered into the sitting room while I opened a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon I’d bought at the upmarket grocer the day I’d seen Jake. She was looking at the items on the windowsill.

  ‘That’s a lovely ribbon,’ she said, looking at the cherry-coloured velvet. ‘I wonder how it got here.’

  ‘I found it on the track at the back of the cottage.’

  ‘It’s so bright it could be almost new, but I don’t suppose it is.’ She stroked it thoughtfully and then took the glass of wine I was offering her.

  ‘Mmm, nice,’ said Matty appreciatively, sipping it with a sigh and looking round. ‘It’s still strange to see this house so clean and cosy now,’ she said. ‘For years it was virtually derelict. Tom and I used it as a den. Then Mum and Dad decided to rebuild it and let it out. Dexter did a lot of work on it, you know.’

  ‘Dexter?’ Photographer, chef, landlord and now builder: was there no end to his talents?

  ‘Yes, just as a holiday job when he was at college. Apart from the specialised bits—electricity and plumbing—it was just Dad and Dexter who rebuilt this place. He can turn his hand to anything. That’s how he started me on photography.’

  ‘Really? How?’

  ‘Well, Dexter took lots of pictures of the cottage before work started and then took pictures every day as it progressed. When he went back to college, he left me one of his old cameras and told me I had to carry on the work. I was only about ten, but it really gave me the bug. So I dutifully took lots of pictures—they’re all in an album down at the farm. And that was it. I loved the way you could photograph change. Fascinating. It was weird how in every picture you could see what there had been and what was going to be. Dexter was my hero. He is the only person outside my family who thinks about this place the way I do.

  ‘You have a choice in the dale,’ she went on. ‘Half the lads never go anywhere or do anything, and live the exact same lives as their parents and their parents before them. Fine, if that’s what they want. But it wouldn’t suit me. Then the other half leave the dale as soon as they can and never come back—apart from Christmases and funerals. What I liked about Dexter was the way he managed to do both, especially when he had a studio here. He brought the buzz of a bigger world with him—new ideas, new ways of looking at things; literally, in his case. His pictures were always in the colour supplements and magazines. But he never changed; he was still rooted here. Then he got married, of course, and left.’

  ‘But he’s back again now.’

  ‘Yes. But it’s too late.’

  I didn’t ask for what. Instead I said, ‘But he’s opened the pub. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course it is. But he should still be out there taking fantastic pictures.’

  She said it so fiercely that I had to spring to Dexter’s defence. ‘But he’s had a bad year—with his dad and the divorce and stuff. He needs time to recover from all that.’

  ‘But it’s such a waste. And if he’s not careful, he’ll get himself into a rut.’

  She sounded sad, and partly to lift her mood and partly because I really wanted to know, I asked, as casually as I could, ‘So d’you come across many of the footballers when you’re in London, then?’

  ‘Oh God yes. Though I could do without most of them.’

  ‘Oh.’ I must have looked disappointed because Matty laughed. ‘They’re not that bad. There are some really nice lads. And lots of them I never see, because when they’re not playing football or training, they’re at home with their wives and families like normal human beings. It’s just…well, some of them, a few of them, are so stupid. They can play football brilliantly and we turn them into gods. They have more money than they know what to do with and yet not the sense they’re born with.

  ‘Girls fall over themselves to be with them. Go into any club where footballers go and there’s always a little posse of girls out to grab one. They don’t care which one. They just want the money and the lifestyle. So the lads see the girls just lining up for them and they just w
ork their way through them.’

  ‘So is Clayton Silver typical?’

  ‘Well, he’s always got a string of girls, of course, but there’s been no real scandal attached to him. But his team don’t have the best reputation. Plenty of partying and some of it gets out of hand. I mean, there was that rape allegation last season. It never came to court because I think the girl was probably paid off. But there was the fight in the dressing room where two teammates nearly killed each other—and they were meant to be on the same side. And lots of stories of drink and drugs—plenty of coke around. And the gambling, of course.’

  ‘Is Clayton Silver involved in all this?’

  ‘Hard not to be, I would have thought. Why should he be any different?’

  ‘Anyway, it must be the same for you,’ I countered.

  ‘In what way? How do you mean?’ asked Matty, looking over the rim of her wine glass.

  ‘Well, just like girls want to go out with footballers, there must be plenty of men who want to go out with models. I bet you’re chasing them off.’

  ‘Half the men I meet are gay—that’s the fashion industry for you. Of the rest, well there are some—footballers, singers in second-rate bands who are so far up themselves that they believe their own publicity. Then there are all those who are so drunk or stoned that they can barely stand up, let alone hold a conversation. Oh yes, you also get the City types who seem to think that model also means tart. Some of those throw their money around nearly as much as footballers and are just as obnoxious. More so, really, because they’re meant to be bright while no one expects a footballer to have brains. Anyone who wants to go out with a model just because she’s a model is a sad bastard I can do without.’

  ‘There must be some nice men out there. Gosh, if a rich, successful model can’t get a decent man, what hope for the rest of us?’

  ‘Plenty,’ said Matty. Then she laughed. ‘Well, yes, of course there are some quite decent men out there—not many, but one or two. But I look at them and wonder how they would get on dealing with a calving or mending a wall.’

  ‘But you can’t expect City types to know that!’

  ‘No. But I want them to look as though they could if they really had to. I need someone who would fit in up here as well as London. Otherwise it just wouldn’t work. Anyway, all I’m saying is that it’s not a real world down there; it’s built on air and spirits and silly amounts of money, so you can’t expect people to be normal.’

  Soon she was telling me stories of prima-donna designers, of fearsome fashion editors and the outrageous behaviour of some of the other models. I was still smiling at her story of the model whose poor assistant had to supply lunch each day of precisely six grapes, two sticks of celery and a red jelly baby, when Matty stifled a yawn.

  ‘Sorry. That bath really is calling me.’ She emptied her glass in one gulp and made for the door. She was just wriggling into her boots when she said, ‘Tilly, I know your boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend or semi-detached boyfriend is a journalist, but you won’t tell him I’m here, will you? Amazingly, the red-tops have never found their way up here, and I’d like it to stay that way for as long as possible.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. It hadn’t even occurred to me. ‘Anyway, we’re family now, aren’t we?’

  Matty laughed. ‘I guess we are.’ She turned to go and then turned back. ‘Does Dexter’s face really light up when he sees me?’

  ‘It does. Yes.’

  She was still smiling as she climbed back into the Land Rover.

  Matilda ladled some broth into two small basins and gave one each to the boy and the photographer. The steam rose up, hot from the bowl. It smelt surprisingly good. He seized his spoon.

  ‘For this good food and all thy mercies, we thank you, Lord.’ Mrs Allen’s voice was low but firm. The photographer felt rebuked. ‘Amen.’

  ‘Amen,’ he muttered, and tucked into his soup. He drank it gratefully. He wasn’t offered, nor did he expect, a second helping.

  ‘So you tramp the countryside taking photographs for a living, do you?’

  While the boy drank his broth, Matilda Allen had picked up his knitting and carried on with it, deftly and swiftly slipping the stitches from one needle to the other as she spoke.

  ‘Yes, my card.’ Reaching into the pocket of his damp jacket, he took out a slim card-case. He wondered if the books on the shelf were Mrs Allen’s, if she could read. She could.

  ‘Well, William Peart, do many folk want to be pictured in your photographs?’

  ‘Yes, thankfully, or I should earn no living. I send my photographs to London and they arouse much interest in those who would know more about our country and its people but are unable to travel and see it in person.’

  The boy spoke up suddenly. ‘We have photographs, sir. Of my brothers in America. Can you make pictures like that? How is it done?’

  ‘Shush, James,’ said his mother reprovingly. But the photographer smiled. ‘I will be happy to explain and to demonstrate. If your mother were willing…’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, I have photographs of two of my sons. For the other I have no need of pictures, as I see him every day. He farms with his uncle, my brother, at the farm below. My brother has no sons of his own to help him. My daughters are in service, one down in London. We have to send our children away to make a living. My other sons worked in the lead mines, but since the Spanish lead has come to be sold so cheap in this country, they have sought better lives in America.’ She looked bleak for a moment. ‘They went with their cousins and it was a long voyage and William only sixteen.’ But her face brightened. ‘And now they have been building a new mine near a river as big as the sea, the Mississippi, they call it. Miles has charge of a new smelter and they sent me pictures to show that they have arrived and are making something of themselves. It is reassuring, as I doubt I will see them again in this world.’

  ‘It would be reassuring for them perhaps to have a photograph of their mother looking well. If you were to let me photograph you, I would give you a print or two that you could send to the Mississippi…’

  ‘Perhaps, Mr Peart, perhaps,’ said Matilda Allen as she carried on knitting.

  Chapter Twelve

  I was at The Miners’ Arms so early the next morning that Dexter was still on his knees doing the fires, his trademark baggy jumper even grubbier than usual. He looked up from his labours and gave me a sudden, wonderful smile. I smiled back, laughing at myself about how I thought he had been gay and Matt had been a bloke.

  ‘Hey Dexter,’ I said, ‘why didn’t you let on when I was rabbiting on about Foxy being missing? You might have said something!’

  ‘Ah well, that’s our little local secret, only revealed to a privileged few. Mainly those who have known her since she was a cheeky little tomboy, running so fast that the lads couldn’t catch her. All long legs and ponytail, that one. Then she grew up. Beauty, brains and determination. It’s a helluva combination.’ He looked miles away for a moment. ‘So you’ve met our famous supermodel now, have you?’

  ‘More than that. We’re cousins.’

  ‘Everyone‘s cousins round here,’ said Dexter, screwing up pages of the Hexham Courant and piling sticks on top ready for a new fire. ‘But she’s done well, has Matty. At one time you know she wanted to be a photographer herself.’

  ‘Mmm, I know, she told me. Still does.’

  ‘Told you that, did she?’

  ‘Yes. And how you gave her her first camera and how she used to follow you around.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Dexter, standing up with the bucket of ash in his hand, the smile gone from his face. ‘That was a few years ago now. A lot’s happened since then. And she’s got better things to do than follow me around.’

  ‘She was saying you’d taught her everything she knows.’

  ‘Did she indeed? I wish! No. Matty Alderson has moved a long way from our world now. Out of our league. Out of mine anyway. Lives in the stratosphere now, does Matt. I’ve seen it. I know what goes
on.’ He sounded unexpectedly sad, bitter even.

  ‘But she still wants to come back,’ I said. ‘Still puts her work clothes on and helps out on the farm.’

  ‘Oh aye, playing at it a bit. Like Marie Antoinette dressing up as a shepherdess and just as real. It’s all right doing it when you know you can go back to London and earn thousands a day. That’s just playing.’

  I thought of Matty striding across the fellside with a bale of hay for the sheep, bouncing down on the quad bike in the hailstorm, or doing whatever unspeakable things she said she’d been doing with the rams. Didn’t seem much like playing to me.

  ‘I think she belongs here. Like you do. You both had to go away for work, but you came back. You’ve come back for the pub and Matty comes back because she’s happy here…’

  ‘But she won’t come back here for long,’ said Dexter. ‘Nothing could bring her back here. She’ll find some rich man and that’ll be it. We’ve lost her.’ He fell into a gloomy silence. He had, I noticed, tiny flecks of grey in his mad curls.

  But, more immediately, I was still wondering how on earth I’d managed to confuse the stunning Foxy with a bloke. I mean, she was one of the most photographed women in the country, and just because she wore old jeans and a tatty Barbour, I decided she was a man. I wondered, quite seriously, if I needed specs. I hadn’t dared tell Polly yet. She’d think I’d totally lost it.

  Becca was meant to be polishing the tables but she had the papers spread out on the bar and was studying them intently. She lifted her eyes up for a moment. ‘Did you really not know you were related to Matty Alderson?’ she asked, astonished.

  ‘No. Our families lost touch ages ago. Mum would never have realised that Foxy’s real name was Matty Alderson. If she had, then she’d have probably made the connection.’

  ‘No. Matt likes to keep that quiet. It gives her some sort of privacy, I suppose.’