Needles and Pearls

by Gil McNeil

  ‘Tell her what?’

  ‘That I’ll give her away.’

  ‘I think that’s up to her, Mum, don’t you?’

  ‘I might have known I could count on you to be completely hopeless, as usual.’

  I’m counting to ten now.

  ‘Are you still there, Josephine?’

  I’m tempted to say no. I’m in the bath, please leave a message.

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘I’ll get your father to talk to her.’

  ‘Is his knee better?’

  ‘He’s absolutely fine – he was just being dramatic. You know what he’s like. The doctors have given him some tablets, and the stitches come out soon, I really don’t know what all the fuss was about.’

  Actually, Dad never makes a fuss about anything, not even falling off a ladder and gashing his knee, but never mind.

  ‘My wrist is still total agony. In case you were wondering.’

  Mum always invents a mystery ailment if anyone in the family has anything medical going on: when I was having Jack she had an appendix drama, and with Archie it was an invisible neck injury that required one of those plastic neck braces. Which she kept taking off when she thought nobody was looking.

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ve fractured it. I don’t trust the doctors here, but I’m going to a nice man now who does herbal healing, and he says he can’t believe how I’ve managed to cope with such pain. He’s very expensive, of course, but worth it. I’ll call you later in the week then, so you have time to talk some sense into her. Night, darling.’

  Bloody hell.

  I’ll call Vin tomorrow and we can try to work out how to handle this; he’s usually much better at dealing with Mum than I am, mainly because he tends to completely ignore her. But I’m determined she won’t end up spoiling things for Gran. Perhaps her new herbalist could make up a special Don’t Ruin Your Mother’s Wedding potion: a bit of chamomile, maybe, with a spot of arsenic. Or perhaps she might not make it over in time; I wonder how much you’d have to pay Easy Jet to divert to somewhere unusual: Reykjavik maybe, or a disused airbase somewhere, with no telephones.

  I’m locking the back door and having a last round of Hunt The PE Kit when Jack appears at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘I can’t get back to sleep. I was asleep but then I woke up, and now I’m stuck.’

  I walk him back upstairs, whispering so we don’t wake Archie.

  ‘Come on, let’s snuggle you in. You’ll be back to sleep in no time.’

  ‘Is Dad in heaven, Mum?’

  Oh God. I’m too tired for this now.

  ‘Well, if there is a heaven then I’m sure he’s there, sweetheart. And he knows how much you love him, and that’s the important thing.’

  ‘Absolutely definite?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘And he can always be in my heart, can’t he, Mum?’

  ‘Yes, love.’

  ‘People you love are always in your heart, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, love, for ever and ever.’

  ‘Yes. And I’ve got lots of love in my heart, haven’t I? And my best things are Trevor, and you and Gran and Archie.’

  Excellent: beaten to top place by a sodding dog.

  ‘Into bed now.’

  ‘And if we got our own dog, he could be in my heart too, couldn’t he, Mum?’

  ‘Nice try, love.’

  He smiles.

  ‘It would be so nice to have my very own dog. It would be my best thing ever.’

  ‘And my worst.’

  He giggles.

  ‘I’m going to wish for it with all my heart, and then it’ll come true.’

  ‘Night, love.’

  ‘I’m scared I’ll have my bad dream. If I still can’t get to sleep in ten minutes, can I come in your bed?’

  ‘Twenty?’

  ‘Fifteen?’

  ‘OK.’

  He grins.

  Damn.

  Chapter Two

  February

  The Thin Blue Line

  Monday morning isn’t going very well so far, and it’s only half-past eight.

  ‘You’re a big fat grumpypotamus.’

  ‘Archie, get your socks on and stop being rude.’

  ‘Well, he is. And so are you. And I don’t want cheese for my packed lunch. I hate cheese. I really do.’

  ‘Shoes and socks, Archie, and come on, Jack, or we’ll be late for school.’

  Jack sighs.

  ‘Alicia has prawns in her sandwich sometimes. And she has pasta salad.’

  Archie nods.

  ‘And Tyrone has cheese dippers. Which is much better.’

  ‘I thought you hated cheese.’

  ‘Yes, but not dippers.’

  ‘I’ll be counting to ten soon, and the last person in the car is a squashed tomato.’

  They both pretend to ignore this, but I know they’ll do anything to avoid being the tomato, squashed or otherwise. Not that it involves anything special, although stickers might be good. I could do a whole set of them: I Eat Very Slowly, I’m Very Annoying in the Mornings – they’d be a great alternative to the I’m a Good Helper stickers they get at school. I’d probably make a fortune.

  ‘Shoes, Archie, come on. Four. Four and a half.’

  Jack’s racing for the front door now, closely followed by Archie, holding a shoe and hopping. Excellent.

  I’m halfway to school when I realise I’ve forgotten to do the Project Knitting notes for Annabel Morgan. Bugger.

  Archie’s humming tunelessly, still clearly enjoying the fact that since I was the last person to reach the car I am now officially the squashed tomato.

  ‘What are we having for tea, Mum? We could have tomato pasta.’

  They both giggle.

  ‘Very funny, Archie.’

  ‘Or we could have sausages?’

  ‘Maybe, if I get time to go to the butcher’s.’

  ‘Then we could have toad-in-the-holes.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Archie, I said maybe. Let’s just see, shall we?’

  ‘No, let’s just promise.’

  Damn: if I try to back out of a solemn promise now he’ll get agitated, and I’m not really up for another tearful march across the playground, especially given last week’s Oscar-winning performance when I told him I was making chicken casserole for tea.

  ‘All right, I promise.’

  There’s a round of applause from the back seat.

  * * *

  Connie’s already waiting for us in the playground with Marco and Nelly, and Annabel Morgan, who’s clutching her PTA clipboard. Oh dear.

  ‘Good morning, Jack and Archie. Are we all ready for a lovely day at school?’

  Archie nods, while Jack just looks nervous. Annabel’s in Talking To Small Children mode, which involves a cheery smile and a very loud voice.

  Archie rallies.

  ‘I got a gold sticker for my painting from yesterday. It was leaves, and a tiger. But not a very big one because Jason Lenning wouldn’t let me have the orange enough. But Mrs Berry said it was a very good tiger. It was like the tiger who came to tea, but with no tea. We’re having toad-in-the-holes for our tea.’

  Annabel’s not looking quite so happy now. Her son, Horrible Harry, who goes in for a fair bit of sly nipping and name-calling, is in Archie’s class, and any mention of gold stickers is bound to prompt a competitive parenting moment.

  ‘Gold stickers are so nice, aren’t they? Harry’s always so pleased when he gets them. We stick them up on our noticeboard at home. We’ve got such a lot of them, we’ll need a new noticeboard soon.’

  She trills out a little laugh, and turns to make sure we’ve all heard that she has a record-breaking collection of gold stickers.

  ‘Oh, here’s Mrs Berry. Time to line up now dear.’

  She taps her clipboard with her pen as we watch them walk towards their lines: Jack and Marco are running while Archie a
nd Nelly saunter. Horrible Harry’s already towards the front of the line, and appears to be pushing a smaller boy out of the way so he can be first, but Annabel doesn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Now then, let me see … there are so many things to organise. Still, there’s no point in being President if you’re not willing to work, is there? Now, let me just check my list. Oh yes, the Summer Fayre. Have you had any thoughts about your stall?’

  ‘Our what?’

  She smiles at me as if I’m mentally defective.

  ‘Your stall, for the Fayre. I did assume you’d want to do something together, so if you could just let me know what you’re planning, that would be super. Since both of you are in trade locally I’m sure you’re full of marvellous ideas.’

  The way she says ‘trade’ makes it sound like we spend a fair bit of time standing on street corners after dark. And she’s still tapping her bloody clipboard.

  ‘I haven’t really thought about it, Annabel, but –’

  ‘I’ve assigned the majority of the stalls, of course, but you could do face painting, or the tombola. Or funny fish ” that’s always popular.’

  Connie looks confused.

  ‘Why are the fish funny?’

  ‘Oh, it’s all rather super – you just need to fill the paddling pool, and Mrs Palmer has done a marvellous job painting all the little fish, although the fishing rods are in a bit of a tangle, but I’m sure you’ll manage. Orange fish for prizes, and if you catch any other colour you just get a little sweet. She’ll also go to the cash-and-carry with you. She has our card and it saves us so much money. And there’s a hosepipe in the school-keeper’s shed. Shall I put you down for that?’

  Bloody hell, we’ll get completely soaked.

  ‘I’m sorry, Annabel; I’m not sure. Summer is so busy in the shop. Isn’t there something a bit simpler we could do?’

  Actually, last summer was pretty quiet, but I’m hoping to do better this year with summer-knitting kits, if I ever get time to make them up; I’m thinking cotton beach bags and lightweight wraps. And Connie will be frantic in the pub ” they were booked solid at the weekends last year.

  Annabel’s smiling. I think I may have just fallen into a cleverly laid trap.

  ‘Well, there’s always the white elephant, I suppose – we always get lots of bags of jumble. Yes, let me put you down for that – you can sort through things on the day, and I’ll give you your notes and your target sheet in the next few weeks, and there’ll be a preliminary planning meeting soon. It’s so important that everyone knows what’s expected of them or its total chaos. Good. Now, have you done the notes on your little knitting project? I do like to keep my files up to date.’

  Bloody hell: a white-elephant stall with a target, and now she’s hassling me about the bloody notes. Actually, sod this.

  ‘No, I haven’t had time, Annabel. Maybe you should ask Mrs Chambers if you want more details for the files; she did give me the impression that she’s got it all under control, and since it’s really her project I think it comes under the school curriculum rather than the PTA. But I’m sure she’ll be happy to talk you through it. And on the white elephant I’m sure Connie and I can manage on the day, but neither of us can do planning meetings, I’m afraid. We simply don’t have the time. What with being in local trade. I’m sure you understand.’

  She’s gone rather pale. Fury, I expect.

  Connie’s looking like she’s trying not to laugh.

  ‘Maybe we can make some changes. Connie might be able to persuade Mark to make us some of his amazing cakes; people can have a free slice if they buy a bag of jumble. That way we should sell out in ten minutes flat.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure the ladies on our cake stall will like that. It could get rather confusing.’

  ‘Well, let’s not tell them then. I’m sure people will be able to spot the difference between a cake stall and a load of jumble. Anyway, thanks, Annabel, but we must get on.’

  We walk back across the playground towards the gates leaving Annabel standing slack-jawed with her clipboard clutched tightly to her chest.

  ‘I really shouldn’t have done that.’

  Connie giggles.

  ‘I think it will be fun, I like elephants.’

  ‘There’s no elephant, Con, just a load of tatty old jumble.’

  ‘And cake?’

  ‘Not usually, no.’

  ‘Well, it can be an Italian elephant then. Little glasses of Prosecco, and some cake, maybe apricot tarts, and Tom will be your uncle.’

  ‘Bob.’

  ‘Bob is your uncle?’

  ‘Yes, sort of, but are you sure Mark won’t mind making cakes? I shouldn’t have volunteered him like that. Sorry.’

  She raises her eyebrows.

  ‘If we ask him the right way he’ll be happy, and you can knit some little white elephants and it will be perfect. Annabel will be surprised, I think?’

  ‘Yes. And bloody livid. She’ll be on our case big time now.’

  ‘Porca Madonna.’

  ‘Oh yes. Double porca, I’d say, and very little Madonna.’

  Gran’s already arrived when I get to the shop; I think she’s rather enjoyed being free of it since I took over, but today is clearly an exception with news of the wedding breaking on the High Street. She’s holding court with her friend Betty, and Elsie’s in attendance, and she’s already been to see the Vicar about the church, and now they’re talking about flowers while I’m wedged in the window trying to get a small knitted penguin to stop falling over. A fairly steady stream of old ladies wheel their trollies in during the morning, desperate for snippets, and there’s a great deal of lobbying for carnations and freesias before they all go next door to see Mrs Davies, who’s run the florist’s shop for years and does all the local weddings.

  I’m re-arranging the Scottish tweeds, which Elsie has put into unfortunate colour combinations, so I’m separating the sage-greens from the heather-purples, with a buffer zone of slate-grey and oatmeal, while Elsie watches. She’s not that keen on me Moving Stock; but we’ve negotiated an uneasy truce over the past few months, which involves me trying to stop the shop looking like a colour-blind nutter has thrown balls of wool into random heaps, while she stands with her arms folded and watches me, in between putting the kettle on and making cups of tea and eating custard creams. I’m trying to make sure we’ve always got biscuits in the tin and it’s costing me a fortune, but they’re a key part of my staff-training plan.

  Elsie can be incredibly domineering when she wants to be, but she’s very kind, underneath it all, and completely reliable, so I can’t afford to lose her. She knows everybody, and since she only lives two streets away she’s always around to nip in if I can’t open up, or I need her to do an extra shift. But I know all her bossing and sulking really got to Gran over the years, so I’m trying not to let her do the same to me, and the biscuits are definitely helping.

  Gran comes back from the florist’s humming.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe the price of some of those bouquets.’

  Betty nods.

  ‘It’s terrible, you’d never think a few roses and a few ferns would add up to nearly fifty pounds, would you? They should be ashamed of themselves.’

  ‘Yes, but she says she’ll do me something special. Isn’t that kind of her? I’ve got the brochure in my bag. Shall I show you?’

  ‘Lovely, Gran. Just let me finish this.’

  Elsie leans forwards slightly, desperate to be involved.

  ‘Shall I put the kettle on, Mary? There’s such a lot to organise, isn’t there? I know what it was like with my Martin, not that she would let me do it properly, insisted on the church near her parents, which wasn’t a patch on ours. Horrible concrete thing. And the flowers were terrible. I tried to tell him, you know. I could see what she was like right from the start – only out for what she could get. Still, he’s learned his lesson the hard way, and he can’t say I didn’t try to warn him.’

  Gran and Betty nod sy
mpathetically: although why it still matters what Martin’s wife Patricia chose for their wedding is beyond me; particularly since they’re divorced and she’s moved in with the area sales manager at the company where Martin used to work. Apparently she’s insisting on being called Patsy now, and wearing a gold ankle chain.

  ‘Will you be doing lunch or tea for the reception, Mary? I always think a tea’s nice, and that way you don’t have to provide a big meal. Some people will eat you out of house and home if you let them.’

  If there’s anyone in Broadgate who knows how to snork their way through a wedding buffet better than Elsie then I’d like to meet them.

  ‘I thought we’d have a tea, and then maybe a quiet dinner for the family.’

  ‘Lovely.’ She’s smiling, but there’s a steely glint in her eye, and I think we’re all fairly clear that there’ll be hell to pay if she’s not invited to the dinner.

  The bell above the door jingles and we turn to see Mrs Marwell getting her trolley stuck on the mat, with Mrs Davies bringing up the rear. Excellent. More bouquet snippets.

  ‘I just thought, Mary, what about some lily of the valley? I know how much you like it.’

  Elsie moves behind the counter, frowning: she’s caught between maintaining her long-running feud with Mrs Davies over change for ten-pound notes, and making sure she doesn’t miss out on lily-of-the-valley details.

  Mrs Marwell has finally wrestled her trolley over the doormat.

  ‘I always think freesias are nice at a wedding.’

  Everyone agrees that freesias are nice at weddings, and Elsie goes into Superior Shop Assistant mode, bustling about behind the counter being Busy.

  ‘Did that pink wool knit up all right, Mrs Marwell?’

  ‘Oh yes, lovely, thanks, Elsie, but I need some navy now, for my Stewart’s boy. I’m doing him a jumper, with a train on the front, like the one I made for him when he was little. They all love trains at that age, don’t they?’

  Elsie nods.

  ‘He must be getting quite big. How old is he now?’

  ‘Eleven, nearly twelve. Now where did I put that pattern? It’s here somewhere.’