by Suzie Twine
“Yes, you take them. Sounds like Maureen might be a bit like my mum, bit of a hoarder is she?”
“Yeah, you could say that, or she likes re-cycling anyway. Right, hope you guys have got room for cake. Sorry it’s a bit squashed!”
Lois and Sicily explained to Tom in more detail, what had happened at Margaret’s house.
“Gosh, I can’t wait to meet all these characters, I feel I’ve been missing out! And her husband’s a drug dealer Sicily, really? Straight up?”
“Straigh’ up Tom, straigh’ up!”
16
Lois and Tom both got up early on Saturday morning. The weather forecast had predicted a sunny start, with winds increasing during the day, culminating in a thunderstorm late afternoon, early evening. Since they wanted to fit in a walk, doing it before going to the jewellers seemed like the sensible thing to do.
Annie was at the front of her house, doing some gardening as they passed. Rupert and Reaver came trotting up in their usual wiggling way.
“Hi Annie, would the dogs like a walk,” asked Tom, much to Lois’s surprise.
“I’m sure they’d love it,” said Annie, “where are you going?”
“To the woods, for about an hour.” Tom sounded like he knew where he was going, which made Lois feel slightly anxious, as far as she was concerned they were going exploring.
“I’ll fetch their leads,” Annie said, returning moments later with the leads and a small bag of treats. “Now, regular treats are the key to keeping them close. They are generally fine unless they see deer, then Reaver in particular, tends to disappear for some time.”
“Great!” said Tom, forcing a smile, and as they walked away with both dogs tugging at their leads, Lois put her finger to her lips to try and stop him moaning within Annie’s earshot. Ten yards further on he said, “Well she could have told us that before we were committed, we’ve got to leave at ten to get to Hatton Garden.”
“We could keep them on the leads,” suggested Lois.
“No we couldn’t,” said Tom, unclipping Reavers lead, “bloody dog’s already hurting my ribs.” He called Reaver back and gave her a couple of treats. After being dragged even harder by Rupert, now that Reaver was ahead, Lois soon unclipped his lead too.
“And what’s with, ‘we’re going to the woods for an hour,’ it makes it sound like you know where we’re going.” At which point, Tom removed a sheet of A4 from his pocket.
“I was bored in the office yesterday, so I worked out a one hour route around the woods.” He showed Lois the way they were going on the map he’d printed from the Internet, then called both the dogs back and gave them each a treat.
“You see! I am a natural for living in the country!”
Lois and Tom settled into their stride, which was by no means brisk. They followed the well-trodden footpath across two fields, from which hay crops had been recently taken. The second field was large and dipped down towards the woods. As they moved out of the sunshine into the relative darkness of deciduous woodland, it took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust. Ten yards in they stopped abruptly as they heard a rustling in the undergrowth, which seemed to be coming from behind a holly bush. Both the dogs put their hackles up and barked at the bush. Tom, thinking there might be a deer in there, grabbed Reaver by the collar. As the rustling got louder, they all realised it was a person. Tom let Reaver go and she went wiggling into the bush.
“Hello Reaver,” came a high voice, “I’m so glad to see you!”
“Margaret, is that you?” Lois asked before Margaret eventually emerged from the holly, looking somewhat the worse for wear. She had bits of foliage in her hair, which had been half pulled out of the neat bun, in which she normally wore it. She was wearing an enormous, no, colossal cream jogging suit, which had smears of mud, both top and bottom. She had scratches on her face and hands. Yet, she was grinning from one dough-ball to the other.
Seeing Tom, Margaret immediately started to brush herself off and fiddle with her hair, embarrassed that she was meeting him for the first time, in such a state.
“Margaret, whatever happened to you?” asked Lois.
“You must be Tom, I’m so sorry, you must think me very strange, out in the woods and looking so dishevelled.” Margaret rubbed her muddy hand on her jogging bottoms and offered it to Tom to shake. “Welcome to Harewood Tom, I hope you’ll both be very happy. Now,” Margaret glanced around her, “which way’s home?”
Tom guided Margaret to the edge of the wood and pointed out the path. She thanked him and stumbled off onto it.
“Do you think we ought to go with her?” Lois asked Tom, “I’m not sure she’s herself.”
“She looks like she’s herself and several other people to me!”
“Tom, shhh, she might hear you.”
“Yes you might be right,” he whispered, “she doesn’t travel very fast, does she? What’s she doing out here anyway, she doesn’t really look like the walking type.”
“It must be part of Sicily’s training regime. Why do you think she was so muddy? And she smelt of wee, did you notice?”
“I reckon she went into the bushes for a wee, lost her balance and rolled down a hill.”
“Stop it!” Lois nudged Tom, laughing. “What a vision!”
At this point, Lois decided she better duck behind a bush herself, three cups of tea at breakfast were now taking their toll. As she emerged, she asked Tom if he knew where the dogs were.
“They’re right…” Tom looked around him, not a dog in sight.
Lois raised her eyes to heaven. “Oh God, I knew this would happen!” she said, looking indignantly at Tom.
“Don’t blame me!”
Lois didn’t respond, although she was sorely tempted, but started to call the dogs and tried to whistle them, but whistling had never been one of her strong points. Two or three minutes passed, with no sign of either of them. Lois was starting to feel sick. What would she say to Annie? Then Tom, put his thumb and middle finger in his mouth and gave an almighty whistle. Lois, who was only a metre away, put her hands over her ears, and shouted, “Tom, that really hurt and I’m sure they won’t…” she stopped mid sentence. Both the dogs were careering towards them. They then sat down at Tom’s feet and looked up at him. ”Wow, now that was impressive!”
Tom gave them both a treat and a pat. “Well looks like I’ve got a hidden talent, doesn’t it Lo? Dog whisperer.”
“Well you’ve certainly got something!”
Tom checked his watch, half an hour had already past, “you know, I think we had better head back before anything else happens to make us late.”
Lois and Tom made their way out of the wood. They could see Margaret going through the gate at the end of the first field. It looked like she was holding it open for someone.
“So, is Sicily going to try and kill her do you think?” asked Tom, indicating Margaret with his eyes.
“No, I’m sure she’ll be very sensible. It’ll be interesting to see how much her input helps. Oh look, here come Jack and Ellie! More neighbours for you to meet.”
“Ellie’s the dog I take it and Jack, oh yes Jack, can only swear, what is it he says ‘Oh bugger off!’?” Tom had found a lot of what Lois had told him about the neighbours difficult to believe.
Jack trundled up towards them, the wheelchair bumping effortlessly over the stones and large tufts of grass on the path. When he spoke, his voice vibrated with the movement of the chair. “Oh bugger off!” he said touching his hand to his forehead, in a greeting gesture.
“Jack, lovely to see you! How are you?”
“Oh bugger off!” he said, nodding slowly, tilting his head slightly from one side to the other, and pushing out his bottom lip, giving a gesture of ‘so-so’. Then he pointed to Tom. “Oh bugger off?” he asked.
“Oh, sorry Jack, yes, this is Tom, my boyfriend, no, sorry, fiancé.” Tom used his left hand to shake Jack’s.
“Pleased to meet you Jack, I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Jack smiled and raised his eyes to heaven as if to say, ‘yes, who hasn’t.’ He then pointed to the plaster on Tom’s arm. “Oh bugger off?” he asked.
“Silly accident,” said Tom, “came off my mountain bike, into a ditch.”
“Ohhh buuger off!” said Jack, looking like he was trying to look concerned at the same time as trying not to laugh.
Jack looked at his watch and gave a wave, “Oh bugger off!”
“Nice to meet you Jack, see you again!”
“Bye Jack,” called Lois, as Jack pulled away, Ellie sniffing the ground as she trotted along in front of him, having her ‘free-time’.
Lois was relieved to see that Annie’s dogs had remained with them while they had been talking to Jack, she had been completely distracted and if they had disappeared, the chances are she wouldn’t have noticed. They walked across the final field and down the lane. Sicily was outside Margaret’s house, with a very dirty looking mountain bike.
“Sicily, you’re surely not thinking of getting her on that are you?” said Lois, cringing at the thought of what might happen if Margaret were to try to mount it.
“Don’t be daft!” Sicily whispered, “It’s only made of aluminium, not reinforced steel. I just rode it up ‘ere. No, I’ve come to give Mags her first lesson. Eatin’ for one!”
They all laughed, “We’ll let you get on.” said Tom, dragging Lois away. “Come on, we’ve got an appointment!”
Lois and Tom arrived at the jewellers bang on time, which was unusual. For all Tom’s stickling for precision in life, he was remarkably bad at timekeeping. Lois had started to secretly change the time on all the clocks and on both their watches, in an attempt to overcome this problem. Setting them all ten minutes fast, on this particular occasion, had worked like a charm.
“Good morning Sir, Madam. I’m Piers and I will be your personal jeweller this morning,” said a very ‘shiny’, somewhat camp looking middle aged man at the desk where they had confirmed their arrival.
“Oh God,” whispered Tom, under his breath, as Piers went to get the keys for the engagement ring cabinet from the safe. “I’m not sure I can be doing with all this.”
“Oh come on you grumpy old sod, it’ll be a laugh. Look, I like that one,” said Lois, pointing to a platinum ring, with five small diamond set into it. “There’s no price on it, do you think that’s a bad sign?”
“Definitely,” said Tom, as Piers swanned back in.
“Now, engagement rings. Why don’t you give me an inkling into your style.”
“Well, I like that one,” Lois indicated the platinum ring.
“Oh stunning choice sweetie, stunning choice! Lets get that out for you and see if it fits!” Lois thought Piers sounded so excited, anyone would have thought it was him who had just got engaged. He unlocked the cabinet, took the tray out and slowly and carefully placed it on the top. He then removed the ring as if it were a crucial part of an unexploded bomb, took a cloth from his top pocket, which he flicked open with a flourish and gave the ring a thorough polish before gently handing it to Lois.
“Before I try it on, I’d like to know how much it is please Piers.”
“Ah,” Piers’ face fell, just a minuscule amount, but enough to tell Lois it was going to be bad news. “This particular ring retails at just five thousand pounds.”
“Ah.” Lois paused, handed the ring back to Piers and said, “Please give us a moment.”
“Certainly madam,” he said, looking slightly despondent, “I’ll be over here if you need me, just give me a call!”
“Bloody hell, Tom. Why did you make an appointment at somewhere so expensive? We’re not going to buy anything here!”
“Sorry, it was Mel’s suggestion. She said they have a fantastic selection, she said you’d love the rings here and we’d be sure to find something. I just wanted it to be romantic, to be honest I didn’t give much thought to cost.”
“Oh bless you,” said Lois stroking Tom’s cheek, then reaching up to give him a kiss. “I love you!”
“I love you too!”
Lois turned around to talk to Piers, who had his head tilted to one side and his hand up to his mouth. “Oh I’m sorry, it almost brings a tear to my eye, seeing you two looking so happy. I see a lot of couples in here, some look like a good match and some don’t. You two look perfect together!”
“Well that’s very nice of you, but I’m afraid that’s not going to make you a sale.”
“Don’t you worry about that, just go and be happy!”
Lois and Tom said goodbye to Piers. He kissed them both flamboyantly on both cheeks, “I wish you every happiness in your life together!”
They wandered through Hatton Garden, hand in hand.
“You know what Tom, perhaps we shouldn’t get a ring.”
“But you’d love to have a ring, Mel said she’d had long discussions with you over what sort you’d like.”
“Well, yes we have talked about it, that’s what girls do. But actually, the quality of a relationship can’t be judged by the value of a ring, or indeed, by the fact a ring’s being worn. I thought I wanted you to wear a wedding ring, to show that you’re ‘taken’, I suppose. But a relationship is so much more. The deep trust that we need to have in each other, it makes rings seem, I don’t know, rather,” Lois paused, searching for the right word, “irrelevant?” She thought for a few moments. “Perhaps we should earn a ring, spend money on a special ring when we’ve been married a long time. Maybe after ten years, something like that.”
“Ten years? Bloody hell Lo, I wasn’t planning on staying married to you for that long!” teased Tom, moving away as he said it, narrowly avoiding a poke in the ribs.
“Ha, ha! But really, what do you think. We could put that money towards things we really need at the moment. And, if we don’t make the ten years, we’ve made a five grand saving.”
“Well I’m happy with that. So, if we’re saving five grand today, can we have lunch somewhere posh.”
“No Tom! We’re saving five grand today. We’ll eat in a pub as we’d planned. The money can stay in the bank until we need to buy something, like, oh I don’t know, the piece of land behind our house?”
“Oh yes? Is this the reason you’re declining my engagement ring, you want to buy land, so you can get yourself a pony?”
“No, no, no,” said Lois rubbing her face lovingly on Tom’s shoulder, “I was just thinking what we needed to spend a large sum of money on and that was the only thing that sprang to mind. Mind you five thousand wouldn’t go very far towards buying it.”
“Why, how much do they want?”
“A hundred.”
“A hundred thousand for that bit of scrub land.”
“I know, it’s a lot isn’t it? But that’s what it’s been valued at. I bet they’ll get it as well. God, I hope old Black doesn’t buy it!”
17
Lois and Tom had a leisurely lunch, discussing all sorts of issues that they had not found time for before. The progress of the house came first, but didn’t need much time spent on it as, surprisingly, all the work seemed to be well ahead of schedule. Dean and his chums had been doing a great job. Adam had been to replace the missing roof tiles the previous day. The electrics were sorted. Even the landline and broadband were functioning. By Friday, the likelihood was that all the interior work would be complete in time for them moving in.
“Ah, curtains. I haven’t done anything about curtains yet. Off the rail or get them made up?”
“Up to you my treasure, that’s woman’s work.”
“Ok, suits me. So you don’t want any input into colour, style or pattern then?”
“Ah, that’s not what I said. Well, that’s not what I meant,” Tom said, backtracking fast, he was actually very particular about decor.
They moved on. The next subject was the wedding, where and when. Lois told Tom about the appointment at the registry office.
“Registry office?” Tom looked surprised. “Can’t you get married pr
etty much anywhere these days? Wouldn’t you prefer to do it in a nice stately home, or, church? Hey, is there something you haven’t told me, have you been married before?”
“Stop it Tom,” Lois said, laughing, “I can hardly walk down the aisle eight months pregnant can I?” she paused, “but maybe a stately home?” Lois sat and thought about this for a couple of minutes, munching her way through an enormous plate of cheddar ploughman’s. “Hey, what about Harewood Manor, I wonder if they do wedding ceremonies there? I bet they do. It’s a bit tacky inside mind you, Mel won’t be impressed, but the grounds are very beautiful and it’s so convenient.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Lois got out her phone and put in an alarmed note to remind her to make enquiries on Monday.
The next thing Lois wanted to discuss was the birth of the baby. Attending her antenatal appointment the previous week, she had talked through with the midwife the possibility of a home delivery. Much to Lois’s surprise, the midwife had been very enthusiastic. She said they tried to encourage as many fit, healthy women as possible to have home births. She had given Lois some web links to gather more information so she and Tom could make an informed decision. Lois wanted to sound Tom out before spending time researching.
Tom sat for a moment, thinking through the idea. Then said, “Well, I’m not averse to reading the research to see why they encourage it.”
“Great! I’ll look into it next week. The other thing I wanted to mention is a birthing pool, apparently you can hire them to have at home. Do you remember we saw that documentary on babies being born in water? I’ll do some research into that too, if you’re that open minded?” Lois gave Tom her most spectacular smile, showing off her orthodontically perfected teeth and the dimples in her cheeks.
“Okay, but I won’t be happy unless the research is very positive. I don’t want you or Pumpkin to be at unnecessary risk.”
“Of course!”