A Vintage Summer

by Cathy Bramley

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  The Thank Yous

  About the Author

  Cathy Bramley is the author of the best-selling romantic comedies Ivy Lane, Appleby Farm, Wickham Hall, The Plumberry School of Comfort Food, The Lemon Tree Café and A Match Made in Devon (all four-part serialized novels) as well as Conditional Love, White Lies & Wishes and Hetty’s Farmhouse Bakery. She lives in a Nottinghamshire village with her family and a dog. Her recent career as a full-time writer of light-hearted romantic fiction has come as somewhat of a lovely surprise after spending the last eighteen years running her own marketing agency.

  Cathy would love to hear from you! Find her on:

  Facebook.com/CathyBramleyAuthor

  @CathyBramley

  www.CathyBramley.co.uk

  To Snowy Arbuckle with all my love

  Acclaim for Cathy Bramley:

  ‘It’s impossible not to fall in love with Cathy Bramley’s feel-good stories’

  Sunday Express

  ‘Heartwarming and positive … will leave you with a lovely cosy glow’

  My Weekly

  ‘Books by Cathy Bramley are brilliantly life affirming’

  Good Housekeeping

  ‘This is delightful!’

  Katie Fforde

  ‘As comforting as hot tea and toast made on the Aga!’

  Veronica Henry

  ‘Thoroughly enjoyable’

  U Magazine

  ‘This book ticks all the boxes’

  Heat

  ‘Reading a Cathy Bramley book for me is like coming home from a day out, closing the curtains, putting on your PJs and settling down with a huge sigh of relief! Her books are full of warmth, love and compassion and they are completely adorable’

  Kim the Bookworm

  ‘Full of joy and fun’

  Milly Johnson

  ‘Perfect feel-good loveliness’

  Miranda Dickinson

  ‘I love Cathy’s writing and her characters – her books are delicious’

  Rachael Lucas

  ‘The perfect tale to warm your heart and make you smile’

  Ali McNamara

  ‘Between the irresistible characters and the desirable setting, Wickham Hall is impossible to resist’

  Daily Express

  ‘Delightfully warm’

  Trisha Ashley

  ‘A fabulously heart-warming and fun read that will make you just want to snuggle up on the sofa and turn off from the outside world’

  By the Letter

  ‘Another absolute corker from Cathy Bramley. She just gets better and better – creating beautiful locations, gripping and lovely storylines and fantastic characters that stick with you a long time after reading’

  Little Northern Soul

  www.penguin.co.uk

  Chapter 1

  ‘There you go, Gladys, all nice and neat again.’ I brushed the specks of loose soil from Mrs Wheatley’s slate plaque and dropped a handful of faded pink azalea petals into my wheelbarrow. ‘Weed free and blooming beautifully. Ready for your husband’s visit tomorrow.’

  I stood up and circled my shoulders. Only nine o’clock in the morning and the June heat was already beginning to build within the walls of the Garden of Remembrance. It would be a sunhat and sunscreen sort of day, a bit hot and sticky for me, working outside all day, but nice for our visitors to be able to say their farewells in the sunshine.

  We had a full schedule today in the chapel of rest and on days like this, people would often linger for a while in the garden. It was the prettiest part of the North London Crematorium, in my opinion. The rest of the grounds around the chapel and the car park were laid to lawn and it always reminded me of the Teletubbies set: perfectly landscaped, beautifully green but with their man-made undulations and newly planted trees it was all a bit artificial. Nothing like the countryside where I grew up in the Derbyshire village of Fernfield, all woods and hills, streams and farmland. I suppressed a sigh and swallowed a pang of homesickness. I needed to stop thinking like this; home was here now, in London. With Harvey. I was lucky to have a job at all, not to mention one that allowed to be me outside in the fresh air.

  Next stop the lovely yellow climbing rose. The ashes of a man called Shaun were scattered here. Killed in a motorbike accident, so his twin brother had told me.

  Every part of this garden was special to someone: each plant, bench, wooden archway and stone ornament held treasured memories for people, the place where a loved one’s ashes had been sprinkled. And it was my privilege to care for them all. My working day was calm, ordered and, most of the time, entirely predictable. In fact, this garden was the only place in the world where I felt in control at the moment.

  I picked up my watering can and made my way to Shaun’s rose bush. I got all sorts of odd requests from relatives; I was used to it by now. In this case, Shaun’s brother had asked if I would mind singing a particular song to him every now and then. I looked over my shoulder to make sure my colleague Alan wasn’t in earshot. I spotted him a little way off, going around the lavender bed with the edging shears. Mind you, even if he did hear me serenading the rose bush he would just shake his head fondly. Unlike my boss, Paula, who was very keen on remits and rotas and being discreet in public areas. She was all right, really, just a bit of a stickler for the rules. Singing and dancing were definitely not part of my job description.

  But if it gave some comfort to Mr Wheatley to know that I had a chat with Gladys when I weeded the azalea he’d planted in her memory, where was the harm? And I’m sure Shaun’s rose bush had been perkier since I’d been singing his favourite Queen song to him. I began watering and cleared my throat before breaking into song.

  ‘Bom, bom, bom, another one bites the—’

  ‘Lottie? Can I have a word?’ came a voice from behind me.

  I whirled around, sending a plume of water into the air that landed with a splash on my boots. Paula was picking her way across the soft green turf towards me in her court shoes. My heart sank as swiftly as her heels in the grass.

  ‘Sure.’ I put down the watering can. As long as the word isn’t ‘P45’. Thank goodness I’d only been singing quietly. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Can you spare me five minutes?’ she said with a jerk of her head. ‘My office.’

  And without waiting for an answer she spun on her heels and marched back towards the main building so fast that her flesh-coloured tights made a zipping noise where her thighs rubbed together.

  ‘I’ll just tidy my tools away,’ I called after her.

  ‘Now you’re for it.’ Alan looked up from his clipping, knocked his cap back off his forehead and winked. ‘Another one bites the dust, eh?’

  ‘Don’t joke.’ My stomach swooped. ‘I really need this job.’

  I’d worked for my dad as a tree surgeon befo
re moving to London, but there’d been nothing like that on offer locally when we’d come south last December so that Harvey could set up his own personal training business in the capital. ‘Let’s follow the money and move to London,’ he’d said, grabbing my hands, his eyes gleaming with pound signs. ‘I’ve got a mate with a flat we could rent.’

  Everyone in London could afford personal trainers, he’d reckoned. Punters were cash-rich and time-poor and would be falling over themselves to hand over said cash to be put through their paces. It would be a piece of low-fat, low-sugar cake to set up his own fitness consultancy down south. In fact, he’d said with a swagger, he’d probably have to take on staff within the first year. And it would do me good, he’d added in a tone laced with mock rebuke, to finally cut the apron strings and stand on my own two feet.

  I’d been so proud of his ambitions and his self-assurance that I’d been swept along with it, not really thinking through what I’d do when I got to London. As it turned out, the streets hadn’t been as richly paved with gold as he’d assumed and it had been impossible to find enough wealthy clients to make ends meet so when the gym he’d joined advertised for staff, he took the job to tide him over. He was still there. And the tiny flat that his friend had rented to him as a stopgap was scarcely more than a bedsit and, although Harvey insisted on paying for it himself, I suspected the rent was triple what my sister Evie and her husband Darren’s mortgage cost for their three-bedroomed house in Fernfield. Needless to say, we were still there.

  But Harvey had been right about one thing: it had been time for me to leave home. Dad and I had become too reliant on each other. He took on a business partner when I left; a man who could do the aerial cutting that I’d always done. And although I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was deliriously happy right now, I’d managed to survive six months in the capital, living and working with someone other than a family member. Not bad for a confirmed home bird like me.

  I stowed my garden tools safely where they couldn’t cause injury to the public and scurried after Paula. I caught up with her just as she reached the ‘authorized personnel only’ door in the side of the building and pulled it open for her.

  ‘Good weekend?’ I asked, using my question as an opportunity to scan her face for clues as to what sort of mood she was in.

  She stopped and leaned on the door frame to flick clumps of mud from her shoes. I took the hint and wiped my wet boots on the mat.

  Paula sighed. ‘The weekends are never long enough, are they? No sooner do we finish on a Friday afternoon than …’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Snap. Monday morning rolls back round and we’re off again. Noses to the grindstone.’

  ‘Too true.’ I tried to smile rather than grimace. I daren’t tell her that just lately my weekends had stretched to an interminable length as Harvey had become increasingly bad-tempered and – yes, I was going to admit it to myself – erratic. One minute he’d be squeezing the living daylights out of me, declaring that I was his soulmate and he couldn’t live without me, the next he’d fly into a huge sulk after I made an innocuous comment about a work colleague. It was a relief to come back to work every Monday, knowing that because of my early starts and his late finishes at the gym, it would be Saturday before I had to spend many waking hours with him. And if I was lucky, he’d be doing the weekend shift and I could have a few hours to myself.

  After I’d helped him design leaflets and deliver them to several hundred houses in the neighbourhood, I’d run out of things to do and had wanted to look for a job. Harvey said he felt humiliated that he couldn’t afford for me to stay at home, and I remember kissing him and saying with a laugh that it was no longer the nineteen fifties and I didn’t expect him to bankroll me. I think that was the day of our first row.

  A temporary job as grounds maintenance at the crematorium had been the only thing I could find that came close to my skills and experience. I knew I was on borrowed time until the person whose job I was doing came back, but now I hoped my time wasn’t up yet. Without something to get me out of our poky little flat every day, I’d go bonkers.

  Paula ushered me into her office and shut the door behind me. My spirits sank a little lower; shutting the door was never a good sign. She removed her navy blue suit jacket to reveal a short-sleeved white nylon shirt which crackled with static and hung it on the back of her chair.

  ‘Sit down, Lottie.’ She waved me to her visitor’s chair and plonked herself down behind her desk.

  ‘Thank you.’ I sat on the plastic chair, tucking my hands underneath my thighs to stop me waving them about nervously.

  ‘How long have you been with us now?’

  ‘Four months.’

  ‘And what would you say is our primary function, here at the North London Crematorium?’ She leaned forward on her desk, head cocked to one side.

  ‘Our primary function is funerals,’ I said, wondering if this was a trick question. ‘And making the loss of a loved one as painless as possible.’

  ‘Funerals,’ said Paula, glossing over my second point. ‘Specifically what type of funerals?’

  ‘Well, cremations. Obviously.’ I shrugged.

  ‘Exactly. Not burials.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Cremations for …?’

  Oh God. A tremor of dread flooded through me. Suddenly I knew exactly where this was heading.

  ‘People?’ I muttered weakly.

  Her gaze held mine as she reached for a glass of water on her desk. ‘People, Lottie. Humans.’

  ‘Okay, I can explain.’ I untucked my hands and pressed them on to her desk. ‘I know I shouldn’t have dug a grave for that hamster in the south corner by the hedge. Nor made a little cross from two lollipop sticks. But the little boy had travelled such a long way on his own on the bus with a shoebox containing what was left of Biscuit. It was the least I could do and it only took a few minutes. He’d written a eulogy and everything. Biscuit was his best friend. And he’d tried burying it in his garden but the dog had dug it up twice. The poor thing had already lost three of its limbs. I didn’t have the heart to send the poor boy packing.’

  Paula choked on her water and closed her eyes for a second.

  ‘You acted out of kindness, I understand that.’ She let out a long breath. ‘But it’s against the rules, Lottie. The Health and Safety Executive would crucify us.’

  ‘It won’t happen again,’ I promised.

  ‘And what about the singing?’

  ‘You heard that?’ I cringed, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks. ‘I never was very good at Queen songs.’

  ‘Queen?’ She stared at me. ‘I’m talking about your rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” with an old lady, complete with high kicks.’

  I gulped. ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘CCTV,’ she said, pointing to a small screen on a bracket high up on the wall of her office.

  Oh no.

  ‘I thought that was just for at night, when the security team is here,’ I said in a small voice.

  ‘Nope. We see everything.’ Her nostrils flared but I thought – hoped – I could see a glimmer of amusement in her eye.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I pleaded. ‘I know I’m supposed to be just gardening, but my motto is to always be kind. And I find it hard to say no when people ask me to do stuff. Always have. My sister Evie says I’m a pleaser.’

  I once admitted to Evie that I took my inspiration from Paddington Bear who always did the kind thing. When she’d finally got her breath back from a fit of laughter, she said the fact I’d chosen a cuddly, duffel-coat-wearing, marmalade-sandwich-eating teddy bear as a role model explained a lot about the scrapes I got myself into.

  ‘I can see that.’ Paula cocked her head to one side. ‘And while it does mean that you bend the rules to the point of snapping, kindness is something from which we can all benefit, from time to time.’

  I let out a breath. ‘I’m so relieved. I thought you were giving me a warning.’

  ‘I am. Unofficially. But you’ve brought a ze
st for life to this crematorium, Lottie; not just to the gardens, but to the team too. We’ve never had a member of staff who’s had so much interaction with our visitors before. I’m not, however, condoning the pet burial, or you joining in with ceremonies to sprinkle ashes, or sitting on the bench under the cherry tree going through that old lady’s wedding albums.’

  I winced; she really had paid attention to that CCTV.

  ‘Now. Next week …’ Paula sat back in her chair and steepled her fingers. ‘There is good news and bad news.’

  My heart sank again. ‘Please can we start with the bad?’

  ‘Lisa, whose post you’ve been filling, has been declared fit for work from Monday. Great for her, but it would mean that your last day should be this Friday.’

  ‘Should be?’ I held my breath.

  Paula beamed. ‘I’m delighted to say that another opening has cropped up …’

  Ten minutes later I stumbled from her office and back outside to the car park hardly daring to believe what I’d just heard. A promotion. Me. To grounds maintenance supervisor. More money, longer hours, paid holiday, a pension even – I’d never had a pension! Dad would be pleased for me; he worried, I knew, that we were hardly making ends meet at the moment.

  But Harvey: what would he have to say about it?

  My stomach churned at the prospect of broaching the subject without him taking it as a personal affront, without him accusing me of prioritizing my job over our relationship, and making him jealous that my career was taking off when coming to London had been his idea, his dream. A few months ago it wouldn’t have crossed my mind to worry about his reaction, but since he’d been at that gym he’d changed. I knew if I failed to pick the right moment there was every chance he’d fly into one of his rages followed by days of seething silence. By the time I’d reached the Garden of Remembrance to pick up where I’d left off, I was in a cold sweat. Hot acid rushed from my stomach to my throat. I was going to be sick. I dashed behind a row of conifers and coughed into shrubbery.

  What a mess.

  Chapter 2