by Emma Davies
The gaping hole in the hedgerow was still plain to see as she drove past. All she wanted to do was shut her eyes, but this didn’t seem entirely sensible and so she gripped the wheel and carried on. She realised as she drove that the car’s height advantage gave her a much better view of things. Nothing seemed quite as big as it had before. Perhaps it was this that made her feel safer and, as she pulled into the car park of the pub for the second time that week, she began to understand the necessity of having vehicles like these in the countryside. Chelsea tractors, they were known as in the city, but here they were a flipping godsend.
She found a parking space with ease even though it was approaching lunchtime and climbed stiffly from the car. There probably wasn’t much else she’d be up for today, but if she could at least get this one thing sorted she would feel as if she were making some sort of contribution. She pulled open the pub door and scanned the inside.
The place was deserted, except for a customer who looked remarkably like the man who had been propping up the bar last time she was here. Different clothes maybe, but still the same defeated air. She glanced at her watch; bang on one o’clock and not a punter in sight.
She wandered over to the bar, perched on the edge of a stool and pulled out her phone to check the signal. It took only a moment to connect using the same password as before, and Maddie was pleased to see that the service was as strong as ever.
‘She’s out back.’
‘I’m sorry?’ She turned to see that the man had finally looked up from his pint and was staring at her.
‘Bloody barmaid,’ he said. ‘She’s out back.’ This time there was an accompanying jerk of his head towards a door behind him at the end of the bar. ‘You might as well go and see,’ he added, ‘you’re wasting your time sat there waiting for her.’
Maddie slipped off her stool with a nod and headed out back and past an array of refuse bins, stacks of beer barrels and a vent in the wall blowing out steamy air. Beyond it, next to a grimy blue door, a small red car was parked, its boot raised and almost overflowing with boxes. Of Trixie, however, there was no sign.
She was about to turn away when the door beside her burst open and Trixie cannoned into her, clutching another huge box. She didn’t know who was the more surprised.
‘Blinkin’ ’eck, you scared me!’ said Trixie, bringing one knee up to stop the box from slipping. She hitched it up, adjusting her arms to get a better grip.
’Sorry… can I help?’ replied Maddie.
‘Nah, I’m good,’ she replied. ‘Just let me dump this in the car.’
She moved past Maddie and all but threw the box down in the boot. Then she turned to face Maddie, her hands on her hips, eyes narrowing.
‘You’re the woman from the other day, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘The one that liked my mushrooms?’
Maddie grinned. ‘Well, they were rather nice.’
‘And now very definitely off the menu. If you were after lunch again today, you’re out of luck I’m afraid.’ She glanced back towards her car. ‘Once I’ve shifted the last of these boxes, I’m off. That fat bastard can find someone else to run his grubby little hands all over, ’cause it’s not going to be me.’
She gave Maddie a rather fierce look.
‘Oh.’ It was all she could think of to say. Trixie certainly didn’t look like the type of person who would put up with anything she didn’t want to.
‘Yeah, bit of a bummer, isn’t it, seeing as I’ve got nowhere to live now either, but he can stick his job and his poxy room.’
Maddie gave her a sympathetic look. ‘What are you going to do?’
Trixie cocked her head to one side. ‘Stay with a mate… for now. Not much I can do, is there?’
‘But surely you could complain? To the brewery, or someone? He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.’
‘Well, you’d think that, wouldn’t you? Maybe where you come from, but not here. I’m just the barmaid; probably not the first to get their arse grabbed by their boss, and probably not the last. Who’s going to listen to me, anyway?’
Maddie had no answer for her. It wasn’t right, not by a long stretch, but she had a feeling Trixie’s interpretation of the situation was pretty accurate. She was a low-paid worker who probably didn’t even have a contract.
‘Listen, I had a bit of an accident yesterday so I’m not sure I can help you carry anything, but will all of your stuff fit in your car? I’ve an enormous Range Rover in the car park, I could help ferry stuff…’
Trixie’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh would you? It’s all my books, you see. There’s masses of them, and I can’t leave them here. Only I didn’t really want to have to come back for them. Once I’m gone, I’m gone, you know.’
Maddie knew exactly how she felt.
‘Really, it’s no trouble. I came to ask a favour of you actually, so that makes us even.’
‘Oh?’
‘It might be a bit of a long shot, but I’ve just started a new job myself and I need to get some decent broadband sorted out. I was wondering if you knew the name of the company that supplied the pub. I thought maybe I could get in touch with them.’
Trixie gave her an appraising glance. ‘You’re over at Seth’s place, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘I thought that might be you.’
The question surprised her. ‘Yes.’ She frowned. ‘But how could you possibly—’
‘Everybody round here knows Seth.’ There was something about the way she said it that prevented Maddie from making a reply. She smiled. ‘Come inside a minute.’
Maddie followed her through to a dimly lit narrow passageway which led to a large-sized kitchen. Down its middle ran a huge stainless steel table where at least half a dozen boxes still sat. Trixie had a lot of books.
Trixie crossed over to a door in one corner of the tiled room and pulled it open. On its reverse was a large cork notice board decorated with curled bits of paper. After a moment scanning the contents, Trixie plucked a card from one corner and held it out for Maddie.
‘There you go. All the details are on there.’
Maddie rummaged in her bag. ‘Have you got a pen?’ she asked.
Trixie shook her head. ‘Probably, but just take the card anyway.’
‘Won’t your boss need it?’
She received a long look. ‘Yeah, it’ll be a real shame when he won’t be able to find it.’ Then she broke into a wide grin. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Go and bring your car round and I can shift the last of these boxes. I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to.’
Maddie dropped the card into her bag and fished out the car keys instead.
‘Won’t be a minute.’
* * *
She was back on the road less than an hour later. Trixie’s friend lived only five minutes away from the town, in a house that didn’t look big enough to accommodate her, let alone the large number of boxes that accompanied her. Maddie felt bad about not being able to help her carry them into the house, but there was no way she would be able to lift them. She was beginning to feel utterly drained again. Just standing and walking for the little time she had were beginning to take their toll.
Still, her handbag held the rewards of a mission accomplished, and not only that but she had also found out something very interesting. A quick glance inside one of Trixie’s many boxes revealed not trashy fiction, as she had rather rashly assumed, but a veritable pantry of cookbooks from around the world. Trixie’s guilty pleasure had certainly given Maddie food for thought as she navigated the lanes back to the farm.
After dumping her things in the kitchen, she set off to find Clara. There was evidence of her in the garden – a fleece discarded over one of the benches, a stack of canes and string propped up against it – but no sign of the woman herself.
As Maddie wandered through the pathways that bisected the space, she saw for the first time the intricacies and organisation of the planting that perfectly filled every inch of usable space. She was no expert, but through the abunda
nce of flowers and colour, she could see that for the most part the garden had been given over to the growing of vegetables.
‘Maddie!’
She looked up to see Clara madly waving, standing over by the barn across the far side of the garden.
‘Come over, there’s something I want to show you.’
Maddie raised an arm and did as she was asked, trying to move as quickly as possible. When she finally made it to Clara’s side she could see she was frowning.
‘You need to go and lie down,’ she said. ‘Look at you, you can hardly walk.’
Maddie would normally have argued, insisting she was fine, but there was something about the look on Clara’s open face that simply made her shrug instead.
‘In a bit,’ was all she said. ‘What did you want to show me?’
But Clara wasn’t about to let it drop. ‘I’m serious. I would never have called you over if I’d known you were in so much pain. You probably should have gone to hospital yesterday.’
‘I’m fine, honestly. It’s just a bit of whiplash, that’s all. Nothing that a couple of paracetamol won’t cure.’
‘Then I suggest you go and take them. What are you even doing out here?’
‘Looking for you actually,’ Maddie replied. ‘I wanted to ask you something.’
Clara grinned. ‘I wanted to ask you something too. It would be weird if it was the same thing, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would be more than weird… I hardly dare to ask you now.’
‘And I wanted to show you something too,’ Clara added. ‘Can you come in the barn? I know you had some ideas for this place,’ she continued, once they were inside. ‘Only I’ve been thinking about it too.’
Maddie grimaced as she looked up at the huge expanse of roof timbers above her.
‘I think I got a bit carried away,’ she said. ‘Frankly, I’m a bit embarrassed at my suggestions now.’
She hadn’t realised until she said it how true this was. It seemed ridiculous to her that only yesterday she had stood telling Seth her vision for this place, proud as anything of her ideas, and yet now, in such a short space of time, they seemed incongruous and at best inappropriate. Perhaps it was the bump to the head.
Clara smiled warmly. ‘Well the whole glass thing, maybe,’ she said. ‘It’s not really us, is it? But that aside, Seth was really impressed with your ideas for the use of the space.’
Maddie stared at her. ‘He was?’ she asked, feeling a little surge of pride. Maybe she hadn’t got things so very wrong after all.
‘Yes. I don’t think he’d ever thought of being able to use the barn, but he said you mentioned some sort of communal area? Somewhere all the guests might use?’
It was the first time Maddie had been inside, and the space was much bigger that she had thought. It made her ideas about walls of glass seem ridiculous; the cost of them alone would be sky high.
‘Business users was what I was originally thinking. I saw this space as a centre for meetings, conferencing, even hot-desking. I thought we could provide breakout spaces and refreshments, and from there it wasn’t too far a leap to extend those services to include gourmet food for residential guests if they wanted it, so the best of both worlds.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I was looking for some angle that might set this place apart from the competition.’
Clara looked doubtful. ‘I get that, and I won’t pretend to understand what “hot-desking” is, but do you really think that’s the way to go? Aren’t there lots of other places where you can hire rooms for meetings?’
‘There are, but none of them would have the state-of-the-art facilities that we could offer under one roof. I thought if we could attract the right sort of businesses, we could charge a fortune for additional services. The type of customer I was thinking of would be those used to the highest specification IT for example, a really bespoke service, top-quality food—’ She broke off at the look on Clara’s face. ‘That’s not going to work here, is it? I’ve realised that.’
‘I just can’t see why business people would come to our little corner of Shropshire. We’re a bit in the middle of nowhere here… It’s just too far a leap from where we are now, and the sums of money involved would be—’
‘Astronomic. I know, it’s a ridiculous idea…’ Maddie scanned the roof. ‘I’m thinking with my London head on and I really need to stop.’
‘Not stop, just maybe refocus all those brilliant ideas in a slightly different direction. I don’t think Seth had even considered that the barn might be a useful addition to what we’re trying to do here, so if it hadn’t been for you…’
‘Now you’re just trying to be kind.’
‘And is there anything wrong with that?’ She took Maddie gently by the arm. ‘There’s scarcely enough kindness in the world as it is, and yet we continue to be our own worst enemies. We beat ourselves up over the slightest thing, even when our intentions are good ones. If we can’t even be kind to ourselves… well, maybe other people need to be kind for us.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve been trying to think of a use for this space that fulfils that ideal, but I’m not sure I’ve quite got the imagination for it.’
‘Who’s being hard on who now?’ asked Maddie, with an answering smile of her own. ‘You must have had some ideas. Come on, tell me what you’ve been thinking.’
To her amusement, Clara just shrugged. ‘Nothing at all really. Maybe you could give it some more thought though, in a different direction from the whole business angle. Something more… communal, that all our guests could use. I mean it’s close to the garden, and to the cottages themselves, there must be something.’
‘That’s the most unsubtle point in the right direction I’ve ever heard, Clara.’ She tutted, but with good humour. Perhaps the daft idea she’d had earlier in the day while talking to Trixie wasn’t quite so daft after all.
Clara looked shocked. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said indignantly, hand over her heart, but then she broke into a broad grin. ‘Right, no messing now, let’s get you back to the house for a lie-down.’
Chapter 10
Maddie’s lie-down turned out to be rather longer than she expected. Left to her own devices she would probably have carried on, but Clara had insisted that she take some pain medication and go to bed. The minute her limbs sank into the soft mattress, Maddie could feel waves of tiredness begin to consume her and she let herself get lost in the feeling. It was several hours before she woke, stiff and cold down one side where her arm had rested outside of the covers. She pulled herself upright only to set her alarm and drink from the glass of water beside the bed and then she let sleep take her once more.
She was determined that the next morning would not be a repeat of the day before and even though her alarm went off as planned, she was already wide awake and mentally running through the list of things that she wanted to look at during the course of the day. Whether she would physically be able to achieve anything on this list was another matter, but a gentle testing of her muscles seemed to suggest that, while everywhere still ached, there was none of the searing pain from yesterday.
Her conversation with Clara was still very fresh in her mind and, as usual, her imagination was running on overdrive, fed, she knew, by Clara’s generous hints about what to do with the barn. She was still a little uncertain how she felt about Clara – everything she did or said hinted at a very close relationship with Seth, and yet she didn’t seem suspicious of Maddie at all, just genuine in her desire to help. Their discussion had solidified one thing, though; Maddie’s idea about Trixie might not be quite so ridiculous after all. In fact, it might also go some way to solving another problem…
The first thing on her list, however, was to make Seth and herself breakfast. His generosity of the day before had not only taken her by surprise, but had also gone a long way to repair their relationship. The least she could do was feed the man.
To her surprise, Seth was already in the kitchen nursing a huge mug of coffee. The rich smell pervaded the ro
om and the minute he caught sight of her he crossed to the machine which stood on the counter and poured her a cup.
‘You’re not supposed to be up yet,’ he remarked, placing her mug down in front of her. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Better,’ she said firmly.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Really?’
‘Okay, a bit better,’ she conceded. ‘A subtle, yet discernible improvement, will that do?’
He laughed. ‘Still shit then.’ He watched while Maddie took her seat. ‘Well, I for one was in definite need of a kick-start this morning and I’m one coffee down already and still not sure I’m functioning at the required level. Do you want something to eat?’
‘No, no, my turn this morning. It’s the least I can do after causing everyone so much trouble. Plus, I didn’t exactly pull my weight yesterday.’
‘There’s no expectation, Maddie. We all do what we can, when we can, and that varies from day to day. It’s just how we do things here. No clocking-on times, no clocking-off times…’ He dropped his eyes. ‘Tom won’t be around today, and neither will Clara.’
‘Oh, I was going to spend some time with her today, she was going to show me…’ She stopped when she caught sight of the expression on his face. ‘Is everything okay?’ she asked quietly.
He sighed. ‘I think so, she’s probably just overtired… and Tom’s hungover.’
‘Hungover?’
‘He plays in a band,’ answered Seth briefly. ‘And gets a bit carried away at times.’
Maddie frowned. There was something about Seth’s tone that carried a distinct warning. Now was clearly not the time to be asking questions.