Pastures New

by Julia Williams

  ‘I do,’ said Saffron. ‘I don’t seem to be losing any baby weight. And if I eat any more I’m going to be putting even more on.’

  Saffron was half-tempted to tell Pete about the pole-dancing class, which she had booked for the following week. But she was so embarrassed about it, she couldn’t bring herself to. Besides, she wasn’t sure yet if she was going to have the nerve to go. It would only take Pete to laugh at her for her to forget about the whole thing.

  Pete looked her up and down.

  ‘Well, maybe a little trimming up wouldn’t go amiss. But you know I like my women cuddly. I’m always telling you that. You really should believe me, you know.’

  Saffron laughed and sat back, relaxed and happy. It was true. Pete was always telling her he liked curvaceous women. She had nothing to worry about.

  Saffron was still feeling happy as they wandered up the high street on their way back home.

  ‘Have we got time for a swift one do you think?’ Pete asked, checking his watch as they passed the Magpie.

  ‘I’ll just ring Mum to check,’ said Saffron, ‘but yes, why not. We hardly ever do this, do we?’

  ‘Nope, and we should more often,’ said Pete, pulling her to him and snogging her in the doorway of a shop.

  ‘Stop, someone will see,’ laughed Saffron.

  ‘So?’ Pete did it again.

  ‘I feel like a teenager,’ said Saffron.

  ‘Me too,’ said Pete. ‘Good, isn’t it? Race you?’

  And, still giggling, they ran towards the pub.

  The Magpie was packed and steamy, and as they walked in Saffron spotted various allotmenteers. There was a group of wine producers in the corner, and the Guys were all sitting together by the fireplace.

  Saffron and Pete nodded their hellos, before heading for the bar, where they encountered Ben.

  ‘Hi, mate,’ said Pete. ‘It’s not like you to be out on a week night.’

  Ben usually made a point of doing his drinking away from Nevermorewell, as, given the town’s incapacity to keep anything secret, it invariably led to a patient telling him he’d been spotted the next day.

  ‘I just fancied getting out for a change,’ said Ben. ‘And I did go to the gym first, so I feel I’ve earned it. Where’ve you two been?’

  ‘Al Fresco’s,’ said Saffron. ‘It’s my birthday.’

  ‘Oh, happy birthday,’ said Ben, giving her a kiss. ‘Can I get you both a drink?’

  ‘Mine’s a pint,’ said Pete. ‘Just excuse me while I powder my nose.’

  Pete disappeared into the throng, while Saffron chatted to Ben.

  ‘How’s Amy?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s fine,’ said Saffron, carefully feeling her way, not sure how much she was supposed to know.

  ‘And Josh?’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t done any more moonlit flits from school, if that’s what you mean,’ said Saffron.

  ‘Good,’ said Ben. ‘I suppose Amy’s filled you in on everything.’

  ‘I don’t know that there’s an awful lot to fill me in on,’ said Saffron, ‘but I know Josh has been upset about a few things. He seems to be a bit calmer now, though. So Amy’s a little more relaxed.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ said Ben. ‘I’ve been so worried about them.’

  ‘Have you? Amy said she’d hardly seen you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ben. ‘The thing is, I said to Amy I wanted us to be friends, and I do, but Josh seems pretty set against me at the moment. So I thought it best if I stayed away – at least for the time being. Can you say hi to her for me though?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Saffron.

  ‘Where’s that pint, then?’ Pete was back, having been accosted at the bar by a couple of workmates. The conversation turned to other things, and Amy was forgotten. It was only when they got home that it occurred to Saffron that for someone who professed just to want to be friends, Ben was showing rather a lot more interest in Amy than he might.

  Ben ushered out a harassed mother of three whose children had all come down with chickenpox and looked at his day list to check his next patient. He was pleased to see Harry’s name on the list. They must have squeezed him in. Good. Harry had evidently heeded his warnings and was doing something about it. Presumably he couldn’t get in with Jane Warrender, his own GP and Ben’s more senior colleague. Although, knowing Harry, maybe he preferred coming to a man.

  His next patient was a tricky one. Angela Moorcroft, fifty-three, mother of two teenage daughters and just diagnosed with breast cancer. And despite the new ruling about Herceptin, Ben had been having a devil of a job trying to get the PCT to fund Angela’s, even though they were now supposed to by law. The trouble was that all the bloody PCTs were up to their eyes in debt. It was all very well politicians making the rules, but it was much harder to make them work. Still, Angela was a feisty sort. Ben expected that she wouldn’t take no lying down, and maybe she’d have more luck with the PCT than he had. It helped that her husband was wealthy, so if it came to it they could afford to take legal action, but Ben always thought of the other Angelas, the ones who didn’t have money and couldn’t seek recourse in the law.

  Angela, as it turned out, had been expecting his news, and was more than happy to go public on the story. She barely needed his help at all. Sometimes, he really did wonder why he did this job.

  When Harry came in, he cheered himself up by thinking that here at least he had made a difference.

  ‘Okay, Harry,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s be looking at you.’

  Having quickly established that Harry’s blood pressure was too high, and prescribing medication to help, Ben also suggested that Harry go and have an angiogram to find out the state of his heart.

  ‘What good is that going to do?’ asked Harry, buttoning up his shirt.

  ‘It will let us know the state of your arteries,’ said Ben, ‘and hopefully prevent you having a heart attack.’

  ‘I think we can safely say my arteries are probably terribly furred up,’ said Harry. ‘And if I have a heart attack, well, so be it.’

  ‘Now that is not the attitude, and you know it,’ warned Ben. ‘I’m sending you for an angiogram whether you like it or not.’

  ‘You fuss too much, old boy,’ said Harry.

  ‘Someone’s got to,’ said Ben.

  ‘Quite right too,’ agreed Harry. ‘And, really, I’m not ungrateful.’

  ‘Good,’ said Ben. ‘So you will go to your appointment?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll go,’ Harry replied. ‘Otherwise I’ll have Amy going on at me too.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, who else do you think made me book an appointment?’ said Harry. ‘She hasn’t stopped nagging me for weeks.’

  So much for his influence, Ben smiled to himself wryly as he saw Harry out. But he was glad Amy was taking an interest in Harry too. It was like an unspoken bond between them. And for the time being it was all he could hope for.

  Saffron poked her head around the corner of the door, and looked left and right. This had to be the right place. She was in a studio room, with a mirror at one end, and a series of poles protruding from the floor. She felt an absolute idiot, but was hoping that coming out to Bairstow meant she wouldn’t see anyone she knew. She’d told Pete that she was going to an aerobics class. Well, it was an exercise class, so she hadn’t stretched it too much.

  Now she was here, she was beginning to wonder what on earth she was doing. Legends nightclub was the sort of retro eighties place she hadn’t been in – well, since the eighties, when aged fifteen she and her friends had snuck their way into places like this and lied about their age. They would then spend the rest of the evening sharing a Babycham, which was all they could afford, and dancing round their handbags under the glowing disco ball to Kylie and Bros, awaiting the ritual humiliation of the slow dances, when nine times out of ten Saffron had found herself propping up the wall.

  Glancing round the room and realising with a sinking heart that nearly all the women present wer
e younger and more glamorous than her by miles, Saffron had a feeling that ritual humiliation awaited her again. Her cup of happiness was complete when a loud voice she recognised said, ‘Saffron, you come to join the fun then?’

  She turned round, and to her amazement saw Edie and Ada giggling their heads off like a pair of schoolgirls.

  Oh my God. What were they doing here?

  ‘We try all these classes out, you know,’ said Edie. She had to be seventy if she was a day. ‘We’ve done belly-dancing classes and all.’

  ‘We widows have to keep ourselves available, if you know what I mean?’ Ada winked conspiratorially at Saffron. The thought of two septuagenarians keeping themselves available (presumably for Harry and co.) was too much to bear, so Saffron smiled weakly and went to stand by the nearest pole.

  ‘Hey, babe, you came,’ Linda said as she joined her. ‘I’m sure you’ll have fun. You just wait and see.’

  Linda started the class with a series of basic moves, showing them how to grip the pole and how to hook their feet around it and swing down it. She made it look effortless, but all Saffron’s attempts ended in disaster. Every time she tried to swing herself onto the pole she ended up losing her grip. And she just didn’t have the strength in her legs to swing round anything. She was way too unfit and blobby for this. Her hands felt sweaty and sticky, and when Linda demonstrated the more sexy moves, Saffron just felt mortified. What on earth was she doing here?

  But, surprisingly, Linda was right about one thing. Despite feeling totally humiliated for the whole class, by the end of the evening Saffron was having fun. And, kind-hearted as she was, Linda couldn’t have been more encouraging, though Saffron felt she was probably the least sexy pole-dancer on the planet. Even Edie and Ada seemed to get the hang of it quicker than she did.

  ‘It’s all right, babe,’ Linda said at the end of the evening. ‘It gets better with practice. You just wait, by the end of the course you’ll be showing your moves to the rest of the class.’

  ‘She’s right, love,’ said Edie. ‘Do you remember how rubbish we were at belly dancing to begin with, Ada?’

  ‘Oooh, I do, I do,’ said Ada. ‘But we got there in the end, didn’t we, Edie?’

  ‘We did. And so will you. Your young man will be dead proud of you.’

  Pete. Cripes. She didn’t want this getting back to him.

  ‘Er. Could you do me a favour?’ said Saffron. ‘Pete doesn’t actually know I’m here. Would you mind not telling him? It’s a surprise, you see.’

  ‘Ooh, get her,’ said Edie. ‘Do you hear that, Ada? Her young man don’t even know she’s here.’

  ‘Well, you’re a dark horse and no mistake,’ said Ada. ‘But it’s okay, love, your secret’s safe with us.’

  ‘Good,’ said Saffron with relief, and made her way back to the car.

  Pete was sitting watching TV when she came in.

  ‘Good class?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, fine,’ said Saffron, going to the kitchen to fix herself a stiff drink. God, she hoped this subterfuge was worth it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘Mary, it’s good to see you.’ Amy greeted her mother-in-law at the door, and realised with a jolt that she wasn’t lying. Despite having felt so cross with Mary, it was good to see her again. And the absence of so many weeks had worn the edge off her anger. They’d both been so busy, it had taken several weeks to arrange a convenient date for them to meet up, and it was already heading for the end of February.

  Bulbs were poking up everywhere. Her first daffodils were about to flower. It was a time of new birth, regeneration, therefore a good point, she felt, to renew her fractured relationship with Josh’s grandmother. And, judging by the pleasure with which Mary greeted not just Josh, but Amy too, Mary felt the same way.

  If only every relationship could be renewed in such a way. As Amy walked into the kitchen to put the kettle on, she looked longingly over towards the allotments. Josh had showed no signs of forgiving Ben for what had happened on Christmas Day, so for weeks now all she had seen of Ben was the odd nod and five minutes’ chat on the allotments. She was surprised by how much she missed him. And how much she wanted to see him again.

  Despite her insistence to Saffron that Jamie had been the love of her life, and there was no way she could fall in love again, Amy was beginning to wonder if she quite believed that any more. She hadn’t been looking for anything new, it was true, but Ben had come along and lit up her world in a way she hadn’t thought possible since Jamie’s death. But nothing was going to happen. Now or in the future. Because of Josh. There was nothing she could do to change that, so she should lighten up and not worry about it. In other ways her life was becoming a happier one. She should be content with that.

  It helped being busy at work. Saffron was finding it difficult juggling her childcare at the moment, as her mum still didn’t seem much better. On several occasions Saffron had ended up taking Ellie out with them to various clients. Although none of them minded, Ellie was getting to the stage where she wasn’t content to sit in the buggy any more, and it slowed them both down as one of them would have to take turns to look after her. So Amy had offered to do the lion’s share of the work till things had calmed down.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Saffron had asked anxiously. ‘I don’t want to take the piss.’

  ‘It’s only for a while, isn’t it?’ said Amy. ‘Anyway, you can sit at home and plan a spring marketing campaign to bring in punters. Not that we need it.’

  Word of mouth seemed to be doing them lots of favours, and with the advent of spring they had had a flurry of new clients. Amy didn’t mind as it kept her busy, was paying her a decent wage, and allowed her less time to fret about Ben.

  She sighed again as she poured the tea. She would do anything for them to go back to the earlier easy companionship they’d had, when Josh had positively relished Ben’s company. He needed a male figure in his life. It seemed such a shame he wouldn’t let it be Ben.

  ‘You sound like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders,’ said Mary, coming into the kitchen as Amy sighed once more.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Amy forced a smile.

  ‘You know, my dear,’ said Mary as she looked over towards the allotments, ‘you don’t have to be alone forever. I’m sure Jamie wouldn’t want you to be.’

  Amy looked at her in surprise.

  ‘But last time I saw you, I thought –’

  ‘Yes, well. I think I was perhaps a mite hard on you,’ said Mary. ‘And I think I may have said one or two things to Josh that I shouldn’t have. Please forgive me. I was angry and upset that you had taken Josh away from me. And that you were apparently carrying on with someone new. It made me feel redundant.’

  ‘Oh, Mary, you couldn’t be further from the truth,’ said Amy. ‘The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you. And Ben is a friend, nothing more.’

  ‘Still, a pretty young woman like you shouldn’t be alone. And Josh needs a dad in his life. Are you sure there is nothing more to this friendship?’

  ‘Positive,’ said Amy, waving it away. ‘He’s just someone on the allotments. Josh and I are quite content as we are. We don’t need anyone else.’

  Mary looked sceptical.

  ‘I thought so too, after Jamie’s dad died. And I’ve spent the best part of twenty years on my own, thinking I couldn’t ever find anyone who’d match up, but now …’

  Amy looked at her mother-in-law in surprise. Mary was actually blushing.

  ‘Have you met someone?’ Amy nearly laughed out loud. It seemed so ridiculous to think of Mary, who had always seemed to her to be resolutely single, as having a lover of some sort, but judging by the girlish way Mary was looking at her, it must be true.

  ‘Well, let’s just say there was rather a nice chap on the cruise. His name is Jim, and we did say we’d stay in touch. I haven’t heard from him yet, so it will probably come to nothing, but whatever happens, meeting Jim has given me a whole new lease of life.’

 
‘Mary, that’s wonderful news,’ said Amy. ‘I’m so happy for you.’

  ‘It’s partly thanks to you,’ said Mary. ‘I was stuck in a rut too, feeling that you needed me. When you and Josh left I decided I could either sit down and feel sorry for myself, or go and get myself a life. So I got myself a life. Even if I don’t see Jim again, I might do a bit more travelling. I’ve got a taste for it now.’

  ‘You go for it,’ said Amy, reaching over and squeezing Mary’s hand and feeling truly thankful that things were working out for her.

  ‘You know, Amy, you don’t have to wear widow’s weeds for the rest of your life,’ Mary said. ‘Don’t make the same mistakes I did.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ said Amy, as she took their tea into the lounge, and tried to crowd out the thought that there was someone waiting for her, if only she could persuade Josh of the fact.

  ‘Bloody Gerry!’ Saffron stormed at Pete as he walked through the door. ‘He promised me he could have the kids for the first week of the Easter holidays, and he’s gone and blown me out once again. He is the limit.’

  ‘Hi, darling, how was your day?’ Pete came over and gave her a very pointed kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Sorry.’ Saffron gave him a rueful smile. ‘I’m just so fed up with Gerry mucking me about. How was your meeting? I take it they didn’t fire you?’

  Pete had been called to an urgent meeting earlier in the day. There was some restructuring going on in his office, and he had mentioned there might be some redundancies.

  ‘Nope,’ said Pete. ‘In fact it was the opposite. They’ve opened a new European office in Brussels and they want me to head up the European side of things. It means more travelling, of course, but it’s also more money, bigger office. You know the kind of thing.’

  ‘Oh Pete, that’s brilliant.’ Saffron forgot all her own worries for a moment. ‘We’ll have to do something to celebrate.’

  ‘Do you think your mum is up for a spot of babysitting?’

  ‘Actually, I don’t think she is,’ said Saffron. ‘She’s still sick. I’ve told her if she doesn’t make an appointment with her GP soon, I’ll take her there myself.’