by Laura Kemp
36
This campsite should come with a weather warning. It was raining when we got here, it has rained non-stop for five whole days and we’re so fed up we’re leaving early. Utterly miserable. Wanda was nice but not very apologetic. Rude!
Anonymous, Thank God we don’t live in Wales
Campsite Visitors’ Book
‘So these stuck-up people … they actually wanted me to take responsibility for the weather and give them a refund!’ Wanda cried at the kitchen table after she’d been dragged into Mam and Blod’s so-called quiet drink. ‘Maybe I should put a disclaimer on the website,’ she scoffed. ‘You know, please note, the weather is beyond our control. How I kept my cool, I don’t know!’
‘You should’ve told them to go play with their gran!’ Mam said, which was as close as she got to swearing. She was of the old school; it was the same with bodily functions: she’d do silent ones, known around here as ‘chapel farts’.
In a stream of ear-piercing expletives, Blod suggested all manner of things they could go and do to themselves. Thanks to the potency of her own blackberry wine, she had got louder and merrier in the hour since they’d started gassing. No wonder Carys had taken her thirty-three-weeks of bump to bed with a herbal tea. The poor love was in limbo, living from scan to scan, but she’d been told that only a month of this at most remained. Once their lungs were developed, the babies would be delivered at thirty-seven weeks, so at least Carys had an end in sight.
‘Some people, eh? The arrogance of it!’ Mam tutted through a Joker-style Ribena smile.
‘There’s always a bad potato in the sack,’ Blod said.
‘And they can’t wait to pull a wasp’s nest on your head,’ Mam added.
It was almost a competition to see who could crowbar the most obscure idioms into their conversation.
‘Although not all tourists, of course. Some can be quite charming.’ Blod simpered behind her jazzy new specs, black-rimmed circles that reminded her of someone. But who? Something was afoot and Mam was straight in there.
‘Who is he? And has he got a brother?’
Oh dear God, Mother, Wanda thought. Blod and Mam were cackling like hyenas, smacking one another’s arms like they were a couple of … well, randy mature ladies.
‘The first to the mill can grind!’ Blod leered suggestively.
First come, first served? This was appalling! They were talking about a person here, not an object.
‘Look at your face, Wanda! Look at her face, Blod!’
‘Oh get over yourself, are the old not allowed to love?’ Blod boomed. ‘We’ll have to get you signed up to internet dating, Lyn! Find you a shining clean Welshman like mine except he’s from the Lake District. We met the day the mountain was measured.’
The mansplainer! Wanda remembered him. Blod had bought matching specs. But he seemed so un-Blod.
‘He came in for mint cake and we got talking and there was just something there. I mean, it’s a mystery, he’s shorter than me and a former mountaineer, and you know me, I’m more kitten heels than walking boots. He’s younger too, only by a few years but it counts at our age, Lyn! But we just clicked. I never thought I’d meet anyone again.’
It was truly heart-warming. And then it took a mind-boggling turn.
‘I tell you something, my Malcolm, he’s got stamina. He calls these,’ Blod said, looking down her nose at her chest and flapping her floaty purple tunic, ‘my peaks of Snowdonia!’
More hooting ensued.
Dearie me, it was a sad state when Wanda’s love life was the dinosaur next to Blod’s.
‘Right, well, that’s my cue to leave before you start going into the … ins and out, so to speak.’
‘Suit yourself, Wanda. Just a word for you, my Belmira, she’s still on his tail. That’s the polite word for it, anyway.’
How did she know that was where she was off to?
‘As much as I’d love to see her find a man, I wouldn’t want her to steal him from you.’
Wanda gasped. ‘Is that why you got him to take her on a date? To make me jealous? I was so upset about that!’
‘There you go, Lyn. You owe me a fiver, she does fancy him. I knew it!’
Wanda’s jaw dropped.
‘She’s not denying it either!’ Blod already had her hand out and Mam, Mam! She was in her purse too. They were incorrigible.
‘I’m on my phone if Carys needs anything.’
She grabbed her mac and went out into the evening and found, at last, the wind and showers had stopped. August had come back to Gobaith. The sky was a bag of cotton wool and early-evening blue – it’d mean layers of sunset, a real belter of one. It’d be even more spectacular at Lew’s, where she was heading up the lane.
The weather really had been as awful as the unhappy campers had said. Her week had been spent sweating in wellies and waterproofs because even though it was wet, it was still warm. Make-up hadn’t touched her skin for days and it had felt strange getting a little bit dressed up tonight. Nothing over the top, just a floaty green summery dress she’d bought for her travels which brought out the red of her hair. She’d tied it back, it was long overdue a cut but when had she had the time? Even though she’d had cancellations because of the conditions and a few people had packed up before the end of their stay, she’d been kept busy laying down chipping paths on mud, dismantling abandoned soaking collapsed tents some had left behind and endless bathroom-block cleaning.
At least it distracted her from her worries. She hadn’t heard a squeak from Danny Platt and she was beginning to lose hope. Her own position needed to be kept at bay too. Because she’d worked out why she and Lew could never be. Tonight she would tell him. Adrenalin instantly kicked in when she reached the driveway of The Bunkhouse. Finally they had found a slot to see one another to have The Chat.
But as soon as she turned the corner to Lew’s bungalow she was disarmed. As a speaker played chill-out tunes, Lew was lying back on one of two giant orange lobster lilos which he’d set out on his patch of garden. There was an upside-down crate behind them with a coconut wearing a scuba mask, two glasses, each sporting a mini umbrella, and on the grass was a bucket of water filled with bottles and cans.
‘Welcome to Club Tropicana!’ he said, his arms aloft, his eyes twinkling. ‘Thought we could pretend to be on holiday. It’s the closest we’ll get for a while.’
On cue, the sun came out, making the earth steam, and he produced two pairs of comedy pineapple shades, which they instantly put on and giggled. Talk about touched! It was like he’d peered into her soul, seen what she needed and came up quite rightly with a good lie-down, a drink and a few lols. More than that though, it showed he knew her dreams. And it broke her nervousness completely.
‘This is genius, Lew,’ she said, gingerly settling down on her lilo.
He sat up effortlessly – she knew she’d be rolling off her lobster when it came to it – and began to rummage in the bucket, which chimed with clinks and clunks. ‘There’s prosecco, a few tins of cheesy cocktails, lager, cider … what you fancy?’
Er, you, she thought, drinking in his smooth brown arms, his long eyelashes, neat stubble, ninety per cent dark chocolate eyes, that mop of curls and the suggestion of muscles under his T-shirt. All that turmoil and look at her, quite the walkover. She wanted to have a look at the cans, but she daren’t move because knowing her there’d be a dubious squelch and she’d have to say it wasn’t her.
‘There’s G and T, cosmo and mojito … how about a cosmo? It’s like a bit of liquid sunset.’
He passed a cold one over to her, pulling the ring, which sounded the hiss of bubbles, and chose one for himself.
‘Perfect!’
‘At your service,’ he said, his lovely straight teeth displayed in a smile on those tempting lips.
Wanda sank back into the comfy claws of her lobster and too
k in the view. The sun was dropping ever nearer to the horizon, matching the colour of her drink, while the mountain had become a silhouette of navy blue. The lake below sparkled, like a palm full of jewels, and the clouds were streaks of pink and purple. It was beautiful in its simplicity – the opposite of the complexity of her relationship with Lew. Her spirits began to fade as she considered it. Yes, they had a natural rhythm of their own, but her conclusion about their compatibility was painful: when the going got tough, they didn’t have a good track record. It was as if they’d unravelled the past only to find there was a knot at the very heart of them.
‘So …’ Lew said softly into the dusk. Wanda tensed up at the weight of this one word. What hope did they have? ‘Having a good holiday?’
His lilo squeaked as he turned his body to face her and she felt terrible for not returning his smile.
‘Oh … is this all …’ Lew looked embarrassed and dropped his eyelashes.
‘No, no. Lew, it’s lovely, it’s just that it reminds me I’m going away.’ And he couldn’t be a part of that.
‘But that’s good, isn’t it? What you want?’
‘It is, yes. It’s just I feel …’ How she wanted to be able to be in the moment and throw herself at him, at them. ‘… sad.’
‘How so?’ he asked, forgetting his feelings, showing concern for hers.
‘Because I thought when I went, we’d be okay.’
‘We aren’t?’ He seemed genuinely surprised. ‘I’ve apologised, I’ll say it as much as you need to hear it.’
‘I know you’re sorry, I know you did it to protect Annie. It’s the most courageous thing and—’
‘But it all came out too late, is that it?’
‘No, Lew. I get that, I get why you avoided it all. I did exactly the same. It’s just … I wish we could’ve met without all the past being part of it.’
‘How do you mean?’ Lew frowned.
‘Like, we can do real life as individuals, but together … somehow we always make a pig’s ear out of it.’
He looked crushed and the sparkle in his eyes went out as the sun disappeared.
‘So it’ll never happen, between us?’ He gulped.
‘I just don’t have faith in us as a couple.’ Her voice cracked as she confessed what she wished she didn’t believe.
‘But we’ve never tried.’
‘We did. That night in the shepherd’s hut.’
‘But we were kids!’ he said gently.
‘We’re not the same as then.’
‘That’s good. No more lies, we can start afresh.’
‘But I’m going away in October, aren’t I? We can’t start something then ask each other to wait. If it was going to work, wouldn’t it have happened already?’
He put his hand out and she reached for his, their fingers entwined. ‘No. I think we had a load of stuff to deal with and we buried it for so long and it was going to take a while to fix. That’s why I came back. To find you. I didn’t know if you’d be here, but I thought it was the best place to start. And then here you were, and okay, we had a rocky start but this can work. I know it. And I’ll wait for you, if you’ll let me.’
Wanda hadn’t factored this in. She’d expected him to take it on the chin as a no. Desire swooped in, she desperately wanted to place her lips on his. Her heart was thudding so loudly in her ears as if it was echoing back at her off the mountain. But with this sorrow she was feeling too …
‘What if I don’t come back? How can I come back? I’ll have no job and a mortgage needing paying.’
Lew nodded. ‘But I can help.’
‘I can’t make any promises and I can’t let you make me any either. We’ll just be setting ourselves up for another separation and this time, we’re older, it’s more serious.’
He looked at her and she saw his loss reflecting her own.
‘I accept it, but I don’t understand why we can’t try. We don’t know what’s around the corner. Didn’t you say you had to be brave?’
It would be so easy to shut her eyes on all of it and give in to him. But when their bodies had parted the same truth would remain.
‘Lew, if this happened, tonight, if it happened now, I don’t think I could ever be apart from you ever again.’ A tear rolled down her cheek and his eyes were glistening too.
‘This feels like goodbye,’ he said, squeezing her hand. Her throat was aching as the emotion swelled up.
Just once she’d allow herself to touch him. She pulled him to her, he did the same, and then they were side by side, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder, her face tucked in his chin as if they’d been made for this moment.
‘I mean it, Wanda, I’ll wait,’ he whispered, caressing her back.
She shut her eyes and breathed him in and wished she could stay there forever.
37
A hush fell as Pastor Pete began to deliberate just who would win the title of Wonkiest Veg in show.
With forensic expertise, he was handling curly courgettes and scrutinising bum-shaped potatoes, while the crowd at the community garden suffered an agonising wait under the beating August sunshine.
Finally, after an adjustment of his collar and a dab of his top lip with a hanky, he laid a gold rosette next to Arthur’s two-legged carrot – and the Grow Up kids went wild, hoisting Arthur up into the air to celebrate to a round of enthusiastic applause.
Annie was overwhelmed by the turnout. The event was never intended to be this big – just a couple of stalls of veg and flowers to help pay for some seeds and tools next year. But when word had got round, it mushroomed. The village wanted to get behind it and offers came flooding in. Annie had been here late last night putting up a marquee that Wanda had rustled up. Then back again first thing to set up tables and checked tablecloths, to receive tombola goodies, raffle prizes and donations of treble-tiered Victoria sponges. And Gobaith hadn’t let anyone down. There were smiles everywhere; campers were mixing with locals, people were having impromptu picnics and Sunny Side Up was doing a roaring trade in cold drinks. It was the most blissful scene.
‘You did this, Annie,’ Spike said, giving her an elbow and then passing her an ice lolly while he tucked into his. Lately, he seemed to be close whenever she needed him, eager to support her and fulfil any wish she desired. ‘You got the Xbox generation off their screens and into gardening. Look at them!’
Their gang was busy helping kids up onto hay bales brought by a farmer for some seating, teaching little ones how to make daisy-chain crowns and giving tours of the garden.
‘It wasn’t just me.’
‘Come off it. It’s you responsible for this. You! Arthur didn’t know ’is arse from ’is elderflower before you came along.’
With heat rising inside of her from pride and his attention, she needed to cool down.
‘Ooh, it’s fizzy!’ she said, as the bubbles hit her tongue.
‘Alis’s homemade prosecco ones.’
‘Delicious …’
‘Stop changing the subject anyway. You have a special talent, Annie.’
He gave her the loveliest smile. It was so easy to get carried away when she was with Spike. Alone, she would be able to square the circle of feelings she had for him – they were friends, nothing more. But in his company, it was a different story. She couldn’t help it: was he giving her vibes? Had Arthur been right when he’d said his father ‘liked her liked her’? Her body temperature remained hot despite the refreshing ice pop. She made a decision to believe she was blushing at his praise because otherwise she’d end up frustrated and sad.
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘I’ve really enjoyed this project. And the school one will start in September. It makes me think that maybe the dream of having an apothecary shop isn’t what I really want to do. Like, it’s a fluffy marshmallow of a thing, my own little potions on the shelves, crystals and
organics. I’m not sure it’d be right for me.’
‘You could keep that up as a hobby. Teaching is an extension of your healing powers. It’s your real calling, I reckon.’
‘Do you?’ That was funny, she’d been thinking about investigating something along those lines. But she had no qualifications. Then again, a tentative search online had shown her she could study as well as work. If she could combine what she loved and take it into the classroom …
‘Yes!’ he laughed. ‘Isn’t it obvious? You get through to the kids, you’ve got something about you. Something sort of … magical.’
Now he was blushing. She waited for him to backtrack, to say he hadn’t quite meant magical but something else. Instead he repeated it as if he was in a daze.
‘I … er … well, I just want you to know how much you mean to me. And Arthur.’
Was he trying to say something to her? Something she’d wanted him to say increasingly in the days since her reason for breaking off their relationship had disappeared? For Dean’s threat had retreated. A new number meant no silent calls and the divorce was going through. Now she could see he’d been all bark and no bite. Hope climbed inside of her like a wave – until it collapsed when she realised that Arthur had achieved an equilibrium, making friends, settling in, and that was because there had been no more change. This was the best it would be with Spike and she had to be grateful. But he was still looking at her with more than platonic affection and he was searching for words.
‘I was wondering …’
Annie felt ever so flustered. Her lolly had dripped over her fingers. She began to rummage for a tissue in her tote bag but instead she pulled out a screwed-up piece of paper. That’d have to do. She unfolded it and found it was the receipt from Mrs Jenkins’s from the time the carrier bag full of her bottles had split. Just as she was about to wipe the stickiness off with it, she scanned the address of the shop on the receipt – and her heart jolted.