Midsummer Dreams at Mill Grange

by Jenny Kane

  As Thea had feared, Mabel immediately waved away the time issue. ‘That’s an age, child. When you’re as old as I am, you’ll understand how much can be accomplished in a short period if you work as hard as we do.’

  Feeling her hackles rising at the implication that she might not pull her weight, but not wanting the meeting to disintegrate just as she was beginning to hope they were making progress, Thea said, ‘Something you have proved already, Mabel. But, at thirty-two, I’m hardly a child. Having co-run a large museum for the past five years, plus various archaeological sites before that, I do have a fair idea of what needs to be done.

  ‘With that in mind I’ve made a list of the practical things that absolutely have to be sorted by August. That’s aside from things that it would also be nice to do, if possible.’ Thea rested her palms on the table and found herself leaning forward as if addressing delegates at a conference. ‘If we work like stink we have a good chance of not letting the Exmoor Heritage Trust down and more importantly, not letting the people of Upwich down. This is to the advantage of the village after all. That’s where the majority of the woollen mill workers would have lived in the past, and where the local café and pub will be welcoming more custom if we can get visitors flooding in here.’

  The suggestion that this was all for the village clamped whatever Mabel was about to say behind pursed lips, as Derek, one of two male volunteers, broke his silence. ‘What you’re saying is that we require more manpower – and womanpower naturally.’

  ‘Exactly. We could do with at least a dozen more hands on deck.’ Thea gave him a grateful smile. ‘It’s not just the practicalities of getting the manor in shape. It’s the administration, the social media management, the posters, the advertising, the…’

  ‘Social media?’ Mabel made the phrase sound as if Thea had suggested they started gun-running.

  ‘It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, I grant you, but it’s an effective, cheap way to spread the word about Mill Grange. You want people to come and appreciate this beautiful place, don’t you?’

  There was a murmuring of agreement as Mabel muttered, ‘Well, yes, but I really don’t want to…’

  Thea seized her chance. ‘You don’t have to, Mabel. None of you do unless you want to. That’s why I’ve been employed: to do all the tedious jobs that go with running a heritage centre.’

  There was a second of silence before Diane said, ‘We ought to make a communal list.’

  Thea produced an A4 pad from her bag. It already sported a list so long it made her stomach turn over whenever she saw it. ‘An excellent idea, Diane.’ She pushed the pad into the middle of the table. ‘You’re all welcome to add to this so we can create a mutually agreed plan of what has to be done. However…’ She paused, forcing herself to catch the eye of everyone at the table. ‘It has to be stressed that you are volunteers. Please don’t feel you have to do more than you want to. I’d love everyone here to be part of this, especially as the finishing line is in sight. But no one is obligated to stay the distance apart from myself and Tina.’

  Sensing her friend was running out of steam, and that everyone in the room was waiting for Mabel to offer guidance, Tina got to her feet, picked up the prosecco and, without asking if anyone wanted a drink or not, proceeded to dispense the bubbles. ‘I think this calls for a celebration.’

  Thea’s eyebrows rose. ‘You do?’

  ‘Absolutely! We have a dream team here. The best group of volunteers under the sun, including an incredible organiser in the shape of Mabel here; and Derek and Bill can dig, hammer, saw, paint and chop with such skill that they put Titchmarsh and Walsh to shame.’ Tina winked at the two retired craftsmen, as she poured a larger quantity of fizz into their glasses before gesturing to the three women sitting opposite. ‘The dynamic Biggleswaite sisters, Edna, Ethel and Alice, can stitch and clean their way out of any given situation. Not to forget Diane, who has a fantastic eye for what is needed where and when.’

  ‘Do I?’ Diane blushed as she risked a glance at Mabel, who’d gone uncharacteristically quiet.

  ‘You most certainly do.’ Tina retrieved another bottle from her bag, and filled Thea’s glass before approaching her own. ‘Everyone here has a skillset which, when combined with everyone else’s, makes the Mill Grange gang a force to be reckoned with.’

  Derek laughed. ‘You make us sound like a load of kids instead of a pile of pensioners.’

  ‘You have the energy of kids and the determination of adults.’ Tina gave him a flirty raise of her perfectly plucked eyebrows. ‘Can you think of a better mix?’

  Whether it was Tina’s rousing speech, the alcohol, or a combination of the two, Thea felt the frost lift as everyone but Mabel chatted excitedly about the work ahead over their cake.

  Thea, vowing to buy Tina a large G&T and accompanying pub lunch at the Stag and Hound the following day, took a gulp of prosecco. Then, flourishing her pad in the air, she drew all eyes back to her.

  ‘As you can see, this list is very long, but not impossibly so if we divide up what has to be done. As Derek said, we require more volunteers, but for now, can you give me an idea as to who is currently doing what?’

  Mabel sounded wary as she asked, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, if I said cleaning out the inside of the kitchen cupboards was tomorrow’s priority, which of you would want to do that rather than the other jobs which are also in the to-do queue?’

  ‘Umm…’ Ethel pushed a strand of curly, badly applied blue rinsed hair from her forehead. ‘Well, we get told what to do, and we do it.’

  ‘Get told?’ Thea frowned. ‘But you’re volunteers, aren’t you?’

  An uneasy shuffling around the table confirmed what Thea had already started to suspect. Mabel had been allocating jobs as orders rather than requests.

  As no one else had spoken, Thea glossed over the situation. ‘How about I put a list of the most urgent tasks on the notice board in the scullery? If you put your name against what you’d like to do, I’ll do the jobs that are left over.’

  Thea glimpsed Mabel out of the corner of her eye. She looked a bit lost and Thea felt a stab of sympathy for the woman. However bossy she was, none of it was ill-intentioned. ‘Mabel, could I take advantage of your knowledge and pick your brains?’

  The old lady was openly surprised. ‘You want my help?’

  ‘Of course. You’ve been doing my job, unpaid and un-thanked for years. Who better to consult with?’

  Mabel sat up straight, immediately rallying. ‘Are we agreed that more volunteers are needed if Mill Grange is to be finished on time?’

  ‘That is a top priority.’ Thea made sure she addressed the whole room, but knew it would be Mabel who replied as she asked, ‘Do you know anyone else who’d like to help?’

  ‘I do, but it’s a case of knowing people who have the time to help.’

  ‘Would it be worth spreading the word around the local groups? I understand you’re a leading light in the local WI and a few other societies, Mabel?’

  Thea saw Derek holding back a snigger. They all knew Mabel Hastings ran every committee within a ten-mile radius of Upwich.

  ‘I’ve done that, but I will ask again if you think it’ll help.’ Mabel spoke with the tone of someone who was sure it wouldn’t.

  ‘How about local radio?’ Tina dabbed at some lemon cake crumbs with her fingertips. ‘If we did an appeal for more help on radio it would reach a wider audience than the usual locals.’

  Further murmurs of approval filled the kitchen as a sense of disquiet marched into Thea’s stomach. ‘Who would like to do the appeal? Any volunteers?’

  Tina shook her head. ‘You’d have to do it. Makes it sound more official.’

  ‘Quite right.’ Mabel spoke in unexpected support. ‘Although, wouldn’t television be better? I could get us a slot on the local BBC news show.’

  ‘How could you do that?’ Thea’s stomach accelerated to full spin cycle.

  ‘My nephew is a researcher fo
r BBC South West. It’d be no problem. They’re always after local interest stories.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Diane was nodding profusely, keen to make up for her previous defection from Mabel’s party line. ‘That’s a fabulous idea.’

  An air of excitement filled the earlier battleground as panic rose in Thea’s gut. The last thing she needed was to be on television. She’d worked so hard to leave no trace of where she’d gone after leaving Bath. If John saw her on the news, all of that effort and sacrifice would have been for nothing.

  ‘Fabulous idea, Mabel. I think you should do it. You’re the face of our volunteer force after all. You’d be great.’

  ‘Well, that’s very sweet of you, my dear, but no. As Tina said, you’re the official flag bearer of the Mill Grange project now. And anyway, a job like that requires a younger, prettier face.’

  ‘Oh. Thank you, Mabel.’

  Four

  April 4th

  ‘Why the long face? That went really well.’ Tina leapt around the kitchen, piling paper plates into the cardboard box that doubled as their recycling bin.

  ‘They enjoyed your cake.’ Thea dabbed at some sugar-crusted crumbs.

  ‘Lemon cake has always been my signature dish.’ Plucking a handful of antiseptic wipes from their dispenser, Tina ran them over the table. ‘Can you actually have cake as a signature dish?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’ Thea’s hands plunged into the washing up. ‘It was delicious.’

  ‘Thanks. I learnt to make it before I went to university. Mum swore it would guarantee me friends for life.’

  ‘Which it did!’ Thea smiled as she remembered Sunday afternoons in Tina’s shared house with fresh cake, coffee and a pile-up of students watching a movie they’d rented from Blockbuster.

  Lounging next to the sink, Tina fixed Thea with a searching look. ‘So, why the defeatist expression when you should be celebrating your victory?’

  Staring into the water, Thea played an excess of foam between her fingers. ‘I can’t do the television thing. Radio would have been risky enough, but television shows your face.’

  ‘I believe that is the whole idea of television.’

  Sighing, Thea let her hands rest beneath the bubbly surface. ‘Do you remember me telling you about John Sommers?’

  Tina frowned. ‘The last bloke you dated? The one who was so upset when you ended it that he moved away?’

  ‘The very same. Although it turns out he was going away anyway.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He moved back to Bath again.’

  Tina laid down her drying cloth. ‘You’ve been holding out on me.’

  ‘It’s more not wanting to bore you with a ridiculous problem.’

  ‘Go ahead – bore me.’ Tina threw a towel into Thea’s hands and steered her back to the table. ‘John was the one who suddenly landed you with an ideal home/corporate wife life plan, yes?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘Why’s he back in Bath?’

  ‘An old school friend offered him a better job. John turned up out of the blue in February to tell me he’d had a rethink, and that he still thought we should be together, and that he didn’t mind if I kept my job once we were married – although he didn’t say married, but that was the general impression I got.’

  ‘Turned up?’

  ‘He found out where I spent my lunchtimes by tracking me on Facebook.’

  ‘That’s creepy.’ Tina wrinkled her nose. ‘Isn’t it?’

  Thea sighed. ‘I know I hurt him, but I honestly had no idea he’d fallen for me good and proper.’

  ‘Maybe he hasn’t. Maybe he’s just fallen for the idea of you being his wife? No offence meant.’

  ‘None taken. You could be right.’ Thea picked up her empty wine glass and twirled the stem through her fingers. ‘Either way, for reasons I can’t fathom, John announced he wants us to try again.’

  ‘Oh hell.’

  ‘Quite. As far as I was concerned our time together was nothing beyond a fling and a few meals out. John was hardly ever around. He was always off career-building. Then, on what he called our first anniversary – which it sort of was, I suppose – he suddenly told me which schools our children would be going to.’

  ‘That’s enough to freak anyone out, though I suppose he meant well from his point of view.’

  Thea nodded. ‘It was horrible and I hated doing it. I spent ages in the toilet summoning up the courage to tell him, but it would have been cruel to leave him thinking I wanted the same as him. Wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it would!’ Tina gave a sympathetic smile. ‘But I can’t blame him for falling in love with you.’

  ‘You know, now I think about it, I reckon you were right before. I doubt John’s ever really loved me, although he might believe he does. I just fitted his image of the perfect “businessman’s wife”. I remember him saying he pictured me “looking great in family photos with two children on my knee.” That was the point at which I made a hasty exit for the bathroom with an excuse of desperately needing to pee, and tried to think how to get the hell out of there in the kindest way possible.’

  ‘Bloody hell, I thought we were the ones supposed to be stuck in the Victorian past, not him.’ Tina gestured around the antiquated kitchen. ‘No wonder you left him!’

  Thea ran her eyes around the kitchen. ‘I hoped I’d be out of reach here.’

  Getting up to bolt the kitchen door, Tina said, ‘John found you in Bath, and now you’re worried he’ll come here if he sees you on TV?’

  ‘It sounds insane, doesn’t it? I’m no one special, and I felt awful for crushing his plans, however unrealistic they were. If he comes here, he might try to win me back again. It’s tiring saying no all the time.’

  ‘You’re worried you’ll cave in and go out with him again because it’s easier?’

  ‘No, yes… I don’t know. He’s so good at hitting my guilt-chip.’ Thea shrugged. ‘I don’t understand why he wants me. The man has pride and he’s intelligent. He’s not bad-looking either. He could have anyone he wanted.’

  ‘But the one thing he wants is resisting him.’ Tina tapped her fingernails against the oak table. ‘Is John used to getting what he wants?’

  ‘Hell, yes.’ Thea nodded. ‘He always gets what he wants.’

  ‘Apart from you.’

  Thea was horrified. ‘Do you think that’s it? That, for the first time in his life someone has said no, and he’s stamping his feet like a spoilt toddler?’

  ‘Could be.’ Tina pulled thoughtfully at her blonde pigtails. ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Thirty-seven.’

  ‘Perhaps John feels the clock is ticking, and his chances of having the perfect family are ebbing away. As you already know each other, the groundwork is done – and you’re so much younger than him.’

  ‘Only five years, but I take your point.’

  ‘What the hell did you see in him in the first place?’

  ‘I need more wine before I answer that.’

  Tina was on her feet, plonking two glasses and the emergency bottle of Pinot on the table. ‘So, what was it about John in those heady days of a year ago that made you go out with him in the first place? It must have been something special. I don’t remember you dating anyone else for ages before that.’

  ‘That’s because I didn’t. And, with hindsight, that was the thing.’

  ‘The thing?’

  ‘Apart from a brief three-day disaster in my first year at university, and another brief encounter a year after I moved to Bath, there hasn’t been anyone beyond a few dinner dates. I was the only one out of all my friends who had no proper boyfriend or girlfriend during my entire university education. When John asked me out while attending a work pre-Christmas do at the Roman Baths that I helped organise, I was so surprised I said yes. He can be very charming. He’s interesting and intelligent, but…’

  ‘But he rarely stops talking about himself?’

  ‘Exactly.’
Thea examined her grubby jeans, jumper and worn trainers. ‘It was my fault. I was so flattered someone found me attractive that I let him talk; I laughed in all the right places and was basically a pathetic excuse for a female. Until I woke up in a Chinese restaurant a year later.’

  ‘We’ve all made that sort of mistake.’

  ‘But usually when we’re sixteen, not thirty-two!’ Thea shook her head. ‘Perhaps I’d have had better luck with blokes if I took a bit more trouble with my appearance, but I never saw the point as a student, when I spent so much of my time scrabbling in the dirt on archaeological sites, and then I just sat in an office in Bath on my own, so there was no real need to be anything other than clean and smart-ish there. Now, I’m back to the comfy scruffs.’

  Tina examined her own beautifully manicured fingernails and then Thea’s unvarnished chipped nails and dry hands. ‘That’s the difference between what we do for a living, nothing more. I gave up the mud and sand for shuffling paper, walking around various houses and offices holding nice clean clipboards and talking to people. You roll up your sleeves and get on with real work.’

  Thea gave her friend a fond smile. ‘It’s all real work, but one kills your hands quicker than the other.’ Noticing the assessing expression on Tina’s face, Thea found herself shifting her chair backwards. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘Now don’t bite my head off, but when was the last time you had a haircut?’

  ‘How did we get from me not wanting to go on television in case my ex spots me, to wondering about the state of my hair?’

  ‘No need to sound so terrified. Viewing the hairdresser’s as a place of torture is supposed to end once you reach ten.’

  ‘We have already established that I’m an emotional late developer.’ Thea pushed her fringe from her eyes. It was rather longer than she usually allowed it to get. Now Tina mentioned it, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a trim. She found herself curling her fingers into her palms to hide her nails. How had she got so tatty?

  Tina cut through Thea’s spiralling thoughts. ‘I’m not saying you should have a makeover or anything. You’re one of those annoying women who are attractive without makeup, but it would do you good to have a haircut. It’s relaxing and good for the confidence.’