‘Bluebirds mean happiness, too,’ I told her.
In fact, as soon as I’d got them into stock I’d taken to wearing one on a long silver chain around my neck every day and also adopted Clinique’s Happy as my signature perfume: I thought I might as well aim for the state I wanted to be in.
I’d given Bella a bluebird too: she deserved all the happiness she could get and it was starting to look as if Neil might be the man to provide it. I only hoped he was as nice and genuine as he seemed.
When my customers had left, laden down with parcels and full of fizz and cakes, I decided it was fun having these sessions and well worth opening up when I could make more in an hour than in an entire afternoon!
Saturday was turning out to be our busiest day of the week, which I supposed was not surprising. I did spare a thought or two for Ivo every time the doorbell pealed, but perhaps he was getting so used to it he barely noticed any more …
Brides in search of the perfect shoe seemed to bring either their mothers or their bridesmaids (who are usually their best friends), to support them, but hardly ever the prospective spouses.
We had a lot of tourists in, too, who made many small purchases, from handbag charms to umbrellas and purses and even some of my
Slipper Monkey
books. I was now stocking them all, not just the Cinderella one. The chocolate shoes were selling really well, too. Chloe was making her third big batch.
I was really tired by the time we shut, and more grateful than ever that Ivo would give Flash the long and tiring walk he so desperately needed, because I think it would have finished me off.
That evening Aunt Nan steamrollered right over Cheryl’s prods and questions and rambled on at length about Bonfire Night and the nutty, half-charred taste of potatoes and chestnuts roasted in the ashes.
I told Ivo when he brought Flash back that I longed for some roast chestnuts right now, even if it was the wrong time of the year, and he said, ‘“
A
t
Christmas I no more desire a rose than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth; but like of each thing that in season grows
”.’
‘With the supermarkets flying in food and flowers from all over the globe, it’s a rare thing when you can’t find something when you want it, but I think you’re right, and anyway, things always do taste better in season. Have a meringue,’ I added, pushing the plate nearer to him.
‘I thought you’d be too tired to cook anything today – your shop door tune seems to have been alternating with the church bells for the entire day,’ he said slightly tartly, but it didn’t stop him taking a meringue, which I’d liberally daubed with cream and blackberry jam.
‘We have been very busy and I’m shattered, but I’ve got a miraculous five-minute microwave meringue recipe and I thought if I couldn’t have chestnuts, then I’d have a sweet treat as a consolation prize.’
I could see he liked the meringues and wondered if perhaps low blood sugar was part of his problem?
I went to bed really early and fell deeply and instantly asleep, only to be awoken by the phone ringing in the middle of the night. I’d insisted Aunt Nan had an extension installed in her bedroom, so it went off right in my ear.
I always think it’s bad news in the middle of the night, so it was both a relief and an anticlimax when I heard Justin’s voice slurring thickly,
‘Tanshy darling – you there?’
‘Yes, but I was asleep. Why on earth are you ringing me at this time of night? Are you drunk?’
‘S’not that late and I’m jusht shelebrating a poshibility.’
‘Poshibility?’
‘Shomething that’ll change everything – make you shee … shee things in a new light.’
‘Short of a frontal lobotomy, that
really
isn’t going to happen, Justin,’ I snapped crisply. ‘Good night!’ And I slammed down the phone.
I couldn’t imagine what he was on about, but he rarely got totally plastered, so something must have happened to engender this unusual bout of intoxication.
He’d be sorry in the morning, when it would be a case of ‘physician, heal thyself’!
The child, Imogen, grew up tall and fair, taking more after my mother than the darker Bright side like me. Father and I often invited her to stay with us, but she was never keen, being like Vi in that way. We weren’t good enough for her, especially after Vi sent her to a smart boarding school, and she was easily bored.
Middlemoss Living Archive
Recordings: Nancy Bright.
Not surprisingly, I awoke on Sunday morning still tired and a little grumpy, but I felt better once I’d taken Flash out for a short walk, partly because it was one of those lovely bright April mornings when you could really feel the warmth in the sunshine.
I gave the shop a good clean out as usual, then did a little baking before I went upstairs to my studio in the back bedroom to dream over ideas for the next book … but found myself watching Ivo gardening, instead.
His knot garden was now planted out, much larger and more intricate than mine. Rather than start with small box cuttings and await the slow process of their growing together to define the outline of the knot, he’d gone for more of an instant effect: the hedging was quite thick and without gaps, and there were four large box pyramids at the corners
and
a spiral in the middle. It must have cost him a fortune!
I felt a bit jealous: it was almost as lovely as the one in the back courtyard of the Museum of Gardening in London! Timmy and I had often met there for lunch, later with Joe, too … and I thought how much I missed seeing my friends. I often emailed them, or rang for a chat, but it wasn’t the same thing at all.
Ivo usually gardened in the afternoon, because he wrote in the mornings, so I wondered if he had had a bad night, too. If so, he was likely to be snappy, so I resisted the urge to go out and admire his new garden and firmly hauled my mind back to ideas for the new book. I’d already twisted several new pipe cleaner Slipper Monkeys into existence while watching Ivo, without even realising it.
Slipper Monkeys Ahoy!
would be the next title, I decided suddenly, and then spent the rest of the morning folding boats out of old magazine pages and seeing how they looked floating in the bath with Slipper Monkeys aboard.
After lunch I felt really restless and, since Ivo was still gardening, I went out and called him over.
‘Ivo, I feel as if I need a really good walk, so I’m going to take Flash up through the woodland footpaths at the back of the Winter’s End estate. That should be enough, if you want an evening off dog walking?’
‘I expect he’d enjoy both … and so would I, really. I think I’ve had enough gardening for one day!’
‘What, you want to come with me?’
‘Yes, if you don’t mind? But perhaps you want to be alone?’ he said diffidently.
‘No, of course not,’ I assured him quickly, ‘I’d be glad of some company,’ and went to fetch Flash and lock the back door while he quickly changed out of his muddy clothes.
We had a quietly companionable walk, neither of us saying much until we turned for home, when he asked me how I was getting on with Aunt Nancy’s recordings.
‘Do you think you’ve guessed her secret right?’
‘Yes, but she still hasn’t come right out and said so: I expect she’s saving that for the personal recording she did for me. At the moment I’m just reading between the lines, but I can’t get it out of my head. What about you?’ I enquired cautiously. ‘Are you still working your way through your wife’s diaries?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he admitted heavily. ‘I don’t want to, but Pandora never managed to get the lid back on the box once she’d taken a peek, and neither can I.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said gently. ‘But I expect you have lots of happy memories to look back on, too.’
‘Happy memories?’ he repeated blankly, as though this was a foreign concept to him. Then he sighed heavily and said darkly, ‘All Kate’s secrets are escaping, but I expect that’s my punishment for doing something that felt so wrong.’
‘It seems natural enough to me, to want to read them after she was gone,’ I told him, still in the dark about what it was that his late wife had done that had upset him. ‘And who doesn’t have a few secrets?’
He didn’t reply to that one, and we walked on in silence once more, with a wet, muddy and happy Flash, who seemed a lot bolder when out with both of us.
I thought Ivo would simply sheer off into his own garden when we got back, but to my surprise he accepted my impulsive invitation to come in and have tea, though I don’t think he was expecting a proper high tea, just a cup and a biscuit.
He dried Flash off with his special towel, then sat at the pine kitchen table and watched me preparing it with widening eyes: ham sandwiches with English mustard, cut into triangles, the Dundee cake I’d baked that morning and thin slices of buttered malt loaf. Then I added a large chunk of crumbly Lancashire cheese, a pot of spicy apple and raisin chutney, a jar of piccalilli and a plate of rough oatcakes to the spread.
‘There, that should do it,’ I said, handing him a flowery tea plate. ‘Get stuck in.’
‘I should think it
will
do: there’s enough to feed an army here!’
‘Aunt Nan always cooked Sunday dinner at lunchtime and then would spread out a cold high tea around four, so I got the habit, too. Anyone was welcome to drop in. Her friend Florrie often used to pop round from the pub, for instance. Aunt Nan used to wear her wedding dress to Sunday tea,’ I added. ‘Her fiancé was killed early on in the war so I think it gave her a feeling of being near him and also, she used to reminisce about him a lot. He was certainly the love of her life, whatever else happened.’
‘She was quite a character, wasn’t she? I can understand why you miss her so much.’
‘Yes, though really I don’t feel that she’s that far away from me. Chloe – the vicar’s wife – believes we all have guardian angels, and Aunt Nan is mine and taking care of me.’
‘I think
I
could do with one of those,’ Ivo said, still looking fairly morose, but once he’d consumed several sandwiches and a slice of cake he seemed much cheered. Perhaps I was right about the low blood sugar thing.
‘I used to do most of the cooking, Kate couldn’t even boil an egg,’ he said suddenly. ‘But actually, I like cooking – or I did. I seem to have got out of the habit of that, along with having regular meals.’
‘I enjoy all cooking, but I like baking best – cakes, bread and biscuits,
and
eating them,’ I told him. ‘But weirdly enough, even though I’m eating much more than before I moved back to Sticklepond, I’m actually losing weight!’
‘You’re probably a lot more active. If you’re not in the shop, then you’re baking or gardening.’
‘True, though I do spend a lot of time sitting working on my books in the mornings.’
‘But after you’ve taken Flash for an early walk.’
‘We don’t go far, just up the lane and back usually, but he’s so energetic he’s always ready to go out.’
When we’d finished eating and Ivo had helped me to clear away and wash up, he admired the fresh row of brightly coloured Slipper Monkeys swinging along the edge of the Welsh dresser. (I didn’t remember hanging them there, so I think they really do have a life of their own!) He said how much he liked my books.
I told him about the new idea and the paper boats, and he turned out to be a whiz at origami, conjuring up a really neat little ship from the back page of the Sunday paper magazine.
By then, somehow, a couple of hours had slipped pleasantly past and Flash really was starting to look hopefully at his lead again.
‘Look, I’ll just take him for a quick walk round the green now,’ Ivo offered. ‘I don’t mind, and I ate too much so I need to work some of it off or I’ll have indigestion.’
While he was out I made him a takeaway supper of leftover sandwiches and a piece of cake, and then had just sat down again in the old armchair by the stove that had been Aunt Nan’s favourite, when, of all people, Marcia rang me.
‘Tansy,’ she began eagerly, without preamble, and higher-pitched than a bat, ‘I’m in London –’
‘I really don’t care where you are, Marcia,’ I interrupted, and was about to put the phone down when she said quickly, ‘No, don’t hang up on me. I’ve just done you a good turn.’
‘That’ll be the day!’
‘I wish you’d stop butting in and just listen – you’ll thank me for this,’ she said. ‘I went to commiserate with Justin yesterday, but really I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to smooth things over between you both.’
‘Then you wasted your time, because this isn’t exactly some little hairline crack you can wallpaper over,’ I said, wondering why she’d really gone. It was probably just curiosity and a ravening desire to find out all the details I hadn’t given her.
‘Justin wasn’t exactly pleased to see me.’
‘You surprise me.’
‘Well, I didn’t see why he
shouldn’t
be; he can’t blame
me
for his fling with Rae, can he? I didn’t make him do it! Anyway, he thawed after a bit when I said I’d seen you and you were really missing him.’
‘But I’m not!’ I protested angrily. ‘I’m
totally
over him!’
‘Oh, come on, I know you’re mad about him, so you don’t have to lie to me,’ she said with a short laugh. ‘Justin opened up and started talking about why you’d split and how sorry he was, and he assumed you’d told me that Rae’s little boy was his. That was a stunner!’
‘Of course I wouldn’t have told you: is he mad? Your fiancé getting your stepsister pregnant isn’t exactly something you’d want to broadcast from the rooftops!’
‘Well, then, it just goes to show that you
should
have told me everything, because I know Rae rather better than you do.’
‘I’d be quite happy never to have known either of you at all,’ I said bitterly, but she ignored me and swept on with her story.