Authors: Trisha Ashley
At her next hospital appointment, Stella told the consultant very firmly that she was quite fed up with hospitals and she would be glad when she’d been cured in America and didn’t have to go there any more.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d still need to have check-ups, to make sure everything was healing and working as it should – which, please God, it would be … and, though I’d never been religious, I had begun to send up a silent prayer whenever we went down to the church, which was quite often, given Stella’s angel fixation. We lit a little candle, too, though Stella thought this was just a fun thing.
At that rate I thought I might revert back into a Strange Baptist, the sect Ma’s family belonged to before they emigrated, though there weren’t many of them left now, and the chapel in Ormskirk, where the Almonds once attended, had become a carpet warehouse.
Anyway, the consultant, Mrs Barrie, pretended to be very hurt and said she hoped Stella would pop in sometimes just to show her how well her new heart was working and Stella conceded graciously that she supposed she could, so long as they didn’t stick needles in her arm.
Afterwards she seemed to flag, so since we knew Jago had a wedding cake to make and deliver that day, we just went straight home. Stella played quietly in Ma’s studio with her mossy tabletop village, then after lunch and a nap, messed around in her sandpit while I lay on a travelling rug on the grass and contemplated the inside of my eyelids, though luckily Moses woke me by walking across my stomach just as I was falling asleep.
Ma had joined us and I’d just fetched out a tray of home-made lemonade and sliced and buttered fruit loaf for a little picnic, when Jago popped in on his way back from delivering his cake.
‘Get on the magic carpet quick, before it takes off!’ Stella told him and he dropped down beside me on the rug.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked her.
‘Fairyland, where the little angels live.’
‘Right,’ he said, fending Moses off the fruit loaf. ‘I was just on my way back from delivering that croquembouche and you were on the way home,’ he added to me, though he must have intended to come, because he’d brought Stella her usual gingerbread pig and some macaroons from David for me and Ma.
‘That was a late wedding,’ I commented.
‘It was, a bit, but the interesting thing was that the reception was in a converted barn and the woman who has it knows the weird and wonderful wedding cake maker I told you about.’
‘Oh, yes, you said she lived in Neatslake. I wonder if she was miffed that she hadn’t been asked to make the wedding cake, instead of you.’
‘Actually, she turned up to have a quick look at the croquembouche, because she’d never seen one and we had a chat. She’s called Josie and she’s very nice – or she was once I’d explained that I was only going to be selling croquembouches, not encroaching on her territory.’
‘I suppose David won’t be either, really, since he’s only going to make traditional wedding cakes,’ I said. ‘There’s room for you all.’
Ma, who’d taken no notice of Jago’s arrival other than adding him into her sketch, now laid her charcoal down. ‘Isn’t there a cold drink for me?’
‘I offered you one, but you didn’t reply,’ I said, filling a tumbler and passing it across. ‘David’s sent us some macaroons. Do you want one of those or a piece of tea loaf?’
‘Both,’ she said decidedly.
When she’d finished those she insisted Jago go up to the studio with her because she wanted to draw him, and Stella took his hand and said she’d go with them.
I closed up her clamshell sand pit and took the tray back indoors away from an inquisitive wasp and even more inquisitive dog and cat, then followed them.
On the day of the jumble sale I felt perfectly OK about leaving Stella in Jenny’s capable hands, sure that if there was any emergency, then she could cope better than I could. She said not to rush back, because she wasn’t going anywhere until nine, when she was needed to give supper to an elderly lady and then put her to bed, because her usual carer was laid up with a broken ankle.
I’d never helped at a jumble sale, but the best bit was that when we were spreading the clothes out on the tables and lining up the shoes in pairs, we were allowed to keep anything we wanted, so long as we put twice as much as we’d charge anyone else in the box.
Jago and Raffy unpacked the bric-a-brac and toys and spread out a row of larger household items, like laundry baskets and lightshades, along the edge of the stage, and then we braced ourselves and opened the doors.
I immediately saw what Chloe had meant about a stampede! The first group in the room thundered down on Raffy and Jago, while everyone else crowded up to our tables along the sides of the room. Arms reached in and snatched, and soon people were clutching whole bundles of things to their chests without even really looking at them.
I did recognise quite a lot of locals, but people seemed to have come from miles around, too.
At the end, we bagged up the remaining clothes for rag collection and boxed the last bits of bric-a-brac for the charity shop. Raffy had saved for Chloe a Bakelite mould that made four chocolate watches, which she was highly delighted with – and so was I when Jago presented me with a long, green-tinged glass rolling pin that was probably Victorian.
Effie Yatton and a few of her Brownies were going to clear the rest away and Raffy said he would count up the takings and email me later to say how much the jumble had raised, so the rest of us could go home.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got time for a quick drink before you go back?’ Jago asked me. ‘We could put our things in the car on the way, it’s just outside,’ he added, because he’d taken a fancy to a brass coal scuttle with a blue and white china handle and a pair of old wooden butter paddles, while I was carefully clutching my glass rolling pin and a pink My Little Pony, still in its original packaging, for Stella, because it had reminded me of Butterball, the little pony at the stables.
‘I could do. Jenny did say not to rush back.’
We put our finds in the boot and then he said, ‘Let’s go to the Falling Star. We’ve got something to celebrate – I completed on the property today.’
‘You kept that quiet!’
‘I thought I’d wait until after the jumble sale, but I get the keys in the morning so I think it’s safe enough to celebrate now, don’t you?’
‘Of course it is!’ Impulsively I stopped and hugged him and he picked me up off my feet and swung me round, grinning.
‘Isn’t it great?’ he said. ‘And the sooner I get my hands on the keys the better, so the stuff for Hemlock Mill can be removed and all the rubbish cleared, especially those tons of old newspapers in the attic. I can’t get workmen in until that’s done. They’re a fire hazard, too.’
‘After that, doing it up will be fun, won’t it? And I’ll help as much as I can,’ I promised. ‘I don’t want to expose Stella to all that dust, though.’
‘No, you certainly don’t want to bring her until it’s cleaned and painted. But I’ll need your help planning out the layout and I’d love your input on colour schemes and stuff like that, because I’m useless at it.’
‘Anything but grey or mustard?’ I suggested, and he laughed as he held open the door to the Falling Star for me.
‘That’s about right. I know what I
don’t
like.’
‘I’d love to help and the other day Hal said he wouldn’t mind looking at the garden for you, to see if there’s anything in there worth keeping.’
‘That’s kind, but the garden might have to take a backseat until the house is sorted out, because I won’t have a huge amount of time. I’ll have to beat a path to the back, though, because the bins are there somewhere, and if I can get the double gates to hang properly I’ll be able to park at the back.’
‘Maybe just the hinges?’ I suggested.
‘We’ll see. The garage probably wants pulling down and replacing, but if it does then that might have to wait a while, too.’
‘Yes, getting the basic renovations done to the house and equipping the cake workshop have to be the priorities, don’t they?’ I said. ‘But now it’s all happening, it’s very exciting.’
Florrie Snowball came into the snug and, seeing us there, came over to ask how Stella was. ‘And don’t you fret about rushing back home, because she’s safe enough with our Jenny.’
Then she said she’d got a grand new winter coat from the jumble sale.
‘Navy-blue wool, it is, military style and down to my ankles, so that’ll keep me warm. Our Clive says I look like I just got back from the Russian front, the cheeky monkey.’
Jago seized the opportunity to ask her about booking a room there while Honey’s was being renovated, and though by now I think the whole village knew that he was buying it, she was very interested in what he meant to do with it.
She gave him her terms for weekly boarders, which seemed more than reasonable, and agreed he could move in at the end of June.
When we walked back to the car Jago stopped to look with proprietorial eyes at Honey’s, tucked shyly back between its neighbours like a wallflower at a dance.
‘I can’t wait to get the keys and have a good poke around tomorrow.’
‘Oh, I’d love another look at it, too.’
‘Well, you could, if you can get away?’
‘I could ask Ma if she’d keep an eye on Stella – or maybe Jenny might pop round again. What time?’
‘Any time you like.’
Back at the cottage, Stella was already fast asleep in bed, and Jenny and Ma were in the sitting room having a lively discussion about the
Cotton Common
TV soap, having found a mutual passion.
Jenny had to go and minister to her elderly lady and when I got back from seeing her off, Jago had already told Ma that he’d completed on the house and would be living at the Falling Star while it was being renovated.
‘There’s a lot to do; it could be Christmas before you’re in there,’ Ma said pessimistically.
‘It will be a long job, but I’m certainly hoping to be living and working at Honey’s before then.’
‘What will you do for Christmas this year?’ I asked. ‘Will you go out to your parents in New Zealand?’
‘No, I don’t want to be away that long, and anyway, I’d rather stay here.’
‘You can come and spend Christmas with us, then,’ I offered, before belatedly remembering the house was Ma’s and adding to her, ‘can’t he?’
‘Yes, why not?’ she agreed. ‘Though you can’t
stay
here, because we’re crammed full as it is.’
‘But this is going to be a very special Christmas,’ Jago pointed out. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to be just family?’
‘You practically
are
family,’ Ma said cryptically.
‘I’d love you to be here,’ I assured him. ‘And so would Stella …’ I tailed off as my mind for a moment threw up a darker image of a Christmas that was not celebrated at all … then I pushed it firmly away.
‘Do come: this will be the best Christmas ever!’ I said. I refused to dwell on any alternative scenarios: we’d follow our star and the miracle
would
happen.
When Aimee finally decided to make her next move, she thought it would be best to rehearse the sob stuff and leave a message that was bound to appeal to that soft and soppy heart of his … but she’d send it to his mobile voicemail, so that that interfering friend of his wouldn’t delete it if he got to it first!
‘Jago darling … it’s me, Aimee,’ she said in a hesitant, little-girl voice. ‘I just wanted to say I’m so sorry if I seemed to be rushing you into our engagement again and taking too much for granted, only …’ here she allowed a break in her voice and a stifled sob, ‘… only as soon as I saw you again I realised what a
huge
mistake I’d made and it was you I loved all along. When you said you’d forgiven me, I just sort of assumed that you meant we’d be back together …’
Another break in her voice. Aimee thought she really should have been an actress.
‘Let’s just be friends, because I’d hate to think I’d never see you again … and it seems as though I’m constantly going to be sent to organise events at all the racecourses near you.’
Aimee, forgetting her role for a moment, added more unguardedly, ‘This job is
so
ghastly! I hope to God they don’t start sending me to run corporate events at rugby and football matches too, because that would be the last straw and—’ She caught herself up and resumed her little-girl voice. ‘Oh, well, perhaps something more interesting will come up soon,’ she said. Like maybe he’d come to his senses and they could set some kind of business up together back in London …
‘By the way, I apologise if I was a bit rude to that friend of yours, but I was jealous, sweetie-pie.’ Aimee pulled a rude face at the phone. ‘I remembered where I’d met her before too, at a party when she got engaged to Adam Scott. His parents live in the same village as Daddy, so I’ve known him for ever. Small world, isn’t it?
‘Anyway, I hope you forgive me, darling, because I’m so, so sorry. Speak to you soon, by-eee!’ She ended the message and sat back, feeling satisfied that his soft heart would be softened to treacle by what she’d said.
When her mobile rang only a few minutes later, she snatched it up eagerly.
‘Hello?’
‘Aimee? Tracked you down at last,’ Adam Scott said.
Ma was listening out for Stella while I looked over Honey’s and then later she was going up to Winter’s End to talk to Ottie about the joint exhibition they were holding in the autumn.
Jago was already in the shop when I got there, poking around by the light of a large torch. He had another for me, too, since he daren’t pull up the worn blind in case the whole thing fell down.
‘I’m going to arrange for the utilities to be reconnected later, but I expect it’ll take a while before they are,’ he said, rummaging around under one side of the counter. ‘Look, a whole drawer of knitted baby jackets, though the moths seem to have had a field day.’
‘What a shame! I expect they’ve had a good go at everything, unfortunately. I read somewhere that you can stop a moth infestation by freezing clothes for twenty-four hours,’ I added, and he said he’d pass that tip on to Tim Wesley.