OK, I know it's practically a year and I said I'd get to it weekly. I've been busy, you see!
I promised the 1st Chapter of Maeve's Afternoon Delight and here it is, a the bottom of this post. I do hope you enjoy. I brought it out myself as my publisher had enough of this sort of thing, but instead I've been doing another for them. That's the way publishing goes. One door closes and another opens.
I'm just waiting for the amendments and then will start researching the next one. I'm loving it. I had a long break from writing because I'd run out of steam I think. Didn't like it, and had nothing I wanted to write about and now the ideas just keep coming.
I have a reprint of Only the Wind is Free out in August, but under the title of After the Storm. There is a disclaimer on the back mentioning that the title has changed. I suppose title fashions alter and that's why this is happening. Not sure really but I like the jacket and it's good to see my first novel out and about again.
We've been busy with Words for the Wounded too but you can catch up with that on
www.wordsforthewounded.blogspot.co.uk . Suffice to say that it's been a magical journey and we've been so impressed with the entries, and moved beyond words. We donated £1800 this year, and hope to build on that next year. We launch the next in November but I'll do more about that nearer the time.
Otherwise all well here in High Wycombe. I seem to be in London a great deal, lunching at
The Wellington on the Strand, and then onto exhibitions and theatres. For someone up from the west country it is sheer heaven. London is such a beautiful city and I didn't realise how much I had yet to discover.
Here's Maeve, bless her. If you like her you can buy her on kindle on
Amazon.co.uk
See you next week. Over to Maeve.
Chapter 1
Monday April 16th 2012
Maeve stood on the porch
examining her front door. It looked as faded as a middle aged groupie. ‘You
need a makeover,’ Maeve said aloud as she shifted the weight of the hand fork,
watering can, trowel, and plastic pail of chicken poo that she was taking to
the allotment. She loathed brown, faded or not, unless it was soil. And this
door wasn't soil.
She felt the sun shafting past
the honeysuckle onto her shoulder. The honeysuckle clung to both uprights and
sprawled across the roof of the shallow porch. Fresh air and sun was the enemy
of the door, of course, but over muesli at breakfast she’d decided to take
action regarding Acacia Avenue’s
front door rule. Just like that. And sod the lot of them. It had been Geoff who
had signed the Residents’ Association agreement, not her. And Geoff, bless his
little cheating heart, was no longer the man of the house.
She felt her stomach twist and
for a moment she sagged but looked again at the door. No, she simply wasn't
having anymore of that nonsense. It was a year to the day over breakfast that
she’d discovered she had become redundant to requirements and it was time to
step away.
With the sun still slanting on
her shoulder Maeve felt her stomach start again. She stood tall. Grief, shock
and downright bloody rage would only stall her for a year she’d promised not
only herself but her mother on that first day of panic, pain and loneliness. No
husband, no best friend. ‘Well, worse things happen at sea,’ her mother had
said as she always did, to the point where everyone in the vicinity wanted to
strangle her. But she had also said when Maeve had stopped her intermittent
caterwauling on the kitchen floor, ‘You’re right. Give yourself a year to work
through it, then kick ass.’
Her mother had hugged her and set
to in the kitchen to make her recipe for any crisis, a fruit cake with a double
portion of glace cherries. She also told Maeve’s father not to stand there like
a rabbit stuck in the headlights but to get them all a gin and tonic, with far
more gin than tonic thank you very much. ‘Unless he took the booze too, the
pillock.’
Maeve touched the brown door. It
was warm, and she could feel the flaking paint as she laid her palm flat
against it. ‘April 16th, same breakfast, different Maeve. You’ll be
made over, oh yes you will.’ It would be as good as running up a flag which
said, ‘Stand aside, I’m comin’ through.’
She bounced down the two steps
and onto the crazy paving path. In the summer the camomile she’d planted in the
cracks would waft wonderful scent but for now it was all just springtime
promise. The same for the lavender which lined the path though the perennials
behind were revving, and damn it, what stars the Sweet William had been,
flowering and casting scent for a couple of weeks. The bulbs were in full flood
too.
To the left the small apple tree
was not only budding but blossoming. Small little thing it was but deliberately
so. A large tree created too much shade.
There was nothing to compare with apple blossom and the plum to the right
wasn’t bad. Would she win the plum jam competition at the WI? No, Daphne would
do that but she might pitch up a close second. All things were possible
now.
She walked briskly to Betsy, her
red bike, which was chained to the flowering cherry that
she and Geoff had inherited from the previous owner.
She patted the tree. It was this
and the potential of the four bedroom mock Tudor semi that had initially
grabbed her by the throat. She turned and gazed at the house. We did you proud,
didn’t we, inside anyway? Outside had been left, and perhaps it was as well. It
had given her something to do, something to nurture, something to build upon as
even her old working life disappeared.
She dumped her tools in Betsy’s
basket, removed her helmet from the box over the rear wheel and into it stuck
the watering can and the chicken poo. She turned her attention to the security
chain, brushing her hair out of her eyes as she did so. It was too curly to
hold any style other than its own. But it did hold a colour, thank heavens, a
brown just a step on from beige that sorted the grey completely. Good grief, almost 44 and already with a dose
of grey. It was her father’s fault. He was white by fifty. Her mother? Heaven only knew –
it was many years since anything other than various shades of riotous auburn
had graced that head, bless her. She put on her helmet. Not pretty, but
necessary.
Crouching she fed in the
combination. No covetous hand had ever been laid on Betsy but should it happen
it would be one of the worst days of the thief’s life. Betsy had been her first
acquisition after Geoff had scooted and she loved her. A custom made sit up and
beg with all the gears.
The combination was her date of
birth because anything else would be forgotten, it always was. In all the years
she had run the plumbing manufacturing and supply business with Geoff, memory
had never been her strong point.
She wheeled Betsy down the last
few yards of the path, eased open the picket gate and out she went without a
backward glance as it clicked shut behind her. Just a quick left and right and
hi ho silver, she was off, across to the other side of the lime tree lined
avenue. Up and over the traffic calming bump she pedalled heading towards the T
junction, her longish cotton skirt floating above her wellingtons and well
clear of the chain.
Her neighbour, the immaculate
Leonora, probably thought it an affectation to wear skirts all the time. Well,
perhaps it was. Maeve had once lived in jeans but Geoff’s words had rung true –
time had indeed taken its toll in more ways than one, and her skirts hid the
dumplings and didn’t impinge on the digging in any way, shape or form.
Furthermore, six months ago Geoff
had dropped round for the first time since he’d left. She was in the garden
mowing the lawn and Tilly the British Blue cat was watching from a safe
distance. He’d said, ‘Surely you don’t garden in that skirt?’ She had revved the engine to drown him out,
tempted to run him over and realised what bliss it was these days to do as she
pleased without comments from him indoors.
Since then skirts had become even more of a priority and so had crossing
off the days because she knew after his visit that she was well on her way
towards the end of the tunnel.
As she pedalled she felt as
always the cool breeze soaring through her, much as it used to when she was on
the swing as a child. The sun cast luscious dollops of shade that evoked the
change of season from winter to spring and soon into summer.
Glancing to left and right she
checked the front gardens of the villas along her road, all with the same
ghastly brown doors. How had it come to this? How had so many come under the
thumb of just one little front door monitor who chaired the Residents’
Association and decreed brown doors. Well, look and learn Acacia Avenue.
She grinned and changed into a
lower gear because the avenue rose gently to meet the B road leading to the
allotments. Sidgeworth Allotments lay to the west of the small suburban market
town. The T junction was busy.
She stopped and waited, and
there, bustling around the corner was Archie Meadows with his Daily Mail in his
carrier bag. She did wish people wouldn’t use new carrier bags every time. Why
didn’t he just stick it under his arm? ‘Come on, come on,’ she breathed aloud
to the traffic. The last person in the wide world she wanted to chat to was the
door monitor, particularly today. But…
‘So, hello there, Maeve. I assume
you had a good weekend?’ Archie stepped into the road and placed his hand on
Betsy’s basket. She’d now have to ride over him, or wait.
‘Very pleasant, thank you.’ Maeve
twitched the handle bars but Archie, his blazer as immaculate as ever, stood
firm. Had he never heard of personal space? Was it her imagination or were his
buttons gleaming daily ever brighter? And there was something different. She was puzzled for a moment and then
realised. Yes, he looked naked without his clipboard. It was a clipboard which
contained all that needed to be known about the Residents, his Residents. Somehow
he always said it as though there was a capital R.
‘Archie, I’m in a rush I’m
afraid.’ She didn’t look at him but craned forward. Damn. There was no gap and she needed to turn
right against the traffic. Perhaps he’d get the message, though she knew he
wouldn’t. Archie didn’t get messages, he just created and delivered them. He
was a man groomed by his father to be a chairman of a small committee. He wasn’t ex-services or anything like that,
though she felt he longed to be interpreted as such with his short hair, neat
moustache and highly polished shoes and a sort of coldness in his grey eyes.
He had been full time at the
council until his parents died. They had left him comfortably off and he
slipped to part-time. Before that, he had been window monitor at school in year
3, her school, her class. He was harmless but an irritant on a par with
scabies.
‘So, you received the circular?’
He loomed, the man positively loomed. She craned further into the road. Could
she be more obvious?
‘Yes.’ She couldn’t very well
deny it as he’d stuffed it through the letter box himself, delivered by hand neatly inscribed on the left hand corner with a
tick to show he’d done just that. She kept craning, but there was no
deliverance just a stream of white vans, saloon cars, and a bus.
He smiled. She instinctively took
against people with gaps between their teeth.
His milk teeth had been OK but he was one of those people who’d never
grown into his adult teeth. Not only gaps and but also protruding. Imagine
kissing him. No, she shook her head. Don’t even go there. Not now, not ever.
He said, his hand still owning
her basket, owning her space. ‘It’s spring and time again for all front doors
to smarten up. Appearances are everything. I have the Residents’ Association’s
brown paint in my garage, so I will drop off your requirements. Geoff paid up
for two years. So…’ He was a man who used ‘so’ a great deal.
Maeve stared at him, not seeing
him, but seeing Geoff. Bloody hell. Not only had he whizzed off to pastures new
but left her paid up on paint at the R.A. which is what she called it, because
the full term gave it some sort of reverence.
Another quick look. A gap.
She wrenched the handlebars
putting her foot hard down on the pedal. Archie lost his grip and was forced to
step back as she surged forward. ‘Don’t bring the paint round,’ she shouted as
she left him behind. ‘I’ll buy some, don’t worry.’
‘But…’
She tossed her head. Let him make
what he wanted of that. She was going to get tough with the hard clay soil,
wreak havoc with the weeds and pretend it was everyone who had ever aggravated
her. What’s more, she’d give herself a treat and look across at Larry from time
to time. Young Larry who was even better than George Clooney. After that, fully
revved, she was going to the DIY for paint, her choice of paint. But then she
had second thoughts and called over her shoulder. ‘I have some left from last
time.’
Wimp, wimp, she called to herself
but no. It would deaden any inkling he might have of rebellion in the ranks.
Archie was calling something. It sounded as though he was asking her about an
exotic marigold hotel. She ignored him.
She whizzed along in the cycle
lane. For a small Bucks market town, Sidgeworth
did its cyclists proud. They had a fair to middling green council which was
trying to keep cars down to a minimum and encourage pedal power. It was a bit
like being in an exercise lane at a swimming pool, stroking along knowing that
no-one was going to bump you. Not that she stroked along in any swimming
pool. She didn’t care for water
bleaching out her hair colour.
She turned left into Middling Lane with
the allotments tantalizingly close on her right behind the stone wall, with the
narrow river on the other side of the plots. There was no way in until the
entrance was reached unless of course you wanted to clamber over the river
bridge wall. She didn’t. On she went for another 100 yards and only then could
she dismount and push Betsy through the gateway which was wide enough for a
tractor. The sight of the allotments lifted her heart as they had done since
she started work on her plot almost a year ago. It was not just the sight but
the sound. The birds seemed louder here, the
bees too. She pulled off her helmet. It did her no favours and made her feel
like something from Dr Who.
She waved at Old Sam working on
his allotment. He was on the committee and part of the Shed Club, a men-only
Wednesday lunchtime gathering. His No 3 plot was an example to everyone, as was
he. 86 years old, funny, lovely and he dug like a dervish, breaking wind
frequently and very loudly. He had made her a wooden cart which she could hitch
to Betsy to transport her cakes to the WI Market, after he heard that she had
to make several trips because her rear wheel box didn’t actually stretch
sufficiently.
Her plot was No. 13. Some
wouldn’t take it because of superstition. She had grabbed it. Life was too
short and the list too long for nonsense like that. Geoff had heard and said
that he wouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole. She said that a barge pole
would be a fat lot of good on an allotment so it was as well he wasn’t going to
get anywhere near it. It was not one of her more grown up moments.
Slowly slowly she was beginning
to understand the seasons, the rotation of crops, the pleasure of working with
the other allotmenteers. All that was missing was chooks and the odd pig for it
to be truly artisan. But other councils were allowing that, so perhaps it would
come.
‘So, let’s get at it, Betsy,’ she
murmured and set off along the grass path. She passed Emma Walker who was
digging trenches for her potatoes. Emma returned Maeve’s wave, sweat beading
her forehead. She had two small children and a husband who ‘worked away’ but
was in fact in clink for something to do with shady car dealing.
Maeve called, ‘So, busy today
then?’ So? So? Good grief, had Archie infused her?
‘Always,’ Emma grinned,
stretching her back. ‘I pick ‘em up from playgroup at 11.00 so I have to take
every opportunity.’
Maeve wheeled Betsy on down the
path examining the allotments she passed. Some were neat, some were not. All
were productive. Then on to her own little kingdom and down the path to her
shed where she propped Betsy against the water butt. She took the tools from
the basket and the chicken poo and watering can. She lifted her face to the sun
and breathed in the fresh air but instead there was the smell of bacon cooking.
She looked around, almost groaning with desire.
Cottages faced the allotments on
the left of the road. Perhaps it was bacon butty time at Iris Cottages, or was
it the Shed Team from the allotments down by the five barred gate? No, that was
on a Wednesday.
‘Hi Maeve,’ Larry her allotment
neighbour called. She must have shoved Betsy straight past his plot without
looking up which was a first because he was quite lovely and made her heart
beat just that little bit too fast. She looked now and there he was, frying pan
in hand, standing in the doorway of his shed. Blue eyes, tanned, strong jaw,
shame about the woolly hat.
‘So, it’s you, is it?’ she
called, ‘making the world hungry. Have you a pig sty now?’ She grinned at
Larry, who must have only been 30 something, and that something was pretty
modest. Her mother would have said that he was in the morning of his life,
whilst Maeve was definitely in the afternoon. Her mother’s cut off was 40.
Apparently there was no evening, or not one her mother was prepared to admit.
‘Wouldn’t that be a treat? Will
pigs and sties ever happen do you think? Will pigs ever fly?’ He grinned, and
waggled the frying pan again. ‘Early lunch or late breakfast, whatever turns
you on.’ He heaped the bacon onto a slab of bread he had placed on a plastic
picnic plate lying on the bench outside his shed. Bacon butties were new to
this end. The Shed Club had been cooking them for some time down by Old Sam’s,
though it used to be strictly forbidden in the small print of the allotment
rules but the committee’s attitude had changed when Archie resigned as Chair
after the mandatory 3 years.
Maeve smiled towards the bacon
butty but avoided looking at the lovely Larry. Did a waggle of the pan and
‘whatever turns you on’ constitute an invitation or was that just wishful
thinking? He’d invited her for a cuppa several times before and it had seemed
too early in her recovery, too intimate, a sort of crossing of the man/woman
safety barrier she’d built since Geoff had gone. Bacon was a step further, he
was even more delicious and she was becoming flustered. Shut up, shut up, there
was only one plate and he was just passing the time of day. She resorted to
scrubbing her hand fork, focussing on the Allotment Committee which was a safer
bet.
Things had eased when Archie’s
term as Chair of the Allotment Committee had come to a conclusion and Daphne
took over the tiller. It transpired that the constitution stated that as long
as a proposal had the agreement of the local council and a majority vote,
changes could be made. The Shed Team had wanted bacon butties. It was agreed.
Archie and his clipboard had shaken in outrage and he hadn’t spoken to anyone
for a month after the decision and what’s more, he neglected his plot.
For many months afterwards he had
voted against anything that appeared too adventurous but then, salvation for
the allotmenteers. He’d taken over from his father as doyen of the Acacia Avenue’s
Residents’ Association and the Avenue’s bane had become the allotment’s
blessing.
Maeve sighed, still scrubbing.
When she hadn’t seen Archie for a while she felt sorry for him, so inadequate
was he. When she met him she wanted to slap him.
Her fork was more than pristine.
She took up her trowel, squatted and levered off the lid of the chicken poo.
There was enough for her purposes today. For a moment the smell of the manure
drowned the bacon but not the image of Larry. She knew little about him apart
from the odd snatches of conversation they had shared. Apparently Larry was an
out of work something or other in the City who had let his flat to pay the
mortgage and was getting to know the world of vegetables and common sense. Or
that’s how he put it in his rather lovely deep, young, well modulated voice.
She hadn’t shared with him that they were in the same redundancy boat. ‘I should get on,’ she murmured to herself.
But she did so hope he would rephrase with clarity and ask her to share his
butty.
She guessed he had moved in with
a girlfriend which was an advantage because she mustn’t become silly over
someone so young. Unfortunately he had a fancy for woolly hats which at first
sight make him look as though he should be camping up a tree to stop developers
doing unimaginable things to woods. He was clean shaven. She liked that. She
didn’t care for beards. You never knew
what was in them especially where eating was concerned, or kissing. Shut up.
She snatched a glance. He
gestured to the bench, lifted his plate and sat down, whacking another slice of
bread on the top of the bacon. ‘Join me?’ Well, if that wasn’t explicit she
didn’t know what was. Something still held her back. He looked up, squinting
into the sun. Maeve hesitated. He and
she wedged onto the bench? Still she hesitated. Pull yourself together, you
idiot, it’s only a bit of butty. Today’s the start of the rest of your life.
Straight out a self-help book, that sounded, and it would serve very well.
Thank heavens she was in a skirt.
Cellulite in shorts next to taut muscular tanned thighs didn’t make the heart
sing. He was squinting more energetically as he looked up at her. ‘Move to the
left Maeve and then I’m not looking straight into the sun and I can see you.
Sure you won’t have a bit?’ He tore off
a piece of his sandwich and held it up to her as though he was tempting a
nervous bird. He’d obviously been digging, but it was clean dirt as her mother
would have said. His eyes were unfeasible in their blueness.
In a dither she was pretty sure
she would have a bit and dropped the trowel, not giving it a backward glance as
she edged along between her gooseberry bushes, and then his winter cabbage and
sat down, ramming herself against the end of the bench. She left a good 4
inches between them and took the torn piece of sandwich from him. ‘Thanks.’
The blue eyes twinkled. She’d
never actually seen eyes that did that.
But there were bags beneath and lines deep from his nose to his mouth.
Redundancy did that, she knew it did. Hers had not been lines but grooves she
thought would never fill, but they had, or were doing so.
The bacon was crisp and there was
rind. She never knew what to do with rind.
She played with it in her mouth for a while. Larry grinned, ‘For
goodness sake, woman, take it out and toss it down for the birds.’
She smiled in return and did just
that, leaning back and slowly slowly relaxing, feeling her shoulder drop from
under her ears. He said, ‘I keep meaning to tell you I like your bike. Red is a
good colour, and I like ‘sit up and beg’ too. You have gears?’
She nodded, ‘Oh yes, and a saddle
post with an integral shock absorber. No hardship needed for this…’ She had been about to say bum, but instead
back pedalled. ‘I’m not a youngster
anymore.’ She could have bitten her tongue out.
‘Well, I’m not that old, but…’
Shut up, shut up, she seethed.
He laughed. ‘I have never seen a
saddle that so much resembles a sofa.’
She looked across at Betsy. It
had taken her many many hours of playing around with foam rubber beneath the
jell cover to get it just right.
And he had said nothing about her
age.
Get it together, Maeve Archer.
She dusted the crumbs from her
hands. ‘Why not, I seem to spend a fair amount of time on it. I don’t have a car, you see, not at the
moment. Don’t need one.’
Larry rose and disappeared into
his shed. Was it over? Did she wait? Had he moved onto other things? She
started to rise as he came out with two mugs.
‘Tea?’
‘Room service,’ she murmured,
subsiding. It was stronger than she usually liked but good. The unexpected
often was. There was no sugar and just the right amount of dried milk. How did
he know?
He said, ‘I heard you and Mr
Fairweather talking last weekend about how sweet tea was so awful it would
bring you out of shock like nothing else could.’
He sat again, his shorts were
those that came mid thigh with all sorts of
pockets, most of which were usually for decoration. His were not, and bulged
with string and all sorts and the buttons were undone. He had nice knees. Nice
legs. Her skirt was lifting a little in the breeze. Her boots were not a thing
of beauty but were the thing for allotments. This young man should get a life.
He didn’t have enough to think about if he remembered the conversations between
her and her other allotment neighbour.
‘Do you always over-winter your
broad beans?’ His face was earnest as he nodded towards her patch. He had a
frown between his eyebrows and a bit of earth smeared on his neck. Ah, so that
was what the bacon butty was all about and she was half relieved. Allotment
advice. Fantasies should remain just that.
She looked towards his March sown
row. ‘Someone told me that it helped with black fly. But if there’s a windy
winter you’re in danger of losing them so you pays your money and takes your
pick, really.’
He nodded sipping his tea, though
actually slurping it, quite noisily. It should have grated but it didn’t,
something to do with al fresco. So many background noises anyway. She listened
to the birds and the wheeze of a lorry as it braked to take the corner just
before the allotment turn. ‘Next year I’ll follow your lead,’ he said, looking
at her over his mug.
She started to say, ‘Well, I
might not…’ She stopped. Don’t be bloody daft, she was right. It was what the book said,
what Old Sam said and look at the darned things. She gazed across Larry’s
allotment to her own. Triffids they were. She began again. ‘Why not?’ It warmed
her to think of anyone following her lead.
‘What’s on the menu today?’ he
asked, nodding towards her plot.
She checked her watch. Yes, he
was probably itching to get on, itching for her to start whatever it is she’d
come for and vacate his bench. ‘Planting out beetroot, summer cabbage and
parsnips, and weeding.’ Now she was slurping her tea in her rush.
He put his mug on the ground. He
had finished. So must she. ‘Yes, I did my parsnips yesterday.’
She hadn’t been down on Sunday.
Andy had said he’d come but then cancelled. Sons were like that. He probably
had a hangover, so instead she had tackled paperwork.
‘My dad always said they should
be in before Easter.’ Larry was taking the mug she offered.
‘Dad’s are often right,’ she
said, rising, thanking him and heading for her own plot, calling over. ‘Mine
always says to put in spuds on Good Friday, which I did. Look, when I have a
camping stove, I’ll return the favour.’
‘Now you’re being silly. We don’t
have to take turns.’
She nodded, turning away, seeing
Mrs Stanley from Plot No 8 looking across and smiling. Maeve waved, feeling
extraordinarily cheerful as she reached for the rake propped up inside her
shed. Somehow there was a promise of other cups of tea, a promise of an
allotment chum and one that was easy on the eye into the bargain. Yes, a chum.
She’d settle for that. For a moment she allowed herself to miss Rosemarie but
only for a moment. She allowed herself to miss the thought of Larry as a
significant other but only for a moment.
Maeve liked the sound of the
rake, the sense of gently stroking the earth and the click of stones as she
raked before chucking them into a pile. After a while she pulled weeds before
making the drill for the parsnip seeds.
As she shook them into the palm of her hand she marvelled as always at
the flatness of the seeds and then fed them into the drills. She covered them.
‘Grow well,’ she murmured.
There was just a slight ache in
her back. Her hands were a disgrace, her nails beyond awful, but she preferred
not to wear gloves. Now it was time for the beetroots. It was all a tad late
because the weather had turned cold and she had been busy baking cakes for the
Craft Fair stall and the WI Market. The procedure was repeated, and she thought
of nothing else, of no-one else. Here, with the earth and the fresh air, it was
enough.
Eventually she checked her watch.
Soon be lunch time. One thing she had learned was that she needed to eat
regularly or she became short tempered, and no-one likes a cross-patch. Also,
Andy had said he might be over. Only to use the washing machine, she was sure,
but it would be good to see how the university vacation was going.
She scanned the weeds near the
broccoli but there was insufficient time. So back into the shed went the rake
and as she dusted her hands she looked across at Larry’s patch to call goodbye.
No sign of him. She checked her watch. 12.30. Crikey, she still had to buy the
paint.
She pushed Betsy along the path,
nodding to the allotmenteers who had arrived and were hard at it. She mounted
Betsy on the road, making short work of the trip to the DIY. She zoomed into
the car park and over to the cycle rack. She dragged the security chain from
the basket and clicked it on. The store was buzzing. It seemed that spring
brought out the decorating as well as the planting urge because it was like
swimming amongst a sea of many other fish all of whom were a bit goggle eyed.
She thought she had decided on
the colour but found herself collecting up the seductive charts again and
pouring over them as she leaned back against the shelving. She knew that using
paint of her choice was going to cause ructions, not just with Archie, but
probably with some of the other residents. Therefore it must be absolutely the
colour of her choice. It would hold her steady in the face of incoming fire. A
face that was always Archie’s in her mind. She was tempted to take the charts
home, prevaricate, put off, forget about it all.
Instead she grabbed what she
needed; paint stripper, paint, brushes, sandpaper, three grades, and held onto
the colour charts because the hall could also do with a facelift. She queued at
the checkout, finally reaching the tills, feeding in her pin number, and
whisking out of the doors, all without hesitation. It was done. The sun was
still shining. Betsy’s basket was full
and so too the box. It made the steering heavy but nothing she couldn’t manage.
She headed for home. Would Andy
be there? Oh, she did hope so. The worst part of any outing was returning to an
empty house. She’d almost decided to buy a dog, one that would leap in
excitement at her arrival but no, Tilly was her soul cat. It was enough when
one amber eye lifted in welcome as she lay on the footstool in the sitting room.
The colour charts and the paint
lid caught the sun. She’d say nothing to anyone, not even Andy. They’d know
soon enough.
* * * * *
Archie had watched Maeve zoom
across the road, his heart in his mouth. He did wish she would walk to her
allotment as the roads could be perilous and now that she was on her own there
could so easily be a future for them both, together. He wanted nothing to spoil
that.
He smiled to himself as he walked
along the avenue. He loved the spring. It was when the world seemed brighter,
cleaner, positively gleaming. It was when he polished his blazer buttons with
even more vigour. It was also when the doors were painted and the whole of Acacia Avenue
looked spick and span and in symmetrical order.
Yes, it was a fair bit of work for
him to keep everything under control and synchronised but that was his role in
life. He almost felt like waltzing into his drive, such was his pleasure, but
of course did not. He examined the privet hedge that surrounded his front
garden. He would need to trim it again soon. March 31st was the
first clip of the season and from thenceforth, every three weeks, on the dot.
His father would be pleased if he
kept to the schedule drawn up during his time in charge. Archie moved along the
hedge, peering into the inner depths, seeking nests. He didn’t care for birds
because they woke him too early in the morning, so, the obvious solution would
be to have a cat but he cared for them even less. Just to think of them made
him become hot and the noise to build in his head, so he thought of other
things. The flower bed in the corner would be a good place to start weeding and
planting.
He bent over to examine the bed
more closely. So, the slugs had been at the hostas again. He would need to put
more pellets down. He didn’t buy those that were kind to pets since it saved
him a job if some ghastly cat gobbled down some pellets and paid the price. He
examined the pansies which were rather weedy after the dry winter. They would
perk up soon and the perennial geraniums would bunch up nicely too.
He pulled up a few weeds and cast
an eye over the small square of lawn. It was splattered with worm casts. He so
loathed the creatures for besmirching his garden. Agreed they did good work
beneath the soil but that’s where they should stay. The lawn needed mowing
every two weeks, according to his father. So of course that was right.
Life, it appeared, was truly just
beginning for him. Maeve was obeying the order of things; insert semi colon she
was available, she was perfect with her hazel eyes, her hazel hair. They would
make a team in a way that his mother had been unable to achieve with his
father. His mother? No, he wouldn’t think of her. He almost whistled to himself
as he walked round the side of the house, and peeped
at the back garden. Yes, all in order. He returned to the front door and let
himself in. So, oh yes, life was promising to be very good indeed.
Why, Maeve might even leave some
more vegetables on his doorstop as she had done last year. He didn’t like
courgettes actually but the thought had been kind, and an indication of her
feelings. He closed the back door and soon began to list the houses he must visit
during the morning to assess their needs vis-a-vis
brown paint. He snapped the list onto his clipboard on top of all the other
data and began his housework.
