by Heidi Swain
‘You’re right, I don’t know,’ Jemma nodded, ‘and yes, she is,’ she said turning to Lizzie. ‘And I know I said I wanted to sell them here in the café . . .’
She’d changed her mind, then. I hadn’t thought the café was big enough to stock anything else to sell. It was already packed to the gunnels. She had made the offer without thinking it through and was now trying to find a way of letting me down gently. I was surprised to feel a twinge of disappointment that it wasn’t going to happen, because I had fully expected to feel relieved. Perhaps I had come around to the idea of taking my talent seriously far sooner than I thought possible.
‘But there just isn’t the room,’ she continued.
‘I see,’ I said, piling the papers back together. ‘I understand.’
‘And this has taken a lot of thinking about.’
She was certainly going out of her way to try to save my feelings.
‘And it isn’t common knowledge,’ Lizzie confused me by adding. ‘It won’t be for a good while yet. Another couple of months, at least.’
‘But we’re extending the business,’ said Jemma excitedly.
‘And diversifying,’ chimed in Lizzie.
I looked from one to the other but still couldn’t fathom what it was they were trying to tell me.
‘We’re taking up the lease for the shop next door,’ Jemma gushed. ‘The place has been empty for ages so the council have offered it to us at a reduced rate.’
‘With a fortuitous stipulation or two,’ said Lizzie with a smile, ‘so I’m moving my crafting side of the business into there—’
‘And the café will extend into the crafting area in here, but still cater to folk coming to Lizzie’s classes. I might even offer baking classes of my own,’ Jemma wistfully added.
It all sounded incredibly exciting, but I couldn’t see how it was going to have any impact on me and my little flock.
‘So, where do I fit into all this?’ I frowned.
‘Well,’ said Jemma, ‘the council are keen to promote the work of local artists and craftspeople, and one of their stipulations is that we support and sell their work in the shop.’
‘We have a few folk interested, including another designer, but wanted someone younger to come onboard,’ Lizzie continued, ‘and that’s where we hoped you would come in. I’m taking responsibility for getting the designs printed on to the mugs, cushions and so on, so you wouldn’t have to worry about any of that.’
‘And then we’d sell them in the arts and crafts shop, along with everyone else’s stuff.’
It was a lot to take in.
‘Crikey,’ I said, ‘you guys really are spreading your wings, what with this and the outside catering business.’
‘I know,’ said Jemma, ‘and that’s why it’s taken us a long time to work it all out. There was no way I was going to even consider it if we couldn’t extend our team to make it a sensible proposition. However, the numbers have been crunched and now we’re going full steam ahead. What do you think?’
I don’t think I had ever come across anyone with quite so much ambition and vision as this pair of hardworking friends. They were truly inspirational.
‘There won’t be anything happening until early spring on the shop front,’ Lizzie added, ‘but, ideally, we need to know soon if you think there might be a possibility that you would like to join us. It’s going to be a wonderfully supportive environment to work in.’
‘And you never know,’ said Jemma with a winning smile. ‘Before long you might be drinking tea in the café here from a mug sporting one of your own designs!’
Was this really happening? I was pleased I was sitting down because just the thought of that was enough to make me feel giddy. All of a sudden, I was feeling rather grateful that Gavin, Anna and Molly had found me out and given me a shove in the right artistic direction.
‘And don’t worry about the nuts and bolts of the business side of things,’ said Lizzie, ‘because we can help you with all of that. Can’t we, Jem?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Jemma, picking up the sheet again and smiling at my little plump wren. ‘For now, you just focus on coming up with more of these delightful characters.’
I left the café and walked around to The Mermaid. Well, I say I walked, I’m not actually sure that my feet touched the ground, but the clouds beneath them definitely had the number nine firmly stamped all over them.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Evelyn when I requested a large double brandy. ‘You look a bit flushed.’
‘I’m fine, Evelyn, thanks.’ I nodded dreamily. ‘It’s just the Wynbridge wind.’
‘It’s not like you to go for brandy though, is it?’ she persisted. ‘Have you had a shock?’
‘No,’ I told her. ‘I just want warming up, and in the absence of a Saint Bernard I thought I better sort myself out.’
I found myself a table and sat down wondering how on earth it was possible that finding my then-fiancé in a compromising position in the pub loos could lead to so many wonderful things. A new home and now, potentially, a new career was knocking on my door, and all within a matter of weeks of crying over a lost relationship, a wasted buffet and one very squashed cake.
‘How’d you get on?’
It was Mr Life Changer himself. I’d forgotten all about his insistence that I should join him for a drink after the meeting.
‘Have you been to see Jemma? Please tell me you have.’
I looked up and offered him my most grateful smile.
‘I have,’ I nodded, ‘and I got on very well, thank you.’
Chapter 24
I have to admit, I can’t remember an awful lot about the evening after Gavin shelled out for my third celebratory double brandy. However, I do know that we spent quite a lot of time talking about what might have happened to me had I not given up on my art when I left school. Gavin was also keen to talk about what had really occurred around that time, and in my unusually unguarded state, I ended up explaining rather more than I bargained for. But as he was the person who had reignited my passion and helped me secure a potential outlet for it, I figured that I could trust him with a little more of my sad story. Well, that was what my brandy-soaked brain thought, anyway.
I began to feel rather worse for wear on the drive back to Wynthorpe and by the time we reached the top of Lovers Lane I was begging him to stop the van so I could jump out and grab a lungful of air.
‘It wasn’t all that many weeks ago that you were dragging me down here for a different reason,’ he reminded me with a cheeky wink as he rushed around and opened the passenger door to help me out.
That was true enough. There had been more than one sweet seduction atop a pile of work coats in the back when we had been dating, but those days were well and truly over.
‘Yes,’ I said, feeling slightly less queasy as the cold winter air sharpened my senses, ‘and given what I know now, I daresay I wasn’t the only one.’
I didn’t give him an opportunity to elaborate and we drove the rest of the way back to the hall in silence.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ I whispered as I slid out of my seat, relieved that my legs were just about capable of bearing my weight. ‘And for pushing me to go to see Jemma.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Gavin smiled and then added more seriously, ‘If you can find a way to let go of the past, Hayley, I’m pretty certain you’ve got a great future ahead of you.’
I didn’t dare risk climbing the stairs up to bed and woke with a very crooked neck, having spent what was left of the night passed out in Gabe’s chair in the conservatory. The fact that the throw I had wrapped myself in still smelt of him did nothing to relieve the guilt I felt about spending the evening with my ex, and when I spotted the bottle of wine and note Gabe had left, it was elevated a few floors higher.
In my excitement after my meeting with Jemma and Lizzie, I had completely forgotten that Gabe had hinted he might drop by. I didn’t allow myself to think about how much nicer my evening would hav
e been had I elected to come straight home. Still, at least I hadn’t been foolish enough to take a trip down Lovers Lane for all the wrong reasons, and no one had seen Gavin dropping me off. That would have made the situation ten times worse.
‘Evelyn called here last night and said you left the pub with Gavin,’ Dorothy informed me over breakfast.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, my luck really had deserted me.
‘Did she, Dorothy?’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘How considerate of her.’
‘She said you were a little wobbly on your feet, actually,’ added Mick.
‘That you’d been knocking back the brandy,’ joined in Jamie. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever known you to drink brandy.’
So, pretty much everyone knew about my chaperone home, then. I was surprised they hadn’t all waited up to see me safely tucked into bed.
‘It was only a few weeks ago,’ I reminded him tersely, ‘that you’d never known me to be an arty type either, but you’ve managed to assimilate that without too much pain, so this shouldn’t prove a problem, should it?’
My tone left him in no doubt that the question was of the rhetorical variety, and in the silence that followed I grabbed a slice of toast and escaped up to my room.
During the next few days, in the lead-up to the greenery gathering, I followed Gabe’s lead, kept my head down and got on with my work. Thankfully, there was no word from Gavin. I had been worried that he might have read too much into my willingness to spend an evening with him, but all appeared quiet on the Western front.
I happily immersed myself in both scrubbing the hall and drawing some new designs for Jemma, which went some way towards helping purge the memories of the extra information about my school days that I had shared with my ex, of all people. I was desperate to tell Anna and Molly what the latest Cherry Tree plans were, but kept my promise and my lips zipped.
The plans for the Winter Wonderland were all but finalised and bits and pieces for the grotto and The Snowflake Trail were arriving every day. Angus had been most excited when the collection of inkpads and snowflake-patterned stamps arrived for the maps, and even I was looking forward to seeing Catherine’s beloved summerhouse turned into Santa’s grotto, assuming I could avoid donning the stripy tights to complete the tableau, of course.
‘You all set for tomorrow, then?’ asked Anna the night before the gathering in the woods.
The way she suggestively raised her eyebrows left me in no doubt that she still hadn’t forgotten about our foolish bet.
‘I saw Gabe earlier,’ said Molly, who was gracing us with her presence and staying over at the hall again, ‘and he said there’s a bumper crop of mistletoe ready to harvest, and the holly is packed full of berries this year.’
She sounded as innocent and ethereal as ever, so it was impossible to work out whether Anna had enlightened her as to what she hoped would happen, but I wouldn’t have put it past her.
‘That really is wonderful news,’ Anna beamed mischievously, ‘you can never have too much mistletoe!’
The weather decided to play nice on the day of the gathering, and by the time I’d headed out to join the clan, the clouds were thinning and the sun was trying to peep through. We set off, with Gabe and Bran leading. Gabe sounded in great spirits so I didn’t go to the trouble of apologising for not being around to share his wine for fear of quashing it, and Molly’s pale cheeks were unusually bright. The pair were literally in their element, and before we started pairing off, they took a moment to remind us of the need to harvest sympathetically and not take everything in sight.
‘These woods are a refuge and a haven as well as a food source,’ Gabe said seriously, ‘so let’s make sure we only take our share and not a leaf or berry more.’
Molly then backed up his words with a sort of pagan prayer and the harvesting began. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the commotion I had caused at a previous gathering when I had brazenly kissed Jamie in front of everyone – including Anna. I had only done it to prove that she was in love with him, but I hoped she wasn’t going to go out of her way to give me a taste of my own medicine this time around.
‘Why don’t you pair up with Gabe?’ she suggested, once everyone else had gathered tools, baskets and bags from the quad trailer and set off. ‘I’m sure he would be safer doing the trickier bits with someone to help him.’
‘Excellent idea,’ he agreed, plonking a bright orange hard hat on my head and handing me some safety glasses, ‘you’ll need these.’
It turned out that Gabe had volunteered to harvest some of the biggest bunches of mistletoe, which were growing on a few of the trees usually out of reach to the rest of us. Even Angus.
‘We’ll get the biggest bunches down and gathered first,’ he told me, ‘and then see how much more we need. Up there it all looks like it’s been growing untouched for a while. Some of the clusters are vast.’
‘And how are you planning on reaching them?’ I asked, squinting up into the branches to where the mistletoe looked to be thickest. ‘You aren’t climbing up, are you?’
I didn’t much fancy being responsible for seeing him safely up and down or fiddling about with climbing ropes. That was all far more up Angus’s street than mine.
‘No,’ Gabe smiled. ‘Not today. I’m going to be using this.’
This turned out to be an extendable pruner, which reached high up into the branches and cut through the stems almost as easily as a knife through butter.
‘Don’t look up!’ Gabe yelled as the bunches began to fall, and I was grateful for the headgear even if I did look a plank.
Within minutes the woodland floor was covered, and we gathered the bunches together and hauled them back to the trailer. It was hot, hard work and by mid-morning I was grateful to see Dorothy on standby with flasks, fruit, and syrupy flapjacks.
‘You were right, Gabe,’ said Archie who had been helping Molly. ‘The woods are packed this year.’
‘Do you think that means we’re in for a hard winter?’ I asked.
That was what my nan always reckoned when there were plenty of berries about.
‘Fingers crossed,’ beamed Angus, ‘real snow for the Winter Wonderland would be so much nicer than the synthetic stuff.’
‘And cheaper,’ added Jamie.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a harsh winter,’ said Gabe looking around.
‘The portents are all suggesting it,’ added Molly mysteriously.
Gabe nodded in agreement.
‘Talking of signs,’ said Anna, ‘there’s an unusual abundance of mistletoe this year, isn’t there?’
‘Yes,’ laughed Archie, giving Molly a squeeze, ‘and plenty of romance around here to go with it.’
‘Exactly,’ Anna enthusiastically joined in, giving me a knowing look.
‘Although, according to Norse mythology,’ Molly began, but Anna was not to be diverted from her course and cut across her.
‘I think,’ she said, pulling out her secateurs and snipping away, ‘in the spirit of the season, we should all carry a piece with us this afternoon.’
‘Are you sure?’ laughed Jamie. ‘The last time I brandished mistletoe berries in these woods I caught a smacker from Hayley.’
‘What a surprise,’ Gabe muttered sarcastically behind me.
His tone was just loud enough for me to hear and far from funny. He sounded nothing like the happy and enthusiastic chap I had been working with all morning. I felt my hackles rise in response.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I snapped, spinning round.
He had made me feel nettled and defensive and I wanted an answer, but he’d already headed off.
‘Oops,’ said Jamie, looking embarrassed as Anna scowled at him. ‘I didn’t catch that. Was it something I said?’
‘No,’ I flushed.
‘Is there something going on between you two?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Hardly,’ huffed Anna, standing with her hands on her hips, her quest to see her forfeit ful
filled possibly ruined. ‘And especially not if you go around saying stupid things like that.’
‘What?’ said Jamie looking thoroughly confused. ‘What have I done?’
‘Here,’ I said throwing him my hard hat and glasses, ‘you can work with the Gruffalo this afternoon. I’ve had enough of his split personality for one day.’
I really wanted to head back to the sanctuary of my studio, but thought it would be better all round if I stayed to keep an eye on Anna. Goodness knows what she would say if I wasn’t there to keep her in check.
‘I’ll stick with you, Anna,’ I told her firmly. ‘Gabe said it would be a good idea to take some strands and shorter pieces of ivy to town along with this lot. Apparently, it’s all but strangling the trees, so we’ll be doing them a favour by pulling it off.’
Although at that moment I would have liked to strangle her.
‘All right,’ she agreed, abandoning the mistletoe she had hoped would bring Gabe and me together, ‘perhaps that would be a better idea.’
She tried every trick in the book to get me to tell her what Gabe had said, but after the third refusal she let it drop and we worked in silence, steadily filling bags and dragging them back to the trailer, which Mick had been towing backwards and forwards to the courtyard.
By the end of the afternoon we were all exhausted but fresh faced, and our moods had lifted back to where they should have been on what was one of the busiest days in the hall calendar. I had tracked the fluttering of the little long-tailed tits I was so keen to capture on paper, and enjoyed the company of another equally bolshie robin who hopped in and out of the leaf litter looking for tasty morsels to supplement his winter diet.
‘Everyone all right?’ Jamie asked as we all prepared to set off back to the hall to whatever delights Dorothy had spent the afternoon cooking up.
‘Yes,’ we all chorused.
Looking around at the tired but happy faces of my friends, I could see that a day out in the fresh air had done us all the world of good. Even Gabe was looking less churlish and more charming.
