‘Have you heard who the new Scout guy is?’
‘Those jungle drums haven’t reached me, sorry. Why, are you going to make him a Friend of the Hall? Get his Scouts to Bob a million Jobs and fix the guttering?’
The idea is briefly tempting. ‘No, I just wanted to let him know he can back off my Bluebells and not steal them for his brainless robot league.’
‘Ahh, so nice to see you making new friends.’
My cheeks go hot in a flash and I’m about to say he blanked me first, when Flip and her brood appear. And they take my breath away.
Without my knowing, Flip has somehow managed to sneak off with the small length of bunting we finished sewing in the last meeting, she’s strung it between two garden canes and she and her husband are carrying it between them through the crowd, lifting it above people’s heads when they come to a particularly thick bunch of natterers. Their teen daughter is carrying a wind-up radio with her, blasting out jingly pop tunes. They are a mobile bunting disco. It’s genius.
As they get closer, I see there are actually letters on the bunting, felt ones stuck on. ‘Save Our Hall!’ it reads, and behind Flip and her rugged husband, her kids are handing out fliers to anyone who’ll take one. Bar Sophie, who is chewing a flier instead.
Flip takes a huge breath as she reaches me and launches into an explanation. ‘Now, don’t be cross but I kind of made a leap in our plan on my tod. I didn’t realise the Easter parade was such a big turnout, until Martha at the grocer’s filled me in. So my PR genes kicked in and I thought – I have to get our message to a captive audience! And here we are. Are you cross?’ She looks up through her lashes in a way I’m sure she knows is charming and winning. I might get her to teach it to me.
‘Course not! Why would you think that?’
She scuffs her red Converse on the gravel path. ‘Well, it is a bit ‘out there’, a bit showy. Not what your gran would have done, by the sounds of it.’
My mouth opens in a knee-jerk defence of Gran, but then I realise she wasn’t really showy, and thought calling attention to yourself was a bit tacky. And maybe the Hall suffered for it. I clamp my lips together again and feel a twist behind my ribs that I’ve just thought something disloyal about a woman who helped raise me, and who loved this place so much.
Lucy talks into the quiet I’ve left between us all. ‘Well, maybe not, but we’re moving forward, eh Connie? It’s worth trying anything right now to get bodies through the door!’
Flip nods eagerly. ‘Yes, exactly! And I had loads of people hum and haw excitedly about the bunting class as we made the rounds.’ She jiggles her cane up and down to flap the bunting in the breeze. Her husband, who seems very well adjusted to being a quiet support act to Flip’s rock-band-level energy, rolls his eyes and rubs one hand slowly across his shaved head. Flapping bunting probably isn’t his number one weekend pastime of choice.
‘Thank you. Thank you.’ I say it and I mean it. Flip is really stepping up to help Bluebell Hall. And I’m going to do the same, but I know Gran’s methods aren’t all outdated and useless. She might not have been a showman, but she was a bloody good caretaker in her day.
It’s time to channel Rosemarie Duncan. I’m going to need lilac slippers, a pencil and paper, and the confidence of Honey Boo Boo.
Chapter 6
OK. So maybe some things should be left in the fifties along with casual sexism and dripping on toast. And maybe some of Gran’s ideas of good clean community fun should be buried deep down in the ground alongside them.
I went home the night of the parade, hoisted myself into the loft with a torch and a pack of digestives and started going back in time via all of Gran’s old log books and the events she listed within. I was like Marty McFly without the orange gilet. I don’t know if the air was a bit thin up there or if I ingested some long forgotten asbestos, but I came out two hours later utterly convinced that Gran had left me a message to work this Hall puzzle out. And I set about planning a few things for a week’s time with the zeal of a new cult member. Because I’ve got just twenty days left to wrack up visitor numbers or get us an extension. I need a miracle. A miracle a lot of people would find interesting enough to come and hang out with us to see.
Just five days later and I’m no longer utterly convinced. I am utterly bricking it. And I want out of my own cult.
I should have listened to the weight in my stomach when I came to hire a floor polisher for the first of my new ventures. The price would have emptied my petty cash box, so I whacked it on my own credit card. Details, details. I’d sort it out later, I told myself. Interest charges, schminterest charges.
Using the damn thing was a bit like trying to catch a live fish from a river with hands dipped in Vaseline – it slipped and pulled away from me as it swept over the parquet floor. Turns out I hadn’t really listened to the hire guy when he explained how much beeswax to use. But my cruise-ship-themed day of Hall high jinks needed a smooth floor for shuffleboard! I was going to pull in the families for this PG game instead of my usual Sunday Funday, then encourage them to stay on for buns and squash, followed by a fashion show to encourage the adults to see that the Hall wasn’t just for kids’ larks. That was my plan.
As I’ve got ten minutes before the fashion show starts, I remember that Baldrick always thought he had great plans too. And he was a flaming idiot.
The shuffleboard was not a hit. Though Steve had brought his teacher skills with the sugar paper to the Hall to help me give it an ocean liner feel – huge white clouds and blue waves and little seagulls dotted about the walls – no one really noticed. The shuffleboard pieces were picked up and examined by the little ones. And then the Carter boys realised they made pretty good impromptu ninja throwing stars and before you could say ‘claims direct’ they were chucking them at each other with wild abandon.
I was holding a pack of Utterly Butterly to Rod Carter’s ear (the nearest thing I had on site to a bag of frozen peas) as he wept and told me he was going to kill Dan, then Preston, in that order, when I felt a wooden disc hit me squarely on the shoulder.
‘Sorry!’ yelped Preston. ‘I was aiming for him!’
Shuffleboard got shut down.
Luckily the buns couldn’t fail to be a hit, baked for me by Crusty’s in a job lot, and the sticky white icing soothed away any thoughts of fratricide and kept the other bunch of kids calm too, while we waited for the parents to turn up.
Instead of bolting with their offspring, as they usually did, I got them to loiter, buns and squash in hand. And Susannah had even done a charming wander of our neighbouring roads the day before, telling people that we were having a fashion show with local models and great bargains, putting leaflets through doors. She’d offered to find the clothes company for me, one who’d happily bring stock in the hope of making some sales. I assumed it was one of those companies that came to her retirement home but I wasn’t asking for high fashion – I’d only given her a week’s notice so I was chuffed to bits with whatever. And Susannah had come up trumps in her usual calm, elegant way. She had found models, sorted the running order. She was my secret weapon.
But now my secret weapon has found herself in the middle of a very obvious war: the Carter boys, now hopped up on sugar, have snuck into the kitchen in search of more buns but found the rails of clothes to be modelled instead and have decided a game of ‘jungles’ is more fun, dashing in between skirts and lounge pants, leaving smears of icing on sleeves and hemlines and gussets.
Susannah is now sweating furiously as she wags her finger between the tearaways. It’s just minutes before the models are due to get dressed and we have their sugary customising to deal with.
‘You MUST respect the garments!’ she says in a shrill tone I’ve never heard before.
Both boys giggle. I think they are assuming garments must be some private body part.
‘Oh, get out of my sight. And don’t you dare touch that cashmere as you exit!’
With two whoops, they sprint for the door.<
br />
‘It’s OK, Susannah,’ I rub her shoulder, ‘we’ll sort it. And it’s not the end of the world. I’m sure no one will notice.’
She turns her piercing gaze on me now and I involuntarily flinch. ‘It matters to me. It matters that we put on a good show. I’m not an amateur, young lady!’ She turns on her heel and dashes off in the direction of the loos and the models undressing there.
I have never seen Susannah so worked up. Not even when she and Gran fell out over a gravy recipe or when one of the Bluebells offered to help her carry her shopping across the road, when at the time she was 67.
The models are waiting in our makeshift ‘wings’ (the medical curtain from the school’s first aid room) while Susannah talks to our assembled crowd. Our models are a mixture of locals: some of her retirement home neighbours with good hip bones, a few local shop owners and school mums, all looking pale as if they really regretted being sweet-talked by a seemingly innocent OAP.
I turn away from their nervous grimaces – the feeling is catching and my own hands feel shaky now as all eyes are focused on our walkway – and tune back into Susannah’s introduction.
‘… pieces that are wearable, affordable and ethically sourced. We have some beautiful linen separates, just right for the coming summer season. And my personal favourite – a charcoal grey wrap that would transition so well from chilly summer nights to a crisp autumn afternoon.’
Good, this pitch is good. I had no idea she’d put so much work into this. And when I take a second to absorb the outfits of the tremulous line behind me, I realise it’s all really tasteful, subtle and… chic. This is no Jules Vert sale rail. I’d definitely wear this stuff, if I had a christening to go to, or a lovely wedding. And if I had some money.
I’m so glad now that we borrowed two spotlights from Dave the local DJ, and they are angled to hit the strips of the parquet floor that I polished especially hard for the games today. Little tea lights are lined up along the edge to mark it out (the kind that are actually battery powered, with a flickering LED in the middle) and as Susannah finishes her speech with ‘Enjoy and happy shopping!’ the first model, Joyce from the drycleaner’s, shuffles past me to take the first walk. Two others follow suit, so there’s a minimal gap between them.
Susannah comes to stand next to me and I clock that Joyce doesn’t have shoes on, just her tights under a swishy navy midi skirt and Breton top. Susannah must notice my frown and whispers ‘The shoes were all different colours and styles, bit unsightly for a cohesive collection, so I said to go in stockinged feet.’
I nod as if I get it. Susannah folds her arms and lets out a sigh. I think now the show is starting she can finally relax.
Sadly the same can’t be said for Joyce. She is slipping and sliding and desperately trying to find her balance as she slithers about on my super shiny parquet flooring.
Oh no no no.
‘No no no!’ Susannah gasps.
The models behind are now joining her in their wonky ice-skating impression, pushing their feet forwards rather than taking actual steps and clinging onto each other for support. It’s hardly Milan Fashion Week. It’s more like a WrestleMania World Championship. Joyce nearly takes out the OAP behind her as she attempts a turn at the end, her arms flailing wildly.
Susannah drops her voice to a hiss and turns to the rest of the wide-eyed models, shrinking back towards the doors. ‘Just turn on the spot, as much as you can. Don’t look like we didn’t plan it. Professionalism!’
I don’t think this is the moment to point out that their actual professions are charity shop volunteer, bank clerk and nail technician, and that they are not actually obliged to risk breaking a leg in the name of Sunday night fashion.
Susannah’s not really giving them much of an opportunity to object as she manhandles them through pastel fine knits and khaki linens, towards the Slip ‘N’ Slide.
I find myself calculating how far I could make the one splint kit in my first aid box go.
‘Maybe we should stop thi—’
‘No!’
Susannah’s hands are clenched by her side. She whispers, in a kind of creepy way, ‘The show must go on.’
* * *
The show did go on. It resembled a Dancing on Ice bloopers show, but it went on, until the last model skidded off the parquet and back behind the wings, glad to have both limbs intact under her denim playsuit.
Susannah glared at anyone giggling from the crowd and the Carter brothers wisely stayed far far away. I’m now making her a cup of tea as the saleswoman from the clothing line packs up her stock. There were a few sales, and she seemed happy with the level that came in, but Susannah had bristled that most of the audience just trooped out at the end without flashing the cash.
‘Loads of sign-ins!’ I chirrup, as I pass her a mug of builder’s tea. ‘About 60, which is ace.’
I’ve never really seen a retired woman harrumph. It’s quite a thing. She scowls through her sips.
‘It was a triumph, Susannah, really. I’m delighted. Bar the shuffleboard missiles earlier. And the ice rink. Sorry about that. Won’t happen again!’ As I say more and more and she keeps silent, my pitch is getting squeakier and squeakier, my shoulders scrunching up under my ears.
‘In my day, I would have been fired for something like that. Such a shower of… You know what.’ Her eyes flick to Gran’s name on the board of caretakers, as if she’s still watching our language from where she is now.
‘Fired?’
‘I worked in fashion. I studied at St Martin’s. I was in charge of the London branch of De Rigueur fashions. In my day. Many moons ago.’ She lets out a long breath, and suddenly catches my eye, the steeliness behind her gaze falling away. ‘I ran shows on three hours’ sleep, perfectly. Without fault. And now,’ she flops down onto a stacking chair, ‘now I’m an old lady who can’t do anything.’
I grab her hands and gently yank her back into standing in front of me. ‘Susannah! You are my rock. You are SO capable. You pulled off this scheme so quickly and so… awesomely. I had no idea you worked in fashion. When?’
She rolls her eyes. ‘The days of big hair and big flares, darling. Late seventies – the glory days. But then I had my boys and that was that. You had to just give up and stay at home in those days. Career over. And not that I regret my children, not at all, but…’
‘But you loved your job?’
‘I did,’ Susannah whispers, like it’s a dirty secret. ‘I really did. Gosh, I’ve been a silly old bird, haven’t I? Treating Bluebell Hall like it’s the House of Chanel!’
I squeeze her around the shoulders. ‘I’d say it’s currently most like a salvage yard, to be honest. And you never have to apologise about being passionate about what you do. That’s perfectly normal.’
Susannah brushes imaginary crumbs off her linen skirt and pulls her shoulders up into her usual elegant poise. ‘Normal to your generation, my dear. That’s why I think you’re so lucky, you girls: all of these paths laid out in front of you, so many exciting options waiting to be explored. Connie, you could do anything you choose.’
I pick up my tea and wrap my hands tightly around the mug, letting my fingers absorb the slightly too-hot sensation. ‘Well, I do this.’
‘But you didn’t choose it, Connie. It’s not your career. You don’t see yourself here forever, do you?’ Susannah blinks rapidly, her grey lashes mascara’d for tonight’s event.
‘Well… I’ve never really thought about it.’ A flick book starts up in my head, one page quickly changing to the next. I’m having my 30th at the Hall, I’m sweeping up leaves outside with strands of grey in my hair, I’m going home to Mum with a small fish supper to share in a baggy pink cardigan, I’m shouting at the Bluebells for being too noisy while my hearing aid whines with feedback…
I suppose I haven’t imagined myself here, doing this forever, but it’s been three years of care taking already and that’s gone in a few flicks of the book, with nothing much changing at all.
&n
bsp; But as long as my roots are here, Hazlehurst is my home. With Gran gone, Mum needs me in the background. Just in case she has any low points again, any dark days where a cup of tea and a distracting natter can be crucial. And I love being around to see Abel grow up. Most days, that more than makes up for any hot shot career I might be missing out on. Besides, when I did try to ‘make it big’ back in Manchester all I succeeded in doing was falling flat on my big fat face. Hazlehurst is my future now. So I need to make the best of it, and I need to hold on to the Hall.
‘Um, sorry?’ Sally from the fashion company sticks her head into the kitchen. ‘I think you should see this. There’s a problem in the bathroom. And, um… It’s leaking into the hall.’
Chapter 7
Ankle deep in toilet water, Bluebell Hall didn’t feel like any kind of rosy future. Clearly our toilets had given up on seeing anything more than a few schoolgirls a week and a bigish group of adults was just much too much for the cranky old Victorian plumbing. One of the toilets overflowed and despite plungering like crazy, I couldn’t stop the water coming, so I had to switch it off at the mains. And start swishing the stinky flood out of the front door with my mop. Which is what I’ve been up to for the last three hours. I ordered Susannah home – spry as she is, I couldn’t risk my lieutenant slipping in that mess – and it’s now getting pretty dark, it took me so long to make any sort of difference to the gigantic puddle. It all feels a bit Biblical so I’ve been belting out ‘Swing low, sweet chariot’ to motivate myself through it. But when my voice gives out and my feet are too soggy to take it anymore, I decide to call it quits. There’s just one more job to do before I can head home to a towel and a tea – take the black bags full of sodden paper towels out to the big bins. I do not want to find out what they’d smell like if I leave them inside for the next time the heating is switched on. Gross.
But the blummin’ things are heavy – just lugging one across the gravel makes my shoulders and neck throb dangerously. So I resort to dragging the next one, and consequently split the black plastic right open, halfway to the wheelie bin. The security lights from the Hall don’t quite reach that far, so I’m scooping up stinking wodges of swampy kitchen roll in the near-dark. A dream situation, all round.
The Bluebell Bunting Society Page 6
