Gurpreet is struggling a bit with left and right today, something I’m familiar with, so we tuck a pencil between the laces of her right trainer. ‘You write with a pencil. So you write on your right,’ I say for the tenth time. She gives me a sunny thumbs up and clutches her green ribbon like a tug of war is about to break out.
‘Nice and gentle, now off we go!’ The music crackles into life. It’s the song that goes, ‘I want to be near you, you’re the one the one the one. I want to be near you, you’re the one for me.’
My heart suddenly feels a bit full and bursting with thoughts of Gran. She would have loved this. I mean, not Gurpreet going the wrong way, but the music and the girls and general life at the Hall. It’s going to be all right, Gran, I think. I’m fixing it for you. For everyone. Just wait and see.
After five more minutes we’re in a right tangle, so I call a break and send the girls to stretch. Because this is a serious sporting pursuit and I won’t have anyone say it’s not.
Without being asked, Veronica picks up a few ribbon ends and joins me in unweaving the big lumpy mess they’ve become. ‘Miss, can I ask you a few things about the Scouts?’
‘Um, sure.’ Maybe Veronica has her first crush?
‘Are they really as awful as they seem?’
I wince. ‘How awful do they seem to you, currently?’
‘Pretty awful. It’s just, if we are going to share their hut, I think I’d better prepare myself for that now. Let it sink in.’ A tiny shudder makes her shoulders wobble.
I unstick a red from a green and put a purple back where it came from. ‘Why on earth would you share their hut?’
She waves a casual hand at the Hall. ‘When this place is torn down.’
‘Veronica!’
She colours a little as she realises this is perhaps a sensitive issue for someone employed by this Hall and very much counting on it not being torn down.
In a small voice she explains, ‘Gemma’s brother is a Scout. He said over tea that the Scout Master had asked them all to be extra welcoming to us Bluebells as we were shortly about to lose our premises, to make way for a new building. We’d have to share with them. I thought you knew. I assumed you must have known.’
My nails are suddenly making deep crescent shapes in the wide nylon ribbons. ‘That’s not happening, Veronica. That’s just a pile of… silly rumours.’
‘But Gemma said her brother said the Scout Master said he works for the people that own the Hall so—’
‘So he can kiss my arse,’ I breathe.
Veronica’s eyebrows huddle above her nose. ‘Sorry, Miss?’
‘Why don’t we get off this damp grass?’ I singsong brightly, pushing my rage down, right down, to the bottom of my trainers.
The anger at what arrogant BS Alex has been drilling into his mini-me army has me so furiously bristling that I’m verging on a full beard of rage.
The suit-wearing rat.
Anger keeps me fuelled through the week, as I listen to The OAP Three sing completely different songs with big grins on their faces. I nod along, feeling too sorry for them, their deaf ears and their holey memories to correct them and too busy picturing how I might run Alex through with a tent pole to find the polite words, anyway. My ancient little pop group are going to sing songs from back in the day at our Bluebell Hall memories tent – the less creepy Victorian children’s songs and cheery WW2 numbers. ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’? Alex can pack his bags and catch the next loser bus out of Hazlehurst, thanks very much.
Flip has been giving me ‘media training’ ahead of meeting the Mirror at the fete next weekend. She bumped into me when picking Gurpreet up again after the Bluebell tangle-athlon and I was still so white-hot with rage that you could have cooked a potato waffle on my forehead. I think she’s a bit worried that the ‘human interest’ piece might go a bit ‘human remains found at fete’ if I see Alex there, so we’re meeting at the Handsome Hog for a G&T and some more polishing of my sound bite. It took me a while to shake off my embarrassment at drinking at the Handsome Hog when I came back from Manchester, at first. You never think the pub you try (and fail) to sneak into when you’re 15 will be the one you legitimately frequent when it’s… God, 15 years later! That was half my lifetime ago.
As I sip my drink and kill time waiting for Flip, I snap a quick picture for Stevie. The caption underneath says:
They ran out of snakebite apparently. Shame.
He replies:
Still can’t believe you tried to convince the barman that you were your own older cousin from High Wycombe. You delivered his papers to him every Sunday, you div!!! And stop sending me pics of sexy looking G&Ts when I’m in bed with numeracy marking and an Ovaltine.
You were more fun when you were underage.
That is the kind of text that makes a teacher sweat. Night, Connie.
Flip’s red barnet hops into sight around one of the pub’s etched glass partitions. It’s the kind of pub where they weren’t fancy enough to rip all this original stuff out in the eighties and through sheer dumb luck it’s now trendy again. Last week as I ate a cheeky pub burger for my lunch, I overheard some guys with topknots saying in awe, ‘totally legit place, shame there’s no craft beers.’ So, some more ex-Londoners for our population, then. Bless them and their disposable cash.
‘Hey chuck!’ She shuffles along next to me on the padded bench. ‘Sorry I’m late. My big girl had a toxic friend situation. Blerg.’ She mimes two fingers going down her throat.
‘Oh no. Is she OK?’
Flip shrugs. ‘Nothing a good cry, some mango sorbet and a read of Caitlyn Moran can’t cure.’
Not for the first time I’m glad I haven’t had to go through puberty in this tech age. All we had as a fall back in my day was the Spice Girls and a Wagon Wheel. If you were lucky. If I’d been shamed or trolled or whatever as a teen, I think I would have slung my phone in the pond and gone to live a hermit’s life in the woods. I might not have smelled pretty, but at least the mean girls wouldn’t have been able to find me. No 4G in those woods.
Flip claps her hands together. ‘But onwards and upwards. Let’s get you ready for the camera!’ She catches my flinch. ‘You’ve nothing to be scared of, Cons. You’re smart and motivated, and pretty easy on the eye. Newspaper eds’ jackpot, I’d say. I can’t convince you to come in a bikini?’
I choke on my ice cube just as she belts out her throaty laugh. ‘Kidding!’
When I clear my airwaves, I croak, ‘So shall we rehearse what I’m going to say?’
‘Oh no. You don’t want it to sound all formal and stuffy. It has to be from the heart, off the cuff. But we can have a bit of role play, so you roughly get the gist of what you might say. I’ll be the journo, you be you.’
‘Right. Well, at least I can do that.’
Flip coughs a little and positions her hands like she has a little tape recorder under my chin. ‘Miss Duncan, tell us about the plight of Bluebell Hall. What does it mean to the community here?’
‘Um, well, um. Yes. It’s a really vital part of Hazlehurst life. The local girls’ group, the Bluebells, meet there, which gives vital confidence and social skills to girls from all walks of life. Yup.’
With a roll of her hands, Flip encourages me to keep talking. ‘And we have some local OAPs who see us weekly. They don’t otherwise get out or have any contact apart from Meals on Wheels, so it’s a lifeline to them. Also, local families’ use the drop-in sessions on Sunday Fundays as a free bit of activity and engagement for their children. All free services, of course. And you don’t get much free these days, with this government.’
Flip chops at her neck. ‘Too heavy! No politics,’ she mouths. I wonder if she knows her Dictaphone is imaginary?
‘Ahhh, um. We do all sorts – arts, crafts, singing, dancing. And of course, we make bunting!’ I do an air-hostess-like point around me. Christ, now I’m fully down this role play rabbit hole. Can’t wait to read this edition of the ‘Daydream Mirror’ when it comes out.
‘The bunting is great.’ Flip winks, so I must have done something right. ‘It’s certainly caught everyone’s attention.’
‘It shows what you can achieve when you get together with your neighbours. Not the sort of thing you’ll see if we’re torn down for a megabucks coffee house, or something. That’s the rumour.’
‘And you have a credible source for that?’
‘I should say so. From the guy representing the Hibbert estate himself. He told me. If we don’t get enough locals to use the Hall they’re going to sell it off and destroy it. All that history, all those families losing out.’ Suddenly I can feel a heavy lump behind my ribs but Flip gives me a thumbs up.
‘And when is your deadline? When will you know the fate of Bluebell Hall?’
‘The Monday following this fete, in fact. We’re hoping everyone will see our tent, or read about it somewhere, and come along on Bank Holiday Monday for a special Monday Funday. If nobody uses the Hall, we’ll lose it. That’s why we want all your readers to come along. That should give us the numbers we need to satisfy the fat cats.’ I spit the last bit out, imagining a boardroom full of cats dressed in fancy suits and goring cute little mice.
With an imaginary flick to her non-existent recorder, Flip sits back and beams. ‘Really good! Giving them that sense of urgency will hopefully mean we make it into the Sunday edition. Ooh, forgot they’ll want background colour on you.’ She leans forward again, lowering her brows. ‘Tell us a bit about yourself, Connie.’
‘Um, I work at the Hall. I’m the caretaker.’
‘And?’ Wobbling her head, Flip somehow communicates she’s losing interest.
‘And, I’ll, er, be 30 next month. I’ve lived here all my life, apart from when I temped in Manchester, after uni.’
‘Right, so what was your career plan, before the Hall came along?’
I shake my head, a flicker of memories of the B-Side office passing before my eyes and quickly vanishing again. ‘Sorry?’
Flip leans forward and whispers, ‘They’ll want that little intro line of you. You know ‘Flip Gooderson, 43, mother of three, a former PR from London, now a WI member and sewing enthusiast in the Shires’. So you’d be ‘Connie Duncan, a…’
I chew on my bottom lip. ‘I suppose, 29, a Philosophy graduate. Single. Who lives with her mum?’
She winces like she’s just seen the barman spit in a pint. ‘You couldn’t add ‘aspiring…?’’
‘Aspiring to keep the community hall open. There.’
‘There’s nothing else you want to do?’
‘No. Why? This is where I live, this is my big passion. You know that, Flip.’
She fiddles with a strand of hair that’s come loose from her up-do. ‘Well, yes. But… it’s not what you dream of at 18, is it? No offence. But once we’ve saved the Hall, once this media campaign is everywhere, just think what an amazing jumping-off point that could be for you! You could get into PR yourself, or event management, move back to a big city, stop hanging out with boring old married ladies like me…’ She rolls her eyes and smiles. But suddenly I’m not feeling very jolly.
I feel shaky, like I’m at a job interview I didn’t even apply for. The pressure starts to make my head ache. ‘Not everyone wants what you’ve had, Flip. Hazlehurst isn’t a second choice, OK? It’s where my home is, where everyone I love is. And I’m not sure how this has anything to do with saving the Hall, actually. So… Yeah, thanks for the help. I need an early night.’
I grab my denim jacket and leave the bar doors flapping behind me, Flip’s white face just visible in small bursts as they open and close.
She couldn’t know that she’d hit on the exact same argument I’d been having with myself for weeks now.
Chapter 12
With everything going on, this art therapy class is just what I need. Not only because it’s bringing a gaggle of new visitors to the Hall, not only because it’s Polly’s idea and she’s shown real passion and flair in getting it off the ground, but because I think I could do with a little emotional release of my own. Our campaign is charging ahead, and I’m charging along with it, but every now and then when I pause for breath and to hoover up five bits of buttery toast, I can feel the weight of the Hall on me. I can feel the Bunting Society looking to me for the next idea, I can feel the total number of visitors so far hanging over me at every turn. The closer we get to our target, weirdly, the more stressed I become from all the expectation. Sometimes I even feel like Gran is just over my shoulder, crossing her fingers that I won’t let her or Hibbert down.
So a little sewing, a little cutting and sticking, a little light conversation over tea and Jammie Dodgers is just what the doctor ordered.
Polly is twirling a length of pea-green ribbon round and round her hands in the kitchen when I seek her out.
‘Hey teach!’ I put my hand up for a high five but Polly just looks at it, numb with panic. ‘You OK?’
‘Um, yeah. I suppose. No. No, not really.’
I fiddle about with teacups and beakers. ‘This is going to be great, I just know it. How could it not be?’
She shoves her hands into the back pockets of her cobalt-blue jeans. ‘Easy for you to say. You’re awesome at this stuff. You can talk to people, new people, weird people. I just… I don’t know what to say. I got all excited about doing this textiles things, to get visitors here to the Hall. And I didn’t actually realise that I’d have to talk to them, you know?’
The memory of my first ever session as Mistress Bloom comes flooding back. The stammering. The sweat patches. The seven cups of chamomile it took to finally calm down afterwards. ‘Yup, I do know. But I also know you have it in you. Because there is really only one trick to talking to new people.’
Polly’s hands wave in front of her grimacing mug. ‘Eww, not the imagining them in underwear thing, please. Please! There are old people waiting out there!’
‘Nope. Talking to people is like a treasure hunt. Everyone has at least one super interesting story to them – you just have to keep digging until you find it. Some people will have little nuggets of gold to them, others will have big shiny diamonds as big as your head. Just keep going till you strike it rich.’ I nudge her in the ribs. ‘Besides, once we start crafting, people tend to lose themselves in satin stitch quite happily.’
She takes a big gulp of squash from a scratched beaker. ‘OK. OK.’
‘And,’ I lower my voice as the A-levellers from the Bunting Society approach the kitchen. I know with a few years on Polly and three sets of piercings apiece, they are uber-cool in her eyes and she wouldn’t want them to know just how nervous she’s feeling. ‘If it all goes tits up, give me a wink and I’ll flash my boobs. Never fails to change the subject.’
Her eyes go wide and she bites back a giggle. ‘Here’s hoping I don’t just get something in my eye, then. Hey Clara, hey Bernie.’
Polly is smashing her first go at public speaking.
‘So really, it doesn’t matter what kind of sewing experience you have. Here at Sew Chill the idea isn’t to make something perfect. It’s to make something that reflects you. Who you are, where you came from. Where you want to go. We’re going to start with a community quilt. Everyone here can make a square about happiness – more than one, if you like – then us lot will join them up,’ she says, pointing her thumb in the direction of the A-level girls who nod encouragingly, ‘and… and I thought we could then auction it off for,’ her voice wobbles a little, ‘cancer research.’
Spontaneous applause breaks out around the tables.
Polly recovers with a quick cough. ‘It’s totally fine just to work on ideas this week, you don’t have to rush into anything. But if you do want to have a go at something, we have fabrics, needles, thread. Books on craft. All the stuff you need. You could hand-sew, use a machine, layer materials, go as nuts as you like. Or you can bring in materials from home next week, things that means something special. I made this,’ her cheeks flush as she holds up her family tre
e bunting, ‘from clothes and bits that had been my mum’s. Um, yeah, so just to say again: I’m Polly. Please shout if you need help. And, um…’
Bernie rescues her by chipping in, ‘Have fun guys! Welcome to Sew Chill!’
‘Hasn’t she done well? Sweet thing,’ Mum murmurs as she starts pulling out a tangle of fabric offcuts. I’m so pleased she was up for coming tonight. The Hall is in our shared DNA, so it’s great to have her part of its new lease of life. She belongs here. But, more than that, I think the sewing will be great for her – relaxing, distracting and positive. I hadn’t realised Polly had had the brainwave of us making a quilt for charity but it’s so perfect. This club will help the people in it find a bit more balance and also do something for the greater good. Shame I didn’t meet Polly when she was younger – she could have been a star Bluebell. I could have just put my feet up and let her think of all the community outreach projects for the Help a Neighbour badge.
Mum is comparing some yellow gingham to a scrap of orange velvet. ‘I’m thinking a sun for happiness. Holidays. Do these go? I could do triangles all sewn together in a round to make a big sun face.’
‘That sounds nice. How do you think I could patchwork a tube of Pringles and the Netflix logo?’
The Bluebell Bunting Society Page 11
