Make Do and Mend in Applewell

by Lilac Mills

  ‘I don’t know. A lot.’

  ‘It’s really professional.’ He walked over to her. She was stuffing a pillow into its case and plumping it up. ‘I’m so proud of you.’

  Lottie stopped what she was doing and turned to face him. ‘Are you?’

  ‘I don’t tell you enough, do I? I also don’t tell you often enough how much I love you.’

  ‘Aww, what’s got into you, you big softie?’ She stroked his cheek and Henry pressed his face against her hand. ‘Do you want to show me how much you love me?’

  Henry smirked. Oh, yeah, this was what he had been talking about in the shed earlier. ‘You bet!’

  ‘Can you make tea, while I finish sorting Robin’s room out? It’s still a bit of a mess.’

  ‘Right. Er, yeah, of course. Do what you’ve got to do. Wraps, you said?’

  ‘Thanks, hon.’ She’d already returned to her task of making the bed.

  Deflated, he picked up Morgan and balanced him on his hip. ‘I’ll give you a shout when it’s ready,’ he said.

  ‘Henry?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I can think of another way you can show me,’ she said, and she blew him a kiss, leaving him in no doubt as to her meaning.

  Shaking his head at her, he went downstairs with a smile on his face. Things were definitely looking up.

  Chapter 11

  Lottie

  Walking on air didn’t begin to describe how Lottie felt the next morning as she and Morgan trotted down Applewell’s main street. It was amazing how reconnecting with her husband had boosted her mood, despite having had less sleep than usual. She didn’t mind late nights if they were all like that. They’d even shared a proper kiss before Henry left for work earlier, much to Sabrina’s disgust. Robin hadn’t been too impressed either, taking his cue from his sister, who’d pulled faces and had made gagging noises.

  All Lottie had done was smile at her serenely, and pray that if and when her daughter fell in love, it would be with someone who loved Sabrina as much and who made her as happy as Henry made Lottie. Even after all this time together and three kids, they were as in love today as they’d been when they first married.

  Of course they’d had bumps along the way – and they’d just hit one and come out the other side – but so did every couple. Sometimes it took one of those bumps to bring two people back together.

  Listen to her! She was exaggerating the bump business. They’d had a bit of a squabble, that was all, and she’d jumped to conclusions. It had taken Delia’s sensible viewpoint to put things into perspective. Lottie just thanked God they were back to normal. Actually, more normal than normal, according to last night’s antics, and she giggled to herself.

  ‘Mummy happy?’ Morgan asked, and she giggled again. It was a change from being asked if she was cross.

  ‘You look pleased with yourself,’ Eleri Jones from the cafe said, as Lottie and Morgan walked past. ‘Good news?’

  ‘Hi, Eleri. Oh, you know…’ She stopped for a moment to chat.

  ‘Do you fancy coming in for a minute? A hot chocolate and a slice of Christmas cake on the house? I’d like to pick your brains.’

  Lottie wasn’t one to turn down an offer like that. It would be such a treat – rarely did she pop into a cafe, and with the extension to pay for, and Christmas fast approaching (she still had some presents to buy, although she’d been picking things up throughout the year so there weren’t too many left to get) she didn’t have the spare cash to splash around on coffee and cake out.

  ‘Hi, Gracie,’ she said, seeing the woman who’d made her cushions for her sitting at a corner table. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good, thanks, and you?’

  They exchanged pleasantries for a minute or so, until Eleri placed a tray down on a spare table and beckoned her over. ‘Here you go, a hot chocolate and slice of Christmas cake for you, and a milkshake and a reindeer biscuit for Morgan.’

  Morgan had been tugging restlessly at her arm, not interested in the conversation of adults, but on seeing the goodies he clambered onto a chair and sat nicely.

  ‘Thanks, this looks delicious,’ Lottie said, tucking into her cake. ‘Mmm.’ She closed her eyes in bliss as she chewed, then opened them again slowly. ‘It tastes even better than it looks,’ she declared. ‘Now, what do you want to pick my brains about?’

  ‘Look around you,’ Eleri said. ‘What do you see?’

  Lottie frowned, wondering what the cafe owner was getting at. As far as Lottie could tell it looked the same as it always had apart from the recent addition of a Christmas tree and assorted decorations. There was a counter off to the side, the chiller beneath displaying sandwiches, baguettes, pasties and other snacky lunchtime food, which she knew would all have been freshly prepared that morning on the premises. There was also a cabinet holding assorted cakes and pastries. Behind the counter was a coffee machine, being worked by Olive, one of Eleri’s employees, and shelves filled with mugs, plates and other items like teapots and cake stands. On the wall behind the counter was the daily specials board, with a selection of home-cooked meals. Today’s was carrot and coriander soup with sourdough bread, jacket potatoes with various fillings, or lamb hotpot. Despite it being nowhere near lunchtime, Lottie’s mouth watered.

  The cafe itself held eleven tables, although it could probably hold more if they were moved up a bit, and was prettily decorated in what Lottie thought of as a sort of Victorian tea room style, with chintz curtains and old furniture. In one corner there was a squashy sofa and a low coffee table, and in another was a book stand filled with children’s stories. A wonderful aroma of coffee, vanilla and cinnamon hung in the air.

  ‘I’m not sure what I should be looking at,’ Lottie confessed, watching a couple of small children break free from their mums and head for the bookcase. She smiled, remembering occasions when her own children used to have to be bribed with a book to keep them quiet while she chatted with a friend for more than five minutes. Gone were the days when she could spend a lazy hour in a cafe catching up on news – gnats had better attention spans than her kids: no sooner had they eaten, they wanted to be off. Looking at the speed at which Morgan was devouring his biscuit, she anticipated having less than three minutes before he started clamouring to get down.

  ‘There!’ Eleri hissed and jerked her eyes towards the group of three mums and their children.

  ‘I don’t follow.’ Lottie wiped Morgan’s hands and face free of crumbs, and helped him guide the straw to his mouth. He sucked on it greedily, the level of milkshake in the glass dropping at an impressive rate.

  ‘Those kids have been driving their mothers mad. None of them will keep still.’

  ‘Are you thinking of banning children?’ Lottie asked, horrified. That wouldn’t be good for Eleri’s business at all.

  ‘No, silly! The opposite. We get so many families visiting the area, especially in the summer months, what with all the camping sites and the guesthouses, that I want to encourage them to come in here. At the moment, if they’ve got young kids they only have a quick cuppa and they’re off. I was thinking of creating a kiddies’ corner to encourage people with children to stay for a bit longer – maybe have a spot of lunch, rather than just a coffee and a cookie.’

  ‘It sounds like a great idea,’ Lottie said, letting Morgan wander off to check out the books. ‘Is that what you wanted to ask me?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Eleri took a sip of her drink. ‘I saw the photos you put on Instagram. Your boy’s bed looks fab. I can’t believe it used to be an old boat.’

  Lottie blinked at the abrupt change of topic. ‘Thanks. I’m pleased with it. I’d like to buy some curtains and a duvet set in a nautical theme, but that’s going to have to wait a while.’

  Eleri bit her lip. ‘Your photos got me thinking about the kiddies’ area – I was hoping you could help me set it up. I’ll pay you, of course,’ she added, hurriedly.

  Lottie’s eyes widened. That was a shot out of the blue. ‘Gosh. I’m, er, fl
attered, but—’

  ‘I’ve seen what you can do with old furniture,’ Eleri interrupted. ‘I’ve got some bits and pieces I thought I could use. You see, I don’t have a great deal of money to spend on this, and I was hoping…?’

  Lottie’s heart sank; she knew how much time it took to upcycle a piece of furniture. She wanted to help, but it would take hours and hours, and she was anxious to get on with repairing the sledge she’d bought, and using its template to make two more, before any decent amount of snow fell. The money would come in handy though, and she wondered how much Eleri would pay. Not enough to compensate for the amount of time it would take if she was to be paid by the hour, but anything she received could be put towards buying those last few Christmas presents she had yet to purchase. Or she’d save it towards new bedding for Robin. Or maybe not – she couldn’t justify purchasing new when there was nothing wrong with the duvet cover he already had.

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked, daunted and intrigued at the same time. If Eleri was willing to pay, then Lottie would be able to feel she was helping to contribute to the family finances.

  ‘Look.’ Eleri turned her phone towards her, and Lottie examined the photos she was being shown. ‘When I saw your before and after pictures of the boat, it got me thinking.’

  ‘That’s an old TV stand, isn’t it?’ The photo showed a piece of alarmingly orange-coloured pine furniture which had a space for a TV, a small cupboard on the one side which was probably for DVDs or CDs, a larger cupboard on the other side with deeper shelves, and two doors underneath with yet more storage space.

  What made her wince – and set her imagination on fire at the same time – were some photos of how the cabinet had been transformed into a child’s play kitchen. The way it had been converted was ingenious and Lottie was eager to get started on it, but she also knew how much time it would take to make the ‘before’ into the ‘after’.

  Eleri said, ‘There’s an almost identical piece of furniture to the old TV stand in the photo, in my gran’s house that she wants to get rid of. I thought I could do something with it.’

  ‘You can,’ Lottie agreed.

  ‘But…?’

  ‘It’ll be cheaper to buy a new play kitchen.’ Lottie felt obliged to point out. She wouldn’t feel right taking Eleri’s money, when the woman could purchase a new one for probably less than it would take to upcycle the cabinet.

  ‘Really?’

  Lottie nodded.

  Eleri looked crestfallen. ‘How much would something like this cost new?’ She focused on her phone for a moment, then looked up. ‘I should have checked first,’ she admitted. ‘This one is about a hundred pounds. I bet it won’t last, though. Are you sure it would cost this much to do up the TV stand?’

  ‘Not if you were to do it yourself, but if you paid someone to do it…’

  ‘Ah, I see. That’s a shame. And there are other bits and pieces in my gran’s house I was hoping I could use, too. Never mind.’

  Lottie had a thought. ‘How about if I show you how to do it yourself? I’ll cut out the hole for the sink and do any woodworking because I’ve got the right tools, but you can do all the sanding and painting yourself. That’s the time-consuming part.’

  ‘I’ll pay you,’ Eleri insisted again, but before Lottie could say anything a voice from another table piped up.

  Gracie Stewart said, ‘I’ll make you a duvet cover and a pair of curtains. I’ve got some lovely fabric with boats and beach huts and lighthouses on. It should be enough to make a single duvet set and a pair of curtains.’

  Lottie stared at her. Gracie was well known in Applewell for her sewing skills. She was also a collector of fabric and could frequently be seen in UnderCover rooting around for unusual patterns. Catrin also often gave her any items that were too worn or damaged to be sold in the shop, and it was astounding what uses Gracie could put them to.

  ‘That’s very generous of you,’ Lottie said cautiously, thinking it was a lovely gesture but wondering why Gracie had offered. Lottie knew how eager the residents of Applewell were to help each other out, but Gracie had a business to run and couldn’t afford to work for nothing.

  Eleri was far quicker than Lottie to catch on. ‘Lunch every day for two weeks?’ she said to Gracie, and Gracie grinned.

  ‘Deal!’ the woman cried.

  Lottie squinted at the pair of them. ‘Is this, like, bartering?’

  ‘Yep. Good, innit?’ Eleri rubbed her hands together. ‘Gracie re-covered my favourite armchair for the same price.’

  Gracie grinned. ‘It saves me cooking. I’m hopeless at it. So, this way I get a decent meal, Eleri gets her TV stand made into a kitchen, and you can finish your little boy’s room off.’

  ‘Deal,’ Lottie agreed firmly, thinking what a marvellous system it was.

  After rounding Morgan up – he was trying to get behind the counter to help himself to another biscuit – Lottie arranged to call around to Eleri’s grandmother and take a look at the TV stand. She was quietly excited about the prospect of helping Eleri turn the old piece of furniture into something useful, and receiving a handmade duvet set and curtains in return seemed like a good deal.

  ‘Guess what?’ she squealed to Delia down the phone on the way home.

  ‘You’ve won the lottery? You’ve been swept off your feet by a hunky pirate…?’

  Lottie took her mobile away from her ear and stared at it for a second. Did she just hear Delia correctly? ‘A pirate?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, we watched a re-run of Pirates of the Caribbean last night.’

  ‘I see. Erm, no, no pirate. It’s better than that.’

  ‘Better than Captain Jack Sparrow?’

  ‘Yes, now be quiet so I can tell you. I’ve been asked to make a play corner for Eleri’s cafe, using old bits of furniture from her grandma’s house. I’m getting a duvet set and a pair of curtains in return.’

  ‘Eh? You’ll have to run that by me again.’

  Lottie laughed, and went on to explain what had happened.

  ‘Wow, Lottie, that’s fantastic! I said you were good, didn’t I? Are you thinking of making a business out of this?’

  ‘No chance! It’s OK for me to upcycle stuff for my own use, but selling it is a completely different ballgame. There’s the time element for a start. Not only that, but if I have to buy things to work on, it would eat into any profits I make. I was just lucky John Porter gave Henry the boat for nothing.’

  ‘Talking about Henry, how are things between you?’

  Lottie was glad she wasn’t on a video call to her friend, as a heated blush swept into her cheeks. ‘Good, they’re good,’ she muttered.

  ‘I see,’ Delia said, with a chortle. ‘I’m glad about that. But have a think about the business thing, yeah? You can always try using Etsy a bit more. It’ll keep you busy until Morgan is old enough to start school and you decide whether or not you want to go back to work.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Lottie said, meaning, I’m not going to think about it at all. Still, it was nice for Eleri to have asked her. And it was even nicer that Lottie was able to help. Her philosophy regarding reusing and repurposing things might have originated out of necessity, but it had swiftly become more about not wanting to be so wasteful and throw things away; and if she could help someone else do that, then she’d have done her good deed for the day.

  Chapter 12

  Henry

  Henry could feel himself sliding down the slippery slope towards grumpiness again. It might have only been three days since he’d received the email from Allinson’s but it felt like at least a week. Tenterhooks didn’t begin to come close to describing his emotional state.

  He’d still continued to trawl the internet for anything suitable, and he’d continued to fire off CVs and application forms left, right and centre in the hope one or more of them might produce a result. But so far the only one to have done so was his application to Allinson’s and they were taking their sweet time in moving on to the next st
age of the process.

  What if they’d changed their minds? It had been known to happen – if they’d received a couple of applications that matched their remit better, then they might be interviewing those people first. If so, instead of a phone call from this Sally Chisholm, the best he could hope for would be a thanks-but-no-thanks email.

  Some companies wouldn’t even bother with that.

  Or maybe they’d decided to withdraw the position. He’d known that to have happened, too. Or—

  His jumbled thoughts ground to a halt and he grimaced. There was no point in going over and over it in his head; he’d hear from them in due course, or not at all, and trying to anticipate what was likely to happen wasn’t doing his mood any good.

  The last thing he wanted was a return to the way he’d been feeling. Now that he was back on an even keel with both his wife and the children, he had no intention of rocking the boat.

  All those nautical references made him remember that he had been meaning to pop up to Porter’s Farm to have a word with John about some oars. Robin’s bedroom was nearly finished, but not quite, and the oars, along with new curtains and bedding, would set it off a treat.

  When Lottie had told him at dinner the other night – yet another evening when he’d made it home in time to eat with his family – that she’d swapped her upcycling expertise for a length of fabric and Gracie Stewart’s sewing skills, he’d been dumbfounded. He’d not known that bartering was still a thing – he’d assumed it had gone out with the Middle Ages.

  He’d also been amazed when she’d told him she was helping refurbish a corner of Eleri’s cafe. It was just a pity she wasn’t getting paid for it. Good hard cash was what the family needed now. Unfortunately, he couldn’t explain that to Lottie without having to share the reason why.

  He’d had his P45 through yesterday, along with his final payslip, and both documents now resided safely in his briefcase, along with the formal letter from Baldwin Ltd advising him of his redundancy. He’d had a bit of a moment when he’d seen the envelope sitting on the kitchen table, but he’d opened it when Lottie was out of the room and then had shoved it in his briefcase. She never looked in there.