Make Do and Mend in Applewell

by Lilac Mills

  * * *

  ‘Oh, it’s even better in real life,’ Jo said. ‘What an absolutely marvellous idea; you’re so clever to think of it. We’ve bought an old barn, and trying to furnish it with statement pieces isn’t easy, but this will be ideal. All I need to go underneath is a little seat so I can sit on it to take my shoes on and off. You wouldn’t happen to have anything like that, would you?’

  ‘No, but I’ll keep my eye out for you, if you like. What was it you were after?’

  ‘I don’t know – something made out of old pallets maybe? I like the rustic look, and I like a bit of history. I don’t necessarily mean old, but something that’s a talking point, which has a story behind it.’

  Lottie grinned. ‘Would you like to come upstairs and have a look at my son’s boat?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought you said boat.’ Jo was looking quizzical.

  ‘That’s right, a boat.’

  After Jo had gone – taking the revamped door with her, having paid the full asking price – Lottie was so ecstatic she could barely contain her excitement and her pleasure.

  Without thinking, she reached for her phone and called Henry.

  Chapter 23

  Henry

  When Henry saw his wife’s number on the screen, he frowned. They had hardly spoken in nearly two days, and he wondered why she was ringing him, before guessing she probably wanted him to pick something up from the shop on the way home.

  This was what his marriage had come to – two strangers passing in the night. They’d become more like lodgers than husband and wife. He still held out hope that as soon as he landed another job they’d put all this behind them. He’d give himself one more week, that was all, just one week, and if there was nothing on the horizon, he’d have to tell her.

  ‘Hi, Lottie,’ he said, with a certain degree of reticence. Her answering squeal made him wince, and he held the phone away from his ear before hastily putting it back again and praying to God there was nothing wrong. ‘What’s up?’ he demanded, his heart in his mouth.

  ‘I’ve sold the door!’ Lottie cried.

  Henry’s mind went blank for a minute – what door? What was she talking about? Then he remembered, and his thumping heart gradually returned to a less alarming rhythm. ‘Is that all?’ he said, relieved that nothing was seriously wrong. In fact, it was good news.

  There was silence on the other end for a second, then Lottie said, ‘Thanks,’ and suddenly the call ended.

  Henry hadn’t moved – he was in the car park of a service station on the A44 – so he didn’t think it was the reception, but he’d been holding the device to his ear so tightly that he might very well have disconnected her with his face; it wouldn’t be the first time. But when he tried ringing her back, it went to voicemail.

  Silly Lottie – she was probably trying to call him. They must both be on the phone at the same time, trying to ring each other. He left it a minute before phoning her again, staring at the screen in anticipation. When she didn’t answer, he guessed it was probably due to the phone reception, so he resumed his journey before trying again some time later.

  It still went to answer phone.

  That was strange; maybe she was out and about? There were some dead spots in Applewell so he’d speak to her when he got home.

  There was no chance he would be late tonight, because he didn’t have any clients booked in. The only thing he was required to do on this, his last day of employment at Baldwin Ltd, was to drive to head office and return anything that belonged to the company.

  Having woken at the crack of dawn, he’d left early, Lottie still asleep (in the marital bed, thankfully) and the children not yet stirring, because he had wanted to get there and back in as short a time as possible. It was a six-hour round trip, with maybe an hour to hand everything over, so that meant seven hours before he was home again. He didn’t have much to return, just a laptop and some paperwork, and that was about it. Come to think of it, an hour was probably too long – five minutes should do it.

  But when he arrived, he realised that five minutes had been over-egging it. Two was more accurate. He’d gone to reception, where the woman behind the desk had been expecting him. She had a checklist which she used to diligently tick off every item as he handed it to her, then he was done. No ‘thank you’, no ‘goodbye’, no exit interview. Nothing. And that just about summed it up as far as he was concerned.

  He didn’t feel particularly different on the drive back, even though he was now officially unemployed. The only thing he felt was free, which was quite a peculiar feeling considering his future was most definitely uncertain and he was consumed with worry. And not just about his finances, either.

  His most immediate worry was what he was going to do with himself next week with no work to go to. He could always tell Lottie he’d taken a few days off, but she might think it odd. He’d be better off going to the library in Aberystwyth.

  He’d already scrutinised all the obvious job sites for his type of work, but maybe it was time he expanded his horizon. He’d done all the trawling he could, and applied for any and all sales jobs he’d found. Perhaps he should consider alternative lines of employment? At this point he’d do anything.

  As he spotted a sign for Worcester, Henry decided to take a little detour. He’d been to the city several years ago, and he remembered the cathedral with the calm sweep of the River Severn beyond. He was hungry, and Worcester was as good a place as anywhere to grab a bite to eat. He’d been up so early that he’d not had breakfast and neither had he made any sandwiches to bring with him, so he decided to treat himself to a portion of chips. He’d been sorely tempted the other day at New Quay, but after the phone call from Sally Chisholm, his appetite had deserted him. Now, though, his mouth watered at the thought of piping hot chips liberally covered in vinegar, washed down with a can of something cold and fizzy.

  He parked the car in a multistorey on the outskirts of the city centre and strolled down towards the river, soaking in the festive atmosphere. The streets were busy with shoppers and every window he passed was decorated with trees and gift ideas, fairy lights and baubles.

  He thought about the present he’d bought for Lottie, which was hidden in the boot of his car, and wished he’d not given in to the impulse to buy it. As far as jewellery went (was an ornate hairpin classed as jewellery?) it hadn’t been too expensive, but he could have done with not spending the money. He should have taken it back for a refund after he’d had the phone call from Sally Chisholm, but in the dismay of discovering he’d not got the job he’d forgotten he’d bought the damned thing in the first place. Maybe he’d return it the next time he was in the area?

  After purchasing his rather early lunch – the chip shop had only just opened and he’d had to wait for the chips to finish frying – he found a bench and sat on it to eat his food, wolfing it down so fast he gave himself hiccups. The fizzy drink didn’t help, but he gulped it thirstily, then deposited his rubbish in the nearest bin.

  Wiping his greasy hands on a tissue, he automatically checked his phone. As it had been getting increasingly more silent over the course of the past week or so, he wasn’t surprised to see he had no notifications, no messages and no missed calls.

  With nothing to do and nowhere to go, and considering it was still relatively early in the day and far too soon to go home even with the two-and-a-half-hour drive it would take him to get back to Applewell, he decided he’d have a mooch around and explore the cathedral first because it was only a short walk from where he’d eaten his lunch, so he made his way towards it, the impressive tower easily visible from where he had been sitting.

  Walking along the riverbank with a weak December sun on his face and the gurgle of the water in his ears was exceedingly pleasant. Rafts of swans and quite a few ducks bobbed up and down on the water, following him for a while, hoping he might have some food to throw for them. When it was clear he wasn’t going to feed them, they veered off to look for better candidates.


  Henry wasn’t entirely sure whether he could get to the cathedral from the path running alongside the river, but then he saw a stone archway with steps leading up and realised he could. He paused for a moment to look at the inscriptions on the side of the wall indicating how far the river levels had risen when the Severn had flooded over the years. Many of the marks were above his head. Flooding didn’t appear to have affected the cathedral, though; it was roughly eight hundred years old, he read, when he went inside and studied the information board near the enormous main doors, and it was still standing and appeared to be in good nick.

  There was a soothing, peaceful atmosphere inside, and he took a seat on one of the long pews and gazed up at the magnificent stained-glass windows. He didn’t think he’d been in a church since his wedding day, but he couldn’t be 100 per cent certain. Surely some of his friends had got married after he and Lottie had tied the knot, but if they had, he couldn’t bring it to mind.

  Henry wasn’t a religious man, but he did appreciate history, and he also appreciated the sense of reverence in which the walls of the building were steeped. It made him feel quite small in a way, to think of the thousands of people who had gone before him, walking the aisles, their footsteps polishing the large flagstones beneath his feet. There would be thousands more after him, and in some ways it made his own existence feel small and inconsequential, making him realise that his problems were tiny in the great scheme of things.

  Feeling rather melancholy, he strolled through the town, dipping into some of the older parts of the city with its cobbled streets and Tudor buildings, and then, quite suddenly, as he trod his solitary and aimless path, he wondered what on earth he was doing.

  At that very moment he wanted nothing more than to be at home with Lottie, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. But he also knew that even if he was at home right then, the last thing she’d want to do was to be cuddled by him. There must be something he could do to put his marriage back on the right track, without admitting to her that he was a total failure. He had no doubt Lottie would understand and be supportive, and that she wouldn’t blame him for losing his job, but he didn’t want to see the worry in her eyes that he knew would be there.

  He wondered if it had been his comment to Sally Chisholm about wanting to return to his own bed at night that had lost him the opportunity at Allinson’s. He’d said it in a joking manner, but he hadn’t been joking at all. He was a homebody and he didn’t want to spend night after night on the road. But the way he felt right then, if Sally offered him the job today he’d jump at it despite any onerous travel. Everyone knew it was easier to find another job when you were already in one. He also wondered whether the scent of desperation he had undoubtedly exuded had also put her off.

  Abruptly he came to a halt, and gazed around, wondering where he was. He’d been so lost in his thoughts that his feet had taken him out of the city centre proper and he wasn’t quite sure where he was. Great – he was lost in a strange city and now he couldn’t find his car.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said to a middle-aged woman walking past. ‘I seem to be lost. Could you point me in the right direction for the city centre?’ If he could find his way back to the river, he could retrace his steps to the car park.

  ‘Of course, my duck. Were you after any particular street or shop?’

  ‘I want to get to the multistorey car park.’

  ‘You’re not too far away. If you turn back the way you came, go left and left again, you should see it.’ She pointed down the road behind him.

  ‘Thank you so much, I really appreciate your help.’

  He followed her instructions until he got to the end of the road he was on, then he turned left onto another street and was reassured when he could see a blue and white parking sign ahead of him. Relieved, he hurried along the road, dodging around some scaffolding where a building was being renovated, his attention on the sign.

  When he bumped straight into a large, yellow skip outside the building, having not concentrated on what was in front of his nose, it brought tears to his eyes. ‘Ouch!’

  He rubbed his hip where he’d caught it on the corner of the skip, and gave the container a foul glare, even though it was his own fault for not seeing it. How could he have missed it: it was bigger than his car and crammed full of rubbish. He eyed a battered chest of drawers which was perched precariously on the mound of rubble, and prayed it wasn’t going to fall on him. The last thing he needed was to be buried underneath a pile of old wood.

  Gingerly he walked around the skip until he reached the pavement, then trotted along it, heading resolutely for the car park. It was time he was back on the road and on his way home. Although Lottie hadn’t told him she was going out again that evening, he didn’t want to be too late home. He probably wasn’t going to be much fun tonight – when was he ever these days? – but he felt a burning need to be in the bosom of his family. Even if his wife ignored him and his daughter thought he wasn’t cool, at least his two boys would be delighted to see him.

  Locating his car on the third floor of the car park, Henry made a conscious decision to spend more time with the children this weekend. It was ironic in a way – in theory he could spend the whole of next week with the kids, if it wasn’t for the fact that he had to pretend to go to work.

  Putting the distressing thought out of his mind, he circumnavigated the car park and popped out of an exit on the same street with the scaffolding.

  He was about to drive on past when he stopped the car.

  Thoughtfully, he got out, walked up to the skip and peered at the mound of detritus, his attention coming to rest on the chest of drawers. Surely Lottie could do something with it? It was quite big and would have originally had three drawers on the top, three drawers in the middle and two longer ones on the bottom. The two longer ones were still in place, three of the smaller drawers were also in position, but of the remaining three, one had fallen out and was half buried beneath pieces of broken plasterboard, and two appeared to be missing.

  Henry glanced at the building, but it was boarded up and he couldn’t see anyone working in it. He looked around, debating whether he should do what he was thinking of doing, before deciding he’d do it anyway.

  Quickly, he pulled his car up in front of the skip and reversed as close as he could to it, then he opened the boot and folded down the back seats. Working as fast as he could, he picked up the drawers and stacked them into the footwells; then, with a final glance up and down the street to make sure nobody was about to shout at him, he reached up and dragged the chest of drawers towards him.

  Crikey, it was heavier than he’d thought, but with a bit of wrangling and a lot of huffing and puffing and the odd swear word, he managed to slide it into the back of his car. It only just fitted, and he lowered the rear door with care.

  When it was safely inside, he scuttled around to the driver’s side, dived in and drove off quickly. He felt extremely guilty, even though he knew it was going to landfill. It had been put in the skip for good reason – nobody wanted it, nobody cared what happened to it – but he couldn’t help feeling as though he’d stolen something.

  He just hoped Lottie didn’t mind him bringing home a battered old chest of drawers, and that she took his offering in the spirit it was intended. There was also the small hope in the back of his mind that when she did something extraordinary with it, she would be able to sell it, like she’d sold the door.

  It was just a pity he was having to pretend he was in work next week, because he might have been able to help her. But even as the thought entered his head, an idea was taking shape. He wasn’t quite sure where he was going with it yet, and it might come to nothing, but he knew exactly what he was going to do on Monday while he was pretending to be in work, and he discovered he was strangely excited about it.

  Chapter 24

  Lottie

  What the hell had Henry been thinking of, bringing her a damaged chest of drawers, Lottie thought but didn’t say, becau
se Henry had reminded her of a hopeful puppy bringing her his favourite ball and expecting her to be pleased about it. She couldn’t decide whether she was pleased or not; in one way she was, because she’d only just been lamenting not having anything to work on, but in another way she was still highly sceptical of his reasons. There was also the thought in the back of her mind that perhaps he was giving someone else the chocolates and flowers that should have been for her.

  ‘Don’t tell me you got this from John Porter’s farm?’ Lottie asked, walking around it, and wondering what on earth she was going to do with it.

  ‘I got it out of a skip,’ he said.

  Lottie shot him a quick look, and he hastened to add, ‘It wasn’t from around here.’

  Thank God for that! She’d hate to think that someone they knew might have seen him clambering about amongst other people’s rubbish and taking things.

  ‘I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with it,’ she said. ‘It’s not as though we need any additional furniture, although we may well do when the extension is built, but that’s ages away yet and I don’t have anywhere to store it.’

  ‘I was thinking you could do what you did with the door,’ Henry said.

  Lottie resisted the urge to roll her eyes and sigh. ‘It would take a great deal of work to turn this into a coat rack,’ she pointed out.

  ‘That’s not what I meant. I was thinking you could turn it into something else; or do it up and sell it.’

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ Lottie said.

  ‘I’m not sure I follow.’

  Good grief, what was wrong with the man? His reaction when she had phoned him earlier to tell him she’d sold the door had been lukewarm at best. Which was why she’d hung up on him – she’d been incredibly upset. She still was. He hadn’t even been interested enough to ask how much she’d sold it for, which was a bit rich considering he’d made such a fuss of her buying a five-pound sledge, and had also been reluctant to go out for a meal in the Busy Bumble, supposedly because of the cost. She would have thought he’d be delighted to know they had a few extra pennies in the coffers but, oh no, he hadn’t been in the least bit curious.