by Lilac Mills
Henry packed the remains of his lunch away and hurried back to his car to warm up, eager to see what the local amenity site had to offer.
The household waste reclamation centre lay on the outskirts of the town, on a large industrial estate. It took a bit of finding, but when he eventually drove in through the gates, excitement coiled in his stomach. Aside from the massive containers for metal, garden waste and cardboard, there was one for wood, and he didn’t even have to get out of his car to see that there might be a few suitable pieces in there.
He found somewhere to pull over which wasn’t going to impede anyone with a boot full of rubbish to dispose of, and looked around for an attendant, spotting an older fellow in a Hi-Vis jacket and wearing several layers of clothes underneath it.
‘Excuse me, I know this might be a bit of an odd question, but would I be allowed to take something from there?’ Henry gestured to the container, wondering how he’d get into it and, more importantly, how he’d get out again.
‘We’re used to odd questions,’ the man replied. ‘Have you thrown something away by mistake?’
‘Er, not exactly. My wife upcycles old furniture, and I wondered—’
‘No, mate, sorry,’ the man interrupted, shaking his head. ‘It’s not allowed due to Health and Safety. It used to be that anyone could take anything, but they stopped that years ago.’
Henry didn’t need to ask who ‘they’ were – he took it to mean the local council – and his spirits fell. ‘That’s a shame.’
‘You’re telling me! You wouldn’t believe the stuff people chuck out. It’s criminal, that’s what it is. I’ve seen perfectly good fridges, cookers, hat stands, wheelbarrows – you name it, people skip it.’
Henry nodded. ‘That’s why my wife upcycles things. She doesn’t believe in throwing things out when they can be repurposed or mended. The problem is, it’s hard to get hold of items she can work on, without paying too much.’
The man rubbed his chin. ‘I’d like to help, but I don’t see how I can. I can’t let you dibble about and take what you want – they’d have my guts for garters. I daren’t put anything to one side for you, either, as it’s against the rules to let anyone take anything. It’s a pity we don’t have one of them tip shops, like they’ve got in Swansea.’
‘A what now?’
‘A tip shop – a place where you can buy stuff that’s too good to be skipped. Operatives like me sort through everything that’s brought in and set aside anything decent. You can get stuff from there as cheap as chips, so I’ve heard.’
Henry said, ‘But you still have to pay for it, right?’
‘You don’t often get something for nothing,’ the man pointed out. ‘It might be your best bet.’
Maybe, but Swansea was too far away to make it viable, Henry realised, his heart sinking. Oh, well, it was a good idea while it lasted. He hadn’t been entirely sure where he’d been going with it anyway – it wasn’t as though he could make a career out of rescuing bits of old furniture and handing them over to Lottie for her to do her thing. He’d still have to have a day job.
Henry was beginning to question his sanity. Was he so desperate to move into a different line of work, or had it been a pipe dream that had taken him away from reality for a few hours?
A bit of both, if he was honest.
He was about to thank the man for his time and leave when he said, ‘I don’t suppose there are any jobs going here, are there?’
The man’s eyes widened and he pursed his lips. ‘Now you come to mention it… Fancy a brew?’
* * *
The pay wasn’t bad, according to Alan (the man in the Hi-Vis jacket) but it wasn’t the most exciting job in the world and it meant being outside in all weathers. At the moment the pair of them were sitting in a Portacabin with a heater on full blast and a hot cup of tea in their hands.
Trying to sell feed to farmers and smallholders isn’t exciting, either, Henry thought, and although he spent a considerable amount of time in his car travelling from one client to another, the farmer’s ‘office’ was very often a draughty barn or a field. He’d been known to have to stand in the pouring rain, holding a shouted conversation with a bloke who was trying to persuade a load of stroppy cattle to go where they didn’t want to go, while filling in a soggy order form that he’d had to dry out on the dashboard of his car later. Nope, Henry’s job hadn’t been all glitter and glamour, either.
‘Then there’s the general public,’ Alan told him. ‘You can get some right angsty blighters. I’ve nearly come to blows a couple of times. They don’t listen, and when they do, they don’t want to do what you tell them.’
Henry chuckled as Alan told him a few tales as they drank their tea and shared a packet of Hobnobs. There were three other operatives on duty besides Alan, and he’d asked one of the others to take over supervision of the site before he’d shown Henry into the little Portacabin for a quick cuppa.
‘Of course, you’ll have to apply through the proper channels,’ Alan advised. ‘The job is on the council website. Have you done this sort of thing before?’
Henry shook his head.
‘Pity, they’ll want a bit of experience. If you don’t mind me asking, what do you do?’
It pained him to say it, but Henry might as well be honest. ‘I’m unemployed. Got made redundant, Friday just gone.’
‘Sorry to hear that. What did you do?’
‘Agricultural feed salesman.’
‘This’ll be a bit of a comedown for you, then? If you was to get it, that is.’
‘Not really.’ Henry took a slurp of the strong tea and tried not to shudder. ‘A job’s a job, and I think this is a pretty worthwhile one.’
‘What? Helping people dump their rubbish?’
‘It’s better they do it here, than on the side of the road,’ Henry pointed out.
‘That’s true enough; I can’t stand fly-tippers. They should be shot, the lot of them.’
Henry smiled at the man’s no-nonsense, straight-talking outlook on life. ‘I still don’t like the idea of so much being thrown away, though. I assume the wood and the metal are reused?’
‘Aye, the metal is sorted and melted down, the wood is pulped and turned into woodchip.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Henry said, eyeing a pallet and wondering what could be done with it. It was a perfectly good pallet and it seemed wasteful to simply pulp it. Think of all the resources that had gone into creating it in the first place.
‘Right, I’d best get back to work,’ Alan said, getting to his feet.
Henry stood. ‘Thanks for the chat and the heads-up on the job. I’ll go online today and apply for it.’
‘You can put me down as a reference, if you like. That should go some way to helping you.’
Henry was astounded. ‘Thank you, that’s very generous, but you don’t know anything about me.’
‘I don’t need to. I know a rum ’un when I meet one, and you ain’t it. Here…’ Alan scribbled his details on a scrap of paper and handed it to Henry. ‘Good luck, and let me know how you get on.’
* * *
Henry drove straight back to the library, feeling better about things than he had for days. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but things might be starting to look up.
His euphoria didn’t last, though. He applied for the job and only met the cut-off date for applications by the skin of his teeth, and by the time he arrived home he’d talked himself down. He’d been so carried away at the prospect of getting a job at the council tip he hadn’t thought it through properly. The wage was less than Alan had told him – Henry guessed Alan was the more senior guy on the site and was probably paid accordingly. Plus, the salary the job was advertised at was on a sliding scale, with the employee starting on the bottom point and increasing every year until the post-holder reached the maximum after five years.
It was only slightly more than his basic wage at Baldwin.
Still, any wage was more than he was on now, and he ha
d to admit that some months the commission he earned was rather sparse, and had been getting less year on year as more clients had ordered online, thus cutting out the need for salesmen.
The only high point in the day was arranging to collect one of the items he’d requested on Freecycle on the way home. Taking a coffee table home for Lottie was probably the only constructive thing he’d do today.
Chapter 29
Lottie
The small woodland not far from Lottie’s house was vastly different during the winter, to the rest of the year. A place that had previously rang with birdsong was now mostly silent; only the wind sighing through the bare branches overhead disturbing the deep peace.
That, and Lottie’s children, because the boys, especially, thought the whole world needed to hear them as they raced around, kicking through the damp, fallen leaves and screaming at the tops of their voices. She pitied any small animals that lived there, as the noise was quite phenomenal.
A squirrel chattered overhead, his indignation clear, and Lottie sent him a silent apology.
Sabrina, at least, was relatively calm as she walked by her mother’s side, but it didn’t last long as the lure of damp leaves and muddy puddles won through her studied disdain.
Glad they were letting off steam, Lottie waited until the children began to tire – it took a while in Robin’s case – before she attempted to gather them up to search for anything that could be used to make wreaths and garlands.
‘Is this one okay, Mum?’ Sabrina asked, holding up a large pine cone. It was the perfect shape and size.
‘Boys, look what Sabrina’s found. Do you think you can find ones like this?’ She took it from her daughter and placed it carefully in one of the bags she’d brought along. ‘Shall we leave the boys to find more cones and you can give me a hand picking some ivy? Remember the carol, “The Holly and the Ivy”? Why do you think those two plants are mentioned at this time of year?’
‘Because they’re Christmas plants?’
‘They’re Christmas plants for a reason,’ Lottie told her. ‘It’s because they’re evergreen, which means they don’t lose their leaves in the winter. In olden days, it was thought of as a sign that spring would come again.’
Sabrina looked interested, so Lottie went on to share some other nuggets of Christmassy information with her as they searched for long strands of ivy which could be woven into a wreath. As they worked, Lottie kept an eye on the other two, praising them for their patience as they rooted around beneath the trees.
Eventually they had a fair collection of cones, ivy, small fir tree branches and holly – Lottie hadn’t let them help with snipping twigs off that because of the thorns.
‘I’ll make us all some hot chocolate when we get back,’ Lottie promised, picking up the bags of assorted foliage. There was a decent haul and she was sure the children could make some great decorations from it.
‘Like Daddy makes it?’ Robin asked hopefully, and suddenly Lottie was filled with a pang. It would have been nice if Henry could have been with them today. He would have loved messing about in the woods, and she found herself missing him.
Part of her still wanted to know what had been going on with him these past weeks, but an even larger part of her realised no good would come of knowing. Because once she knew, she wouldn’t be able to unknow. The knowledge would sour things between them, maybe to the point where their relationship would never recover.
Lottie realised she was prepared to put everything behind her for the sake of their family and the love she had for Henry, because there was no doubt in her mind that she loved her husband as much now as she’d ever done. It would be a shame to throw it away and turn the children’s lives upside down for what had probably been an aberration. As long as nothing like it ever happened again – and she still wasn’t entirely convinced anything had happened in the first place – she could brush the whole thing under the carpet. That wasn’t to say she wouldn’t keep her eyes peeled in the future, but she’d happily put this in the past.
Sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by her children, safety scissors, pots of glue and glitter, Lottie was content. She and Henry had reconnected, they had Christmas to look forward to, and she was determined to make it their best one yet.
Until, that is, Henry arrived home early again. It wasn’t being early that bothered her – it was the dilapidated coffee table he’d brought with him.
‘Look what I’ve got!’ he announced, shuffling into the kitchen, his face obscured by the piece of furniture he was carrying.
Abruptly, Lottie’s doubts and fears resurfaced, and the thoughts she’d previously had about him bringing her things leapt into her head, claiming centre stage.
‘I’ll take it out to the shed, shall I?’ he continued. ‘Or do you want to have a look at it first?’
Lottie was still clearing up the glitter – the stuff got simply everywhere – so she used that as an excuse. ‘I’ll take a look at it later, if you don’t mind.’
She straightened up and watched him sidle out through the back door. Did she honestly believe he had an ulterior motive for bringing her things? Was he really so conniving and cunning? And where was he getting all this stuff from, anyway?
Maybe he’d got bitten by the reusing bug since John Porter had given him the old boat, and he was now on the lookout for things he could scavenge. That’s what Delia would probably say, if Lottie asked her.
Henry came back into the kitchen, blowing on his hands. ‘It’s freezing out there. I wouldn’t be surprised if it snows soon.’ He shrugged out of his coat and looked at Lottie. ‘I couldn’t help noticing you’ve made a couple of sledges.’
‘I repaired the one I bought, and used the template to make another two. The kids will have one each if it does happen to snow.’ She paused. ‘Where did you get the coffee table?’
‘Oh, er, I found it in a lay-by near Borth.’
She could tell he was lying as he had a shifty look on his face, but why would he lie about where he’d got it from? Who would leave a coffee table in a lay-by, anyway?
How strange.
So much for her vow to put her suspicions behind her. How could she, when he was behaving like this?
‘What did you get up to today?’ Henry asked, and she was sorely tempted to ask him the same question, and she would have done if she hadn’t been so scared of his answer.
‘We went to the woods and collected some fir cones and holly to make decorations,’ she said. ‘You ought to see the state the kids got into. Morgan was covered from head to toe in mud.’ Lottie tried to sound as normal as possible, and she was fairly sure she’d succeeded. Now wasn’t the time to confront him; she wanted to wait until she had some concrete proof first. ‘Before we went, we called into Eleri’s cafe,’ Lottie added, slightly defiantly.
‘And?’
‘We all had drinks and some cake.’
She was expecting Henry to be cross, and she might not have told him at all if it hadn’t been for the children, one of whom would surely blurt it out.
‘That’s nice. I wish I could have joined you.’
Yeah, I bet, she thought sarcastically, and sorrow swept over her. If her suspicions were correct, how was she supposed to deal with it? What was she supposed to do? How would she carry on without her soulmate in her life?
It would be so much easier if she didn’t love him so very deeply…
Chapter 30
Lottie
Lottie delved into a large box of curtains and began rifling through them. She wouldn’t be sure what she was looking for until she found it, and nor was she sure she’d find any suitable fabric, anyway. Most of the curtains in UnderCover were too lightweight, or the wrong colour.
‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ Catrin called. She was behind the counter, writing out sales tags and attaching them to the last batch of clothing the charity had been given, humming along to an upbeat Christmas tune on the radio.
‘I’m turning a ches
t of drawers into a seat, and I need some fabric for the cushions,’ Lottie said, checking that Morgan wasn’t making a nuisance of himself.
Thankfully the other two were back in school today, so she only had her littlest to worry about. She planned on taking him to the park on the way back as a reward for being a good boy while she rooted around in the charity shop.
‘I saw the photo you put on Instagram. You’ve got your work cut out to make that old chest of drawers into a seat. If you don’t find anything there’ – Catrin nodded at the box – ‘Gracie might have something. Are you planning on making the cushions yourself?’
‘Crikey! Not a chance. If I did, the seams would come apart as soon as anyone sat on them. I’m going to ask Gracie if she’ll do them.’
‘I saw your Henry yesterday,’ Catrin said, as Lottie continued her rummaging.
Lottie noticed her slipping a Freddo bar into Morgan’s hand, and she turned a blind eye. ‘Oh? Where was that?’ she asked.
‘I was visiting my sister in Tregaron, and he was in the village. I waved, but I don’t think he saw me.’
‘He gets about all over the place,’ Lottie said. ‘I never know where he is from one day to the next.’ Or who he’s with, apparently…
She straightened up, suddenly losing interest in fabric as her thoughts took her in a direction she didn’t want to go. ‘I expect he wanted to supplement his sandwiches,’ she added. Or did his mistress live in Tregaron? The village was close enough to Applewell, but not too close.
