Sunshine and Sweet Peas in Nightingale Square
Page 5
‘Yes,’ I smiled. ‘I don’t see why not. In for a penny, as my nan used to say.’
Perhaps, if I approached the project with enough gusto, it would become an excellent way to keep fit and a distraction from thinking about David all rolled into one.
‘Great,’ said Rob, clapping his hands together and making me jump. ‘In that case I’m sure Graham won’t mind getting the paperwork all in order and dropping it round to you. Perhaps you might be able to make more headway with the council than we have.’
Chapter 5
A few days later, and true to his word, or should that be Rob’s word, Graham was standing on my doorstep bright and early, holding a manila folder full of paperwork.
‘Everything’s in there now,’ he told me as he backed down the path having refused my offer of a coffee because Carole was waiting to start breakfast. ‘The only people who haven’t contributed anything are Glen and Heather because they moved in after everything was originally sent off. You might want to talk to them before you get the ball rolling again.’
‘Assuming it’s worth getting the ball rolling again,’ I reminded him. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to carry on with it yourself, Graham? After all, it’s you the council have been talking to up until now.’
I still wasn’t sure how I’d ended up being elected as the resident most suited to take up the cause, especially as I’d only recently moved in. Sowing a few seeds I was happy to sign up for, but spearheading the whole campaign was something else entirely. Surely Graham was the better candidate to carry on; what with being recently retired he must have more time on his hands than he knew what to do with – assuming Carole let him sit still for two seconds together, of course.
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’ve more than enough to do in the house, but please don’t make it sound like a lost cause, Kate,’ he added, looking crestfallen. ‘I need something to get me out and about, even if it is just for a little while every day.’
He put forward a very strong case and confirmed my suspicions. I could see Carole loitering in her trademark spot behind the upstairs curtains, no doubt monitoring her husband’s progress. Taking on the project would give me something else to think about other than why David hadn’t at least tried to get in touch. Not that I wanted him to, but his good behaviour had come as a surprise and I had taken to spending far too long thinking about it.
‘Glen was very keen when I mentioned it to him the day they moved in,’ Graham carried on, pulling my thoughts yet again in the direction of my concerns about Heather. ‘But I haven’t got around to talking to him about it since.’
‘I see.’
‘If you could get him and Heather on board then it might make a difference to freeing up the green,’ Graham added. ‘Getting them involved would mean that every resident was looking to take part.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I promised, waving the file in Carole’s direction so she knew I’d seen her. ‘I’ll make a start this week.’
‘Great.’
‘Just as soon as I’ve had a chance to read through this lot, that and drink a vat full of coffee.’
I hadn’t been sleeping particularly well since the bonfire party and needed an extra caffeine hit to get me going in the mornings. My mind was buzzing and not only because my phone had been unnervingly quiet.
No matter what I tried to settle to doing, my thoughts kept straying to Heather and everything Glen had said about her. I had barely been in the Square five minutes before Lisa was in my kitchen, establishing herself as my new best friend and sharing her dodgy dough and yet just a couple of doors away, Heather had been living here considerably longer, but still wasn’t part of the Nightingale Square community at all.
Lisa had left me in no doubt that Heather’s isolation was of her own making, but now she was a struggling new mum and I didn’t think it would do any harm to try and extend the hand of friendship and help her feel less like a fish out of water and more like part of the shoal, just as Lisa had done for me. If only I could find a way to make Lisa see it like that.
‘So, you really think we’ll have more of a chance of securing a plot closer to here if everyone signs up?’ Lisa frowned from her station behind the ironing board in her homely kitchen later that week.
I had now skimmed through most of the contents of the folder, but had taken my time reading the letters everyone had submitted to the council to explain why they wanted a growing space they could collectively call their own. Lisa’s was by far the most passionate. Manipulative it might have been, but I was using her desire to ‘cut down on her family food bill’ and ‘teach her kids some essential life skills’ as the way to convince her to try and make a friend of Heather again.
‘Definitely,’ I nodded, crossing my fingers. ‘I’m certain it could make all the difference.’
‘And you aren’t just saying that to make me go around there?’
‘Of course not,’ I said, feigning shock that she would suggest such a thing.
‘Well, all right then,’ she caved, ‘but if she keeps me on the doorstep today I won’t be going back a third time.’
I couldn’t ask more of her than that.
With Tamsin, who was off school because it was a teacher training day, listening out for Archie who was having a nap, Lisa and I walked around the green and up the path to Heather and Glen’s front door. Everything looked remarkably smart and I thought again of my promise to Harold to sort out my own little front garden. I surprised myself by thinking that I didn’t want to be the one letting the side down.
‘You can knock,’ Lisa sniffed, still not convinced that we were going to receive a warm welcome.
The seconds ticked slowly by and I became convinced that we weren’t going to receive any kind of welcome at all. I raised a finger to press on the doorbell, but Lisa put her hand out to stop me.
‘Believe me,’ she said wisely, ‘playing a tattoo on that thing when there’s a baby on the scene is not going to be conducive to neighbourly relations.’
She was right of course. If Evie was asleep the last thing her mum would want was two strangers from the street noisily disturbing her peace.
‘Oh, bugger it,’ Lisa tutted. ‘Come on. Let’s go. I’ve still got a massive pile of ironing and it won’t sort itself. You can come and try again later when Glen gets home from work.’
‘No wait,’ I said, nodding back to the door. ‘Look.’
I could distinctly see a shadow moving in the hall and when I quietly knocked again it moved forward and the door opened.
‘Hello,’ I smiled. ‘I’m Kate, your new neighbour. Are you Heather?’
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. All the time back in London when I had been waiting to move I had been thinking about peace and quiet and privacy and yet here I was pushing myself into someone else’s living room before I’d finished properly settling into my own.
‘Yes,’ said Heather. She sounded a little weary and looked dog tired. ‘Hello. Glen said he’d met you at the bonfire party.’
‘And I’m Lisa,’ said Lisa, after I had nudged her. ‘We met a few months ago,’ she couldn’t resist adding, ‘on this very doorstep, actually.’
A slight blush crept across Heather’s face and for a moment I thought she was going to cry.
‘Could we possibly come in for a minute?’ I quickly asked, hoping to stave off any tears. ‘I promise we won’t keep you long.’
‘All right,’ Heather nodded holding the door further open. ‘But we’ll have to be quiet because I’ve only just got Evie to sleep.’
‘OK,’ I whispered, feeling relieved.
‘And would you mind taking your shoes off? We’ve just had new carpets laid.’
Lisa prodded me sharply in the back as I bent over to untie my laces. She and Heather really were nothing alike at all. Given the amount of Lego debris littering Lisa’s floors it was far safer to keep your footwear firmly in place when you crossed the threshold into her and John’s house.
Lisa and I sat perched on the very edge of what looked and felt like a very expensively upholstered sofa while Heather went to check on Evie.
‘What mess?’ Lisa hissed in my ear. ‘Has she seen the state of my sitting room? Is she taking the piss? Do you think she has any idea that this décor won’t last five minutes when Evie’s old enough to wield a paintbrush?’
I put my fingers to my lips to ‘shush’ her lest Heather should hear her griping.
‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ she went on, completely ignoring my silent warning and raising her voice a little, ‘she wouldn’t have let me in at all if I hadn’t been with you.’
‘Actually,’ said Heather, suddenly appearing around the door, ‘I would.’
‘Heather.’ I jumped, dropping the file and scattering the papers all over the recently vacuumed carpet. ‘This room is beautiful. Have you modernised throughout? And as for being behind on your housework—’
The compliment was clearly too much. She plonked herself down in the armchair opposite and began to sob as if her heart would break.
‘Well done,’ Lisa mouthed to me as I scrabbled to pick up the strewn letters and vainly searched in my pockets for a tissue. ‘There, there love,’ she said to Heather in a tone of surprisingly sympathetic understanding as she passed her a handkerchief, ‘let it all out. You’ll feel much better for it.’
We spent the next half an hour listening to Heather unload. She told us how hard she was finding motherhood, what a job it was keeping on top of the hoovering and how her friends and work colleagues, none of whom had children yet and lived on the other side of the city, had gradually cut her out as she couldn’t muster the energy to meet up with them or pick up the life she had pre-Evie.
Lisa nodded along, evidently empathising with every word and when Heather eventually ran out of tears and apologised for being so snooty when she had visited before, she wasted no time in giving her a hug.
‘It’s not as easy as you make it look, is it?’ Heather sniffed. ‘This motherhood lark, I mean.’
‘I’m sure I don’t make it look easy.’ Lisa shrugged, but I could tell she was pleased.
‘You do,’ Heather cut in before she had a chance to say anything else. ‘You lot look like the Von Trapp family compared to the mess I’m making of everything.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Lisa softly. ‘It’s a dangerous business, that.’
‘What?’
‘Comparing yourself to other people.’
‘I agree,’ I said, ‘and that doesn’t just apply to paralleling parenting styles either.’
I had spent far too long obsessing over the woman David had broken my heart for and wondering if she was the complete opposite of me, or worse, if she was exactly the same.
‘And what on earth,’ said Lisa, raising her eyebrows and sounding borderline bolshie, ‘are all these?’
‘I thought they might help,’ said Heather, turning as red as a beetroot as she bit her lip.
‘And have they?’ Lisa asked, flicking through the pile of hardback books featuring flawless mums and contented tots which were carefully displayed on the coffee table. ‘I’m in no doubt they would have contributed beautifully to our bonfire, but what about your life, Heather? Have you gleaned anything really useful from the pages of any of these?’
‘No,’ Heather gulped as the sound of Evie beginning to snuffle came through the monitor which was sitting next to the books. ‘The only thing they’ve helped with is toning my upper arms as I’ve lugged them about.’
We all began to giggle and Evie began to cry properly.
‘I better go and see to her,’ Heather sighed wearily. ‘She just won’t settle today and she’s feeding all the time. My nipples are red raw. Sorry,’ she smiled, ‘too much information. Anyway, I’m thinking of putting her on the bottle.’
She was beginning to get tearful again.
‘Tell you what,’ Lisa kindly suggested, ‘why don’t we go together and I’ll check her feeding position while Kate puts the kettle on. I managed to feed all mine, but getting going was tricky in the beginning. It can take a while.’
‘All right,’ Heather nodded, leading the way. ‘Thank you, Lisa.’
The pair were upstairs for what felt like forever, but when they came back down Lisa was carrying Evie and Heather was grinning. I tried to avoid looking at the bundle of loveliness in her arms and wondered if I had made a mistake calling round after all, although I was pleased Lisa and Heather had finally hit it off.
‘Growth spurt,’ Lisa announced, settling herself on the sofa and beckoning me over to look at the softly snoring baby.
‘Don’t you go getting broody,’ I told her after taking a very fleeting glimpse.
‘Not much point,’ she tutted, stroking Evie’s tiny pink fingers, ‘John’s had the snip. He made me agree to it after I fell for Archie.’
She sounded rather sad and I got the impression that if it had been up to her she would have been popping babies out forever.
‘Do you have any children, Kate?’ Heather asked as she began pouring the tea I had made.
‘No,’ I said taking a shuddering breath and trying to sound blasé. ‘And I’m on my own now so I can’t imagine I’ll ever have a family.’
‘You’ll meet someone,’ said Lisa. ‘A gorgeous girl like you won’t be on your own for long.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I told her. ‘David was my chance at happiness and I blew it. We blew it,’ I added as an afterthought.
‘I think you’ll find there’s more than one Mr Right in the world,’ Lisa laughed. ‘And anyway, Mark already told me that the day the pair of you met there was some gorgeous guy in the grocers who couldn’t take his eyes off you.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was separated,’ I said, ignoring her delusions about what Mark had said. ‘I let you and John and everyone assume I was happily married when I’m anything but.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s no one else’s business, but trust Carole to bring it up at an inopportune moment.’
‘Mmm,’ I agreed, happy to move the conversation on. ‘She’s the archetypal nosy neighbour, isn’t she?’
‘But she means well,’ said Lisa, echoing Rob’s words as she fondly looked down at Evie again. ‘Her heart’s in the right place, even if it pains me to say it.’
I could hardly believe my ears.
‘Are you sticking up for her?’ I frowned.
Lisa was the last person I would have expected to champion someone like Carole, but she refused to answer.
‘Shush,’ she said, looking at Heather, who had fallen fast asleep in the chair.
Talking quietly in the kitchen after Lisa had settled Evie back into her bassinet we decided not to leave before her mum woke up again. Heather was clearly in need of a friend or two and I surprised myself by thinking that Lisa and I could fit the bill, even if it did mean getting drawn into cooing over Evie.
The three of us might have had little in common beyond our addresses, but I got the impression that we all needed one another for some reason and I realised that having been married to David, I had missed out on forming friendships with women my own age. Not only because his friends were so much older than I was, but also because there had always been the unspoken suspicion that my dear husband might show a little too much interest in anyone under thirty I introduced him to.
It pained me to think it, but perhaps my marriage hadn’t been the perfect fairy tale I thought it was, after all? The realisation came as a bolt out of the blue and I began to look forward to the possibility of a few nights in with a bottle of wine and my new friends.
‘You’re still here,’ Heather yawned almost an hour later when the sound of Evie snuffling again pulled her out of her nap.
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‘We didn’t want to just leave,’ said Lisa.
‘Especially as we still haven’t told you why we turned up on your doorstep in the first place,’ I added.
‘It’s nice to have some company,’ Heather smiled as she stood up and stretched out her back. ‘Some days here with Evie I wonder if I’m capable of having a conversation with another adult who isn’t Glen.’
‘Haven’t you been to the mother and baby group yet?’ Lisa quizzed. ‘It’s only up the road.’
Heather shook her head.
‘In that case, why don’t you go and sort Evie out,’ Lisa suggested, ‘and then we’ll go for a quick walk.’
‘That’s a great idea,’ I jumped in as Heather began to shake her head again. ‘It will be so much easier to explain why we called round outside and the fresh air will do us all good.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said doubtfully.
Lisa aimed straight for the heart of the problem. She told Heather that when she had first had Tamsin she didn’t leave the house for weeks and as a result fell into a deep depression that was hard to pull herself out of. Her frank admission clearly struck a chord with our new friend, who promptly bundled up her baby and followed us outside without another word.
Left to her own devices I was fairly certain she wouldn’t have left the house all day, possibly all week, but it didn’t take many minutes out in the crisp November air to put some colour back into her cheeks and a spring in her step.
‘I know Glen really liked the idea of this vegetable-growing lark,’ she said after I had explained the reason behind Lisa’s and my impromptu visit. ‘But neither of us would have a clue what to do.’
‘We could all learn together,’ I told her, ‘although you know what you’re doing already, don’t you, Lisa?’
Lisa’s letter to the council had explained how she used to go to the allotment with her granddad when she was a girl.
‘I think so,’ she said. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve handled a spade, but I’m sure it will all come back to me. I used to be at the family allotment every weekend and even after school sometimes. Thinking about it again has made me realise what my kids are missing out on and if we all chip in together it isn’t such a big responsibility.’