Creature Comforts

by Trisha Ashley

  He’d hired the rental van from Deals on Wheels, a garage near Middlemoss, so transporting my stuff across took us only minutes. Unfortunately, we had to transport Belle, too, since she heaved herself into the back of the van while we weren’t looking and then lay there immovably.

  ‘Do you mind if she comes too? I can lure her out with food if not,’ I offered.

  ‘No, I’m not bothered, so long as she doesn’t pee in my gallery.’

  ‘She seems totally house-trained, so she should be all right, though she leaves a trail of shedded hair wherever she goes, despite Sandy brushing her every day. At least Judy’s happy about it because it gives her lots of hair to knit with.’

  ‘She’s a lovely dog. Is she yours now?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ I said ruefully as she padded into the gallery after us.

  The counter truly was a thing of brass-handled beauty. Cam had already started polishing the mahogany surface and the gallery smelled deliciously of beeswax and lavender.

  Since my previous visit he’d arranged a series of white-painted open wooden cubes in the front window, ready to display local crafts, and hung a few of his rather amazing watercolours on the walls. In one that I particularly coveted, a cloud of bees were leaving a hive in an explosion of black and deepest saffron yellow.

  ‘It’s all really taking shape,’ I said admiringly.

  ‘It has to, because I now intend opening on the 14th,’ he said. ‘Luckily the folding room dividers are coming tomorrow, way earlier than I expected.’

  ‘There won’t be a huge amount more to do, then?’

  ‘I still have more display cubes to paint white and then the craftspeople whose work I’m showing will bring their items in and I’ll list them and mark up the prices and commission.’

  ‘I suppose there are all kinds of things to think about before you open. Thank goodness for the internet, because I’d already sourced things like clothes labels and packaging long before I came home and blocked out a basic website.’

  ‘As fast as I think of one thing, another pops up,’ he admitted. ‘I’ll have to get a credit card machine and learn to use an electric till.’

  ‘The devil’s in the detail,’ I said.

  We set up my rails and shelves, and then, since there was loads of space, the pasting table. Even then, I only took up one end of the room. Cam unfolded an old wicker screen partway across as a divider.

  ‘His and hers storage,’ he said, with a grin. ‘I’ll only really need my bit for canvases, packing materials and framing. I’ll get some artist’s donkeys and easels for classes later – I’m scouring eBay for those, too. You can find anything on there, if you look hard enough.’

  ‘It’s going to be a great success,’ I assured him. ‘Are you getting some celebrity to officially open the gallery?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it. Like who?’

  ‘There’s that Cotton Common star living in Middlemoss – Judy told me because she’s a big fan. I think he’s called Ritchie something.’

  ‘I suppose I could. Anyone except Sir Lionel Cripchet, because he’s a little creep and, anyway, he’s not liked in the village.’

  ‘We never see him in the village.’

  ‘How about keeping it local and asking Debo to do it?’ Cam suggested. ‘I could have a ribbon for her to cut, and fizz and nibbles in the gallery.’

  ‘Sounds perfect. And she can wear one of my designs, so I get a plug in the local paper, too!’

  ‘Good thinking. Here’s to success for both of us,’ he said, and we toasted each other in coffee from the little machine he’d installed in the corner.

  I dropped a few hints about him and Lulu, in case he wanted to confide anything interesting to me, but to no avail. I’d just have to watch and await developments.

  That afternoon I took Babybelle down a really overgrown path to the deep natural rock pool that lay in the woods below the Lady Spring.

  It was certainly true that Newfoundlands loved water, for she leaped in with delighted abandon and swam about for ages. When she finally deigned to emerge, she shook herself vigorously, soaking me from head to foot in the process.

  She did dry off surprisingly quickly, so I gave her another brushing when we got back. She seemed to enjoy it and I added the hair to the bag in the shed with the rest that Sandy had been saving for Judy’s knitting.

  If anyone wanted to commission a Newfoundland jumper, I could put them in touch with just the right person …

  It was quite quiet at the kennels, since Sandy and Debo had taken the first four of the dogs over to Lucy’s in the estate car. I could hear Judy briskly brushing out a dog run and singing excerpts from The Sound of Music in a wavering soprano. She was sixteen, going on seventeen.

  It had become abundantly clear that Belle would not be leaving for Lucy’s and I’d finally accepted my fate: I was stuck with the ridiculous creature for ever. But she’d still have to spend her nights and part of the days in the kennels, because she was a bit too huge to be a house dog in a tiny cottage.

  I tried explaining that to her, but she accompanied me back into the house anyway.

  I walked down to the pub after dinner, collecting Cam from Spring Cottage on the way.

  Dan was already in the public bar when we arrived, so we went through into the snug. Lulu popped in from the hotel side for a chat and to impart a bit of gossip.

  ‘You’ll never believe this,’ she said, ‘but Mandy, one of the barmaids, just told me that she overheard Dan Clew telling his cronies that he’d not been in the pub so often at weekends lately because he’d been down in London staying with a pop star called Fliss Gambol!’

  ‘Really?’ I exclaimed. I’d already updated Lulu and Cam on what I’d learned about Fliss’s tragic influence on my mother, so they both knew who she was. We’d looked her up on Google, too, and her biography to date didn’t make pretty reading. ‘That seems fast, after a brief meeting – if it’s true.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d have the imagination to make it up,’ she said. ‘And we did notice he wasn’t around so much, because he’s such a fixture in the public bar.’

  ‘I bet Rufus doesn’t know his mother’s having an affair with his gardener,’ I said. ‘Or the man who should be his gardener, if he was actually doing any work.’

  ‘It’s probably just a brief fling,’ Cameron suggested. ‘I mean, she’s been about a bit, so I’d have thought his novelty value would wear off fast.’

  ‘I expect you’re right,’ Lulu said. ‘She’ll probably drop him just as quickly.’

  ‘Granddad says you’ve asked him to come and tell ghost stories to the visitors on Saturday night,’ Cameron said, changing the subject. ‘He seems very taken with the idea.’

  ‘I’ve told him the spookier and more blood-curdling the better, because after all, the Haunted Weekends are advertised for adults. If it’s a success, it could be a regular Saturday event, whenever we’ve got enough interested visitors.’

  ‘You’re bound to get a lot of people following the haunted trail with families, when that’s up and running, though,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but I’ll make it clear that Jonas’s ghost story sessions aren’t suitable for young children. Of course, we never put families in the haunted chambers anyway, only in the newer part of the hotel.’

  The newer part was added during the early nineteenth century and then substantially extended during the Victorian era, but I suppose that is new compared to the rest of it.

  ‘Nowadays most children seem to be brought up on a diet of Hunger Games, horror and vampires, so they wouldn’t be that scared,’ Cameron said. ‘Anyway, I’ll drive Granddad down here on Saturday night and take him home again afterwards. I’d like to stay for the story session too, if that’s OK?’

  ‘Yes, of course, you’re both welcome to come,’ she said. ‘There are only three bookings for the Haunted Weekends, all couples, so it’ll make more of an audience. Mum says we’ve quite a few other visitors arriving tomorrow
for the long weekend, though – and once the Haunted Holidays start, I hope the whole hotel will be booked solid! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?’

  ‘It certainly would,’ I agreed. ‘When do you think you might start them?’

  ‘Early May, but it depends how much we can get sorted out at the Halfhidden Regeneration meeting on Tuesday. Cam and I have made a start on designing leaflets and things already.’

  ‘That reminds me, I roughed out that leaflet header you wanted,’ Cam said, handing her a folder. ‘See what you think.’

  ‘Come for a Haunted Holiday in Halfhidden!’ it proclaimed, over an eerily backlit photograph of Howling Hetty’s head. Underneath, it invited visitors to ‘Stay at the Screaming Skull Hotel, explore the most haunted hidden valley in Lancashire, drink the curative mineral water of the Lady Spring and bathe in the magical healing woodland pool.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful,’ I said. ‘I’d go there!’

  ‘It’s going to be a glossy threefold brochure with a map of the trail inside. All the attractions will be numbered, with the details in little boxes round the edge, and I thought every business featured could pay a small fee towards the cost of printing it.’

  ‘That seems fair enough: I’m up for that,’ Cameron said.

  ‘And me, too! I could advertise my website, even though I’m not actually selling direct to visitors, couldn’t I? Cam’s going to help me put the finishing touches to my website, so it can go live soon.’

  I told her we’d thought that getting Debo, as a local celebrity, to officially open Cam’s gallery, would generate some good publicity. ‘And if she’s wearing one of my designs, for me, too.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Lulu said. ‘And we can tell any reporters who turn up about the Ghost Trail: publicity all round!’

  She had a slight Baileys habit and was nurturing a glass of it, clinking with ice cubes. Now she took a sip. ‘I’m going to be busy here all weekend. What are you two doing over Easter?’

  ‘My folding doors are coming tomorrow, so I’ll be at the gallery all day,’ Cameron said. ‘I’ve got a lot still to do there anyway.’

  ‘And I’m going to finish all the kennel paperwork off. I transferred most of what’s left of my money into the Desperate Dogs account when I was in Ormskirk, and Debo managed to wangle a couple of big donations from old friends, so I should be able to pay off all the outstanding debts and they can start again, on a smaller scale, with a clean slate.’

  ‘If it stays on a smaller scale,’ Lulu said doubtfully.

  ‘I’ll be keeping an eye on things from now on, don’t worry. And after tomorrow, I’ll have all the time I need to concentrate on launching my own business.’

  ‘We’ll drink to that!’ Lulu said, raising her glass. ‘Here’s to Izzy Dane Designs!’

  Then she had to go and help lay the tables for breakfast, so Cam and I walked back home through the quiet woods, and no Howling Hetty crossed our path.

  I tiptoed the last bit to the Lodge, in case Babybelle woke up and decided to break out, but she must have been fast asleep, for all was silent under the stars.

  Chapter 14: Sweetwell

  Simon Clew, who was sitting in the driving seat with his legs dangling out onto the grass and his head hanging down, looked up just then and gave a strange smile. He was deathly pale and sweating so much he had to keep pushing his heavy-framed glasses back up his nose.

  ‘What’s the matter with Simon?’ I asked, distracted.

  It was a much brighter morning and I again grabbed my things and set off for a swim while Judy and Debo were still out with the dogs, hoping they’d managed to drag Babybelle with them.

  I’d decided that since living in India so long had turned me into a wimp, I’d just have to toughen up again, and the sooner the better.

  The air was still chill under the trees, but the hawthorn blossom glistened and rabbits hopped away at the sound of my footsteps. That morning there were no stop-out teenage badgers on their way home, or whatever it was that was crashing about in the bushes the previous day, but as I neared the clearing, I spotted Rufus talking to Tom by the beehives.

  Instinctively I ducked below the fence and ran quickly past, hoping they hadn’t seen me. I was not keen on another meeting, for I felt distinctly ambivalent about Rufus … though definitely not about his mother now I knew what part she’d played in the death of mine.

  The sun was warm and golden in the clearing. I had a good drink from the spring in the cavern, after arranging a few bluebells in a nearby water-filled crevice as a tribute to whichever Lady happened to be in charge at the moment.

  I splashed about a bit in the pool and then floated lazily, with the sun growing stronger and beginning to warm my face. But when I shut my eyes it wasn’t the familiar young naked Roman soldiers I imagined sharing the water with me, but a damp and dishevelled Rufus Carlyle …

  So when I opened them a few moments later to find him sitting on a block of stone watching me, it was a bit of a shock.

  ‘How long have you been there?’ I demanded.

  ‘About thirty seconds. But don’t worry, because this time I decided to let you drown, if you wanted to.’

  ‘I saw you talking to Tom when I came down the path, but I hoped you hadn’t seen me and would go away,’ I said rudely.

  ‘Do you want to be alone? I could go,’ he offered.

  ‘It’s a bit late now,’ I replied ungraciously, especially considering that the pool I was in and everything around it actually belonged to him. ‘But I like being alone here in the mornings. It sort of recharges my batteries.’

  ‘I was exploring some of the paths, though the smaller ones are very overgrown,’ he said. ‘Then I spotted Tom and since I meant to have a chat with him today anyway, I thought I might as well do it there and then.’

  I stood upright, the water lapping at my pointed chin, and pushed wet elf locks of hair out of my eyes. ‘Was it about Spring Cottage and how the Tamblyns have always lived there, guarding the Lady Spring?’

  ‘Yes, though when I searched, I didn’t find any family documents about it, so it must be an unwritten tradition.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, digesting this. ‘You mean, you could make them leave the cottage, so you could rent it out, or something, if you wanted to? Though, actually, there’s no vehicle access to it, so I don’t think you’d find many takers.’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t be worth it even if I wanted to do that, which I don’t,’ he said. ‘Though I think they’re getting a good deal: a cottage for free and an income from visitors to the Spring.’

  ‘There haven’t been many visitors for years, so Tom’s always had to do handyman stuff in his spare time to make ends meet. He knocked together all those extra kennels for Debo.’

  ‘That’s not exactly an advertisement for his skills, is it?’

  ‘Only because Debo was so hard up that he had to make them out of free stuff from skips and the tip,’ I said indignantly. ‘But if Lulu’s Regeneration Scheme gets underway and the Spring is busier, he probably won’t have to do anything else.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the lively Lulu,’ he said. ‘Tom was telling me how you, his nephew Cameron and Lulu had been best friends all your lives … and I presume Cameron was the thin, fair-haired man you were so enthusiastically embracing at the end of the meeting?’

  ‘Well, I hadn’t seen him for ages and ages because he’d been working in London and was never home when I was. But now all three of us have come back to live in the valley at the same time, which is so wonderful that it was obviously meant to be.’

  ‘Actually, I assumed he’d come back to take over Spring Cottage from his uncle.’

  ‘Oh, no, he’d just had enough of teaching and wanted to come home and start up his own gallery. He only moved in with Tom because his grandfather had such bad rheumatism that he needed to live with his daughter, who has the village shop. They swapped places.’

  ‘If you say so. It just seemed a bit timely, moving in as soon as I came on the scene.’
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  ‘Does it matter, since he’ll be looking after the Spring eventually anyway? That is, if you’re going to let things carry on as they always have?’ I added.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Rufus said. ‘I can see I’ll be portrayed as a monster to the whole of Halfhidden if I don’t.’

  ‘I think if you want to be accepted as part of the community, you’ll have to respect the local traditions,’ I agreed. ‘Though that doesn’t extend to employing Dan Clew if he doesn’t pull his weight. No one likes him and he isn’t local anyway. He only moved here when he got the job with Baz.’

  ‘It may come to it, because now I’ve talked more to Myra and Tom about him, I can see that what he’s been telling me hasn’t always been entirely truthful.’

  ‘That’s the understatement of the year! He’s already tried to spread all kinds of horrible rumours about Debo round the village, though luckily no one believed him.’

  ‘But I suspect some of the things he said did have more than a grain of truth in them, like Debo taking advantage of Baz’s good nature to extend her kennels into the grounds, not to mention using the estate as a giant dog run.’

  ‘Baz loved dogs, so I really don’t think he minded, and anyway, he was rarely here for more than one night a year after Harry … after the accident.’

  ‘Be that as it may, I still don’t like having bits of old wooden pallets and rusty wire netting up the side of my drive.’

  ‘I did tell you it would look much better very soon,’ I assured him, ‘and it will, because I’m on the case. Things only got out of hand because Debo finds it hard to turn any dog in need away, but her main aim was always to give a last chance to dogs that would be put down if she didn’t take them. From now on, the others will go straight to a rescue centre. In fact, they took four dogs there yesterday and four more will go today.’

  ‘Great! So all that stuff at the side of the drive can be cleared away immediately?’

  ‘Well … yes, but we’ll still need a few extra kennels, only proper ones, set further back from the drive and hidden behind lovely fencing with a trellis top and climbing roses. In fact, Judy’s offered to make a rose bed in front of it, too, if you pay for the plants.’