‘No, if you must go, I’ll take you,’ he insisted, to my alarm.
‘You’ve had a couple of drinks, Rob,’ Claire said forthrightly, ‘and you don’t want to lose your licence again, do you? I’ll run Josie home so we can talk some more. I’m thinking of featuring her in a TV series.’
Rob looked even more miffed, so I suspected he had been planning a detour, maybe to his home. But he did suggest we have a night out together soon, and when I told him that I couldn’t because I needed to concentrate on mine and Libby’s businesses, I could see my goose was cooked.
Claire came in to meet Libby when we got back, and loved the interior of the cottage, though of course it was too dark for her to see the garden. I was still a bit doubtful about the idea, not to mention the invasion of what privacy I had left, but Libby was all for it, especially if Old Barn Receptions was going to get the occasional mention.
‘I’ll pitch it now and then we could start shooting in the early spring,’ Claire said. ‘I think this could be massive, with book deals and all kinds of spin-offs…’
‘Don’t you think it would be more like that Island Parish series, on the Scilly Isles, where nothing much happens but it’s all very slow-paced and addictive,’ Libby suggested.
‘Well, that has a cult following too,’ Claire said. ‘This could be very lucrative for you, Josie, so you will do it, won’t you?’
‘I suppose so—but I don’t know what I would do with more money.’
‘Invest it for security,’ suggested Libby. ‘Employ someone to come in and do heavy jobs for you from time to time? Trips to London because you are a media star? You’ll find a use for it. Anyway, you haven’t got it yet. Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.’
We worked out some kind of story line and then Claire said she would go straight home now and do a treatment…or maybe she said she would give it the treatment—I don’t know. But she was still bubbling with enthusiasm. I felt quite exhausted.
When she’d gone Libby and I opened a bottle of elderflower champagne and toasted Sticklepond Seasons and all who sailed in her. I was sort of excited but very apprehensive. I think total anonymity suited me better, really.
But then Libby pointed out that I really enjoyed sharing all my knowledge about living well on very little, and this way I would be reaching audiences, and helping people way beyond the readership of Skint Old Northern Woman and Country at Heart, which made me feel a lot better.
But on reflection, maybe that was the elderflower champagne?
* * *
By next day I had convinced myself that Claire wouldn’t sell the idea of the TV series, so I needn’t worry about it. I mean, my life isn’t that exciting, is it?
‘No, but a series like that is just what the current economic climate needs,’ Libby said when I shared this hope with her. ‘The way you live on very little is quite aspirational, and they will think if you can do it, anyone can.’
‘Well, they’re right, they can do it if they put their minds to it.’
‘I don’t suppose most of them will, they’ll just enjoy the idea of it. Now,’ she added, ‘can we get back to the matter in hand?’
We were standing by the loose boxes next to the Old Barn, an area destined to become rather swish loos. Libby was holding various sanitaryware brochures having, with typical thoroughness, immediately become an expert on the matter.
I was finding it hard to whip up much enthusiasm for Victoriana versus ultramodern, but I nodded at appropriate moments—or even inappropriate ones, like when she mentioned black granite basins. And then, when I could get a word in edgeways, I said, ‘I really don’t think the toilets are that important, Libs. You don’t need to spend huge amounts of money on them, and if you go for classic, durable white porcelain then you can tart the cloakrooms up in any style you like.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ she conceded. ‘I was getting a bit carried away and it’s already all costing a lot more than I thought it would. And there are so many rules and regulations to comply with that you would think the government didn’t want people to start up new businesses at all! Still, Tim thinks we’ll get permission for it, so long as none of the neighbours objects. I don’t see why they should, do you? We aren’t going to hold evening receptions. I want everything over and cleared away by late afternoon!’
‘I’m your nearest neighbour and I won’t be objecting. But some people do like to have an evening party too, or their wedding might be quite late in the day.’
‘Then they can have it somewhere else,’ she said firmly. ‘We’re going to be terribly exclusive and expensive and do things on our terms. They can take it or leave it—but I’m sure they’ll queue up to take it.’
‘I expect you’re right. It’s astounding how much money people are willing to shell out for a wedding, especially these days, when half of them don’t last much longer than it takes for the confetti to hit the ground,’ I said cynically.
But neither that, nor Ben’s defection, had prevented me from carrying on with my habit of hanging out near the church with the Grace sisters, whenever the bride and groom were about to emerge: we’re still suckers for sentiment.
‘Come on,’ Libby said, ‘I’m freezing. Let’s go in and have some coffee to warm up.’
On the way to the house we came across Dorrie, heeling in new rose bushes, her faded blue beret over one eye.
‘They look like a bundle of dead twigs right now, don’t they?’ I said, as we paused.
‘Yes, but come spring they’ll be fine. It’s late in the year to put them in, but it’s mild enough at the moment.’
‘It doesn’t feel mild to me! We’re going to go and warm up with a cup of coffee, Dorrie, are you coming in?’ invited Libby, but Dorrie said no, she’d rather carry on.
‘You never know what the weather will do next at this time of year. Better to get them all in now.’
‘I’ll get Gina to put some in a flask, then, and bring it down,’ Libby promised.
Gina brought us a plate of those crunchy Italian amaretti biscuits with ours—she spoils Libby—and then said to me, ‘Your uncle Harry, he says he loves the minestrone and I say he never taste the real thing so I make it now, and take him some later.’
‘Gina seems to be settling in,’ Libby said when she’d gone back to the kitchen. ‘Pansy Grace has invited her to join the Neatslake WI and the Folk Society, though I’m not sure she’s quite grasped what either of them is about. Her niece is coming over for Christmas with her husband and baby, so she’s looking forward to that and showing her flat off. What are you doing for Christmas this year, Josie? I mean, it’s going to be a bit…different, isn’t it? Do you want to come to us for dinner?’
‘That’s really kind, Libby, but I think I’ll just keep it low-key and have Harry over as usual—chill out.’
‘Well, come here for tea in the afternoon then, at least?’ she suggested. ‘Or on Boxing Day. I must pop down to London and do some present shopping soon. Time is rushing by.’
‘Tell me about it! At least I seem to have run out of wedding cake orders for the moment but I usually make most of my presents, so I’d better get on with it.’
‘Is Russell still phoning you up late at night?’
‘Yes, though I don’t always answer the phone now. I think he’s just being kind, but I really don’t feel I want to know how tired and grumpy Mary is getting, or that Olivia’s still looking slim and elegant, apart from the bump, which he let slip the other night. Tact is not his middle name.’
‘No, too much information—and presumably she was with Ben when he saw her.’
‘Yes, I assume he’s still living with her but, knowing Ben, that’s probably from sheer inertia because he couldn’t be bothered trying to find somewhere else.’
‘When’s Mary’s baby due?’
‘About the end of April, I think—and Olivia’s a couple of weeks after.’
‘I hope she has twins and her stomach has more folds than a
concertina afterwards,’ Libby said vindictively. ‘Can’t you tell Russell to stop calling you?’
‘Not really, and I hope Mary will start talking to me again once the baby’s here, instead. We’ll never be on the same terms ever again, but our friendship does go way back.’
‘I think she’s already chosen sides, Josie. Olivia putting her on to that herbalist was probably the clincher.’
‘Yes, perhaps you’re right. That’s the point when she should have come clean to me about what was going on, if she was ever going to. I still feel guilty about destroying my pills and potion. They probably cost you a lot.’
‘Well, don’t feel guilty, it doesn’t matter. And if you find someone else and want to try again, I’ll buy you some more!’
‘That’s not going to happen, Libs—and since it’s obviously me that’s barren, it probably wouldn’t work anyway.’
‘Oh, I know lots of women who didn’t conceive with one partner, but did almost instantly with another,’ she assured me, though she had forgotten that it certainly hadn’t happened after my one illicit night of peapod-induced sin with Noah. It made me remember something I wanted to ask her, though.
‘Libby,’ I said casually, ‘could you give me Daisy’s number? It was nice seeing her again and I said I’d give her a ring.’
‘OK,’ she said, looking slightly surprised, because Daisy is quite a bit older than we are and I hadn’t really ever had much to do with her.
But she jotted it down on a bit of paper and I said, more to distract her than anything, ‘Ben still phones me too, without the least encouragement. He seems to feel the need to talk through ideas for his work and tell me about his successes.’
It was just as though Nemesis, in the form of an increasingly expanding forty-two-year-old blonde, had never come between us.
‘He wants me to tell him everything going on in Neatslake too, as though he’s missing instalments of a soap.’
She eyed me narrowly. ‘You’re not thinking of taking him back, are you?’
‘No, of course not. I’m managing perfectly well on my own, though he seems to think he’ll persuade me to eventually, no matter what I say. I get quite snappy with him and then he goes all hurt and puts the phone down, though a few hours later, there he is again, as if nothing had happened.’
‘That’s men for you,’ she said largely, though all hers had turned out to be peaches, while mine was like a stored apple that looked fine on top, but was sweetly rotted underneath.
The Ski cake was duly delivered in Harry’s old car, which is not quite as convenient as the van, but does well enough if I wedge tall wedding cakes in the front passenger footwell with giant bubble wrap. But I spoke too soon about not having any more wedding cake orders.
Frederica Willis, whom I knew slightly, came to see me. She was a fifty-year-old spinster who kept the Ponderosa Dog-breeding Kennels just outside Sticklepond, and she was going to celebrate her nuptials with a retired, widowed colonel just before Christmas, in a small church ceremony.
She was in a rosy glow of love, and I suddenly thought what a perfect subject she would make for Noah’s photographs—especially when she said she bred cavalier King Charles spaniels and her kennel maids, holding her brood bitches on ribbon leashes, would form a guard of honour outside the church.
In fact, she had brought a lovely ruby bitch called Dodo with her, a colour I hadn’t seen before. They are the sweetest little dogs and, except that Mac would probably eat it, I would love to have one myself!
The colonel, who sounds besotted, had told her she could arrange things entirely the way she wanted them, and had apparently taken the news of the nuptial reception committee with equanimity. I only wished he worked in the medals department of the MOD; he sounded terribly sensible and nice.
The cake was to be a simple, stacked two-tier one—that is, the smaller one placed directly onto the lower, without columns. The edges of both the top and bottom tiers were to be decorated with a line of outwards-facing seated cavalier spaniels, like canine caryatids, plus the words, ‘FAITHFUL COMPANIONSHIP AND LOVING HEARTS’; and on top, instead of the bride and groom, would be a larger pair of spaniels.
I liked Frederica very much—or Freddie, as she asked me to call her—so I said I would do the cake despite the rush, and for a fraction of my usual price, though she wasn’t aware of that. Actually, I’d taken some icing sugar paste round to Violet straight away, together with some pictures of cavaliers that I got off the internet, and she was going to make all the little caryatid ones.
The happy but dogged couple I would do myself. A hint of veiling on one, and a military cap on the other, perhaps.
In the few days since I’d met Claire Flowers she had been bombarding me with excited and enthusiastic emails, most of which didn’t seem to require an answer, luckily.
There was also finally a reply from the MOD! Not that it did anything more than patronise and annoy me, which is pretty much what I expected. It went as follows:
14 December
Dear Ms Gray,
Your email to Clive Wapshott has been passed to me. I am the person in charge of the MOD Medal Office. I note all that you have said and in particular that you are not satisfied with the assessment of medal entitlement carried out on behalf of your uncle. However, your first email was not a question, and so consequently was not acted upon.
My job is to uphold the integrity of the United Kingdom medal system, and I am sorry to say it, but there are those who do not qualify for a medal for the want of a single day, let alone seven days. The rules governing the awarding of WW2 medals were written by those who had first-hand knowledge at the time. They were then approved by HM the King in 1948. It is against these rules that medal entitlement is assessed. There is no doubting your uncle played his part in the war effort.
Please be assured that each application for a medal is treated with due diligence. May I suggest that if you would like to appeal against the assessment provided by Clive Wapshott, you write to me at the address below.
Yours sincerely,
Ronald Horeshay
Lt.-Col. (Retd)
Patronising git! I thought, on first reading this pompous little missive, though when I showed it to Harry he seemed unsurprised—even amused.
‘Typical of the Forces top brass, that is! You’ll not get anywhere with them, but I’m going to see if I can get the medal second-hand. Then I’ll weigh it, and file off the bit of it I’m not entitled to—seven days’ worth!’
‘No, don’t do that, Harry. Let me get you one for Christmas instead,’ I suggested. ‘I bet I can find one on the internet.’
‘Well, all right, so long as it’s not too dear.’
‘Oh, I’m rolling in filthy lucre these days—all these cake orders. And I’ll probably have so much money I won’t know what to do with it, if that TV series comes off,’ I reminded him, having told him all about it earlier, and he chuckled. He doesn’t think anyone would be interested in watching film of me digging the garden and making parsnip wine either!
I gave him a printout of the latest letter to show his cronies, together with a copy of my reply to the MOD, which I had dashed off immediately, in a froth of rage.
14 December
Dear Ronald Horeshay,
Having been brought up with a modicum of good manners, I tend to reply to all my correspondence whether I have been asked a question or not. This was obviously an important issue on which I felt—and still feel—strongly, and which clearly merited an answer.
However, your reply is just the sort of idiotically jobsworthy one I was expecting. If the rules are so set in stone that someone who lacks even one single day’s service does not qualify, then clearly there is something wrong with the rules. 1948 is rather a long time ago and I don’t particularly care whether the then king approved them or not. The rules have become a moronic, moribund dinosaur and the sooner they are extinct the better. Where does common sense, compassion and intelligence impinge upon the ‘dil
igent’ scrutiny of medal applications?
What really upsets me is that clearly you have been sending out this sort of slap-in-the-face letter to many war veterans who, elderly and perhaps in poor health, have found their thoughts increasingly turning to the war years, to friends lost and all the old horrors. They will be wondering whether sacrificing so much was worth it, and there you are, telling them clearly it was not: they were weighed and found wanting. I expect many just turned their face to the wall at this point. Did you ever think of this as you sent out your brusque little dismissals?
And, as a taxpayer, I am colluding in this betrayal by helping to pay your wages. I don’t like that one bit.
My uncle, having a sense of humour, has framed your first letter of rejection in a nice gilt frame and given it pride of place on the wall. He is considering buying a secondhand medal and, having worked out exactly how much of it he is not entitled to, snipping the requisite bit of metal off and hanging that on the wall too. If that is a treasonable act and you want to shoot him, you had better move fast—he is 82 and has severe health problems. In fact, since I will probably give him the medal for Christmas, you might have to shoot us both.
Your department has the facts already, but clearly your answer is already set in mud the consistency of concrete. To what would I appeal? Compassion? Justice? Good sense? Do they exist anywhere in the MOD? It certainly does not sound like it. The exercise would be pointless.
Never mind, I expect you were afraid that if you had quietly slipped my uncle his so obviously undeserved medal, you would have been crushed in a stampede of Ancient Mariners…if there are many left who would qualify. Not to mention all the other elderly ex-servicemen.
At least you had the grace to reply, even if you only trotted out a few lame phrases. You will observe that there are several questions in the above letter but I absolve you from any need to engage your brain further on the matter: let us draw a line for the moment underneath your whole sorry excuse for a department.
Wedding Tiers Page 23
