One to Six, Buckle to Sticks (Grasshopper Lawns Book 11)

by EJ Lamprey

  Edge, cradling her roses, went over to the mailboxes and opened hers. ‘A card, a chocolate heart and a silk rose—aw, that’s a good haul. I love St Valentine’s. I’ve only got a few to give out this year. I wasn’t really sure if Donald and William were the type, but—’

  Jamie entered as she spoke, saw them and tried to hide his basket behind his back. Megan started to tease him as Edge, smiling, balanced her little trove on the roses and left. Jamie always gave little bunches of snowdrops he had picked and packed in damp cotton-wool himself, and always included her, but the tradition of secrecy meant she couldn’t possibly stand there and wait for hers!

  She left the roses in her bathroom basin and hurried back with her own deliveries, detouring round the runs where Maggie could be heard demanding attention. There was a fairly risqué card for Donald (a handsome sun worshipper wearing only a sprinkling of sea sand on his tanned rump, and a leather peaked cap), and two aliens holding tentacles for William. Jamie had a passion for nougat, so he was always easy, as was the rawhide dog-chew for Vivian’s dog Buster. She’d always rather derided the day before she came to live at the Lawns, but Megan’s secret determination that everyone got remembered—a chocolate, or something small and thoughtful—was infectious.

  Breakfast was busier than usual, with a cheerful buzz of conversation which sent her through into the quieter conservatory. Even there most tables were taken, but Donald waved her over.

  ‘If you sit with me,’ he suggested in his usual dry manner, ‘we don’t have to talk to each other and we’ll each be spared gabby numpties.’ He’d already reached the coffee and crossword stage and they maintained a companionable silence as she tackled her heart-shaped French toast.

  ‘Exercising this morning?’ he asked finally, as she returned to the table with a foaming cappuccino, and she shook her head.

  ‘Thanks for the lovely quiet breakfast, but if you want to talk now, I had quite an adventure during the night.’

  His eyebrows climbed into his hair as she told her story. ‘I’ve got to go.’ he glanced at his watch, ‘if I’m going to make it to class in time. Odette did give a bit of a yap at around four, she must have heard Sylvia shriek, or mebbe she heard Maggie in action. Anyway, you can tell Maggie she’s now officially forgiven for my hand.’ He stood up as he spoke and she settled back with her cup.

  ‘Enjoy your workout, I’ll slob out here with another cup of coffee. The night’s catching up with me, I can barely keep my eyes open. Any plans for later?’

  ‘I’m out with William.’ He grinned down at her. ‘No idea what we’re doing, but Vivian said yesterday she wanted him to go out with her and Dallas sightseeing in Stirling, and he promptly said he’d already made plans with me, so we have to be off the premises for a few hours! We’re meeting them for afternoon tea, couldn’t escape that, but he says she’s heavy going. You didn’t get roped into the outing?’

  ‘No, I said I had to work! I really do, I’ve got some stuff to finish by Friday, but it’s only a few hours’ worth. I got the impression Vivian was only being polite, and apparently Dallas is off back to Europe this evening so I cried off, they can be alone to talk over—well, stuff. I also accepted the tea invitation, though. I thought Vivian would need a break by then.’

  The conservatory was emptying as he left and she moved her snowdrops, Sudoku, and the paper he had left behind, to a table by the window. There was just time to get another cappuccino before the breakfast service ended, and Maggie, for a wonder, had stopped barking. She could give herself the luxury of ten minutes for coffee and at least the headlines...

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Monday—3.30 see agent

  Feeling flushed and virtuous, the two friends left the exercise class in the Sunday room and detoured via the hall for Edge, who was expecting a cheque, to check her mailbox. Vivian wandered off to look at the main noticeboard, then called her over to the week’s menus, which Megan had pinned up on the board.

  ‘Patrick will be happy?’ she pointed at the listing for Friday’s lunch, and laughed. ‘Dallas said last night on the phone that she’s due back in Edinburgh on Thursday, so I may invite her as well. She hates going out socially but she knows all of you now, and if we can snag a corner table, she can face the corner. Bill’s Osso Bucco is world class.’

  ‘Oh, big treat, a Lawns lunch.’ but Edge smiled as she said it. ‘She may not like meeting Patrick, though. I’m as glad to meet him in company, do you know he send me roses and a card for Valentine’s Day? Signed the card, but the roses were anonymous. Most unlike him, and slightly shy-making.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve got another admirer? But yes, she probably wouldn’t want a stranger around. You and Patrick can go hold hands at a table of your own. Or Dallas and I can sit in the corner. Just promise me you’ll intercept Sylvia if she heads our way! Dallas only met her briefly but really took to her, which puts me in an absolute quake because Sylvia’s so odd these days, she’s liable to say the first thing that comes into her head. I can just imagine Dallas twitching and Sylvia asking if she’s snapping at flies, or something equally ghastly.’

  They put up umbrellas and picked their way cautiously down the wet stairs and across to the walkway, shaking out the umbrellas as they reached it. The wet wind slapped at them gustily and caught at Edge’s waterproof cape, so that it billowed violently, but in the relative shelter they could at least talk again.

  ‘She’s still not said anything, then? About the Wendell thing.’

  ‘No!’ Vivian drove a hand through her dampened hair. ‘I know I’ll have to bring it up. The longer I leave it, the more awkward I feel. I could have asked where she worked, when she said she had to go back to work, but I really couldn’t have taken it if she had lied. Easier to say nothing until she comes clean. I was talking to the family yesterday on the granny cam and I found myself studying the wee ones, looking for any exotic features. I’m really finding it hard to believe, Edge. If I’m half Creole, then why hasn’t the faintest trace shown up in either of my kids, or any of the bairns? I keep thinking Dallas has made a mistake, that she was swopped with another family and all we share is an unusual birthday. That by the time leap year rolls round again this will all be over and we can celebrate together and have a good laugh about the misunderstanding.’

  They’d reached Vivian’s door by this time. As she fitted her key into the lock she said over her shoulder, ‘Talking of leap year, I’d also like to include her in the outing to La Bohème for the non-birthday. I think she’s the loneliest person I’ve ever met. She’s phoned nearly every night for a chat while she’s been away, but it’s not only that. There’s a look in her eyes as though, I don’t know, only willpower is stopping her from howling like a wolf. Pure grief, and although I feel some of it—it’s like being orphaned, all over again, this whole horrible business—I’ve got you guys. And my family. She’s only got her money. I’m ready to bet it’s the reason she hangs about. So if she wants to join us, would that be okay with you?’

  ‘Yes of course.’ Edge hugged her spontaneously. ‘I’m glad we got you in the swop. If there was one. We’ll get it all sorted out.’

  ~~~

  Edge left her cape dripping outside the utility door and got a towel from the bathroom to rub her hair as she dropped into the chair next to the phone. She put it on speaker, and pressed the third speed-dial option as she released the chignon clip she preferred for exercise class, combing her dampened shoulder-length hair with her fingers as it tumbled round her shoulders. Patrick’s cultured Irish accent boomingly told the room, in flagrant disregard of the rain lashing against the windows, that it was a good morning.

  ‘Patrick?’ Edge smiled at the phone. ‘I’ve just seen the menus for the week.’

  ‘Osso Bucco!’ Patrick guessed immediately, sounding genuinely delighted. ‘When?’

  ‘Friday, can you make it?’ There was a pause and a flutter of paper, then his voice back on the line.

  ‘I’ve a meeting, but I’ll shift it
. Excellent! Twelve thirty on Friday, then?’

  Edge agreed and disconnected, smiling. Bill, the popular Food and Beverage manager, although a trained chef, rarely took over the kitchen from his staff as the meals at The Lawns were simple and substantial rather than haute cuisine. However, every now and then he cheffed, as he put it, and one of his specialties, a few times a year, was Osso Bucco, which he served with an excellent vegetarian version of Risotto Milanese. Edge’s accountant, friend and occasional date Patrick was absolutely addicted to it, and as he took Edge out to dinner at least once a month she was always glad of the chance to return a bit of hospitality.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t offered to cook for him, but he was strangely reluctant. In fact, she rarely managed to talk anyone into a second home-cooked meal. She found her own cooking interesting rather than boringly reliable, and had given up offering it to anyone else. It did mean Bill’s cheffing escapades were an unmissable chance to entertain with all the convenience of home.

  The apartment was unusually tidy, as it was her day for Parker, the agency cleaner, and as a result she hadn’t yet collected Maggie from the run; the two hadn’t clicked on their first encounter. However, he’d obviously finished for the day, and without bearing the dog a grudge—all the dog toys and bones were put neatly on a convenient low shelf. The weather, with the suddenness of which only Scotland seems capable, was changing; the clouds were rolling away under the spur of the wind to admit some watery sunshine. Not long now before she’d be able to start sitting in the garden, and that reminded her that she had some summer bulbs still to be planted in her tiny hedge garden. In ten minutes she was outside feeling virtuous in heavy jeans and garden clogs, and with her basket, trowel and a cushion that Maggie was slowly demolishing, which proved an ideal kneeler in the hedge garden.

  ~~~

  ‘How very sprightly of you. I don’t think I can kneel any more.’ Sylvia remarked from behind her and she twisted round to smile at her. She’d been hard at work for an hour and seemed to have made very little progress, so Sylvia’s arrival was a welcome excuse to stop for a break. The tiny woman, very subdued, moved forward to perch on the bench. ‘You look an absolute fright in those jeans. I’d offer to help but I’m not much of a gardener. I really just wanted to thank you for the other night.’

  ‘Maggie biting that stupid idiot? Thank her, not me.’

  Sylvia smiled wanly. ‘Oh, that too, but I meant the other night in the pub. I’ve thanked Vivian but I never seem to remember when I see you, and then when I do you’ve already rushed on your way.’

  ‘Nothing to thank.’ Edge said firmly. ‘In fact we should do it again, I really enjoyed going there for a drink. I hadn’t even realized how nice the conservatory is at night. How’s your nephew?’

  ‘I rang him this morning. He’s talking of coming back earlier than July, he’s worried about me. I’m worried about me too.’

  ‘Oh, Sylvia. I’m too muddy to hug you, but things will be all right. Froufrou comes home from the vet today, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, I’m collecting her at three, but I don’t even know if I’m up to owning a dog any more. There’s something so odd happening to me—do you ever lose hours at a time? Or any time at all that you can’t account for?’

  Edge thought about it. ‘I do when I’m driving? Especially when I used to drive to work. I’ve had times when I suddenly realize I’ve nearly reached my destination, and the last thing I really remember doing was turning onto the motorway. I even asked a doctor about it and he said it was fairly normal. Whiteouts, I think he called it. Probably bloody age, again. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Not really. Maybe. I had another one this morning. I had every intention of coming to exercise class, then catching the minibus to Linlithgow. Next thing I knew it was past eleven and Matron was knocking at the door, looking worried. I have absolutely no idea what I was doing until then, and I felt all vague and odd and wafty. As if I was moving in a dream. And then it passed and I feel fine and myself again. It’s at least the fifth time it’s happened.’

  ‘Well, that’s odd.’ Edge sat back on her heels, winced, and instead sat sideways on the cushion. ‘Just mornings?’

  ‘No, sometimes in the evening. Remember that Cabaret song, on William’s Sunday? About not staying on your own in your apartment? I was so lonely after Simon went, I started going out in the evening. Only once into town, that was a disaster, the police rang here and I had to be collected by the suicide blonde, it was so humiliating.’

  She caught Edge’s puzzled look and sighed. ‘Am I ageing myself with that joke? I meant Katryn. You know, dyed by her own hand. That hair of hers, honestly. Anyway, I could see she thought I was positively demented and I wasn’t going to risk that again, but I sometimes plan to go to the house. By the time I’ve put on all my slap I’m all wafty again. That night in the pub with you two, for instance. I’m so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open, but at the same time I’m too scared to be on my own, because the shadows are so strange—and I see things out the corner of my eye—’

  ‘You’ve told Matron? It sounds, honestly, as though you’re taking something by mistake. Or even maybe—you say you’ve been putting on your war paint? You should change your powder. Or your make-up.’

  ‘I’ll try that.’ Sylvia looked animated for the first time. ‘I only ever take herbal stuff, and fish oil capsules, and Matron made me throw out all the old ones and buy new, so it isn’t that. But I didn’t think of make-up. All sorts of things are absorbed through skin, aren’t they? Those nicotine patches, and that sort of thing. I’ve been using foot patches, too; they never had this sort of reaction but I’ll stop them. So you don’t think I’m loony?’

  ‘Well, no more so than usual.’ Edge smiled at her. ‘Not like you were at the pub—you definitely weren’t yourself then. And if it only happens at certain times, you can only try changing your routine completely. Change your coffee, your pills, your make-up, your washing powder. Even go away for a couple of days. See if that helps, and then start reintroducing things, one at a time, until you find you’re off with the fairies again. I heard once of someone who was in a loony bin, it turned out she couldn’t tolerate coffee any more.’

  ‘I never drink coffee anyway, just white tea.’ Sylvia stood up, looking happier. ‘You’ve made me feel better, Edge, thanks. I don’t suppose you could come with me to the vet, could you? In case they give me instructions what to do with her.’

  ‘I can’t, I’ve an appointment in Edinburgh with my agent at half-past three. But I’ll check with you before I go, that you remembered the vet, I mean. And get them to write any instructions down.’

  ‘Are you taking the train? I could drop you off on the way, if you are, and that way you’ll know I’m okay.’

  As Edge had no intention of trying to negotiate the ever-changing detours around the unfinished Edinburgh tramlines in her car, she accepted gratefully and they agreed to meet at Sylvia’s at half past two. Edge watched her out of sight, then looked back at her weeding and sighed. Although her trug was full, the garden was still well sprigged with weeds and now her energy surge had gone. With the help of the sturdy bench she clambered back to her feet, picked up all her paraphernalia and headed back inside to enjoy a leisurely bubble-bath without the dog snuffling anxiously under the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Monday—meet up for drinks

  The meeting with her agent was disappointing—an offer to buff up a weak script, the kind of work she enjoyed least—and annoyingly the weather had changed yet again as she emerged into Charlotte Square. On an impulse she walked to the nearest taxi rank and found a radio taxi idling at the head of the black cabs queue. She knocked on the driver’s window as the first fat drops of rain bounced on the cobbles.

  ‘Will you take me as far as Linlithgow?’

  ‘Aye, but it’ll be dear.’

  ‘I know, but I’m going to get soaked if I take the train. I haven’t left my car at the other end.’ He
nodded and she scrambled gratefully into the back seat. ‘Actually, it isn’t all the way to Linlithgow, you’ll be able to get straight back on the M9. I’m at a place called Grasshopper Lawns, I’ll direct you.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ he pulled into the traffic, which was already building up towards rush hour, and added conversationally, ‘I ken the place. Very nice donkey.’

  Edge was surprised into a laugh. ‘Yes he is! We’ve actually just got another one. They’ve very popular, and so gentle. How on earth do you know Dudley?’

  ‘Dudley, is it?’ He grinned at her in the rear view mirror. ‘Last time I went there, my fare asked me to wait a few minutes, keep the tab running, in case the person he was looking for wasn’t there. Save him having to call another taxi, see? Gave me an extra fiver, said if he hadn’t come back by the time the fiver was used up I could leave.’ He went silent briefly as the grumbling traffic threaded itself down into single file to squeeze past more road works, then picked up his story.

  ‘It was an early fare so I still had my thermos, and I cannae smoke in the car, so I went over to this sheltered bit by the fence to have a coffee and a puff, next thing there’s the donkey come over to say hello. Nice old fella. Thinking on getting one for the bairns, I am now. I was quite sorry when my fare came back.’

  ‘When was this? Did Dudley still have his sheep? It died towards the end of January, that’s why the Lawns advertised for another retired donkey and we got quite a few replies. If you want to get one, it won’t be hard.’

  ‘Och, no, he was on his ain. It was chust last Sunday.’

  Edge’s attention sharpened. ‘Oh! Did you take your fare back to Edinburgh?’

  ‘Naw, just to Linlithgow, he said he’d get the train back. Like I told you, it’s an expensive trip by taxi, I didnae fault him.’