The woman’s eyes lit up. “Yes, I am. That’s very kind of you, ma’am.”
“You know, I believe I’ll take one of your fruit scones away with me—they’re my favorite.” I made a show of drawing a business card out of my bag. “I’m the manager of the Tourist Information Center in Smeaton-under-Lyme. We’re just the other side of Bury on the Fotheringill estate. You’ve a lovely spot here, and I want you to know I will be recommending Minty’s to any of our visitors coming up your way.”
“Oh, thank you, ma’am,” the young woman gushed.
“I’m happy to do it; I understand that a little thoughtfulness goes a long way.” I gave the fellow a look out of the corner of my eye as I whirled round and walked out.
* * *
—
Rupert and Michael had schedules to hash out, including a last-minute opportunity to appear at the Whitby Regatta in August, and so I headed home, wishing I could delay my arrival as long as possible. But before I was entirely prepared, I’d left my car in the lockup and I was only a short walk away from the cottage.
I put my head in Three Bags Full and chatted with Willow’s aunt, Lottie Finch. Lottie and I had tossed about the idea of an autumn crafts market, and, in desperation to delay my arrival at the cottage, I decided now would be the time to talk about it. After that, I bought toothpaste at the chemist and then, ignoring the paradox, stopped at Sugar for My Honey, where I bought a quarter of handmade rhubarb-and-custard boiled sweets. After that, with no more diversions to hand, I finished my walk and stood at the door of Pipit Cottage. I steeled myself and went in.
“Oh, now here you are,” Pammy said from the sofa. “Dreadful, Julia, that you were dragged off to work today.” I noticed her clothes had migrated back into bags—could this be a start of packing up?—but also noted that the bags had returned to the floor.
She set an empty mug on the coffee table next to an empty plate, and I picked them up, made my way to the kitchen, and saw a mountain of dishes in the sink.
“Did you not want to go out today, Pammy, take a walk?”
“Nah, it was tipping out there, didn’t you notice? And also, I don’t have a key to get back in.”
Oh God, stepped into that one, didn’t I? There’ll be no spare key for you, that’s for certain. “Yes, it was dreadful. I think it’s only just let up.” I made a show of looking out the window as the cottage door opened and Michael walked in. With the light behind him, his face was in shadow, but there was something about his stance.
“There’s the boy home,” Pammy announced.
“Cup of tea, anyone?” I asked. “I could certainly use one.”
“There’s no milk,” Pammy replied.
“There’s no milk?” Michael asked Pammy, quiet and intense. “There’s no milk?” he repeated, his voice rising to fill the room. “Well, I’ll tell you what you can do about that. You can get your arse off that sofa and down to the bloody shop and buy a bloody pint of milk!”
He stomped up the stairs as Pammy’s jaw dropped.
“What got your knickers in a twist?” she shouted as her brother slammed the bedroom door. “Little birdies took against you, did they?”
She snatched a plastic bag and turned it out, followed by another—scattering clothes and muttering as she did so about the trials and tribulations of having a bossy brother. She found her purse and emptied it—a few coins tumbled onto the coffee table. Forty pence. Pammy glared at the money.
I reached into my own bag for my purse, pulled out a twenty-pound note, and handed it over. “Here,” I said. “And while you’re there, find us something for dinner, all right?”
“Yeah,” Pammy said glumly. “I don’t know what he’s on about.”
Don’t you? “Just a long day, I’m sure,” I said.
Pammy left and I went upstairs. Michael stood at the window, his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets, gazing down at the wet, drooping foliage in the back garden. He turned when he heard me. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I seem to be saying that a lot lately.”
I went over and slipped my arms around his waist, and he buried his face in my neck.
“Is it Pammy?” I asked. “Because, you know she’ll be gone soon. Tomorrow. Or the next day.”
“Not Pammy. At least, not entirely.” He rubbed my back absentmindedly. “It’s what Rupert wants—a new segment.”
“Not the puffins? Does he want that fellow from the Shetland Islands to host it?”
“No, not puffins. Twitchers—and he wants Gavin Lecky.”
Chapter 5
That explained Michael’s black mood. On top of the tension with Pammy underfoot, now he’d have to work with Gavin Lecky. Michael had taken against Gavin from the start, which I chalked up to the clashing of opposing personalities. That, and the one-night stand—actually one-afternoon stand—Gavin and I had had just after I’d signed my divorce papers a few years back. It was an accidental meeting—I’d gone up to Marshy End, the Lanchester family cottage where Dad filmed for A Bird in the Hand, and Gavin had come looking for Rupert in his never-ending quest to get a twitcher segment on the program. But that afternoon had been ages before I’d ever laid eyes on Michael. Intellectually, he knew there was nothing to worry about—but when did intellect ever win out over emotion?
No, I think what really got up Michael’s nose was that Gavin could be a bit shiftless—unable to keep a job, a wife, or a girlfriend. Tough life being a twitcher. Gavin’s raison d’être remained laying eyes on the rarest birds he could, and he would drop everything to do so. Made it difficult to keep work. Once, he had walked out of a motorbike shop where he’d started only the day before when word came that a blue rock thrush, a bird seen once a decade in the British Isles, had been spotted in Stow-on-the-Wold.
We kept off the subject of Gavin the rest of the evening, and brother and sister acted as if they’d never said a cross word to each other. Pammy had shopped well—stuffed pasta shells and a salad. She’d even remembered bread for our breakfast toast and had found a cheap but good bottle of wine, something for which I was grateful as she spent most of the meal updating us on Princess Eugenie’s latest Twitter flameout.
* * *
—
By Wednesday morning, I was becoming inured to Pammy’s presence, seated on her sofa throne and surrounded by her adoring plastic-bag subjects—and that frightened me.
“Are you not having a cup of tea?” she asked as I stood at the door, ready to leave.
Tuesday had passed without note—Michael and I had been out the door before Pammy was fully awake. If we kept this up—arriving later, departing earlier—there would come a time we’d meet ourselves coming and going. Pammy had started to speak of “end of the week at the latest—really and truly” in regards to Amy and the phantom flat in Leicester, and that’s what I repeated to Bee when she sent a text: Have you got rid of her?
Vesta, fresh from her weekend honeymoon, had asked her own not-very-subtle questions about Michael and me. Although I had tried to sidestep the issue of the cuckoo in our nest, I knew that wouldn’t fool her. Vesta and my sister were two of a kind. They were always able to glean more from a conversation than I thought I’d offered.
Now, gasping for a cup of tea, I snatched at the first lie I could. “Wednesday is the farmers’ market on the green,” I said, slipping out the cottage door. “I like to check on things before the TIC opens.”
I was too early for either the TIC or the market, actually, but I desperately needed to breathe the fresh air of freedom. I stood on the pavement and considered my next move, and quickly realized that tea was paramount. I made a swing by the center for a quick cuppa and then headed to the green, arriving just as the opening bell rang.
A warm glow of pride filled me on Wednesdays—the farmers’ market, now in its second year, had been my idea, and popular from the start. Although I u
sually shopped the market midday, morning was a lovely time—everything so fresh and pristine as the farmers put the finishing touches on their displays. These days, the market practically ran itself. A committee of vendors kept an eye on things, and they checked in with me only as needed.
As I walked through, the calls began.
“Julia, could we get flooring for the stalls?”
“Julia! It was chucking last Wednesday and I’ve another leak in the tarpaulin.”
“Julia, what’s become of the food writer you said would review us?”
But the committee wasn’t working as well as we’d hoped, leading Linus and me to realize it was time to appoint an actual market manager.
I tossed off my answers, making notes in my phone as I went. “Right,” “Got it,” and “Would you put that in an email, Rog?” Meanwhile, I followed my nose to the stall for Solly’s Sausages, where the grill was already hot.
“Bacon roll, please.”
There now, that was more like it. I perused the stalls with my mouth full of greasy, salty pork, crisp at the edges and wrapped in fluffy warm bread. When I arrived at Pockett’s Organic Fruit & Veg, the sight and fragrance from a table of glistening crimson strawberries stopped me dead.
“Guy,” I called. “They’re gorgeous.”
Guy Pockett, who ran our newest accredited organic farm, looked up from setting out butterhead lettuce in a red-and-green checkerboard arrangement. He wasn’t a tall man, but he had a substantial head of tawny hair—short on the sides, it rose several inches on top like a yeast bread, adding several inches to his height. He was every part the greengrocer as he wiped his hands on his apron and grinned. “Marshmello, that one’s called.” He held out a bowl of strawberries and I picked a sample. “They’ve got a fantastic flavor, but they don’t keep long.”
“Mmm, I doubt that will be a problem,” I replied, wiping a drip of juice from the corner of my mouth. I bought two baskets and glanced round for Cossett’s Dairy stall. “I’ll need double cream next.”
“What about that proposal I sent you?”
Guy had within him a bottomless pit of wild schemes to boost interest in the market—many spontaneous and the rest poorly thought out, such as the ill-fated “Famous Carrots in History” competition and the last-minute “Walk Like a Vegetable” race. Both had ended in disaster—and crying children. Although he’d apologized, I was the one who had learned a lesson: Guy’s rash actions led nowhere and, although long on inspiration, he fell woefully short on follow-through. As I was a detail person at heart, this set my teeth on edge.
Since the news had circulated about the prospect of a market manager, Guy had made it clear he was hot to fill the role. Foreseeing impending disaster, Linus and I had chosen to put off the decision.
But a fortnight ago, Guy had come up with an idea that had promise—invite the chefs responsible for Smeaton’s Summer Supper in August to put on cookery demonstrations at the market. I decided to walk him through the planning.
“Right,” I said. “Look, it’s been ages since I’ve been out to see you. Why don’t I pop round and we’ll chat about it.”
“No, don’t. Hang on a tick,” he said as an older woman, her hair secured under a head scarf, plaid coat buttoned up to her chin, and an empty shopping bag dangling from one arm, sauntered forward and eyed the table.
“A good day to you now, Mrs. Thomason,” he said. “I can see you have strawberries on your mind this morning. Here now, what do you say to this?” He held out the sample bowl with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. “There’s your afternoon tea sorted.”
“Lovely, Guy,” she said. “But you promised me early peas this week—where are they?”
“Next week for sure,” Guy responded. “But in the meantime, have you taken a look at these tiny courgettes—flowers still attached, mind you. The fairies left them for us on the doorstep overnight. Toss these in a hot skillet with a knob of butter, and you’ll have that man of yours begging for more.”
Mrs. Thomason blushed, but laughed. “Oh go on, then, give us a few.” She turned to me and said, “He’s a bit cheeky, but I don’t mind. Guy makes shopping at the market such fun.”
Bagging up her purchase and taking her money, Guy said, “Let me come to you, Julia. Saturday all right?”
Saturday we drowned in visitors at the TIC. “First thing Friday morning?”
“Friday,” he confirmed, and turned his charms on another customer.
I continued my shopping—asparagus, salad, smoked salmon, eggs, wholemeal bread, and a chicken-and-ham pie for the evening meal. I had paused to admire a bundle of pencil-thin carrots, when I heard a man’s voice from two stalls away at Cherie’s flower stand.
“You call yourself a florist, and you have no hybrid teas?”
“I call myself a flower grower, sir, and I don’t do hybrid tea roses, because I find them a bit too fussy and not nearly as beautiful as the old-fashioned shrub roses. That antique pink is quite fragrant.”
“Where are the dahlias?” he asked.
That voice—ill-concealed superiority combined with impatience—I knew it from Minty’s teashop in Brandon. I peeked round the wall of the marquee, but could not see him.
“No dahlias until August,” Cherie replied calmly. “I’ve these June bouquets—picked just this morning from the best of what’s blooming—”
“What’s in this one?” he cut her off.
“Cow parsley, tickseed, and the blue comes from cupid’s dart.”
“Cupid’s dart?”
“Yes, it’s the one with—”
“I’ll take that bunch.”
I watched him walk off—Burberry coat flapping behind and holding the massive bouquet as if he were carrying a staff. I crept up to Cherie’s stall.
“Not the best way to begin your morning, is it?” I asked.
She shook her head. “And people wonder why I spend so much time with my flowers.”
* * *
—
Michael texted me just before I closed up Wednesday to say he wouldn’t be back until past seven. I considered my options—two hours on my own listening to the trials and tribulations of Pippa Middleton, according to a blog called Royal Relatives Reveal, or…
I headed up the high street, skirting quickly past the cottage door. At the corner, I saw a woman peering up Westbury Road. She wore a garnet-toned tailored suit, and her chestnut hair cascaded in waves and dropped to curls on the shoulders.
“Hello,” I said. “Can I help you find something?”
She turned to me, took note of my uniform and name tag, and flashed a brilliant smile. Pert nose, milky skin, and an expert hand at eyeliner that I could only dream of.
“I certainly hope so,” she said. “I was sent this way to the chemist—I’m in desperate need of solution for my contact lenses.”
I nodded down the road. “Just there on the left.”
“There you are, then—right under my nose.”
“Is this your first visit to Smeaton?”
“Not my first visit.” She reached in her bag and handed over a card. Deena Downey, Sales, VidMetronics, followed by a phone number and email address. Along the bottom of the card, the phrase Control Your World shimmered in green.
“VidMetronics,” I sounded out the word.
“Our company provides video-sharing software system deals that help businesses—” She stopped and laughed. “But not to worry, I’m not trying to make a sale—Suffolk isn’t even my patch. No, it’s your lovely village that’s brought me here. I’m on the road constantly—I work out of our office in Stoke-on-Trent, east to Lincolnshire and Norfolk. But I’ve needed a place for a midweek break that had nothing to do with my clients. Smeaton is perfect. Well, thanks now for the directions—perhaps I’ll see you again.”
We parted and I carried on, consid
ering the allure of the midweek break. Who might be the target of that marketing scheme? It was something to think about. I filed away the idea as I reached Nuala’s Tea Room, and took note of a dark green Morgan Roadster parked at the curb, looking as if it had come straight out of a Jeeves and Wooster story.
Nuala Darke wore her customary full skirt and ballet slipper shoes, her short, curly black hair sprinkled with gray and pulled back into a tiny wad of a bun that curled round itself. With hands clasped in front of her, she stood smiling at a customer who sat at the table in the corner with his back to me.
“Oh, I do have a young woman in to help me here and at the café at the Hall,” she was saying. “Gone are the days when I could run two places all on my own.”
“But still, Nuala,” the man said, “it’s your expertise that keeps the standards high.” Although he had his back to me, I could hear the smile in his voice—a warm and friendly, almost intimate, tone.
“Julia!” Nuala exclaimed as she came forward. “I’m delighted you stopped. What will you have now? No chocolate cake until Friday, I’m afraid, but what do you think, rhubarb ginger? A scone?” Nuala gestured toward the next room where the bakery cases held her fare and I glanced that way to see, in pride of place atop the counter—a massive bouquet of cow parsley, tickseed, and cupid’s dart.
At that moment Nuala’s customer rose and turned round, drawing my attention. And there he stood—the Man-Who-Could-Not-Be-Pleased from Minty’s on Monday and the flower stand that very morning.
“Oh, hello,” he said casually.
Nuala looked from him to me. “Do you two know each other?”
“No,” I said.
“I saw you in the tea room in Brandon on Monday,” the man said. “In fact, you’re the reason I’m here—I heard you mention Smeaton.”
All my fault, was it?
Farewell, My Cuckoo Page 4
