by Alex Brown
‘Yes. Thank you. Several years ago now, but the wool seems to wash really well …’
‘Wonderful,’ Molly grinned. ‘And you know, I was thinking last night about your question. About Winnie.’
‘Oh yes?’ April nodded hopefully, and then added, ‘I found out that she’s my aunt’s sister!’
‘Well I never! In that case you really must talk to Hettie.’
‘Hettie?’ April’s interest was piqued. Molly nodded.
‘That’s right, she’s about the same age as Edie and has lived in Tindledale her whole life, so she’s bound to know more. You could call in and have a chat to her, she lives in the oast house next to the haberdashery shop on the road leading down to the Blackwood Farm Estate. Do you know it?’
‘Hmm, yes … I think so.’ April paused, creasing her forehead as she tried to remember. ‘Was that where we rode our bikes in the school holidays? In and out of the grove of oak trees and then along the stream, it was glorious in springtime with a carpet of purple violets as far as you could see. Is the Country Club still there too?’
‘Yes that’s right. And it sure is, and is thriving – they’ve got a flash new swimming pool and spa with a sauna and Jacuzzi and beauty treatment rooms, the works! It’s where I go to escape when Cooper and the boys are playing up. Nothing realigns my chakras like a lovely hot stone massage followed by a spot of lunch, eaten along to the blissful sound of silence, without my boys hollering and fighting over second helpings of cottage pie or whatever,’ Molly chuckled.
‘That’s good to hear, I remember going there with Aunt Edie when it was just a golf club with a members’ lounge bar and restaurant. She used to let me have my favourite – scampi, peas and chips! And I thought I was the epitome of sophistication.’ Both women laughed in between taking sips of their tea.
‘I should get going and leave you to your window display …’ April grinned, having finished her tea. She retrieved her bag from a nearby chair and looped it over her shoulder. ‘And thanks for the tip re Hettie. I really would like to find out more about my mysterious other great aunt, Winnie.’
‘Ahh, you’re welcome. It’s quite a mystery, but I reckon, if anyone is going to know more about Winnie, then it’ll be Hettie for sure! Let me know how you get on please, and do come back soon. I reckon you and I are going to be good friends. We could even do a spa day together at the Country Club some time, if you fancy it?’
April turned to look back over her shoulder.
‘Um …’ She instinctively hesitated, still used to considering Gray’s care plan out of habit. April hadn’t had any free time of her own for such a long time and since the funeral would never have even considered going to a spa just for pleasure. But determined to look forward, to the future, she took a deep breath, smiled and then said, ‘Yes please. You know … I think I’d really like that.’
April was enveloped in a great big hug of welcoming warmth when she walked into The Spotted Pig café and tea room. With its vintage Formica tables – some set in booths around the perimeter, the others dotted all around the space – and the windows covered in steam from the hot air rising from the bread oven in the kitchen, it was like stepping back in time to another world where nothing bad ever happened, or so it seemed.
‘Hello.’ A woman with aqua-blue eyes and curly blonde hair wearing a ditsy-print apron gave April a welcoming smile. ‘Would you like a table? Or I can do takeaway if you like …’
‘Ooh, I’d love a booth please, if that’s OK?’ April replied, breathing in the tantalising scent of cinnamon mingled with macaroons. Talking of which, she was drawn to an extensive selection of the delicate French fancies – pistachio, lemon, raspberry and salted caramel to mention a few – all arranged on paper-lace doilies in a three-tiered floral china cake stand on a counter beside an old wooden piano. April could feel her mouth watering already. And would it really be too greedy to have a macaroon after her Battenberg cake?
‘Sure. I’m Kitty by the way. Don’t think we’ve met before …’
‘Oh, hi,’ April replied, relaxing a little after such an inviting welcome. ‘Lovely to meet you, I’m April, and no it’s my first time here in The Spotted Pig,’ she added as she was led to a lovely booth beside an old-fashioned wooden cake trolley crammed with every one of her favourites, including the recommended Battenberg cake: a giant, marzipan-covered brick with pink and yellow checked sponge inside, stuck together with a generous slather of strawberry jam.
‘Well, thank you for coming in. I’ll give you a few minutes to look at the menu,’ Kitty said, handing April a card with today’s selection of sandwiches, salads, soups, puddings and cakes on, ‘unless you already know what you’d like?’ She tilted her head to one side.
‘I heard the Battenberg cake is delicious so I’d love a slice of that please.’ April eyed the trolley. ‘Aaaaaand …’ she paused to scan the drinks section on the back of the menu.
‘The honey and almond hot chocolate is a winner,’ a friendly-looking woman on an adjacent table suggested. She was breastfeeding a baby under a pretty butterfly-print scarf draped from her left shoulder and looked so content and happy with her lot. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t trying to intrude or anything – it’s just that it was recommended to me on my first visit here and it really is truly scrumptious. I’m addicted to it now,’ she smiled.
‘In that case, I’ll give it a go.’ April grinned at the woman and relaxed some more. ‘One honey and almond hot chocolate please,’ she requested, looking back to Kitty.
‘All the trimmings?’ Kitty raised an eyebrow as she whipped out a little notepad and a pencil from the pocket on the front of her pinny.
‘Um?’ April wasn’t sure.
‘Whipped cream, sprinkles – I can do hundreds and thousands, or Smarties, Maltesers, grated chocolate, coconut shavings, someone even had a crushed pink wafer biscuit the other day … so whatever you fancy really, you can have the lot if you like. Lots of my customers do …’ Kitty laughed as she counted the options out on her fingers. April felt quite overwhelmed by all the possibilities and faltered.
‘Ooh, I’m not sure …’ She glanced at the woman with the baby to help her out, who pondered before kindly obliging and offering:
‘Grated chocolate! Simple but so very satisfying. That’s my favourite.’
April nodded and Kitty wrote it down. ‘Good choice,’ she winked before making her way over to the kitchen.
‘And thank you,’ April said to the woman as she slipped her handbag from her shoulder and shuffled into place on the red leatherette banquette.
‘Ahh, not at all – I’m happy to help out. I’m Jessie by the way,’ the woman said before tending to her baby.
‘Nice to meet you, Jessie. I’m April.’
‘Uh-oh. This little guy needs changing. Sorry. I better see to him and then get going – see you around next time, hopefully …’ And Jessie grabbed a big flowery changing bag and headed towards the bathroom at the back of the café, leaving April feeling upbeat and optimistic, and pleasantly pleased with herself for having ventured out for cake. It didn’t feel so bad being on her own after all, and she was sure that the more she did this the easier it would become. Yes, April was determined to get some of her old self back. Seize the day, that’s what Gray had said, and she fully intended to honour his wish. And then something occurred to her … ‘seize the spa day’ as Molly had kindly invited her to do … Gray would have laughed at that!
Kitty arrived at the table with the hot chocolate and the biggest wedge of Battenberg cake that April had ever seen.
‘Thank you,’ April couldn’t wait to get stuck in – for the first time in a very long time, she felt relaxed. She really did. And she grinned to herself as she looked around the café, intrigued by a picture on the wall of a young, good-looking man in a sandy desert, wearing a khaki soldier uniform and kneeling down next to a very handsome black Labrador. A relative of Kitty’s perhaps? Oooh, what was that? April felt something vibrating against the side of
her thigh. She glanced at her bag. And then realised. It was her phone.
‘We’ve got a new mast. Only covers the village square and this end of the High Street though,’ Kitty explained from over by the counter on seeing April’s surprise; having had no signal at all since arriving in Tindledale, she clearly wasn’t expecting her phone to ring.
‘Ahh, well that explains it!’ April grinned, lifting her phone up to her ear. ‘Hello.’
‘April. How are you?’
‘Nancy! How are you doing, darling?’
‘I’m fine thanks, but worried. I’ve been calling and calling and calling you and was starting to think something terrible had happened. Did you drop your phone down the loo or something?’
‘Oh no … I’m so sorry, it must be the signal. Or the lack of it at Aunt Edie’s cottage, and well, much of Tindledale to be precise. I didn’t mean to worry you – I should have called you though, sweetheart. But I didn’t want to wake you up, what with you being on nights and all … I know you have to sleep during the day.’ April smiled to herself and hoped that Nancy was looking after herself properly, no early morning pizzas on returning home after her shift at the fire station or sitting up till lunchtime listening to her favourite rare Northern Soul dance songs from the sixties and seventies on YouTube because she was too wired to sleep. As a firefighter, Nancy had a very active job, so even more reason for her to get her full eight hours. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Ahh, well, it is the countryside – I imagine all the little lambs and cows in the fields don’t have much call for … calling each other, boom boom!’ Nancy joked, and April laughed, pleased to hear that she was on form as usual, but noticed that she hadn’t actually answered the question. ‘Just expect to get, like, a trillion messages come through now, all from me.’ Nancy laughed. ‘Anyway, are you OK? I was getting worried and you didn’t leave the number of your aunt’s landline.’
‘I’m sorry, love, I should have done, but honestly, I’m fine. Better than I’ve been in ages. It’s been a real tonic coming to Tindledale.’
‘Good-o! And such a relief. When I didn’t hear from you, I was half tempted to hop on my scooter and come there too, just to check on you.’ April laughed, and felt quite touched by her stepdaughter’s concern for her wellbeing, but sensed there was something more; Nancy seemed overly anxious.
‘Oh, no need to do that,’ April quickly replied, keen to allay Nancy’s fears.
‘But you could have gone AWOL on the way there on some sort of mad mission brought on by delayed shock over losing your husband.’
‘Pardon?’ April said, not paying proper attention, as the guy in the van, the farrier with the gorgeous green eyes, walked past the window, so she smiled and did a little wave with her free hand. He did a double take, hesitated, and looked as if he was about to smile back, but then changed his mind, bowed his head and crossed over the road. Charming! April wondered what his problem was.
‘Yes, I read an article about it in an online magazine where bereaved people do strange things, stuff that’s completely out of character. Like join a commune or go skydiving. One woman got on a plane and went to stay a whole month in Disney World, Florida, and none of her family had a clue; they thought she was staying with an old school friend until one of them called to check. That’s when they found out she had blown her savings on flying first class and was staying in a deluxe villa in the Animal Kingdom with the full-board meal plan option.’ Nancy paused, and April laughed but couldn’t help noticing there was a slight edge in her stepdaughter’s voice.
‘Oh dear. Well you have nothing to worry about, darling, I’m really not about to disappear to Disney World,’ April reassured again. ‘I’m fine, honestly. And I’m really sorry for my silence – I didn’t mean to make you anxious. But it’s like another world here where it’s very easy to lose track of time. It’s sort of like a bubble, or a cocoon, and then a neighbour popped by yesterday and we got chatting, and then I had a lovely evening with my aunt, so to cut a very long story short … I’ve just popped into the village for cake,’ April explained, deliberately leaving out the part where she’d found Great Aunt Edie having a snooze in the oven. Even though she could kind of see the funny side now, it wasn’t enough to erase the worm of guilt that was still niggling inside her. What if she hadn’t arrived when she did? Would Edie have been lying there on the cold hard kitchen floor until she woke up? And when would that have been? The following morning with her age-addled body so stiff she was barely able to stand upright without assistance? No, Edie needed taking care of, someone to watch over her.
‘Oooh, good for you!’ Nancy said, sounding pleased.
‘How’s Freddie? Pulling his weight I hope …’ April ventured, picking at a piece of marzipan from the corner of the cake. She couldn’t resist. It tasted divine – sugary and of almond paste.
‘Yes he’s the same as always. I’m making him do his share. You know I even saw him putting something in the washing machine earlier. Not sure if he knows how to actually turn it on, but it’s a start at least. It’s a fact, my twin brother is bone idle around the house, always has been, and it’s a wonder that he ever manages to pull himself out of his pit to go to work. It was Mum’s fault, she pandered to him and now you do the same,’ Nancy laughed.
‘Oh dear, but you’ll show him though?’ April asked. It was true, she had looked after Freddie, but was happy to.
‘Yes. Don’t worry. I’m happy to hand him the instruction manual, but that is it!’
‘Ahh, that’s a start and I’m sure he’ll appreciate your help,’ April said. She knew Freddie wouldn’t ask for any assistance – he had become very withdrawn since Gray died, spending a lot of time in his bedroom and only appearing at meal times where he didn’t say very much at all. April felt a sudden surge of guilt; maybe she should go back home today and make sure the twins really were all right? But what about Edie? She needed April too, if only to sort out the garden and fix the massive potholes in the lane. Yes, Nancy was full of bluster, but what was really going on for her? Was she handling her father’s death as well as she appeared to be? April couldn’t tell, not for sure, as Nancy seemed to be carrying on like normal most of the time – she had cried a lot at the start when Gray was first diagnosed and again on the day he died, but since the funeral she appeared to have bounced back, although she seemed still anxious too. Guess everyone copes with grief in different ways …
‘So, how is it in Tindledale? How’s your aunt?’ Nancy said.
‘Yes, Tindledale is still the same, as I remembered it,’ April started, casting a glance around the café to make sure she wasn’t annoying anyone by being on her phone, but it was nearly empty now – Kitty was behind the counter sorting out the till, and Jessie had returned from the bathroom and after strapping the baby into his buggy had left, giving April a cheery wave through the window as she crossed the road. ‘Everyone here is so friendly,’ she added, forgetting about Mrs Pocket.
‘Wonderful. And your aunt Edie? How is she?’
‘Yes, she’s OK, I think. She’s gone off to a tea dance this afternoon …’
‘Ooh, get her, can’t remember the last time I went out dancing and I’m a quarter of her age.’ A short silence and then, ‘I’m such a saddo …’ Nancy laughed, but April had heard the wobble in her voice.
‘No you’re not!’
‘Yes I am. Nothing exciting ever happens to me.’
‘You go out, you have a great social life, what about all those Northern Soul weekends you go off to on your scooter? You love them and always have a fantastic time,’ April reminded her.
‘Maybe, but that’s only a couple of times a year if I can get a whole weekend off work. Otherwise it’s cut-price beer in the social club with the blokes from the station, which really isn’t the same …’
‘And your job is pretty exciting … not that a house fire is a thrill of course, but it beats the ordinary office nine-to-five, surely?’
‘I suppose so,’ Nancy ag
reed, and April wondered where this was all coming from. She really didn’t want Nancy to go on a downer about herself. She had done that in her teens; soon after her mum went off to New Zealand, Nancy had become very withdrawn, down and continually criticised herself – it had taken Gray months to lift her out of it. He had told April all about it, saying how he’d found out she was being bullied at school and had been that worried, he’d even considered an appointment for Nancy with a psychotherapist at one point. April felt that she really needed to be back at home, taking care of the twins, but Edie needed her too … Suddenly she was torn and felt very confused as to where her priorities were best placed. ‘Anyway, did you find out any more about Winnie?’ Nancy continued, changing topic and sounding marginally brighter.
‘Only that she’s my aunt’s sister.’ April decided to let it go for now, figuring it best to try to talk to Nancy when she got back home. ‘But the worrying thing is – Edie keeps on calling me Winnie,’ April explained, before elaborating further, telling Nancy all about Edie and the memory loss, and the state of the garden and the obsession over cleaning the Aga.
‘Well, she is ninety-odd … so she’s bound to be a bit forgetful. And so what if she likes to clean her Aga? I can think of worse things she could be doing … you wanna be grateful she isn’t gambling your inheritance away on that Foxy Bingo thing or whatever it’s called.’ Nancy sighed. ‘And as for the garden, I would come and give you a hand with it, but I’ve promised to help out a bit more at work this week, one of the guy’s wives is about to drop so he’ll be off on paternity leave soon.’
‘Ahh, not to worry. Molly, she’s the butcher’s wife, has given me a number for a farmer who might help out. And I can always pop back again to Tindledale to see how she’s getting on …’
‘Sure. But you’re not coming home already, are you?’
‘Yes, I was going to come back tomorrow, that’s what we agreed, a mini break for a couple of days,’ April said before spooning off some cream from the top of her hot chocolate. It tasted delicious, warm and with a hint of nutmeg which paired perfectly with the chocolate shavings.
