Seeing Stars

by Christina Jones

  They rolled.

  ‘If you’re the caterers for the twins’ party,’ a tinny voice screeched through the intercom as they rang the bell, ‘the trade entrance is round the back. And you’re late. My husband and I will not be in attendance. Nanny is in charge. Nanny will let you in and show you to the refectory.’

  Exchanging raised-eyebrow looks and trying hard not to giggle, they hefted the party food round the side of the house, their feet slipping and sliding on several tons of multicoloured shingle.

  ‘Like trying to run a bloody marathon on Brighton beach,’ Mitzi puffed, as they finally reached the back door.

  A very pretty Eastern European nanny with green hair and purple nail varnish and a lot of love-bites hustled them through acres of bad taste into a long, much-windowed room set out with about fifty child-sized chairs and tables, and decorated with balloons and streamers.

  ‘That’s fine,’ Mitzi gulped at the nanny. ‘Thank you. We’ll only need a few minutes to get everything ready.’

  ‘Good,’ the nanny shrugged. ‘When they eat it means I can have some time off. Please keep them in here as long as possible. I am at the end of my tither.’

  ‘Difficult, are they? The twins?’ Amber asked sympathetically, as she and Mitzi darted round, setting out the rainbow plates and bowls and finger food in jewel-bright colours.

  ‘They are bastard bitches from hell,’ the nanny said, stalking away. ‘I hope you poison the little shits.’

  ‘Nice to find someone happy in their work,’ Amber giggled. ‘Jesus!’

  ‘What?’ Mitzi paused in sprinkling hundreds and thousands on top of a Bagpuss cake.

  ‘Have you seen the banner? “Happy Eighth Birthday Fantasia and Heliotrope!” Poor little sods. They’re probably known as Fanny and Helly. Who in their right mind would want to call their kids something as outrageous as – er – um – whoops, sorry – I forgot …’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Mitzi said loftily. ‘My daughters have never had a problem with being called Dolores and Tallulah. Well – not much. Well – OK, point taken …’

  They grinned at one another again.

  ‘Right – let’s go and put Nanny out of her misery,’ Mitzi said. ‘And if Granny Westward’s recipes work she should have a nice peaceful afternoon.’

  ‘God, Mitzi – you’re not going to sedate them with this lot are you?’

  ‘No, of course not. These are some of Granny’s specially-adapted-for-children dishes … just a few concoctions using catnip, celandine, marjoram, meadowsweet, quince – and a liberal sprinkling of pomegranate seeds. Together, they’re all guaranteed to bring happiness, harmony, euphoria and glee to the most miserable child. They should be chuckling their little heads off in no time.’

  They stood back as the miniature hordes of Ghenghis Khan roared into the room.

  The noise level was terrifying, as were the table manners. Cutlery was used as weapons as they crammed as much of everything into their mouths as they could with their fingers, talking all the while.

  Fantasia and Heliotrope, dressed in matching Kylie Minogue stage outfits, punched each other and their guests as they ate, standing on the tables, kicking over chairs, food oozing from their clenched fists, spitting out anything they disliked.

  ‘Nice,’ Amber muttered, pressing herself back against a window. ‘Remind me to make a sterilisation appointment the minute we’re out of here.’

  Horde of locusts wasn’t in it.

  Within minutes the tables were left with only debris. The Bagpuss cake was sliding down one wall. There wasn’t much sign of euphoria, harmony or glee.

  Fantasia and Heliotrope stopped yelling obscentities, looked at one another, made a half-hearted attempt to tug one another’s braided hair, then burst into tears. Falling into a clearly one-off sibling hug, they sobbed snail-trails of body glitter down each other’s tiny shoulders.

  For a second the room went silent, then, as one, the fifty tiny guests started howling and sobbing and prostrating themselves with inconsolable grief.

  ‘Hell’s fire!’ Nanny poked her head round the door. ‘What you done to them? This is so good! Mega! Er – I fetch the bloody parents!’

  The din grew worse. The weeping and wailing grew louder. Above it all Mitzi’s mobile rang.

  ‘Hello?’ she screamed above the mass keening. ‘What? What? Oh, holy shit!’

  ‘What?’ Amber yelled above the cacophony. ‘Mitzi? What the hell’s going on? And what are you doing?’

  ‘Running,’ Mitzi laughed. ‘Come on! Leave everything! Let’s get out of her before Jace and Lezli arrive on the scene. That was Slo on the phone – Uncle Michael’s mourners have tripped out and are currently executing a laughing conga up the High Street! In the rush, we’ve mixed up the cool boxes, Amber! Bloody run!’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Once Upon a Star

  ‘And now they’ve introduced a bloomin’ hosepipe ban,’ Gwyneth sighed, as the Moth, Chrysalis and Butterfly Cottage occupants, minus Amber, sat outside in the already scorching sun enjoying their early morning cuppa. ‘Me runners are hanging as limp as an old whatnot as it is.’

  Zillah giggled. She kept giggling these days. It was really odd. She hadn’t giggled for years. And she had this feeling of – she wasn’t sure of what exactly – but of some sort of tingling anticipation … She put it down to being free of Timmy’s full-on adoration. What else could it be? Nothing else had changed. Nothing else was ever going to change.

  ‘We could still do a bit of a rain incantation tonight,’ Big Ida was saying. ‘I know we’ve discussed it before, and I know it ain’t right on Plough Night and the moon’s not even in the right quarter, but needs must. We ain’t seen a spit of rain since I don’t remember when.’

  ‘May, or maybe April,’ Gwyneth said, puffing as she bent down to pat a panting Pike on the head. ‘This is like living in Arundel.’

  Big Ida and Zillah peered at her.

  ‘Arundel?’

  ‘Ah, that cowboy place in America. All scorched dry and red-dusty with big cacti.’

  ‘Oh, Arizona!’ Zillah chuckled. ‘And I don’t think we’re quite as hot and dry as that.’

  Big Ida adjusted her sunhat. ‘Won’t be long, you marks my words. Bloody global warming – I blame it on them people as takes their holidays in foreign climes and brings the tropical ’eat back ’ere with ’em instead of leaving it where it belongs. It ain’t natural. I can’t remember a summer like this one.’

  Zillah could.

  The year Lewis was born. The year she came here to Fiddlesticks, frightened, alone, lonely, heartbroken.

  It had been a scorching summer then, too. Day after day of relentless blue sky and broiling sun. And she’d felt so ill through her early pregnancy, and Gwyneth and Big Ida had helped her settle into Chrysalis Cottage, the only place that had been cheap enough to rent far enough away from anyone who knew her, and they’d been so very kind. And she’d known they’d been shocked that she was pregnant and unmarried and without a partner even in the background, but they hadn’t shown it, hadn’t uttered one word of censure.

  The rest of the village had, she’d known, regarded her as some sort of loose woman, but Gwyneth and Big Ida had shielded her from the worst of the hurtful remarks. They’d been kindness itself, and helped her turn damp, dirty, deserted Chrysalis into a home.

  And in the late autumn it had rained at last, and Lewis had been born, and she’d loved him with an intensity she thought she’d never feel again, and some of the heartbreak had eased and she’d vowed that the rest of her life would be spent in making him happy and secure, and that not having a father around would never be a handicap for him.

  And, she felt, she’d achieved that, hadn’t she? Lewis had grown into a rounded, positive, fulfilled man: happy through school and college, with lots of friends, great exam results, a stupendous social life, a job he adored.

  She’d done her best for him. She’d made up for her mistakes. There were no regrets.

>   No regrets? Zillah sighed and ran her flip-flops through little runnels of dust. Not quite true. There was still one. Only one.

  ‘Zil? Zil, duck?’ Gwyneth was peering at her. ‘Wakeywakey, duck. You was miles away. Ida was just saying we ought to make a rain incantation to Leo tonight come what may. What do you reckon?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes – why not?’ Zillah smiled, not caring one way or the other. ‘I don’t suppose the celestial gods and goddesses will object too much. Plough Night, Leo’s Lightning, they’re both much of a muchness, aren’t they?’

  ‘Zil!’

  Big Ida rocked with indignation at this blatant heresy.

  Zillah chuckled. ‘Sorry, Ida. But honestly, Plough Night is always a bit of a damp squib, isn’t it? All that dreary stuff about nature’s bounty and plentiful crops and things. Nothing exciting ever happens on Plough Night, does it?’

  Amber was outside The Weasel and Bucket the minute Timmy unlocked the doors at 6 o’clock.

  ‘Crikey,’ he grinned at her. ‘Has living in Fiddlesticks turned you into a lush at last?’

  ‘You wish! No, I’m meeting someone,’ Amber said, walking into the warm, musty, yeasty pub. ‘Didn’t want to be late. And to be honest, Gwyneth is taking this hosepipe ban thing so seriously that she’s decided we all have the same bath water. I didn’t want to go in after Pike,’ she joked, ‘so I was given the five o’clock slot. I’ve been ready for ages.’

  ‘And very nice you look, too.’ Timmy made an extravagant bow. ‘Even more gorgeous than usual. This someone you’re meeting – is it a date? Lewis?’

  ‘Thank you. No and no,’ Amber clambered onto one of the high bar stools. ‘Although hopefully Lewis will be here sooner rather than later, too.’

  As he poured her a large glass of house white, Amber told Timmy about the JB Roadshow, and about Freddo coming to give the facilities a once-over before Harvest Moon.

  ‘Ah, yes, Zillah told me about that. Should be great. I like a good band. And it’ll bring the punters in here in droves.’ Timmy exchanged wine for money. ‘Plough Night’s OK, but because it’s more generally focused on the land rather than the heart, it doesn’t generate quite so much excitement.’

  ‘So I gathered,’ Amber sipped her wine. ‘It sounds like a sort of school harvest festival without the veg.’

  Timmy laughed. ‘Hmmm … that’s not too far off the mark. Mind you, we can’t ignore its importance – specially round here. We’re still very agricultural: lots of working arable farms and nearly everyone has an allotment or at least a vegetable patch. No, Plough Night is as important here now as it was hundreds of years back.’

  Amber took another mouthful of wine. Plough Night truly didn’t seem to promise much by way of excitement. Not like St Bedric’s or Cassiopeia’s or even the rumours she’d heard about the breakaway Andromeda-faction. Even Leo’s Lightning was supposed to produce something spectacular – and as for Harvest Moon – well, if she had her way it would be the best thing Fiddlesticks had ever seen.

  No, she had to be honest, the only reason she was looking forward to Plough Night was because it meant she’d spend time with Lewis.

  What was that sad quotation? They’d done it at school. Something about love being everything in the life of a woman, but only a minority interest in the life of a man?

  Dear, oh, dear … She stared through the pinpricks in the darkly ivy-covered windows. Was she seriously in danger of turning into one of those sad, love-sick, obsessive, needy women who wiped out every other aspect of their lives, existing only for the moment when the object of their desires deigned to bestow a few minutes of their precious time?

  Was she hell?!

  Well – OK, maybe she was edging in that direction, but she could do something about it, couldn’t she? She was still in control of her faculties, her emotions, her life.

  Timmy broke rudely into this deep introspection. ‘Er – is Zil on her way over, do you know? She’s due in at half-six and she was really strange at lunchtime. Very flippant and giggly. Haven’t seen her like that for ages. I had the feeling she might have something on her mind …’

  ‘Sorry? What? Oh, Zil? No, sorry, haven’t see her,’ Amber muttered, thinking Zillah’s new freedom of spirit had a lot to do with Timmy – but probably not in the way he wanted to hear. Not even now. It might still hurt his feelings. ‘But she’s usually on time, isn’t she? I’m sure she’ll be here. And isn’t Fern working tonight, too?’

  ‘She’s on Hayfields duty.’ Timmy looked bereft. ‘I’m going to pop over to see her later, when we’ve shut. Look, Amber, you don’t think I’m making a complete prat of myself, do you?’

  ‘Over Fern? No way! She’s loved you for years. It just took a bit of astral magic to sort it out. You two will have the archetypal happy ending.’

  Timmy beamed again. He looked, Amber thought, like a fat cat that had fallen into a vat of cream. How very weird this love thing was. Still, at least one of the tangles had been satisfactorily unravelled. Cassiopeia would probably take hundreds of years to sort out the others.

  As if by magic, the pub, one minute silently warm and deserted, with dappled sun patterns across the polished floorboards, was filled with hot and thirsty people.

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’ Zillah, looking anything but, grinned as she floated through the throng and ducked behind the bar. She was wearing the beautiful rose-sprigged dress and had long rosebud earrings dangling through her curls. ‘I was listening to some of my old records while I was getting ready. Lost all track of time. OK, who’s next?’

  Amber watched Zillah as she served customers, laughing, exchanging the necessary few words. Timmy was right: she looked so much more relaxed now. Happier. It must be so nice for her, Amber thought, to be able to get sexily glammed up for work at last without Timmy thinking it was all for his benefit.

  Lewis suddenly appeared through the throng, and grinned at Amber. ‘Your long-haired lover from Winterbrook is outside.’

  She tried really, really hard not to tingle at his appearance or the grin. ‘Freddo? Already? Brilliant – but why didn’t he come in?’

  ‘We arrived at the same time, so he’s grabbed a table and is chatting to Jem while I get the drinks. It’s too hot to be inside anyway. Oh, hi Ma – when you’re ready …’

  ‘You wait your turn,’ Zillah said cheerfully. ‘Being family doesn’t mean you can jump the queue. Next!’

  ‘I’ll have a house white if you’re buying, ta.’ Amber slid from the stool. ‘I’d better go and rescue Freddo—’

  ‘He won’t need rescuing from Jem.’ Lewis looked affronted. ‘Surely, you know that by now?’

  ‘Of course I do. I wasn’t worried about Jem. Jem’ll be the perfect host. It’s the rest of Fiddlesticks I’m concerned with. They don’t often see people like Freddo round here, do they?’

  Her worst fears were realised as she forced her way into the beer garden and blinked in the glare of the sun spiralling on the western horizon. Freddo, his hair even more bleached and wild, his skin even more perma-tanned, his wrists and neck covered in rap-master bling, was surrounded by curious Fiddlestickers, most of whom knew, thanks to the village jungle drums, why he was there but still felt the need to offer him advice.

  ‘Hi, duck. My, you get prettier by the day.’ He looked up at Amber in relief as she elbowed her way through Goff and Mrs Jupp and Billy Grinley and the Motions. ‘This is a quaint little village,’ he dropped his voice to a whisper, ‘but the natives are a bit odd.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Amber smiled, kissing Jem and shaking Freddo’s hand before she sat down. ‘Mind you, rumour has it that they’re even weirder in Bagley-cum-Russet.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I heard that, too. Haven’t been out to any of these villages for years,’ Freddo said. ‘Spend every waking minute on the agency: out on the road or in the Winterbrook office. Too little time, too many villages – you know how it is?’

  Amber nodded. ‘When I first arrived here I thought I’d be bored to tea
rs. I simply couldn’t imagine what people in the countryside found to do all day. I was itching to get into Reading for shopping and nightlife—’

  ‘And you haven’t?’

  ‘Not once. Too busy to even think about it,’ Amber grinned. ‘Far too occupied here to even give it a second thought.’

  ‘I could take you out in Reading one night, if you liked.’ Freddo made an expansive take-it-or-leave-it hand gesture. ‘Round the clubs, take in a few bars. I’ve got some good contacts in the best venues. Nothing heavy.’

  ‘What about Mrs Freddo? Wouldn’t she object?’

  ‘Hardly, duck. Mrs Freddo was my receptionist.’

  ‘The one that went to lunch in 1998 and didn’t come back?’

  ‘The very same.’

  They laughed together. The assorted Fiddlestickers, who had been hanging on every word, joined in.

  ‘I think Timmy’s doing half-price drinks about now,’ Amber said softly to the hovering crowd. Then she leaned towards Slo and lowered her voice even further. ‘And Lewis was flashing the fags around like there’s no tomorrow when I left him …’

  ‘That got rid of ’em sharpish,’ Freddo said in admiration as the throng melted away. ‘What the hell did you say to them?’

  ‘Simply what they wanted to hear. All untruths I’m afraid, but by the time they’ve argued the toss in the pub they’ll hopefully have forgotten about you and we can get some peace.’

  ‘Cool, duck. Look, are you sure you don’t want a job with me?’

  ‘Couldn’t stand the pace,’ Amber grinned. ‘And thanks for the offer of an evening in Reading, but I’ll pass on that too, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Someone else doing the squiring, is there, duck?’

  ‘No,’ Amber shook her head, ‘but I live in hope.’

  Jem took her hand and placed it on his heart, then held up his hands, crossed at the wrist and gestured towards the pub.