Bay Tree Cottage

by Anna Jacobs

  ‘Not exactly. But I’m glad you haven’t taken umbrage and I will try harder to keep in touch from now on, I promise. Well, I will once I’ve bought myself a new phone tomorrow.’

  He followed her into the flat. ‘Good heavens! It looks all neat and tidy. Except for those boxes.’

  ‘I’m neat by nature and when you don’t have many possessions, it’s easy to keep them tidy. But the other boxes can’t be unpacked till I’ve found some sort of big cabinet for my sewing things. An old commercial storage thingo – I don’t know what they’re called.’ She described her needs.

  ‘I know an old converted barn that calls itself “Bassett Barn Antiques”, though it’s more junk than antiques. They have an old office furniture section and I bet we can find you something suitable there. Unless you want to buy new flat-pack units from somewhere online.’

  ‘I want to buy the cheapest thing I can find. I don’t care what it looks like, just that it must have a lot of different compartments.’

  ‘It’ll take up a lot of the space in your living room.’

  ‘I don’t care about that, either. I want my materials to be properly sorted out, for once, and stored so that I don’t have to pack and unpack them every time I start work, to hunt for threads and so on. As long as I have room to sit down and entertain a friend, I’m all right for the time being.’

  ‘All right, love. I understand. I’m like that with my tools, too. How about I take you shopping tomorrow morning? If we take the big van, we can bring what you buy back in that. After having to manage on her own for a couple of days, my daughter’s hired a new woman part-time. She says this Linda knows what she’s doing so I’ll leave them to it. I’ve been meaning to find someone for a while. It’ll let me spend more time with you.’

  ‘Sounds like your Katie is on the ball about the centre. And tomorrow morning would be great as long as we don’t take too long about it.’

  ‘Now, what about tonight? I’ll take you out for a meal then we can go back to your place or mine. Don’t feel you have to go out, mind, if you’re too tired. I can go and fetch a takeaway.’

  ‘I’m only a bit tired. Let’s go to your place.’ She was a bit shy of letting Elise and the others see that she was sleeping with Iain, though they must have guessed by now.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Nell was glad to see Emil arrive on time early the next morning because she had a busy day ahead of her. The front door of Number 1 was propped open, presumably to air the place out, because it still smelt of paint, so she and Emil went straight in.

  Ginger immediately popped her head out of her flat to see who it was, which was good. ‘I’m just grabbing a few things and going out.’

  Nell introduced them, then saw Iain’s van draw up outside. ‘Can I leave you for a few minutes while I speak to someone, Emil? You know your way upstairs, don’t you?’ She gave him the access number for the new lock on the door of the secret room, which was now more visible.

  ‘Yes. And I love looking at the things there so take as long as you want.’

  ‘I’ll come straight back if I see the guy from heritage arrive.’ She ran lightly down the stairs and to her relief, Iain was still outside. He gave her one of his broad smiles.

  ‘Hi, Iain. It’s all looking great. I just wanted to check how things were going and see if there’s anything else you need.’

  ‘No. I’ll finish the back later this morning and return tomorrow to start on the front gardens of these two houses. I have to go out and get something first.’

  ‘Great. It’s going to look lovely, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes. Just one thing I’m worried about. There’s a patch of ground near the wall of Number 6 that doesn’t seem happy to grow anything. I wonder if we should get the soil tested?’

  ‘Ah.’ She hesitated, then decided he could be trusted. ‘That’s where the secret passage from the communications room leads into the cellar of Number 6 and the soil isn’t as deep there.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Of course, they’d need more than one way of escaping if the communications room was discovered.’

  ‘Yes. The other end of the passages comes out under an electricity substation in the next street. So to answer your question, it’s not the soil.’

  ‘That’s all right, then. I’ll just put in a few annuals, and not bother with shrubs.’

  She looked along the street at the area he was talking about. ‘It does stand out rather, doesn’t it, when the rest of the plants are so lush?’

  ‘It won’t look different when I’ve finished. We could maybe put a little lion’s head on the wall, so that the flowers seem to be kept low on purpose.’

  ‘That’s a great idea. I probably don’t need to tell you, but please don’t mention this to anyone, especially that Brody woman.’ She knew he’d had trouble with her too.

  ‘Of course not. Is that stupid female still bothering you as well?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘She’s been pestering us about another greenhouse I want to put up. She’s a pain in the backside, that one.’

  When Nell had nipped out, Emil went into the secret communications room and let out a long, happy sigh. He loved coming here. It was wonderful that it had been preserved untouched. No wonder his father was over the moon about being able to set up a little museum here in honour of his father’s distinguished war service.

  He was almost sorry when Nell came pounding back up the stairs and they discussed how soon the museum could be open.

  When they’d finished, he raised the other matter. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but the regional heritage group have put me in touch with an expert on this sort of thing. He’s coming shortly, but couldn’t give me an exact time. Dad showed him round a while ago and he wants to check a few details before he finalises his suggestions. Is it all right if I hang around here till he comes?’

  ‘Of course. Look, Angus and I thought you should have a key so that you can get in whenever you need. But you must promise not to give a copy to anyone or to leave anyone alone in here. And you must lock the front door after yourself, even if you’re only going upstairs for a few moments.’

  He looked surprised so she added, ‘The gallery will hold some valuable artwork soon and besides, part of the downstairs is Ginger’s home. Even though there’s a lock on the door of her flat, we can’t be too careful about her safety.’

  ‘It’ll be great to have a key and I promise I’ll be careful. Pity the café isn’t open now, eh, or I could grab a coffee while I wait. And would it be all right if I brought some friends and showed them round upstairs another day? One of them has a little boy who’ll love seeing it.’

  ‘With the usual proviso.’ She held out the key. ‘Anything else you need to know?’

  ‘Not at the moment. Thank you. Dad is getting quite excited about it all. So am I.’

  Fraser Jarman arrived a few minutes later and made up for his tardiness by his enthusiasm for the project and the clever plans he had worked out for displaying the many small artefacts in the little museum as if they had only just been put down by those working there.

  They went over these in detail, and Fraser asked Emil if he could walk the tunnels again. ‘I want to do something special with them. We have to let people see that such places exist so they won’t forget how much ordinary people were prepared to do to save their country.’

  Emil frowned. ‘Last time I spoke to Angus, he told me he didn’t want to disturb the other entrances. Well, we can’t get to the one near the electricity substation without official permission from the council. Look, I’ll phone Nell and see if we can go inside the other passage so that you can see the far end under Number 6.’

  To his relief Nell answered at once, but she was reluctant for Fraser to open up the connection to Number 6 and definitely didn’t want it to show from outside.

  ‘Sorry, Emil, but it’s a balancing act between history and intruding on the daily lives of the people who live in Saffron Lane.’

&
nbsp; Fraser took over from Emil, insisting gently that the project wouldn’t be finished off properly if the visitors being shown round couldn’t see at least part of the tunnels too.

  ‘We’ll have people staying in Number 6 soon, though,’ she said. ‘They won’t want strangers tramping through their living quarters, interrupting their work.’

  ‘Oh, hell. Can’t we come to some compromise about it?’

  ‘I’ll have to discuss it with my husband. Perhaps you can put any suggestions you come up with in writing?’

  ‘If we could only get access to the other end of the tunnels,’ Fraser said regretfully, then looked thoughtful. ‘I can see why people living there wouldn’t want strangers popping up into their cellar, or wherever it leads. How about …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A glass barrier of some sort at that end, one that shows the stairs going upwards?’

  ‘Might be possible. As long as the other end is locked.’

  ‘I’ll check our records, see if anything similar has been done elsewhere so that I can show you what it’d be like.’ He handed the phone back to Emil.

  Emil locked up carefully and drove to the office, but everything was fine there so he left the staff to deal with anything that came up. They both seemed very efficient and pleasant to deal with.

  He had to finish preparing for his little house-warming party so he went back to his flat. He was looking forward to seeing Abbie again and hoping that the presence of her sister and the children would make her feel more relaxed.

  He felt Abbie was attracted to him. You could usually tell. But she didn’t seem prepared to act on it. Had her experiences with Louis’ father been so bad that she’d sworn off men completely? Or was he mistaken about the strength of the attraction?

  When he got back he sat down for a minute or two and woke an hour later. That was what came of having such comfortable armchairs. He smiled at himself for still taking involuntary naps, something he’d never done in his life before. But they did seem to refresh him. And he was feeling a lot better these days.

  Iain drove Ginger to a big barn on the outskirts of the town. ‘This place used to be part of a farm, but when the farm was sold and the land built on, the farmer kept a couple of acres with the barn on, hoping for further profit in the future. But this is a small town and the council hasn’t allowed a lot of development, so he didn’t manage to get planning permission for building houses. And then his daughter got into antiques big time and this place is ideal for that, so he let her have it. She’d trained as a lawyer, so he was rather disappointed.’

  ‘You can’t choose for your children once they’ve grown up,’ she said sadly.

  ‘You did your best, I’m sure.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s not enough. Anyway, never mind Donny. He’s got his chance now and I just pray he won’t waste it.’

  ‘He has your good genes. There’s bound to be a chance of him sorting himself out.’

  She laid her hand lightly on his arm for a moment. ‘You always manage to say something positive. I love being with you.’

  ‘That pleasure is mutual.’

  She didn’t pretend. ‘It’s happened so quickly.’

  ‘When someone is right for you, you just know.’

  She wasn’t as sure about that as he was. After all, she’d married Alan, hadn’t she? And a lacklustre relationship that had been.

  Iain parked the car and escorted her inside a big echoing building where furniture and objects of all sorts were dumped roughly into aisles, with the more expensive items like silver pieces or jewellery in locked glass display cases near the counter. A youngish woman was talking animatedly on the phone and merely gestured them to look round.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Iain whispered. ‘I know where the sort of furniture you’re looking for has been dumped. They don’t take a lot of care of such stock here, because Ebony wants to be known as an antiques seller, not the owner of a junk shop.’ He rolled his eyes to indicate what he thought of that.

  ‘Ebony? That’s an unusual name.’

  ‘She was christened Elizabeth and changed the name herself.’

  ‘Ah. Arty type, eh?’

  ‘Tries to be.’ He chuckled. ‘I can remember her as a tomboy with skinned knees. She used to play with my daughter. A right old pair they were, always into mischief.’

  There were various cabinets in one of the far corners and he stopped talking to say, ‘You look here and I’ll look over there.’ He wandered away, leaving Ginger to study the cabinets intently.

  He came back about a quarter of an hour later as she was wondering whether some metal cupboards would do, and whether she could live with their battered external greyness.

  ‘Come and look at what I’ve found,’ he said. ‘It’s perfect for you.’

  He took her to the other rear corner, where a good many huge pieces of furniture were standing close together. ‘This is Victorian and Edwardian stuff mostly. Dark-brown furniture is well out of fashion these days unless it’s very special. It’s this piece I wanted to show you.’

  ‘Oh!’ She stared in delight at what must once have been shop fittings, perhaps in a haberdasher’s. There were a series of pieces, with lots of drawers of all sizes, cupboards and one section lower than the others, forming a sort of counter. All were made of gleaming mahogany, at least it would have been gleaming if it had been dusted. She took out a tissue and wiped one corner, admiring the beautiful wood.

  ‘I could live with this, but will it fit my room?’

  He pulled a measure out of his pocket. ‘I reckon it will. Let’s see.’

  She took the end of the measure and held it while Iain pulled it out as he walked to the other end of the row of pieces.

  When they’d finished measuring the various dimensions and noting them down on a rough sketch, he showed her them.

  ‘You’re right, Iain. If I pull one piece out, it’ll fit. It’s perfect for my purpose and it’d look so much nicer than gunmetal grey. Only, it must be expensive.’

  He grinned. ‘Not if I buy it for my garden centre to put in a shed. I’m good at bargaining. How about you play the disapproving wife who doesn’t want the piece at all? Are you a good actress?’

  ‘Iain, you fraud.’

  ‘Shall we play it that way? Could save you a lot of money.’

  She nodded and as they walked back to the counter, she got into the mood, saying loudly, ‘I’m still not sure, love. It’s going to look ever so dark.’

  Quarter of an hour later, they carried the first of the pieces that made up the display out to his van.

  ‘Don’t let Ebony see how elated you are,’ he whispered, ‘or I’ll never dare come back.’

  When it was all loaded into the van, Ginger dragged him round to the other side of the vehicle, where Ebony couldn’t see them, and flung her arms round him. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can’t believe we got all that for only fifty pounds.’

  He spoke like a mock gangster from an old movie. ‘Stick around, babe. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The next morning, Ginger slipped out of bed early and woke Iain with a mug of tea.

  He blinked at her for a few seconds then beamed and sat up, taking the mug. ‘I don’t insist on five-star service but I must say this is a great way to be woken. Are you coming back to bed with a drink for yourself?’

  ‘No, I can’t. That’s why I wanted to stay here last night, remember? The shopfitter is coming today and I want to go over my ideas first.’ Her voice became diffident as she asked, ‘Do you think Nell meant it when she said I could change what she’d talked about with him – the design of the café, I mean?’

  ‘I’m sure she meant it. Do you have some better ideas?’

  ‘Yes. And I think they’ll allow the café to work much more efficiently. Come and see.’

  ‘Give me a couple of minutes.’ He took a sip of tea and headed for the bathroom, joining her in the shop area clad only in jeans.<
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  She walked up and down, gesturing and explaining, and somehow he could see exactly what she meant and how well it’d work for moving around to serve customers and prepare food. In that sense the two of them had similar skills, he decided, because he too had to manipulate spaces mentally when designing gardens.

  ‘Well?’ She looked at him anxiously.

  ‘It’s brilliant, absolutely right.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yes. I can see how well it’d work and it’d certainly make the most of the small space.’

  She let out her breath in a big whoosh of relief.

  ‘Have confidence in yourself, love,’ he chided. ‘You’ve a lot of skills.’

  ‘But no formal education to prove it.’

  ‘Neither have I. I had to go into the family business when I was sixteen because my father wasn’t well. He could tell me what to do and teach me about commercial gardening but he got breathless if he tried to work. The important thing here isn’t a piece of paper qualification, but that you’ve got a good brain and know how to use it.’

  He nearly fell over as she flung herself at him, hugging him and kissing him. He was coming to understand how life had battered her and how she had had to fight for every single thing she had. If that son of hers didn’t pull himself together, Iain would personally stand between them and protect her from more bullying.

  Oh, he was a goner, had been almost as soon as he met Ginger. She was so right.

  ‘You know what,’ he said suddenly. ‘We should get married. Would you do that – marry me, love?’

  She froze and her eyes seemed to go huge as she goggled at him. ‘Marry you? Isn’t it, well, a bit soon?’

  ‘Nope. I was sure almost as soon as I met my first wife and we were truly happy together, and I feel just as sure with you, love. I know this is quick, but hey, I’m not a bad bet.’

  ‘You’re the most wonderful bet that I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Is that a yes?’