Under a Starry Sky: A perfectly feel-good and uplifting story of second chances to escape with this summer 2020!

by Laura Kemp

  Now, overtired and anxious about Mam, Wanda couldn’t rein in her drama queen. The season started in a week’s time and it would never be up to scratch. Her father would be mortified. How had her mother and sister let it get to this? And where did she start with what needed to be done to get it ready? Because it would fall to her, and quite rightly, because Carys wouldn’t be up to it, the larger and more exhausted she got; her job would be to look after Mam.

  Her agonising took her to a place Wanda had long ago buried – back to the darkness of being fresh with grief, blaming herself for Dad’s death. He’d gone in to the house to look for her, so it was her fault. Her mind was hurtling back to the fire and forwards to Mam’s accident, making a connection which would have to be shaken off in the light of day, but here, in the silence of the farmhouse, in the lonely hours of the night, she wondered if she was jinxed. Yes, it was self-pity, but it was also fear, and she couldn’t stop herself wondering if there was something in her daring to leave that led to bad things happening.

  Cross with herself for playing the victim, Wanda wiped away tears and turned off the lights. But the voice of common sense was drowning in the darkness and right now it felt as if she would forever be going nowhere.

  3

  A trickle of sweat ran down the small of Annie Hughes’s back as she wielded her roaring two-metre strimmer through a jungle of brambles.

  Sunrise was glinting off the blade and already her feet were sodden from the frost, she stank of petrol and her nails were black as coal.

  Remind me again, she thought as her hot breath made clouds in the crisp air, why do I call myself The Lady Gardener?

  That business card of hers, of a dainty hippy female silhouette among flowers, birds and bees, was as close to the reality of working life as her marriage had been to Mills & Boon. The name was also open to interpretation – one woman had rung asking if Annie ‘did those waxes, you know, the South American ones’.

  But she forgot the brutality of eight hours’ physical labour as many days a week as she could manage to cover the costs of no income in winter. She set aside the beef of working in all weathers, in the finger-numbing cold, like today, and the blistering heat and the punishing wind and rain. She accepted the pain of injury, from her industrial lawnmower battering her arms, to thorns stuck deep in her skin. And she rose above the misunderstandings and cheap innuendoes about trimming bushes.

  Because The Lady Gardener was hers and hers alone. It paid the bills and it had given her the security to afford the biggest decision of her life. It made Annie feel strong and capable: she had the muscles to show that. It was a defiant cry of self-respect and a very firm two fingers up at her ex, and anyone else who’d bad-mouthed her, and there’d been plenty. No one had ever called her a lady before. Ever.

  Besides, it was all she had – she had no qualifications, contacts or family money to fall back on. Her sideline of herbal remedies, which soothed her own scrapes and aches and teased thorns out of her hands, was more of a hobby than a source of income. And when it came down to it, how many people were one hundred per cent happy at work? Despite the chill, the sunstroke and the back-breaking digging, Annie was blessed – she was her own boss and, as of two months ago, her own woman. Okay, she might have been forced to move back home to Gobaith, where she was still tagged as ‘one of those Hugheses’, to sleep on Blod’s sofa for a while until the sale of the house went through. But The Lady Gardener had given her a second chance at life. And wow! Just as the shadow of the mountain retreated, Annie saw something. She cut out her power tool and lifted the scratched visor of her face shield to admire this gem: a long-abandoned nest, of spindly sticks and wispy feathers, damp moss and crunchy leaves, all useless apart but together, woven perfectly by a bird’s beak, it had been a home.

  The Lady Gardener also gave her this – moments of sheer wonder at Mother Nature. These magical surprises, which happened every time she went to work, could be anything from a wet spider’s web twinkling like a chandelier dripping with diamonds or a single red poppy blossoming through a crack of patio, to a humble earthworm enriching the soil of a flowerbed or bulbs multiplying year after year.

  The best things in life are free, her Nanna Perl had always said. When Annie was young, she’d only feel sad because it reminded her how poor they were. But now she could understand what she’d meant: joy was all around you if you looked for it. And it was here in abundance, she thought, wiping her brow with a gloved hand.

  Spring was definitely on its way – bare branches were coming alive with shoots of green, sprays of wild garlic were carpeting the ground and swooping red kites had begun their aerial displays in search of a mate.

  Annie took a huge lungful of countryside air and felt almost at peace: there was just one thing missing and that was Teg. She stared into the distance, imagining her sniffing the grass, lolloping after a squirrel or resting, tongue out, as she held her face to the sun. Her ghost was everywhere, a gust of wind disturbing a bush was her ferreting around for a lost ball and a brush of her knees against a damp plant was her nose asking if it was treat time yet.

  Teg was her five-year-old mongrel with the skinny legs of a greyhound, the shaggy grey coat of a wolfhound and the purest grey eyes, which were as deep with loyalty as the lake. How she missed her constant companion, whether outside with her at work or curled up by her feet on her bed; but because of Blod’s cats, Annie had had to put her in kennels. Huge, smelly and belonging to a Hughes, no one would’ve had her and she hadn’t even bothered asking. Yes, she could’ve brought her with her every day, but it killed her enough when she had to say goodbye at the end of her visits – it would only confuse her if she had to send her back every night. Teg was better off with a routine, in spite of the cost, but she’d halved it with an arrangement to maintain the kennel grounds. It wouldn’t be forever; soon she’d be reunited with her best buddy, her comfort – and her protector, who, if she was here now, would be stood as still as a statue, bar her nostrils flaring to catch the scent of the woman coming towards her in order to detect whether she was friend or foe …

  Annie’s stomach dropped when she saw this one was definitely foe. Her warmth deserted her as a blue-eyed stare turned the space between them glacial.

  The figure of Wanda Williams had been purposeful but non-threatening as she’d squelched through the mudbath of the clearing, but now she’d recognised Annie, her body language became hostile, with a stern chin and forceful shoulders. Well, of course it would be.

  You idiot, Annie told herself, why did you think it was a good idea to come to the campsite? Did you really think you could nip in and out unnoticed with a noisy strimmer and then go to work shining your halo?

  In what she saw now as a moment of madness, she’d decided last night to be a good Samaritan when Blod had told her Wanda’s mam had had an accident. To her trained eye, every time she drove past the site she saw how overgrown it was. Wanting to do something for Lyn, she’d come up with a quick tidy-up of the hedges. But obviously now she looked like a trespassing nutter. And that madness was actually desperation – of trying to make amends. Cutting a hedge uninvited was hardly going to make up for her brother’s suspected hand in Gobaith’s biggest ever tragedy, depriving a family of a husband and a father and a community of an upstanding man.

  What had she been thinking? Even coming back to Gobaith at all – but then she’d had nowhere else to go. In the aftermath of the fire, her shameless extended ragtag family of cousins and aunties had upped and fled to the nearest benefits town on the coast. So thanks to Nanna Perl’s lifelong friendship with her, Blod’s it was, and she had stayed under the radar, up out and early to do her jobs across the valley in her old neck of the woods, only to return after dark and hole herself up to avoid ostracised silence or confrontation. But during the dark winter nights, when the fire was going and they pottered about, Blod doing her knitting and Annie making her ointments, Blod would fill her in
on the goings-on of Gobaith and Annie felt herself being drawn back in. Every day for the last fifteen years she had felt loss: of Ryan’s death and of her friendship with Wanda. Hearing about the comings and goings had exposed her old scars – of guilt on Ryan’s behalf, the burden of being from ne’er-do-well stock. So she’d acted on it and with hindsight it was crazy. Like walking into a lion’s lair.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Wanda said tightly. Her cheeks were flushed though, and she looked as if she was struggling to keep a lid on her emotions. That was the Wanda Annie had known. She crossed the arms of a shabby padded wax jacket across her chest. The coat was obviously not hers, it was too big for her, as were those gaping wellies. How could someone who had lived outdoors as a child look so foreign to it now? I suppose that’s what comes from sitting in an office all day, Annie thought. There was further evidence of Wanda’s indoor lifestyle close up: her face had barely aged. Yes, there were a few crow’s feet, and she looked tired. But her complexion was clear and her orange waves hung as if they’d been styled that way – as ever, she looked normal and loved and cared for. Annie was weathered beyond her years; her hair was a long dark tangle of black turning grey – she couldn’t afford the hairdresser – and her hands were gnarled and blistered.

  She shrank into her leaking boots and laid down her strimmer in submission.

  Because Wanda had every reason to hate her. Never mind her attempt at living an honest life and doing the decent thing, Annie was the only reminder left of her younger brother Ryan. Their mother wanted nothing to do with her, hadn’t done from the day she was born. Young and unable to cope, she’d handed Annie over to her own mam, Nanna Perl, who’d brought her up – but she had long since passed. Ryan’s father was dead and Annie’s had buggered off before she was born. That left Annie to face the music. She wouldn’t have left Mid Wales anyway – memories of her brother were all around and as much as they hurt, they were all she had of him. Her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s sneer, which he couldn’t even hold in until the funeral was over, was in her ears: ‘Good riddance to the little shit. He was only ever going to give you trouble.’

  Ah, she thought, catching herself, you don’t have to listen to Dean Pincher any more. Twenty years together with someone; it was a hard habit to break when you didn’t feel like you deserved a good man or a good life.

  But she had to, because she’d already wasted half her life – Annie owed it to herself to be herself. She was free; her ex had no idea she was here, he’d never think she’d return to this village. Her spine straightened a fraction because she was just forty and it would all come good …

  But probably not this second, she thought, as Wanda turned up the intensity of her contemptuous glare.

  ‘Just tidying up the campsite; it’s opening full-time from next week, isn’t it?’ Annie heard the tremble in her own voice.

  ‘I know when the season starts, thank you,’ Wanda said, oozing with sarcasm, as thick as Nanna Perl’s jam on a doorstep of bread. The sub-zero temperature of this reception was the very least Annie could expect.

  ‘I heard about your Mam, I’m sorry.’

  Wanda twitched, catching but ignoring Annie’s attempt at conciliation. ‘I never asked you to come here.’

  ‘I just wanted to help,’ Annie said.

  ‘Why would you do that?’ Wanda asked, incredulous.

  Annie wanted to blurt it all out: I’m doing it to try to repair the damage caused by my brother. But she’d only get a well-deserved whipping of words from Wanda.

  ‘Because it needs doing. A quick job before my day starts …’

  Wanda looked suspicious; unsurprisingly, considering Annie’s family history. She needed to explain that she wasn’t here casing the joint.

  ‘Because … you know how things are for the campsite …’

  Wanda’s eyebrows knitted together with fury at Annie’s clanger. Yes, it was run-down compared to its heyday of twenty years ago, but Wanda wouldn’t want to be reminded of its decline. Annie braced herself for a verbal battering. What came out, though, was rather more desperate.

  ‘Yes, well, I’m sorting it. It’ll be ready.’ Wanda nodded firmly. ‘Now that I’m not going away.’

  In an instant, Annie felt sorry for her. She’d heard Wanda was leaving – Annie had always kept her ear to the ground, hoping one day she’d learn that Wanda had gone to see the world as she’d once dreamed. It had continually amazed her that every snippet about Wanda had been mundane chatter of her life in Gobaith. So to know that she’d almost made her getaway but had been prevented at the eleventh hour filled Annie with sorrow. While Wanda was no longer a friend of hers, Annie wished no ill on anyone. Not even Dean Pincher. Acceptance and moving on was a straighter path to happiness than bitterness. There was also a tiny speck of hope that maybe she might be useful – she’d grab any opportunity to make amends to the Williamses.

  ‘I can help out,’ Annie offered. ‘Ask around, too.’

  Wanda looked at her as if she was mad and then stalked off back to the farmhouse. Annie understood why: she was tainted by association.

  But Wanda hadn’t said no. Annie would hold on to that. She had to believe in the power of good: Blod hadn’t given a stuff about Annie’s past when she had offered to put her up.

  Getting this place back to its former glory, to the summers of bobbing dinghies on the lake and the sound of kids in the playground, could heal them all. Before that, though, this jungle of weeds, nettles and brambles needed to be cleared.

  Annie lifted her hand to drop her visor and saw the sun rise above the mountain: it turned the lake a breathtaking blue, as if the curtains had been drawn. She took it as a sign – a smile from the heavens. And then she pulled hard on the cord of her strimmer and revved it up. You had to start somewhere, didn’t you?

  4

  Stunning landscape and the sky at night is a thing to behold! It would’ve been lovely to go out on the lake but the canoes were broken. Lovely welcome from Lyn – we’re very sorry to hear she is in hospital – but the campsite could do with a freshen-up.

  Mr and Mrs Green, Devizes

  Campsite Visitors’ Book

  It was bad enough with Mam in hospital and the mess of the campsite. Chuck Annie on top and Wanda couldn’t think straight.

  She saw her hand tremble as it turned the back door handle to let herself in after the showdown with her former friend. Today, she’d woken up determined to be positive. Even though she’d slept fitfully in her room, which had never felt like hers after the house was renovated, she’d vowed there’d be no more ‘poor me’ after last night’s descent into self-pity.

  And it’d been a good start, if a very early one. Over a strong cup of coffee, she’d gone online to inform the insurance company, airline, Colombian B&B and language school that she had to cancel. While her heart longed to be at Mam’s bedside, the practicalities meant Wanda needed to be here and so she’d seen Carys off to the hospital with a crack-of-dawn fry-up before beginning to tackle the pile of bills. But the nearby buzz of some kind of machinery had sent her outside to discover her former friend was on their land.

  Shock that she would be here, of all places, after all these years, quickly gave way to anger and then disbelief as Annie stood there claiming she was cutting the hedgerows because she wanted to do Mam a favour. It was a blatant self-serving motive, that’s what it was – she wanted to appease her guilty conscience, more like. How dare she try to take advantage of Mam’s misfortune to wheedle her way back into the good books of Gobaith?

  And the way she’d said she’d known how things were at the campsite had cut to Wanda’s core – the absolute cheek of her. Yes, it was obvious things weren’t fine and dandy; the cold light of day was unforgiving, but it wasn’t Annie’s place to say it.

  How she’d managed to restrain herself, Wanda didn’t know. Annie’s offer to help out would absolutely never be take
n up. So why hadn’t she thrown her off the land?

  Wanda didn’t want to answer that because it suggested that perhaps a very small piece of her had registered a kindness, as if to say time had passed and here they both were: if they were going to be within the same village then they should be on the same side. But that could never be, surely?

  Sunshine streamed in through the kitchen window and hit the dusty dresser where Dad’s camping trophies should have been. A lump came to her throat – he’d be here if it wasn’t for Ryan. The verdict at Dad’s inquest had been ‘open’ – she felt the outrage anew that the finger of blame had never conclusively pointed at Ryan. No one could prove that he actually started the fire. But everyone knew the truth – that in a fit of rage he’d torched the mountain, seeking destruction. Damn it, she thought, screwing up her fists, pulsing with grief. Tears came again and her shoulders began to heave as if she was back in the past. After the fire, when they’d spent the night at a neighbour’s, she and Carys had woken to Mam’s gentle moans from downstairs. They’d tiptoed out to the landing to see a policewoman bowing her head, having delivered the news they’d dreaded. The funerals had been so different: Dad’s was jam-packed and dignified, Ryan’s apparently poorly attended and drunken. She remembered Mam holding her back, pleading for her to behave when she had clocked Annie at her father’s service.

  If only Mam hadn’t had her accident … she’d be checked in at the airport, putting thousands of miles between herself and the past. Instead, she was distressed about her mother, at the helm of a failing campsite and an emotional wreck, all compounded by being up against the clock. Was she being dramatic? She thought back to the most recent comment from the departing guests this morning, who had suggested a ‘freshen-up’ as if nothing more than a wet wipe was required. They’d been nice people, though; they were obviously being polite because Wanda could see the enormity of the task at hand.