by Laura Kemp
The delicious aroma of baking greeted Wanda when she got up on the first official day of the season.
The sweet smell took her back to her childhood when Mam would welcome them home from school with a still-warm slab of bara brith, made from her own granny’s recipe. Thanks to an overnight soaking of raisins in Welsh brew, the tea bread was so much moister than fruit cake. A stab of sadness came to her as she trod the stairs and found not her mother but Carys in a pinny.
‘Morning! How are you?’ her sister said brightly, her eyes searching Wanda for signs of a repeat of last week’s breakdown over the world’s smallest grass fire.
Carys had been an absolute gem in the days since, taking care of the cooking in between visiting Mam as well as her. Wanda had been surprised that a sniff of smoke had hurled her backwards to the fire which claimed her father, and embarrassed that she had been so exposed, not just to her sister and Blod but to Annie and Lew. Carys had stroked her hair late into the night, listening to Wanda’s tearful admission that she still felt responsible for Dad’s death and repeating to her over and over that she wasn’t to blame. Did Wanda believe it? Not completely, not yet, but Carys had taken her to a better place – to hear that she it wasn’t Wanda’s fault, that no one thought so, that things happened, and that while you couldn’t change the past you could accept it, had been a revelation.
‘I’m good,’ Wanda said, truthfully. Being treated with kid gloves had been what she’d needed and because Carys had done that, she felt recharged.
The community had played a massive part in that, too. They’d sworn not to breathe a syllable of Wanda’s upset to her mother, as she had developed an infection and was feeling very homesick.
They’d come in droves over the weekend to get the campsite ready for today. The hard work and determination of the volunteers to fix the electrics, the plumbing and the general bombsite appearance of the place had been humbling. Wanda was incredibly grateful, even to Annie and Lew; in fact, especially to Annie and Lew. They owed her nothing, but still they’d shown up. They hadn’t exchanged words with her, partly because they were so busy but also because their actions were speaking much louder. And Carys took the chance to tell Wanda that her grudge against her two old friends was a self-defeating waste of energy.
‘How have you got so wise?’ Wanda had asked her sister last night.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ Carys had said, ‘but I don’t think you ever really processed what happened to Dad. I was allowed to grieve, I was just a kid. I remember you being a mother to me and Mam afterwards. Perhaps you’re a little bit stuck there still?’
Was that why she’d freaked out over the grass fire? And maybe it was time to let bygones be bygones. Annie and Lew had laid the foundations for reconciliation and now it was up to Wanda to build on them.
Carys proceeded to take a batch of bara brith out of the oven and Wanda’s stomach grumbled.
‘Five loaves? Are you baking for the whole ward?’ Wanda said, eyeing up the perfect colour and rise in Mam’s old tins.
‘I’m doing another five too before I go up the hospital. They’re not for Mam or the nurses, although that is a good idea,’ Carys said. ‘They’re to welcome the guests. I can’t do much to help you with the campsite, but I can do this.’
‘That’s lovely!’
‘Go on, have a taste!’ Carys said, slicing off the crust and slathering it with butter.
Wanda took a mouthful and her eyes widened. ‘This is lush! There’s something different in it, though …’
‘Yep!’ Carys said. ‘I’ve gone posh – it’s Earl Grey flavour! There’s also one with Welsh whisky, one with ale and one of the next lot is Cointreau.’
‘Ha! Been raiding Mam’s booze cabinet?’
‘Closest I’ll get to alcohol for a while,’ Carys said mournfully. Last night she’d confessed that if she hadn’t been pregnant, she’d have had a skinful after her latest fruitless Facebook search under the names of Daniel, Danny, Neil and Platt. Wanda had suggested a ‘Where’s Danny?’ campaign, using social media and the Manchester Evening News, but Carys was afraid of what she’d discover, and perhaps it was better not to find him. What if he was married? Being a single mother was hard; being a rejected one was worse.
‘Oh, come here,’ Wanda said, giving her a cwtch. ‘You’ve got me and Mam, you don’t need anything else.’
Carys squeezed her back. ‘Don’t get me started,’ she said. ‘I’ll ruin the bake if I cry into it!’
‘Stand by for some tears from me too! I’ve got to go out and put twelve tents up!’
Wanda spent the next two hours bashing hundreds of pegs, and lots of her own fingers, into the ground. Her vision of a dozen identical low-impact, sink-into-nature two-berth tents was not to be, however. The nearest camping shop, an hour away, hadn’t had enough in stock when she’d gone on Saturday morning. Ringing round, everywhere else was found wanting too: either they only had massively expensive geodesic ones or they’d just sold out of what she was looking for. She’d had to search online and by that point it was too late for a Sunday delivery, apart from one single website called InTents, which ominously boasted, ‘we put the FUN in camping!’ Near-delirious at this point, she’d clicked ‘confirm order’ – she had no other option – and so now what lay before her was a kaleidoscope of frankly ridiculous canvas.
She stood up, her knees creaking, walked to the edge of the field and then turned around to see them at full dazzle in the glorious and blinding beam of sunshine after a weekend of drizzle.
Oh God, it was like a psychedelic refugee camp crossed with a bonkers festival, resembling some kind of drug-induced hallucination so out of keeping with the backdrop that she wouldn’t be surprised if a strongman in a leotard trotted in bareback on a unicorn.
She hoped these macho bikers had a sense of humour. Because she could see how it could come across as a ‘camp’ piss-take. A costly one, with a price tag taking another chunk from her savings. Twelve designs in two rows facing one another, shaped like a giant slice of red pipped watermelon, a line-up of white-sliced sandwich triangles and a wedge of yellow holey cheese. The rest featured varying designs of leopardskin, bricks and mortar, stripey circus tent, strawberries, rainbows, a Welsh dragon, flamingoes, cacti and lastly a silhouette of a couple snogging.
At least the site looked spotless. Spike had ripped out the rusty playground, recruited a scrappy to take it away and rebuilt a wooden area containing a balancing trail, a see-saw and a fort. Lew had made pathways out of chippings which hid the mud and created neat boundaries and Annie had trimmed back every branch and bush. And it was all done in time … in the nick of time, as she heard a low rumble in the distance becoming a thunder of throttle which filled the basin of hills and lake, as if an earthquake was coming. That would be just her luck when she’d busted her all to get the tents up.
The first guests of the season were coming! In a cloud of mushrooming dust, twenty-four riders came up the driveway and ground to a halt, their polished silver handlebars and black helmets shining. Had they been cyclists, she’d have felt nothing but pity for their sore backsides. But the size of them in their bulky jackets and trousers, plus their manly chariots, some with ‘Blood’ stickers, made her feel suddenly vulnerable. What if they were Hells Angels? What if they were going to ransack the campsite?
The leader kicked back his side stand, dismounted and stomped towards her and she tried to swallow her fear, feeling her legs prime themselves in case she had to run.
He pulled off his helmet to reveal … he was in fact a woman with long blonde hair and a lovely warm smile.
Of course they weren’t Hells Angels. Outlaws wouldn’t have paid a deposit, would they?
‘All roight!’ the lady said in a broad Brummie accent. ‘I’m Babs, I did the booking so I’ve got our details. Oh, look at those tents! Aren’t they jolly.’
Wanda gave
an inner phew. ‘So what brings you here?’
‘We’re doing a sponsored ride. We’re all blood bikers from the Midlands, we bike blood and surgical equipment and so forth to hospitals on behalf of the NHS.’
Ha! Blood bikers! Wanda’s having feared the worst was so preposterous. When would she learn?
‘It’s a volunteer thing, we don’t get paid, but the fuel and upkeep of the bikes has to be paid for somehow. So we’re raising money with this, the Wales Wide Ride. Some of the best motorcycle roads in the world around here.’
‘Well, that’s amazing!’ Wanda cried, as positivity took her over. The group clearly weren’t glampers expecting luxury. This place was just a stop-off for them – a hot shower would be all they needed. What was there to worry about? She felt herself relax and began to hum as she took payment. Here we go, the first step of the climb to scale the mountain of woes. And, look! she noticed some shoots and buds on the hedgerows, signalling spring had bloomed overnight.
‘The sleeping bags, they’re in the tents then, are they?’ Babs said, expectantly.
‘Sorry?’ Wanda was just sorting out the receipt in the reception kiosk. She could’ve sworn Babs was asking if there were sleeping bags inside the tents.
‘Er … no.’ She looked up, confused.
‘Oh. The thing is, when we booked, the lady said it’d be no problem. We could hire them. It wasn’t the norm, but when I told her about us, how we need to keep the load down on the bikes, she said she’d help, because it’s for charity.’
No! Mam! She had forgotten to put this bit of vital information down on the booking. Bless her for being kind and all that, but details were kind of essential. See? Wanda thought, she had been right to fear the worst.
She couldn’t mess this up, though. Not least because she had no idea how to perform a refund on the machine. Where else would these people go at such short notice? But where the flaming heck was she going to get twenty-four sleeping bags? Her mind raced … her mouth opened …
‘… So, silly me, when I said no, the sleeping bags weren’t in the tents, I meant I’ve got them, obviously, well, they’re waiting to be picked up from the dry-cleaners.’
Babs was overjoyed. She backed out of the cubicle and Wanda quickstepped it in pursuit.
‘I wanted to make sure they were spotless for you,’ she added, trying to work out her plan of attack. ‘In the meantime …’
‘Ooh! Cake!’ Babs clapped her hands with delight. ‘That’s what I call a consolation!’
Cake? What?
Carys was stood at the rear of the Land Rover’s car boot, handing out vintage saucers of bara brith and milking tea from a catering urn in dainty chintz cups. It was like a scene from the Ritz as bikers drank with cocked little fingers and pulled ‘Mmm, delicious’ faces.
‘You star!’ Wanda said into Carys’s ear, before she cleared her throat to point out where the bikers would find the bathroom block, the kitchen area and the bins. Then it was time to locate twenty-four sleeping bags, so off she dashed into Gobaith. She could ask the local scout group or Pastor Pete, as she remembered he did an annual sleep-out for the homeless. But there’d be no time to wash and dry them. What was she going to do? Then miracle upon miracles, she saw Spike setting up a display of camping chairs and billy cans outside Fork Handles.
‘Spike!’ she called. ‘This is a long shot but …’
Fifteen minutes later, she was heading back with the goodies. And a date, well a sort-of one. Overwhelmed with thanks, she’d asked him if he fancied that drink.
‘It’ll ’ave to be at mine,’ he’d said, ‘Arthur’s grounded and I need to make sure he doesn’t go AWOL.’
And so, after delivering on Mam’s promise, helping wash down dirty boots from the bikers’ mountain climb and giving instructions on how to find the Travellers’ Rest, she had a quick shower, put on some make-up for the first time in days, threw some casserole down her neck which Carys had left for her and, with a bottle of white wine, made her way to Spike’s place.
The five-minute meander along a narrow lane gave her a chance to recap. She’d survived the day and Mam was stable. But she couldn’t help thinking her adventure would have been one week old today. She imagined how it would feel for her skin to be tingling from the sun and her tongue rolling with Latino rrr’s. But what was the point in torturing herself? She tried to soak up the sound of the evening chorus and admire the pink blancmange sunset, but wasn’t really feeling it.
Spike’s handsome smile and his contagious enthusiasm for his eighteenth-century semi-detached cottage made all the difference.
‘We’ve got original beams and our own bit of river at the back. It’s ’eaven!’ he said, welcoming her in. ‘Can you believe we swapped a tiny two-bed terrace on an A-road for this and the shop! You get a lot for your money round ’ere. Arthur’s got a goal in the garden and I’m going to teach him to fish. Best of all, no one’s next door, it’s empty. It’s like our own kingdom. We’re frilled to bits!’
He showed her in to the cluttered hallway stuffed with boxes and boys’ stuff, only to knock his head on the low ceiling. ‘Still getting used to it,’ he grinned, rubbing his scalp.
Wanda presented her bottle with a heartfelt thanks. ‘You did a brilliant job on the playground. And those picnic tables were a stroke of genius.’
‘My pleasure. I got to meet the gang, lovely bunch, especially Annie and Lew. You’ve got some proper friends ’ere, haven’t you?’
She nodded, and then again with more feeling because perhaps she could get over her demons and see them once more as mates.
‘Right, let’s crack this open! You go in the sitting room – I have an actual sitting room! – and I’ll get some glasses.’
Wanda prepared herself for a classic country snug with cwtchy chairs and throws and brass and bellows by the fireside.
Instead, she was overwhelmed by a huge telly showing a very fighty computer game. Sat in one of two enormous lazy-boy chairs was who had to be Arthur in headphones, his fingers in a frenzy on his console. Dusk had fallen but no lights were on, leaving the flickering explosion of colour from the screen to lash out at the room. Plates of TV dinners, one with untouched peas, broccoli and carrots, plus cups and crisp packets lay on the threadbare carpet, but everything else was empty – the walls, the shelves, the corners, the windowsills. And there was a smell of feet and farts.
This wasn’t a home for an eleven-year-old boy who needed a mother. This was a bachelor pad of extreme angular male proportions devoid of any femininity. Not even a photo of his mam was anywhere to be seen.
‘Turn that off, Arthur!’ Spike said, entering the room with a bowl of nibbles and two tumblers. Then he confessed, ‘Haven’t quite unpacked yet. It’s not easy running your own business and raising a kid on your own. Arthur! Wanda’s here!’
The boy turned round and pity rose in her chest when she saw ketchup on his school shirt.
‘Hi, Arthur!’ She was such an idiot for not bringing him anything. Even if it had been a bar of chocolate, it would’ve felt like she was including him. This child urgently needed a female influence. But she had no idea where to start. How did you cross into a confused and grieving and defensive boy’s life when you were a stranger?
‘Stay for a chat, yeah?’ Spike asked his son kindly. ‘I’ve got a smoothie for you, keep you regular!’
‘I’ve got homework,’ Arthur said, angrily switching off his game and pushing past his dad.
‘’Ave a shower when you’re done, stinker!’ Wanda could tell Spike didn’t mean it the way it came across – to a woman’s ear, the directness of blokey speech was always rather harsh. He was trying to care for his son, it was obvious from the fruit and veg count. ‘And put that shirt in the wash!’
Footsteps crashed up the stairs and a door slammed.
‘He’s just not fitting in, that’s the problem,’ Spi
ke confided, as Wanda poured the wine. ‘Detention today. His first ever. I feel like I’m letting him down.’
‘It must be hard for him.’
‘He’s turned into some patriotic English nutter. Says ’e hates Wales. He was never like this before … Lucy was all about talking about feelins and all that, but I just can’t seem to get through to ’im.’ Spike rubbed his stubbly chin and sighed, offering Wanda a seat.
‘Look, I know we only just met but—’
‘Steady on!’ he joked. ‘I thought I’d made it clear to you I wasn’t after a new mum for my son or anything,’ he said, cringing. It was a self-deprecating flag to remind her he was aware of his clumsy behaviour on their first meeting.
‘Forget it. What I mean is … maybe be mam and dad for a while. Think of something that’ll bond you together. I’m no expert, but perhaps he thinks it’s a weakness to show he misses her? Like you’re putting on this front, and I get why, you have to get on with it, earn a wage, but you could, say, do something to show she’s still there in the front of your mind. I dunno, maybe make a collage of your favourite photos of her together?’
Spike stared at her intently, his cogs working away, as if she’d tripped a switch. An hour whizzed by: she found out about his beloved wife, her work as a nurse, his decision to leave the army to care for her. How devastating it had been. And how still he couldn’t bear to unwrap the photographs … But he was determined to do it to make the cottage more homely.
When she announced through a yawn that the day had caught up with her, he immediately offered to walk her back.
‘Shuddup! This isn’t London! Thanks for tonight and for the sleeping bags, you’re a legend.’ She meant it – it would’ve been impossible without him.
‘The power of Fork Handles!’ he beamed.
‘Yeah, what is that, by the way?’
Spike waggled a pair of imaginary glasses and waited for her to get it with a huge, wide-eyed grin.
‘Sorry, I haven’t got a clue what you’re on about.’
