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

by Laura Kemp

  The last time Annie had been here, it was still concrete and brick. Now it was fresh but cosy, with white-painted walls, low lighting, proper furniture and books on newly assembled shelves. A speaker was playing something folky and the air was thick with smiling, wine and beer while Lew cracked on in the kitchen area.

  Annie went to the window and admired a sunset that was throwing purples and reds above the mountain.

  ‘It’s not so bad here, is it?’ Wanda said, joining her. ‘You look hot, by the way.’

  ‘Probably a flush from the wine!’ Annie said, feeling her cheeks.

  ‘Hot as in sexy!’ Wanda leaned in.

  ‘Oh. Do I?’ Compliments may as well have been spoken in Russian, they were that foreign.

  ‘Yes. Look at you!’ Wanda said. ‘All toned but with soft curves and your hair is amazing.’

  ‘I … er … only washed it.’ She held out a greying tendril, which sprang back into place when she moved her hand to her palm-leaf-printed tunic. It was a charity shop find and went well over leggings.

  ‘Got your eye on anyone?’ Wanda asked.

  ‘No! I wouldn’t know what to do.’ Flirting was like a strange language too. She’d never got the hang of it, not even with Dean, who’d commandeered the chase and snapped her up before she’d realised it was happening. That had been his way, to engulf her rather than draw her out gently. She thought of Spike again then; he looked gorgeous tonight in a bright white T-shirt and jeans. ‘What about you?’

  ‘God no. My relationship history is pretty poor. A few boyfriends here and there, but mostly through work, you know, travel conference flings. I was always convincing myself I would be off any day so what was the point in having a steady thing going on?’

  ‘You’ve got to live in the here and now though, sometimes, haven’t you?’

  Wanda weighed it up. ‘Yes, in life, but with men?’

  Annie heard Lew calling her, so she went to him.

  ‘Can you help me dish up?’

  ‘’Course. What have we got then?’

  ‘Slow-roasted lamb shanks, braised leeks and potato pancakes. Carys brought some of her bara brith, chocolate chip and mint flavour. And cheese courtesy of Blod.’

  ‘You know I said I’d do your garden, didn’t you? I didn’t want to bring anything crap.’

  ‘Relax. I know money’s tight.’

  Money was very tight. The divorce costs on top of the kennel were taking her to the limit. Blod had offered a loan but there was no way she’d do that.

  ‘A hand outside is worth more than a bottle of Lambrusco. Right, let’s get these plates on the table!’

  The meat was succulent, the leeks oh-so soft, the potato pancakes creamy but crisp and all that remained of the cake and cheese were crumbs. An hour later, everyone was happy, full and content, as well as up to date with everyone’s news because they’d switched seats between courses. The headlines were that Bowen was settling in very well in his flat and was very tidy, much to Wanda’s relief. Pastor Pete revealed one of his flock had caught a bunch of kids playing with matches at the foot of the mountain. Glanmor had started flamenco lessons and was surprisingly light on his feet. Blod’s niece Belmira was coming from Portugal to see her. Best of all, Wanda’s mam was in the clear and free to come home on Tuesday. Perhaps it was the booze, the Easter bank holiday or everyone’s relief that Wanda and Lew had buried their public hatchet, but the atmosphere was so jolly and Annie hadn’t laughed as much in ages. Friends really were the best. Their chattering was cut short when Lew tapped a glass with his spoon.

  ‘So tonight isn’t any old Friday night,’ he began. He was beaming with joy – it was like seeing the old Lew. And Annie noticed the bags under his eyes had faded.

  ‘No, it isn’t! It’s Good Friday!’ Pastor Pete declared, making a sign of the cross.

  ‘It seems the right time then to say a few words. About looking ahead, making the most of what we’ve got here in Gobaith. Wanda got me thinking,’ he said, his eyes landing on her, which made her blush. Wanda had been her usual animated self while they were eating, her ginger waves dancing as she spoke with her hands, but now she sat quite still and contained, listening to what Lew had to say.

  ‘I’d like to think The Bunkhouse is going to be good for Gobaith. It opens tomorrow properly and we’ve a group of walkers coming, so I hope they’ll be down at your shop, Blod, or might need something from you, Spike; a coffee at yours, Alis; a souvenir from you, Sara.’

  ‘Spiritual enlightenment from me?’ Pastor Pete added.

  ‘And that of course!’ Lew said. ‘Maybe if they have a good time, they might recommend us, drum up some trade for the campsite, too. I know Wanda has plans for that. We’re not doing badly, this village, but there’s always room to do better. And I’ve looked into what Wanda said about the mountain – I’ve had two independent surveyors come here in the week and they both calculated via GPS that it is actually an inch over two thousand feet.’

  A murmur of impressed surprise went up – there was hope for Gobaith hill!

  ‘I’m in contact with the Ordnance Survey people and they’re going to have a look. It’d mean if it was officially a mountain then we’d have walkers and ramblers coming out of our ears!’

  ‘I better get some mint cake in!’ Blod cried.

  ‘The International Dark Sky Association people, too, I’ve spoken to them; it takes a year or two to get formal designation but it’s a start. That too would put us on the map.’

  Lew’s ideas had everyone agreeing like nodding dogs and it wasn’t long before they added ideas of their own. Wanda, too.

  ‘Annie gave me some very useful advice recently,’ she said, which made Annie’s heart surge at the name-check. ‘She said to do all the things I wanted to do when I went travelling but to do them here. To embrace the now. I’d planned to do cooking, volunteering, dancing … so how about … Carys, you could do freshly baked bara brith for the campsite every morning. That’s sort of cooking!’

  Carys clapped and said yes straight away.

  ‘We could have a disco, maybe, in the summer, at the hall, a fundraiser for the fire service? That’d be the dancing bit.’

  ‘I can do the playlist!’ Pastor Pete said. ‘I love my dance classics!’

  ‘Stick some Abba on there for me, please!’ Blod put her hands together in prayer.

  Annie suddenly found herself joining in. ‘And the volunteering bit, I could do a gardening club for kids, you know, grow fruit and veg and … make herb pizza pots with basil and oregano … We can do seasonal stuff like grow pumpkins for Halloween … sell our produce … the time is right to do it, the last frost won’t be long …’

  Doubt toppled in as she spoke – she was getting carried away. Since when had anyone thought she’d had anything to contribute? But she was proved wrong.

  ‘Yes! You can have a patch on the campsite!’ Wanda said.

  ‘You can have all my coffee grounds for the compost!’ Alis offered.

  ‘I’ll help!’ Spike said instantly. ‘You’ll come, won’t you, Arthur?’

  Arthur glanced up from his screen with scorn. She needed something to draw him out of himself. What did children go for these days? She had nothing else to offer but Teg – but canine therapy was brilliant for lost souls.

  ‘I’ll throw my dog in if that makes a difference?’ she said.

  He burst into a smile. ‘I love dogs.’ Then his expression darkened. ‘Dad said we could get one, one day. Like that’ll ever happen.’

  ‘We will. I just need to get us settled ’ere first. How about the gardenin’ club, then?’

  ‘I’ll go if I have to,’ Arthur said, heavily, but Annie knew she was onto something.

  There was one last contribution. But it wasn’t a light-hearted suggestion. Bowen suggested someone went into the primary and secondary schools with him to
talk about the danger of fire.

  ‘I’d do it, but it’d look like a sermon,’ Pastor Pete said. ‘It’s got to be someone the kids will look up to. It’s mostly boys doing it too, perhaps someone … like you, Lew?’

  Quickly, Lew ruled himself out. ‘No, no. Not my area of expertise.’

  He got up and threw himself into clearing the table. Annie understood both sides of it: Bowen didn’t know the weight his words had carried and Lew had drawn a line on the past.

  The matter was dropped, the music was turned up and Blod boogied with Pastor Pete. But it wasn’t long before big yawns broke out. Spike was the first to announce he had to leave to get Arthur home for bed. Annie found herself hungry for a hug – what was she like after a few glasses of wine! But she was disappointed when Arthur dragged his dad to the door. She consoled herself with a tentative plan to possibly ask Spike out for coffee to discuss the gardening club. He wasn’t going anywhere … or was he? Because Wanda had sprung to her feet and had gone to him, holding out an overflowing bag.

  ‘Before you go, Spike! Some throws, cushions, a few frames, charity stuff mainly, but some new things too. For your house. To make it a bit more cwtchy.’

  Annie felt ever so small then: there she was getting excited about spending time with Spike in the garden and really, it was insignificant in the scheme of things. It was pure self-pity, but she wondered if Wanda had her eyes on him, having heard Annie’s advice to live in the now. And oh! He was hugging her in thanks. Straight away, Annie got a grip of herself. With no home of her own, without Teg and flying solo after years of marriage, she was vulnerable. She had fought so hard to be free. She had to put it into perspective. Her priority was to learn to love herself before she was ready to reach out to anyone else.

  14

  We used to come here as kids way back when and my brother, sister and I decided to bring our children for the Easter weekend. It was quieter than we remembered but then we made enough noise to make up for it. Wanda, who recognised us from years ago would you believe, put on an egg hunt. A lovely touch.

  The Morris, Steel and Hill families. From all over!

  Campsite Visitors’ Book

  ‘Welcome home!’

  Carys pulled a party popper in the hall as Mam arrived with Wanda in tow with her bags.

  ‘What are you trying to do? Kill me?’ Mam said, holding her chest as sprays of pastel green, pink and blue streamers gently landed on her new hairdo. A mobile hairdresser had given her a textured and highlighted Jane Fonda look and, with her make-up on, a smart Breton top and jeans, she seemed determined to come back fighting. It was as if she’d vowed she wouldn’t let her kids see her near-beaten again. There had been a brief moment when her mother hesitated before the sliding hospital doors discharged her back into the land of the living – it must have been a shock to the system to leave the cocoon of care. But she’d made light work of her crutches to get to the Land Rover, where she’d reversed her backside into the passenger seat with determination, rolling down the window for lungfuls of air, declaring she couldn’t wait for her own bed.

  ‘Sorry I didn’t come with Wanda to get you, Mam.’ Carys led them into the kitchen. ‘I was doing this,’ she said, pointing out the afternoon tea she’d put together.

  ‘I did phone ahead but the hospital said it didn’t have a spare crane to hoist you out the car, Caz,’ Wanda said, stroking her sister’s blossoming sixteen-week bump. ‘I don’t mean it, you two, about your mother,’ she said reassuringly to it. ‘I love her really.’

  Carys took Mam’s coat while Wanda chucked the keys in the bowl and put the kettle on.

  ‘What have you done with the place?’ Mam tutted, surveying her kingdom. ‘Where’s all my rubbish?’

  ‘Filed away safe.’ Although Wanda had also binned a load, too. She hardly dared breathe as she awaited her mother’s verdict.

  ‘Well, I think it looks … perfect!’

  Wanda sighed with relief – after all, it was Mam’s and Carys’s home, while she herself had really only been holding the fort. Pleasure was all over Mam’s face. She loved a do – any excuse and she’d put on a buffet, organise games, invite anyone within a radius of Wales to join them. But today was different and they all knew it. Not just a homecoming, but also a change from how things had been and both Wanda and Carys were nervous about what she’d make of it. The sisters had chatted about Wanda’s ideas for the campsite and Carys was on board. But as it was Mam’s business, she was the one whose opinion mattered.

  ‘Lovely, just the three of us,’ Mam said, pulling her girls in for a group hug. ‘Actually, there’s five of us. Three generations!’

  They stayed with her a while, reunited, Mam’s soft cheeks sandwiched between her daughters, until Wanda gasped. ‘Mam! Your hips! Are we hurting you?’

  ‘No! I’m a bit wonky, but I’m in no pain. I’ll show you my exercises later. Come on, this spread won’t eat itself.’

  And what a spread! Not just the tiered cake stands loaded with dainty crustless sandwiches of egg and cress and cucumber and shiny beef and horseradish brioches, nor Bread and Butter bakery’s finest selection of mini eclairs, fruit tarts and Welsh cakes with sides of jam and cream. Mam’s best china was out too and there was a vase of upstanding purple, yellow, red and orange tulips. It was topped off with a tablecloth of Welsh dragons and each of the three chairs had tied gold helium balloons which swayed with joy.

  ‘So what’s new?’ Mam said, retaining her crown as mother with the pot of Welsh Brew. ‘And don’t pretend otherwise. The wheel has turned, it looks like, since I was here.’

  ‘You go first, Caz,’ Wanda said, because this was more important than anything to do with the campsite.

  ‘I don’t know how you feel about going back to the hospital, Mam, seeing as you’ve just left,’ she said, piling her plate high, ‘but I’ve had the date through for my next scan and I wanted you both to come.’

  ‘You try and stop us!’ Mam crowed.

  ‘We can find out what they are. They think they know, my last scan two weeks ago gave them an inkling, but this one it’ll be confirmed. We can start thinking of names …’ Then Carys’s mouth fell open. ‘Oh my God, I think I just felt them move. The midwife said it’d be around now! Either that or it’ll be a fart.’ She stared ahead with her hands frozen.

  ‘It’ll be like a popping sensation,’ Mam said in a hushed voice. ‘I remember you, Carys, you were quite subtle to begin with. Wanda was like a cork going off.’

  ‘There’s a surprise!’ Wanda laughed.

  ‘I definitely felt something then. And then! Oh my word, it’s like they’re moshing in there! They must’ve heard me calling them Rock and Roll.’

  Wanda got up and made a beeline for the bump.

  ‘Too early for us to feel them,’ Mam said.

  Wanda felt a little sadness that she had no common ground in this situation. She’d never been anywhere near thinking about babies.

  ‘But soon they’ll be like a couple of fly-halves in there. Kicking away! You’ll be thinking they’ll be born wearing rugby boots. And boxing gloves, too!’

  Her expression, her dramatics, made Wanda smile, though. In a moment of self-awareness, she realised this was where she got it from. And there she’d been thinking that Carys and Mam were the peas in a pod – homebirds with the same heart-shaped face and brown eyes. The family script had decreed Wanda was like Dad, with their baby blues, red hair and travelling tendencies. It was a bit of a revelation: maybe that was why she had been able to throw herself into the campsite revamp? Was she, dare she think it, not in fact a wandering soul at all? That might be the subconscious reason why she had never left; And if that was the case … Dear Lord, no, she couldn’t bear going down that road because if she did, she’d be here for ever.

  ‘Your turn, Wanda!’ Mam took a slurp of her tea, announcing it to be heaven-sent, with apologies
to Gloria, the hospital tea lady.

  ‘Okay. Right … So … what it is …’

  ‘Hang on, before you say anything,’ Mam interrupted, ‘I need to get this out of the way. Because what you’ve done to the site is absolutely smashing. The confusion and so on, the state I let this place get in; I practically left Carys a single mother by not taking Daniel’s details.’

  ‘Mam!’ Carys cried. ‘I should’ve taken his number! I’m an adult! So silly of me to play it cool with him.’

  She waved her daughter’s words away. ‘I’ve come to a decision. To let you two make the decisions. Whatever it is you want, I want too. Even if you want to sell up. I owe you both, leaving you to handle such a mess. So go on, Wanda …’

  ‘I want to make a real go of it here. We both do, me and Carys. I can do the main running of it, Carys can help you and you can do whatever you can manage, Mam. Soon we’ll be five and they’ll need a home.’

  ‘But what about your travels, Wanda?’ Mam said. ‘I realise you must’ve been using your own money to keep this from sinking and you’ll get every penny back, I swear. There’s some savings, me and your father ring-fenced them off for you girls, but I can get hold of them—’

  ‘Stop! Let’s just give this a go. I can travel another time, maybe in a few months, once we know where we are. And, actually, I’m quite enjoying rediscovering Gobaith. I’m seeing it with new eyes.’

  She had Annie to thank for that, and then there was Lew, who had kept his distance from her at the open evening but had made her feel welcome. The less said about how handsome he’d been that night and how she’d found herself staring at him over the table the better. Wanda got up to retrieve a plastic file from the clutter-free sideboard.

  ‘I’ve been working on this,’ she said, pulling out three stapled copies of a series of sheets of A4 and handing them out. ‘Here are our main problems as you can see in the bullet points. First, identity, no one knows we’re even here. Second, communication. And third, we have no unique selling point. So I propose we get ourselves a name, a website and an answerphone. And we look at what we’ve got that’s unique to us, work out who wants it and then market it to them. The figures and trends and pie charts and all that, they’re all in my report, you can peruse those at your leisure. I’ve detailed what I see as solutions to our USP on page two.’