by Beth Moran
‘They’ve booked two doubles! The only alternative is to squeeze another single in with this one and push them together. But then we’d have to swap this wardrobe for something smaller, and we simply don’t have time to start humping furniture around.’
‘There is another alternative.’ Daniel looked resolute. ‘You can tell them we’ve had an unexpected problem with the drains. Rebook for a later date.’
‘We can’t do that now, they’ve come from London! And they haven’t exactly been impressed so far, they’ll demand a refund rather than trek back up here.’
‘Also, if you put all five of them on this floor, that’s three rooms sharing one bathroom.’ Becky deftly stuffed a pillow into its case. ‘You can’t charge two grand for a shared bathroom. A chipped, mouldy bathroom.’
‘Crap!’ I sank onto the bed, which protested with a loud creak. What was I thinking?
I was thinking five and a half thousand pounds!
We were going to have to keep bumbling on through.
‘They could have your room?’ I said, peeping at Daniel through my eyelashes. ‘Then they can use your en suite.’
‘They could not!’
‘It’s either that or Charlie’s, or we send them away with a refund. Which do you prefer?’
Daniel huffed, puffed and stared at the faded carpet for a few seconds while blinking hard, before resting his head against Hope’s fluff of hair. ‘I’ll start clearing my stuff out. Hope and I will sleep in the study. We can use Charlie’s bathroom.’
I very quickly realised that we needed reinforcements. As well as sorting the bedrooms, clearing out and scouring the bathrooms, we needed to empty the dining room, and then find the time to prepare the three-course meal I presumed they were expecting.
I called the one other person I knew in Ferrington, praying she’d not have to work that evening, and would also for some inexplicable reason be up for getting involved in an unfolding disaster.
‘Course I’ll help!’ Alice laughed. ‘It beats another night on the sofa listening to Jase playing Call of Duty. What do you need?’
My new friends were a revelation.
After showing the guests to their rooms, with an extreme apology about the lack of a bathroom for the single room (the drains excuse came in handy after all) and a promise of a slight discount, I used the guise of the glitch in the booking system to subtly discover precisely what Charlie had promised them.
A locally sourced, organic three-course dinner and breakfast I could manage.
The activities were a whole other matter. The Tufted Duck had not prepared me for what the third woman to arrive described as ‘the lifestyle reconfiguration sessions’.
A bit of googling led Daniel to DamsonFarm.com and a basic stock template website that gave scant details beyond the address and some vague marketing waffle. Charlie had cleverly created the impression of exclusivity and up-scale secrecy, rather than a half-baked shambles that hadn’t made it beyond her notebook. So, at least our guests had no preconceived notion about what lifestyle reconfiguration might look like in reality.
Becky had the best idea of the day so far: ‘I think we need to start with alcohol.’
Once Alice arrived, Becky swapped her fleece for a smart pea-coat Daniel dug out of somewhere and took everyone outside for some local mulled-cider tasting. Local, as in Alice had picked it up at the local Co-op. Mulled, as in I’d thrown in varying amounts of cinnamon, cloves and orange juice and then warmed up the three different brands of cider and decanted them into rustic-looking pitchers I’d found in the pantry.
As Alice and I raced back and forth emptying the dining room, scrubbing the bits that showed and debating whether to go with crockery that almost matched, or to embrace the situation with as random a set as we could put together, Becky held court on the patio outside, lit up by a couple of lanterns Daniel found in the garage and the new living room candles. As the group huddled amongst the weeds around a hastily repurposed side-table, she spouted forth the kind of spontaneous nonsense that had won her salesperson of the year six years in a row.
Pausing to duck her head back inside, Becky accurately assessed the situation as nowhere near ready and announced to the group that they would now be able to take a tour of the orchard and see the apple trees for themselves.
‘What, this cider was made from apples grown here, on this farm?’ I heard the endless-scarf woman ask, as I opened the dining room window to try to let the stench of mildew out.
‘You can’t seriously expect us to go trooping round the filthy countryside in the pitch dark?’ the second man, Simon, said, his voice dripping with derision.
‘Oh, come on man, where’s your spirit of adventure?’ Stephe chortled. ‘We can trust Becky, she’s an expert, after all!’
‘Oh my goodness, Simon, are you in need of a top-up, let me rectify that for you immediately!’ Becky trilled, sloshing another ladle of cider into his mug. ‘Come on, someone grab that other lantern and please, do listen out for the ghost of the Damson Damsel. Don’t forget to bring your drinks with you!’
I don’t know what she did with them, but when they returned nearly an hour later, stiff with cold, designer boots encrusted with mud, cheeks aglow, they seemed in a far better mood than when they’d left.
‘Right, then, dinner will be served at seven-thirty. Take your time freshening up. We’ll see you in the living room for pre-drinks when you’re ready.’
‘Forty minutes?’ I whispered. ‘To prepare a three-course meal from scratch?’
Becky gaped at me. ‘You haven’t started cooking?’
‘We’ve been cleaning, tidying, trying to find five wine glasses that aren’t chipped and enough towels without holes in and a million other things that needed doing. Alice’s been decanting shower gel and shampoo into old jam jars and making fancy labels out of chopped up birthday cards.’
‘Well, we’d better get cooking, then, hadn’t we?’
I grabbed her arm before she marched into the kitchen. ‘This is amazing, Becky. We’ve been friends for less than five hours and I completely love you already, but you don’t have to stay. Alice works in the pub, she’s going to act as server for me.’
Becky glanced over at Alice, her brow furrowed. ‘I’ve never seen you in the pub,’ she said, all trace of perky saleswoman Becky vanished.
Alice nodded, stopping ironing a napkin to stick her hands on her hips. ‘I’ve never seen you in the Boatman.’
Becky inhaled with a gasp. ‘Eleanor, you probably don’t know about all this yet, but she’s a New Sider.’
‘I know all about the feud that happened before either of you were born, I know that Alice is from the New Side, because she gave me a lift to the Co-op. What I’m not sure about is what that’s got to do with my current predicament.’ I went back to furiously slicing the potatoes for dauphinoise.
‘Well… what will people think?’
‘What people? I really don’t think Stephe and Saskia are going to be particularly bothered.’ I handed her a chunk of cheese and a grater. I really didn’t have time for this. ‘Alice doesn’t care, do you?’
Alice, back to ironing, looked up, a glint in her eyes. ‘I won’t tell if you don’t.’
‘Ooh.’ Becky’s eyes darted from side to side as she contemplated this seemingly mind-blowing information, that two women from opposite sides of the same village could spend an evening in a kitchen together. ‘Like a covert operation?’
Alice squirted a puff of steam from the iron into the air, as if making a point. ‘Precisely.’
‘I’ve been to thirty-seven different countries in the past six years, and got up to all sorts of things I hope my mother never finds out about. This is quite possibly the most exciting one yet.’ She stopped mid-grate. ‘Please don’t tell my mum, though, Eleanor. She’s giving me enough grief as it is. Or anyone else! I know it’s stupid and I shouldn’t care what people think. I know the whole New Siders being treacherous, sneaky bottom-feeders is probably a lo
ad of nonsense these days, but… well. No offence, Alice.’
‘None taken,’ Alice drawled. ‘Why would I want anyone to know I’m hanging out with what they consider to be a smug, self-important snob? My lips are sealed.’
Becky’s mouth fell open.
‘Although I do have a bit of a blabber mouth from time to time. I mean, we New Siders can’t be trusted, can we? I do hope I don’t accidentally mention to Luke Winter on Friday when he calls in for his pie and pint that you’re open to hanging out with New Siders these days. I’ll try really, really hard to keep my mouth shut, then.’
Becky turned a startling shade of beetroot, almost losing the tip of one finger as the grater slipped.
‘Well, I mean, sometimes these things can’t be helped,’ she muttered, her voice about three octaves higher than usual. She tapped the grater to loosen any cheese stuck to the sides. ‘I guess that’s the risk you take in trusting a New Sider.’
‘Okay, if we can draw the Ferrington politics to a close, we’ve got a sea bass with Prosecco Dauphinoise and seasonal vegetables and a locally sourced honey and damson tart to get sorted in, ooh, twenty-two minutes and counting.’
The kitchen door burst open, and Stephe and Saskia stumbled in. ‘Did someone mention Prosecco?’
It was challenging work getting back into the swing of hosting paying guests. Five was hardly a demanding number, but it can only take one or two requests to turn a straightforward dinner into a stress-soaked slog.
No, we weren’t aware that one of the guests was a vegan (apparently the cream tea earlier was an exception, because they’d had a hard week and deserved a treat). Yes, we could probably rustle up some second helpings (especially when that gave us more time to get dessert sorted). No, none of us ‘gorgeous gals’ were going to squeeze a chair in beside Stephe and tell him all about ourselves.
What we did have was Becky’s party games.
‘How’s it going?’ Daniel asked, wandering into the kitchen once he’d finally managed to settle Hope down, despite the ruckus.
‘The food went down well. Mostly. One of them only ate green beans, but I get the impression that’s all she ever eats.’
‘What’s next?’ He picked up a slice of leftover tart and took a bite, eyes widening with appreciation. I resisted the urge to fan my face with the tea-towel. The adrenaline buzz made everything seem heightened, including Daniel’s manly presence, loitering about taking up half the kitchen. I was feeling flushed with success, all dishevelled and triumphant, and it was teeteringly close to reckless.
‘They’ve been asking what the after-dinner activity is.’
‘So, what have you come up with?’
I nodded my head towards the living room. ‘Becky is about to start, if you want to see for yourself.’
‘I’d love to, but due to unforeseen circumstances I’ve not got my report done for the morning. Looks like it’ll be a long night for both of us.’
He disappeared back into the study, and I slipped into the living room. The guests were all seated around Becky, posed dramatically to one side of the crackling fireplace. Her atrocious fleece was unzipped to reveal an even worse flowery jumper, but no one seemed to notice the unprofessional attire.
‘Damson Farm is a place to dehustle and dehassle, to get away from all those crappy responsibilities and never-ending pressures. This, my friends, is a place where deadlines are dead, to-do is taboo. The only responsibility you have is to be you. The you you always wanted to be. Wild and free. Bold and beautiful. Here, you are an artist, a creator, an original. Your best you.’ Becky paused.
The only sound was Saskia sobbing gently into a tissue while Simon muttered, ‘Give me a break! Or at the very least a decent whisky.’
‘But before you reclaim the real you, we need to lose the boring, money-bags, image-conscious you. So, who’s ready?’
Alice, Becky and I were washing down the last of the tart with a pot of tea when Daniel strode into the kitchen. ‘People are galloping up and down the stairs. Something that sounded distinctly like screaming came from the direction of the conservatory. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were playing hide and seek.’
Becky grinned. ‘One more round and then we’ll calm them down with sleeping lions.’
He shook his head as if mystified, grabbed the final corner of tart and whisked back out.
15
I managed a full two hours of sleep. Becky finished off the ‘entertainment’ with hot chocolate and buttery crumpets and I finished clearing up. The guests retired just before midnight, with the promise of a packed day of activities to come. I then sped ten miles to the nearest twenty-four-hour supermarket and loaded up a trolley with food and drink. I also chucked in some patterned notebooks with matching pens and about twelve different magazines. Arriving back at the farm around two, I spent an hour planning the next day, followed by another hour having an imaginary conversation with Charlie about how on earth I’d ended up running her lifestyle reconfiguration retreat. If anyone needed a lifestyle reconfiguration, surely that was me?
When the guests bumbled downstairs for breakfast at eight, I had kicked into action mode. The breakfast table was laid, a fire crackled in the grate and the kitchen was a bastion of organised efficiency. I was wearing a sleek charcoal dress that was the essence of respectable hotelier. After her disturbed night in the study, Hope was crotchety and disgruntled, but Daniel had taken her out for a walk before a work call at ten.
Chock-full of creamy cinnamon oat-milk porridge, smoky homemade beans on rye toast and a dozen eggs (the green-bean eater enjoyed a bowl of berries while the ‘vegan’ snarfed up the spare portion of eggs), the guests gathered in the living room for the first activity.
I took another emergency trip to Charlie’s bathroom (the only one available to me at that point) to stare hard at myself in the mirror, channel something of my previous badass persona from the page to my actual personality, and grit my teeth until I was at almost no risk of bursting into tears, and then headed downstairs.
‘Right, who’s up for some vision crafting?’
‘Vision what-ing?’ Simon asked, glancing up from his phone.
‘Ooh, yes,’ green-bean-and-berries said. ‘Is there a prize for the best one? Do we get a grade?’ Her eyes went round with excitement. ‘Or a certificate?’
‘Absolutely not,’ I replied, hastily continuing after her face plummeted. ‘As you’ve already heard, Damson Farm is about you being you. It’s your vision, your craft. How can any of us judge or critique, or grade someone at being their best selves?’ I waved my hands around, trying to remember how Becky managed it the evening before. ‘Here, we don’t even judge ourselves!’
‘So, to repeat, what exactly are we going to be doing?’ Simon asked, not even bothering to look up this time.
‘We are going to be considering four questions that are vital in the quest to reconfigure our lifestyles to become our best selves. Who we were. Who we wanted to be. Who we ended up being, and who we want to become. Some of you here have spent the past ten years running yourselves into the ground chasing what you’re supposed to want. Meanwhile, your dreams are asking, “What happened to opening that café in the Alps? Where are the dogs we were going to rescue? You promised me we were going to learn the cello, try an open-mic poetry night, sit in the garden with a book and do absolutely nothing all day.”’
‘So. Once again.’ Simon offered me a hard stare. ‘What crap are we going to be wasting our time on this morning?’
‘Um, cutting out pictures and taking the other craft stuff and sticking it on these plant pots. Then you’re going to plant a seed, take it home and watch it grow, surrounded by your new vision.’
‘Ooh, that’s actually really symbolic,’ Saskia said. ‘I love cutting and sticking! It was my best subject at school.’
‘I’m missing a board meeting for this,’ Simon droned, raising his eyebrows at Stephe.
‘Come on, old chap, we’re here now. Might as well g
et your money’s worth,’ Stephe said.
‘Oh, just one more thing,’ I added, grabbing a bowl off the mantlepiece and holding it out. ‘It’s a no-phone activity.’
Simon sighed. ‘Well, there’d better be some decent booze.’
By lunchtime, the dining room table was a snowstorm of paper snippets, soil and pipe-cleaners. Hope had thoroughly enjoyed sitting in her highchair helping Simon create his vision pot, which had ended up covered in pictures of penguins, white glitter glue and hundreds of tiny foam snowflakes.
‘I just, you know, always loved penguins,’ he explained, chin wobbling. ‘Growing up, my bedroom was covered in posters of them. I adopted a pair of emperor penguins at the zoo, and they’d send me updates. I’d write back, and go and see them twice a year, and I swear they knew it was me. Peter and Penelope. Then, I dunno, exams and uni and work and before I knew it, we’d completely lost touch. Did you know,’ he paused for a monstrous sniff, ‘gentoo penguins mate for life. The male penguin finds a nice nest site, picks his woman, takes his turn when it comes to looking after the chick. A proper dad. A proper family. That’s all I wanted!’
Simon wrapped his hands around the plant pot, tears threatening in his eyes.
Of course that was the moment Daniel poked his head round the door. ‘I’m on my lunchbreak, so I can take Hope.’
He walked around the table, picked up his daughter, plucked a pink feather out of her hair and a snowflake off her cheek and left without any comment on the mess everywhere.
To my monumental relief, the doorbell rang to announce my crew had arrived. I showed Becky into the dining room, with an apologetic shrug, and hustled Alice into the kitchen to start prepping an organic, locally supermarket sourced, Damson Farm lifestyle-reconfiguring version of a kids’ party buffet.
I had never felt so exhausted. By the time they left, our guests had trooped back to the orchard to cover the basics of beekeeping with Becky, spent an hour baking honey bread, then lain on cushions on the living room floor and relearnt how to breathe before eating an afternoon tea incorporating the honey bread. While doing this, they had so often snivelled and grabbed each other’s hands in moments of revelation about how their life in central London resembled a hive, that by the time they left it felt strange not to have constant chatter playing on a loop in the background.
