The Little Village On The Hill (Book 2: Love Is In The Air): A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

by Alice Ross

  In fact, I’m not telling him anything. Because the way he’s looking at me now, he obviously thinks I have a brain the size of one-third of a cashew nut. Which makes me angry. We can’t all be social-media-hating maths geniuses working on building sites, can we?

  ‘Right. Well, we’d better go,’ I announce, trying to convey the impression that I am extremely busy and have masses of very important things to do.

  ‘We are going for the lunch,’ announces Dimitri, suddenly appearing at my side and draping an arm over my shoulders.

  An arm I would, under normal circumstances, shrug off. But I’m so annoyed with Tom right now, that I don’t. I allow it to drape and enjoy watching the wave of irritation that flickers over his face. At least I think it’s irritation. Either that, or he’s imagining himself straddling a cement mixer in trousers as tight as Dimitri’s.

  ‘Have a nice lunch,’ he puffs, somewhat frostily.

  I force a smile and chirp, ‘We will’ - a little too chirpily. Then, after Dimitri and I take a couple of steps away from him, I swing back round and add, ‘If you want to pop into the library for that book later, I’ll be back in an hour.’

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll have time,’ he says, before bending down, picking up his wood and marching over to the skip.

  ‘That very nice house, Izee,’ says Dimitri, as we saunter off. ‘Who has the owning of it?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I mutter miserably, resisting the urge to hare back to the very nice house and throw myself into Tom’s arms, like you see in the films.

  But I don’t.

  Because we’re not in a film.

  And because the way he looked at me just then, he’d most likely toss me in the skip.

  And because he already has a girlfriend.

  Dimitri and I arrive home a few minutes later, to discover several metres of Union Jack bunting around the front door, a picture of Winston Churchill in the hall, and my mother and her food mixer in the kitchen.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing, darling,’ she replies innocently. ‘I just want Dimitri to feel immersed in our English culture.’

  ‘It all very nice. Thank you, Mrs Irveeng,’ says Dimitri, mincing over to her and pecking both her cheeks.

  ‘Well, it’s nothing really,’ she simpers, flushing beetroot as she smooths down her strawberry blonde bob. ‘I did exactly the same when Isobel had a French exchange student staying a few years ago, didn’t I, darling?’

  Recalling how she’d installed a doorbell that chimed the National Anthem especially for our Gallic guest, I don’t reply.

  ‘Anyway,’ she prattles, ‘what brings you both back so early?’

  ‘We’re having a break for lunch,’ I inform her. ‘I’ve closed the library for an hour.’

  A wave of horror washes over her face, before Dimitri says, ‘We are doing the same in my town, Mrs Irveeng. Every day the things, they are having the break for the lunch.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Of course they are,’ she says, nodding profusely. ‘It’s the European way, isn’t it? Yes, it’s about time Chollingflower went a bit more… international. And you must know all about being international, Dimitri, running your lovely hotel and meeting lots of international people.’

  ‘Yes. We are having all the internationals, Mrs Irveeng. The tourists are coming from all over the world – Switzerland, Finland, Holland, Sunderland…’

  ‘Goodness. It all sounds so exotic. Between you and me, I’ve always fancied buying a little bed and breakfast in Dorset.’

  ‘In my country, we always say, if you are having the dream, then you should be going for it, Mrs Irveeng. If you are wanting to be running the bed and the breakfast in Doorstep, then you should be going for it,’ says Dimitri, before whipping off his shirt and flinging it over a stool.

  ‘Er, well… you’re, um… absolutely right,’ stammers my mother, propping herself up on the bench behind. ‘I’ve always encouraged my children to go after their dreams. Isobel’s brother is a surgeon, you know. And her sister is an actuary. They’re doing very well.’

  ‘And the Isobel is doing very well too,’ announces Dimitri, flicking something off one of his nipples. ‘She is winning the prize in the neetcloob for her Flossing.’

  Wah! I’d forgotten all about that. I’m not usually one to blow my own trumpet, but I am rather good at the Floss Dance - thanks to YouTube and many a boring night stuck in my room in London. But that, unfortunately, is a skill that is unlikely to elevate me to the lofty heights of my siblings’ achievements in my mother’s eyes. Quite remarkably, though, she seems to think Dimitri is referring to my dental routine.

  ‘I’ve always instilled in my children the need to take good care of their teeth,’ she prattles, with an approving nod in my direction. ‘And Isobel has lovely teeth. If only the rest of her life were as orderly,’ she adds with a cackle. ‘Now, how about some cheese and crackers, Dimitri? I have a lovely piece of Brie.’

  ‘The Brie is very good, Mrs Irveeng. But only if you are having the tomatoes to go with it.’

  The doorbell rings.

  Glad to escape any more talk about tomatoes, I scuttle through to the hall to answer it.

  Whereupon I find a big fat cheesecake topped with a mound of strawberries.

  And Mrs Johnson, a longstanding member of Chollingflower’s WI, topped off with a green felt hat.

  ‘Hello, Isobel. How are you, dear?’

  ‘Er, fine, thank you,’ I reply, wondering why she’s craning her neck to peer into the hall. ‘How are you, Mrs Johnson?’

  ‘I’m very well, thank you, but I’m afraid I couldn’t make the arts and crafts session this morning because I was booked for a clean and polish at the dentist’s.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ I say. ‘The group made some lovely plant pots with tuna cans and clothes pegs.’

  ‘Yes. It is a shame. But no matter. I already have some lovely plant pots I made last year. Out of egg cartons, candle wax and red doilies. Anyway, I heard you have a foreign visitor, so I’ve made a cake to welcome him to the village.’

  ‘How kind,’ I say, accepting the strawberry-laden creation from her.

  ‘Yes, well, making cakes is the least we can do in the circumstances, isn’t it?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I say, like I know what circumstances she’s referring to.

  ‘I must admit, all this Brexit business has quite worn me out. I overheard one of the assistants in Sainsbury’s the other day saying that it’ll probably mean the end of Costa Rican pineapples.’

  I scrunch my nose. ‘I don’t think Costa Rica is part of the European Union.’

  ‘Who knows who is and who isn’t these days,’ she puffs. ‘Everyone’s in such a tizz, they don’t know if they’re in Costa Rica or Costa Coffee. But anyway, is he, um, in?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your foreign visitor.’

  ‘Oh. Of course. Yes. He is.’

  Her face lights up like a Christmas tree. ‘In that case, as I’m here, I might as well pop through and say a quick hello,’ she says.

  Then, before I can move, she pushes past me and the cake, dislodging three strawberries in the process, which land with a splat on my foot.

  Chapter Three

  Half an hour later, with my mother and Mrs Johnson ensconced in deckchairs in the garden, watching Dimitri’s demonstration of bare-chested Greek dancing, I manage to sneak out of the house unnoticed.

  I’m not in the mood for Greek dancing. Or Floss dancing. Or even a bit of Beyoncé dancing – with or without my top. My mother’s not-so-subtle reference to the shambolic state of my life could not have hurt more if she’d whacked me over the head with a golf club. Which is ridiculous, given it’s not a new opinion. She’s always been less than impressed with my achievements. Probably because they’re distinctly lacking. The only thing I’ve ever done that has met with her approval, was to go out with Giles for eighteen months - a banker, whose mother shared her hairdresser with Carol Mi
ddleton. Two attributes that rank highly on my mother’s Potential Son-In-Law criteria, and which had consequently buoyed me up in her esteem. And the same two attributes which prevented me from telling her that Giles dumped me. Being a complete wuss, I have instead opted for a watered-down version of the truth: that we are on a break. Which was only meant to be a teeny tiny holding lie; one to keep her off my back while I carried out my plan to win Giles back. But my plan had failed, which means Giles and I will not now be reunited, and I will plummet back to zero in my mother’s estimation. Once I pluck up the courage to tell her the truth.

  In hindsight, I realise that Giles and I had never been suited. I’d tried my hardest to be the perfect girlfriend – pretending to like things I didn’t, just because he did – but, frankly, it had been exhausting. I know people say that you have to work hard at making a relationship work, but surely not that hard. It had been the equivalent of another full-time job.

  Surely, if you’re with the right person, things should be more relaxed. And it should be fun. Like, for example, how Tom and I had got along during our brief, overnight trip to London. When he’d effortlessly lifted my spirits by surprising me with my favourite sour cream and onion Pringles, and we’d laughed so hard we’d cried.

  But I don’t know why I’m wasting time thinking about Tom. He has a girlfriend. And not just any old girlfriend. He’s going out with—

  ‘Hello, Izzy.’

  At the sound of a familiar female voice, I stop dead in my tracks and slowly turn my head to find Caitlin Harmer crossing the road towards me, wearing a very smart, very expensive-looking, strappy white sundress.

  The same Caitlin Harmer who, on our first day at Chollingflower nursery, whacked me over the head with a plastic spade in the sandpit. Which, some two decades on, I can honestly say has been the undisputed highlight of our ‘relationship’.

  And the same Caitlin Harmer who, I discovered yesterday, is going out with Tom.

  ‘I’m so glad to see you,’ she says, shaking back a sheath of titian hair. ‘I was just saying to Tom, while we were having breakfast in bed this morning, that it’s such a shame we didn’t get a chance to catch up at all yesterday.’

  The thought of ‘catching up’ with Caitlin, makes me almost as sick as imagining her and Tom breakfasting in bed together. Or doing anything in bed together. Which I suspect is precisely the reaction she’s aiming for. I generally consider myself easygoing and can count on one hand the number of people I’ve genuinely disliked during my time on the planet. But Caitlin Harmer has reigned over that short list for the last twenty years, with no one else coming even a close second.

  ‘I had no idea you were back in Chollingflower,’ she goes on.

  I don’t reply. I’m far too busy gazing at her lips. I’m sure they never used to be so plump. In fact, as my suspicion grows and my gaze drops to her chest, I can’t recall that area being so plump either. I could be wrong, but it looks very much like my nemesis has undergone a bit of restructuring.

  ‘Tom says you’re back in the village to assess your options,’ she says.

  At that remark, my visual survey judders to a halt and I cringe inwardly, wondering what else Tom has told her. During the night Tom and I spent together in London (- and by ‘together’ I mean separate bedrooms in the same flat) – after I’d spotted Giles with his new woman – I’d spewed out my entire life story. A sorry tale I have no doubt Caitlin would hand over good money to hear. But as she’s now gazing at me expectantly, apparently awaiting a reply, I suspect he might have spared her all the gory details.

  In an effort to match her confident demeanour, I throw back my shoulders and draw in a reassuring breath. ‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘I’m tired of the whole London scene, so I thought—’

  ‘You’d come back to Chollingflower where it all happens,’ she snorts.

  Put like that, it does sound a bit ridiculous. But, if moving back to Chollingflower is so ridiculous, what’s she doing here?

  ‘What about you?’ I ask. ‘The last I heard, you were running a beauty salon in Birmingham.’

  ‘I was. But not anymore. Not since…’ She breaks off to widen her smile.

  Revealing teeth that definitely didn’t used to be that straight and white.

  ‘Well... you’ll find out soon enough,’ she sniggers, before flashing me a wink and strutting off.

  That chance meeting with Caitlin has made my previously foul mood even fouler. So much so, that old Mrs Pike drops the Georgette Heyer she’s flicking through, when I bad-temperedly slam a couple of books down onto the library counter that afternoon. It would have been bad enough seeing the girl without knowing she and Tom were having breakfast in bed together. But the fact that I do know, made the encounter a hundred times worse.

  For all Tom had made no mention of a girlfriend during our trip to the capital, the possibility of him being attached had fleetingly crossed my mind. In fact, I’d even fleetingly conjured up an image of the type of girl I could imagine sharing his life: someone natural, sporty and nice. The complete antithesis of Caitlin, who is faker than a Gucci handbag on a market stall – inside and out - and who anyone would struggle to describe as nice.

  At school, Caitlin had been the ringleader of a spiteful, bullying gaggle of girls, who’d prowled the building like a pack of hungry hyenas on the hunt for their next victim. She’d been the undisputed bad girl of our year, always in trouble with the teachers, some of whom had been equally as terrified of her as the kids were. Deeming herself too cool for Chollingflower, at sixteen – after spectacularly failing all her GCSEs – she’d fled the village on the back of a motorbike, wrapped around a guy called Eric from Coventry, who was ten years older and apparently married to a woman called Beverley.

  At her departure, the community had breathed a collective sigh of relief. And, as far as I’m aware, few people have shown any interest in what happened to her since. Which makes me all the more curious as to why she’s back now. And why she’s being so mysterious about her return.

  As Mrs Pike shuffles off, her shopping trolley bulging with regency romances, I wheel my chair along to the library’s ancient computer, bring up Google and type Caitlin’s name into the search. Just as I’d hoped, amongst a couple of things about her beauty business, a link to her Instagram page pops up, which I instantly click on, hoping it will provide a clue to her return to the village she’d always referred to as Boringflower. It doesn’t. Because it’s crammed with picture after picture of her and Tom, including one of them propped up against pillows having their breakfast in bed.

  I click off, fuming. There was Tom at lunchtime, making me feel like a total idiot for having anything to do with social media, and here he is now, plastered all over Caitlin’s Instagram feed. The man is a complete hypocrite. And not at all the guy I imagined him to be if he’s going out with Caitlin. And I don’t even know why I’m allowing myself to get into such a stonking mood about them. I hardly know Tom. And I’d rather not know Caitlin. So, if the two of them are happy breakfasting in bed together, they can blooming well get on with it. And I’m not going to waste another minute of my time even thinking about them, because I have better things to do; productive things. Like sorting out my life and finding another job.

  Steam almost puffing from my ears as I try desperately not to think about Hypocritical Tom and Catty Caitlin, I punch the name of the north-east’s largest recruitment agency into Google and add ‘Publishing’ to the search.

  0 results pops up.

  Exactly as expected.

  To find another job in publishing, I’ll have to go back to London. But I don’t want to go back to London. What I really want is a whole new start, I decide, as I scroll down the list of jobs: Warehouse Operative, Bathroom Fitter, Graphic Designer… I pause at Psychology Assistant, which sounds quite interesting. Before I remind myself that I don’t know the first thing about psychology. Then I spot one for a Sandwich Artist, which is such a cool title, that I’m instantly attracted to it.
The job is at a little shop in Doddingflower - only two stops away on the bus. Which would be perfect if the ad didn’t specify ‘at least one year’s experience in the food industry’. Obviously, I don’t have one year’s experience in the food industry, but anyone old enough to use a knife without parental guidance can make a sandwich, can’t they? So, without further ado, I open a copy of my CV from my email account and begin making one or two tweaks…

  When I arrive home that afternoon, Dimitri is in his orange pants in the garden, snoring so loudly the hydrangea are quivering. And my mother is in the kitchen, staring at a batch of pink cupcakes, an apple pie, a mound of scones, Mrs Johnson’s strawberry cheesecake, and something that might once have been a trifle.

  ‘What’s all this?’ I ask.

  She gives a little shudder. The same little shudder she gives every time she’s bewildered by something. ‘Welcome treats for Dimitri. People have been dropping them off all afternoon – although, when I say “people”, I obviously mean the village’s womenfolk. Mrs Downey says she hasn’t seen them this excited since Des O’Connor called into the pub for a bowl of minestrone soup on his way down from Scotland in 1987. It seems our guest is causing quite a stir.’