Never Too Late (14 page)

“OK, I get the picture,” Chloe held her hands up. “I get a very big picture!”

She lay back down and chewed the end of the grass he’d tickled her with. “What colour was she?” Colour was important in Chloe’s life, colours and shapes and how they worked together, or otherwise, how they changed your mood for better or for worse.

“That was the only tricky part,” Adam told her. “I wanted to get her as original as possible but I couldn’t find any reference anywhere to the paint colours for a ZB34, in fact the more I researched the rarer she appeared to be.”

“So what did you do?”

“I went to the experts. I skipped a few lectures and visited the National Motorbike Museum in Birmingham.” He laughed and shook his head as he remembered. “The curator there nearly wet himself when I said what I was restoring. ‘You’ve got the one with the cast iron top end and ally bottom?’ he says to me. ‘Would you like us to restore it for you? We’d do it in return for keeping it on display here - perfect conditions and it would still be your bike’. It turns out they didn’t have one and hadn’t been able to get hold of one anywhere. That batch of 50 were the only ones ever made. BSA made them for the Yanks specially as they wanted the old style cast iron top end, factory grafted onto the new style bottom end. They still didn’t trust an all aluminium engine at that time.”

Chloe repeated her earlier question. “You still haven’t told me what colour she was.”

“Absolute anything I wanted was the answer I got, so I opted for the maroon and cream tear drop that was classic BSA of the time on other models. Took me hours to mask that off with tape, by eye no less, to get both sides matching.”

Chloe lay back down and closed her eyes, one forearm across her forehead. “Mmm, maroon and cream. Classy,” was her assessment. “I bet she looked lovely.”

“I’ll show you some photos when we get home.”

She opened one eye and looked up at him. “How long did you have her?”

Adam sighed. “Not as long as I would have liked – bet she’s worth a fortune now. But I did need transport and I had no end of problems trying to get the magneto sorted. She was also scared of thunderstorms.”

Chloe slapped at him lazily. “Now you’re having me on for sure!”

“No, it’s true,” he assured her, blocking the slap easily. “Every time there was a thunderstorm she dumped all her oil. Other old Brit bikes you expect the occasional slow drip. Barclays was oil tight until the barometric pressure reached a certain point then the seals opened and she lost the lot in one go, which was rather inconvenient at times as you can imagine.”

“Really truly?” Both eyes were open now. Adam thought the sky could not match their blue depths.

“Really truly.” He crossed his heart as they used to when they were children together.

“So how long did it take for you to decide to sell her?”

“Until she broke my arm before an exam. I kicked her, she kicked back and threw me over the handlebars. I decided I needed something more reliable for the next two years so got a boring Honda 400 four – still a classic in its own field, and a cracking bike, but not British.”

They spent the next couple of hours idly chatting while Adam considered the logistics of maybe getting another bike and tempting Chloe to ride pillion. He could just imagine her holding him round the waist while they zoomed to the coast together or down leafy country lanes to a nice hay field – a rug, sunshine, a glass or two of wine and who knows what might happen.

Adam passed his binoculars to Chloe so she could get a better view of the designs on the half dozen kites that were being flown from the hill top in the late afternoon sunshine.

“Look!” she told him urgently. “A sparrowhawk!”

“Where?” He took the binoculars and raised them to his eyes.

They had both forgotten the strap around her neck, though, and their heads bumped side by side. Sparrowhawk forgotten he tilted her face to his and very slowly met her mouth with his. At first she responded, allowing the kiss to deepen. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, but then Adam put his hand behind her head, pulling her towards him, and she pulled away, confused.

This is her ‘nearly brother’ for goodness’ sake!

She blushed. Only Adam made her feel confused like this. She felt annoyed at her loss of composure and moved across the rug to start to repack the basket.

“Come on,” she said with false brightness. “Time for us to make tracks.”

Blown it again, Adam realised. The trip back was only just long enough for them to regain their relaxed camaraderie.

That evening they settled down around the big scrubbed pine kitchen table with Adam’s mother, Angela and his father, Oliver, to try and compile a guest list for the party. It was a lovely room, the large well fitted kitchen knocked through to what used to be a separate sitting room, the idea gleaned from Iain’s design for Maggie’s huge kitchen come sitting room. The table and cushioned wheel back chairs overlooked the garden, and there were a few comfy chairs and an upright piano against one wall. Shelves with cookery books, DIY manuals and the dictionary, thesaurus and reference books for Angela’s crossword puzzles told the story of how well used it was. It was much more informal and inviting than the main lounge or the dining room, which tended to be used only for high days and holidays now. Angela had efficiently swept the remains of the meal out to the kitchen and the dishwasher churned quietly in the background. They turned their attention to the logistics of the birthday party.

“I’m at a total loss,” Chloe admitted. “I’ve got you and us on the list – you can make it, can’t you?” she asked in a sudden panic.

“Try stopping us,” Angela reassured her. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Good.” Chloe returned to her notes. “Then there’s the doc and his wife, but beyond that I’m not sure. The vicar and headmistress have both changed since I was here – I suppose she knows the new people but I don’t know their names.”

“Pass the pad, Chloe,” Angela suggested, “I’ll write them down.”

“Great! And any other names you can think of who we might be able to rope in would be good. It’s going to look pathetic if we can’t get the numbers up to about thirty.”

Oliver looked at his wife and shook his head. They were used to Chloe being so absorbed in her own life that she didn’t notice other people unless there was a direct connection to herself, but they knew it wasn’t through chronic selfishness as much as the insensitivity of youth and a degree of tunnel vision that sometimes went with inexperience.

“Chloe,” he said gently, taking off his glasses, eyes twinkling with amusement, “Your problem is going to be whittling the list down to the numbers you’ve catered for. Just about everyone in the village knows and respects your mother. Many will be upset if they don’t get an invitation. Luckily a good proportion will be happy to just pop in with a gift for her and not expect to stay, and others will be at home baby sitting for others to be free to come out.”

It took a moment for this to sink in. “OK,” she said finally. “Add the addresses to the names of who I ought to invite and I’ll ensure the printed invitations get to them.”

“I’ll run off the address labels from the PC, but I’ll write down their first names so you can personalise the invitations,” Angela told her.

Adam stood up. “As this is going to be a long job can I suggest drinks all round?”

He fetched another bottle and glasses while Angela got busy on a very long list. As she wrote she told Chloe a little about who they were and what their connection with her mother was. It took quite a long while to compile the list and two more bottles of wine were uncorked before they were done.

“I just had no idea,” Chloe admitted.

“Your mother’s connection with the village didn’t suddenly end when you started at your private school,” Angela teased her. “Every day she dropped you off there but came back here you know!”

“Yes, I suppose she must have done,” Chloe mused. “I’d just never thought about it before.”

When Chloe finally prepared for bed her head was whirling with everything she had just heard. Who would have thought it – her mother doing all those things? She turned off the bedside light and laid down in the deep darkness of the countryside. Her thoughts soon switched direction. She ran her hands down her body voluptuously. Would Adam try and come in tonight? Did she want him to, or not? What would she do if he did?

She groaned and closed her eyes.

Too much wine for one day, that’s all it is,
she tried to persuade herself.
Just the wine.

After all the fresh air, good food – and wine – she was asleep within minutes.

*

Maggie’s birthday dawned bright and clear. She found herself humming as she went to her car.

Amazing,
she thought,
how exciting each new day seems when you have a definite purpose and plan for it.

She laid the leather collar and lead on the passenger seat and smiled.

No sharing of centre collars for my Deefor!

His old collar was very worn so she had replaced it with one that had taken half an hour to choose and much longer to gently work some leather treatment into to ensure it was supple.

She had been spending time with him every day for over two weeks now and never allowed herself to give up hoping that today would be the day that Deefor showed he recognised her, that he was pleased to see her. At least he was eating now, not much but enough to stop the staff worrying about him. With the lack of exercise it was sufficient calorifically for him. The remaining worry was the loss of muscle tone.

Surely today he will play with me…

At the gate to the kennels Maggie caught Schez’s eye as she hosed down the ones whose occupants were out playing in the courtyard and grass paddock beyond.

“Hiya Maggie,” she called. “I’ll just turn this off then let you in.”

Maggie and Schez were getting on very well together. Schez had accepted her as it was obvious she wanted the best for Deefor.

“I think he’s looking brighter today,” Schez confided, flicking a strand of hair that had escaped from her plaits back out of the way as she let Maggie in. “I reckon he’s expecting you.”

“I do hope so.” Her heart beat a little faster as she approached Deefor’s kennel, but as with every other day so far when she called to him he did not approach. He did watch her though.

She entered his kennel and squatted beside him, fondling his ears. “Good morning, my darling boy. A bit of a treat for us today Deefor,” she told him. “We can go down to the wood for a while and we’ll sit by the stream and watch the fish go by, and look up at the sunlight through the leaves. I’ll find a nice stick and see if you want to play with that rather than your ball, and then when we get back I’ll give you really good groom. How does that sound?”

The dog raised his head and looked at her but remained laying in his original position. Maggie was quite elated though – they had looked directly at each other for the first time, and she was sure he’d understood what she was saying.

It must be he likes woods, or is it sticks? We’ll find out together, right now.

The collar slipped easily into place. Maggie had practised slipping the catch into
the correct hole first time every time. With the lead on as well she gave the command, “Deefor, heel.” Basic commands like that he obeyed,
but you can’t order a dog to enjoy life or play, more’s the pity,
she thought.
A bit like humans really.

They walked slowly together through the paved courtyard, Deefor studiously ignoring the other dogs who bounded over to play. He sat obediently while she opened the wicket gate that gave onto the path through the field. She was sure there was a flicker of interest as they got to the woods, but he raised his head no higher as they took the cool leafy trail that led down to the stream. She removed his leash to let him explore.

The air vibrated with birdsong, each cock bird loudly proclaiming the territory he had defined for himself and his lady love. Their footsteps were muffled on the accumulated leaf mould from autumns past and the air was redolent of both decay and new growth. Dead wood and tree trunks were patched with the greens and golds of lichens and mosses which glowed brilliantly where the sunlight caught them. One beech log had a fabulous cluster of bracket fungi, old and leathery with multiple rings of grey, brown and cream. Deefor sniffed at them and Maggie wondered what it would be like to experience a dog’s nasal view of the world. New leaves stretched open to welcome the approaching summer, dappling the light, and the ferns were uncurling into the warmth.

As they breasted a small rise Maggie halted mid-stride, amazed at the haze of almost purple blue spread before her. The wood was carpeted in bluebells, the warmth of the day coaxing their rich fragrance up to tease her nostrils. They extended all the way down the slope, and bordering the trail were wood anemones.

“Oh, isn’t that grand Deefor,” she breathed softly.

He cocked his head at Maggie and patiently waited until she continued down to the stream. Her attempts to entice him to chase a stick along the path failed miserably but she knew he’d let her know when he felt ready for games. It was too nice a day to fret about anything.

They sat side by side on a broad smooth stone and watched the chuckling ripples chasing ever downwards to the sea. Light reflected back at them in sharp flashes and swirling bright pools as the water flowed around submerged rocks. There were rushes on the far bank and trailing delicate strands of green in the stream, where a small group of brown fish darted backwards and forwards. Were they trout, she wondered?

“Oh look, Deefor,” Maggie exclaimed excited. She had seen it for the merest fraction of a second, but surely such an iridescent flash of blue just had to be a kingfisher, the first she’d ever seen in the wild. She hugged the big dog round the neck and was rewarded with the briefest of licks to her chin. “Oh, my boy, you do like me!”

They sat there for quite a while in the warmth, the bubbling stream soothing, gently persuading “Stay a little longer”. Maggie gentled fondled round Deefor’s ears and rubbed his deep chest, murmuring to him any thoughts that strayed into her head, but basically they were both happy to just sit there, soaking up the spring sunshine in their own little fragment of heaven. Eventually though, Maggie caught sight of her watch.