Paradise Fields (39 page)

‘Not a life. You have a life. But you need a love life. Look at Viv. She really knows how to enjoy herself.'

‘Which probably means she doesn't want to come round here and share a bottle of wine with me.'

‘No, but if you rang her, she'd tell you what a twit you're being. She'd see it as an emergency.' Fleur kissed Nel's cheek. ‘Bye. Have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.'

‘As if,' said Nel, and went to hang socks on the airer
over the Rayburn. There seemed to be hundreds of them. They were all much the same colour, but there didn't seem to be any pairs. As always, she thought about the puzzle which asked: if a drawer is full of black socks and white socks, how many would you have to pull out before you got a pair? The answer was three, but Nel knew it wouldn't work in her case.

Harry, the owner of approximately half the socks, came into the kitchen.

‘I do wash them myself,' he said. ‘But it seemed pointless to do it when I was coming home for the weekend.'

‘Obviously. It's so sensible to carry a bag of dirty washing with you when you're on the coach from Newcastle.'

‘It's just a few socks, Ma, the rest of them are Sam's.'

Nel sighed. ‘You know I don't really mind. It's nice that you're both home together.'

‘There's this party we want to go to in Bristol.'

‘Oh? And I thought you'd come to see your darling mother.'

‘That too, of course. And check out this new bloke. Sam told me about him.'

‘Sam did? Well, he's made a mistake. There is no new bloke.'

‘I don't mind Simon, myself. I mean, he's never going to set the world on fire, but he's OK.'

‘Exciting enough for your old mother, obviously.'

‘I didn't mean that!' Harry put his arm round Nel's shoulders and squeezed. She'd forgotten how strong and muscly he was nowadays. ‘I meant that if you want to marry Simon, you should just go ahead. We can look after ourselves now.'

Nel put the kettle on. ‘Well, for a start, I don't want
to marry Simon, and for a second, Fleur is still at school. She couldn't look after herself.' Nel was not entirely sure this was true, but as she had no intention of letting Fleur loose on the world just yet, it might as well have been.

‘So what about this new bloke, then?'

‘There is no new bloke! He's a figment of Fleur's imagination, probably because she doesn't like Simon.'

‘Doesn't like Simon? What's not to like? Just get him a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, and he'd be perfect! Fleur's a fashion-fascist, that's all.'

‘Yes, probably. But I told you, I'm not going to marry Simon – and there is no new bloke,' she repeated hurriedly.

‘But Fleur said he came here and helped you make a cake.'

‘Yes, he did, but it was just a cake. Do you remember that ski-slope cake I made you? I got Viv to make a figure out of silver foil?'

‘You're changing the subject, Ma.'

‘No, I'm not. I'm segueing from a subject that has lost interest into another, more interesting one.'

‘If you think that cakes are more interesting than blokes, Fleur must have been adopted.'

‘I think I would have remembered doing that, but it is possible she was swapped in the hospital. She's the only organised member of the family. Oh, that reminds me.' She went to the dresser. ‘I took this stuff out of your jeans pocket. I wish you'd empty your pockets yourself. I don't want to be the sort of person who goes into other people's pockets, but nor do I want tissues in the tumble drier, covering Fleur's little black tops with fluff. She makes enough fuss about the dog hair as it is.'

Harry rolled his eyes, then dashed past her to the Rayburn. ‘Did you want tea, Mum, or did you just boil the kettle over for fun?'

‘So, how are you?' asked Viv, on her mobile, from a hotel where they had fluffy white robes on the backs of the doors, and very expensive freebies in the bathroom, all of which Viv had just described.

‘Fine, the boys are here. How about you?'

‘Oh, the boys are here, too. Different boys, of course.'

‘So I should hope. I don't think I could cope with my best friend showing my sons the way. So, is there an ironing board in the room, or did you have to ring for one?'

‘No, it was here. And there were herb tea bags. It really is an awfully good hotel.'

Nel sighed. ‘You're a lucky girl. There is nothing I would like more than spending the weekend in a really nice hotel.'

‘With the right man, of course.'

Nel considered. ‘Well, for preference, but even on my own would be quite good.'

‘And the right man would be?'

‘My fantasies are my own. How are you doing with your list?'

‘Well, I've sold a plot to most of the people I'm with, which, before you ask, is why I go out with rich people.' Vivian managed to say this without sounding in the least bit smug. ‘What about you?'

Nel yawned. ‘Lots of them would give a tenner to a good cause. They're not mean. But fifty quid is a lot when you're on a low income.'

‘You could club them together, make little syndicates.'

‘Well, yes, I could. If I had till next Christmas to do it in, instead of only until April Fools' day.'

‘April the first sounds much better,' Viv said reprovingly.

‘I know what I mean. And I just don't have time to go around matching up people. When people know each other, I have suggested it, but they all have their own lives, their own agendas.'

‘Hey, I've got an idea,' Viv exclaimed. ‘I think we should advertise in the paper. Or get them to write an editorial, giving a contact name for people who are interested.'

‘That's a good idea. And the contact name would be yours, I presume?' Nel asked hopefully.

‘Fine, if you don't want to do it. I am a bit rushed at the moment—'

‘No, no, that's all right. I just sit and twiddle my thumbs all day. I'll be the contact name. But you have to ask your friend who works on the paper to do the article.'

‘I'll get to it the minute I'm home. Is my little dog all right?'

‘She's fine. Curled up on the sofa with the rest of them.'

‘Good. Now, I must dash. The bubbles are threatening to topple over onto the bathroom floor.'

Nel put the phone down with a sigh. It would be nice to be taken somewhere really lovely, to be spoilt, pampered and looked after, just once. And then, inevitably, her mind on its single track, she thought of what she and her fantasy spoiler might do in the king-sized bed with the very fine cotton sheets. The trouble was, it was a very precise fantasy. She knew
exactly who she wanted to be in that hotel bedroom with.

It was getting frighteningly near the end of March and it was snowing, when Abraham telephoned Nel.

‘All right, lass?' he asked her.

She felt instantly comforted. ‘OK, sort of. I haven't sold nearly enough plots, though.'

‘I was just ringing to ask if you'd like a bit of steam at the hospice jamboree.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I've got some friends who own steam engines, organs, rollers, all that sort of stuff, and after I'd told them the story, they volunteered to come along. They'd collect money and buy a plot with it. It would belong to the Old Steamers' Association.'

‘That sounds wonderful! We've always had steam boats before, but not land-based things. Do they take up a lot of space?'

‘A fair bit.'

Nel mentally rearranged the farmers' market, which was also going to buy a plot. ‘That will be lovely! Do say “yes please” to them.'

‘But there will need to be a beer tent. Think you can arrange that?'

Nel wrote down ‘beer tent' on her list, her heart sinking as she thought of licences and all the red tape that accompanied public drinking.

‘Real ale for preference.'

‘Real ale.'

‘We'll have a right good time.'

‘Yes. If the weather clears up.'

‘In like a lion, out like a lamb. That's March for you.'

‘I don't remember the weather starting to get bad until about the fifteenth. I think it might be in like a lamb, out like a lion, this time. Oh Abraham, if the weather's foul no one will come! I still have twenty-five plots to sell!'

She wanted him to say, ‘Dinna fash yissen, lass,' but he didn't. He just said, ‘That many? Oh dear.'

‘Pinch and a punch for the first of the month,' said Sam as Nel came into the kitchen.

‘It doesn't count, I've been up for hours.' She smiled and hugged him. She and Mark had always pinched and punched each other, and now Sam had stepped into his father's shoes. ‘I do appreciate you coming down for this jamboree. It'll probably be a complete fiasco.'

Sam shrugged. ‘Jamboree, fiasco, they both sound pleasantly foreign. And the sun is shining, look!'

‘Yes, but it was fine before seven, that means it'll rain before eleven.' Much as Nel had been looking forward to it, the fact that April the first had arrived without all the plots being sold couldn't help but depress her. But she decided to put it out of her mind – her only way to help the hospice now was to make a success of the jamboree.

Sam seemed unfazed by her pessimism about the weather. ‘Rubbish. You shouldn't listen to all those old wives' tales. Now, what do you want me to do? I've come down from London, I've got up early—'

‘It's half past ten. It's hardly early.'

‘I'm a student. That's early. So use me.'

‘I want you to bike down to Paradise Fields and see if everyone's all right. The Old Steamers all arrived
yesterday, but the beer tent couldn't come until today. It's going to make us awfully late.'

‘Bike down! Can't I take the car?'

‘No! I need it. I've got to collect the banner from Muriel and put it up. It's beautiful, a real work of art. It's going in the local museum when we've finished with it.'

‘Why can't Muriel put it up?'

‘Because she's nearly eighty, has two plastic hips and hasn't got a long ladder.'

‘Nor have you.'

‘I'm going to borrow Simon's.'

‘He'll never let you have it. He'll make a fuss and say you'll fall off—'

‘I'm not going to tell him, I'm not speaking to him. I'm just going to take it. It's in his garage. Now, I haven't got time to stand here arguing the toss. On yer bike!'

As she stood on the top rung of the ladder with one arm out at right angles, holding a banner which seemed to be getting heavier by the second, Nel conceded that Simon might have had a point about the ladder. Wearing wellingtons might have been a mistake, too, but as Paradise Fields were extremely muddy, she hadn't had a choice.

‘Can you let me have a bit more rope?' asked Ben, the chef, who fortunately had arrived early and, being extremely good-natured, was fixing the other side.

‘If I give you enough, you'll hang yourself,' said Nel, who was getting skittish, but decided it was better than becoming tearful, which, considering the state of the fields, the unreliability of the weather, and the fact that the beer tent had still not arrived, was not an unreasonable alternative.

‘Thanks. That OK?'

‘I'll have to come down the ladder to look,' said Nel, suddenly finding coming down the ladder a bit of a problem. Every time she tried to move, the instep of her boot got stuck on the rung and made it wobble. She couldn't possibly spare the time to go to A&E with a broken leg.

Ben jumped off his ladder from about six feet. ‘Hang on. I'll give you a hand.'

He put his big hands on her waist and held her while she disengaged her feet and then swept her down off the ladder and into the mud. ‘Thank you,' she said. ‘My boots are a bit big. They're my son's.'

‘No problem.'

He was extremely attractive, Nel decided as she watched him brush his hands together and stride off towards some women who were putting up a coconut shy. Perhaps she should consider a toy boy, a proper boy, not just a man who was only a couple of years younger than she was. They would be a lot of fun and wouldn't expect major life changes.

She allowed herself a glance at the man who was always in her thoughts, who was right over the other end of the field, marking out the field for the five-a-side football competition, which he was organising. She hadn't thanked him personally for doing this, but Viv had, so she didn't feel obliged. She had felt such a lowering pang of jealousy when she realised he and Viv must have spent several minutes in conversation together that she had even considered some sort of therapy.

She took a moment to scan the field and check her list, which was getting increasingly muddy. If she were
a proper organising woman, she'd have a clipboard and a list of people delegated to help. She just smiled and cajoled and got people to help anyway.

The steam people had their machines – wonderful beasts, seemingly alive – ranged down the far end. They had fallen on the
Lady Elizabeth
, the hospice steam yacht, with glee and had spent a happy time arguing amiably with Jack, who usually ran it, about the finer points of steam power.

The boat looked like a royal barge, all decked out with bunting, courtesy of Muriel, and was going to give trips up and down the river. There was still argument going on about how much to charge. Viv felt the trips should be fairly expensive, so they would make a lot of money, and Muriel thought they should be cheap, so people would take more than one trip. Nel, who had enough to think about, was keeping out of it.

The spot for the beer tent – close enough to the steam crowd to satisfy them, not too near the farmers' market which was selling apple juice and soft drinks as well as their usual fare – was still looking frighteningly empty. Frantically, Nel tried to think of a Plan B, in case it didn't arrive on time, or at all. Unfortunately, nothing occurred to her beyond asking the local pub to drag a few kegs of beer into the field and she didn't think they'd fancy it.