Sunshine Over Wildflower Cottage (2 page)

‘Well, you make sure you hold on to his lead properly next time,’ Viv said softly.

‘I will,’ he replied. ‘Where are you going, lady?’

‘To Wildflower Cottage, the animal sanctuary,’ replied Viv. ‘Am I heading in the right direction?’

The young man brightened. ‘Oh yes. That’s where Pilot lives. Don’t tell them, will you? They won’t let me walk him again.’

‘I promise I won’t.’

‘You need to turn right just after the café. It’s on the corner. It’s called the Corner Caff.’

‘Thank you. That’s very kind of you.’

‘My name’s Armstrong. If they ask, will you tell them that I’m doing a good job? I’m going to take Pilot for a biscuit at the bakery up the road. They make biscuits with liver in them especially for dogs. Pilot loves those.’

‘I will,’ smiled Viv.

‘See you. Come on, Pilot.’ And with that, Armstrong tugged on the lead and he and the giant shaggy dog began to lumber up the hill.

Viv set off slowly in case anything else should run into her path. She didn’t want to start off her new job in an animal sanctuary by killing something. The café on the corner was painted bright yellow and hard to miss. She swung a right there and was faced with a stunning view of the bottom of the valley. In the centre of it sat a long cottage couched in a bed of fairy-tale swirls of low mist and to its left was a tall tower with a crenellated top. Viv’s jaw tightened with nervousness as the car ate the distance towards it.

She parked as directed by a crooked wooden sign saying ‘Visitors’, at the side of a battered black pick-up truck. As she got out of the car, she noticed sprinkles of flowers in the mist, their violet-blue heads dotted everywhere she looked. The second thing she noticed was the biggest cat she had ever seen in her life walking towards her, muscles rippling under his velvet black fur. She’d thought her family cat Basil was huge but this guy was like a panther. The cat rose onto his back legs in order to brush his face against her thigh. As Viv’s hand came out to stroke his head, a voice shrieked from the cottage doorway.

‘For goodness sake don’t touch him. He’ll savage you.’

A tall, slim woman had appeared there. She was wearing a long flowery hippy dress and had a mad frizz of brown hair. ‘He’s called Beelzebub for a reason. Bub for short.’ She walked towards Viv with her hand extended in greeting. ‘Viv, I presume,’ she said. ‘I’m Geraldine Hartley. We spoke on the phone.’

Viv had rung the sanctuary as soon as she spotted the advertisement in the
Pennine Times
and after a surprisingly brief conversation, Geraldine had offered her the job right there and then, subject to a personal reference and an assurance that Viv had no criminal history or accusation of animal cruelty. The wage was basic, cash in hand, although meals were included as was a small grace and favour house. Her friend Hugo, who now had a scientific research job down south in London had supplied a glowing appraisal of her abilities and character. She’d taken the risk of giving a false address in Sheffield and so far there had been no comeback. It wasn’t the most professional organisation she’d come across.

Viv shook her hand. Geraldine had a very strong grip. She also had the most beautiful perfume. Viv instinctively breathed it up into her nose and her brain began to dissect the scent:
rose – definitely. Violet – probably. Orris . . . maybe
. It was floral, but with a hint of something else that she couldn’t quite pin down. Complex, but there wasn’t a scent yet that she couldn’t separate into its basic elements, given time. Her olfactory senses judged it to be delightful and something that her mother would love.

‘Welcome to Wildflower Cottage.’ Geraldine brought her back into the here and now by lifting her arms and spreading her hands out towards the sky as if she were an evangelist about to address her congregation.

‘It’s so pretty here,’ replied Viv, opening up her boot and taking out her luggage. ‘The mist is very unusual.’

‘We get a lot of it,’ said Geraldine, lifting up one of Viv’s suitcases. ‘Come on in. I expect you’re dying for a cup of tea. Or are you a coffee girl?’

‘A tea would be lovely, please,’ replied Viv. She didn’t say that she was already full of tea having stopped off at a service station halfway through the journey and had two pots of the stuff whilst soul-searching at the table.
What are you doing?
her brain threw at her.
Have you really thought this through?
She had texted her mum and told her that she was stuck in traffic, because she knew she would be worrying why she hadn’t been in contact to say she had arrived. She didn’t ring because she thought that hearing her mother’s voice might have had her abandoning her plans and running back home.

Viv followed Geraldine into a spacious, rustic kitchen-lounge with a heavy beamed ceiling, thick stone walls and a Yorkshire range fireplace. There was a massive furry dog bed at one side of a bright red Aga and a cushioned cat bed between a long oxblood Chesterfield sofa and an old-fashioned Welsh dresser. A bird with round angry eyes was hopping about on the stripped pine table in the centre of the room. Suddenly it took flight and swooped towards Viv, who ducked and screamed.

‘Viv, meet Piccolo,’ said Geraldine. ‘He gets excited, bless him. We’ve had him from an egg which his sneaky mum hid from us. There’s nothing wrong with him but he’s imprinted on us. He thinks he’s a cat with wings.’ She called him and Piccolo flew towards her, landing on her hair. ‘It doesn’t hurt me,’ she said, seeing Viv’s look of horror. ‘Unless I move too fast and he feels the need to grip on.’

She crossed to the Aga and put a large kettle of water on it to boil, still wearing her living breathing owl hat. ‘You’ll find that this is not your typical animal sanctuary.’

Bub swaggered in and over to Viv, butting her leg with his large head and making friendly chirrupy noises. She bent down to stroke him, remembering just in time to pull her hand back as his paw came out to strike her, claws extended.

‘Told you,’ laughed Geraldine. ‘He’s a duplicitous bugger, that one.’

‘I met one of your helpers up the road,’ said Viv, attempting to be friendly. ‘Armstrong, I think he said he was called.’

‘Armstrong Baslow, yes. Did he have a rather large dog with him? Please say yes.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s the first time I’ve let him take Pilot out. The old lad needed a walk and with being by myself at the moment, I haven’t had time.’

‘Pilot – that’s Mr Rochester’s dog in
Jane Eyre
, isn’t it?’

‘It most certainly is. You can blame me for that. But as a rule of thumb, if the name is ridiculous, it’ll be something Armstrong has thought of. When Pilot first came to us, I thought he looked exactly as I’d imagined the Pilot in the book to be. Poor soul had been wandering around the moors for God knows how long. Someone had obviously dumped him. But he took to the name straightaway, bless him.’

She laughed and Viv warmed to the sound. Geraldine must be a nice person to have such a lovely, tinkly laugh, she decided.

‘As for Armstrong’s name, in case you’re wondering, his father was a space enthusiast,’ Geraldine continued. ‘He died last year and they sent his ashes up to heaven in a firework, can you believe?’

Viv was hypnotised by the owl’s antics. He was on the edge of the table now and seemed to be reprimanding the cat with angry flaps of his wings and squawks. Then he jumped down onto the floor beside him.

‘Oh my God . . .’ Viv shooed at the predatory Bub by her feet. She was sure she was about to witness the last few seconds of the bird’s life.

Geraldine laughed as she watched Viv in full panic mode whilst Bub flashed her the sort of look he reserved for viewing things he’d done in his litter tray.

‘Piccolo is safer than the rest of us with Bub. They have what Heath always calls “an affinity”.’

‘Heath?’

‘Heath Merlo, the boss,’ explained Geraldine. ‘I thought it was serendipitous that his name means “blackbird” in Italian. It was like a sign that you were the one we should take on. Mind you, we were hardly overrun with applicants.’

It was the first time Viv had heard mention of ‘Heath’. She’d presumed that Geraldine was the one in charge.

‘Heath is away with Wonk at the moment.’ Geraldine went into further explanations. ‘Wonk is our three-legged donkey. She’s having a new prosthetic limb fitted because she’s outgrown the other one.’

‘You have a three-legged donkey here?’

‘Yes. She had a rich owner who left us Wonk when she died on the proviso that we would look after her. Her legacy goes a long way to supporting us. Come on, I’ll give you a very quick tour whilst the kettle is boiling. It takes an age and I don’t help matters by always over-filling it.’

Geraldine beckoned her to follow and they left the owl cawing an angry protest at being left by himself with no one to entertain, stomping up and down the table on legs that looked too long for his small body. Viv was sure the low mist had thickened since she had arrived. Walking behind Geraldine, even at a close distance, Viv couldn’t see her feet and it was as if she was floating.

‘I’ve never seen mist like this before,’ said Viv.

‘It is unusual,’ replied Geraldine. ‘Legend has it that years ago the valley was a sacred lake inhabited by a water nymph called Isme who was trusted to look after all the creatures who lived in it, but she fell in love with the local bad boy – the Lord of the Manor’s son. One day he stripped the lake of all of the fish and Isme’s furious father forced his daughter to take revenge by dragging the young man into the lake and drowning him. Heartbroken, Isme withered away and the lake dried up with her until all that was left was a lingering mist and the wildflowers which had taken seed in the places where her tears had fallen.’

Viv bent down to a vibrant blue patch of them. ‘Love-in-a-Mist. How beautiful.’ She had recognised them immediately.

‘I see you know your plants,’ smiled Geraldine. ‘They flower continually.’ She picked out a plump purple seed case hidden inside its lacy netting. ‘I think they’re as pretty when they pod, don’t you?’

They carried the faintest scent of strawberries tinged with smoke. Viv could pick it up, just, but it was almost missable, even to her.

‘We’ll start from furthest away and work our way in,’ decided Geraldine. ‘Our birds.’ She lifted a large stiff leather glove from a hook outside the door and Viv wondered why she’d need that.

‘At the back of the house, there, is our food preparation area,’ said Geraldine, pointing to an outbuilding with an arched barn door. ‘Do you want to see inside?’

‘Not really,’ said Viv. She guessed it wouldn’t be full of packaged ready meals.

‘Thought not,’ grinned Geraldine. They walked down the dirt-track road. Viv didn’t really need to see the birds – she’d hardly be interacting with them. And she didn’t like birds even more than she didn’t like other animals. The Alfred Hitchcock film
The Birds
encapsulated all her worst nightmares: their capriciousness, their flapping wings, their ability to peck out your eyes. She shivered at the thought and hoped they were all locked away.

They arrived at the aviaries clustered around a central grassy area where perches were studded into the ground.

‘This is our flying arena,’ explained Geraldine. ‘And there are our birds. None of them would survive in the wild. They’re all damaged in some way, poor dears.’ She sighed. ‘Come on, Vivienne, let me introduce you to our family.’ Geraldine walked to the first cage.

Staring at Viv was a large tawny owl with the most beautiful feathery face.

‘That’s Melvin. He was found with terribly broken wings. He can fly after a fashion now but it’s not a very good fashion. His partner in crime is Tink there.’ Sharing the same shelter was a much smaller owl with eyes that seemed to take up half her head. ‘They used to talk to each other through the wire, so Heath decided to test them in the same aviary and they bonded. It’s very sweet to watch them when they are perched together. They lean on each other.’

Tink was tongue-clicking at Viv as if she was warning her off looking at her fella. Viv sent a silent psychic message that Tink had nothing to worry about – she would be staying as far away from them as possible.

They moved on. ‘In here is Beatrice, our eagle owl. Rescued from a wardrobe – I kid you not – where a stupid prat was keeping her as a pet.’ Geraldine shook her head in dismay.

Beatrice’s orange-ringed eyes swung over Viv as if she were of no value.

‘Come on in,’ said Geraldine. ‘Beatrice is a love.’ She pulled the latch back.

‘Are you kidding?’ said Viv.

‘No, not at all.’ Geraldine opened the door.

‘I . . . I can’t,’ said Viv.

Geraldine put her left hand into the glove.

‘You’ll be doing this in no time if you choose to. Beatrice is a good one to start off with because she gets on with everyone.’

Viv would rather have eaten her own head than interact with birds. Especially large terrifying things like this one.

Beatrice started making a ‘yarp’ sound.

‘That noise tells you that she’s happy I’m around,’ said Geraldine. ‘She’s bonded to me. And I’ve bonded to her, haven’t I, girl?’

The bird lifted up its wings and seemed to rise up as if on a heat thermal, coming to perch on Geraldine’s outstretched glove.

‘I have arm muscles like you wouldn’t believe,’ chuckled Geraldine. ‘She’s quite a weight, I can tell you.’ Geraldine gave the owl a scratch on her head as she addressed her. ‘And you’ve just had your twentieth birthday, haven’t you, my love? Okay, off you pop.’ She jiggled her arm up and down but the owl gripped on.

‘She’s spoiled,’ laughed Geraldine. ‘Go on with you. I’m showing a guest around.’

In the next cage was a large white owl that started flapping her pepper-speckled wings as soon as they neared.

‘Just as Beatrice loves everyone, Ursula hates everyone, even Heath.’ Geraldine clucked at the bird in greeting. ‘We keep trying to get her to trust us, but we haven’t made a lot of progress, I’m afraid.’

The large white owl stared at Viv with ‘I want to kill you’ eyes and started bobbing her head up and down.

‘Why is she doing that at me?’ said Viv, feeling ridiculously intimidated.