The Lost Guide to Life and Love (25 page)

‘Would you like me to come with you and help at the other end?’ I asked.

‘No, don’t worry. There’ll be plenty of people there. Unless you’d like to?’

‘Why not?’

Exclusive nightclubs, helicopter trips or chapel teas. I’m all for new experiences these days.

The chapel was three miles down the dale, in the same little village that had the shop and post office. Already the brass band were there, unloading their instruments and tuning up. I was surprised at how young so many of them were. Some looked doddery and ancient, but quite a few were only kids—thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, maybe. The tea was being laid out in the schoolroom next door to the chapel. It smelt slightly of damp, polish, and egg sandwiches. Here, too, were more samplers.

‘Judge not, that ye be not judged,’
said one sternly, in neat little stitches. though the message was a bit blurred behind
the mottled, fly-specked glass.
‘Pride goeth before a fall’ and, ‘Love thyself last’
demanded others. I looked away to the tables below them.

‘My God, what a feast!’

The tables were spread with endless plates piled high with sandwiches, fruit loaves, scones, cream cakes, fruit tarts, jam tarts, dishes of trifle, sausage rolls, plates of cheese, gingerbread, Victoria sponges, pies, quiches, fairy cakes, Swiss rolls. I had never seen so much food.

‘Well, it’s a celebration, lass, isn’t it?’ said an old lady, clearly in her best coat, hat and pinny. ‘You’ve got to make an effort.’

Celebration. And suddenly a thought for a whole new series for
The Foodie
magazine popped into my head. ‘Celebration’—weddings, birthdays, chapel teas, Bar Mitzvahs, street parties, stag nights…My head filled with images of all sorts of food, from five-tiered wedding cakes with handmade decorations, to chocolate fountains, whole salmon, tapas, profiterole bombes or pork pies. Yes. What a wonderful last-page piece that would make. I would suggest it to Pete as soon as I got back. I was so busy treasuring the possibilities of this wonderful new idea that I didn’t for a moment notice the slight ripple of anxiety around me.

‘Where’s the extra cups? And all the paper plates?’

‘Gwen was going to get them, but she had to go to Kirby Stephen, their Emma’s baby’s on its way.’

‘Has anyone else got them?’

‘Eeh, I don’t think so.’

With that an elderly man in a dog collar popped his head round the door. ‘My goodness, what a spread,’ he said. ‘I always say that this chapel has the best anniversary tea in the dale.’ And he clearly meant it. ‘Right, the band’s ready, so if you’d like to come through next door.’

‘But what about the plates?’ hissed one of the ladies. ‘And all the extra cups?’

‘I’ll get them,’ said Kate, doing her jacket up again.

‘Where are they?’ I asked.

‘Just at The Miners’. Dexter said we could borrow extra from him. He got the plates for us too.’

‘I’ll go,’ I said, ‘if you don’t mind me driving your car. Then you can go in to the service.’

Kate hesitated. But she wasn’t one for shilly-shallying. ‘Smashing,’ she said, handing over the keys. ‘Dexter should have them all ready. And you can just sneak in the back later, if you like.’

With that the band struck up a rousing tune. The schoolroom emptied and I scampered out through the rain to Kate’s car.

Dexter had all the cups, saucers and plates waiting on a table by the door. ‘I was just about to bring them down myself,’ he said. ‘I was wondering what was happening.’

He helped me load them up and I drove carefully back down to the chapel. Once I’d staggered into the schoolroom with the box, I thought I might as well unpack them and set them out. Cup and saucer, cup and saucer, on the trestle tables covered with white sheets. The huge urn was hissing gently away. A line of teapots stood waiting, ready to be filled. A ramshackle collection of varied milk jugs and a big tin of Nescafé, a paper cup full of spoons. There was something so homely and timeless about it. It would make a lovely picture for the magazine.

From the chapel next door I could hear the brass band doing their stuff and the voices singing alongside. It was cheering. I wandered round the schoolroom, looking at the fly-specked samplers and faded photos—a Sunday school anniversary picnic from years ago, solemn little girls in pinafores, a presentation to somebody for something—lots
of men in black suits and whiskers; an anniversary service from the 1950s—people overflowing down the steps and onto the road outside. The chapel was full today, but still nowhere near that full.

I was thinking of all the people who had lived in this dale and of how it was now emptying, with deserted houses, abandoned barns, when even above the triumphant playing in the chapel next door I could hear a strange noise. There it was again.

Oh God, it was my mobile. I was so rarely anywhere where there was reception these days that I just wasn’t used to hearing its sound. How bizarre. I fumbled it out of my pocket.

‘So is that the lady who got me into so much trouble?’ His voice was deep and throaty with the hint of a laugh.

‘Clayton! Oh God, I am just
so
sorry. Was it dreadful? Have you had a lot of stick about it? I felt so awful, if I hadn’t fallen asleep—’

‘You try and give me back my present. You fall asleep on me. You get me arrested.’

‘I know, I know, I’m sorry.’ The band and congregation next door were now belting out
‘Rejoice, in the name of the Lord!’
at full volume. It was a bizarre accompaniment.

‘So what happened? I mean, you were only a minute, weren’t you?’

‘Nah. I got a cab right back to the house, yeah? But when we got to the gates, I didn’t have the remote control—that’s in the cars.’

‘But there’s a keypad at the side, isn’t there?’

‘Yeah. But I couldn’t remember the number. It’s in my phone. And my phone was in the car, and the car was at King’s Cross, wasn’t it? And the taxi driver guy was getting really antsy by now.’

Luckily Maria, dear little Maria, had come out to feed
the birds and seen him and let him in so he could get his wallet.

‘So I just let the cab take me straight back, but we must have been gone—oh, I don’t know, maybe an hour by then. And when I went to my car, there were all these bollards and barriers round it and a load of police. That’s when they took me in.’

‘But surely if you really were a terrorist, you wouldn’t come back to get your car?’

‘Right. I told them that, but would they listen? Would they shite. So we had to go through the whole thing: what was I doing, why had I left my car, why had I gone off and abandoned it. Why why why.’

‘Oh gosh. Were they horrible?’ For a moment I imagined police brutality and torture tactics.

‘Nah,’ Clayton laughed. ‘Not really. One was a bit of a little Hitler but the other two were OK. They knew it was just a cock-up. At the end I had to fill in a form to say if I thought I’d been unfairly questioned or discriminated against.’

‘So what did you say?’

‘I said yes—because the guys were all Spurs supporters. They thought that was pretty cool really and asked for my autograph…and not just on the form. The worst part was all the guys at training taking the piss out of me. And some of the supporters at the game on Friday.’

‘But you played brilliantly. I read the match reports.’

‘Did you? Yeah, well, I thought I’d show them what they could do with their jokes: stuff ‘em right where the sun don’t shine.’

‘You seem so relaxed about it! I was getting worried when you weren’t answering your phone. I thought you must be really angry about what had happened.’

‘Well, yeah, it wasn’t good. And those pictures in the
papers! How can I be the king of cool looking like that?’ he laughed. ‘It’ll be a nice story for the autobiography, though, won’t it?’

I could feel a great weight lifting from my shoulders. If Clayton could laugh about it, I needn’t feel guilty. It had taken him a few days to sort it out in his head, but now he was laughing at himself. I was, I realised, grinning myself.

‘So where are you now, Miss Tilly the Terrorist?’

‘I’m up north. Actually in chapel at the moment. There’s a service going on the other side of the wall.’

‘You’re in chapel?’ He sounded surprised. ‘Are you a church lady too?’

‘Not at all. Just helping out.’

‘But you’re up north, yeah? With all the sheep?’

‘Yes that’s right.’

‘How long for?’

‘End of the week. I’ve got an interview with a pudding-maker arranged on Friday, so I’ll probably come back Saturday or Sunday.’

‘Make it Sunday.’

‘Why?’

‘Because then you can do something to make up for getting me arrested.’

‘Anything.’

‘
Anything?
‘

‘Well,
almost
anything.’

He chuckled. ‘We’re playing up north on Saturday. And Sim Maynard has got a big Halloween party at his lodge. He wants us all to go. Should be a good party and we have to keep him happy. Will you come with me?’

Right at the back of my mind there was the tiniest niggling doubt about Maynard and Ravensike Lodge. I buried it quickly. ‘You want me to come to a party with you? On Saturday? A Halloween party?

‘Yeah. Not fancy dress, but you’d better dress fancy. OK?’

‘OK. Yes. Why not? Well, what I mean is, yes, I’d like to.’

‘Great. I’ll ring you later, sort out details.’ And the phone went dead.

I clutched the phone and looked round the musty schoolroom with its pictures and samplers, the egg sandwiches and chicken legs, the hissing urn and the brass band and singing coming from next door. Suddenly this felt like the best place on earth.

He’d asked me to a party! Despite the trail of chaos I seemed to have left in his life, despite the fact that he had the pick of all the eligible ladies in the country, he had asked
me
. I was so happy I couldn’t stand still. I used my phone—which I was still clutching—to take pictures of the room and the table, to remind me of my ‘Celebration’ idea. I danced up and down the trestle tables, setting out the last of the cups and saucers. I sang as I set up the stacks of paper plates. I even sang along to the hymns. Clayton Silver was a decent guy and I was going to a party with him. Well, wouldn’t
you
sing?

When the ladies of the chapel committee—all best coats and sensible shoes—came out before the last hymn to make sure the tea was under control, they beamed at me approvingly.

‘Why, lass, you’ve done a grand job,’ smiled one elderly lady as she removed her coat and tied an apron over her smart tweed skirt and matching cardigan. I beamed back at her, full of love for the world, for life, for her and especially—suddenly and blissfully—for Clayton Silver.

He could see her in the distance as she walked over the packhorse bridge and up the path to the cottage. She walked easily, carrying something carefully, the steepness of the track not troubling her. As she neared the
cottage, she must have heard him or sensed his presence because she turned and looked. She did not wave or acknowledge him.

But when he too reached the top of the path, the cottage door was open. On the table he could see the pitcher she had been carrying up from the farm.

‘Well, Mr Peart,’ she said, her mouth set in a firm line, yet her eyes seemed to be smiling, amused, ‘you seem to be quite a regular visitor. I hadn’t realised the dale held so many suitable subjects for your photography. The people down in London will be very knowledgeable about us.’

‘There are always a variety of subjects,’ he said, uncertain for a moment. ‘And I find this dale interesting.’ He thought of the premises he had seen to let in the village on the main road down the dale. The spacious house had a big garden and an orchard and, more importantly, a workshop that could very conveniently be adapted to a studio and darkroom, should a man wish to uproot from a town and move to the quieter confines of the countryside, especially a man with the right sort of wife.

True, there was the boy to consider. But he seemed bright enough, and he would need a new apprentice.

‘Will you take some buttermilk?’ Mrs Allen asked. ‘It is straight from my son’s cows. I have charge of them as my daughter-in-law is not well and is in any case no dairywoman.’

‘Thank you, yes.’

It was years since he had drunk buttermilk, rich and creamy. Having poured him some, she took the pitcher and put it in the cold stone storeroom at the back of the house.

He unwrapped the frames he had brought with him.
At first she refused to accept them. But when he placed a picture of one of her sons in one and propped it on the mantelpiece, she agreed it was pleasant to look up and see him there, still part of the house where he grew up. She allowed him to put the other photograph in its frame and the two young men gazed proudly down at their mother. This time Matilda Allen allowed herself to smile as she gazed at them.

‘There is another small thing,’ he said, pulling the haberdasher’s packet from his pocket.

Clayton and Alessandro strode into The Miners’ Arms. But it was very different from that first time, weeks ago. True, they still had that gloss and glow of money and success and yes, they were still swaggering—I think it was the only way they knew to walk—but this time they were smiling and Sandro’s face lit up when he saw Becca. He went towards her and took her in his arms, to a chorus of cheers from the locals in the bar.

I stood still, waiting to see what Clayton would do. He grinned at me, looked me up and down in approval and then kissed me on the cheek. ‘Wow, you look good, Miss Tilly,’ he said, stepping back to get a better view, then kissing me again. ‘Really good,’ he murmured, as I breathed in the scent of him.

‘Well, you’re not so bad yourself,’ I said, nervous of this new relationship, not quite knowing how to behave.

‘You’re wearing the necklace,’ he said, approvingly, running his fingers gently along it, making the skin of my throat tingle.