The Unorthodox Arrival of Pumpkin Allan (9 page)

Lois sat for some time, absolutely mesmerised, to start with by the owl, then once it had flown away, by the sheer beauty of the night. She could hear Tom calling to see if she was all right. He’d also got up to pee and of course had managed very well with just a pipe, but was wondering what was taking her so long. Lois called him down, she wouldn’t have woken him up to see it, what with having to go to work the next day, but since he was awake anyway…

The pair of them sat on the small, crumbling, garden wall for about twenty minutes, until cloud had partially hidden the moon and the first drops of rain started to fall. They didn’t talk; they just watched, listened and absorbed the beauty and tranquility of the night.

As they climbed back into bed Tom suggested perhaps they should leave the lawn long to encourage wildlife. Lois laughed and told him he wasn’t going to get out of his gardening jobs that easily and pre-empted his next question by saying no, they didn’t need, neither could they afford, a ride on lawnmower.

The next morning Lois and Tom both woke early and had a strip wash at the kitchen sink, standing on Annie’s old towel that Lois had forgotten to return. Tom seemed to be adapting very well to having his arm in plaster. It was much easier to get on with everyday routines now that he had jettisoned the sling. Lois helped him wash the bits that were too painful for him to reach, admiring the various shades of bruising interspersed about his torso.

Tom went off to work, wishing her luck with his parents, which made Lois scowl her goodbye. She tidied up as well as she could, left the back door open for Dean and made for the electrical and plumbing wholesalers as instructed.

She got back at ten o’clock to Chris and Pippa’s estate car parked on the lane outside the cottage, with, as always, the boot left open. On seeing this Lois was reminded that Pippa would have bought countless bits of tat for her and Tom, and expect her to examine them all at length, despite the fact that she had a million things to do today.

Lois took a deep breath, got out of the car and made her way to the house, reminding herself what helpful, loving and caring people they were. She said how lovely it was to see them, hugged Chris and tried to hug Pippa, but she was too busy thrusting a large plastic crate overflowing with newspaper articles and old magazines at Lois.

The first three articles Lois glanced at, had the headlines, ‘Don’t Invest in Property Now!’ ‘Moving to the Country is so Last Year!’ and ‘The Chiltern Glis Glis.’ Well that was enough for Lois; she firmly put the basket in the corner of the room and told Pippa she would read them all later. At which point Pippa handed over her next ‘presents’, gardening gloves, a trowel and a pair of secateurs. Now under other circumstances, Lois would have taken these presents as a personal affront. Lois had a habit of translating Pippa’s acts kindness into a personal criticism of her own ability to function as a grown-up. So bringing some gardening tools would be pointedly indicating that Lois knew nothing about gardening. But, since she did know absolutely nothing about gardening and, more importantly, these items might just keep Pippa out of her hair for the afternoon, Lois thanked her warmly.

“And,” said Pippa walking towards the front door, “I’ve made a lovely quiche for lun……ah, get away, get away you horrible dogs!” she shrilled. Lois and Chris followed her out to see Annie’s dogs Reaver and Rupert just finishing up the remains of the ‘lovely quiche’ in the boot of the car. As Pippa ran towards them, waving her arms and yelling, the dogs jumped nonchalantly out. Rupert burped his appreciation while Reaver slunk off with a knowing look of “Oops I think we’re in trouble.”  Raucous laughter emanated from the open bedroom window where the House Martins were lapping up the entertainment.

At that moment Annie emerged from her driveway and walked towards the car, with the dogs peering out sheepishly from behind her. Lois didn’t know what to say, so decided to introduce everyone as if nothing untoward had happened. But before she had opened her mouth Pippa said, very accusingly, “Are they yours?” Annie nodded, assuming she was going to be complimented on her lovely dogs. “They ate my quiche!”

“I’m sorry?” said Annie, looking bewildered.

“They climbed into the back of our car and they ate my quiche!” Annie, seeing the House Martins leaning out of the bedroom window laughing, thought it must be a joke and started to smile. Then she saw the look of disgust on Pippa’s face, apologised profusely and said she would drive to the village and buy a replacement.

Pippa turned away sulkily; clearly no shop bought quiche was going to be a match for her homemade dish. She never had liked dogs! Lois mouthed to Annie not to worry, but Annie said she would go to the village straight away.

On returning to the house, Lois decided it was time to get Pippa involved in the garden. “Mrs. A, how would you feel about making a start on tackling the jungle at the back of the house?”

“Yes, I can do that for you Lois,” said Pippa, smugly, “come and tell me where you would like me to make a start.” The two of them walked out into the back garden. Pippa looked quite taken aback by the state of it, “Oh my, it’s lucky I like a challenge! I’m not sure the trowel’s going to be too useful at this stage, eh Lois?” Pippa shrieked with laughter at her own joke. “What tools have you got here?”

“Do you know Mrs. A, I’m not sure that we’ve got anything more than what you brought with you, but let’s go and check the garden shed and see if anything’s been left.”

Lois and Mrs. A waded through the long, thick grass, nettles and thistles, to the shed. Lois trampled down the smaller weeds around the door and opened it gingerly, praying she wasn’t going to come face to face with rodents of any description. Lois gazed in disbelief. She’d hoped that there might be a few rusty old garden implements, enough to keep Mrs. A. busy for the remainder of the day. But what she actually found was a shed full of brightly coloured, pristine looking tools and garden machinery and a shelf, upon which sat four garden gnomes, a packet of Rizzlas and a box of matches.

“Wow! That’s amazing! Mrs. Smith’s relatives must have forgotten this lot when they came to clear out……or maybe they don’t have a garden.”

“Let’s make the most of it shall we?” said Pippa, donning the gardening gloves and grabbing a big branch lopper. “Okay Lois, you get on with your jobs, leave the garden to me!”

Lois walked back towards the house, surprisingly impressed with Pippa’s gung-ho attitude. En-route, she decided to make a detour to the outside loo. As she sat, she puzzled over the shed full of goodies. The tools and machinery, she sort of understood, an oversight on the part of the greedy relatives. But the gnomes were a bit odd, they looked brand new. Why would anyone buy four garden gnomes and leave them in a shed? She decided the most likely explanation was an unwanted gift and decided not to give them any more thought.

Emerging from the toilet, Lois could see Mrs. A. giving the brambles, at the bottom of the garden, hell. Seeing Lois out of the corner of her eye, Pippa called out, asking if Lois had noticed if there was a scythe. Lois walked back across the grass, meeting Pippa by the shed door. “No, I don’t think so,” she glanced around the shed, “there’s a petrol strimmer though and a chainsaw, would you like to have a go with those?” she gave Pippa a joking nudge.

“Oh yes!” Came the response, Pippa looking more animated than Lois had seen her in a long time, “I’ve always wanted a go with decent garden machinery.”

Lois hoped she was joking, but wasn’t sure, so decided the best thing to do was to send Chris out to keep things under control. Returning to the house, Lois was delighted to find him on the floor with what looked very much like a cardboard template for a windowsill in front of him. Dean had apparently shown him the problem in the bathroom and Chris had taken it upon himself to sort it out.

“Hope you don’t mind me taking this job on board Lois, you know how I love a bit of woodworking.”

“That’s great Mr. A., thanks. But I would also be very grateful if you would go out in the garden and supervise your wife with the garden machinery, I’m a bit worried she’s going to bite off more than she can chew.” The proverb made Lois feel sick as one of Pippa’s limbs being mangled up in the chainsaw sprang to her mind.

“Oh God, well it wouldn’t be the first time.” Mr. A. got up and marched out to the garden with a look of determination on his face.

Lois went into the front garden with the paint colour charts and her mobile and shortlisted the paints she liked, she was planning an escape for the afternoon. Buying paints for the entire house could keep her out for some hours.

Mel had suggested one particular paint manufacturer, saying the paint was expensive, but worth the extra cost. Lois looked at their chart first, but seeing paint names like ‘dead trout’, ‘rhinoceros breath’ and ‘churlish taupe’, she decided to give them a miss. She couldn’t imagine telling her friends they’d painted the dining room in dead trout.

She looked at all the charts at length, wanting to be daring with colour, but feeling that perhaps she wasn’t quite brave enough. She called Tom to try and get his opinion. He was in the middle of an important meeting and was quite cross that Lois had asked his PA to call him out. “We can discuss this later Lo, I can’t do it now, anyway Dean’s not going to be painting the rest of the house until next week, why the need to buy the paints today………oh, I get it, you want to go out. Well you’ll have to find something else to go out for. Leave the paints for today! Love you!” and he was gone.

Lois felt momentarily despondent, but was quickly distracted by the sound of a loud mechanical noise coming from the back garden and went to investigate. There was sixty-five year old Pippa, all five foot three of her, wielding an enormous strimmer at anything and everything that got in her way. As Chris walked past he said, “I tried Lois, I tried, but she is a very determined woman, Tom’s mother. I’m going in, I can’t bear to watch! Oh and Lois, don’t go within ten foot of her will you.” Lois decided she really couldn’t watch either and as she couldn’t buy paints today, she would instead, go and register with the local GP. She would be due for her next antenatal appointment in a couple of weeks, so it was something she needed to do. She told Chris and Dean where she was going, said she wouldn’t be long and disappeared.

Lois returned an hour later to find everyone out in the back garden having a picnic. Pippa had, much to everyone’s amazement, successfully strimmed a large area of the lawn and raked the trimmings into a pile for burning. Annie had delivered the most fantastic assortment of picnic food she had bought from the deli in town, presumably at great expense, as a peace offering for Pippa. Lois pulled her to one side. “Annie, this must have cost a fortune, you didn’t have to do this, she would have forgiven you…eventually!” The two of them started laughing.

“I can’t believe the dogs did that, they don’t usually steal.”

“I don’t suppose they usually have a meal left so accessible to them either,” said Lois as she squeezed a twenty-pound note from her purse into Annie’s hand. Annie tried to refuse it, at the same time being very grateful to Lois as she really was trying to hang on to every penny.

“Come along Lois, do come and eat!” called Pippa, adopting her most exaggerated upper class accent with great enthusiasm, generated by her successful morning of gardening. “Look, sit on one of the rugs I bought with me, I knew they’d come in useful. Are you all right on the floor Lois, or would you prefer a chair? Of course I never made a fuss about anything when I was pregnant, but you never know how other people deal with such situations,” she said, giving a knowing glance to Annie. As she looked away Annie and Lois looked at each other, both raised their eyes to heaven and stifled giggles while Chris buried his head in his hands, shaking his head.

The lunch was delicious. Lois and Annie cleared away as quickly as possible and Pippa went straight back to strimming. Dean called to Lois as Annie left, to discuss what she wanted doing, if anything, with the spiral staircase.

Lois had already expressed her opinion of the staircase to Dean. It was the one thing about the cottage, other than the bathroom suite and the decor, which she really didn’t like. “I’ve looked into replacing it with a conventional staircase, but under present day regulations there isn’t space for one,” Dean said, as the two of them stood contemplating the sixties monstrosity. Lois’s face dropped with this news. “But I do have a good idea,” said Dean, looking more animated than Lois had ever seen him.

“Go on,” said Lois, unconvinced that anything could transform the hideous thing standing before her. The staircase consisted of a cream coloured metal central pole, stair supports and uprights supporting the handrail. The handrail itself was covered in black plastic. The stair treads were wooden with large ‘ornamental’ bolts on the underside and, to top it all, there were huge gaps between the uprights making it a potential death trap for children.

“Well, first we take the plastic off the hand rail, then paint the whole thing matt black, including the steps. Then I get this special metallic powder paint and scumble glaze, dab it all over, varnish over the top and Bob’s your uncle, you’ve got a cracking centre piece for your living room. Oh, and I think I can get some swirly fillers very reasonably too, we’ll decorate them the same way and weld them in place.”

“I can’t imagine it’ll transform it that much, but I’ll leave it to you Dean, whatever you think. Give me a list and I’ll go shopping.”

“Eager to get out the house again, are we Lois?” Dean laughed, glancing out of the window at Pippa, who was trying her best to start up the chainsaw.

“No, what ever gave you that idea?” Lois thrust a note pad and pen into his hand and gesticulated for him to get on with the list, fast. The moment he had written it, she thanked him, snatched the list and her bag and ran for the door. As she went out of the front door, Pippa came in through the back, asking where Lois was as she needed some petrol for the chain saw. Lois’s MG flew down the bumpy track just as Dean was apologising for the fact that Mrs. A. had just missed her.

Whilst she was in town, Lois got a phone call from Tom, “Hi Lo, I’m so sorry about earlier, I was in a really stressful meeting.” Lois was quite surprised; Tom generally wasn’t one for apologies. He went on to say, “And for leaving you to deal with my parents single-handedly. I left the office early, I’ll be home within half an hour and be able to give you some support.”

“Okay, that’s great,” Lois paused, still feeling slightly taken a back, “I’m just finishing off the shopping, see you there.” She hung up and slipped her phone into her pocket. As she ambled her way around the DIY shop, she suddenly had a vision of Tom arriving home to a scene resembling the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, blood and limbs scattered over the back lawn and her being to blame. She gathered the last two items on Dean’s list and ran to the checkout, where there was a long queue. Lois started to tap her foot impatiently as she waited her turn. She heard an ambulance siren outside and immediately imagined it was on the way to their house to collect up the limbs and torsos of Pippa and her victims. Lois huffed and puffed. As the manager passed Lois, she said, “Would Madam like to use the self check-out if Madam’s in a hurry?”