Cauldron Bubble

12

Cauldron Bubble

    “It’s all go up there! They’ve sent teams of people down!” reported Miriam with an excited laugh.

    Ted leaned on the counter. “A team.”

    “No!” she snapped. “Why do you always have to contradict everything I say? There’s different teams looking at the inside of the house, and the gardens, and the architecture!”

    “It’ll be a bloody mishmash, then,” he drawled, taking a jelly-baby snake.

    “You can pay for that!” said Miriam viciously, ringing it up. “And it won’t be, see, because they have huge big project meetings and it all gets co-ordinated!”

    “Colour co-ordinated, would this be?”

    “No! You’re not funny! Hill Tarlington’s on the co-ordinating committee, and everything! And they’re gonna do up the stables and offer riding as one of their special things: won’t that be lovely?”

    For whom? “Uh—well, the stables will, actually: they’re perfect early Georgian gems,” he admitted. “It’d be a crime to pull them down.”

    “Exactly! Um, what do you think of archery?”

    “Par-don?” replied Ted in a silly voice.

    “Well, I think it sounds like fun!” said Miriam on a defiant note. “Joanna was in just the other day and she was saying there used to be archery, up there, there’s a great big field, and at the planning meeting they had over to Boddiford Hall, Hill Tarlington showed them a book of old photos, dating back to before the First World War, with all the ladies wearing huge hats, and they were all holding bows and arrows!”

    “I see. The hats must have impeded the archery to a quantifiable degree, surely? Or did they take ’em off, to shoot?”

    “Um, well, that’s what I thought,” admitted Miriam, apparently not perceiving he was less than half serious. “But Joanna said that Hattie says ladies never took their hats off out of doors in those days.”

    “Uh—think she’s right, actually. I can just remember old Mrs Tarlington, Col’s grandmother. Do you remember her? Always wore black—well, poor old girl, she’d lost all three sons. The hat seemed to be welded to her head, never saw her without it. Though I suppose it wasn’t always literally the same hat. –Well, that It, then? Teams of them up at the house?”

    Miriam cleared her throat. “Not exactly. They’re gonna redo the archery lawn and, um, the croquet lawn—or was it the tennis courts? Um, both, maybe. Um, and they want to dig a swimming-pool.”

    “No,” said Ted definitely. “One wholemeal loaf, one skim milk, and one jelly-baby snake: how much is that?”

    “But you used to do that sort of stuff, didn’t you?” she cried.

    “Digging big holes, you mean? Draining swamps? Something of the sort. The answer’s still No. Though if they want someone to lend a hand with a spade, I’ll consider it. Take it out of that.” He put a tenner on the counter.

    Laboriously Miriam did sums on her bloody automated register and gave him the change. It was still wrong, she owed him another 10 P, but Ted wasn’t chancing his luck: he just grabbed it and exited.

    “Blow,” said Miriam sadly, leaning on her counter. “And what on earth is he eating? Brown bread and milk?”

    There was a short pause.

    “Or does ’e buy fancy ruddy foreign cheese over to Chipping Ditter?” she said loudly and crossly. “Oh—hullo, Miss Waller,” she said lamely to the lady commercial artist from the police house. “Down from London for a long weekend, are you? That’s nice.” She had the Argentinean with her, wearing the usual poncy paisley silk scarf, but that didn’t make him look gay. Actually he looked a bit like Hugh Grant. Sounded like him, too.

    “Did you say something about foreign cheese?” asked Miss Waller keenly. “We were just saying we could do with a nice ripe Camembert, weren’t we, Raul?”

    “Um—yes! I mean, no, sorry, I don’t stock it.”

    Briskly Miss Waller told her why she should, it and the matching range of up-market delicacies, not neglecting a narrow analysis of just the type of client she’d be missing out on from Chipping Abbas when the hotel opened if she didn’t. Hattie’s rose-hip jelly was mentioned, so Miriam was able to tell her she’d only had a few jars and they’d all gone. Briskly advising that she should get her to supply her, and make sure it was an exclusive contract, Miss Waller added that she might drop in on her, and bought one wholemeal loaf, one carton of skim milk, and a pack of the most expensive toilet paper Miriam stocked. Vetoing Raul’s suggestion of a packet of shortbread biscuits with the withering remark that he knew perfectly well they weren’t real shortbread and that he had the tastes of a peasant.

    When they’d gone Miriam went sadly over to the biscuits and picked up a packet. They were! “Shortbread biscuits” was what it said. What was the women on about? She went glumly back to the counter. She ought to ring Hattie, and warn her the creature was about to descend on her to demand free jelly in the intervals of ordering her to sell it commercially with an exclusive contract… That so-called “Dry Goods Emporium” over to Chipping Ditter was awfully cute, with its tiny-paned windows and its frilled, old-fashioned rose-patterned fabric edging its shelves and at the windows. And a lovely real wood floor, but what it must cost in upkeep, she shuddered to think! But she just didn't have that sort of money to put into the shop. It was ages since ruddy Hill Tarlington had mentioned YDI might be interested in helping her. Probably hadn’t meant it at all...

    Miriam leaned on her counter, brooding.

    “What’s all this?” said Harriet feebly.

    “Plans, of course!” replied Hill eagerly, spreading them out all over the Blaiklocks’ coffee-table and a goodly portion of their sitting-room floor.

    Harriet had been under the impression that Hill was merely coming to see his loving relatives. She had been taken aback when he’d said could he bring Julia Weekes from work for dinner on the Friday, but after all, Hattie had had that fling with the blond young fellow, it was sauce for the gander, she supposed. Only maybe it wasn’t that, after all.

    “Did you know about this, Will?” she said feebly to her helpmate.

    “No,” he croaked, goggling. “This your current project, Hill?”

    “Eh? It’s Chipping Abbas, you birk!” he said with an excited laugh.

    Will stared blankly at the giant sheets of architectural plans. “Uh—is it?”

    “Yes, of course, Will!” cried Julia. “This is the ground floor, of course—that’s not right, Hill, that’s the dairy complex!” she added sharply as he spread out another lot on the rug—“and this is the first floor: now, this wing is where you had your bedrooms when you were down there, but we thought we might turn it into a suite: the layout’s just right for that! Where’s the architectural rendering, Hill?”

    “Uh—” He scrabbled in a giant, no, humungous portfolio. “These?”

    “Excellent! Now, won’t it look lovely?” she said to the Blaiklocks, beaming.

    “I see, it’s a picture,” said Harriet feebly.

    “Oh, no, this isn’t a concept drawing, this is an—”

    Numbly Harriet and Will sat back and let Julia tell them the lot. Clear as mud.

    After she’d run down Will picked up the plan she’d told Hill off about. “This is the dairy, right?”

    “Dairy complex,” corrected Julia loftily. “It’ll make a lovely bathhouse—you’ll see!”

    “Right,” said Will groggily.

    “It will be heated, of course,” Hill added smoothly.

    “Um, yes,” agreed Harriet. “Um, but dashing back to the house after your nice mud treatment in a warm bathhouse?”

    Hill’s and Julia’s eyes met. “Go on,” he said kindly.

    “Well, you see,” said Julia to the Blaiklocks with a giggle, “it is slightly overboard, but Sir Maurice in person said it was an inspiration, and laughed his head off! It was Hill’s idea, of course!”

    “It would be,” admitted Will, faint but endeavouring to pursue. “What was it, Julia?”

    “We’re going to have chairs,” said Julia impressively.

    The Blaiklocks gaped at her.

    “Chairs. With chairmen. Chairmen! Bath in Jane Austen’s day!” said Hill loudly.

    “Persuasion. I don’t remember any chairmen from the book but that telly version was certainly full of them,” said Harriet feebly.

    “Bath?” croaked Will, his jaw starting to sag.

    “Bathhouse, Bath, Jane Austen, sedan chairs,” said Hill smoothly.

    Will went into a painful choking, wheezing fit, finally gasping: “Help! Brandy! Brandy!”

    Harriet got up. “You’ll be lucky. Australian sherry, or G&T. Um, sorry, Julia, there’s a nice white wine, if you’d rather?” Of course she would, and Harriet tottered off to get them.

    When she came back she forgot all about the speech she’d prepared on never finding suitable employees to carry their spoilt clients around in this day and age, because Will was holding up a plan and croaking: “Hill, I thought you’d forgotten all about that mad idea?” And Julia was crying: “No! You’ll be really comfortable in this wing, Will!”

    “Let me see that, Will!” she snapped. “And give Julia that glass of white wine, we know you’ve got no manners but there’s no need to advertise it outside the family! Hill, I told you we couldn’t possibly consider taking advantage—”

    “You’d be paying rent, of course. Though if you wanted to, you could offset that by—”

    “No,” said Will, going scarlet.

    “No,” agreed Harriet. “We’re not gonna live off you!”

    “Just listen, you pair of stiff-necked apes,” he said with a sigh, sipping his G&T. “Jesus! How much G did you put in this, Harriet?”

    Grimly Harriet replied: “There wasn’t much tonic: the pelicans had a Teen Gig last night when we were at the cinema.”

    “The boys, she means, Julia,” said Hill kindly.

    Julia was very flushed. “Um, yes. I thought they were at boarding school?” she fumbled.

    “No; day boys,” he said with a smile.

    “Buh—but where are they?” she croaked.

    “They’re not interested in socializing with their ancient parents, dear,” Harriet explained.

    “Hasn’t got a clue where they are,” Will clarified helpfully.

    “Shut up! I have! They went over to Andy Nicholson’s place—and I rang Angela, you can take that look off your face! –He’s building some sort of awful computer thing that plays loud music and flashes lights,” she explained. “Um, well, I think they said they might go over to his uncle’s: he’s an electrician— It’s the same thing!” she cried angrily as Will collapsed in sniggers. “Shut up! And stop trying to side-track me!”

    “I wasn’t, really,” he said glumly. “Well, go on, Hill, if you must; explain why we have to accept your bounty.”

    “This here wing, or strictly speaking piece of wing, will make a very nice flat,” said Hill clearly. “Which we can let.”

    “Or turn into a suite and let at fifty times the price!” retorted Will swiftly.

    “Per day!” agreed Harriet, glaring.

    “It would cost us fifty times as much to turn it into the sort of suite the hotel will feature,” said Hill heavily.

    “Um, yes, these conversions aren’t cheap,” said Julia, blushing over the revelation of this corporate secret.

    “The clients expect marble ensuites, for a start,” explained Hill. “Like the cows,” he added, lapsing slightly.

    Will coughed. “Don’t joke, old man.”

    “No, they do, Will!” cried Julia. “And gold-plated taps and accessories, of course!”

    “Er—yeah. Do they? Right.”

    “And naturally we have to supply every item of furniture as well as the furnishings and linen and so on. And all the lovely decorations—well, the house has got plenty of those and Sir Maurice is quite expecting there to be quite a number of reproductions ordered—but you see?” she said, smiling hopefully at them.

    “Um, yeah, we could put in our one battered almost-Persian rug and that foul seascape Mum gave us,” admitted Will.

    “Well, we can lose it during the move, anyway!” said Harriet roundly.

    There was a short silence.

    “Not that we are moving!” she added quickly.

    “But you haven’t heard Hill out, yet, Harriet,” said Julia.

    “Go on, then,” said Harriet to her brother on a defiant note.

    Hill explained in detail what could be done to turn a two-storeyed set of rooms into a pleasant flat. No, it didn’t overlook the west lawns, or the croquet lawn, that was rather to the front: below the overgrown shrubbery, remember? Not on the same side as the conservatory, Will, that was on the opposite side. No, it was on the eastern side of the house, at the back, at least it would be the back when they’d pulled a few outhouses down, but not too near the service area. If there was any noise it’d only be the chatter of overfed clients going off to the stables or the bathhouse.

    Will looked suspiciously at the plan again. “This bit here? That’s an awfully big floor area.”

    “Let me see!” Harriet grabbed it. She scowled over it. “Isn’t this the east terrace?”

    “Yes,” said Hill with a sigh. “That is the east terrace, and approximately one fifth of your wall space will face onto it. The view will be of genteel guests and a rose trellis, I hardly think it’ll be objectionable. But we’ll put bars on your downstairs windows, of course.”

    “Not that!” she cried, very flushed. “It’s one of the best parts of the house, Hill, we can’t possibly!”

    “It isn’t. It is Georgian, I grant you, but this Georgian bit here, between your bit and the front of the house, is in my opinion the best part. It gives directly onto the east terrace, see?”

    “Y— Um, thought that side was completely shaded by that abortion of a Victorian excrescence stuck onto the front, though?” objected Will.

    “It’s coming down,” replied Hill grimly. “In fact with any luck it’ll be down as we speak.”

    “That’s right!” agreed Julia, beaming. “That leaves that nice suite of Georgian rooms, see? They just shelter the terrace enough.”

    “Uh—oh, yeah. See, Harriet? This bit here on the, um, the eastern side of the front part of the house, it’s Georgian, too. This is where the library is,” explained Will, putting his finger on it.

    Sighing, Harriet moved the finger. “This is where the library is, you clot, not at the front! It looks directly onto the terrace!”

    “Uh—oh, yes. Well, tearing the Victorian part down should solve its damp problem!” he said cheerfully.

    “Yes: we found the original plans and we’re putting back its east window!” beamed Julia.

    “Good show,” he said feebly, eyeing the immense Blaiklock Wing uneasily.

    “This’d be your western wall: the back of the flat,” said Hill heavily, putting his finger in the middle of it.

    “Uh—oh! Those dots? Look, Harriet, that isn’t too bad!”

    Harriet peered. “I see. Yes. Is there a passage, then? Oh, I see! Oh, yes: I think I remember that staircase— Hill!” she gasped in horror. “That’s Henrietta’s little sitting-room!”

    “Only according to that so-called journal Will found in the library,” replied her brother temperately.

    “It is! And it is her journal, it’s the dearest thing! And Aden wrote in the front: ‘To my darling Henry, from your loving husband, Aden,’” she said with a deep sigh.

    “Isn’t that sweet!” cried Julia.

    Will cleared his throat. “Er—yeah. Apparently the whole family called her Henry. Well, that’s what Harriet claims he wrote, but it looks more like ‘It may bring Mayhem, for we’re having problems, Aren’t we?’–Never seen such beetle-tracks,” he explained to the gulping Julia.

    “That isn’t funny!” cried his helpmeet. “They were the most devoted couple! And the journal’s delightful! I really think you ought to get it published, Hilly!”

    “It needs editing, Harriet, but I won’t stop you. Well, do you fancy using Henrietta’s sitting-room?”

    “Little sitting-room, she used to write the journal there,” said Harriet, blowing her nose. “Um, no!” she said, reddening. “We can’t possibly take that room, Hill.”

    “We can’t cut it off from the flat, there’s no access, it only gives onto—”

    “The Ladies’ Lawn!” cried his sister in agony. “It’s the nicest spot in the whole place!”

    “Harriet,” said Julia quickly, “it’d be lovely and private for you, with that old stone wall all round it. And our people have determined that it wasn’t actually called that until much later in the house’s history. Henrietta wouldn’t haven’t called it that.”

    “Um, no,” Harriet admitted. “She just calls it the walled lawn, actually. She planted crocuses, because they used to have them down at the country vicarage in Devon where she grew up,” she said, smiling. “And one spring she kept an orphan lamb there!”

    Will at this point, the phrase “sheep shit” loud in his mind, was driven to shoot a warning look at his brother-in-law, but Hill was merely smiling slightly. “Uh—yeah,” he said in a shaken voice. “It would be convenient. And it’d mean they could keep the main lawns for the paying guests, wouldn’t it?”

    “Um, I suppose that’s true. But it’s far too much, Hill! And—and what about the boys? They can be very noisy. And, um, that dear little walled garden won’t be big enough for their sort of stuff. Well, we haven’t got much garden here, but they’ve destroyed what there is.”

    “I had dreams of a tomato patch, once,” explained Will glumly.

    “Rubbish, you started bowling googlies and stuff yourself!” said Harriet loudly.

    “There’s stacks of room at Chipping Abbas. They can play cricket or football or whatever takes their fancy,” said Hill mildly. “Our foreign clients all find cricket unutterably cute.”

    “Actually,” admitted Julia, “Sir Maurice did mention something about, um, encouraging village cricket, didn’t he, Hill? Because there’s all that huge front lawn, you see.”

    “Mm. Over between the drive and the remains of the home wood.”

    “What about golf?” ventured Will cautiously.

    “We did think of that, but we’ve decided against it. We don’t want it to be a golfing hotel: the Boddiford Hall Park Royal’s already doing that,” explained Hill.

    “That man that’s a retired butcher, Bob Something, he said he didn’t think much of it,” Harriet recalled.

    Julia looked at Hill, smiling.

    “Bob Metcalf: yes, he did. I’m having it looked into. We’re getting in a chap who’s designed a couple of very well thought of courses in Australia and Japan.”

    His sister swallowed. “I see.”

    “All those at Chipping Abbas will have playing rights at the Boddiford Hall course, old man,” said Hill kindly to his brother-in-law.

    Will smiled feebly. “My golf’ll lower the Boddiford Hall standards, all right.”

    “Will!” said his wife angrily.

    “Look, the pelicans won’t be with us forever, love—though I grant it feels like it. But they won’t. They’re already developing their own interests. I know we weren’t intending a move just yet, but isn’t this an opportunity we should consider seriously? It’s a lovely part of the country, and the way Hill and Julia seemed to have designed it we’d have privacy but all the advantages of the hotel’s facilities, if we need them.”

    “Three-hundred-pound mud treatments, I suppose!”

    “No: a couple of decent dining-rooms, a few civilised bars. –Our local’s been taken over by a crowd of very young marrieds, suspected of being into wife-swapping parties,” he explained.

    “They are! Angela Nicholson’s sister went to one, and she was absolutely horrified to find some complete stranger picking up her keys and leering at her!”

    “Or that’s what she told Angela, yes. But we’d be free of that sort of thing.”

    “We-ell… But what about the boys’ schooling?” she said feebly. “Not that either of them are geniuses.”

    At this Will’s and his brother-in-law’s eyes met. Clearly the day was almost won. And what with the music at Ditterminster School for Joe, and that the fact that he’d been agitating to see Kenny Perkins again and Kenny was already going there, and what with the further fact that Harriet wasn’t actually loath to get J.B. out of the orbit of one, Miss Gwen Somers, aged fifteen going on thirty-two, and, as Will explained to Hill, a right little Lydia Bennet, talking of Jane Austen—and with the further fact that the little shops in Chipping Ditter were, apparently, lovely, and Harriet was really fed up with their local shops…

    “Phew!” said Will with a laugh some hours later, as the ladies, having scornfully refused all offers of help, retired to the kitchen, the company of the dishwasher that Julia had assured Harriet the flat’s kitchen plan made allowance for, and a detailed discussion of interior décor.

    Hill smiled. “Yeah. Won’t be too far from the office for you, will it, Will?”

    “No, closer than we are now, in terms of time: takes me hours from here because of the traffic. We went that way on our way home last summer: had to drop off some papers. Took the back road to Newbury—straight run through—and then up to Oxford on the M34.”

    “Oh, good. Haven’t been that way, myself. Did you head for Ditterminster first?”

    “No, that’s longer. Took the old road, north-east from Chipping Abbas. It does eventually join the bypass. The surface is shocking, mind you.”

    “We might see if pressure can be brought to bear about that.”

    “Some macadam’d be nice,” agreed Will, grinning. “Have another drop of that Kahlua you so kindly brought us.”

    “No, thanks. –Julia likes it,” he said with a smothered sigh.

    “Uh-huh. Seems a nice girl,” said Will cautiously.

    Hill shrugged. “The lack of anything approaching an education gets a trifle wearing. That in combination with the ability to speak at length on any topic under the sun.”

    “Noticed that.” Will helped himself to another drop. “Hill, where are you going to live?”

    “Eh? Where I am now.”

    “Mm.” He got up and scrabbled amongst the plans. “Um—here. If you’re knocking off the Victorian excrescence all along this side of the front block, you could use the rooms that’ll be on the east face!”

    “The library,” discerned Hill heavily.

    “Eh? Yes, that’s right. But—”

    “Will, what else was down that passage?”

    “Uh—mouldering Edwardian finery down the end. That’d be where they entertained old Tum-Tum!” he said with a loud laugh.

    “No doubt. And?”

    “Um, well… Oh, you mean on the, um, right if you’re heading towards the library.”

    “Yes. At the front of the house,” he said heavily. “In the Georgian bit.”

    “Um—oh. It’s that sitting-room Julia fancies for the odd sheikh or two, isn’t it?”

    “Quite.”

    “But the rooms above that are those nice little Jacobean ones!”

    “Not directly above, Will. The Georgian bit stretches north to south. Upstairs the Victorians threw the existing Georgian rooms together with their addition: there’s a giant reception room up there that we’re getting rid of.”

    “Um, well, what are you planning to put up there?”

    “Um…” Hill scrabbled amongst the piles of paper. “Here.”

    “Ooh, a concept drawing!” He took another look at it and croaked: “Where did this idea come from? Castle Howard?”

    Hill cleared his throat. “It’s not that bad. Well, we don’t know if they ever built it like that, but that is based on an early 18th-century sketch from the estate office.”

    Apparently the Georgians had envisaged that while the house’s front face, still more or less all there apart from the hideous Victorian excrescence disfiguring its eastern end, would remain nice and restrained, above the east terrace there would be an elaborate balcony with a row of giant statues standing on its stone balustrade. Fully life-size, according to this. After a certain amount of horrified goggling Will croaked: “Where is Sir Maurice, pardon my French, envisaging you’re gonna find these Aphrodites at the Waterhole?”

    “Mm? Oh! Well, that’s a Mars: we’ve found him, in the old stables. Minus a few bits and pieces, but as Julia so rightly said, it makes him look more antique. The lady with the urn is a nymph, not an Aphrodite, never mind what cinematic delights of your misspent boyhood you were recalling, there. She was down in the jungle that was once the rose garden, presiding over a small pool that certainly wasn’t there up to 1855.”

    “The later Victorians drilled a hole through her and piped water from the urn: got it. And this other dame, with the tits?”

    “She is an Aphrodite—or at least a Venus. Nicked, we can only presume. There’s certainly no trace of her.”

    “Checked the lower cellars?”

    “Yes. A bust of Zeus, Julia thinks it’ll look impressive in the hotel’s main salon, a delightful Cupid with a chipped wing—poised on one toe, you know the pose?—that, anachronism or not, is going into the after-dinner lounge along with Henrietta’s portrait, because Julia is quite sure that Henrietta would have loved it, and a really nasty gold-plated effort about two feet high that from a distance of more than two yards looks like a formless blob and that reminded us both vividly of something we’d seen on our travels but we couldn’t for the life of us place.” He looked bland.

    “Gold-plated what?” replied Will grimly.

    “Greek—putatively Greek—wrestlers in the state that Nature may have intended but, I can almost guarantee, not the pose.” He watched Will’s gulping with pleasure. “Yeah.”

    “Uh—what’s wrong with the Cupid? I mean, why’s it an anachronism? Couldn’t it be a Canova, even? Or after Canova.”

    “It’s Victorian. Long way after Canova. But Julia’ll be right, you’ll see.”

    “Er—mm.” Will eyed him cautiously. “Julia always right, is she?”

    “Usually.” He looked at his brother-in-law’s face. “It’s her job, you fool! Bloody Maurice Bishop pays her for her eye for what the punters’ll go for: got it?”

    “Yeah,” said Will sheepishly. He looked blankly at the concept drawing of the new east face of Chipping Abbas. There was one more statue, a putative Hermes in his hat. “By God, you swine,” he said slowly. “You’ve side-tracked me on purpose!”

    “Wasn’t me that started asking about Aphro—”

    “Shut up! Get rid of the fucking statuary and restore those rooms behind the balcony to their original Jacobean look! It’d be a lovely little flat for you, Hill!”

    “Uh—” Hill scratched his chin. “Ye-ah. Look, we probably won’t even be able to find any of the original panelling. That fucking Victorian reception room upstairs encroached on what the Georgians left of the old part of the house: they enlarged the upstairs landing, presumably to accommodate the bloody reception line.”

    “I see. But you’ll have to rebuild that entire side of the house, so why not make it into a nice flat?”

    “Um—I’ll think about it. Perhaps turn it into a self-contained suite with the proviso that I can reclaim it any time.”

    Will got up, looking grim. “Good. I’ll run it by Julia.”

    Hill watched limply as he marched off. Did the idiot think he needed to repay him for the offer of accommodation, or— Oh, well. Let him. He couldn’t force him to live at Chipping Abbas and nor, contrary to what the idiot seemed to believe, could Julia.

    What with the huge excitement over the Blaiklock Wing, not to mention the unilateral decision to ditch most of the furniture they’d painfully acquired over the years with Will’s hard-earned, it took Harriet another two full days. Then she said slowly: “Will, did Hill seem almost, um, feverish to you? Um, well, febrile, I suppose.”

    “Very up, yeah,” replied Will cautiously.

    Harriet swallowed. “Colin and the regiment are in Iraq, you know,” she said in a small voice.

    Will had seen this coming and had been fully prepared to rubbish it, but the small voice gave him pause. “Well—uh—s’pose he is a bit worried about them, yeah. Only natural. And, um, a bit stirred up because they’re over there and he isn’t. Personally I’ll believe Saddam Hussein’s chucked away good money on the bomb when he drops it and not before— Um, sorry, love. Well, um, feels a bit guilty that he’s not with them, I dare say. Lot of ex-Army chaps feel like that.”

    “Mm.”

    He thought that was it and was about to suggest a nice cuppa when she said: “He's miserable over Hattie, too.”

    Will sighed. “He didn’t make that much of an effort when he had the chance, did he? Shouldn’t have rushed off to the other side of the world in a snit if he wanted her. Can’t blame the girl for taking up with any number of slimy real estate agents, really.”

    Harriet glared. “She rejected his lovely flowers and—and gave him the brush-off in front of them all!”

    In the first place they only had Joanna’s word for it that the flowers had been lovely and in the second place the “all” had only been the kids, Hill’s brother, and Hattie’s friend, but he wasn’t gonna argue with her. “Mm. Well, think he was giving her time to cool off, get over the shock of bumping into him like that. And I have to say it, Harriet, bumping into any chap that’s in the company of Cynthia Bloody Moreton’d be pretty much guaranteed to put most girls off, wouldn’t it? Don’t forget the poor girl got an earful of her usual carry-on at the bloody village hop.”

    “Mm,” agreed Harriet sadly.

    Will got up quickly. “Nice cuppa before bed?”

    “Thanks, dear,” she said wanly.

    The kettle had time to almost reach the boil and Will had time to bung a couple of teabags in the pot and sag against the bench before she bustled in all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

    “Will! I know! As soon as we’re in the flat, we can have him down—and Allan as well—and—”

    Great jumping Jehosophat! He didn’t argue, or point out that matchmaking paid no toll, or point out that if they hadn’t managed to get Hattie up to Chipping Abbas last summer when it didn’t contain Hill there was no reason to suppose they’d succeed once they were living down there and had kidnapped him for her, or, indeed, anything at all. He just made the tea.

    “They’ve all got rooms at that Boddiford ’All Park Royal,” reported June on a sour note.

    Hattie blinked. “Um, not the men driving the big machines, surely, June?”

    “Bulldozers! Front-end loaders!” cried Gordon shrilly. “You’re ’opeless!”

    “Sorry,” said Hattie lamely. “Um, when we went up there we saw a lot of men, who seemed to be, um—”

    “Standing around leaning on their shovels,” said June drily.

    “Well, yes. I suppose they do the more, um, delicate parts of the digging.”

    June sniffed. “You could call it that. The ones I saw were managing to smoke a fag or two, but that was about it. But you’re right: they’re not staying at the ’otel. Some of ’em are locals—well, I say locals, from Ditterminster or Dittersford, and I think a couple of Daynesford fellers what couldn’t find work in the forestry, or what they found was too much like work,” she noted in a sour aside, “but the rest of them, they’ve got a camp on the far side of the estate.”

    “Ooh! A camp?” gasped Gordon.

    June had the grace to swallow. “Well, sort of, dear. They’re using an old house, think it might of been a gamekeeper’s cottage or maybe a forester’s—well, I don’t go back that far, meself!” she said with a twinkle. “They’ve fixed up the roof, seem to’ve got it weatherproof.” The expression on Hattie’s face registered. “Don’t look so horrified, love, big tough men like them are used to roughing it. They’ve got a stove—one of them old wood-burning things, but it seems to work okay. Dunno what they sleep on: camp beds, maybe. Or maybe just sleeping-bags. Ted was over there just the other day, said they seem to’ve made themselves comfy enough. And judging by Miriam’s sales of baked beans, they’re not starving.”

    “Tinned baked beans? It sounds terrible!” said Hattie in dismay.

    “Dare say they’re not incapable of getting over to Dittersford to the pizza place or the Indian, dear.”

    “Why aren’t horrible YDI looking after them properly?” she cried.

    June blinked. “Um, you got the wrong end of the stick, Hattie. The workers’ accommodation isn’t the employer’s business. Don’t you tell me it’s any different in Australia, neither!”

    “Is it?” asked Gordon.

    “It certainly is, when the work’s way out in Outer Woop-Woop!” cried Hattie.

    “Eh?” groped June.

    “In the middle of nowhere! They wouldn’t dream of taking on shearers without providing a proper bunkhouse!” she said fiercely.

    June blinked. “Oh. But this ain’t the Australian Outback, deary. Dare say it’s barely twenty minutes’ run over to Dittersford from where they are.”

    “Would it be further in Australia?” asked Gordon seriously.

    Hattie smiled feebly. “Um, yes, Gordon. Lots of sheep or cattle stations’d be two hundred miles or more from the nearest town.”

    “There you are, then!” said June quickly.

    “So ’ow far is it to Dittersford?” he asked, frowning over it.

    June cleared her throat. “Well, twelve miles, maybe. Not far at all.”

    “That’s not very far, Hattie!” he decided.

    “No,” said June quickly. “Any’ow, what I was gonna say, all the executives and architects and site managers and them, they’re at the ’otel. Instead of taking nice lodgings ’ere in the village!” she clarified grimly.

    Hattie bit her lip. “Oh, dear. Maybe they didn’t know people could offer lodgings, June.”

    “Huh! Maybe they’d didn’t bother to ask! And it’ll be the same once Chipping Abbas gets going, you mark my words! There won’t be no jobs for the locals!”

    “Um, I think it depends what sort of jobs you want to do,” said Hattie faintly. “They train their own people for the more, um, managerial positions, of course. And these days even waiters and waitresses have to have some training.”

    “’Anding people plates of food?” she cried scornfully.

    “Um, they expect them to know what side to hand from and what the right cutlery is, and if the clients ask they have to be able to say what each dish is and—and something about how it’s prepared,” said Hattie faintly. “And—and know a bit about wine, and, um, know when to call the, um, wine waiter.”

    “Wine waiter!” she cried scornfully. “Anyone can ’and out bottles of booze!”

    “No, there’s a lot to wine. Those ones have to do quite a long training. Joanna said a lot of people drop out.”

    “And ’as she done it?” she asked on a scornful note.

    “She did do a wine course, but she didn’t do very well, she hasn’t got much of a palate.”

    June sniffed slightly, but declared stoutly: “Well, it’s like I said, there won’t be no jobs for the locals!”

    “Um, there might be cleaning jobs.”

    “In your dreams! They’ll get in a load of Portuguese women at a fraction of what they’d ’ave to pay English staff!”

    “Mm. Um, Miriam was saying,” said Hattie a trifle desperately—it wasn’t her fault there were no jobs in Abbot’s Halt and she didn’t really have a clue what June expected her to say in response to her moans—“that you’d know where the old herb garden was at Chipping Abbas, June.”

    “Don’t tell us you’re going in for that daft flower arranging like what Sheila Jukes done!”

    “Um, no. Just as herbs,” said Hattie feebly.

    “Oh! Thought you’d gone barmy, for a mo’, there!” she said with a grin. “Like, that course she done, see, it didn’t let you use no flowers at all. ‘Floral Arrangement,’ it ’ad the cheek to call itself. Twenty quid a pop, over to Ditterminster. Daft. And never got ’ome till gone eleven, neither! No, well, go round the back, it’s up the back of the stable block, over to the left.”

    “Won’t they of chopped them all dahn?” ventured Gordon.

    “Dunno. Don’t think they’ve done much to the grounds as yet, except for that ruddy great ’ole they’ve dug for their swimming-pool. Well, I’d try there.”

    “They’re digging big ditches in the grounds, though,” objected Gordon.

    “Uh—yeah. Those’ll be for the drain pipes, I think, lovey. You want to come over to my place, watch a bit of telly? Sean’s there.”

    “Nah, I’m going with Hattie.”

    “All right, then, Gordon, but if you change your mind, Sean’ll be there all day. –And don’t ask what ’is ruddy mother’s doing today!” she said bitterly to Hattie.

    It was Saturday: Hattie replied shyly: “Isn’t it her day for the water-colour painting course at Chipping Ditter, June?”

    With a terrific snort, June conceded it was, and what good it was gonna do her learning that with a load of toffee-nosed Chipping Ditter trendies she’d like to know, and next thing she’d be demanding a ruddy thatched roof! And, advising once again that you went round the back of the stables, got as far as the back door.

    “That reminds me, Hattie, dear: did that Miss Waller speak to you about your lovely rose-hip jelly?”

    “Yes, and she’s not getting no more!” cried Gordon shrilly.

    “Um, no. Well, I only gave her a little jar.”

    “Glad to ’ear it.” June then allowed that taking her advice and selling most of the surplus at the fancy shop over to Chipping Ditter had been the right decision, further allowed that if Miriam bought it at that price she’d never be able to sell none, and at long last, actually went.

    Hattie sat down suddenly on a yellow kitchen chair. “I thought she’d never go!”

    “Me, too. I’ll get the pails, shall I?”

    “Thanks, Gordon.”

    When he’d set out five times as many buckets and baskets as two people could possibly carry, especially with stuff in them, she came to and said: “Gordon, do you think the men will be working up at Chipping Abbas today?”

    “’Course! They work every Saturday, ’cos ’Ill, ’e’s paying them good money!”

    “Who told you that?” said Hattie, going scarlet.

    “One of them. Fink ’is name’s Red. –Is that a name?” he asked cautiously.

    “Yes, it’s a nickname. He’s the big man with red hair, isn’t he?”

    They were all big to Gordon. “Pretty big,” he allowed.

    “Mm,” said Hattie, smiling at him. “In that case, I think I might take them a casserole.”

    “Not our casserole!” he cried in horror.

    “Yes. It doesn’t sound to me as if they’re getting proper food. I can make something else for us.”

    Gordon watched dubiously as she took the prepared casserole out of the fridge and put it in her biggest basket. “If they’re not there, we’ll bring it ’ome again,” he decided.

    Up at Chipping Abbas most of the big machines were neatly parked by the side of the drive and they could see that June was right: a lot of the digging had been for drain pipes, because in the big ditches, pipes of various diameters could now be discerned. Gordon had to breathe heavily over these offerings for some time. Hattie didn’t ask why, she just walked slowly but steadily towards the house.

    “Hey!” he gasped, catching her up for the fourteenth time. “Some of them pipes, they’ll be to take the water to the swimming-pool, eh?”

    “I think so. And Ted was saying there’s going be some sort of bathhouse. I suppose it’ll be like that other one that Joanna told us about: it’ll need lots of water, too.”

    “Yeah. With mud,” he said dubiously.

    “Yes. I dunno how they do it, Gordon, but I should think that after the ladies have had the mud on them—and men, too, I suppose, if they want to—um, then it has to be washed off with loads and loads of water. ’Cos how else would you get mud off?”

    “Say you let it dry. Then you could pick it orf.”

    She winced. “I think that might hurt. ’Specially if you had hairy arms.”

    “Yeah!” he choked, laughing hoarsely. “Nah, yer right, godda be with water. What’s mud s’posed to do, anyway?”

    “I don’t know exactly, but silly rich people with more money than sense believe it makes them feel good. It is clean mud. Well, sterilized, I think Joanna said. No germs in it.”

    “It’s still mud, though.”

    “Exactly! I wouldn’t want that done to me for anything!” said Hattie with a laugh.

    “Me, neither. Them saunas, they sound daft, too, eh?”

    “Yes: who wants to deliberately get too hot in loads of steam? Ugh!”

    “Right,” he agreed comfortably. “’Ere, you know mud?”

    “Mm-mm?”

    “Well, if you try to like, keep it, it goes all dry, dunnit?”

    “Oh, yes.” Hattie thought about it. Gordon looked at her hopefully. “I think I see. They must keep it wet, all sealed up in big plastic bags or, um, plastic bins with lids. Where the air can’t get at it. ’Cos it’s the air that dries mud, when you think about it.” He looked unconvinced, so she told him about the Australian claypans, and what happened to a lake or a reservoir in a drought.

    “Cor. Big cracks, eh?” he said thoughtfully.

    “Huge ones,” replied Hattie comfortably.

    “Just from the sun and the like, hot air?”

    “Yep.”

    “Cor. –’Ere! I could do a piece about that for me ’omework!”

    “Um, mud?”

    “Nah! Mud and claypans!”

    It’d be different, that was for sure. His teacher at Daynesford Primary, one Mrs Tall, whose actual name, Hattie and Joanna had privily determined, was Jane Stawell, was very fond of setting them short pieces as homework. Up to half a page. Half a page in very large printing, in Gordon’s case. He had taken it very hard at first: in London his teacher, with a class of forty little horrors, had never tried to set them anything creative. But he was getting better every week, if his content was still not precisely inspired. His last piece had been about Meffie and Mandy and it had really been quite good. Supposing that anyone wanted a description of two cats—yes.

    “’Ere, Hattie, could you get us a picture of a claypan orf the Internet?”

    “Um, I could try. Would you like that?” she said in surprise.

    “Yeah! ’Course!”

    Okay, a claypan it’d be.

    “Look, they’re working on the ’ouse!” he cried. “Cor, dunnit look different?”

    “Yes. Miles better,” said Hattie, staring at the right-hand side where the huge fancy bit with the sort of horrid cupola on it had completely disappeared, and where the men were now going up and down ladders.

    “Look, they got a little crane!”

    She dropped a pail and grabbed his anorak just as he was heading off to immolate himself under it. “Stay back. I think they’re using it to lift heavy blocks of stone, any one of which could kill you, Gordon.”

    “And you?”

    “Yes. Any person.”

    “You better stick with me, then, Hattie!”

    Taking a deep breath, and not neglecting to keep tight hold of him, Hattie approached the corner of the house.

    “Ooh, look!” he gasped.

    “What in God’s name— That looks bloody dangerous!” she gasped, backing off.

    “Yeah, dunnit?” he agreed pleasedly. “Betcha 10 P they drops it!”

    “No takers,” said Hattie faintly, goggling as the men, not as if they were accustomed to the exercise, endeavoured to manoeuvre a huge, canvas-swathed hunk of something up to the new stone balcony on top of the ground floor at this end of the house.

    “Them others, they’re gettink aht of it,” he noted as the men who had been plastering the stonework of the façade came down their ladders and stood well clear.

    “Sound men,” she muttered.

    “’Ere, that’s Red!” he hissed.

    “Mm? Oh. Well, hang on, we’d better not interrupt them.”

    They watched breathlessly as, with a terrific lot of shouting—there were men up on the new balcony as well as down below—the thing was finally swung into position.

    “It’s too ’igh,” said Gordon.

    Hattie had realised what it must be. “Um, no, I think it’s gonna stand on that stupid, um, balcony post. On its end.”

    “Why?”

    She swallowed. “I think it’s a statue.”

    “Eh?”

    “That’s right!” said a man’s voice with a chuckle in it. “Bleeding ’orrible it is, too! Bloke with a busted nose and a busted sword.”

    “’Ullo, Red!” screeched Gordon, jumping.

    “Hullo again, young shaver,” the burly, freckled, ginger-haired man replied, looking at Hattie with frank interest. “He yours, then, love?”

    “Yeah, ’course!” cried Gordon loudly before she could speak.

    Hattie swallowed. “Um, not literally. He’s living with me and his big sister.”

    “Nah, Joanna, she’s livink with us,” Gordon said dismissively. “It’s our cottage, not ’ers.”

    “So who’s this, then?” he replied with a grin.

    “Hattie, of course! See, its ’er cottage, ’ers and mine. And a bit Kenny’s,” he added grudgingly.

    “My brother,” said Hattie feebly. “Hullo; I’ve seen you before.”

    “Red Watkins,” he said, grinning. “Brung ’im to supervise, ’ave yer?”

    “Um, no, I’m looking for a few herbs. There’s supposed to be an old herb garden here.”

    “That right? You gonna lend a hand, young shaver?”

    “Yes, ’course! I’m a good picker, I picked millions and millions of blackberries and rose ’ips, and they was all covered in prickles!” he said fiercely.

    “Yes. We made jars and jars of jelly last year, didn’t we, Gordon?”

    “Yeah! And some jam! Only the jelly, it’s keen, see, ’cos it goes in a bag and drips like anyfink!”

    “Mm,” said Hattie, smiling. Progress aloft had ceased so she added: “Is the statue going on that post, then?”

    “S’posed to. One idiot, ’e told us that it didn’t need concreting in, its weight’d keep it in place. Only the boss, he put ’im right! So we drilled a bloody great hole in its bottom—not literally,” he said, winking—“in its end, and stuck a reinforcing rod in it, and all those wankers gotta do is— BUNG IT IN THE ’OLE!” he bellowed.

    From aloft came a plaintive cry: “Which way’s the front, though, Red?” and Hattie, alas, collapsed in a shaking, spluttering fit.

    “Go on, laugh,” said Red with a sort of mournful satisfaction. “I told the boss, them wankers’ll never manage a job like that, but all he said was, someone’s gotta do it and they all signed on as qualified masons and claimed to be used to lifting blocks of—well, concrete, mainly, but same diff’. And there’s two of them what calls themselves steeplejacks, into the bargain!”

    “What abaht the crane driver?” asked Gordon eagerly.

    “’E’s a wanker, an’ all. Well, ’e’s driven one before, yeah. –OY!” he bellowed. “Its front’s got a ruddy great X on it!”

    “Ooh, it is the wrong way round!” gasped Gordon.

    Hattie gave a yelp of ecstasy.

    “Hah, hah,” agreed Red with a silly grin. “OY! ROTATE IT!”

    “How’s that, Red?” came from up above.

    “Rotate— TWIST THE FUCKING THING ROUND!” he bellowed. “BY HAND!”

    They watched in silence as, with a terrific lot of shouting and confusing orders to the crane driver—“Up—Up! Down—Down!” etcetera—the swaddled shape was finally within reach of the many outstretched arms, was twisted round and then, with screams of “Down—Down! No—STOP!” and “Down—Down!” finally lowered, with a certain amount of graunching, into place.

    “’Ere!” said Gordon with a startled look on his face. “That ain’t right!”

    “Yes; what about the concrete?” croaked Hattie.

    Red took a very deep breath. “I think it’s just dawned, Hattie. –YOU STUPID LOAD OF WANKERS!” he bellowed. “–You stay right there with Hattie, young shaver, don’t move a muscle.”

    “I’m not that bleedin’ daft!” Gordon returned swiftly, as Red rushed inside.

    After a few moments he appeared on the balcony, and visibly sorted out the chastened wankers up there. The crane raised the statue a little, with a man steadying it from either side, evidently so as it couldn’t swing round again, concrete was slapped into place, and, with Red personally supervising, the statue was put back. This time without the graunching.

    “That should do it!” said Gordon in satisfaction.

    “Yes,” agreed Hattie faintly. “I suppose I have seen more hopeless wankers—well, the corporate lots I worked with were pretty bad—but honestly!”

    “You said it! Hey, don’t give ’em our casserole!”

    “They may not be the ones. But I suppose it’s not their fault they’re hopeless. I mean, these days there wouldn't be much call for putting statues on buildings, would there?”

    “Um, Ditterminster Cathedral’s got loads.”

    She gulped. “That’s a very, very old building. Don’t you remember, we had a look round it and Harry tried to explain what Mediaeval means?”

    “He’s a wanker, too,” he replied with satisfaction.

    Hattie bit her lip. He wasn’t wrong. “The cathedral was good, though.”

    “Yeah. Big! Very echo-y. I liked them gargoyles, too.”

    “Yes, so did I. I wish that silly video shop had had The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

    “Never mind, Hattie, it ’ad Chicken Run!” he consoled her.

    Hattie tried to smile. She’d been trying to avoid that for years. “Yes. –Here he comes.”

    “Hey, Red!” screamed Gordon, leaping. “That was ace! You showed ’em!”

    “Right. We got another one to put up at the other end, mind,” he warned glumly.

    “Ooh, now?”

    “No, it’s a lady with a crack in ’er. Gone off to London to be fixed.”

    “I getcha. Go on, Hattie, ask ’im!”

    “Ask me what?” said Red warily.

    “Um, we were wondering which of you are living in the grounds, um, in an old house.”

    “Down the hut? Well, most of this lot, Hattie, hardly any of these so-called qualified tradesmen are locals. Um, me, Joe, Mal, Billy—well, everybody here except Steve, that’s him in the crane, and Jack, he’s from Ditterminster. Specialises in restoring stonework but the cathedral hasn’t got enough work for ’im, or so the story runs.”

    “I see,” she said, smiling shyly. “Um, June Biggs, you probably don’t know her, but she told me that you all seemed to be eating a lot of baked beans, and so I—”

    “And pizzas!” interrupted Gordon loudly and aggrievedly.

    “Yes. They’re okay for a treat, but they’re not proper food. I just thought that you might like a casserole for a change,” she said, blushing brightly.

    “Us?” croaked Red.

    “Mm. Here.” She shoved the basket at him.

    “You don’t gotta ’ave it! We’ll ’ave it if yer—”

    “Shut up, Gordon! How many times do we get to see a real little crane working and a statue being put in place on a building? Red would have been quite within his rights to send us both packing!”

    “Yes, he would,” drawled a sardonic voice from behind them, and Hattie swung round with a gasp.

    “’Ill!” screamed Gordon. “Yer back!”

    “Yes: I’m working here,” he said calmly. “If Hattie made whatever’s in there, I’d accept it if I was you, Red.”

    “Uh—right! Um, sorry about them wankers up aloft, Major.”

    “No, you did warn me, Red,” he said with a smile. “Go on: what is it?”

    Red inspected the casserole. “Meat. Looks great. Carrots, and all sorts!”

    “It’s got funny bones in it,” said Gordon sadly. “She done it yesterday, ’cos it’s gotta stand overnight and then yer take the fat orf.”

    “It’s got an oxtail in it,” explained Hattie.

    “Looks good to me!” said Red, grinning. “Are you sure?” She was sure, so, thanking her fervently and assuring her the boys would be very grateful, and getting her address so as he could see she got the casserole dish back, Red went off with his bounty.

    “’E called you Major,” noted Gordon.

    Hill was looking at the pink-cheeked Hattie. He jumped. “Eh? Oh—well, yes, I was. Red was in the regiment with me.”

    “Cor! Did ’e shoot—”

    “Shut up, Gordon, Hattie doesn’t want to hear about shooting.”

    “Do yer?”

    “No,” she said, now very red. “Come on, let’s find the herbs.”

    “Herbs?” said Hill.

    There was no need for Hattie to explain, Gordon was already doing so.

    All Hill managed in response to this intel was: “Yes, the kitchen garden was up behind the stable somewhere.” Hattie was the last person he’d expected to find wandering around the grounds of Chipping Abbas.

    “See, we fort we could ’ave ’em, ’cos your lot’s only gonna bulldoze ’em in,” explained Gordon earnestly.

    “Mm. What? Oh, Hell, yes, have them! Come on, it’s this way.” He led the way, doing his best on the way to shut Gordon up about the Army, shooting, and his and Red’s putative exploits with bloody guns.

    The kitchen garden was a jungle but the part of it that had been the herb garden did still contain herbs, according to Hattie. It certainly contained half an acre of self-seeded sorrel and about as much of what looked horribly like self-seeded horseradish, Ma’s bête noire. Hattie didn’t recognise either of them so Hill gingerly tasted some of the putative sorrel—it was—and dug up a root of the putative horseradish, with Gordon’s eager cooperation. It was horseradish, all right. Gordon took the specimen off him and placed it tenderly in a basket, declaring his intention of planting it at home. Hurriedly Hill purveyed the received wisdom about horseradish, and old buckets or barrels. And assisted Hattie to dig up some more with plenty of soil round them. Also quite a few clumps of other things. What with these and the sheaves she picked, it wasn’t long before their containers were full.

    Painful though the experience was proving, Hill had no intention of letting Hattie escape. “Wouldn’t you like to come and see the interior of the house?” he suggested as she said grimly: “That’s enough. Come on, Gordon.”

    “No, I’ve got to get these home.”

    “Right; they didn’t oughta stand abaht, like the fruit,” agreed Gordon sadly. “Only if you been picking all day and yer exhausted, it can wait until morning.”

    Graphic. “Where was Joanna when all this exhausting fruit-picking was going on?”

    “At work, of course,” Joanna’s brother replied mildly.

    Hattie was looking annoyed. Hill tried without success to smile. “Of course she was. I’ll give you a hand back with these.”

    “We only brought four and we’ve each got two arms,” said Hattie grimly.

    “They’re heavy, though,” noted Gordon. “’Cos there’s like, dirt, as well as ’erbs.”

    “Yes. Pass me those two buckets, Gordon. Yours and Hattie’s.”

    Gordon had given him his bucket and was looking expectantly at her. Feebly Hattie handed him her heavy bucket full of soil and herbs, which he duly passed on to Hill, and they set off.

    The rickety gate of Number 7 Old Mill Lane was open, with a rickety bike parked against it, and on the shabby cottage’s worn doorstep was sitting a dark-haired woman in perhaps her forties, wearing faded jeans, suede safari boots, and a waterproof khaki anorak. She got up, looking uncertain.

    “Hullo,” she said, shoving a hand through the short, dark bob. “You did say Saturday, didn’t you?”

    “Yes! Hullo, Kath!” gasped Hattie. “Is it twelve o’clock already? Sorry!”

    “Gone one, by my watch,” noted Hill.

    “That June, she come round and yakked at us for ages,” said Gordon on a pugnacious note.

    “Um, yes. I’m sorry, Kath, I lost track of time. Say konichiwa, Gordon.”

    “Konichiwa, Kath-san,” agreed Gordon.

    “Konichiwa, Gordon,” replied Kath politely.

    “You can say that ’cos it’s afternoon,” Gordon explained kindly to Hill. “This is ’Ill. ’E’s an Army man.”

    “Ex,” said Hill, smiling nicely at the woman—after all, it wasn’t her fault he’d rather she was at Jericho, was it?

    “Um, yes, sorry. This is Hill Tarlington,” said Hattie lamely.

    “Hullo,” said the woman, holding out her hand. “Kath Benson. Are you here for some Japanese coaching, too?”

    “No, he was just helping us home with our herbs,” said Hattie before Hill could utter. “Kath’s in the beginners’ class I’ve been helping out with at the Polytech, only we weren’t allowed to go fast enough for her, so I’m giving her some coaching.”

    “I see. You couldn’t have gone up to the next class, perhaps, Kath?”

    “No,” said Kath with a shudder. “Mitsuko-san takes that and I’m not at that level.”

    “See, Hattie, she’s gonna catch ’er up,” explained Gordon. “We’re gonna have a Japanese lunch, and she’s gonna learn ’er the words!”

    “Teach her the words, Gordon,” corrected Hattie mildly. “Yes.”

    They were all looking at Hill in the clear expectation of his slinging his hook, so what else could he do?

    “Right, well, nice to meet you, Kath, and good luck with the Japanese. –Lovely to see you, Hattie, and we’ll catch up again very soon,” he threatened.

    “Ta-ta,” said Hattie, avoiding his eye.

    “See ya!” piped Gordon, heading round the back with his basket without a backwards glance.

    Something like that—yeah. Grimly Hill slung his hook. Damn and blast!