Fête

6

Fête

    The day of the Abbot’s Halt Annual Village Fête (annual only according to Mrs Everton) dawned fine and sunny, with a little wind and high cloud. So most people with nothing better to do, or who were scared shitless of Mrs E., did manage to drag themselves along.

    Gordon looked at the miniature merry-go-round with its babyish teacups in total disgust. “Stone the bleedin’ crows!”

    “Yeah,” agreed Hattie. “Pathetic, is the word I think you might be thinking of, Gordon.”

    “You said it!”

    “Um, the only other thing for the children seems to be a bouncy castle,” she admitted.

    “Sod that!”

    “I couldn’t agree more,” said Hattie with sigh. “Um, well, sometimes they have old books and magazines at these does, I think.”

    “Comics?” he replied hopefully.

    “Well, um, there might be some.”

    “Come on!” He forged off, allowing her to buy him a toffee-apple on the way but witheringly informing Miss Whyte, who was in charge of that stall, that they weren’t real ones.

    “But I made the toffee myself, dear,” the unfortunate spinster lady faltered.

    “That’s probably the point. You left out the red food dye and whatever it is that makes the real toffee really, really thin, and brittle as all get out,” said Hattie kindly. “There wouldn’t be any lamingtons, would there?”

    “Um, what, dear?”

    “Never mind,” she said with a sigh. “Come on, Gordon.”

    Poor Miss Whyte looked after them with an expression of dismayed bewilderment on her amiable, horse-like face.

    “No Spider-Mans!” he discovered aggrievedly when they found the stall selling magazines and what purported to be comics.

    “No, well, this is Abbot’s Halt,” said Hattie heavily. “Um, what are these?”

    Gordon examined the collection of antique items featuring the adventures of Dan Dare, looking dubious. “Never ’eard of ’im!”

    “No, me neither.”

    “Ted Prosser gave us those,” explained the thin, befrilled Mrs Rushforth.—It was not absolutely clear why Mrs Rushforth was favouring the Abbot’s Halt fête with a floral dress that would have done credit to a Royal garden party but on the whole it didn’t need to be.—“One hears that old comics are quite collectible, these days!” she added with an eager smile.

    This would explain why scores of Chipping Ditter trendies were beating a path to her stall, then. Not.

    “Wotcher fink?” said Gordon to the sole other customer, one Sean Biggs, aged nine.

    “Lame,” replied Master Biggs witheringly.

    “Yeah. Naffink ’orrible,” he agreed with satisfaction.

    “You ’ad a toffee-apple, eh?” discerned the percipient Master Biggs, eyeing its remains.

    “Yuff,” agreed Gordon indistinctly, finishing it. Casually he tossed the stick to the ground.

    “Not real ones,” noted the percipient one with a sniff.

    Gordon swallowed with difficulty. “Nah. Lame,” he concluded.

    Hattie bit her lip. “Gordon, pick that toffee-apple stick up, thousands of men with prongs and bags aren’t gonna come and clean this field up after you, we’re not in London now.”

    Looking mildly surprised, Gordon picked the stick up and held it out to her. “Wouldn’t call ’em prongs,” he noted.

    “Um, no. I think that’s a rubbish bin over there.”

    He eyed it suspiciously. “Looks like a barrel, to me.”

    “Mm. I think they’re using it for rubbish,” she said feebly. –That or for bobbing for apples, one or the other.

    Gordon went over to it and looked inside it for some time, but eventually dropped his stick in. “Nuffink,” he reported, coming back.

    “No. Um, well, come on, if you don’t want to buy anything here.”

    “You could buy a magazine,” he offered generously.

    The magazines presumably represented the tastes of Abbot’s Halt’s mixed population, because they were a very mixed bunch. Piles and piles of English Women’s Weeklies—Hattie would never have voluntarily bought it but her sister Katie sometimes did and so she was aware it was the feeblest, though not necessarily the silliest, of the women’s mags—piles of shinier women’s mags that had slightly different titles from those available in Australia but were just as silly, being full of, certainly according to their covers, guff about—not even film stars, really. Um, personalities: the sort of people who were known only for their appearance in that sort of magazine. And, contrariwise, piles of Country Lifes and even a pile of Tatlers, which had she been asked Hattie would have sworn must have gone out considerably before Agatha Christie did, because she didn’t think she'd seen the name in anything more recent. And a great tower of the Chipping Ditter Antiques & Collectibles News. Poorly printed on recycled paper. The interests of the sterner sex were represented by some car magazines, but Gordon had scornfully declared these to be real ancient.

    “The proceeds are going to a very good cause, Miss Perkins!” offered the befrilled stall-keeper desperately.

    “What good cause, Mrs Rushforth?” replied Hattie grimly.

    “Well, to the Abbot’s Halt Fête and Restoration Fund, of course,” Mrs Rushforth explained without anything approaching conviction.

    “Mm. If you think about it, it’s self-perpetuating, isn’t it? Given that there isn’t anything to restore. And that you’ve got to pay for the hire of that feeble merry-go-round.”

    “And that daft bleedin’ bouncy castle!”

    “Exactly. –I don’t read magazines, actually, so I’ll pass them up, thanks all the same.”

    “There’s some nice Observers here!” she offered desperately.

    “Is that that Sunday paper?” replied the Australian without interest.

    “It’s a very good paper!” Mrs Rushforth assured her eagerly. “Quite—quite leftish, really! Not extreme, of course!”

    It wouldn’t be, if someone in Abbot’s Halt was buying it. “No, thanks, I don’t need to wrap any fish and chips today!” said Hattie cheerfully. “See ya! Come on, Gordon!”

    And Mrs Rushforth and her frills were left to the contemplation of her piles of unwanted paper.

    “To think some fool cut down a forest for that lot!” said Hattie grimly to her companion as they forged on.

    “Um, yeah,” he responded obligingly, if foggily. “Fink they got pies?”

    “Doubt it.”

    “Whelks?”

    “No, I think you can only get these in London, Gordon,” she said heavily.

    “Oh. Fink we ’ad some in Margate, once,” he groped.

    “Oh. Um, well ,that’s quite near London, though.”

    “Yeah. There’s a flah stall,” he offered.

    “Mm. Um, well, can you see any plants in pots?”

    He tiptoed and peered. “Um… Nah.”

    “I dunno why I thought I might find a few nice succulents in pots,” she said heavily.

    “Me neither,” agreed Gordon obligingly. “Ooh, look, that there says ‘Cakes’!” He shot off.

    Hattie sighed and followed slowly. She’d never been to an English village fête before but her experience of school fairs back home had more than taught her that cake stalls existed for the delectation of the ladies who ran the stall and their very close mates and that there would be no cakes left a quarter of an hour after the thing had started.

    And so indeed, it proved. “Sold aht!” Gordon reported sourly.

    “Yes. Well, I suppose I can always bake us a cake—if that oven will behave itself.” The electric stove, bought in Ditterminster, had looked in reasonable nick. Hattie was now having second thoughts about second-hand stoves.

    “Can ya really?” he breathed, his face lighting up.

    Hattie looked down at him guiltily. “Um, yes, of course, Gordon. Well, they use a lot of expensive ingredients like, um, sugar and eggs and, um, butter if you want them to taste really nice, but, um, yes.”

    “Yay! Icing, and everyfink?”

    “Um, well, yes. It won’t look professional, mind,” she warned.

    “That’s okay!”

    “You could have contributed, Miss Perkins! Why didn’t you let us know you could bake a cake?” asked the stall-holder brightly, knitting briskly.

    This stall-holder, though an in-comer and well under the Everton thumb, was quite a pleasant woman so Hattie didn’t give her her unvarnished opinion of cake stall supervisors and their bloody mates, just replied mildly: “Nobody asked me, Mrs Pemberton.”

    “That Ted Prosser, he asked us for our junk!” reported Gordon aggrievedly.

    “Yes, but we haven’t got any, have we? Or none for him. Um, Mrs Pemberton, if all the cakes have gone, why don’t you go home?”

    “Mrs Everton told me to say here in case somebody brings a late one. I did try to say that everyone on the list had already brought theirs. Never mind, I’ve got my knitting!” she said brightly.

    This was probably Hattie’s cue to ask what it was and say how nice it was but as it was pink and very fluffy she didn’t feel she could manage it. “I see,” she said weakly. “Come on, Gordon.”

    And they forged off again, Gordon noting: “Kenny, ’e come early but them cakes, they would of been dear, eh?”

    “Yes.”

    “Joanna, she wouldn’t of got ’ere in time.”

    “No,” said Hattie with a smothered sigh. Joanna had gone off to meet Allan some time since: she had promised to go to the fête with him and his little girls.

    “Hey, look! Try Yer Luck! 50 P for 3 throws!”

    She tottered up to the stall with him, not pointing out that if anyone was gonna try their luck it’d have to be him: she couldn’t throw anything straight for as much as a metre. A harassed-looking Mr Whyte was in charge. Mostly shouting: “Don’t touch that! Or: “You haven’t won! That didn’t go over it!” at a crowd of little boys. Hattie stared. The boys were trying to throw quoits over such objects as fabric dolls with horrid squinty faces, home-made teddy bears with sneers and crooked ears, stout, padded tea-cosies, and fair-sized striped china jugs. And one Swiss Army knife—well, Gordon was gasping: “Look! They got a Swiss Army knife!” so it probably was. The knife was the only thing the quoits could possibly go over, hadn’t they realized that?

    “Hey, I’ll get you a jug!”

    No, they evidently hadn’t. She gave Gordon 50 P and watched numbly as his three quoits bounced off a teddy bear that he hadn’t been aiming at, the jug next to the jug that he’d been aiming at, and a hideous leering stuffed doll next to the Swiss Army knife.

    “Nearly got it!” he panted. “C’n I’ve another go?”

    “Um, look, I’d give you a go willingly, Gordon, but look at the width of those quoits and the size of the prizes.”

    He looked hard as another little boy’s quoits bounced harmlessly off a jug, a leering doll and a teddy bear.

    “Look,” said Hattie heavily as another little boy stepped forward.

    Gordon looked hard as those three quoits bounced off a red tea-cosy, a jug and another jug.

    “Slippery buggers, those jugs!” said a baritone voice with a laugh in it, perilously near her ear.

    Gordon was already screaming: “’Ill! It’s ’Ill! ’Ullo, ’Ill!” and leaping, so Hattie, having jumped and gasped, had only to say weakly: “Oh, it’s you.”

    “Yeah. Hi,” said Hill, grinning broadly.

    The thing was, reflected Hattie crossly, when he smiled those unusual dark grey eyes sort of just creased slightly at the corners and the huge, long lashes that no man had a right to have sort of met for an instant. The eyes, irritatingly, were neither bulgy nor particularly deep-set, and entrancingly lengthened and narrowed at the sides— Rubbish! Everybody’s eyes narrowed! Um, well, most people’s. And he wasn’t handsome, his face was too thin.

    “What?” she said numbly. “Oh. He’s already had a go, thanks.”

    “Aw! Go on, Hattie, be a sport! Lemme!”

    “Gordon, I just told you to look at the size of those silly quoits as opposed to the size of the prizes!” she said crossly.

    “I done that! Now can I ’ave another go?”

    Hattie looked at him in despair. “Couldn’t you see?”

    “Not at that age,” murmured Hill, his shoulders shaking. “Here you are, old man, but I strongly doubt you’ll manage to lasso anything.”

    “Ta!” Gordon gave Mr Whyte the 50 P. He grasped his first quoit fiercely. He threw— “Missed. Nearly got it, though!”

    Hattie had shut her eyes. She opened them. “Gordon—”

    “Ssh!” hissed Hill. “The man’s throwing!”

    “It’s not funny! That stupid man’s gypping them!”

    “I’ll get you a jug this time, Hattie!” Gordon took a deep breath. He raised the quoit— Hattie shut her eyes.

    “Missed! I’ll get it next time!” he gasped. He took a deep breath. He raised the last quoit— Hattie shut her eyes.

    “Aw, bugger!” he cried shrilly.

    “I’ll have a quid’s worth, thanks,” said Hill briskly to the old geezer in charge.

    “You’re throwing your money away!” said Hattie angrily.

    He winked. “Stand back, give a man room!” He took a deep breath. He raised the quoit— In spite of her determination until this very instant to watch the stupid sod make an almighty fool of himself, Hattie found she’d shut her eyes.

    “’URRAY!” screamed Gordon. “’E’s got it! Yer got it, ’Ill!”

    “Hurray!” screamed all the other little boys.

    Hattie opened her eyes in astonishment. Saying, “Well done, Sir Hilliard!” old Mr Whyte was handing him the Swiss Army knife!

    “He threw it right over it!” Gordon explained. “Easy-peasy! Like it was nuffink!”

    “Here,” said Hill, grinning, holding it out to him. “I got it for you.”

    “Cor! Ta, ’Ill!” he gasped, his eyes bolting from his head. “Look, Hattie! It’s a real Swiss Army Knife!” he gasped, fighting to open it. “It’s got knives and a corkscrew and everyfink!”

    “Thanks,” said Hattie feebly to the grinning donor. “Our hero.”

    “No sweat. Was it a jug you wanted?”

    “Y—Nuh— The thingo won’t go over the stupid things!” she hissed.

    “Uh-huh. Takes science. Let’s see…”

    His eyes narrowed. Hattie denied crossly to herself the swoopy feeling in the tummy this gave her. Bringing his arm sort of over to his far side, Hill sort of, um, lobbed? It wasn’t a throw, that was for sure. Sort of gently lobbed a quoit at a jug. It settled softly on the thing’s lip, quivering. Hattie found she was holding her breath. Then the dead silence round the stall registered and she realized so was everybody else. The thing gave a final quiver, and stopped.

    “I’ll have that jug, thanks,” said Hill, grinning.

    “YAY!” cried Gordon. “Yer done it!”

    “Hurray!” screamed all the other little boys, leaping up and down. “He done it! Do it again, Mister!”

    Hattie let her breath out with a shudder. “What are you, Dead-Eye Dick?”

    “’E’s an Army man, see!” Gordon informed her on a note of scorn. “Hey, get another, ’Ill!”

    Hattie watched limply as in quick succession Hill’s quoits settled softly round the ear of a bad-tempered teddy, the bonnet of a sneering rag doll, and the fuzzy knob on top of a particularly lurid tea-cosy.

    “I’ve got one more go; want another jug?” he asked her, grinning.

    “YEAH!” screamed all the little boys. “Go on, Mister!”

    “Well, yes, go on. The horrid man was taking advantage of the poor little things and taking their money without warning them the quoits’d never fit over the prizes,” she said, glaring at Mr Whyte.

    “I’m only doing it the way Mrs Everton told me to, Miss Perkins,” the unfortunate man replied feebly.

    “That I do believe! –Go on, then,” she said, not meeting Hill’s eye.

    He looked down at her, his mouth twitching. “Mm. Okay.”

    “Thanks,” said Hattie weakly as he handed her a jug that matched the first one.

    He looked down at her bent head. “You’re welcome. Like an ice-lolly or something?”

    “Yeah! They ain’t got real ices, though!” Gordon informed him.

    “That’s right,” Hattie agreed, still avoiding his eye. “Well, lead on, Gordon.”

    Gordon rushed ahead.

    Hill took a deep breath. “Can you bear to take the arm of a man holding a wizened crone of a doll and a glaring teddy bear?”

    Hattie looked up at him limply. “They make them like that.”

    “I noticed!” he said with a laugh.

    “No—the dolls. Deliberately ugly.”

    “It worked,” he said drily. “Come on.” He tucked the soft toys and the tea-cosy up in his left arm and attempted to take her elbow.

    “I’ve got these jugs to carry,” said Hattie, pulling away from him.

    “And this would prevent my taking your arm because?”

    “Just drop it, Hill,” said Hattie in a low voice, not looking at him.

    Hill bit his lip. “Um, did you get the flowers?”

    Hattie took a deep breath. “Look, I meant what I said about the leopard not changing its spots. I realise that I’m the only female that’s ever said no to you, but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna talk me round with bunches of flowers.”

    “Said no— Are you talking about the time I popped into your tent?” he croaked. “Look, for God’s sake! I apologised at the time! It was a stupid mistake!”

    “I don’t think you did apologise at all, but it’s irrelevant.”

    Hill was very flushed but he said desperately: “Very well, then, I apologise now! It was taking you for granted and—and damned crude, and I was a stupid, thoughtless clod.”

    “That puts it well.”

    “The—the flowers were meant as an apology, Hattie,” he said, his voice shaking a little.

    “I said, drop it,” replied Hattie tightly, not looking at him.

    Swallowing, Hill dropped it. They walked in silence to the stall that sold ice-lollies.

    “There you all are!” said Allan with a laugh in his voice as Gordon unwrapped his ice-lolly. “Bought any good jumble?”

    “Nah, it’s lame,” replied Gordon immediately.

    “Those jugs look okay!” he said with a smile.

    “’Ill, ’e won them. Hey, look at my Swiss Army knife! ’E won it, too!”

    “Jolly good,” said Allan, now frankly grinning. “What’d he do, kill a moving wooden duck? Knock a coconut mercilessly on the head?”

    “Nah! ’E frew—” Gordon broke off, looking disconcerted. “What are those round things?” he said to Hattie.

    “Um, I’d have called them quoits,” she said uncertainly.

    “Right: ’e frew these quoits, see, right over the knife, easy-peasy, and yer should of seen ’im get the jugs an’ stuff! Like—” Very balletically, Gordon demonstrated, not quite chucking his ice-lolly away in the process.

    “Cor!” gasped Allan, breaking down in sniggers.

    “It was pretty good,” admitted Hattie fairly, very flushed.

    “Ta ever so. –Technically, they’re probably hoops,” said Hill kindly to the blank faces of Allan’s little Fliss and Allie, and Cynthia’s Nancy.

    “You mean there’s a hoopla?” cried the eleven-year-old Fliss, her face lighting up.

    “Obviously!” retorted Nancy scornfully.

    Allan blew his nose. “Er—yeah. Sounds like it. If you want someone to win something for you, though, girls, you’d better ask Uncle Hill, he’s the Dead-Eye Dick.”

    “Hattie said that!” cried Gordon.

    Winking at his brother, Alan said cheerfully: “That right? Well, he is. Star bowler at school, that sort of thing. But I was always hopeless at cricket.”

    “’E didn’t bowl them,” explained Gordon. He demonstrated again. “See?”

    “Yorkers? Googlies?” said Allan in a blank voice to his grinning brother.

    “No!” growled Nancy. “You’re being stupid, Uncle Allan! And nobody needs to throw for me, I’ll do it myself!”

    “Yer fink?” scoffed Gordon.

    “Gordon, that’ll do,” said Joanna in a very weak voice. “Girls can play cricket just as well as boys.”

    “Huh! No-one hit nuffink, ’cept ’Ill!” This time he demonstrated less balletically but with sound effects. “Phyeee-eee-eee-urr! Goddit! Yer shoulda seen the ’oops get them jugs!”

    “They are nice jugs,” said Joanna, smiling at Hattie. “Blue and white, they’ll look lovely in the kitchen!”

    “Mm.”

    “I’ll get you a jug, Joanna,” said Nancy grimly.

    “Um, ta, Nancy. But wouldn’t you rather get something for yourself?” said Joanna, eyeing Hill presenting Allie and Fliss with the sneering rag doll and the bad-tempered teddy respectively.

    “Sickening soft toys? No!”

    “There isn’t that much choice,” Hill explained, grinning. “Like a lovely tea-cosy, Allan?”

    “No, thanks. Give it to Harriet,” replied Harriet’s other brother brutally.

    Hill winked. “She’ll appreciate it! Who’s for ice-lollies?”

    “I’ve got my pocket-money, thank you, Uncle Hill,” said Nancy grimly.

    “Right you are,” he replied gravely. “Anyone else?”

    Everyone else was up for ice-lollies and after the dispute between Fliss and Allie over little Allie’s always wanting a pink one had been sorted out, and then the dispute between Gordon and Fliss as to whether the yellow ones would be banana-flavoured, Gordon taking the pro and Fliss the con, though she didn’t seem to disagree that banana flavouring was putrid, sicko and bleedink ’orrible, and then the dispute between Nancy and Fliss as to whether orange was a viable alternative to banana, and after, further, Allan had been put right on the score of the chocolate-coated ones the stall had a large poster of (all gone), Allan’s party all had one. Though Gordon assured his sister that them caramel ones were sicko.

    “I like caramel,” said Joanna feebly, smiling at Allan.

    That was rather self-evident: it was not a terribly warm day and she was wearing a light-weight knit top in just that shade, several shades lighter than her skin, with a pair of well-cut slacks in a soft burnt orange. And no strip of tummy showing between the two, though Allan had admitted to himself that, grotesque though this fashion in general was—and most certainly the examples of it in evidence today at the Abbot’s Halt Fête—he would have no objection whatsoever to seeing any part of Joanna’s delightful café-au-lait skin.

    Hattie looked uncertainly at the grim-mouthed Hill watching his brother and Joanna smiling at each other. She frowned, but said nothing.

    Back at what had now been determined to be a hoopla stall, Nancy had 50 P worth and narrowly missed all three times, Fliss and Allie missed all theirs by miles, Gordon, thanks to Allan’s soft heart, had a another 50 P worth and missed again, Allan had a go and missed by miles, though succeeding in knocking a squinting teddy that he wasn’t aiming at right off the table, and Hill was persuaded to “do it again” and won a teddy with mismatched ears for Fliss, noting she could call it Cauliflower, and a scowling doll for Allie, at her request the one in a pink dress. Wincing when she said happily she’d call it Pinkie.

    “Go on,” he said, handing his last hoop to the scowling Nancy. “Gently. I find a back-handed throw works best.”

    “I’ve used up all my money,” she growled, turning scarlet.

    “Yes. That’s why I’m giving you a go,” he said mildly.

    “Oh, all right. Thanks,” she growled, redder than ever.

    The adults in the party held their breaths as Nancy, gauging the distance very, very carefully, lobbed a gentle back-hander at a jug. Unfortunately this was the most difficult shot she could possibly have attempted: at least the relative roughness of the soft toys’ fabrics meant that the hoops had some small chance of being caught on them, but owing to the precise shape of the bloody things, and the slipperiness of the china, the jugs were well-nigh impossible. Nancy’s hoop quivered gently on the lip and then fell off.

    “Blast!” she muttered.

    “It was a damn’ good shot,” said Hill generously. “The things are bloody tricky.”

    “No, it wasn’t, it missed,” she said grimly.

    “Only just, though!” cried Gordon encouragingly. “’Ave another go!”

    “No!” she snapped. “I’m broke!” With that she stomped off, scowling horribly.

    In her wake there was a short silence, even the kids realizing that all was not well.

    “I could of lent ’er 10 P,” said Gordon sadly at last.

    “That’s very good of you, old man, but she wouldn’t have accepted it: too proud,” explained Hill solemnly.

    “How long have you been here?” said Joanna in an amazed voice to Hattie.

    “Um, well, quite a while… Um, there isn’t much to buy, though, Joanna,” she said uneasily.

    “Gordon,” said his sister fiercely, ignoring this, “I told you not to let Hattie pay for you!”

    “She didn’t buy much. Them comics, they were lame!” he said quickly.

    “Yes. Honest, I haven’t spent much at all,” said Hattie. “I only bought him a toffee-apple.”

    “Yeah. They ain’t got pies,” he explained. “Or whelks, neither.”

    “What are whelks?” asked Allie with interest.

    “Cor! Don’tcha know?”

    “Shellfish, sweetheart. They’re popular in London, but you don’t see them much anywhere else,” explained Allan.

    “Certainly not in Abbot’s Halt,” noted Hattie drily. “Um, where haven’t we been, Gordon? Over there?”

    “It’s mostly jumble,” said Allan with a smile.

    Gordon decided to look, and they all headed fairly slowly over there, the crowd having now thickened somewhat. Possibly because the hour consecrated by Mrs Everton to the serving of dainty teas was drawing nigh.

    “Um, so is Nancy your sister’s daughter, Allan?” ventured Hattie.

    “No: Cynthia’s. Our cousin, Cynthia Moreton,” he explained.

    “Um, the lady in the Lagerfeld at the social, Hattie,” said Joanna in a strangled voice.

    “Heck,” said Hattie numbly. “She doesn’t look like her at all.”

    “That isn’t quite correct!” said Hill with a laugh. “She has got Cynthia’s colouring.”

    Allan twinkled at her. “When in her natural state, Hattie: last seen circa 1975!”

    “Oh! Yeah,” she said feebly. “I see.” Nancy’s short, mad hair was a light fawn. The lady in the Lagerfeld had had glowing auburn hair, done up in a big fancy bun. Terrifyingly elegant. True, she was tall and thin and Nancy was—well, tallish, and certainly thin, but where her mother was completely elegant, the only word for the bony Nancy was, honestly, gawky.

    “She’s at that stage,” murmured Joanna. “I think she’s rather sweet.”

    “’Orribly contumacious, I’m afraid!” said Hill with a laugh. “Poor damned brat! Cynthia usually ignores her,” he explained to the friends. “Only brought her down with her in order to dump her on us for the rest of the hols while she swans off to Corfu with a candidate for Number Three.”

    “Husband Number Three?” asked Joanna uncertainly.

    He shrugged. “Best-case scenario: yes, Joanna.”

    Joanna swallowed.

    “Her looks don’t belie her, then,” said Hattie drily.

    Hill jumped slightly. “Uh—oh, Cynthia? Hell, no!”

    At the jumble stall—or the worst of them, there were several—Kenny was discovered guarding a pile of twisted iron. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he greeted his sister.

    “Look!” screamed Gordon, jumping.

    “What is it all?” asked Hattie faintly, trying not to wince.

    Kenny plunged into explanation, ably seconded by Gordon. There was a lot of it but the main items were a twisted old bike frame with a real grocer boy’s basket on it, a wrought-iron garden seat that might have once been painted green but now wasn’t and had into the bargain lost one of its two front claw-feet, and a giant and very chipped enamel basin. Make that putative hip-bath. The two latter offerings would of course look just the thing in the garden, once the bath was filled with herbs!

    “Hattie, they’re junk,” said Joanna on a firm note.

    Kenny and Gordon glared.

    Hattie replied placidly: “We could use a garden seat. And that sort of patio out the back’s going to waste, it’d be just the place for a big pot of herbs.”

    “The bike’s still good. It only needs wheels,” noted Kenny.

    “Wheels and gears and brakes and a safety test,” replied Joanna evilly, “and Hattie’s just bought you a brand-new bike!”

    Allan was looking at the bike frame. “I can’t see that there’s anything here to hang wheels on, actually.”

    “Exactly!” she agreed.

    Immediately Kenny plunged into an involved explanation incorporating George Jukes from the service station, welding, and the right sort of nuts and bolts.

    “No!” said Joanna loudly. “The thing’s rusty! Look, Hattie, he’d kill himself trying to ride a thing like that!”

    “Ted Prosser was telling me that he read an article that proved that buildings with steel girders that’ve gone rusty while they’re waiting for the rest to be put up are actually stronger than the ones without rust,” replied Hattie thoughtfully.

    Hill took a deep breath. “Let’s test that one empirically, shall we?” He picked up a convenient artefact off the stall and struck the bike frame a sharp blow with it. A large piece of rusty iron fell off it and Kenny’s oval face fell ten feet. “I rest my case,” he said grimly to Hattie.

    “Yes, well, it’s not up to you. Actually I think it might do better as a garden ornament than a bike, Kenny, cos the wheels and stuff’d probably be expensive. But the basket part’d be lovely for a climbing plant.”

    “Yeah!” cried Gordon. “We could do that, Kenny!”

    “Yeah, okay,” he agreed, visibly cheering up. “In the front garden, eh?”

    “Yeah!”

    The other three adults looked fearfully at Hattie. “Yeah, good,” she agreed firmly.

    “Hey!” cried Gordon. “I know! We could paint it yeller!”

    “That’s an excellent idea, Gordon, it’d look great,” agreed Hattie firmly.

    “Hattie,” ventured Joanna weakly, “that’d mean the whole garden’s colour scheme’d have to work around yellow.”

    Hattie stuck out her rounded chin. “Why not? Lots of flowers are yellow.”

    “Dandelions,” said Hill faintly. Allan choked.

    “I think it sounds lovely,” said Fliss. “You can get nice yellow daisies: big ones.”

    “And those other ones that Granny grows!” urged Allie.

    “Buttercups?” said Hill faintly. Allan choked.

    “No! Buttercups are weeds! Stop being silly, Uncle Hill!” she snapped. “You know, Fliss! There’s purple ones, too! And red! Del—um, delias?”

    “Dahlias! Ooh, yes! –They’re lovely, Hattie,” Fliss explained. “Great big flowers. Sometimes they fall over, so Granny ties them up with big sticks.”

    “Yes, that old bike frame’d look really good surrounded by Ma’s giant dahlias,” agreed Hill, poker-face. “She usually features ’em with orange and yellow gladioli, too, I’m sure we could let you have a few of those.”

    “Ooh, yes!” cried his elder niece, not realizing that her uncle was taking the Mick. “It’d be super, Hattie!”

    “Yes,” said Hattie, not looking at the infuriating Hill at all. Why was he so cheerful, when she’d just given him the brush-off? Well it showed how much it meant to him, that was for sure! “It sounds really great, Fliss! –Come on, Gordon, if we grab the bike frame, Kenny can probably manage the big bowl, and we can come back for—”

    “Um, I didn’t have enough money to pay for them!” gasped her brother.

    “How much do you need?”

    “Um, another ten pounds. That’s more than dollars, isn’t it?” he croaked.

    “Yes, it certainly is, it’s thirty dollars, and far too much!” The genial Bob Metcalf who was a retired butcher was in charge of this stall; she rounded on him. “Mrs Everton made you set the prices, didn’t she?”

    “Yeah. Well, she set them herself—yeah.”

    “We’re buying these but we’re not paying that much! How much has Kenny already given you?”

    “Um… five quid,” admitted Bob sheepishly.

    “That’s fifteen dollars, that’s more than enough! Or do you imagine you’re gonna sell them for more to someone else?”

    “No, I don’t imagine that, Hattie,” he replied meekly.

    “Right, that’s settled, then!”

    “Okay,” said Bob meekly.

    “Come on!” Hattie ordered the boys, turning her back on him.

    “Uh—we’ll grab the garden seat, shall we, Allan?” said Hill feebly.

    Allan, smiling, was watching Mr Metcalf sneakily adding ten quid to the shoe box containing the stall’s takings. “Mm—oh, yes, of course. Upsy-daisy! Anyone fancy a ride?”

    With screams of delight his daughters accepted rides on the grimy old garden seat and the procession set off for Number 7 Old Mill Lane with the promise that when they got there they could turn round and come back for tea.

    “Actually,” admitted Joanna in astonishment, once the bike frame had been set in the middle of the left-hand side of the front garden and the seat had been carefully adjusted at an angle on the right-hand side, “that doesn’t look bad at all!”

    “No,” murmured Hill. “Gives it some definition, mm?”

    She nodded dazedly.

    Allan smiled. “I will get Ma to send over some dahlia, um, roots or bulbs or whatever the things have. Tubers, I think.”

    “And yellow daisies, Daddy!” urged Allie, jumping.

    “Right. Roots of those, I think,” he said with a grin.

    “You don’t have to,” said Hattie in a strangled voice, going very red.

    Hill glanced somewhat anxiously at his brother but to his relief Allan appeared to grasp that this was a polite Australian disclaimer. “No, no! Ma’ll be thrilled, won’t she, Hill? She’s a terrifically keen gardener, loves to share her expertise! Always sending off bulbs and stuff to friends all round the country!”

    “Yes,” said Hill, smiling at Hattie. “Now, what about some tea, eh? Harriet and Will promised to bag a table in the tea tent.”

    “Yay!” cried Gordon.

    “No, thanks,” said Hattie. “You can keep an eye on Gordon, can’t you, Joanna? Thank you for the jugs,” she added to Hill in a strangled voice.

    And with that she hurried inside, closing the door very firmly after her.

 Next Chapter:

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