Seeing Stars (3 page)

Zillah really, really hoped so.

Starlight Express

It wasn’t anything like Amber had imagined it would be. Of course she was out of practice, probably never having done this
for – what? – oh, at least seventeen years, but even so she’d had her memories, her expectations.

She sighed heavily. Like so much else in her life recently, this had been one huge letdown.

Having only taken short local commuter trips for years, she’d really been looking forward to this long journey. Those ‘let
the train take the strain’ adverts were always full of relaxed, happy commuters reading broadsheets and doing complicated
things on laptops in huge comfortable seats with acres of space between them, and a smiley flunky serving coffee and, well,
she’d just expected so much more from this rail journey which marked the end of her old life and the start of – well, who
knew what.

‘Ooops, sorry …’ Amber muttered for the umpteenth time. ‘Sorry.’

She peeled herself away from a heavily perspiring businessman who was jammed into the airless vestibule alongside her and
about 500 other sweaty people as the train rattled relentlessly southwards.

Of course she should have pre-booked a seat. Her parents, before they’d rolled away from the house for the
last time in their piled-high camper van, had said so. Her sisters, Coral and Topaz, dressed in shorts and T-shirts and espadrilles
all ready for their new life, had clambered into the back of the van and said that without booking a seat Amber would probably
have to stand for the entire journey.

Overcome by a sudden and unexpectedly violent wave of homesickness at watching her family’s departure, Amber had grinned bravely
through her tears and said she’d be fine. Who else would be daft enough to want to spend over four hours on two different
trains in the middle of summer heading for the wilds of Berkshire? She’d have the pick of seats. In fact she’d probably have
both the entire trains to herself.

She hadn’t even managed to get into a carriage on either of them. Having stood in the restaurant car corridor all the way
from Manchester, she’d been wedged into her current crowded cubbyhole since Birmingham.

The sweltering confines were made even more uncomfortable by the concertinary bit between the compartments suddenly swaying
without warning which meant everyone catapulted together, and also by people who were lucky enough to have seats in some distant
carriage selfishly wanting to use the one and only lavatory, which happened to be somewhere behind Amber’s right shoulder
and her eight bags and three suitcases and –

‘God! I’m really, really, sorry,’ Amber muttered again, trying to unstick her arm from someone’s cheek. ‘Oh, was that your
toe? Sorry …’

If only there was something solid to hang on to. Something that wasn’t fleshy. Something that meant this non-stop colliding
of skin-on-skin could be brought to an end.

The perspiring businessman lurched against her again as a large woman in an even larger T-shirt tried to haul herself towards
the lavatory.

‘Sorry …’ Amber said again as the large woman
elbowed her in the chest. ‘Look, let me just get out of the way and – ouch!’

The businessman looked innocent. Amber glared at him. God, how much longer was this going to last? She’d been on this train
for ever. She hadn’t sat down for hours. Why, oh, why, had she ever agreed to do this?

The goat shed in Spain began to look really appealing.

‘Didcot Parkway!’ A nasal voice intoned across the tannoy. ‘Didcot Parkway next stop!’

Amber perked up. Didcot Parkway. That sounded pretty. Maybe she’d get a glimpse of countryside there. All chocolate boxy and
flowery and green and gentle. What was that poem she’d loved at school? About a country station in midsummer? Adelstrop. That
was it … all willow-herbs and billowy haystacks, whatever they were. Didcot Parkway had to be something like that. Rustic
and peaceful. With fields and trees. And maybe loads of people would get off there and maybe she’d find a seat and –

Nope.

The run-in to Didcot Parkway looked like Beirut on a bad day and there were another six million people on the platform clearly
all expecting to squeeze on to the train.

The doors opened allowing a gust of hot air into the tiny corridor. A stampede of sticky humanity billowed in after it.

The doors slammed.

‘Reading next stop!’ The nasal voice sang happily through the tannoy. ‘And please stand well away from the doors!’

Amber pulled a face. One out of two wasn’t bad. She was pressed right up against the door, true, but she definitely wasn’t
standing. Now wedged between the businessman and a couple of lads in baseball caps and Man U shirts who’d clearly had more
than their fair share of recent vindaloos, her feet were at least six inches off the ground.

‘Excuse me!’ Amber yelled at the businessman who now
had more bits of his body pressed against hers than Jamie had ever achieved in daylight. The noise from the concertinary bit
of the train made normal conversation impossible. ‘How long before we get to Reading?’

The businessman was glistening all over like a disco ball and managed to drag his eyes but not the rest of him from her cleavage
as he yelled back. ‘About fifteen, twenty minutes, I’d say …’

‘Thanks.’ Hallelujah. She might just survive after all. ‘Oh, sorry – excuse me, I just need to get my phone out of my bag
and – bloody hell!’

‘Sorry …’ the businessman looked embarrassed. ‘I didn’t expect you to fumble
down there.’

‘I was not fumbling,’ Amber hissed, trying not to breathe in too much of the second-hand curry fumes to her right. ‘I was
putting my hand into my bag. Just because your groin got in the way doesn’t mean – oh!’

‘Sorry …’ the Man U curry-eaters grinned sheepishly at her from beneath the peaks of their caps and shoved their hands deep
into their pockets.

Jesus. This was worse than that lap-dancing club she’d accidentally stumbled into with her friends after a night on the town
and too many tequilas where several drunken stagnighters had mistaken her for the star turn.

She managed to push her hand into her bag without arousing anyone else and after a lot of rummaging clutched her mobile and
the post-it note with Gwyneth’s phone number on it. The businessman, the curry-eaters and the large T-shirt lady all watched
her with interest as she held the phone above her head and started to punch out the numbers.

Full Moon Fever

Outside Moth Cottage, Zillah tried hard not to strain her ears for the phone ringing. It was ridiculous, she knew it was,
but Amber arriving in Fiddlesticks could be the worst thing that had ever happened to her. Well, almost the worst thing. The
second worst definitely.

She knew it was silly to worry, but the arrival of a new woman, especially a young one, in Fiddlesticks, was bound to attract
everyone’s attention – especially Lewis’s – wasn’t it?

‘Er… sorry,’ she looked across at Gwyneth. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said that’s something I’m really looking forward to.’

‘What? Sorry, Gwyneth, I was miles away.’

‘So I noticed,’ Gwyneth chuckled, shaking the empty pea shucks on to a sheet of newspaper. ‘I was just saying I’m looking
forward to having young Amber here with a mobile phone. I’ve never had a go on one. I want to learn to text.’

‘You have to text someone else with a mobile,’ Zillah said gently. ‘And you don’t have any friends with one, do you?’

‘No. Bugger. Don’t know why you ain’t got one. I could text you, then.’

‘I only live next door, and why would I want a mobile phone? Everyone I want to talk to is within shouting distance.’

‘To be honest, why does anyone want one, duck? Who do they talk to? And why? It’s a mystery to me. You can’t tell me all those
people you see with ’em clamped to their heads in Hazy Hassocks and Winterbrook used to spend that long on the phone at home
or down the call-box.’ Gwyneth paused in her shelling to peer at a handful of peas. ‘Thought they might be maggoty, but they’re
not … Ah, and yes, I do know someone with a mobile, so there. Lewis has got one, hasn’t he? I could text him.’

Zillah sighed. Oh yes, Lewis had a mobile phone. And probably every woman in Berkshire had his number.

She nodded. ‘Of course you could. He’d probably love it. Mind, you’ll join the long, long list of females sending him strange
and clearly exotic messages by the way he hides them from me when I’m at his place, but I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear
from you.’

‘Of course he will. He’s a nice boy.’

‘Hardly a boy.’ Zillah raised her black eyebrows. ‘He’ll be thirty next year.’

‘He don’t look it though, does he? Bless him. Such a handsome lad. Thirty … my, my – where does the time go? It seems only
five minutes ago he was a babe in arms. Mind, in my day any young fellow worth his salt would’ve been married and fathered
at least half a dozen kiddies by the time he was thirty.’

‘Lewis’d run a mile from the first and has probably already achieved the second.’ Zillah stared up at the flax flower sky.
‘What would I know?’

‘There, there. Don’t get upset.’ Gwyneth balanced the colander on her knees and leaned down to pat Zillah’s plump shoulders.
‘He might be a bit flighty, but you know underneath it all Lewis is honest and hardworking and friendly and always kind and
helpful and—’

‘Mmmm. Very helpful. Especially today. You didn’t
have any trouble persuading him to collect her, did you? This Amber? From the station?’

Gwyneth machine-gunned an entire pod of peas into the colander with scary accuracy. ‘I asked him if he’d mind and he said
he was free and he’d be pleased to do it. Why? Have you got a problem with that, young Zillah?’

‘No.’ Zillah quickly shifted the cats and picked at a threadbare patch on her long skirt. ‘No, of course not. If she hasn’t
got a car it’ll be murder trying to get here by bus, and a taxi would cost a fortune from Reading – but, well … she’s young,
free and single, isn’t she?’

‘Ah, the last two as far as I know. And youngish. She was twenty-seven last birthday.’

‘Oh, God. And is she pretty?’

Gwyneth shook the remaining empty pea pods onto a sheet of newspaper among the tumbled nasturtiums at her feet. ‘I’ve never
met her, have I, Zil? Mind, if she takes after her Gran she’ll be a real stunner. Jean broke umpteen hearts when she was a
lass. And little Amber was a bobbydazzler when I last saw a photo.’

Zillah groaned. ‘And when was that?’

‘’Bout twenty-five years ago.’

They laughed together. Gwyneth’s laughter rang more true.

‘Have I missed a joke?’ Big Ida emerged from the doorway of Moth Cottage, carrying a tray with three mismatched cups, an earthenware
bowl of water and two plates of biscuits.

‘No, duck, only young Zil here getting herself into a panic that Lewis will decamp with Amber en route from Reading.’

Big Ida handed round the teas and placed the bowl of water and Bonios in front of the slumbering dog. ‘Crikey Moses – that’s
a definite in my book. Lewis is a bit of a gigolo, after all. Don’t know why you asked him to collect her from the station.
Asking for trouble, that is.’

‘Don’t be daft, Ida,’ Gwyneth said quickly. ‘Zillah don’t
want to hear that sort of thing. Did you bring out any custard creams? Ah good, there’s nothing better for dunking, I don’t
think.’

Pike crunched Bonios at the speed of light then slurped messily at his water bowl, and the cats shoved their heads under his
dripping jowls to join in. Silence reigned as custard creams were dunked and devoured.

‘And what time is … is Amber actually arriving?’ Zillah took a swig of tea and asked the question with a nonchalance she was
far from feeling.

Gwyneth wiped her mouth. ‘Could be anytime now, I reckon. But you know what the trains are like.’

They all nodded. Not that any of them really knew from experience. Late-running trains were like motorway gridlocks and binge
drinkers causing weekend mayhem, and unfaithful footballers – something they heard a lot about on the news and read about
in the papers. All a bit exciting and rather pleasant in a safe voyeuristic way as none of it had actually reached Fiddlesticks
yet.

Zillah really, really wanted to change the subject away from Amber’s arrival even if it meant discussing a doubtful saint
and his ludicrous centuries-held beliefs. ‘So, apart from my costume, are we all ready for St Bedric’s, then?’

Big Ida eased custard cream crumbs into her mouth with a large grubby forefinger. ‘Ah, all done. Should be a good ’un this
year if this weather holds. We needs a clear sky to get the full effect.’

‘No worries on that.’ Gwyneth creakily put down her colander and her mug and stretched. ‘We’re in the middle of an Azores
high according to the wireless. Oooh, I’m getting stiff. Maybe I should join the Hazy Hassocks keep fit class …’

Despite her misgivings, Zillah grinned at the idea of Gwyneth – four foot ten in her stockinged feet, and about as broad as
she was high – leaping and stepping and stretching and skipping.

‘Don’t you laugh, young lady,’ Gwyneth said sternly.

‘You know me and Big Ida have already had a go at kick boxing and Tai Kwon Do and we did OK. I’ll have you know at eighty
I’m fitter than most people half my age, but sitting in one position for any length of time just plays ’avoc with me knees.
Maybe I’ll pop into Winterbrook and see about buying meself a leotard.’

Zillah bit her lip and said nothing.

‘I’d join you,’ Ida said, ‘but they never do ’em in my size. I’d have to wear me vest and knickers. Anyway, more importantly,
the pub’s doing the food for after, on Saturday, is it? Timmy Pluckrose ’as got the message this year, has he? Proper St Bedric’s
Eve food – none of that foreign stuff on sticks he tried to fob us off with last year? Even if it were green it weren’t
right.
’

‘I’m sure Timmy’s got the message, yes,’ Zillah said shortly. ‘He’s contracted the catering out to Hubble Bubble. You know,
Mitzi Blessing and her herbal stuff, in Hazy Hassocks, this year.’