The Way to a Woman's Heart (11 page)

And Ella had laughed. Because surely no family, whatever the size and however dysfunctional, had ever included so many disparate and desperate people?

Oh well, this break was only for three months, so if it was all unbearable when Trixie and Billy joined them, it wouldn’t be for ever, would it? She’d be leaving them behind by the end of August, wouldn’t she?

But, she thought as they ran and swung and swooped their way round hot shoppers along the High Street, would she be able to easily walk away from the adorable George, and the animals, the ditzy but lovely Poll – and even the glorious Hideaway Farm – and return to London and Mark?

And what about Ash?

She glanced sideways at him as he laughed with George, swinging him ever higher.

Oh, she definitely didn’t think she’d be able to walk away easily from Ash – with or without the addition of the exotic Onyx.

‘Where’s this café, George?’ Ash puffed. ‘Are we nearly there?’

George tugged at their hands as he stopped on the pavement and nodded enthusiastically towards a very pink frilly-curtained doorway.

‘Is this it?’ Ash frowned. ‘Patsy’s Pantry? Ella?’

‘Er, sorry, I was miles away… Oh, yes –’ she looked down at George who was still nodding excitedly ‘– I guess so. In we go.’

As they stepped inside, heads turned, conversations stopped, and they were immediately treated to curious stares from everyone else in the café.

The large woman enveloped in a pink coverall behind the counter, beamed. ‘Morning, young George. And who’s this, then?’

George gabbled happily, shook his hands free and galloped over to a vacant window table.

‘Love him.’ She smiled fondly. ‘Can’t make ’ead or tail of what he says but he’s a proper little cherub. I’m Patsy, and you must be Poll’s mother’s ’elp. Postman said you’d arrived yesterday. Emma, is it?’

‘Ella,’ Ella said, stunned that the jungle drums had already spread the information about her arrival.

‘That’s it.’ Patsy nodded, then looked Ash up and down. ‘My word, you’re a handsome lad. I’m guessing you must be one of Poll’s other lost causes?’

‘Um, yes, I’m Ash.’ Ash gave Patsy his most winning smile. ‘And definitely a lost cause.’

‘Ah, I’m never wrong. Bless ’er, Poll’s heart’s in the right place but her brain went AWOL years ago. Another scorcher, ain’t it?’ Patsy said cheerfully, ignoring any hint of irony. ‘No, you both go and sit down with the little un – I’ll bring your order over.’

‘We haven’t actually ordered yet,’ Ash pointed out.

‘Get away,’ Patsy sniffed. ‘I knows where young George
always sits and what he always has – and I’m sure that with Ella being a mother’s help she ain’t going to change his routine, are you, duck?’

‘Er, no…’

‘Well, you go an’ sit down, then. And mind –’ she glared at Ash ‘– handsome is as handsome does. I don’t know what you’re at Hideaway for – if you’re in trouble with the police or what – but I’ve counted me spoons, so don’t you go nicking anything, right?’

Ash nodded seriously. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. And I’ve never been in trouble with –’

‘That’s what they all say.’ Patsy rearranged her vast bosoms beneath the pink coverall. ‘Just don’t think you can take liberties here. Poll’s one thing, I’m quite another. Off you go and sit down. I’ll be over toot-sweet.’

Biting their lips, they meekly followed George to his favourite window table where he was industriously building a sugar lump castle.

The Pantry’s clientele, having resumed their inter-table chatting, continued to regard them with ill-disguised interest.

Sitting down, Ash immediately helped George with the ramparts and Ella giggled. ‘She’s probably counted the sugar lumps too, so don’t go popping any in your pockets.’

‘Damn.’ Ash carefully helped George with the third cube in a small crystal tower. ‘It’s one of my weaknesses. How long do you think we’re going to be branded as lawbreakers?’

‘You speak for yourself. I’m a bona-fide employee; you’re
clearly the one with the light-fingers. And until the twenty-second century at least, I’d say,’ Ella chuckled. ‘They seem to have played judge and jury on hearsay and found you guilty.’

‘Which is what we’ve done to Billy and Trixie, isn’t it?’

‘No! Well, yes, OK a bit, but then we know things about them, and they might well be, um, doubtful.’

‘We’ll soon find out – Oh, bugger…’

George shrieked with laughter as the sugar cube castle collapsed across the table.

Ella, glancing over the top of her pink laminated menu card, was amazed at the way that everyone else in the café seemed to know one another. And as Patsy already seemed to know everything about her – and Poll – and what was happening at Hideaway Farm, presumably that meant Patsy’s customers did too.

The rural jungle drums were a revelation. In her London flat, Ella had barely spoken to her neighbours, and wouldn’t have even recognised some of them if they passed in the street. But here, clearly, no one was a stranger for long, and there were no intimacies too delicate to be aired and shared with all and sundry. It was all very peculiar.

As if reading her mind, a very old woman, wrinkled like a tortoise, leaned over from a nearby table, flaking Danish pastry crumbs down her floral frock in the manoeuvre. ‘Young Poll got the last of them odd ’uns turning up at Hideaway soon, ’as she? I’m Jean Turvey, by the way, but everyone calls me Topsy.’

Ash chuckled.

‘Well, they’re not really odd.’

‘Ah.’ Topsy Turvey nodded. ‘I think you’ll find they are. We knows all about Poll and her latest daft scheme. We told her it was a mistake bringing you in to look after young George while she fills that farm with miscreants.’

‘They’re hardly…’

‘I’m Lavender Banding.
Miss
Lavender Banding. And this is my sister Lobelia,’ a skeletally thin geriatric lady interrupted from another table. ‘And you’re wrong, you know. We know Poll’s got a bank robber coming. And an axe murderer or a serial poisoner, isn’t it? Ah, we know all about it. She’s asking for trouble, is Poll. You’ll all be a-massacred in your beds afore the month is out, you mark our words.’

Ash turned his laughter into a spate of coughing and demolished the second attempt at a castle much to George’s amusement.

Ella looked at the elderly spinster sisters who were sharing one iced fancy and a very small pot of tea, and who were both wearing cycle helmets although surely they weren’t strong enough to control bicycles, were they?

‘Oh, I don’t think so. I’m Essie Rivers, dear,’ an elegantly dressed lady put in quickly from a third table before Ella could leap to Poll’s defence. ‘I don’t think any of them are that bad, are they? Aren’t they just homeless? Poll’s very kind-hearted. I know what it’s like to be homeless and unhappy, and then being lucky enough to meet someone generous and be given a second chance. Good luck to her I say.’

‘Ah.’ Essie’s male companion grinned. ‘Slo Motion, local
undertaker, at your service, duck. Should be more like Poll if you asks me. Compassion is a rare commodity these days.’

A free-for-all discussion flared up then, with Slo and Essie on one side of the argument and several other tables, including Lavender and Lobelia Banding, on the other, and with a very oddly matched couple who introduced themselves as Gwyneth Wilkins and Big Ida Tomms, chipping into the rare silences from their table in the corner.

‘There,’ Patsy placed three strawberry milkshakes and three Chelsea buns on the table. ‘Don’t you take no notice of them, Ella, duck. What will be will be as Doris Day always says. Poll’s well known round here for making a dog’s bollocks – excuse my French in front of the little ’un – job of most things. She always rushes into her harum-scarum ventures willy-nilly, and I doubt this one will be no different. Mind, personally myself I hopes she makes a go of this one.’

‘So do I.’ Ella nodded fervently. ‘So do I.’

‘Anyway –’ Patsy folded her arms across her bosom-straining coverall ‘– we’ve got more exciting things to think about round here than Poll Andrews and ’er daft schemes, ’aven’t we?’

‘Have we?’ Ash, still trying not to laugh, reached across the table to manoeuvre the recalcitrant milkshake straws into George’s mouth. ‘Er, like, um, what?’

‘Lord above!’ Patsy looked scandalised. ‘I know Hideaway’s well off the beaten track – but you must
know
?’

‘We’ve only been there for a day,’ Ash pointed out reasonably.

Ella, whose head was still reeling from the thought of
sharing – within a matter of hours – life at Hideaway with a mad bad fairy arsonist and a petty thief, really hadn’t had any time to notice much else either. ‘Sorry, no…’

Patsy still looked shocked. ‘You mean you ’aven’t seen the posters? Or the bit on Meridian news? Or the splash in the
Winterbrook Advertiser
?’

Ella shook her head. ‘None of those, no.’

‘What have we missed?’ Ash tore into his bun with perfectly even white teeth.

‘We’re going to be on the telly!’

George blew ecstatic bubbles into his milkshake.

‘Really?’ Ella said, quickly dissecting George’s Chelsea bun into manageable pieces. ‘Wow. How brilliant. So is it going to be a documentary about village life here? Or a local news item about you and featuring the Pantry?’

‘No!’ Patsy snorted. ‘I don’t mean Hazy Hassocks or the Pantry – I mean, one of
us
. Someone from Hassocks or one of the other villages… Look, over there, duck, on the wall. The big poster. They’re everywhere. Can’t think how you’ve missed them round the town.’

Neither, once she’d looked at it, could Ella.

‘Bloody hell!’ Ash muttered. ‘Sorry, George.’

In vibrant day-glo orange, and with the oh-so-familiar faces of Gabby and Tom Dewberry grinning out at them, the words
Dewberrys’ Dinners
were printed in huge Comic Sans font.

‘They’re looking for volunteers for their next live show. Here. In this part of Berkshire,’ Patsy said proudly, ignoring the small queue of customers at the counter. ‘Mind, you’d
have to be mad as a box of biscuits to want to take part – so it should suit young Poll down to the ground.’

Ella and Ash, exchanging glances, joined in the laughter. So did George – which resulted in a froth of milkshake spurting across the table. Ash and Ella both dived to wipe it up.

‘Ah.’ Topsy Turvey broke off her still-heated conversation and leaned towards them. ‘She’s right there, about being barmy to want to be on that darned show. But I can tell you there’s plenty round here who’ve applied already.’

‘Like who?’ Gwyneth Wilkins paused mid-cuppa. ‘Young Mitzi, I’ll be bound.’

Ah, Ella thought: Mitzi… that must be Mitzi Blessing – the local witch.

Topsy Turvey nodded, looking more like a tortoise than ever. ‘So I’ve ’eard. And that Geordie geezer what runs Giovanni’s restaurant over at Willows Lacey. Not that ’e’ll be allowed in as ’e’s a pro so to speak. And Tarnia Snepps.’

‘Blimey!’ Big Ida Tomms snorted. ‘Tarnia Snepps ’as never cooked a meal in her life! My money’s on young Mitzi then.’

Slo Motion shook his head. ‘Mitzi won’t be allowed neither, duck. She’m a proper prerfessioneral cook like yon Giovanni’s bloke, ain’t she?
Dewberrys’ Dinners
only ’as amachewers.’

‘God help us if they picks on Tarnia Snepps.’ Topsy Turvey shuddered pleasurably. ‘Snooty cow she is. Her an’ that Gabby is bound to come to blows.’

The Bandings tittered pleasurably at the thought.

‘Nah.’ Slo shook his head. ‘It won’t be no one like Tarnia. They’ll go for a normal person.’

‘Won’t find many of them round here then,’ Essie giggled.

Gwyneth nodded her agreement. ‘Mind, I can’t see anyone we knows really wanting to take part – unless they thinks it’s worth the ’umiliation for the money at the end if they wins?’

Patsy reluctantly headed back towards the crowd round her counter. ‘Ah, there’s always them as is willing to take the devil’s shilling. More fool them, I say.’

Ash sucked up the lovely ice-creamy sludge at the bottom of his milkshake, grinned at George who was doing the same, and leaned across the table. ‘Pretty amazing…
Dewberrys’ Dinners
filming round here.’

‘Mmm, you’re not kidding.’

Screwing up her eyes, Ella scanned the poster. Not that she was really interested, of course, but it was rather exciting – a top-rated television show taking place right on the doorstep…

She giggled to herself. She’d joined the country village mindset already. Getting excited about ‘being on the telly’. But
Dewberrys’ Dinners
was her – and Poll’s and Ash’s – absolutely favourite show and it was pretty cool that they’d be filming locally.

‘We might even do the groupie thing and hang around the chosen venue and catch a glimpse of Gabby and Tom Dewberry – oh, Poll would love that, wouldn’t she?’

Ash nodded. ‘I reckon she’d love anything to do with
Dewberrys’ Dinners.
Wouldn’t we all? Look, I’ll keep an eye on George – you go and see if there’s anything in the small
print to say they’re looking for, um, victims in this area only. Then we can tell her when we go back, can’t we?’

Ella pushed her chair back. Celeb-spotting the Dreadful Dewberrys would possibly make Poll very happy indeed. And didn’t Poll deserve to be happy more than anyone Ella had ever known?