Kate's Progress (7 page)

Dave gave him a warning glance and said, over-heartily, ‘More than a rumour, my old son. We’ve got the new owner sitting right here. Came in to introduce herself, which I call very friendly and civil.’

The man’s head swivelled round so sharply that Kate was afraid he must have ricked his neck, and the hard eyes were fixed on her in a penetrating stare that made her feel, for a moment, quite uncomfortable. She was aware that she was not presenting herself at her best, and simple pride made her think that if she’d met this man in London with her glad rags on he wouldn’t have looked at her like a prefect looking at an inky new kid. She could have taken him on on his own terms.

‘I’ll do the honours, shall I?’ Dave went on, evidently thinking the stare was not conducive to a happy bar atmosphere. ‘Kate, this is Phil Kingdon. Phil, Kate Jennings, who bought Little’s. Phil’s the land agent for the Blackmore Estate.’

‘How do you do?’ Kate said coolly, keeping her end up.

But suddenly everything changed. The man smiled, his eyes crinkling, the hard stare was history, and a hand was being offered. ‘How do
you
do?’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you. Sorry if I was a bit abrupt before – I’ve just had a long drive for nothing, so I was feeling a bit ratty. So, Little’s new owner? Let me buy you a drink, introduce you to the village.’

Kate shook the hand (hard, well-manicured), and responded to the smile – why not? She was here to make friends – though she didn’t quite feel it had a spontaneous warmth to it. ‘I’m not a complete stranger here,’ she said.

‘Her dad was from Exford,’ Dave amplified.

‘So I’m half Exmoor,’ Kate went on.

‘I should have known from the name,’ said Phil Kingdon. ‘What’ll you have?’

‘Thanks, but I really have to get back to work,’ Kate said, glancing at the clock over the fireplace. ‘And I’m expecting a skip.’

‘A what?’ Phil said, startled.

‘Kate’s doing all her own work,’ said Dave, with a sort of proprietorial pride that amused her.

‘Hence my scruffy state,’ Kate got in, with a gesture towards her clothes. ‘I scrub up quite nicely, you know.’

Another crinkling smile. ‘I’m sure you do,’ Phil said. ‘Perhaps I can buy you that drink another time? Tonight? Oh, no, wait, I can’t tonight. What about tomorrow night?’

Woah, boy
, Kate thought.
Fast worker
. And she wasn’t here to go out on dates, though it was flattering to get such an instant response. ‘Thanks all the same, but I’m not really fit to go out, after a day working on the cottage,’ she said.

He wasn’t so easily put off. ‘Oh, come on, just a drink. I bet you’ll want to get out of that place for an hour or two. All work and no play, you know. One drink, all right?’ He was giving her the full force of his charm, but she didn’t know anything about him and, given his age and apparently comfortable income, she couldn’t believe he wasn’t married.

‘I’m sure I’ll see you around the place some time, now I’m living here, but I’m going to be very busy for a while. Thanks anyway. I’d better get back now.’ She rose from the stool, noting out of the corner of her eye that the hard stare was back.
Didn’t like being thwarted, did he?
Bit of a control freak?
She was glad she’d refused the drink, now. He didn’t seem like a man to get tangled up with.

Wayne spoke up, looking towards the door. ‘I think I see a skip lorry just go past. Might be yours.’

‘Oh God. They’ll take it away again! I’d better run.’ And she legged it.

It was hers, and she arrived at the top of School Lane, panting, just as the driver was getting back into his cab.

‘Don’t go! It’s me! I mean, it’s mine!’

He got down again. ‘Gor, you don’t half live in the back of beyond,’ he informed her. ‘Couldn’t find the place. It’s not on satnav.’

‘So I was told recently,’ Kate said. Didn’t anyone look at a map any more? ‘But you’re here now.’

‘Yeah. Where d’you want it? It’s gonna block the road if I leave it here.’

‘Can you swing it over the wall into the garden? There’s nothing there it can spoil.’

‘I see that, but I can’t get the angle.’

‘What about if you go up on to the track?’

He set his jaw. ‘Mud track. Don’t wanna get stuck.’ He was punishing her for not being on satnav.

‘It’s not muddy. It’s firm and dry. Have a look.’ Under her insistent urging he walked up with her to inspect the track, and agreed reluctantly that it would take his rig. In a very short time the skip had been swing delicately over into her garden, and the lorry had gone away, chains swinging noisily, back down School Lane. He would have had to go on to the track anyway to turn round, she noted, so his objections were spurious. It puzzled and amused her that men were so inflexible: throw any kind of spanner in their works and they went to pieces.

‘Never mind, I can get on with walloping walls now,’ she told a tortoiseshell cat that was tiptoeing delicately along the top of her wall. It stuck its tail straight up in agreement, ducked a cheek briefly against her offered fingers, and jumped down into the jungle of her garden to stalk away through the weeds.

Wall-walloping was enormously therapeutic. Sometimes she imagined Mark’s face, and sometimes Oliver’s, and occasionally a composite of all the unsatisfactory men who had not even called back when they said they would. Over the next few days she knocked down the two-thirds of the dividing wall, finished stripping the paper from the staircase wall, and loaded all the debris into the skip. The latter was the most laborious part, because although she had a wheelbarrow – she had found a rusty one out the back under a riot of convolvulus – there was no way to wheel it up to the top of the skip and tip it, so everything had to be thrown up by hand. The work was so hard that at the end of each day she only just had the energy to bath, cook a meal, and fall into bed. But at least she was tired enough to sleep right away, without worrying about the silence outside.

Kay came to the door one day and looked in. ‘It’s gone quiet,’ she said by way of greeting. ‘I wondered if you were all right.’

‘I’m sorry – has the noise been a nuisance? The really bad bit’s finished now.’

‘Oh no – it’s not a problem,’ Kay said quickly. ‘You’re that far away, I can only just hear it. It don’t bother me.’ She looked round the stripped and devastated room. ‘My Lord, you’ve really been working hard! Funny, it looks bigger this way. You keeping that old fireplace?’

‘Yes, I’m going to put a log-burning stove in when I’m done. Those night storage heaters give a background warmth all right, but they’re expensive, and they’re not very cosy. You can’t sit round one on a chilly evening.’

‘Hmm,’ said Kay, without enthusiasm. ‘We had our fireplace taken out and plastered over. Don’t want the bother of fires, and cleaning out the ash and everything, these days. I like everything modern, me.’

Kate smiled. ‘Ah well, I suppose I’m just an old-fashioned girl. It was the log-pile out the back that made me think of it.’

‘Oh, that’s been there ages,’ said Kay. ‘Margie and Wilf never had a real fire in donkey’s. Margie had a ’lectric one for when it was cold. Those logs’ll be years old,’ she concluded doubtfully, apparently worrying that they might go off, like milk.

‘Never mind,’ Kate said, ‘I’m sure there’ll be lots of suppliers in a place like this. Did you want anything in particular?’

‘Well,’ Kay said, looking shy, ‘I was thinking ’bout what you said, ’bout watching the kids. Did you mean it?’

‘Of course I did,’ Kate said quickly. ‘When?’

‘Well, Saturday night, if you’re not doing anything else. Course, you might have a date …’

‘I don’t know anyone to have a date with,’ Kate said.

‘Only,’ Kay went on, ‘it’s the darts final Saturday, down the Royal Oak, Withypool.’ There were lots of Royal Oaks on Exmoor. ‘They’re having a pie-and-pea supper after, and I wouldn’t half like to go. Darren’s playing, and he says we ought to win this year.’

‘Of course you should go. I’ll be happy to babysit for you,’ Kate said – though darts and a pie supper sounded so attractive, she’d have liked to go herself, had she known about it. But a promise was a promise.

Kay looked relieved. ‘Oh, look at you, you’re so nice! Are you sure? Listen, d’you want to come over tonight and have your tea with us? Then you can see the kids. You’ve not met ’em yet.’ She grinned. ‘Our Dommie can be a cheeky little monkey. You might change your mind.’

‘I won’t,’ Kate promised. ‘But yes, thanks, I’d love to come.’

‘It’s only shepherd’s pie. We have it half past six when Darren gets home from work, then he can see the kids ’fore they go to bed, otherwise he only sees ’em weekends. How you managing for washing?’

‘I’m not, at the moment.’ The abrupt change of question caught Kate off guard. In fact, she had been wondering how to cope with clothes-washing, not having a machine. Bursford or any of the other local villages were not the sort of places to have a launderette, and having to go into somewhere like Taunton or Minehead for it was going to be a nuisance.

‘Well, you give it to me, and I’ll put it in with ours. No, go on, you’re all right,’ she continued against Kate’s instant protest. ‘I got so much your little bit more won’t make any difference.’

‘But my work clothes are filthy,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t want to break your machine.’

‘No, you won’t. I’ll do what I do with Darren’s – his get filthy at work just the same. I soak ’em first in a big tub out the back. Listen, I’ll swap a bit o’ washing for babysitting any day of the week. D’you know how hard it is to find anyone round here? Feels like years since Darren and me got out. His mum used to come over sometimes, but she doesn’t drive any more.’

At the end of the week Kate had a trip into Taunton in the car, to the B&Q in Heron Gate, to buy materials: plaster, wood filler, some lintel timber, quadrant and architrave, more sandpaper. Feeling optimistic about her progress, she also bought size, lining paper and paste, and wax for the doors. Then she did a Morrison’s food shop, and drove home laden to the gunwales. The cottage looked more familiar as she drew up in front of it: not exactly a home yet, but at least definitely hers. The sun had come out, and the tortoiseshell cat was sitting neatly on the gatepost, squeezing its eyes in pleasure at the warmth. It stood up politely as she approached, four cinnamon feet bunched together on the small space, arched its back and gave her a cheek in greeting.

‘You wait till I’ve got a wood-burning stove,’ she informed it. ‘You’ll be knocking at my door to come in, then.’

The cat, offering an astonishingly loud purr, seemed to agree.

When Kate arrived on Saturday evening, Kay said, ‘They’re fed and bathed, and Dommie can play for half an hour while you put Hayley to bed. Are you sure you’re all right doing that?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. As long as she doesn’t mind,’ Kate said. Four-year-old Hayley, playing with a Barbie doll at the kitchen table, was giving her another of the long, considering stares that had attended their first meeting. Six-year-old Dominic was drawing at the other side of the table and didn’t even look up as Kate came in.

‘No, she’ll be all right. She’s no trouble. I usually sing her a song when I put her down,’ Kay added doubtfully.

‘I can do that. What does she like?’

‘I usually do “You are my sunshine”. My mum used to sing that to me. But it don’t matter – anything’ll do.’

‘I can do “You are my sunshine”,’ Kate said. ‘What about Dommie?’

‘He gets one story. You be strict about it, or he’ll have you reading all night. You are a love to do this! I’m that excited about going out, you wouldn’t believe.’

‘Kay!’ came Darren’s voice from upstairs. ‘Are you ready? I can’t be late.’

‘I’m all done but me shoes and coat,’ she shouted back.

‘You look very nice,’ Kate said.

Kay smiled shyly, and touched her hair. ‘I need to get these old roots done. I must make an appointment, only I’ve got to go all the way to Minehead, and what with the washing and shopping there never seems to be enough time between taking the kids to school and picking ’em up.’

‘I could pick them up for you one day, if you like.’

‘Oh, I can’t keep imposing on you.’

‘You’re doing my washing. I don’t call that imposing.’

‘Well, if you’re sure …’

Darren appeared in the doorway. ‘Got your shoes on? Come on, girl, get a move on!’

In a flurry of movement and goodbyes they were gone. Kate heard the car start up and drive off down the road, and then the silence outside swirled to a halt, lapping round the house and settling. For a moment Kate felt daunted, very alone, and worryingly responsible for two little strangers. She caught Hayley staring at her again, and shook herself. Sixteen year olds babysat all over the country, so there couldn’t be anything to it
she
couldn’t handle, could there?

There was no difficulty about putting Hayley to bed, except for withstanding the continued silent stares. She sang ‘You are My Sunshine’ to apparent approval, since Hayley demanded two encores, and was opening her mouth to request a third when Kate decided she was being made a monkey of, gave her a firm, ‘Goodnight,’ instead and beat a hasty retreat.

When she got back downstairs, she discovered that Dommie had decided to accept her, and while she helped him clear away his drawings and pencils, he chatted away about school and his friends and his plastic Power Rangers set and something he watched on the television that she’d never heard of. He even generously gave her one of his drawings, for which she expressed suitable gratitude without being able to tell what it was meant to be: caterpillar, spaceship, ray gun – possibly even a Power Ranger, for all she knew.

When it came to the story he asked for The Gingerbread Man, and she read it from the battered book on the shelf beside his bed, noting that the shelf was crooked and had been put up on too short a bracket, so it sagged forward as well.
I could fix that in a jiffy
, she thought, and banked the idea against further washing favours from Kay.

Once she had settled Dommie and looked in on Hayley, there was nothing to do but go downstairs and wait out the evening. She had brought a book with her, but yielded instead to the lure of the television. Without a fixed aerial, her own little portable only got two channels, and then only fuzzily, so it was nice to have a wider choice and a clear picture. She’d have to see about getting an aerial put in – but not until she’d repointed the chimney, she reminded herself. She ought to get on and do that while the weather was fine – and finish the outside windows. Put off the indoor work for a rainy day. There were bound to be plenty of those.