The Unorthodox Arrival of Pumpkin Allan (6 page)

Lois introduced herself and briefly explained why Tom wasn’t with her. Dave was thrilled to hear that Tom was a mountain biking man. He said that he was thinking of taking it up as his new hobby. Then, noticing that Adam was struggling to position the new door, despite enthusiastic assistance from Mel, said he would pop home to change, then come and give a hand.

Dave was back to help Adam in no time and as a team they worked fast and effectively until the door, along with its antique hinges and lock, were fitted. Lois was delighted and relieved that the house was now secure and accessible.

By the time the job was finished it was seven thirty. Lois and Mel should have been back in London. Tom would be home shortly and they were both working the next day. But when Annie came round and invited everyone for supper and Lois and Mel to sleep over, the idea of trekking back to the pandemonium, noise and pollution of London, was very much less than inviting. Lois and Mel had a lengthy discussion about the possibility of them both taking a day off the following day. If it hadn’t been for the fact that poor Tom would be returning to an empty flat, with no food, they would doubtlessly have agreed to stay. Lois was pretty exhausted and starting to enjoy her new environment so much she really didn’t want to leave. Mel was bowled over by Adam, who seemed to be intelligent, kind, witty and generous on top of the good looks and amazing physique and she was not eager to rush away. However, they both knew that the right decision was to return to London. Lois needed to settle her poor injured boyfriend in and both she and Mel should go to work tomorrow, which was fortunately a Friday.

Before they left, Annie invited Lois, Tom, Mel and Adam to dinner on Saturday night. Lois said she would confirm once she had seen how Tom was. They hugged like long time friends, Lois and Mel settled themselves into the damp car and Annie, Dave and Adam waved them off.

Lois was surprised to see the state that Tom was in. He’d implied on the phone that his injuries were minor, other than the broken wrist. But in reality his chin was a horrible mess; it must have had at least twenty stitches, running in a crescent shape around the left side of his dimple. He had deep mauve bruising radiating from below the cut to the top of his left cheek. His temple was florid purple from where his helmet had hit his head on impact with the ground. His broken arm was in plaster and hitched up across his chest in a sling. But the injury that seemed to be causing the most pain was his cracked ribs, of which there were apparently three. But she felt it would be somewhat hypocritical to say anything about him hiding the truth. She looked him over and said sympathetically, “Well thank God you were wearing a helmet!”

They bolted down their Indian takeaway meal-for-two that she’d picked up from the supermarket. Tom was still on antibiotics and Lois had been doing her best to avoid alcohol during her pregnancy, so they stuck to soft drinks.

Tom was surprised how excited he felt when Lois started to tell him about their new home. She gave him the edited version of the previous two days, which excluded almost anything negative, other than the need for an emergency new front door, as she thought that was too obvious to go unnoticed.

Tom had been feeling miserable since his accident. He had missed Lois terribly and been starting to feel quite pessimistic about their venture into property ownership. But now, hearing about the friendly, supportive environment, he couldn’t wait to move. He was very enthusiastic about the idea of going to Annie and Dave’s for dinner on Saturday.

They went to bed, snuggling the best they could, which, following a series of ouches from Tom, ended up being little more than holding hands. But anyway, it was great to be back together.

The next morning, Lois was up at 6.30 preparing to drag herself off to work. As she walked away having kissed Tom goodbye, completely out of the blue he called after her, “Resign Lo. Resign today!” Lois stopped in her tracks and gazed back at him, not really understanding what he was talking about. “They’ll be lots of supervision needed on the house and then there’s Pumpkin to think about. If you’d like to, resign today!” Lois didn’t have time to further the discussion, she was going to miss her train; but his words repeated in her mind all the way to work. She had never contemplated giving up work. She had been planning to continue, if she could, to within a week of the babies due date and then go back after six months maternity leave. But after her first two days in Harewood Park, actually, Tom’s suggestion sounded very exciting.

Lois had a huge email backlog to wade through on arrival at the office. One of the first, informing her that there was to be a meeting in the boardroom at nine. “Oh God,” she groaned under her breath. Ian was heading it in place of Justin, the Floor Manager, who was on sick leave. Ian was, in Lois’s, and most of her colleagues’, opinion, a boring twit with no social skills. It wasn’t going to be an experience that would enthuse her back into work, that was for sure.

Lois was pleased to see that Adrienne was attending the meeting. They got on very well and were a great support for each other, in what was still a predominantly male environment. Adrienne, who had lived with her female partner for several years, was dark, petite and very pretty. Several of the men in the office had been extremely disappointed to discover she was gay.

Ian, however, had a problem with Adrienne. He had apparently said to one of his colleagues, that he had never knowingly had any contact with a gay person before and she made him ‘a little nervous’.

Throughout the meeting, he glanced around the board table, trying to meet the gaze of as many of those present as possible, in the manner he’d been taught on his management-training course. However, he always skipped past Adrienne’s. She wasn’t bothered by it at all, she was used to his perverse ways.

Ian droned on and on for an hour and a half. Lois was finding it very difficult to stay awake, let alone concentrate, so she began contemplating whether to resign and if so how to word the letter. She allowed the news of various company disasters, their implications for the stock market and what should be bought and sold, to drift over her head, but when she heard Ian say “so in summing up…” she sat up and looked interested. Ian continued, “for the time being, to stop the flow of potential disasters, we must all put a finger in the dyke!”

Now this would have been fine and would probably have gone unnoticed, but for the fact that Ian went crimson, started to sweat profusely and dropped a pile of papers on the floor in his fluster,
“Ah, um, ah, sorry Adrienne,” he stuttered, looking somewhere over her head. “Ok, we’ll um, yes, we’ll, er, call it a day then. Um…….Adrienne, if you wouldn’t mind waiting behind please.”

As they left the conference room Lois and her colleagues burst into hysterical laughter. When Adrienne came out, several minutes later she headed straight for the loo, with her hands up to her face, shielding her expression. Lois followed her in. The ladies loo had always been their own private meeting room, one advantage to being in the minority.

“What did he say?” asked Lois.

Adrienne was laughing too uncontrollably to speak for several minutes.

“Well,” she said eventually, “he said he was sorry for drawing attention to me in such an inconsiderate way.” Adrienne laughed some more, “I said I didn’t know what he was referring to, could he explain to me what he meant. At which point he stuttered and squirmed his way through where the phrase comes from, trying to explain that in no way was he referring to me or my sexuality!”

It took Lois and Adrienne a good twenty minutes to return to the office floor, ten of which were taken-up recovering their composure and repairing their make-up. The other ten, making decisions about their futures. As Ian was soon to become their manager, his performance this morning was enough to confirm to Lois that the right thing for her to do at this point in her life was to resign. For Adrienne, it wasn’t so simple. Much as she would like to move on to pastures new, particularly now, in the knowledge that Lois would be going, jobs were hard to find in the current climate and she did have plenty of support from her male colleagues.

“Are you going to report him? Ian, I mean,” asked Lois.

Adrienne thought for a moment. “Nah, I don’t think so. It’ll only create more awkwardness in the department and he never really does anything wrong, other than be very uncomfortable in my presence and nobody could be reprimanded for that. And to be honest, it is very
very
funny seeing him get himself into these situations and then trying to crawl his way out!”

Lois went back to her desk, drafted her resignation, printed it out and gave Tom a quick ring to make sure he really meant what he had said that morning. He was delighted at the idea of her staying at home to look after their baby. Lois went on to tell him about the meeting, which had him roaring with laugher. When he was able to speak again, he said he thought there was a post available at his company that would suit Adrienne perfectly.

Lois said her goodbyes to Tom, passed the phone to Adrienne and went straight to HR to hand in her notice. She walked back into the office with the biggest smile on her face. The icing on the cake was hearing that Adrienne was meeting with Tom’s manager after work to discuss the vacancy.

When Lois got back to the flat that night, tired, but happy, Tom was raring to go. “Don’t sit down!” he said, as Lois sat down. “Car’s packed, we’re off to our new house!” Lois was astonished. He’d tidied the house, packed and loaded the car, bought food and he’d even thought to include the picnic hamper. All this he had done with one arm in a sling and the other clutching his ribs at every given opportunity. “It took a long time!” he giggled, slightly high from his painkillers. “I had to take it all out a handful at a time, I’ve made twenty five journeys to the car. The taxi driver was very helpful and so were the staff at the supermarket. Anyway let’s go, it would be good to arrive in the light.”

“Ah…..yes,” said Lois cautiously, “I forgot to tell you about the lights. There is a teensy weensy problem with the downstairs lights. All in hand of course, but we will need torches at the moment.”

“Don’t worry,” said Tom, “Mel told me all about it. Torches packed.”

“Oh God,” thought Lois, “I wonder what else Mel’s told him?”

The traffic was disastrous coming out of London that Friday evening. By the time Lois and Tom were driving along the rough, unmade road to the cottage, Tom was in agony, which increased with every bump. “I don’t remember the road being as rough as this,” he groaned, clutching his side and screwing up his face in pain, “why’ve we bought a house up here?”

“Well,” said Lois curtly, “normally one wouldn’t have broken ribs when being driven along it!” She was tempted to add another snide remark about the cycling accident, but instead, remembering she hadn’t been completely open with him lately, said, “Nearly there. You’ll feel better when you’re snuggled down on a blow up rubber mattress.”

“Yeah, right.” grumbled Tom.

When they arrived Lois helped Tom out of the car and they walked hand in hand up the garden path.

“Are you going to carry me over the threshold?” Lois laughed as she rummaged in her oversized handbag for the key to her antique lock.

“Mm, maybe not today my precious. Wow, fantastic door! Quite like the one I remember being here,” said Tom.

“Funny you should say that.” Lois started to fill Tom in on Adam’s suspicions of the original door being removed, as she located the enormous key and put it, proudly, into the lock.

“What the hell is that Lo?” said Tom, staring in disbelief.

“It’s an antique Tom, I chose it especially. I thought you’d love it, you love old things!” Tom looked at her, propped himself up against the doorframe, held tight to his broken ribs and groaned with laughter. “What? What’s so funny?”

Lois hadn’t given any thought to the practicalities of having such a big key. After giving it a few moments, she laughed reluctantly. “Honestly there’s no pleasing some people!” she shook her head and smiled.

Lois opened the door and walked in, Tom hobbling behind her. The sun was setting behind the back garden, bringing bright rays of sunlight into the sitting room. The sight stopped Lois and Tom in their tracks. Their flat was so enclosed by the surrounding buildings that it was very limited on direct sunlight. They walked to the living room French windows, which overlooked the back garden, to see a large red sun silhouetting the eucalyptus tree as it set. Despite the state of the garden, the scene was perfect, absolutely perfect. They both stood and gazed until the sun had disappeared behind the overgrown hawthorn hedge.

“Wow!” said Tom, “That was amazing! That makes up for the bumpy road and the giant key already.”

“I don’t see what’s the matter with the key,” said Lois, “I think it’s great, it’ll be much harder to lose than the key to the flat.”

“How many spares did it come with?” asked Tom in a serious voice.

“Ah yes, I see your point, might be a bit tricky getting copies made.”

“Yes and to put in the pocket of your jeans, and to have dangling off your car key fob and…”

“Okay, okay!” said Lois, “I get it! We’ll have to put another lock on, but we could leave that one for decoration couldn’t we?”

“Well, we could, but we’ll have to stuff a sock in the key hole in winter to stop the draught!” 

Tired and hungry, they unloaded the food and bedding from the car. Or more precisely, Lois unloaded the food and bedding from the car and pumped up the mattress while Tom managed, by using one hand and a good set of teeth, to open the packets of cold meats, veggie slices, cheese and salad he had bought them for supper. Cutting the crusty date and walnut loaf was more painful than he’d been anticipating, so he just tore it into chunks again using his teeth. Then he and Lois sat on the blow-up rubber mattress in their new bedroom, which came complete with a very dirty looking and rather smelly, grey shag-pile carpet, and started to eat their supper.

“Do you think there could be fleas living it that carpet?” asked Lois, wrinkling up her nose in disdain as she pushed a large chunk of bread and cheese into her mouth.

“Oh probably. And the rest.”

“And the rest?” spluttered Lois, putting her hand up to her mouth as particles of partly masticated food exploded from it. “What do you mean? Not mice surely?” Lois had an inherent phobia of small rodents, all except hamsters, which she had kept as a child.

“It wouldn’t surprise me. You’d better pick up those crumbs you just spat into our bed, they’ll love those,” Tom chuckled. “If you feel something furry in the night, climbing…”

“Enough Tom!” said Lois firmly, putting up her hand to emphasise that he should stop teasing. She really was beginning to feel quite uncomfortable at the thought of sleeping there.

“We’re in the country now Lo, you’re going to need to cope with the odd mouse in the shag-pile if we’re staying here.” Tom chuckled to himself, “or is it shag in the mouse pile?”

“And how many pain-killers have you taken today?” asked Lois, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, just the right amount my pet,” Tom said. Then, in an attempt to distract Lois from the thought of mice running over her face whilst sleeping, he asked her to open the quarter-size bottle of champagne he’d bought to celebrate the first night in their new home. They had left the glasses, that he had so carefully packed, in the kitchen and neither of them had the energy to go downstairs again, so they drank it out of the bottle.

Tom lay back, feeling decidedly dopey with the combination of exhaustion, strong painkillers and an eighth of a bottle of champagne. He was just getting comfortable when Lois suddenly got out of bed, “I’m sorry Tom, I can’t sleep in this room with the idea of small creatures living in the carpet. Up you get!” She gently pulled Tom, who didn’t have reason or energy to protest, out of bed and started tugging at the edges of the carpet. Thankfully it was easy to pull up and having loosened all the edges, Lois rolled up one side of it, moved the mattress and Tom over the top, and rolled up the remainder. She then dragged it down the spiral staircase and out of the front door, into the garden. She repeated the exercise with the very old, musty, crusty underlay.

“There, that’s better!” Lois said, returning to the bedroom in a cloud of dust. She breathed a sigh of relief, gazing around at the dusty exposed floorboards. She rearranged their bed and Tom gingerly clambered back in. Lois collapsed next to him, gave Tom a gentle cuddle and they both fell asleep almost immediately, fully clothed and unwashed.

Within an hour Lois was awake, with a very full bladder. Moonlight was shining through the bathroom window allowing her to make her way to the toilet without putting on the revolting and horribly bright strip-light. She thought she heard a strange noise just before she sat down, so looked around to see what it was. Something was moving in the toilet bowl. Lois screamed hystericallyunti
l
.
.
Tom arrived, moaning and groaning in pain, blinking hard against the intense lighting, which Lois had now turned on.

“What is it?”

“There’s something moving in the toilet,” said Lois, “I can’t bear to look, I think it’s a rat!”

“Oh, don’t be silly Lo, you’re being para…,” Tom, peering into the toilet, couldn’t believe his eyes. There, swimming around the bowl was a frantic bedraggled creature, which wasn’t a rat. It was smaller than a squirrel, with big bulging eyes. Tom swiftly grabbed its bushy tail and lifted it into the bath, where it shook violently and tried to climb out, sliding back down as soon as the curve of the bath became vertical.

“Oh, it’s sweet,” cooed Lois, having been brave enough to look, once Tom said it wasn’t a rat, “I wonder what it is?”

“I wonder how it got there?” said Tom.

Just then there was a knock at the door. “That’s probably the neighbours, coming to see if I’ve murdered you,” said Tom. He bent over awkwardly to pick up one of the torches they had left in readiness on the landing and smacking it a couple of times to make it work, slowly made his way downstairs with Lois following, small Pingu torch in hand. It was indeed Annie and Dave standing on the doorstep, in their dressing gowns, they’d come to make sure that everything was okay. Lois introduced them to Tom, then told them about the mystery creature they had found drowning in the loo.

“Oh, that’ll be a glis glis!” said Dave, chuckling.

“Oh yes,” said Annie, equally amused, “everyone along here’s had problems with them at one time or another and I’m not surprised they’re living here with your house having been empty for so long.”

Tom and Lois had no idea how to react. Could this really be true? They’d never heard of such a thing.

“It’s Rothschild’s fault. Old Walter, released six onto his estate in Tring, just over a hundred years ago and their descendents are doing very well!” said Dave, “Also called edible dormice, although I haven’t eaten one yet. Well not to my knowledge anyway.” He winked at Annie, “What have you done with the little blighter?”

“It’s in the bath,” said Tom.

“I’ll sort it for you if you like,” said Dave, “it’s illegal of course, supposed to get pest control in. The little buggers are protected. You’re meant to have a license to cull them, but that’s an expensive business. I usually drown them and put them out for the kites.”

Tom looked agog. “You put them out for the kites?” he asked, still feeling somewhat dopey. He was imagining the kites he often saw flying on Primrose Hill and a dead glis glis and trying to make a connection.

“The red kites,” said Dave, seeing the mystified expression on Tom’s face, “birds of prey, they’re quite prolific round here, clear up anything dead in a trice. I’ve been thinking of knocking off old Mr. Black and putting him out for them, but I’m not sure they’d get through him quickly enough to keep me out of trouble. Might need to get some pigs to do that!” Dave chortled at his own joke.

“Oh yes, the red kites,” repeated Tom; starting to laugh despite the pain it caused him. “We’ve got a lot to adjust to, living in the country. Red kites, glis glis living in the toilet. But Mr. Black, who’s he?”

“Oh, didn’t Lois tell you?” laughed Annie. Lois gave a sheepish shrug.

“Plenty of time for you to find out about the neighbours,” said Dave, giving Tom a friendly pat on the back, while Tom suppressed a grimace, “anyway he’s all right really, you’ve just got to know how to deal with him. Come on, let’s go and sort out this creature of yours!”

Tom and Dave went upstairs to ‘deal’ with the glis glis. Lois felt very upset by the idea of it being killed but Annie took her next door for a cup of tea and explained what it was like having the little vermin living in your loft. The noise, the fact that nothing can be stored there as they will chew it up and make a nest out of almost anything, and most importantly, the fire risk created by them chewing through wires. With all this information, Lois felt more at ease with what Dave and Tom were going to do.

“For God’s sake, don’t tell Black about the glis glis or how it was disposed of, he’ll be forcing the council to prosecute you before you know where you are!” said Annie.

“Is he really that bad?”

“He’s an evil old bastard!” Annie said with feeling, giving Lois the impression that she’d had personal experience of Mr. Black’s nasty side. “Anyway, enough of him for now. Look Lois, it’s really late. You and Tom are very welcome to come and sleep here, the bed’s all made up ready for tomorrow night. I didn’t realise you were coming tonight.”

Lois explained how it had been Tom’s surprise for her when she’d come home from work and said that she would go and talk over the spare room offer with him.

Tom was delighted with the idea of sleeping in a proper bed for the night. He knew the blow-up mattress would play havoc with his ribs. It had seemed such a good idea to ‘camp out’ at the house, but the reality hadn’t really been living up to his expectations. He thought Annie and Dave seemed like a really nice couple and he jumped at the offer.

The next morning Tom was woken early by Lois hugging him as she slept, which created enough pain for him not to get off to sleep again. He could hear an unusual bird cry, a screeching outside and decided that now he was a ‘country man’ he should investigate. He drew the curtains back halfway and, as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, he was astonished by what he saw. There were two very large birds of prey dive-bombing each other. One had food in its talons and the other clearly wanted to ‘share’. The flying display was unbelievable; the wonderful, graceful birds were twisting and turning, sometimes as one, occasionally looking like the pair of them would crash to the ground. At one point, the bird with the food dropped it and flew vertically, full pelt, re-catching it before it hit the floor. When they had stopped scrapping they used their great wings slowly and gracefully to gain height, then they glided on the air currents, subtly twisting their tails to help them manoeuvre, turning their heads from one side to the other, looking for food.

Tom was completely mesmerised by these fantastic birds. Above the two who had been feuding, he counted a further seven. He thought how amazing it was that creatures like these could be living and indeed flourishing, so close to London. He had a quick look along the shelves of the small bookcase that was in the room and lo and behold there was an old Observer Book of Birds. Tom looked up Red Kite, but only found a description for Kite. Despite the opening phrase, ‘The kite is now only found in part of Wales, except for stray appearances elsewhere,’ the description was enough to leave Tom in no doubt that these magnificent and thoroughly entertaining birds were the red kites that Annie and Dave had been talking about. Tom put the book back on the shelf and quietly opened the curtains right up to enable him to lie back down in bed and still watch them.