The Recipe for Happiness, page 4
I sighed. ‘All right.’
‘We could do with raising a bit of cash, with electricity prices going up and all, winter is going to hit hard.’ Holly’s tone had an edge to it, and I knew why. My flat had been converted out of storage space and, as such, was on the same meter as the downstairs rooms. My electricity bill was covered by costs and meant that I could have the heating on whenever I wanted and all the hot water I could use. It was, so far, the only perk of the job, apart from access to enormous numbers of knitting patterns and a library of second-hand paperbacks. ‘We don’t want to have to cut back our opening hours or anything, do we?’
With that slight hint of menace, like the ‘dum dum dum’ music halfway through a film, Holly oscillated her way back out of the kitchen and I carried on loading the dishwasher, shoving cutlery into slots with a good deal more vigour than was strictly necessary. It wasn’t Holly’s fault, of course. We did need to keep fundraising efforts high, to increase our visibility, give the local press an excuse to take photos of kindly townsfolk benefitting the elderly, and keep the wheels going round on this particular venture. I knew the local council, who owned the building, were just itching for us to fail; for our numbers to drop to an unsustainable level, and for the building to become available for sale for conversion into a set of luxury flats. They’d had a couple of goes five years ago, but local outrage – plus financial input from one or two families who would be at a complete loss as to what to do with Granny if we closed – had kept us open.
But open days meant – well, we’d be open. I’d have to spruce the whole place right through and bake more cake than Mr Kipling. Much of it would sell, but that didn’t usually do more than offset the cost of ingredients and there had to be enough left over to stop the band members from fighting over the last sponge fingers, and to make a trifle for pudding the next day.
The horror of this potential event kept me from worrying about my evening engagement, until we’d closed our doors and I’d tidied up the main room. Ned was there, helping the last few people onto the bus. Many were collected by relatives on their way home, but those without transport would get the minibus back. Mimi was there, I noted, still silent, sitting by the window in the bus with her face averted from the rest of the chatty last leavers. Upright and stiff, like a guardsman on duty, she sat. As I shook a mat outside the door, I caught her eye. She was staring out across the car park and her composed face gave away absolutely no emotion, but I thought I saw, deep within that shuttered expression, a hint of trapped desperation. Then she snapped her eyes away from mine and began to stare at the doorway to the antiques centre, where there was nothing more fascinating to look at than a life-sized carved bear, chained to the railings.
That was it. They were all out, the place was tidy and I couldn’t avoid thinking about my plans for the evening any more. Well, Andrew’s plans for my evening, to be exact. I sat down at the big kitchen island and put my head in my hands. I was going to kill him.
There was a sound at the door and I looked up to see Ned coming back in with every appearance of a man who was going to put the kettle on.
‘I thought you were driving the minibus?’
‘Roger’s taking it. He’s got some things to drop off and he thought he may as well use our diesel.’ Roger was the owner of the antiques place. He sometimes doubled as bus driver, especially when it meant not having to get his own vehicle out. It did mean that the gangway of the bus was jammed with pictures, a random assortment of purchases for some of the hotels further out on the moors and the large frame of Roger himself, but he was a useful, if sporadic, addition to our team.
‘Oh.’ I continued to sit, slightly annoyed now. The presence of Ned meant I couldn’t have a good wallow in how unfortunate I was in my choice of sibling and how much I was going to hate the unplanned fifteen-minute drive I was being forced to do.
‘Any plans for this evening?’ Ned, cheerfully failing to read the atmosphere of ‘piss off and let me suffer’, filled the kettle. ‘It’s looking lovely out there. I thought I might head up onto the moors and take some photographs.’
I looked at him through my fingers. There was an almost fey air about Ned. Not only because he wasn’t six feet nine and built like a filing cabinet, but his cheery and upbeat air came with a feeling that it could change in an instant into something weightier. Not in a threatening way, but as though he could switch from being randomly engaged at a superficial level to a sudden, much deeper, level of engagement. As though focus and sharp intent lay just below his surface.
‘Whereabouts do you live?’ I asked idly. I didn’t really care, but it stopped me having to talk about my potential evening, which stopped me having to think about my potential evening. Honestly. Dog training. I was so going to kill Andrew.
‘Oh.’ Ned moved around the island, fetching the biscuit tin. ‘Er. In a little place. Up in the moors.’
‘But you’re not local?’ Mercurial, that was the word for Ned. Lithe and changeable, but moving along without leaving a trace of himself. I had no idea why I’d thought that. We were having the most superficial conversation it was possible to have, without discussing the weather, and yet I was getting the impression of – avoidance? As though he were flowing away from my words whilst trying to pretend to be deeply engaged.
‘I came from London.’ The tin was located. ‘Has Holly told you about the open day? Do you have many of those? Sounds as though we’re going to have quite a lot to do – apparently there’s some bunting she wants me to turn out and hang. Nobody seems to know where it is or where to hang it and I’ve got the feeling that I’m being expected to go out and spontaneously bunt the entire building.’
I couldn’t not smile. ‘It’s not a verb,’ I said mildly. ‘It’s a noun.’
He smiled back. But still that hint of – something. ‘Yes, I know. But it should be a verb. Why say, “I have to hang the bunting,” when one could just say, “I have to bunt,” and everyone would know what you meant? Economy of words, y’see.’
‘Oh, yes, of course, you’ve been talking to Timothy, haven’t you?’
Timothy was one of our ‘occasional’ drop-ins. He came over from Malton on the bus when the weather was fine and his sciatica wasn’t too bad, and was, in his own description, ‘overwhelmingly afflicted with prolix verbosity’.
Now it was Ned’s turn to drop his head. ‘Yes, yes, I have. And I had to borrow Joe’s dictionary twice.’
‘Have a shortbread. Honestly. The only thing that helps is lots of sugar.’ I pushed the tin towards him. ‘And if you ever need a rest, Timothy knows an amazing amount about the history of the Eagle comic. Get him on that subject and you don’t even need to join in, he can monologue until—’
‘Until the bovine lactators return to the domestic dwelling?’ Ned looked up again and gave me a smile that held no trace of hidden sharpness. ‘As Timothy would, no doubt, say.’
I snorted a laugh. ‘Exactly.’
‘So.’ With a flip of his head, which made his hair flap, Ned was back to sharp. ‘What do you have planned for tonight?’
I was weakened by the proximity of the biscuit tin and my forlorn state at my immediate future, so I told him. In fact, I think I might have gone into a lot more detail about Andrew and Gregor’s plans for my future than I should have, because we got through half of the shortbreads and I would have to do some emergency baking before coffee time tomorrow.
Ned looked aghast. ‘Why do they think you need to get a life? I mean, this—’ he held out his hands to indicate the kitchen, but presumably meant the whole of my employment at the Pickering Day Stop ‘—is a full-time job and a half. Don’t you only get Sundays off, same as me?’
‘Yes. But that dating site they persuaded me to sign up for seemed to think that I’m only ever going to meet someone if I take up abseiling and shark fishing. And I don’t… well, I don’t like going out much,’ I finished, with my voice descending into my trainers. ‘So that’s a bit of a drawback.’
‘Do you want to meet someone?’ Ned had hunched forward over the tabletop, almost as though he were crawling towards me on his elbows. ‘Because, if you don’t, why would you let your brother push you into dating?’
‘Andrew can be very…’ I groped for the word ‘… insistent. And he does think the way he lives is the only right way. It wasn’t so bad when he was single, because he was too busy to worry about inflicting his lifestyle on me, but ever since he and Greg settled down, he’s been on at me to do the same.’ I sighed. ‘At least he isn’t trying to set me up with a big bearded Polish furniture designer.’ I saw Ned’s baffled expression. ‘That would be too matchy-matchy, even for Andrew.’
Now it was Ned’s turn to snort. Then he looked at the big clock on the wall behind me. ‘Look, it’s nearly half past six. You’d better get cracking if you’re going to be dog training by seven. And I—’ He stopped and became a blur of movement, quick as Puck. ‘Goodnight.’
Then he was gone. I heard the outer door slam and then the sound of a car firing up in Roger’s car park next door almost before his leaving registered. He’d even had time to put the lid back on the biscuit tin. But he was right. I did have to get moving. Running hand in hand with my hatred of going to places was a hatred of arriving in those places where I didn’t want to be late. Wearily, I gathered up my things and headed out.
5
Mattie wasn’t what I had imagined. From Andrew’s description, I’d pictured a large, jolly lady in a tweed twinset, all bosom and booming voice, but she was, in fact, slender and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She was also pathetically pleased to see me.
‘Oh, thank God,’ she said, when I introduced myself. ‘Bloody Melissa – that’s my usual assistant – has gone and got herself a boyfriend and it’s made her totally unreliable. At least if she’d broken her leg we’d have an end date for all this unpredictability. Well, unless she had to have it reset, of course. Sometimes these things don’t mend as well as they should, you know.’
I nodded and agreed that, yes, putative legs might take a supposed amount of time to mend. But Mattie didn’t really need me to converse with her, I just had to stand in front of her and nod, it turned out, and occasionally field a runaway sentence just as I had to field a runaway dog.
‘Just stand at the back of the hall and be prepared in case anyone gets into a fight,’ Mattie said, preparing to open the door. There were already the sounds of vigorous canine excitement outside. ‘I think we’ve got nine coming tonight. They’ve all been before, except one new bloke who rang yesterday and asked if it was too late to sign up. Nobody’s any trouble. Oh, except Alfie, of course.’
She did not go into detail, so I remained in ignorance as to whether Alfie was a dog or owner. My heart had only just settled after the journey, but my system was still full of the adrenaline of the drive. Andrew had been right, I had remembered the route and not been distracted or got lost, so it had gone better than I’d imagined, but when Mattie flung open the hall doors and four enormous dogs bounded in, owners ineffectually tugging on leads whilst a selection of feet and paws skidded on the polished surface I remembered from the dance lessons, I felt my breath catch in my throat again.
Everything was a confused mass of fur and voices and barking for a few minutes until Mattie regained control and the owners and dogs got over the excitement of socialising. She’d been right, I didn’t need to have much input; my job was to field any dogs that got away from their owners during the Down Stay, and be an extra pair of hands to help Mattie. The owners, and, indeed, their dogs, all had a firm idea of what was happening once the initial barkfest was over and it was actually quite fun. ‘Alfie’ turned out to be a mischief-filled spaniel, for whom commands seemed to be more like suggestions, but once I’d retrieved him from the kitchen a couple of times, even he settled down.
Halfway through the evening, just as the owners were all enjoying a cup of tea and the dogs were wandering around the walls sniffing at chair legs in a way that meant we were watching with very close attention, there was a casual knock at the door and another dog walked in. In contrast to the Labs, spaniels and one pug, this was a Border collie, and his owner was just behind.
‘I rang,’ the owner said, identifying Mattie as the leader of the group, probably because she had a dog whistle around her neck and was the only one of us not holding either a cup of tea or a lead or, in some misguided cases, both. He was a thin, edgy-looking guy, wearing pressed chinos and a very white shirt. My brief exposure to dogs, which basically consisted entirely of the last half-hour, told me these were probably a mistake.
‘Ah, yes.’ Mattie bounded over. ‘And this is Kez, am I right?’
The dog looked up hopefully at his name. He was black and white with yellow eyes that held an expression that looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t really get much chance to look at him because I was too busy trying to stop Alfie from eating all the biscuits. I’d not allowed for the fact that some dogs could be quite tall when standing on their hind legs, and Alfie’s owner, a lady in torn jeans with a harassed expression, didn’t seem to be able to stop him grabbing everything edible.
‘Yeah. We got him for the kids, really. From a farm – he was no good with sheep so we got him cheap. He needs teaching.’ The man went to put Kez’s lead into Mattie’s hand, but she pulled back.
‘Oh, we do training with the owners. I don’t take individual dogs, you see. You need to learn to manage him as much as he needs to learn to behave.’
Bramley, the pug, shoved his nose up my trousers at this point, so I missed the rest of the conversation, but I got it from Mattie after the class was over, as we tidied – and also mopped, because Alfie had got overexcited – and put the hall straight.
‘He’s my least favourite type of owner,’ Mattie confessed. ‘That guy who brought Kez. Bought a dog “for the children”, which is now becoming a nuisance and he’s decided it needs training. Poor love.’ She shoved a chair back into place, and I was pretty sure she wasn’t talking about the man who’d come with Kez. ‘Thank you for coming. You were a great help. Just having someone else here makes it easier.’
‘I didn’t really do much.’
‘You distracted Alfie from the biscuits and that’s a major achievement. That dog is going to weigh ten stone if his owner can’t get a handle on teaching him not to steal food. Or learn to put stuff out of his reach, which she seems to struggle with too.’ Mattie sighed. ‘But they’re all getting on.’
‘Kez seemed to do well. For his first time.’ I’d watched the collie closely. With him and his owner being new, I’d been afraid that I might be called on to help in a more hands-on way, but the dog had picked up the commands almost without fault.
‘Border collies are basically just looking for something to do with their brains.’ Mattie finished packing away and stood expectantly at the hall door with the key in her hand. ‘You have to keep their minds busy or they go bonkers. That poor lad is under-exercised and under-employed.’ She sighed again. ‘I really hope his family know what they’ve let themselves in for.’ Then she looked a bit embarrassed for a second. ‘Er, Seren…’
I braced myself. This sounded as though awkward questions were going to follow. I hoped Andrew hadn’t prodded Mattie into trying to enquire into how likely I was to take up dog training. I couldn’t see that doing much for my dating life, other than attracting men who wanted to be told ‘No!’ in a firm voice and to be kept away from biscuits.
‘Mmm?’ I tried to sound vague and as though I had to hurry away to my next, incredibly important, task. I shuffled my car keys from hand to hand, to add weight to the hint.
‘Tony – that’s Kez’s person – has asked if he could come tomorrow evening for a “catch up” session. As he’s joined the class so late. I wondered if you…?’ Mattie trailed off and looked at me with a hopeful expression. ‘It’s just for this week,’ she added quickly when I didn’t leap at the chance with light-speed delight. ‘Kez is giving them trouble at home. Tony’s got three children and an out-of-control dog with children is a recipe for disaster.’
As Kez had shown no real signs of being ‘out-of-control’ during the class, other than a pronounced desire to round up the other dogs, I wondered if Tony and his wife had a rather overblown idea of ‘out-of-control’, and what they’d make of Alfie. I briefly imagined the three children sitting on the sofa in neat height order and silence, watching David Attenborough documentaries and eating prunes.
‘Tomorrow…’ I said thoughtfully, as though mentally rearranging my incredibly busy life to see if I could find a space. All that was written on the calendar in my kitchen was Midsummer Day, and then, in pencil, ‘haircut?’. I was hardly working through a frantic series of dating opportunities and recklessly agreed-to outings. And much to my surprise, tonight had been fun, in a ‘lots of ears to stroke’ way. Mattie was nice and I found myself replying, ‘I suppose I could. If you really need me.’
‘Brilliant, it will just be to help out at the end of the hall.’ Mattie was already locking the door as though my acquiescence had never been in question. ‘I can normally do one-to-ones on my own, but with Kez being so new to training of any kind…’ She pursed her lips. ‘I really do worry about people who get a collie “because they’re intelligent” and think they won’t have to bother with training,’ she said. ‘They’re intelligent. Not psychic.’
I got into my car and watched Mattie walk away up the road towards the village. She walked confidently, on her way back to, she’d told me, three school-aged children, a husband and four Labrador bitches, one of whom was expecting puppies any day now. It did cross my mind to wonder whether Andrew had somehow managed to bribe, not only Mattie, but also Tony and, by extension, Kez, into needing me for a follow-up day, but I dismissed that thought after a few miles. Andrew’s desire for me to find a partner wouldn’t go so far as to bring other people into his machinations. Would it?
