Janet Jackson Superhost: Warmth, humour and romance for a gorgeous heroine forced to reinvent hersel

12. Echo

Echo

Iam three cakes in and it’s only 11 a.m. The lovely woman at The Tasty Mug has asked me for one each of the lemon and chocolate ones, on a weekly basis. Apparently the last two went down really well, and if I can keep the standard up, then it could become a regular order. I am determined these two will be even better.

Chloe has done the research and found that I need to do an online Food Hygiene certificate. She’s already booked me on one this week, so now I’m swotting up like crazy so I can try and pass it. Most of it is taking me back to Mrs Babbacombe and her obsession with white scouring powder in Home Economics. OCD wasn’t a thing then, of course, but I think it’s safe to say on reflection that she probably fitted the diagnosis. The kitchens were cleaner when we finished than when we started!

The piano cake I did for Frida’s birthday was a success, I’m glad to say. It was a labour of love, but I suppose the first time of making a cake like that is going to take an age. Anyway, the exciting news is, I’ve had another cake order! All off the back of the Insta pictures that Chloe took of the piano cake. Her mate Lucy has a grandma called Sandra who’s turning sixty, so I’m now doing a giant cake in the shape of an S for Sandra. She’s having a big party in three weeks and apparently is a macchiato coffee fanatic. So it’s a coffee cake S with tiny chocolate cups as decorations. I’ve decided I want there to be six coffee cups, two on top, four around the edge. I’ve been practising chocolate tempering via the internet for six hours and managed a half-recognisable coffee cup that collapsed soon afterwards.

I’m seeing it all as learning rather than failing. I’ve been watching the Ziggy Zen channel, and she repeats loads of stuff like ‘all failing is learning’ and ‘please subscribe for more Zen’. Anyway, she’s got a lovely room she does all her Zen talks in, she’s got great hair and is seventy with the figure of a fit thirty year old, so I reckon Ziggy’s on to something. I need all the Ziggy Zen I can muster at the moment.

Mitzi has taken over the cottage, temporarily, whilst Carl, bless him, is repairing the attic floor, installing a very light shower, restoring the staircase, banisters and spindles, and putting up a new, sturdy metal staircase. He reckons it’s cost ￡3,500 just in materials. Insurance doesn’t go anywhere near unfinished DIY. So I don’t have it, Mitzi doesn’t have it, and so he’s stuck it all on the business credit card and we’ve agreed that’s rent for the next seven months at ￡500 per month. Reasonable enough, considering he gets all his household bills thrown in, and lots of meals.

Meanwhile the cottage is being used as Mitzi’s shaman space. From her earnings in there she has agreed to give me ￡100 a week. That’s much better than nothing. As a matter of fact, she is getting a lot of interest in her shaman courses and is starting to advertise– well, I say advertise, but twenty flyers stuck on noticeboards around Hebden seems to be enough to generate a whirl of interest at the moment.

Whether she will keep it going or not, I don’t know. I suppose she can always spread the shaman love a bit further and advertise in Todmorden then or Halifax. I reckon people love a new trend, and shamanism is it at the moment. Good for Mitzi. It’s long overdue, her finding something she’s skilled at and which she enjoys, and which actually provides her with an income of sorts. It’s the nearest my sister has come to a permanent job in a long time.

Meanwhile I’m earning around ￡60 in total a week in cakes, and Chloe the little star has upped her board to ￡30 a week. I don’t know if it’s all going to be enough, but if I batch cook the heck out of every scrap of food and we don’t put the heating on for another two months, we might just be able to keep our heads above water before I need to think seriously about getting another job. I don’t really want to get another job, as I’m sooo enjoying making my cakes.

Carl is going to try and restore the floor and staircase at record speed, as he has an extension with his name on it up Elland and they want him to start in three weeks. That would see the shamans back in the attic and me able to go full throttle on the cottage again. With that in mind, I’ve tentatively left bookings open from three weeks’ time, praying for everything to work out. Bring on the Zen, Zen, Zen. I think I’m mixing up religions, with my palms together and eyes raised to the heavens, but hey, that’s modern life for you. Everyone is everything these days.

Mitzi has been so busy with her shamans that she’s brought in a helper, Echo. The latter is about sixty with hair that’s a mixture of dreadlocks and curls, ribbons and string. It’s an alternative to hair extensions, let’s put it that way. Her clothes are all natural fabrics, you know the type– the never-ironed, faded, washed-out colour, big, strange pockets, hessian-type of garb. It’s a style. That’s what it is, a style. Accompanied by wide flat shoes that curl up, with rubber toes. You get the picture.

I’m not too sure about Echo. On the surface she’s pleasant enough, but she seems to hold something back, that superior air of ‘I won’t engage, you’re not worth my time, my head is with the universe’. I overheard her say she can see into souls– what utter baloney! I can tell if someone is looking sad, I don’t need to look into their soul. Echo is hanging around a lot at the moment. I caught her moving things about in the cottage kitchen, which felt a bit odd. She was meant to be bringing nettle tea through to a group Mitzi had got in to do a healing session together or something.

It happened like this. I was dropping off some mail to Mitzi, who’d been watching for the postman for hours– some incense or other she was desperate for. I’d surprised the postie with a version of ‘scream’ but he wasn’t the usual guy so my namesake’s song was lost on him. Anyway, post in hand and not wanting to interrupt, I tentatively knocked on the cottage door and Mitzi waved me in enthusiastically. She had a group of six shaman trainees all holding hands across a giant table.

‘We’re settling our spirits. Could you bring in the nettle infusion, Janet? It’s with Echo in the back.’

I tiptoed past the group, who began to chant, heads bowed, and as I crept past them and into the kitchen, I found Echo in there, not brewing up nettle tea but moving the knife stand and the recipe stand around, swapping the tea and coffee pots. I watched her for a bit and then did a little cough.

‘How’s this nettle tea doing?’

Echo jumped; she definitely hadn’t felt my spirit enter the room.

‘What?’ She looked flustered. ‘I’m just getting organised.’

‘Right, well, Mitzi needs it sharpish.’

I flicked on the kettle and cack-handedly tipped the leaves into the strainer; half of them went over the counter. I waited then poured over the boiling water so they could infuse inside the weird-shaped glass tea pot.

‘I’ll take over now, thank you.’ Echo painstakingly gathered all the bits of dried nettle that I had let spill and pointedly put them into the strainer to reinvigorate the weak-looking infusion.

She took six earthenware mugs and arranged them on a tray around the tea pot. I reckoned they could do with a good wash but when Echo gave me a beady side glance, I decided to leave her to it. I was getting intense get out of here vibes, and in response I couldn’t help but give her a no I won’t move it’s my cottage vibe in return. In the end though, I had to give in and leave, as I really did need to get on and check that my cakes weren’t burning.

I usually leave this kind of thing to Mitzi or Chloe, but my intuition was really tingling, sending me warning signals. I’ve decided I really do not like Echo.

*

Over the next week or two the house starts to feel like Piccadilly Circus. Carl and his floating bunch of builder friends are constantly turning up at all times of the day and night. Carl is pulling in every favour he’s ever had to get the work done cheap. They’re a lovely crowd, but I can’t get any of my own work done. They arrive and they always need a tea, and a chat, and yes, they’d love a butty if there’s one going. The stories go on and on, the kettle goes on and on, I’m getting through two litres of milk and a dozen eggs and a big, sliced loaf every three days.

I hear about Tez, who inherited a small fortune off his mum and dad and spent it within six months, boozing and gambling. He’s now taken to dog breeding, only so far it’s not going well as his dog ‘Budgie’ won’t perform when he’s in front of people. So a bloke and his missus from Manchester were really annoyed after they’d travelled all that distance with their bitch on heat for nothing.

‘What can I do, Janet?’ he asks, spreading his hands helplessly.

Budgie is a big French bulldog-type thing with a lovely silvery-grey coat and a heavy wrinkly face, and he sits in Tez’s van on the seat whilst his master works. He wears a permanently plaintive expression, as if he doesn’t really belong in a builder’s van in Hebden but should be wearing a bow-tie and trundling around the Palace of Versailles or something.

‘Maybe he needs a bit of romance, Tez– some music, soft lighting. Do any of us perform well when surrounded by an audience of four people staring at us? Especially when one of them is a grumpy bitch from Macclesfield who’s probably got a bit of cramp from an hour travelling on the M62?’

‘Fair point, Janet, fair point.’

Then there’s the builder called Fax (‘cos he’s from Halifax); he’s a very talented joiner but used to be a jockey and has twenty-four broken bones so has to be careful lifting heavy weights. He’s also a serial dater and has two women on the go currently as he can’t decide which one he likes best.

‘I mean, I like Vee, Janet. She’s got a steady job, her own house, her kids are grown-up, we go for a drink and we have a laugh.’

‘So what’s the issue?’

‘I know, I know, it’s just Renee, she’s a bit wilder– you know, she’s a bit rougher round the edges...’ He smiles.

‘Right.’

‘You know.’

‘Not really.’

‘She’s a demon in the sack, Janet. It needs saying, she’s a bloody demon.’

‘OK . . .’

‘Yeah, it’s a dilemma.’

I represent the female point of view in every discussion, Renee, Donna and Yvette, Vee, Katy and Lauren. You name it, I am them. Sometimes the stories are funny: ‘she kicked me out because she said my feet stunk’. A lot of it seems to be ‘my partner is complaining about the time I spend cycling’ (thinking of Miles, I can identify with that), ‘at golf, at work, at my mum’s, at my mate’s, with my kids, at the pub’, etc. It does make me wonder what men are after. It seems to be: food, sex and comfort– but only when they want it, mind. Is it just a replacement mother figure they are looking for, I wonder?

The fact is, relationships of all shapes and sizes take work. For once I’m glad I’m not in one. I’m so busy working out how I’m paying for the next month’s bills to be worrying or spending any time thinking about anything or anyone else. Though it is interesting listening to all these men and their relationship issues; it’s like a college course on bloke-dom.

At this point, I must say that some of the stories are very sad though, shared over a cuppa in an early drizzly morning, and sometimes the men tell me they have never spoken about these things before.

For instance, Patrick explained to me how his wife Treena suffered from post-natal depression after she gave birth to their baby daughter Ava. One day, she told him she didn’t love him any more and went away, leaving him to look after baby Ava.

‘I had to give up work, which was very difficult at first,’ he told me. ‘Thankfully, a few good people helped me out with bits of money and we eventually got in the groove and got through. There were a tough few months but Ava was a good baby and we got on great. I loved her so much, Janet. We were so close. And then one day eight months later, there was a knock on the door and Treena turned up with her brothers. She took Ava and that was that. Done. I’ve seen Ava maybe three times since then. Her mother moved away, to the other end of the country. My daughter is about eleven now.’

My heart aches for him. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that, Patrick. You did the right thing though, and hopefully you’ll have a chance to tell Ava all about it, one day. Can I do you a double fried egg sandwich with a bit of brown sauce? Look, sweetheart, you’re not old. You should go and find a career woman around thirty-five who’s keen to settle down and have babies. There’s plenty of women like that out there. Or how about a single mum, who needs a good man to help her?’

His face lights up. ‘It’s true that I’m lonely. You reckon?’

‘A hundred per cent. Get on some of those sites, say you’re interested in a relationship. I don’t know, I’ve never done them, but get yourself out there. Say that you’re kind, a grown-up– the right women would like that. There you go, love, double egg, brown sauce, strong cuppa.’

Heart-breaking. Then there’s Mitch. He is a big guy with a deep brown Welsh voice like toffee that kind of soothes and slides over you, every word considered and thoughtful. His head is covered with a tangle of silky dark brown curls, peppered with a bit of silver here and there, that make you want to run your hand through them. He’s got big arms and shoulders, and you can see the muscles ripple beneath his shirt. I can’t help but look. I think I’m probably a bit sex starved; it’s been a while since bloody bugger Miles. I find if I don’t think about sex but concentrate on other things– like crochet, or recipes or stuff I need to wash or garden plants– I can get by. But suddenly though, big sexy Mitch with his soft heart and his strong arms and his big brown eyes... well, he’s got me a bit distracted. His story too, is sooo touching.

His ex, Melanie, life and soul of the party with a great career as a travel agent, was really close to her mum, who died suddenly of a heart attack in her early fifties. Mitch didn’t realise quite how badly Melanie had taken it. True, she’d gone very quiet and didn’t want to see anyone or do much, which seemed perfectly understandable at the time.

‘Only six months later, she still wasn’t back at work and I was trying to say to her, “Let’s go and do something nice”– you know, Janet, a walk along the canal or something like that, nothing to it, and she turned round to me really calmly and said, “You don’t understand, Mitch. My life is over. I’ve nothing I want to do. I don’t want to be in a relationship any more. I’ve lost my world and I want to be alone. No pressure from anyone. Please leave me alone, I need peace”.’

He stuck with her, he told me, desperately tried to persuade her to go to the doctor, realising that she was depressed, but she wouldn’t leave the house, not for over a year. He tried everything.

‘It was tough. I’d go into work every day and she didn’t seem to notice when I left the house nor when I came home. I managed eighteen months like that and then I had to give up as it was really getting me down.’

I feel for him. The guilt and the hopelessness. He’s not actually divorced, has never been able to face it. I’ll never forget the trauma around my own divorce, when I was maintaining a face to the world as I dropped Chloe off at school, checking into work, staying upbeat and positive for the patients and the other staff at Valley Dental, pretending to join in with the chit-chat in the kitchen there while making a cuppa. When inside I was crushed. Constantly tamping down the gurgle of fear about the future that bubbled up every idle minute, nearly sending me out of my mind. At times like this, when the scaffolding of your life has collapsed beneath you, it seems you’re still expected to wave and smile.

Mitch’s big brown eyes welled up when he told me that Melanie has now got chronic agoraphobia; she is not a well woman. I gave him a double fried egg sandwich too, along with some mushrooms. He’s an in-demand plumber, is Mitch, and he stopped the tap dripping in the kitchen whilst he was waiting for Carl to get out of the attic so he could go in there and plumb in the shower. Mitzi is, of course, quick to notice a hunk in the house and when Mitch has finished his sandwich and thanks me for it, once he’s gone she gives me a wink and a very sly smirk.

‘Double mushrooms? I don’t blame you one little bit, sis. That Mitch can do my plumbing any time.’

‘Shut up! He’s nice, that’s all, and he had a sad story about his ex being agoraphobic.’

‘Then I dare say he needs a bit of comforting, Janet. A big warm bosom, a big warm hug.’

‘Oh, do go away. Haven’t you got a spell to cast somewhere?’ She’s really annoying me.

‘Yes, a love spell.’

I throw a mushroom at her.

Mitch was around a couple more days, and when he came to leave, he stalled in the kitchen doorway, saying, ‘Well, that’s me done, Janet.’

I brushed off the flour on my hands and impulsively went over to him. Asked, ‘You got another job on?’

‘Oh yes, I’ve got loads on.’

‘Right. Well, you’ve been great, Mitch. We all so appreciate you helping us in our hour of need. Has Carl sorted the money out with you?’

‘Oh yes, don’t worry. He owes me a couple of days, we’ll sort it.’

‘That’s good to hear. Thank you again, Mitch.’

‘My pleasure. You do a great butty, Janet.’

‘No problem. I love cooking.’

‘I can see, with all your cakes.’

I look at the kitchen table, which is stacked with plastic containers filled with different sponges for the sixtieth birthday party and The Tasty Mug, either ready for decorating or due a delivery.

‘Yes, I’m trying to build up a little cake business.’ It was the first time, I’d said it, a little cake business. I liked it. I liked the feeling it gave me, a feeling of purpose.

‘Good for you, Janet, nice job.’

‘Yes, so if you ever want some cake, or need a cake or just fancy eating some cake, well, you know where I am.’ I also know I’m blushing. I’m smiling at him, babbling like a fool, willing him to really want some cake. Or alternatively, push all the cakes off the kitchen table and just lay me down on it and really give me a good...

‘Yeah, I do like cake– a light Genoa is my favourite. I will think on, when I want some er... cake.’ Can it be that Mitch is blushing too?

‘Great.’

Mitch’s big brown eyes pour into mine for a delicious moment, interrupted by the tinkle of a bell. It’s bloody Echo, traipsing down the drive, chanting some gobbledygook, followed by a tribe of skipping, hopping women. And when I turn back, Mitch is gone, sharpish, and who could blame him.

*

The thing with the shaman stuff is that it goes on late. People are coming and going at all hours, and there are small groups on the lawn doing chanting circles late at night. The length of the drive is scattered with leafy debris, and when I ask Mitzi about it she explains it’s the incantation setting. Good job I only swept a little bit of it up then.

Gulp. I’ve taken to ignoring Echo. It’s very petty, I know. She’s obviously getting to me a bit, but she’s up and down my drive and it’s not nice having a hostile force passing in front of your kitchen window every half hour– I swear she’s curdling my butter cream.

She’s always over in Lavander Cottage, she’s never away, and then one morning I’m up ridiculously early as the cat has barged his way into my bedroom. I go yawning down the stairs, feed him and open the back door, because even though he has a cat flap he still prefers to be let out the side door by his handmaiden like the little prince he is. It’s just after six and I’m wrapped up in an old fleece, bleary-eyed, feeling the stir of the morning weather and contemplating moving a buddleia that has arrived out of nowhere and taken over a bed.

There’s a sudden rattle from the cottage and a window-blind shoots up– and there’s Echo staring out, in what looks like a kind of nightdress. We are both surprised, it’s fair to say. She takes one look at me and bosh, the blind crashes down. Hmmm. I’m a bit taken aback. It’s too early to be arriving, isn’t it? That was definitely a nightdress. No mistaking it. Is she staying in the cottage now? Mitzi hasn’t said anything, but maybe this has been going on a while and I haven’t realised. All my instincts are on hyper alert. Something doesn’t feel right and I am pacing about waiting for Mitzi to get up so I can interrogate her.

‘Oh, I told her she could stay.’ Mitzi is entirely blasé. She wafts a spiral of sweet-smelling vape smoke into the air as I tackle her about it in heated whispers outside.

‘Why?’

‘Because we were working late, she looked tired, the taxis cost a fortune and are unreliable, and we have arranged to do a bit of planning early on to get ready for the next cohort of practitioners.’

I suddenly feel ridiculous, over-reacting and wrong-footed on every front– so why am I still so uncomfortable about this?

‘That’s fair enough,’ I say uncertainly. ‘It was a surprise, that’s all, seeing her at the window.’

‘Yeah, I can imagine. She’s a strong character, Echo. Even for me, she’s plenty.’

‘Right.’

‘Well, I need to get on,’ my sister declares.

‘Of course. Me too. Hopefully Carl’s nearly finished now. He’s wonderful, isn’t he?’

Mitzi says proudly, ‘Yes. The shower’s in, which is brilliant. We’ll soon be sorted.’

‘And I’ll be able to get the cottage back, for guests.’ I need to remind her about that.

‘Yes, I know. It’s such a shame, though. It’s a great space for us.’

‘True, it’s just I need every penny at the moment and it pays three or four times what you’re able to give me, although I’m grateful.’

‘I know, I’m working on it. It’s my number one priority to find a new venue.’

Mitzi heads off towards the cottage which is unlocked and opened for her as she approaches, as if Echo has been standing behind the door the whole time straining to hear our conversation. The cottage door closes immediately behind her and the door is re-locked. I make a mental note to myself. I do not know why, I can’t explain why, but I want Echo out.

*

For the next two days I watch as the parade of people come and go; irrespective of the time they leave, I note that Echo is not amongst them. Then one crazy early morning, I’m up having a wee when I hear the door of Lavander Cottage door open. I dart downstairs and tuck myself behind the curtains in the front room to watch as Echo, with a huge collection of jute bags, jumps in a battered old Citroen and drives away. It’s 5 a.m. Why is she leaving at this time? I don’t hesitate, I don’t get changed, I dig out the old key and I am straight into the cottage.

Downstairs is set up for lots of guests; there are chairs in circles, cups in the sink, a lot of extra bits and pieces but it’s stuff they might need for their events. It’s what I’m expecting. I go upstairs, where things are much more interesting. The bathroom has a toothbrush and toothpaste– nothing unusual in that, she is staying over. A washing line above the shower has some clothes and towels hanging from it. Could be shaman stuff. Then I peek under the bed. There I find bags and bags of clothes, a laptop, a load of toiletries, a number of holdalls, all full of her stuff. It’s not shaman equipment, I’m sure of it, it’s pyjamas and underwear and lots of big hessian dresses, and in the drawers are multiple pairs of sandals and weird socks. How long has she been stashing this stuff? We’re not a storage service. She must have been busy these last couple of weeks, off-loading all this lot in here, I’m sure of it.

Thank goodness the building work is coming to an end. I can insist on a big clear-out and push Mitzi into finding somewhere else to hold her events, and Echo to store her stuff! I’m out of the cottage and loitering in the living room at home when I hear the clatter of the Citroen pulling up at the top of the drive, on the street. Why not on the drive outside Lavander Cottage?

It feels ridiculous. I am behaving like an amateur Agatha Christie heroine, trying to get a view on Echo and what she’s up to without her being aware that I am on her trail. The sense that I’m doing something wrong is offset by my instinct that something is going on that is even more wrong, and the sensation grows as I watch Echo tiptoe along the drive holding increasingly large holdalls.

I’m on my second cup of tea and wrapped in the kitchen curtain watching her when a voice says, ‘Morning, Janet.’

I jump sky-high, but it’s only Carl, half-asleep and wandering into the kitchen in his boxers and a T-shirt. He scratches himself, stretches, turns the key and is outside the patio door taking in a big breath.

‘Morning,’ I hear him say.

It’s Echo, with what must be a dozen bags dangling from each finger. She scuttles past him into the cottage without replying and with no eye contact. She slams the cottage door and we can hear it being locked and both blinds being pulled down.

‘Not very friendly, is she?’ Carl comments.

It’s the green light I’ve needed to share. ‘She’s not, is she? I’ve been watching her for the last forty-five minutes unload her car and tiptoe down the drive into the cottage.’

‘Have you not asked her what she’s doing?’

‘I didn’t want to appear nosy. It’s probably shaman stuff.’ But I don’t believe that.

‘At this time of the morning?’

‘Hmm, yes, exactly. Carl, I think something’s not right. I’m trying to find out what she’s up to, so I’ve been keeping an eye on her.’

‘What does Mitzi say?’

‘She just says that Echo is doing the odd stopover because the hours are long and taxis are expensive.’

‘She’s got a car,’ he points out.

I hadn’t thought of that. ‘Has she brought a car before, do you know?’

‘Ask Mitz, she’ll know.’

‘Will do, in a couple of hours when she’s woken up.’

‘Oh, she’s getting up now, Janet. I’m finishing up there today, last fix, snag list, bit of filling, put a couple of switches on, rubber feet on the metal staircase, sand down the banister and we are there, Janet. We are there. Halle-bloody-lujah. And no more disasters, I can promise you.’

He raises a hand in a high five that I go to slap when my hand drops. Hallelujah indeed. Then something clicks in my mind like a lightbulb.

‘Does Mitzi know this is the last day?’

‘Yeah, of course. She’s going to look at some other spaces for her hipster stuff today.’

‘Right... OK. So Echo must know this is the last day, too?’

‘I suppose so.’

I don’t overthink it, I pull my belt extra tight around my dressing gown, grab my cuppa and go and knock on the cottage door. I knock for an age, no answer. I rap on the windows, then get a bit more agitated and rap a bit louder. Finally a face peeks around the blind and I can see it’s Echo.

‘Can I have a word please, Echo? Can you open the door please, ECHO.’

The blind twitches again and she’s ignoring me, I know. I’m feeling increasingly annoyed, so that’s it. I start thumping on the door.

Nothing. No response. My agitation hits the roof.

‘ECHO, OPEN THE BLOODY DOOR!’

‘What’s going on?’

I whirl round. It’s Mitzi. She’s wrapped in what looks like a US confederate flag, her hair is in bendy rollers and she is barefoot on the drive looking confused.

‘You tell me,’ I say furiously. ‘I’ve watched her bring a load of stuff into the cottage since five o’clock this bloody morning in her car. What is she up to? And now she won’t answer the door.’

‘She doesn’t drive.’

‘She does today.’

‘Oh. Right.’ More confusion. ‘Well, that’s OK. She’s probably preparing for the final session this afternoon with our Lavander group.’

I feel myself calming down. I try to be relaxed, be logical, be sensible. It’s a strange turn of affairs when Mitzi is the one doing the reasonable.

‘So why won’t she open the door?’

‘She will open the door, she’s probably in a spiritual safe place and needs some time to step down through celestial planes.’

Mitzi taps quietly on the door and shoos me away. I take a few steps back. Carl is watching from the patio door with a huge cuppa in his hand.

He winks and whispers, ‘Let’s check out what plane she’s on.”

Mitzi continues to tap away, she turns and smiles at us both, then her tapping gets a bit louder, a bit more varied. She taps on the window, then walks around the side of the cottage, shrugs her shoulders and then properly bashes at the door.

‘Echo, it’s Mitzi, love, I need to talk to you about this circle time this aft.’ She turns to us and shrugs. ‘What’s she playing at?’

Suddenly, a hand appears from behind the blind. Two hands. We watch in wonder as a flap of paper is attached to the window. I’m taking this in as a spray paint can appears around the other blind, and onto the window in bright green spray paint is blasted a huge A in a circle. My eyes nearly pop out of my head. I stumble towards the cottage having dropped my cup on the ground and register with horror exactly what the poster image says.

SQUAT THE AIRBNBS

Mitzi and I look at each other, both open-mouthed, and for the first time ever that I can recall, my sister is completely speechless.

*

Across the rest of the day, other posters are put on the remaining windows outlining in detail the existing legislation and rights of squatters. I am on my tenth cup of tea of the day and baking another lemon sponge, having eaten through one lemon drizzle cake that I shared with Carl– even Mitzi nibbled at a slice. She is really furious.

‘What a duplicitous bitch. Never trust a hippy, never. I always say it, so why oh why haven’t I listened to myself?’

Carl looks confused. ‘Are you not a—’

‘Absolutely not, how dare you? I’m a bohemian, which is quite different. I can’t bear hippies. Look, we’ve got to get her out.’

I’m in. ‘We’ve got a spare key, of course, but how do we do that if she’s locked herself in?’

Carl pushes his shoulders back and cracks his knuckles. ‘Do you want me to break the door down and carry her out?’

‘No, no, no,’ Mitzi objects, ‘we can’t have you doing that. You’ll end up getting done for trespass and assault.’

‘Trespass?’ I bellow. ‘She’s in my bloody cottage.’

‘Yes, Janet, of course that’s true, but we need to play this carefully. You see, Echo knows her rights. She lived in the London squats for years throughout the nineteen-eighties.’

‘Doesn’t she have a house of her own? Where does she live normally?’

‘No, she hasn’t got a house. She was chucked out of her rented flat when the owners wanted to sell, and since then she’s been living with her son and his missus. Only the wife is a very uptight bank-manager type, and I think it’s been getting tense. Echo probably just needs a break.’

‘And I need the income from that cottage in order to survive.’

‘Never mind that– I need somewhere to hold a healing circle in three hours’ time. What’s the weather like?’ She checks out the app on her phone. ‘It’s looking dry. Janet, I’m going to have to take over the garden. Can you pull together some blankets and some cushions and knock up some peppermint tea with some spinach vegan pasty things? Poppy seed cake, caraway flapjack– you know the sort of thing, dry, brown, plenty of seeds.’

My plans to try decorating one of the coffee cakes and attempt the chocolate tempering go floating off into the distance. I’m now a shaman handmaiden. I double curse bloody Echo and dig out an old 1970s veggie cookbook I know does a lot about flapjacks.

*

Time flies when you’re really annoyed. The anarchist take-over of the cottage now stands at thirteen days. Echo has not emerged once, as far as we know. The car has gone, we don’t know how or where, but it was spiritually uplifted in the middle of the night which was probably a good thing. I was reaching the point of planning late at night the very rude messages I was going to spray paint onto it.

The house is overrun with shaman practitioners. Chloe, Carl and I are now largely confined to the kitchen. The attic, now fully functioning again, is the sacred space and the living room has become the home of the gong bath, after Mitzi picked up three huge gongs at a knockdown rate on Shoptree. The noise is driving us all loopy and Chloe has enrolled at college alongside her bar work so she can be out of the home as much as is functionally possible. Carl is away most of the time working on the brand-new barn extension up Elland. Which leaves me, mooching around the home going out of my mind with frustration. Mitzi invited me to a gong bath for free after I explained to her that I was getting really stressed.

‘No, thank you,’ I replied. ‘I don’t think a free gong bath is going to impact on the stress I feel about having my cottage and now my house taken over with the sound and smell of bloody shamans.’

‘Temporary, Janet, it’s all temporary.’

‘It doesn’t feel very temporary from here. I’m going mad! How the heck are we going to get her out?’

‘She has to leave voluntarily and then we jump in and re-take the space.’

‘You make it sound easy. The problem is, it looks like she’s hibernating for winter.’

My sister perks up. ‘You’ve given me an idea.’

‘Have I?’

‘Prepare for tonight, find all your keys. I’m going to ring Carl.’

Later, over tea, Mitzi explains that Carl has been prowling around the cottage at all hours trying to establish possible ways in. He’s found nothing except for two air-bricks. One of which is loose.

‘This air-brick– it is a brick presumably?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So we can’t sneak in that way.’

‘No. Let me explain the plan, Janet . . .’

So at 2 a.m. the next morning, all four of us are dressed in baggy black leggings and sweatshirts, courtesy of Chloe when she was going through her Goth phase.

Chloe is positioned at one side of the front door, I am at the other, both of us with huge shopping bags. Mitzi is incanting something towards the moon in a silent way and Carl is delicately using a trowel to remove a brick from the side of the wall. Mitzi disappears into our house then re-emerges with a huge shisha-type smoking thing. It is enormous and she is struggling down the drive with it when the brass top falls off and the racket of it hitting the drive reverberates around the house. A light pops on upstairs in the cottage and we all cringe and stop what we are doing. The tension of being so still, with Chloe and me with our bags, Carl levering out a brick and Mitzi with her gigantic shisha thing starts to get to me and I begin to giggle.

‘Ssshhh!’I have to hold myself in and the sudden need for a pee increases tenfold.

After a few moments the light goes off again. I’m now bursting but restrain myself. Meanwhile Mitzi starts messing about with potions and rags and matches, and before you know it she has a red-hot furnace of glowing sticks on the top of the shisha thing and she pulls out some tiny bellows and poooph! – a cloud of grey smoke emerges from the pipe. It’s only a second or two before the intense aroma of woodsmoke and musk and really strong mushrooms is blowing around on the drive. Mitzi nods at Carl and with one confident gesture he pushes the pipe of the shisha instrument in through the brick cavity and Mitzi gets to work with the bellows. I dread to think about my curtains and soft furnishings, I’ll never get that smell out.

It takes a little while, during which I cross my legs and clench everything. When a light goes on, we all crouch below the windowsill as the blinds suddenly shoot up. I can see Chloe’s eyes pinned onto me with the excitement, then we hear it– the cough. Then another, then another. The sound of the key. We are rigid with attention. Mitzi and Carl nod at us both and we acknowledge them. The door opens and out staggers Echo, emerging from a cloud of smoke. We don’t waste a second. Chloe is up and in behind her, and I follow in quick succession. I pull the door to behind me, and when I find the key is usefully still in the door, I quickly lock it. We hear Echo scream in rage. I open the little window at the side of the building, and I can’t resist it.

‘Sorry, Echo love,’ I say, ‘I was desperate for a pee.’

It doesn’t take Chloe and me long. We rush around the cottage spotting random odd objects and what is clearly a wardrobe of strange linen dresses. One after the other we stuff them into bags and fill them. I fling open the Velux windows so we can disperse the smoke, and from outside I can hear the sound of Echo arguing with Mitzi about the rights and wrongs of squatter’s legislation. Luckily for us, Anarchy philosophy is pretty much Mitzi’s specialist subject, so whilst we carefully gather up everything we can and stick it into the bags, the two of them hiss at each other like rattlesnakes.

Eventually we have collected together as much as we can assume is hers, and as per the plan we knock on the window and carefully open the door. Carl acts as a barrier as we hurry out, locking the door again, and I drop the key very visibly into my cleavage. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that, and it’s probably the only time I ever will. Chloe, Mitzi and Carl all cheer as I do it. One thing’s for sure: Echo is not going there for the key.

She looks defeated and as Carl takes the bags from us and heads down the drive he indicates to Echo to, ‘Come on, love. It’s over. I’ll drop you home in the van.’

She turns on me bitterly and spits out, ‘I wouldn’t even give this dump one star.’

I laugh. ‘I wouldn’t let you in, love.’

Mitzi joins in the laughter. ‘Off you go, Bloody Brenda.’

Her real name has struck a chord. Echo’s head drops as Carl chucks her bags into his van. I could almost feel sorry for her– until she wheels around and starts gesticulating wildly with her hands, murmuring and chanting and acting as if she is throwing something towards us. Mitzi is on it like wildfire and erupts with a sort of Kate Bush-style blocking arms dance movement.

‘That was a big mistake, Brenda. You know that any curse will come back to you three-fold. And it will serve you right for what you’ve put us through.’

The woman ignores Mitzi, picks up her bag and grumps off down the drive to climb into Carl’s van.

Chloe is shocked. ‘What the hocus pocus was she doing?’

‘It was a curse, but I repelled it.’

‘A curse?’ I start to feel a bit uneasy. ‘What do you mean, Mitzi? On you, me?’

‘On Lavander Cottage.’

Oh no. The last thing I need right now and after all the recent disasters, is a bloomin’ curse.

‘Don’t worry, Mum, Auntie Mitz witched her right back.’ Chloe pats her on the back. ‘Well impressed.’

Mitzi shrugs her shoulders. ‘I did my best to repel it. Shamans should do no harm, but she’s gone dark side. I should have seen it coming.’

*

I’m left regretting not trusting my instincts and putting my foot down. Boundaries. I struggle to enforce them. When will I learn? Carl explains over a bacon sarnie that her son lives up Cragg and wasn’t best pleased apparently to be knocked up at three in the morning about his mother. But he took one look at Carl and was convinced it was the right thing to do. He helped him in with her bags of belongings, and bad witch Brenda was welcomed back into the family.

I try to go back to bed for an hour, but it’s no good– I’m tossing and turning before I finally drop off, only to wake up worrying about the smell of the pipe smoke on the soft furnishings in Lavander Cottage. The place will need fumigating. I get up, go inside, walk around and start the rearrangement of all the furniture and accessories. I manage to change the bedding and open the Velux window, then feeling exhausted I sit on the bed for a moment before I take my shoes off, lie down and close my eyes. I fall asleep and dream about a Wicker Woman giant figure walking down the drive with a huge cake in her hands; the candle on top of the cake is a flame and as she blows it out, the Wicker Woman too bursts into flames.

I wake with a start, sweaty, disorientated and filled with dread. Oh God. My cottage has been cursed!

Don’t go there.

When you have a really suitable space, everyone wants to use it for their thing. It’s a nightmare fending them off. Try to keep it booked up all the time, or make out that it’s booked up all the time. If you’re like me, as soft as anything, it’s so hard to create and preserve boundaries. Put simply:Keep the bloody door locked.

Oh, and verse yourself in squatter’s law. You know– just in case.

It’s an oldie but a goodie. Trust your bloomin’ instincts!