Chapter 22
22
Although we were into mid-September and the nights were drawing in, the days here in the very pretty village of Beddingfield were still warm with a wonderfully mellow feel to them. I’d promised to join Jess and the Hattersleys on the ash-spreading trip to Ilkley but, two days later, I wanted to do nothing but sit in the garden and think of Fabian. Also, I was still in shock over Jayden’s revelations about Mum’s adopted family and longed to get over to the hospital and simply be with her. Traipsing out to Ilkley on some fool’s errand ash-scattering of some old folks I didn’t even know was not high on my agenda of how to spend Saturday.
Maybe, if my knee allowed, I could also have a little wander down into the village itself? Call in for coffee at the little cafe across from the village green; pick up a couple of things from the store next to the Victorian primary school where all three of us girls had spent our formative years.
But Jess was having none of it.
While she dropped Lola off at Dean’s flat, ten minutes’ drive away, I walked outside into the garden with my mug of coffee, testing my knee for any sign of improvement, but having to accept there was little, if any. I breathed in the fresh, if somewhat pungent, country air – Philip Rogers, the farmer across the lane, had obviously been out muck-spreading – the pale amber sunlight giving little credence to the coming cold months. The back lawn, always kept meticulously mown and neatly edged by Mum, was bejewelled with early morning dew, but now in need of some TLC. I sighed. Gardening wasn’t my thing but I could see I’d have to get the lawn mower out at some stage.
Once she’d returned from taking Lola, and following Kath Hattersley’s directions, Jess drove us in Mum’s car to the neat bungalow on the edge of the Tythehill estate at the far end of the village. Kath and Rick had arranged to pick us up but, at the last minute, had rung to say Rick couldn’t get the car started. Was there any chance Jess could pick them up instead?
‘Flipping heck, I can do without this,’ Jess said crossly. ‘Bad enough being driven there, but at least I could have closed my eyes and nodded off in the back seat. Now I’m going to have to concentrate.’
‘Make sure they cough up for the petrol,’ I said. ‘You’re not a charity, Jess.’
‘I know, I know, but I’m never any good at asking for money.’ She breathed deeply. ‘And once we’re back, I’m going to have to cover the late shift at Hudson House. Lola’s staying the night at Dean’s for the first time.’
‘You OK with that?’ I asked dubiously. ‘Will the barmaid be there?’
‘I have to move on.’ Jess sighed. ‘And if Lola is to have any relationship with her father, then I have to let him have access. Also means I can do the late shift at work. Lola used to stay in the box room with Mum once Dean had hopped it and I was on lates or overnights. Mum loved having her there. Anyway, let’s think of Ilkley as a treat, as a day out. I’ve never been to Ilkley Moor. It’s supposed to be beautiful and it’s a gorgeous day. We could pretend we’ve arranged to meet some friends and have some time to ourselves – a lovely lunch? – before we drive them back.’ Jess’s eyes lit up. ‘Jayden’s come up trumps’ – she patted her jeans’ back pocket – ‘and, sorry, I’m not too proud to accept his cash. I’ve already done my research – the Ginger Plum Coffee Shop in Addingham sounds bliss.’
‘I’ll put Mum and Dad by your feet in the front with you, love, if that’s OK?’ Kath Hattersley raised her eyes in my direction as Jess opened Mum’s car door to the waiting trio: we had an extra passenger, by the look of it. ‘You see, Mum always suffered from claustrophobia and she’d hate being locked in the boot. Rick, this is Jess. You know, from Hudson House? Mum’s care home? And her sister. Robyn, isn’t it? Robyn’s famous .’ She lowered her voice, eliciting the word in hushed reverence. ‘A famous dancer in Covent Garden .’
‘Oh, gosh, not really…’ I began, but Kath had moved on, chattering about both her long-departed dad and more recently departed mum.
Rick, I suspected, wasn’t overly interested where we’d hailed from or that I might be somebody he should possibly have heard of. ‘Hello, loves.’ The ruddy-faced and heavily tattooed man climbed slowly and painfully into the back seat (‘bad back – am an absolute martyr to it’) leaving Kath to haul two urns – one terracotta and one plastic – into what little space there was beneath my feet. A tiny woman (‘Mum’s big sister, Aunty Bea’) followed Rick over the front passenger seat of the car silently settling herself in like a wraith, accompanied by a large plaid flask, bulging Tupperware container and some sort of beige travel rug. ‘Do you know where you’re going or d’you want some help navigating?’ Rick asked Jess.
‘Waze.’ Jess tapped at the navigation app on the dashboard. ‘Never go wrong with this.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t trust them buggers. You’ll end up in a quarry, or down the bottom of a one-way street and not be able to turn round. Look, I’ll point you in the right direction, love.’
And he did. Every left and right turn, on every road – major and minor; every T-junction, every motorway turn-off, cautioning Jess each time she went even slightly over the speed limit that ‘the rozzers’ would be after her. But then, once on the motorway, telling her to put her foot down and ‘go for it, girl’.
Jess, I could tell, had never been so relieved to see our destination in front of us, pulling up in the car park as soon as she saw the sign for the Cow and Calf.
‘A quick one, is it, then?’ Rick rubbed his hands together and I realised we were in a pub car park. ‘Send ’em on their way, like? What you having?’
‘I’m so bloody stressed,’ Jess whispered in my ear, ‘I could down the contents of a bottle of gin, smoke a particularly large joint and, given the opportunity, wouldn’t turn down a nice selection of Class A drugs.’
I started to giggle, but Jess merely turned back to Rick, smiling beatifically while tapping the steering wheel to indicate she was driving.
‘Oh, one won’t hurt, love.’ Rick alighted the car with a good deal more alacrity than at the start of the journey, bounding off in the direction of the pub door. Thirty seconds later he was back. ‘Not got any money on me, Kath; come on, get your purse out.’
‘I’ve not brought my bag,’ Kath said in some dismay. ‘Both my hands were full of Mum and Dad when I left the house. And I’m spitting feathers an’ all.’
Rick, Kath and Aunty Bea all turned hopefully in our direction.
Sticking a rictus of a smile on her face, Jess peeled off a twenty-pound note from the stash given to her by Jayden and Rick bounded off once more, returning with a pint and a whiskey chaser for himself, a port and lemon for Kath, a schooner of sherry for Aunty Bea and a Coke each for myself and Jess. No change from the twenty, then.
‘I put a little something in that, Jess. You need to keep your strength up, love, after that drive.’
Jess sipped cautiously at the fizzy drink, obviously not happy there was some alcohol hidden in its overly sweet, murky depths. ‘I won’t be over the limit with one shot,’ she reassured both me and herself before, shivering slightly in the damp atmosphere and sneaky cold wind that had suddenly appeared, she gave a warning nod towards big black clouds moving in from the west. ‘Looks like rain,’ Jess said pointedly. ‘Maybe we’d better get on?’ We all turned our heads to the left, looking across the road and moorland at the Cow and Calf, the large rocks that could be seen in the distance.
The other three didn’t appear ready to go anywhere.
Ashamed that, as a Yorkshire girl, I’d never visited this iconic spot, I’d spent the previous evening, when I should have been getting stuck into a pile of marking, googling its history. ‘You know’ – I turned to the others – ‘according to local legend, the Calf was split from the Cow when a huge giant called Rombald was fleeing an enemy.’
‘Right?’ Rick appeared more interested in his pint, which he downed quickly before reaching for the whiskey chaser.
‘And then,’ I went on, warming to the theme, ‘he stamped on the rock as he leapt across the valley. You can imagine a great big giant racing across the moor, can’t you?’
Kath frowned. ‘I think you need a good imagination, Robyn, love, to picture that. Mind you, you’re an arty type. So, who was his enemy, then?’ She drained her glass of port and lemon and looked expectantly at Aunty Bea, who silently ignored her niece and continued to sip at her sherry.
‘Well’ – I smiled – ‘apparently he was running away from his angry wife.’
‘Come back drunk from the pub, had he? What a lad.’ Rick gave a whoop of laughter.
‘Anyway,’ I went on, thinking this would be a great story to embellish and maybe get the kids at school to act out, ‘she dropped the stones held in her skirt to form the local rock formation called The Skirtful of Stones.’
‘Right.’
Maybe it wasn’t such an interesting story after all. I felt a spot of rain and took a surreptitious look at my watch.
‘So.’ Jess obviously had the same idea. ‘Do you think we’d better get on?’
‘How about another before we start on the ashes?’ Rick looked at Aunty Bea. ‘Your round, Bea, is it?’
‘I don’t mind if I do.’ Aunty Bea spoke for the first time since setting off, draining her sherry and offering the empty glass to Rick. No funds appeared forthcoming though, so Jess moved to the front of the car, took out both casks and, handing one each to both Rick and Kath, said, ‘Come on, let’s lay your mum and dad to rest.’
The five of us crossed the road and headed in the direction of the two huge rocks formed years ago of the local millstone grit. It wasn’t an easy walk, Aunty Bea at ninety needing both her stick and Jess’s arm to move slowly forwards, while Rick took up a constant complaint at his every step across the tussocky grass that there’d be hell to pay with his bad back the following day. Kath carried her dad, while Jess, with the hand not assisting Aunty Bea, clutched at the green plastic cask she’d taken from a complaining Rick.
‘Where do you think, then, Kath?’ Jess stopped to take a breath, wiping the sheen of sweat from her brow, placing a finger down her shirt collar and giving it a shake to allow the drizzly rain down her neck. ‘I think your Aunty Bea’s had enough now,’ she added.
‘Should have brought the flask of tea with us,’ Bea said somewhat accusingly at Jess. ‘You forgot to take it from the car.’
‘Yes, come on, Kath, let’s get on with it.’ Rick was becoming impatient.
Mavis, in big handfuls, was duly sent to the four corners of Ilkley Moor, Kath wiping at her eyes in between each throw. I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that the wind had dropped, while looking round for Rick, who appeared to have vanished through the miserable grey sheet of drizzly rain.
He reappeared from behind the Cow, rearranging his genitals in his trousers and zipping his flies. ‘Call of nature,’ he called cheerfully. ‘Have we done yet, Kath?’
‘Dad now.’ Kath sniffed. She reached into her dad’s urn with her hand but then looked in horror at the rest of us waiting expectantly – if slightly impatiently – for the first throw.
‘What’s up, Kath? Has he done a bunk?’ Rick pulled a frightened face. ‘Has he escaped?’
‘I can’t get him out. I can’t get my dad out.’
‘Give him here.’ Rick took the urn, peering in. ‘Well, he’s in there, love.’
‘Yes, but set solid.’
‘Phewff.’ Rick made a sympathetic little noise while banging the contents of the urn with his hand. ‘What do you think, Jess? You must have come across this before, you know, dealing with all them old codgers up at the home?’
‘Can’t say I have, Rick. And, to be honest,’ Jess went on, catching my eye and trying not to laugh as she peered into the urn and began prodding gently at the solid mass, ‘I’m not sure banging Kath’s dad on his head is the right way to go about this.’ There’d obviously been more than a single shot of alcohol in the Cokes we’d downed because I suddenly had the most awful need to giggle.
Jess did just that, laughing until she had to cross her legs and hand the urn to me.
‘You could break the urn around him,’ Rick suggested, peering over my shoulder.
‘Wouldn’t that just leave an urn-shaped lump,’ I asked. ‘You know, to dispose of?’ I tried my very best to look caring, reverential, but found I kept catching Jess’s eye. She was in danger, I knew, of peeing her pants and that made me giggle more.
‘Give him here.’ Aunty Bea suddenly shuffled forward with her walking stick. ‘Put him down.’
‘Where, Aunty Bea?’
‘Here, in front of me.’ Kath did as her aunt instructed and then, hanging onto Jess’s arm with one hand, Bea lifted her walking stick and started jabbing at the contents of the urn with a most amazing vigour for a nonagenarian.
‘Bea, that’s my dad,’ Kath objected, trying to pull her aunt away from the urn.
‘Been wanting to do that for years,’ Aunty Bea said as Fred Crowther began to finally crumble. ‘Should have hit him round the head years ago when he left me for our Mavis. He asked me to marry him an’ all.’ Bea gazed round defiantly. ‘Up on’t’moors. You know, near Baildon?’
‘You used to go out with my dad?’ Kath stared. ‘I never knew that.’
‘No, neither did our Mavis.’ Bea started to laugh, her bony shoulders shaking, her birdlike, arthritic fingers still clutching the walking stick now covered in clumps of white and grey. ‘It were all a right long time ago.’ Bea patted her niece on the arm. ‘Luckily for Fred Crowther I didn’t catch on at the same time as our Mavis. That would have been a right to do. Bad enough at our house when Mavis had to tell my mum and dad what she’d been up to. Can you imagine if the pair of us had ended up in the family way? I’d met my Ted just as Fred had to leave for his two years’ national service and, by the time our Mavis realised she was expecting you, Kath, I didn’t care a jot. Just thanked God it was her and not me.’ Aunty Bea grinned, her dentures white against her age-spotted skin. ‘Right, let’s put him with our Mavis, Kath, and then go and get the flask and sandwiches. I’m fair parched.’
‘God, I didn’t think they were going to agree to us leaving them for a couple of hours,’ I breathed. ‘I thought we’d be stuck with them for ever. And we’d have had to pay for their lunch.’
‘No way,’ Jess said. ‘I’m not spending any more of Jayden’s money on those three. It’s stopped raining, they’ve got a picnic and a flask and they can have a little snooze for an hour or so before we pick them up.’
‘You OK to drive?’ I asked.
‘Yep. I actually left most of my Coke: never liked alcohol in sweet drinks. Never liked alcohol per se really.’ She started laughing again. ‘It was seeing Aunty Bea bashing Fred round the head that made me laugh so much. OK,’ she said, jumping into the car, ‘Addingham and the Ginger Plum Coffee Shop.’ She put her foot on the gas and set off at speed. ‘I’m starving.’
‘Stop, stop,’ I shouted a few minutes later. ‘Mum’s brakes aren’t wonderful,’ I added as Jess pumped manfully on the brake pedal and we skidded to a halt on the busy A65. ‘We’re going the wrong way. We have to go through Ilkley and then on to Addingham. This is the way home.’
‘Right, right, OK.’
I closed my eyes as Jess executed a dangerous U-turn in the middle of the road.
‘What?’ she asked, grinning. ‘I’m starving.’
‘Stop, stop!’ I shouted once more as we drove through Ilkley town centre.
‘What? What now?’
‘Stop!’
‘I’m stopped! And on double yellow lines. What?’
‘Look!’
‘What? Where am I looking?’
I pointed to a huge banner strung out from one side of the road to the other. ‘Look. Fortuitous or what?’
We both sat and stared, reading the words in bold black capitals:
YORKSHIRE CHRISTMAS TOPCHEF COMPETITION
Final: Saturday, 16 DECEMBER
HARROGATE CONFERENCE CENTRE
TELEVISED FOR FOCUS NORTH TV
Entries being taken now
DETAILS ON FOCUS NORTH’S WEBSITE
‘That’s it,’ I said excitedly. ‘A northern MasterChef . This is your chance, Jess.’
‘Get out.’ Jess laughed. ‘No way.’ She laughed again. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Come on, lunch. My stomach thinks my throat’s cut.’
Jess pulled out into the traffic, throwing a V sign at a bloke in a flashy red sports car who peeped his horn loudly as she almost took off his rear bumper. ‘Food, I need food!’ She grinned. ‘Food, glorious food!’