Chapter 7 #2
She sounds thrilled about it, but I’m not so sure that would suit me.
I’ve always valued my self-control too much to do drugs, or to even be curious about how it would feel to abandon my inhibitions.
It would be scary, for sure. Still… I remember the way Gabriel looked at her that day in the café.
The way his guarded face came to light, the way their eyes seemed to sparkle for each other.
Okay. Maybe that would be nice… but it’s not for the likes of me.
‘What about you?’ she asks, her accent telling me she is originally from somewhere near Birmingham. ‘Any romance on the horizon? Barring Laura’s misguided attempts to matchmake you with… Oh God, what was his name? The American werewolf in Budbury?’
‘Aidan,’ I say quietly. How could she forget? Even his name is sexy. Not to mention the way he said it, his voice so deep and self-assured.
‘Yes, that’s it, Aidan. He doesn’t live far from us you know. Closer to Eggardon Hill. You could even go home that way if you took a slightly different route.’
‘Why would I want to do that?’ I ask, frowning. ‘I’m not interested in him, and I’m one hundred percent sure he’s not interested in me!’
‘Um, I know. I just thought you were interested in Eggardon, that’s all. Lady, you doth protest too much!’
I laugh and hide my face in my hands. I know it’s blazing when I finally come out again. ‘Okay,’ I say, ‘I admit he was cute. I’m only flesh and blood. But no, to answer your original question, no romance. I’m all about the self-love.’
‘Self-love is important,’ she agrees, nodding wisely. ‘Just make sure you don’t run out of batteries!’
That sets the tone for the rest of the trip really, and we laugh all the way to the antiques market.
It turns out to be in a huge old warehouse in a small town on the Devon border, and is packed with an entire world of ‘carefully curated tat’.
Some stalls are offering genuine antiques with eye-watering prices and letters of provenance; others are flogging copies of Vogue from the eighties and collections of vintage Pez dispensers.
Max is in her element, veering from stall to stall, making small talk with people she knows. She bargains her way into two elaborate cast-iron fireguards that she says will be ‘just perfect’ for her latest project, and pays what seems like way too much money for a pottery badger.
‘It’s junk really,’ she says, as she places it in her bag, ‘but we have a badger sett in the woods at the back of the farm. Gabriel loves badgers, and he named them all after different types of lager. This one looks just like Estrella. Have you seen anything you fancy? Have you got a theme in mind, colour or otherwise?’
We talk my ideas over for a while, and I end up promising to look at her beloved Farrow & Ball paint card before I make any decisions.
I’m kind of thinking dusky pinks, lavenders and mauves, and Max is practically salivating at the thought.
She clearly loves her job. I end up buying a gorgeous oil painting of Lyme Bay, not done by anybody famous but still so pretty I can’t take my eyes off it.
I pick up a couple of lovely glass vases, some old leather-bound books about insects with amazing illustrations, and finally a crocheted toilet roll holder with a plastic doll’s head on top.
It comes complete with a free toilet roll, and you can’t go wrong with that.
‘Very retro,’ Max says, eyeing up her purple ball dress and blonde hair, poking the matching woollen bonnet perched on her head.
‘It’s awful I know, but my nan used to have one of these in her bathroom. It’s a really vivid memory from when I was a kid. I shall call her Loo-ise.’
I’m elated with my purchases, and truthfully also with the company.
Max is laid back and fun, and although she does ask a lot of questions, she also shares as well, so I don’t feel like I’m being interrogated.
She fills me in on the background of the other ladies, and I find myself dumbstruck when she reveals the painful stories that so many of them have.
None of it is a secret, she stresses, so I know she’s not gossiping.
I would never in a million years have guessed that Laura had lost her first husband, widowed by an accident when she was so young, left with two children to raise alone.
Or that Zoe moved here because her best friend passed away from breast cancer, and she took over the care of her teenage daughter, Martha.
Or that Auburn and her sister Willow, the one who lives in Spain, nursed their mum through years of Alzheimer’s at home.
‘And Edie,’ she explains on the drive home, ‘Edie… Well, this is a strange one really. But you might notice that Edie sometimes takes extra food home from the café, or mentions her fiancé.’
‘Fiancé? Crikey, that’s optimistic– isn’t she ninety-nine?’
‘She is! And her fiancé was actually killed during the Second World War. She just… sometimes thinks he’s still around.’
I blink at this one. Edie seemed completely with it when I met her– all her marbles very much present and correct, despite her age. I turn it over in my mind and just shrug. ‘Well, I don’t suppose it’s doing any harm, is it? And she seems happy enough with her life.’
‘Exactly. That’s what I decided when I found out. And who knows? Maybe he is still around…’
She says it in a spooky voice, and takes her hands off the wheel for a second to make wavy movements with her fingers. I assume the gestures mean ‘supernatural’ to her.
We move on to other topics, but I know that one will settle in my mind. The old lady who is nearing a hundred, and her dead-but-not-dead-to-her fiancé. The human psyche is an incredible thing, and we’re all capable of convincing ourselves of the impossible, I suspect.
Max persuades me to come inside for a coffee, and we agree that I will call around with my car tomorrow to collect my treasures. Except the doll toilet roll holder– she’s coming home with me in my bike’s basket. She’s too special to leave behind even for just one day.
Max and Gabriel’s home is beautiful, and her obvious talent is on full display– the way she has perfectly combined the age of the old farm building with modern style, the two somehow complementing each other.
She proudly places the pottery badger next to a jug that has been decorated with the face of a donkey.
The rest of the room is pristine, and somehow these two deeply personal and deeply eccentric items make it even better.
By the time we’ve had a cuppa and I’ve used the facilities, it really is time for me to go.
I plan to cycle home the long way so I can see this famous hill, and if I’m in the mood, I might even stay there to watch the sunset.
It’ll mean riding home in semi-darkness, but I have lights on the bike and I’m unlikely to be caught up in traffic.
‘Be careful,’ she warns me as I leave. ‘Who knows what they used to get up to in an Iron Age hillfort.’
‘Pretty much the same as people get up to now, I suspect, but without electricity or plumbing. See you tomorrow?’
With one final screech from Belle the belligerent donkey, I’m on my way.
Max’s instructions are fresh in my mind, and as predicted there are no other vehicles on the road.
I get the feeling that me being here constitutes rush hour.
The only other creatures I encounter are ones with wings, or farm animals in fields.
I can’t remember the last time I was in a place so secluded, and when I start to feel slightly spooked by it, I remind myself that the safest place to be is away from other humans.
Crime rates are probably very low among herds of cows.
I find the path that leads to the hill and push my bike along it past late-season blooms. Blackberries droop from trailing vines, along with small purple-black fruits that look like damsons.
There are sloes and rosehips and hazel, a tangle of wild foliage that looks like a forager’s feast. The air is alive with birdsong, and the fading day is still warm enough for me to be wearing a light sweater instead of the heavier fleece that is folded in my basket.
I prop the bike up and clamber over a small wooden stile.
The hill is steep, but the grass-covered sides are covered in ridges, giving it the appearance of having terraces cut into the slope.
A small collection of sheep is grazing, staring up at me with curiosity as I pass.
A quick look, and back to chewing grass.
It’s hard to describe without sounding like a flake, but as I walk along, it’s like I can actually feel the age of the place.
The ancient history is practically singing out loud as I start to climb, connecting me to those who lived here thousands of years ago.
How many feet have trodden these same paths, I wonder, over the last few millennia?
It’s sneakily difficult going, and when I finally reach the top, I stand, hands on hips, and enjoy a moment of pure triumph.
Wow, I think, gazing around me, this was very much worth it.
Every step I took brought me here, to the top of the world.
Where, again, countless people must have stood and gazed in amazement at what they saw before them.
The view is slightly different from each angle, a patchwork quilt of luscious green fields, tumbling hills, and in the very distance the sparkling shimmer of the sea.
I can hear no sign of the outside world, of traffic or people or alleged civilisation.
It’s just me and the sheep, and the sheer mind-blowing beauty of this magical place.