Chapter 12
‘Jess?’
I was arrested, mid bend, attaching Arthur’s leash to his collar.
The very word arrested, in light of my parking on double yellow lines and what happened next, the previous evening, had me immediately standing to attention, looking over my shoulder to where a woman was exiting the huge oak front door of Hudson House.
I shaded my eyes against the weak spring sunshine but still couldn’t work out who it was calling my name and heading down the steps towards me.
‘Jess? It’s me, Serena.’
‘Gosh, Serena? Goodness. How are you? I thought you were in New Zealand? Married? To some sheep farmer.’
‘Oh, keep up, will you?’ The woman laughed.
‘You’d know what I was up to if you’d kept in touch.
Been back in Beddingfield a good six months.
’ I heard a slight antipodean lilt masking the West Yorkshire accent.
‘You stopped writing to me.’ Her voice was accusatory.
‘After you didn’t reply to at least three of my letters, I gave up on you. ’
‘I’m sorry.’ I spoke truthfully. Serena Atkinson – my partner in crime with the frogspawn incident I’d recalled only the other evening.
Serena Endacott she was, now that she’d married and settled in Otago, South Island with a sheep farmer.
This woman, slight and blonde haired, had been my best friend and ally all through the high school years at Beddingfield Comp.
I’d missed her terribly when she’d set off with her pack on her back intending a year’s trip to Thailand, Bali, Australia and New Zealand.
I was pregnant with Lola, and about to marry Dean, and it had been easy to say to Serena: ‘Oh, of course I’d have come with you if I hadn’t been in this situation…
’ knowing that in actuality, homebird that I was, I’d never have been brave enough to up sticks and leave the village, my mum and my sisters.
‘What are you doing here?’ Both of us spoke as one as Serena arrived at my side.
‘I work here,’ I said. ‘Well, I did.’ My heart gave a little involuntary plummet as I spoke the words out loud. ‘I was manager here until this morning.’
Serena stared. ‘Been sacked?’
‘No, not at all. New venture ahead of me.’
‘Oh? Tell all! How’s that good-looking husband of yours?’
‘Long story.’ I smiled, not wanting to go into details of my failed marriage. ‘So, are you back for a holiday? To see your mum?’
‘For good.’ The woman’s face dropped slightly. ‘And, like you, long story.’
‘Right, OK. Is it your mum…?’ I nodded towards Hudson House.
‘Mum? Oh gosh no, she’s hale and hearty and living life to the full. Out in the Costa Blanca at the moment with some new man of hers.’
‘So…?’ I nodded once more in the direction of the care home.
‘My gran. My dad and I moved her in here last week.’
I did a quick survey in my mind of all the new guests admitted to Hudson House in the past few days. ‘Oh? Mary? Mary Atkinson?’
‘Yes.’
‘Gosh, I didn’t know she was your granny. She was admitted on my day off. Bex, the new manager, must have taken care of it all.’ That took some doing, speaking of Bex being in charge now.
‘Why would you?’ Serena asked. ‘I don’t think you ever met my dad or my gran when we were kids.
’ Like myself, Serena had been brought up by a single mother, her dad having gone off with another man – golly, that had been a village scandal if ever there was one – when Serena was still at junior school.
‘I did meet your dad once I think,’ I said. ‘He used to come and watch us play hockey occasionally.’
‘When he was over from Manchester, and always from a distance,’ Serena said. ‘Fifteen years ago, it wasn’t quite the done thing to arrive at the school’s playing fields direct from Canal Street in Manchester, with your gay lover.’
‘S’pose. So, Mary’s your granny?’
Serena nodded. ‘Poor old thing. Dad and I have looked at so many places for her. She fell and broke her hip and just couldn’t look after herself at home any more.’
‘Often the way.’ I knew that it was.
‘Need to get a move on.’ Serena waved her car keys in my direction. ‘Got to buy a new hockey stick and then a hot date…’
‘Hockey?’ I stared. ‘You’re not still playing?’
‘Absolutely. Only thing that kept me from going mad these last few years. There’s only so many bloody sheep you can take.
Racing down a pitch and whacking a hockey stick instead of my ex – or his damned sheep – at Otago Hockey Club probably kept me sane.
Absolutely love it. Playing for Upper Merton these days. Where do you play now?’
‘I haven’t played since I got pregnant with Lola,’ I admitted.
‘You are joking?’ Serena tutted. ‘Jess, you were the star player. You were county level.’
‘Oh, no… I don’t…’ I broke off, knowing Serena spoke the truth.
‘Right, you’re coming with me.’
‘Coming where?’ Arthur, who’d sat patiently for the past ten minutes, now stood, shook himself and offered a plaintive sigh in my direction.
‘To play hockey. We always need people who know what they’re doing.’
‘Don’t think I’d even know which end of the stick to hold these days.’ I started walking Arthur back towards Vera.
‘Oh, come off it, Jess. Come on, we can have a laugh. Catch up…’
‘Nope.’ My voice was final. ‘I’m so unfit – and fat…’
‘Fat? Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You should have seen some of the fabulous Māori girls in Otago. Now they were big girls. You didn’t mess with them when they were hurtling down the pitch at hundred miles an hour towards you, intent on destruction.’
‘No way! Absolutely no way,’ I protested, laughing. ‘Nope.’
* * *
The following Thursday I found myself standing on the side lines of Upper Merton village hockey pitch.
Like Beddingfield village, Upper Merton had its own cricket pitch and village green but, unlike Beddingfield – and both sponsored by the village pub – a thriving hockey as well as football team.
The two teams apparently shared the pitch as well as what appeared to be a newly built clubhouse at the far side of the area.
‘Goodness,’ I said as the girls ran onto the field, started to limber up and Serena came to stand by my side, reaching into the pocket of her navy logoed top before fitting her mouthguard.
‘I’d absolutely no idea you had all this.
’ I waved a hand around the neat little pitch, at what appeared to be new goalposts and a large white scoreboard still showing the Upper Merton v Beddingfield football results of the previous weekend.
Upper Merton had, seemingly, slaughtered my own village football team (Dean had said Beddingfield had gone downhill once he’d left playing for the team to take up golf) and I felt a tiny frisson of guilt that I was standing here on what I supposed was enemy territory.
‘Well, we have to share it with the men. Although, to be fair, there’s an up-and-coming women’s football team as well. I’m actually thinking of giving it a go.’ Serena broke off. ‘I can see you as a great defender, Jess. Nothing would get past you!’
‘Not sure if I should take that as a compliment!’
‘Oh, you must.’ Serena laughed. ‘Yes, George did us proud.’ Serena sucked at her mouthguard. ‘God, I hate these things.’
‘George?’
‘Oh, sorry, George Sattar. You won’t know him, I don’t suppose – one of the Frozen Sattars?
Mind you, I hear the Frozen lot now have an interest in Hudson House.
Anyway, George is big into football and came up trumps for the refurbishment of the clubhouse.
The Dog and Duck might sponsor us the best way it can, but there was no way they could pay for all these fantastic new facilities.
Anyway, George coughed up – didn’t even ask that the club be renamed Frozen. ’ Serena laughed.
‘Well, thank goodness for that. And I’m surprised he’s had a hand in all this.
’ I gave a derogatory sniff as an uncomfortable flashback of myself popped, unbidden, into my head.
Me, flailing on my back like an upturned beetle on Kamran’s cream carpet, hand wrapped round the orange plastic bag handle while George just stood and laughed down at me.
‘George? Why are you surprised he’s helped the village?
’ Serena gave me a look. ‘He’s gorgeous, don’t you think?
I tell you, I keep looking on Hinge hoping he might pop up and I can swipe right.
Mind you, I don’t suppose he will when he’s so full on with Mina.
’ Serena paused, obviously hoping to impress with this little juicy titbit regarding George Sattar’s love life.
When I said nothing, didn’t quite know what to say, Serena went on. ‘Mina? You know who I mean – the top model?’
I nodded.
‘She’s from round here, you know. Leeds, I think.’
I nodded again, reaching round Serena to see what was happening on the pitch, more interested in watching the women limbering up under the direction of a somewhat older, diminutive but seemingly very vocal coach, than gossip about Mina.
‘Right, stay there,’ Serena instructed. ‘Watch and then see if you fancy joining us next practice. But either way, come and have a drink at The Dog and Duck. I know Carole would love to meet you again…’ And with that she was off, running onto the pitch, swiping with her stick as she ran.
Carole? I peered across the now floodlit pitch, my attention on the coach.
Surely not? Surely not Miss Moorhouse? Carole Moorhouse, games mistress at Beddingfield Comp whose hockey boots had received the frogspawn filched from the tank in the biology lab in revenge for being dropped from the team for a week?
I’d always felt guilty that those poor little frogs’ eggs had been trampled on by Miss Moorhouse’s hockey socks rather than turning into the tadpoles and frogs they’d aspired to be.
Mind you, if left to grow into adulthood in the biology lab, they’d only have been chloroformed and split open, a rabble of overexcited adolescents pretending to vomit and faint as they went in as instructed, scalpels to hand.