Chapter Twelve #2
‘Plus, it’s still a good distraction from my own brain,’ Nash continues, ‘and better than sulking around the flat. My original plan was to just hike and pout, so I’ll just . . . help and pout instead.’
What does Nash need to distract himself from? Is his life in LA too glamorous? His diamond shoes too tight? Though, it’s not as if Christopher can’t relate. Maybe there’s something bigger going on, something to do with that phone call yesterday.
‘He’s good at the pouting bit,’ Christopher teases, which earns a stuck-out tongue from Nash.
By the time a few more people have taken their seats, a woman that Christopher vaguely recognises stands upfront.
Her beautifully tailored sapphire peacoat reminds him of something from Kit’s wardrobe, and her rich brown hair softly curls at her shoulders.
She looks organised and put together, but not just aesthetically.
There’s a vibe. She’s a woman who can rally the people.
‘Croeso pawb,’ she announces, drawing everyone’s attention.
This garners a few bore das, hellos and hiyas from the crowd.
‘Welcome, and thank you for braving the weather to come out to this emergency meeting. I see a few unfamiliar faces, so I’ll introduce myself – I’m Tamara Yang, and I’m the councillor for Pen-y-M?r. ’
That explains the air of confidence about her. She’s a politician.
‘Tammy and I went to school together,’ Shaz whispers. ‘She’s good people.’
‘I will try to keep things brief today for the sake of us not freezing over, but I am proposing that, due to the weather and the time of year, an action committee is formed today in order to ensure that any people without power or food or safe housing can be identified and helped by us. We can use the community centre as a base of operations, and coordinate assistance from here with a pool of volunteers once we’ve ascertained how everyone can help. ’
A hand from someone in the front row shoots up, and Christopher is almost certain that Tamara stifles a grimace.
‘Yes, Ursula?’ she says, with a tone of weariness that suggests this is not the first time Ursula has had an opinion during an important meeting.
Taking this as a cue to address the room, Ursula stands and turns slightly so everyone can see her.
‘I just wanted to encourage the democratic process before we embark on this new committee, as it’s very important that everyone in the room gets a say about membership and leadership and how things are organised.
’ Her voice is high, clipped and nasal, and overall, she reminds Christopher of the girls he went to school with.
‘You’re right,’ replies Tamara slowly. ‘But as this is quite a pressing matter, Ursula, I think it’s okay for us to move ahead. We need to get going in order to help people out.’
‘We can’t help if we don’t know how things are organised,’ gasps Ursula with what seems to be genuine horror. ‘For example, who is going to lead us in these endeavours?’
‘Well, as I’m sure you’ve ascertained, I was thinking me,’ says Tamara, completely deadpan. ‘Seeing as I called the meeting and I am literally leading it, and also given that I am an elected figure of the community.’
‘Are they about to fight?’ whispers Nash.
‘It seems like it, doesn’t it?’ Christopher agrees.
‘Is this how all your town meetings go?’
‘I don’t know. This is my first.’
‘Shhh,’ admonishes Shaz. ‘The fighting is my favourite bit.’
‘I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouths,’ continues Ursula, sounding very much like she actually would like that, ‘but I think that an emergency situation is no reason to bypass due process. After all, I am Head of the PTA and the Neighbourhood Watch for Pen-y-M?r, so I have as much local seniority as you, Tamara.’
The room is a collective held breath as everyone waits for Tamara, who looks increasingly wearied, to respond. She takes a few seconds, that classic politician’s pause, before turning to the audience and asking, ‘Does someone want to nominate a leader of this emergency committee? Anyone?’
‘I nominate Ms Yang,’ shouts back a wiry little woman who looks like a lively bird. She is wrapped up in a huge knitted roll-neck navy jumper that seems to swallow her whole.
‘Thank you, Priti.’
‘Also good people?’ asks Nash.
‘Good people,’ Shaz confirms.
‘Well, I nominate Ursula Caldecott,’ calls another voice.
Everyone’s heads turn to look at the speaker, a ruddy-faced boor of a man inexplicably wearing a short-sleeved shirt despite how desperately cold it is in here.
He, somehow, reclines in his chair, his palms facing the sky in a try me gesture.
‘Of course he does,’ cackles Shaz quietly. ‘That’s the pub landlord, Mervyn. He fancies himself Ursula’s second husband.’
‘Not good people?’ Nash asks.
‘Total arsehole.’
‘Noted.’
Christopher had had an inkling that local politics – or whatever isn’t strictly politics but acts as if it is – was sometimes very dramatic given the stories his mother would recount to his father.
No wonder she enjoyed it. Esther Calloway is not one to suffer fools or back down from fights.
She would thrive here, and everyone would already be assigned into their roles.
He can’t imagine she would have taken much notice of this request for democracy, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on how you look at it.
Tamara, on the other hand, looks suddenly as if she’s about to sack the whole lot in and go to bed.
Still standing, Ursula looks like the cat who got the cream. ‘Why, thank you Mervyn. At least someone cares about due process and standards.’
She sinks slowly to her seat, not taking her eyes off Mervyn, and Christopher feels a little sick, as if he’s just watched a kind of foreplay in public.
‘Oh, we’re all aware of your standards, Urs,’ mutters Shaz a little too loudly. ‘We all got the emails about our lawns being centimetres too tall over summer.’
Exasperated and quickly losing control of the meeting, Tamara taps her forehead with her hand. ‘Right, everyone, can we please just skip to the voting? Your choice is Ursula or me. Let’s get this over with.’
‘Excuse me,’ says Ursula, rising to her feet again. ‘But are we not going to blind it? Or maybe we need someone impartial to count?’
‘I’ll do it.’ Shaz gleefully waves an arm in the air. This is met with a polite but firm ‘No, thank you’ from Tamara and an ‘Absolutely not’ from Ursula.
‘It needs to be someone impartial and you are not impartial, Sharon,’ sneers Ursula.
‘And why aren’t you impartial?’ whispers Nash.
‘Oh, because I fucking hate her,’ laughs Shaz, not even trying to keep her voice down.
‘To be fair, Ursula, I think everyone in this room lives in Pen-y-M?r and knows both of you, so really no one is truly impartial,’ says Priti.
Her attempt to soothe the situation is met by a death glare from Ursula that could rival Medusa for petrification powers.
The already-minute Priti shrinks in her seat.
Before Christopher realises that it’s happening, Nash stands up and addresses everyone. ‘Hi! Hello everyone! Could I get your attention just for one second please?’
The room falls silent.
‘Sit back down,’ Christopher hisses.
‘Don’t you dare,’ says Shaz. ‘Keep going!’
‘Christ.’
Everyone looks at Nash, their faces a mixture of confusion and awe thanks to his general movie-star glow. He catches a few rumblings of ‘an American?’ from the audience.
‘Sorry, who are . . . you?’ Ursula’s words slow and soften as she turns and realises just how handsome Nash is, all the bite falling out of her tone.
‘Hi. Nice to meet you all. My name’s Nash Nadeau.’
The silence turns to a rumble of gasps and outbursts as people clearly begin to recognise him.
‘I’m here for the holidays in town and thankfully got stuck here with you. But I’m not from here and I only really know these two people—’ There’s a brief swivel of looks towards Shaz and Christopher. ‘So really I’m very impartial. I’ll do the count. Just tell me what to do.’
Neither Tamara nor Ursula say anything, and the whole room is transfixed on Nash as if he’s hypnotised them.
‘Bloody hell, he’s American,’ calls Mervyn.
‘Canadian, actually,’ Nash corrects, making his way to the front of the room where Tamara stands looking less frustrated and more somewhat amused. ‘Now, Ms Ursula, was it? Could you come join us at the stage here?’
It’s absolutely incredible how the roomful of people fall completely under his spell. The spell of charisma and extremely straight teeth.
Without another word, Ursula slinks forwards to him. ‘Have we met before?’ She holds out her hand as though he might kiss it, but instead he just shakes it.
‘Oh, definitely not. I just have one of those faces.’
‘What a liar,’ hisses Christopher to Shaz, who is pissing herself laughing into her scarf at the whole affair. She’ll be eating this up for months.
‘Thank you, Mr Nadeau,’ says Tamara, trying to bring the meeting back to order. ‘Come on, Ursula.’
She takes Ursula by the arm and drags her into the tiny kitchen, shutting the door behind them.
Nash addresses the crowd. ‘Okay, we’ll go for a very simple show of hands. No speaking, all right? Let’s all play fair now.’
The crowd rumbles in agreement.
‘All in favour of Ms Ursula?’
Out of respect for democracy, Christopher tries very hard not to look around to see who is voting for who.
However, out of the corner of his eye, he does see Mervyn and Enid, the refreshments lady, raise hands to vote.
There’s a reluctance to Enid’s hand, as though she’s being watched over by Ursula.
Perhaps she is worried Ursula can sense votes by proximity.
‘And for Ms Tamara?’
All the remaining hands, including Shaz’s and Christopher’s, are raised. It’s not unanimous, but it’s the majority by far.
‘And just to be sure, any abstentions?’
No one raises their hand, but Enid looks as if she might, even though she’s technically already voted.
‘You can come back in now,’ Shaz yells.
‘Yes, thank you for that, Shaz,’ Nash says, as Ursula strides in with a smirk, followed by Tamara.
They join Nash up at the front. ‘Tamara has it,’ he announces. This is met by a barely concealed but extremely furious look from Ursula.
‘Thank you for your assistance, Mr Nadeau,’ Tamara says. Nash gives her a nod as he retreats to his seat. ‘Anyway, let’s continue, shall we?’
The meeting moves quite swiftly after that.
Tamara clearly had prepared a list of topics to cover, and runs through them, making notes as she goes.
The roads need clearing, but the weather forecast insists another load of snow is due that evening and there’s no road grit in the area, so instead she organises a group to clear pavements in front of shops the next morning.
Nash volunteers himself to do around the bakery and as far as he can, while the couple who run the Post Office and corner shop agree to do the lower half of the high street together.
‘We’ll rope our son in,’ the shop’s owner, Carl Watkins, says. ‘I’ll steal the power cable from his PlayStation, and he can have it back when he’s done.’
‘We also need to work out who is going to help man the community centre,’ says Tamara. ‘That will be me, of course, but are there any other volunteers?’
Shaz shoots her hand up. ‘I’ll have to go back and forth to my house, but I can definitely help with organising.’
Ursula raises a hand. ‘Same.’
The hot drinks lady also gives a little wave.
‘Good, between us we can take shifts so there’s always someone covering.’ Tamara ticks something off the list in her hand. ‘My next concern is the vulnerable members of the community and making sure that we aren’t leaving anyone alone.’
Shaz raises her hand, and Tamara nods for her to speak.
‘Myffy Evans has authorised for me to speak for her here. Her partner Mohan is stuck in London due to the weather, and one of her PAs was sick today and unable to visit, so she might need some extra help over the next few days. I’m sure there’re a few people in a similar boat. ’
Priti raises her hand. ‘Yes, we should definitely try and find out if anyone’s care needs are being dropped.’
Tamara nods and makes a note. ‘Let’s make that priority number one.’
‘We’re taking Myffy a care package this evening of easy meals,’ says Christopher.
Priti turns in her seat to face Christopher.
‘I’ll come with you tonight if that’s all right?
I’m a nurse at Myffy’s GP surgery. I can speak to her and see if I can get some emergency provision for her – it might be a quicker response from social services coming from me, but no promises.
Either way, she might be happier to talk to me if there’re any issues.
I can always go and help, but I don’t have a car. ’
‘Sounds great to me,’ says Christopher.
Priti gives him a spindly thumbs up, and Shaz texts them both each other’s phone numbers.
Tamara leads a discussion on plans to get groceries up to those who need it – luckily the corner shop is fully stocked with the usual canned necessities, but also bread and milk and butter, unlike the supermarket – as well as setting up a group of people to walk around and knock on doors.
Using printed-out maps of the town that Tamara’s office usually use for election canvassing, the group split up the town into zones for people to check on the residents.
‘Everyone, wrap up warm. Please write down your phone numbers and emails here on the sign-up sheet before you go,’ says Tamara. ‘Right. Let’s get going.’
The community centre very quickly feels like a real centre of operations.
As the meeting ends, everyone helps to put away the chairs.
In their place, people gather supplies on a couple of spare tables – first-aid kits, spare food from the little kitchen, and a fresh round of substandard tea and coffee.
From one of the huge cupboards come a number of snow shovels, ancient-looking things that possibly haven’t been used in years, and a selection of unmatched hi-vis vests and helmets.
Once things are set up, Christopher gets ready to leave and get cooking, but to his surprise, Nash dons a hi-vis waistcoat and helmet.
‘I thought I’d clear around the community centre now before it gets colder and this stuff freezes under new snow. That’s lethal.’
To his surprise, Christopher feels disappointed. He can see the logic in Nash helping out now, even if some small part of him feels aggrieved at the change of plans. They need to get cooking, don’t they? Shouldn’t that be the priority?
He shrugs the confusing feelings off, and nods. ‘Okay. See you in a bit.’