The Unorthodox Arrival of Pumpkin Allan (15 page)

Lois felt sorry for her, she looked lost, like she didn’t know what to do or say without the presence of food on the table. “I’ll put the kettle on,“ said Lois.

“Right Mags, don’t look so surprised, this is ‘ow it’s gunna have to be from now on. Tea means cup of, not, enough cakes to feed a village. If you’re ‘ungry, ‘ave some fruit. Where’s Chaz by the way, we’d better let ‘im know you’re on a mission.”

Margaret still looked very much like she was in shock. “He’s out in the back garden, doing some weeding.”

“Oh, he likes gardening?” Lois said naively.

“No Lois. If Mags says he’s doing some weeding or some potting, trust me, it’s got nothing to do with gardenin’ ‘as it Mags?”

“No love, it hasn’t. Oh, Lois, I’m so sorry, you must think we’re a right old pair, him smoking dope and me eating cakes. But, I, for one, am going to change!” Lois thought she could see a slight hint of determination in Margaret’s face. “Sissy perhaps you could help Chaz too?”

“Steady on Mags! I might be tough but I aint that tough!”

A few minutes later, Chaz came in and sat down with them at the table and had a cup of tea. Sicily explained why there was nothing left to eat. Chaz roared with laughter. “Cor, bloody ‘ell Sis! Good fir you mate, good fir you!”

Chaz asked Lois where they had been living and what had made her and Tom want to move out of London. To which Lois replied, that she had always wanted to live in the country and now that the baby was on the way, it just seemed like the right time. She kept her answers short, she didn’t feel comfortable, him knowing personal details about her.

“Good fir you Lo. I’s a great environment out ‘ere. D’ya know wha’ I mean? It aint rough, like whadit is up London. Aint that right Sis?” Once again, Lois was pleased that Mel wasn’t with her.

At six o’clock, Lois excused herself, saying she was expecting Tom home any minute and he wouldn’t know where she was. She thanked Margaret very much and wished her luck with her mission.

“She’ll need it!” laughed Chaz.

“Yeah, and a bit o’ support from you wouldn’t go amiss,” said Sicily, giving Chaz a friendly, yet hard, punch on the arm, as she left. “I’ll call in tomorrow mornin’ and we’ll go through a programme. Ten o’clock Mags, ok?”

“Great. Thanks Sissy.”

When Sicily got to the wheelie bin, she opened it up and yanked out the bin liner. “Just to remove the temptation!” she called back to Margaret, who was waiting forlornly in the porch. “Oh, and by the way Mags, I’ve got your car keys, just until tomorrow. If you need su’ink from the shop, you can always walk to get i’!”

As they walked down the lane Lois asked Sicily, “Where on earth did you get the confidence to talk to people, indeed treat people in that way. Throwing ALL the cakes in the bin!”

“Oh, I know them pretty well. I know that Mags would love to look like she used to. She star’ed puttin’ on weight ten years ago and ‘aving put on a stone it was just a slippery slope. The bigger she gets, the more she needs to eat because ‘er size depresses ‘er. It’s a vicious circle innit?”

“Seems to me you should be a psychologist or something, not messing about with horses.”

“It’s them that keeps me level ‘eaded!”

When Lois and Sicily arrived back at Honeysuckle, Tom was just pulling up. He got out of the car and gave Lois a hug. “How’s my favourite fiance? Not been kidnapped by an evil, drug dealing neighbour I’m pleased to see!” and turning to Sicily, added, “and who’s this? I bet it’s the famous Sicily.”

“It is indeed,” said Lois, “Sicily, Tom. Tom, Sicily.”

“Delighted,” said Tom as he shook Sicily’s hand, “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Oh yeah, Lois said. You think I’ve been winding ‘er up.”

“And haven’t you?” Tom asked, as he reached into the car to take out some bags of takeaway.

“No, not yet,” Sicily said, smiling.

“Ah, well you must tell me more. Bought enough food for an army Sicily, would you like to join us?”

“Sounds great, I’ll just phone me mum and let ‘er know what I’m up to. There’s plenty o’ cake for pudding too, eh Lois?”

As Sicily walked away a little to make her phone call, Lois explained, “Margaret, we went for tea, remember? But Sicily, being offered the post of personal trainer, confiscated the entire spread and put it in a bin-liner!” Lois pointed to the bag slung over Sicily’s shoulder. “We’ll fill you in later. Come on, I’m dying to show you the house.”

Tom and Lois went inside. Tom was astonished to see how much the house had taken shape since Wednesday. Lois went and got the vacuum from the car and started hoovering. The house was so near to being liveable-in, it was a shame not to have a quick clean up before dinner. Tom put the oven on and the takeaway in it to keep warm. Sicily came in carrying the box of cleaning equipment, which she had noticed when Lois got the hoover out of the car. She went through to the kitchen, collected a bowl of water and washing up liquid, took a cloth from the box and proceeded to wash down all the dust covered surfaces and the windows in the lounge. She then grabbed the micro fibre cloths that Lois had brought and polished up the insides of the windows, window ledges and mantelpiece.

By the time Lois and Sicily had finished, which only took half an hour, the effect was amazing. The evening sun poured through the French doors at the back of the living room, the amount of light entering the house, appearing to have doubled.

Lois found the rug that Pippa had brought and laid it on the floor in the corner of the living room. Tom had painstakingly served up the takeaway. He made five journeys to carry the plates, a bottle of wine and three glasses through to the lounge. He wasn’t worried about driving his automatic car with one hand in plaster, but dropping an Indian meal was another matter.

Tom and Lois sat, propped against the wall. Sicily sat opposite them, in the lotus position, her back perfectly straight. They were all very hungry, Sicily in particular. She hadn’t eaten lunch, pending a feast of cake at Margaret’s house. She sat in silence, munching her way through a large plateful of food.

Eventually, the urgent need to get food to mouth subsided and they all suddenly felt very full.

“So Sicily, Lois tells me you live at Willow Farm and are in charge of exercising the client’s horses. Do you enjoy it?” asked Tom.

“Oh yeah, it’s all right. But I wanna go travellin’ soon as I’m eighteen.”

“How old are you now?” Tom asked. He and Lois were both surprised she wasn’t eighteen. Lois had tried to put an age to her and decided, since she seemed so competent, she must be in her early twenties.

“Sixteen.”

Lois nearly choked on a piece of onion bhaji she was trying to stuff down because she couldn’t bear to see it go to waste. “You can’t be!” she spluttered.

“Seventeen in October, can’t wait! Bill’s bought me a car already, an old banger, I’ve been drivin’ it round the fields on the farm. It was really funny, the first time I did it on me own, Bill came to find me afterwards. ‘E was ranting on about me ‘aving run over Diana. I ‘ad a real panic, thought I’d killed one o’ the liveries dogs or one of ‘is chickens. But turned out I’d run over some old door that was lyin’ in the yard. ‘E’d called it Diana, Diana Doors.” Lois, mouth still full, almost blew her nose into her remaining curry and had to excuse herself and go and fetch some kitchen roll.

“Blimey, it sounds like you lot are nuts!” said Tom, laughing.

“Tom, don’t be so rude, you’ve only just met Sicily,” Lois said, sitting herself back down.

“Oh God, don’t worry Lois, ‘e’s not the first person to call my family nuts, I can assure you!”

“Anyway Sicily, where is it you want to travel to, have you made any plans yet?”

“Oh yeah, on my first trip I want to go to India, to study yoga.”

Had Lois been eating anything at this point, she would undoubtedly have choked again. This young girl, who seemed so tough and really, Lois had thought, a bit rough around the edges, was very unusual.

“That sounds very exciting. Have you investigated where and how yet?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, over the last year I’ve been researchin’ it. Top of me list for the yoga at the moment is the Ashtanga Institute in Mysore. But I wanna travel around India and Sri Lanka as well.”

“What do your parents think about you going travelling?” asked Tom.

“Me Mum’s in two minds. She thinks it’ll help me mature. Thinks I should take the opportunity while I’m young. But, she doesn’t know how she’ll cope with runnin’ the yard without me. Bill,” Sicily looked up from her plate to Tom, “Bill’s me Dad. ‘E’s not s’ keen. ‘E’s never been abroad in ‘is life, ‘e don’t trust foreigners and will probably do everything ‘e can to stop me goin’!”

“Oh, you’ll be able to talk him round, I’m sure. I bet you can wind him round your little finger. I did some travelling around India, when I was young, free, single and happy. Ow!” said Tom, as Lois elbowed him in the ribs, forgetting all about his injuries. Fortunately, she was not sitting on Tom’s broken side. “I’m very careful which side of Lois I sit!” he said, smiling.

“How did you injure yourself Tom?” Sicily asked.

“Oh, have you not heard? Mountain biking accident, very dramatic!”

“I love mountain biking. We normally go to Wales, which mountain were you on?”

Lois laughed so much; she had to stand up to relieve the pressure caused by baby, curry and laughter, on her abdomen. She propped herself against the wall. “Yes, which mountain was it Tom?”

“Oh yes, you can laugh, it can be pretty treacherous in the New Forest, you know!”

“Oh, the New Forest,” said Sicily, feeling a bit sorry for Tom at this point, she hadn’t meant to mock him, “yeah, it can be pretty rough down there, a friend of mine had a nasty crash down there.”

“Thank you!” said Tom, looking at Lois with a ‘see’ look on his face, but Lois continued to titter.

“Imagine what you’d look like now if you had been on a mountain! I don’t think you should ever do that Tom. Well not before we sort out your life insurance, anyway.”

Sicily decided that this was probably a good time to clear up the plates. Tom and Lois joined her. Sicily used the bag the food had come in to collect up the empty takeaway containers. “Do you want these?” she asked Lois, showing her the containers, “it’s just Maureen collects them, always finds something handy to do with them.”

“Yes, you take them. Sounds like Maureen might be a bit like my mum, bit of a hoarder is she?”

“Yeah, you could say that, or she likes re-cycling anyway. Right, hope you guys have got room for cake. Sorry it’s a bit squashed!”

Lois and Sicily explained to Tom in more detail, what had happened at Margaret’s house.

“Gosh, I can’t wait to meet all these characters, I feel I’ve been missing out! And her husband’s a drug dealer Sicily, really? Straight up?”

“Straigh’ up Tom, straigh’ up!”

Lois and Tom both got up early on Saturday morning. The weather forecast had predicted a sunny start, with winds increasing during the day, culminating in a thunderstorm late afternoon, early evening. Since they wanted to fit in a walk, doing it before going to the jewellers seemed like the sensible thing to do.

Annie was at the front of her house, doing some gardening as they passed. Rupert and Reaver came trotting up in their usual wiggling way.

“Hi Annie, would the dogs like a walk,” asked Tom, much to Lois’s surprise.

“I’m sure they’d love it,” said Annie, “where are you going?”

“To the woods, for about an hour.” Tom sounded like he knew where he was going, which made Lois feel slightly anxious, as far as she was concerned they were going exploring.

“I’ll fetch their leads,” Annie said, returning moments later with the leads and a small bag of treats. “Now, regular treats are the key to keeping them close. They are generally fine unless they see deer, then Reaver in particular, tends to disappear for some time.”

“Great!” said Tom, forcing a smile, and as they walked away with both dogs tugging at their leads, Lois put her finger to her lips to try and stop him moaning within Annie’s earshot. Ten yards further on he said, “Well she could have told us that before we were committed, we’ve got to leave at ten to get to Hatton Garden.”

“We could keep them on the leads,” suggested Lois.

“No we couldn’t,” said Tom, unclipping Reavers lead, “bloody dog’s already hurting my ribs.” He called Reaver back and gave her a couple of treats. After being dragged even harder by Rupert, now that Reaver was ahead, Lois soon unclipped his lead too.

“And what’s with, ‘we’re going to the woods for an hour,’ it makes it sound like you know where we’re going.” At which point, Tom removed a sheet of A4 from his pocket.

“I was bored in the office yesterday, so I worked out a one hour route around the woods.” He showed Lois the way they were going on the map he’d printed from the Internet, then called both the dogs back and gave them each a treat.

“You see! I am a natural for living in the country!”

Lois and Tom settled into their stride, which was by no means brisk. They followed the well-trodden footpath across two fields, from which hay crops had been recently taken. The second field was large and dipped down towards the woods. As they moved out of the sunshine into the relative darkness of deciduous woodland, it took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust. Ten yards in they stopped abruptly as they heard a rustling in the undergrowth, which seemed to be coming from behind a holly bush. Both the dogs put their hackles up and barked at the bush. Tom, thinking there might be a deer in there, grabbed Reaver by the collar. As the rustling got louder, they all realised it was a person. Tom let Reaver go and she went wiggling into the bush.

“Hello Reaver,” came a high voice, “I’m so glad to see you!”

“Margaret, is that you?” Lois asked before Margaret eventually emerged from the holly, looking somewhat the worse for wear. She had bits of foliage in her hair, which had been half pulled out of the neat bun, in which she normally wore it. She was wearing an enormous, no, colossal cream jogging suit, which had smears of mud, both top and bottom. She had scratches on her face and hands. Yet, she was grinning from one dough-ball to the other.

Seeing Tom, Margaret immediately started to brush herself off and fiddle with her hair, embarrassed that she was meeting him for the first time, in such a state.

“Margaret, whatever happened to you?” asked Lois.

“You must be Tom, I’m so sorry, you must think me very strange, out in the woods and looking so dishevelled.” Margaret rubbed her muddy hand on her jogging bottoms and offered it to Tom to shake. “Welcome to Harewood Tom, I hope you’ll both be very happy. Now,” Margaret glanced around her, “which way’s home?”

Tom guided Margaret to the edge of the wood and pointed out the path. She thanked him and stumbled off onto it.

“Do you think we ought to go with her?” Lois asked Tom, “I’m not sure she’s herself.”

“She looks like she’s herself and several other people to me!”

“Tom, shhh, she might hear you.”

“Yes you might be right,” he whispered, “she doesn’t travel very fast, does she? What’s she doing out here anyway, she doesn’t really look like the walking type.”

“It must be part of Sicily’s training regime. Why do you think she was so muddy? And she smelt of wee, did you notice?”

“I reckon she went into the bushes for a wee, lost her balance and rolled down a hill.”

“Stop it!” Lois nudged Tom, laughing. “What a vision!”

At this point, Lois decided she better duck behind a bush herself, three cups of tea at breakfast were now taking their toll. As she emerged, she asked Tom if he knew where the dogs were.

“They’re right…” Tom looked around him, not a dog in sight.

Lois raised her eyes to heaven. “Oh God, I knew this would happen!” she said, looking indignantly at Tom.

“Don’t blame me!”

Lois didn’t respond, although she was sorely tempted, but started to call the dogs and tried to whistle them, but whistling had never been one of her strong points. Two or three minutes passed, with no sign of either of them. Lois was starting to feel sick. What would she say to Annie? Then Tom, put his thumb and middle finger in his mouth and gave an almighty whistle. Lois, who was only a metre away, put her hands over her ears, and shouted, “Tom, that really hurt and I’m sure they won’t…” she stopped mid sentence. Both the dogs were careering towards them. They then sat down at Tom’s feet and looked up at him. ”Wow, now that was impressive!”

Tom gave them both a treat and a pat. “Well looks like I’ve got a hidden talent, doesn’t it Lo? Dog whisperer.”

“Well you’ve certainly got something!”

Tom checked his watch, half an hour had already past, “you know, I think we had better head back before anything else happens to make us late.”

Lois and Tom made their way out of the wood. They could see Margaret going through the gate at the end of the first field. It looked like she was holding it open for someone.

“So, is Sicily going to try and kill her do you think?” asked Tom, indicating Margaret with his eyes.

“No, I’m sure she’ll be very sensible. It’ll be interesting to see how much her input helps. Oh look, here come Jack and Ellie! More neighbours for you to meet.”

“Ellie’s the dog I take it and Jack, oh yes Jack, can only swear, what is it he says ‘Oh bugger off!’?” Tom had found a lot of what Lois had told him about the neighbours difficult to believe.

Jack trundled up towards them, the wheelchair bumping effortlessly over the stones and large tufts of grass on the path. When he spoke, his voice vibrated with the movement of the chair. “Oh bugger off!” he said touching his hand to his forehead, in a greeting gesture.

“Jack, lovely to see you! How are you?”

“Oh bugger off!” he said, nodding slowly, tilting his head slightly from one side to the other, and pushing out his bottom lip, giving a gesture of ‘so-so’. Then he pointed to Tom. “Oh bugger off?” he asked.

“Oh, sorry Jack, yes, this is Tom, my boyfriend, no, sorry, fiancé.” Tom used his left hand to shake Jack’s.

“Pleased to meet you Jack, I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Jack smiled and raised his eyes to heaven as if to say, ‘yes, who hasn’t.’ He then pointed to the plaster on Tom’s arm. “Oh bugger off?” he asked.

“Silly accident,” said Tom, “came off my mountain bike, into a ditch.”

“Ohhh buuger off!” said Jack, looking like he was trying to look concerned at the same time as trying not to laugh.

Jack looked at his watch and gave a wave, “Oh bugger off!”

“Nice to meet you Jack, see you again!”

“Bye Jack,” called Lois, as Jack pulled away, Ellie sniffing the ground as she trotted along in front of him, having her ‘free-time’.

Lois was relieved to see that Annie’s dogs had remained with them while they had been talking to Jack, she had been completely distracted and if they had disappeared, the chances are she wouldn’t have noticed. They walked across the final field and down the lane. Sicily was outside Margaret’s house, with a very dirty looking mountain bike.

“Sicily, you’re surely not thinking of getting her on that are you?” said Lois, cringing at the thought of what might happen if Margaret were to try to mount it.

“Don’t be daft!” Sicily whispered, “It’s only made of aluminium, not reinforced steel. I just rode it up ‘ere. No, I’ve come to give Mags her first lesson. Eatin’ for one!”

They all laughed, “We’ll let you get on.” said Tom, dragging Lois away. “Come on, we’ve got an appointment!”

Lois and Tom arrived at the jewellers bang on time, which was unusual. For all Tom’s stickling for precision in life, he was remarkably bad at timekeeping. Lois had started to secretly change the time on all the clocks and on both their watches, in an attempt to overcome this problem. Setting them all ten minutes fast, on this particular occasion, had worked like a charm.

“Good morning Sir, Madam. I’m Piers and I will be your personal jeweller this morning,” said a very ‘shiny’, somewhat camp looking middle aged man at the desk where they had confirmed their arrival.

“Oh God,” whispered Tom, under his breath, as Piers went to get the keys for the engagement ring cabinet from the safe. “I’m not sure I can be doing with all this.”

“Oh come on you grumpy old sod, it’ll be a laugh. Look, I like that one,” said Lois, pointing to a platinum ring, with five small diamond set into it. “There’s no price on it, do you think that’s a bad sign?”

“Definitely,” said Tom, as Piers swanned back in.

“Now, engagement rings. Why don’t you give me an inkling into your style.”

“Well, I like that one,” Lois indicated the platinum ring.

“Oh stunning choice sweetie, stunning choice! Lets get that out for you and see if it fits!” Lois thought Piers sounded so excited, anyone would have thought it was him who had just got engaged. He unlocked the cabinet, took the tray out and slowly and carefully placed it on the top. He then removed the ring as if it were a crucial part of an unexploded bomb, took a cloth from his top pocket, which he flicked open with a flourish and gave the ring a thorough polish before gently handing it to Lois.

“Before I try it on, I’d like to know how much it is please Piers.”

“Ah,” Piers’ face fell, just a minuscule amount, but enough to tell Lois it was going to be bad news. “This particular ring retails at just five thousand pounds.”

“Ah.” Lois paused, handed the ring back to Piers and said, “Please give us a moment.”

“Certainly madam,” he said, looking slightly despondent, “I’ll be over here if you need me, just give me a call!”

“Bloody hell, Tom. Why did you make an appointment at somewhere so expensive? We’re not going to buy anything here!”

“Sorry, it was Mel’s suggestion. She said they have a fantastic selection, she said you’d love the rings here and we’d be sure to find something. I just wanted it to be romantic, to be honest I didn’t give much thought to cost.”

“Oh bless you,” said Lois stroking Tom’s cheek, then reaching up to give him a kiss. “I love you!”

“I love you too!”

Lois turned around to talk to Piers, who had his head tilted to one side and his hand up to his mouth. “Oh I’m sorry, it almost brings a tear to my eye, seeing you two looking so happy. I see a lot of couples in here, some look like a good match and some don’t. You two look perfect together!”

“Well that’s very nice of you, but I’m afraid that’s not going to make you a sale.”

“Don’t you worry about that, just go and be happy!”

Lois and Tom said goodbye to Piers. He kissed them both flamboyantly on both cheeks, “I wish you every happiness in your life together!”

They wandered through Hatton Garden, hand in hand.

“You know what Tom, perhaps we shouldn’t get a ring.”

“But you’d love to have a ring, Mel said she’d had long discussions with you over what sort you’d like.”

“Well, yes we have talked about it, that’s what girls do. But actually, the quality of a relationship can’t be judged by the value of a ring, or indeed, by the fact a ring’s being worn. I thought I wanted you to wear a wedding ring, to show that you’re ‘taken’, I suppose. But a relationship is so much more. The deep trust that we need to have in each other, it makes rings seem, I don’t know, rather,” Lois paused, searching for the right word, “irrelevant?” She thought for a few moments. “Perhaps we should earn a ring, spend money on a special ring when we’ve been married a long time. Maybe after ten years, something like that.”

“Ten years? Bloody hell Lo, I wasn’t planning on staying married to you for that long!” teased Tom, moving away as he said it, narrowly avoiding a poke in the ribs.

“Ha, ha! But really, what do you think. We could put that money towards things we really need at the moment. And, if we don’t make the ten years, we’ve made a five grand saving.”

“Well I’m happy with that. So, if we’re saving five grand today, can we have lunch somewhere posh.”