The Way to a Woman's Heart (2 page)

This was totally, totally ridiculous.

Hot, tired and extremely irritable, Ella drove even more slowly and peered through the further haze of unremitting green-and-gold countryside for a safe place to stop and phone Poll. There was nowhere… nowhere on these insanely narrow lanes where she could park without blocking the road, and where were all those earlier handy gateways when she really, really needed one… ?

Her phone started to ring from the depths of her handbag
on the passenger seat. OK, Ella thought as she glanced across at it, just let me find somewhere to stop – and if you’re Poll Andrews with foolproof directions, I’ll definitely kiss you.

The phone stopped. Ah well…

Turning yet another overgrown cloned countryside corner, Ella suddenly brightened. Just visible ahead was a baked hummock of scrubby grass surrounded by gravel – oh, and deep joy! – to one side there was a small stone-walled, slate-roofed building, and – even more and ever deeper joy – the small building had a wooden seat outside – and yes! The seat had two people on it! People who no doubt could and would point her in exactly the right direction.

Spirits restored, Ella parked carefully alongside the grassy hummock behind a van, three bicycles and a minibus. Maybe, she thought, this building was a village hall – although there had been no visible evidence of a village in the vicinity – or maybe even the local doctor’s surgery? A small rustic medical centre covering all the tiny hamlets and remote farms?

Whatever it was, it indicated civilisation and it definitely had human life outside it and surely someone must be able to tell her the way to Hideaway Farm, mustn’t they?

However, it was possibly best to check the phone call first in case it was Poll…

Scrabbling in her bag, she scrolled down for the missed-call number and groaned.

Mark.

Ella could picture him, with his spiky gelled hair and his designer shirt, sitting in the office across the corridor from
hers – well, what had been hers before all this started – probably with his designer-shod feet on the desk, and with the daily stack of empty coffee cups and sandwich wrappers already mounting up. He’d be flicking through his computer screen and iPhone with one hand and answering the desk phone with the other, doing some work, but also laughing with the other men in the office and talking about football and F1. And thinking about her?

She hoped so. After the previous night’s rather frigid farewell, when he’d clearly been expecting her to have an eleventh-hour change of heart, they’d both said things they probably shouldn’t. Ella sighed and pushed the phone back in her bag. There was no way she was going to return his call now. It was less than twenty-four hours since they’d parted company, and they’d agreed she’d ring him when she arrived at Hideaway Farm. She laughed ruefully to herself. Typical Mark… How on earth were they ever going to work this out if he couldn’t even stick to the basic rules?

Scrambling from the car, reeling slightly in the heat and stretching her cramped legs, Ella scrunched across the gravel. Beneath the sun’s glare it reminded her of childhood seaside holidays and she had a fleeting – very fleeting – moment of violent homesickness for her family left behind, like Mark, in London.

Hopeless…

Pulling herself together and fixing her best ‘I’m a stranger and completely lost and I wonder if you could help me, please?’ smile, she approached the elderly couple on the bench.

As she got closer she realised she’d been very wrong about both them and the building.

She’d assumed the couple were both men, dressed as they were in battered tweed jackets and thick corduroy trousers despite the heat, but as one of them was wearing a slash of orange lipstick beneath its stubble, she now fervently hoped they weren’t. And the building wasn’t a village hall or a doctor’s surgery either.

With its stacked boxes of fruit and vegetables outside and racks of postcards and newspapers and plastic kitchen utensils dangling from festoons of string round the doorway, it was clearly a small general stores.

W
EBB’S
M
IRACLE
M
ART
the sign over the door proclaimed proudly. W
E SELL EVERYTHING
.

Trades Description Act looming, Ella thought darkly, also reckoning the only miracle about it was that anyone could ever find it.

‘Excuse me.’

The couple on the bench blinked rheumily up at her without smiling and said nothing.

‘Er, hello, I just wondered if you could tell me the way to Hideaway Farm, please?’

They pursed wrinkled lips and screwed up the watery eyes and sucked in a joint wheezy breath.

‘Ah,’ the lipsticked one nodded. ‘Reckon we can.’

Her companion gave a sudden toothless grin. ‘You going to see that mad Poll Andrews?’

Ella nodded. She really, really didn’t like the sound of ‘mad’.

‘Good luck, then –’ the lipsticked-one also grinned gummily ‘– you’ll bloomin’ need it.’

Great, Ella thought. ‘Um, right, but if you could just tell me how to get there, I’d be really grateful.’

‘Ah… Well, all you need to do is turn back away from Angel Meadows.’

Ella frowned. ‘Where’s Angel Meadows?’

They gave joint cackles of laughter. ‘This here is! We’re in it, duck. Don’t you know nothing? Anyway, once you’ve turned round, you go back to the Fiddlesticks road – up that-a-way where you’ve just come from – OK?’

Ella nodded.

‘Right, then just keep going straight on, past the turning for Lovers Knot, past all the turnings until you come to what looks like a dead end. That’s what throws people – it don’t look like it leads nowhere but it’s Cattle Drovers Passage. Hideaway Lane is at the end of that, right?’

Ella nodded again, smiling her thanks.

The lipsticked-one looked pleased that their information had been so well received. ‘Poll Andrews’ place is the only house up there, duck. Go right to the end of the lane and you can’t miss it.’

Ella smiled even more. ‘Fantastic. Thanks so much for the directions. It sounds easy enough. I’m sure I’ll be able to find Hideaway Farm now.’

The couple nodded in tandem. ‘Course you will – though whether you’ll want to stay there is another matter. Good luck, duck.’

Within fifteen minutes, having followed the couple’s directions and ignored all the turnings and negotiated both Cattle Drovers Passage and Hideaway Lane with no further mishaps, Ella triumphantly pulled the car to a halt outside the pillared and worn-stepped front door of an exquisite mellow-brick-and-slate picture-book farmhouse.

She grinned happily to herself. Made it! At last!

Hideaway Farm: all sun-kissed with softly billowing trees, and birdsong, and the rich fragrance of freshly cut grass. And silence. Absolute silence.

It was, as she’d known it would be, a perfect haven of rustic tranquillity.

With an ear-splitting groan the front door was suddenly yanked open and a tall, slim woman tripped over the hem of a flowing Indian print dress, lost a sequinned flip-flop, and stumbled clumsily down the steps.

‘Oooh – sod it! Sorry, that wasn’t directed at you – are
you here already? Goodness me, that was quick! I’m simply thrilled to see you. I thought you’d be ages – not that I’ve any sense of time at all, but…’

Ella, easing herself from the car, stopped and blinked at the dishevelled hippie vision. ‘Er, hello. Are you Poll Andrews?’

‘I think so.’ The woman beamed, bending down to retrieve the flip-flop, hoik up the bottom of her dress and disentangle several rows of brightly coloured glass beads which threatened to strangle her, at the same time. She straightened up, still beaming. ‘Although on days like these I’m not really sure.’

Ella laughed. It certainly wasn’t the new-job welcome she was expecting. And Poll was certainly nothing at all like the
Archers
matriarch she’d imagined.

The elderly couple’s ‘mad’ immediately sprang to mind…

Mad or not, Poll had wonderful cheekbones, and smiling dark eyes, and with that sun-kissed complexion would never need facials and chemical peels and other salon enhancers – although, Ella reckoned, possibly some decent moisturiser wouldn’t go amiss. And her hair needed the dry frizzy ends tidied up a bit but otherwise it was simply naturally lovely.

And how effortlessly cool Poll looked in the flowing ethnic frock that owed nothing to the latest fashion fads and everything to comfort and individuality.

With those vivid beads and her wild hair and un-made-up face, Ella thought with a pang of envy, Poll was absolutely everything she aspired to be now she’d escaped the corporate rat race.

Ella held out her hand. ‘Hello, then. I’m Ella. Ella Maloney.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Still beaming broadly, Poll drifted across, and clutched both Ella’s hands in welcome. ‘Please excuse my appalling manners. How wonderful to meet you at last after all our letters. And how young and pretty you are! I’m just a little confused because you’ll never believe what’s happened this morning and – oh, please mind the – ah, too late…’

A power-burst of dogs, cats, two hens and one small boy clutching a muddy bucket exploded from the open door behind Poll and poured down the steps.

‘Oh –’ Ella smiled in delight at the gorgeous blond boy ‘– and is this George?’

‘Ooops – so sorry about the mud. Yes, this is George, my son. George, meet Ella.’

George, who Ella knew from Poll’s letters was a few months shy of his third birthday, smiled hugely and politely held out a tiny muddy hand.

Completely overwhelmed by maternal longings, Ella beamed back at George, the reason for her being at Hideaway, and shook his hand. Then, misty-eyed, she blinked over his head at Poll. ‘Oh, he’s an absolute poppet.’

George grinned some more, and gabbled something completely unintelligible.

Poll smiled. ‘He’s got his own language, I’m afraid. I understand him of course, but –’

‘And I’m sure, once we get to know each other, that I will too. Won’t I, George?’

George nodded, gabbled some more and hugged Ella. Oooh, bless him. Suddenly awash with love, she absolutely longed to pick him up and cuddle him.

Poll sighed happily. ‘Well, this seems to be a mutual admiration society, thank heavens. Oh, Lord, sorry about the animals.’

Ella found herself being sniffed and investigated from every conceivable angle. She patted and stroked in return, and hugged George again and didn’t care at all that he’d smeared the muddy bucket across her jeans and pale-green T-shirt.

This was all she’d ever wanted. Well, almost…

‘Oh dear… I’m so sorry.’ Poll looked distracted again. ‘This chaos really isn’t what I’d planned for your arrival. I got my dates muddled, you see, which means – well, you don’t want to know what it means, honestly.’

Ella continued patting and stroking. ‘We did say today, though, didn’t we? I haven’t got it wrong?’

‘Nooo.’ Poll ran an agitated hand through her frizzy hair. It stood on end. ‘It’s not you, it’s me. Oh, I’ll tell you all about it when you’ve settled in. I’m so sorry about the welcome. I’d planned it all so differently…’

‘It’s OK – honestly. I’m just delighted to be here.’

‘Are you? Really? Oh, I’m so pleased.’ Poll looked very relieved. ‘I do hope your journey wasn’t too awful.’

Ella smiled manfully as the hens eyed her sandalled toes with beady speculation. ‘The journey was fine once I’d left London and got the hang of the countryside, and your directions were great – although I did get lost at the end and had to ask directions at the Miracle Mart.’

‘Did you?’ Poll looked askance. ‘How awful! And did Mrs Webb – she runs the Mart – tell you where we are? I’m surprised if she did. She always thinks people are undercover reporters or the Home Office. Watches far too much television, poor dear.’

‘No, I didn’t see Mrs Webb – a couple of the villagers told me.’ Ella felt it was possibly best not to elaborate on the conversation.

‘Good.’ Poll looked relieved. ‘We always go into Hazy Hassocks for our shopping. We don’t go to the Miracle Mart if we can help it. We only use it in dire emergencies. Angel Meadows is a bit odd.’

‘Mmm, it was a bit strange. I didn’t even see a village.’