The Way to a Woman's Heart (25 page)

Ella stared at the floor. That was Poll’s entire wardrobe wiped out at a stroke, then.

‘Anything else?’ Anthony asked, snapping his laptop shut. ‘No? Good. Well, thanks very much and we’ll be in touch as soon as we’ve seen all the applicants and had our meetings with Gabby and Tom.’

Ella wasn’t sure she liked the look of dread that passed between Anthony and Denise.

Everyone rushed to wave them goodbye.

‘Goodness me.’ Poll was flushed with excitement as the silver car disappeared out of sight along Hideaway Lane. ‘I think that went rather well, don’t you?’

‘Apart from us being caught completely off-guard, and George smearing chocolate over Denise’s million-dollar Lanvins, and Trixie announcing that she was a fairy queen, and none of us having a clue what we were going to cook, and about a trillion other people applying?’ Ella said. ‘Then, yes.’

Billy laughed. ‘Well, they’ll certainly remember us, and that’s a fact.’

‘Please will someone tell me what’s happening?’ Trixie asked plaintively. ‘I’m still not quite clear what that was all about.’

They all talked at once.

Trixie beamed. ‘Thank you. That’s made it all crystal, dears. Of course I’d guessed it was something along those lines. And if I’m not cooking then I’ll look after young George and the animals during filming.’

‘Always supposing we’re chosen.’ Ash said, looking, Ella thought, very pale.

‘About a million to one chance.’ Ella shrugged. ‘It’ll be a thanks but no thanks. But it was fun while it lasted.’

‘Just suppose it isn’t?’ Poll, suddenly losing all her previous confidence, looked suddenly nervous. ‘I can’t believe it, can you? And aren’t we all naughty? All applying without telling each other? Oh, though – suppose they pick us?’

They stared at one another.

Billy squeezed Poll’s hand. ‘If they do then we’ll cope. No, we’ll do more than cope. We’ll be the best they’ve ever had, Poll, love.’

‘Don’t get your hopes up too much.’ Ella, finally managing to convince herself that this wasn’t some bizarre dream, nodded. ‘But if – and it’s a huge if – we’re picked then we will be brilliant. And if it all goes, er, wrong then, well, it’ll be a seven-day wonder, won’t it?’

‘It won’t go wrong,’ Billy said stoutly. ‘We won’t let it.’

Ash exhaled. ‘And if we’re chosen – and if we actually win…’

‘You’ll get your restaurant,’ Ella said softly.

Ash smiled at her. She smiled back. It was his dream – not hers – but right at that moment she wanted it more than anything in the world.

‘And Ash wanting a restaurant is why most of us applied, I reckon,’ Poll said happily. ‘Not just Onyx. And we’ll also get a cheque which means we’ll be able to open up more rooms at Hideaway for more people without homes of their own. But if we’re useless…’

Trixie looked up from collecting George’s lorries. ‘Oh, you won’t be useless, dears. No fear of that. Not if your session is on the twenty-fourth of June.’

‘Oh?’ Poll frowned. ‘Why’s that?’

‘It’s Midsummer’s Day,’ Trixie said, her curls bouncing. ‘It’s the most magical day of the year. Couldn’t be better, dear. It means me and the fairies will be on hand to make sure nothing goes wrong.’

‘You’re mad, you are.’ Patsy looked scornfully at Ella over the counter of Patsy’s Pantry on yet another scorching June morning, three days after Anthony and Denise’s visit. ‘What did we say to you? What did we warn you about? Letting Poll get into any more dopey scrapes, that’s what. And what have you gorn and done? Ignored all our good advice and gorn and got yerself on the telly, that’s what.’

‘Well, not yet,’ Ella said, amazed again at how the bush telegraph had spread the news throughout Hazy Hassocks within forty-eight hours. ‘Maybe not at all. We don’t even know if we’ll be chosen. We haven’t heard anything.’

‘Best hope you don’t.’ Patsy frowned as she dished up two cream slices and two banana milkshakes and shook her head towards George building a sugar lump garage for his favourite lorry at the window table. ‘Why you had to apply in the first place beats me. It’s the child I feel most sorry for. Kiddies don’t need their heads turned by all this celebrity
nonsense. That poor little lad won’t know whether it’s Tuesday or Christmas at this rate.’

Ella laughed. ‘George is fine. George knows what’s going on, and if – great big if – we’re chosen, then George will be kept out of the limelight. He won’t be in any danger. Anyway, Poll always makes sure he understands everything.’

‘That’d be a miracle,’ Patsy snorted, ‘given as Poll hasn’t got a clue what’s going on herself half the time. And another thing –’ she pointed at the counter ‘– what’s this, I ask you?’

Ella followed the trajectory of the jabbing finger. ‘Er, two cream slices and two milkshakes?’

‘Exactly! And what sort of breakfast is that for a kiddie? Oh, I’m not saying it’s not tasty, well, I wouldn’t, would I? But it’s no substitute for a proper breakfast.’

Ella sighed. Sometimes Patsy’s straight-talking became a touch too wearing. ‘He’s had a proper breakfast. We’ve all had a proper breakfast. Hours and hours ago. We were up before five. I was out in the dewy dawn – with George – collecting eggs from wherever the hens had decided to lay them. We then went indoors and boiled them. And we had them with soldiers made from Billy’s bread. And he had freshly squeezed orange juice and milk. This is a treat because George is just off to play with his friends and he’s already helped me with the Big Sava shop and he’s starving again. OK?’

Patsy shrugged her pink-overalled bosom right up into her shoulders. ‘Hmmm, well, yes, all right then. Ah, and I’ve heard, from Constance and Perpetua Motion, that Poll
was right worried you wouldn’t want to stay on out there at Hideaway Farm seeing as how you hadn’t signed a contract.’

Ella drummed her fingers on the counter. Was there no part of her private life considered untouchable by the Hassocks jungle drums? How on earth had that become Hassocks gossip?

Poll had only mentioned to her, on the evening of the day Anthony and Denise had visited, that she hadn’t yet signed her contract. And Ella had said she’d sign it as soon as it arrived, and they’d all drunk quite a lot of wine in the dusky garden to celebrate the
Dewberrys’ Dinners
thing, and Poll had said she’d chase the contract up with her solicitor the very next morning.

Patsy flicked imaginary flies away from her Perspex-covered display of what the older Hassocks residents referred to as bag-you-etties. ‘That Amy Reynolds from Lovers Knot what works in Big Sava told Connie and Perpetua. Her sister, Amy’s sister, that is – plain woman, face like a scone – Amy’s sister, that is, not Amy – Amy got the looks but no brains to speak of – works in the solicitor’s office in Winterbrook. Nothing gets past her.’

Not even client confidentiality, Ella thought, mentally untangling the torrent of information.

Oh, well, it was hardly a state secret.

‘Actually, I’ll be staying on for the full three months, with or without a contract.’

Patsy exhaled noisily. ‘Well, I hope you know what you’re doing. You’re a grown-up and I suppose even working for
Poll Andrews has to be better than being on the dole. But I still worry about that poor child living in a houseful of oddballs. I worry about all of you out at Hideaway.’

‘Please don’t.’ Ella smiled, turning away quickly before she said something she’d regret for ever. ‘There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.’

Not exactly true, she thought, joining George at their favourite table and sharing out the cakes and shakes. Since Anthony and Denise’s visit, Hideaway Farm had been like – as Patsy would no doubt say with irritating smugness – a mad house.

They’d thought, dreamed and talked endlessly about nothing else but
Dewberrys’ Dinners
, always carefully prefacing every sentence with ‘
if
we’re chosen, of course’.

They’d discussed menus, and clothes, and nerves – they’d talked an awful lot about nerves – and menus again and cooking times and what it would be like to meet Gabby and Tom Dewberry in the flesh… And then they’d gone back to nerves again.

They hadn’t – at any time – talked about winning.

‘Excuse me.’ Lobelia Banding leaned across from her neighbouring table. ‘Lavender and I think we should give you some advice.’

Oh Lordy, not again. Ella smiled kindly at the Banding sisters. Today the cycle helmets were covered with a pastel mist of frou-frou netting, a mass of plastic flowers and several clip-on butterflies. Presumably their summer look. Sadly, Lav and Lob were also wearing hi-viz tabards. Over their lacy off-white vests. And very little else.

‘Really? How lovely. I always welcome advice,’ Ella lied bravely. ‘And – um – I do like the jackets.’

Lob preened. ‘Well, we weren’t too sure about them at first being as they’re very bright colours and we tend to favour a nice neutral, but the cycle helmets have kept us safe for years, and now we’re getting on a bit – I’ll be eighty-nine next birthday you know, and Lavender is already eighty-six – and because we both want to live long enough to get our one hundredth birthday cards from our dear Queen – or that nice young Prince Charles if we should outlive Her Majesty – we didn’t want to take any chances.’

‘So,’ Lavender joined in, ‘we watched all the programmes on the television about road safety and safety at work and everyone was wearing one of these.’ She stroked her Day-Glo yellow tabard lovingly. ‘So, we asked young Lulu Blessing’s Shay – because he gave us the advice about the cycle helmets – to find us some nice jackets to keep us doubly safe.’

‘And,’ Lob finished triumphantly, her net and flowers and butterflies wobbling furiously over the cup of tea she was sharing with her sister, ‘he did. Not matching, of course. We’ve never copied each other. So I got orange and Lav got yellow. Both with the silver stripe though. Lovely and cosy they are in the winter but we do get a bit sweaty on these hot days.’

‘Er, yes, I expect you do.’ Ella bit her lip and concentrated on scooping up cream from her plate and wished it didn’t remind her quite so much of that lovely time in the ice-cream van with Ash. ‘Um, and you said you had some advice…’

‘Oh, yes.’ Lavender nodded. ‘Lobelia and I think you shouldn’t do it. You and young Poll and all those bank robbers and axe murderers at Hideaway. Go on the telly, that is. You’ll only end up in a prefab. They all do. We read it in the magazines in the dentist’s surgery.’

George blew bubbles into his milkshake.

Ella shook her head. No, they’d lost her this time. She’d become pretty adept at translating Hazy Hassocks speak over the weeks, but this made no sense at all.

‘A prefab? Sorry, but why, if we, er, go on the telly, would we end up in a prefab?’

‘Because they all do,’ Lob repeated. ‘It goes to their heads. They go on the telly then they get hooked on pharmaceuticals and end up in a prefab.’

‘She means rehab,’ Topsy Turvey shouted helpfully from her corner table.

Ah, right…

Ella just managed to keep a straight face. ‘Well, of course I’m really grateful for your concern, but honestly, we don’t even know if we’ll be chosen yet – there are loads of applicants – and if we are, then it’s only a cookery show. It’s not like sex ’n’ drugs ’n’ rock ’n’ roll, is it?’

‘
Only a cookery show
?’ Mona Jupp interrupted. ‘You don’t want to tell Tarnia Snepps that. She thinks she’s going to be chosen and it’s her passport to becoming one of Simon Cowell’s new best friends.’

‘Ah.’ Essie Rivers, who was, Ella noticed, holding hands across the table with Slo Motion, nodded. ‘And that Geordie bloke that calls himself Giovanni over at Willows
Lacey, he reckons he’ll be picked and turn into the next Jamie Oliver.’

‘Oh!’ Lavender clasped her hands together. ‘I love him!’

‘Me too.’ Lob nodded. ‘Specially when he was with that Merle Oberon in
Wuthering Heights
.’

Deciding that there was only just so much of Hazy Hassocks’ elderly residents a girl could take without reaching for a machete, Ella made hurry-up motions with her hands at George, gathered her Big Sava bags together and stood up.

‘I’m sure we’ll be fine. And we’re very unlikely to be picked for the show anyway – but I’ll let Poll know you’re worried about her. She’ll be very touched.’

‘She already is.’ Patsy flicked a damp J-cloth across the table recently vacated by Gwyneth Wilkins and Big Ida Tomms. ‘Not to mention being away with the fairies.’