Wish Upon a Star (17 page)

Jago had taken out a thin, credit-card-sized torch and the pale beam roamed over a minute shop front overhung by an upper storey set with a very Dickensian diamond-paned window.

‘You know, I’ve never even noticed that was here before,’ I exclaimed. ‘Maybe it just sprang up this minute, like something in
Harry Potter
?’

‘“Honey’s Haberdashers”,’ he read, moving the torch beam over the faded shop board. Even in that weak light the paint around the door and windows was clearly peeling and the place looked as if it had been sleeping, or perhaps
rotting
, undisturbed for a century.

‘Whatever it was, it doesn’t look like the sort of place you need. It’s a tiny frontage.’

‘No, I expect you’re right, but I’ll see if there’s anything else for sale in Sticklepond tomorrow.’ He switched off the torch and put it back in his pocket. ‘After all, if there’s so much already going on in Sticklepond, it seems the ideal spot, doesn’t it? I think I’m sold on the idea. And Aimee would hate it …’ he added thoughtfully.

‘Is that good?’ I questioned cautiously.

‘Oh, yes, because when she turned up yesterday she seemed to think she and I could just pick up where we left off, and I’d hightail it back to London. Once I’ve bought a place up here, she’ll see that I’m making a new life without her.’

‘Doesn’t she like the North?’

‘No – not that it matters what she likes or not, because there’s no way we’re getting back together, even if she cries over me for a week.’

He sounded pretty definite, and from what David had said, I found myself hoping he meant it and wouldn’t fall for this Aimee’s charms all over again.

‘She used to be big on the London party scene, but since her father’s cut off most of her allowance she’s had to take a job with a London-based corporate events firm now – all the more reason for me to stay up here in Lancashire,’ he added lightly, though I still wasn’t sure quite how he really felt about the sudden reappearance of his lost love.

We were walking up the dark lane now, nearly home, and I said gratefully, ‘Thank you again for all you’ve done, Jago. You gave me hope and started the ball rolling with the fundraising.’

‘The only thanks I need is for you to meet me for lunch in the Blue Dog next Saturday,’ he suggested.

‘I will if Ma and Hal will keep an eye on Stella,’ I agreed. ‘We’ll probably come to Ormskirk for the market on Thursday too, even though the hospital don’t want to see Stella till the following week. We like having a wander round it and she’s bound to want to come and get another gingerbread pig.’

‘The hospital must have been pleased with her, if they don’t want to see her for a fortnight?’

‘Yes, and I’m sure the country air is doing her good. She’s even put on a little weight.’

‘It’s bound to be better for her, though
you
must miss the bright lights?’

‘Oddly enough, not at all! I suppose since Stella arrived my life had entirely changed anyway. Even Toto’s a lot happier here, with a big garden and lots of long walks.’

We’d arrived at the garden gate by then and he would have declined my invitation to come in, because he said he could see I was tired and drained after the evening’s events, except that Ma opened the door before he could get away.

‘If that’s this Jago you keep on about, then bring him in,’ she ordered.

In the sitting room she subjected him to one of her penetrating though abstracted stares, as if he was a possible subject for one of her paintings, which he withstood pretty well.

‘Tell Ma all about the meeting, Jago, while I go and make us some tea – unless you’d like something stronger?’

‘No, tea would be fine. I have to drive back.’

I looked in on Stella on the way, who was fast asleep clutching Bun, as usual.

When I went back with the tea and some garibaldi biscuits I’d made earlier to a slightly different recipe, Ma seemed to be getting on well with Jago – this, with Ma, being measured by the fact she didn’t immediately head for her garden room when I came back, but took a cup of tea and a biscuit.

So I asked her if she knew about the shop for sale we’d seen and she said she remembered it open in her childhood, but had no idea what had happened to the last of the Honeys.

She seemed a little perturbed by the question, murmuring, ‘And is there Honey still for tea?’ as she drifted out of the room carrying her tea, with the garibaldi balanced on the saucer.

‘Oh dear,’ Jago said, taking this as his cue to leave. ‘Perhaps I’d better go.’

‘It’s all right, Ma prefers to go and watch TV on her own in the other room, and I watch TV or work in here in the evenings. Unless you have to rush away we could put a film on? That’s what I’d do tonight anyway, because I’m too tired to do any work. I could make popcorn.’

‘That’s the clincher,’ he said, sitting down again. ‘It would give David and Sarah a bit more time together, too.’

We decided on
Love Actually
, though he said he always felt so sorry for Emma Thompson he wanted to hit her screen husband.

‘That secretary who seduces him reminds me of Aimee,’ he said.

‘Why, is she dark and pretty?’

‘No, she’s tall, very slim and fair. I meant the amoral bit,’ he said slightly morosely.

After we’d watched the film, sitting cosily together on the sofa with the bowl of popcorn between us, he said he’d better go since I was pretty sleepy by then: it had been a busy and quite emotional day.

‘That Winter’s End you mentioned, with the knot gardens – I’d love to see it. I don’t suppose you fancied going with me tomorrow?’

‘I would have, but it doesn’t open on Sundays.’

‘Oh? They must lose a lot of trade closing then.’

‘I expect so, but that’s how they like it. They’re closed Mondays too, unless it’s a Bank Holiday. Do you like visiting old houses?’

‘Yes, very much – and gardens, though I know nothing about them.’

‘So do Stella and I. But tomorrow I was thinking of taking her to see the new Hemlock Mill nature reserve over towards Ormskirk that everyone keeps telling me about. I don’t suppose you’d like to come with us there instead?’

‘I’d love to. Shall I pick you both up?’

‘Better if you leave your car here and come in mine, because otherwise we’ll have to move the child seat, which is fiddly.’

‘Good thinking.’

We arranged a time and then, with a jaunty, ‘See you tomorrow,’ he kissed my cheek and walked off into the starry night.

Walking back, the village silent under the dark, velvety, star-studded night sky, Jago felt he would have sensed the sparkle of magic in the air even if Cally hadn’t told him the history of the place was bound up with witchcraft.

It certainly wasn’t the kind of village he could imagine Aimee living in, so perhaps it would protect him from falling under her spell again? Though actually, that didn’t seem possible any more, since that moment in the café when he’d suddenly lost the rosy-tinted glasses of love and seen her as she really was, an ageing, petulant Daddy’s princess. It had been a bit of a shock.

It was all very well for David to tell him to give her her marching orders, but he felt sorry for her and he just didn’t have it in him to be that brutal. No, he’d try and let her down gently, while hoping she found someone else, someone more on her wavelength.

He’d never been to Sticklepond before, but even after only a couple of months in the area he’d certainly heard a lot about it, some of it a little odd … and now he’d observed some of the villagers in action, he was more inclined to believe the rumours.

The place was undeniably attractive and would be great to live in, but if it was an up-and-coming tourist hotspot, then he might already be too late to find the right property at a price he could afford.

He was level with that For Sale sign again and on impulse stopped and sent the small beam of his torch searching out Honey’s Haberdashers. He half-expected the narrow, bow-windowed frontage beneath an overhanging upper storey, set slightly back between the large windows of a café and the Witch Craft Gallery, to have vanished again.

But no, there it was, surely too small and totally unsuitable for his purposes, but he made a mental note of the estate agent’s name anyway.

At breakfast on Sunday Ma told me a little more about how the villagers had united to fight off a business consortium who wanted to turn the old Hemlock cotton mill site into a retail park. I did vaguely remember her telling me at the time, but I expect I was too occupied with Stella to take a lot of notice.

Force for Nature, the animal rights group, had backed them and then, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous benefactor, the site had been bought and was in the process of being made into a nature reserve.

‘There turned out to be lots of wildlife of various kinds on the site – it’s quite a big area, river and a bit of woodland – and some of it was endangered,’ Ma went on, buttering her toast lavishly. ‘I went over there with Hal last autumn, because the colours of the foliage were really something.’

That perhaps explained where the inspiration came from for the series of paintings of angels with fish faces whirling about in the water instead of the sky, though I think portraying innocent little red squirrels as devilish imps is a bit mean.

Stella had eaten most of her boiled egg and soldiers and was now drinking orange juice and watching in fascination as Ma prepared her toast. ‘I do love you, Grandma! You’re funny.’

‘Thank you, darling, I love you too,’ Ma said, then took a bite of toast. A look of surprise crossed her face. ‘Cally, I think this jam has gone off.’

‘You put Marmite on top of lemon and lime marmalade,’ Stella pointed out. ‘And your cigarette’s in the coffee.’

Ma fished out the soggy pink Sobranie and put it on the edge of the stove to dry out, before rinsing her cup and pouring herself another coffee.

‘You shouldn’t smoke, it’s bad for you,’ Stella said severely. ‘Your insides go black, because they’re covered in treacle. I saw a picture at the hospital.’

‘Don’t start,’ Ma said. ‘I told you, I’m down to two a day now. Everyone’s entitled to a little pleasure in their lives.’

Stella looked disapproving, but didn’t say anything else and Ma drank her coffee down, then got up, stuck the empty jade holder back in her mouth and went on up to the studio, taking the Marmite and marmalade toast with her.

When we got to the Hemlock Mill nature reserve and I’d looked on the big information board with a map of the various paths, I thought it would be tricky with the buggy, so we left it in the car.

After what Ma said, I wasn’t entirely surprised at how much progress they had made. A prefabricated wooden tourist centre had gone up practically overnight and walkways were partly laid through the grounds, which ran up the side of the river Ches to woodland.

There were lots of things for Stella to look at, from puffball toadstools to the red squirrels, boldly and gracefully bounding between the trees, and it was nice to have Jago with us – especially once she tired and he carried her the rest of the way.

She wound her arms around his neck and looked at him adoringly from time to time, even when he floundered while answering classic Stella questions like, ‘Why are trees up and not down?’ and ‘Why are clouds?’

‘Trees are down as well, you just can’t see them,’ he said. ‘Their roots spread out under the soil as wide as the branches do at the top of the tree trunk. And clouds carry water vapour about from one place to the other … sort of.’ He looked down at her. ‘How old did you say you were? Ten?’

She giggled. ‘Nearly four. If we saw a dragonfly close up, would it look like a dragon?’

‘No, it would look like an insect,’ I told her. ‘They might have a picture of one in the nature centre … and I hope they’ve got a café too, because I’d love a cup of coffee. Why don’t we have a very quick peep into the old house and then go and see?’

The former mill manager’s house was in the process of being renovated and restored to how it would have looked in Victorian times, according to the notice in the tiled hall. The main rooms were freshly painted in period colours, or papered in William Morris patterns and matching curtains had been hung. There wasn’t much furniture yet, so there wasn’t a lot to look at.

A back door from a large, bare kitchen led to a cobbled courtyard with substantial outbuildings round three sides where, according to another sign, they hoped to recreate an authentic Victorian shop or two.

‘I’ve seen something similar in Ironbridge,’ Jago said. ‘That idea could work well here, too.’

‘They seem very enterprising,’ I agreed. ‘They’ve already done so much in such a short space of time.’

But by now we were
all
flagging, so we went into the tourist centre, where we diverted into the gift shop area long enough for Jago, who was now putty in Stella’s hands, to buy her a stuffed toy red squirrel. Then he insisted on paying for lunch in the tea room.

‘I’ll buy lunch next time,’ I said. ‘I mean … if you’d like to come out with us again, that is?’

‘I’d love to, I’ve really enjoyed today.’

‘We could go and look at Rufford Old Hall next Sunday, then, if you fancy it?’ I suggested. ‘It’s a National Trust property, over near the Martin Mere bird reserve, and there are rumours that Shakespeare stayed there during the lost years … except that now, of course, after finding that document up at Winter’s End, they think it might have been there instead.’

‘I didn’t even know he
had
lost years,’ Jago confessed. ‘Stella, do you like going to see very old houses?’

She nodded. ‘They’re where princesses live.’

‘Right. It’s a date then, Princess Stella,’ he said, and she giggled.

The walk had done her good, for there were faint pink roses in her cheeks. Over her head my eyes met Jago’s light brown ones and we smiled, like conspirators.

When Stella was getting ready for bed that evening, she insisted that her toy white mouse family should be ranged on her bedside table to listen to her bedtime story. After I’d fetched those and she was tucked up under her pink duvet, with Bun on one side and the red squirrel that Jago had bought her on the other, and I was finally about to open the Moomins and start reading, she asked out of the blue, ‘Is Jago my daddy?’