Chapter 19
It was the day of the Barnaby Spring Fair. I was up at seven and practically ran out of the house at eight, smiling whenever I thought about that kiss in Gabe’s car yesterday. I hadn’t felt like this about a man for years. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever felt this way about anyone, certainly not after only one kiss.
But what a kiss.
The connection between us had been … well, I wasn’t usually the romantic type, but it had had enough electricity in it to power the whole village. For a week. At Christmas.
My eyes searched the village green for him now amongst the helpers and spotted him in the middle with Noah, doing something with a pile of old pallets and a hammer.
As I raised my hand to wave at him, my phone rang. The sight of Verity’s name flashing on the screen made my stomach flip.
Did I tell her about the kiss or not?
‘How’s it going?’ she squealed. ‘I heard you on the radio yesterday.’
‘Really well!’ I said, smiling at Mr Beecher as he struggled past dragging a huge bag of cones for the children’s obstacle race. ‘The sun is shining and we’re expecting the whole village to turn out.’
‘And have you fixed Gabe up yet? He hasn’t mentioned anyone – well, no one except you.’
I bit my lip to stop myself asking what he’d said about me.
‘Well, no, busy week, hardly seen him.’ I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to picture the moment when our lips met yesterday and golden sparks of happiness had danced around our heads. ‘But don’t worry, leave it with me.’
‘Now, I want you to promise me something,’ Verity said, her voice turning serious.
‘Anything.’ I crossed my fingers.
‘I love Gabe and Noah. They mean the world to me. I love you too, of course,’ she added.
‘Ditto,’ I said softly.
‘It’s none of my business really, but please take care of my darling friend. For him to get close to someone again after Mimi will take a huge leap of faith. Think carefully before you let him take that jump. Make sure whoever you fix him up with is someone who won’t break his heart. Promise me that.’
Her words hit me like a hailstorm and I sat down heavily on a bench on the village green, gripping the phone to my ear.
This was why I’d pulled back from Gabe the other night on his boat. Everything Verity said pointed to me being absolutely wrong for him. I had form for pulling back, withdrawing from relationships as soon as things got serious. And this time it wouldn’t just be Gabe who got hurt; I could possibly let Noah down too. A wave of sadness washed away the mood of the day and for a moment I couldn’t speak.
‘Oh I think I’ve lost her,’ Verity muttered to herself.
‘I’m here,’ I said hoarsely. ‘And yes, I promise.’
Just then Doreen ran out of the café in a flap looking for me. There was a BBC van parked right outside.
‘Rosie?’ she yelled. ‘Help!’
‘Crikey,’ I said with a gulp. ‘I’ll have to dash. Looks like the BBC might have arrived for breakfast!’
The response to our social media campaign, coupled with Clementine’s stellar performance on the radio, had been incredible. Last night we’d been almost overwhelmed with enquiries via our Facebook page and Twitter feeds and had had to have an emergency convening of the Spring Fair committee to deal with everything. Our anticipated numbers were so high that Barnaby’s two community police officers had got the wobbles and had requested back-up from the local force, and a makeshift car park had been set up in a spare field at Jericho Farm. The Riverside Hotel had asked to be in on the action as well and had offered Clementine an evening edition of her Gardeners’ Questions along with an opportunity to sell any remaining seedlings. Clementine was on cloud nine and not a little bit tearful at all the lovely messages of support she’d received after the radio presenter had probed into her background yesterday. I had a feeling an unexpected star of the village had been born.
Also unexpected, my friend Gina had called into the café after all her little charges had gone home last night. She and another childminder friend of hers had offered to run a cress heads egg decorating stall with eggs from Jericho Farm and packets of snaffled seeds from Fearnley’s old stock. And as we wanted to appeal to families, we’d readily agreed.
The morning flew by getting the café ready for its busiest day in history and dealing with last-minute queries and I managed to push my conversation with Verity to the back of my mind.
Were only teddy bears eligible to come to the teddy bears’ picnic? (No, Lia replied, all cuddly friends were welcome.) Did anyone mind if Ken’s son Martin sold bags of his home-made rhubarb fudge from a stall on the village green? (Nobody minded, although most people thought there might not be many takers particularly when they saw the colour of it.) And would it be all right if the local TV station did a spot of filming for their Derbyshire People programme? (A wholehearted YES! was the jubilant response to that one.)
There were a host of other late additions to the programme too, like Biddy’s idea of a dog show, with prizes for the prettiest eyes, waggiest tail and best rescue dog, and the day promised to be an unforgettable one for the folks of Barnaby.
And then suddenly it was midday and the narrow roads through Barnaby began to hum with the arrival of dozens upon dozens of cars. One minute, Dad and Ed were securing the last string of bunting around the pub’s outdoor beer tent and the next, the village green seemed to fill up with eager bodies waving their money, queuing for artisan beer, choosing between a fairy, a superhero and a tiger at the face-painting stall, pointing at the peculiar pink fudge (which those brave enough to try declared delicious) and pottering around the many plant stalls which formed a circle around the edge of the green. Someone handed Clementine a megaphone and she pronounced the first Barnaby Spring Fair to be open and everyone clapped furiously, except Nonna and Stanley, freshly returned from Bristol, who were secretly sharing their first kiss behind the lemon trees in the café’s conservatory.
I welled up with tears when I spotted them; it looked as if they were over the moon to be back together and I couldn’t help thinking of the other night and Nonna’s dilemma about letting a man back into her life. From where I was standing, it looked like her concerns were well and truly relegated to the past …
Everyone was being their best and brightest self today, due in no small part, I reckoned, to such a heavy press presence. The BBC TV crew had been joined by Dales FM and the local TV news station. Robin Barker, the junior reporter who’d interviewed Dad about his short-lived Dolly Parton tribute act, was back too. As I hadn’t had the chance to organize our own photographer, I bunged him fifty quid and a bacon sandwich and asked him to snap away to his heart’s content. He was as happy as a pig in clover, especially when I gave him, and all the other members of the media, special press passes hastily laminated by Mrs Murray, the school secretary.
I paused from clearing the pavement tables and smiled to myself as Gabe and Noah lined up with a crowd of other adult-and-child pairs for the piggy-back race.
Mum caught my eye from inside the café and waved the teapot at me. I stuck my thumbs up and moments later she came out with a tray. She was helping out today, thank goodness, it had been ‘all hands on deck’.
‘Perfect timing,’ I said, taking it from her and putting it down on a table in a sunny spot.
‘What a success!’ She plonked a smacking kiss on my cheek.
‘Isn’t it?’ I agreed. ‘And yet if you’d have asked me at the beginning of the year what success meant to me, I’d have probably said a promotion, a ten-thousand-pound pay rise and adding a million followers to a client’s Twitter account. Not a village plant sale. I’ve quite surprised myself at how delighted I am.’
Mum laughed. ‘I’m not surprised; you’ve always fought on the side of fairness.’
‘Have I?’ I gave her a quizzical look as she poured us both a mug of tea and passed me one.
‘Remember the rooftop ice cream protest?’ She looked at me over the rim of her mug. ‘When you said it wasn’t fair not to let the ice-cream van into school on that hot day?’
‘Everyone remembers that. Mr Beecher still has nightmares.’
‘And the xylophone mallets in the Nativity?’
‘No?’ I sipped my tea, grinning. ‘Remind me.’
‘Gina was picked to play “Silent Night” on the xylophone and Jimmy Dillon was jealous so he stole the mallets just as the parents filed into the hall and Gina got blamed for losing them.’
I laughed at the memory. ‘It’s all coming back to me now.’
I’d marched to the front of the hall, crashed my cymbals together and made everyone look for the missing ‘bongers’, as I’d called them. They’d been found in the boys’ toilets, in the hands of Jimmy Dillon who was doing his own rendition of ‘Silent Night’ on the radiator.
‘You must have been mortified when I did that.’
She pulled a shocked face. ‘No! I was proud; you were standing up for what was right. And the Barnaby Spring Fair is no different. It’s about being fair. And judging by how few seedlings are left and the depleted cake selection inside, I think you’ve done pretty well.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’ I leaned my head on her shoulder.
I’d set out simply to help raise some money for Clementine, to help her through the next few months, but we’d done much more than that for her. Clementine was in her element, talking to fellow gardeners, poring over various plants. The school had asked her to run a gardening club for a small fee. Dales FM had been quick to snap her up for a regular weekly slot on Friday lunchtimes, too. She had been about to shake hands on the deal when Gabe had stepped in and pointed out that there was indeed no such thing as a free lunch and that expertise like hers came at a price. Clementine and Tyson between them had had so many enquiries that they’d decided on the spur of the moment to set up their own gardening business. ‘And I’ll tell Garden Warehouse where to stick their timber department,’ Tyson had said, chin tilted defiantly to the sun.
I did like things to be fair. And it was unfair that Clementine had suffered so much loss in such a short time and it did seem unfair (regardless of how sensibly Gabe put it) that Garden Warehouse could stomp all over Nina’s flowers and take her Fone-A-Flower territory and nab Lucas’s best greetings cards range and undercut Biddy on her pet supplies. And in time, when the café in the cabin was ready, they’d do the same to us too.
‘It has gone well,’ I agreed. ‘But there is one thing that we can’t get away from and that is that the new café is almost certainly going to affect our business when it opens.’
Mum shrugged casually. ‘It is what it is. But focus on the positives: we’ve all had the most profitable day any of us can remember and more than that, the entire village has done something together. I can’t remember the last time that happened.’
‘The nappy blockage, according to Doreen.’
Mum winced. ‘Thank you for that reminder.’
One of her friends called her name and after pressing another kiss to my cheek, she waved back and went to join her.
Mum might have a point about fairness, I thought, stacking our mugs and the teapot back on the tray. It had always been something that I’d striven for. I’d even walked out of my job at Digital Horizons because I didn’t think it was fair to alter Lucinda’s photo.
So why when I broke up with Callum hadn’t I fought for fairness then? I’d acted like a coward, too scared to do the right thing, too desperate to sweep the whole mess under the carpet and move on. But I hadn’t moved on, had I? I’d remained just as scared: scared of making mistakes and of history repeating itself.
And now, today …?
I caught a glimpse of Gabe with Noah hanging on tight, galloping across the village green towards the finish line. Even from this distance I could hear shouts and cheers and Noah’s excited squeals as they finished first.
The promise I made to Verity echoed through my brain; I had to be fair to them too.
I raised a hand as Gabe pointed me out to Noah and I crossed over to the green to meet them.
‘We came first!’ Noah danced on the spot showing me his winner’s medal.
‘You’re the dream team,’ I said, ruffling his hair. ‘Well done.’
I stooped to give him a hug just as Lia’s voice came over the megaphone. ‘Teddy bears’ picnic is about to start in two minutes. All hungry bears this way!’
‘Dad,’ Noah tugged Gabe’s sleeve, ‘where’s Jorvik?’
Gabe pulled a tatty green toy dinosaur from inside his jacket and handed it to his son. Noah tucked it under his arm and kissed its head.
‘Tell me about school,’ I said, rubbing a chocolate smear from his chin with my thumb.
‘S’OK.’ He looked down and scuffed his shoe on the grass. ‘But I’ve got to go back again next week.’
‘The concept of “for the rest of his formative years” hasn’t sunk in yet,’ said Gabe, placing a hand on his son’s shoulder.
‘What’s the best bit about it?’ I asked.
Noah thought for a moment.
‘PE. And sandwiches.’
Across the green, the teddy bears’ picnic music started up and a crowd of children surged towards Lia and Mum, anxious to secure their places at the long trestle table laden with snacks. Noah flung an arm round his dad’s leg and gave it a hug.
‘Bye, Daddy,’ he called over his shoulder.
‘Don’t you want me to come with you, dude?’ Gabe shouted after him.
Noah threw his dad a look of disgust. ‘I’m not a baby.’
‘He’s not even five,’ Gabe muttered under his breath with a sigh. ‘Which means he is a baby.’
‘Your sandwiches must be good,’ I nudged him with my shoulder, ‘if they’re the best bit of school.’
‘Tuna and sweetcorn. No mayo. He has the same everyday. He doesn’t really embrace change, my boy.’
We held our breath as Noah struggled to find a place at the picnic table and then sighed with relief when he sat down and made Jorvik shake hands with the teddy bears around him.
‘He looks like he’s doing all right to me,’ I said, feeling as proud of the little boy as if he were my own.
‘Rosie,’ Gabe ran a hand through his hair nervously, ‘Noah might not like it but, I’m ready to embrace change. I’ve been doing a lot of mulling since I’ve been in Barnaby and after yesterday in the van with you, I think … no, I know that mine and Noah’s lives are ready for something seismic to happen.’
My pulse quickened; I had to stop this.
Whatever seismic thing Gabe had in mind, somehow I thought it probably involved more kissing. And while I did really like the kissing, could quite happily agree to more than that, I couldn’t. It wasn’t fair.
‘Are you OK?’ He peered closer. ‘You’ve gone pale, but at the same time, you look hot.’
‘Hot in a Katy Perry way?’ I teased, pressing a hand to my chest as if that was somehow going to calm things down.
‘Hotter,’ he murmured, touching the back of his hand to my face.
‘I’ve got something to say,’ I said, taking a deep breath. ‘About my breakfast.’
His lips lifted in an amused smile. ‘Go on.’
‘This morning I ran out of bread to make toast. And butter. So I toasted a bagel and spread it with peanut butter instead. A toasted bagel with melting peanut butter. It was amazing. Delicious.’
Gabe was trying really hard not to laugh. ‘Sounds great.’
‘It was.’ I exhaled again. ‘Most people would think, Ooh that was nice, forget boring old toast, from now on I’ll have bagels. But not me. I thought: I’d better not have that too often or I’ll get addicted and it will lose its deliciousness.’
‘So much angst. At breakfast,’ he marvelled.
‘I know,’ I said, as if I couldn’t believe it myself. ‘It’s almost as if I can’t let myself get too attached to something in case it goes wrong. And then you came along.’
‘I like this story,’ he said, his lips twitching. ‘Not what I expected, but I like it.’
‘Well, you’re my toasted bagel with peanut butter; very special.’
I looked at Gabe and my mouth went dry. His face was lit up; eyes dancing, a smile as wide as an ocean.
I exhaled, a feeling of dread making its way from my toes right up through my body. I was about to wipe that smile from his face.
‘But here’s the thing,’ I said, bracing my hands against his firm broad chest, ‘I’m scared that if I let you get too close to me and something goes wrong, you’ll stop being special. Like the bagel.’
Gabe scratched his head. ‘This conversation has gone off at a tangent that, never in a million years, could I have predicted.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, feeling awful. ‘But I needed to get it off my chest before you made your seismic change.’
‘Um.’ Gabe scratched his head again and seemed to be sifting back through the conversation to where he’d left off before my bizarre bagel analogy.
‘OK,’ he said as if he’d come to a decision. ‘Consider this: what if it’s OK to have something special every day? In fact, I’d go as far as to say that we owe it to ourselves to make sure we do.’
I slid a sideways glance at him. He made it sound so simple. Perhaps it was? Perhaps I could have someone special in my life, every day.
I shook my head slowly. ‘But that’s not real life, is it? And I can’t, I won’t take that risk.’
‘So you don’t even want to try?’ he said sadly. ‘Because, you and me, I think, we could—’
I never got to hear the end of the sentence because there was an almighty crash, accompanied by squeals and screams from the teddy bears’ picnic table and we looked across to see Noah on the grass. It looked like he’d fallen backwards off his stool taking the tablecloth, a pile of sandwiches, a bowl of Wotsits and an entire jug of orange squash with him. The children’s shouts rapidly turned to laughter as Noah began to kick his legs in the air, shouting for help whilst simultaneously stuffing handfuls of food into his mouth.
Gina ran to pick him up and Mum looked round frantically for Gabe.
‘And for his next trick …’ said Gabe with a groan and ran off to rescue him.
I watched as Gina and Gabe dusted Noah down and led him away to dry off.
Gina and Gabe. As much as it pained me to consider it, there was an idea …