WARNING TO READERS - This is a long, rambling, multi-part story and VERY British. The individual chapters will make more sense if read in sequence.
Chapter 16: Partings, Panties and Punch-ups
I need not have worried about creating a cover story for Emma as it turned out that she thought that I had left early for work and had not even realised that I had not been home. The new gardener, Colin Llewellyn arrived on time and I left him to do the guided tour with Jack and get kitted out with the garden centre working gear. Everybody else had their work plans for the day and so I went back to the office, poured a coffee and started drawing up the task sheets for the Craven Lodge and Cedars jobs which I wanted to begin to work on straight away now that Colin had arrived.
Shortly after eight, Mum telephoned to say that everything was under control in York, Aunt Susan was obviously very distressed but was well supported by local friends and so she and Maggie would be driving back after lunch and should be home in the early evening. The funeral could not be held for a couple of weeks as Uncle Andrew's mother and brother now lived in Australia and needed time to arrange their flights back to the UK, which meant that Maggie could still take the twins to France and stay for a few days. To be honest I had not known until then that Uncle Andrew even had a mother and brother.
The next call was from Lauren. "Mummy has telephoned and told us to expect her home this evening." She informed me. Then went on, "I just thought I would let you know that Luci and I are now going back to bed until after lunch .... We are totally shattered .... And it's your fault for fucking us to exhaustion last night!" I quickly glanced over my shoulder to make sure that Emma wasn't nearby or listening on the other extension, but she appeared to have gone down to the shop.
"I'll see to you tomorrow," I laughed, we were planning to have a family evening together before the girls went away, "But I'm not coming near either of you until then, it's too bloody perilous!" I hung up as I heard Emma coming up the stairs and turned back to my work sheets.
It was the 1st of February and although December and January had been incredibly mild it had suddenly become a lot cooler during the day and the weather forecast was predicting ground frosts by the weekend. It was the night of Emma's first evening class and she needed to be into college by seven and so, after I had closed up I took the Land Rover and drove her into Salisbury.
"I'll come back and pick you up about nine-thirty." I told her. I watched her walk into the college building and then drove home.
Mum got home about eight and told me all about Uncle Andrew's heart attack and subsequent fall from scaffolding at the York Minster, whilst I made her some tea. She was, however, happy that Aunt Susan and she had made up their differences and were friends again, and said she would explain it all later. She looked exhausted and wanted to turn in early so after we had sat and talked for a while, I gave her a hug and drove back into town to pick up Emma.
The first thing she said as she climbed into the Land Rover was, "God, I'm hungry... I haven't eaten all day!" I hadn't either and so I drove over and parked at the market and we walked around the corner to Stoby's Fish and Chip shop. As usual there were queues waiting in the shop for the take away and so we went upstairs to the small dining room, managed to get a table and got our food in double quick time. Stoby's was something of a tradition in Salisbury; the shop had been there for years and was probably the best fish and chip shop in the city. When we were kids I would go to rugby practice on Saturday morning and then meet Emma from her ballet lessons and we would get fish and chips and eat them from the paper as we walked home. We must have sat for a good hour just sipping our Cokes and talking about those remembered Saturdays, Emma's book-keeping course and work, until we realised that we were the last customers and the waitress was waiting to close up. Over the past couple of years since Dad left we had drifted apart and I had forgotten how much fun being with Emma could be when she was in a good mood. It had turned quite cold by the time we left and Emma did not have a coat and so I took my Barbour jacket off and draped in around her shoulders as we walked back to the car.
"Well you can't say that I never take you anywhere now." I joked as we started for home. "I don't splash out on fish and chips and a coke for all my dates, you know."
"Christ Jay," she hissed in mock disgust, "You are such a cheapskate! If you really wanted to impress a girl you would at least offer to take her to the 'Pharaohs' gig at the Corn Hall in Devizes next Friday!"
"OK," I replied, "It's a date." I had been promising to take my sister out somewhere for weeks and she was trying so hard to please everybody and I needed to make a gesture. Besides, the 'Pharaohs' were not a bad band, they were local and I had seen them before, they usually put on a good evenings entertainment. Emma and I had been really tight until Dad left and I had missed that closeness.
"Really?" She gasped in surprise, "You really mean it?"
I nodded. "If you want to bring a couple of your friends, that's fine ..... just ring up and find out if we need tickets in advance."
"No, just the two of us." she said very quickly, "You are so busy now; I never get to spend any time with you alone."
The Land Rover had a single long bench seat in the cab and Emma slid across until she was close against me and leaned her head on my shoulder, I had obviously said the right thing for once. She had wriggled into my coat and was obviously cold; as we left the city proper and got on to Lower Road there was no traffic and I automatically hooked my arm around her shoulders, hugged her to me and we stayed that way until we turned into the lane leading to home.
When we got in, neither of us wanted to wake Mum so we just crept up to our rooms. On my way back from the bathroom I remembered something that I wanted to ask Emma and lightly tapped on her door. She didn't answer, but the light was on so I pushed it open and peered in. She was on her bed already sound asleep still wrapped up in my waxed coat over the top of her pyjamas. I flicked her light off and closed the door. My sister could be really strange at times!
Thursday was absolutely manic, as there was so much to do before Maggie went off to France the next day. I was up, and ready to go in to work by six o'clock and to my surprise Emma followed me into the kitchen as I was making coffee, dressed for work and bright eyed and bushy tailed.
"I'll just grab a bowl of cereal and then I will ride in with you and we can make an early start." She said. "I suppose you had better have this back." She added, handing me my coat. I never asked about why she had been sleeping in it, but I noticed that the collar had a slight aroma of her perfume.
Maggie joined us in the office about seven, so we went through the tasks that needed doing to make sure that I was covering everything that she normally handled and then took a quick tour around the garden centre to speak to all the staff and ensure that everybody was happy in their allocated tasks and then spent an hour with Boris Keppel discussing details of the building work. We would be closed to the public from Monday to Wednesday the next week so that the steel erectors could put up the main framework for the big canopy.
As Maggie was going to be in the office until mid-afternoon, I took the Land Rover and drove Colin and Kitty out to Craven Lodge and we spend an hour walking round and discussing the plan of work. Georgia Craven was not at home but she had given us carte blanche to come and go as necessary. Colin immediately grasped what needed doing and suggested a couple of minor changes to the plan which were sensible and practical; he and Kitty would be doing most of the work on the estate and so I was happy to defer to his judgement.
After leaving Craven Lodge we drove over to The Cedars Retirement Home and did a similar recognisance there. Jane Harvey came out to meet us in the drive and joined us as we walked around the grounds and I explained to her what we would be doing in the next few days. As the garden centre was going to be closed to the public, I had decided that Colin and Kitty could start work at Craven Lodge on Friday and carry on working there through Wednesday, whilst I would come out to The Cedars with Mikey and Neville, the two student part-timers to help me for a few hours each day.
We got back to the garden centre and I left Colin to sort out the kit he would need and load up the van ready to make a start in the morning whilst I checked in with the office. My next task of the day was a planned trip to a farm just east of Hungerford to look at a mini-tractor which was for sale. As Steve was quite knowledgeable about vehicles I waited until he had finished his morning deliveries and then we drove the thirty odd miles to the farm at Foxley. The guy who owned the tractor was selling up his whole farming operation and looking for a fast sale and was happy to leave us to check out the vehicle. I was disappointed with the overall appearance of the tractor and Steve confirmed that it really was not a good buy and so we had a wander round the yard whilst waiting for the owner to return.
"If he wants to sell this, you might want to make an offer," Steve said. He was examining a small fork lift truck standing just inside a barn. "It seems in good order," he climbed on and turned the ignition key and the motor coughed into life and the fork frame ran smoothly up and down the cradle. I saw that the trader label was the machinery supplier that 'Ben the Bastard'' worked for, so the provenance of the vehicle was good, Ben may have been a wanker but the equipment he sold was always first class. When Brian Bell, the farmer returned I suggested that we would be interested in the fork lift instead of the tractor and he was happy to agree a price and even offered to deliver it to us the next week with all the documentation and collect his cheque. I knew that Maggie would approve, we were starting to desperately need some serious moving equipment now and tractors were far easier to come by than the right sort of fork lifts at the right price.
During the drive back I casually asked Steve about his army mate Jocko and his wife Laurie. "He seemed a good sort," I remarked, "Do they live locally?"
"Yes, off the Devizes Road somewhere, I think," he replied, Jocko is stationed in Germany and so only gets home every few weeks for a couple of days!" He added. I had no intention of looking up Laurie, although I had thought about her often since seeing her again, I was just curious.
