A Vintage Wedding (4 page)

Rachel gulped, not sure if this was a challenge or an affirmation. ‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Right, going round the table …’

Sarah made the introductions. There was an Ivy, an Audrey and a Dot, and the younger couple, who, it transpired, came from London, were Justin and Amanda. The man was called Robert.

Everyone smiled at Rachel, friendly but curious. She smiled back shyly.

‘Right,’ said Sarah briskly. ‘When we’ve got our committee sorted out we’ll probably have daytime meetings.’ She paused and sighed. ‘I thought having this first meeting at this time would mean a few more – well, you know … We need to drum up some more people, really.’

Rachel understood. Sarah was hoping for some people who worked, ran businesses or had experience of committees and how to raise money and run things. She also realised why Sarah had been so keen to nab her. It was a dilemma. The older people didn’t want to go out in the evenings, but working people couldn’t attend meetings during the day.

Sarah had a pad, a pen and some bits of paper in front of her. ‘We need to elect a chairman.’

‘I say, you do it,’ said Audrey swiftly and the others all chimed in agreement.

‘We should have a vote—’

‘Sarah, my love,’ said Ivy, ‘we don’t want to be here all night. We all agree. Just do it.’

Sarah sighed and wrote something down. ‘OK. Treasurer?’

No one volunteered. Eventually Sarah said, ‘Can I suggest Rachel? She told me she was an accountant.’

Dot, who was sitting next to Rachel, chuckled. ‘Ooh, you shouldn’t have told her that, my dear. She was bound to pounce.’

‘And I did,’ said Sarah. ‘Now, do we need a mission statement?’

‘What’s one of them?’ said Dot, who appeared to have a pleasing subversive streak.

‘They’re all the rage,’ said Audrey. ‘I learnt that when I was a school governor.’

‘I don’t think we need one,’ said Sarah. ‘We just want to raise enough money to put the village hall back into a condition where we can rent it out and get some revenue.’

‘It doesn’t need anything doing to it,’ grumbled Dot. ‘It’s just fine as it is.’

‘It’ll fall down if we don’t do something,’ said Justin. ‘You can see that just by looking at it.’

‘And I don’t think it’s safe for children,’ said his wife, Amanda. ‘I wouldn’t be happy about mine playing there. It’s dirty and extremely tatty. We thought it might be a good venue for a birthday party but we had people from London coming and we just couldn’t use it.’

There were mutterings of disagreement and, ‘It was good enough for our little Otto’s party,’ from the ones who thought the building was fine.

‘Do we know how much it will take to make it safe, at least?’ asked Rachel. ‘And I have to say, if it was redecorated it would get many more bookings. I mean, how many do you get now?’

There was muttering again but no actual replies.

‘The Scouts use it,’ said Robert.

‘And the Cubs sometimes camp in it,’ said Ivy. ‘They put up their tents and everything.’ She paused. ‘Only last time most of them rang their mums and wanted to go home.’

‘Does the roof leak?’ asked Justin.

Sarah cleared her throat. ‘We’d need about a hundred thousand pounds to put the building right.’

Through the rumble of dismay Rachel asked Sarah, ‘So
does
the roof leak? If it looked better you could still hire it out, earn some money and do the repairs as and when you can afford to.’

Sarah banged on her table. ‘Sorry, can we stop talking amongst ourselves? Rachel here has made a very good point. Rachel, would you mind saying all that again, please?’

Rachel had made her point to Sarah to avoid being the young woman from London who thought she knew better than those who’d lived here all their lives. But it seemed she couldn’t escape the role.

‘I just feel if the hall looked better – if it was totally redecorated and if it wasn’t raining, people could hire it. Get some money in and then do the repairs when we can afford them.’ The ‘we’ slipped out. She didn’t know if it was likely to offend people, her being possessive about their hall, but it certainly made her anxious. Had she really aligned herself publicly to a collapsing building? Then she remembered how, at the do, she’d spent ages looking up into the rafters, mentally painting them white. She couldn’t resist a project, that was her problem.

Rachel lowered her gaze to the table, not daring to check if her fears were justified and that the others were looking at her with distrust and suspicion.

‘I totally agree,’ said Justin. ‘Get it so it looks reasonable and then start renting it out.’

‘’Ow’re we going to get the money to do the decoration?’ asked Robert.

‘I’ve got some lovely green paint I could donate,’ said Dot.

‘Ooh, now you come to mention it, so have I, only it’s yellow.’

‘No,’ said Rachel firmly, in spite of her misgivings about being ‘the girl from London’. ‘We’ve got to have the paint all the same colour. White’s best,’ she added.

There was tutting. ‘Shows the dirt, white does,’ seemed to be the general opinion.

‘I can get you as much white paint as you want,’ said a voice from the doorway.

Rachel looked up to see a very scruffy man whose black curly hair needed cutting and whose leather jacket was like a leftover from the previous century. He needed a shave, too. There was no way he would come by that paint honestly, she decided.

Sarah seemed of the same opinion but smiled fondly all the same. ‘Glad you made it, Raff, but which lorry did the paint drop off the back of?’

Raff gave a lopsided grin. ‘You’re so suspicious, Sarah. I promise you it’s all kosher.’

‘It would save a lot of money,’ said Rachel, who, while still suspecting the man of very dodgy dealings, couldn’t ignore the financial advantage.

‘Raff has a small reclamation yard,’ explained Sarah to Rachel.

Raff came into the room. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked Sarah, looking at Rachel. ‘A new face? In more ways than one.’

‘This is Rachel, and yes, she is new to the area,’ said Sarah.

‘I’m Raff,’ he said, looking down into her eyes in a way that made her feel very uncomfortable.

‘Don’t you go near young Raff,’ said Dot. ‘His gran was a friend of mine and even she wouldn’t trust him further’n she could throw ’im.’

‘Don’t you believe all the bad things you’ll hear about me,’ said Raff, talking directly to Rachel, still looking at her in that disturbing way. ‘I don’t deserve my bad reputation.’ Then he winked, which confirmed Rachel’s opinion: he was a man to avoid at all cost.

As he took his seat in between Ivy and Audrey, they twittered coyly. He obviously used his charm on all women, regardless of age.

Rachel wrote ‘white paint’ on the Emma Bridgewater notebook she’d slipped into her handbag, thinking it wouldn’t be hard to avoid him. Raff was so not her type. Her ex-husband was much more metrosexual. He took time and trouble with his appearance: waxing, moisturising and generally making the best of himself. Perhaps she was being unfair, but she wondered if Raff even showered that often.

The meeting went on and people made suggestions for fundraising. Basically, even with the paint being free, there were a lot of other expenses connected to the project.

It was eventually agreed to have a quiz in the pub and put all the money towards decorating costs. An hour had passed and Rachel wanted to go home. She had volunteered to be on the team who did the decorating, but now realised they would never prepare for painting to her high standards and so she’d find it all extremely stressful. If she was doing a job it had to be to her standards.

‘OK, everyone. Shall we have another meeting next week? To discuss a good time to decorate the hall,’ said Sarah over the noise of people getting their coats on.

‘Oh, Sarah, love,’ said someone. ‘Do we need a meeting? Couldn’t we just have a ring round?’

‘Better to have something in the diary,’ said Sarah. ‘Wednesday?’

Eventually a date was fixed for the following Tuesday.

‘OK,’ said Sarah. ‘We’ll see as many people as we can then. I’ll try and get Lindy to come too. Meeting over. Rachel, I’ll email you all the figures I’ve got so far, from a couple of builders. Then you’ll know what we’re dealing with.’

‘Fine. I’ll get it on to the computer and do a spreadsheet.’

‘Brilliant! Thank you so much.’

As Rachel was getting her coat on she thought about her white-painted house and shivered. On impulse she said, ‘Er, Sarah? Nothing to do with the hall but would you know someone who could sell me some logs? You obviously know everyone.’

Sarah glanced at Raff and frowned slightly. ‘Oh yes, I can do that. Leave it with me. I’ll think of someone who’ll sell you nice dry ones.’ She smiled. ‘I think all that went quite well, don’t you?’

‘To be honest,’ said Rachel, ‘I’ve never been to a meeting without a PowerPoint presentation before.’

Sarah laughed. ‘Ooh, what’s one of them? As they’d say round here!’

Rachel laughed too. ‘But meetings like this one are much more fun.’

‘Sometimes they can be a nightmare,’ said Sarah, ‘but it was really great having you there. It gives me hope that we will get the hall up and running one day. Maybe not in my lifetime but one day.’

Rachel gave Sarah’s arm a squeeze. ‘I think you’re being a little bit pessimistic but I grant you, it probably won’t be done this year.’

‘I’ll walk you home,’ said Raff as people began to head for the stairs.

‘No, thank you. I’ll be fine on my own, thanks.’ Rachel was firm. She had no intention of walking home with Raff.

Sarah, who had been saying goodbye to the others, came up. ‘Did I hear you say you’d walk Rachel home, Raff? That would be good. I need to get back. I left a ham boiling and James – my husband – won’t hear the pinger and it might boil dry.’

‘Really, I’ll be fine,’ Rachel insisted.

Sarah shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t be happy about you going on your own. That path is full of potholes.’

Raff held out his arm. Rachel ignored it. She might have to walk home with him but she didn’t have to hold on to him. They walked down the stairs in silence. As they passed the main entrance to the pub, Raff said, ‘Come for a cheeky half?’

Rachel shuddered. ‘No thank you. But please, if you want one, go ahead. I’ve been looking after myself for some years now. I can walk to my own house without a minder.’

‘Another time then,’ said Raff, ignoring this. ‘Come along. It’s dark.’

Because she couldn’t physically prevent him walking with her, they set off down the path side by side. As they left the village green the path grew narrow.

‘We’d better walk in single file,’ said Rachel, having bumped into Raff at least twice. ‘Or you could just leave me here? I will be quite safe. You could watch if you were worried, make sure no one jumps out of the bushes?’

‘You’re very stubborn, aren’t you?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Rachel replied quickly. ‘I see it as a virtue.’

He laughed. ‘I like a challenge.’

Rachel didn’t know what to say. She walked on, wishing she could stop him walking with her. When she got to her gate she halted. ‘OK, I’m safely here. You can go now.’ She realised she’d sounded churlish but she hadn’t wanted him to escort her in the first place.

‘OK. I’ll be seeing you.’

Rachel didn’t turn to watch him go. She could hear him walking down the lane humming. She couldn’t bear humming. It was too random.

She went inside the house and looked around her at its white perfection. She had spent weekend after weekend removing years’ worth of paint from the cornice so the carving stood out sharply. She realised now she had neglected her husband. She had, as he had claimed, put this house in the country before their marriage. Well, now it was her home. And she would make a go of living here, whatever happened.

Later, before she went to bed, she opened the cupboard next to the bathroom and inspected the piles of sheets, duvet covers, pillowcases and mattress toppers in it. She’d had the cupboard specially built. She needed somewhere to store what she considered a minor obsession. When she was stressed she bought bedlinen. When she lived in London she’d fantasised about one day having a linen cupboard full of lovely sheets, piled in perfect columns. It was the place of safety she went to in her head. Now she had it in real life. She smiled.

The following day, Rachel was upstairs in the bedroom designated as her office, checking the spreadsheet in front of her for a final time. Her client liked his accounts in hard copy and she was about to put them into the waiting envelope when a movement from the garden caught her eye. She looked out and saw Raff heading down her front path.

Without stopping to think she flew down the stairs to stop him. She didn’t want him in her house.

She had the door open before he had time to knock.

‘Oh, hello!’ he said, surprised, laughing. ‘Were you looking out for me?’

There was something about his voice, his accent, which she couldn’t place. It didn’t go, quite, with the tatty denim, the leather work-boots and the too-long hair. It was unsettling.

‘I was just passing the window and saw you arrive,’ she said, hoping he wouldn’t notice that she was slightly out of breath.