‘I’ve got some logs for you. Sarah told me you needed some.’
‘Goodness. I only mentioned it to her last night.’
‘And she got in touch with me this morning.’
‘I wonder why she didn’t ask you last night?’
‘She probably didn’t think I had dry ones. But her usual supplier obviously didn’t have any so she had to resort to me anyway. And here I am. With the logs.’
‘Oh, right.’ Rachel didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t ask him to go away until she’d had time to psych herself up for his visit. ‘Well, maybe if you could come round the back with them?’
He frowned. ‘Now why would I do that?’
‘Well,’ said Rachel, unable to think of a reasonable answer. ‘It’s the way it happens. Logs come into the house via the back door.’ She really hoped he couldn’t tell this was the first load of logs she’d ever taken delivery of.
‘And where is your stove?’
‘In the sitting room.’
‘Which is at the front of the house. Better to have the logs near the stove. Less hefting them about that way.’
Rachel opened her mouth to protest but he was already walking back down her garden path towards his Land Rover, which, she noticed, had a trailer attached to it.
Protecting her home was instinctive with Rachel and rapidly she planned how she could do this. She could ask him to leave the logs outside the front door so she could bring them in herself in a properly organised way but she was certain he’d have some reason why this wouldn’t work.
Glancing at him, she saw him lifting a wheelbarrow down from the trailer and knew she only had a few moments to make another plan. Mentally she went through various sheets and old bits of cloth that she might cover up her floor with but then remembered that she’d had a purge and didn’t own any sheets that weren’t pristine, and the thought of a wheelbarrow going over her thousand-thread-count percale made her feel as if she might faint.
Now she could hear the heavy chunk, chunk, of logs being thrown into a wheelbarrow. How long would it take to fill it?
She’d managed to roll up a few inches of one end of her white wool rug before the first load of wood trundled up the path. It stopped. Rachel continued to try to roll the rug but it was so wide she needed someone at the other end to roll too. She considered asking Raff but somehow the thought of him, in his boots, rolling her rug was worse than anything.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
She looked up at him from her position on the floor, knowing he must think her an idiot. ‘Just getting the rug out of the way so it won’t get dirty.’
‘And how am I supposed to get the wheelbarrow over that lump of carpet? Just put it flat and don’t worry about the dirt. There isn’t any, anyway.’
Somehow she found herself letting the rug unroll itself and Raff’s wheelbarrow went over it. She shuddered. He halted at the stove and began stacking the logs in the inglenook that surrounded it. She had to admit he was doing it quite neatly. She’d redo it herself once he’d gone, of course, but that would be OK.
‘This is the perfect place to store logs,’ said Raff. ‘They’ll keep lovely and dry and they’ll be handy.’ He put the last log in place. ‘Have you got anywhere outside where I can put the rest of the load? You’ve room for another barrowload here but not for the whole lot.’
How could she have forgotten the woodshed? Cursing herself for being such a townie she’d forgotten the selection of sheds that still stood in her back garden. Her builder from London had said they might be useful and she had agreed, planning to disguise them as beach huts, only white, at the first opportunity.
‘That’s where you should have put the wood in the first place,’ she said. ‘In the sheds.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘And how much mess would that have made every night as you carried in baskets of logs to make up the fire?’
Although anxious and irritated and a little bit frightened, the words ‘baskets of logs’ were soothing. It was one of the dreams she’d had in London: that she lived in the country, with baskets of logs by a roaring wood-burner. And in the dream she hadn’t minded about mess.
‘I’ll find the key and unlock the door.’
‘And put the kettle on, this is thirsty work.’
Stunned, she did as she was told. It wasn’t that she was a snob, not at all. Some of her best friends had quite ordinary jobs, but she hardly knew Raff. He wasn’t like Kenneth, the builder she’d got on so well with in London – so well, in fact, she had asked him to work on this house, too. He had fully understood her need to put the nozzle of the vacuum up against the hole he was drilling lest any dust land. Raff was a random guy Sarah had misguidedly asked to walk her home and now he was delivering logs.
She took her time in the kitchen, not wanting to see her rug desecrated by his boots tramping over it as if it was just, well, a rug.
‘Tea’s ready,’ she said eventually.
Raff had stacked the logs in a way that almost kept up to her own standards of tidiness. But it threw up another problem. Rachel wasn’t so much a townie that she didn’t know stacking logs wasn’t part of the usual delivery process. He had gone out of his way for her.
‘Is that all of them?’ she said. She wanted him out of her house.
He frowned slightly. ‘No. We’ve discussed this already. I’ve over a half a trailer for your woodshed. Now let’s have this tea.’
It wasn’t so much that he made the place look untidy, Rachel realised, although he did. It was because he was such a large personality. He’d ignored her offer of a chair and was leaning against her kitchen table, dislodging it slightly, drumming his fingers, looking around.
‘Your house is very – white,’ he said.
‘Yes. It’s how I like it.’ It was hard not to sound defensive when that was exactly how she felt.
‘I’m not complaining, just commenting,’ he said.
Rachel couldn’t meet his gaze. She knew he was looking at her, thinking her weird, and wished he’d leave. She wanted to hoover the rug and see if it had suffered any lasting damage.
‘So, how long have you lived here permanently? I thought it was just a weekend place.’
‘Not any more. But I haven’t been here long. And I don’t go out much.’ Now she sounded pathetic. She tried to smile.
‘Why’s that then?’
‘I work from home.’ Her smile worked better this time.
‘Have you any biscuits?’
Rachel wondered if people in the country really were as different from city people as her London friends had warned her. She opened a cupboard and found the packet of digestives she’d bought for the removal men.
‘Oh,’ he said, looking at the biscuit she handed him on a plate as if he’d never seen one before. ‘They’re not white.’
‘They didn’t have white ones at the local shop,’ said Rachel calmly. ‘They’re going to try and get some in for me.’
His smile crinkled up his face, revealing white, slightly crooked teeth. He acknowledged that she was teasing him back and appreciated it.
‘They do their best to please.’
‘I’ve found them very helpful,’ said Rachel.
‘Do you find it lonely, down here?’
Rachel nodded. ‘I did a bit, in the beginning, but I’m beginning to get to know people now.’
‘Sarah’s daughter, Lindy.’
‘That’s right. I don’t know her well yet but she’s very nice.’
‘She is.’
He drained his mug (porcelain, white, but with a raised pattern) and slammed it on the drainer. Rachel winced. ‘Well, I’d better get on with unloading the rest of the logs.’
While Raff went down the garden path with his barrow, Rachel was free to inspect the damage inside once more.
To be fair to Raff, his pile
was
very tidy and the logs, though not white, were pale and Rachel had to admit they softened the look of her sitting room in a pleasing way. The dead leaves and bits of bark on the rug hoovered up very well.
She had a bundle of notes ready when he knocked on the back door to say that he’d finished unloading.
‘That’s amazing! Thank you so much,’ she said, buoyed up by the thought he was going to leave her alone at last. ‘How much do I owe you?’
He seemed to take a long time to work it out and yet he must know how much he charged for a load of logs. He didn’t need to mentally count the exact number he had provided. ‘Let’s call it a moving-in present, shall we?’
She could barely suppress a shudder at the thought. ‘Oh no. I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be right.’ She revealed the notes in her hand. ‘Look, I’ve got cash. How much is it?’
‘I said, it’s a present.’
‘I really wouldn’t be happy with that,’ said Rachel firmly. ‘You must let me pay you or I’ll find out from Sarah how much it should be and deliver it.’
He considered this. ‘As much as I’d like that, I’d prefer to give you the logs. You can take me out for a drink as a thank you.’
Thinking she’d rather die than take him for a drink, she made one last attempt. ‘Really, I want to pay you!’
‘And I’d rather you took me for a drink and, as the supplier, I get to choose.’
Then he walked out of her back door.
After Rachel had cleared up the kitchen, resisting the temptation to clean the whole house again, she pulled on her coat and set off to find Lindy’s house. She needed to get out, get some exercise. Working from home was great in many ways but it meant she didn’t have company on tap when she needed it. Raff had been company but in a very unsettling way. Besides, if she could find out how much a load of logs cost she could find some way of getting the money to him that didn’t involve socialising with him.
She found Lindy’s little cottage by asking at the shop for directions. It was along a lane where a row of cottages had once housed mill workers. The mill was now converted into several flats.
As she walked down the path towards the house she realised just how tiny it was. And not tidy. Rachel had always believed that the smaller the space you lived in the tidier you had to be. Apparently Lindy didn’t agree. The little garden was full of bikes and other toys, many of them plastic. Maybe Lindy kept them in the garden rather than have them cluttering up the house.
She knocked on the door. A worryingly long time later it was answered by Beth wearing what appeared to be a pair of net curtains.
‘Thank goodness it’s you!’ Beth said. ‘It could have been anyone. Lindy’s on the phone. Come in.’
Rachel stepped over the threshold breathing deeply. She could cope with other people’s mess pretty well but Lindy’s house was going to be a challenge. She’d never actually seen such an untidy house before. Every surface seemed to be piled with something: fabric, toys, clothes, newspapers, dirty mugs; it was Rachel’s worst nightmare.
‘Am I interrupting anything?’ She moistened her dry lips, willing her voice to sound normal.
‘Not really,’ said Beth. ‘At least you are, but we don’t mind. Could do with the input. What do you think about this dress?’
Beth seemed completely unfazed by the chaos and Rachel found this calming. She tried to sound just as matter-of-fact.
‘Truth or tact?’ she asked, not wanting to fall out with her new friends.
‘If you have to ask it means you agree with us. It’s a beggar.’ Beth looked down at herself dolefully.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Rachel. ‘What is it?’
‘Well, it might have become Helena’s wedding dress.’
‘Where did it come from?’
‘eBay. Helena bought it thinking if it was cheap it must be a bargain. Bad mistake. She should have left me to do it. I’m the eBay expert.’
‘I suppose she thought if it was her wedding dress …’ suggested Rachel. ‘I mean, I haven’t got a sister but if I did and she tried to buy my wedding dress – well, I’d have a fit.’
Beth giggled. ‘You wouldn’t want to go on
Don’t Tell the Bride
, then?’
‘What? And have my loutish fiancé make all the decisions about the wedding? Not bloody likely!’ For some reason Raff came into her head and with him the sort of wedding he might plan. Her ex-husband would have done a very good job of planning a wedding. Apart from the dress, of course. That would have to be her choice.
‘The thing is,’ said Beth, ‘Helena knows I know all about eBay. She could always reject my choice, but she shouldn’t have got carried away.’ She turned her back to Rachel. ‘You couldn’t help me get out of this, could you?’
Rachel saw the dress was made to fit with pins and started on them.
‘I do sound bossy, don’t I?’ Beth went on. ‘But when we’ve only got a tiny amount to spend we can’t waste anything.’
Lindy came in with two mugs. ‘Hello, Rachel! How nice to see you. I was on the phone in the kitchen then thought I’d get coffees while I was in there. What would you like? Tea or coffee? Tea is a bag in a mug and coffee is value instant.’
Rachel’s ex had been a coffee purist and it had rubbed off on her, a bit. ‘Tea, please. Just a dash of milk, no sugar.’ She smiled. She felt she was getting the hang of chaos.
‘Rachel thought the dress was only fit for dusters, too,’ said Beth.
‘I didn’t say that!’
‘But it is, though, isn’t it?’
Lindy surveyed the pile of grubby lace lying over the arm of a chair. ‘At the moment, yes. But I could turn it into a nice dress for someone …’
‘And I, with my eBaying skills, could sell it. You’d get the money, Lind. You’d be doing the work.’ Beth seemed pleased with this suggestion.
‘We could work something out,’ said Lindy. She picked up the dress. ‘It would look better if it was ironed.’
‘Can I do that?’ asked Rachel. ‘I love ironing.’
‘You like ironing?’ said Lindy incredulously as she hefted a big pile of something that turned out to be curtains from a surface that currently cut across the sitting-room floor leaving very little space for walking about. It was an ironing board. ‘Really? I wonder if I might like it if I ever had time to do it. But I don’t. Gran’s curtains need doing desperately. I altered them for her and still haven’t pressed the hems. I never got further than setting up the ironing board.’
‘I’ll do them,’ said Rachel, hoping she wasn’t showing insane eagerness to get creases out of things as she clambered over the clutter to get to the ironing board as if it were a life raft.
Lindy handed over the dress. ‘If you iron it, Beth can put it on again and I’ll see what I can do.’