Wow, Lu thought, nodding. A potted history. And it explained a lot.
‘And the paramedic thing? Was that a lifetime ambition or something you drifted into?’
‘When I eventually grew up, yes. I was a bass guitarist in a very heavy metal band during and for a while after university. We went pro for a while and did some really wild stuff.’
Wow, Lu thought. She could just see him: swaying sexily with his Rickenbacker in smoky spotlights, throbbing out the driving beat, his hair flowing, his body encased in skin-tight ripped denim and little else.
‘I wish I could have seen you then. Did you have groupies?’
‘Millions. It was an ace time.’ Shay bravely took a sip of his mulled wine. ‘But it couldn’t last. We were going too crazy and I got a bit of a social conscience. Don’t laugh, but I thought about joining the police – but I couldn’t quite cope with having my hair chopped from waist-length to crew-cut overnight. The ambulance service wasn’t quite so regimental about longish hair – so I shortened it gradually and here I am. I’ve been qualified for five years. I worked in London until my transfer here this year.’
‘And – um – do you think you’ll be staying … I mean, will you be transferred anywhere else?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I’d like to put down my own roots now. I’ve done the crazy stuff. And I’ve no desire to go back to the city. So, much as I love Lav and Lob, in the New Year I’ll be looking for somewhere permanent to live round here.’
Yessss! Lulu mentally punched the air.
Of course there was a slight fly in the perfect ointment.
‘And – er – Carmel? Are you and she—? I mean, will you—?’
Shay shrugged. ‘We get on well together. We’re a good team. She’s a great girl. And surprising. Do you know what she’s doing tonight?’
‘No,’ Lulu said, not really caring, just pleased that she wasn’t there on the village green playing an ethereal gooseberry.
‘She’s helping with the bonfire night party at the children’s hospice. She’s on the Dreams-to-Reality team for terminally ill kids. Spends every spare minute with them.’
Lulu groaned. Oh, damn it. How could she carry on hating little fairy-doll Carmel when she was involved in something like that? It was only a step away from sainthood.
‘That’s wonderful,’ she said quietly. ‘She must be very special.’
‘Oh yes,’ Shay nodded. ‘She is.’
Linking her arm through Brett’s, Doll almost skipped along the dark smoky Hazy Hassocks lanes. The orange glow in the sky meant that the bonfire was already well alight. The fireworks wouldn’t be long.
‘Feeling better?’ Brett looked at her. ‘Are you really sure you want to do this tonight?’
‘Absolutely. I feel fantastic now, thanks. Um – can I ask you something?’
‘Unless it involves quantum physics or the meaning of life, yeah.’
‘You know you said you didn’t want things to change? Well, what about if I gave up work?’
‘Do you want to?’ Brett looked at her in some surprise. ‘I always thought you were happy at the surgery.’
‘Oh, I am – I just wondered what would happen if I had a bit of a career break for say a year. Could we cope? Financially?’
‘I’m sure we could. We’d have to make a few cutbacks, but yes, if that’s what you want I’d support you all the way, you know that.’
She smiled. ‘Okay, that’s great. And the other question. Do you want to get married?’
Brett stopped walking. ‘What? To you? Or generally?’
‘Preferably to me,’ Doll grinned.
Brett pulled her against him. ‘I wanted to marry you the first time I saw you – but as we were only six at the time and you’d just punched me for spoiling your skipping game
in the playground I thought I’d better wait a bit before asking you.’
‘So, another quarter of a century on?’
‘I still feel the same – but then again, it’s never been necessary, has it?’
They’d turned the corner and were on the edge of the green. The whole village had turned out, as always.
‘It might be necessary now,’ Doll said softly. ‘That is, if you’d like to go down the old-fashioned Hazy Hassocks route and have your baby born in wedlock.’
Arriving home from Tarnia’s, Mitzi parked the car outside number 33, checked that Richard and Judy weren’t terrified by Armageddon occurring overhead, and set off for the village green. The fact that Tarnia and Snotty Mark were aiming to be recognised by the Palace for dishing out largesse to the hoi-polloi had cheered her immensely; it could only be good news for the survival of the Baby Boomers Collective – although she still felt announcing
Hair
as the Christmas entertainment must be kept secret for as long as possible. However, the other activities, and particularly the Christmas lunch for the lost and lonely, would surely be embraced by the Snepps as a huge step forward on their way to Honourdom?
The bonfire, with its effigy now lopsided and sliding, was a roaring, dancing blaze of orange and red and gold. The faces surrounding it glowed in the reflection. The cold air was alive with expectation.
Exchanging greetings with each group, Mitzi moved towards the front of the crowd and over the heads spotted Lulu with Shay and some of her hippie-looking friends on one side of the bonfire, and Doll and Brett with Tammy and Viv from the dental surgery on the other. Both couples, she thought, looked extremely happy. She hoped they were. What more could a mother ask?
She’d experienced a stupid pang of disappointment when she’d realised Joel wasn’t with Doll’s dentistry gang. Of
course he’d have said he’d be here tonight out of politeness, wouldn’t he? He was a nice man; he wouldn’t have left her after the party with ‘thanks but no thanks’. He’d leave her to draw her own conclusions now.
For a split second, Mitzi felt very alone. In the middle of this huge crowd, most of whom she’d known all her life, she felt lonely. While she’d never been a rampant feminist, she’d always known she was okay on her own. She’d never been one of those women who had to have a man in their life whatever the cost. She’d survived well without Lance or any long-term replacement. But now, having spent some time with Joel, and felt that damn tingle, one half of a couple seemed a very desirable thing to be. And, she admitted to herself, she had been looking forward to seeing him again.
Bustling forward in the flickering light, the vicar shouted his usual greetings, made a sort of trumpeting fanfare through his teeth, and carefully manoeuvring the glowing taper, set alight the first firework.
The blue touch paper glowed. There was a mass intake of breath.
Nothing happened. The blue touch paper stopped glowing.
There was a mass groan of disappointment.
Ignoring all the safety advice, the vicar tiptoed forward, peered at the non-firework, and struck a match.
With a whoosh and a flash and a scream, the first of Molly Coddle’s roman candles delighted the Hazy Hassocks crowd.
The vicar, minus an eyebrow and with a yellowish patch of hair, beamed triumphantly at everyone.
‘What have I missed?’ Joel forced his way through the crowd and pushed in beside her. ‘Have they started on the sacrificial virgins yet?’
Mitzi, whose fingers and toes had been nearing frostbite, was suddenly suffused in a gloriously warm glow. ‘No, but the vicar was close on being fricasseed. It’s an annual event. We’d all be so disappointed if it didn’t happen.’
The flames twinkled on Joel’s diamond ear-stud. Mitzi found it amazingly sexy. It was so – well – unexpected. And it reminded her of all the unisex glam fashions of her youth. He was wearing the long black coat over jeans and a dark sweatshirt, and looked so gorgeous that Mitzi felt her stomach contract.
‘I’m so pleased I managed to spot you,’ Joel said. ‘I’ve been wandering round and round this green for ages. Then I saw your hair. No one could miss your hair.’
Hennaed old hag? Was that what he thought? Oh, bugger.
‘I love redheads,’ Joel said happily. ‘I even married one once.’
‘I married a dyed blond who looked like David Bowie.’
Joel grinned down at her. ‘No contest, then.’
The fireworks were whooshing and swooshing and exploding round them. The vicar, having escaped being blown up by his incendiary devices, was busily organising the Scouts and Guides on the far side of the bonfire, arming them with forked beanpoles.
‘What the hell is going on over there?’ Joel leaned closer to her, his breath warm against her ear, as a rank of Catherine wheels, going nowhere, stuttered and screeched on the spot. ‘Is it some sort of rural initiation ceremony? I’ve never seen anything similar in Manchester.’
‘They’re hooking out the baked potatoes,’ Mitzi laughed. ‘They hand them round later when you’re too frozen to care that they’ve stripped the skin from your mouth – always assuming that Clyde’s wine hasn’t done it first.’
‘Do you fancy a proper drink?’ Joel asked. ‘Later? In a minute? I mean … Well … The Faery Glen is a nice pub and – er – of course, if you don’t want to—’
‘I’d love to,’ Mitzi reigned-in her grin and fought the urge to caper. ‘Ready when you are.’
The Faery Glen was quiet. A proper pub, being all genuine beams and bulging plastered walls and burnished brasses
and worn polished furniture, it always offered a warm welcome.
Boris and Otto, looking bored, perked up behind the bar when Mitzi and Joel came in.
‘Dead tonight,’ Otto said. ‘Everyone’s at the fireworks. Be heaving later, no doubt. Nice to see you both. Er – are you together?’
Joel nodded. Mitzi, to her shame, blushed.
Otto smiled. ‘Oh, right. Didn’t know you knew each other, like. The usual, is it?’
‘Pint for me, please,’ Joel said. ‘Mitzi?’
Boris bustled forward. ‘Glass of red? Large?’
‘Yes, please.’
Choosing a dimpled, copper-topped table beside the cavernous fireplace with its glowing logs, Mitzi slid off her coat and watched Joel chatting at the bar. No doubt Otto and Boris were digging out the minutiae of their friendship.
It was so long since she’d been taken out by a man that she felt quite nervous. Not that this was being
taken out,
of course. Just two people who knew each other slightly, being in the same place at the same time, having a drink. Two lonely-ish people, Mitzi added mentally. Two people who had very little in common except being divorced.
‘Great pub,’ Joel said, handing her the wine glass and shedding his own coat. ‘I wish I lived in Hazy Hassocks – there’s nothing as good as this in Winterbrook. They’re all yoof pubs with lots of noise and music and games and screens …’
‘And you’re too old for all that?’
‘Sadly, yes. Awful, isn’t it? Oh, not that I don’t enjoy the music and the noise and the bustle. But much as I might think I still look eighteen, I’m always aware of the real teenagers staring at me with pity when I try to sing along with Nine Bob Note Rapper and His Wreckin’ Crew, or whatever is playing on the juke box.’
Mitzi laughed. ‘I stick with the Stones and Hendrix and
Mott the Hoople and Dave Edmunds – which are all probably way before your time.’
‘Fishing?’ Joel grinned. ‘I’m forty-one.’
‘Fifty-five,’ Mitzi said, delighted that she wasn’t quite old enough to be his mother after all. ‘And don’t we look good on it?’
‘We do,’ Joel raised his glass to her. ‘Sensational. Here’s to the older generation. May we never grow up.’
After that it was so easy to talk to him. Several drinks later, the pub rapidly filling up, they were still catching up on their various pasts, presents and hopes for the future. It was absolute bliss, Mitzi thought, having had slightly too much wine, to feel so relaxed.
‘Hi, Mum.’ Lulu suddenly loomed over the table. ‘Hello, Joel. Can we join you?’
She pulled up a stool before either of them said a word. Bundling the whiffy Afghan under the table, she grinned at them both. ‘Shay’s just getting the drinks in. Have you had a good evening?’
‘Great,’ they spoke together and laughed.
Lulu nodded. ‘All thanks to Granny’s apple love magic of course … cool stuff. Oh, look – a family gathering!’
Mitzi craned her neck and could just make out Doll’s neat blonde head bobbing through the crowds towards them, followed by Brett. It was lovely to see them, she thought. With his early starts they rarely went out in the evenings, and Mitzi hadn’t expected them to come on to the pub after the fireworks. Things must be looking up for them.
‘Hi.’ Doll’s beam outshone any of the fireworks. ‘I’m so pleased you’re all together. It saves having to say this more than once.’
Brett grinned at her and kissed the top of her head.
‘Oh, pul-lease,’ Lu pulled a face. ‘Not in public!’
Poking her tongue out at her, Doll upped her beam. ‘Mum, you’re going to be a grandmother. Lu you’re going to be an auntie. Joel you’re going to be minus a nurse. Oh, and you’re all invited to a wedding – on Christmas Eve …’
‘When I asked you out for a meal tonight,’ Joel whispered in the icy darkness of the village hall, ‘this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.’
‘No, I know. Me neither. I’m really sorry,’ Mitzi whispered back, passing him one of Lavender and Lobelia’s special sardine fish-paste sandwiches. ‘But it’s fun, isn’t it?’
‘And different,’ Joel nodded in agreement. ‘Which, since I’ve been in Hazy Hassocks, is something I’m beginning to get a taste for – unlike the sandwiches.’
Mitzi giggled just as the Dansette record player wheezed into Ragini, Rado and MacDermot’s ‘Electric Blues’.
The past week, since Doll and Brett’s earthshaking announcement, had been one of the strangest of her life. Discovering she was to become a grandmother and being foolish enough to fall in love at precisely the same time, had turned her world upside down.
On Bonfire Night in The Faery Glen, Mitzi hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry. Of course she was absolutely delighted for Doll and Brett, but – just when she’d been feeling all whimsical and girlish with Joel – the announcement couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Of course, even then she’d known she was far too old for him. It was out of the question. Anyone with any sense would realise that. And he’d shown no inclination whatsoever in that direction. But after her Halloween party she’d
allowed herself just a little dream or two of how it might possibly be if convention could be ignored and miracles happened and wishes came true.