Paradise Fields (40 page)

She could have asked Sam, of course; he often organised parties, which involved invading a distant field, or railway arches, hiring a generator for the sound equipment, and buying a sufficient number of cans of beer to require several trips to the recycling centre. But somehow Nel didn't think the Old Steamers would be happy with budget lager. They
wanted beer with unspeakable names and unmentionable ingredients.

It was nearly twelve. The grand opening was scheduled for two o'clock. The fields were a mass of scurrying people, floundering in mud, laughing, cursing, battling with ropes, sheets of canvas, corrugated plastic, and bits of board which moved in the wind. There were people struggling to put up awnings, ramming posts into the ground, tying bits of rope together and stretching them at neck height across the pathways. It was chaos. There was no other word for it.

Sam appeared. ‘Hi, Mum, how you doing? It's just like Glastonbury, isn't it?'

Nel had never been to Glastonbury, which, to the amusement of her children, she pronounced with a long A, but she knew it was inclined to be muddy.

‘Do you want me to nip into town and stock up on black plastic bags?' he went on.

‘Why? What for?'

‘To stop everyone getting trench foot.'

‘Oh, go away, Sam!'

‘Only joking, Mother.'

Nel went to find Viv, for some moral support. She had a honey stall in the market, but it was being minded by Lavender, with her lavender-scented candles, wheat compresses, soap and linen bags.

‘How's it going, kid?' asked Viv, who was managing to look attractively wind-blown. ‘Look, that must be the beer tent arriving. Has Chris arrived yet?'

‘Oh God no! He wouldn't be seen before the moment he opens it! He wants all the bells and whistles. The band are all set to play “Anchors Aweigh” because he was once in the Sea Scouts.'

‘I'm still not sure we should have asked him to do it. We could have got a local actor to do it so easily.'

‘I know, but he was so flattered he bought a plot of land himself. And not even he could do a dodgy deal with a plot that size.'

‘You don't think we've panicked over it all, do you?' Viv brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes streaking her face with mud as she did so.

‘Definitely not. He's a crook and a toad.' She paused. ‘Do you want me to spit on my hanky and get the mud off, or will you brave the Ladies?'

Viv rubbed at her face. ‘I'll brave the loos. They're OK if you go early. Were they terribly expensive, by the way?'

‘Yes. That's why there are only two. I did get a special deal, though. The man was so nice.'

‘I don't know why you don't realise how attractive to men you are, Nel.'

‘Don't start, Viv! There're a thousand things I have to do before lift-off. Do you think the pig will be roasted in time for people to actually eat it today?'

‘Don't ask me, I'm a vegetarian.'

‘No need to be smug about it.'

‘Nel! Lighten up! We're supposed to be having fun here!'

‘You may be, but I'm not. I'm supposed to be making sure that all the stallholders are happy with their site and that the steam people like the real ale, which is called Pig's Bottom, or something equally gross. The band only drink Streaked Lightning, by the way.'

‘What's that when it's at home?'

‘Some sort of cider from the Forest, I think. It's
probably illegal, but would clean your drains, no problem. I haven't actually tasted it myself.'

‘Well, perhaps you should. It might cheer you up.'

‘The only thing that would cheer me up is being cloned enough times so I can be everywhere I need to be at the same time.'

‘Make-up tips I can do. Cloning is beyond me. I'm going to talk to Jake.'

Nel watched her beautiful best friend stalk off in the direction of the love of her life and forced herself to smile. Not as genuine a reaction as bursting into tears, but less messy.

‘
SO, HOW MANY
plots have you sold, then?' Chris Mowbray oiled up to Nel through the mud. He was dressed in a blue blazer with shiny buttons, a very regimental-looking tie, white drill trousers and new-looking wellington boots, possibly bought that morning.

Before she replied, Nel was pleased to observe that flecks of mud sullied the creases of his slacks. She was sure he'd refer to them as slacks. He looked, she thought, like a 1950s advertisement for cigarettes. Then she beamed. ‘Hello, Chris. How thoughtful of you to be on time. We're all ready. And aren't we lucky with the weather? It's cleared up beautifully. Bright sunshine, after all the showers. Perfect.'

‘You know they've all got to be sold today. In fact, if you haven't sold them already, I reckon it's too late.'

Nel went on beaming. Her smile muscles were in danger of going into spasm. She had not sold all the plots, but she was determined not to spoil the jamboree because of it. She would sort something out tomorrow, now she had to put on a happy face.

‘I don't think so,' she said through her teeth. ‘I don't think April the first ends until midnight. I might be wrong, of course, but I think that's generally accepted to be the end of the day.'

Chris Mowbray snorted and marched off. Nel offered
up a silent prayer that he might trip over something and fall into the mud, but sadly, at ten minutes to two, the site was remarkably organised.

Even in her depressed and panicky state, Nel could not avoid noticing that everything looked lovely, a modern Brueghel scene, full of life, colour and activity.

A row of white awnings (bought by Nel out of her new farmers' market overdraft) denoted the market end of the proceedings. As if to co-ordinate with the awnings, but in fact to comply with Health and Safety standards, the food producers were wearing smart white overalls and white hats. They looked hygienic, professional and efficient.

Sacha's stall, like a sapphire among diamonds, had pyramids of blue bottles and jars. Acetate boxes of her special bath chocolates decorated with rosebuds caught the light, and behind the stall, with Sacha, in a short, tight, white nylon uniform, sat Kerry Anne. She looked a confusing mixture of squeaky-clean nurse and sexual fantasy involving tight belts and nappies. Sacha had explained to Nel on the phone that although Kerry Anne was a money-grabbing madam, she had her uses.

Next to them was Lavender, adding amethyst to the sapphire. Bunches of lavender hung all around the top and down the sides of her stall. Within the frame were scented candles, bright cotton lavender bags, white linen lavender-filled pillows and bottles of lavender water. Like Viv's honey stall next to it, it was a foretaste of summer: optimistic, sensual, positive.

Next to them was a more eccentric entry to the farmers' market world, one which Nel feared she would not get past the council. It was hard enough to persuade them that good quality crafts were eligible, but this
woman made hats. In her favour was that they were made on a farm: her husband was a farmer, and she had some token eggs displayed in an up-turned straw boater, but what she produced was designed for Ascot, rather than a small local fair.

They were sensational: elegant and pretty and unashamedly frivolous. Some were huge, flower-covered cartwheels, some were little tight-fitting caps with a swirl of black feathers, others were coy bunches of net, designed to flirt through, and the rest were the sort of straw hat you could wear all summer. Viv had already bought one and was wearing it, displaying both her purchase and herself to maximum advantage. When Nel had visited the stall earlier and seen the price of the produce, she had sold a plot to the creator. ‘Just one hat sold, and you're in profit – buy a square, there's a dear!'

The milliner, who had moved down from London to marry her farmer boyfriend, had laughed and produced her cheque book.

‘I'll buy more than one if you like.'

‘Not allowed, I'm afraid,' Nel had explained. ‘Although now,' she added, ‘I wish we'd put a maximum number of purchases on it, making it possible for people to buy up to five plots, say. I'm finding it awfully hard to find enough people.'

At the more conventional end of the market, Catherine was already doing a brisk trade in organic burgers, as was Geoff, the ice-cream maker, whom Nel had never got round to meeting, but had said ‘yes' to on the phone, thinking the event would need ice cream and it might as well be his. She had sampled it that morning, and decided as soon as his equipment was up to standard, he must become a market regular.

Ewan, the hurdle maker, had set up a whole cluster of wicker wigwams. His wife had made long, silky pennants which now fluttered from their tops, giving the impression of a miniature medieval jousting ground. Apparently they were either for children to play in or for adults to grow beans up, whichever seemed more appropriate.

At the river end of the ground was the steam fair. A steam organ, complete with lovingly restored automata, banging drums and clapping cymbals, added colour and life to the more workaday steamrollers and traction engines. All the machines hissed and steamed gently, like benign dinosaurs in a primeval swamp.

Behind the steam engines, the pièce de résistance was the
Lady Elizabeth
, bedecked with bunting and flowers, as magnificent and stately as any royal barge. The sun shone on the water, all the brighter for the rain which had gone before. A small queue was already forming by the notice advertising boat-trips. Nel still didn't know who'd won the battle regarding prices, but she didn't care. It all looked beautiful.

One of the local primary schools had produced a maypole, and its top class was scheduled to dance round it, weaving in and out, plaiting and unplaiting, just after Chris Mowbray had pronounced the fête open. Nel promised herself a ringside position. The potential for disaster was enormous, but attractive in a bizarre way.

The band, up near the wooden box which was acting as a podium (Nel hadn't thought that she might need a podium until ten minutes earlier, and had frantically begged from stall to stall for something that would do), all looked magnificent in their braided uniforms and
peaked caps. The sun sent sunbeams bouncing off their instruments which were polished like mirrors.

Just as she was taking a last look at the river, before finding the megaphone so Chris Mowbray could make his speech, Nel saw a flash of iridescent blue skim the willows. A kingfisher! It had to be a good omen, whatever happened today; a kingfisher had to mean good things.

In a moment of sentimentality, brought on no doubt by love-sickness and the fact she had had no breakfast, it occurred to Nel that events like this, in one form or another, had been going on for centuries: people gathering together, buying, selling, meeting old friends and making new ones. And even when Paradise Fields disappeared under new houses, fairs would still continue, if not here, then somewhere. What was still uncertain was what and how many houses would cover it. In her pocket, Nel had the forms for thirteen unsold plots.

She handed Chris the megaphone. The band were silenced; the steam organ wheezed to a stop.

‘You would think,' Chris Mowbray muttered, all pretence of being friendly long gone, ‘that you'd have been able to set up a decent public-address system, instead of this bloody thing.'

‘And you would think,' said Nel, not bothering to pretend any more either, ‘that you might be bit more graceful about doing this. We could have had the actor from that new police series, you know. He'd have done it without making all this fuss! Everyone said we should have a celebrity, but I held out for asking you. For all you've done for the hospice.'

Watching him then, she tried to think of what he'd
done for the hospice since he'd been chairman of the board. Apart from encouraging a very good director to leave and trying to close the whole thing down, she couldn't think of a thing.

Chris Mowbray gave her a withering look. ‘Fat slag,' he muttered, then brought the megaphone to his lips.

‘Ladies and gentlemen . . .' he began.

‘And fat slags,' muttered Nel, who, instead of being enraged by it, found his insult had released some of her tension and was making her laugh. She caught sight of Viv and signalled for her to come over. She wanted to share the joke. After he had opened the fête, and the festivities could officially begin, she planned to push him into the mud, preferably when the photographer from the local paper was handy. She'd make a point to warn him, so the moment could be captured for posterity.

‘It gives me great pleasure—'

Nel and Viv exchanged bored glances and put their hands over their mouths to hide their yawns. Any minute now they would start getting giggly.

‘—to announce the festivities open. But before I do—'

Sadly for Chris Mowbray, the band, thinking this was their cue, had started playing again and had to be hushed by Muriel. Someone from the back – Nel had a horrible feeling it was one of her own children – shouted, ‘Get on with it!'

‘I would just like to say how proud I am to be able to announce that this will be the last such occasion on Paradise Fields.'

There were loud boos, and this time Nel could see it was indeed Sam, Fleur, and several of their friends
doing it. She frowned as loudly as she could and shook her head at them.

‘In the place of this – er – charming, but let's face it, extremely muddy area of unused land, there will soon be houses, many houses. Homes for men, women and their children – that old building will be gone . . .'

‘Just a minute!' From nowhere appeared Jake, muddy but still gorgeous in old jeans and a rugby shirt. ‘Just what are you saying?' he demanded.

The audience was completely silent, desperate to hear the altercation that was obviously going on. Nel observed the local photographer, poised to snap the moment when one angry man punched another on the nose.