Practically Perfect (20 page)

‘Well, since you’ve offered,’ said Rob, to Anna’s complete surprise, ‘I’ve promised my sister to help at her Country Fair and Novelty Dog Show, over at the other end of the county.’

‘That sounds fun! What are you doing?’

‘That’s why I need support. She hasn’t told me. It could be anything from judging the novelty dogs to selling ice creams. She’s in charge of everything. I’ll get the job no one else will agree to do. Last time she had me shinning up trees with bottles of whisky.’

‘Why?’ Anna’s mind reeled with possibilities.

‘It’s to do with … Oh, never mind. It would take too long to explain. But you don’t mind coming along?’

‘Of course not! It sounds a blast. When is it?’

‘I’m still not sure of the date. Can I let you know nearer the time?’

‘Sure thing.’ She hesitated. ‘I may not be able to manage the date, of course.’ If she had a date with Max, for example. ‘But if I’m free, I’ll certainly come.’

‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you’re free then.’ She could hear the smile in his voice. Chloe was right, he was a nice man and could maybe become a real friend.

As she was still waiting for permission to build the bathroom and Eric, the brickie/plasterer whom Rob had told her about, couldn’t come for a few days, Anna decided to concentrate on rebuilding the fireplace – but the first thing she had to do was get the chimney swept. While a man draped her house in dust sheets and prepared to fire up an industrial-sized vacuum cleaner, Anna decided to take Caroline for a walk. It was partly for the sake of Caroline, who was nervous of the sweep, and partly for the sweep, who was nervous of Caroline.

While she was making the circuit, she felt her mobile phone vibrate in her pocket. It was Max. Instantly she heard his deep, cultured voice she felt like a teenage girl talking to her boyfriend, instead of a young woman who in some ways was really quite old for her age.

‘Hello,’ she said, trying to keep the smile out of her voice.

‘Hello, you,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your nice text.’

‘Thank you for the flowers! They were stunning.’ So stunning, in fact, that she had given half of them to Chloe. This had served the double purpose of allowing her to actually move around her cottage without knocking over yet another bucket of lilies, and proving to Chloe, who seemed dubious, that Max was a Good Thing.

Now he said, ‘What are you up to?’

‘I’m just walking Caroline to the common. I’ve left
the
sweep at home. It’s a glorious day. What are you doing?’

‘Well, among other things, there’s a small chance I might be in your area next weekend. It’s only a very small chance but I wanted to see if you’re free before I go on making arrangements. No point in coming all the way down there if you’re not free to come out to dinner with me.’

Anna blushed with pleasure. ‘But you’d be seeing your mother, presumably.’

‘Well, yes, but doesn’t a dutiful son deserve some reward? So, are you free or not?’

Of course she was free! And if she wasn’t, she would be immediately! But something, possibly some gene she had in common with Laura, made her say, ‘Obviously I haven’t got my diary with me.’

‘Why obviously?’

‘Because I’m taking Caroline for a walk. I’ve got things to carry. The lead, my phone if it rings …’ She was about to add kitchen towels and plastic bags to the list but decided that the etiquette and technique of cleaning up after your dog might be lost on him.

‘Well, let me know as soon as you can. I’ll be very disappointed if I can’t see you.’ His disappointment would be nothing on hers, she suspected.

‘I will.’

All in all it was a very satisfactory phone call and she would confront the problem of what to wear when and if the date was confirmed. For the first time it occurred to her that if she and Max were to start going out properly, she’d have to have a few more clothes. Her wardrobe was not so much limited as non-existent. Although there was Chloe of course; her wardrobe might have been very cramped, but there was plenty of it. Just as well they were more or less the same size.

Having paid the sweep and cleaned up what little soot he left behind him, Anna started on the fireplace. She had already picked out the best dressed stone for the outside, and was hoping she had enough left for the fireplace. But what was a very small stone for a wall, might do well for a fireplace. She put on Radio 4, mixed some lime and mortar, and began. She hummed as she worked, high on love and the scent of lilies. To complete her happiness, Max telephoned later to tell her that dinner the following Saturday night was definitely on if she was free, which she most certainly was. The fact that she would have spent all day helping Chloe clean his mother’s greenhouse caused her wry amusement. She didn’t say anything – let him find out!

Chapter Twelve

ANNA AND CHLOE
turned up at the appointed time on Saturday morning. Mike was at home and when he had taken Caroline and the boys for a long walk, they were going to spend the rest of the day watching boys’ television. Fortunately, Caroline hadn’t yet learnt to express a preference for cookery and make-over programmes over sport.

Anna and Chloe were wearing old, working clothes, which in Anna’s case meant her usual attire. She’d tied a scarf round her hair, because she’d just washed it, and Chloe was looking businesslike in an old boiler suit of Mike’s, cinched in with a tight belt, so she wouldn’t fall over it.

Mrs Gordon did not look impressed when she opened the door. All ideas about introducing herself as a friend of Max’s vanished off Anna’s agenda in a blink. Her look could have curdled milk.

‘Oh, are you the people who’ve come to clean out my greenhouse?’ she said haughtily.

‘If that’s what you’d like us to do, Mrs Gordon,’ said Chloe. ‘We are the very people.’ She smiled in a friendly, efficient way. She was not going to be put off by Mrs Gordon’s officious manner, even if Anna was just standing meekly behind her.

‘Good, well I’m glad to see that you’re on time. No, don’t come in, if you don’t mind.’ Mrs Gordon looked
them
both up and down and frowned. ‘Could you go round the side and in through the back door?’

It was not unreasonable not to want heavy working boots tramping over antique Persian rugs, but both Chloe and Anna felt like second-class citizens as they went round the back. ‘Don’t say anything about Max! I don’t want her to know I know him!’ Anna whispered.

‘Don’t blame you! I’m surprised she didn’t have a tradesmen’s entrance.’ Chloe muttered back.

‘She probably did, only we didn’t see it,’ said Anna.

They knocked again, at the back door this time, and Mrs Gordon opened it. ‘Now, you see that greenhouse?’

A long, traditional wooden glasshouse stood at the bottom of quite a long garden. They nodded.

‘Well, it’s fallen into disuse and needs a thoroughly good clean, as do all the pots and bits and pieces.’ Mrs Gordon sighed, as if it was in some way Chloe and Anna’s fault that things had got so bad. ‘My son thinks I should pull it down, but there’s a man locally who wants to rent it, to raise bedding plants.’

‘Bedding plants,’ said Chloe, for want of something better.

‘There’s hot water in the scullery,’ Mrs Gordon went on bossily. ‘And buckets and brushes. You’ll have to carry the water down to the greenhouse, of course, but you look like good strong girls.’

‘We are,’ said Anna, scanning the handsome, unbending face for similarities to Max. There were plenty. She smiled. ‘We like a challenge.’

‘Have you got rubber gloves?’

They shook their heads, feeling ashamed and belligerent at the same time.

‘Well, I suggest you go to the shop and get some. You’ll need really hot water for the glass and soda crystals are
very
harsh on the hands.’ She glanced down at Anna’s, which were looking particularly battle-scarred. ‘Even if you don’t take care of them as a rule.’

‘Remind me to wear mittens if ever I’m invited for tea,’ muttered Anna as they went to investigate their task. They’d told Mrs Gordon that they were going to make sure there was nothing else they needed before they went to the shop.

‘I’m not paying for fancy sprays and polishes,’ Mrs Gordon had said firmly. ‘Hot water, soda crystals and elbow grease are all you require. And there’s no need for both of you to go to the shop.’

Chloe, determined that she would find something else she needed apart from gloves, bought a roll of stockinet and some sugar soap.

‘I’m not sure what you do with it,’ she told Anna when she came back, ‘but it looked suitably old-fashioned.’

‘I’m surprised she didn’t expect you to pay for the materials,’ said Anna, who had made a start by moving as many piles of pots as she could out of the greenhouse.

‘Well, she might yet. I didn’t like to disturb her to say I was back. Ugh – how are you with spiders?’

‘Not bad, thank goodness, seeing how many there are here. Just don’t ask me to touch them.’

‘I think I’m going to get some plastic buckets and just pay for them myself,’ said Chloe later. ‘These old metal ones are so bloody heavy!’

‘I know what you mean.’ Anna wiped her face with her sleeve, adding another layer of dirt as she did so. ‘Shall I go?’

‘No! It was my idea, I get to escape!’

‘You went last time!’

‘I know, but I’m desperate for a wee and daren’t ask
her
. I could go at the shop. I will buy chocolate,’ she added temptingly.

Anna sighed. She was beginning to feel tired and thirsty. ‘You’d think she’d give us a cup of coffee, a drink of water – something!’

‘I’ll get some caffeine-filled fizzy drinks while I’m about it. As long as you promise to brush your teeth really well later.’ Chloe grinned.

Anna stuck her tongue out and went back to her task of washing a very fragile pane of glass without breaking it. There were lots of missing panes, and one more wouldn’t make much difference, but she liked to do a job well if she was doing it at all, even though half her mind was on her date with Max that evening. It was only fair to let Chloe get away to the shop; Anna was in love, and things were a lot more tolerable when you had a wonderful man to think about. Even if his mother was a bit of a battleaxe.

Chloe came back having been away mere moments. She was rolling her eyes and giggling. ‘I had to come back and tell you! A very smart car has just drawn up and the most gorgeous man got out! I saw it just as I got round the corner into the drive. I don’t think he saw me. Do you want to see if it’s Max? But you’d better run!’

Anna ran and was just in time to see Max’s back disappearing behind the huge front door. She came back to report. ‘It’s him! Oh my God! What shall I do? I can’t let him see me like this!’

Chloe, obviously about to tell Anna not to be so silly, took another look at her. ‘Fair enough. You go back.’

‘But supposing he goes into the scullery and looks out of the window at me?’ Anna was feeling decidedly panicky.

‘Unless you want him to, he’s unlikely to recognise you.’ Chloe said, trying to calm Anna down. ‘You don’t look
quite
so much like Audrey Hepburn now. More Doris Day in one of those movies when she dresses like a boy.’

‘Thanks very much!’ Anna stifled a giggle.

‘Not to say that’s not a very good look for you,’ Chloe went on hurriedly. ‘But it’s not the same as the slinky black dress and the gloves.’

‘I’ll just stay hidden then. He might be awfully cross, though, when he discovers I was actually in his mother’s garden and didn’t say hello,’ Anna said tentatively.

‘You don’t have to tell him, and anyway, he’d understand. He must know his mother is a harridan and would be furious if her afternoon’s labour, which she got for the price of a raffle ticket, was interrupted by social niceties.’

Anna giggled. ‘I don’t think there’s much danger of that. Even if we took our shoes and socks off, she wouldn’t let us into the main part of the house.’ She chuckled again. ‘I suppose it is quite funny, though.’

Chloe nodded. ‘I’ll go and get supplies and if anyone sees me, I’ll break into broad Gloucestershire,’ she said, having done just that.

Chloe stole back past the house with plastic buckets and chocolate. They both felt they were at boarding school, or summer camp, sneaking in and out. ‘Which is ridiculous,’ said Chloe, chomping down on a Mars bar and tucking her hair behind her ear. ‘We’re adults – I’m a mother and you’ve got a career – doing charitable works. We shouldn’t be feeling furtive and giggling.’

‘No,’ agreed Anna, giggling again.

Although it was early May, the weather was still chilly. Chloe and Anna had put on lots of protective clothing and so got into quite a sweat as they washed windows and flowerpots, weeded the stretch of earth, and did their best to get rid of all pests and diseases that lurk in disused
greenhouses
, using only what Mrs Gordon had given them and their own limited extra supplies.

‘I’m not sure elbow grease will get rid of all the bugs,’ said Chloe. ‘But it does seem to have sorted out the mould. I’d have put a bit of bleach on it, myself.’

‘I’m sure we need Jeyes Fluid,’ said Anna. ‘Or something to get rid of red spider mite.’