Fern Britton - Hidden Treasures

She paid the bill, left a minimal tip and drove home, fuming all the way.

*

On her doorstep there was a large bunch of rusty-coloured dahlias, wrapped in newspaper and tied with green twine. A small note read:

Thank you for listening and welcome to our village.

Regards, Simon Canter

Smiling at his thoughtfulness, she carried them into the kitchen and dug out an old Cornishware jug to put them in. They looked just right sitting on the stone hearth of the fireplace.

After putting some laundry in the machine, including the revolting socks and trainers, she collected her brand-new tool box from under the sink and took her new washing line and ironmongery outside.

It was incredibly liberating not to have Gray breathing down her neck, telling her she was getting it all wrong. She hammered and screwed and swore to her heart’s content, not caring when she chipped a bit of brick or drilled a hole in the wrong place, and it was fun. After about an hour she tested the whole construction. The knots seemed safe enough and everything appeared secure on the privy wall and back-door frame.

Ten minutes later, she’d hung the first batch of washing out on the line and she couldn’t have been more pleased with herself if she’d climbed Machu Picchu.

Back inside, she settled down in her rocking chair by the Aga with a pot of tea and phoned Chloe. They spent a lovely hour catching up with each other’s news and Chloe fell about laughing at the story of the dog wee. ‘Everyone’s a critic, Mum!’

But she felt Helen’s humiliation at the hands of the corkscrew-haired man.

‘Mummy, how horrible. What a nasty man. I hope you don’t bump into him again.’

‘I’ll make sure to avoid him – not that he’d remember me anyway.’

There was a knock on the door. Helen looked up through the porthole window of the door and caught sight of a faded red fisherman’s smock. No, it couldn’t be!

‘Hang on, darling. There’s someone outside.’ She slid out of her chair and ducked down on her hands and knees so that he couldn’t see her. She crawled towards the door and, very tentatively, looked up through the glass to get a clearer view. He was looking down through the porthole directly at her.

‘Chloe, oh my God – it’s him! He’s here.’

‘What? Don’t answer it.’

‘No, I’ll have to. He can see me. Stay on the line.’

She stood up, trying to look nonchalant and opened the door. ‘Hello. Can I help you?’

‘I thought it was you. The dog-wee lady?’ He smiled a twisted, sardonic smile.

‘Yes, that’s me. Ha ha!’ Helen laughed awkwardly.

‘What were you doing crawling on the floor just now?’

‘Erm …’ She couldn’t think of an answer, so said instead, ‘I’m on the phone … long distance … Is this important?’

‘Well, no, not to me. But I thought you’d like to know your washing line’s broken and your knickers are blowing all over the churchyard.’ He looked her up and down slowly. ‘Bye, then.’

‘Right. Thank you. Goodbye.’ And she slammed the door.

‘Mum! Are you OK? I heard his voice. Quite sexy.’

‘Chloe, he may sound quite sexy, he may look quite sexy, but that man is not sexy.’

*

Out in the garden the washing was ruined. She collected it all up and then climbed over the wall into the churchyard to find a tea towel and two pairs of the frilly knickers that Gray had bought her for her last birthday. He had always bought her pretty undies. He loved her legs and was never happier than when they were encased in stockings and suspenders. But then he’d loved any woman in stockings and suspenders. She wished he’d stop giving them to her.

With everything safely in her laundry basket, she hoiked herself back up over the wall and into her garden. She heard a wolf whistle behind her and turned. That bloody man was in the churchyard, looking at her, and laughing. She clutched the basket tightly to her chest and stomped indoors, giving the back door a satisfying slam.

Sitting at his desk in the vicarage, Simon Canter gazed out of his study window overlooking the church car park. He smiled and returned Piran Ambrose’s wave as he drove off in his rusting Toyota truck. Good man, Piran. A bit surly, but a good heart and he was really helping the Graveyard Committee in identifying which plots needed to be renovated, relocated or simply removed all together.

Just beyond the church was the churchyard, and beyond that Helen Merrifield’s back garden. Simon was in love. She was perfect; a goddess of medium height with what looked like shapely long legs. He hadn’t been able to see much because of the gardening trousers she’d been wearing, but he had noticed her full bosom when she’d taken her coat off and stood there in her T-shirt looking at his ankle. Her hair was dark auburn with a natural curl. Her eyes amber. Her creamy skin was scattered with freckles. Her lips stained as if with raspberry juice, plump and wide …

He sighed. Meeting Helen had shaken his orderly world. He’d felt the same when he first saw Denise and then, a couple of years after the Denise debacle, when he’d met Hillary, a woman in her thirties who came to him for confirmation classes. Week after week they’d sat here in his study, just the two of them, discussing her faith and the challenge of believing in a God who didn’t show himself so magically these days; no vivid dramas and burning bushes like in the Old Testament. Her faith had been strong, but she seemed to be having trouble allowing God to accept her as she was. Simon had high hopes of getting her to trust God and eventually trust him too. Then her trust would turn to love and he would have the wife he so very much wanted.

What’s that old saying? Simon thought. ‘ Man plans and God laughs. ’ Never had it been truer than when Hillary confessed she was struggling with her lesbian feelings towards one of her married colleagues. Sometimes Simon didn’t like God’s sense of humour.

And now there was Helen Merrifield. Her name sounded like crystal water sparkling into a little pool.

‘Canter S.,’ he heard his Latin teacher’s voice in his head, ‘get on with your work.’

He looked down at the scribbled notes he was making for tomorrow’s sermon. All nonsense. ‘Come on, man, get a grip.’ Living alone was a wonderful excuse for talking aloud to yourself. ‘Yes, yes, now where was I? Helen Merrifield … did she get my flowers? Did she like them? Shall I go over and see her? Erm … no, I’ll phone her instead. Drat, don’t have her number. She’ll phone me. I am in the book. And if she doesn’t, I’ll see her at church tomorrow. And I’ll talk to her about … stuff. Yes. Now, what am I doing? Writing tomorrow’s sermon. That’s it. I’ll put the kettle on.’

Which he did, and tried to knuckle down to the task at hand, but Simon was unable to keep thoughts of Helen at bay for long.

‘I wonder what she’s doing now?’ he mused.

*

Helen was on the beach. She’d followed the path from the village green down the side of Pendruggan Farm and walked half a mile across the fields from Gull’s Cry to where the Atlantic Ocean swept in and out of Shellsand Bay. It was a beach which the holiday visitors rarely found as it was awkward to trek down to, especially with windbreaks, cool boxes and buggies. Today it was empty.

She walked down to the tideline and turned over lumps of seaweed with her wellies, looking for interesting bits of wood or shells. She found a cork ring attached to some green fishing net and a beautiful piece of slate shaped like a heart. She put them both in her pocket and then walked down to the sea. The breeze was mild, ruffling her wavy hair, and with every buffet she felt her humiliation at Piran’s hands slowly dissipate. The tide was out quite a way, but the swell was big and she spotted two surfers looking like seals in their wetsuits. They were lying on their boards waiting to catch a big wave. She took a great lungful of the salty air and reminded herself that this was why she was here. The wildness of the elements and the freedom of a life without responsibility. She watched as the surfers paddled furiously just ahead of a big breaker and then leapt up on to their boards and expertly rode the wave almost right up on to the beach.