is called Neil but that might be this other guy, he does sound on the new series! Probably a load of bollocks and he’s just trying to impress me.’
Well, at least she was still talking to me. I wasn’t sure if the stream of consciousness was better than the grunty silences; it took more processing but if you could winnow the sense out of it, there was often a giveaway or two to be gleaned. In this case, the name Rory. It sounded as though Poppy might have made a friend.
‘Yes, we’re going to have a chat about the cottage. And Patrick.’
‘You can’t send Patrick away, Mum. You can’t.’ The door closed again. It didn’t slam, but that was probably only due to the amount of stuff on the floor preventing it. The bulb swung as Poppy walked across the floor above, throwing weird shadows across the room.
I still hadn’t quite got used to the darkness out here; the way it came creeping in so early, like a lodger returning before the landlady had got the hoovering done and hoping not to be noticed. September had settled firmly over Dorset with cool nights giving way to warm days and the leaves beginning to brittle and brown on the trees. There was a smell in the air of ripe blackberries and burning and I had an almost atavistic urge to make jam, even though I’d never made jam in my life and hadn’t even read the ingredients on the side of the jars that we always bought in Waitrose.
It was nearly seven o’clock. If I was going to meet Gabriel, then I had to get a move on. I was still wearing the clothes I’d, quite frankly, been wearing for two weeks. Washing down walls was as far as I’d got with the whole ‘redecorating’ thing, but it wasn’t an activity that lent itself to designer clothing, so it was still jeans and an oversized shirt. The rubber gloves came and went, particularly when I was cleaning floors and picking up Patrick’s poo from the orchard. The bucket had gone on timeshare.
Showering was probably optimistic. The electric shower spat alternate gobbets of hot and cold water, so the temperature was more of an average than an actual, and it had a tendency to throw the trip switch out. I settled for washing my face, combing my hair and putting on a pair of clean jeans and a T-shirt and jacket. ‘The Grapes’ could be anything from a spit and sawdust pub frequented only by locals to a gourmet bistro with a universe of Michelin stars and a clientele recruited from the TV actors that lived nearby. I reasoned that this outfit would fit in with either eventuality, and, with instructions to Poppy to finish her homework and ring me if she needed anything, I headed off.
My tiny Kia was perfect for driving the local lanes. I’d resisted Luc’s urging to buy a 4 x 4 wagon for ‘safety’, and it was just as well because the narrow road to the top of the cliff, with its overhanging bracken and hawthorn, would have challenged anything much wider. I’d not really taken much notice when I’d first visited, still too shell-shocked by Luc’s declaration that he was selling the flat, although I had taken note of the removal company’s select and ripe language when they tried to get a full-sized lorry down as far as the cottage. Once out onto the lane that ran along the cliff, things got wider and easier and I wound my window down a little way to enjoy the chilly air, which brought in the smell of the sea. Up here, away from the constricting trees, there was a feeling of openness, the fields were grassy stretches of sheep behind gates, and the sky was huge overhead. Tucked into our little hillside, we didn’t get a lot of sky, so I wound the window down further and stared up at the pinpricked blackness as it unspooled above me.
I met a crossroads and turned towards Bridport, ignoring the signs to Christmas Steepleton. I’d only been down to the little seaside village once or twice and it had been full of lorries and cars then. Presumably filming for Spindrift was under way, or at least in the heavily planning stage, and the lack of parking and actual shops that didn’t sell tourist seaside stuff had kept me from returning. About a mile along the road, which was otherwise devoid of any buildings, was a blaze of lights and a full car park. I turned in, squeezed the Kia into a tiny corner space – another good reason not to have a big 4 x 4 – and somewhat hesitantly made my way around the building to the door.
A group of people were smoking outside, all laughing and jostling over a single lighter. I had one of those moments, when you know you are a twenty-first-century woman in possession of all her rights to enter a pub, yet internally there’s still a whisper from eighteen-ninety womanhood, when going into a pub solo was the mark of a woman touting for custom. I had to seize my courage and ball it up in both hands, take a deep breath and open the door.
Nobody noticed me. I’d been a little bit worried that there might be a Slaughtered Lamb moment of quiet and everyone turning to the door, but the crowded warmth and chatter inside didn’t miss a beat. I shouldered my way in and looked around.
‘Hi there!’ Gabriel was waving to me from a corner table just inside the door. ‘Sit down. This is Tansy Merriweather, who’s been in charge of location finding until now, and Keenan, our director. They’ve got a few questions for you. What are you drinking?’
Maybe it was something about Dorset – something in the air? – that made this easy kind of familiarity breed without contempt. I found myself chatting easily away to both Tansy and Keenan, learning about Spindrift and their places in the team.
‘I’m going more over to managing the café over at Warram Bay,’ Tansy said. She was small and pretty and had the slightly scrunched-up face of someone who spends a lot of time trying to think about what they say before they say it. ‘Working too closely with Davin was making us bring too much work home. When I realised we spent a whole weekend just talking about filming, I decided it was time to get out, hence—’ She waved a hand to indicate Gabriel, who was still standing at the bar.
‘My daughter keeps mentioning Davin,’ I said. ‘You’re a couple?’
‘Yes. It’s a bit like befriending a wild animal,’ Tansy said. ‘But he’s okay really. If your daughter wants to spend some time on set…’
‘She will, if we film at the cottage.’ Keenan, who was short, plump, balding and almost the exact antithesis of what I’d previously thought TV directors would look like, said, over his gin.
‘Oh, yes, I suppose she will. But I’m handing this one over to Gabriel. I need to take more of a back seat this year, and managing the café is a bit less pressurised and has less of Davin shouting in it.’
‘Tansy’s part-owner of the café,’ Keenan mock-whispered, hooking a slice of lime over his glass rim. ‘And Gabriel is cheap and local. He’s told us a bit about your place. It sounds… well, it sounds horrible, but I expect you like it. Got any pictures?’
I pulled out my phone and showed them the estate agent’s pictures that had made me fall in love with Harvest Cottage in the first place. We discussed access and, when Gabriel finally fought his way through the crush at the bar and brought my drink over, we talked about layout and, finally, money.
Keenan named a figure that would help get us through the winter. Logs were expensive and we still needed carpet and curtains and fewer woodlice. After Christmas I would start looking for local teaching jobs again or apply to be in the bank of teachers to cover absences, but in the meantime payment for use of the cottage would get us through. It would be a squeak, but I was damned if I’d ask Luc for additional money.
We arranged a day for Keenan to come with some of the team to make sure that technicalities I didn’t really grasp would work, and then he and Tansy went off back to Steepleton, leaving me with Gabriel.
‘So, when is Patrick going?’ I felt a bit awkward. I mean, obviously this wasn’t a date, more of a business meeting, but it had been a long time since I’d been alone in a pub with a man. In fact, had I ever? I’d met Luc when I was nineteen, there
