Needles and Pearls (25 page)

‘Mummy?’

‘Yes, Archie.’

‘This is my best day ever. Ever.’

‘Well, it’s not been poor Mr Pallfrey’s best day.’

Or mine, come to that.

‘I know, but it’ll be nice for him knowing Trevor is with us. Because he loves us, Mum, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes, but he’s not staying with us all the time, Archie. It wouldn’t be fair on him when I’m in the shop working. He’ll be with Martin for some of the time.’

Actually, most of the time, hopefully.

‘But he’s staying with us some nights, isn’t he?’

‘Yes. Some.’

He beams.

‘It’s marvellous, isn’t it, Mum?’

‘Yes, love.’

Christ, I wonder what’ll be next; now I seem to have landed myself with a semi-detached dog, maybe Bruno would like a weekend retreat for Tom and bloody Jerry. I’ll end up on the beach looking like those nutters trying to
take packs of dogs for a walk, tangled up in leads with dribble all over my coat.

It’s the morning of the Summer Fayre and I’m stuffing kapok into the last of the white knitted elephants before I sew them up, whilst simultaneously trying to persuade Archie not to eat his breakfast in the Cath Kidston dog basket Ellen has sent down, as a surprise present to make up for cancelling coming down this weekend. She’s on some story, so it arrived in a courier van, and Archie slept in the bloody thing last night, which gave me a hell of a fright when I got up for one of my increasingly frequent trips to the loo. There’s nothing quite like patrolling a house in total darkness looking for a small boy who’s meant to be in his bed to make you completely wake up and contemplate dialling 999, until you find him curled up in a dog basket in the kitchen.

‘Come on, Archie, please, and sit up at the table.’

‘It’s not fair. You said we’d have Trevor for some of the time, and we haven’t. Hardly any. And that’s a lie.’

‘We had him on Tuesday, Archie, and Martin’s working again next week, so we’ll probably have him then as well.’

I think Mr Pallfrey will be in hospital for quite a while yet: I went in to see him yesterday, and he was marooned inside vast pyjamas, which Christine bought for him before she had to go back to Spain, trying to be brave but wincing every time he moved.

She’s coming back for him when they let him out, and taking him to Spain to convalesce. So it looks like we’re going to be dog-sitting for a bit longer. Talk about the thin end of the bloody wedge.

‘It’s not fair. Martin’s greeding him off us, and he was our dog first.’

‘He’s Mr Pallfrey’s dog, Archie, and he loves all the space at Martin’s house, you know he does.’

‘We should get him some toys at our house like Martin has. I can use my pocket money.’

We collected Trevor from Martin before school on Tuesday, and found him having a brilliant time with an obstacle course of planks and a growing collection of partially mauled squeaky toys.

‘Okay. How much have you got saved up?’

‘Nearly 50p.’

‘Right.’

Excellent. Not enough for anything too squeaky then.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes, Jack?’

‘I might buy Trevor a toy too. How much do you think they’d be?’

This is getting serious; if Jack’s considering parting with some of his carefully saved funds then I’m really in trouble, especially when Trevor finally goes home and we’ve got the toys, but no sodding dog. Damn.

‘I don’t know, sweetheart. A lot of money, I think. I’m going up to get ready now. Finish your breakfast, Archie.’

Victorian milkmaid, here we come.

Oh God.

Connie and I are standing behind our stall at ten to two, and I’m still fretting about burgeoning cleavage issues and my inability to keep my blouse from slipping off my shoulders in the manner of a Victorian street walker. I’m doing my best with a black cotton shawl, but Mr Nelson’s already been over twice, offering to help us unpack.

‘Hand me a safety pin, Con – I think I’ve just had a brilliant idea.’

We’ve got a Tupperware box full of safety pins for attaching price tickets to things, which we haven’t actually used because we’ve decided everything is going to be £2. After reuniting my bra strap with the shoulder seam inside my blouse Connie asks me to fix hers for her, and I’m delving down her front when Mr Nelson comes over again, with an old ice-cream tub full of change. He stands watching us, leaning forwards slightly with an unpleasant leer on his face. This is probably going to be the highlight of his week.

‘Sorry to interrupt, ladies. Annabel asked me to remind you that your target for the day is £95, and here’s your float. Quite a tall order, I’d say, but I’m sure you’ll manage. Two lovely ladies like you.’

It’s a pretty hefty target for a load of old tat at 1 Op a go, so it’s a good job we’ve got a cunning plan.

He puts his hands in his trouser pockets and jingles his change; at least I think that’s what he’s doing. He’s in Victorian costume too; all the PTA people are, although the teachers are sensibly pretending they didn’t realise Annabel meant they had to dress up as well. She’s livid about it, according to Jane Johnson. Mr Nelson’s wearing a suit with a cravat and a top hat and appears to be channelling Leslie Phillips. Annabel is in pink ruffled splendour with a bustle and matching parasol, and there’s a definite swish when she walks past, which I think she’s loving, although Mrs Nelson seems to have drawn the short straw in a rather sickly green, and she seems to be having trouble with her bustle, which has gone rather lopsided.

Everyone else seems to have gone for variations on the long-dresses theme, with a few cotton pinnies, and Jane Johnson and Tina Davies have joined us with long floral skirts, but they’ve sensibly chosen white pin-tucked blouses
rather than milkmaid décolletage. And then there’s Mrs Denning, who’s also Annabel’s friend, wearing her Victorian bathing costume, which is particularly brave of her given the size of her bottom; horizontal stripes are terribly unforgiving.

Annabel has kitted herself out with a megaphone, and looks very pleased with the size of the crowd as she opens the gates.

Mark and the kids make straight for the bouncy castle.

‘Hello, Mrs Marwell.’

‘Hello, dear. How much are these flamencos?’ She holds up a pair of pink plastic flamingos.

‘Everything’s £2, but you get a go on our lucky dip, and you can win the shawl, or a box of cakes.’

Mark’s made us a box of cakes, which is waiting for the lucky winner in a white cardboard box under the table in the shade, and we’ve put Grace’s shawl up on a box in the middle of our table, covered in gold tissue paper. The combination of sheer chiffon and beautiful silver beading looks dazzling in the sunshine.

‘What sort of cake is it, dear?’

‘Hazelnut and white chocolate ones, and meringues.’

‘I’m not that keen on nuts – they get under my teeth, but go on then, since it’s for a good cause.’

She hands me a fiver, and I hand her back £4 in her change; she’s always knitting for charity and I know her pension doesn’t leave her much spare, and she won’t notice the bonus in her change, she never does.

‘Did I win then?’

‘You have to unfold a ticket from the glass bowl.’

She doesn’t win, but she’s very happy with the flamingos, which are destined to stand next to the gnomes by her pond. She thinks they’ll scare off the herons.

‘Are there lots of herons round here then?’

‘Yes, and they’re right little Bs, excuse my French – have all your goldfish if you let them. I tell them every morning when I’m feeding them, keep down at the bottom, but I lost two last week.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘I’m looking forward to seeing the new school flag, dear. Mrs Pickering was telling me all about it. Lovely to get the kiddies knitting – we all did it in my day. Well, the girls, of course. There’d have been a big fuss if you’d asked the boys to join in. Not like nowadays. Anyway, see you later.’

We’re unpacking more bric-à-brac and trying to arrange it attractively, which isn’t easy, as the crowd builds up. Connie’s been telling everyone Grace wore the shawl to a film premiere, which for all I know she may have done, and we’re running out of our stock of old carrier bags as people buy two or three things in an effort to win it.

The big china bowl where we’ve put the folded-up raffle tickets is getting emptier by the minute, when Jane Johnson wins the box of cakes. She’s thrilled, and says it’s the first time she’s won anything in five years of working at the school in the office, and I’m really pleased for her, but if the shawl goes soon we’ll be stuck trying to flog a load of old tat with no bonus items. Damn; we should have thought of that.

Gran arrives with Reg and Betty, and brings us over a cup of tea. Mark’s on the field behind the playground playing an impromptu game of football, and hordes of children seem to have attached themselves to him for the afternoon, including Trent Carter and Kyle, who are in goal between piles of jumpers. He waves at us, looking rather panicky, which makes Connie laugh.

‘Should we get someone to rescue him, Con?’

‘No, he likes it.’

Mr O’Brien comes over and compliments us on the woolly elephants, which are selling really well, before heading off to the playing field with his whistle to join in the fun as Martin turns up with Elsie and Trevor, and the football game gets two more players, one of whom runs off with the ball and has to be chased right across the field.

Mr Nelson comes over to look at a wooden box with a broken lid again, and stares at Connie’s chest very hard until she does a little jiggle that makes him retire rather speedily, sweating profusely. I get the last of the bags in from the car. Cracked-glass butter dish, anybody?

I’m selling the last knitted elephant to a small girl from Archie’s class who he insists on calling Nettle, which can’t be right so I’m trying to hear what her mum calls her, as Mrs Pickering, everyone’s favourite school-dinner lady, unfolds her ticket and wins the shawl.

‘But I never win things.’

Connie smiles.

‘Let me put it on for you.’

Mrs Pickering drapes the shawl around her shoulders as she wanders off in a daze to show her husband.

Connie starts putting the last few things on the table back into one of the big cardboard boxes.

‘I think we are finished now, yes?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘What shall we do with these?’

‘Stick them in my car, and I’ll put them into recycling next time I’m at Sainsbury’s.’

‘Brava.’

‘It was so great that Mrs Pickering got the shawl.’

‘Yes.’

‘Connie?’

‘I helped a little bit.’

Ten minutes later we’ve stashed the leftover boxes of tat in my car and I’m standing on the stage next to Annabel, who’s edging forwards as Mr O’Brien draws the raffles and hands out bottles of wine and boxes of chocolates. Mrs Nelson comes up the steps and hands him a slip of paper, looking rather grim-faced, and he announces that the total raised for school funds today looks like being nearly £900, which is a record, and everyone claps.

‘And we must all give a special round of applause to Mrs Mackenzie and Mrs Maxwell for raising £217 on their white-elephant stall, which is another record.’

Everyone claps and Mark kisses Connie.

Annabel looks furious.

‘Now, before we go we’d like to unveil our new school banner. Over to you, Mrs Chambers.’

She helps two of the bigger boys from the top class wheel in a display board and lift it up the steps to the stage, and there’s a hush as she stands in front of it.

‘Thank you, Mr O’Brien. I think most of you know that we’ve been learning about knitting this term, and everyone has made something for our new banner. So before we admire their work I’d like to thank Mrs Mackenzie and everyone who’s been helping in our classrooms.’

There’s applause as the boys lift the sheet off the partition to reveal the new banner in all its glory. God, she must have spent hours sewing on more people and trees because there are no blank spaces any more, and someone, probably Mrs Pickering, has embroidered gold thread around the letters of the school name, and sewn on little glinting silver shapes on to the sea, and what look like green beads into the trees. It
looks brilliant, and Mr O’Brien seems almost overwhelmed, and kisses us both.

Annabel’s got a face like thunder when we climb down from the stage but Mrs Chambers is beaming.

‘Isn’t it marvellous, something we can really be proud of, and everyone took part. Could you come to the staff room for a minute, only I forgot your flowers. I meant to give them to you to say thank you.’

‘You didn’t need to, honestly, I really enjoyed it.’

‘Well, good, because Mrs Pickering says she’s happy to help with the knitting as part of art on Wednesday afternoons, and we were both hoping you’d let us have some simple patterns she can use with the ones who’d like to knit.’

‘Of course I will.’

She’s showing me a book she’s bought on knitting with kids in the staff room when we hear Annabel and Mrs Nelson going into the secretary’s office next door.

‘They look like total sluts in those ridiculous outfits.’

There’s a thrilled gasp from Mrs Nelson.

‘I know. Isn’t it dreadful?’