Ironwork

19

Ironwork

    Colin looked dubiously at the row of cottages facing onto the remains of the village green. We-ell… Possibilities, yes. But would there ever be any custom for—well, anything?

    “Arts and cultural centre in The Church? Morris dancers on the claypan?” said a male voice with a laugh in it from behind him, and he leapt where he stood.

    “Oh, hullo, Greg—Rosie,” he said feebly to the two muffled figures who’d emerged from the track, led by a big black dog. “Getting stats?”

    “Not stats as such,” said Greg, grinning. “Data and fresh air.”

    “Right,” he agreed, patting the panting Tim. “Good boy!”

    “So do you want to turn The Church into an arts centre?” pursued Greg, still grinning.

    “Er—well, the general idea appeals, I have to admit—minus Mrs G.T., though how I’d stop her, I have no idea. I was sort of imagining—don’t tell me it’s pie in the sky, thanks—each of the cottages in this row sheltering a different old practical craft or trade—and, well, living museum, kind of thing? With all the products for sale.”

    “It sounds nice, yeah,” said Rosie temperately.

    “It wouldn’t work without strong local support: you’d be surprised how they’d manage to sabotage it,” said Greg helpfully.

    Colin eyed him drily. “I don’t know that I would, given that they built the Workingmen’s Club to spite the pub.” The Church’s owners were now installed in John’s cottage, so he ventured: “The Church’d make a nice little concert hall. Recorders? Crumhorns?”

    They choked.

    “No, seriously. Early music’s quite popular: it’d make a nice addendum to the more touristy stuff. You know: bus them in, they shell out the Yankee dollars for the artefacts and coo over the craftspeople at work, bus them around the more picturesque cottages—could feature Medlar Cottage, that might satisfy Ma G.T.—quick Devonshire tea, and bus them away!”

    “Colin,” said Rosie cautiously, “this is pie in the sky. Something like that would need a big infrastructure. You’d have to get the tour bus companies on side: and if you didn’t, the place would be blacklisted forever and a day. And Greg’s right: the villagers would manage to sabotage it, unless they were very much involved from the start—and Mrs G.T.’s been trying to do that for years, I might add—and unless it produced lots of jobs for them.”

    “They could provide the Devonshire teas,” said Greg thoughtfully.

    “Right. One cook, two waitresses,” she retorted promptly.

    “And a cashier. In fact a manager, a cashier, a cook, a cook’s assistant, two waitresses, cleaning staff, laundry staff—?” Colin raised his eyebrows at them.

    “When you put it like that,” said Greg slowly, “it’s starting to sound better. Almost viable.”

    “Yes, but you’d still have to get the custom,” said Rosie. “I think it would be very seasonal, Colin.”

    “Yeah!” admitted Greg, shivering.

    “Right. Well, spend the winter months producing the artefacts, sell them to the tourists in the summer? The craftspeople would need to have other outlets, of course, but the place would make a nice economical base for them. Low rents, see?”

    Greg took a deep breath. “Setting aside the question of who owns these dumps, all their raw materials would have to be brought in—that blasted road’s getting worse, by the way, there was a huge mud-slide two miles out of the village last week, in case you didn’t notice: the buses couldn’t get through, all the kids had three days off school—and everything they couldn’t sell here, which would probably be ninety percent of their product, would have to be trucked out.”

    “Infrastructure again,” said Rosie.

    “That, too. Overheads,” said Greg heavily.

    “Mmm… I thought Belinda and Murray could supply the raw materials for the Devonshire teas,” he said in a dreamy voice.

    “Buy your ingredients retail? Are you mad?” croaked the restaurateur’s son. “That’d bump up your costs by five hundred percent!”

    “Oh,” said Colin feebly. “I was just thinking about keeping the Stouts on side. I’m almost sure it was Murray who tried to sabotage Caroline’s and Robert’s attempts to look for a new house here.”

    “No, you idiot,” said Rosie heavily. “It was Rowena Mason.”

    His jaw dropped. “But I know Murray told them—”

    “Whatever he may have told them, it was Rowena Mason who told them (a) that John owns all of Miller’s Bay and that jogging over same was therefore a no-no and (b) that he’d never consider letting them have the Thwaites’s cottage.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Greg. “You wanna get your facts straight before leaping to conclusions, Colin.”

    Colin gave the young man an annoyed look. “Thanks. All right, why?”

    “There doesn’t have to be a reason for female spite,” said Rosie calmly. “But actually, in this case there was: Rowena isn’t a particularly spiteful person. It was back when they were using a gardener from Portsmouth for The Church. He was pruning that lovely fluffy pale pink rose they’d planted in the front, and she asked him for some cuttings, and he refused and bunged them on the bonfire, claiming that Caroline had told him to burn everything.”

    “Had she?” he asked feebly.

    Rosie eyed him drily. “I dare say she had, issuing her orders in words of one syllable so as to get something vaguely resembling what she wanted. He interpreted them literally, you see? Well, to be fair, he probably didn’t dare not to.”

    “Quite,” said Colin limply.

    “Pierre de Ronsard,” said Greg.

    “Eh?”

    Greg grinned at him. “That rose. It’s an old variety. Pierre de Ronsard. It’s a really lovely rose.”

    “Like the poet?” he croaked.

    “Yes,” agreed Rosie. “‘Quand on voit sur la branche au mois de Mai la rose.’”

    Colin looked uncertainly at the few bare sticks in The Church’s front garden.

    “She’s got it round the back of their cottage, now!” said Greg with a laugh. “You’d be mad to leave a lovely rose like that! –Anyway, buying your ingredients retail is the fastest way to go broke in the restaurant business.”

    “What? Oh—yeah.”

    “Followed closely by choosing the wrong location,” he said pointedly.

    “It wouldn’t be the wrong location if we bussed them down here,” replied Colin feebly. “Um, well, order the stuff through the Stouts, give them a percentage?”

    “It might be worth it in the long run, Greg,” said Rosie as he frowned. “Better than having them tell all the retirees your scones were tough and your cream was out of a can.”

    “Yeah, and your raspberry jam was tinned!” he agreed with a laugh.

    Colin sighed. “I haven’t had real raspberry jam since I was a kid. Doddsy used to make it… Uh, sorry, the old woman who looked after us when Ma and Pa were off at demos.”

    “We know,” said Rosie, smiling at him.

    “Yeah, you’ve mentioned her before,” agreed Greg, also smiling at him. “Old Mr Timms has got raspberry canes. Well, so’ve Jim and Christine Carter, but since Grandpa Carter got too stiff to do much in the garden they’ve let them run wild. The kids eat anything they produce.”

    “Uh—yeah. Does Mr Timms bother to make raspberry jam, though?”

    “No, he gives the berries to Jessica Smith and she makes it and gives him some. Well, with a bit of help from old Mrs Stout, it’s her recipe,” replied Rosie.

    “Real local homemade raspberry jam! And that’d be two more households on side—three, if you count old Mrs Stout! This is starting to sound as if it might almost work!”

    “You’d still have to find the custom,” said Greg. “Come on, Rosie, you’ve been standing around in the cold long enough.”

    “Yeah, ’tis bloody nippy. We’re going up to spy on the pub: coming?” she said to Colin.

    “Uh—well, I will if you will. Why?” he said feebly.

    They headed for Church Lane. “John’s got hold of a rumour that the git that runs it is selling up,” she explained.

    “Depending on who buys it, it could change the whole pattern of village socialising,” explained Greg.

    “Yeah, only our bet is that it won’t. I mean, who’d wanna buy a place smothered in fake beams and fake horse brasses except another of the same sort?” added Rosie.

    “You’ve got a point.”

    They panted up Church Lane, just in time to stand well back as the Hartley-Fynches got into the Volvo and the usual backing out from the curb, and backing out from the curb, and etcetera took place. “Lunch. Portsmouth,” said Rosie.

    “I suppose you know that for sure,” replied Colin heavily.

    “Yes. It’s Wednesday.”

    “Your Devonshire teas place could do lunches during the winter,” offered Greg. “Have specials. Only you and your manager’d need to know that the specials for the retirees were actually ten percent more than your base price. The base price you’d need to make any sort of profit,” he added in a hard voice.

    “Mm. What about the locals?”

    “Offer them the base price as a special,” replied the restaurateur’s son simply.

    Colin swallowed. “And the base price?”

    Greg eyed him very drily. “That’s what you base your specials on.”

    Rosie collapsed in giggles, though nodding hard, so Colin concluded Greg wasn’t joking.

    Up at the corner of the High Street and George Street the pub was still its unlovely self. Largish, lumpy, fake half-timbered and two-storeyed except for the glassed-in one-storeyed bit built out along the High Street side where the git served his poncy, overpriced microwaved meals—only for Them, of course. It opened onto, as to the George Street side, a large and unlovely carpark. At the moment occupied by one silver-grey Lexus, one fawn Japanese 4x4, the tan ditto that belonged to the git, and a dark navy Beamer.

    “That’s not Euan’s, is it?” said Rosie in horror, apropos of this last.

    “Nope,” replied her research assistant. “Same colour, older model. That’s the Granville Thinneses’—it’s Wednesday, remember? The Lexus is Mr Dillon’s. –He’s the old guy that does tapestry, Colin, you oughta rope him into your arts centre.”

    “I might. What about the fawn thing?” replied Colin on a defiant note.

    “Ruthven Harris’s. Lives at 3 Belling Close. He’s a furniture restorer: specialises in—”

    “Chair-bottoming?” he croaked.

    “Nope. Rush-bottomed chairs. It’s his boyfriend, Gary Shurrock, that’s the chair-bottomer. Well, that’s his hobby, really; he works as a furniture restorer, too. He drives a purple Golf,” Greg finished calmly.

    Rosie took Colin’s arm, smiling. “He’s interested in cars, so he’s done all the stats on them. And he’s publishing a paper, aren’t you, Greg?”

    Greg beamed. “Yeah: she’s the only senior researcher in the world that lets you put your name first!”

    “Clot,” she said, smiling at him. “You did most of the work. Well, there’s no ‘For Sale’ sign, so are we going in?”

    They went in, though fully recognising the git might fling them out again unless they bought something. The public bar was empty, fancy that. Greg investigated and reported that Mr and Mrs Kinnear were having sherries in the lounge bar: they must have walked down from Albert Street. Colin enquired somewhat acidly if this was because it was Wednesday, but it wasn’t.

    “I think you could expect to get it for a very good price, Colin,” said Rosie very clearly. “It’s not exactly busy, is it?”

    He was just about to ask her what in God’s name she was on about when he realised the git in person had surfaced behind the bar.

    “Right. Well, it is mid-week,” he said feebly. “Well, shall we try the quality of the beer?”

    “No alcohol for her,” Greg reminded him, smiling.

    Rosie got up. “Let’s talk to the man, shall we, Colin? I’ll just have a mineral water, thanks.” She accompanied him over to the bar. “Good afternoon. I wonder if you’ve met Colonel Haworth?” she said with an ingratiating smile.

    “Don’t think so,” he grunted. “Two beers and a mineral water, was it?”

    “Thanks,” said Colin feebly as Rosie looked at him expectantly. “Er—you are the proprietor, are you? I had heard a rumour that you might be selling?”

    “I might be,” he said, eyeing him cautiously.

    “Good show,” said Colin feebly. “Uh—you don’t seem very busy.”

    He filled two small beer glasses from the hose. “It’s our off-season. The dining-room’s always busy.” He filled another glass with something clear and sparkling from another hose.

    Colin scratched his beard. “I see. –Hadn't really envisaged running a place that laid on fancy dinners,” he said to Rosie.

    “You’d have a cook, of course: you can’t turn away custom. –Does your wife do the cooking?” she asked with a lovely smile.

    “No. We use catering suppliers from Portsmouth. All fresh-frozen,” he said firmly. “Here.” He thrust a menu at Colin. “Why not stay for lunch: see how you like it?”

    “Thanks, we might,” said Colin feebly as the fellow retreated.

    Greg grabbed the menu as they sat down. “I have tried it: only for research purposes, of course! Let’s see. No, it hasn’t changed. Lamb Biriyani, so-called: pale lamb stew with a ready-made curry powder waved at it. On a small helping of very dry rice. Filo Roll: spinach and cottage cheese thickened with flour and water paste. Ever had microwaved filo pastry?”

    “Not to my knowledge,” said Colin feebly.

    “Don’t,” he advised briefly. “Sole Mornay. Huh! He could be done for false advertising over that: it is thin slices of fish but it certainly isn’t sole. The sauce is flour and water paste with a minute amount of tasteless cheddar waved at it. Comes with the very dry rice again.”

    “I see: too dry,” said Colin feebly. “And?”

    “That’s it, except for the puddings. They vary slightly according to the time of year. Frozen cheesecake or Neapolitan ice-cream with wafers in summer, and frozen cheesecake and frozen apple pie in winter. –Microwaved apple pie, à la Rosie.”

    Rosie stuck out her tongue at him, grinning.

    “I’d rather have baked beans on toast, frankly,” Colin admitted.

    “You and all of the villagers,” replied Greg with satisfaction. “Come on: poor old Tim’s tied up outside, remember?”

    “But is he selling or not?” said Rosie dubiously.

    “I’d say so, but he doesn’t think that Colin looks like a genuine offer.”

    “Mm,” agreed Colin, downing the so-called beer. “Coming?”

    “Might as well, this certainly isn’t mineral water,” she agreed.

    And they abandoned the aerated water, the git and his fresh-frozen lunches and the whole kit and caboodle in favour of Colin’s place and Terri’s big pot of Habas à la Asturiana. Which only a gastronomic nullity such as Greg’s sociological superior could possibly classify as “bean stew with potatoes and lumps of stuff.”

    “I could cost it for you, Colin,” said Robert Jennings with a smile, looking at the scribbled pages and crumpled-up pages and just plain crap scattered all over Colin’s sitting-room.

    Colin went very red and protested incoherently—that type of thing was, more or less, the young fellow’s job, Robert was a quantity surveyor—but Robert said that he’d enjoy it, most of the firm’s work was on large industrial projects, and they’d never have got Number 3 Miller’s Bay without his help. Colin gulped, rather, at this last: Sean Bates, their friendly local postie, knew perfectly well who lived where in Miller’s Bay, but Caroline had conscientiously affixed a large “3” to her letterbox and into the bargain had a nice little notice lettered reading “Deane Jennings; Jennings.” Kiefer had got hold of a red felt pen from sources unknown and lettered laboriously under that “K i e f e r”, but that had lasted less than twenty-four hours, poor sprat!

    Happily Robert sat down to it at the desk Colin had bought off Jack. Not a lovely old wooden one that he might have stripped and lovingly done up, no. Nor was it an ancient Army, almost-phased-out, metal desk, alas. Not a modern grey plastic one that had fallen off the back of a truck, either. It might well have fallen off the back of a truck and it was modern, but it wasn’t even dirty fawn or fake woodgrain. It was maroon plastic. It did, however, have six drawers, and it did not feature any angles that were not right angles or extraneous “removes” that always fell off or got lost, so he was satisfied with it.

    Robert was hard at it. Colin fetched his plans, sort of, of the empty cottages and began checking their measurements against his notes. Blast!

    “Graph paper,” said Robert.

    Colin jumped. “Eh? Oh! Euan said that.”

    “He’s right.” Helpfully he told him the name and address of the right shop. Colin wrote it down obediently, but it didn’t do him any immediate good: Portsmouth was over there and he was here, and he wanted to do it now!

    “You’re used to having someone else manage your supplies, of course,” said the young man kindly.

    “Yeah,” he said shortly.

    “It’s quite a sheltered life, really, in the forces.”

    “Did you get that off Rosie?” he snapped.

    “No. I know that is what she thinks, too, but I worked it out for myself.”

    Colin bit his lip. “Mm. Sorry, Robert. I keep looking round for something and then finding I haven’t got it! I’ll have to make a list, I suppose.”

    “Yes. Don’t buy too much, will you? If you do go into business you’ll be able to get your supplies wholesale.”

    “Yeah,” said Colin, sighing. “You wouldn’t like to come into this mad project with me, would you, Robert?”

    The young man went very red. “I’d love to, as a matter of fact, Colin! I think we could really make something of it. The thing is, Caroline’s not too keen, though she does see my point about putting my energy into it now, rather than waiting. But we need to get our equity out of The Church before we can consider any changes in our lifestyle.”

    “Uh, yeah.” Suddenly Colin found that, quite apart from his practical usefulness, he’d like to have Robert in it with him. He’d called today with a cactus for Terri, since she’d mentioned that in Spain you could sometimes buy prickly pear fruits. It was quite a well grown one and was now occupying pride of place on the kitchen bench, getting the southern exposure. “Look, think it over seriously, Robert. I’d very much like to have you in it with me, and God knows I could use your skills. Don’t worry about the capital: I’ve got more than I know what to do with. Your expertise could be your capital contribution, to start with. Then later on, when you’ve managed to sell The Church, we might well need a capital injection.” He smiled at him. “We’d have a proper agreement, of course.”

    “Yes, of course. We’d need to consider whether we set it up as a company or a partnership, too. I’ll talk it over thoroughly with Caroline. We’ll have to see whether the preliminary projections are viable before we make any decisions. Had you thought of a market survey?”

    “Greg’s kindly putting some questions in their latest questionnaire that’ll help with the villagers and the retirees,” he admitted. “But I don’t know about the wider market, Robert.”

    “We’ll think about it!” he said eagerly. “Caroline’s friend Bet works for a very reliable firm that can do a proper market survey for us!”

    Help. Suddenly it all began to seem real. “Yes,” said Colin weakly. “Good show.”

    “This restaurant…” he said slowly, looking thoughtfully at his pen.

    “Yuh—um, the Devonshire teas? I was thinking along the lines of a tea shop, Robert.”

    “No, well, that’s the thing. It’s a big capital outlay—tables and chairs, cutlery, napery, crockery and glassware, and all the kitchen appliances and equipment. Devonshire teas in the season won’t be worth it. Had you thought of what sort of cuisine you might offer?”

    “No,” he said numbly. “Um, Molly knows a couple of women who can do Indian and West Indian food and would be quite keen to move to the south coast, but who’d want to eat it?”

    “That’s a point. We’d get some custom from Portsmouth and the district if it was advertised properly, but I don’t think it would appeal to most of the residents. Though Gary Shurrock was saying just the other day he’d kill for a really good West Indian meal!” he said with a laugh.

    The name did seem familiar. “Uh… Oh! The chair-bottomer!”

    “Yes. He and his partner would be very keen to take one of the row houses, Colin. They’re paying an extortionate rent in Portsmouth. Their furniture restoration business has got a solid reputation and an established clientele they’d mostly be able to bring with them. Not just private clients: antique dealers and interior decorators. That would be an asset for us, you see: once they got here their clients would see what else we could offer.”

    “Right. Good. Interior decorators would be excellent,” he said dazedly.

    “Yes. We could target them with some of our marketing. What I was wondering about the restaurant was whether Terri might like to cook for it?”

    Colin gulped. “She’s not a professional, Robert.”

    “No, but she’s worked in a bar that does meals, that’s a great plus. Caroline and I have got friends in the catering business: chefs are notoriously unreliable: always moving on. I think she could handle it: we wouldn’t want to offer too many choices. And we probably wouldn’t get two sittings for every table, except perhaps in summer.”

    “Er—yeah,” said Colin feebly, registering that he seemed definitely to have switched from “you” to “we.” “Uh, well, the whole village knows about her cooking, we’d certainly get the local custom. Maureen Hopgood was raving over that stew recipe she gave her.”

    “Yes. And they like her,” he said, smiling. “She has a knack of making friends.”

    “I’ll sound her out,” he said feebly.

    “Excellent. We could offer the waiting jobs to the local young people first.”

    “Definitely.”

    “And possibly think of apprentices—not just kitchen apprentices, but to the craftspersons, too.”

    “Yuh—uh—walk before we can run, Robert?” he croaked.

    Robert smiled. “Of course. But Caroline made the point that such local projects generally don’t work unless they get the full support of the resident population. One needs to take a grass-roots approach, rather than attempt to impose a new idea from the top. Her idea would be to do a SWOT-type analysis not merely of the project, but of the village. Consider its strengths, weaknesses and needs, you see?”

    Colin’s jaw had sagged. “I do see! She’s right, by God!”

    “Yes. She has excellent managerial skills. It’s just a pity that human resources management isn’t one of her strengths—though of course she is aware of it as a problem to be worked on. Well, we thought—just tossing the idea around casually, y’know?—that local unemployment is the biggest problem. And keeping the young people here, of course. Though that conflicts with their need to get out into the wider world and spread their wings.”

    “Yuh—uh, yeah. Quite. Um, well, bring a bit of the wider world to them?”

    “Exactly. The apprenticeships could tie in with polytech courses and even scholarships, eventually,” he murmured, returning to his papers.

    Right. They’d tossed it around casually! Colin went back to his scribbled over, erased-until-fuzzy drawings, admitting somewhat ruefully to himself that he’d bloody well like to see the result of their not tossing it around casually.

    Mrs Humboldt had suggested a bookshop—though not volunteering herself to run it, she was not only retired, she was one of the few librarians who didn’t suffer from the delusion that because they knew about books they could sell the same. Colin didn’t think it was altogether a bad idea, though there was the point that most of Bellingford’s native population didn’t read. He had, however, got Rosie’s and Greg’s computer’s version of Murray Stout’s paper delivery list and it didn’t, actually, look too unpromising. He hadn’t run it by Robert yet: the younger man was still finalising his preliminary projections. And, frankly, he liked the notion: he didn’t want it to be nipped in the bud by the cold water of commercial viability! March had roared in like a lion with the usual accompaniment of rain, hail and sleet, but today, though still very windy, it wasn’t actually raining, so he’d got on over to the square again. Mmm…

    There were six row houses, although Jack said the end one, to the far right, on the corner of the short dead-end lane that led only to the track to Moulder’s Way, ought to be knocked off. Well, provisionally five. Probably some of the craftworkers would want to live over the shops, but that still left, um, maybe seven or eight possible shops? Or more, with two small ones downstairs? The cottages all had one fair-sized front room and one back one downstairs, the front doors opening almost directly onto the staircases, which went up the common walls. The original kitchens were tucked in at the back of the stairs, but one little house had had this area turned into a laundry, with the back parlour being extended and with the addition of large expanses of glass—now broken and boarded up—turned into a family room-cum-kitchen.

    He had sort of envisioned the smithy being the central focal point but Jack had made sensible noises about fire hazards, so he’d decided that the end one, not the lane end but the one at the far left, which had nothing but a couple of empty lots next to it, would be the best spot. Rip most of the frontage out, open it up so as the visitors could walk right in to see the fire and the anvil and all the excitement, um, couple of horses grazing in the field next-door for verisimilitude? Lending it to an unconvincing narrative: quite.

    Colin gave himself a shake, tore his eyes off his putative smithy, and went back slowly along the row. A bookshop needed space for browsing, it’d have to be a whole ground floor. Upstairs? No, he rather thought that psychologically that’d be wrong. The books would need to be displayed enticingly, the prospective customers would need to be able to just wander in. Um, the one on the other end? Ye-es… He edged further along. At the other side of the lane, about three empty lots before the corner of the square, stood a couple of little once-white cottages, leaning together, which were older than the row houses but in about the same state of disrepair. They were of the rather higgledy-piggledy type, with little rooms built on as and when. You’d need both of them to make any sort of a reasonable house, these days. But knock ’em together and they’d make a lovely village bookshop! You could call it—well, “The Village Bookshop,” for instance. With an inn sign! Unfortunately Robert had his eye on them for the restaurant. The little semidetached pair would be quite well placed for that; they looked directly across the square to The Church at the corner of Church Lane, where it debouched into the square. To the left of The Church as you looked at it from this angle were only some old, gnarled trees, with more of the same down the far side of the square. According to Greg these last had once been hedges, but they certainly weren’t that now. Behind them was the remains of an orchard, so overgrown and licheny that even its old plums barely bore and only the kids bothered to pick their fruit, and a large collection of rusting pieces of old cars, rusting old prams, rusting old bedsteads—yes, well.

    Robert was right, you could—with the right permission—have some of your tables, complete with their sun umbrellas, on the green opposite the white cottages… On the other hand, if you put the restaurant in one of the row houses you could still do that and get almost exactly the same view! How much would need to be done to throw the higgledy-piggledy front rooms together for a bookshop? Though you wouldn’t need to do that if it was a restaurant, you could have two or three cottagey dining-rooms, perhaps remove the doors—or rather, not replace the doors that had long since been pinched—um, lovely polished floorboards, little bunches of cottage flowers on all the tables… Yes, Robert was right, dammit!

    Colin went back to the row houses. It was a bit unfortunate that this side of the square featured the only part of the road that still had much of a surface. It led eventually, via another short lane, to George Street. On the other side the only road going off the square was Church Lane. None of the locals would have dreamed of trying to drive up it, but would it be possible to have any traffic coming down—largely Mr Hartley-Fynch in his Volvo—re-routed via the other side of the square? Um, make it one-way? Upcoming traffic only on this side—there’d be none, except their own workers and visitors—and down-going the other? Ah-hah! It was barely wide enough for two lanes, it’d be much safer to make it one-way. Theoretically. To those who didn’t know how little traffic it got. But if they started getting tour buses… Mm.

    Well, one of the row houses wouldn’t be bad for a bookshop. You could still have an inn sign. He unlocked the door of what was technically Number 24 The Green, but which he just thought of as the row house next to the possible smithy, and went in. Ye-es. The access was rather awkward, with the door to the front parlour opening to the right of the front door, off the excruciatingly narrow front hall. Well, let’s see: was that a load-bearing wall? Rip it out? But then you’d have the stairs right in your shop: you’d have to rope them off. He supposed that was feasible, bookshop customers weren’t the sort that ignored ropes. The front and back parlours would definitely have to be thrown together, though. And you’d need storage space. What sort of stock would a village bookshop need to keep, though? Would a cupboard be enough? Blast, he didn’t have nearly enough expertise! He tapped experimentally on the wall between the hall and the front parlour. Then he went outside and craned his neck. As far as he could tell it wasn’t holding up either of the bedrooms, but who knew?

    “Hullo,” said a friendly female voice. “Are you the man who’s looking for an ironworker?”

    Colin swung round with a gasp. She was a woman of medium height, about as wide as a barn door, swaddled in a giant oilskin that was almost undoubtedly older than she was—Hell, older than he was!—over an ancient greyish-blue padded anorak. She was possibly not huge under all that bulk but as a matter of fact he wouldn’t have taken any bets. Untidy black curls peeped from under the truly awful brown woolly hat, pulled down almost to the eyebrows. The complexion was lovely: the wild rose sort, the mouth wide and generous, but ye gods! The first impression was about as bad as the one Terri had given. Though this woman would be considerably older than Terri: late thirties, perhaps?

    “My Aunty Susan said you were looking for an ironworker,” she said clearly, as of one speaking to a cretin standing here with his mouth op—Er, yeah.

    “Right!” he said quickly. “I have been, yes. Susan?” he said cautiously.

     “Sorry. Susan Walsingham. She’s my aunt. She said she’d ring you.”

    Colin cleared his throat. “Yeah. Terribly sorry, she probably has tried, but I switched my phone off last night after my Uncle Matthew had left six messages— Uh, never mind. Sorry. Forget to turn it on again. Uh—sorry: Colin Haworth,” he said feebly, holding out his hand.

    “Hi, Colin. I’m Penn Martin.”

    Colin had to smile: Anna was working on a cottage picture featuring Number 4 Medlars Lane, and the round face was just so very like Alice Humboldt’s Pen’s! “Glad to meet you, Pen. May I ask, is it short for Penelope? Quite an unusual name, these duh—”

    “No, it isn’t, as a matter of fact,” she said grimly. “P,E,N,N. After the Quaker. My parents were heavily into Flower Power and pacifism. My sisters got Lavender and Kesha—that’s an Indian name for saffron—and my brother got Peace, poor thing. He’s called himself Pete ever since he could talk.”

    “Can’t blame him. But I think Penn’s rather nice,” he said, smiling at her.

    Grimly Penn Martin returned: “Not at a school full of cretins. Anyway, Aunty Susan suggested I pop over and talk to you.”

    “Mm. Pop from where?” There was no sign of a car. Though possibly she’d left it in Moulder’s Way and come down the track.

    “Hythe. –It’s not far out of Southampton,” she added helpfully.

    “Uh, yes, I know where— You drove, did you, Penn?” he said feebly.

    “No: brought the boat.”

    His jaw dropped.

    “I’m moored down at Miller’s Bay,” she said, pointing.

    “You sailed all the way from Hythe in this weather?” he croaked.

    “Wouldn’t call it sailing: the launch sort of potters. But I came by boat, yes. It’s not far, by water. And it’s miles more convenient than trying to get around on the buses.”

    “Yuh—uh, yes.” How many shipping lanes must she have had to cross, for God’s sake? “Isn’t it a bit windy to be out on the water?”

    “The boat’s sturdy,” said Penn in an indifferent voice. “Aunty Susan mentioned a spit.”

    Colin jumped. “Uh—yes! I mean, I was originally looking for someone who could make a spit, but then a friend pointed out that it’d have to be turned, so, um…”

    “I can do you a spit, and it’ll be no problem to rig it up to a small motor for you.”

    “Thanks,” he said feebly. “I’ll talk to my au pair. I think she would like one. Um, what sort of ironwork do you do, Penn?”

    “Anything you like. Wrought-iron gates and fences, furniture—coffee-tables, patio furniture, garden furniture. I mend old tools and farm machinery, too.”

    Colin took a deep breath. “May I ask, can you shoe a horse?”

    “Yes. I am a qualified blacksmith,” said Penn Martin.

    “I see. I haven’t seen Susan for a while. How much did she tell you?”

    “That you wanted someone who could do ironwork, specifically make you a spit, and that there might be an opportunity to set up shop here.”

    “Yes. Well, that’s it,” he said feebly. “I was thinking of this end house here, for the smithy.”

    “Does that field go with it?’

    “Yuh—uh, well, it could do. Technically two vacant lots, I think. My idea was to graze a couple of horses there.”

    “That’d be good. There’d be room for a few carts and waggons, too.”

    “Ye-es. For the horses to pull?”

    “It’d depend what sort of horses they were. I was thinking more as an advertisement. ‘Old waggon wheels lovingly restored’, sort of thing!” she said with a sudden grin.

    “Yes, that’d look good!” replied Colin, smiling. “Would you like to look at the place?”

    “Yes, I’d love to, Colin.”

    He sorted out his keys and she accompanied him eagerly inside. This house featured a fair-sized hole in the wall between its front parlour and its narrow hall—perhaps someone had put a boot through it. “This could go,” she said, giving the wall a disparaging poke with her foot.

    “Yes, um, not load-bearing?” he ventured.

    “No,” she said definitely. She looked around the front room, head tilted. “Mm. There’d be hefty insurance. Rip that wall lining out, of course. What is it: scrim?”

    Colin just looked at her feebly. “Um, well, have a look at it, Penn.”

    She went up to the wall, produced a workmanlike pocket-knife, and investigated. Colin repressed an impulse to shut his eyes: if the place was going to become a smithy, the wall linings would have to go, yes. “Yes. Over matchboard, talk about a fire hazard.”

    “I see,” he said feebly.

    “Line it with firebricks?” she said thoughtfully. “If you did have a blaze they’d send it roaring up through the roof, but at least the place next-door’d be safe. Unless—been in the roof?”

    “No,” he croaked.

    Penn told him a lot, very rapidly, about the hazards posed by the roofs of improperly constructed row houses. Jesus! Such a notion had never occurred to him. “Got a torch?”

    “Not on me, no,” he said feebly.

    “I have, but I dunno how good its battery is. Come on, then, might as well know the worst.” She forged ahead. Colin followed her meekly.

    Penn found the hatch without difficulty. She wasn’t tall enough to reach it, but thanks to the low ceilings upstairs, Colin was. That didn’t solve the problem of how to get up there, though.

    “I’ll give you a leg-up,” she offered.

    He took a deep breath. “I don’t doubt your strength, but I’ve got a gammy leg: whichever leg you heaved on I think the result would be disastrous; and I’m definitely not up for jumping down again—sorry. We can borrow a set of steps or a ladder from someone, if you insist.”

    “I’ll have to see it before I can start thinking about whether it’s possible,” she said firmly.

    “Yeah.” He could just give Jack a call but he feel strangely reluctant to share her with the horribly competent, practical Mr Powell. “Think the best thing would be to try old Jim Parker—he’s over in Harriet Burleigh Street—did you come that way, Penn?”

    “Yes: down that street and then down Moulder’s Way. Was that nice girl your au pair?”

    “Yes,” he said, smiling. “That nice girl certainly was! Come on, we’ll go home, and ring Jim. If he hasn’t got a stepladder he may know someone who has.’

    They didn’t have to ring Jim, because when they got to Number 11 Moulder’s Way, Bob Potter was outside it with a large Swede turnip in his hand. “Terri said she’d like a turnip,” he said simply.

    “Did she?” croaked Colin feebly, goggling at it. Bob did not have a back garden. Bits of three separate and quite distinct old cars—yes. No garden. Hell’s teeth, had he nicked it from—well, there were plenty of contenders, starting with the Masons in person, progressing through old Hartley-Fynch—

    Possibly reading his expression, Bob volunteered: “Dad grew it.”

    Phew! That didn’t mean he hadn’t nicked it, but at least it was keeping it in the family!

    “None of us like turnips but that didn’t stop him, silly ole bugger. He reckons it’s technically a Swede,” he elaborated, shrugging.

    “Yes. Well, come on in, Bob,” said Colin feebly.

    Terri was thrilled with the turnip, and very pleased to be properly introduced to Penn. And insisted on making a pot of tea. Bob seemed very happy to be invited, the more so when Penn removed her giant oilskin and huge anorak. What was revealed was probably about a forty inch, with the shoulders to match. Good, though. The woolly hat came off to reveal a mass of short black curls—a similar cut to Rosie’s, actually. The rest of the gear was elderly jeans and a fine wool vee-necked grey jumper, quite possibly a boy’s school jumper, over a white tee-shirt. This was not bad, however: it was tucked in and, never mind the rest of the world was going round in floppy sacks pretending they were American street kids, probably two sizes smaller than she was. Colin found he had no objection to it whatsoever or to the fact that the jeans weren't hiding the definite tummy and the hips to go with the bust and, judging by the grin on his face, nor had Bob.

    Naturally Terri didn’t just serve tea, she also served—well, they definitely fell into Rupy’s “ambrosia for the mouth” category. Little fried curly pastries smothered in icing sugar. They vanished like dew in the morning.

    And on Colin’s revealing his quest, Bob offered his stepladder, into the bargain offering to bring it over to the green and expressing terrific interest in the fact that Penn was a blacksmith.

    “I might need an assistant, if I set up shop here,” said Penn as they headed for the track. “How are you at heaving huge hunks of iron about, Bob?”

    “No sweat!” he grinned. “Hey, can you shoe horses?”

    “Yes. You any good with horses?”

    His square, unshaven and frankly rather terrifying face fell. “Never really had anything to do with them.”

    “At least you’re honest,” she said drily. “I had one so-called apprentice who claimed to be an expert horse-handler. He lasted three days, until a couple of pony-clubbers arrived to have their mounts shod. He was shit-scared, wouldn’t go near them. So these two little girls, half his height and less than a fifth of his weight, the great stupid, useless lump that he was, held their heads while I shoed them and he cowered in the back.”

    “I don’t think I’d be that bad,” said Bob feebly.

    “Good. Well, if you’re available, I might have a job for you.”

    “Great!” he beamed. “But we haven’t got a pony club.”

    “Start one,” said Penn simply.

    “What, on that field next to the putative smithy?” croaked Colin.

    “Why not? Can you ride?”

    “Well, yes, been on and off horses most of my life. Are you serious?”

    “Why not? Doesn’t have to be a full-blown pony club: you could just teach kids to ride.”

    Colin eyed her drily. “Right: one thing’d lead to another, they’d nag their parents into buying them their own ponies, and I’d let that so-called field for grazing while you shod the brutes, and we’d make our joint fortunes!”

    “Couldn’t hurt,” she said stolidly, while Bob dissolved in sniggers.

    “No, you’re right, as a matter of fact, it couldn’t. But most of Bellingford is not in the socio-economic bracket that can afford its own ponies, and those that are, are definitely not of the age or sexual persuasion”—Bob was in fits again, gasping: “Belling Close!”—“to have kids. In fact,” he admitted mournfully as they emerged into the square, “I’m starting to wonder whether the whole thing’d be viable for you, Penn.”

    “Heck, I don’t make anything out of the shoeing!” she said with a laugh. “It’s fun, though. Aunty Susan’s friend Molly seemed to think you’d want to turn the place into a sort of tourist attraction, at least in the summer?”

    “Um, something like that.”

    “Yeah: see, they’d come and watch you all doing the crafts!” contributed Bob eagerly.

    “Right. Well, shoeing is a terrific draw,” said Penn, smiling at them both impartially. Colin didn’t kid himself that he brightened any less than Bob did.

    Bob took the stepladder upstairs, went up it and hoisted himself into the loft. Eagerly Penn followed, handing him the torch. Her denim legs—unfortunately the bloody oilskin was obscuring what could have been a really, really good view—disappeared in his wake.

    “Well?” shouted Colin.

    Crash! from in the roof. “Goddim!” shouted Bob. His head appeared, grinning. “Bloody great rat. Biffed a hunk of wood at ’im.”

    “Some idiot’s been storing their firewood up here!” cried Penn from the hinterland.

    “Right! What’s the party-wall situation?” he shouted.

    Penn’s head appeared beside Bob’s. “Good. Solid brick all the way up. The rafters don’t look too shit-hot, though: has your builder had a look at them?”

    “Jack,” translated Bob helpfully.

    “Uh—not yet, I don’t think. Well, he seemed super-keen on the entire idea—which is no more than in the preliminary investigatory stage yet, may never get off the ground—so, uh, well, perhaps he has, and he’s realised just how much will need to be done.”

    “Yeah,” she said, smiling down at him. “I’d need to rip the floors out down below, and throw the downstairs rooms into one. And preferably take the front wall right out.”

    “Yes, I thought you would. But how would you close the place off, Penn? Roller door?”

    “That’d do it,” agreed Bob thoughtfully.

    “A lovely ironwork grille, you idiots!” said Penn with a laugh. “Might have a roller door behind it, though. Or maybe folding steel doors. I’ll just take a look at the roof, since I’m up here.” She vanished. Bob vanished in her wake. Colin just stood there like a spare part.

    Penn’s legs appeared.

    “Need a hand?” he said anxiously.

    “No, thanks.” She came down neatly. “Are you familiar with the phrase ‘a thing of shreds and patches’?”

    “Oh, God.” Not that it wasn’t pretty much what he’d expected.

    Bob came down, grinning. “Ya know that dump of ole Mr Watkins’s, up in George Street?”

    Right. Mr Watkins was one of the oldest villagers, the generation that had had to haul their water home in buckets. His roof was most certainly a thing of shreds and patches. Colin winced, and offered: “It didn’t look too bad from below.”

    “The front’s not so bad,” admitted Penn. “The back’s disastrous, though.”

    “Robert Jennings’ll tell yer how much it’ll let you in for!” grinned Bob.

    Quite. Did the man know every syllable that had ever been uttered on the subject? Robert had better get those projections finished P.D.Q. and they’d better have that fucking public meeting they’d been thinking of, because otherwise the village would be rife with rumour, speculation, innuendo, gross misconceptions, and just plain ill-feeling!

    “Yeah. Um, would the Workingmen’s Club let us use their premises for a meeting, Bob?’

    “Sure. Want me to book you in?”

    “Not just yet, thanks, I’ll have to talk to Robert. You are still on the committee, are you?”

    “Sort of. Well, Alan Timms, he’s home, he might wanna do it again.”

    “Weren’t you elected, though?” asked Penn, opening a bedroom door and wincing.

    “No, Alan was, only he said I could do it for him while he was at sea. He’s on Dauntless,” he reminded Colin. “The Captain’s old ship.”

    “Oh, yes! I’ve met his old father. Hang on, if Dauntless is back from the Middle East—”

    “Nope, Commander Haworth’s sub’s not back yet,” said Bob kindly. “Due next week.”

    Right, the fellow was a mind-reader as well!

    Penn closed the bedroom door carefully. “Don’t go in there, the ceiling’s on the floor and I think they’re both about to join the floor below.”

    “Hell,” said Colin limply.

    “I’d want to rip that floor up anyway and use the entire height of the building: ’ve you got any idea how much heat a smithy generates?”

    “No, um, both bedrooms?” he croaked.

    Penn was looking in the front one. “This one’s floor’s almost as bad. Well, it’d be warm up here in winter, that’s for sure, but do I want to roast in summer?”

    “Well, um, insulate it or something? It’d have a nice view of the green, if it can be persuaded to grow grass again.”

    “The water’s all gone,” contributed Bob.

    “Yeah; what the Hell happened?” she asked.

    Colin let Bob tell it. And lead the way to the kitchen. And tell her about the gas—or lack thereof. Then he managed to ask feebly if she could manage with electricity?

    The blacksmith eyed him drily. “I could manage with wood and a match, Colin. But gas’d be convenient. I know a potter who might be interested in coming over here, too. She has got an electric kiln but a gas-fired one’d be cheaper.”

    “That’s promising!” Bob encouraged him.

    The poor chap wanted a job, but yes, it was quite promising. But the thing was, how much would all the promising trades- and craftspersons rely on the project, that was, him and Robert, to do their marketing for them and drum up custom? Jesus, they were going to have to have contracts for that, and contracts specifying who paid for what, given that turning this row house into a smithy was going to be a much larger job than he’d envisaged— “Eh?”

    “I said,” said Bob, grinning, “could nip on over to the Club, have one to celebrate?”

    Nothing had been decided, yet! However, they were both beaming and nodding at him, so all he said was, very weakly: “Sounds good, but it’s not open at this hour, is it?”

    Bob had a key. So they did that. After which Penn thought she’d better get back.

    Colin looked at his watch. What had happened to lunchtime? Yes, well, if she didn’t want to be navigating Southampton Water in the dark she had better get back. So they went over to Miller’s Bay with her to see her off. The bloody launch was about as small as he’d expected, and smaller than Bob had evidently expected.

    “Will she be okay?” he said as, with a brief wave over her shoulder, she headed seawards.

    Colin sighed. “I’m sure she will. Doesn’t she strike you as the most competent creature that ever walked?”

    “Um, yeah.”

    “Come on, Terri’s bound to have some hot food, never mind the time.”

    Bob brightened. “Ta, Colin!”

    Colin walked back silently, his head a jumble of contracts and lawyers and gas and water reticulation and pulling walls out and firebricks…

    “He okay?” said Bob awkwardly, joining Terri in the kitchen, as Colin was observed to have nodded off in his big chair after a huge hot meal.

    “Yes. He’s just tired. He has been doing too much.”

    “Yeah. Um, it must be about nine months now since he got shot.”

    “Yes, but the literal time does not count very much, when one has been through a trauma.”

    Bob nodded thoughtfully. “Ya right. Um, do ya think he really liked Penn?”

    Terri smiled a little. “I think he liked her very much. In fact perhaps too much: I don’t think that he’s ready for any sort of emotional involvement. Added to which, she is not at all a conventional lady, is she? And I think that all his girlfriends in the past were.”

    Bob scratched his whiskers. “I geddit. Do ya think he is genuine about the project?”

    “Yes; I would say that he is quite determined to see it through.”

    He sagged. “Phew! That’s a relief! I’m fed up with the dole, I can tell yer!”

    Terri nodded and smiled. There were no guarantees in life, but she didn’t say so: undoubtedly poor Bob already knew that; and then, she was in no doubt that Colin with his mind made up was about as close to a guarantee as you could get. Which Bob clearly also knew.