Page 36 of Hope and Happiness in Bluebell Wood
I tip the remaining bird seed on to the table and head back inside the cottage. After washing the pieces of pottery I lay them on the mantelpiece next to the Trivial Pursuit piece from yesterday.
Where have these things come from? It’s like the birds are actually leaving them for me on the table.
I laugh.Don’t be daft, Ava. Why would they do that? It must be a magpie. It’s the only answer. Maybe he was the early-morning visitor that was taking the rest of the food?
Later that morning Merlin and I head out for our walk. But as we leave the little path that leads from the cottage, I feel different.
At the top of the path from the cottage, I pause on the pavement.
‘Shall we go this way today?’ I ask Merlin, beginning to walk in the opposite direction to the woods. Merlin looks quizzically at me for a moment – we nearly always go to the woods – but trusting I know what I’m doing, he happily follows my lead, trotting along beside me like he always does.
This was more than a simple need to walk somewhere new; I felt a newfound confidence, and I had one person to thank for it . . . Okay, maybe two: Lonan for getting me to the pub in the first place, but mostly Callum for keeping me there, when really I’d just wanted to run away to the safety of Bluebird Cottage, make myself a hot chocolate and snuggle under a blanket with Merlin.
I think about Callum now as I walk – his soft voice, his calm demeanour, and the way he looked at me in that caring, considerate way of his. I sigh.Why does he have to be a vicar?
It shouldn’t matter what he did for a living. But of all the jobs he could have done, why did it have to be this? If he’d been theplumber or the odd-job man I’d first thought he was, it would have made things a lot simpler.
‘Bonjour, Ava!’ a cheery voice calls, and I see Alouette walking along the road towards me carrying two large bags.
‘Hello,’ I reply as she draws closer. ‘How are you today?’
‘I am very good, thank you, and you?’ Alouette puts her bags on the ground for a moment and fusses Merlin, who laps up any attention.
‘Yes, well thanks. Those bags look mighty heavy.’
‘Ah, they are not so bad. I am taking them to the school for Jemima – Miss Swan,’ she corrects herself. ‘The school is having a – how you say? – abumblesale?’
‘Jumble sale,’ I correct her, smiling.
‘Yes, that is it! These are a few of our unwanted things – mostly Jack’s unwanted things.’ She grins, and I like how she pronounces her husband’s name in the French way –Jacques. ‘I have had a good clear-up of his wardrobe. Whether anyone will wish to purchase his old clothes, though, I am not so sure.’ She looks with disdain at the bags. Alouette, like last night, is perfectly turned out this morning, in a pair of navy cropped trousers, a crisp white shirt and a jaunty scarf around her neck. She makes me feel extremely drab in my denim dungarees, trainers and sweatshirt.
‘Do you want a hand carrying them to the school?’ I ask with my newfound confidence – although I guessed there wouldn’t be too many people at the school right now in the middle of the day.
‘Oh, that is very kind of you, Ava; yes please, if I’m not interfering with your doggie walk.’
‘No, we can carry on from the school. I think there’s a little footpath not far from there that we haven’t tried yet.’
‘Ah, very good, then.’ Ava lifts one bag, then she offers methe handle of the other. ‘We shall carry this one together. It is the heaviest.’
I take the handle in one hand, and hold Merlin’s lead in the other, and we walk together like a strange three-legged race towards the school.
‘Ah, there is Miss Swan,’ Alouette says as we arrive outside the school gates and spot Jemima standing in the empty playground looking at a wall. ‘Miss Swan!’ she calls. And Jemima turns around.
‘Ah, good morning, ladies,’ she says cheerfully, coming over to us at the gate. ‘Hello, Ava. Good to see you again.’
‘You too.’
‘I have the things I promised you for the . . .jumblesale,’ Alouette says carefully.
‘We’re holding a fundraiser for the school – half car boot sale, half jumble,’ Jemima explains to me. ‘We always have one just before the Easter holidays. Well, this is amazing, Alouette,’ she says, peeking into the bag. ‘Does Jack know you’re giving away quite so many of his shirts?’
‘It is not a bother,’ Alouette says proudly. ‘Ma ’usband does not have a good sense of the dress. ’e needs to learn.’
Jemima and I both laugh.
‘When is the fundraiser?’ I ask.
‘Tomorrow, here in the school grounds. You’re most welcome to come. I can’t guarantee you’ll find anything to buy, but we need all the funds we can get right now, so the more the merrier.’
