Page 52 of Autumn in Sycamore Park
‘Thank you.’
He leaned forward. ‘But, you can do me a favour in return for my leniency.’
‘Uh … what?’
Downton grimaced, then chuckled a little. He made a steeple with his fingers in front of him on the desk. ‘So, this friend of yours, Angela Dawson. Does she ever mention me?’
23
Takeaway Night
In the end,they settled for an online petition. ‘Don’t tell Maud or I’ll get an earful about budgets,’ Downton said, instructing Jennifer to print out another ream of letters with a few of his ordered corrections. ‘Just shred these. Perhaps you could get a class hamster or forty, to make use of all the bedding?’
‘Let’s get the harvest festival out of the way first,’ Jennifer said. ‘By the way, is it okay if I get off an hour early this afternoon, straight after the buses?’
‘Why?’
‘I want to visit Matthew Bridges’ mum in hospital.’
‘Oh, right. Sure. How is she?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s not good.’
‘Go right ahead. Give her my best.’
As she walked backthrough Sycamore Park, Jennifer couldn’t help but feel the weight of the world on her shoulders. Matthew Bridges’ mother had been more ill than she had realised. At the weekend the poor woman was due to have a major operation, one which only had a fifty percent chance of success. There was every possibility that next week she could be dealing with a bereaved child. Remaining positive, however, she had insisted that Matthew continue to be involved with the harvest festival preparations, to take his mind off things, if nothing else. In order to ensure that things ran smoothly, she had decided to take Gavin Gordon into her confidence. Only time would tell whether that was a good idea or not, but she had trod the tightrope above the unemployment abyss for so long that she was wondering if it might be glued to her feet.
‘Hey.’
Jennifer jumped as she turned around. Tom, wearing a deer-stalker hat which looked too big even for a man of his size, stood up from behind a bush.
‘You have quite the talent for surprising me,’ Jennifer said.
‘I was just doing some pruning,’ Tom said. ‘Honestly, the excitement in my life never ends. Sometimes I think I’m so interesting I might just explode.’
‘I hope not,’ Jennifer said.
‘Really?’
‘I mean, I might get hit by that hat of yours. Where on early did you get it?’
‘I found a bear wandering around, so I caught it, skinned it, and made it into this hat.’ He spread his arms. ‘And the park became safe.’
‘Are you sure?’
Tom grinned. ‘No. My gran gave it to me for Christmas last year. She picked 3XL by mistake. Honestly, I didn’t realise hats actually had sizes, or that you could get a triple X-sized head.’
‘You can on the internet.’
‘There’s the truth right there.’ Tom pulled off the hat, letting the wind immediately get to work on his hair. ‘Um, are you busy?’
‘Do you mean right now or in general?’
‘Well, both.’
‘No and yes.’
‘That’s good and bad. Let’s just focus on the now. I didn’t eat dinner yet, so if you also didn’t eat dinner yet, perhaps we could somehow find ourselves eating dinner in the same place?’
