Page 16 of Autumn in Sycamore Park
Jennifer yawned. It seemed like a long time ago that Bonky was barking her out of bed.
Angela returned with two cups heaped with cream and brown marshmallows. Jennifer stared as Angela put the sugary monstrosity down in front of her.
‘Seasonal mocha blend,’ Angela explained. ‘You looked a little sleepy, so I figured a sugar hit would help. And of course, some marshmallows. They’re homemade. I get them online from a cottage shop in the Lake District.’
‘They’re … brown.’
‘Chestnut flavour. Seasonal, I told you. Although I imagine they’re last year’s chestnuts, as ours won’t start falling for another month.’
Jennifer couldn’t help but laugh. ‘It looks fantastic.’
‘I’ve got some walnut biscuits if you want one.’
‘I’ll be fine, but thanks.’
Grinning, Angela looked about to offer something else when the bell over the front door tinkled.
‘Ah, here’s Tom.’
The door opened and the park caretaker entered. Jennifer stared. Instead of the old, bent, perhaps grey-bearded geriatric with hands gnarled like old tree roots that she had expected, Tom was around thirty-five, well over six feet tall, and wide enough at the shoulders that he looked capable of pulling trees out of the ground. Both his eyes and the hair that stuck up in wind-ruffled tufts were the colour of hazelnut, and he wore an easy, kind smile.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ he said.
‘Quite all right.’ Angela gestured to a chair. ‘Have a seat. I’ll just get your coffee.’
She got up and went back into the kitchen, leaving Jennifer and Tom alone. The park caretaker sat down, and stuck out a big, bearlike hand.
‘Tom,’ he said. ‘You must be Jennifer? It’s nice to meet you.’
Jennifer just stared. Finally, by the time Tom had started to chuckle, she was able to find enough breath to mutter, ‘Uh.’
9
Chasing Ducks
Jennifer wokeup on Sunday feeling like an idiot. So fan-girl dumbstruck by Tom’s appearance, she had needed Angela to relay most of the details in a coherent manner. And Tom, seemingly oblivious to Jennifer’s idolatry, had simply shrugged and said he would check with the council. After fifteen minutes, during which Jennifer had spoken perhaps ten words, Tom bade them farewell and left.
Angela, with a knowing look on her face, had said little, exchanging a few vague pleasantries before packing Jennifer off home with a bag containing half a walnut pie and a pot of beef and pumpkin stew.
Bonky needed his morning walk, but Jennifer was in the mood to get away from Brentwell for a while. She put the dog in the car and drove out into the country, to a pretty little village called Willow River, where she walked along a cycle path for a while before getting lunch at a pleasant country pub called the Harvest Inn. The air was cool, the wind rustling through the tree branches, the leaves beginning to change colour. She ate lunch at a picnic table in the beer garden which overlooked a pretty river, willow branches trailing in the water.
On the way back, she drove past fields of browned corn, others with hay bales already dotted across their swathes of cut grass. Only a few weeks and winter would be in full swing, bringing with it the storms and rain that made British winter so unpleasant. Despite the chill, she wound down her window to let the wind tickle her face and the smell of freshly cut grass drift in.
Autumn was the best season, she thought. Fine weather, beautiful colours, but also a season of change, of fresh starts.
She drove back home, enjoying a glass of wine with her dinner—what was left of Angela’s pumpkin stew and a couple of cakes she had picked up from a local shop not far from the Harvest Inn.
Her first week in Brentwell—the first week of a new life—was almost over. It had been interesting, to say the least.
Her second weekin Brentwell was a slightly diluted version of the first. Rick hit on her just a little less, Amy’s eccentricities felt just a little less strange, and her class felt just a little less threatening. She found out another of Greg’s nicknames was Foggy; not however after the famousLast of the Summer Winecharacter, but after Father John Misty, the American singer, and a favourite of a particularly hip teacher who had left a couple of years ago to become a parachuting instructor.
‘Rickhatedhim,’ Amy said, as she sliced the tops off a series of glue sticks with a paper cutter, then lined them all up to make sure they were even. ‘Too many big dogs in the yard and all that.’
‘I can imagine,’ Jennifer said.
Matthew Bridges was unexpectedly absent for a couple of days during midweek, prompting Jennifer to make a call to his parents. His father answered, and told Jennifer in an apologetic voice that Matthew’s mother had gone into hospital for another operation, and that the boy didn’t feel up to school at the moment. Jennifer offered to bring around some homework at the weekend.
After school on Friday was the first read-through for the teachers’ drama. Jennifer hadn’t heard anything back from Angela about the possibility of staging the harvest festival in Sycamore Park, so said nothing to the other teachers, just in case they were stuck with the potentially haunted cabin on Porter Street after all. As the teachers, most of them grumbling about having to stay late, filed into the staffroom after the last school buses had left, Amy walked among the desks, handing out copies of a script.
