Page 41 of Autumn at the Willow River Guesthouse
Lily stared at the line of mowers and shook her head. ‘I need something that’s more powerful than a regular lawn mower, but not quite industrial,’ she said, glancing at Colin Beecham, now dressed neatly in his Wright’s Gardens uniform, and a baseball cap with HERE TO HELP across the front.
‘You’re aiming for proper lawn length?’
‘Ah, yeah. Like, short. Uncle Gus has a Flymo he uses for the guesthouse garden, but I want to tackle that area by the old station. Uncle Gus said I could do what I want as long as I pay for it myself.’
Colin rubbed his chin and gave a sage nod.
‘Well, I know the spot you mean.’ He walked up to what looked like a miniature tractor with large protrusions at one end. Lily almost giggled; it looked like a red-faced man with a moustache.
‘You want one of these babies first up,’ Colin said. ‘This’ll take it right down to the turf. If you hit it regularly, though, you’ll only need to use it twice a year.’
‘How much is it?’
‘Just under four grand.’
Lily nodded, wrinkling her nose. It was pricey, but it might be worth it. ‘Do you take credit cards?’
‘Good god, how much is Angus paying you?’
Lily shrugged. ‘Savings.’
‘Well, as you’ll only need one a couple of times a year, I’d just go with a rental. Hundred and ten quid a day. After that you’ll be good with one of those push petrol jobs. We’ve got one with a scratch on the casing that’s half price. I’ll drop off another ten percent if you buy me a pint in The Crown tonight.’
Lily grinned. ‘It’s a deal.’
Colin leaned closer. ‘I heard Jimmy’s picked up a bird, and he’s bringing her out tonight to meet all the lads.’
Lily chuckled, wondering what exactly she had done to become “one of the lads”. It was probably winning the darts, but it could also have been downing a pint of Worthington after a skittles team victory last Friday night, or landing a fourteen-pound trout last Sunday while Rod and Womble looked on with a mixture of amazement and awe. That she’d also known how to gut it and cook it over a hastily prepared barbeque had sealed her place in local folklore.
It was amazing what you could learn from YouTube.
‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Lily said.
Lily wondered what Victoria would think when she turned up in a couple of days to cut the meadow behind the old station. Over the last week, she had managed to coax Victoria outside on two further occasions, but rain had curtailed the others and this morning the DO NOT DISTURB sign had been up, and the hamper left outside with another note: I’m still waiting for the secret.
Lily wasn’t sure what more she could say. She had given Victoria a variety of ideas, but Victoria had frowned and shook her head at some, flapped her hand dismissively at others.
‘That’s not a secret. That’s a twist.’
‘Well, that’s not very likely, is it?’
‘I’m writing a romance, not a horror story.’
‘Would you really read a book where that happened?’
‘You cannot kill off the main character!’
October had arrived quietly, September signing off with three days of rain before giving way to cooler mornings but brighter skies. Everything was becoming brown and orange, the leaves starting to change colour and some even to fall, scattering across the cycle path with every gust of wind. Lily swapped light sweaters for thicker roll-necks, a beanie hat her mum had knitted her, and a pretty scarf she had bought in a craft shop in Brentwell. Around the house, Sarah had been quiet, spending the lengthening evenings preparing Christmas-themed crafts for her shop, while Pete had been unable to keep the grin off his face after landing a contract to design a mural for an area of paving in Brentwell’s Sycamore Park which had been assigned for restoration.
‘I’m thinking of writing a book,’ Lily announced, two glasses of wine into a celebratory dinner at Trevellian Head, a slightly posh restaurant halfway between Brentwell and Willow River. ‘I mean, it can’t be that hard, can it? What?’
A look had passed between her parents, Pete’s lip curling into a half smile as Sarah responded with a raised eyebrow.
‘I told you,’ Pete said, grinning at Sarah. ‘You can’t be born from as much collective creativity as us and spend your whole life dealing with numbers.’
‘I was thinking of writing a maths textbook,’ Lily said, hiccupping in the middle of “textbook”, then glaring at her beef stroganoff as though it were to blame.
‘Well, you go for it, dear,’ Sarah said. ‘Put a few pictures in to make it a bit more interesting. The ones we had at school were so dull that kids were dying in the middle of classes. Dropping like flies.’
