Page 18 of Summer in Sunset Harbour
Hilda smiled. ‘I’m not dead yet.’
10
Stops and Starts
In the morning,having shared a second bottle of wine, it was Josie who was the worse for wear, while Hilda bounced around as though she’d spent the evening drinking carrot juice. As Josie stumbled into and out of the shower, Hilda made them both a large fried breakfast, and then together they headed over to the campsite.
‘You’ll need to start thinking about logistics soon,’ Hilda said, as they walked down the lane, a light breeze blowing over the top of the hedge, a warm sun beaming out of the sky. ‘Listing the campsite in newspapers, on the internet, that kind of thing. You’ll need shop stock, staff. You can probably get away with a few student workers for most of it. You might need some red tape seen to, but I have a mate on the council.’
Josie glanced at her friend. ‘I haven’t even cut the grass back yet.’
‘When you’re driving your car, do you look at the road right in front of you, or do you look further ahead, to see what’s coming?’
‘I don’t have a car.’
Hilda chuckled. ‘Oh yes, I forgot. Don’t worry, once the money starts rolling in, you can buy all the cars you want.’
‘I’d be happy to have my old Volvo back.’
‘You have to look to the future, my wonder. What about a new Volvo?’
‘I suppose I could go for a new used Volvo.’
‘See? Now you’re talking. Ah, here we are.’
The campsite looked the same as yesterday. Josie peered into the gloom under the trees, wondering whether her tree-living friends had been up to no good during the night. Everything looked as it should be, however: wild, untended, ruined, an impossibility staring Josie in the face. She set down the bag she was carrying with a sigh, wondering if it was too soon to suggest they break for the flasks of coffee they had brought with them, but Hilda clapped her hands together.
‘Right, let’s get to work,’ she said. ‘I’ll start pruning those bushes by the entrance. It looks like you have some privet in there, and a bit of blue gem and veronica.’ She chuckled. ‘Nat must have been quite the garden centre stalwart back in his day.’
‘I assume you’re talking about plants?’
‘Yes. There are some lovely shrubs in here. They’re just a bit overgrown, that’s all. Nothing a little hard pruning won’t fix.’
Josie left Hilda by the entrance and walked down to the barn. At the sight of the door standing just open enough to allow someone entry, however, her hackles began to rise. She clenched her fists, glaring at the door as though to splinter it with her gaze.
‘If you’ve been in there … I’ll—’
She peered into the gloom, then stepped inside. She had taken no more than a couple of paces, though, before she stopped dead in her tracks. One of the old table tennis tables, dusted down, had been carried out into the central corridor. Where a net had rotted away, now pieces of plywood made a crude partition.
Something was standing on the table near the net, a small plastic basket. Josie approached cautiously, fearing it might be full of more frogs, but to her surprise it was just four tatty table tennis paddles and a handful of balls. All of them looked stained and water damaged as though they’d been found buried in the undergrowth.
‘Oh!’ came a voice from behind her, and Josie gasped as she spun round. It was only Hilda, though, standing just inside the barn door with a pair of pruning clippers in her hand. ‘Did you set it up already? Why don’t we have a quick game?’
‘Not me,’ Josie said, but before she could launch into some diatribe that it had to be the squatters taking advantage of things, Hilda had hopped over to the basket and selected a paddle.
‘Come on, humour an old woman,’ she said, swishing the paddle through the air. ‘I think I can just about get it over the net.’
‘If you insist,’ Josie said with a smile. ‘I used to play a little with Tiffany when she was younger. I’ll go easy on you.’
‘You’re such a dear.’
Josie tapped down a couple of weak serves and Hilda did her best to hack them back over the makeshift net. After a few minutes of gentle tapping back and forth, Hilda said, ‘Right then, shall we have a game?’ She grinned. ‘How about the loser buys lunch?’
‘Sure,’ Josie said. ‘I liked the look of that steakhouse down by the harbour.’
‘Oh, that place is great,’ Hilda said with a grin. ‘You’d have to sell another car to afford it, though. All the tourists these days are getting milked harder than Davey Blinchard’s flock come Wimbledon strawberries and fresh cream season.’
‘Luckily I won’t have to,’ Josie said. ‘Go on, I’ll let you serve.’
