I watch her enthusiastically scrolling their profiles; the happiest I’ve seen her in a long time.
‘You’re glad?’ I ask.
‘Of course I am. All I really want is for you to find somebody good so I don’t have to worry about you any more.’
This pulls me up. ‘Hold on. You worry about me?’
She shrugs. ‘Little bit. We all do.’
I was right. This is how the hovering begins.
‘At least pick your favourite and arrange one date, won’t you?’ she cajoles, and of course, I’m powerless.
If being cast out into the dating wilderness at sixty-five makes Lucy happy or proud of me or even a little less worried, I’ll just have to do it for her. And a tiny bit for me, I suppose.
Maybe mathematical principles and personality tests and psychosocial metric doodadscansucceed in a few short hours where I, Margi Frost, have clearly failed over the course of my entire lifetime.
We’re about to dive into the profiles when the doorbell rings. Instinctively, I shut the app and shove my phone between the sofa cushions.
‘You think it’s Patrick,’ Lucy says, watching me.
‘Patrick? It could be anybody,’ I say, cool as a cucumber because, as usual, she’s read me like a children’s picture book.
I pointedly don’t check my face in the mirror as I make for the door in case Lucy’s still watching.
It’s only just after eight but it feels much later with the wintry darkness and sparkles on the windows where the sleet has frosted in pretty, jagged patterns.
I pull at the door, and there, so slight on my doorstep, is Fern, in her tablecloth coat, and beside her holding a large cardboard box is a smiling, freckled, healthful girl I don’t know.
‘I’d have texted first, but I didn’t know your number?’ Fern says like it’s a question, still a bundle of jangling nerves.
‘Come inside. You must be freezing. Did you walk all the way from the farm?’
‘Shell drove,’ Fern says, and the girl with the box frees one hand to give me a spread-fingered wave.
‘Is this your girlfriend?’ I ask, but I already know. These two have that obvious youthful magic between them. I can tell they’re a match. See? Instinct and chemistry; it’s A Thing. It can shift the air around people, crackling like static, drawing you in.
I can’t help smiling at them both. ‘Do you want an… orange juice?’ Then I remember Lucy drank the last of it. ‘Or tea?’
Both of them enthusiastically respond to the idea of tea, and I see Fern’s gaze drifting around the cottage.
‘This is so nice,’ she tells me in a tiny voice.
It makes sense that she’d like the place. You couldn’t get closer to the faded charm of real old-fashioned Cotswold living if you tried; or, in other words, everything in here is ancient.
‘My mum decorated it before I was born,’ I tell her. ‘I never changed it.’ I quickly fill the kettle. ‘What’s in the box?’
Lucy’s joined us now, and I’m surprised to see her hugging Fern. They’re unlikely pals, I think, from totally different generations. Mind you, Wheaton sort of throws people together. We’re a big mishmash of oddities trying, and so often failing, to make a community, and I guess you take connection where you can find it round here.
‘It’s the farm,’ Shell tells us, patting the top of the box. I’m surprised at her loud, easy way. She’s planted herself by the kitchen table, comfortable and confident. She makes me think of the advice Mum always gave me whenever I felt I was getting in the way somewhere. She’d say, ‘This is the space you occupy, so fill it up and don’t make yourself smaller for anybody.’ Shell occupies her own space, totally unselfconsciously, and it’s lovely to see. I’m glad terrified little Fern has this straightforward person by her side.
‘The farm?’ Lucy echoes, peering inside the open top of the box.
I make the tea in Mum’s oldest china pot, just to tickle Fern. She’ll love that. I get my Christmas cake from the cupboard too and slice into it.
‘Yep, for the grotto,’ Fern says, signalling to Shell, who puts the box on the floor and carefully lifts out a gingerbread model of the Brambledown Farm cottage, setting it on the table.
‘Took us all day,’ Shell says. ‘That’s why we’re here so late.’
