It’s safe to say I’m enjoying myself now and I decide to plant my feet and make the very most of this free fundraising opportunity.
‘The exhibit opens today at three thirty and runs every afternoon until Christmas Eve. There’ll be mulled wine and gingerbread cookies on sale. Tickets are available on the door. Come down and help save Wheaton Village Hall and support a fantastic local community enterprise.’
There are whoops and cheers from the crowd and Patrick squeezes my hand. This is it, my moment of triumph. God, I hope Mum and Dad are watching, and Lucy too.
I’m not done yet. The crowd spurs me on. ‘For once, we’re getting the attention we deserve,’ I yell, gripping on to the mic even though Annabella’s trying to yank it from me. ‘Save Wheaton Village Hall!’ I cry, and the crowd echoes my words back at me just as the interviewer wrestles the mic away.
I’m too elated to care. I got my point across and we’re live on the telly. The vloggers and TikTokers and Instagrammers are catching every word on their phones too so we’ll be live across the country right now, no, live all over the world, wherever there’s Wi-Fi.
‘And you? Patrick, did you say?’ Annabella is asking, turning her attention to my boyfriend.Yes, I said boyfriend.
She’s being a bit smiley and forward with him, I notice. Far more smiley than she was with me or either of the old buffers on the council.
Patrick nods sharply, and looks from me to the camera lens, preparing for the question on Annabella’s lips.
‘So, Margi’s your mum. What do you think of her fundraising? It’s not every day a village’s retired community steps up in protest at their local authority’s decisions, is it? You must be a very proud son.’
‘Hismum?’ I’ve shrieked it already so there’s no stopping the giggles and shocked looks from the crowd.
‘That’s not my mother,’ Patrick says, his cheeks reddening. ‘She’s my… uh, she’s…’
I stare at him, unblinking, frozen in panic. What the hell’s he going to say? She’s my girlfriend? A friend? A colleague?Say something, Patrick. Is he going to lay claim, live on telly, to the mad woman who was just shouting nonsense into the mic? The woman with the sticky-up hair and yesterday’s make-up smears? The woman who got all carried away, yet again, and convinced herself one thing was happening when in fact the reality was something completely different?
Patrick’s opening and closing his mouth, hesitating, and looking to me like I might have the answer that’s evading him. He doesn’t have the words for what I am to him. And if he does, he’s too ashamed to say them out loud.
‘Oh God,’ I say. ‘Oh no.’
And that’s when my feet tell me to get the hell away from all these cameras and the amazed, wide-eyed people dying from second-hand embarrassment.
‘They’re nottogether, are they?’ I hear someone in the crowd, a young woman, saying. And I cover my ears, guessing what’s coming next and not wanting to hear it.Eww! Cringe!Just like those girls said at my street collection.
I’m dragging Izz by the hand, darting through the onlookers. Behind us, Annabella signs off, ‘Back to the studio,’ and with our heads down, Izz and I disappear out of sight, round the back of the hall, and in through the back door. I’d only returned the key to the front door and now I’m glad of my stubbornness.
We only stop when we’re panting against the cabinets in the hall’s kitchen cubby. I’m already replaying what just happened, my brain picking over the memory, my mouth dropping expletives in a filthy string.
‘Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. He was horrified! He was embarrassed.’ I look down at my body, seeing yesterday’s grubby clothes, and I scrunch my nested hair in my hands with a groan. ‘Of course he was.’
But Izz, in spite of her grip on my arm, isn’t hearing me.
‘Trolls?’ she’s saying. ‘Hoaxers? So… Alexi’snotgoing to be found? They’re lying? The people on the internet?’
I snap out of the storm in my head to pull her close to me.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I tell her. ‘What a mess I’ve made.’
And we hide out, wide-eyed in the unlit kitchen, trying to figure out what on earth we’re supposed to do now.
‘So? You’re… hiding?’
Lucy is justifiably incredulous when she comes to our rescue bringing two bacon baps from Izz’s – Fern is doing a good job of running the cafe in Izz’s absence, it seems – and hot tea in takeaway cups.
‘We’re… regrouping,’ I say, trying to sound dignified.
At least the council workers seem to have cleared out of the hall building, probably warned off by their bosses about the snooping people gathered outside. It makes me wonder if they have the authority even to be in here when the place is still at the start of the planning application and we still have our stake in saving it.
‘Has everyone gone?’ asks Izz, unwrapping her breakfast.
‘The TV people have. There’s still a bunch of gawpers out there, and a minibus of dudes in suits from Historic England? They were keen to talk with Scrimengor and the other one.’
