Ma had gladly relinquished the kitchen to me, since she’d rarely done more than microwave a ready meal or slap a sandwich together in there herself, and already it had taken on a new and familiar persona, being now full of my mixers, bowls, implements, cookbooks and notebooks, with a laptop area in the pine breakfast nook in the corner.
I made plain macaroons and then some chocolate ones, which were delicious, and then typed some notes into the laptop. I was trying to build up an even bigger hoard of articles than I had before Stella was born, seeing I’d be occupied with other things in autumn and winter … and I still couldn’t quite believe that we were committed to flying across the ocean for a risky operation. My fear that she would fall ill before then was almost as extreme as my fear of the operation itself – even thinking about it made me eat four macaroons straight off, one after the other.
The magazine and newspaper were fine about my filing my articles from Lancashire (or they would be, once broadband had been installed in the cottage next week), and would send a photographer round as necessary, when they couldn’t use illustrations from stock. Actually, I prefer it when they use pictures of my baking, because I get loads of despairing mail from readers saying the things they make never look perfect, like in the cookery books, but they can see that most of mine don’t look like those either. Food needs to look good enough to eat, but it doesn’t need to win a beauty competition. I hate this cult of ‘food presentation’ where someone fiddles around with the food, adding a scoop of this and a dribble of that, and mauling it about, or the magazine hires a food stylist, which is a bit like airbrushing a naturally beautiful fashion model, setting an unattainable standard because it isn’t real.
Not me: I’d so much rather have a chunk of crumbling apple pie with a dollop of cream, or a delicious fruit fairy cake with slightly singed edges.
It’s probably just as well for my figure that I now have someone else to help me eat all my baking, though not so good for Ma’s. Not that Ma cares about her figure: she says she was born to be a dumpling and why fight nature?
Stella wandered into the kitchen in her pyjamas just as I was arranging a pyramid of chocolate macaroons on a plate, her silken hair in a tangle and dragging Bun, the large plush rabbit that Ma had bought her when she was born, by one ear. She looked at the cakes and removed her thumb from her mouth long enough to say, sleepily, ‘Awesome.’
‘I think I’ve been letting you watch too much TV while I’ve been unpacking and sorting out,’ I said ruefully.
Stella seemed no worse for the move now we’d settled in. We went to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool later in the week, where she was checked over thoroughly, though she was to be monitored regularly by Ormskirk Hospital, which was nearer, and only referred back in future for any problems … which I sincerely hoped there wouldn’t be.
The vicar, Raffy Sinclair, came to call one afternoon – he often visited Ma, but this time he came specially to see me.
I’d never met him to speak to before, though I’d seen him about sometimes. He was a tall, handsome man, an ex-rock star who moved to the village a couple of years ago and married Chloe Lyon. When I went to her chocolate shop to buy the chocolate angel lolly for Stella’s Christmas stocking she’d said they had a little girl too, called Grace, though I think she is much younger than Stella. (And that big chocolate angel she gave me before Christmas had a most inspiring message inside, telling me not to fear the future. As I ate the delicious chocolate, I felt I was ingesting hope with it.)
Stella was having her afternoon nap when the vicar arrived so we were able to have a good talk. He knew about her problems, of course, because Ma had told him.
‘Martha says you’ve sold your flat and moved in here, in an effort to raise enough money to take your little girl to America for a life-saving operation,’ he said, when I’d made coffee and fetched in a plate of macaroons (I was still experimenting with flavours).
‘Yes,’ I said, and told him all about the operation and Stella’s medical condition – I really opened up and poured it all out, but he was the kindest man.
‘I still need about another twenty thousand pounds, I think, because all kinds of extra expenses keep cropping up. Someone advised me to take a qualified nurse on the plane there with me, for instance. And insurance – well, that’s difficult too.’
‘How long have you got to raise the money?’
‘The surgeon in Boston has pencilled her in for the start of November so we need to be there by the end of October. I ought to start booking the plane tickets and the hotel and so on … I’ve just waited to see how far off the target I was after selling the flat. My best friend, Celia, and her husband, Will, have been a huge help, setting up the Stella’s Stars fundraising site, which is getting lots of small donations, too.’
‘I’m sure you’ll make it – and I and the rest of Sticklepond will help you,’ he promised.
‘That’s kind of you, but I’m really a stranger here. I mean, we’ve only visited before, we aren’t really part of the community …’
‘Oh, that won’t matter,’ he said, and assured me that the villagers would all unite to support a good cause.
Ma, who’d wandered in at that moment still holding a fully loaded paintbrush, taken a macaroon and begun to leave again without seeming to notice the vicar, stopped and focused at that.
‘They may not for this one, because my family were never well liked in the village: I told you,’ she said to Raffy, taking the jade cigarette holder from her mouth and gesturing with it. A half-smoked red Sobranie dropped out of the end and Toto, who’d followed her in, sniffed at it before making friendly overtures to Raffy. I’d have warned him about getting white dog hairs on his black jeans if he hadn’t already got a liberal sprinkling there from his own little white dog, which I’d seen him out with sometimes.
‘I’ve heard the odd rumour about the Almonds,’ he admitted, ‘but it was something that happened so long ago that I think only the most elderly parishioners know the details. But when it comes to helping a child, I can’t see any of them thinking twice about it.’
‘Why exactly aren’t the Almonds well liked? You’ve never actually told me,’ I said, emboldened to press Ma by the presence of the vicar.
She straightened with the Sobranie in her hand, shoved it back in the holder, and then shrugged her plump shoulders. ‘It’s as the vicar says, an old story, and I don’t know all the details. Let’s let sleeping dogs lie.’
‘The important thing is to raise the money,’ Raffy agreed, ‘and we’ll soon do that – so trust in the Lord and make all the bookings. There’s nothing the village likes so much as uniting to fight for a good cause – only look how we saw off those property developers in the village itself, and then managed to have planning permission for turning the Hemlock Mill site into a retail park overturned.’
‘True,’ Ma said, and then she suddenly seemed to become aware of the loaded brush in her hand and, without another word, went out again.
‘I wish she’d put a coat on, because that wind is cold, even if it is May,’ I said, watching her through the window as she started back up the garden towards the studio. Then Hal suddenly loomed up next to her from behind a clump of Fatsia japonica, draped his tweedy, shapeless jacket over her shoulders, and they turned and went up the steps together.
‘Hmm … I don’t think I’ve ever seen Hal smile before,’ Raffy said thoughtfully. ‘He usually looks like Indiana Jones on a bad day, crossed with just a hint of the Grim Reaper.’
‘They do seem to be good friends,’ I said noncommittally, ‘and he’s here quite a bit … though weekends and evenings, mostly. Perhaps today is his half-day from the Hall.’
‘I don’t think