Apologies for not updating this thing in absolutely ages.

I have a new chapter to share with you now: we have reached Wednesday (AKA Chapter 3) in The Four Matthews saga.  Romance fans may be in for a treat with this one, as things start to hot up on them thar hills!

Hope you enjoy…

Wednesday
Crockington to Manderwood – The Second Matthew

My traditional Wednesday fatigue, that midweek slump just prior to the pre-weekend resurge of energy, was gladly absent this week.  At work I wish my life away, which I hate.  When I’m on holiday I long for the days to crawl as they do during a working week.

Polly and Martin had torn themselves out of bed early, and she had bagged the seat by Lyndon.  She shot me a smirk as I walked past to sit with the Salad Couple and their scrambled eggs.

There were no zebra sausages on the menu, but a choice of venison or pork and herb varieties.  This morning fare was of the variety my nan used to say would ‘land on your belly and make you bow-legged’ but, despite having seven miles to walk that day, I indulged without regret in the magnificent fry-up.  Ah, nothing beats a cooked breakfast.

Hazel sauntered in yawning and flopped down opposite me, but the colour and sizzle seemed to zing her awake.  ‘That looks divine.’

I gave her a thumbs-up, my mouthful of fried bread and sausage precluding speech.  She ordered the same, last night’s vegetarianism evidently temporary.

Afterwards, Lyndon gathered us for his team talk and started dishing out lists.

‘Now for this stage of the route I usually set everyone a little just-for-fun task.  I call it a photo scavenger hunt.  I see you all have cameras, or phone cameras, with you.  See how many of these you can snap during the course of the day.  Work in pairs if you like, or groups.’

There were seven typed random items:

- Easy one to start you off:  Earl Matthew’s decapitated marble head
- A yellow car
- A slice of coffee and walnut cake
- An azalea bush
- An old style red telephone box
- Where the Simpsons might reside?
- The way to Amarillo

‘Is there a prize, Lyndon?’ asked Shane.

‘I think we could stretch to that, Shane.  How about a bottle?’

‘How about a dance with you in the disco tonight?’ suggested Polly pertly.

‘They have started doing Wednesday discos at the Boscobel,’ Lyndon sidestepped.  ‘Bingo too.  The place is under new management, apparently.  Don’t blame me, I don’t choose the hotels, but you’ll get a survey to fill in at the end of the week so don’t be shy about letting head office know your thoughts.  They are constantly reviewing their list of hotels.’

‘Sounds promising,’ Hazel grimaced.

‘One thing I will say for the ‘Bozzie,’ as they call it locally, is the food was very good last time I was there.  Unpretentious, is how I would describe it.’

‘No zebra then?’

‘Definitely no zebra, Hazel.  Now we’ve got fewer miles to cover today, which will enable us to spend a good couple of hours at Manderwood Manor.  It’s just over three miles there, we’re booked on the half-eleven guided tour, there are stunning landscaped gardens to stroll around, lovely tea room where we can have a bite to eat, then it’s another four to Bhylcroft and the Second Matthew.  The Boscobel Hotel, home of the infamous discotheque, is at the bottom of it.

‘Same drill as yesterday, cases in the lobby, set off at nine.  Let’s have another good day.  And don’t forget your scavenger hunts, folks.’

******

There was more cloud coverage than of late as we set off.  The sky was of an enveloping white that had the potential to either darken to grey and yield rain or fragment and expose blue.

We veered almost immediately off the main A454 on to a footpath parallel to it, signposted Manderwood.  A hedge muffled the raucous traffic, plunging us into rural quietude again.

‘Bit chillier today, isn’t it,’ I remarked to Hazel.  Hey we’re British, of course we were going to make compulsive observations about the weather.

‘I spoke to our Bart this morning,’ Shane beamed, ‘before he went to school.  Told him I had crocodile for me tea last night.  Straight off he came out with: “Did you ask them to make it snappy, Dad?”  Such a bright kid.’

‘Bless him.’

‘My battery’s as flat as a dodo now.  Forgot to bring the charger.  Worth it to speak to me lad, though.’

‘I’ll lend you my charger tonight,’ I offered.  ‘You’ve got a Nokia, haven’t you, same as mine?’

‘Ah, you’re a diamond, you are, bab.’  He looked at me as though I’d just invited him to cash in my unwanted winning Lotto ticket.

‘No problem.’

‘Talking about Nokia, would you believe there’s actually a little girl called that at our Myleene’s nursery.  Nokia!’

‘Some parents, eh?  Must have been the network they were on when it happened!’

‘It’s not much worse than Bart or Myleene,’ Hazel hissed to me as Shane loped off ahead to share the ‘snappy’ anecdote with Ted and Enid who, evidently still mistrustful of the minibus, were continuing to lug their suitcase.  ‘You wouldn’t be a love, would you Naomi, and fish my water bottle out the back pocket?’  She pointed down to the side compartment of her rucksack.

As soon as everybody overtook us, Hazel smuggled her tiny camera out of her cagoule pocket and snatched a surreptitious photograph.  She took the water from me, winked and nodded towards one of the back gardens that bordered our path.

Half obscured by a shed, unnoticed by the rest of our gang, was a retro relic.  An iconic red telephone box, obviously privately acquired and lovingly preserved.

‘That’s one ticked off the list,’ Hazel whispered conspiratorially.

‘Good ruse, teammate.’ 

We hurried to catch up with the others before our absence raised suspicion.

******

‘How close are you to home now?’ Hazel asked me as we approached Manderwood Manor, which was on the side of a predominantly residential hill.

‘We can’t quite see my place from here.’  I curled my thumb and forefinger into a ‘telescope’ and did an exaggerated peer through it at the extensive view below.  ‘My bit of Walsall’s about eight miles from here.  Which Adrian thinks is hysterical.’

I swear Lyndon looked round momentarily at the reference to Adrian, giving support to my fuzzy suspicions from last night.  He appeared to be concentrating on his commentary to distract himself.

‘Right, I’ll collect our tickets from reception now.  We’re well ahead of ourselves, got an hour before we need to meet for the guided tour, so I’ll leave you to disperse, have a walk round the gardens, get a coffee if you wish.  I won’t tell you too much about the house, don’t want to spoil the tour for you.  We’ll congregate at the vestibule entrance just before half-eleven.’

******

‘So, Capability Boden,’ I linked arms with Hazel, ‘care to show me what an azalea bush looks like?  I wouldn’t know one from a tin of beans.  I live in a flat and grow cress.’

The gardens, for which Manderwood Manor is renowned, were exquisite beyond comprehension.  Regimented rows of yew topiary partitioned the lawns into mini plots, where bushes and flowerbeds were in gaudy bloom.

‘There,’ Hazel swiftly photographed an explosion of pinky-orange blooms and stowed the camera back in her deep pocket like a spy.   It was getting fun, being all competitive and wily like this.

‘Stunning here, isn’t it,’ I sighed.  I love my aforementioned flat but, not having a garden, I’m unaccustomed to profusions of flowers and topiary.  Therefore this was another place in which I came over all uncool and overwhelmed-by-the-beauties-of-nature.  ‘This one of your projects then?’

 ‘I wish.  In fact Sir Samuel Mott designed these grounds.  His books were my bibles when I was starting out.’

‘Those hedges are like something you’d see in a geometry textbook, aren’t they?  Not a stray twig to mess up those flat lines.’

We wandered back towards the house and bumped into Polly and Martin exiting the tearoom.

‘Just got the coffee and walnut cake,’ said Martin proudly, holding up his camera.  It was the first time I’d heard him attempt conversation with anyone other than Polly.

She now dragged him towards the so-called ‘secret’ garden – the object of which I felt was somewhat defeated by the prominent sign on the wall which proclaimed it thus.

‘Some of us prefer more adult fun,’ she purred.

‘That poor boy looks exhausted,’ Hazel murmured.

******

Polly and Martin showed up late, and brazenly dishevelled, for the tour, which displeased our guide, the schoolmarmish Pat.  Pat was about sixty, tall and upright, with the kind of long blonde hair some ladies that age can get away with (she wasn’t one of them) and bulgy eyes set wide apart, like a cod.  According to her badge, her name – you’ll never believe this – was Pat Codd!

‘Right, now that we’re all here,’ her boots clacked brusquely along the tiles, ‘we can begin.’  She had already barked to us of the dire fates that awaited us in hell if we touched anything in the house, sat on any of the chairs or failed to switch off our mobiles.

She ushered us into the drawing room.  It had that old-bookish scent and haunting, still-photograph feel typical of preserved rooms in stately homes and museums.  The decor was whatever the opposite of minimalist is.  A highly intricate pattern of interconnecting circles and hexagons was carved into the ceiling, there were magenta brocade curtains, and you could have barely placed a pin between all the paintings adorning the walls and grand piano lid.

The overall effect was, if I’m being frank, somewhat chaotic.  But then who am I to knock Jacobean VIPs for not embracing the ‘less is more’ approach?

‘Manderwood Manor is Jacobean in origin, exemplifying the Renaissance style of architecture.  It was constructed in 1608 as a home for Sir Edward Theodoric, the great-great-times-twenty-four-grandson of the famed Matthew.

‘The family home until then was Hednesborough Hall, fifteen miles up the road, but that had fallen into disrepair and Sir Edward decided to relocate.  Hednesborough Hall, as I am sure many of you know, exists today only as a ruin.  Like Manderwood, it is now in the care of History for Britain.  Manderwood itself was acquired by the organisation in 1938, by which time the Earl had for several years been without surviving direct descendants to take it on.’

Pat Codd gave us a synopsis of Theodoric family life, the dignitaries who’d have been entertained in this room, the history of some of its artefacts.  Polly yawned and studied her nails.  Shane, at the other extreme, was scribbling notes.

‘There had long been legends about Earl Matthew haunting Hednesborough Hall, and he allegedly followed Sir Edward and his family here.  Sightings of our phantom nobleman have been reported here for centuries.  He is by all accounts a fairly lonely ghost these days, since the house is uninhabited.  He pops into the tearoom for a spot of company from time to time, according to Donald the waiter.’  Pat’s tone made it plain she did not share Donald’s belief in ghost stories.

I seriously love history, I studied the subject at A-level – though confess to some gaps in my knowledge.  Until I was about nineteen, I thought – oh, this is a shameful admission – that the Battle of Trafalgar was actually fought in Trafalgar Square!  Wasn’t that moronic?  I’ve gone crimson just thinking about it.  Yes, I truly thought the battle took its name from the landmark, not vice versa.  It was an assumption you might say lacked logic.  Blame it on my education if you like – we didn’t cover the Napoleonic Wars at my school.

My eldest brother, Gaz, laughed so hard he virtually had a seizure when I told him.  ‘Nelson was an Admiral in the Royal Navy, sis,’ he spluttered.  ‘Didn’t you twig that sea might have played a role in his most famous victory?  What do you think they did with the ships – strapped them to the back of red London buses?  Whose side were the pigeons fighting on?’  He still occasionally reminds me of that gaffe.

Back to Manderwood.  We trooped through to the huge parlour, the focal point of which was the ancient marble statue head.  This was another highly decorative room; its walls were draped with tapestries depicting those surreal woodland scenes unfathomably beloved by embroiderers, and a pair of vases six feet tall flanked the fireplace.  I wondered whether mutant daffodils were grown in them, watered by a housemaid up a ladder with a can the size of a water cooler.

‘Successive Theodoric generations were avid collectors, and also lucky enough to number many eminent artists of the day among their acquaintance, giving them unrivalled access to original artwork.’

Perhaps, had the line not died out, contemporary Manderwood Manor occupants might be continuing the tradition and commissioning Damian Hirst creations.  The marble Matthew could have had the indignity of facing a pig’s rump in formaldehyde across the parlour from a matching display case.

We all photographed the head, it being the ‘easy one to start us off’ in the scavenger hunt.  I won’t pretend it looked magnificent, or that it much resembled a head, more of a misshapen shot put, but it is an important relic of English history, and one I am glad to say I have now seen.

Pat Codd may have been a bit stern, but really knew her stuff.  She would probably have had a nosebleed if I dared share my ‘Battle of Trafalgar Square’ howler with her.  The English Civil War phase of the Theodoric chronicles was clearly her favourite.  By the time the Roundhead mobs were annihilating Matthew’s statues, she had whipped herself up into a televangelist fervour.  She was right there with them, her cod eyes jammed shut in concentration.  I could picture her in battle actually; Boudicca in a Debenhams blouse.

Then history was sacrilegiously interrupted by Polly’s obnoxious mobile, and then by Polly shamelessly sniggering as she read her text (presumably from her Aunty Maureen).

Pat Codd (go Pat, go Pat!) zapped her with a ferocious look.  ‘If you could turn that off.  I did make that request at the beginning of the tour, but of course you were not here at that point.’

Poor Martin gazed at the floor.

******

As we emerged from Pat’s tour, a rabble of schoolkids were waiting to go in.  They were like every class in the history of school trips: all snot and Mini Cheddars, hyper with the euphoria of a day’s liberation from lessons, defying their three teachers’ ineffectual attempts at order.

Our gang descended upon the tearoom, where the coffee and walnut cake proved another easy item to tick off the scavenger list.  This delighted the camp, elderly waiter who wondered why his sponges were so photogenic.

The said waiter was the ghostly Earl’s friend Donald, and never had a man looked so at home in a ruffled pinny.  He rustled up egg sandwiches and beautiful tea, which was presented in floral teapots as opposed to those awful steel ones you usually get, with ill-fitting lids and handles you can’t hold with your bare hands because the manufacturers have not quite sussed that – hello! – metal conducts heat.  Donald also made salad sandwiches for a certain couple in our party, even though they were not on the menu, and was suitably captivated by Shane’s ‘They called me the Dieting Dustman from Dudley’ yarn.

‘This is what I looked like before.  Shane flashed the familiar photo.  ‘Since I lost seven stone I’ve never felt better.’
‘Peachy,’ Donald remarked, hand poised on hip.  He was such a cliché, there would be letters to Points of View were he on TV as a sitcom writer’s idea of a gay man.

This café was our nicest lunch stop of the week.  It’s a rarity, in these days of sachets, to see sugar lumps on the table, all beige and white and crystalline, heaped in a bowl.

‘Bliss,’ I said to Hazel, popping one on my tongue.

‘You don’t take sugar in your tea, though?’

I shook my head.  ‘Never have.  But I love sugar lumps.  Bizarre, eh?  There’s something old-fashioned about them.  They look so exquisite like that.  Like a bowl of diamonds.’

‘That’s very poetic.’

‘I wish the poetic inspiration could have walloped me last night.  Bloody “succulent” indeed!’

‘Lyndon seemed to admire your choice of word, though,’ Hazel reminded me.

‘So he did.’  I felt all hot and silly remembering last night’s meal and the looks across the table into which I may or may not have read too much.

I saw Polly curl up against Martin.  He looked mildly irritated as he was trying to pick up his tea with the arm to which she clung.

‘I need a cuddle after that old bag shouted at me,’ she said pathetically.

‘Well you should have turned your phone off really, petal.’  Martin was very mutinous today.

Clearly unaccustomed to her wheedling not working, Polly wrenched her arms away from him and crossed them petulantly.  ‘To think I’m missing Loose Women for this!’  She mercifully maintained a mute sulk for the rest of the day.

When we left, Donald said ‘Toodle-pip’ and gave us a little wave.  ‘Keep up with the diet, Shane,’ he added and winked.  He didn’t pat Shane’s bum, but I sensed he didn’t lack the inclination.

We were a good ten minutes down the road when Shane speculated, ‘D’you reckon that Donald might have been gay?’

******

The scene of this lightning-bolt realisation was Dipton, a large and relatively new South Staffordshire village that we were told had mushroomed out of an air force community.

‘There was an RAF base here during the Second World War,’ recalled Lyndon, ‘and the only housing initially was to accommodate the air force personnel and their families.  The base itself was then extensively built on after the war.  Schools and other community facilities evolved in time.  Dipton is therefore very modern and largely residential with, by all accounts, a strong community spirit.

‘Obviously the path predated the houses, hence this Dipton-to-Bhylcroft stretch is a bit more towny than scenic.  Oh hello mate.’  A cordial neighbourhood cat was weaving around Lyndon’s legs, leaving stripes of hairs across his walking trousers.  ‘You’re a bit like my Splodge.  Who I hope Aunty Rona is looking after well this week.’

The little feline, who was purring like a diesel engine (as would I, frankly, if Lyndon were stroking my back like that), was black and white and wore a glittery blue collar, as though en route to a kitty disco.

‘Splodge?’ I asked.

Is ‘Aunty Rona’ your girlfriend? a voice inside me was yelling.

‘He’s got a black splodge on his chin, like a little beard.  It was the first thing I noticed about him when I got him from the rescue place, and the name stuck.  Apart from that, he looks just like this one.  Bye-bye mate.’  Our blue-collared friend, having scampered along for a few feet, had stopped at the perimeter of what was presumably his or her house and was staring after us in that heart-melting, wistful way all cats have down to a tee.

‘Lovely way with animals you’ve got there, Lyndon.  How old is Splodge?’

‘Two.  Wasn’t able to have pets when I was,’ I held my breath for a reference to his perhaps not so mysterious ex-wife, ‘er, where I lived before.  City apartment.’

‘He must love living in the country then.’

‘Not half.  My dad’s partner, Rona, pops in and sees to him when I’m away.  He met her on a BFF walk too.’

Too?  As though Mr Hyde Senior was not the only member of that family to have met a would-be significant other through the group?  My heart started to do that stupid salmon-somersault again.  Was I reading fanciful hints into all his words and actions?  Was he referring to me or in fact an existing partner, who looked like a cross between Angelina Jolie and all of Girls Aloud and to whom he was introduced on a previous, sex-packed trek?

I looked up and he looked away swiftly, pretending to busy himself with his map, as though realising his Freudian slip.

‘What I mean is, he took up walking ten years ago, after my mother passed away, then met Rona on a tour of the South Downs.  It was through him I first found out about the organisation.  And now Rona helps look after Splodgey for me.’

‘Look – the way to Amarillo!’  Shane was pointing gleefully at a wooden signpost which directed patrons of the ‘Amarillo Social Club’ down a little potholed lane.  It’s anybody’s guess why a village night spot in South Staffordshire should be named after a Texan city, but there you go.

The apostrophe assassins had a faction here too.  A noticeboard at the top of the lane promoted ‘line dancing with Robyn on Thursday’s,’ and apparently this Friday we could look forward to a performance from a ‘top Lionel Richie impersonator – as seen on’ a TV programme that was apparently called ‘Stars in Your Eye’s.’

‘Well done Shane,’ commended Lyndon.

When it came to scavenger hunt clues, our slimming binman obviously wasn’t into subterfuge like Hazel and me.

‘There’s a yellow car,’ I announced, returning the favour, as there happened to be a custard Suzuki Jimny on a nearby drive.  Cars that hue are a conspicuous rarity outside Only Fools and Horses.  Or Noddy.

If any Dipton curtain-twitchers spotted us photographing their neighbour’s jeep, they probably just assumed we were Neighbourhood Watch, cagoule division.

******

Dipton bled into Bhylcroft, via a pedestrian crossing over the permanently gridlocked A41 (no stile here, just the more customary traffic lights).  This slice of the route had a towny, contemporary feel, as Lyndon had pointed out, with Bhylcroft high street being very retail-dominated.  Our backpacks and heavy duty boots drew some peculiar looks from the shopping-laden pensioners at the bus stop.  I felt like a Martian who had veered adrift.

‘Don’t know about you, Lyndon,’ I said, ‘but I’m starting to long for a bit of open countryside.’

‘I always do by this point.’  Ah, those smiles of his were enough to make me forget my own name.  ‘I mean, these built-up communities can be interesting in their own way, but they don’t exactly give you that ‘getting away from it all’ sensation, do they?  Bhylcroft is at least ten times bigger than the likes of Lower Bratchley.  The headquarters of the local council are here – how metropolitan can you get?’

‘Yeah, give me a hill or bit of moorland any day.  I know it’s daft, but when I don’t see a soul about I like to pretend I’m the first person, or part of the first group, to discover the land I’m on.’

‘I do that as well.’  Oh, we were soul mates, I just knew it!  ‘You can’t exactly play games like that in a village that has badminton courts and a Lidl.’

He and I had fallen quite naturally into a matey walking pace.  Cheesy as it sounds, it felt at that moment as though this was meant to be: Lyndon and me, shoulder to shoulder, at complete ease in each other’s company.  While I was very conscious of his solid presence next to me, there was none of that self-conscious panic to fill silences.  I sensed daggers from Polly, but I was so buoyant they positively bounced off my back.

Polly, talk of the devil, suddenly stormed ahead of us all – perhaps to watch Loose Women on the tellies that were in the window of Danks Electrical next to Lidl – with Martin in trotting pursuit.

‘You need to cross over by the Esso garage, you two,’ Lyndon called after them, ‘and head down that lane opposite.’

Without warning, a fantasy took shape which involved Lyndon and me tearing, Heathcliff and Cathy style, through lashing rain across a stark moor which our boots were the first to christen.  I tripped over my skirts (never much call for waterproof trousers in sexual role play) and as I tumbled my bodice conveniently gaped.  He pinned me to the sodden ground, and then…mmm!

I was blushing like a beacon, feeling absolutely transparent, whilst back in reality we were crossing by the petrol station, into a more residential, rustic lane. 

‘Now the ‘Bhyl’ part of Bhylcroft derives from the Welsh word for a hillock.’  Even as Lyndon was giving us a prosaic history lesson, those wanton pictures wouldn’t fade.  ‘The hillock being, of course, the Second Matthew.  This one is the smallest of the four, at 164 metres – 538 feet.  A glorified molehill in comparison with the other three.’  Every innocuous word seemed to carry sexual connotations.  I could hardly look at him. 

I spotted a sign at the junction of a cul-de-sac.  ‘Evergreen Terrace,’ I yelped, thankful to mentally pour cold water on my wayward thoughts, ‘residence of The Simpsons.’  Shane was already snapping it.  He didn’t feature in my heathland erotica, so I focused with relief on him.  ‘I thought you’d know that one, having a Bart of your own.’

‘Got another ’un here.’  He unzipped his anorak, displaying a sweatshirt that bore his son’s yellow namesake from the TV series aiming a catapult.

******

The Second Matthew was indeed rather miniature; a mere bulge in the ground.  It was a brief amble to the top, from which the Boscobel Hotel became visible.  I would like to say this hotel was an alluring haven at the conclusion of a day’s journey, but…well it didn’t quite possess the snug charm of the Badger at Crockington.  The illuminated sign and yellow canopy over the door were a tad garish for rural Staffs.

I definitely saw Lyndon wince.  ‘It’s under new management,’ he repeated apologetically.

The week’s entertainment was chalked on a sandwich board outside the entrance: the promised ‘Wednesday night Bozzie bingo and disco’ on one side; this Friday’s attraction, a drag queen who gloried in the name Trannii Minogue, on the other, underscored with pink hearts and stars.

In the lobby the burgundy flock wallpaper gave an oppressive vibe.  A fearsome receptionist, whose slate-grey hair was tethered into a knobbly bun with a rubber band, appeared to have been on duty since the wallpaper was last in fashion.  She thrust her Express & Star under the desk, slammed our room keys on to it and growled that our cases awaited us in storage, having been deposited by the minibus.

We retrieved the luggage.  ‘Oh, and the lift ain’t working,’ Grey Bun yawned, engrossed in the paper once more, so we slogged up to the second floor.

We were invited to meet, as usual, at six in the bar, with our cameras this time so Lyndon could inspect our scavenger shots and dole out prizes.

I unpacked my mobile charger, dropped it in to Shane and returned to my own uninspiring room for a shower.  The nozzle appeared to have just two settings: boiling gush and freezing sputter.  I could achieve a happy medium, of sorts, by twizzling it back and forth so that I was alternately scalded and dribbled on.  The shower screen was also loose and would recurrently flop outwards, deluging the bathroom floor.

I was already mentally composing my comments for the BFF survey.

******

‘In third place,’ Lyndon declared in the bar later, ‘with four out of seven, are Polly and Martin.’

We clapped sedately as he presented them with a bottle of rosé each.  Martin looked elated with the prize, Polly distinctly less so.

‘Second, with six of the items, it’s Shane, Ted and Enid.  Well done, you three.’  They won Californian whites.

‘So that means our scavenger hunt victors today, with all seven, are Naomi and Hazel.  Congratulations ladies.’

The equivalent of gold medals in this challenge was a bottle of Cava and a kiss each.  Yes, a kiss.  I was pathetically rapturous about both the peck itself and the fact Polly hadn’t got one.  It was the most fleeting of hugs we shared, but Lyndon seemed to envelop me and he smelled divine.  He was wearing a navy jacket, and a cream open-necked shirt which was utterly sexy in its simplicity and looked marvellous against the faint tan he had acquired from working outdoors.
‘I won’t glug it all at once,’ I said witlessly, my sticky lips forming shapes that seemed out of synch with my words.  In fact I’d called for Hazel early, stir crazy in my mildewy room, so had already had a couple of wines.
‘Where was the phone box then?’ queried Shane.
I think I replied, ‘In one of the gardens that backed on to that first footpath, Hazel spotted it,’ but I could have said it was up my bum for all I was conscious of after that kiss.

After a plain but hearty dinner – I had the delicious, if obviously microwaved, chicken and leek pie, not so much served as plonked on a bed of oven chips – we were invited to partake in the bingo.
One thing the Boscobel was not was overburdened with staff.  Thus far we had only seen Grey Bun, the barman, a waitress and now Rod, who possessed a Black Country twang and a Leo Sayer perm and was touring the tables with his pad of tickets, urging us all to ‘have a goo fer a quid.’
‘Come on Hazel,’ I said, ‘we’re on a winning streak.  Here, I’ll get ours.  I’ve got a two-pound coin.’
Rod, apparently, was the entertainment team, his talents stretched like a rubber band.  ‘Don’t forget there’s our disco comin’ up a bit later on,’ he intoned when he was back on the mic.  ‘I shall be yer DJ for the evening.  Got some super sounds for you, from the 60s right the way through to the present day.’
It was a hoot.  Hazel nudged me.  ‘With so few staff, it’s not surprising that Russian shot-putter behind reception looks so pooped – there’s probably no one who can relieve her shift!’
‘Then on Friday,’ Rod went on, rubbing at the lapel of his blue velvet suit, ‘we’ve got our hilarious drag show, which stars, er, me actually, as Trannii Minogue.  Right stunner, that one!’
Hazel was virtually doubled up, hooting into her whisky.
Rod gave a modest little cough.  ‘Now are we ready?  Two fat wenches – eighty-eight.’

Our gang failed to win a line between us.

‘Who’s up for the disco then?’ I grinned as DJ Rod welcomed us, over the opening beats of He’s the Greatest Dancer by Sister Sledge, to ‘Wednesday at the Bozzie, where great tunes are guaranteed, and don’t forget alcopops am just a quid before eleven.’  A pound, it seemed, could buy you an awful lot at this hotel.

To be honest, though I like a boogie at a wedding reception, I’m not a huge fan of discos these days and certainly haven’t been clubbing in a long time.  I hate to appear snooty, but I find them frightful places to meet people.  I favour restaurants and country pubs.  But I wanted to socialise with my new friends tonight, and was loath to appear square.

‘Could be an experience,’ Lyndon replied diplomatically.  We all, apart from the Salads, agreed to give it a go.

We were a reserved bunch initially, table-bound, entertained by what we were observing.  The disco was soon jam-packed, clearly a weekly fixture, nay highlight, for many a resident of this large village.  Tattoos, denim, beer bellies and enough gold-plated jewellery to restock Argos were proudly displayed – and yes, that was just the women.  The mating rituals witnessed during the Macarena could have formed the basis for an anthropological thesis: the discreet and not so discreet glances zapping across the dancefloor, all that coquettish twiddling with hair and earrings, not to mention the less subtle signals like bum-pinching.

If I’m perfectly honest, I’d rather have stayed at the Amarillo and hung on for line dancing with Robyn.

Polly slipped out for a fag at one point, and when she returned hauled Martin on to the dancefloor.  She thrust her blow-up doll body at him, to which he responded with a few Mr Bean steps.

‘Come on,’ I’d had enough of being a wallflower, ‘anyone fancy a bop?’

I hoped my eyes were suitably beseeching but Lyndon seemed mortifyingly reluctant, and I was a bit too shy to grab him.

‘Go on then, I will,’ Hazel conceded, and we did a self-conscious little shuffle to Build Me Up Buttercup.  ‘After this,’ she enunciated over the music, ‘I shall give you two some breathing space, darling.  I’ll swap cabbage soup recipes with Shane, enabling you to collar lovely Lyndon and escort him outside.’

‘Hazel!’

‘Nothing to be gained by being backward in coming forward.  I discovered that for myself a long time ago, and I’ve had my moments, believe me.’  I did.  ‘Look, he obviously isn’t comfortable about dancing.  So after this song invite him outside.  For a spot of fresh air, as they say.’

‘Reckon it’ll do the trick?’  To be so brazen is alien to me.  I watched my unwitting prey at the table having his ear bent by Shane, and excitement rippled through me as I imagined the consequences of my potential actions.

‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  He isn’t an upfront boy.  Sometimes we ladies have to take the lead.’

‘All right then I’ll go for it.’  I beamed as she stuck both thumbs up, then my nerve abandoned me and I craved Dutch courage.  ‘But I think I’ll get some drinks in first.  Yours another Scotch?’

‘You’re a treasure.  Though it’s so watered down, you could feed it to babies.  Now best of luck.’

I wove to the bar, ignoring ogles though not escaping a bum-tweak from a gerbil-faced lad sporting a pierced eyebrow, and queued behind Martin.

Polly was not noticeably pining his absence.  She was continuing to gyrate, putting on a show for the knot of blokes around her who goggled like sharks hovering for a morsel of fish.  Tonight she wore a denim mini skirt and this tie-dye top that was essentially a glorified bra.

My heart was banging.  What the hell was I doing, attempting to make a pass at the walk leader?  I was probably making myself a joke; the latest butt of his ‘Which sad woman can throw herself at me on this holiday?’ game.  Not that he seemed the promiscuous type, but perhaps that was a sham to charm the women.

‘You OK, Mart?’ I enquired.  He looked so morose.

Martin sighed deeply and then confided, apropos of nothing, ‘We’ve had couples counselling, you know.’  He was miles away, gazing at Polly, his poor boyish face bearing the glazed, lost look of someone who was drunk and unaccustomed to the state.  I had an urge to phone his mother to take him home.

‘Have you?  Blimey.’  We’d had an eventful day, and this night was turning wackier by the minute.

‘I so want the relationship to work.  She agreed to come to the therapy with me, so that must mean she wants it to work too.  D’you reckon?’

‘Well you’d hope so.’

‘My family and friends all think I’m mad, especially after the last time she cheated on me.  But I think everyone deserves a second chance.  Don’t you, Naomi?’

‘So long as they don’t abuse it.  So long as their remorse is genuine.’

‘That’s what my parents say.  Pretty much.’

‘I’m sure they’ve got your best interests at heart.’

‘They’ll change their minds about her when we have kids.’

‘Kids?’

I was on the verge of marching him to the condom machine, when he rambled, ‘Now I’m not so sure about having them.  I’ve been trying to persuade Polls to give up smoking before she gets pregnant.  It’s doing her no good – she’s found some of this walking a bit breathless.  I would still like to be married before I’m thirty, though.’

‘There’s no need to rush these things.’

Martin smiled bleakly.  ‘She’s said she’s reluctant to get married as she doesn’t fancy being called Polly Pickett.  I’ve offered to change my surname to hers, Dwyer.’

‘If she really loves you, then frankly she shouldn’t care if your surname is Put-The-Kettle-On.’

‘Ha, that’s a good one.’  His laugh sounded manic and sad.  ‘Sarah, that’s the counsellor, advised us to try each other’s hobbies.  Establish some common ground.  I’ve always liked walking, so Polls agreed to come on this with me.  She says I’ve got to do something she enjoys next.  It’s only fair.  I’m just so afraid her choice of activity is going to be, well,’ he picked at a stray bit of skin around his thumbnail, ‘er, swinging.’

‘Swinging?’  Good job I hadn’t got my drink yet, else Martin might have been spurted with it.

‘Hmm.  She’s hinted before that she’d like to try it.’

I am never judgemental or meddlesome, as a rule, where other people’s relationships are concerned, but I was aghast at the notion of poor wide-eyed Martin being dragged to a gangbang.  The phrase ‘lamb to the slaughter’ was never more apt.  I was suffused with abhorrence for Polly.  I hated feeling complicit in her deception when she’d silenced me after receiving that text at dinner last night.

‘Please don’t be forced into anything you don’t want to do, Martin.’  I was actually begging him.  ‘Going on a walking holiday is not exactly on a par with wife-swapping, you know.  Don’t let her persuade you that you owe her something like that just because she’s conceded to trek across Shropshire with you.  Be very careful.’

He nodded desolately.  ‘I want to make her happy, though, Naomi.  I still pinch myself that a stunner like that should have gone for me.  My parents say she’s after my money.  My dad refuses to give her a job in the family business.  That’s how we met actually.  She came for an interview as a receptionist.  Didn’t get it, just got me.  Anyway, maybe I’m the one in the relationship who’s in need of a second chance.  There must have been a reason she went off that time.’

And the time before that?  And before that?  And the inevitable next time?

I’d just twigged he said the counsellor was called Sarah.  Wasn’t that the name Hazel and I had overheard Polly screech at him on Monday night?  ‘Bloody Sarah,’ as I recalled.

‘To be quite frank with you,’ he went on, ‘her, erm, appetite gets a bit much for me at times.  She’s forever dragging me off into bushes and things.  I’m still recovering from this morning at Manderwood Manor.’

Whoa, now we had well and truly strayed into ‘too much information’ territory.

‘Yes please?’ said the barman, mercifully.  With all that scandal, I’d quite forgotten we were waiting to be served.

Martin indicated me, as though I should go first despite him being ahead in the queue.

‘A Scotch, a small red wine, half a cider, a pint of Marston’s and a water for my friend here, please.  Sorry Mart, I’m afraid I’m going to be bossy, you shouldn’t have any more alcohol tonight.  Trying to walk a long distance with a hangover is horrible.’

‘You’re right, Naomi.  Thanks.’  He was clearly used to being submissive.  I pitied him so much, but also wanted to whack him.  He was wet and passive to the point of being stagnant.  ‘I’ll just get Polls her Tia Maria then.’

I certainly wasn’t buying her a drink.  And I didn’t care, frankly, if she tottered to the Third Matthew with a savage hangover and had to barf into every bush.

‘I reckon that Lyndon’s after her.’

‘What?’  I fumbled with the change the barman handed me, totally missing my purse with half the coins.

‘I noticed they were out at the same time earlier, when she went for her ciggie.  It’s like no blokes can resist her.’

Right.  I couldn’t have this.  The very thought of Lyndon even contemplating making a play for Polygamous Polly rendered me unable to see straight.  Realistically I knew their respective fag/loo breaks had overlapped coincidentally, they hadn’t been out of the room long enough to make any assignation worthwhile, and neither of them had returned looking flushed or dishevelled.  But I couldn’t stomach them being paired off even in Martin’s skewed imagination.  My jealousy was a potent but productive emotion.  It was the impetus I needed to grab hold of Lyndon and bang thoughts of Polly, or any other women, out of his brain.

‘I’m sure you’ve got the wrong end of the stick there, Mart.’  I gathered up my scattered coppers, my hands hot and trembling.  ‘Look, I’m going to take these drinks over.  You take care now, won’t you?’

Turning from the bar, I exhaled deeply.  After playing counsellor, dragging Lyndon outside for a snog seemed positively easy.

I conveyed my round in two trips: doling out to Hazel and Shane first, so mine and Lyndon’s drinks were left together.  Hazel, bless her, actually was swapping cabbage soup recipes with Shane.  They both thanked me, and Shane also expressed his profuse gratitude – again – for the loan of my charger.

Lyndon was conveniently out of the soup conversation, paving the way for me to steal him away without fear of interjecting.

I leaned towards him, feeling like a lapdancer.  ‘I’ll just go and get yours,’ I told him in what I hoped was a flirtatious tone.  A tendril of my hair flopped over my shoulder and brushed his.  It was entirely accidental but there was something really rather erotic about it.

He appeared a tad taken aback, I must say.  Everything suddenly seemed all slow and heady under the pink and yellow wink of the disco lights.  I pivoted and slithered back to the bar self-consciously, sensing his eyes on me.

I collected the two drinks and made what felt like a long walk back to him, forcing myself to maintain bold eye contact all the way and hoping I wouldn’t cock up the effect by spilling any liquor or tripping up.

It would have been easy to put the glasses on the table and sit down, but I couldn’t cop out now.  I handed him his, did the lapdancer lean towards him again and murmured (well it was actually a yell, but it would have been a murmur were I not competing with loud music), ‘Want to come outside for a bit, Lyndon?  For a spot of fresh air?’

He looked stunned.  So, I’m sure, did I when he smiled, said ‘Sure,’ and stood up.

Hazel shot me another thumbs-up as I led him out, doing the slow sexy walk again (easier said than done when you’re used to hiking boots).  I was ludicrously paranoid that everyone was gawping at us.

I’m afraid I’m going to be boring and not try to allege there were fireworks going off in my head, or waves crashing on some mythical beach, or orchestras playing, or a voice inside me yelling ‘Yessss!’  Actually I’m not sure I could articulate my thoughts and feelings at that precise moment.  I simply walked, which I obviously do a lot of, but this time I was oblivious to my surroundings, my feet somehow moving me in the right direction independent of brain control.

A pair of Ross Kemp clones (woo, more staff!) were on sentry duty at the main door.

‘Evening both,’ boomed one doorman, with a suggestive look that said he knew exactly what we were up to – or hoped to be.  ‘No glass outside, though.’  He relieved us of our glasses and poured the contents into plastic tumblers.  ‘There you go.  Looks very romantic tonight up on old Matthew.  Enjoy your evening.’

‘Thank you,’ I responded automatically. 

Ross One actually sounded rather gruffly poetic, and Matthew did look enticing by night, flecked by the squares of light from its neighbour, the hotel.  It was a fresh, clear night.  I was in a cap-sleeved top and the only coat I had, namely a turquoise cagoule, which I was hardly going to wear to share a romantic moment anyway, was back in my room.

Lyndon, all credit to him, only had to see me shiver and he shed his navy suit jacket and draped it over my shoulders.
‘That’s really kind of you.’  I smiled, warm as melted toffee, making no token protest but simply relished being caped in something of his.

‘Shall we…?’  He indicated a secluded patch of grass on the side of the hill.

‘Yeah, nice spot.’  I sounded hopeless.  It seemed being ballsy in getting him out here had expended my energy, and we had both gone all shy again.

We sat close together on the peaceful knoll, the only sounds being the stifled beats of Love Machine (ha!) by Girls Aloud from the disco and the soft chat of scattered other couples with the same idea as us.  Lyndon and I were a discreet distance from them, sipping our respective cider and wine from plastic glasses.

‘Discos aren’t really my thing,’ he admitted.  ‘I can’t be bothered with that kind of scene these days.’

I hunched myself cosily into his jacket.  ‘I’m not keen either actually.  I must be getting old.  Didn’t want to appear antisocial, though.’

‘Nor me.  I’m only capable of dad dancing.  Not that I am a dad,’ he added hastily.  I wasn’t expecting him to be.  Sian had never mentioned offspring.  She spoke of hiring round-the-clock nannies come the day (save us all!) she and Adrian began to spawn.

‘Only to Splodge.’

‘Quite.  To be perfectly honest, I only stayed for the disco because I thought you were keen.’  Oh wow!

‘Likewise.’  The world was suddenly still and there was a loaded hush between us.  It would have been the perfect move-in-for-the-first-snog moment.  So what did I do?  I lost my nerve and started wittering on about drag queens.  ‘The folks round here are spoilt for entertainment on Friday night, aren’t they?  How can they possibly choose between Trannii Minogue and the fabulous Lionel Richie tribute down at the Amarillo?  Perhaps Rod’s a protégée of Melba Most.’

Naomi!  Will.  You.  Shut.  Up!

Lyndon gamely chuckled, though.  ‘This place has gone downhill, I must admit.  No pun intended.  I told you, I don’t choose the hotels.  I’m sure head office will take note of your comments, especially if you’re going to be a future empl – ’

That was it.  The reason he never got the ‘oyee’ out was because I had finally pasted my face to his.  In the end passion prevailed and we bypassed the whole gazing-into-each-other’s-eyes build-up.

Although I’d just been spouting witless crap, the moment he started to talk in response I became hypocritically impatient.  He looked so irresistibly authoritative and sexy yet gentle in the moonlight.  I kind of sprang at him and stayed there, as though we were both coated with Velcro.

While he was literally gobsmacked at first (I suppose that kind of interruption is unanticipated when you’re talking about customer surveys), he instantly recovered and responded.  We seemed to kind of flow into each other.  I can’t claim the snog was elegant in its execution, but its impetuous rawness was highly exciting.

Now I don’t suppose justifying my actions is necessary in this day and age, but I feel the need to anyway.  Just let me explain I am no slag.  I’d had three boyfriends up to that point, and had certainly never Velcro-jumped like this at a man after such a brief acquaintance.

But, vomit-worthy as it sounds, I may have known Lyndon only three days – albeit three days in virtually constant company, amid luscious scenery that was apt to stir the old romantic soul – but I was already thinking of him in capital letters.  As in knowing he was Special; perhaps even The One.  We had a lot in common.  There was a quiet strength about him that truly drew me.  It was a characteristic shared by many outdoorsy types, and – though it’s something of a cliché – by the countryside in which he spent much of his life.

Mmm, I was enjoying this.  I started to lean seductively back, though I was not sure quite what I hoped to achieve with a plastic wineglass in my hand, or even whether the shedding of clothes and inhibitions and anything else would have actually ensued there and then on that moonlit hill, which I expect makes me sound a bit prick-teasy.

What in fact ensued was that Lyndon pulled abruptly away from my viper embrace.  ‘Perhaps this isn’t such a good idea,’ he murmured apologetically in response to my quizzical look.

As I lugged myself upwards, flummoxed, I saw Promiscuous Polly outside the hotel, sending forth a plume of cigarette smoke to the heavens.  I then saw Martin emerge behind her.

‘You’d better have your jacket back then.’  I shed the makeshift cape, shivering as my arms were exposed, and handed it to Lyndon without looking at him.  Despite the chill, my face was ablaze with mortification and the exertion of what we’d been doing.

Polly aimed a distinct and prolonged look in our direction.  Then there were gagging and splatting sounds as Martin – for whom the bottle of water I’d bought had clearly come too late – puked all over the driveway.

See page 117 of this fortnight’s (20th October to 2nd November) issue of Yours magazine!!! My short story Flash Harry – which they have re-titled Where Did You Get That Hat? – is there in its glory, along with a piccie of me!!

I am over the moon. I was flashing the mag at everyone today: all my workmates, the lady in Spar from whom I bought the magazine, the lady in the hairdressers next door, total strangers at bus stops (well the latter isn’t true actually)…

Woo-eeee – my fiction is in print at last!! Does this mean I have arrived?

By coincidence TV Spa-Dom was, if you recall, set to appear in the 17th October edition of My Weekly, under a new title Girlie Weekend. However, it was dropped at the last minute to make way for an ad! I guess that happens a lot in the magazine world. Advertising revenue will always take precedence. I was gutted at the time, but appearing in Yours makes up for the disappointment.

Here are some pics:

My review of the Lara Beach Hotel in Antalya is now on the Trip Advisor website: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g297962-d568401-r46018065-Lara_Beach_Hotel-Antalya_Turkish_Mediterranean_Coast.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT – I penned it under my username of SooWestMidlands!

I feel that think Nathan and I were extremely lucky to have gone to that hotel.  We only booked it two weeks before we flew, but we absolutely made the right choice.  It truly is a special place.  There is something magical about the Lara Beach that just rubs off on you and makes you feel you will never be the same again somehow!

I know that sounds a very deep way of describing a hotel, but it’s true!

Here (because I need any excuse) are a few more of our holiday piccies:

Oops, haven’t updated this for a while.

My hubby and I have just returned from an unforgettable week in wonderful Turkey. We are still on a high from the experience – well falling from it fast now we are back at work and have had to crash back to earth.

I will say I can heartily recommend the Lara Beach Hotel in Antalya. The food and drink were first class, pools and activities excellent, staff great fun and entertainment utterly superb.

It was our first time in Turkey but will definitely not be our last.

Here are a few holiday snaps to brighten up this dingy October day:

I had a lovely day at Ludlow Food & Drink Festival today. The weather was glorious – it really could not have been more perfect. Our climate seems all to cock but hey, I don’t question it – I am loving this current late surge of sun.

Anyway, it was a great day, featuring hundreds of stalls selling (and in many cases giving away free samples of) local produce. Cheeses (my favourite), ciders (second fave), chutneys, nuts, crisps, pies, sausages, jams, coffees, mayonnaises, salad dressings, ales, different varieties of honey and fudge.

Most of the stalls were inside the grounds of the 11th century Ludlow Castle, though there were also many spread out throughout the beautiful Shropshire town. The place was heaving, and there was a lovely community atmosphere.

An event like that is, I feel, every bit as good as the BBC Good Food Show, which take place at the NEC – if not better in a way. All the produce is local, everything is out in the fresh air; there may not be celebrity chefs wandering around, but everyone shares a passion for good food and drink.

I have finished Chapter 2 – or Tuesday for the purposes of the fictitious walking break schedule – of The Four Matthews and uploaded it here.

I always think my writing is rubbish, then I reread a chapter when I’ve completed it and suddenly – without boasting – it doesn’t seem such drivel after all.

I love writing this novel.  I feel so much more relaxed with it than my previous efforts.  I have lived and breathed it for the last few weeks.  I am quite proud of it thus far.

Tuesday
Sneydley to Crockington

The sun hugged me awake before my half-seven alarm. I lay cosily for a few minutes, enjoying that ‘not having to get up yet’ sensation, until the lure of the day proved overwhelming.

It was one of those April mornings that make you think, if this is only spring, then summer holds exciting promise. I like getting up early anyway, and days like that are a crime to waste.

Downstairs, though, I felt like a layabout in comparison with Shane, the reformed couch potato.

‘Y’allright bab,’ he beamed, already exiting the dining room, ‘just going for a little stroll in the village before we set off.’

‘Apparently he did fifty sit-ups before breakfast as well,’ said Lyndon, who was buttering a perfect isosceles triangle of that brittle toast which exists nowhere but in hotels. ‘I wish even I had as much energy as he does.’

I helped myself to cornflakes and orange juice from the buffet and joined Lyndon at his table opposite Ted and Enid, the Salad Couple, who were gobbling scrambled eggs – presumably because salad wasn’t on the breakfast menu. I greeted them, to which they muttered something that sounded like ‘Good morning’ with the vowels removed.

‘How did you sleep, Naomi?’ asked Lyndon.

‘Beautifully, thank you.’ I reddened pathetically at the mention of sleep and the filthy word association game my brain started to play: sleep – bed – sex – bluush! It was a relief to be diverted by Bryony, on waitress duty, taking my order for coffee and more toast.

 Lyndon, meanwhile, slid a folded piece of paper towards me. Your phone number? Why Lyndon, this is so sudden! Oh, it’s the application form!

‘Thank you so much. I shall have a good study of this later.’

‘You might want to wait ’til this week’s finished, make sure I haven’t put you off completely.’

No chance of that. ‘Are there any particular qualifications I’d need?’

‘Not as such. Plenty of walking experience, obviously. They prefer if you know your way round a map and compass too, but BFF run navigation courses if you need to brush up your skills. If so, you’d need to do that before taking your assessment. They also do first aid training.’

I hoped Lyndon would teach me the mouth-to-mouth technique. Mind you, even spending my days in the wilds giving the kiss of life to halitosis-ridden geography teachers with beards full of breakfast crumbs was going to be preferable to working at Raybould Communications.

‘It sounds brilliant. I’m definitely going to go for this, Lyndon.’

‘Good.’ He beamed with what looked like genuine pleasure at this news. ‘The other prerequisite I forgot to mention is strong interpersonal skills. Obviously you’re on pretty much permanent duty for a week at a time, interacting with folks. I don’t think you’ll have any problems in that department, though. You seem very confident and personable.’

Confident and personable! He might as well have said I had a great arse, judging by my reaction. My heart was flipping like a salmon at the compliment. Although, continuing the fish theme, I was certain my gaping expression must be reminding Lyndon of a guppy.

******

Later, when we were all there – Shane refreshed from his pre-walk walk; Hazel looking bleary and bed-haired; Polly bursting out of something purple, glowering because I was sitting next to Lyndon again – we were invited to each compile a packed lunch for the excursion.

‘We won’t have this every day,’ Lyndon explained as Bryony started to load the sideboard with homemade rolls (‘cobs,’ they call them in the Black Country), crisps, cereal bars, fruit and Buxton spring water. ‘There’ll be pub stops on some of our routes. Help yourselves now, there’s enough for a couple of cobs apiece, a bottle of water and whatever snacky things you fancy. Mix and match as you please.’

It was a generous array. I opted for a pair of cheese rolls, water, an apple and a bag of Quavers. Polly made a beeline for the bananas, and – unless my imagination was in overdrive – I swear she stroked the one she picked. I could see a pattern forming: she favoured phallic foods. And Ted and Enid favoured salad rolls.

We then carted our overnight cases down and lined them in the lobby for their somewhat smoother journey, by minibus, to the Badger Inn at Crockington. And off we set.

******

‘Lyndon says I’m confident and personable,’ I divulged to Hazel, exultant schoolgirl-like, as though teacher had just awarded me an A. ‘Get me, eh!’ I licked my finger and made a mock ‘one point to me’ gesture on an imaginary blackboard.

‘Get you indeed,’ she responded with equally tongue in cheek glee. She was a fun, aunty type. ‘You’ve obviously made a speedy impression there.’

‘It’s a start, I suppose. He thinks I’m cut out to join the ranks of BFF anyway. I could be seeing a lot more of him in the future. Unless I get posted to take charge of the Outer Hebrides treks.’

‘You could always become pen pals. Or internet buddies, I suppose it would be nowadays.’

‘And write passionate e-mails? Why have those two brought their suitcase, by the way?’ I whispered, nodding towards the Salad Couple, who wore no backpacks and were cutely but bafflingly carrying between them a brown trunk of the variety prevalent among wartime evacuees.

We were approaching a stile, which they negotiated by passing the impractical case to one another while conferring in their secret dialect. Lyndon offered to hold it for them while they climbed, but Ted Salad clasped it to his weedy frame with a defensive ‘No.’

‘Perhaps they’ve got surveillance equipment in there,’ Hazel suggested. ‘They could be gathering intelligence and reporting our whereabouts to Al Qaeda.’

‘They didn’t want to put any of their stuff on the minibus, apparently, bab,’ Shane clarified. ‘Ted was telling me as they’d had luggage go missing before, so they don’t wanna take chances now, like.’

‘Oh right.’ I was more amazed by Shane’s ability to extract so many words out of the man than by his explanation.

Once we were all over the stile, we crossed a little lane and scaled another stile on to a hedged footpath. We shortly veered right into a veritable fairy woodland, and it was as though I had suddenly entered the most peaceful spot on earth. Like the view from my window, which I mentioned earlier as being childlike in its bright colour, it exemplified what truth exists in kids’ paintings and storybooks.

Canopied by the stately beech and chestnut trees, I experienced one of those terribly uncool moments when simple beauties in nature spellbind and humble me. I could have literally cried. I seldom admit these emotions, or at least only to fellow walkers who relate to my love of the outside and the country’s diverse geography.

‘This area is known as Quanswood,’ Lyndon advised. Oh, and he had the perfect voice for such a setting. Were he narrating a radio serial, I swear I’d have conjured up images just like those I was seeing now. ‘We’re just coming up to St Botolph’s Church – rather out-the-way location for a church, I know – which is quite famous locally for housing the proverbial bats in its belfry. There’s a colony been making themselves at home in there for a number of years.’

‘What species?’ Hazel asked.

‘The brown long-eared variety, Hazel.’

‘Bit like this one then.’ She fished a gold chain out of her T-shirt and flashed the bat pendant like a talisman. ‘I’m secretary of the Bat Protection League back home in Ledbury. Mad about the creatures.’

‘As you’d well know then, of course, they’re protected so their roosts can’t be disturbed. Though the local churchgoers – not that there are all that many – are pretty accustomed to their nocturnal visitors by now. I doubt we’ll be lucky enough to spot any today. They’ll just be coming out of hibernation about now. If you like visiting churches, though, I’m afraid this one has to be kept locked because it’s so secluded. Another sad sign of our times, I suppose.’

I am not religious, never have been, but it was a cute little setting. St Botolph’s is a miniature stone structure, like a dolls church, only its bell tower – home to the cosseted bats – distinguishing it from the rustic cottages nearby. Most of us reached for our cameras.

‘Now even though I’m not religious,’ Lyndon said, echoing my thoughts, ‘I never fail to be moved by this place. There’s something so utterly enchanted about it.’

I wanted, not for the first or last time that week, to leap for joy. I was out in the English countryside with a gorgeous man and a group of true eccentrics which included a couple who lugged their suitcase with them on a cross-country hike and a lady who helped run a bat preservation group. And I had the prospect of doing this for a living, as my days churning out press releases for Adrian Raybould’s smarmy clients were numbered.

******

‘Well this sure beats work,’ I declared happily to Hazel on that theme, as we resumed walking, having photographed the woodland dolly church from every angle.

‘You say you’re in public relations at the moment? And your boss is a reptile?’

‘The worst. Backstabbing little bastard – excuse the French. As good as promised me a promotion, then brought his vile fiancée in and installed her in the job, despite her having no PR experience. Her bloody aunty’s already been working there as secretary for the last year, so it has started to feel like an invasion.’

‘Hateful thing, nepotism,’ Hazel tutted.

‘Oh, but while I’m apparently not good enough for the job, my experience is conveniently valuable enough that I have been bullied into doing stacks of overtime to help the malevolent bimbo learn the ropes. Learn how to turn a computer on, wipe her own bum, that sort of thing.’

‘Comfort yourself with the idea that they’ll probably divorce, he’ll end up replacing her with his next bit of fluff and this current gal will sue him for unfair dismissal. Or else her lack of nous will cause her to make a major booboob, which will result in a client suing the company.’

Hazel made me smile. I hadn’t heard the word ‘booboob’ for years. I knew I would remain friends with this quirky woman who had flyaway hair and a bat necklace who I had known less than twenty-four hours.

‘There might be less call for the overtime,’ I said, ‘if she made more than a cameo appearance in the office occasionally. But if she’s not off having manicures, she’s seeing caterers and wedding stationers and what have you. I’ve been promised an invitation to their nuptials, by the way – me and half the West Midlands, I think.’

‘Let me guess – you’ll be washing your hair that day?’

‘How uncanny! She was still married to some other poor guy when she met Adrian, so for months he’d be on the phone arranging assignations and returning from “extended lunch breaks” looking flushed. Now we have to put up with them being gooey with each other in the office. Not sure which is worse.’

‘I can see why you’re leaving.’

‘It’s surprising how detached I feel now, talking like this about it all, Hazel. It’s as though the whole nightmare happened to somebody else.’

‘You’re moving on. That’s positive.’

‘Onwards and ever upwards. Marketing was all I wanted to do at one time. I enjoy the social aspect of PR, the interaction with people, but can see now I was only sticking at the job because I pinned all my hopes on getting Senior Marketing Executive on my CV. Adrian, that’s the slimeball boss, likes to rub salt in the wound by earnestly denying ever raising my hopes in that direction – obviously it was all my imagination and ego – and I’ve now opened my eyes to the fact that without the promotion prospects there is absolutely no incentive for me remain with that company.’

‘How long have you worked there?’

‘Nearly three years. I moved there from a much smaller firm, thinking it would be a wise career move. PR is quite a small world and Adrian has a good reputation in it, believe it or not, bearing in mind he behaves like he’s twelve. He’s the type who thinks it’s hilarious to play practical jokes on his staff.’

‘And don’t tell me – if you fail to be amused by his infantile pranks he accuses you of being humourless.’

‘Absolutely.’ I related the April Fools Day incident, the fictitious ‘urgent press conference,’ the needless hour-long journey there and back that set me behind schedule with my mountainous workload, on a day when I still so not-with-it after Uncle Terry’s passing that I didn’t even cotton on when Adrian gave me the name of the guy allegedly hosting the event – Drew Peacock (think about it).

‘You should see the e-mail he sent me on Friday when I handed my notice in. I’ll show it you later. I tell you, Ricky Gervais had it spot-on with that sitcom. Adrian is a proper little David Brent. He can barely speak unless it’s in a string of corporate buzz phrases.’

‘He tells you to think outside the box, go forward, sing from the same hymn sheet, that type of thing?’

‘At the end of the day – that’s another one he uses – yes!’

‘I am sorry about your uncle, though,’ Hazel sympathised. ‘Uncle Terry, my mom’s younger brother, never married or had a family of his own so was always close to my brothers and me. He used to come on a lot of walks with us.’

‘He’d be proud of you for doing this one then.’

I was incapable of speaking for a few moments. Hazel gave my shoulder a fleeting squeeze, supportive without being mawkish. ‘Yes, he would,’ I responded in a bold voice. I hadn’t come on this break to dwell on morbid concerns. ‘I’m looking forward to working outdoors. I identify with what Lyndon said yesterday, about the outdoors having a pull on you. Even when it’s bucketing down with rain and I’m saturated on a rock in the Peak District, I won’t miss the office life. It’s not for me after all. Honestly Hazel, I could tell you tales about Adrian all the way from here up to Tunclough.’

My work woes had already taken us to Camp Hill Common, a heathery beauty spot four miles from the Earlcott. There was plenty more I wouldn’t bore Hazel with.

As I beheld the unbound and beautiful landscape around me, it was hard not to feel smug imagining Adrian, shallow Sian and noxious Nova sweating it in that 80s throwback office. This sweat always made its mark on Adrian’s Matalan shirts. He would lounge back in his tycoon padded swivel chair, his small legs dangling off the floor, hands behind head to afford us an enchanting view of his sodden underarms.

Sian, apparently oblivious to that, was no doubt now cooing at him, texting, shopping on Amazon, or buffing her dagger-like nails. The lax approach to work clearly ran in the family. Gossiping was the favoured office pastime of Nova Bagnall, Sian’s two-faced aunty, she of the inability to relay messages. A bosomy fifty-year-old with a fake, horsey laugh, she would react, if asked to do something so onerous as type a letter, as though she’d been ordered to perform open heart surgery.

Nova naturally watched her step in the presence of her future nephew-in-law. In conversation with Adrian she was all ‘love’ this, ‘sweetheart’ that. She just about stopped short of ruffling his hair and cutting his Marmite sandwiches into triangles. Only out of his sight came the passive aggressive huffs, slamming down of files or banging of doors. She was more openly contemptuous of my requests for letters, which hovered at the permanent bottom of her priority pile.

‘Right, we’ll have a pit stop here.’ Lyndon was gathering us around. ‘This is Camp Hill Common, which I’m sure some of you are familiar with. Bit early for lunch, but we can have a snack and a rest before continuing with the next couple of miles to Lower Bratchley. There are loos here too, if you need.’

I needed. Hazel and I then sat together on the scratchy grass to have our apples and water.

I stretched indulgently in the sun and gnawed at my Golden Delicious. ‘I haven’t been here for years.’

‘Another of your childhood haunts?’

I nodded. ‘My brother Gaz used to fly his model aeroplanes.’ A miniature Spitfire was whirring overhead as we spoke. ‘They still have the Red and Blue Routes, I see.’ The colour coded signposts denoted short and longer walks around the common.

I saw Posturing Polly strip open her banana and whisper something to Martin with a salacious look in her eyes. Martin looked perplexed and replied, ‘We haven’t got a dog,’ to which she rolled said eyes. She was a walking innuendo; like a bored housewife from some cheesy 70s sex comedy.

Poor Martin. Polly’s suggestion referred, I would wager, to Camp Hill Common’s current regrettable reputation for dogging: group sex and voyeurism in secluded car parks.

Perhaps Red Route had a different meaning these days too?

******

‘Tell me about the bats of Herefordshire then,’ I urged Hazel when we resumed walking. I had bent her ear enough this morning and was interested in her life.

‘Horribly misunderstood creatures, bats.’ Her voice was robust and passionate, and with every step she jabbed her stick into the ground, as though for emphasis. She was not a woman I could ever imagine being half-hearted about anything. ‘Play such a vital role in nature, yet to too many folks they are still saddled with this ludicrous Dracula image.’

‘Protected species, though, aren’t they?’

‘You bet, and rightly so. Their natural habitats have dwindled so much, what with the old buildings and hedgerows that have been lopped down. You disturb a bat, you’re walloped with a fine. I’ve been with the Protection League best part of twenty years…’

She had me virtually signed up to the campaign by the time we descended into Lower Bratchley via Rumbold Lane.

The tiny lanes from the common, along which we were single file, yelling ‘Car alert’ to one another when an intermittent Land Rover or tractor obliged us to hug the hedge, opened out into this long wide slope. Rumbold Lane’s summit afforded a splendid panorama of infinite fields and villages. The Clent Hills in Worcestershire, enticingly viewed from Lyndon’s former workplace, were a smudge on the horizon. There was purportedly no higher land between them and the Ural Mountains in Russia – although I was aware other English hill ranges laid claim to this statistic.

We had to huddle closer to Lyndon (never a hardship) to hear his introduction to the village we now approached. ‘Now we’re coming into “Lower Bratchley,” or Lower B, as it’s colloquially known. Actually there are two villages that make up this parish. We’ll skirt through Upper B – that’s known round here as “the posh end” – after lunch, along the canal towpath. More about that in due course. There’s a little school here, four shops, a church and three pubs. Population about 1,300.

‘The history buffs amongst you might be aware of the English Civil War connection to this place. Charles I famously had his sword sharpened here, at the ironworks which existed from the 1550s right up to 1976. Earl Matthew’s descendents – who had long since lost the title and were now the plain Theodoric family – were firmly on the side of the Cavaliers during the war. A mob of Oliver Cromwell’s allies ran riot and tore down the busts of the old Earl from the four hilltops. You’ll hear more about that tomorrow, when we visit Manderwood Manor.

‘In the 80s the Lower B ironworks was knocked down and a housing estate built on the site. All that remains is the former works canteen, which has been the village community centre for a number of years now. Getting a new roof by the look of it.’ He indicated the scaffolding which was obscuring the hall.

A pleasant day in a leafy country village really does elevate the spirits. I liked the look of Lower B. We trooped down High Street, the long straight thoroughfare, off which side lanes and cul-de-sacs of relatively modern housing branched. On the corner of one stood a pub called The Bargeman, outside which a chalkboard declared, with flagrant disregard for the apostrophe rule, that “sandwich’s” were “available 12 til 2.” Not that we’d be partaking.

‘I can smell chips,’ Shane observed. I thought at first his marriage had left him sensitive to the odour, but actually he was right.

‘That’ll be the McCain factory,’ Lyndon clarified. ‘There’s an industrial estate over there,’ he waved to the left, ‘and when it’s blowing in the right direction there is a greasy reek in the air. We’ll be following the smell in fact, as we pass the oven chip factory on the canalside. Now we swing a left here. This is the Staffordshire-Worcestershire Canal – the cut, as it’s known in these parts.’

We joined the towpath from High Street, which formed a bridge over the waterway. I had traversed sections of this canal before, north of here, closer to Wolverhampton, but never as far down as this (though I decided now I would revisit).

There is a lovely serenity about being on a canal bank; a sense that you could be anywhere. It’s a slow, history-steeped world of ducks and fishermen and gaudily painted narrowboats. Canals cleave through towns and sites of active industry – that was the purpose of them in the first place – but cars and roads could be on a distant planet. Urban life is reduced to a distant thrum that, while reassuring by reminding you it’s there, does not infringe on this waterside respite.

‘Now this canal was completed in 1771 by James Brindley and it stretches from Stourport-on-Severn in Worcestershire up to Great Haywood, near Stafford, where it meets the Trent and Mersey Canal.’

‘Yow ever walked the whole of it, Lyndon?’ asked Shane.

‘I have, in fact. In stages, of course, over a week. It’s forty-six miles altogether. We’ll be on it for just over three today, as far as Crockington.’

A vicar – either that or a man en route to a lunchtime fancy dress do – was gliding towards us as though there were castors beneath his cassock rather than feet. He wore huge glasses, and possessed no evident neck, so his perfectly ball-shaped face appeared to be dolloped on top of his dog collar.

‘Afternoon.’ Had he a hat, I got the impression he’d have doffed it. He smiled cordially, apparently used to the sight of hiking herds.

Shane, to my surprise, approached him. ‘Hey, ain’t I seen you on telly, reverend? You’re Ellery Crisp.’

‘The very same.’ The vicar grinned modestly, as though trying not to look too chuffed at being recognised. ‘This is my parish.’

Hazel and I exchanged mystified looks.

‘How many game shows is it you been on now?’ Shane asked his new ministerial mate.

‘Eighteen.’

‘Got any more coming up?’

‘Still trying for Millionaire,’ Rev Crisp tapped the cover of the puzzle book under his arm, ‘that’s the big goal. Just have to keep phoning, and swotting.’

‘I seen your episode of Bullseye again the other week actually. They been showing the repeats on Freeview. Yow still got the speedboat?’

Rev Crisp nodded.

‘Never!’

‘Had it twenty years now. It’s sort of emblematic,’ he explained to the group at large. ‘I’m living proof of the cliché about the Bullseye speedboat always being won by West Midlands contestants. I can’t exactly race it up the cut, I just love the idea of having an exhibit from TV history in the village. It’s such a talking point.’

The rest of us laughed uncertainly. This was fairly surreal.

Lyndon, obviously mindful of Shane’s capacity for nattering, edged away, indicating that, much as he’d love to spend all day hearing clerical anecdotes about points meaning prizes and keeping out of the black and in the red, we had to press on.

Shane thankfully took the hint. ‘Best be getting going. Super to meet you, reverend.’ He shook the celebrity cleric’s hands like he was touching Ghandi.

‘Likewise. Good day to you all.’ He did a little wave, as though doffing the imaginary hat again. ‘Safe journey.’

******

A couple of locks along, we veered off into a tiny picnic site for our lunch. There was one picnic bench, though Hazel and I were more than content with the grass.

As I withdrew my cheese rolls, my rucksack buzzed to announce I was in receipt of a text. Two, in fact.

‘Ade,’ I grimaced at Hazel. ‘Believe me, I’m changing my number as soon as he no longer needs it for work purposes.’

‘Yo Nay! Rubbing 2 sticks 2gether for your lunch? LOL!! Sian & I have decided to take a leaf out of yr bk & spend our honeymoon at a Travelodge nr Dudley. Any you can recommend? C ya – wouldn’t wanna b ya!!’

Ha bloody ha, Ade. And has anyone else in the world said ‘Yo’ since about 1990?

I showed it to Hazel, explaining the Travelodge near Dudley reference. ‘He thinks it’s hilarious that I’m on a walking break so close to home.’

Hazel didn’t have her reading glasses, and leaned about three feet back to see it. ‘Who’s Lol?’

‘It’s an abbreviation. Means Laughing Out Loud. Textspeak.’

Her look spoke volumes. ‘And how much longer do you have left to work with this incisive humorist?’

‘Four weeks,’ I answered happily.

‘And how many minutes? Blimey, I’d be counting them down with a stopwatch if I was in your shoes.’

My thumb prodded the delete button.

My second text was another from Mom, bless her, checking I had slept well and was still enjoying myself.

‘You live at home?’ Hazel asked as I keyed a reply.

‘No,’ I swallowed a mouthful of roll, ‘bought my flat a couple of years ago. I’m only five minutes from my folks, though.’

‘No boyfriend, I take it?’ She slid a look towards Lyndon.

‘No. I am currently without a significant other, as they say these days. Yourself?’

‘Good grief, no. Not had a whiff for years. It’s just me and the picture of Anton Du Beke I’ve stuck on my fridge. Ah, that man can foxtrot like nobody else.’ She had a salt and vinegar Hula Hoop on each fingertip and bit them off one by one, the way we used to do at school. ‘I did live with a Druid for a number of years, but that crashed and burned.’

‘A Druid?’

‘Mmm, met him at my tai chi class. Ken, his name was.’

‘Ken?’ I thought Druids had names like Merlin and Culpeper. ‘Did he attend Summer Solstice?’

‘Darling, I never wish to see Stonehenge again as long as I live! He left me for a witch in the end.’

‘At the risk of sounding like a parrot – a witch?’

‘Oh yes, proper Wiccan. She initiated Ken into her coven.’

‘Maybe she’s turned him into a frog by now.’

Hazel’s laugh was wicked and dry. ‘What do you mean, turned him into one?’

******

As we cleared the remnants of lunch, Lyndon resumed his commentary. ‘We’ll be heading up to – you’ve guessed it – Upper B shortly. This is one of the most highly sought-after estates in the region, even home to one or two celebs.’

‘How will we cope?’ Hazel affected a starstruck swoon. ‘I’m in need of a lie down after meeting the Reverend Ellery Crisp!’

‘Quite,’ Lyndon laughed. ‘Not sure if we’ll spot any famous faces today – more famous faces, should I say – but I suppose you never know who might be creosoting the fence or having a cup of tea on their lawn when we happen to pass.’

‘Doesn’t Melba Most live there?’ I asked.

‘I believe so. A few Premiership footballers too, apparently – not that I think I’d know any of them if they hit me.’

‘Not a footie fan, Lyndon?’ asked Shane.

‘I’m afraid when it comes to soccer I’m afflicted by DFS syndrome – no interest whatsoever!’

We groaned amiably at the pun. I have never liked football either.

Melba Most, meanwhile, AKA Melvyn Corns, is the Black Country’s answer to Lily Savage. As Paul O’Grady famously based Lily on harridans from his Scouse childhood, Melvyn likewise drew inspiration from Dudley wenches for his alter-ego. He apparently worked the local spit ‘n’ sawdust circuit for years before earning TV success on The Big Big Talent Show in the 1990s.

I met Melba/Melvyn once, through work, at a fundraiser at the Merry Hill Centre. He was a scream, a genuinely warm person, and a generous benefactor of charities.

I knew of Upper B. Country Life’s property column carries regular blurbs about colossal pads for sale there. We keep copies in our reception, to impress influential clients, and I’ve flipped through a few in my rare lunch hours. The fawning copy gushes of swimming pools, stables, six-car garages, and gated junctions to some of the more select Crescents and Drives.

‘We’re parallel with Bratchley Road now, that’s the main road up from Lower B to Upper, through to the next village, which is Swinley. Bit of an infamous rat-run, that one. Good job we’re on this path. The estate itself backs on to the towpath and is coming up on your left. You might be able to spot a roof or two – the residents tend to favour walls of Berlin proportions to guard their privacy.’

There was little to see of Upper B really – as Lyndon said, just tips of roofs protruding over lofty hedgerows and doubtlessly CCTV-rigged walls.

They soon gave way to the more open landscape of Swinley Industrial Estate and aforementioned McCain factory. With that behind us, we escaped the chippy whiffs wafting south.

The trading estate in turn segued into a sprawl of 1980s housing. Swinley is a greatly built-up village. According to Lyndon, it was a medieval settlement, originally agricultural in nature, which evolved commercially and residentially in the latter part of the twentieth century.

The scenery from a canal towpath is similar to that seen through a train window; it’s like looking at pictures of life sideways on.

The landscape then changed again to open countryside as we filtered through Swinley’s heart out towards the less populated Crockington.

It was a beautiful day. Fishermen, cyclists and the occasional celebrity cleric aside, the towpath was quiet.

Shane the quiz show buff was still rattling on about his encounter with this vicar who was apparently so well-known for being a prolific contestant (‘I never met anyone off the telly before, though my cousin once stood behind Lenny Henry in Smith’s.’).

‘Couple of rather fascinating buildings at this lock,’ Lyndon jumped in, as though desperate for the diversion. ‘The tollhouse, as you can see, is octagonal. And there’s a pumping station over to your right that resembles Dracula’s castle. See the turrets there. You can see it’s very ornate for a functional building. The Victorians did like to go to town on their architecture.’

It was another reach-for-the-camera moment. The pumping station was indeed highly elaborate and spooky looking, a testament to Victorian grandiosity. I could imagine its spires, which rocketed out of the trees, illuminated by a thunderclap like a clichéd horror film scene.

Further on, the life-sized flowerpot man fishing on a garden veranda proved also photogenic. Bill or Ben sported a floppy summer hat, and a fishing rod was propped between his terracotta hands.

‘His owners apparently change his clothes and props every day,’ Lyndon told us. ‘There was an article on them in the Express & Star a few months back. They’ve had him about ten years, apparently, he’s quite a local talking point. They’ve turned down hundreds of offers to sell him. He’s been stolen twice, though, but returned each time, after being photographed in some unusual places. I once brought a group down here when the World Cup was on. Even I knew enough about football to see he was togged up in an England shirt.’

******

The waterside phase of our journey came to an end a further mile on, when we took the slip path on to Radford Bridge at Crockington and traversed another snaky lane towards the main A454.

Such a zooming carriageway jolted us into reality somewhat after a day of virtually empty country lanes. The way of the walkers knows no impediment here, though.

As the A-road bisects the official Four Matthews footpath, the road planners were obliged to stick a stile in the middle of the central reservation. It literally bestrode the crash barrier. I had never climbed over one with traffic whooshing past either side of me before.

We crossed the road with great caution, but most of us paused in the middle to photograph this bizarre landmark.

‘I’ve gorra stitch,’ Posturing Polly bleated when we reached the opposite pavement, ‘rub it better for us, will you Mart.’

While the acquiescent Martin was massaging her ribcage, she threw a suggestive look towards Lyndon as if by the power of imagination she could swap Martin’s hands for his.

‘Only another mile to go, Polly,’ said Lyndon heartily, marching on. I found his ‘chop chop’ tone cheering. I liked to think he was saying he had no time for laggers and was not susceptible to her ‘come hither’ signals.

The girl actually did look shattered. The considerably senior Salad Couple, by contrast, had managed to lug a suitcase the best part of ten miles without so much as breaking out in a sweat. A bit odd, granted, but from a fitness point of view fair play to them, they both must have been over seventy and that case looked hefty.

‘Crockington,’ Lyndon shouted over the traffic, ‘is a very ancient village, dating back to the Saxon era of our friend Earl Matthew. His family maintained a lot of links to the area, owning substantial pockets of land over successive centuries.

‘These days the population is just over 1,100. Like Lower B, there’s a little church and school here, few pubs. I’m sure you can see, though, Crockington is rather more agricultural in nature. The housing is less densely distributed. We’re six miles from Wolverhampton, about ten in the opposite direction from Bridgnorth in Shropshire.

‘I think – hope anyway – that you’ll find the Badger, where we’re staying, a very interesting place. Old coaching inn. This was originally a toll road. The Badger was built in 1812, by yet another of Matthew’s descendents, the Right Honourable Guy Theodoric, and provided convenient lodgings, straddling the Staffordshire/Shropshire border.

‘Various tenants leased it over the years, until the Hodgetts Brewery purchased it from the Theodoric family in the early Edwardian era. In recent years it’s gone gastro-pubby. Now I was saying earlier it has a rather unusual menu. Hope you like zebra.’

******

Zebra! ‘I thought you were joking,’ I exclaimed to Lyndon as we were presented with our menus which did indeed offer zebra steaks, in addition to ostrich, kangaroo, crocodile, venison and something called impala.

He grinned. ‘I never take the mick. I can recommend it, in fact. It’s quite beef-like.’

‘Is it stripy steak?’ I asked in jest. ‘The kangaroo is appealing to me actually.’

‘Good job there’s no bat on the menu, eh, Hazel?’ Shane chortled.

‘It’s an offence to slaughter a bat,’ she answered, more curtly than I’d have expected – but then to her I suppose it was akin to a cat-owner not seeing the funny side of devouring their beloved Fluffy with curly fries and a grilled tomato.

‘What’s impala?’ I had to ask.

‘A type of antelope,’ Lyndon supplied. ‘Very tasty too. Very tender and low in fat.’

‘Think I’ll stick with the roo.’

‘Think I will too.’ He smiled decisively at me. My heart flipped pathetically. That was the second night we’d had the same meal. I could have read a lot into that.

The kangaroo was gorgeous, its soft red meat reminiscent of beef brisket which we used to have at home often.

Hazel – perhaps the bat talk had put her off game – went veggie for the evening. Her chickpea, celery and coriander chilli in fact looked delectable.

I had figured Ted and Enid were vegetarians, but even the Badger’s extensive meat-free selection failed to tempt their lettuce-loving palates. They chose the inevitable salad.

Shane opted for the crocodile – purely, I think, so he could use the ‘and make it snappy’ line. Which he did. Three times.

Martin had the croc too, and Polly Pocket the ostrich. Nobody chose the zebra in the end. Perhaps the animal’s ‘horse in pyjamas’ image made it a touch too cuddly to contemplate on a plate.

‘I always remember,’ I decided to share, ‘our Creative Writing tutor at uni telling us we should never turn down the opportunity to try new and unusual foods, as we should think of the good story it could one day make.’

Lyndon was drinking cider tonight. He took a meditative sip, actually nodding along as though I was imparting the teachings of the Dalai Lama. ‘Profound advice.’ His face, so introspective one minute, erupted into one of his gorgeously eager smiles. He literally seemed to shine with inspiration, in a manner almost childlike while at the same time deep. ‘On that theme then, why don’t we each come up with one word to describe what we’re eating? Only one allowed apiece, to sum up what’s on your plate. We’ll go round – let’s start with you, Naomi.’

I flushed at being placed on the spot, like a schoolgirl who’s been asked to read out her homework essay. ‘Succulent,’ I sputtered, wishing to kick myself because it sounded so trite. I could imagine people thinking ‘And she’s an English graduate?!’

Hazel’s adjective was ‘Sizzling.’

Shane (he was really labouring that pun now): ‘Snappy.’

Martin: ‘Erm, chicken-like.’

Polly had adopted the old elbows-on-table-chin-in-hand posture to display her general contempt for the idea. ‘Dunno, I’m no good with words.’ She sounded proud of that, and made a sort of wiggling motion as though to display where her assets did lie. Martin gave her an encouraging nudge, and she pouted an insolent, not-even-a-word ‘Ostrichy.’

A housing estate could have been constructed in the time Ted and Enid took to confer over their inevitably joint choice. Just as the pause was becoming embarrassing, they mumbled in chorus: ‘Salad.’

‘What’s yours then, Lyndon?’ An expert in body language – or in fact a novice in it – would have described the way I leaned towards him, cupping my wine glass, as ‘flirtatious,’ but I was rather too tipsy and happy to care about coming across as obvious.

I was exhilarated from a day’s walking and enjoying a wonderful meal, accompanied by equally wonderful wine, in shadowy, characterful surroundings, in company that was – in the main – delightful. I don’t know why I had never been before to the Badger, which was a lovely old coaching inn with oak beams and gothiccy ambient candle lighting. I could imagine Dick Turpin plotting in a nook. The place was heaving; according to Lyndon it always was. I may not have been dressed like one of the Pussycat Dolls, as Polly was, but I had got over my nothing-to-wear calamity of last night. I had no more dresses – and could hardly have requested that we detour off the Matthews path via River Island – and tonight had teamed brown linen trousers with a scarlet top. I decided I was feeling pretty good.

I actually held my breath as Lyndon pondered his gastronomic adjective. He maintained prolonged eye contact as he answered ‘My word would be succulent too.’

‘Would it?’ I drooled inanely.

‘Yes,’ those eyes beamed tellingly at me, ‘it would.’

The restaurant might at that moment have been empty of all but Lyndon and me and the in-no-way-phallically-symbolic pink candle dripping down an old wine bottle between us.

Only when a hesitant ‘Would anyone like to see the dessert menu?’ from the young waiter broke the trance did my breathing resume its usual tempo.

It was as though the chatter and general restaurant hubbub had stopped too, and now began swelling around us again like someone had pressed play after the pause button had been on.

The puddings were as fabulous as the main courses, though we were not invited to critique them. I chose the rhubarb crumble and vanilla custard. I focused on its homely tartness to divert me from ‘the Lyndon moment,’ which had definitely passed.

While Martin was in the loo at one point, I saw Polly giggling filthily over a text message then stabbing a reply with her huge false nails. The little ‘message sent’ jingle dinged just in time for Martin’s return. She happened to catch my eye as she stuffed the phone into her handbag.

‘Who was that, petal?’ He slid his arm around her.

‘Aunty Maureen.’ She kissed him and shot me a silencing look. I didn’t really care. As long as Martin seemed convinced by petal’s explanation, what did my speculations matter?

‘Again? She called you yesterday, bless her.’

I avoided eye contact with either party this time. My heart could have broken for the bloke, but I judged it unwise to involve myself.

******

Post-dinner, we withdrew to the busy lounge, with the exceptions of the Salad Couple who made their usual scuttle up to bed. I had hoped to return Lyndon’s first-night favour of a drink but unfortunately, as my breath was not the only thing I’d been holding in, my need for the loo surpassed that hope.

I returned to find Shane had collared Lyndon at the bar for another saga, Polly and Martin were eating each other on an armchair and Hazel had saved the only unoccupied seats for herself and me. She had bought me a wine too.

I toasted her with it. ‘Thank you for listening today, Hazel.’

‘No problem, dear. We all have our moments when we need to offload.’ She sat back, circling her whisky glass. ‘You know, I could people-watch for hours. It keeps me occupied just observing their interactions and mannerisms.’

‘Me too. Fascinating creatures, people.’

Our group certainly were. Polly’s handbag buzzed intermittently, presumably with texts from her convivial aunty. Shane and Lyndon would become intermittently lost amid the swarms of locals who bunched around the bar.

‘Apparently there’s a disco at tomorrow night’s place,’ Hazel confided. ‘Perhaps you might be able to corner him in a conga.’

‘A disco? Blimey.’

‘The Wednesday grab-a-granny night, by all accounts. Never know your luck!’

‘Nor yours, come to that.’

‘I suppose I can live in hope.’

I caught half a conversation in which Shane lamented ‘Hurts, doe it?’ in a tone that suggested he was not referring to a bunion.

To which Lyndon intriguingly responded: ‘My ex-wife left me for a bloke she met at a breakfast seminar.’

Ex-wife, ex-wife, ex-wife?

Were I a cartoon character, my ears would have been zooming out on stalks at this point.

Shane’s facetious riposte, ‘My Debbie would have enjoyed that, if it involved fried egg and bacon butties,’ annoyingly precluded further confidence. (And did he have to mention her fondness for food in every conversation?) Their conversation was also repeatedly swallowed by the babble around them.

So Lyndon had an adulterous ex-wife. The bitch! It was hard to suppress an instinct to offer my services as mender of his broken heart.

Additionally, the reference to a breakfast seminar actually went ‘ding dong’ with me. I just as quickly dispelled my inkling, however. Plenty of affairs must blossom between attendees at business breakfast seminars. I took a deep slug of wine and told myself to stop being silly.

Gap Year
Chapter 4

Robyn vaulted from the Berlingo outside Church View Court, and tugged out a bouquet the size of a rainforest.  She adored creating the wild designs favoured by her present lavish crop of customers.  They were welcome blasts of colour in this endless holly-and-ivy season. 

Robyn was not enamoured with wreaths, which tended to put her in mind of funerals, preferring the jazzier spring stock to these spiky monsters festooning doors this time of year.  Still, the general public’s diverse floral tastes had earned her a fair living for four years.

At least this was her last delivery, and in ten minutes she’d be defrosting her fingers around a voluminous mug of tea.  Also, her best mate Emily was finally home – three months of postcards and e-mails having proved no compensation for their all-night chat-and-chickflick marathons.

Robyn pinged the bell to Apartment 5.  ‘Gloria – it’s Robyn.  More flowers for you, love.’

‘Ooh, smashing.  Come on up, bab.’

The old lady buzzed her in, and Robyn lugged her rainforest to the second floor of this new luxury block next to St Matthew’s.  Even the lobby, carpeted and light, reminded her of a hotel.  Each call this last fortnight had fired her aspirations to move here.  In fact she was saving, in the hope of renting her own place out and upgrading herself here. 

Gloria Corns, all twinkly in bunny slippers, was already in her doorway.  Apartment 5 was a reluctantly-accepted gift from her only son.  Home prior to that was the old family terrace in Dudley, and for years pride thwarted Melvyn’s efforts to re-house her.  He wanted to set Mom up in an Upper B palace, near his, but she scoffed that she’d ‘rattle in anything that vast.  One of them could billet a family of thirty.  Don’t you gooo a-spending on me, our Mel, it gives me more pleasure to see you doing so well.’

‘Someone’s popular,’ Robyn said now.  This was her fourth order this week from a well-known sender for Mrs Corns, who was convalescing from a gall bladder op.  ‘You’re causing quite a stir in the shop, you know.’ 

‘That lovely Richard and Judy,’ the old lady murmured, reading the card.  ‘Our Mel’s mates are so generous.  He only has to tell ’em I’ve been poorly, and they’re all for turning me flat into Kew Gardens.  What’s these ones?’  She inhaled the flamboyant scarlet scent.

‘Amaryllis.  These take quite some looking after, y’know.  You’re s’posed to keep the stems full of water – pour some in when you change your vase water and pop a little cotton wall ball in the end to stop it trickling back out.’

‘Ever so technical, int they?  I thought flowers was just flowers.  None of those adorable kiddies with you today?  That little girl yesterday was a poppet and a half, eh?’

‘Our Nigella?  Mom’s got her back today.’

‘I don’t know how you do it – running a business and caring for such a big family.  Does your hubby help out much?’

‘Oh, the littl’uns aren’t mine,’ Robyn chuckled at the very idea she looked old enough to have a ‘hubby’ let alone have spawned the brood her parents, Eileen and Neville, had, ‘they’re my brothers and sisters.  Me and our Jennie, who helps me out in the shop, look after them quite a bit, to help Mom and Dad out.’

‘I’m that sorry, bab,’ Gloria tittered at her error, ‘bet you think I’m awful.  They’re a credit, though, to whosever they are.  Bet it’s cosy in your house!’

‘I moved out when I was eighteen – got the flat above the shop, see.  And our Rowan’s in his own place down Bowen Road.  That still leaves five at home, though.  Christmases are a laugh!’

‘And I hope you all have a smashin’ one.’

‘You too.  Not off on a cruise this time, I take it?’

‘Nah, got no truck with all that snooty nosh.  I’ve insisted on cooking for me boy this year.  Besides, he’s got the panto, so we’re having to stick close to home anyway.’

‘I’m taking the kids to see it.  S’pose you’ll be there on the front row?’

‘Every night.  I saved you that article I was on about, by the way.’  She handed Robyn a What’s On guide, whose cover star was her son in Widow Twankey drag.  ‘Keep it – I’ve got ten.  Now watch how you go, young Robyn.’

Robyn resisted the banister as a means of transport, though childishly jumped the bottom two stairs, impatient for that tea.  Zapping her key to unlock the van, she became aware of an odd sound, midway between sobbing and a seal bark, outside Church View Court’s fence.  Since the region boasted few seals outside Dudley Zoo, she surmised either a grizzly child or a wounded dog must be its source.

A village girl through and through, there was no way Robyn could stroll indifferently away.  Prudently relocking her van, she headed off for a recce up Church Road.  Scouring instinctively downwards, for canines or tiny folk, she encountered Ugg boots and a pair of svelte orange legs.  Their owner, the seal impersonator, was perched (she had to perch – sitting fully would have hitched her skirt to a height providing fatal distraction to passing drivers) on the little church wall.  Robyn thought she had never seen anyone so stunning or so mournful.

‘Hey what’s up, lovey, don’t cry.’  Robyn, so long the big sister, was in awe of no-one.  Not even this stranger, who was of unmistakable Upper B stock.  Aside from the mere fact she was a stranger to Robyn, the girl had that general gloss about her – and then there was the way she stared.  Not snobbishly exactly, but with faintly sniffy curiosity, as though she’d never seen an anorak before.  Or certainly never been comforted and offered a tissue by a girl wearing one.

‘Thanks.’  She accepted the Kleenex graciously enough and blew her nose with inelegant force, buffing away patches in her rind of make-up. 

Robyn drew no glee from this wealthy babe mewling like a six-year-old – despite last summer witnessing how vile her ilk could be.  The two braying bitches at that gymkhana had smirked on the other side of their haughty, inbred faces when Robyn’s sister Siobhan and her ‘mangy old nag,’ Merit, vaulted their way to first prize.  Robyn couldn’t quite picture this girl on horseback, though.  She seemed more the party type; she’d be the one howling in the toilets at two in the morning – legless without dignity.

She was squeaking some baloney now that appeared to contain the words ‘ozzy’ ‘dumped’ and ‘weddingoff.’

‘What’s that you’re saying, my love?  Take a deep a breath, it can’t be all that bad.’

It was pretty dismal, Robyn had to concede once she’d heard the whole, intelligible version.  ‘What a shit, doing that to you at Christmas.’

‘My heart’s trashed to bits.’

‘Still, perhaps it’s for the best.  Better to split now than after the honeymoon.  You’ll move on from this and meet someone worthier of your wedding ring.’

‘Ring!’  The girl’s voice was of the type Robyn’s mother would say ‘went right through her.’  She produced a tiny bag from her pocket and flipped open the box within.  ‘I bought him his Christmas pressie this morning.’ 

Robyn goggled.  The onyx knuckleduster – which she estimated would have cost her a month’s takings – was set in a diamond bed whose dazzle was hazardous to the naked eye.

‘Had he seen it yet?’ Robyn asked politely.  It would take a devout fiancé to sport that thing in public.

Heidi shook her head; earrings swished.  ‘It was his surprise.  I was hoping for one too.  Not much chance of that now.’  She clapped the box to with saddening finality.

Hope you kept the receipt, Robyn nearly said.

‘He fancies his sister-in-law, you know.’

‘Come again?’ 

‘She’s his brother’s wife, but him and his folks are always banging on about her, especially the dad.  “Erin’s our angel, our princess, our number one; she wears such stunning clothes, she’s got a fantastic degree, she and Ben had the most spectacular wedding, no other daughter-in-law could ever match up.”  I’ve never met the girl, and I already felt like chicken-shit alongside her.’

A dart of wind nipped at Robyn’s face, and suddenly this weather and tea-deprivation was too much for her. 

‘Look – sorry, what’s your name?’

‘Heidi.’

‘And I’m Robyn.  Look, Heidi, I’ve got to get back to work – the florists – why don’t you come with me, I’ll make you a cuppa and we can have a little chat.  Unless you need to get off, er, anywhere?’  It didn’t seem likely this yellow vision would have a job.  Not with those nails. 

‘Yes, that’s very kind of you, Robyn.  Hey, I know him,’ Heidi pointed at Melba Most on the What’s On cover, ‘or her!  He’s my next door neighbour.’

‘Wow!  You live in Abbiss Cross then?  Very nice!’  Abbiss Cross was a gated cul-de-sac of only four homes, which sloped off Bratchley Road towards the canal.  ‘His place has got a massive wall round, hasn’t it?  Saw a photo in the Sun once.  I’ve just delivered some flowers to his mom, would you believe.  Lovely old duck, she is.’

‘Really?  I did hear she’d got a flat here actually.  I don’t see much of Mel – Daddy doesn’t exactly hang out with drag queens – though he did speak to me once.  He said: “Heidi was my first stage name – I used to call myself Heidi Sausage!”  I don’t get what he meant, though.’

No, Robyn thought wryly, you wouldn’t.  ‘Still, even that’s a tad more glam than his real name – Melvyn Corns!  He’s mates with the vicar, isn’t he?  They were at school – oops, sorry, guess you don’t want to talk about the vicar right now?’

Then Heidi mewled afresh, prompted of another link to her now ex.  ‘Gloria Corns used to be Ronnie’s boss.  At Teddy Gray’s – y’know, the sweet factory in Dudley.  That was his first job.’

‘Ronnie?’

‘Wozzy’s dad.  Before he made his money.’

‘Really?  Anyhow, come on,’ she shooed Heidi off the wall, ‘I’m dying for that of thirst here.’

‘You’re a bossy one, aren’t you?’  Heidi’s tone wasn’t sharp, though – she rather enjoyed the ‘mothered’ feeling.

‘I’ve got six brothers and sisters, run my own business – guess I’m just used to being in control.  Wanna lift down in the van?’

‘No thanks, I’ll be OK driving.’  Heidi nodded to her car.  Even that – a Mazda MX5 – was a virulent shade of custard.  It had scorched Robyn’s eyes when she turned up Church Road earlier.

‘You sure?’  In heels like that, never mind with tears in your eyes.

‘Yeah.  Only about half a mile, isn’t it?’

‘If that.  See you there then.’

Heidi was nonplussed by her own ready assent to tea in a flower shop backroom, which was hardly her typical lunch engagement.  She had intended calling one of her pack this afternoon.  She’d parted from many a man before – a bawl with the girls and a gallon of sweet wine had always put her right.  Yet something told her that this girl with a chap’s name and fingerless gloves would be a more consoling presence at present.

Warwick used to grouse about her friends, with references she couldn’t follow, about how her ‘lost’ quality vanished in their company.  ‘Those cackling cows are the ultimate fair-weather mates, and their boyfriends are every bit as insufferable.  Posey wankers who descend on the squash club every Friday night without ever picking up a racquet.’
For the first time, it occurred that he might have a point.  She couldn’t somehow see Cassie and Zara and the rest offering her a shoulder pad to cry on.

They’d certainly seemed disappointed she hadn’t turned up modelling a rock the size of Ayres when she first squealed her engagement news to them.  Not like Zara, whose own showstopping nuptials were next June.  With no ring to corroborate Wozzy’s love, their initial faff of congratulations had fizzled out.

They wouldn’t understand.  I don’t think they’re convinced we were truly engaged.  In fact, now I’m not sure I am either. 

Heidi scraped away fresh tears and zapped her car open to follow Robyn.

Classmates
Chapter 4

‘Hi handsome,’ breathed the girl before me in the queue, batting brittly mascarad lashes and swooning against the wall to let a sixteen-year-old hunk pass by.  The poor lad blushed and virtually ran into the sixth form common room, leaving the girl and her pair of mates to giggle mercilessly at his discomfort.

I couldn’t help laughing too – an incredulous laugh.  Why was I not born brazen and daring, like my new friend Tina?  Most of us were as timid as rabbits on this, our first day at high school, but not her.  She started as she quite evidently meant to go on.

I had noticed this vision of bird’s nest hair and garish pout as we Capewell newcomers bustled into the lecture theatre at nine, where the headmaster, Mr Moss, divided us off into forms. 

I was glad to be allotted to Mr Spencer (nickname, predictably, Frank); I liked the look of this shy young art teacher.  ‘Frank’ was by far the youngest in a staff predominantly middle-aged, fond of dun corduroy and dreaming of retirement, and it is soberingly bizarre to think that my form tutor was in fact younger than I am now.

I was thankful to be in the same class as Nas and Karl, and harboured no envy for Felix and Gareth, assigned to the fearsome-looking Mrs Slattery – who, I was not delighted to hear, taught PE, my least favourite subject in the world ever.  Her new charges scuttled after her like particularly terrified lambs to a particularly brutal slaughter.

We Spencerites trooped to the art room which was to be our form’s home for the next five years, jostled en route by gigantic fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds, with their angry zits, skinny ties and sports bags the size of cars.  I had never felt so little and intimidated, and glued myself to Karl’s side for protection.  These upper-school giants jeered at our voluminous black blazers and unfeasibly neat blue jumpers – the branding that advertised us as first years.

Bird’s Nest and her cohorts, however, managed to sport their uniforms with a cool, Grange Hill air more befitting to the fourth year.  Whilst the rest of us tottered mutely, imbibing our convoluted surroundings, she strutted without care, alternately blowing huge strawberry gum bubbles and singing tuneless snatches of Five Star’s new single, Rain or Shine.

There was the usual scramble for tables, and then Mr Spencer called the register.  All but she trilled a courteous ‘Yes.’  Her response to the call of ‘Tina Skidmore’ was an impudent ‘Ar,’ the Black Country version of the affirmative.  Amid nervous snickers at her audacity, Tina basked in clearly familiar attention, and Frank’s grimace showed he knew full well he was in for nothing but trouble from this particular pupil.

Our timetables, dimly daisywheeled on to computer paper thinner than bog roll, announced English to be our first lesson in this new school.  Ah, my best subject.  A favourable omen.  So I thought.

Nasreen and I, tussled to the back of the crocodile, found ourselves losers in the great table scramble.

‘Oops, we seem to have run out of chairs,’ trilled Miss Joyce, a fun-looking muddle of zany waistcoat, cobalt eyeshadow and green-framed glasses, ‘would you two like to go and grab a couple of spare ones from the library.  It’s just down there – that’s it, my dears, down the corridor, turn left, by the sick room.’

Locating it was straightforward enough.  We slunk in, helped ourselves to a plastic chair apiece and slunk back out, ignoring the sardonic stares of the aged A-level students hunched over their Shakespeare texts.  At least the library’s compulsory hush precluded them shooting any teasing comments in our direction.

But the route back, like the homeward car journey after a holiday, looked completely different.  Somewhere in the web of corridors, we took the wrong junction.  Laden with our chairs, and thus looking tremendously silly and clumsy, we tramped the entire length of the second floor in our increasingly flustered quest for our class.

‘I’m sure it was this way,’ Nas said optimistically – and promptly steered us into a warren of science labs.  ‘Oh, Zo, we’re gonna get a right bollocking for this!’

‘Are you young ladies a little lost, perchance?’

The voice came from the doorway of one such laboratory – CHEMISTRY, according to the stencilled sign.  Its owner was all anarchic hair, white coat, fey smile and manic verve, like a camp version of Rik Mayall.

‘We’re looking for Miss Joyce’s room,’ I peeped, relief at encountering a teacher – albeit a wacky one – lending a helpless pitch to my already wobbly voice.

‘Then that’s this-a-way!’  He led us on a long-limbed stride to the arms – metaphorical ones – of our waiting English mistress.

‘A couple of your young scholars, who came adrift from the party, I fear – but now delivered safely unto you, Miss Joyce.’  And with that, ‘Rik’ bowed, in a fashion that was very in keeping with his peculiar, hey-nonnny-no vocabulary, and swept back on his way. 

‘Thank you, Mr Sullivan.  Don’t worry, girls.  It happens to us all on our first day.  This building must be at least twice the size of your old school.  At least you’ve got something to sit on now.  That’s it – if you park your chairs there, we can make a start.’

‘Yer saft buggers!’ Tina hissed at us, grinning.

I found myself grinning back, aflame though I was from both the exertion of heaving a chair through miles of maze, and the shame of having done something so pitifully first-yearish as get lost.  There was no explicit malice in her manner.  Nas and I were ‘the girls who got lost’ for the rest of term – but the tag didn’t irk me.  The girl was laughing with rather than at me at that stage.

I knew I was honoured to be so much as addressed by the great Tina Skidmore.  To go unnoticed by her altogether identified you as a Nobody.

******

Virtually every teacher – including such incongruous ones as maths and music – set us the classic icebreaker ‘write an essay about yourself’ task.  Miss Joyce at least lent a vaguely inventive slant to the idea.

‘I’d like you to each list five facts about yourself, and then read them out to the class.’

I don’t even remember my five – banal as they doubtlessly were: ‘I’m an only child’; ‘I like cooking’ – but distinctly recall that one of Tina’s was ‘I’m brilliant.’  And judging by her expression, which was just too self-satisfied to be ironic, she clearly believed it.  Cue more nervous laughter; more conjecture at what this funny, unpredictable daredevil would do next.

On that first day alone, Tina sat in the back row, swore, chewed gum in class, even wore make-up – all hallmarks of A Rebel.  And now, in the lunch queue, here she was flirting with a sixth form god, showing airy disregard for her lowly first year status.  No ‘big kids’ were ever going to dare push in front of her.

It is difficult to appreciate in this contemporary climate quite how outrageous Tina seemed to our callow sensibilities.  She would probably be deemed tame by today’s pubescents – if the harpies who eff and blind outside my local Dillons are anything to go by.  The pursuit of my Sunday paper has of late become an obstacle course through their upturned bikes, dog-ends and kohl-framed glares.

Stop me now, please, before I turn into my mother!  They say it’s a sign of growing old when you disgorge tirades of the ‘kids today…’ variety that so infuriated you when you were a kid.

Anyway, Tina paid for her chips, flourishing a fiver between fingers fettered with gaudy rings, and at last it was my turn at the hatch.  What a revelation – could this really be a school canteen?  The array of meals and snacks actually looked, well – nice.  And gorgeously stodge-drenched.

Accustomed to a primary school menu uniformly steak and kidney- and mash potato-based, the combination of a mouthwatering spread, and the knowledge I had a pound in my skirt pocket to purchase whichever bit of it I desired, was a heady one.

‘Beefburger and chips, please,’ I heard myself request, ‘and a piece of chocolate cornflake cake.’ 

Well of course I wasn’t going to opt for one of the limp and limited fruit or salad offerings that sagged against the jugs of beans.  I was only human after all.  Nowadays I’d go for the salad every time, but eleven-year-olds do not exactly worry themselves about eventualities like weight gain and heartburn.

We zigzagged through the swarming canteen to Karl and Felix’s table.

‘What d’you think of it so far then?’

‘S’all right.’

‘I bloody hate that Slattery,’ Felix whinged, ferociously stabbing the little straw into his blackcurrant juice carton, ‘why did I have to end up with her?  Our Gary told me she was a right old troll when he was here.’

‘Mr Spencer’s nice, though.’  I chomped back a hunk of burger.  ‘I think he looks like Phillip Schofield.’

‘Gordon the Gopher, more like!’ Karl chuckled.  He paused mid-chip, to stare at Tina’s triumvirate, cussing and belching on the next table.  He nodded subtly towards its peachy-faced, blonde member – Hayley Jasper, her name was.  ‘She’s not bad, though.’ 

I observed an extraordinary light in Karl’s ocean-green eyes, and my self-esteem promptly took a plummet through the floorboards.  The delectable fried junk I had been devouring with immense ease found its progress obstructed through a suddenly dry, lump-choked throat.

What was this all about then?  I’d really thought I was over this silliness.  No more shark-themed dreams had plagued my sleep since February – and I had put that one down to illness.  I’d been back to normal since my birthday.  Back to my old tree-climbing, tracksuit-wearing, Barbie-gunging self. 

But those disconcerting feelings I imagined were vanquished had been merely lying dormant, waiting for such a moment as this when, like blackheads, they might rudely surface.

I looked across at Hayley with hatred – but then at my ungainly reflection in the window behind her with even greater hatred.  It was small wonder, I thought with a sigh, that he preferred her – any boy would.  I was whey and goofy; she looked like one of those girls who always got picked to be carnival princess.

Hayley was the only beauty in the trio.  Her fellow Tina-worshipper, Jodie Glover, half concealed her malevolent smiles and eyes behind heavy, luggy hair and librarian-ish glasses, and Tina herself had presence rather than true good looks.

‘Hey, look who we’ve got next.’  Nas, uncrumpling her timetable, was nudging me out of my maudlin reverie.  ‘That Mr Sullivan, for science.’

‘No trouble finding your way this time, ladies?’ our rangy rescuer asked – predictably, perhaps, but not with the irksome sarcasm I learned to expect from certain other teachers.

‘Sully’ Sullivan was to become one of my favourites – even though I never achieved more than fair to middling results in his subject.  (Karl, on the other hand, was his star scholar.)  Sully was bonkers, there were no two ways about it, but got away with it because of the kindly, Willy Wonka quality he also possessed in vat-loads.  Sympathetic and witty, he was unique in enjoying almost universal hero-worship.

That reminds me: I actually bumped into Sully in Rackhams in Birmingham about three years ago.  He had lately retired but was as gangly and manic as ever, if somewhat balder.  We were both Christmas shopping: I for Neil; he for an unspecified somebody of unspecified gender – his debatable sexuality having been the subject of much wicked playground innuendo.

He remembered me, which was a flattering surprise after such a long time – but rather marred the effect by adding, ‘You were Karl Corbett’s pal, weren’t you?’

I must have answered ‘That’s right’ in a particularly taut, telling way, for he smoothly changed the subject and began bemoaning the price of Christmas cards.

I wished on that excruciating September afternoon in his lab that I could have changed subjects.  Even double PE would be preferable to this crash course in the features and functions of the Bunsen burner.

For though Sully’s humour elevated my spirits initially, I nose-dived back into wretchedness when he paired us off to boil a beaker of water.  Karl, to his undisguised delight, was partnered with Hayley.  It pained to watch him getting so famously along with the class princess while I was lumped with this awful dork called Simon Floyd, a pale, thin, intelligent, sensible boy who took the experiment priggishly seriously.

Poor Simon.  He ill deserved all these scathing adjectives, but then young girls are cruel, particularly to lads whom they consider more wet and square than a swimming pool.

I watched the water simmering away over the Bunsen, and knew how it felt – my emotions were similarly bubbling and raging in the beaker that was my body.  Hey, just call me Pyrex Girl!

******

I was soon acclimatised to Capewell life – though at some point since leaving Holly Lane I had progressed from quite liking school to considering it a necessary evil and living for the holidays. A reason could have been that while junior school was effectively a continuation of playtime, comp was a tough place; a microcosm of the so-called big, bad world.

I adored my bed and sullenly begrudged having to heave myself out of it on perishing mornings – especially perishing mornings when I had hockey first period.  When the Pink Panther blared to life at the cruel hour of eight o’clock (an hour I would be only too grateful to spend in bed nowadays), I rebelliously buried myself even deeper into the sandwich of sheets and fell back to sleep.  Mom nearly always had to wake me, with a swift shake that was greeted by growls of protest.

‘Come on, our Zo – you never used to be like this.’

After a cursory catlick (that’s Black Country for a hasty, lacklustre wash) I would sling my uniform on, devour my breakfast and be out the door.  With such inattention to my appearance, it was hardly extraordinary that no boys fancied me.

In raw weather, my huge anorak was scant armour as I tramped the short school route.  I used to imagine my body was outlined by a red halo like the kid in the Ready Brek commercial.  I knew I would never acquire such luminescence, though – I detested Ready Brek. 

I adored the weekends and holidays, when I would hibernate until mid-afternoon, and see daylight so rarely it was a wonder the effect did not transform me into a werewolf or something.

The school day tired me out more now, and my leisure time was condensed, which gave rise to many martyr-ish bleatings about my loss of freedom.  Evenings were taken up less with playing and more with that vile novelty, homework, or tasks such as covering my many textbooks with wrapping paper and posters.

School reports were another novelty.  My parents were now walloped with termly spiels from each teacher, appraising my effort and progress in their particular subject.  Elusive A grades earned me rewards – of the monetary or chocolate variety – and cheesy praise from Dad.

‘We’re that proud of you, bab,’ he would beam, squeezing my hand, ‘no-one in our family has ever got an A before.’

I cringed at the time, horribly self-conscious and gruffly unsentimental, but now hold dear these snapshots of unconditional parental love.  My marks, while respectable, were rarely stunning – but this mattered not to Dad.  He couldn’t have been any prouder if I was one of the class eggheads; the kids whose parents berated them if they ‘only’ managed a B.  My parents even clemently overlooked my vindictive string of Ds from Mrs Slattery, and celebrated my every small accomplishment.

The sporadic As I amassed were invariably for English and home economics – (save for one I scraped in art, when my pastel sketch of a Marathon – as they were then called, before all this ‘Snickers’ baloney – particularly impressed Frank).  I discovered a latent forte for writing, which the feisty Miss Joyce encouraged.  English at Holly Lane was all dry comprehension and tuition in how to use a dictionary, but she taught me to love words; to animate them.  I found a blissful escapism through whimsical stories.  One or two even showed up in the Capewell Journal.  I would read these school mags a thousand times, thrilling at the sight of my name in print.  Naïve little pieces though they may have been, it was a start. 

Under the exuberant tutelage of one Mrs Longman, I also blossomed in home economics (‘which used to be called cookery in my day,’ as Mom was annoyingly fond of tutting).  I adored the Wednesday ritual of stomping to school bearing a basket of ingredients and stomping back at half-past three with the same basket weighed down by the Taylor family’s tea.  Wednesday was the only day I gladly vacated my bed without maternal assistance.

Soups, risottos, coleslaws…all manner of lavish fare graced our kitchen table in consequent years – besides the plainer, Dad-pleasing dishes like apple crumble.

I have never lost the rewarding glow that comes from buying raw provisions and whisking them into something wonderful.  I pity the lazy workmates I have who claim to virtually survive on oven-ready crap.  I have had appalling experiences with frozen fish pies that required blowtorch treatment to heat evenly through.  When they were finally ready, I could smell and taste the E-numbers in every latexy mouthful.  Yuck!

Call me old-fashioned, but home cooking just does it for me every time!

My tone is strong here because I speak with familiarity of an overindulgence in processed food – which, for all my culinary leanings, I possessed an unhealthy love for at twelve.

School dinners and Mrs Longman’s lessons were my only motivations through the school week.  I dined in the canteen every day, eschewing Mom’s offers of packed lunches.  Who wanted egg and cress rolls when there were hot dogs and pizzas going begging?  Besides, it was more mature, I told her airily, to queue and purchase one’s own lunch.  Only the dweeby kids who nobody wanted to be like – the Simon Floyds of this world – sat nibbling on little crustless sandwiches and satsumas.

I was not so much a kid in a sweet shop as a kid in a chip shop.  Foods which once were luxuries were now daily available, and I hedonistically indulged.

The tummy briefly shrivelled by illness bulged again with cholesterol overload, my skin erupted into pimples and my boobs swelled to more fleshy, slatternly proportions than ever.

Defeated by gravity, and taunted by boys about my jiggling ‘melons,’ I finally bowed to the inevitable.

******

‘I need a bra, Granny.’

Granny Danks nodded knowingly.  It was the Easter holidays of 1987.  We were shopping together for the first time in months, our once weekly ritual having long lapsed like so many other childhood practices. 

Granny and her shopping trolley had by now defected from Dudley Market Place to the new Merry Hill Centre three miles away.  Merry Hill, built on land in Brierley Hill once occupied by a steelworks, mushroomed colossally over the ensuing decade – divesting Dudley of big-name retailers in the process.

I am old enough to remember the town boasting a Marks and Spencer, a Sainsbury’s, a BHS…and the outcry when they progressively shut down and relocated to Merry Hill.

In our teenage years, this vast mall became a hub where my friends and I would congregate with blasé regularity to spend our parents’ money, slurp fizzy drinks and partake in our new hobby, ‘chap-hunting’ – but in 1987 the place was still a mesmeric novelty.

My first visit was on this day with Granny Danks.  It was a treat, she said, ‘to tog yer out with some new clobber.’  I rather suspect Mom primed her as to my pathetic lack of clothes now that I was ‘getting a big girl’ – knowing full well I would never, as a matter of stubborn principle, sport any of the cutesy dresses and blouses Mom herself chose for me.

Granny, despite being a further generation removed, was more attuned to my fashion tastes (which still extended little further than jogging suits and leggings).  I accepted advice more graciously from Granny than from Mom, whose vain efforts to ‘dress me like a girl’ merely rubbed me up the wrong way.

Discussing undergarments with my mother – who had taken to teasing me about ‘turning into Samantha Fox’ – was far too squirmy to contemplate.  Granny’s approach was, in this as in everything else, swiftly practical.  No song and dance scenes or digs about Page Three wenches.  She merely guided me to the racks of training bras and watched from a diplomatic distance while I selected my first two sexless white boulder-holders.  They would match the thousands of identical, windsock-sized pants I possessed.

I put one on back at her house in Netherton.  My fingers shook as I wedged my pasty udders into the nylon cones and swivelled before the bathroom mirror.  Instead of lolloping in opposite directions as they usually did, they travelled with me, immobile in their scratchy harness.  They felt horribly tight and pulled in.  Ooh, I didn’t like this at all!

I then pulled on my sweater and was absolutely freaked by the mountainous, grown-up shape beneath it.  Those brazen projectiles seemed so poignantly, pervily incongruous with such a cosy, childish garment.  It was like dressing a teddy bear in suspenders, or seeing strippers on children’s BBC.  I detested the way I looked and felt in this nasty bra, and longed to tear it from my body and burst out sobbing…

‘Tea’s ready, love!’

But Granny’s friendly yell thwarted any such tantrum.  Awaiting me downstairs was the reassuring tableau of croquette potatoes on a formica table.  Granny tactfully made no mention of my distended chest (though she can’t have failed to notice it), but just switched on her museum-piece TV, like I was still eight.

‘That new Australian programme everyone’s raving about is on.’  She clouted the decrepit set, demisting the grainy screen enough to reveal a tender scene between a good-looking boy with shuttlecock-shaped hair and a pretty, dungaree-clad girl with a leonine perm.  ‘Her’s that wench with the funny name – Highly Sinogue, or summat.’

‘Oh right.’

‘How’s that young Karl these days?’ Granny, apropos of nothing, enquired.  ‘Haven’t seen him about lately.’

Nor have I, was the wounded rejoinder I bit back, loath to advertise just how sorely I missed his droll company, or how the mere mention of his name stung me in places I never knew were stingable.  I prayed that the blush I felt searing my face was not giving the game away entirely.

‘He’s OK,’ was all I said, in as light and evasive a tone as I was capable of.

Oh, Karl was more than OK, I was sure!

I wished I could blot out yesterday’s distressing call to the Corbett door.

Faye had taken an unfeasibly long time to answer the bell – and did so wearing an inside-out nightie, her titian perm witchily tousled.  A skinny youth sporting a footballer’s bouffant, presumably Dean the mechanic’s replacement, hovered behind her in Hong Kong Phooey boxer shorts.

‘No, Karl’s not in, love,’ Faye replied in a peculiar, languid sort of pant, ‘no-one’s here at the moment.’  (Well that was evident!)  ‘Karl said something about going round Hayley’s, helping her with her homework.’

‘Oh.  Right.  Tell him I called.  Won’t you?’

But the door was already clanking to, shutting me out of the adult world that lay beyond it.

I shambled blindly home, feeling like a hobnail boot-clad foot had just delivered a sharp kick to the area of my chest that housed my heart.  I had a mountain of homework myself – French verbs and a history essay on Dudley Castle – could I expect any help from Karl with that? I wondered. 

No chance, I thought rancorously, kicking away a pebble that had dared appear in my path.  He wasn’t interested in assisting his loyal, pudgy friends anymore.  One flash of baby blue eyes and svelte calves and he was off.

I only hoped his ideas about what ‘homework’ constituted were not quite the same as his sister’s.

******

Boys were lined up on one wall of the gym; girls on the other, cherryade cans clasped for protection against low-flying testosterone.  Gyrating lights cast rainbow streaks across the high ceiling.  Deflating balloons flopped around the doorframes.  Pork pie wedges and ham sandwiches drooped neglected on a trestle table. 

Yup, the Capewell summer disco was in full swing!

‘Let’s get boogying,’ Frank cluelessly encouraged from his corner alcove.  He was officiating as DJ – the only teacher young enough to avoid looking granddadishly laughable behind a turntable.  He was patently uncomfortable in the role, though – I’m sure he would rather have been tucked up with a mug of hot chocolate and Blackadder.

One or two girls were actually motivated enough to brave the dancefloor – but not Nasreen, Debbie and me, who tapped our toes self-consciously, drippily promising to ‘get up for the next song.’

Debbie was a shaggy-permed redhead whom Nas had recently taken up with.  As a trio, we got along ostensibly well, though in truth my nose was pushed increasingly out of joint by their cliquey twitterings.  They had – unconsciously, I think – adopted a kind of patronising, ‘I suppose we’ll let you tag along with us’ attitude, which made me feel more like an interloper with each day that passed in this miserable school.

What was it with my friends lately?  I’d started wearing deodorant months ago, but was beginning to wonder if it was working, such was the rate with which I appeared to be repelling people.  Slouching with these two now was painfully awkward.  I just let them talk.

‘Look at that stupid Samantha – fancy wearing dungarees to a disco!’

‘And she’s got foundation on – she’s all orange, look’

‘So do you think Sean fancies me then?’

‘Dunno, Deb.  What about Marcus?  He keeps lookin’ over at me.  Is he doing it now?  Don’t look, don’t look!  I’m trynna play hard to get.’

‘Who’ve yow got your eye on tonight, Zo?’

I gazed sadly at Karl, a pre-teen Don Johnson in jeans and a turquoise jacket with those curious elbow-length sleeves that were then in fashion.  He caught my eye and gave me a half-grin so civil and distant that I felt snubbed rather than acknowledged. 

‘Oh, no-one.’

Be like that then, Karl!  I swished my head away from him in what I imagined was a haughty, indifferent fashion.  I was wearing my straw-like hair up, for once, in a side ponytail tied with a bobble shaped like a fried egg.  It was a very swishy style.  I liked the feel of it, bobbing against my neck.

It was hard to be haughty in a bogey-green boiler suit, though.  Self-conscious as ever, I had hidden my burgeoning body inside a garment which caused Dad to comment, ten years later when hooting over a photo album, ‘Yow look like a mechanic there, me wench’ – and was now rather regretting my choice on such a muggy night.

Eventually, the torment of standing in close proximity to an untouched buffet could be borne no longer.

‘Come on, let’s go grab some eats.’

Food cheered me up – that was the reason my weight was in double figures.  As I loaded my plate with crinkle-cut crisps, I felt happy and giddy and mad.  I was afflicted by what I now recognise to be an addiction; a fixation.  Food was my drug.

‘Hey, look – it’s the Incredible Hulk!’

I laughed, in an ‘I might have expected that’ kind of way – my stock response whenever Tina made one of her ‘cracks.’  She rarely meant anything by them.  The girl just happened to possess a stinging wit, an artless lack of tact and a big, dirty mouth. 

Not a sole was immune.  Tina simply had to have something to say about everything and everybody.  I was large, I was wearing green – inevitably, tonight, Matthew, I was going to be the Incredible Hulk.  (I had certainly evolved a long way from Medusa.)

I turned from the crisp bowl, expecting to be grinned at, but instead found myself flinching from six eyes luminous with eyeshadow and malice.  Tina, Jodie and Hayley could have been triplets, with their co-ordinating puffball dresses, hair sprayed to candyfloss consistency, sneering lips painted brothel pink and legs as thin as crayons.
They assumed the scowling, akimbo posture they reserved for real enemies, as opposed to those individuals they merely took the piss out of. 

I was in trouble.

Tina, leader and mouthpiece, stood her traditional two paces in front of the girls, her glare loaded with a thousand curses.

‘I seen yer gawpin’ at Karl.’

Only grave offences against the posse warranted this kind of revulsion.  And gawping at a posse member’s would-be boyfriend was about as offensive as it got.

‘I ain’t been.’  Casual denial was the instinctive, if not the best, approach.  But I was far too flushed and defensive to convince as a liar.

‘Yeah you have.  And you’d best keep yer dirty maulers off him, ’cos he’s Hayley’s now.’

‘Ar, that’s right, he is,’ Hayley piped up.  She and Jodie seldom fought their own battles.  Their role was to dispense glares and the odd interjection into Tina’s tirade.

‘He’d never go out with a fat cow like yow anyway.  You look like Dolly Parton with them tits.  Workin’ nine to fiiive…’  Tina mimicked, in an exaggerated country whinny, jostling past me, pouting and shimmying her own spiky chest in a manner I would have found hilarious had her prey been anyone but me.

The sniggering melted into the music behind me, and now I was quite alone.  Deb and Nas had disloyally backed away at the first sign of peril, but I couldn’t care less about them now.  I found their spinelessness strangely empowering.  An incentive to seek out other girls, fresh companions, whose friendship would not be of the fair-weather variety.

‘Come on, Hayls, it’s the Beastie Boys!’

It was hard to say what winded me more: the sight of Karl hooking his arm around Hayley’s twiggy waist as he led her off to dance, or the knowledge he had just listened impassively as she and her bloody friends ripped me to rags.  He was close enough to have heard every vile word – yet had done nothing.

Eighteen months ago, in a slate mine somewhere beneath Wales, Karl Corbett had defended me against a bully.  Boldly, nobly, loyally.  Our friendship was all to him then.

But then Darren Fisher did not have tits.

Boys could square up to one another, but they stayed well out of catfights.  Everyone knew girl bullies were a more fearsome force than their male counterparts – and ones who looked like Hayley Jasper always got away with murder.  I knew I had never been A Girl to Karl, not in the leggy, eyelashy, saucy, teasy way she was.

To boys, ‘bullying’ meant scrapping and menace – but a girl could insult or cut you dead and it would wound as badly as a punch.  The lads’ way of resolving discord struck me, if anything, as healthier.  Two antagonists might vent their rage with a quick scuffle in the playground and be mates again by the end of lunch.

Female grudges, conversely, could be borne for years, fuelled by two-faced gossip and hissy insults about dress sense.  Chaps could never hate girls half as much as girls often hated one another.

Wary of being caught ‘gawping’ again, I averted my eyes back to the plate I was still inelegantly balancing in my greasy palm.  I no longer had any appetite for its contents, but picked at a few crisps to keep my hands active.  It was like munching on glass shards.

It’s funny, even in my wretched state it occurred that none of my fellow discoers appeared to have availed themselves of the refreshments.  This made me feel guilty, like a child caught robbing a larder.

I was a child really, stooping there all apologetic in my oversized romper suit.  Biologically, I was now a woman – those scary periods I’d read about in Mizz having become a lumpy, crampy reality in May – but I felt too blundering and unsophisticated to class myself as one.  Stuffing oneself was clearly a terribly gauche thing to do at a party – that’s why the buffet was rebuffed.  One was supposed to admire the food but not actually eat it.  Eating was for the weak and hideous. Everyone but me was in on this secret. 

‘Take your partners, boys and girls, it’s time for Starship!’

A slowie.  Great. 

I had heard of, though not actually seen Mannequin, and was aware Nothing’s Gonna Stop us Now was its big finale, happy-ever-after power ballad.  Treacly lyrics and bash-the-dashboard guitar solos were king in the 80s.

I have hated that song ever since.  I associate it with rejection; with confirmation of my wallflower status; with trying to dissolve into the wall, pretending I was so riveted by a chicken leg that I didn’t even notice dancers coupling around me.  Smitten kids who would go home happy after a smooch and a three-minute bum grope.  No boy had arms long enough to even encircle my bum.

I will not look at Karl and Hayley.

I.  Will.  Not.  Look.  At.  Karl.  And.  Hayley.

I will NOT look at – oh God, I looked!

Like a car crash or Trisha, I couldn’t help it.

The first verse barely done, and there they were – lips locked in a manoeuvre apparently known as a Frenchie; her arms laced round his neck, his fingers drumming up and down her polka dotted back.  Others were voyeuristically cheering them on.

It was too much for me.

I slapped my still laden plate on to the table, sloped out of the gym and ran home, brushing furious tears away with my fists. 

I was twelve and a half, and my heart was broken.