The summer fair, p.1
The Summer Fair, page 1
Praise for Heidi Swain
‘Sweet and lovely. I guarantee you will fall in love with Heidi’s wonderful world’ Milly Johnson
‘A heart-warming, sunny slice of escapism’ Heat
‘Sparkling and romantic’ My Weekly
‘The queen of feel-good’ Woman & Home
‘A fabulous feel-good read – a ray of reading sunshine!’ Laura Kemp
‘The most delicious slice of festive fiction: a true comfort read and the perfect treat to alleviate all the stress!’ Veronica Henry
‘Sprinkled with Christmas sparkle’ Trisha Ashley
‘A story that captures your heart’ Chrissie Barlow
‘Fans of Carole Matthews will enjoy this heartfelt novel’ Katie Oliver
Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
Join our mailing list to get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
To darling Lia
Thank you for your infinite patience and insight
Chapter 1
Falling asleep to the soothing sounds of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday had been a well-established childhood habit and one that stayed with me until I was in my early twenties. When I was little, I used to lay in bed, my eyelids drooping as I listened to Mum’s sweet voice as it accompanied the music she always had playing in the house.
It comfortingly carried up the stairs and into my room, lulling me into a peaceful sleep, but when she died shortly before her fortieth birthday, after her second stroke in as many years, the music stopped. I banished the melodic backdrop, unplugged the radio, packed away the vinyl and took an oath that I would never listen to music or sing another note. At that point, my heart had been broken twice over a song and I was adamant that it wouldn’t happen again.
I had more than one reason for taking the self-imposed vow of silence but as a result, I found falling asleep nigh on impossible. I generally stared at the ceiling until, just a couple of hours before I had to get up, I pitched over the edge into a disturbing nightmare-filled haze. Consequently, I had downloaded the RSPB birdsong app to help rouse me before I was ever anywhere near rested. It was nowhere near as soulful as Ella or Billie, but it just about did the job.
On the eve of June the twenty-third, I sat on the edge of the narrow single bed in the house I shared with three other people, still mostly unknown to me even after months of co-habitation, and considered not setting my avian alarm. Of all the days of the year, this was the one that would guarantee no sleep at all.
‘Better to be safe than sorry,’ I murmured nonetheless, keying in the time I needed to be ready for another busy shift working at the Edith Cavell Care Home.
* * *
Just as I had known I would be, I was still awake before the alarm the next morning and much earlier than any lark. I swept my hair into a ponytail, pulled on my cotton floral dressing gown and padded down to the kitchen, willing myself not to play through events as they had unfolded minute by minute exactly two years ago.
‘It won’t ever go away,’ a well-meaning neighbour had warned me during the excruciating weeks which had followed Mum’s fatal stroke, ‘but time will rub away the sharpest edges of it.’
It was a mercy that they had been right about that, but sometimes if felt like time was ticking by at an extraordinarily slow pace. Last year, June the twenty-third had seemed to last for three days rather than just one.
Functioning on automatic pilot, I blinked at the haphazardly stacked piles of unwashed dishes and spotted my favourite mug right at the bottom of the detritus and covered in something that looked solidly dried on. In spite of my attempt to calmly breathe through what I was feeling, a technique that usually served me well, I felt my annoyance bristle.
How was it possible for the almost-thirty somethings I shared a house with to still be living like first-year students? No boundaries, no hygiene, no consideration for anyone other than themselves. The bin was overflowing, the milk I’d picked up after my shift the day before was almost gone and, to top it all off, there was an ominous scurrying sound coming from under the sink.
I focused with more intent on my breathing and separated myself from the infuriating sight by walking through to the sitting room. Unfortunately, things looked no better in there. If anything, they were worse.
Aretha, my colossal and much-loved cheese plant, the one specimen in my treasured houseplant collection that was too big to squeeze into my meanly proportioned room, had not one but two ground out cigarette butts in her pot. Tears sprang to my eyes and I felt my chest tighten as I picked them out and dropped them into one of the takeaway containers congealing on the coffee table.
I realised I needed to get out of the house. Not just to go to work, but for good.
* * *
‘Good morning, early bird,’ was the greeting I received when I signed in at reception almost an hour ahead of my shift.
Being so early meant the bus which usually crawled along with the rest of the traffic had positively sped around the ring road.
‘Morning Greta,’ I responded, trying to raise a smile. ‘You’ve got your nightie on back to front.’
‘I thought it felt tight around my neck,’ my octogenarian friend muttered, stretching it out to look at the label which must have been scratching her throat.
At least at work, with a band of mischievous, and mostly merry, elderly pensioners to look after, I wouldn’t have too much time to dwell on the events of the past. Last year I had taken a day off and given in to it completely and that hadn’t helped at all. This year was going to be all about the other end of the spectrum and powering through. Wallowing hadn’t worked, so perhaps immersing myself in work would.
‘Here you are, Greta!’ puffed Phil, another carer, who was just coming to the end of his twilight shift, as he raced down the corridor, ‘I’ve been looking all over for you.’
‘You can’t have been.’ She sniffed importantly. ‘I’ve been here, manning the desk, all night.’
Phil looked at me and shook his head. The dark circles under his eyes implied that the usual suspects had been giving him the run-around for hours.
‘You’re early, Beth,’ he said to me.
‘That’s what I said,’ tutted Greta, as she eyed me again, suspiciously this time. ‘Couldn’t you sleep either?’
‘Something like that,’ I swallowed, making for the staffroom. ‘I’ll come and give you a hand in a minute, Phil.’
‘Go to the kitchen first,’ he said, leading Greta back along the corridor, while wrestling to stop her pulling her nightie over her head. ‘It’s full English Thursday. You’re going to need some extra calories to get you through the day. I don’t know what’s got into this lot but they’ve been running rings around us all night!’
And they were on form to continue doing so all day. I’d barely settled into my uniform and swallowed my last mouthful of breakfast before I was called into action to track down Greta who’d gone AWOL again.
‘What’s she up to now?’ asked Harold, as he nodded towards the door where a rumpus could be heard coming from Greta’s room once she’d been found and which was next to his. ‘Actually no,’ he said, settling back in his chair, ‘don’t tell me. It’s too early in the day.’
I couldn’t help but laugh. Harold was always able to make me smile, no matter what the date on the calendar. We’d joined Edith Cavell Care the same week. Me, because I needed to earn more money than was on offer from stacking shelves part-time and caring was the only other thing I could do, and him because he’d had a fall and needed more support than the team running the assisted living units next door to the care home could offer him. He was completely recovered now, but had enjoyed the company and camaraderie in the home so much, he had decided to make the move a permanent one.
‘Red or mustard?’ I asked, holding up two pairs of socks.
‘What about one of each?’ he twinkled.
‘No way,’ I said, returning the mustard pair to the drawer and kneeling down to put the red ones on for him. ‘Not after all that confusion in the laundry room last time.’
‘Fair enough,’ he relented, with a grin.
‘How’s that?’ I asked, once I’d slipped the socks on and his feet into his slippers.
‘Cracking,’ he beamed, wriggling his toes. ‘Thanks, my love.’
‘Just doing my job,’ I said, standing back up.
‘I think we all know you go above and beyond your job,’ he smiled with a nod to the clock next to his bed.
It was still a while before my shift was supposed to officially start.
‘Have you told her?’ came another voice, before I could wave away what he’d said.
It was Ida. She had a room on the floor above, but like Greta, she also refused to stay where she was supposed to. I was beginning to wonder if the tagging system Phil had jokingly mentioned at the staff meeting the previous week might not actually be a bad strategy to contain certain residents.
‘Not yet,’ said Harold, beckoning Ida in.
‘What’s this?’ I frowned.
Ida came in, tottering slowly with her frame. For someone who could only move at a snail’s pace, she could cover a remarkable amount of ground unseen.
‘You missed a treat yesterday,’ she chuckled.
&nbs
‘Why?’ I frowned. ‘What did I miss?’
‘Macaroni,’ Ida guffawed.
‘Macaroni?’ I repeated. ‘For dinner, you mean?’
Harold shook his head again.
‘No,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘She means macramé, not macaroni.’
‘That’s it,’ said Ida, ineffectively clicking her arthritic fingers. ‘Macramé.’
I was still at a loss.
‘Who in their right mind would have thought that knotting multiple strands of cord together to make plant pot holders was a suitable craft for a bunch of arthritic pensioners, most of whom are losing their marbles?’ Harold scathingly said.
The penny suddenly dropped.
‘Karen,’ said Ida, slapping her thigh and verifying what I’d worked out. ‘That’s who.’
‘It was a rhetorical question,’ Harold reacted.
‘A what?’ frowned Ida.
‘Never mind,’ I quickly said.
‘That was the so-called activity that the so-called activities manager came up with for yesterday afternoon,’ confirmed Harold, while I bit my lip and imagined the carnage.
I had nothing against macramé. In fact, I had quite a few of the plants in my collection hanging up in cleverly knotted holders, but it wasn’t a craft for the less dextrous and easily confused.
‘George nearly lost a finger,’ Ida gleefully said.
I looked at Harold.
‘He got the cord wrapped so tight around his pinkie,’ Harold elaborated, waggling his own little finger to demonstrate, ‘it was cutting his circulation off. Karen had to cut him free. She had a right panic.’
‘And I thought Greta was going to strangle Bob,’ Ida added excitedly.
Clearly, she’d had a whale of a time. I felt my lips twitch into a smile, in spite of my determination to remain impartial and professional. It was working. Immersing myself in my work, was stopping me thinking about… well, almost stopping me.
‘Disaster,’ said Harold. ‘Another total disaster and now we’re seeing the result.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
Harold pointed to the door, cocking his head to listen to Greta still objecting to everyone’s attempts to keep her safe.
‘Everyone’s bored witless,’ he said, spelling out what deep down I already suspected. ‘That’s why the likes of Greta are acting up. That Karen never asks us what we want to do and half the stuff she comes up with, most of us can’t manage.’
‘And it’s months since we’ve had a trip out,’ Ida said sadly, her former excitement banished. ‘We’re going stir crazy.’
I knew the pair of them were right. I’d experienced first-hand the hash the current activities manager was making of keeping the residents entertained, interested and stimulated.
‘We want you back doing it, Beth,’ Ida wheedlingly said. ‘That week you were in charge was the best we’ve had in ages. We want you in charge of activities again.’
There had been a few days when Karen had been unwell and Sandra, the care home manager, had asked me to step in. I’d had a great time coming up with things to do every afternoon, but it had only been a very temporary arrangement. To be honest, I’d assumed everyone had forgotten about it. However, the hopeful looks on Harold and Ida’s faces suggested otherwise, not that it would make any difference. I was employed as a carer, not an activities organiser; I didn’t have the qualifications for that.
‘We’re rallying the troops,’ Harold then said conspiratorially, tapping the side of his nose. ‘We want Karen out and you in.’
I shook my head and edged around Ida’s frame towards the door, determined to nip whatever scheme they were concocting in the bud. If they started rocking the boat, they could get me in trouble as well as themselves and right now, all I wanted was a quiet life. My home life was already a catastrophe, I didn’t want my work life turning calamitous too.
‘That’s not an option,’ I therefore sternly told the pair. ‘Karen’s a bona fide qualified activities manager and I’m just a carer. Don’t either of you start stirring anything up. You could get me in trouble and I need this job.’
‘You’re not just a carer,’ Harold kindly said.
‘And they wouldn’t get rid of you,’ Ida chimed in. ‘They couldn’t.’
‘They’d be buggered without you, Beth,’ added Harold, looking a little bright-eyed. ‘None of us would be able to cope without you. We need you. I need you.’
I took a deep breath and tried to swallow away the lump in my throat. Just as I had been thinking I was going to get through the day dry-eyed, he’d uttered those fateful words.
‘What is it, Beth?’ Ida frowned, gently laying her liver-spotted hand lightly on my arm.
In my mind’s eye, I saw Mum propped up in a hospital bed, pale, weak and damaged after her first stroke. She had aged in an instant and looked far older than her thirty-something years and all thanks to an undiagnosed heart condition.
‘I need you,’ she had hoarsely said. ‘I need you, Beth.’
With just those few words, the course of my life had been altered forever. Had she even an inkling of what the consequences of them would be, I know she would never have said them, but it was too late to think about that now.
‘Nothing,’ I swallowed, placing my hand over the top of Ida’s and giving it a gentle squeeze. ‘It’s nothing. Now, let’s get you back upstairs before someone sends out another search party.’
Meek as a lamb, she followed me out of Harold’s room.
‘Come back if you get a minute, would you, Beth, love?’ Harold called after us. ‘I’ve got a favour to ask you.’
‘Will do,’ I responded, leading Ida towards the lift.
As I worked through my shift, my head was awash with countless thoughts. For the most part, and even though I tried to stop it, my mind kept tracking back to the date, my eyes roving to the clock, as the moment I’d arrived home and found Mum collapsed and unresponsive on the hall floor ticked closer.
I hadn’t wanted to leave her that day, but she’d insisted I needed some time out and even though every single health professional I’d spoken to since had said my being with her wouldn’t have made any difference to the outcome, it didn’t stop the guilt eating me up.
The second stroke might have been destined to be huge and fatal, but she shouldn’t have endured it alone.
‘Penny for them,’ said Harold, when I checked in with him as my shift finally came to an end and I grabbed a minute to speak to him again. ‘I was hoping you’d spent the last twelve hours thinking about mine and Ida’s plan, but the look on your face suggests otherwise.’
I hoped it hadn’t been obvious to everyone that I hadn’t been quite as present as usual.
‘What’s up, my love?’
‘Nothing,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I’m fine. What was the favour you wanted to ask?’
Harold looked at me and narrowed his rheumy eyes.
‘I’ve told you before, I’m not smuggling in whisky and cigars,’ I quipped.
My attempt to divert his attention didn’t work and he fixed me with a more intense stare.
‘Today is the anniversary of my mum’s death,’ I said, knowing he wasn’t going to let it drop. ‘I lost her two years ago today, so it’s been a tough day.’
‘Oh, Beth,’ he said, making my eyes fill with tears again. ‘I’m so sorry, my love, I didn’t realise.’
‘There’s no reason why you should,’ I said, blinking.
Having joined the home at the same time, Harold had known a little of my sad history, but it wasn’t something I’d ever dwelled on.
‘It’s okay,’ I said stoically.
‘No,’ he sighed, ‘it’s not. Of course it’s not and it never will be.’
‘Oh thanks,’ I hiccupped, his bluntness taking me by surprise and pulling me out of my rapidly declining mood. ‘Tell it to me straight, Harold.’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘No point lying,’ he said.
‘No,’ I agreed, feeling surprisingly grateful for his honesty, but also sad because I knew it came from a place of understanding, ‘I suppose not. Now,’ I sniffed, straightening out his bed cover and checking his jug was full of fresh water, ‘out with it. What do you want me to do?’
