‘Because I heard some comment on how lovely it was to see the library being used in such a positive way,’ I added. ‘Someone suggested we hold more classes in here. Perhaps restart the creative writing and the book groups. I’m sure I heard them making that suggestion to you.’
Irene blinked, her scowl briefly giving way to a flash of panic before she regained control of her features. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she spluttered. ‘This isn’t a community centre. We have strict policies about what goes on here. I’ve run this library for twenty-seven years. Who do you think you are, telling me how to do my job! It’s bad enough installing all this new-fangled technology. Self-service machines and drink dispensers! Expecting me to hold toddler story-time and school holiday nonsense, like I’m a children’s nanny, rather than a highly qualified librarian. If people like you had their way, we’d do away with the books altogether!’
And then I saw, beneath the bitterness and the bluster, the faint glimpse of a woman who had given her life to this library, and was feeling it pulled out from under her one inch at a time. Her animosity wasn’t because she thought I lowered the tone – quite the opposite: she saw me as part of the threat.
‘Would you like to join me for a coffee before I head off?’ I asked, resolving to convince her that I was not interested in being her enemy.
Irene jerked her head back. Her mouth twisted in a sneer. ‘Certainly not.’ She marched over to the help desk. ‘The sign clearly states that refreshments are for library users only. If you’re finished with your session, I must insist that you leave the hot drinks facilities for those legitimately entitled to them.’
I packed up and went home, refusing to allow a sour grouch to deflate the high of such a positive coaching session. Another note had been pushed through my letterbox:
My only request is that you clear the clutter off your lawn before tomorrow morning.
A friendly lot, this Bigley bunch.
I cleared the forgotten empty lemonade bottle and bin bags full of wallpaper strippings and went to search online for fence panels.
At eight o’clock on Wednesday morning, as I perched on the step for my morning tea, it took a moment to realise what was different. The lawn had been mowed into perfectly aligned stripes. The weeds that grew in the cracks between the paving slabs by the back door had disappeared. I wandered in my bare feet to where my section of garden met the far hedge. The windows in my neighbour’s cottage were shrouded with Venetian blinds, but I offered a huge smile and a wave, just in case.
I spent most of that day on the phone, contacting local agencies to tell them about the new service and following it up with emails and information packs. In the afternoon I baked a batch of sticky toffee muffins, placing one carefully inside a gift bag, with a note saying:
Thanks for tidying up the garden! I’m happy to mow next time, if you don’t mind me using your mower.
I placed it on the doorstep of Middle Cottage, knocked firmly on the door and scuttled back home.
An hour later, the doorbell rang. It was Joan, holding up the gift bag. ‘This was outside your door.’
‘Oh, right.’ I peeked inside – the muffin still sat there. A line had been added to the bottom of my note:
Wheat-intolerant. And I do mind.
‘Have you met the man in Middle Cottage?’ I asked as we walked through to the kitchen.
‘Ebenezer?’
‘Is that his name?’
Joan shrugged. ‘He looks like it should be.’
I took a bottle of still lemonade out of the fridge and poured us each a glass. ‘So you don’t know him?’
‘He does a lot of gardening, but it’s always in secret when nobody sees. And sometimes he puts a letter through the door asking us to stop shouting or turn the TV down.’ She took a long gulp of her drink. ‘I’ve seen him going to the shops sometimes. He wears funny T-shirts but he doesn’t seem very friendly.’
‘Hmm.’ I offered her the muffin from the bag, which appeared untouched. ‘I’m thinking that maybe we can win him round.’
We chatted a bit more about what Joan had been up to at school. She told me that she had a couple of good friends, but they lived on the other side of the village, and spent their free time at music lessons, swimming and gymnastics.
‘Is your mum still at work?’ I asked, noticing that it was nearly six.
‘She gets home late on Wednesdays because she cleans at a farm and it’s a long way back.’
‘Does she walk?’
Joan nodded. ‘She used to cycle but now she’s poorly she walks instead.’
‘Right.’ I debated for a moment whether to ask… ‘How is she poorly, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Well.’ Joan sighed. ‘First it was a bad cold, and then it turned into the flu. Now it mostly makes her really, really tired and sometimes sick, and she gets headaches. She doesn’t feel hungry, either.’ She stopped, blinking hard as she took another deep breath.
‘That sounds awful. I hope she’s been to the doctor.’
Joan simply shrugged, refusing to meet my eye. Taking the hint, I moved over to the fridge.
‘Are you going to keep me company for tea, then? We could do… let me see… how about tacos?’
‘What-os?’
I handed her a packet from the cupboard.
‘I’ve never had them before.’
‘Neither have I.’
‘Um… they look a bit dry.’
‘That’s because we haven’t stuffed them yet.’
‘What do we stuff them with?’
I grinned at her. ‘Whatever we want!’
I sent Joan home around seven, with a plastic box full of ‘leftovers’, conveniently leftover due to me making enough for at least five people, as well as half a dozen muffins. I then switched into leggings and trainers and took advantage of the late evening sunshine to explore some more of the enchanted forest behind my hedge.
The park officially closed at eight this time of year, and it already appeared deserted. I might have felt nervous, a woman walking alone in the woods, but the air was sweet with the promise of summer, the butterflies were dancing with the wildflowers and the birds’ evensong buoyed my spirits. I rambled for a good hour, in and out of clusters of bright green deciduous trees, before weaving along tiny dirt footpaths through the darker pines. Every few minutes I came upon a clearing, or a stream, or the crest of a hill with a view across the fields beyond the forest. I felt drenched in beauty, and surrounded by wondrous life in all its fullness, and had to keep stopping just to soak it up and breathe it in.
I would have missed all of this, if I’d listened to the guilt and the fear. Spent my evenings watching other people out there enjoying the world. Interesting people. With lives and dreams and minds of their own.
And now I was one of them.