Down she came, the afternoon of the day the Friendly Hands trip went off, when as luck would have it I was scrubbing the sails, spread out flat on the lawn, while the cats, to be companionable, were sitting one in each cockpit of the canoe, for all the world as if they were ready to take off. Our previous cats had often sat in the canoe like that when it was on the lawn for cleaning. There is nothing Siamese like better than being involved in what is going on. It would have been more unusual if they hadn't been sitting in it.
But Miss Wellington rushed through the gate, threw her arms round my neck and burst into tears, causing Tani to bolt for the cottage. Saph stayed where he was and yelled 'Waaah' at her in greeting, but Miss Wellington had other things on her mind. 'Don't do it,' she sobbed imploringly. 'You mustn't do it. Think of the poor little cats.'
'Do what?' I enquired. 'I'm only scrubbing the sails. That isn't going to hurt them.'
It came out then. What Fred Ferry had said. And Mrs Binney had told her Bert was hoping to get my cottage. And I always had been adventurous. Look how Charles and I had gone to the Rockies searching for grizzlies. But I mustn't think of doing such things now, without him. He wouldn't like it.
I put her right on all counts. I wasn't going anywhere, I assured her. I noticed, though, that when I'd sold the canoe – I advertised it in the paper that weekend and someone bought it the following Monday (a man wanted it to sail with his young son on the Somerset rhines, as Charles and I had done, and I couldn't think of a better future for it) – I noticed that no sooner had it gone up the hill on top of the purchaser's car, its yellow warning streamer fluttering from its stern, than Miss Wellington came pattering down the hill to look over the gate. To make sure I was still there?
That same week, while I was watching over the cats in the garden one morning, a little man arrived who'd been coming through the valley almost daily for quite a time, on what seemed to be a regular walk around the forest. He always stopped to pass the time of day with me and admire the cats. He liked gardening and he loved cats, he told me regularly, while Tani equally regularly fled indoors growling and Saphra, crouching, fixed him with a suspicious look and said he didn't believe him.
He was short, pompous – another Mr Tooting. I found him boring, but he would stay and talk. He was a comparative newcomer to the village and he lived on the Fairview estate – a widower, he informed me. He watched me for a while that particular morning as I nipped about in the wake of Saph, dead-heading a rose here, pulling a weed out there, crook in my hand ready to field the Menace should he try to take off. 'What you need is a man about the place,' he said suddenly in a sympathetic voice, leaning confidentially over the gate.
I nearly jumped out of my gumboots. Was there no peace anywhere? Mrs Binney. Miss Wellington. Now him. So far as I was concerned there was nobody in my life but my tall, handsome Charles. Never had been. Never would be. I hoped he was, indeed, waiting somewhere for me in the wings. Perhaps I misjudged my visitor's intentions, but I wasn't taking any chances. I had no desire to be thought another Mrs Binney. 'I've just acquired a very good handyman,' I told him icily. He stood for a moment, then walked on up the lane. He never came past again.
I had indeed acquired a handyman. His name was Bill, he was an ambulance man, and he did household repairs in his spare time. He lived ten minutes away by car and had been recommended by friends, who said he was a good, quick worker – not like Mr Panting, the awful old man I'd employed before, who dragged every job out to its limit. He didn't charge fancy prices and genuinely liked helping people. There was only one thing, said my friends. Never let him do any indoor decorating. He went at everything at the speed of sound, and if he was painting a door, for instance, he never put a dust sheet or even newspaper on the floor. Just worked away feverishly, splashing paint in all directions, then trod happily and obliviously through it afterwards.
I remembered that. He did a lot of jobs for me but I never let him work indoors. Even outdoors, however, his speed was apt to run away with him. Whatever he came to do he would belt down the hill as if answering a 999 call, leap out of his car, shoot down the path, rope me in as assistant, and within minutes be deep in the job, usually without giving me a chance to change out of my slippers. The first time he came to my rescue was when a length of rotten facing board fell off the apex of the cottage roof, and I noticed a crack in the wall beneath it.
I had called a builder who shook his head and said that was going to be some job. He'd have to bring along his brother-in-law, a roofing specialist, to do it – but he could tell me himself it would entail taking off the overlapping row of tiles, renewing the wooden tile supports, moving the bathroom downpipe to investigate the depth of the crack, filling it in and re-whitewashing the wall. 'And how much will that cost?' I asked, fearing the worst. He couldn't say exactly, he answered. Five hundred pounds. Maybe more. Scaffolding cost a lot to hire.
'Scaffolding?' I echoed. 'Can't it be done with a ladder?' Not with the conservatory built against the wall, he said. It'd need scaffolding to cover the sloping glass roof underneath. Nobody'd go up there otherwise.
That was when I went to my friends, who rang Bill for me on the spot. He'd come over the next evening, he promised. I went home and he turned up within half an hour – found he had time before supper so he'd just popped over, he explained. 'Do it this weekend,' he said, surveying the job. 'Got any planks that'd go over that glass?'
The conservatory had been designed by Charles, with stone-built walls front and back and a glass roof sloping down between them. Across the lane, in Annabel's old stable, were five long, wide, three-inch thick planks. Placed side by side on top of the walls they formed a solid platform over the glass. Charles, a stickler for safety, had stood ladders on the platform with complete equanimity when painting the side of the cottage himself. That was why I'd boggled when the builder mentioned scaffolding.
'Ah,' said Bill when I told him. If I could help him across with a plank he'd take a closer look at what wanted doing. Then he'd tell me how much it would cost.
I helped him across with one plank, we raised it and positioned it, and I asked should we fetch the rest. 'One'll be enough,' said Bill airily. I closed my eyes as he leaned a ladder against the conservatory wall, climbed it and got on to the plank. I watched heart in mouth as, sure-footed as a mountain goat, he hauled the ladder up behind him, leaned it against the upper cottage wall, went up it and examined the roof-edge, the woodwork and the crack. Came down, dusted his hands and said the tile supports were solid. All it needed was a new piece of weather-boarding, cement filling, painting and a coat of whitewash. 'Seventy pounds all right for the lot?' he asked.
Was it! I died a thousand deaths as he did the job, managing with only one plank. I nearly did myself a mischief, too, handing up hammers, nails, buckets of cement and, when that was done and dry, mixing the whitewash. But we did it. This was some time back, of course, when prices weren't as high as they are today. But seventy pounds instead of five hundred… Bill was factotum at the cottage from that time on, even if it did mean making more cups of tea than I'd ever brewed in my life. He drank tea as most people breathe. There was also the business of always turning up like a whirlwind, invariably in advance of when he'd arranged, and consistently incorporating me as handyman's assistant. But one can't have everything.