Sweet Home Summer Read online

  ‘What can I say? It’s been a while, and I was never good at the parallel park. Can I steal a chip?’

  He laughed. ‘Go for it, and you didn’t have to buy me lunch. I didn’t do anything, not really.’

  ‘Yes you did, you drove me over here, and you made sure the sales guy didn’t take me for a ride once I’d made my mind up.’

  ‘Yeah, he saw a pretty girl coming alright, and I’d forgotten how stubborn you can be.’

  Isla blushed. He still thought she was pretty. He used to gaze down at her with those bottomless eyes of his and tell her she was beautiful. Stop it Isla, you’re far too young for all this nostalgia. ‘I get the stubborn streak from Gran, or so Mum says.’

  Ben nodded. ‘I’d agree with that, having seen both you and Bridget demonstrate that particular personality trait more than once over the years. Do you remember when the council wanted to paint the no-parking yellow lines out in front of her house? She got me and your dad to plonk her armchair in the middle of the road, and she sat in it refusing to move until the roadworks truck moved on.’

  Isla laughed. ‘I’d forgotten about that! It didn’t take the council long to concede, and she made the six o’clock news. Good for her I say.’

  He pointed his fork in her direction. ‘Exactly, you two operate on the same wavelength. If you can’t get your way, you dig your heels in.’

  Isla made to protest, but Ben got in first with a raised eyebrow. ‘May I remind you of the placards and the protest you organized outside Bibury Area’s intermediate block about not being allowed to use their play area at lunchtime!’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Isla’s smile was sheepish as the headline in the Bibury Times sprang to mind – Bibury Area School Pupil Argues Ageism Rife in School System. ‘But I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t believed whole-heartedly that I was right. The junior playground was way too tame.’

  ‘You were ten years old; I rest my case.’ His phone began to ring, and he put down his knife and fork. ‘Bugger, it’s Vanessa, I’d better take it.’ He got up from the table and headed outside. When he came back in Isla could tell by his peeved expression that it was time to go.

  ‘There’s an emergency repair job that’s just come in for a couple of tourists. Bloody kea brds pecked the rubber off the windscreen wipers of their campervan while they had a coffee in the tearoom.’

  The native parrot-like kea birds were prone to being naughty, and Isla recalled the time they’d left friendly deposits all over her father’s freshly polished whatever it was he was driving back then. He’d gone mad, shooing them away and threatening them with far worse. The birds hadn’t cared though; they were like naughty toddlers.

  ‘I’m going to have to make tracks,’ Ben interrupted the flashback. ‘I’m sorry to cut lunch short; it’s been great catching up with you.’ He shifted from foot to foot in front of her.

  Isla stuffed down her last mouthful, pleased that Ben had managed to finish the best part of his lunch. She got to her feet too. ‘Look, it’s fine, it’s work. I get it. Thanks for coming with me. I’ll follow you back, though, if that’s okay? Just in case Delilah doesn’t behave on her first outing.’ Isla didn’t want to admit to him she was nervous at the thought of the drive back to Bibury. It had been a long time since she’d been behind a wheel and the little test run she’d done tootling around the streets of Greymouth was not the same as one hundred kilometres on the open road.

  Ben headed for the door, and Isla followed. ‘She’s pretty roadworthy, but it’s still a good idea to tail me while you get used to driving her.’ He held the café’s door open for her, and she slipped past him. A shiver of delight shot through her, and she wasn’t sure if it was due to the sight of her shiny new red car, or the fact that Ben had rested his hand on the small of her back to steer her towards it.

  ‘Come on Gran, I’ll take you for a spin.’ Isla took her hand off the horn and called out the window as Bridget appeared on the front doorstep, frowning in consternation as she wondered what all the noise was about.

  ‘Isla Brookes, what have you bought?’ she called out.

  ‘A Mini Cooper, and she’s called Delilah. Isn’t she gorgeous?’

  Bridget shook her head, closing the front door before she made her way down the steps. Isla noticed her movements were careful; it was another sign that her seemingly invincible Gran, was slowing down. She got into the passenger seat, and Isla helped her buckle in before reversing down the drive and cruising down High Street. Bridget ran her hands over the dashboard, and Isla could tell she was a little bit smitten too. She pulled up outside Mitchell’s Pharmacy, jumped out and raced inside to fetch her mum.

  Mary was unpacking a box of stock when her daughter ordered her to come and meet the newest addition to the family. There was only one customer in the shop; he was inspecting the pretty display of soaps. Looking for a present for his wife, Isla guessed.

  ‘Will you be alright for a minute just looking, Mr Butler?’ Mary said loudly. ‘My daughter’s just bought a new car, and she wants me to go outside and have a look at it.’

  Mr Butler held a block up to his nose and sniffed. He glanced at Isla who was hopping from one foot to the other, before nodding. ‘Off you go Mary dear, she looks like she’ll have an accident if you don’t get out there quick smart.’

  ‘You could be right. I’ll be back in a jiffy.’ Mary followed her daughter outside and spying her mother sitting in the passenger seat of a red Mini Cooper, she waved. Bridget gave her a Queen’s wave back and listened in amusement as Mary made all the right noises while running a hand over Delilah’s sharp looking paint job.

  ‘You’ll break your dad’s heart when he finds out you bought a Mini, lovely as Delilah is, you know Isla?’ She shook her head. ‘But good for you. I can’t wait to go for a spin in her. We can pretend to be Thelma and Louise off on our grand adventure. I want to be Louise, please. Susan Sarandon is fabulous, and she’s done her bit for Revlon too.’

  Isla couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Of course, Mum, because if I get to be Thelma then I get to you know what with Brad Pitt.’ She winked.

  ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. We’ll talk about it later. I’d better get back. Have fun you two and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’ She headed back inside the pharmacy to help Mr Butler. Perhaps she’d be able to convince him that Mrs Butler would much prefer the latest in Revlon anti-aging innovation to a bar of lavender soap!

  Isla didn’t see Ben peering around the side of the camper he’d been called back to fix. He was watching her showing Delilah off with amusement. She did, however, spot Carl emerging from the Kea Tearooms, as she pulled away from the curb. She tooted, checking in the rear-view mirror to see if any cars were behind her. The road was empty, so she stopped in the middle of it and wound her window down.

  ‘Who on earth’s that?’ Gran said peering past Isla to where Carl was striding towards them dressed once again in his trusty down home on the farm outfit.

  ‘That’s Carl, Annie from the Kea’s friend. I had dinner with them last night.’

  ‘You had a lot of wine with them last night you mean.’ Bridget had heard Isla banging around before all had gone quiet and she’d crashed out in bed.

  Carl peered in the window to say hello. ‘I just had the most divine slice of gluten free tan–square. Annie made it specially; I’m intolerant.’ He made a whistling noise between his teeth. ‘Nice wheels, I’m liking the red, you’re sitting pretty sister!’

  ‘Carl, meet Delilah. I bought her today, and I’m just taking my gran, Bridget—’ she gestured to the passenger seat, and Bridget gave another tight little wave of her hand, ‘for a spin – would you like to join us and sample the delights on offer in Bibury?’

  ‘Will there be wine?’

  A tsking sound emitted from the passenger seat.

  ‘We could stop at the Pit at some point to celebrate my new addition, yes.’

  ‘Well, I don’t mind if I do ladies, but Isla you might want to pull over to th
e side of the road. There’s a logging truck heading your way, and it’s a lot bigger than Delilah here.’

  ‘You could hitch a ride on it; you’d be right at home in that outfit,’ Gran muttered as Isla got out of the truck’s way, choking back a giggle.

  A few ticks later, Carl held his hand out to help Bridget from the car, and as she got to her feet, he admired her choice of top. ‘I have to say that colour works an absolute treat on you, Bridget.’ Overhearing, Isla leaned across the seat and called out, ‘Carl’s a fashion photographer, Gran – he knows his stuff.’

  And, by the time Carl had found the lever that sent the passenger seat lurching forward, he had won Bridget over with his extensive knowledge of organic bamboo cotton and its miraculous long-wearing properties.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Come on you two,’ Isla urged revving the engine.

  Carl ducked down and clambered into Delilah, arranging himself on the backseat, his knees nearly up to his ears.

  ‘Alright in the back there?’ Isla glanced up into her rear-view mirror.

  He gave her a thumbs-up. ‘Houston, we are ready for lift off.’

  ‘Gran, are you buckled in?’

  ‘Affirmative,’ she answered, giggling along with Carl.

  Isla rolled her eyes. These two were going to be trouble together. Then they were off, cruising through the streets of Bibury. They drove down the High Street while Bridget chatted away. ‘When I was a girl, all of the roads right through to Greymouth were unmade and a trip to the big town as we used to call it was almost unbearable. The car was forever stalling from overheating, and I’d always feel sick.’

  ‘Yes, I can be prone to carsickness, it’s not fun.’

  Isla and Bridget looked at each other in alarm.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be alright in the back?’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s only on windy journeys. I tell you ladies, I think I lost half my body weight on some of those roads Annie and I experienced in the Greek Islands.’ He filled Bridget in on his and Annie’s trip.

  ‘Well, I don’t know how Bibury’s historical points of interest will stack up against those of ancient Greece, but we’ll do our best. How about the Historic Cemetery? The museum’s only open on a Saturday and Sunday. Oh, that’s the house where I grew up.’ Bridget pointed out the window to a house that looked rather unloved. ‘It’s long since been sold on and is rented out now but when I was a girl, it was immaculate. Keeping up appearances meant a lot to my parents, it’s the way it was back then.’

  There was something in her gran’s tone that made Isla glance over at her curiously, but her expression gave nothing away.

  ‘The school where Kris teaches is just up here isn’t it?’ Carl asked leaning forward in his seat.

  ‘Yep, that’s my old stomping ground, Bibury Area. Who votes for a drive up to the Historic Cemetery then?’ Isla said.

  ‘Sounds intriguing.’

  ‘It is, and I tell you what Carl, if those headstones could talk there’d be some stories told,’ Bridget added.

  Isla began heading up the winding road to the old cemetery, grateful Delilah was automatic, and she didn’t have to faff around with the gears. The cemetery nestled on a flat green field at the top of the hill that was at odds with the rest of the rugged landscape around it.

  ‘My parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are buried up here,’ Bridget said.

  Isla smiled as Bridget launched into the familiar story. It had been a while since she’d last heard the tale be told, but she’d always loved it.

  ‘How my great-grandparents met is quite a story you know, Carl.’

  ‘I’m all ears Bridget, my love.’

  It was all the invitation Bridget needed. ‘Well, they left West Cork in Ireland and sailed on the Adamant, a ship that docked in Nelson in eighteen seventy-four. It would have been a horrendous trip.’ She shook her head at the thought of it. ‘Their fellow passengers by all accounts were a mixed bag. There were families and couples seeking a brighter future along with ruffians after making their fortune with their gold pans. It’s how my great-grandparents were paired that always intrigued me, it was through a professional Matchmaker.’

  Carl’s well-shaped brows shot up. ‘A matchmaker? Do you mean like an olden day version of Tinder?’

  ‘What’s Tinder?’ Bridget frowned.

  ‘It’s a dating app,’ he said as if that explained everything.

  She’d heard the word app before. Margaret thought she was a bit of a technology whiz, and she bandied it about a lot. But Bridget was sure she didn’t actually know what one was either.

  ‘I’ve never used it personally of course. I never needed to, having been with David forever, but here, have a look.’ Carl produced his phone and got the site up before passing his phone over.

  ‘I haven’t got my glasses with me,’ Bridget said, squinting and holding the phone a fair distance from her face. ‘Nine hundred matches,’ she read out slowly. ‘Well, I never! Isla why don’t you sign up for this.’

  Isla shot Carl a look in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mouthed.

  Bridget passed the phone back. ‘The old Matchmakers of West Cork would be out of work with the likes of that Tender.’

  ‘Tinder,’ Isla said.

  ‘That’s what I said. Every locality in the county had a Matchmaker back in the day you know?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of a professional matchmaker before, it’s fascinating.’

  ‘Oh yes, it is indeed, and it was an important job back in the day. The Matchmaker responsible for my great-grandparents pairing off came out on the boat to New Zealand with them. The tradition didn’t survive here though. It died with him.’

  Isla was all ears too, even though she could almost recite the story by rote.

  ‘The farmers of Cork led isolated existences and if a daughter was getting to the wrong end of being a marriageable age, then it was the Matchmaker who would bring news of this to another farmer whose son was in the same boat. He, and it was always a he, the role handed down from father to son, would suggest the match but the arrangement ultimately was finalized between the parents.’

  ‘So it was an arranged marriage?’ Carl asked.

  ‘They called them “must” marriages, so Great-Granny Kate told me, but I suppose it was. I like to think it was a bit more romantic than that, but either way, my grandparents made a good match. They were happy despite the hard times they had at the beginning of their married life. You know we had it tough when I was growing up, nothing came easy. We had to work hard to put food on the table, and learning to grow your own vegetables was part of the school curriculum. I often wonder how Great-Granny Kate coped in those first few years here.’

  ‘They were made of hardy stuff, those settlers,’ Carl said clutching onto the headrest in front of him as Isla hit a pothole.

  ‘Ooh, sorry about that, didn’t see it. Are you alright Gran?’

  ‘I’m fine. I used to bicycle around these roads as a girl, and there were far more potholes then so don’t fuss Isla.’

  Isla exchanged an amused glance with Carl in the rear-view mirror as Bridget carried on with her story.

  ‘They were real pioneers Carl, the youth of today would never cope – not with their incessant need to know what everybody else is up to every single minute of the day.’

  Chastened, Carl slipped his smartphone back in his pocket.

  ‘Great-Granny Kate camped in a tent near the Greymouth Beach after they’d sailed down from Nelson on a boat they chartered with their four children, while my Grandfather went on ahead to Bibury. He found work at the Bibury Mine. That closed down a long time ago, well before Barker’s Ridge did, but it saw him through his working life. My great-grandmother and the children, including my grandmother who was the baby, followed him here six weeks later. It was the Maori who brought them down the river by canoe when he’d finished building their first home. It wasn’t much more than a mud hut.’ She shook her head at the
thought of it.

  Carl was listening to the tale raptly. ‘Wow, your roots really are buried here then, Bridget.’

  ‘They are. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.’ Her eyes misted as she recalled the past. ‘The thing I remember most about my great-grandmother though, Carl, and Isla has heard this story many a time, was that she had the most beautiful silverware. It survived the journey from Ireland tucked away in the pockets of silk inside its wooden case. She’d been given the set by her mother when she wed my great-grandfather, and apparently Kate had come from quite a well to do family but in the eyes of her family, she’d married down.’

  They had arrived, and Isla pulled over onto the grass verge at the side of the road at the sight of the familiar gates. She stilled the engine and listened while Bridget finished telling her tale.

  ‘Great-Granny Kate always insisted the table be laid out properly for dinner, no matter what the family’s living conditions were. I suppose it gave her a sense of order, in times that were anything but. I was only a tiny tot, but I can remember helping her polish the silver from time to time. She had such a lovely sing-song accent, and I can still hear her as she’d say to me, “Home is where the hearth is, Bridget. Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home.”’

  ‘That’s lovely Bridget, did you inherit the family silver.’

  Her lips pursed. ‘No, it went to my elder sister Jean.’

  None of them saw the way the tall tree with the silvery leaves began to sway, its branches bent towards the sudden gust of wind as it presided over the gate to the little cemetery.

  The trio piled out of Delilah, and Carl linked arms with his new BFF while Isla fiddled with the link chain keeping the main gate shut. ‘It’s like Fort Knox this place, you’d never know it’s a public cemetery,’ she grunted.

  Carl clutched Bridget’s arm a little tighter as he looked beyond the gate. There were fields surrounding the little row of headstones he could see to the left of the path. ‘There aren’t any animals around here are there? I mean a bull’s not likely to come stampeding down that hillside is it?’ He pointed up to where the tree-lined path disappeared over a rolling dip in the otherwise flat field.