Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends.
Morning arrived, and with it another bank of thunder clouds rolled ominously in from the west. The air was so charged with electricity that the twins’ hair stood out around their heads like primrose haloes.
“We looks like dandelions,” Ali remarked. “Why would that be?”
Sian, who was wielding a wide-toothed comb and refraining from swearing, took the opportunity for a small teach.
“Do you pair remember how we talked about static electricity?”
“We do.”
“Well there’s a thunderstorm coming, and what is thunder and lightning made of?”
“Electricity.”
“Correct. And the air is so full of electricity that it’s sort of coating your hair. Go and stand in front of the mirror in the hallway and rub your hands on your heads.”
Roz and Ali ran out and Sian went to the doorway to watch them.
“Now lift your hands slowly.”
The shrieks and giggles told me what was happening, but I had to sneak a peep. The girls were surrounded by a cloud of soft blonde hair that was following their small hands.
“This is so cool.”
Sian looked at me. “It’s gonna take me half a day to calm their locks, but I don’t believe little kids should be scared of stuff.”
I put an arm around her. “Me neither. And in my bedroom there’s a pump spray of leave in conditioner. It’s Ben’s. Without it he looks like a dandelion all the time. It’ll help sort out the gruesome twosome, I think.”
“Is that the stuff he sprays in my hair before he cuts it?”
“It is.”
“Then I’ll give it a go.”
She ambled along the corridor and I kissed my daughters before heading for work.
Ben was in my office leaning casually against the wall. I wasn’t fooled by the apparent idleness of his posture.
“What’s pissed on your strawberries?”
“A very politely worded request for a table for eight next Tuesday morning.”
“From?”
“One Seanmóir.”
“Oh. Right. But there’s bugger all we can do. And at least we’re no longer getting visitors with evil on their minds.”
“True. But. Danilo also called me. Says he and Finoula, and some muscle, will be burying ‘Cherry’ at sunrise on that day.”
“Will she have a proper coffin?”
“He said you’d want to know. Wicker he said. Lined with moss. Also says they will leave a hole in which the twins can plant their tree. Jed will get it.”
“And you are annoyed because?”
“Because I have the willies.”
“I’m not all that comfortable in my skin now you come to mention it. High level vigilance I think.”
“Me too. I shall go and arrange a maintenance crew for the house.”
“Good idea. Maybe they can do the cracked window pane and the squeaky doors.”
He grinned a bit more naturally and scooted off. Having little confidence in the power remaining connected, I decided against booting up the office computer. Instead I rounded up any large young men I could find lurking and had them light fires in the pub’s cold grates. One of the quietest looked at me as if I’d run mad. I quirked an eyebrow.
“It’s thirty degrees in the bloody shade,” he grumbled.
“And, according to the met office, and my own instincts, when that storm over there hits it’s gonna drop to about fifteen. Which, with pissing rain, is gonna feel bloody cold.”
He thought that through and went for another basket of logs.
Ben cantered back into the bar and smiled widely. “Good thinking, love. I reckon we should get the wood burner lit at home.”
“Yes and in Neil and Stella’s flat and the bothy, and Morgan’s place. I have a feeling this storm is set to make the last one look like a weakling.”
“Maybe that’s what’s giving me the willies,” he said.
I nodded but felt a worm of doubt. “Can you get Neil to check the generators?”
“I can. And I’ll keep well away from the bloody things. I don’t know how he is so fond of them.”
I laughed. “Neil likes engineering. You don’t.”
The man himself spoke from the doorway beside the bar. “Generators ready to cut in at a moment’s notice. Sian knows how to switch yours on, and Simeon has the ones for the outbuildings under his eye.”
“Thanks Neil.”
He grinned and disappeared.
The fires were beginning to take nicely when Simeon appeared in the doorway.
“Anything else need doing before the storm hits?”
“No. Unless.” I had a quick think. “Can you tell Morgan not to open the ice cream parlour? She and her girls can pinch hit wherever needed this morning. And have you lit the wood burner in her flat?”
“I can. And I haven’t but I will.”
He saluted me ironically, then was gone like an oversized wraith.
“Cheeky bugger,” I leaned on Ben, who draped an arm round me as the sky darkened and a sudden wind whistled around the building.
“Show time,” he murmured.
Even though I was expecting it, the first crack of thunder was loud enough to make me think of Armageddon. I might even have jumped and squeaked like a proper girl if I didn’t have my reputation as a hard bitch to consider. The lights flickered and died as did the coolers behind the bar, and for a few seconds the purplish light made everything seem eerily threatening. Then the generators cut in and the lights came back on. Ben went and shut the big oak door in the outer wall of the porch.
“I know a closed door doesn’t look hospitable, but…”
“But it’s better than the flood that could happen if this ‘weather feature’ decides to dump its rain hereabouts.”
The storm was pretty much overhead, as witnessed by simultaneous flashes and booms.
“I hope the littles are okay.” Ben was trying to sound nonchalant but I could hear worried daddy threading through his voice.
“Whyn’t you go and see? I’m sure Sian has everything in hand, but it would ease my mind.”
He was gone almost before I’d finished speaking.
I heard a giggle from behind the bar and realised Morgan had appeared. I grinned at her.
“Yes. I do know what you’re thinking. But let’s not make an issue of it.”
“I wasn’t going to. Anyway it’s kinda nice how you two always have each other’s backs.”
“That’s how it needs to be, Morg, if we want our relationship to keep flourishing in the midst of whatever.”
She nodded her head and blushed.
“That’s what Dad said about me and Simeon. Says his first wife didn’t give a damn what was going on in his head so long as he brought home the money and didn’t interfere with her ideas of what a woman ought to do. He reckons it killed his desire for marriage until he met you and Ben and saw there was a better way.”
I could feel myself blushing and she came over to hug me.
“I’m sorry, I never meant to embarrass you.”
“It’s okay lovey. That’s on me. I just sometimes wish we didn’t live in a goldfish bowl.”
“You don’t really. It’s only because a lot of us love you that we pay attention.”
I squeezed her and kissed her soft cheek, but I had no words.
Ben rescued us from emotional meltdown. He poked his head into the room.
“You have to come and see this.”
We followed him to the back door from where we could look across the private garden to the house where Ali and Roz were standing on the wide veranda studying the sky with upturned faces. To my surprise, not one of the dogs was on obvious guard duty, being flopped out at their ease on the weathered flagstones. Sian was behind the twins and she waved a hand.
“How the heck does she have them pair keeping still?” Morgan was impressed.
“Look in her right hand,” Ben chuckled.
I looked, and looked again as my brain caught up with my eyes. Sian had two leather dog leashes held in a firm grip. Each leash was firmly clipped to the back belt loop of a small girl’s jeans. I found myself laughing into Ben’s eyes.
Morgan was about ten seconds behind me but once she sorted out her thoughts, she laughed until tears ran down her face and she had to be banged on the back. Simeon appeared as quietly as a professional poacher. He put his arms around a still giggling Morgan, who pointed a shaking hand at Sian and the twins.
“Well, I’ll be…”
“Novel isn’t it?” I was proud of how deadpan my voice was.
He grinned widely. “Well, I don’t reckon you’d find it in any child psychology book. But the people who wrote them never met your girls.”
“Are they truly that much bother?”
“Absolutely not. But they are a force to be reckoned with.”
Which was unarguable.
Roz spied us and poked Ali in the ribs, pointing to where we stood. They both lunged forward, but Sian had a wiry strength that was more than a match for them. They turned to give her the stink eye and the heavens opened.
There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.
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