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.
It wasn’t at all surprising to find Roz and Allie packed into my big chair in front of the wood burner. As we trooped into the family room they leapt into action, but instead of hurling themselves on me and bombarding me with questions, they were quiet, gently patting and petting. When I crouched down to their level they wrapped their arms around me, singing their favourite lullaby in soft voices. I hugged and kissed them.
“I’m all right my loves.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes I am.”
“And Cherry’s husband? Is he really waiting to die?”
“He is. But he’s calm and peaceful now.”
They thought about that for a small while before nodding.
“We think we’d like to go to bed now.”
Ben lifted them into his arms. “Come along then. Mummy and I will come and tuck you in.”
By the time we had done kisses and cuddles, and had a brief cuddle ourselves in the quiet corridor outside the twins’ room, the crowd in the family room had thinned dramatically. Six people sat round the table, although Simeon looked a bit uncomfortable. I put my hand on his shoulder and he looked at me.
“I should go,” he said. “This is a family gathering.”
“And you aren’t family?” I punched him gently. “Morgan is family and you and she are together. That makes you family in my book.”
“Mine too,” Ben said quietly.
Morgan leaned against his arm. “I told you how it would be. Joss and Ben aren’t about excluding people. Me and my mum found that out.”
He grinned at her. “I just don’t want to mess anything up for you.”
“So long as you do as you’re told you’ll be just fine.”
The crows feet that leapt into life around his eyes as he tried not to laugh did my heart good, and turned Morgan into mush. Which she tried to hide by scowling horribly at him.
Stella looked at them and smiled softly, before turning a gimlet eye on me and Ben.
“What have you been at now, Joss? You look like something the cat dragged in and didn’t want.”
Before I could frame a reply, Neil chimed in.
“It went down a bit like this…”
Between Neil, Simeon and Ben there was nothing left for me to explain. For which small mercy I was truly grateful.
Morgan nodded just once, then blew out an explosive breath. “Dad said we shouldn’t be surprised if you were unable to explain tonight.”
“I don’t think I was able,” I could hear the weariness curling through my voice like woodsmoke.
Ellen and Sian were holding hands a thing I hadn’t seen them do since they were little girls.
Ellen spoke up. “Maybe we should all go home and let you rest.”
“No. Please stay a while. Let’s have big drinks and maybe Ben can tell us a filthy joke.”
He smiled and gathered together booze and nibbles. While he was doing that I went around the table hugging everyone. It felt good to touch warm flesh and strong bones after an evening of ghosts and men at death’s door.
Ben finished distributing brimming glasses and dishes of beer nuts. He sat in his big carver chair and pulled me into his lap. I sort of burrowed and he stroked my back.
“I thought someone might find it in their heart to entertain my wife,” he said plaintively.
“Your job, buster.” Neil snorted.
“I think I may be about to be an epic failure because I can’t think of a single filthy anecdote right now.”
Sian rose to the occasion by telling the story of Roz and Allie and the dog leads. Which Ellen capped with a gangster dressed in a dog bed and a pair of slurry pit boots following me across a rain-soaked car park like a pet lamb. Stella opined that at least living at the Fair Maid wasn’t ever boring, and we worked our way back to our version of normal with silliness to camouflage our genuine family feeling.
It wasn’t long before we felt steady enough to say goodnight, but that half hour of repartee helped me back to firm enough ground to feel sleepy and human, instead of halfway between this world and the next and far from those I love.
I slept like a dead thing and only woke when two small blondes scrambled onto my bed and patted my face.
“Time to wake up Mummy Beckett. Sian says you has fifteen minutes to jump through the shower and come to breakfast. She wouldn’t let Daddy come and wake you, because she said he’d interfere with you and your breakfast would be ruined. And you wouldn’t want that because it’s frittata.”
I kissed their rosy faces. “Let me up then.”
They scrambled down and ran off, adjuring me to not be long because they were starving.
I may not have precisely run through the shower but I made it to the table just as Sian was serving up frittata and crispy bacon.
“Bless you, Sian. Though I’m not sure we are paying you enough to look after me as well as my offspring.”
She blew a loud raspberry. “Probably not. So we’ll chalk this up as family shall we.”
Ben hugged her and she grinned at him. “It’s quite nice having two dads,” she opined, “though Ellen foresees trouble when boyfriends start looming large.”
“Not until you are at least forty.”
Roz narrowed her eyes. “What about Morgan and Simeon?”
Allie chimed in. “Yes. Morgan has two daddies and a nice big boyfriend.”
Ben started to look a bit overwhelmed so I stepped in.
“Roz and Allie need to eat their breakfast, and everyone needs to stop pulling Ben’s tail.”
Sian grinned and the twins fell into their breakfasts.
Once we had eaten, Sian shooed us off to work.
“You leave me to sort the gruesome twosome and be off to earn a crust.”
So it was that we started the day laughing, and finished it without any more than the normal small bumps in the road of a business that deals with Joe and Jolene Public on a daily basis.
For the first time in months I felt like we might be out of the woods and I said as much to Ben as we climbed into bed.
He smiled, and I thought how the edges of weariness had dropped off his smile.
“Me too, though I’ll be happier once Cherry is safely buried.”
“That’s certainly a factor, and for two pins I’d get out of bed at dawn to bear witness.”
Esme made her presence known and spoke aloud for both of us to hear.
“You can’t watch Cherry being laid to rest. Only the clairvoyants and Big Jed may do that. But we will be at the crossing to welcome them.”
“If you will help them to the light.”
“We will.”
She kissed my cheek and was gone.
Ben lifted a shoulder. “I was going to suggest a very early morning walk to the Memorial Garden. Seems to have been vetoed.”
“It does. But maybe we can help the girls plant their cherry tree.”
This time it was Grandmother who spoke. “That would be seemly.”
Tuesday rolled around and just as the sun peeped over the horizon I had a dream. I was shown a grassy pathway to a simple stone bridge and allowed to watch as a slender young woman carried her baby across the bridge to where a group of women awaited her. When the dream faded I found myself sitting up in bed with tears rolling down my face. Ben was also awake and as tearstained as me.
“You saw too?” I asked.
“I did. And I’m glad I did. But it wasn’t an easy watch.”
“It surely wasn’t. And I don’t want to go back to sleep in case I see it in my dreams. But what should we do now we are both wide awake at this early hour?”
The sorrow faded from his eyes and by the time he had run through his repertoire of Joss distracting moves I felt smoothed out, very well loved, and ready for breakfast.
I was in the kitchen making a batch of batter for blueberry pancakes when there was a quiet tap on the door. It was Jed.
“When do you want to plant that tree?”
I was about to say who knew what when two voices spoke in unison from the big settee in the sitting room.
“Now.”
Roz and Allie were fully dressed and fully awake.
“Okay. But we have to wait for daddy.”
Ben came in on soft feet. “I’m ready.”
Leaving the dogs on guard duty we walked quietly to the Memorial Garden, where Finoula waited. True to his word, Jed had dug a hole for the sturdy sapling and filled a watering can from the well.
“I’ll hold ‘un steady while you spread the roots.”
The twins nodded and Ben and I stood back as they climbed into the hole and did whatever they felt was necessary, singing quietly all the way as they did so. When they climbed out they held the trunk in their small, muddy hands while Jed filled the hole from a wheelbarrow of sweet-smelling soil. When it was tamped down to the trio’s satisfaction they rolled out strips of verdant turf covering the evidence that anything had happened there. As a final touch, Jed brought out a tray of small plants which the twins gently eased into pockets in the new turf. Job done they stood back and surveyed their work.
Roz pulled on Jed’s sleeve and he crouched down to a level where they could give him hugs and kisses.
“Thank you.”
“You’m entirely welcome.”
I stepped forward and prayed a silent prayer for Cherry, her child, and the husband who would be following her soon. Once I was finished I spread my hands.
“Anybody interested in breakfast?”
Everyone was and we ate in a mood of happy contentment.
Lunchtime saw the arrival of Seanmóir and his associates. They came in with no fanfare, filled up on mountains of tapas and generally behaved like ordinary customers. If you looked closely it was possible to discern a certain sadness underlying the perfect manners, but I decided that was none of my nevermind and went to work on the VAT books. It was a good while later when Ben found me. He slipped into the office and shut the office door quietly.
“Can I get a hug?”
I obliged and he held on tightly, rubbing his face in my hair.
“What’s up, love?”
“Them lot out there. Ordered a round of John Jameson. And the oldest man said something very quietly before they all downed their drinks. I think they were toasting Cherry.”
“Very likely. Are they gone now?”
“They are. Paid their shot. Left a ginormous tip and bowed to me as they went out to their cars. With drivers who all got fish and chips.” He scratched his head. “ I think it was the civility and impeccable manners that got to me.”
I nodded. “Yup that’s fucking unsettling. Shall we go and have a drink to finished business?”
He all but dragged me to the bar where we both had a reviving glass of wine.
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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