The Way to a Woman's Heart Read online

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Ash breathed.

  Ella wasn’t so easily impressed. ‘By taking them in? To live at Hideaway Farm? Are you mad? They’re all weird, and dangerous…’

  ‘They’re not. I promise you. I’ve met them – so has George and my solicitor.’

  Ash looked interested. ‘So am I in there too?’

  ‘You are.’ Poll nodded. ‘Yours was the first case I found. You were the first person I contacted.’

  ‘And thank goodness you did. I was at rock bottom. I’ll never stop being grateful to you.’

  Ella shook her head. ‘OK, I understand about why Ash lost his home, but who are the others? And why… ?’

  ‘Just two more to start with, and they’re both lovely.’

  ‘Two more?’ Ella queried. ‘Ah, right, the mysterious Billy and Trixie?’

  Poll beamed. ‘Ten out of ten. And of course I’ve had them properly checked out and vetted – police checks, criminal records and everything. They’re misunderstood and currently unhappy and a bit confused by the bad hand life has dealt them, but not dangerous or weird.’

  ‘Really? Everyone in this file sounds pretty scarily weird to me.’ Ella glanced quickly at Ash. ‘Present company excepted, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Ash chuckled, filling their glasses with more iced juice.

  Ella smiled. ‘Thanks. OK. So, you’re going to turn Hideaway Farm into a refuge, and you want me to… ?’

  ‘Do exactly what I advertised for. To look after George so that I can make sure I give everyone the best start possible at Hideaway. I don’t want this to disrupt George in any way at all. So, you’re here as a mother’s help – it was only the reason I left out of the ad.’

  ‘Amazing,’ Ash said before Ella could answer. ‘Poll, that’s just wonderful.’

  Ella frowned. ‘Well, yes, it is – or at least in theory – but how will it work?’

  Poll took a long drink. ‘Easily, I hope. Ash knows this bit. I’m going to let them make Hideaway Farm their new home. I’ll be their landlady and they’ll pay me whatever rent they can afford according to their current circumstances, which will give me the regular income I need, and they can get on with working or whatever, and rebuilding their lives.’

  Ella was still in a state of shock. ‘So, let me get this straight – are they moving in with all their stuff? Furniture and things? Lock, stock and barrel?’

  ‘I’ve fully furnished their rooms because none of them had many possessions, but of course they’ll be bringing whatever bits and pieces they have to make them feel at home. We’ve already discussed what they’d need, and worked all that out.’

  ‘And is Hideaway going to be their permanent home?’

  ‘It’ll be whatever they want it to be. My solicitor has dealt with all the tenancy agreements and health and safety and boring legalese stuff. We’ve settled on a six-month period to start with. They may want to stay longer, they may well have found their feet and a new home by that time. Anyone who moves out will be replaced by another poor soul needing my help.’

  ‘Wow. Like Ash said, you’re amazing… mad, but amazing. Most people would run a mile from doing something like this.’

  ‘I’m not most people, as you’ve probably gathered,’ Poll chuckled. ‘And I’m a pretty awful housekeeper so with all these extra people living here I knew I’d have to have some help with George so that his life stayed stable, and I wanted someone who would understand. Someone, like you, who wanted to change their lifestyle too.’

  ‘Well, I’m relieved that’s all it is. I’d imagined all sorts of things, but certainly not this…’ Ella looked across the table at Poll. ‘So, as well as Ash, you’ve invited Billy, er, Booker – a failed small businessman with kleptomaniac tendencies?’

  ‘Wrongly accused,’ Poll said stoutly, her eyes growing misty. ‘Poor Billy, such a lovely man. He’s a widower and he had his own small bakery business which went bust in the recession. He was living in social housing. Awful rabbit hutch flats. Stuff went missing from the other residents, and turned up in Billy’s flat. Food mostly. Billy’s an absolute sweetheart so someone obviously planted the things on him. But he was evicted after being branded antisocial – and with no family and no income except his tiny pension and nowhere else to go, he was inches away from living on the streets and simply needed me.’

  ‘Poor bloke.’ Ash looked shocked.

  ‘Or, ‘ Ella said, ‘he might really be light-fingered, a liar, greedy and unpleasant to boot.’

  ‘Ella…’ Poll shook her head. ‘You don’t mean that. You wait until you meet him. You’ll adore him.’

  ‘OK, I’ll suspend judgement.’ Ella smiled at Poll. ‘I just hope you’re not being taken for a ride. So, that’s Billy. What about Trixie?’ She looked down at the next sheaf of papers. ‘Oh, yes – Trixie Pepper, a middle-aged woman who’s – What? No way! An arsonist… ?’

  Ash laughed.

  Ella looked at him. ‘It’s not funny. That’s what it says here.’

  ‘Alleged – nothing proved – and you’ll really like her,’ Poll interrupted quickly. ‘Poor Trixie. She lived in a grace and favour cottage in the grounds of some big house – she was the cook/housekeeper – and sadly let one of her concoctions catch on one night while she was – and this’ll make you laugh – glued to watching Dewberrys’ Dinners.’

  Ash frowned. ‘Catch on?’

  ‘Oh, yes – poor Trixie – she was absolutely entranced by the latest goings-on between Gabby and Tom Dewberry and took her eye off the ball so to speak. She was lucky to get out alive. The cottage was razed to the ground. Apparently it wasn’t the first time she’d set fire to things by lacking concentration, so they terminated her employment just like that.’

  ‘Not surprising,’ Ella said sharply. ‘Pyromania is probably not one of the top qualities anyone would be looking for in a cook/housekeeper.’

  Poll giggled. ‘I know – maybe we’ll have to keep a discreet eye on her when she’s here if she’s a tad forgetful in the kitchen.’

  ‘Or be burned alive in our beds.’

  ‘That won’t happen. I’ve got George to think about. The whole thing was overexaggerated anyway,’ Poll said firmly. ‘Goodness me, haven’t we all done the same thing when we’ve been distracted while cooking?’

  ‘Not destroyed an entire house, no,’ Ash said doubtfully.

  Ella sucked in her breath. ‘Dear God!’

  ‘What?’ Poll frowned.

  Ella’s finger jabbed at the page. ‘This Trixie, not only is she an arsonist – OK, alleged arsonist – but it says here in the newspaper cuttings that she blamed the fairies for the fire… She must be completely mad.’

  ‘No, she isn’t. Don’t take things so literally. Just some nasty chit-chat around the village she lived in. Trixie was well known for believing in the little folk… and where’s the harm in that? Plenty of people do. Apparently everyone said she brewed herbal tinctures and experimented with a few fairy-led incantations when she was cooking. When we met, she said that the wicked fairies had given her the wrong measurements which meant her timings were all awry and that’s why the pan caught fire –’

  ‘Absolute crap!’ Ella exploded.

  Poll laughed. ‘Nice to see you’re keeping an open mind. Actually, Trixie also said that she thought a bad elf –’

  ‘Oh, Poll,’ Ash spluttered, ‘come on. Bad elves and wicked fairies, please…’

  ‘You and I may not believe in fairies – although I’m not entirely sure about me – but if Trixie does, and it makes her happy, then who are we to point fingers?’

  ‘But she blamed the fairies for setting fire to her house!’ Ella snorted. ‘Which means she’s totally barking and won’t take any responsibility for anything because she can always blame it on the fairies. I think she sounds like one huge risk.’

  ‘Which is exactly what everyone once said about Mitzi Blessing in Hazy Hassocks.’

  ‘Mitzi Blessing?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll lov
e Mitzi. Everyone does. She’s become quite a good friend since I moved here. And, come to think of it, she’s got a couple of lovely girls working with her who’re roughly about your age. Amber Flanagan and Cleo Maguire. We’ll have to get you together. You’ll need some youngsters to pal up with locally. I’m sure you’ll be itching to get out on the town before too long.’

  Ash looked serious. ‘Sounds like a good idea, Ella. I’ve heard there’re some great whist drives and barn dances in these villages.’

  ‘Oh, ha-ha.’ Ella poked out her tongue.

  ‘Children!’ Poll frowned. ‘Where was I? Ah, yes, Mitzi. Mitzi has a really successful herbal cookery outlet – Hubble Bubble – and several uninformed people have accused her of witchcraft over the years. You’ll see – it’ll be just the same with poor Trixie. Mocked for believing in things that other people don’t understand. Anyway, Trixie couldn’t possibly be mad. She wears twinsets.’

  ‘Oh, that’s OK then,’ Ella giggled. ‘An insane arsonist fairy-believer in a twinset. Super.’

  ‘Don’t prejudge either of them, Ella. You wait until you meet them. They’re both sweethearts. Like Ash.’

  Ash blushed.

  ‘And I thought it might be nice if we cooked a special welcome dinner for them. Ash can do the soup, I’ll do the main and you can do the pud. Does that sound OK with you two?’

  ‘Great,’ Ash said, leaning back in his chair. ‘It’ll be fantastic to work in your kitchen.’

  ‘Lovely. Ella?’

  ‘Yes, of course. You’ll just have to remind me what kleptomaniacs and arsonists like to eat.’

  ‘Now I know you’re teasing,’ Poll laughed. ‘But, seriously, now you know what I want to do and why I need you here, it hasn’t put you off, has it?’

  ‘I’d agreed to a three month trial – so I’m not going to renege on that. But I’m still honestly really not sure about it… them.’

  ‘You will be.’ Poll leaned across the table dangling beads in the cheese and pickles again and hugged her. ‘Thank you so much. You’re a real star. And you’ll love them as much as I do – and once you’ve met them, you’ll never want to leave here, I promise you.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Sleep well?’ Poll looked up from the cooker as Ella, in cutoff jeans and a pale-blue T-shirt, pattered into the sun-filled kitchen the following morning.

  ‘Zonked,’ Ella said happily. ‘I haven’t slept like that in years. The bed just sort of snuggled round me and just as I was thinking I’d never get used to the darkness or the silence or being away from home, it was morning again. I didn’t even hear my alarm clock. Sorry if I’ve overslept. I know I should be working and getting George up and seeing to his breakfast and everything.’

  ‘Not today.’ Poll handed her a glass of orange juice and a mug of coffee. ‘Today we can all take things easy and get settled in properly before Billy and Trixie arrive tomorrow.’

  ‘But George –?’

  ‘Has been up since five and helped me collect the eggs for breakfast and is out in the garden adding more embellishments to your motorway.’ Poll grinned. ‘Actually, I thought maybe you and Ash could get to know a bit about the surrounding area – although Ash has lived fairly locally anyway – but even I still get lost on some of the back lanes. And I do need some shopping, so I thought maybe you could take George and drive into Hazy Hassocks.’

  ‘With Ash as a tour guide?’ Ella grinned. ‘Sounds good to me. When do we start?’

  ‘After breakfast,’ Poll said firmly, heaping scrambled eggs on to chunky slices of toast. ‘Grab that tray please. There’s a love. It’s so hot, I thought we’d have ours in the garden.’

  ‘Bliss.’ Ella scooped up mugs, glasses, the jug of juice, knives and forks and plates on to the tray. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased I took this job.’

  ‘Are you? Really? Even though you’re not sure about why I’m doing it?’

  ‘Really.’ Ella nodded, following Poll out into the sweetly fragranced, sun-drenched garden with animals sprawled somnolently beneath the low-hanging lilac branches. ‘And I think I know why you’re doing it, Poll. And I think you’re amazing – it’s just…’

  ‘You’re not sure about Billy and Trixie?’

  ‘Well, no.’ Ella pulled out a chair and waved at an already dusty George. Oh, what a sweetheart George was, Ella thought as he waved a grubby fist cheerfully back at her, and what a lovely childhood he had. So safe and innocent and old-fashioned. ‘Especially Trixie and the fairy stuff. But if you say they’re OK, then I’m going to trust you.’

  ‘You’ll love them,’ Poll assured her. ‘They’ve had such a rotten time of it and I know all about rotten times, believe me. And I just thought if I had the chance to make a difference to other people’s lives then I simply had to do it.’

  Ella nodded round her scrambled eggs. ‘Yes, I understand that part – but rotten times? You? With all this? Surely not?’

  ‘It wasn’t always like this.’ Poll poured more coffee and juice. ‘In fact, it was all far from like this. Until Dennis – my husband – went, my life was pretty grim.’

  ‘Really? And I know I said I was nosy, and I don’t really want to pry, and you can tell me to mind my own business, but didn’t Mr Andrews want to be involved in this… altruism? Is that why he, er, you… ?’

  Looking amused, Poll sipped her coffee. ‘Mr Andrews wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with this, no, and anyway, he’s dead.’

  ‘Oh, God, is he?’ Ella put her fork down quickly. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought you said you were divorced?’

  ‘I am.’ Poll laughed cheerfully. ‘Dennis wasn’t Mr Andrews. Mr Andrews was my father. He’s dead. Dennis is alive and well and living blissfully in Berne or Bulgaria or Brussels or somewhere with a Much More Suitable Woman.’

  ‘Ah, right.’

  ‘I kept my maiden name.’ Poll beamed across the table. ‘Because Dennis’s surname was Perkins – and with me being Poll – well, I certainly wasn’t going to be known as “Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green”.’

  Ella frowned. Who the hell was Polly Perkins? And did Poll come from Paddington? ‘But what’s wrong with being Polly Perkins?’ she queried. ‘I’m not with you. And Paddington Green? Is that where you’re from?’

  ‘No! I’m Reading born and bred.’ Poll laughed loudly. ‘Bless you. I’d forgotten you’re so young. “Polly Perkins” was clearly way before your time. It’s a childhood rhyme, nursery rhyme, sing-along song, you know? I had enough problems with low self-esteem without adding that one to my repertoire. Dennis and I should never have got married – and not just because of the Polly Perkins thing… Still, once we were divorced, everything improved hugely.’

  Ella frowned. Did this mean it was only after the divorce settlement that Poll could afford to renovate, furnish and decorate Hideaway Farm on a scale to rival Chatsworth? Hah! Right! Ella had always been scathing about women who bled their ex-partners dry. Poll’s selfless benevolence suddenly took a massive dip in her estimations.

  ‘Look,’ Poll said, smiling, ‘I wasn’t going to go into any of this until much later, but since we’ve started…’

  Ella listened in increasingly stunned silence to Poll’s story of a venture into innocent middle-aged speed-dating and a rapid brief-lived marriage and the delight of George’s arrival and the even more rapid divorce.

  ‘. . . so you see, I made a huge mistake in marrying Dennis, the first man I’d ever been out with – the only man I’ve ever slept with – but it was worth every mismatched minute because it resulted in George.’ Poll smiled happily. ‘Married at forty, a mum at forty-two, divorced by the time I was forty-five. Not a great track record, but still, nothing’s ever truly bad, is it?’

  ‘Er, no, probably not. But, hadn’t you had, um, any boyfriends before?’

  Poll shook her head. ‘Dennis was my first – and last – attempt at a relationship. Oh dear, it’s probably better to start at the beginning. You see, my parents weren’t particularly young when
they met and had been married for well over twenty years when I was born. Unlike my own venture into unplanned mature motherhood, my arrival was, well, a complete disaster for them. They didn’t want me.’

  Ella winced.

  Poll topped up their juice glasses. ‘Oh, don’t look so upset. It’s a long time ago. I assume my mother thought she was menopausal. I don’t know – we never talked about anything like that. They were old in mind and body when I was born. I grew up in a sort of strange, grim, restricted and unloving house. Then they both got ill. And I was their carer. From the age of sixteen when I left school, until they died twenty-three years later. I’ve never had a job – or a life.’

  Ella swallowed. Poor, poor Poll. What an appallingly sad story. What a hatefully miserable life. No wonder she wanted to change it completely.

  ‘Um,’ Ella said, lowering her voice as George abandoned his convoy of small lorries and scrambled up at the table with a Thomas the Tank Engine colouring book and a fistful of crayons, ‘that’s truly awful. And I’m so sorry, but then, why after all that misery, did you get married to someone you hardly knew?’

  ‘Because I wanted to be loved. I’d never been loved. I thought having a husband would guarantee it. It didn’t.’

  Ella sighed. This really was turning into a two-hankie saga. Poor Poll. ‘But surely, you could have just, well, started going out, and meeting people and having dates?’

  ‘I was thirty-nine. I’d had no teenage years to experience that sort of thing. No experimental time. I had no idea how to go about dating or talking to men or anything. My one and only friend, Marie, suggested the speed-dating as a joky way to ease me into meeting blokes.’ Poll laughed. ‘Poor Marie. She was horrified when I told her Dennis – my first speed-dating experience – and I were getting married.’

  ‘Blimey, yes, I can imagine. And I can understand why you – given the circumstances – might have dived in head first. But surely, Dennis –’

  ‘Oh, Dennis went to speed-dating and married me because he simply hadn’t had time to meet women socially. He was always too busy. Dennis had reached the stage in his life where he just wanted a nice compliant non-ambitious yes-woman to keep his out-of-work hours running smoothly.’