Birds Of A Feather Episode 16
Paloma tidied the already tidy cutlery drawers and crockery stacks. She straightened the straight piles of napkins and smoothed the already smooth tablecloths.
It was no good. There was nothing in the tea room that needed her attention.
Young Lisa had made a thorough job of putting everything away yesterday afternoon.
She knew she was putting off the moment when she had to go into the farmhouse and spend another evening with Maggie’s chatterbox mother, Vanessa.
She needed some quiet time to think about Will’s offer and couldn’t do that with a background of reality shows and gossip.
At least the empty tea room was quiet – until there was some sort of commotion in the narrow lane outside Folly Farm.
She looked out to see a beat-up old van being towed into the car park.
Her anxiety increased when she saw two scruffy-looking men climb out of it and look around them.
She took a deep breath and went outside to confront them. If they thought they were setting up camp there, they were mistaken.
“Excuse me,” she said, hoping that the nerves she was feeling inside didn’t show in her voice. “You can’t park your van there.”
“We’re not parked here by choice,” the larger of the two men said. “Just waiting for our breakdown service to arrive.”
“It’s all right, Paloma.” To her intense relief Jess and Alfie came round from the other side of the van. “They’re with me.”
“With you?” Surprise turned Paloma’s voice into more of a squeak. “Really?”
“Really,” Jess confirmed. “They’re waiting for their friend to get here. The van broke down outside my cottage and blocked the lane.
“The new potter towed it here to get it off the road. I’m sure they won’t be long.”
Paloma wished she could be so sure.
She remembered the fuss there was a couple of years ago when a group of travellers who couldn’t afford the real Glastonbury festival decided to hold one of their own on the green at Little Billington.
The noise and the mess they made led to lots of bad feeling in the village, whose residents had long memories.
“They’ll be fine,” Jess said reassuringly. “They’re friends of mine. Sort of. Don’t worry about it.”
Paloma smiled at her reassuringly.
“I’m not,” she said. “I have rather a lot on my mind today.”
“Poor you. Are you still worried about finding somewhere to stay?
“I’ve a spare room in Nightingale Cottage. You’d be very welcome.”
Paloma felt the colour flood into her cheeks. The spare room Jess was talking about was the one that had been used by Jess’s grandfather, Jock.
Paloma still mourned his loss.
Theirs had been a strange friendship – attraction of opposites, she supposed – but she’d loved him dearly, even though he didn’t return her love in the way she’d hoped.
He tried to tell her gently one day that she was probably looking for a father figure, and the memory of that moment still made her squirm with embarrassment.
“That’s kind of you, Jess, but . . .” she began.
Jess put her hand on her arm and shook her head.
“It’s all right,” she said gently. “I understand. I shouldn’t have offered. It was insensitive of me.”
“Please don’t think that.” Paloma was desperate to reassure her. “I’ve got something on my mind, that’s all.
“Will Gregory’s offered me a job and a flat goes with it.”
Jess’s face fell.
“What about your job here? Forget I said that. If it’s what you want to do, then go for it. Don’t let us hold you back.”
“I wouldn’t leave here,” Paloma assured her quickly. “The job at Moor View Farm is part time. I can easily do both.”
“Then what’s your problem?”
“Well, there’s a bit of child-minding involved. Will has a six-year-old son.
“His mother died giving birth to him and Finn’s been living with his grandparents ever since.
“Finn has only recently come back here to live with his dad and he’s not very happy about it.”
“Poor little fellow.”
“Yes. To make things worse, he hates me,” Paloma said. “It’s bad enough he doesn’t want to be here, without me making it worse for him.”
Jess took both her hands in hers and looked at her, her eyes dark and intense.
“Listen,” she said. “I know all about being a resentful child who hates the world.
“It’s a defence mechanism for when you’re feeling helpless and not in control.
“I spent most of my childhood like that, being shifted from one foster home to another.”
“That must have been hard,” Paloma murmured.
“I was one of the lucky ones. The last set of foster parents I had turned my life around.
“They saw past the act I was putting on to the scared kid underneath.
“I’m telling you this to make you see I know what I’m talking about.
“Finn’s angry with the situation, Paloma, not you. It sounds to me like he could do with someone like you in his life.”
“I’m not any good with children,” Paloma insisted. “I don’t have experience of dealing with them.”
“You don’t need experience. Any child would benefit from you.
“Now, get on the phone to Will and tell him you’ll take that job.”
Paloma felt a surge of joy as her thoughts flew to the lovely but neglected farmhouse and how she longed to care for it.
Could she do the same for the little boy?