The Secret of Orchard Cottage: The feel-good number one bestseller. Alex Brown
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her up, and besides, Edie let out an extremely loud snore at that precise moment. The old lady then fluttered her eyelids and tried to move, seemingly having forgotten that part of her body was still inside the Aga, so she ended up nudging the top of her head on the roof of the oven.
‘Ewwwwwwww,’ Aunt Edie groaned.
‘It’s OK. I’m here,’ April started in a soothing voice, and the busybody coughed. ‘Um, we are here,’ she corrected, flashing him a look. ‘What happened, Aunty?’ She stroked Edie’s forehead as she contemplated the best way to get her aunt out of the oven and up and on to a chair.
‘Oh hello dear. There you are. No need to fuss, I was just having a lovely little nap.’ Aunt Edie smiled like it was the most normal thing in the world to have forty winks while cleaning the oven.
‘A nap? Inside the oven?’ April stuttered, her mind boggling. And then saw her aunt had a tea towel folded up like a little makeshift pillow underneath her cheek, but still … and how on earth had she got down on to the floor in the first place?
‘I’m very nimble,’ Edie stated as if reading April’s mind. ‘I keep my joints well oiled. It’s the dancing. And the stout, dear – a bottle a day! But the cleaning takes it out of me sometimes, although it’s important to keep the Aga nice. My mother was a stickler for it and I see no reason to let standards slip. Will you help me up please? I usually use the chair but someone has moved it,’ she said, giving the man a disparaging glance.
‘Um, yes, of course,’ April replied, quickly trying to get her head around all that her aunt was telling her, and regretting all over again that she hadn’t made more of an effort to visit more frequently. A ninety-year-old lady really shouldn’t be cleaning the oven, even if she did think she was nimble! ‘Here, lean on me.’ April swiftly manoeuvred herself into position to properly lift her aunt, as she had first been trained to do back when she was a fledging nurse, and placed her hands around the old lady’s body. And then up and under her armpits so she could clasp them together to form a sturdy support.
‘No need for all that carry on, my love.’ Edie shook her head and April smiled. Her great aunt always had been a fiercely independent woman, which might explain the state of the garden – she couldn’t imagine Edie would willingly ask for help even when it was so obviously needed. ‘Just give me your arm,’ Edie said, and gently lifted April’s hands away from her chest. ‘There we go. Bob’s your uncle!’ April tried not to look concerned as her elderly great aunt deftly pulled herself up into a standing position with a very determined look on her face. But then her papery skin crumpled into a frown.
‘What’s he doing here?’ Edie pointed a bony finger towards the guy with the shotgun. April turned to look at him.
‘Hello Edie,’ the man said pleasantly enough, but the old lady looked confused, so he swiftly added, ‘It’s me, Harvey from the fruit farm. Your neighbour. You remember me.’ But Edie still looked blank, and April wondered what on earth was going on.
‘He, um … Harvey.’ April glanced at the man and he nodded and shrugged as if he was quite used to Edie being forgetful. ‘He helped me get into the kitchen, Aunty. I was worried about you—’
‘What for? I’m fine,’ Edie immediately admonished, looking even more puzzled now. April spotted a dart of fear flicker in her aunt’s eyes. ‘And you better get going before my father returns from the orchards! He’ll have your guts for garters coming in here with flowers before you’ve been introduced.’ The old lady looked at the bunch of peonies and then lifted a gnarled index finger and remonstrated in Harvey’s direction. But before April or Harvey could say any more, a police officer burst into the tiny cottage kitchen with a baton at the ready, followed by an exuberantly plump woman muscling her way to the front with, April was astonished to see, a ferret wearing a little high-visibility vest nestled in the crook of her elbow. And April felt as though she had been plunged into a parallel universe where nobody really knew what was going on.
Later – it having taken almost an hour for Harvey, whose fruit farm was a few fields over and was actually very charming once he knew that April wasn’t a drug-fuelled, crap-covered burglar, to fix a wooden board at the broken window as a temporary repair – April persuaded Edie to put her feet up on the Dralon settee with a nice cup of Earl Grey tea and a generous slice of April’s exceedingly good madeira cake (according to Mark, the policeman, who enjoyed a quick slice too). It seemed that the old lady had indeed nodded off while attempting to clean the Aga, so April, who’d had a good wash and changed into a clean top and jeans, having also made a note to get the blockage by the back door seen to right away, was finishing the job while Aunt Edie pottered around in the sitting room looking for a pack of playing cards that she swore were just there on the sideboard. But after searching everywhere, even looking under the settee in case Edie had dropped them and then shuffled them underneath it with her slipper-clad foot, April still hadn’t been able to find them.
She had figured it best to leave her aunt to it, because Edie had been delighted by the offer of having her Aga cleaned, even though April wasn’t convinced it needed doing as it already looked immaculate to her. But it was a small thing to do to make an old lady happy, and if the truth be told, April still felt guilty for not having visited her aunt in over three years. Edie clearly wasn’t keeping on top of things and was finding it difficult to ask for help, not to mention her memory loss, and April felt as her only living relative that it was her responsibility to rectify that. And pronto. She may only be here for a couple of days but at least she could get the garden into some sort of tidy state, and perhaps tackle the hedgerow in the lane, before her great aunt got completely blocked in when the road became impassable. She’d see about getting a cleaner to come in and help out too, if Edie would agree to it – April was under no illusion that her aunt might take some persuading to allow a stranger into the cottage, especially to keep the place nice; Aunt Edie was old school and might very well take issue with having a cleaner. What if people thought she was lazy?
There was a brief knock on the front door and the woman from earlier appeared in the kitchen doorway.
‘Just thought I’d pop in and see how you’re getting on? I’m Molly by the way, don’t think we were properly introduced, what with all the commotion that was going on.’ The woman chuckled and pushed out a hand towards April. ‘You must be Winnie. Old Edie often mentions you. We always have a little chat when she calls up with her meat order – I’m Cooper’s wife, we own the butchers’ shop in Tindledale High Street,’ Molly finished explaining.
‘Oh, um pleased to meet you again!’ April smiled and pushed her hair off her face with the top of her forearm. ‘But no, I’m not Winnie. I’m April. Edie is my great aunt.’
‘Ahh, that’s nice and a turn up for the books – I didn’t think Old Edie had any relatives left … apart from Winnie of course and from what I gather she looks just like you – dark curly hair, handsome and petite, is what Edie says. Well there you go, just goes to show.’ Molly lifted her eyebrows. ‘And it’s very nice to meet you, April.’ She nodded resolutely. ‘You gave us quite a scare before … when we thought you were a burglar.’ Molly chuckled heartily, making her shoulders bob up and down and her ample bosoms jiggle around.
‘Um, yes!’ April grinned as she stood up. ‘And I really am so very sorry to be the cause of such a drama in the village … it’s unlike me, I’m usually quite calm in a crisis but I guess, well, I panicked and …’ April paused to shrug. ‘I certainly shouldn’t have smashed the window, not when the door was open all along and my aunt was only sleeping, even if it was inside her oven … I feel like a prize fool now.’ She peeled the rubber gloves off her hands to reciprocate Molly’s handshake, pleased to see that the ferret wasn’t in attendance this time. It did have quite an acquired scent, which April was still being treated to a whiff of from time to time. But, thankfully, in the ferret’s place was a large white enamel