Page 19 of Sunset at Embthwaite Farm
And it was a good feeling tonight, to be going out all together. Ben had come to the farmhouse to pick them up in his battered Rover; Anna had answered the door since Harriet and Rachel were still getting ready upstairs.
“Looking good, Mrs M,” he’d told her with a quirk of a smile, which had made her laugh.
“I’d forgotten how you used to call me that, Ben,” she’d replied. “It’s good to see you.” And his flattery had been nice, as well; she’d made an effort with her outfit, a blue corduroy miniskirt and wool tights paired with a cranberry-coloured cashmere jumper, her usually silvery bob tucked behind her ears and a bit of mascara and lipstick to show she wasn’t past it.
“I’m sorry we didn’t really run into each other before now,” he’d told her. “At least not properly.” They’d exchanged hellos at the Christmas party at the hotel, but beyond that Anna had only seen him in passing. She’d supposed she’d been keeping out of the way as much as possible, unsure what her reception was likely to be. She’d been glad she’d felt on firmer footing now, and that Ben had seemed to feel the same.
Now everyone looked around for a free table in the hall before Diana caught sight of them and waved them over. “I’ve saved you this one,” she told them, pointing to a table in the corner with a large ‘reserved’ sign propped on it. “Get yourselves settled. There should be time to get drinks, as we won’t start on time.” She tutted with good-natured exasperation. “We never do.”
Anna shed her coat as Quinn offered, with his usual smiling alacrity, to get drinks for everyone at the bar in the corner.
“They don’t take debit cards,” Rachel warned him. “I learned that the hard way.”
“Oh, they do now,” Diana assured her. “We’ve got a brand-new card reader, although to be fair it doesn’t always get signal.”
Quinn dramatically took out a twenty-pound note and held it in the air, whimsical as ever, making Anna smile. His humour was good for Harriet, she thought, who could sometimes see the world a bit too seriously. “I think I’m sorted,” he pronounced. “What’ll it be, everyone?”
As everyone went round with their drink orders, Anna let her gaze move around the room, wondering if there was anyone she knew among the crowd. There should be, considering she’d lived in Mathering for twenty years, but the motley group of faces seemed unfamiliar. It had, she acknowledged, been a long time since she’d last been here, interacting in any meaningful way.
“Anna?” Quinn asked genially. “What would you like?”
“A gin and tonic, please,” she answered with a smile, feeling a little reckless. She didn’t normally drink beyond a glass of wine or two, but she felt like being just that little bit more extravagant tonight. Her gaze caught on someone sitting at a table nearby, and it took her a few seconds to recall who it was—the woman who used to run the toddler group, Mary someone. She had to be in her seventies now, with a neat white bob and blue eyes glinting amid her many wrinkles. She caught Anna’s eye and gave a small smile of acknowledgement, which made Anna feel both gratified and strangely exposed. She would be glad of that gin and tonic, she thought wryly. She was starting to realise that she might need a little social lubricant tonight.
While Quinn went to get drinks and Diana bustled away to see to the last preparations for the evening, Rachel took the piece of paper from the centre of the table and scanned it critically. “We need to come up with a team name,” she told everyone. “Any ideas?”
“Well, we’re Mowbray, Mackey and Taylor…” Ben suggested, and Rachel tutted.
“That’s not very creative. We need something clever and witty.”
“No pressure, then,” Ben replied dryly. He glanced at Anna. “Any thoughts?”
“To come up with something clever and witty?” she replied on a laugh, wanting that gin and tonic more than ever. “Absolutely not, I’m afraid.”
“Mowbray, Mackey, and Tyler…” Harriet mused. “MMT. How about Mostly Mediocre Trivia?”
“Hey,” Ben returned mildly, “the Rotary Club quiz night isn’tthatbad.”
Harriet rolled her eyes as she blushed. “I meant Mostly MediocreatTrivia,” she amended. “I’m rubbish at these things. I always have been.”
“How about the Motley Mathering Team?” Anna suggested, then blushed just like her daughter. That wasn’t very clever or witty, really. What had she been thinking?
“I like it,” Ben told her warmly. “We are a motley crew, after all!” He glanced round them all with a grin while Rachel rolled her eyes good-naturedly.
“I suppose we are,” she agreed. “All right, then.” She wrote the name down in neat letters at the top of their answer sheet, just as Quinn came back with a tray of drinks.
“Twenty quid goes a lot farther here than in London,” he remarked as he handed them round. “I even got you a double,” he told Anna with a wink, handing her the G&T.
“Oh…” Anna felt like she shouldn’t protest that she didn’t need a double gin, but the truth was, she was already taking a much-needed sip. As Diana joined them and the group continued to sip their drinks and chat around her, she glanced around the room again, and this time she recognised at least half a dozen people, from one place or another—Barbara from the post office, John, the vet they’d taken Fred to, and a few others who she couldn’t entirely place but definitely knew from her years in this place.
She hadn’t had many friends in Mathering, it was true—her life on a farm with two little children, as well as her naturally reserved nature, had made for a limited social circle—but she’d known people whom she’d seen in a variety of circumstances—the supermarket, the library, the GP. And a lot of them appeared to be here tonight.
“All right, let’s get started,” the emcee of the evening, a jolly-faced man with hair like cotton wool named Tobias, announced. “First, a shout-out to all the teams.” Table by table, he went through all the team names—the Mathering Mavens, the Trivia Terrors, Let’s Get Quizzical, and a few others besides. When it came to their turn, everyone shouted out their name, Anna included. Three sips into her gin and she was definitely feeling more relaxed.
“Are you having a nice time?” Diana asked in a motherly sort of way, and Anna smiled.
“Yes, I am. I recognise quite a few people, actually. I don’t know why I didn’t think I would.”
“You did live here a long time,” Diana agreed. “You were part of this community, Anna.” She said it as a statement of fact rather than one of recrimination, and Anna let the words roll around in her mind.Hadshe been part of this community? She supposed she had, in myriad ways—taking the girls to school, always bringing a traybake to the community bake sales, showing up to toddler mornings and coffee afternoons, chipping in when there was a town-wide effort to clean the church yard or tidy up the school grounds. But despite all that, she wasn’t sure that she ever felt truly involved or included; it was generally accepted that if you weren’t born in Mathering or at least North Yorkshire, you would always be an outsider, or offcomer, as they were called.
