‘And what happens if you have another sleepwalking spell and end up hurting yourself?’ asked Angie. ‘I couldn’t have that on my conscience.’
‘Well then, I absolve you of your sins. Say ten Hail Marys and five Mind Your Own Businesses.’ She punctuated her point with a slurp of tea.
‘It is my business, Dennie. Your irresponsible behaviour is everybody’s business. Every time something like that happens we have to file an accident report with the Council for legal and insurance reasons, and if the insurers see an uptick in incidents they raise their premiums, and the Council passes that on to us in the form of higher rents. You think it’s just yourself but it impacts everyone, Dennie. Frankly, it’s not fair. You’re being selfish.’
‘I’m being selfish? With every Tom, Dick and Harry suing for every stubbed toe and bee sting because they’re too greedy to take responsibility for themselves? Rubbish. It’s ambulance chasers who are pushing up the premiums, not people like me.’
Angie sighed as if from deep regret, as if she’d done all she could to be reasonable but had been left with only one last course of action. ‘I think in that case we have to let the tenants as a whole make the decision about whether it’s rubbish or not.’
Dennie didn’t like the sound of this. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Just that I’ve done everything I can to persuade you to behave in accordance with the allotments’ by-laws, but if you will insist on breaking them and threatening the well-being of all the tenants you leave me no choice but to put it to the next Association meeting. They might agree with you that it’s rubbish, or they might even amend the by-laws to allow overnights, but I think it’s more likely they’ll decide that it’s for your own safety and the good of all concerned to impose a cessation order on your tenancy.’
‘You’d kick me off my plot? You wouldn’t dare!’
‘Not me, Dennie. The Association. Your neighbours. You’re not really giving us much of a choice.’
Dennie got to her feet, joined by Viggo. ‘Angie, let me spell it out for you very clearly. The only way you’re getting me off this plot is if you come back with a squad of goons to physically pick me up and carry me off it.’
David, who had been watching this argument unfold with more and more visible discomfort, opened his mouth to say something, but Dennie cut him off. ‘And if you say that you’re all only thinking of my well-being I will scream, David. You’re a lovely man and I pray to God that your daughter gets better, but I don’t know how you let Angie talk you into this. I think you should both go now.’
Angie had made the point she’d come for, and David was only too glad to get out of the way, and they left without another word.
She subsided into her chair and Viggo laid his head in her lap. She scratched him between the ears. ‘Kick me out, would she? You’ll protect me from the big bad witch, won’t you, boy? Won’t you?’
* * *
‘I told you she wouldn’t,’ said David to Angie as they walked back to the Pavilion. In a way, he was glad. He liked Dennie, and was ashamed of having lied to her – almost as ashamed of having faked those OWL reports, which she’d never even glanced at. ‘Why are Everett and Ardwyn so keen that the allotments all be clear tonight, anyway?’
‘They didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.’
‘But aren’t you curious?’
‘Yes,’ Angie admitted. ‘But I trust that when it’s something we need to know, we’ll be told. Speaking of which, there’s going to be another get-together at Farrow Farm next Friday. Will you be there?’
‘I suppose so,’ he said, though the idea of going anywhere near the contents of that barn made him cold inside, and it wasn’t just the memory of how fundamentally he’d been humiliated.
‘And will Becky and Alice be joining you?’
‘I haven’t decided yet.’ He was even less happy about taking his wife and daughter anywhere near the place. The parcel of meat – the ‘first flesh’, Everett had called it – had been sitting in the back of the kitchen freezer since that night. Alice had come home four days later with a bloodstream clear of infection, a prescription for heavier antibiotics, and a new chemo port, and since then he’d been focussed on trying to get things back on what passed for an even keel for his family. As tempting as it was to use Everett’s gift, he knew he couldn’t do so without deceiving Becky and he feared that no matter how healthy his daughter might become, his marriage would suffer irreparable damage when his wife found out.
‘Well, I hope you decide soon,’ said Angie, patting his hand. ‘I can’t wait to see her well again. Besides, it’s all very well us grown-ups being amongst the chosen, but it would be lovely to see some children too.’
As they walked on a voice shouted, ‘Hey, David!’ It was Big Ed. He was packing up for the evening, stowing a bag of tools in the back of his white hatchback. ‘You going to the Pavilion?’
‘Just five minutes, and then home,’ he called back.
‘Well, if you see that Ben Torelli, you tell him he still owes me six quid from that last game. I think he’s hiding from me!’
David turned to Angie. ‘Ben’s not one of the, uh, gang, is he?’
‘No, thank God.’ She snorted with disapproval. ‘He’s probably smoked himself into a coma somewhere.’
David stopped. Torelli’s plot was a few over from Big Ed, and from here it did look overgrown. Even the chillies, which were Ben’s pride and joy. ‘You carry on,’ he said to Angie. ‘I’ll be
