Finding Home by Kate Field (read book .txt) 📗

forecast and Bobby decided that it was a good time to work on the exterior of the caravans. It wasn’t a straightforward job, as he explained when a group of volunteers met up on Monday morning. There would be a lot of preparation work first, including smoothing the surface of the caravan walls and applying masking tape around the edges and windows. They would have to be patient before they could move on to the fun part of painting and seeing the caravans transformed.

There were some changes to the group of volunteers this time. One of the previous couples was on holiday, but three new women had arrived in their place, thanks to Heather promoting the project with her book group. Karen had started a different shift pattern at work so couldn’t make it, and Lia was inexplicably absent too. The plan was to paint one caravan first, as a test run, and so everyone set to work on the caravan closest to Mim’s, dividing into teams to cover each side. It was harder graft than Mim had expected, as she buffed the exterior wall to remove cracked and peeling paint, old stickers and uneven ridges. How could the walls be so huge when the interiors were compact? After a couple of hours, her arms ached more than after the most gruelling swimming session.

She was perched on a ladder to reach the top of the wall and she paused to roll her shoulders back and ease some of the tension. She hadn’t realised that the others had stopped work. Most of the volunteers were sitting on rugs on the grass – the book-club ladies had come well prepared – and only Mim and Bobby were still hard at it.

‘I can’t believe they’ve all buggered off,’ Mim said to him. She laughed and pointed down to the rest of the group. ‘We’re mugs still being up here. It’s obviously tea-break time.’

Bobby checked his watch.

‘It’s well past that. I reckon it’s lunchtime.’ He knelt up on the roof of the caravan and looked across the field. ‘There’s a car coming this way from the house. Perhaps Mrs Dennis has made sandwiches again.’

‘Enough to fill a car? Sounds about right. I’m starving.’

Mim scrambled down the ladder, followed by Bobby, and they met the car when it pulled to a stop at a strange angle half on, half off the gravel road. Lia jumped out of the driver’s seat, followed at a more sedate pace by Bea from the passenger side.

‘Happy birthday!’ Lia called, and before Mim could wonder at the coincidence of someone else also having a birthday that day, Lia dashed over and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Isn’t this the best surprise, darling? Mrs Dennis has made a special picnic and we even have birthday cake. I picked it up from the cake shop this morning and they’ve done an amazing job. You’ll love it.’

‘But who told you it was my birthday?’ Mim asked. She was sure she hadn’t mentioned it.

‘Not you, which is very naughty of you.’ Bea took Mim’s hands and squeezed them. ‘Happy birthday, dear Mim. I saw the date when I borrowed your driving licence to arrange the car insurance. I hope you weren’t planning to celebrate without us.’

‘I wasn’t planning to celebrate at all.’

‘Oh, come now.’ Bea smiled. ‘You’re only thirty-four. You needn’t despair at the passing years just yet.’

Mim didn’t feel despair. She loved birthdays, and Gordon had always made a fuss of her, forbidding her from work and sharing a bottle of wine while they watched an old film on the TV. This year was different; she was still a relative stranger here and she’d been resigned to having no one to celebrate with. But as she looked around at the smiling faces of Lia and Bea, Bobby and Heather, and realised why the picnic rugs and other paraphernalia had appeared today, she felt a glow of warmth at how wrong she had been. She had friends, perhaps for the first time in her life; real friends who liked her for who she was, despite everything that had happened in her past. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy. It was the best gift she could have wished for.

Bea took two folding chairs from the boot of the car and insisted that Mim sat on one. Mim felt like the Queen as baskets of delicacies were brought forward for her delight: sandwiches, quiche, mini-pasties, fruit… Mrs Dennis had excelled herself, as Bea was first to admit. There was even a bottle of Champagne to wash it all down. Mim lolled in her chair, feeling pleasantly drowsy after the food and drink, breathing in the sea air, and she thanked all of her lucky stars for bringing her here.

‘Time for cake,’ Lia said, clapping her hands and waking everyone up after the feast. She dashed to the car and came back carrying a large white cake box. She grinned at Mim. ‘Are you ready for this? Ta da!’

She pulled away the lid and the sides of the box, and Mim laughed. It was the best cake she’d ever seen. It had been decorated with blue-green icing, rising in peaks to look like waves, and in the centre, there was a figure of a mermaid with coils of auburn hair spreading across the cake.

‘You do love it, don’t you?’ Lia asked.

‘It’s perfect.’ Mim leant across and gave Lia a hug – a tentative, awkward one, because she still wasn’t used to positive gestures like that, but it felt absolutely the right thing to do.

‘Let me light the candles and you can make a wish.’ Lia produced a box of matches. ‘Are you ready? You’ll need to be quick before the wind blows the candles out for you.’

Mim nodded. ‘I’m ready.’

Lia lit the candles and Mim took a deep breath and blew them all out. Her wish hadn’t needed any thought at all. She had somewhere to live, a job, and a group of friends. What more