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

judged her on it, just as she had feared. Now she had the answer to her question about whether he was the rich man or her friend.

‘Are you actually saying I’m not his type, being obscenely poor and coming from a common family?’ she asked.

‘That’s not what I meant at all.’

‘Isn’t it? Really? Don’t worry,’ Mim said, trying to steady her voice so he didn’t guess how hurt she was. It was one thing hearing it from Janet, but from him… Why did it feel like she’d been punched in the chest? ‘I know my place. Lia was making a joke. It’s a meeting, not a date. I may have no money and no class, but I have enough pride to refuse to be any rich man’s bit of rough.’

‘Mim.’ In a few quick strides he had crossed the hall. ‘Listen.’

‘I’ve heard more than enough, thanks.’ She climbed a couple of stairs, creating a gap between them. She took a deep breath and looked him square in the eyes. ‘You’re right. Stuck-up, snobbish, rich men aren’t my type at all. Thanks for reminding me.’

At first it seemed that all of their hard work had failed. There were a few encouraging tweets about the charity over the weekend but not the rush of publicity they had hoped for. Only Lia’s confidence was undented as she cautioned them to hold their nerve and she was proved right. During the course of Tuesday, three bloggers posted features about As You Like It holidays. Traffic to the website they had set up grew and email enquiries finally trickled in.

The story featured in the local newspaper on Wednesday and Lia brought a copy to show Mim. It filled the whole of page five, with a large photo of Mim, Lia, and Corin, a smaller shot of the caravan site, and a half-page article. Mim studied the photo of the three of them. It was a good picture. Lia was unsurprisingly photogenic. Corin’s smile dazzled even from a static image. Mim stood between them, looking happier than she could ever remember. She looked like she belonged. It was amazing what a few borrowed clothes could do.

‘The photos are the wrong way round,’ she said to Lia, dragging her gaze away from the image and ignoring the wistful feeling that was hovering round her heart. ‘The picture of the caravan site should have been the prominent one.’

‘I agree, darling, but what can we do? The article has taken a different angle than we’d planned, but all publicity is good, isn’t it?’

Mim skimmed through the story. It should have been about the charity and what they were hoping to achieve, but although that was mentioned, it wasn’t the focus of the article. It was all about her, going back to the day when she had given Bill and Bea a lift to Devon and explaining how she had been the inspiration for offering the caravans for free holidays.

‘This isn’t true,’ Mim said. ‘It was all your idea.’

‘But you were the inspiration and it was your idea to make the holidays free.’ Lia smiled. ‘I guess a story of a rich girl helping the poor doesn’t have the same appeal.’

‘Can’t you put them straight?’

‘We both can. I’ve just had the most exciting phone call. We’ve been invited to appear on BBC local radio to talk about it. What do you say?’

‘Me? On the radio?’ Mim was struggling to share Lia’s excitement. ‘No way. I’ll sound thick.’

‘Of course you won’t, darling. You’ll sound very natural.’

Mim suspected that ‘natural’ was the posh way of saying ‘thick’, but appreciated Lia’s attempt to be tactful.

‘When is it?’ she asked.

‘Friday evening.’

‘I’ll be working in the Boat,’ Mim said, with ill-disguised relief. ‘And no, I can’t take time off. It’s the busiest night and good tips. You’ll have to do it yourself. Just concentrate on the charity and how people can be referred for a holiday. That’s the only story we’re offering.’

Karen produced a box of homemade chocolate brownies for their post-swim treat on the following Monday morning.

‘I thought I’d up my game now we have a celebrity in our midst,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t even sure you’d come today.’

Mim laughed.

‘Because of that story in the local newspaper? That’s old news now and I came on Friday, didn’t I?’

Another perk of not working in the deli was that Mim was now free to join Heather and Karen for the Friday morning swim. Even better, now the mornings were light, she could walk down into Littlemead along the coastal path. It was a steep climb back up but worth it to save on petrol money, and the view from the path was spectacular and lifted her spirits whatever the weather.

‘Not the local paper,’ Karen said. ‘The tabloid. You did see it yesterday, didn’t you?’

‘I haven’t seen anything. I try to avoid all the gloom in the papers. What tabloid? You mean the details of the charity have made it into a national paper? That’s brilliant.’

Karen opened a drawer and took out a copy of a national Sunday newspaper. She opened it and passed it over to Mim. “The Kindness of Strangers” ran the headline over the familiar photograph of Mim, Corin, and Lia. Mim read on, her heart thumping and her initial enthusiasm about the publicity quickly disappearing. This wasn’t brilliant at all. This was worse than the local newspaper, far worse. The charity was barely mentioned; the feature was entirely about Mim. They knew every detail: that she’d been brought up in care; that she’d lost her job and been sleeping in her car when she met Bill and Bea; that she’d offered them a lift across the country, and in return they had offered her a home and welcomed her to their family as she had none of her own; how they had combined forces to spread kindness to other people in need through the As You Like It charity. It was a powerful story; Mim could see that objectively.