Falling For Jack

‘Bryony!’

Uh-oh...

Bryony turned cautiously to find her friend, Myrna McPherson, watching her from the pavilion door. Myrna had her six-week-old twins inside a pushchair; Peter, aged five, was clinging to one side of the babies and Fiona, aged six, was holding the other side of the pushchair handle. All of them were gazing at Bryony as if she’d taken leave of her senses.

‘Hi...’ Bryony faltered, and started to laugh again.

Myrna didn’t laugh. She regarded her friend with resigned horror, as if Bryony had done something dreadful, but what did she expect? This was Bryony, after all.

There are sheep loose all over the fairground,’ Myrna said carefully, ignoring Bryony’s laughter. ‘Someone said a little grey dog was chasing them. Would that be Harry, then?’

‘Hmm.’ Bryony stopped chuckling and met her friend’s look with a guilty smile. ‘It might be.’

‘I see.’ Myrna rolled her eyes. ‘You don’t think you could have held on to him?’

‘I got distracted.’ Bryony didn’t say with what, or with whom, and by the look in Myrna’s eyes she didn’t need to. Myrna was a very good friend.

Now she was focusing on something other than the disgusting Bryony and her even more disgusting dog. She’d spotted the child at Bryony’s side and she smiled a welcome.

‘Hi, Maddy.’

‘H-hi.’ Maddy’s thumb came up and wedged into her mouth, and she backed imperceptibly behind Bryony.

Bryony could feel the fear. She frowned, feeling as protective as a mother hen. A sodden, smelly mother hen.

‘Do you two know each other?’ Bryony asked, looking from Maddy to Myrna.

‘Maddy’s in the same class as Fiona at school.’ Myrna gave her small daughter a gentle push forward. ‘Say hi to Maddy, Fiona.’

Maddy dived completely behind Bryony, and Myrna’s eyes widened.

She looked at Bryony, her eyes asking a question, and Bryony gave her head an almost imperceptible shake. Don’t push it.

Myrna was anything but stupid; she got the message loud and clear. She put a restraining hand on Fiona’s shoulder, stopping her daughter from walking forward.

‘On second thoughts, go no further, Fi,’ she ordered. ‘Bryony stinks.’

Bryony glared. ‘Gee, thanks.’

‘What are friends for if they can’t give each other gentle hints about body odour? You weren’t thinking of going home in my car, were you?’ They’d come together, packed like sardines in Myrna’s small Fiat—four children, two adults and one dog.

‘Well, yes...’

‘Well, no.’ Myrna screwed up her nose in distaste. ‘I’d have to sell the car if I let you near it, or your stink would mingle with the petrol fumes and blow us all up. Heaven knows what that chemical combination is.’

‘But...’

‘We were squashed before,’ Myrna said definitely. ‘And now...Bryony, that dog is definitely not coming in my car—and neither are you!’

‘Myrna...’ Bryony stared helplessly at her friend. ‘You have to.’

‘No, I don’t.’ There was a twinkle behind Myrna’s eyes that said she was enjoying herself. ‘I’ll send Ian back for you with the truck.’

Ian was Myrna’s husband, and Bryony was torn between laughter and dismay.

‘Myrna...Ian’s busy. Don’t you dare.’

‘Ian’s sowing barley this afternoon.’ Myrna gave Bryony her sweetest best-friend smile. ‘But he’ll be finished about six and I’ll send him to fetch you then. I don’t see what else you can do. The local taxi sure won’t take you.’ She screwed up her nose some more and looked around to where the farmer with the hose was spraying dung from the concrete floor. ‘At least you’re among your own kind here among the cows. I’ll tell Ian just to follow his nose when he comes to find you, shall I?’

‘Myrna, you rat...’ Bryony took a hasty, laughing step forward and discovered Maddy was clinging to her leggings, tightly, dung and all. Myrna’s eyes widened still further, but she made no comment.

‘Come on, children,’ Myrna told her troop, grinning widely and turning her pushchair with the air of a woman with purpose. ‘Let’s get out of here. Aunty Bryony has finally gone too far—and I don’t want to stick around to see the consequences. I can see from here that they’ll be far from pretty.’

With a last, mischievous chuckle, Myrna swept from the pavilion, leaving Bryony with Harry—and Maddy—until six o’clock... Two more hours. Oh, great. Two hours of wandering round the fairground looking and smelling like a pile of dung.

‘Won’t she take you home?’ Maddy was still tucked safely in behind her, and her hand still clung.

‘No. She won’t.’ Bryony sank down on a hay bale with Harry in her arms, and Maddy sat sympathetically beside her. ‘Do you know what a fair-weather friend is, Maddy?’

‘No.’

‘That.’ Bryony gestured to the departing Myrna’s back. ‘She’s a great example. I come halfway around the world to rescue her business and she doesn’t let me in her car because I smell a little.’

‘You smell a lot,’ Maddy said truthfully.

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘Jack’ll take you home.’

Now that was a thought. Why hadn’t that occurred to her? Bryony cringed inwardly at the prospect.

‘I’ll just bet your D—I’ll bet your Jack drives a lovely new car with cream leather seats.’

‘Sometimes he does, but today he’s driving a truck. A big one, with little houses built on the back for the dogs.’

‘Well, that’s a possibility. Maybe I could use a dog house.’ Bryony grinned down at Maddy and, to her delight, the child smiled back.

‘Silly. You could sit up front with us. I’ll go ask.’

Before Bryony could stop her, the child had slipped away and was racing nimbly around assorted cows and out of the pavilion door. She disappeared. Oh, help... Bryony rose, with Harry. Now what should she do?

Myrna had said Bryony was among her own kind here, and she was, up to a point. The pavilion was full of magnificently groomed cows and bulls and calves, and everything had the faint odour of dung. Here, if Bryony sat quietly on her hay bale and waited for Myrna’s husband, she’d attract not much more than the odd disgusted glance.

But...

But she’d promised Jack she’d deliver Maddy back to the dog-trial ground. Maddy was now on her own, and the trial ground was on the other side of the fairground. So there was nothing for it but to tuck Harry more firmly under the arm of her disgusting sweater and take off after her.

‘Maddy, wait for me. Maddy...’