Green Beans and Summer Dreams. Catherine Ferguson

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      Not looking where I’m going, I collide with a very large, very solid object. Bouncing backwards, I lose my balance and land with a nasty thud on my bottom.

      It’s a bit of a shock to see the world from this angle.

      Thoroughly winded, I take in a pair of massive trainers, even shabbier than mine, on the end of a pair of long male legs clad in scruffy black joggers.

      A big, muck-encrusted hand is thrust into my eye-line and – still dazed and disorientated – I’m hauled roughly to my feet. The owner of the legs towers over me, glaring down from behind a pair of creepy, silver-mirrored aviator glasses.

      I’m about to launch into a profuse apology, when this sinister-looking giant barks, ‘Bloody woman. Might have known. No sense of spatial awareness whatsoever.’ He points. ‘You’ve dropped something.’ Then he stomps into the newsagent’s.

      Stunned by the unfairness of his accusation, I sink back against the lorry to catch my breath.

      But next second, I gasp in horror.

      My mortgage payment is lying in the road and a car is bearing down on it.

      Swiftly, I dive over, scoop up my precious cellophane package and set it down carefully beside the tray of clementines, before bending over into the lorry and resting my weight on my arms as I get my breath back. The scent of citrus fruit rushes up my nose.

      As if all this wasn’t weird enough, without warning my world is rocked again – quite literally this time.

      The lorry is swaying from side to side.

      I leap away in shock as the engine roars into life and the vehicle starts to move off.

      What the hell’s going on? The driver’s forgotten to close the back of the lorry!

      The crate of clementines is sliding dangerously close to the edge and as I stare after the truck, dumbfounded, several butternut squash roll out of the back and bounce gaily into the gutter.

      I start to run.

      ‘Hey, wait a minute! Stop!’

      The driver is signalling, waiting to move out and I almost manage to draw level with the cab, waving my arms about like an idiot.

      But it’s no use.

      The lorry is so grimy, I can’t even make out the name of the company on the side. Only a few letters are visible and they – rather appropriately I feel – spell out ‘arso’.

      Horrified, I watch as the lorry accelerates off into the distance with my beautifully wrapped mortgage payment nestled cosily between the kohlrabi and the clementines.

      When I met Jamie, I was in my mid-twenties, sharing a chaotic but colourful flat with my three best girlfriends in Edinburgh. We were all starting out in our careers; I’d graduated from the university with a degree in English and was now a lowly public relations assistant with a salary to match. But being broke much of the time didn’t seem to stop us enjoying ourselves and partying most weekends.

      I met Jamie at our local pub – I left my scarf behind and he sprinted the length of the street to return it and ask me on a date – and I fell crazily and completely in love.

      A financial analyst, Jamie was something of a whiz in the maths department; far more intelligent than me, but not in the least bit geeky. Quite the opposite, in fact. He could liven up any gathering with his charm and wealth of funny stories, and he was also surprisingly romantic. Once, for my birthday, he filled the entire flat with sunflowers (my favourite) – dozens and dozens of them in every room, all in pretty blue vases that must have cost him a small fortune.

      Before long, we were such an inseparable double-act, my flatmates started laughingly referring to us as Richard and Judy. And a year after we met, we decided to move in together.

      Everything was wonderful.

      I’d never been so happy.

      But the downside was that while I was so wrapped up in my new life with Jamie, my visits to family tended to get put on the back-burner. With Dad living in Glasgow, just an hour away on the train, I saw him and Gloria fairly often. And at least four times a year, I’d usually make the journey south to see both Mum and Midge. But during that first year of living with Jamie, I let things slide.

      So when Mum phoned with some grim news, it came as a truly devastating blow.

      My lovely Aunt Midge was desperately ill.

      She had undergone a heart operation without even telling us, which was typical of her. The prognosis was not good. The doctor was advising us to visit as soon as we could.

      As I moved round the flat in a daze, blinded by tears, trying to pack a bag for the journey south, Jamie arrived home.

      His concern when he heard the news was genuine. He’d met Midge just once but he’d liked her very much, especially her dry humour and her feisty spirit. He immediately phoned work, saying he had a family emergency and would be absent for a few days. He located my keys and went round turning off lights while I stood by in a useless daze. Then he drove me all the way down to the hospital in Surrey and an emotional reunion with my mother.

      Midge died two days later.

      I was numb with grief.

      And weighed down by guilt.

      I hated myself for not being there when she needed me. Midge had kept her illness to herself but that was no excuse. I should have gone down to Surrey a lot more often, then I would have known she wasn’t herself. But I’d been too wrapped up in my life with Jamie. I kept promising Midge I’d visit but it was always hazy, planned for some time in the future.

      I never actually fixed a date.

      And now it was all too late.

      A few weeks later, I was stunned by the contents of Midge’s will.

      She had bequeathed her beloved Farthing Cottage to me, along with the adjacent field where she’d kept her rescue donkeys at one time.

      I couldn’t believe it.

      I loved the cottage. I’d spent such idyllically happy times there with Midge during my school holidays. I couldn’t possibly sell it. But what was the alternative? To live there would mean giving up my life in Edinburgh, yet as the months went by and we debated what to do, I grew more and more enchanted by the idea of moving down to Surrey.

      Then, when Jamie landed a job as a financial trader in the City of London, that was it.

      The decision was made.

      Off we went.

      Jamie had always hankered after working in London’s Square Mile, the heart of the powerful financial district, so he was happy. I immediately started job-hunting, feeling fairly confident that with my degree and experience, it wouldn’t be long before I’d be earning, too.

      I began applying for jobs locally in the PR industry. Then, when I wasn’t immediately successful, I started to spread the net wider. СКАЧАТЬ