Dedication

To all the key workers who played their part, and continue to do so, in providing vital services to each and every one of us during the pandemic. May your days be filled with happiness and kindness. A special mention goes to Jo Sparrow, nurse, mum and wonderful friend who had a tougher year than many. With lots of love, Helen xxx

Helen Rolfe

PART ONE

A Summer Surprise

Chapter One

Veronica

A knock on the door would once have had the power to turn her legs to jelly, make her palms clammy and root her feet to the spot. But not anymore. And that, Veronica Bentley guessed, was what you called ‘progress’.

She put down the knife she was using to butter her sandwich and went to see who it was. As always, she peeked through the sitting-room shutters – the tilt of the wooden slats was a great invention, letting you spy without being seen – but when she saw it was little Layla from number twenty-five, she rushed to answer the dove-white front door to her home.

Through the open door came a burst of summer – freshly cut lawns, floral scent from the flowerbeds, birdsong – and the chirpy voice of Layla, an eight-year-old filled with more confidence than Veronica had been able to muster for years.

‘It’s me!’ said Layla from behind an enormous box.

‘I’m only seventy-one – my eyesight isn’t failing me just yet, thank you.’ Veronica ushered her inside. ‘And what do we have here?’

‘I’ve brought you carrots, onions, a lettuce and tomatoes. All grown at home,’ Layla added proudly. She rarely waited before she launched into colourful conversation.

Veronica took the wooden vegetable crate with VEG stamped onto the side. ‘It’s heavy – how did you carry this all the way?’ She went through to the kitchen and set it onto the round table.

‘I’m stronger than I look.’

She was so serious, Veronica had to stifle a laugh. If there was one thing this girl brought to Veronica’s life, it was her effervescent personality.

‘What’s your dad up to today?’ Veronica knew Charlie would have stood at his front door, watching his daughter walk all the way along the pavement to the garden gate of number nine Mapleberry Lane, and waited for her to go inside to know she was safe. It was the usual arrangement.

‘He has to fix my wardrobe door, which came off its hinges again.’ She added a theatrical eye roll.

Veronica was already inspecting the produce. ‘You should be proud of yourself for growing all these. Veggie patches aren’t always easy – I had a terrible time trying to grow lettuces over the years, they’d never work. And when they did, the butterflies got to them before I did.’

‘I looked after the carrots mostly, onions too, but Daddy took charge of growing the traffic-light tomatoes in his greenhouse.’

‘I don’t think I’ve heard of that variety.’

She pointed to a collection of rich red tomatoes. ‘They’re the red ones,’ she pulled out orangey heirloom tomatoes, ‘then we have amber . . . and finally, green.’ Beaming, she pulled out a couple of questionable-looking varieties that Veronica thought she’d have to ask Charlie about when she saw him to make sure they were fine to eat.

‘I have something else to show you.’ Layla grinned, the bottom of her dark ginger bobbed hair that wasn’t fixed in place with an Alice band swinging to and fro as she jumped on the spot in her excitement.

‘And what might that be?’

‘This!’ She proudly held out the curled-up fabric diamond she’d been clutching in her palm. With a purple background and a little pot plant embroidered on the front, along with the words ‘Grow Your Own’, it was another Brownie badge to add to her collection.

Veronica enveloped Layla in a hug. It felt like the right thing to do, even though until now she’d never held the little girl close. The feeling it gave her took Veronica quite by surprise. She hadn’t had affection like this in a long while. But Layla seemed to simply go with the flow.

Pulling herself together, she told Layla, ‘You worked hard, well done you.’ It was moments like this she should have cherished more with her own family before it was too late, before she pushed everyone away. Having Layla in her life felt like a blessing, the second chance she wasn’t sure she deserved. She’d become a surrogate granny without even realising, but that was fine by her. It somehow lessened the pain of not seeing much of her own daughter and granddaughter.

‘Brown Owl was impressed with the different things we’ve grown,’ Layla carried on. ‘She said she still hasn’t managed to grow carrots successfully. She called them her ne-me-sis.’

‘Is that right?’ She swore the little girl’s maturity and vocabulary came from all those books she read. She’d already plucked anything remotely suitable from Veronica’s bookshelves and devoured them at home before returning them to the shelves lining one wall of the lounge and another at the end of the kitchen-diner. She’d raced through classics like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and, one of Veronica’s favourites, The Secret Garden. For Christmas last year, after Veronica had seen The Chronicles of Narnia collection advertised on the internet, she’d phoned to place an order that same day, knowing it was the perfect gift for Layla. And she’d been right. Layla had started with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on Christmas Day and made her way through all seven books, devouring each one.

‘I had to show Brown Owl photographs of me planting carrot seeds and onion seeds, and of me watering the patch after school each day. Daddy took a picture of me picking tomatoes in the greenhouse too. He did most of the work but I watered them every single day. He has cucumbers growing too but they’re not quite ready.’

‘Well, I’ll look forward to trying those. And your dad sent me all the photographs on email, so I haven’t missed out.’ She wished she’d been able to go over there and see it for herself, but email pictures were the next best thing; they kept her a part of it all.

‘Everyone clapped when I was given my badge.’ Layla’s chest puffed with pride and she couldn’t stop smiling.

‘I can sew it on like the last badge, if you like?’

‘Would you?’

‘Of course, I’d be honoured. And I’m very proud of you. I will think of you when I eat my carrots, my lettuce, my onions and tomatoes.’

‘Even the green ones . . . Dad says just because things are green, it doesn’t make them evil.’

‘I think he’s only talking about your green vegetables.’ Veronica smiled. This kid was too cheeky and clever for her own good. Those emerald eyes were full of intellect and mischief; a perfect combination, and one Veronica was thankful for every day. Layla popped around whenever she could and the pair had formed a tight bond as though they really were gran and granddaughter, even though there was nothing tying them together other than the simple geography of living on Mapleberry Lane.

Layla shrugged off her backpack and shuffled onto one of the wooden chairs at the small round table next to the kitchen area, making herself at home. ‘Me and Daddy had scrambled eggs on toast for our lunch. What are you having?’ She’d spotted the bread.

‘Nothing adventurous. Ham and cheese sandwich for me.’ Same as most days. Lunch tended to be basic, but Veronica loved to cook for other people if she got the chance. She carried on buttering her bread.

Layla plucked a tomato – luckily in traffic-light red, as Veronica still wasn’t sure about those green ones and she didn’t want to get sick and need a doctor’s appointment – and passed it over to her. ‘Put this in, it’ll make it nice.’ Next, she leaned over to pull out the lettuce. ‘And some of this.’

‘I tell you what, I’ll deal with the tomato if you could wash some of those lettuce leaves for me. In fact, wash them all and I’ll have a salad for my tea tonight.’ She had cajun chicken marinating in the fridge and it would go perfectly sliced on top, perhaps with some homemade croutons scattered through.

‘Can I use the funny spinny thing?’

‘The salad spinner is in the cupboard to the side of the sink.’ Layla had seen her use it a week or so back and was fascinated by how the lettuce could be soaking wet and after a few turns with the plastic contraption it came out dry. But she had to remind Layla not to get too carried away with the spinner and yank it so hard that the cord came off the disc inside and had to be wound on again.

When the lettuce was washed and spun, the tomatoes sliced and the sandwich made, Veronica sat down to eat with Layla for company. Yesterday she’d read in the newspaper that lack of social connections and living alone could be as bad for you as smoking, and that loneliness was worse for you than obesity. Smoking and being overweight weren’t worries for Veronica; she’d never lit up a cigarette and she was as slim as the day she got married – not that she liked to walk down that particular memory lane very often, given the way things had turned out – and thanks to Layla and Charlie, she wasn’t as isolated as some of the people she’d read about in the article. One woman said the only voices she heard were cold callers or the television, so Veronica knew in some ways she was rather lucky to have the company she did, especially when her own family were nowhere to be seen.

‘Are you looking forward to the summer holidays?’ she asked Layla, who was busying herself emptying the surplus water from the plastic bowl of the spinner as Veronica ate.

‘I can’t wait. Daddy always lets me stay up later than on school nights.’

‘But you’ll miss school.’ She knew, because Layla was a kid who thrived in a learning environment where she could devour the information at her fingertips.

‘I’ll miss it, but not maths. Maths is hard, I can’t do it.’

‘Now I doubt that, a clever girl like you?’

‘Daddy says we can’t all be good at everything. He says I’m very good at English, but as long as I try my best in all my lessons, then that’s OK. I really like art too. We did weather fenomins yesterday.’

‘Fenomins?’

‘Yes, you know, weird things that happen with the weather.’

‘Ah, phenomena.’ She pulled over the notepad and pen that were neatly sitting beside the telephone and she wrote out the word in big letters. ‘There, another one to add to your vocabulary.’

‘I’ll learn it.’

‘And I’ll test you in a few days, when you least expect it.’ She finished the last of her sandwich and brushed a stray crumb that had escaped onto the table top back onto the plate. ‘Tell me, what does art have to do with weather?’

Layla explained how they’d learned about different climates and weather changes and then they’d been charged in art class to work on a mural for the wall.

‘I really wanted to paint the rainbow. Did you know, rainbows are made when light is reflected through raindrops and that sunlight is made up of lots of colours?’

‘I did know that.’ Veronica might not get out much, but you could learn a lot from reading; books took you to different worlds, gave you a sneaky peek into others’ lives. The television did that too and both mediums had been her saviour. She would’ve been lost without them. ‘So did you get to paint the beautiful colours of the rainbow?’

With a sad shake of the head, Layla told her, ‘Kelsie got to do that. She sits next to me most days, I like her, so I didn’t mind and I said I’d do something else. She broke her leg last term and missed out on our trip to the science museum, so I told Mrs Haines that Kelsie should do the rainbow.’

‘That was very kind of you.’

‘It got my name on the kindness calendar too.’ She beamed.

‘What’s a kindness calendar?’

‘We’re doing it at school. I’ll show you.’ From her backpack she pulled out a folded-in-half piece of paper and opened it out on the table. It was for the current month, July, and on every day it had something written already.

‘Mrs Haines had written for next Thursday that someone in the class had to give someone else something that meant a lot to them. She said it meant a lot to Kelsie to do the rainbow and because I’d wanted to do it so much too, I’d fulfilled the task. It means my name goes first on the calendar for that one.’

‘Does the whole class take it in turns?’

‘Some tasks have one child’s name on there, others have a few names because they’re easier.’ She pointed to a square for 1st July, which had ‘Smile at a stranger’ written on it.

‘I didn’t think children were supposed to talk to strangers.’

‘We’re not supposed to talk or go with them, but Mrs Haines said that shouldn’t stop us being friendly. I smiled at the bin man when he took our rubbish away; I made Daddy do it too. Archie in my class stood at the school gate and smiled at every parent who dropped off at the gate. Mr Barnaby, who teaches the other class, had to go and tell him to stop in the end.’

Veronica chuckled. ‘I bet a few parents wondered what was going on.’

‘He’s odd anyway.’

‘Archie?’

‘He never talks to anyone.’

‘It doesn’t mean he’s odd. Maybe he’s shy? So it was extra brave to stand at the gate smiling at people.’ Veronica’s mouth went dry at the thought of being surrounded by all those parents and children, part of a crowd she couldn’t get away from quickly. ‘How does your teacher fit all your names on the calendar?’ The squares were so small she’d have a job fitting five names on, let alone an entire class.

‘The calendar on the wall of our classroom is much bigger than this one. We all have our own copy because we have to think about different tasks and we talk about them in class. And then we have to make sure we do the weekend acts of kindness.’ Once Layla got going, she could hold an audience captive for hours. She pointed to Saturday and Sunday. ‘We all have to do both of those things at home. See, Saturday, today, is to visit a neighbour.’ She delved into her backpack again and took out a fluffy green pencil case from which she pulled a red felt-tip and neatly put a line through today’s date square from corner to corner. ‘I’m seeing you, so I get to cross it off. Easy peasy. Then when I show this to the teacher, my name will go up on her calendar.’

Veronica read Sunday’s instruction. ‘Tomorrow you have to give someone a compliment. Any idea what you’ll do?’

Layla shrugged. ‘Daddy’s having his hair cut later; I could not mention it today and then say something nice about it tomorrow.’

‘Or say it today and cross it off tomorrow’s.’ She nudged Layla. ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.’ She giggled, enjoying the conspiracy. ‘But if you didn’t get to do the rainbow, what weather phenomenon did you do?’

‘I got snow. I did a big snowflake. Thank goodness I didn’t get fog. Fog’s boring.’

‘Layla, you have more words in your brain than that. Boring is a boring word. Come on, I want at least three adjectives to describe fog: go.’

With a deep breath she thought hard. ‘Grey . . . thick . . .’

‘One more,’ Veronica prompted. ‘Think about how it makes you feel.’

‘A bit trapped.’

‘Yes, I suppose it does.’ Trapped. It wasn’t a nice word but it fitted some of Veronica’s experiences perfectly. Still, not here, not in this house.

‘Will you come and see the finished mural at school?’ Layla asked. ‘It’s really good! There’s the rainbow, snow, fog, heatwave, hurricane, a tornado that Jimmy Jones did and which looks a bit of a mess, but he told Mrs Haines that was the point.’

Veronica looked at the calendar again and wished they were still talking about the details instead. ‘I’m afraid I can’t, Layla.’

‘For the same reason you couldn’t see my veggie patch?’ She nodded sadly. ‘I understand.’

‘I knew you would.’ She reached out and put a hand to Layla’s beautifully soft hair. Her own at that age had been blonde but styled much the same way. Like everything else, her hair had changed over the years; it had been grey for the last fifteen and was long. Too long. It reached down between her shoulder blades when she took it out of the bun she wound it into every day until bedtime. She never went to the hairdresser’s – that was something else she’d given up.

‘Why don’t you ask Daddy to take a photograph of the mural for me? Then I’m not missing out.’ Veronica poured them both a glass of orange juice. ‘What time is he coming here to get you?’ It was always the arrangement. Layla could walk here from their house but he’d come to meet her at the end of her visit. As a single dad he didn’t get a lot of time to himself, but Veronica was only too happy to help him out.

‘He said two o’clock.’ It was a sure thing Veronica would not only be in but that she wouldn’t have to nip out on errands or for an appointment. That simply didn’t happen. ‘Can we play a game until then?’

‘A game sounds like a lovely idea.’

They decided Monopoly would take too long, Layla didn’t want to play Ludo or Scrabble, no way was Veronica risking her life playing Twister, and so they settled on Uno. They managed almost ten games, both taking it as seriously as each other, before Charlie knocked on the door.

‘I think you have something of mine,’ he said, the little scar above his top lip visible after he’d had a shave. He didn’t always shave, favouring a bit of stubble, which suited him. Rich brown eyes suggested a man you could depend upon and trust, and his smile had a way of putting you at ease.

‘I do, come in.’ To an onlooker who didn’t know any better, Veronica was like any regular granny, if there was such a thing, but sometimes people gave her little house a strange look when they passed by, and she knew what they were thinking. There’s that weird lady from number nine. She’d had similar insults yelled through her letterbox one day. ‘You’re a freak!’ the first voice had taunted; ‘Weirdo!’ followed a different voice laced with laughter. She had no idea of the culprits – kids who’d heard rumours on the grapevine, probably, and had decided to terrorise her in whatever way they could. But the insults had stuck in Veronica’s mind because some days they felt like appropriate labels. She was only glad Charlie didn’t think so. He’d always been kind to her and she’d valued his friendship right from the start.

‘Who’s winning?’ Charlie looked at Layla’s cards.

‘Five games to four in my favour,’ Veronica told him, although it quickly became a tie when Layla laid down her last card after saying Uno. ‘Looks like it’s a draw.’ Veronica smiled, shaking Layla’s hand. As usual Layla was in no rush to leave, which suited Veronica, as there were too many hours she was on her own as it was. She tidied the pile of cards and wrapped them in an elastic band once, twice, a third time to keep them all together.

Layla frowned at Charlie. ‘Didn’t you bring it?’

‘Of course I did,’ he answered with a grin. And off he went. Veronica heard the front door open and close, and after a couple of minutes, during which Layla looked like she had ants in her pants, she was fidgeting so much, Charlie returned with a cake on a board, one of his hands shielding the burning candles as he came towards them.

Layla’s face lit up and she launched into singing ‘Happy Birthday’, along with her dad.

‘For me?’ Veronica’s eyes fell to the chocolate cake decorated with white and dark chocolate curls, a few candles in the centre, still flickering away.

‘Seeing as we didn’t get to celebrate last week because you had your cold, we thought we’d do it this week.’ Charlie set the cake down on the table.

‘You didn’t have to do this.’ Although choked at the gesture, Veronica was thrilled to bits. Last week on her birthday she’d had a terrible sore throat and a runny nose. She’d been thoroughly miserable, but in no way selfish enough to have either of them visit, even though Charlie had insisted on checking up on her, delivering some cold remedies from the local chemist and a pot of hearty chicken soup. With only a brief visit compared to usual, it had been a lonely few days for Veronica and she hadn’t liked it one bit.

‘Make a wish!’ Layla ordered. ‘You have to.’

It wasn’t hard to know what to wish for, but she didn’t tell anyone. It wouldn’t come true then, would it?

At Layla’s insistence Veronica blew out her candles. ‘What happened, couldn’t fit seventy-one on?’ she teased Charlie.

‘Didn’t sell that many in the shop.’

‘Cheeky thing.’ She laughed as she dug out plates and forks and a cake slice she used to cut generous portions.

Another year, another celebration. Lots to be thankful for, lots she wanted to forget.

Charlie smiled at his daughter, who had chocolate smeared below her lip and another streak down the side of her hand. ‘You’re a messy thing, you need a tissue.’

Layla ran her tongue all the way around the outside of her mouth to get the most she could and went so cross-eyed she had Charlie and Veronica laughing.

‘How have I done?’ Veronica asked. ‘Any on my face?’

Charlie pretended to inspect closely as he handed Layla a tissue to wipe her hand. ‘You’re a professional, I’d never even know you’d had chocolate.’

‘See, Layla, I could teach you a thing or two, one being how to eat chocolate without anyone realising. It’s a life skill.’

‘Hey, no teaching her naughty things.’

‘Would I do that?’ Veronica asked innocently, sharing a conspiratorial look with Layla.

‘Yes, I believe you would.’ Charlie’s rakish grin, where his mouth turned up at one side ever so slightly more than the other, somehow kept him looking younger than his forty years. He’d celebrated his birthday a couple of months ago and, in much the same style as now, they’d gathered here at the same table to eat the lamingtons – his favourite – that Layla and Veronica had baked together. Layla had given him three lamingtons in all, telling him he worked too hard and deserved it. And she was right. As well as looking after Layla on his own, he had a challenging career as a paramedic, where he was often the first on the scene, having to make life-saving decisions. Occasionally he talked about making a change, no longer working shifts, fitting in with Layla more, but he loved his job and was good at it, and Veronica knew exactly what that was like. Or at least she had.

Veronica thanked them both again for the cake. ‘With that and the veggies, you’ve made an old lady very happy.’

‘Less of the old,’ Charlie instructed before he turned to his daughter. ‘Are you ready to go, sweetheart?’ He took charge of the plates and cleaning the cake slice before Veronica stopped him. Clearing up would give her something to do when they left; it wasn’t always easy to fill the days. Sometimes they stretched out endlessly in front of her, and not in a good way.

‘Do I have to come with you while you get your hair cut?’ Layla whined.

‘Yes, because you’re getting yours cut too. Now put your shoes on – you can come again later, if it’s all right with Veronica.’

It was always all right with Veronica. And Charlie knew it, but he was so polite he always asked first.

‘I’ll look forward to it, and if the sun stays out and the heavens open and it rains, then who knows, we might see a rainbow.’

When Layla picked up her pen and ran her finger across the date squares of the kindness calendar rather than putting everything into her backpack, Charlie warned, ‘Stop stalling.’

Layla found what she was looking for. ‘“Bake something for a neighbour”,’ she read out loud before striking a line right through it. ‘We baked you a cake.’ She smiled at Veronica. ‘And I can tell Mrs Haines on Monday so I’ll get my name on the big calendar in class. Anyone who does more than twenty acts of kindness in a month gets a special prize at the end. Last month Elliot Bainbridge got Golden Time – ten minutes extra of play time while the rest of us had to clear up after art class.’

‘Sounds like the top prize.’ Charlie winked at Veronica. Kids at this age were easily impressed. Unfortunately this stage didn’t last anywhere near long enough. Perhaps Charlie realised that and had already decided to make the most of it. And he was never going to be a bad parent – he didn’t have it in him to fail. Not like Veronica.

‘And don’t forget, Daddy,’ Layla went on, ‘I have to get someone else involved with the calendar – it’s a way of spreading the kindness.’

‘We’ll see, I’ve got a job, remember, a busy one at that.’ With a sigh and a wave, he led his daughter out of the door and in the direction of home.

Veronica watched them go from behind the shutters until Layla’s bright pink backpack was out of sight.

When Layla had mentioned needing another person to help with the kindness calendar, Veronica had almost leapt in to volunteer. Helping other people was one of the things she missed, but she supposed it made more sense for Layla to ask for Charlie’s help rather than an old lady who might end up letting her down.

Alone again, she went over to the Welsh dresser next to the bookshelves in the kitchen-diner. She took out the framed photograph that had once stood on the mantelpiece with others: a family, the people she’d once had around her. But not anymore. Apart from the occasional Christmas and birthday card or the odd terse phone call, her family had more or less given up on her.

But Layla and Charlie hadn’t.

She bit back the tears that threatened to come, jammed the photograph back in the drawer, and began the countdown to when her favourite visitors, the neighbours who felt more like her family than her own, would come back later this afternoon.