I winced, visions of dozens of winceyette-clad pensioners clutching hot water bottles in some car park filling my head. Evacuating an old people’s home in the middle of the night must have been a nightmare.
‘So what sort of cake do you think they’d like?’
‘I think it’s going to take more than cake. They’re both a bit upset and another week of sharing a room and a double bed isn’t going to help. Ava’s a fidget and really messy while Poppy is neat and tidy even in her sleep.’
‘And they have to share a room, do they?’
I wrinkled my nose. ‘It’s the only room with an extra bed in. I moved in a while back but just haven’t got around to furnishing the other bedrooms.’ Which was ridiculous. What had stopped me? Work, as usual.
Now I had a reason to get on and do it. Not for me, but for the girls.
‘Actually… sorry, Hilda, do you mind if we take a rain check tomorrow. I’m going to take Poppy and Ava to Ikea, buy them some furniture, and they can have a bedroom each. They can choose their own bedrooms. That might cheer them up a bit.’
Hilda sat up straighter. ‘What an excellent idea. I’ve heard so much about Ikea. I’ll come too.’
I stared at her for a minute. With her and the girls in the car there wouldn’t be any room for furniture. I needed to hire a van if I was thinking of kitting out two bedrooms with beds and furniture… in which case there would be space in my car to take her with us. ‘Okay. We can go and select everything in the morning and hire a man with a van to pick it up at lunchtime and take it back to the house.’
‘That’s easy. My neighbour Dottie, her son Vin, is the man with the van.’ She pulled out her phone and before I had even thought about opening my mouth to protest she started speaking. ‘Dottie, Hilda. HILDA,’ she shouted, muttering an aside to me, ‘Daft old bat’s not got her hearing aid in. Dottie. It’s Hilda. Yes, Hilda. Thank goodness for that. Yes, I’m fine. Just out for my morning constitutional.’ She rolled her eyes and put her hand over her phone as if it were a landline telephone, which amused me because she clearly had no idea how a mobile worked. ‘Wants me to pick up some condoms for her. Yes Dottie. I’ll do that. Thin Feel. Got it. Not the Intense ones. Now what’s Vin up to tomorrow? Can you give me his number?’ Hilda opened the flap of the ever-present silver lamé messenger bag and dug around before offering me a pen and a tiny notebook. ‘Zero, seven…’ She reeled off the numbers and I dutifully wrote them down. ‘Thanks Dottie. See you soon.’ Without even pausing to draw breath, she took the notebook from me and dialled the number.
‘Vin, Hilda here. I need you tomorrow.’ She mouthed, ‘Twelve-thirty?’
I nodded.
‘Can you meet me at Ikea in Leeds? Twelve-thirty tomorrow. And mates’ rates.’
I heard the rich laugh down the phone telling Hilda she was a ‘right one’.
And just like that, it was all organised, Hilda preening like a sunshine-yellow peacock. ‘That’s all sorted. I’ve always wanted to go to Ikea and see what all the fuss is about.’
‘Are you sure?’ A morning in Ikea was a lot of people’s idea of hell.
‘It’s the best offer I’m going to get. It’s that or leathery bacon and Arthur Sanditon reading out this week’s obituaries from the Times.’
I worked out the timing in my head. ‘We can have lunch there. Would you like me to pick you up?’ Hilda wasn’t keen on me coming to the old people’s home, so we arranged to meet on a nearby corner. Her reason being that every Tom, Dick, and Herbert in the home would want her to get a ‘bit o’ shopping’ for them.
‘Hopefully the place will be crawling with handsome Swedes. Now, have you seen Ash this morning? I’ve had the most brilliant idea.’
I sat there with my mouth doing the goldfish thing because sometimes it was just impossible to keep up with the hairpin bends and racing turns of her conversation.
Finally, I caught up. ‘Yes, he was running with the dog but heading towards the other side of the park when I was coming this way.’ He had even given me a perfunctory nod.
‘Excellent, he’ll be here soon.’
It struck me that in just one week, the three of us had fallen into a pattern of meeting here, even though Ash clearly eschewed company and pretended that his being here at the same time each day was completely coincidental.
‘So what’s this brilliant idea?’ I asked, a touch nervous, well aware that I’d only just missed being saddled with a dog by the skin of my teeth.
Hilda’s shark-like smile only added to my nerves.
‘Don’t you think it’s brilliant?’ Hilda sat back on our bench fifteen minutes later and clasped her hands over her heart. Opposite, on his own bench, Ash shuffled as uncomfortably as me.
‘Come on people, where’s the enthusiasm? It’s not as if either of you have got anything better to do.’
When she put it like that she had a point, if a somewhat blunt one.
‘It’s… it’s an idea, Hilda,’ I said, ‘but… well, we don’t know if anyone else would be interested.’
‘Of course, they will. Remember the bible. About Noah’s Ark. Build it and they will come. Remember.’
‘I think that was a Kevin Costner film actually,’ said Ash. ‘I’m not sure there’s much call for a baseball field in Churchstone.’
‘You know what I mean, young man.’ Hilda was suddenly at her Maggie Smith Dowager Countess finest. ‘It would be a wonderful thing for Churchstone. I’ve been doing some research on the interweb. There are these parkruns all over the country. Hundreds of them. I don’t see why we couldn’t have one here. The nearest one is in Harrogate and that’s a forty-minute drive away. I can see it now. A real community event. Bring everyone, like you two, together.’
Ash and I exchanged indignant looks but Hilda ploughed on, oblivious. ‘And it’s not as if the park is used as much as it should be. It would encourage people to come here. And it would make people exercise a lot more. You could run with… the dog.’
‘Bill,’ said Ash.
‘Bill?’ Hilda was back to maiden aunt again.
‘He looks like a Bill,’ said Ash, standing his ground before adding with a supercilious sneer, ‘And no one else wanted responsibility so I feel I’m entitled to name him.’
Hilda suddenly looked very smug. ‘Very good. Now, what do you say?’
It sounded a completely mad idea to me. Who would want to come and run around the park? The three of us were hardly serious runners but with Hilda’s bird-bright eyes focused with such expectancy on me, I said, ‘I don’t suppose it could do any harm to make a few enquiries.’ And enquiries would probably kill the idea stone dead; the council were bound to object.
‘Hilda, have you ever done a parkrun?’ asked Ash. ‘Have you any idea what’s involved?’
‘No.’ She sniffed at her regal finest. ‘But there was a man on Radio 4 and he said jolly good things about them. I think it’s just what this park needs. Everyone knows more people need to exercise. Running can help prevent heart disease, cardiovascular problems and strokes. And look at you. Slimming down already.’