Page 33 of Match Point in Crumbleton
CHAPTER 14
ANDY
‘Hello? Cath, you in here?’
Andy came to a halt at the makeshift barrier Cath had constructed out of several panels of loaned puppy fencing. After Evelyn’s surprise visit, they’d decided they needed to do something to ensure visitors didn’t wander into the disaster zone in search of Cath and risk getting crushed by the teetering piles of rubbish.
Considering he’d helped Cath to shift an entire van full of recycling out of the building the previous day, Andy couldn’t quite fathom how it somehow felt more cramped in here than before.
‘I’m here! Two secs, I’ll come to you!’
Cath’s voice reached him from somewhere near the back wall, but for the life of him, he couldn’t see her, no matter how much he craned his neck.
‘EEP!’
Crash!
The surprised squeak had been closely followed by a cave-in of what looked like an eight-foot-high stack of old newspapers.
‘Do I need to send in a rescue party?!’ he called.
‘I’m good! Save yourself!’
Cath’s laughing face appeared at last, and Andy felt the now-familiar flip in his stomach at the sight of her. How anyone could be quite so bouncy and enthusiastic while surrounded by so much rubbish was beyond him. But Cath’s enthusiasm was infectious… and from what he’d witnessed over the past few days, it wasn’t just him that was falling a little bit in love with their new curator.
It had turned out that reinstating the Cheswell Cup had been the perfect opportunity for Cath to meet a whole load of Crumbleton’s residents in a seriously short amount of time. Caroline had popped a call-to-action on the newspaper’s social media pages, asking anyone with memories, photos, or memorabilia of the competition to contact Cath at the museum. The news had spread like wildfire, and there had been a steady trickle of visitors turning up ever since.
‘Have a seat!’ yelled Cath. ‘I need to clear a path to you. It’ll take me a moment!’
Andy grinned and flopped down into the old sofa that was now in pride of place on one side of the little hallway. He’d given Cath a hand to deep-clean it, and now it was coming into its own as part of the makeshift visitors’ centre. The hallway was the only clear, clean and safe spot in the whole museum, and Cath had needed somewhere to sit with the visitors and take notes as they told her their stories… preferably without having to risk their necks in the process.
‘Okay, I’m here!’ puffed Cath, shifting the fence a little so that she could sidle around it. ‘Sorry about that, I was just trying to disentangle the net a bit and I got the corner caught on a pile of newspapers.’
‘Ah… that explains the landslide,’ said Andy, turning to smile at her as she collapsed into the sofa next to him with a happy sigh.
‘Yep, but it’s fine… they were destined for the next recycling run anyway, so no harm done really.’
‘Blimey,’ said Andy, raising an eyebrow. ‘That’s very decisive of you!’
Cath had been cautious about getting rid of any of the thousands of newspapers they’d unearthed, just in case they held a record of “something important” within their pages. So the news that she was ready to discard an eight-foot stack of history was rather surprising.
‘It was an easy decision,’ said Cath, returning his smile. ‘The whole stack was made up of hundreds of copies of the same issue of the Crumbleton Times and Echo from the 1990s. I figure I only need to keep one of them to check there’s nothing important in there!’
‘Or Caroline might know something about it,’ said Andy.
‘Good call, I’ll ask her… just in case,’ said Cath. ‘In a way, I hope I can just scrap them all with a clear conscience—I swear it’s getting worse back there, not better!’
‘Yeah… I thought that too,’ said Andy. ‘Is it me, or is there more stuff in here than when I stopped by to pick up the line-painting machine yesterday?’
‘Yep!’ said Cath, rolling her eyes. ‘Caroline’s post on social media has been brilliant for gathering a bit of social history—and meeting half the town all in one go—but the drawback is they all turn up with stuff they want to donate.’
‘You can start saying “no” you know,’ chuckled Andy.
‘I have,’ said Cath. ‘Just this morning, I sent Stuart Bendall’s elderly mum away with a bunch of “vintage” plastic jelly moulds she wanted to donate.’
‘You did what?’ gasped Andy in mock outrage. ‘But… you might need them!’
‘I might?’ said Cath, looking concerned.
