‘Right, who’s up for some vision crafting?’
‘Vision what-ing?’ Simon asked, glancing up from his phone.
‘Ooh, yes,’ green-bean-and-berries said. ‘Is there a prize for the best one? Do we get a grade?’ Her eyes went round with excitement. ‘Or a certificate?’
‘Absolutely not,’ I replied, hastily continuing after her face plummeted. ‘As you’ve already heard, Damson Farm is about you being you. It’s your vision, your craft. How can any of us judge or critique, orgradesomeone at being their best selves?’ I waved my hands around, trying to remember how Becky managed it the evening before. ‘Here, we don’t even judge ourselves!’
‘So, to repeat, what exactly are we going to be doing?’ Simon asked, not even bothering to look up this time.
‘We are going to be considering four questions that are vital in the quest to reconfigure our lifestyles to become our best selves. Who we were. Who we wanted to be. Who we ended up being, and who we want to become. Some of you here have spent the past ten years running yourselves into the ground chasing what you’re supposed to want. Meanwhile, your dreams are asking, “What happened to opening that café in the Alps? Where are the dogs we were going to rescue? You promised me we were going to learn the cello, try an open-mic poetry night, sit in the garden with a book and do absolutely nothing all day.”’
‘So. Once again.’ Simon offered me a hard stare. ‘What crap are we going to be wasting our time on this morning?’
‘Um, cutting out pictures and taking the other craft stuff and sticking it on these plant pots. Then you’re going to plant a seed, take it home and watch it grow, surrounded by your new vision.’
‘Ooh, that’s actually really symbolic,’ Saskia said. ‘I love cutting and sticking! It was my best subject at school.’
‘I’m missing a board meeting for this,’ Simon droned, raising his eyebrows at Stephe.
‘Come on, old chap, we’re here now. Might as well get your money’s worth,’ Stephe said.
‘Oh, just one more thing,’ I added, grabbing a bowl off the mantlepiece and holding it out. ‘It’s a no-phone activity.’
Simon sighed. ‘Well, there’d better be some decent booze.’
By lunchtime, the dining room table was a snowstorm of paper snippets, soil and pipe-cleaners. Hope had thoroughly enjoyed sitting in her highchair helping Simon create his vision pot, which had ended up covered in pictures of penguins, white glitter glue and hundreds of tiny foam snowflakes.
‘I just, you know, always loved penguins,’ he explained, chin wobbling. ‘Growing up, my bedroom was covered in posters of them. I adopted a pair of emperor penguins at the zoo, and they’d send me updates. I’d write back, and go and see them twice a year, and I swear they knew it was me. Peter and Penelope. Then, I dunno, exams and uni and work and before I knew it, we’d completely lost touch. Did you know,’ he paused for a monstrous sniff, ‘gentoo penguins mate for life. The male penguin finds a nice nest site, picks his woman, takes his turn when it comes to looking after the chick. A proper dad. A proper family. That’s all I wanted!’
Simon wrapped his hands around the plant pot, tears threatening in his eyes.
Of course that was the moment Daniel poked his head round the door. ‘I’m on my lunchbreak, so I can take Hope.’
He walked around the table, picked up his daughter, plucked a pink feather out of her hair and a snowflake off her cheek and left without any comment on the mess everywhere.
To my monumental relief, the doorbell rang to announce my crew had arrived. I showed Becky into the dining room, with an apologetic shrug, and hustled Alice into the kitchen to start prepping an organic, locally supermarket sourced, Damson Farm lifestyle-reconfiguring version of a kids’ party buffet.
* * *
I had never felt so exhausted. By the time they left, our guests had trooped back to the orchard to cover the basics of beekeeping with Becky, spent an hour baking honey bread, then lain on cushions on the living room floor and relearnt how to breathe before eating an afternoon tea incorporating the honey bread. While doing this, they had so often snivelled and grabbed each other’s hands in moments of revelation about how their life in central London resembled a hive, that by the time they left it felt strangenotto have constant chatter playing on a loop in the background.
Hard work I can manage. Emotional breakdowns and deeply personal outbursts I was not equipped to handle.
I dread to think what Nora Sharp would have made of it all. To my utter relief, for reasons I might begin to untangle once I’d had a decent night’s sleep and a glass of wine, the guests had seemed to love it – Simon even commented on how the décor in the bedrooms and the decrepit bathrooms had been the perfect metaphor for his crumbling, neglected real self.
Even better, the ridiculously large tip meant I could pay my team. Becky refused it at first, until we agreed that she’d spend it on a secret Old Side, New Side and No Side night out, somewhere in Nottingham where no one would spot us.
‘That was the most fun I’ve had in ages,’ Becky said, opening the sole remaining bottle of Prosecco.
‘That’s what you call it?’ Daniel asked, who had joined us for a late dinner of leftovers.
‘Compared to farting on about pharmaceuticals to people who mostly just want you to go away and let them get on with saving lives, it was fantastic!’
‘Fun or not, it was a bloomin’ success!’ Alice said. ‘Two thousand pounds each for that!’
‘Charlie would have absolutely loved it,’ I added. ‘Seeing her dream come to life, even if it was completely last minute, chuck-it-all-together and hope for the best…’ I had to stop talking and close my eyes.
‘To Charlie,’ Becky said, holding her glass up.
