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“You look pretty,” declares the smaller one. “But you need some jewels.”

Within seconds, I am draped in plastic beads and bangles, and have a tiara on my head. My usual go-to look for a day at the beach. Their dad smiles and mouths ‘sorry!’ at me as he gently persuades them to pack up their beauty shop. He looks at them fondly as they do as they’re told, but it is a look tinged with sadness.

“The good news is,” Connie says, grinning at me across her impressive bosom, “you get to see Mystery Cricket! Come on, everyone, it’s Cricket O’Clock!”

She actually claps her hands as she says this, and everyone leaps into action. Frankly, all cricket is mystery cricket to me, but I suspect that anything in this charmingly weird place has an extra element of the unexpected to it.

Sure enough, I watch as people run over to the green, and the dad with the beard groans as he takes up the bat. George approaches a big wooden barrel that’s already been laid out, and the others gather in various positions around them.

He reaches into the barrel, and produces a ball. Quicker than you’d ever expect of a man of his age, he takes a small run up, and lobs the ball. The dad whacks it, and it soars high into the blue sky, eventually plummeting down near the Betties. You’d expect Little Betty to be a natural given her height, but it’s actually Big Betty who makes a leap to try and catch it. The two collide into each other, and the ball hits the grass to a chorus of moans.

This is repeated a few times with varying degrees of success, and I am starting to wonder where the Mystery is.

“Isn’t this just…cricket?” I murmur to Connie, who has wisely decided to spectate rather than participate.

“Oh, no, love. Just wait for it. Archie – he’s in bat – knows something’s coming, he just doesn’t know when…that’s the joy of it, see?”

I nod, even though I don’t see at all. And then, as George bowls his next ball, I do – it’s not a ball at all. It’s a water balloon. Archie must see it as well, but fair enough, he still takes a powerful swing, and ends up completely soaked as the impact bursts the balloon’s skin. He shakes himself like a dog, and I find myself laughing along with Connie, the girls screeching in hilarity at their dad’s fate.

Next there’s another normal cricket ball, but after that, I see that the missile isn’t quite right. Archie grimaces and takes a wallop, and it explodes, covering him in a substance that looks like the goo they used to dunk people in on kids’ TV shows.

“Jelly Bomb!” everyone shouts at once, as Archie picks bright orange chunks out of his beard, his girls clambering over his legs and squealing in delight.

“There’s all sorts in there,” Connie tells me, nodding towards the barrel. “Bags of flour, feathers, nothing harmful but a lot of fun. Jelly Bomb is the best, though, and that officially ends the match.”

“Right…and how often do you play this game?” I ask, looking on as Lottie ambles over and starts to hunt for any stray bits of jelly.

“Every Sunday until the end of November. There’s usually something going on around here – we are small, but we are mighty. There’s yoga, and we do cinema nights in the village hall, and there’s usually a barbecue every couple of weeks. Oh, and Fridays we have naked karaoke, that’s a lot of fun!”

I’m starting to get used to her sense of humour now, and I pull a face that tells her I don’t believe a word of it.

“What?” she says in fake horror. “You don’t believe me? You’ll just have to wait and see what happens next Friday, won’t you…”

I smile, and nod, and tell myself that I won’t be here by next Friday. I’ll be long gone by this time tomorrow, if everything goes to plan. I’ll be on the road, and on to the next place, and…on my own again. I’m not sure how I feel about that. This has been a lot – meeting so many new people, adopting a dog, becoming a thief, watching Mystery Cricket – but it has also been fun. A lot more fun than eating up the miles on the motorway with the radio as my only company.

Connie looks at me and gives me a small smile.

“I know,” she says quietly. “It’s overwhelming, isn’t it? That feeling that you just might have found something special, but that you don’t quite deserve it? Don’t think about it now. Just relax. And I think it’s time you met Pub Daddy. He’ll be the calm after the storm. He’s not been here as long as the rest of us, so he isn’t quite as bonkers.”

ChapterFive

Leaving the café’s patio isn’t quite as simple as it sounds – I need to be fed, watered, and introduced to Ged and a million other people before I go.

Ged is a strapping young lad in his early 20s, who looks like every picture-book image of a farmer I’ve ever seen – big, brawny, hair that looks like corn, green wellies. All you’d need to add is him chewing a piece of grass in the corner of his mouth and he could advertise organic veg.

He takes my keys, finds out where the car is, and says he’ll ‘take the Druid with him and be back in a jiff.’ In the meantime, Archie and the girls are dispatched to retrieve my bags for me – which is a relief. It’ll be good to have a change of clothes and some deodorant, quite frankly, for me and everyone else, I suspect.

While they do that, people come and go, introducing themselves, offering sympathy for my plight, patting the dog, and disappearing again. There is absolutely no way I will ever remember any of their names.

Connie whips up a plate of sandwiches and yet more cake, as well as a big jug of the promised G&T, and when Archie comes back hefting my suitcase and telling us he’ll leave it at the pub, I’m feeling a lot more mellow. By this time there is only me, Connie and the dog, which is much more my level of sociability. Plus, I’m mildly drunk. What can I say? I’ve always been a lightweight.

I know I should be doing things – calling a breakdown service, finding a mechanic, charging my phone – but somehow I just don’t care about any of them. Those are problems that will all wait for me, that will all be there in the morning. Nothing earth-shattering is going to happen if I just set them aside for one night – and besides, I remind myself, it’s not like I have anywhere urgent to be.

I feel peaceful as I sit there, the dog back on my lap, a glass of booze in front of me. It’s a beautiful evening, and for the first time in what might actually be years, a smudge of genuine contentment is creeping over me. I can feel it in the looseness of my limbs, the flop of my fingers, the way the skin of my face feels relaxed. I have lived so long feeling pressurised, tense and taut in every part of my body, that I’d forgotten how it feels to just breathe. To just be. It’s a revelation – like a low-level migraine finally clearing.

I stifle a yawn, and Connie laughs as she stands up.

“That interesting, am I?” she asks.