Free The First Time I Saw Your Face by Hazel Osmond Page B

come. What came was laughter, quiet at first and then louder and more wholehearted. It set them all off again, even Louise.
    Jen wanted this moment of laughter and new lambs togo on forever. ‘You should be really grateful Mrs Chambers didn’t turn around,’ she said to Danny. ‘She was bound to have found fault with your buns.’
    ‘Aye,’ Danny agreed, just managing to get the words out, ‘but I’d have got a winner’s rosette for me sausage roll.’

CHAPTER 6
    As Mack struggled to stand upright in the wind, clinging on to the door of a taxi, he found it hard to recall that thrill-of-the-chase moment he’d had on the train.
    ‘This is it,’ he asked, looking around, ‘the whole of Brindley?’
    ‘Divvn’t be soft,’ the taxi driver replied. ‘The opera house is down that hill and the casino’s round the corner.’
    Mack didn’t laugh, but even if he had, it would have been torn away in the wind. There were no streetlights, but he could just make out a row of squat, stone cottages which he supposed was Brindley Villas. Turning his head to the left, he saw a couple of larger, detached houses, also built in stone. He looked off to the right. Nothing, just a signpost. He guessed it would say ‘Civilisation: 350 miles this way’.
    He knew the North would be like this. Bring on the cloth caps and rickets.
    As the taxi driver struggled round to the boot and started to get out his case and rucksack, Mack turned to see whatdelights lay behind him. A low tin hut, a couple of cottages and what might be the shop.
    He registered that there was also a play area with some swings being bullied by the wind and a well-worn slide.
    ‘You all right there?’ the taxi driver asked.
    No, put my stuff back in the boot and drive away like a bat out of Hell.
    ‘Yes, lovely place. Away from everything; just how I like it. No distractions from thinking and writing. Looks like there’s plenty of good walking to be had.’ He waved his hand towards the black nothingness.
    ‘Not a great walker myself,’ the taxi driver said, starting to close the boot and then stopping. ‘Hey, I keep a shovel in here, do you want a lend of it?’
    ‘For any snow that’s on its way?’ Mack squinted at the sky in what he hoped was a knowledgeable, country manner.
    ‘Why no, to beat off the locals.’ The taxi driver shut the boot and walked towards Mack with his arms outstretched as if he were a zombie. ‘Saw some of these curtains twitching when we pulled up. Best watch yourself.’
    ‘Ah, yes. Funny, very funny,’ Mack agreed, wishing he could club the man with his own shovel, if only to stop the incessant flow of humour. It had started when he got into the taxi at Tyneforth, after a jarring, bouncy ride on the little train out from Newcastle where he’d morosely watched the view out of the window get greener and greener with every mile. He wasn’t even going to think about the earlier, shabby little meeting with the so-calledThird Party in Newcastle Station. Even now it made him want to wash his hands.
    The taxi driver’s merry chatter had been kept up as they’d driven out of Tyneforth on the dual carriageway and then along little roads that wound past streams and down into valleys and through villages until for a long while there was nothing and then there was Brindley.
    ‘How much do I owe you?’ Mack shouted into the wind once the zombie impersonation was over.
    ‘Forty-five pounds. Want a receipt?’
    Mack paid and acted as a windbreak while the taxi driver struggled to write out the receipt and then, because it was O’Dowd’s money, he handed over a large tip.
    He regretted it when the taxi driver raised his eyebrows and said, ‘Last time I got a tip like that it was one of them journalists. Could charge the silly buggers anything you liked. They’ll have your knadgers off round here if they think you’re one of them.’
    ‘Do you really think I’m a journalist dressed like this?’ Mack kept his voice level and his