“I’ll drop you here by the church and we’ll go on to the art gallery then. When do you want me to come back for you?”“Oh, give us at least three hours. We don’t walk as fast as we used to.”
“Won’t you get hungry?”
“Your mother’s thought of that! We’ve got sandwiches and water with us.”
“And probably a pop-up tent and sleeping bags…Grandma always has everything you could ever need in that bag of hers!”
“Well, this is looking good. And that new stained glass is impressive. Want to look inside?”“If we’ve got time later. Let’s go up the road first.”
“You sure about this, May?”
“Yes. Yes, I am. I think.”
“Oh my.” That was Ludo, who’d pushed open the door and gone in first.
“Oh my, indeed.” May wasn’t stupid. She’d known that their old home wouldn’t look the same. At all. But she still brushed away a tear as she looked at it.“There’s holes in that floor,” Ludo said. “Mind how you go.”
They went upstairs – carefully! – to what had once been their bedroom. It didn’t look much better than downstairs.“You know, we had some really good times in this house. In this very bedroom, as I remember!”
“Now you come to mention it, I kinda recall those good times too…Do you remember the night of that thunderstorm..? Let’s go see what the rest of the places on this road look like.”
“Dad! This gravestone says Ludovic Meithers. How come?” Bea asked her father.He’d taken a wrong turning on the way to the art gallery and Janelle had asked if they could stop and look round the graveyard anyway. “It’s so beautifully kept.”
“This is the old company graveyard. I’d almost forgotten about it,” Vic said slowly.
“Judging from the dates on it, he must have been your great grandfather. Who else is here?” That was Lara.“All the Meithers. They worked in Frederick Arbuthnot’s factory. Or factories. I think he eventually owned more than one. He was the one who started the graveyard.” Bits and pieces of long-forgotten history were coming back to Vic’s mind. “And then the other factory owners joined in as well.”
“I read about this! Not this graveyard specifically, but – remember that history project I had to do for extra credit?”They did. Vividly. And it hadn’t been so much about extra credit as scraping together enough credit.
“Well, this came up: factory owners who guaranteed their workers a decent funeral, as opposed to those who didn’t. It mattered back then – not having the shame of a pauper’s grave. And funerals were expensive. Let’s see how many Meithers we can find!”
“Well, someone’s been at work in here.”“Artie did say they’re hoping to get the racing, the horses, back into the town. It’d make sense to do up old Rusty Wrangler’s place,” Ludo said. “It’s kinda nice thinking of this town coming back to life again – all these young people and their plans: the stables, the art gallery, the bookshop…”
“Well, I call this real civilised. Home-made cookies ‘n all. Ain’t no better thing to be doin’ on a warm spring day than spendin’ a bit of time outside with old friends. You been hearin’ any news worth sharin’, either of you?”
“Well, I’ve got some news. My second book’s coming out soon and I’m doing a signing session at the next Newborough races. How ‘bout that? Chas reckons I could be a real draw for when we get the horse stuff going on here. And I’m working on my third book – the publishers said yes please to it.”“You always were good at writing, Artie,” Bess said softly. “Even Miss Kirk said so.” For some reason, and unusually for her, she was feeling nostalgic today.
Bess mentioning Miss Kirk had sent Artie off reminiscing.“…and after about fifteen minutes of hiding in that cupboard, Miss Kirk says, ‘Arthur Campbell, aren’t you getting a bit cramped in that cupboard?’ She’d known I was there all along! I missed nearly all my playtime too.”
“Couldn’t fool Miss Kirk none,” Old Tench agreed, grinning. “You’re real quiet today, Bess. You okay?”
Bess sighed. “I don’t know…Sometimes you just wonder where everyone’s gone…”“I’m here. Right next to you.” Old Tench pointed out helpfully.
“And I heard from quite a few people at Christmas. Ludo and May first – they're doing fine – you know they moved in with Vic when his wife died, five years back, to help with the twins. Well, Vic’s married again, real nice girl by all accounts. Ludo was saying…”
“Did I hear someone taking my name in vain? Well, well, well. Looks like the gang’s all here. Probably plotting mischief as usual. Got room for another one? Or two?”“Ludo!” Artie jumped to his feet.
“And May! What brings you here?”“Mostly your letters,” Ludo said over Bess’s shoulder. “Thought we’d come and have a look, see what’s been going on here.”
“This is just the best of surprises,” Bess said, her face lit up with happiness. “Tell us all your news…”“Reckon we need to hear yours too. This might take a while.”
“I’ll get some more glasses,” Artie said. “And there’s still plenty of Bess’s cookies left.”
“So, Dad, before we leave,” (and that was rather later than they’d meant to!), “tell me about this house.”“It is kind of interesting, isn’t it? It went with the bank manager’s job – I think the story is that the bank owner had an English wife, and she was the one who designed it. She was kinda homesick. Used to have a real nice garden round it once…”
“No, I didn’t mean its history. I mean, who owns it?”
“Owns it? Tell you who’ll probably know – Rafe or Leo Hunter. From what Tom and Bess and Artie were telling us, they’re the finance brains behind what’s happening here.”
“While you and Ludo were chatting to those lovely friends of yours," Janelle was saying to May, "the girls went up to see the horses. And Vic and I just wandered around – and we came across this place. Come inside and tell me what you think about it.”“I’ve never been in here – we didn’t really have much to do with the bank manager as a rule. And when Maddie Portland got her hooks into him, she suddenly became far too grand for the likes of a factory foreman and his wife.”
“More fool her!”
The girls had already run straight inside.“It’s huge!” Bea called out from behind a rather grubby and slightly broken window. “We could have a bedroom each, Lara and I.”
“It does sort of need a bit of work,” Janelle admitted.“Just slightly,” May said, laughing at the understatement. “A bit like our old house really.”
“You did go and look at it then? You weren’t sure if you wanted to.”
“I did in the end. We made a lot of happy memories there, Ludo and I.”
They went into the kitchen together, May still talking. “Almost made me wish we could move back in there actually, just for a moment. But we wouldn’t want to be so far away from you all. We do need to move out though. Those girls need separate bedrooms. Even if that does look like it means being quite a bit further away.”“This kitchen could be extended,” Janelle said thoughtfully. May came to a full stop.
“Janelle, are you trying to tell me something?”
“I don’t know – honestly. While we were at the art gallery, I got chatting to Lucie Hunter. I would so love to be part of the community here: it would suit me down to the ground. And the girls were so interested in all the ancestors in the graveyard.” Janelle sighed deeply, and then went on.
“Vic and I, we’d love to have a child of our own. But that apartment is small. And even when you two can move out, you're right. It is time the girls didn’t have to share any longer. But we both know how expensive housing is in that area – and Vic needs to be near work.”May nodded sympathetically. Vic worked at a big teaching hospital, and house prices were correspondingly high.
“Vic looked at jobs in Newborough – just because we were going to be visiting: not because he was planning to apply for one. And there were some he could apply for, but we weren’t thinking about doing that at all. Only now I am…But what about the girls? What about you and Ludo? Nobody does crazy things like moving miles and miles to a town that’s only just coming back to life…I am so confused!”
Janelle sounded every one of her twelve-years-younger-than-Vic. Usually her daughter-in-law was pretty unflappable, which had been just as well given the direction Bea had been heading in when Janelle came into their lives. And transformed them for the better. May was extremely fond of her daughter-in-law.“We’ll work this out together. All of us. You know Ludo and I will support you. No matter what. And no matter where. But I wouldn’t mind a bit of crazy myself, you know…”
“So there’s jobs in Newborough I could apply for – and get, I should think. But what I caught myself wanting to do was to start up a clinic here, a place for minor injuries and so on, children’s illnesses: there’s a lot of children being born. Ante-natal care. And post-natal, to save having to go into Newborough for everything. Do you think there’s something in the water here, Dad? Because this is crazy. What about school for the girls for a start off?”
“What do you think?” Ludo asked Lara. Across the road, Marcus’s tractor sputtered into life.“I met Amber Oakfield at the art gallery. I love her books. She says this place inspires her, and I can believe it. It’s going to feel pretty small and cramped when we go back. And this is where we came from: our great or even great-great grandparents were welcomed here, found work.” Lara paused, and got serious.
“Bea and I change schools at the end of this school year. And we need to change completely, not just move up with all our friends. That’s not going to work.”
Bea was being very enthusiastic about moving. Too enthusiastic. Vic knew that tone of voice.“If we moved here, Lara and I could have a bedroom each! I know, I know, the house needs work. But it’ll be the summer holidays soon. And Lara and I are going to be changing schools anyway, so the timing would work out perfectly…”
Vic had overheard what Lara had said to her grandfather.
“Bea. Why do you and Lara need to change schools so completely? This has to be about you and not Lara.”
“Okay. Now let’s have this conversation." Janelle had insited that they sat down, preferably with a cup of tea, to talk. "Why is changing schools big time so important to you, Bea?”“It’s not just me is it, Lara?”
“No,” Lara said from behind her teacup.”
“You explain,” Bea said to her twin. “Dad’ll listen to you better.”
Ouch, Vic thought. That hurt.
“We want to go somewhere where no-one know Bea’s reputation, Bea’s past behaviour.”“I thought the staff were okay with you now, Bea,” Janelle said, kindness and concern in her tone. It had mostly been Janelle acting as mediator that had sorted so much out for Bea, enabled her to change her ways, find the path back to who she was really meant to be.
“It’s not the staff,” Lara said calmly. “It’s our friends. My friends don’t like Bea’s friends and vice versa. And the two groups are trying to set us against each other.”
Janelle’s anger rose. She would back the girls in this.
Lara gave her dad a hard look.“This isn’t about Bea. It's not her fault. She’s changed. And you need to catch up with that.”
Double ouch.
“We want to go somewhere new. Where none of our past friends are. Where we can be ourselves and not have to put up with people bitching about how awful our sister is, day after day after day. Are you for us in this?”
Rusty Wrangler’s was made for me by LMC6255 for the SummerFest gift exchange as part of her Art of Dilapidation series!
And it’s here:
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9395123
The bank manager’s house was made for me by Jessabeans.
Link here: https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9310215
