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grassy knoll,” I spat, now deeply resenting the way the butter was melting around Al’s chips.
    “You said you didn’t want the same old gardeners with their boring old trugs and terracotta, so that’s what you’ve got. His designs are just a bit different and the garden will be fabulous, you old drama queen!” With that he stood up and blew me a kiss before rushing off for an overdue and much-needed conversation about sleepers with Dan.
    I decided that for my own sanity I needed some space and time alone. I wandered out of the catering tent and stood for a moment in the vicarage garden, just wishing I could blank it all out like I wasn’t really there. I longed to escape the pressure, move up and away to see it all from the safety of the cherry picker high above the trees.
    But I couldn’t. I had to stay on earth and watch close up as Denise resurrected Sodom and Gomorrah, Al screamed and flirted, and Gerard and his pack of ‘heavenly heavies’ turned God’s garden into something resembling a steamy night in Bangkok.

4 - A Rainy Night in Rochdale
     
    I changed out of my mud-covered clothes and had a quick shower as soon as I got back to my cheap B&B and even though by now it was well after eleven, I called home. I missed Grace so much; sometimes just speaking to her on the phone helped, but there was no answer. Before, when I’d worked away, Tom had called me at night and passed the phone to Grace. When she was tiny these calls involved a lisping voice lost in a confusing jumble of baby words involving ‘teddy’ and ‘Daddy’. The novelty would wear off for her quite quickly and within about 45 seconds I’d find myself talking to no-one as she dropped the phone to investigate something far more urgent and interesting.
    “I’ll have to go, she wants to play,” Tom would say apologetically. Putting down the phone, my heart would break and I’d return to writing the scripts I seem to have spent my life doing. I loved and hated those calls; they were a tantalising glimpse at the home-life that was going on without me. I always felt a deep compulsion to jump in the car and drive home and I had to steel myself to turn my heart off and my laptop on.
    Grace was now eight and if she did deign to speak to me it was about the score she’d achieved on the latest Nintendo game or a confused retelling of something that happened at school. A slight in the playground or a recrimination at fruit time can cause ripples of hurt until afternoon break when you’re that age.
    I tried the phone again, wondering why it was that Tom didn’t call me these days. No answer, just an incessant, empty ring followed by my embarrassingly fake posh voice: “Hi, this is the Weston house. Please leave your message and we’ll get back to you.”
    I sighed and opened the can of Lighter Lift, swirling the ‘Passionate Pineapple’ around and taking a big swig. It certainly didn’t seem to me to have the ‘aroma of the tropics’ – more like paint stripper. The cheap Custard Creams thoughtfully left for me by what was laughingly referred to as Room Service suddenly looked very appealing. They stared up at me from the nasty, chipped saucer with diamond-shaped edging, willing me to eat them. I turned back to the phone hastily.
    After the tenth ring there was still no answer. Suddenly it all started to get a bit ‘Violent Violet’ in my head. Had Grace had an accident? Had Tom fallen off a ladder onto Grace, pinning her down, neither of them able to get to the phone? Had they disturbed a deranged burglar and were they now both tied up? As my call rung, – cruelly, mockingly – were they trying to reach for the phone with their fingers inches away, so near and yet so far?
    I promised myself this would be the last time I dialled (knowing deep down that it wouldn’t be). ‘Ring, ring,’ for an eternity, ‘ring’. Then, just as I was about to hang up, ‘click.’ I heard Tom’s abrupt voice: “Hello?”
    I was filled with