Faith - Lesley Pearse [256]
Jackie would have wholeheartedly loved the idea of holidays for deprived children, so it seemed a fitting thing to put her money into. The kids could camp at first while helping with the building, spending whole summers learning useful skills while they had a great time too. Students would gladly come and help out for pocket money, teaching orienteering, canoeing, climbing, and heaven knew what else.
She had half expected Stuart to scoff at her idea, or at least to say that now they had a lovely home he was hoping that they would just do nothing but enjoy themselves.
But he didn’t.
His eyes lit up, and the next thing she knew he was suggesting he’d like nothing better than to spend six weeks a year playing Boy Scout leader.
‘David would like it too, and maybe James and Meggie as well,’ he went on. ‘I could get some of the companies I’ve worked for to donate building materials or plant hire. They’d love it; they might even take on some of the keen kids as apprentices later on. The only real problem would be getting the council to agree to use land in an area of outstanding beauty for such a project, because you’ve obviously got to build some permanent structures, toilet blocks, kitchens and stuff. But they might be okay about it if it was log cabin-style and only used for part of the year.’
It occurred to Laura later that they both wanted this because they had no children of their own. Maybe she needed to lavish some love and care on neglected children as a way of proving herself to Barney. Stuart too had a surplus of love and patience that needed an outlet.
She said goodbye to the drop-in centre in the middle of May, and since then, when she wasn’t working out in the garden, she had been planning her project. She had good people now lined up to help, a whole raft of ideas for fund-raising and promotion. The next step was to find some suitable land and buy it.
Later that day she and Stuart intended to tell everyone about the plan, but for now they had a barbecue to organize.
∗
James and Derek arrived back from the shop with enough drink to launch the Queen Mary and a carrier bag full of different cheeses.
‘Why so much cheese?’ Laura asked James. ‘Is this some sort of secret vice you want to tell me about?’
He laughed, his soft brown eyes crinkling up at the corners. Laura liked him so much – perhaps at first it was just because he had made Meggie radiant and youthful again, but now she found him a pleasure to be around. He was calm and steady, chatty enough not to be dull company, but not the pushy kind who likes to take centrestage.
He was an unlikely policeman really; he looked the part – brawny, tall and fit – but he was gentle, his voice as soft as his eyes. A deep-thinking man, kind and sensitive.
‘You’ve got me banged to rights,’ he said. ‘I just love all kinds of cheese, so when I’m faced with a huge selection I have to have some of each.’
‘But so much of each one?’ Laura laughed. ‘We’ll be eating it for weeks.’
‘I’m the same about beer,’ Derek chimed in. ‘Got to taste every single kind, and my God, there’s a lot of Scottish beers to choose from.’
‘Well, go easy on it today, we don’t want you falling in the loch,’ she said. Her brother-in-law was a party animal. Fifteen stone of noise, laughter, jokes and fun. He could be relied on to keep the party going into the early hours. Laura often thought he should have been a publican, but in fact he was a personnel officer in an insurance company. Ivy claimed he had to suppress his real personality all week and that was why he broke out at weekends and on holiday.
‘Maybe I should put on a life jacket just in case,’ he laughed, then, looking out at his boys in the boat, he remarked how well they were rowing now. ‘Your Stuart’s a good’un,’ he said. ‘The boys really like him.’
As Laura prepared some salads later in the kitchen she thought of that remark of Derek’s. Stuart had got the boys to bring the boat in now, and he’d organized them into