Page 10 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch

Rosie had no idea it was possible to be a hot mess in such fresh autumn weather – but that’s exactly what she was by the time she rushed back through the door of her cabin.

She’d found the compost toilet, which lived in a cobwebby wooden hut that looked like it might fall down if you sneezed on it.

The floor of the loo hut had nettles sprouting from its earthy ground, and she’d have to remember to take a toilet roll.

At least she hadn’t yet needed the sawdust.

Though it wasn’t her foray with outdoor urination that was sending her whole body into a fluster.

It was her first up close and too personal encounter with Zain.

It was like she had entirely forgotten she was a red-blooded human until she’d set eyes on him .

The way he’d stood in that open-air shower, barely fazed by the screaming, ogling woman, in no particular rush to cover up his nakedness.

He’d seemed more bothered at her seeing the full length of his wet, dark hair than. .. well, anything else.

And though his body had looked almost sculpted from rock, with its twists of firm muscle and the pattern of black tattoos that laced down his arms and across his broad chest and back, she had a sense that even if he’d been standing there in a dressing gown and bobble hat, he would have emanated something impossible to ignore.

What was it about him, exactly? Yes, he was head-to-toe heavenly – and she’d even seen his toes.

But she’d met plenty of attractive guys, especially with her mum and sister being such about-the-town social floozies.

They knew everyone magazine-worthy within a sixty-mile radius, and her own previous boyfriends had all been reasonable-looking.

Yet in all the time she’d spent with any of them, she couldn’t remember feeling as hot, dizzied and alive as she’d felt in just a few minutes of Zain’s moody presence.

And there she’d been, panicking that life had numbed her.

At least some parts of her were still sentient.

Or was she just fantasising? Was this her creative head taking hold of an awkward, embarrassing situation and turning it into some kind of sexy naked shower fest?

She seriously hoped so, because with the day she was having, her poor, reeling mind had precisely no space for anything beyond a fantasy.

Rosie threw off her coat and moved instinctively to the old-fashioned typewriter, which lived on a small oak desk under the mezzanine bed.

The tiny study area was nestled there like the cosiest writer’s nook.

As she ducked to sit on the pink padded chair, she felt something magical embosoming her.

In her mind’s eye there was stardust wisping around, whipping up ideas and sending energy to her fingertips.

If a fairy godmother of writing had arrived in that moment, waving her wand and wiggling her hips to a charming Disney soundtrack, Rosie probably wouldn’t have even blinked.

From her wild imagination to her excited hands, something special was happening. Like a conductor in front of an orchestra, Rosie’s fingers knew the way.

‘I’ll show them my writing isn’t robotic ,’ she whispered to herself, thinking back to all of those publishers who’d rejected her previous attempts at writing a novel.

‘And that my words are better than something churned out by a chatbot.’ With no internet out there, Kimberkoo Chat could go and chatter off .

She pulled some paper from the desk drawer and fed it into the typewriter.

Usually, her writing sessions would begin with a whole lot of faffing.

She’d make tea and prepare snacks. Light candles.

Gather notebooks. Line up lucky gonks. All these things she would cling to, as though she couldn’t write a word without the moral support of a pink-haired troll and three varieties of biscuits.

Yet today, there was no preparation. She noticed there were fairy lights strung around the writing cubby, but she didn’t stop to flick them on. When the paper was ready, she began to type.

Rosie wasn’t even sure what was spilling out onto the page.

She vaguely registered there was someone not unlike Zain, who was now ingeniously called Cain.

There was showering outside in the elements, surrounded by the glory of nature.

Trees and water and birdsong. Nakedness and goose-bumped flesh and feelings she’d never quite experienced but was starting to imagine.

Her fingertips felt like they were buzzing with inspiration, as did every single part of her.

When she paused to remember intimate moments from her past, she couldn’t recall ever having felt truly alive.

Had things always been... robotic ? Had she been no more animated than android Zoe, and her false, cat-like emissions?

She shook her head and rewound her thoughts back to the full, eye-watering form of Zain, and her creativity sprang back to life.

In reality, the man was infamously grouchy, and he’d made it abundantly clear that she was another thorn in his bottom – but her imagination didn’t care about that.

Or maybe it liked him all the more for his lack of compulsion to people-please.

No doubt he never felt obliged to buy toilet roll if it wasn’t his job or laugh at his colleagues’ mundane jokes, even if most of Zain’s colleagues were probably pumpkins.

What tonic was he drinking? Because she wished she could get a mouthful of that.

If she didn’t keep her distance, Zain would no doubt quickly suss her out for being an impostor.

He didn’t seem like the type to care about throwing her under the Agnes bus for being the big porkie-pie liar that she was.

Though again, her imagination had no care for harsh realities.

Or perhaps it enjoyed the tingle of danger.

As she typed, her emotions pouring onto the page, the strangest thought began to emerge.

She shook it away at first, because who would believe in such a thing?

Yet it was almost undeniable. Here she was, writing in the now semi-darkness, words flowing from who knew where, like she was some sort of thing possessed.

If she was willing to see magic wands and cloak-clad fairy godmothers in her mind’s eye, perhaps she was going to have to accept this curious truth.

Zain was her muse.

Nooooo. Could that really be right? She stopped for a moment and scratched her head.

Hadn’t Virginia Woolf had a muse? And Shakespeare had apparently treated himself to a few.

Not to compare herself to great bards, or anything.

She had yet to write a manuscript that hadn’t been scoffed at and stamped with ‘ get this crap off my desk ’.

Even her attempts at writing about periodontitis were mediocre .

Maybe a muse was exactly what she’d been missing. Would she still be able to write if she wasn’t around him? The panicked thought gripped her chest. No, that was silly. She’d be leaving here tomorrow, and she had no capacity for such concepts.

Rosie felt a growl in her tummy. It was probably the only sound she’d heard in hours, other than the rhythmic tapping of her fingers against the typewriter’s keys.

The peace out here was incredible. No car alarms or horns beeping.

No jolly banter from pubgoers outside her window.

It was no wonder Zain was so prickly at having to share his tranquil lake, because there was something to be said for solitude.

It was like her very own writing retreat.

She checked her watch. It had been hours, and writers deserved food. There was a spell at work here, though even spells allowed time for tea breaks, and she was sure she’d spied cake in Agnes’s basket of food.

Rosie switched on the fairy lights and desk lamp, realising typewriters didn’t light themselves up like laptops.

Perhaps she’d find matches for those candles too, although she’d have to be careful of the small wadge of typed manuscript that had now amassed.

Even the sight of it filled her heart with glee.

Some days it was hard to believe she was a real writer , when she’d been faced with publisher rejections and a boss who made her write about rotting teeth.

But here in this moment, she had the tiniest sense that anything could be possible, away from the noise of real life and the shadows of doubt that other people cast on her.

‘It’s not a proper job though, right?’ That one had been Cassius’s sister, queen of doing not a lot.

‘You’re not bloody Jane Austen.’ Kelvin, her delightful ex-boss.

She was probably only fifteen miles from it all, and it had only been a few hours.

Yet somehow, in this remote, Wi-Fi-free serenity, it felt like a lifetime away.

She leaned across and gave her perfect pile of papers a stroke. Of course, it wouldn’t be the easiest thing to edit. Not like a computer, where you could move text around, or quickly delete the dreadful bits. But she’d always loved to edit on paper. Somehow, it made the process feel more real.

Rosie unfolded herself from her writing cubby, taking care not to bump her head.

She filled the kettle and found the softest, sweetest-smelling ginger cake in Agnes’s basket.

It was wrapped in a brown bag decorated with little gingerbread people and looked like it was from a homely café somewhere.

Grabbing what she needed, she reinstalled herself at her desk.

It was gone midnight when Rosie finally climbed into bed, cosy in her flannel pyjamas, belly full and thoughts emptied onto paper.

It had been the most surreal day, and she ought to be sobbing into her pillow about the state of everything.

Her lowly writing role hadn’t given her enough spare cash for savings, and she had no intention of sponging from her parents when she’d had more than three decades to sort her life out.

The thought of having to slope back there and live like she was on the set of a Cotswold reality TV show gave her palpitations.

Though somehow, none of that was troubling her right then. It felt so far away that she could barely even reach it. If she closed her eyes tightly enough, she could pretend that messy life belonged to someone else entirely, and that hers was just rosy.

As she curled up under the fresh-smelling duvet and pulled the soft, clean blankets around her, she almost felt.

.. happy . It was probably still part of the strange aftershock.

Maybe she would wake in the night screaming and worrying about robots taking over the world, and about never finding a job that couldn’t be done better by some software package with a stupid name.

But for now, she would take happy . Because who knew what tomorrow would bring?