Page 20 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch

‘My bathroom looks like a duckpond. And I haven’t even got any ducks!’

When Rosie reached Agnes’s farmhouse, fully intending to put her foot down about them getting honest with Zain, it seemed the woman had enough on her plate.

She was scurrying around her kitchen trying to find buckets and bowls.

Hens were flapping, Onions and his pack of quirky mongrels were barking, and Agnes seemed to have forgotten about the soup she’d been cooking as it bubbled and spat green liquid, giving off the smell of burnt broccoli.

Rosie rushed to the hob to turn it off, then did her best to shoo the hens out of the back door. Goodness knew what they were even doing in the house, but Agnes had her unconventional ways.

‘Why are all my buckets as holey as a block of Swiss cheese? Can you collect rainwater in an ancient cracked Le Creuset ?’

The dogs continued yapping, and between that, the stress emanating from Agnes, and the one-eyed chicken that was running around in circles rather than finding the exit, Rosie could barely hear herself think.

Maybe today was not a good day to negotiate with her boss about letting her tell Zain some home truths, in the hope he’d be less ferocious about her retreat plans.

Agnes clearly had enough to deal with. If Rosie dared to harangue her, she might get thrown out of Autumn Meadows on her ear.

‘Agnes, what’s going on?’ Rosie yelled above the noise. ‘And how can I help you?’

Agnes flung open a saucepan cupboard and pointed inside. ‘Grab what you can and follow me upstairs.’

When they reached Agnes’s bathroom, Rosie could see that her duckpond analogy had been a slight exaggeration, but there were several damp, dripping patches on the ceiling.

‘Is your roof leaking?’ Rosie asked.

Agnes turned to look at her. ‘Well, I knew I didn’t just employ you for your brilliance in a swimsuit or your excellence in retreat planning.’

Rosie gulped, acutely aware that she was secretly still fairly shoddy at both. She moved around the bathroom, placing saucepans under drips and trying to say reassuring things to Agnes, even though she knew nothing about dodgy roofs.

‘Can you ring a specialist to come and patch it up for you?’ asked Rosie. ‘I know you can’t afford a proper job until the retreats bring in some money, but if it’s just a few roof tiles that need replacing?’

‘Not unless I can pay them in eggs.’

‘Do you know anyone with the right equipment who would do you a favour?’

Agnes put down her collection of bowls and scratched her head. ‘Farmer Wilbur! Of course. He’s got a cherry picker and he’s always fixing things at his lavender farm, isn’t he? Come downstairs and you can call him. He’d be round in a jiffy.’

Rosie’s stomach flipped.

‘No!’ Her yelp was so loud that she set off the dogs again, somewhere below.

She could not have the person who’d apparently recommended her for the job showing up here and shouting ‘Who the blazes are you?’ There were surely rules against misappropriating other people’s jobs.

‘He’s probably far too busy with harvesting, or whatever.

We won’t bother him.’ Rosie had no idea when folk harvested aromatic bushes, but it was definitely the time of year for tractors.

‘He does that in late summer,’ Agnes huffed. ‘You ought to know.’

‘Obviously!’ Rosie squeaked, clapping a hand to her forehead. There was no getting away from it. For once, a certain pumpkin farmer was the lesser of two evils.

‘Time is of the essence – we need to get Zain. I know you don’t want him bullheadedly trying to bodge your whole roof or insisting that it’s not safe for you to stay here, but he’s got a long ladder, and he did build our cabins. He can surely help with a quick repair job.’

Agnes made a grunting noise, which Rosie was taking as affirmative. And now that she’d got one vague yes out of her, she may as well seize the moment.

‘If we’re going to tell him about your roof troubles, it makes sense to confess that this is why pushing on with the retreats is vital.

Can I have your permission to divulge everything I need to, to try and get him onside?

The threat of Cyber Purrz buying you out and the fact that the pumpkin USP is the only thing that might save us? ’

Agnes stood in her dripping bathroom, her messy hair wet, her usually formidable face crumpled. As much as Rosie didn’t like to pester a woman when she was down, this was for Agnes’s own good if she wanted to keep her home.

Agnes clasped and unclasped her hands a few times and then gave a small nod. ‘Do what you have to, though my advice still stands. One bite at a time. If you throw everything at him at once, he’ll be the one chomping your head off. And I don’t want to be around to see that.’

It didn’t take long for Rosie to rush to the nearest pumpkin patch, where luckily, Zain was busy working.

He must have sensed the urgency enough not to put up a fight, and at the words ‘ Agnes needs you ’, his face fell, and he rushed after Rosie, up to the house.

When they reached Agnes’s cramped bathroom, its floor littered with saucepans, the sound of dripping water punctuating the air, he broke his own tense silence.

‘What’s going on?’

Agnes garbled out the bare minimum about a few roof tiles probably having fallen, and that a quick repair should do it, and that maybe Farmer Wilbur could help after all. Rosie grabbed the edge of Agnes’s old, cracked sink, trying to disguise her fresh wave of panic.

‘Wilbur will be away,’ Zain barked. ‘Always takes a long break in autumn, after his harvest.’

Rosie mouthed a silent thank you in the direction of the dribbling ceiling. She hoped it would be a world cruise that he wouldn’t be back from any time soon.

Zain paced to the window. ‘I can probably get onto the roof from here.’

‘What are you going to do, tie a few tiles to your head and hook the hammer through your belt loop?’ Agnes shot Rosie a look. ‘You see what I mean?’

Zain turned to them, his eyes narrowing. ‘You two been talking about me?’

Agnes blurted out ‘no’ at the same time Rosie put her hands on her hips and said ‘yes’, which really didn’t help matters.

‘How long’s this been going on?’ Zain pointed upwards, his movements abrupt. ‘This isn’t the first you’ve known about your roof having problems, is it?’

‘The whole thing needs replacing by the winter,’ Rosie said hastily, before Agnes was able to waffle her way out of it. ‘A swift repair might do for now, but a plaster won’t fix a broken leg.’

Zain’s dark eyes began filling with something that looked like fury. Rosie could almost have sworn she saw flashes of red. ‘Why does she know about this, and not me?’ he asked Agnes, through gritted teeth. ‘Is she an expert with a slate ripper now, as well as a whizz in the water?’

Rosie forced her shoulders upwards. ‘I’m not here for home renovations.

But I am here to help Agnes use her land in a profitable way so that she can repair this roof and save her home.

That’s why getting my retreats up and running quickly is so important.

Because without them...’ Rosie raised her hands to make her point, a plop of water landing on her head in full support.

‘And you thought you couldn’t trust me knowing your business plans?’ His glare swept to Agnes. ‘You confide in her, over me, without even checking who the hell she is?’

Rosie swallowed hard.

‘Like I’m just some stupid farmhand?’

His eyebrows pinched together, and Rosie felt a pang of something for him.

She stepped forward. ‘Nobody thinks you’re stupid. Just...’ she chewed her words ‘...exceedingly cross.’

‘You haven’t seen cross,’ he said, his face almost giving off steam. A drip of water landed on his shoulder, and he batted it off, moving quickly and thrusting a spare saucepan under it. ‘I do not like being lied to. What else have you been hiding?’

‘Oh nothing,’ said Agnes shrilly, checking her watch. ‘I’ll just pop and make some tea!’

Rosie opened her mouth to protest, but her boss was off like a shot, singing loudly about raindrops falling on her head, as though to block out the sound of objections.

Just great. It was clear Agnes was leaving the rest of the revelations to Rosie, though perhaps her boss was right about one thing.

Eating an elephant – or indeed a pumpkin farmer – one bite at a time, was probably the wisest way.

Their immediate issue was to get the roof patched up.

And if Rosie dared to mention robot cat factories or getting her hands on his precious gourds right then, he might just blow the roof off.