Summer Holiday. Penny Smith

her loins and walked with purpose to the plastic carrier bag from which she had not yet unpacked the requisite items on the list.

      My goodness, she thought, when she was dressed. I look like the sort of woman who’s never heard of Brazilian waxing or eyebrow-plucking. In short … a mad feminist. All men are bastards. I’ll take them down with my sharp wit and disused tweezers.

      She fluffed up the duvet, threw on the coverlet and the six cushions, then decided she had just enough time for a quick coffee.

      Ten minutes later she was wondering why, with all her experience of life, she hadn’t put a dash of cold water into it. The burnt roof of her mouth hurt. On the bright side, there would be that strangely enjoyable peeling away of the skin tomorrow.

      The green Jaguar purred into life and she put the postcode into the sat-nav as she waited for the garage door to lift. She drove west towards Shepherd’s Bush and the A40, searching for something to listen to on the radio, finally settling for XFM because it made her feel connected to Jack. Her adorable Jack. Nigel hadn’t been able to make him conform and he was now wandering the world with a clutch of A levels and a backpack. She did worry about his future and, in a secret, locked-away bit of her brain, actually wished he had gone into banking and done the hiking stuff later.

      Lucy, mind you. Chip off the old block. Miranda tried out her singing voice along to some god-awful rackety piece of music.

      The weather was getting worse. The rain was sluicing down as though a pipe had been uncorked. There was little traffic on the roads and she made it to the rendezvous within an hour, parking between a muddy old Fiat and a yellow VW Beetle. After she’d struggled into her brand-new, state-of-the-art Gore-Tex anorak, with zips under the armpits for letting off steam, she emerged from the car with a modicum of decorum and tiptoed to the boot in her trainers to get her wellingtons. Four people were watching her from under umbrellas. Their clothing looked like it had been stolen from a tip. They were filthy.

      ‘Hi,’ said Miranda, brightly, stuffing her new gloves into her jacket pocket.

      The assembled group smiled and nodded, drinking tea from a flask and chatting about the work in hand. A man in a high-visibility jacket, with teeth that might have been thrown into his mouth by a blind parsnip-tosser, introduced himself as Will. ‘We’re basically going to be getting rid of the undergrowth and stuff on the towpaths so that the dredger can get through to clean out the canal,’ he said. ‘At the moment, as you can see …’ he looked around and amended that ‘… as you can’t see through this atrocious weather but I assure you is the case, the canal is all silted up and full of algae bloom and duckweed. The dredger can’t do its work until we’ve done ours.’ He waved a hand in the direction of the sky. ‘Now, apparently the good folk at the Met Office are predicting that this rain is going to blow through pretty quickly. Since we’re all here, with the exception of Alex, we may as well get cracking. At least nobody’s cried off with the “flu”.’ He made quote marks in the air as though that was a usual excuse for someone not turning up. Miranda shook her head in disgust.

      He walked towards the Land Rover and bent over, his large trousers gathering in an elephant’s bottom of grey as he rummaged. ‘I’ve got a collection of implements in here. Come and take your pick. Not literally.’ He laughed – it was obviously a line he’d used before. Miranda smiled. Might as well show willing.

      The others had obviously done this work before, since they showed no hesitation in lunging for the tools, leaving her with nothing but a pair of enormous leather gloves and the job of picking up litter. ‘It’s like being at home with children,’ she commented to the woman in front of her. Her name was Teresa: she had hair like a newly shorn sheep and a wart near her nose.

      ‘What? Walking along wearing protective gloves?’ Teresa asked, with a confused expression.

      ‘No, having to pick stuff up. All their toys and things. Socks. Although usually I didn’t wear big leather gloves to do it. Do you have children?’

      ‘Cats,’ responded Teresa, briefly.

      ‘Lovely. Hairy ones?’

      ‘Yes. Well, one short-haired and two long-haired.’

      ‘Rescue cats or pedigree?’ Like she really cared.

      ‘Rescue.’

      ‘Lovely.’ Bloody hell! She had to stop saying ‘Lovely’ – she was beginning to sound like a game-show host.

      They stopped speaking as they reached the rest of the group.

      ‘Here’s where we left off last week.’ Teresa nodded to a newly cut section on a bush.

      Will was hunched over, talking to one of the men, but turned and said something to Teresa, who moved forwards, leaving Miranda standing alone. She sniffed the air appreciatively. The rain had stopped, leaving a damp, green smell. It reminded her of finding a little patch of camomile in the corner of the garden and lying on it to see how comfortable it was. When Nigel had found it, he had covered it with weed-killer.

      ‘So, Miranda,’ said Will, ‘you’ve picked the short straw, and are doing the tidying up. It’s one of the most important jobs, but also one of the most unloved as it plays havoc with your lower back.’ He rubbed his own and grimaced, his lips slightly parted to reveal one of his yellowy parsnip teeth. ‘I’d recommend that you stand up and stretch it out frequently or you’ll wake up tomorrow unable to walk. And try not to get too close to the cutters – they can get a bit carried away, if you know what I mean.’

      Miranda nodded, although she wasn’t sure she did know what he meant. She added a smile, then turned quickly as loud running was heard through the gloom, followed by the sudden appearance of a superbly scruffy man with dreadlocks, wearing a jumper with so many holes that it resembled a string vest.

      ‘Alex!’ exclaimed Will, warmly, clasping his outstretched hand and clapping him on the shoulder. ‘We were wondering where you’d got to. Thought you must have been struck down with summer flu or some other lurgy.’

      ‘Camper van sprang a leak in the middle of the night. I’ve been doing emergency repairs. Couldn’t leave until I’d made sure it was watertight. Don’t want to get back and find all my Armani pumps wrecked, do I?’

      ‘Ha-ha. No. You betcha you don’t,’ Will said jovially. He pointed a big square finger. ‘I saved you a machete.’

      ‘Can I have a machete?’ asked Miranda, moving closer.

      ‘Ha-ha!’ He laughed again. ‘No, I don’t think so. Not on your first day.’ He strode back to the Land Rover, his boots sliding on the muddy path.

      ‘Alex,’ said Alex, holding out his hand to Miranda.

      ‘Miranda,’ said Miranda, shaking it and looking into the greenest eyes she had ever seen. They were leaf green. Ireland green. Ridiculously green.

      ‘First time, then.’ He smiled down at her.

      Miranda was tall, but he was taller still – and what her friends at school would have called ‘well tasty’. Although she wasn’t sure about the dreadlocks. Didn’t you have to be seriously grubby to get them? Not wash for months? She sniffed cautiously. He didn’t smell. ‘Lovely fresh air, isn’t it?’ she exclaimed, to cover herself, and then answered his question: ‘And, yes, it is my first time. I wanted to get out of the city and do something constructive.’

      ‘Which city?’

      ‘London.’

      ‘Which part?’

      ‘Notting Hill,’ she said semi-apologetically. Ever since the film Notting Hill, she’d felt something akin to embarrassment about living in a place that was synonymous with a romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts.

      ‘Nice,’ he said, as he accepted the machete from Will. ‘Shall we?’

      ‘“Lead on, Macduff,”’ she said, even though they were already where she needed to be to start picking up rubbish.