Polly. Freya North

was neither ignored or stared at, nor was she over-welcomed. She felt at ease. She was not a tourist, she was not at the cinema. People allowed her to occupy a space amongst them. She fitted in just fine.

       All America is here: wholesome kids, caring women, buddy-buddy men, Boston beans baking deep in that pit over there, the children’s tree house with the Stars and Stripes. I hear terminology I wrongly thought would irritate me, I smell the gargantuan feast that will revive the pioneers mid-morning. I baked a pie. I smell pine. I’m part of this. I belong.

      The first ‘A’ frame was aligned, hauled and coaxed into its place with little ado.

      ‘Hold it right there, Ed.’

      ‘Easy! Easy!’

      ‘Up she goes. She’s up.’

      ‘Way to go, guys!’

      While the children now played in the trees and by the stream, the women chatted and marvelled and ensured that beakers were overflowing with fruit juice. The builders were all voluntary – Clinton and Jackson and a couple of other Hubbardton teachers amongst them. There were also Jojo’s friends and family who had travelled across the state, some even down from Canada, to be a part of the day. There were Jude and Ed, her hillbilly-looking nephews whose sensitive and polite demeanour was utterly at odds with their thick necks and thatched hair, their calloused, stout hands and seam-stretching thighs. Nearby, a couple of elderly men in great shape (who actually didn’t look silly in their checked shirts and worn jeans), spoke about e-mail and software while they flung ropes about like dab hands. A goofy teenager set up a plumb-line and cried ‘Yo!’ triumphantly while Clinton and Jackson rigged up a ‘come-along’ to secure the correct tautness between struts. A small army of men wore tool belts slung like holsters; whipping out hammers with a speed that would have done John Wayne proud, or twirling their tools with all the flair of a rock-and-roll drummer. Everyone had a job to do, everyone knew their place. Overseeing the entire operation was a small, wiry man, the architect and only paid member of the team, bearded strangely minus a moustache, who darted nimbly around the growing skeleton, heaping praise, advice and instructions with a softly spoken voice. All three ‘A’ frames were now in place and point four on the list had been reached.

      Every strut, joist and plank had a home in either a notch, a wedge or a grip in a neighbouring plank, strut or joist. Corresponding holes in the wood allowed for oak pegs to further secure the bond. A jigsaw puzzle the size and shape of a house. The hillside rang with the song of chatter, of laughter and of knock, knock, knock on wood. Enter two carpenters, father and son: Bob and Mikey McCabe. Polly had a doughnut in one hand and a small offcut of pine in the other and she was intermittently sniffing the two when she first caught sight of Mikey. Tall and lithe in physique, his dark hair long. He had the most beautiful forearms, ditto his strong, muscled legs with their masculine smattering of dark hairs. His face was so handsome it could well be illegal.

      Polly bit into the wood, hard, and thought to herself that English doughnuts were so much softer and more tasty and who on earth was that scrumptious man and he’s taken his T-shirt off, oh my God.

      She was utterly taken aback. She had no control over her eyes as they darted to and from this figure. Her heart pounded. She was horrified and exhilarated.

       But I don’t look twice at normal men.

      Normal?

       I mean, real-life blokes. Only Max. For the past five years. Apart from film stars – who don’t count.

      She let the doughnut fall to the ground as if it were an off-cut of pine, and she placed the offcut of pine, teethmarks and all, on to a plate of doughnuts.

       Polly Fenton doesn’t look twice. But I can’t keep my eyes off him.

      ‘Isn’t this great!’ squeezed Jojo, at her side.

      ‘Super duper,’ agreed Polly in fine style, half relieved to be led away from this apparent danger zone, half ruing the fact that stirring the beans prevented visual access to Mikey McCabe.

      ‘He’s out of sight,’ she lamented softly to the great saucepan as she sat on her heels over the pit.

      ‘Isn’t he just!’ colluded Kate cautiously but with a skew smile. ‘Outa sight. Totally.’

      ‘I meant,’ fumbled Polly, immensely uncomfortable and almost lost for words, ‘I meant – absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.’

      Kate doffed her head and departed with a smile that was kind. And wise. And something else too.

      Outa sight, Polly twanged to herself.

      Max is out of her mind.

      She is totally engrossed in the sensation of the present.

      SEVEN

      ‘Hey there,’ he said, bowling over to her at lunch-time with an easy smile, ‘I’m Mikey.’

      A warm, firm handshake.

      Look at his neck. His Adam’s apple. Shoulders. Chest.

      No don’t.

      ‘Hullo,’ she responded, ‘I’m Polly.’ Desperate to be demure and disinterested. Failing.

       Fight the smile.

      Failing.

       Am I blushing?

      Yes.

      ‘From England, hey?’

      ‘Yes, from Old Blighty,’ Polly enunciated. He nodded and smiled, displaying perfect white teeth behind full, deep red lips. The morning’s exertion had had superb consequences for his appearance; his hair was damp and tousled and scraped hastily into a pony tail while sweat and sawdust gave a subtle glisten to his body and had made his eyes watery and dark. Polly tried not to stare and hoped sincerely that her pupils were not dilating visibly. If they were (they were), he was too well mannered to acknowledge it.

      The house was all but finished by four o’clock. The roof was slatted and watertight. There were no side walls at the moment as Jojo, predictably, had run out of money. However, even in its skeletal state it was stunning. It was obvious what a gorgeous home it was going to be when complete; occupying this spectacular position in the lie of Hubbardtons, overlooking the main cluster of houses of Hubbardtons and just a twenty-minute walk for Jojo to her classes at Hubbardtons.

      The little architect started a round of applause when the job was done, which was followed by liberal high-fiving and unabashed hugging. The men then jumped from the structure and stood back to look on it, nodding and congratulating each other and themselves. They finished the last of the beans and made another inroad into the batch of pies before disappearing to their pick-ups and returning with fiddles. They played until dusk. Polly counted seven violins as she tapped her toes with her mouth agape. There were two bonfires. She sat by Kate at the smaller. Mikey McCabe was playing his fiddle around the other; jigging and twisting, turning and stamping. He had jeans on. But Polly could clearly see his legs beneath them. She really couldn’t take her eyes off him. She couldn’t really. He was magnificent.

      Polly ate little at supper for she was still full from lunch. She washed up diligently and made tea for Kate, Clinton and Charle(s).

      ‘I have a slight headache,’ she said, swiping her brow with the back of her hand so that she covered her eyes as she spoke, ‘I think I’ll take a stroll.’

      ‘You want to wait till I’ve finished my tea?’ offered Kate.

      ‘I think I’ll go right now if you don’t mind,’ Polly declined politely, ‘I must nip it in the bud.’

      A headache? A stroll? But Polly is positively stomping along Main Street, forking right, then right again. Springing through the petticoats then climbing up on to the skirts of Hubbardtons.

      No moon. No need.