A Spot Of Bother

100

Jean had been wrong about Ray.

Within an hour of his arrival everything was back on track. Katie had been sent into town. A man was coming to fix the toilet and Eileen and Ronnie had been sent to pick up the flowers with their blessed dog in tow.

And, strangely, he did seem to have control over the weather. She was making him a cup of tea just after he arrived when she looked out of the window and saw that the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. Within half an hour the men from the marquee turned up to dry the place out and he was in the garden ordering them around as if he ran the company.

True, he was a little brash sometimes. Not one of us, if you were going to put it like that. But it was beginning to dawn on her that being “one of us” was not necessarily a good thing. After all, her family were failing rather obviously to organize a wedding. Maybe a little brashness was precisely what was needed.

She began to see that Katie might be wiser than either she or George had realized.

Mid-afternoon her brother and his wife dropped in and offered to take her and George out for supper.

She explained that George was feeling a bit under the weather.

“Well, if George doesn’t mind, you could come on your own,” said Douglas.

She was halfway through a polite refusal when Ray said, “You go. We’ll make sure someone keeps an eye on the fort.”

And for the first time she was glad that Katie was marrying this man.