The Day We Brought Sunshine to Markyate

The first thing I saw outside the community hall in Markyate was a woman chasing a sun down the pavement. Not the actual sun, obviously. A cardboard one, about the size of a dustbin lid, with an enormous smile and the sort of eyelashes you normally see on a pantomime horse.

‘Alfie, catch that!’ I called. He put down his bucket, took three heroic steps and trapped it against his chest. Unfortunately, the yellow paint was still wet. By the time he handed it back, he had acquired a splendid golden moustache. Kim laughed so hard she had to lean against the van.

We’d come to clean the hall windows before its autumn get-together. Our organiser, a cheerful woman called Mabel, explained that the children had built a tiny paper village for the front window. There were crooked cottages, a shop with a button for a door and a pond made from a biscuit tin lid. The runaway sun was supposed to hang above it all.

‘Only trouble is,’ Mabel said, her smile disappearing, ‘the village has vanished.’

Inside, the display table was bare. A few glittery footprints led towards the kitchen. Alfie looked at them, then down at his boots, and immediately held up both hands. ‘Before anyone says anything, mine are only muddy.’

The children were due back with their families in an hour. Mabel had promised them their village would be ready, and now she was blinking rather quickly. We stopped unloading. Windows could wait ten minutes; a disappearing town required the whole KP detective department.

I checked behind the stage curtains. Alfie investigated a cupboard and emerged wearing a feather boa that had attached itself to his shoulder. Kim, meanwhile, noticed something neither of us had: a little paper chimney beneath a chair, and a damp patch spreading beside the radiator.

A jug of water had tipped over during the morning tidy-up. Someone had moved the village out of harm’s way, but nobody could remember where. Then Kim heard a soft thump from the kitchen. We followed it and found Mabel’s friend Elsie lifting an enormous cake box onto the counter.

‘Please tell me that’s not full of sandwiches,’ Kim said.

It wasn’t. Inside were the cottages, the pond and every lopsided little tree, rescued safely from the spill. Elsie had popped out for fresh tape and left a note that had slipped behind the kettle. Mystery solved. Village located. Celebrations postponed, because three roofs had come loose.

That was when our ordinary window-cleaning morning turned into a building project. Kim repaired the roofs with remarkable patience. Alfie arranged the tiny streets, giving the button-door shop a very grand position beside the pond. I dried the table and cleaned the glass until the whole display could shine through it.

We hung the smiling sun inside, safely away from the breeze, just as the first families arrived. One little boy pressed his hands together when he recognised his cottage. A girl pointed out that her paper tree was leaning. Alfie solemnly told her it was enjoying the sunshine.

Mabel brought us tea and three slices of cake. Nobody mentioned the missing village again; they were too busy admiring it. Kim caught sight of Alfie’s yellow moustache and started laughing all over again. He finally checked his reflection in our freshly cleaned window.

‘Do you reckon it makes me look experienced?’ he asked.

‘Very,’ I said. ‘At painting yourself.’

We left with clean windows, three empty plates and a proper wave from the doorway. Some mornings you bring the water and the poles. That morning, between the three of us, we’d managed to bring the sunshine too.