A Rural Affair Page 5

  ‘You know what Peggy said to me when we heard about Phil?’ Angie paused to turn and warm her bottom on the Aga.

  ‘I bet you wish it had been Tom?’ hazarded Jennie.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And do you?’ I asked, wondering where I’d put the cake knife, if I ever had one.

  ‘Of course.’ Angie raised her chin. In the light, her lovely, sculpted face was fretted with fine lines. She shook back her flaming red-gold hair. ‘It would be so much neater, wouldn’t it? No messy stepmother only a fraction older than my daughters, no drifting between two houses. I’m deeply jealous. And look at all the sympathy you get.’ She waved her hand at the gathering in the next room, the flowers, the cards. ‘All I get is – well, of course she had it coming to her.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ muttered Jennie, knowing it was.

  ‘And on a more personal note, if I can’t have my man,’ Angie went on, ‘I certainly don’t see why anyone else should.’

  ‘Whereas, you see, I wouldn’t mind,’ Jennie said airily. ‘I’d quite like Dan to live elsewhere and just visit me at weekends. Someone else could wash his dirty underpants, sort through the insurance claims, the unpaid bills.’

  ‘No one believes you, Jennie,’ I told her.

  ‘Ah, but that’s because you don’t think I’ve got it in me,’ she said, dark eyes suddenly flashing. ‘Don’t think I’ll wake up one morning – when the next Troy incident occurs – and say, “Enough!” ’

  This, a reference to last Christmas, when Dan, driving home from work after a protracted boozy lunch, pranged his car into a crash barrier on the A41. Sensing he was too pissed to call the AA, he’d left his immobilized vehicle on the hard shoulder and proceeded to walk home. He’d reckoned without a passing motorist calling the police, though, and soon the nearest patrol car – a dog handler, as it happened, complete with Alsatian named Troy – had found Dan’s abandoned vehicle. In moments they were out of their car and tailing Dan across country. Knowing his house to be literally over the next hill, Dan was taking the scenic route back to the village where, coincidentally, on that moonlit night, the entire population had gathered around the Christmas tree on the green to sing carols. All of a sudden Dan, in the shaky beam of his pursuer’s torch, in a pinstriped suit, briefcase flapping, ran hell for leather over the hill towards us, an Alsatian on his heels. As the handler shouted, ‘Get him, Troy!’ Troy did, and with his children watching wide-eyed on the green, Dan was brought down by his trouser leg, pinned until a back-up police van arrived, then bundled, limping, unceremoniously into the back of it.

  ‘Don’t think I won’t leave him if a scenario like that ever unfolds in front of the children again,’ Jennie trembled. ‘Everyone has their breaking point.’

  The three of us were in a row against the Aga now – a common enough sight in this kitchen – hovering where we shouldn’t be, least of all me. Three women who’d shared a lot over the years, each with a few more lines around the eyes, each with a ubiquitous glass in hand.

  ‘I’ve done my bit,’ Peggy announced, coming back to join us. She tossed the empty plate on the side and resumed her place on the stool, lighting up again.

  Four women.

  ‘Who’s he talking to?’ asked Jennie after a moment, craning her neck to peer next door. We watched as Dan tried to crack a nut which clearly wasn’t cracking.

  ‘Phil’s sister,’ I told them. ‘If I tell you she hasn’t laughed since 2006 you’ll know what he’s up against.’

  Sour Cecilia, her plain, scrubbed face mystified, was on the receiving end of Dan’s charm offensive, a practised stream of anecdotal wit which he usually unleashed on pretty secretaries at work who’d lapse into fits of giggles.

  ‘I’d better rescue her,’ Jennie sighed, putting down her glass.

  ‘Do not,’ Peggy told her, staying her arm. ‘Do her good. She’s a pain in the tubes. I’ve already had two minutes with her. And your Dan’s going the extra mile as usual.’

  It probably didn’t help Jennie that we all loved Dan.

  ‘And that, presumably, is the mother,’ Angie murmured, as an older, but more handsome version of Cecilia hoved into view.

  ‘Don’t let her see me!’ I squeaked, shrinking back behind Peggy. ‘I’ve done my bit. Hours and hours on the phone last week, and then a whole day down in Kent with the pair of them. I’m not doing any more.’

  ‘Good for you,’ agreed Peggy. ‘Your dad’s not one to let a mouth like a cat’s arse put him off, though, is he?’

  We watched as my father, having returned from his drinks run to hand round gin and tonics with bonhomie, succumbing as ever to his urge to make a party go, sidled up to Marjorie, clearly of the opinion he’d met her somewhere before, which of course he had, at our wedding.

  ‘It’s Margaret, isn’t it?’ he boomed. For a small man Dad’s got a very loud voice.

  ‘Marjorie.’ She tensed, visibly.

  ‘That’s it. Weren’t you at the Gold Cup a while back? In a box with the McLeans?’

  ‘I was not,’ she said tightly.

  He gave it some thought. ‘Didn’t we have a dance at the Fosbury-Westons’ once?’

  Her mouth all but disappeared. ‘We did not. I’m Philip’s mother.’

  It was pretty to watch. It all came flooding back to Dad. The wedding reception down the road at the country club where he’d greeted her jovially from the top step of that grand house, tightly upholstered as she was in purple silk, a fascinator on her head. A fascinator’s a strange little hat, and this one had a peacock perched aloft, but as he’d lunged to embrace her, the peacock’s antennae had somehow become involved in his buttonhole, which the florist had surrounded with some netted confection, so that her head became locked to his chest. A grim struggle had ensued: Marjorie silent, Dad hooting with laughter as he descended the step – which didn’t help, rendering Marjorie bent double. ‘She can’t get enough of me!’ he roared.

  ‘My fascinator!’ Marjorie had yelped, clutching her hat which was nailed to her head.

  ‘Why thank you,’ Dad had quipped back, eyebrows wagging.

  Cecilia had finally rushed with nail scissors to part them and Marjorie had stood back panting and unamused, hands clenched at her sides like a boxer.

  As her identity was now revealed, Dad looked desperately at Dan, but Dan had been struggling for a good ten minutes with these two and had watched helplessly as my father had flown into their web.

  ‘Lovely … party?’ said Dad, in despair.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ agreed Dan.

  Marjorie and Cecilia looked aghast.

  ‘I mean … as these things go,’ added Dad, waving his hand lamely.

  Dan gazed bleakly into his beer; my father at his feet.

  The four of us lined up at the Aga viewed this little vignette with interest.

  ‘Those two are the only men in that room who belong to us,’ Jennie observed. ‘Take a long hard look, girls. That’s what we’ve ended up with. That’s what’s left for us in the man pool. Two men still in short pants. No offence, Poppy.’

  ‘None taken,’ I assured her.

  ‘But would you want any of the rest?’ Angie murmured.

  We took a sip of wine and surveyed the throng thoughtfully. We liked this sort of question.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a crack at Angus Jardine,’ Peggy said at length.

  She was playing to the gallery but we all gasped dutifully. Angus Jardine was the silver-haired, silken-tongued husband of Sylvia, queen bee of the village, who’d praised Phil’s bell-ringing skills. Retired from the City, where he’d been a big fish at Warburg’s, he now just swished his tail contentedly in his river-fronted rectory. He was very much out of bounds.

  ‘You hussy, Peggy,’ Angie told her.

  ‘I said a crack. Once I’d got him I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t want him. The word is he’s stingy as hell, a finger of whisky is literally that. And anyway, don’t tell me you haven’t got a crush on Passion-fuelled Pete,’ Peggy
retorted.

  ‘I might have,’ Angie agreed equably, ‘but he’s not here, is he? You said anyone in that room.’

  ‘Oh, we can digress,’ Peggy told her. ‘Jennie?’

  ‘You mean hypothetically?’

  ‘Of course hypothetically. This is a wake, dear heart. We’re not suggesting you jump anyone right now.’

  Jennie hesitated. Just a moment too long, I thought. I turned, surprised. ‘Nah,’ she said, sinking into her wine. ‘You know me. I’m off men, full stop.’

  ‘Poppy?’ Peggy asked smoothly.

  I blinked. ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ I spluttered. I seized a plate of fairy cakes and stalked, irritated, into the next room. ‘I’ve just buried my husband!’

  ‘Quite,’ I heard Peggy say softly as I left.

  4

  Death has a way of sorting the men from the boys. Some people kept their distance fearing they’d trigger emotion, be responsible for a nasty scene. There were those who’d walk right around the pond on the green just to avoid me, and if they did have to pass me, would scuttle on by, head down. Men, mostly. Others couldn’t resist bringing it up at every opportunity. Outside the village shop, for instance, at the school gates; would positively leap the pond to be by my side. Women, mostly. They’d lay caring hands on my arm: ‘How are you? Are you all right, Poppy, are you coping?’ Looking right into my eyes. Too much sometimes, but so hard to get right. Then there were those who cut the crap and made lasagne for you, picked up the kids, were keen to set you back on track, genuinely wanting to help. Friends, mostly. And Jennie in particular.

  Some weeks after the funeral she burst in through my back door on a blast of cold air and let it slam behind her. ‘Right, money,’ she announced firmly, putting a blue casserole dish on the side.

  ‘Money?’ I turned to her abstractedly, sitting as I was at the kitchen table in my dressing gown, staring into space as Archie had his morning sleep. I did a lot of that, these days.

  ‘Have you thought about it?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said dully.

  ‘Well, did he have much?’ she asked impatiently, flicking the kettle on behind her and sitting opposite me, still in her coat. ‘Were you doing OK, or was it seat-of-the-pants stuff, like me and Dan? Smell of an oily rag?’

  Dan was self-employed, and now that the recession had bitten hard, seemed to go less and less to London. Perhaps people were drinking less wine? I hadn’t mentioned it.

  ‘No, I think we were doing OK. I mean, there was always enough in my account and I did very well on my …’

  ‘Housekeeping,’ Jennie finished drily.

  Jennie had always been rather scathing about Phil’s financial arrangement whereby he put a certain amount into a monthly account for me, out of which I paid all household expenses.

  ‘But what if you want a new coat or something?’ she’d say.

  Jennie and Dan had a joint account from which they both helped themselves, not that there was anything in it, as Jennie would remark tartly.

  ‘Well, I either save a bit each week, or I ask him. He’d probably say yes,’ I’d say uncomfortably as her eyes would grow round.

  ‘Yes, but it’s the whole idea that you have to ask. It’s so nineteen-fifties.’

  ‘It’s his money,’ I’d say defensively. ‘At least you earn a bit, Jennie.’ Jennie was a cook and rustled up dinner parties for friends, food for freezers, that sort of thing. ‘He earns every penny of ours.’

  ‘Well, I won’t go into the fact that you’ve given up a career to raise his children,’ she’d say, ‘or that my children are at school so I can work, and you’ve still got a baby so can’t,’ and I was glad she didn’t. And in turn didn’t go into the fact that Phil called my monthly allowance my salary. I could hear her squeal of horror at twenty paces.

  Now, though, it seemed I might not get away with keeping too much dark. Jennie had that determined look on her face which meant she intended to get to the bottom of something.

  ‘Did he have a life insurance policy?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Poppy, has all this completely knocked the stuffing out of you?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, even the most grief-stricken widow might, in an anxious moment, have wondered whether her chickens were going to be provided for. Are you going to get dressed today, incidentally?’

  I glanced down at my towelling robe. ‘D’you think I should?’

  ‘I do, as a matter of fact; you didn’t yesterday. Who took Clemmie to school this morning?’

  ‘Alice’s mum picked her up for me. Has done for a bit.’

  ‘Right. Good. But … well, brush your teeth at least, won’t you?’ she said awkwardly.

  I shrugged. So demanding. And so many questions.

  She swallowed. Licked her lips for patience. ‘OK, Pops, back to basics. Money. Where did Phil keep his papers?’

  ‘In there.’ I pointed vaguely behind me, through the open kitchen door to the sitting room, where a walnut bureau sat under the bay window.

  ‘Would you mind if I …?’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  She was in like a rat up a drainpipe. Shimmying out of her coat and tossing it en route on the sofa, she hurried across the sitting room and spent the next half-hour getting very busy. I watched her flicking through his files, which, typical of Phil, were organized and methodical, but which somehow, even though I’d walked across to the desk a few times and stared at it, I hadn’t been able to face opening. I turned and resumed my contemplation of the tiny back garden, the sheep in the field beyond. All ewes now, grazing peacefully. Were they happy to see the back of Shameful, I wondered? Or was any man, demanding or otherwise, better than nothing? They looked pretty content to me, munching away out there.

  Behind me I could hear the rustle of papers as Jennie burrowed deeper. I sat on. On the one occasion I did glance around, it was to see Angie peering through the sitting-room window from the road, perfectly plucked eyebrows raised enquiringly under her fur hat. Jennie gave her a quick thumbs up. Angie nodded and swept by. Apart from the kitchen clock ticking and the occasional snuffle of my darling Archie through the baby alarm, the house was silent.

  At length she came bustling back, brandishing bits of paper.

  ‘Right. Well, the good news is, he did appear to have a life insurance policy, but I have no idea what’s in it. He also appears to have had a solicitor, who I’m sure can tell you more.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ I tried to raise some enthusiasm.

  I looked beyond her. Funny. I’d never noticed that damp patch on the kitchen wall. I might have to put a picture on that.

  ‘No will – at least, not that I can find – but that’s quite normal. It’s probably lodged with the solicitor.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Shall I make you an appointment?’ she said impatiently.

  ‘Is that necessary?’

  ‘Yes, I think it is. You’ll have a lot to talk about. Sometime this week?’

  ‘Couldn’t it wait?’

  ‘No it couldn’t. I’ll have the kids for you.’

  She’d already whipped out her mobile. Punched out a number which she’d gleaned from the letterhead in her hand. Why couldn’t I make the appointment, I wondered. Because she thought I wouldn’t do it, perhaps. Would I? Hard to say. The feverish adrenalin which had rendered me almost manic a few weeks ago, arranging the funeral like a whirling dervish, putting a notice welcoming all comers in the village shop, rushing from one thing to the next – beetling away from my husband’s grave – had left me now. Something else had moved in. I felt very cold. Very numb. Had done for over a week now. Ten days, to be precise. Ever since that knock upon the door. It was as if I needed to sit here forever, all day, just to conserve energy. I managed quite well when the children were around, forced myself to be chirpy, but most evenings, and in the mornings when Archie was asleep, I sat here, in this chair.

  ‘Right, well, that’s all organized. Tomor
row at four. OK?’ Jennie went to pocket her mobile, but it rang. ‘Hello …’ She swung away to hide her face. ‘Yes … yes, I’ve done it,’ she said quietly as if the eagle had landed. ‘Pretty low still, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Who was that?’ I asked absently.

  ‘Um, Peggy. Wanted to know if I was, er … going to the shops. Now, shall I put it in your calendar?’

  ‘If you must.’

  Clearly. Within a twinkling she’d flicked over a page muttering something about me being a week behind, and was pencilling it in, then underlining it for good measure.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘Couldn’t be better.’

  ‘And I’ve put a shepherd’s pie in the fridge for you. That’s if you’re absolutely sure you won’t come over.’

  ‘Absolutely sure.’

  Jennie asked me over pretty much every night, as did Angie and Peggy. I’d been to Jennie’s a lot in the first few weeks, taken the baby alarm with me, but recently I was happy with my chair.

  ‘Although I couldn’t help noticing there was one in there already.’

  ‘One what?’

  ‘Shepherd’s pie.’

  Ah. She’d put it there at the weekend. And I’d forgotten to give it to the children.

  I sighed. ‘I like crackers, Jennie. So does Clemmie. But thanks. I appreciate it, really I do.’

  She gave me that hassled, worried look I’d seen a lot lately. I pulled my dressing gown around me and tucked a lank piece of hair behind my ear. I did hope she was all right. Had Dan been stopped for speeding again? He’d only just got his licence back. I must remember to ask her. To enquire. But somehow, dredging up words about anything these days was hard. Where did they come from, all those words? I’d see women gossiping in the street – what about? Such an effort. Like washing my hair. Or going to the village shop. God, it was miles, wasn’t it? I’d forgotten we lived so far away. Lucky Jennie, who was just that bit closer. Five yards at least.