A Rural Affair Read online

  ‘Rather gorgeous, isn’t he?’ breathed Jennie lustily in my ear as Luke eased himself into position at the organ. He had a lengthy grace, sensitive fingers poised.

  ‘Not bad,’ I said non-committally.

  ‘He’s fresh out of the Guildhall,’ Angie billowed from behind into my other ear, as if he were a gleaming trout from the river. ‘Post-grad, obviously. Just bought a cottage in Wessington. He’s in insurance now. Got his own business.’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Incredibly charming,’ she murmured again. ‘I mean, to talk to.’ As opposed to what?

  ‘All yours, Angie,’ I said, turning and managing the first half-smile of the evening. ‘I’ll hold your handbag.’

  ‘Me?’ She reared back incredulously, hand on heart. ‘Oh, no, he’s far too young for me. He’s your age, Poppy.’ She fluttered her fingers dismissively at me.

  I turned back. Shut my eyes. Why had I come? Why wasn’t I at home in my chair?

  Off we went again, only this time not so successfully. As Ron slipped gratefully out of the side door and back to his pint in the Rose and Crown, Luke, up at the organ, got very busy. So busy we didn’t know where we were. All sorts of crashing introductory chords rolled into one another like waves and we’d ejaculate prematurely only to discover Luke was still building up to something big. Only Molly ploughed on doggedly with her shrill, warbling rendition of the number-one seventies hit for Procol Harum. Molly, and obviously Spod, whose look of glazed lust as Jennie tried to concentrate and forgot to kick him off was close to euphoric. As the organ threatened to climax, Spod, it seemed, was closer.

  Afterwards, as we walked home, or rather as I was escorted, my friends agreed over my head that we needed more practice.

  ‘Which is fine, because we’ve got plenty of time. The wedding’s not for a few weeks,’ said Jennie.

  ‘Wedding?’ I was surprised to hear my voice.

  ‘Well, that’s the whole point, that’s what we’re practising for.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Every Monday,’ Angie told me firmly. ‘And don’t forget, you’re all coming to my house tomorrow.’

  ‘Are we?’ I felt panicky. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we’re starting the book club. We told you that a week or so ago, remember?’

  Oh, yes, vaguely. But it had been that terrible day. The one when everything had changed. All the clocks stopped. Black Friday. When, suddenly, I hadn’t been a widow who was finding hidden reserves and coping really rather marvellously, much to the relief of my friends, but in the blink of an eye, in twenty-five minutes to be precise, had become someone different.

  ‘And I said I’d …?’ I felt my way cautiously.

  ‘Come,’ Angie told me firmly. ‘Definitely come. And pitch in. Everyone’s bringing a few nibbles.’

  ‘Well, no, we might do that, actually,’ Jennie said quickly as they exchanged a glance. Nibbles from me might be a bridge too far.

  ‘When you say everyone …’

  ‘Just the four of us,’ Angie told me kindly. ‘Us three and Peggy to begin with. The idea is that this week we’ll just meet to discuss and decide who to ask along, what sort of books we’ll read, that type of thing.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Manage that?’ asked Jennie gently, as we got to my gate.

  I nodded dumbly. Stared at my shoes. Felt my body go rigid as they both embraced me. They bid me goodnight.

  I realized, as I went inside, that my two friends were still loitering outside, conferring a moment and talking in hushed whispers behind my hedge. I leaned back on the inside of my front door and counted to ten. Then I peeled myself off and, with an effort, propelled myself towards the sitting room.

  Frankie was on her hands and knees at my coffee table, already gathering her schoolbooks from it, stuffing them furtively in her bag. For all her big talk, Frankie harboured subversive tendencies: she was a secret worker who did well at school. I gave her a moment, lingering in the hall, taking off my coat and putting my bag on the table. I was fond of Frankie and knew there were some guilty secrets she wouldn’t want Jennie to know.

  ‘Thanks, Frankie,’ I said, going in and handing her some money as she stood up, swinging her book bag over her shoulder. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Yeah, fine. We played for a bit then they did their teeth and went straight to sleep. How was your big night out?’

  ‘Oh, huge.’

  ‘Good. You look a bit, you know –’ she peered at me – ‘better, actually.’

  I nodded, unable to speak. Angie and Jennie concerned about me I could handle. Frankie, with her multitude of teenage problems, would reduce me to tears.

  When she’d gone, I went upstairs and looked in on my sleeping babes, pushing each of their bedroom doors ajar. Clemmie was on her side, elaborate furrows of tiny plaits decorating her head and culminating in something complicated at the back. Her fist was clenched tightly around her rabbit’s ears. Archie, in the next room, was flat on his back, arms flung out like a starfish, mouth open, his wispy hair gathered in a top-knot tied in a pink ribbon on his head, like a Flintstone baby. His intense vulnerability almost made me cry out. My hand went to my throat. I stood for a moment, watching him breathe in and out, noticing the way the moon shone through a gap in his curtains, casting a silver sliver on the opposite wall. Then I turned and went back downstairs to the kitchen. Back to my chair.

  On the pinboard on the wall opposite was a photo of Clemmie and her best friend, Alice. It had been taken at the beginning of term in their ballet class, a few days before Phil died. In the days immediately following his death I’d looked at the photo a lot. Two little girls, same ballet shoes, same little pink skirts, same advantages – except now my daughter was changed for ever. And she didn’t yet know it. Half of her unconditional love had gone, half of her quota to get her through life. I was terrified at how reduced she was. She wasn’t the same child in the photograph and whenever I looked at it, it made me panicky with fear. But then somehow, gradually, as the days, and then the weeks had crept by, I’d managed to control the panic. I’d force myself to think positively, think of people who’d survived this lack of parenting, myself included. Peggy, whose father had died young. I’d even begun to feel that in some small way I was winning: that we’d be all right, Clemmie, Archie and me. What I hadn’t accounted for was my own sudden reduction. The shrinking of my own soul as I’d opened that door, looked into a past I didn’t know I had, and realized I wasn’t a proper person at all.

  6

  She was called Emma. Emma Harding. I remembered her coming up the road through the village. Remembered her little black Mini. A Mini Cooper. A cool car. One that in a vague, unformed sort of way, not that I was particularly into cars, but if I was, I’d quite like, if you know what I mean. And I’d seen it clearly, because I’d been dusting the windowsill at the time, lifting a lamp. It stopped outside my house. Out got Emma, pretty, petite, blonde, her shoulder-length hair swinging as she turned to shut the car door behind her. A white smocky top, jeans, beaded mules. Oh, and a flimsy sparkly scarf round her neck, pale blue and silver: nice. Sort of Monsoony. I watched as she came up the path, surprised it was my house she was approaching. She saw me through the window: stopped and waved uncertainly. I went to the door. I remembered her smile. Shy. Nervous. She was ever so sorry to call unannounced, she said, hands fiddling with the strap of her shoulder bag; she knew this was a terrible time for me.

  I frowned. ‘Sorry, do I … ?’

  ‘My name’s Emma Harding. I was a friend of Phil’s. A good friend.’

  I didn’t think anything of it. She followed me through to the sitting room, and as I turned her eyes finally met mine, so nervous, like a scared rabbit. And I motioned her to sit on the goose-poo sofa and then sat down opposite her, duster still in hand. And in that instant, I knew where I’d seen her before. At the funeral. She’d been crying a lot. Head bowed, hanky to mouth, in a black wool suit, quite elegant. And someone had an arm protecti
vely around her shoulders, one of Phil’s cycling friends. His wife, perhaps, I’d thought. Perhaps not. And I’d been rather ashamed because I wasn’t crying. Not like that.

  She started to speak, in a low, unsteady voice, hands twisting. She and Phil had met at work. They’d tried not to … you know. Had resisted each other for ages in fact, denied the attraction, but at a conference in Manchester … well, it all got out of control, seeing as how they were away from home. And then over the last four years … well, they’d completely fallen in love. And of course there was their cycling, which they did at weekends. Nearly every weekend. And she, Emma, knew it was so wrong, but she wasn’t married, you see, wasn’t betraying anyone. And Phil was so lonely. So sad.

  Emma looked anxiously at me. White-faced. Scared. Fingers in her sparkly scarf in perpetual motion.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ I managed. Found my voice which was hidden deep in my ribcage. Cowering there.

  ‘Because I know Phil provided for me. I know, in his will, he made a provision, because we’d been together so long, and I want you to know,’ her voice began to tremble, ‘I want you to know I don’t want any of it.’

  I stared straight ahead into the school playground where I was standing right now with Archie in his pushchair, waiting for Clemmie. My eyes felt dry and gritty with lack of sleep. I remembered her eyes, though: full of grief. Full of proper mourning. And I’d been humming as I’d dusted the window ledge that morning. Just a little bit, but still.

  ‘Mrs Shilling?’ Miss Hawkins was beside me suddenly, her anxious face in mine. ‘Mrs Shilling, have you got a moment?’

  Clemmie was by her side, holding her teacher’s skirt. Eyes downcast she was sucking her thumb, something she hadn’t done during the day for ages. Luckily, Archie was crying in his pushchair; had been for some time.

  ‘I just wanted to talk to you about the other day,’ Miss Hawkins was saying, having to raise her voice over Archie’s wails. ‘When you forgot to collect Clemmie?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Hawkins, I really need to get Archie home. He wants a bottle.’

  Such a long sentence, but somehow I got to the end of it. Then silently I took Clemmie’s hand, which hadn’t instinctively reached for mine, and we set off down the hill, Miss Hawkins’s eyes, I knew, boring into my back. Archie was still sobbing, but he cried a lot these days. All morning, sometimes. Perhaps he was missing his sunny mother, wondering who this withdrawn, distrait woman was, this impostor.

  When I turned the corner at the bottom, my cottage came into view. A familiar red pick-up was parked outside. It hadn’t been there when I set off for the nursery a few minutes ago. It did occasionally rock up without warning, but usually after a gap of a few months and I’d seen Dad relatively recently at the funeral. Besides which we’d spoken a bit since. Dad and I were close, but we were self-sufficient souls and I’d imagined we were pretty much familied out. He was emerging from the pick-up – still minus its radiator grill, I noticed, which he’d left in a hedge some years since – in his working wardrobe of breeches, boots and an ancient checked shirt. He turned and waited, hands on his hips, as I came down the lane towards him.

  ‘Hello, love.’ He looked anxious, his bright blue eyes searching mine.

  ‘Hi, Dad. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Grandpa!’ Clemmie’s face lit up and she let go of my hand to run to him. He scooped her up, beaming.

  ‘That’s my girl! Hey, look at you. Been painting?’

  ‘No, we had ketchup for tea last night.’

  ‘Did you, by Jove. Well, you need a flannel. You’ve got it on your rabbit dress too.’ He prodded her chest.

  ‘Yes and I’m allowed to wear it every day. But I don’t want to wear it tomorrow.’

  ‘Wise move, Clem.’ He put her down.

  Archie had stopped crying and was smiling and kicking his legs vigorously in his pushchair in his grandfather’s direction. Dad bent to tickle his knees, peering up at me the while.

  ‘Everything all right, love?’

  ‘Fine, thanks,’ I said as he straightened up to plant a kiss on my cheek. ‘Coming in?’

  ‘Well, I thought I might.’

  I turned to open the gate and he followed me up the path. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ I asked over my shoulder. ‘This is a busy time for you, isn’t it?’

  Dad dealt in horses, hunters in particular, and the beginning of the season was usually frantic. He spent every spare moment getting his mounts fit and then was either showing them off to prospective buyers or sending them out as hirelings to go cub hunting, often accompanying his clients if they were nervous.

  He scratched his head. ‘Oh … I was passing. There’s an Irish Draught cross near here I might have a look at. Good blood lines, apparently.’

  ‘Oh, right. Where?’ I let us in.

  ‘Um …’ He cast about wildly and his eyes lit on an estate agent’s board opposite. ‘Dunstable?’

  ‘Dunstable’s pretty urban, Dad. In someone’s back yard, is it?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  We went inside.

  ‘Everything all right, Pops?’

  ‘You’ve already asked me that,’ I said as he overtook me and crossed busily to open the sitting-room curtains in the darkened room, then stooped on his way back to pick up the ketchup-smeared plates from the carpet. He took them into the kitchen looking anxious. And my dad isn’t domestic.

  I made him a cup of tea except there wasn’t any milk, whilst the children leaped all over him excitedly. I had a feeling he’d come for more than a cup of tea, though, so I flicked Fireman Sam onto the little kitchen telly to immobilize my offspring for five minutes and handed them each a chocolate bar. Dad eyed them nervously.

  ‘Lunch?’

  ‘Well, you know. Needs must, occasionally.’

  Gosh, he looked terrible. Really worried. I did hope the business wasn’t in trouble. Dad claimed the recession hadn’t hit the horse-trading world, but maybe that was just a line he’d spun me, and maybe it had? Or had he come off one of his green four-year-olds and not told me? I did worry about him still breaking in horses at his age, but the trouble was, both Dad and I were so non-controlling, we couldn’t begin to tell each other what to do. Back in the sitting room, we sipped our tea, side by side on the sofa.

  ‘I felt a bit bad abandoning you like that after the funeral,’ he said at length.

  I frowned. This was about as deep as it got. ‘You didn’t abandon me. You just went home.’

  ‘I know, but …’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘You know. I could have helped a bit. Should have pre-empted this. Anyway.’ He swallowed. ‘You were always in my mind.’

  My father was a big Elvis fan and, in times of stress, tended to mangle his song lyrics. Things were clearly bad. In a minute he’d be telling me about the little things he should have said or done if he’d just taken the time. ‘Little –’

  ‘Dad.’ I interrupted quickly.

  ‘Hm?’ He looked at me. Blinked in recognition. ‘Oh. Right.’ He nodded. ‘Well, anyway, I’m here now. Better late than never, I suppose. And Jennie and I wondered if I shouldn’t … or if you shouldn’t …’ He hesitated and I waited, surprised. He and Jennie? He hadn’t seen Jennie since the funeral. ‘Well, look, love,’ he said, summoning up something really quite portentous, ‘what I wondered was, whether you’d like to come and stay for a bit?’

  I frowned. ‘What, at Grotty Cotty?’ Dad’s cottage was so called because it was unfeasibly chaotic: full of half-cleaned tack and saddle soap, riddled with damp and reeking of a heady combination of horses, dogs, Neatsfoot oil, socks and whisky. It was an extremely ripe bachelor pad and totally unsuitable for children – who of course loved it – but still.

  ‘That’s kind, Dad,’ I said, speechless. ‘But no thanks.’

  ‘Or I could come here?’

  Now I really was concerned. Dad couldn’t leave his yard for five minutes, let alone stay the night. The mere fact that he’d drop
ped in for a cup of tea was quite something. Suddenly I went cold.

  ‘Oh God, Dad, has it all collapsed? The business? Gone tits up?’

  ‘No! No, it’s going well, couldn’t be better. I sold three eventers last week, one to Mark Todd’s yard. No, it’s just … well, I’m worried about you.’ He put his arm around me awkwardly.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I’m there for you, love. If you need me.’

  I nodded, thunderstruck.

  ‘And I love you, my darling. Always will.’

  I gazed down, trying to place it. ‘ “Love Me Tender”?’

  He sighed. ‘Could be. Anyway,’ he said, removing his arm, ‘if you’re sure you’re all right …’ He patted my back tentatively and we sat there in silence. ‘Um … d’you want me to get the kids some lunch?’

  ‘They’ve just had it,’ I said incredulously, convinced I’d already told him that. Hadn’t we just had that conversation? Literally moments ago? Now I was really alarmed. Alzheimer’s?

  Dad got up and took his cup into the kitchen. He also spent ten minutes washing up a toppling tower of crockery already in the sink, which was kind but very unlike him, then he came back looking a bit wretched, and then, finally, he left. As he went down the garden path, I watched from the open doorway. He wasn’t looking where he was going and nearly collided with a statuesque middle-aged woman in a tightly belted pea-green coat, spectacles and a purposeful air.

  ‘Ah, hello there.’ She peered around Dad to address me on the doorstep, her smile not quite reaching her eyes.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘I’m Trisha Newson, from Social Services.’

  I gazed at her down the path. Dad had gone quite pale.

  ‘Um, could I have a word?’ he was muttering, drawing her away and around my little beech hedge. I stood there pondering. Giving it some thought. Suddenly it came to me. Ah yes, Mrs Harper, next door. She went to the Chiltern Hospital every month in an ambulance, about her veins.