A Rural Affair (6 page)

‘You don’t mind them coming, do you?’ Angie asked me anxiously.

I stared at her, uncomprehending.

‘I’ve only got them for one day, thanks to Tom throwing his weight around and saying he wanted to see them. They have to go
back to school after lunch.’

I came to. ‘Of course not, I’m thrilled. And mine will be delighted.’

I watched Clemmie’s eyes light up at the sight of them. She threw herself at Clarissa’s legs. Frankie, on the other hand,
bit her thumbnail and looked guarded. I turned. Forced myself on.

‘Now, what else needs to go through?’

‘Nothing,’ drawled Peggy. ‘It’s all going like clockwork. Everyone’s very busy.’

‘Yes, well, you’re not, so why don’t you take these round?’ Angie put a plate of sausages in her hands, knowing Peggy’s mischief-making
of old. ‘Is she being a pain?’ she asked when Peggy, sliding off her stool and disappearing with a sly smile, was out of earshot.

I shrugged. ‘You know Peggy.’

‘I do. No social code. When Tom went, she said I’d handed Tatiana to him on a plate,’ she said grimly.

I was silenced, because of course we had all thought that. When Angie employed a smiling, honey-haired, heavily breasted maiden
from Auckland to muck out her horses and live in her cottage, we’d all wondered what planet she was on. And then watched in
horror as Angie had gone off to yoga on a Monday, and bridge on a Thursday. The curtains in Tatiana’s bedroom would close
almost before Angie’s car was out of the drive. Peggy hadn’t known, otherwise she certainly would have told her, and by the
time Jennie and I had had endless cups of coffee and dithered and discussed and were honestly just about to break the news
– it was too late. Angie was left in the gorgeous Queen Anne manor on the edge of the village with its bell tower and tennis
court and gables, whilst Tom ravaged his nubile New Zealander in the horrifically sexy-sounding village of Tussle-under-Winkwood.
Satisfyingly, when the pair of them travelled all the way to New Zealand to tell her parents the good news and then returned,
she hadn’t been allowed back in the country. But that didn’t last long; she winkled her way in eventually, just as she had
into Angie’s home, and her husband’s heart.

‘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.

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.’