Pink Wellies and Flat Caps (23 page)

Oh
no.

‘A hundred,’ I call.

‘You’re going to spend your first salary on a pig?’ says Edward incredulously.

‘Rescuing a pig,’ I correct.

‘One hundred and fifty,’ calls the man who is now glaring at me.

‘You’re not the sharpest knife out of the drawer are you?’
he says nastily.

‘How dare you
…’

‘Okay Frank, no need for that,’ snaps Edward.

Oh, Frank is it. I’ll give him Frank.

‘Some mothers do
’ave ’em,’ I mumble under my breath.

‘You can’t get emotional over animals Alice, not on a farm
,’ warns Edward.

I ignore him.

‘Two hundred,’ I yell.

Edward puts his head into his hands.

‘For two hundred pounds lady you’re welcome to it. One expensive pig you’ve got there Edward. You going to buy it a diamond-studded collar?’ Frank laughs.

I look at Edward. He shakes his head. What am I doing? I’ve just bought a pig for two hundred pounds. I didn’t spend two hundred pounds on my bras, or even the shopping in Lidl, but I spend it on a pig, have I gone totally nuts?

‘Oh, what have I done?’

‘You got emotional over a pig,’ says Edward flatly.

‘It was the pork scratchings,’ I say by way of an excuse.

‘Remind me never to take you to a cattle auction after a Sunday roast.’

He looks at me seriously for a moment and then we both burst out laughing. I’m laughing so much that I have to cross my legs.

‘Come on let’s get you out of here before we end up with a herd of sheep. I’ll just arrange delivery and meet you at the Land Rover, and you owe me two hundred pounds.’

I hear the Nokia bleep and look to see there is a text from Dominic Montfort.

‘Hi Alice, I tried calling you. I’ve taken the liberty of getting two tickets for the charity concert in Truro tomorrow night. It’s for a good cause. It’s the last night and I thought you would like it, I’ll pick you up at seven.’

Oh, that’s nice isn’t it, I suppose. Although, I would much rather go to the concert with Edward, but Edward won’t ask me because Edward is engaged to
Lucy, short for Lucinda, but everyone calls me Luce
, isn’t he? And if he wasn’t he would no doubt be going out with Sara. The last thing he is interested in is a townie like me.

‘Right,’ says Edward joining me. ‘Let’s go. I thought we’d stop off and get a Chinese takeaway. I’ll get you sweet and sour pork.’

He laughs at his own joke and looks at me out of the corner of his eye.

‘So what name are you going to give this one? Don’t tell me, Babe, right?’

I ignore him and look out of the window.

‘Or Miss Piggy,’ he laughs, ‘or even Princess Piggy, after all you paid enough; she could be a royal pig.’

‘Have you finished?’ I snap while trying not to smile. ‘I’ll have chicken chow mein actually, and some chips.’

And some chips? What am I saying? Can’t I go a day without chips?
This is shameful, shameful but nice.

***

A Chinese takeaway and a bottle and a half of wine later and I am playing gin rummy and sharing all Charlie’s weaknesses. We’ve moved to the living room and Edward has lit the fire. Everything seems romantic and cosy in the firelight glow. Even the room doesn’t seem rundown anymore. In fact, thinking about it all the place needs is a lick of paint. A nice cosy log fire, how romantic is that? The only thing missing in my life is a man to share this with.

‘I’ll take your ace,’ I say, leaning across the floor towards Edward who is turning out to be such fun company that I barely recognise him. I haven’t laughed so much in years.

‘You can’t keep taking my cards and not laying down,’ he laughs.

‘I hope that’s not a proposition Mr Fairfax,’ I giggle
. ‘You never said I had to lay down anything.’

‘I do believe I have mentioned laying down several times Miss Lane. You obviously just keep ignoring me.’

‘Charlie never asked me to lay down, well at least not often,’ I say, yawning.

Edward places a tub of ice cream between us and I attack it like a starved animal while he sits back sipping his wine.

‘Perhaps that was his big mistake,’ he says with a wink.

‘He said I could keep the ring,’ I say with a snort.

‘That was thoughtful of him,’ Edward remarks, laying out a fan of cards. ‘Still I imagine there’s not much he can do with it.’

‘I told him to stick it up his arse.’

He nods in agreement.

‘It’s as good a place as any,’ he says laying down his final card.

I gasp and take a gulp of wine.

‘You can’t do that,’ I protest.

‘I just did.’

‘Does Lucy, short for Lucinda, but everyone calls me Luce play
gin rummy?’

He shakes his head.

‘She’s more a strip poker kind of gal,’ he laughs.

I open my mouth in shock.

‘No, you’re not serious?’

‘No, I’m not serious,’ he smiles. ‘Does Charlie, who prefers Charlie to Charles, play
gin rummy?’

I shake my head.

‘No, and he wouldn’t play strip poker either.’

‘He never asked you to lie down an
d wouldn’t play strip poker? He sounds a bit boring to me. He is missing out …’

He breaks off and meets my eyes
. My stomach seems to somersault and my heart skips a beat. Good God, is he coming on to me? No surely not. He is very good looking, fun, and I’m surprised to find that I am deeply attracted to him. He tops up our glasses and looks me straight in the eye. His hazel eyes gleam at me. I feel myself growing hot, and it’s not from the heat of the fire. The desire in my body seems to soar out of control and I feel my breath catch in my throat. A strange sensation drifts slowly through my body and my hands begin to tremble. I put a shaky hand out to stop him pouring too much wine into my glass and find myself touching his. I feel an overwhelming desire to kiss him and quickly stand up. What am I doing? He’s engaged to be married. How would I have felt if Charlie had done this with other women? I am starting to wonder if he had. Think how devastated Lucy, short for Lucinda, but everyone calls me Luce would feel. I stumble into the kitchen and look in the fridge for some water. I turn and he is standing behind me.

‘I need to cool off,’ I say shakily. ‘We’re getting swept along with the moment. Cosy fire, wine, it’s the perfect kissing scenario isn’t it? I’m engaged
… I mean, you’re engaged … Oh shit.’

W
hat am I saying? He probably has no intention of kissing me. I’m just making a total fool of myself again. His lips are pink and his eyes all sultry. His hand reaches forward and closes the fridge door so I fall back against it.

‘I’m wondering why Charlie let you go,’ he says huskily.

He leans closer and I rest my hand on his arm.

‘Edward, I think that every day. I’m also thinking about Lucy right now.’

The sharp ringing of the phone makes us jump. For some seconds we seem to stand there frozen in time. The phone stops and he sighs. Immediately it rings again. Relieved, I duck under his arm and pick it up. In an unsteady voice I answer it.

‘Oh it’s you,’ says Lucy.

Shit, it is as if she knows what’s going on.

‘I’ll get Edward,’ I say, and hand the phone to him. ‘Your fiancée,’ I say pointedly.

He looks at me with a pained expression before speaking into the mouthpiece.

‘Luce,
what’s the time there?’

He continues looking at me. I turn away and go back to the living room to tidy up
suddenly feeling sober. I clear away the playing cards and ice cream. He enters the room and I lower my eyes.

‘I’m off to bed,’ I say as casually as I can.

‘Alice,’ he says laying his hand on my arm.

‘Let’s forget it shall we. We
’ve both had too much to drink.’

He nods and drops his arm leaving
me bereft of his hand. In that moment I knew with helpless certainty that he is the man I had been waiting for.

‘Goodnight,’ he says softly.

As I turn from him tears smart my eyes. Oh Edward, why didn’t you try and kiss me again? This time maybe I wouldn’t have run away. But isn’t this just the story of my life? Charlie no longer wants me and when another does he is already engaged to someone else. It couldn’t get any more complicated. Some escape to the country this was.

I’ve never in my life been to a barn dance. I’ve heard of them, obviously, but attended one? Not on your life. Charlie arranged one some time ago for some animal organisation he was involved with. Fortunately for me I was taken sick that afternoon and couldn’t attend. As far as I’m concerned they are a sad combination of checked skirts, jacket potatoes and an excellent opportunity for men to grope women’s bums. So when Sara gleefully informed me she had passed the first of her exams and was having a barn dance at her parents’ farm to celebrate, I had to fight the grimace from appearing on my face and had reluctantly accepted her invitation. How could I not, especially when she declared,

‘Edward is coming. It will be tremendous fun. Do say you’ll bake a cake.’

I have no doubt that Dominic will be there also. He is probably many women’s dream man and I may have thought that myself if Edward and I hadn’t almost kissed. I haven’t been able to think of anything else since. The almost kiss, even though it was nearly two weeks ago, haunts my dreams and my waking hours. Things have changed between us since that night. Edward is nice to me but he is so reserved he may as well not be there at all. He stands so rigid when talking to me that Jed thought his shirts had been starched. Dominic on the other hand is there all the time. In fact Dominic is there too much. After the concert date he had bombarded me with texts and phone calls, but each time we met he would steer the conversation to Edward and question me on Edward’s plans for the farm. The truth is I have no idea what Edward’s plans are about anything. The only thing I do know is that they don’t include me and I must not allow myself to think they ever could. The less I think about him the better. I’m actually beginning to love it in the country. It really is so peaceful and best of all, smog free. I never realised how noisy London was until I came here. I’m not sure if I would want to leave now. Both Chloe and Pepper, the piglet, seem to know me and always come when I call them. While my friends have three-year-old toddlers, hanging onto their skirts and screaming mummy, I have a squealing piglet that nibbles at my skirt and a calf that pushes her wet nose onto me. Instead of nappy changing I am cleaning up pig dung and mucking out the cowshed, and quite happily too. Edward’s lost milk licence is certainly Pepper’s gain. She gets tons of milk. I feed her the scraps each day and even talked Edward into building her a little pig house. Chloe always greets me lovingly by rubbing her head against my hand before feeding. I ask you, what more could a woman want? Love surely is having your own pig and calf. I’ve begun helping out with the flower arranging in the church and I’m actually finding I can think about Charlie without getting upset. Now that is progress. Lucy short for Lucinda but call me Luce has not phoned Edward again, or at least not when I have been there. I don’t even want to think about what will happen when she returns to England. At the moment I have a job, a home, and two little animals depending on me. Not to mention a big decision to make on what to wear for a barn dance. I have no doubt that here in the country they take these things very seriously.

I finally asked Martha for advice who happily supplied me with a Stetson and suggested jeans, checked shirt and boots. Luckily all of which I have.

‘Time you’ve finished do
-si-doing you’ll be very hot and I have no doubt the men will have you do-si-doing a fair bit,’ she had laughed.

It’s been a long time since any man has do
-si-doed me so this should be rather good.

‘Come to me for a glass of wine beforehand. Lydia is coming too. We’ll all go together. Better than
walking in there on your own,’ she had suggested.

Edward had shyly asked me this
morning over breakfast if I was going.

‘I’ll grab you for the dishrag dance then. That is always good for a laugh,’ he grinned.

‘I can’t tell you how flattered I am,’ I had replied, wiping the sink and pretending to be insulted when I was in fact happy that he was teasing me again. He had tipped his hat.

‘I’m taking the bull over to Matt Hardy’s and then preparing the sheds so we can bring the cows in for the winter, so I probably won’t be back until late.’

‘I’m going from Martha’s,’ I said, making it sound like my wedding day. ‘She’s invited Lydia as well.’

‘I look forward to seeing you there then. Don’t forget your dancing shoes.’

Now here I am at Martha’s, drinking homemade plum wine on an empty stomach and giggling at Lydia’s costume. Georgie had ordered me not to mention a word of it on Facebook.