The Sweetest Thing (41 page)

I walk around the side of the house, across the garden, then unlatch the gate into the field that rises quite steeply to a hedge at the top, and there, whizzing across the crown of the hill, is Adam on a quad bike, the hair on his head shining in the sun as he makes a
sharp turn down the slope, speeding up until he’s airborne. My heart seems to flutter, suspended in my throat, until he and the quad bike return to earth, together.

‘Adam!’ I yell at him. ‘Get off that thing at once.’

He does a heart-stopping turn, brakes, and stops right in front of me. He sits staring at me, his wrists resting on the handlebars.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Driving about, having a bit of a laugh. Unlike you, Mother.’

‘Did Guy say you could take that bike?’

‘He said I could use it any time I liked.’

‘Does he know you’re here?’

‘I dunno, do I?’

‘Adam, get off that machine.’

‘But—

‘Get off
now
,’ I snap. ‘And go home.’

Adam slides off the quad bike and stands beside it.

‘Can’t I stay for the milking?’ he says. He’s acting contrite now, but I think that’s all it is, an act.

‘What do you think? You’re supposed to be either at school or in your room, catching up with your homework. You’re grounded, remember?’

‘Mother, you are always ruining my life,’ he mutters. ‘If I can’t milk the cows then I’m going back to London, and you can’t stop me. I’ll go and live on my own. I hate it here. I hate this poxy place.’

‘I’ve got the message,’ I say curtly.

‘I hate my life. I bloody well hate
you
.’

‘Adam, we’re here now and we have to make the best of it. That’s the last I’m going to say on the matter.’

He is coldly furious with me. I love him, but I don’t like him much at the moment.

‘Go home,’ I tell him. ‘Take Lucky with you.’

‘Where are you going then?’

‘To see if Guy’s about.’ I’m assuming that he is because the Land Rover’s here. I’m curious too about the other vehicle. I smile to myself. I’m turning out to be a nosy neighbour. I check to see that Adam is heading in the right direction before I approach the farmhouse. As I reach the front door, which is ajar, I catch the sound of voices, Guy’s and a woman’s. I push the door gently and step inside, moving around the various obstacles, muddy boots and buckets, on the utility-room floor, my heart pounding as I go into the kitchen where Guy is embracing …

‘Guy!’ I utter a cry of anguish. ‘What’s going on?’ I don’t really need to ask. It’s perfectly clear to me. He’s holding this woman in his arms, kissing her hair. I can’t see her face, and I don’t care who she is. Guy, my wonderful, patient, kind and caring boyfriend, has turned out to be too good to be true.

‘Jennie, this isn’t what you think,’ Guy says, turning to me, his expression neither surprised nor shocked. He doesn’t even have the grace to act guilty, I think. ‘Ruthie—’

‘Ruthie! I should have guessed.’ Between Guy’s denials and Fifi’s hints, I should have known they were involved in some way.

‘Jennie.’ Guy tries to extricate himself from Ruthie’s clutches, or at least that’s how it looks. She’s clinging on to him like the ivy clings to the old oak in the copse. She isn’t going to let him go. ‘Let me explain …’

‘There’s no need,’ I say coldly, although his betrayal is burning me up inside. ‘I hope you’re both very happy – and will have lots of children together.’ I can’t stand it any longer. I turn and flee, running through
the yard and back down the drive, my feet spattering through the mud. I can hear Guy behind me, catching up with me at the picket gate.

‘Jennie, wait,’ he says, grabbing for my arm. ‘Please.’

He flashes me a wary smile. I don’t – I can’t – smile back. I’m trembling.

‘What’s this about children?’ he says. ‘We weren’t even kissing.’

‘What I mean is that I can see the attraction. She’s young enough to have your babies, give you an heir …’

‘That’s ridiculous! The last thing on my mind.’

‘Is it, when it’s pretty obvious it won’t be very long until I’m too old to have any more children? No, you go back to her, Guy. She’s a much better bet than I am.’

‘Jennie, I didn’t invite Ruthie to the farm,’ he says. ‘Fifi sent her, told her some cock-and-bull story about how I wanted to see her, to make things right.’

‘What things?’

‘I admit it, Jennie. I didn’t tell you the whole truth, and I bitterly regret that now. I did go out with Ruthie for a while, after Tasha. I was on the rebound, though that’s no excuse. I was ashamed later because I felt I’d led her on. Although I’ve always made it clear that it was over between us, Ruthie’s never really accepted it.’

‘So you did lie to me?’ I say.

‘I didn’t think it was important. It wasn’t so much a lie as a withholding of information. Jennie, I didn’t mean to hurt you or Ruthie.’

‘Guy, I trusted you …’ I bite my lip so hard I can taste blood. ‘I thought I knew you.’

‘Please, don’t cry.’ He steps towards me, holding out his arms, but I step back, staying out of reach. It’s as if
Guy has turned into David. I said, Never again, yet here I am. I’m such a mug.

‘Goodbye,’ I say flatly.

‘I’ll see you tonight?’ he says, nudging a tussock of grass with the toe of his boot.

‘Not tonight. Not any night.’

I’m aware of the pressure of his hand on my shoulder, but I shrug it off.

‘Just keep out of my sight.’

I walk away, through the gate and up to the front door, feeling a physical pain in my chest. Guy’s betrayed my trust and we are over, over almost before we began. Our relationship has been fated from the start.

I tell myself it’s for the best, finding out the truth before I was in too deep. Unfortunately, I was in deep enough that it’s going to take me a long time to get over him and what might have been.

It’s warm and cosy in the kitchen with the Aga going, and I’m reluctant to tear myself away when Maria arrives with her horsebox to collect Bracken and her tack. Maria and Camilla are travelling in the horsebox. Georgia, Sophie and I are going to follow on in the car.

I don’t like leaving Adam behind, especially in the mood he’s in, but he’s still in bed when we leave early in the morning. Even Lucky refuses to get up.

It’s taken us a long time to get ourselves organised enough to attend a Pony Club rally, and this one is the first of a series, every Saturday for four weeks. Georgia was so excited and nervous that she was sick last night. She’s all right this morning, distracted by washing Bracken’s tail – with warm water, I hasten to add – putting on her travel boots, and checking she’s collected everything together. I can’t believe how
much she thinks she needs for one hour’s riding: haynets, hairnets, grooming kit – for her and the pony, saddle, bridle, jodhpur clips … The list is endless.

By the time Georgia has finished, Bracken is immaculate, her feet shiny with hoof oil, and Georgia is very grubby, her face dusted with a fine powder of mud. I send her to change into her riding gear: shirt and Pony Club tie, jacket and jodhpurs. She returns downstairs at the sound of a lorry turning up the drive, going past then driving back down again to stop outside the house.

‘Are you ready?’ asks Maria, when we meet her in the yard. She’s hardly recognisable as the fashionable woman who cuts my hair, dressed today in jeans and a bulky coat with a fur-trimmed hood, which is covered with mud and grime. Camilla has all the right clothes, including a blouson navy jacket with red lettering on it reading ‘Mr Bojangles’, the name of her pony. I notice how Georgia looks at it covetously.

‘This is very kind of you,’ I say to Maria.

‘Oh, it’s no problem. It’s on our way.’ She smiles. ‘It’s nice for Camilla to have someone to go with.’

‘I’ll fetch Bracken,’ Georgia says.

‘The ramp’s down, so if you lead her straight in, Georgia.’

Straight in? It turns out that Bracken has other ideas. She takes one look into the box, plants her front feet on the bottom of the ramp and refuses to move, forwards, backwards or sideways. I fetch a bucket of pony nuts as instructed by Georgia, but Bracken isn’t that stupid, or that hungry.

‘Camilla, fetch the lunge whip,’ Maria says, and Camilla returns with a long whip which Maria flicks at Bracken’s rump.

‘Walk on, Bracken,’ says Georgia in a sing-song voice.

The pony is in her element, in full control of the situation, ears flicking back and forth, eyes rolling and tail swishing.

‘Have you loaded her before?’ Maria asks me.

‘We haven’t, but she did arrive here in a horsebox.’

‘We’ll try the lunge-line trick next,’ Maria says, but before Camilla can find them, Guy rolls up behind us in his tractor. He stops some distance away, jumps out and approaches us, and my heart sinks and my stomach seems to screw itself up in knots. We haven’t spoken since the Ruthie incident, and I’m still confused and upset over what happened. I was falling – I correct myself, I
had fallen
in love with him – and thought, although he hadn’t told me as such, that he felt the same way about me …

I glance at his face. His expression when he glances back at me is guarded. He’s dressed for the cold in a black beanie, scarf and dark green waxed jacket.

‘Give us a hand, Guy,’ calls Maria. ‘You’re good with horses.’

‘Will do,’ he says. ‘I need to get out with the tractor. Is that all right with you, Jennie?’

I nod. Go ahead.

A half smile crosses his lips.

‘That pony knows she can take advantage …’ He walks up to Bracken and has a few words with Georgia before taking the rope. He rubs at the pony’s face, jiggles the rope then leads her straight up the ramp into the lorry. Maria gets behind and closes the gates and ramp behind our naughty pony.

‘Hurray!’ she applauds as Guy jumps out through the groom’s door near the front. Maria walks up and
kisses him on the cheek, a gesture that I find quite painful to watch. ‘Thanks, Guy.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, but he can hardly meet my gaze.

‘It’s nothing,’ he says dismissively, and turns to the girls. ‘Enjoy the rally.’

They do. Georgia can’t stop grinning as she rides Bracken around the indoor school at a livery yard some way north of Talyford. There are five girls and their ponies in the ride, and an instructor called Polly with powerful thighs and a booming voice.

I sit on a broken chair on the balcony with Sophie, Maria and the other Pony Club mums, watching our budding Zara Phillipses walk, trot and canter. It’s freezing. Within ten minutes, my toes are tingling and I can’t feel my fingers. I’ve brought hot coffee and hummingbird cake to share, more as a thank-you gesture to Maria, because she’s made it clear she doesn’t want any payment for bringing Bracken here, than a shameless marketing ploy.

‘This is wonderful,’ Maria says, eating cake. ‘What’s in it?’

‘It’s like carrot cake, except that it contains pineapple and banana instead. Oh, and I use pecan nuts instead of walnuts.’

‘How’s business?’ asks Maria.

‘It’s pretty good,’ I say. I’ve been pleasantly surprised lately. In the past week, I’ve had two orders and three expressions of interest in wedding cakes – of the cupcake design, like Penny’s. I have six birthday cakes lined up, and of course I also have my stall at the Farmers’ Market. Even better, although I’m not about to jinx it by talking about it, I’m in negotiation with the gift shop in Talyton to supply them with cider cakes throughout the summer.

I shiver. I can’t wait for the summer.

‘I’m glad it’s taking off,’ says Maria. ‘I think everyone’s after your cupcakes for their weddings. Penny was completely overwhelmed that you managed to turn a potential disaster into something so special.’ She grins. ‘I know all about what the dog did, because I do her hair too. I did it for the wedding. Ah, you can’t keep anything secret around here.’

‘So I’ve noticed,’ I say happily. The Pony Club mums aren’t snooty as I expected them to be. I feel as if I belong here, that I’m amongst friends. I feel as if I’ve been accepted in Talyton St George at last, and I’m proud to be part of the community.

‘There are whispers that you and Guy …?’ Maria begins.

‘Pure gossip,’ I say, trying not to sound too abrupt.

‘Weren’t you with him at the wassail?’

‘I was with half the population of Talyton at the same time,’ I point out. ‘We weren’t together as such.’

‘Shame. We used to think that he might end up with Ruthie – she runs Hen Welfare. Have you met her?’

‘In passing, that’s all.’

‘Ruthie’s always been there, in the background, biding her time. She went out with Guy’s brother briefly. But then, didn’t we all?’ Maria smiles ruefully. ‘I shan’t go into the secrets of my misspent youth right now. Anyway, Ruthie was very supportive of Guy when his wife left him, and she told me – this was in confidence, by the way, so keep it to yourself – that she was hopeful that he’d marry her once he’d got Tasha out of his system.’

‘And?’ I say.

‘Either he couldn’t get over the break-up of his
marriage, or –’ she pauses, giving me a long look ‘– someone else, someone more exotic, came along and sparked his interest.’