by Carmen Reid
He was nodding now: ‘Rosie, baby, put the gun down, OK. You’re very tired, you’re very upset.’
‘Upset!’ she shouted back at him.
‘And you have every right to be.’ His eyes fixed on her trembling trigger finger, he added: ‘Hon, I love you. I want to be here with you and our kids. I don’t want to be in the cottage, I don’t want to be anywhere else. Just here with you.’
Funny, she was thinking, how it took a shotgun to inspire Lachlan to romantic declarations.
‘Get out,’ she repeated.
‘Rosie . . .’ he was daring to come round from the bed towards her.‘Put the gun down, baby, this isn’t the outback. You can’t chase me out of our home with a gun.’
‘Ha! I’ll say you were going to beat me up. Me, the cheated wife, with the three little children. You, the ranch hand who married me for the inheritance, then went out and put it about. Who do you think the jury’s going to have sympathy for?’ She was still shouting but starting to cry too.‘I should just fire away.’
She was insane. She had gone nuts. No farmhouse anywhere in the world should keep a gun, even locked in a gunbox. Look at her! She was a wronged woman armed with a double-barrelled gun.
‘Did you marry me for the farm?’ she demanded now, tears streaming down her face.
‘Of course not.’ The gun was level with his chest, focusing his thoughts remarkably.‘I love you. I’ve loved you since the moment I met you.’
‘Take your bags,’ was her response.
‘Steady, baby,’ he said in the flat, neutral voice he’d learned, way back, to use on nervy horses, calving cows.‘I’m going. OK? Point the gun at the floor now. You don’t need to put it down, just point it at the floor. We don’t want an accident.’
‘It won’t be an accident, I can tell you that. I am so angry with you. So angry. You have no idea.’
He was beginning to get the idea.
‘I’m going to pick up my bags and walk to the front door.’ He was moving slowly, using the calm, steady voice.‘I’ll get the key down for the cottage and my coat, then I’m going. I won’t come back tonight, I promise. So once I’m out, put the gun away. Properly. In the box. We can’t have the kids coming across it . . . or coming across you like this.’
His words seemed to sober her a little. She lowered the gun, moved her finger away from the trigger, he saw.
‘Are you going to be OK?’ he asked, all of a sudden wondering if it was a good idea to leave her here like this.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said.‘Once you’ve gone.’ The heat seemed to have gone out of her a little.
He picked up the things he needed and let himself out as quickly as he could.
At the sound of the front door closing, she began to walk down the stairs towards the office. She heard the car start up. He was driving down to the cottage, maybe just to let her know. He was definitely going.
As the engine noise moved away, she sat down at her father’s desk and began to dismantle his gun, unloading the cartridges and putting them back in the box. Because it had been loaded, maybe that had been a reckless touch. But it had worked very well.
She began to shake first with tears and then with laughter. She had frightened the life out of him and he had deserved every moment of it. But still, poor Lachlan! He’d had to cope with several very big frights in the past week: his wife finding him out, his son seriously injured while he was with his lover, her threatening him with a gun. Poor, poor Lachlan! She almost felt sorry for him. She definitely felt amused. Oh God! And the worst thing – she was almost certain that she still loved him. Wondered where she would find the strength to carry out all the things she’d threatened.
She ran the soft felt cloth over the gun and thought of her dad. Her on the back of her big horse for the first time: Blaze, prancing, twitching and nervous, Rosie not much better because he seemed so much bigger than her pony. Her father giving her a leg up, the calm in his voice as he patted the horse. Just like the voice Lachlan had used on her.
‘Don’t worry –’ her dad with his hand on the reins – ‘he’s more frightened than you. You just let him know who’s boss, girl. But be gentle. Let him know gently.’
Her Dad teaching her how to use this gun. Lining up tin cans on top of a stack of bales, explaining how she would have to move her shoulder with each shot. The first time, it had sprung back and kicked her hard. But she wanted to be brave for him. Not let him see how much it had hurt. Wanted to be like her big brother Ewan, so she’d gritted her teeth and pulled the trigger again. Blam! Cans still there, bits of straw flying. Bloody gun kicking her again. She’d reloaded and tried over and over until the squeeze-trigger-shoulder-twist-and-roll move became smooth and practised.
She was a grown-up, she told herself, closing the polished walnut lid on the gun, turning the brass key in the lock. She had three small children to consider. She had to keep it together. If she was to take Lachlan back, he would have to be very, very sorry and she would have to be sure this wasn’t going to happen again. Her eyes were blurred with tears and tiredness; she had spent the best part of four days awake, terrified for her son, tormented by her husband. Lachlan was right about one thing – she had to get some sleep. Maybe none of this would seem so bad in the morning.
And anyway, she had to put a wash on. Life could spin off into all kinds of dramas, rollercoasters, tears and tantrums, but still the housework had to be done.
Chapter Thirty
PAMELA WAS GETTING set to pull out of the farm road in the Land Rover. It was only the fourth time she’d driven it and it felt like an old banger: grinding gears, a stiff steering wheel, unyielding pedals. Bolt upright in the driver’s seat, she was concentrating hard on the drive.
Left, right . . . no-one about, she pulled out and ground her way up into third and then with a diesely roar into fourth. Still the thing was only moving at 35 m.p.h.
She was three days into looking after the farm, and to her surprise, it wasn’t so bad. It really wasn’t. In fact, creeping up over her was the suspicion that she was quite enjoying it.
She liked the early sunny mornings, the sparkle of sunlight and dew on the thousands of tiny cobwebs all over the vegetable plants, chatting amiably with George about what he’d seen on telly last night, as they crawled through fleece and netting to get to the crop, watering the three silly cows, delivering the baskets of veg everywhere.
She had even caught herself whistling. Whistling?!
A glance in the rearview mirror and she could see a black 4 x 4 in the distance, coming up behind her, weaving in and out of the landscape’s dips, turns and hills.
As it came closer she saw that it was a big farm Isuzu, just like Lachlan’s, and for a moment she had the flutter that maybe it was him, wanting to see her again . . . wanting to tell her . . . oh what, exactly?
Then she saw that it was Lachlan’s Isuzu, coming up fast behind her, closing the gap, driving right up, too fast. Pamela accelerated, worried now that Lachlan was about to crash into her car. What was going on?
The Isuzu was right behind her, bumper to bumper, and its horn began to blast. What was this?
She put her foot down harder, scanned the mirror for some clue and realized that it wasn’t Lachlan at the wheel, it was his wife, waving at her, blasting the horn, gunning the Isuzu down the narrow road. Oh hell! She couldn’t slow down for this woman, the Isuzu was too close behind her, they would crash unless Pamela sped up and got out of her way. She pressed further down, knowing this road was too twisty to do fast, and that anyway, her clapped-out Land Rover was no match for Rosie’s car.
The veg was sliding around in the back now, slipping from side to side at the corners. Christ! Here was the sharp left, her right shoulder slapped against the window and she held on, feeling her muscles strain against the steering wheel.
What the hell did Rosie want to do? Run her off the road? She turned and looked through the back window and saw Rosie, unsmiling determination across her face. Maybe tha
t was her plan – she was going to nudge Pamela off the road . . . She’d be found in a burning shell at the bottom of a cliff. Don’t be ridiculous! She was not joining in with this. There were no cliffs on this road: the worst Rosie could do was run her through a fence and into a field. On the next stretch of open road, Pamela indicated that she was turning left into an open gate and began to slow the Land Rover down. She braced herself for the smack of the Isuzu into her rear, but it didn’t come, Rosie must have seen what she was trying to do and braked.
Pamela parked 10 metres or so into the field and switched her engine off. She did not have a good feeling about this. The Isuzu was banked up on a verge, engine still running, and here was Rosie jumping out, stomping over in her direction. Angry, angry face. Arms crossed, heading towards her.
Pamela couldn’t decide whether or not to get out of her car. There was a sense of safety in staying in the cab, she could even turn the key, have the engine running for a quick escape. But she had a horrible mental picture of Rosie opening the door and dragging her out by the hair. Maybe she should get out of her car herself . . . with some dignity.
‘Rosie, hello,’ Pamela tried as an opening gambit, deciding that was more civil than ‘Rosie, are you trying to kill me, you stupid cow?’
Rosie began to shout at her, which came as a surprise, although Pamela now suspected that this woman knew she’d been sleeping with her husband. As Rosie got closer, her words began to make more sense and Pamela realized Rosie wasn’t screaming about her and Lachlan – or anything related to that.
She was ranting about the cottages.
‘And why the bloody hell aren’t they finished yet? I thought we had an agreement. A time frame. You’re totally behind. We’ve got people booked into the big one in two weeks’ time. And the sisal stuff? Who OKed sisal for the floors?’
Pamela had dealt with all kinds of client complaints in the past, but being bawled out in the middle of a field by the wife of her lover? This was bizarrely new.
Rosie was almost up beside Pamela now. She saw with surprise that Pamela wasn’t really as dazzling as she’d built up in her head. That she wasn’t wearing high-heeled boots with her tits out, the way she’d imagined. Pamela was looking confused and even a little frightened, in the kind of jeans-and-T-shirt outfit that Rosie herself had on.
She was shouting nonsense. Even she knew that. She was shouting none of the things she really wanted to shout.
‘It can’t be cleaned,’ she was saying.‘Haven’t you thought about that? How will we deal with red wine stains? People who bring pets?’ Raging about nothing, when really she wanted to shout: He bought new pants to wear for you! In nine years of marriage, he’s never bought new pants to wear for me. It’s so unfair! He was with you when our son got hit. Do you know that? He was with you when I was in the ambulance with Pete.
Instead, she was spouting all sorts of stuff about sisal, carpet tiles and linoleum.
‘It has to be washable. Has to be. I’m not budging on that,’ Rosie heard herself say.
‘Well, I’m sure the order can be cancelled. We could take a look at the floorboards, see if they could be cleaned up.’ Pamela sounded calm and professional, which annoyed Rosie even more.
‘Who thought sisal would be a good idea?’ she fumed.
‘I OKed it with Lachlan.’ Pamela winced at his name.
‘You OKed it with Lachlan!’ Rosie had a new head of rage. Almost incoherent, she was thinking only Was that during one of your little trysts? In MY cottage? In OUR car, maybe? – wanting to slap this woman in front of her. Hands gripping the tops of her crossed arms to stop herself.
‘Lachlan is not in charge of everything. I have a say in this too,’ Rosie managed.‘The cottages belong to my dad. Can’t you understand? This is not all about Lachlan.’
Although Pamela knew now that it was all about Lachlan, knew that Rosie knew. Flooring was an essential element in any room, one of the defining factors, but even so, in over a decade of decorating she’d never seen anyone get as murderously upset as this about it.
‘Just when are you planning to finish?’ Rosie demanded.
‘The kitchen and bathroom go in next week. We’ll be ready for the rental in two weeks’ time. I’ll cancel the sisal and we’ll get something else in. It can be sorted, I want you to be happy with the end result.’ She risked a smile.
Both women were now desperate for this conversation to be over. They’d had some kind of madly distorted picture of each other in their minds lately. But Pamela saw now that Rosie was still, bar the shouting, a nice person, much prettier than she’d remembered. Much better than us, as Lachlan had said. Rosie, for the first time, got a sense of Pamela’s insecurity and maybe her loneliness out here, saw how normal she was. She had dirt under her short nails . . . hardly the painted harlot, the urban sophisticate she’d imagined.
‘I’ll be at the big cottage on Monday afternoon. Why don’t you come round and we’ll talk about the floors? I’ll bring samples, photos, that kind of thing,’ Pamela was soothing.
‘Yes . . . that’s fine.’
For a moment, Rosie hesitated, as if she was about to say something else. Pamela realized how much she didn’t want Rosie to say anything, to indicate that she knew. Nothing would ever recover if Rosie said something now.
‘I’ll see you on Monday,’ Pamela said, filling the space, wanting to move on to the goodbyes.
‘Yes. See you then.’
And Rosie turned and walked towards her Isuzu, as if it was quite the most normal thing in the world to drive your husband’s lover off the road and shout at her about decorating before making an appointment to see her again.
‘Am I glad to see you! You have no idea!’ Pamela, flinging her arms around Alex who’d stumbled off the 9 p.m., dazed with the boredom of hours on the train after a busy day’s work.
‘So, quite a lot going on in your life then?’ Alex hoisted her bag over her shoulder and put an arm though her friend’s.
‘Oh, just the usual,’ Pamela tried to joke about it.‘Me and secret lover have split up, my husband’s found out and left me . . . the secret lover’s wife is stalking me in her 4 x 4 . . . It’s just another day in the sex-free countryside.’
They climbed into the Land Rover and Pamela headed it in the direction of the pub.‘No booze left in the house,’ she explained.
‘That bad, huh?’ Alex asked.
‘No . . . no, I haven’t been drinking too much . . . not really, I just haven’t got any left, because . . . with something between a laugh and a sob, ‘Dave buys the wine.’
‘How are you doing?’ Alex wanted to know.
‘I’m totally bonkers,’ was Pamela’s reply.‘No idea what is going to happen next. Tell you one thing though, it’s taken my mind off babies. I haven’t noticed a pregnant woman for weeks, I’ve moved right out of the nursery decorating schemes in my head, I haven’t thought about my fantasy baby for a long time. That is something. Really something.’
‘OK, well let’s accentuate the positive. Woman with life in meltdown forgets other worries . . . Do you think you and Dave are really going to split up?’
‘Looks like it.’
Alex was filled in with the full details of Dave’s departure.
‘Will you have to sell the farm?’ she asked after she had listened to it all.
‘I suppose so. I don’t know . . . We’re not exactly talking at the moment. We haven’t spoken since he left – so that’s a week now. He must be absolutely frantic to know how I’m getting on . . . whether I’ve messed up all his orders yet . . . killed the cows. I can’t believe he hasn’t phoned . . . you know, about the farm at least.’
‘How have you been getting on with that?’ Alex asked.
‘Quite well!’ Pamela turned to give her a smile.‘Which is a surprise. And you know what?’ her voice dropped to a mock whisper.‘I quite like it.’
‘So the London sophisticate has at last gone native,’ Alex threw in.‘Would you stay up her
e, you know, on your own?’ She hesitated to use the word ‘divorce’, it was far too soon.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Time to think about all that.’
‘Hmmm.’
Walking into the pub, neither woman could ignore the ruffle they were causing. All ten or so heads were turned in their direction and blatant staring was going on.
Alex rather proudly thought it was because she looked so London: spiky red hair, her finest pair of vintage NHS men’s glasses, bright pink lipstick. Pamela suspected the entire town knew about her and Lachlan. Had Rosie taken out an ad in the local paper or, worse, let someone in the Hacienda know?
‘Evening, ladies,’ Jeff boomed at them from the bar.
‘Yikes,’ Alex said under her breath. This was a bit too much like gatecrashing a party.
Pamela had barely got the drinks order out before Jeff wanted to know: ‘So what do you think about Olive, then?’
Oh for God’s sake, he was obsessed. Why did he want to talk about her poor old neighbour again?
‘What do you mean?’ Pamela didn’t make this sound very friendly.
‘Haven’t you heard?’ He was positively licking his lips in anticipation.‘You won’t have seen her for a few days, then.’
‘No.’ Pamela had been up at the house just two days ago, but for the third visit in a row, Olive hadn’t come to the door to speak to her, so she’d just left the mail in the lobby. She hadn’t given it much thought. Olive was fickle with her friendliness. Some days she stayed indoors, didn’t even say hello, on other days she wanted to talk about all sorts of things and had even, just the once, asked Pamela in and given her a cup of tea in the most gloomily pristine living room Pamela had ever experienced. She’d been frightened to sit down and crease the sofa cushions.
‘Well now . . .’ Jeff, leaning heavily on an elbow, was settling in for the long haul, even though Pamela didn’t want to sit up at the bar. She wanted a quiet table with her friend to herself, but there didn’t seem to be any choice. Both women dutifully pulled up an imitation tapestry barstool and listened.