The Country Set

by Fiona Walker

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Petra scoffed, tossing her head with a self-conscious flourish, like an eighties Timotei advert.

  Mo kicked her cob to keep up with them, her tell-me-more voice breathless: ‘Didn’t I see you and Bay being very friendly at Pony Club Camp this week?’

  This was news to Petra, who’d dropped off Bella and pony at indecent speed, her week an even more complicated taxi-run of family assignations than it was in term-time.

  ‘Come to think of it,’ Mo closed one eye, remembering, ‘Briony, who runs the game cookery school over Broadbourne way, has a look of you about her. Awful laugh.’

  ‘At least she sees the funny side of life,’ Petra said snappily, convinced Bay had already tired of her and wishing she felt more relieved. He hadn’t texted her in almost ten days. Meanwhile her husband had sent her just three short messages from London this week, which read: Have you remembered my BASC sub? followed by I’ll need my prickly heat ointment in Italy and Don’t forget I need a new strap on, which had caused a brief flurry of drama until he’d added prescription goggles. Sent too soon.

  Never had Petra needed a healthy SMC more. A hot fortnight of bad-tempered day trips and lonely poolside Kindle isolation stretched ahead, all her outlandish fantasies about Bay now quashed by a haze of simmering gamebird and rabbit.

  The sun was already furnace-like.

  The wildflowers in the church meadows had burned to sepia, jewel-headed and adrift with dandelion clocks, its hedgerows bloodshot with desiccating red poppies, the track cracked. Even this early in the morning, the colts that had been turned out in the shorn hayfields crowded in the rotating shadow of the huge Percy family cedar, like an equine sundial. Beyond the almost-dry brook, grain was being volleyed into trailers as a combine harvester shaved Manor Farm’s wheat. The Bags waited until the huge convoy were at the furthest end of the field before taking the track that ran along the far side of Lord’s Brook down to the sweet chestnut woods, breaking into a bargy race to get there before the machinery turned.

  ‘Slow trot!’ Gill ordered, alert to the concrete ground and the deafening haze of harvest. ‘Wasn’t Briony from the cookery school the one whose husband ran off with the male au pair? Or was that Leonie the caterer? She’s another favourite of Bay’s. All the locals get her in for parties now. I best she’s doing the funeral.’

  Bad mood rising, Petra was spared further discussion of Bay by Bridge’s grey pony careering sideways at the sight of the Austens’ giant Claas combine, now reappearing over the horizon in an Apocalypse Now dust cloud. The little Connemara shot forwards to glue itself to the side of Gill’s bay dressage nanny, who loftily ignored the half-million pounds’ worth of computerised yield collection slowly approaching.

  The Redhead was so fired up to run, it was like sitting on a revving jet engine at the end of a runway.

  ‘You okay?’ Mo called across, as they blinked their dusty way to higher ground, nothing but stubble field ahead now.

  ‘Never better!’ Petra forced a smile, still feeling illogically peeved that so many cooks were muscling in on her Safe Married Crush. He obviously had a food fetish. She eyed the stubble hopefully, calling forwards, ‘Pipe-opener?’

  ‘Ground’s like concrete.’ Gill held up her John Wayne hold-hard arm. ‘We’ll canter in the woods.’

  Bay Austen’s deep dark woods, Petra reflected as the Redhead, tougher than a mustang crossing a canyon, danced in anticipation on Bay Austen’s track in Bay Austen’s field, the spectacular views ahead his children’s inheritance, along with those devilish blue eyes. He was the classic philandering village cad; her most adored fictional heroes were his forefathers, their quick wit and cruel charm deflowering virgins and making married mistresses swoon. Theirs was no more than the silliest flirtation, but Charlie’s cold shoulder was so much easier to bear when her phone chirruped with a throwaway joke and a Bx, especially in a heatwave.

  Italy will make it all better, Petra told herself firmly. She and Charlie always relaxed and made friends on holiday. Gathering their children close would be a bonus too. They hadn’t sat down together as a family since Gunny’s censorious visit, during which Charlie had returned from London to race round Open Gardens Week faster than a dragonfly, then devoted himself to cricket, just as his children’s summer activities dispersed the family. This week, while Bella had been enjoying Pony Club Camp, Prudie was at a dance club from dawn until dusk, Ed was building a shelter with his best friend in a north Oxford garden, pretending to be Bear Grylls, and Fitz slid trays in and out of his room, like a prisoner in solitary, intent on passing the holiday vicariously through social media.

  As the children grew older, play time and screen time had become independent of family time. This summer was the first Petra could remember that she’d flicked on a television to catch the news headlines and not found it pre-tuned to a kids’ movie channel, the Netflix account staying on her square. She craved a united Gunn troop, the long pyjama breakfasts monopolised by silliness over cereal packets, the big days out with a full head count. She missed the family rainy-day movie marathons when the single DVD slot meant they all had to agree what to watch, leaving her feeling no guilt about sacrificed work hours because she was needed as peace-keeper, chef, play-leader and shoe-fetcher. What she missed most, though, was Charlie being any part of it. His annual fortnight of uninterrupted family holiday time had been highlighted in his diary all year, like a rare foreign assignment.

  As the Redhead cantered sideways, desperate to go faster, Mo and the cob jogged to keep up, both steaming now. ‘You all packed for the holiday?’

  ‘Next on the list.’ Too late for the beach-body diet now. Petra hoped her tankini would still roll on.

  ‘Still pretending you have an ’usband?’ The Carry On chuckle. ‘You can take mine if you like.’

  Petra rolled her eyes. Like cantering, Italy couldn’t come fast enough.

  *

  Like gazing at a Magic Eye book to see the hidden pictures, Pip could discover a lot about Ronnie by studying Verity Robertson’s Facebook profile. Hair and razor-grazed ankle still wrapped in towels, the Red Bull making her button-clicking fingers twitch, she scrolled up and down through a decade of Wiltshire country life in the spin of a mouse wheel.

  Blair’s wife had once been a regular contributor, blue-bloodedly embracing the cobalt social network and posting all manner of silly shares, family snaps and horsy high jinks; she was a popular figure with many old and loyal friends, in-jokes abounding. Once deeply involved in the upper echelons of eventing she, like Ronnie, owned horses and the two knew each other socially, becoming near neighbours in Wiltshire after Ronnie’s return from Germany. At the time, Verity had uploaded regular pictures featuring an unruly middle-aged group at parties or in sponsors’ tents, Ronnie invariably at the side of handsome men in bright trousers. Craggy sexpot Blair occasionally smouldered in the background, always a little aloof, as though he’d rather be somewhere else.

  Pip quickly deduced from her status updates that Verity had a drink problem, her detective eye spotting the increasingly random thoughts, clumsy typing and forgetfulness, the way she often repeated herself, the joyful self-indulgence. This grew worse as her timeline progressed, misspelling names, taking offence at innocent jokes and posting long, rambling reflections on her glory years, accompanied by photographs scanned upside down. A sudden about-face on foxhunting had caused great upset from almost all quarters of her country-set crowd, apart from Roo Verney the fierce-looking, media-savvy niece in the Cotswolds, whose flat-nosed avatar pic cropped up regularly to entreat Verity to join her in direct action.

  Three years ago, having apparently barely ridden since a broken back a decade earlier, Verity had announced to Facebook friends that she was looking for a horse for my seventieth year! Then there had been a muddled gush about all the best horses she’d owned and why old horsewomen should never hang up their boots. The post garnered a forget-me-not bed of blue ‘likes’ beneath it and plenty of suggestions of
nice steady hunters.

  Stop sending me plods! she’d beseeched. I want to sit astride the world. The comments beneath this were less unanimous – some admiring, others teasing, a few concerned. She ranted at all but the likers. A flurry of excited posts followed shortly as the perfect beast was identified. When a dealer doesn’t want to sell me a horse, I know it’s good!

  That dealer had been Ronnie. The evidence was indisputable. Still occasionally brokering horses out of Holland and Germany, she was known to have an exceptional eye for a classy bargain, and the stallion in question was a world-beater on paper. His pedigree was German royalty, Verity reported delightedly to her friends, his track-record ground-breaking before injury had side-lined him to stud where he’d never settled. Cast back into a quieter working life now, he’d come sound in body if not mind.

  This chap’s the one!!! In UK already. Pract next door! Unwanted gift!! Verity had written, exclamation marks and sobriety in inverse proportion, it seemed.

  Ronnie had clearly driven a hard bargain, Verity’s many updates grumbled that the horse was being aimed at professional studs. Then, As ev one here nos, am marred to stud. Thanks to Blair deal done!!! Cue more blue likes and plentiful good-luck comments. Her profile picture then changed from that of a florid-cheeked ageing beauty to a horse.

  The stallion, who was called Beck, was supermodel photogenic, as his dedicated album on Verity’s timeline proved, whether the photos were glossy studbook shots taken in Holland or the ones his indulgent new owner had snapped on her iPad when he arrived one snowy day in February, jumping straight out of his stable, charging off and ending up in a field of lambs where he stayed happily for five months. A tableau of idyllic field shots ensued until the lambs went to slaughter.

  The photographs on Verity’s increasingly scant timeline had then switched to injury close-ups – bite-marks, bruised ribs, blackened legs, a broken nose, all wonkily snapped on her iPad and accompanied by rows of exclamation marks and occasional self-deprecating one-liners so cryptic Pip guessed she had to be permanently pissed and possibly concussed too. There were no likes beneath these. Verity was an old pro, after all. Beck was a psycho. Concerned comments from friends ranged from Send him back to Sue the dealer!

  Verity hadn’t replied. All she’d shared in the past two years was one John Lewis Christmas advert, and birthday wishes for friends sent on the wrong day. There had been nothing for the past six months.

  All of which led Pip to one conclusion.

  Ronnie Percy had sold her lover’s ageing, alcoholic wife a horse assassin.

  14

  Ronnie rarely entertained second thoughts, but looking across at the man driving her too fast along the Broadbourne road, his profile Easter Island stone, she felt the rare frisson of uncertainty she experienced on riding a horse whose track-record was full of Fs and Ps for falling or being pulled up. Hers was a wildcard choice.

  ‘I booked the best suite this time.’ Blair swung the big car into Le Mill’s grand entrance.

  ‘I told you I’d rather to go straight home after the funeral.’ She’d need her dogs and horses, and she wanted to visit the old friend who had originally been destined to come and support her. Having waited all year for his knee-replacement operation, a last-minute cancellation had come through on the worst of all dates: ‘My darling girl, you know I’d get down on one of these creakers for you, lift them up for you and Mother Brown, and stick one in the groin of any bastard who hurt you – especially bloody Blair Robertson – but they are very broken, and this is their day. Do you mind terribly going with somebody else?’

  Ronnie wouldn’t have had it any other way, although the deputy who had stepped into the fold was a controversial choice, not entirely of her making: ‘bloody Blair Robertson’ was a very single-minded man for a married one.

  ‘You need me more than anybody right now,’ he’d told her.

  She couldn’t deny it. But she didn’t want to make a hotel stay of it. ‘I need a getaway driver, not a spa break,’ she said, as they parked in front of the neat lavender borders.

  ‘You’ll be shattered afterwards.’

  ‘I’m toughened glass.’ She’d need her own door to close on this, her dogs and horses, nobody there to witness the cracks.

  Bowie’s Low was playing, and Blair let the engine tick as the final track reverberated with saxophone melancholy. One chocolate eye was on her. ‘At least give yourself the option, Ron. It’s your dad’s funeral. Trust me, it doesn’t pay to hard-arse it.’

  Blair had lost his own father young, Ronnie remembered. She could imagine the flinty Aussie kid refusing to cry, bottling it up, so like her own children watching Johnny’s coffin lowered. The neap tide of grief was already rolling back in, a moon-mad force of nature.

  ‘Full fathom five thy father lies,’ she looked out across a flat blue millpond, ‘his aqualung was the wrong size.’ The silly reinvention of a beautiful couplet, first told her by Hermia, had once delighted Ronnie. Yet today she could see only the pearls that were the Captain’s eyes, her heart anchor heavy.

  ‘Our little life is rounded with a sleep.’ Blair’s bone-dry voice was more suited to whooping a horse over a fence, but he knew Bard and Bowie were her comforters.

  Ronnie tilted her face to look at him gratefully. ‘Daddy had no truck with Shakespeare, although he enjoyed the battle scenes in Olivier’s Henry the Fifth. They used Irish locals as extras,’ she remembered, ‘County Clare’s finest charging around on cobs and plough horses. He thought that was marvellous. “Once more into the breeches” was the family hunting-days motto for years, and to horse, you gallant princes!’ Her eyes rested on the pond once more, hearing her father’s sharp bark, the elevation of horse above human. ‘When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.’

  ‘Beats Whyte Melville.’ Blair’s strong hand encircled hers, his thumb pad deep in her palm. He knew all her pacifiers, a lover whose touch went soul deep on days like this, but Ronnie sensed it was wrong to have brought him along.

  ‘I don’t think you should come to the church, Blair. I can’t make this any tougher on my kids than it already is. Alice has a hound’s nose for infidelity, and scent is always high in that village.’

  ‘I’m not letting you go through this alone.’

  ‘We’ll only set tongues wagging.’

  ‘They’ve always wagged, mate.’ His dark eyes were indignant, face all angry angles. ‘We’ve known each other almost forty years and I’m your jockey, so let them say what they like. Your dad never held back.’ A defiant smile broke cover. ‘Told me once that I ride like a gaucho and design cross-country courses for race riders. He always insisted you couldn’t build a decent track without a coffin, so the least I owe his is a nod of respect.’

  *

  Riding into the loamy cool of the woods, the Saddle Bags left the dust of the combine behind and broke into a trot as they scaled the steady, humus-carpeted slope up to a run of old jumping logs.

  Gill cantered alongside Petra, their horses jumping abreast. ‘I have a favour to ask before you get too embroiled in flip-flop finding. Can you use your charms on Pip Edwards at the stud do later? She’ll have the heads-up on what’s happening there.’

  ‘I hardly know her.’ Petra watched her mare’s red ears lock on target as she surged forward. ‘And gate-crashing a do is not on my to-do list.’

  ‘Think of it as your duty to the village. Everyone’s invited. If you’re worried, you can be my plus one.’

  ‘Given the number of hunting and shooting boffs who’ll be there, you should have plus fours.’

  ‘Love it! But you’re the only Gunn I need,’ Gill insisted, kicking the obedient bay over a big, nettle-fringed log-pile that the Redhead ducked out of. ‘The Percys are terrible blockheads. If the family decide to sell up, developers will be crawling all over the buildings in no time, while Sanson Holdings pay over the odds to p
lant rapeseed all over centuries-old pasture. Pip’s an insider and was in the Captain’s confidence. She likes you,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘We both know she’s still dying to chum up with Compton’s writer in residence.’

  ‘I am not your Mata Hari.’ Petra steered back on course and they flew a felled oak trunk.

  As sweet as the baked goods she was perpetually gifting, Pip had zealously pursued a friendship with Petra the previous year, her sights set on writing a Cotswolds-based erotic detective mystery, featuring cake recipes and an alien-abduction ending. Too kind to say no, Petra had spent a long time extricating herself from the alliance.

  ‘I’ve only just shaken her off,’ she grumbled, as they pulled up at the top of the rise, horses barely sweating, both riders determinedly hiding how breathless they were. ‘Please don’t ask me to be a fake friend.’

  ‘It’s an act of kindness.’ Gill dished out mints. ‘You’re good at reassuring people. Pip’s bound to be worried. The stud’s future is everything to her, as it is to us all in Compton Magna. She’ll know what’s going on – she’s cleverer than she makes out and always has her finger on the digital pulse.’

  ‘Charlie’s coming back on an early train to get in the holiday mood.’ Petra fed a mint down to the Redhead as a shout behind made them turn to look back along the forestry track to see Mo’s cob still stubbornly refusing to jump the first log while Bridge had careered off into the trees.

  ‘It’ll all be over long before then. Funeral’s at noon – a few of us are meeting up beforehand in the Hare to raise a toast.’ Gill pressed harder. ‘Bay will be there.’

  ‘You warned me off him!’

  ‘Only because he so obviously fancies you.’