by Fiona Walker
Petra was shamed by the rush of joy she felt. The holiday poolside daydreams were back on.
‘Consider the warning lifted for twenty-four hours. What harm can it do? You’re hardly going to get off together at a funeral.’
Oh, how sexy would that be amid the starchy, black-tie formality?
‘Absolutely not.’ She straightened up, focusing on the Tuscan pool that was waiting tomorrow, as blue as a Lothario’s eyes, sun hotter than his lips on her cheek. Family time was far sweeter than his flirtation. She envisaged cicadas, cypresses and the Chianti-fuelled annual marital-sex lifeline, a fortnight of rest and happiness and feeling just slightly desirable. Her Safe Married Crush on Bay, a strictly term-time distraction, could travel safely as light luggage. She couldn’t wait to get back and pack her sexiest sarongs.
Figures moving along the path just beyond the trees made the Redhead shy back.
‘Sorry,’ a voice called.
Recognising Carly and her buggy jogging back from the farm shop, small boy charging in their wake, Petra waved. ‘Hello!’
Carly waved back shyly and hurried on, while her son came crashing through the bracken to take a closer look, letting out a war cry and making even Gill’s stoic bay step back in alarm. He appeared to be brandishing a fluffy duster.
He stopped at the tree line. ‘You have big arses!’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Gill gaped at him.
‘Are they race arses?’ His accent was strongly shires.
‘No, they’re pleasure arses, I mean horses.’ Petra leaned down to him, loving his Just William thatch of black hair, silver eyes and scattering of freckles. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Ellis Peter Turner. I’m four. I like your arse best. Can I pat him?’
‘Her. Yes. Best put the duster down first.’
‘It’s a magic ’Splorer Stick.’
The Redhead patiently endured a battering of small palm against shoulder, chest and nose.
‘Hello there.’ Gill addressed Ellis from on high, her kindliest tone so authoritarian it made him cower against a tree trunk, like William Tell’s son with the apple on his head. ‘And what are you up to?’
In the woods, his mother called him back, shouting that they were going to miss the bus if he didn’t hurry up.
‘We’re going to see Pricey! She’s beautiful. Best day ever!’ He picked up his fluffy duster and crashed off, racing after the buggy.
‘Amazing how popular Katie Price is,’ Petra marvelled, as they waited for the others to catch up. ‘I’d kill for her book-signing queues. And she’s horsy.’
‘She’s a dog,’ Gill said dismissively.
‘Don’t be such a snob. I’ve always thought Peter Andre was the best thing to happen to her. She lost out there.’
Gill cast a withering look. ‘“Pricey” is a bull-lurcher that boy’s mother pulled from a hedge. Nasty business.’
‘Of course,’ Petra remembered guiltily. ‘Carly told me. She wants us to adopt it. Charlie says no.’
‘Don’t,’ Gill warned, glancing up as the drone buzzed its way back into sight, hovering noisily in the patch of blue sky overhead, the horses taking no notice for once, while their riders ducked as though a giant hornet was eyeing them up for a sting. The other two Bags, ambling up deep in conversation, broke off to look up at the drone too.
‘Are quadcopters usually that big?’ Mo watched it zip this way and that.
‘Top spec,’ Bridge said knowledgeably. ‘Military, I reckon. Huge battery life, set up to film hours of footage.’
‘Bloody Bay! I hate the things.’ Gill shook her fist at it, then checked her watch. ‘Gadzooks! We have to ride like the blazes or I’ll be walking in behind the coffin.’
Petra loved her for ‘gadzooks’ and ‘ride like the blazes’. They did just that, crackling along the woodland tracks at full tilt, outstripping Carly jogging along the lower path with her son now on her shoulders, dappled tree canopy protecting them from the ever-hotter sun and the fish-eye of the little drone that buzzed in their wake, even after Gill had waved farewell at her driveway gate.
It buzzed above the fields alongside Plum Run, making Bridge’s pony spook as the remaining three Bags trotted parallel to it. When Petra peeled off into her own driveway amid cheery farewells and bon voyages, it didn’t follow them. Instead, it lingered over the orchards.
Imagining Bay at the controls, monitoring his camera footage, Petra whipped off her helmet and raked out her hair.
Surely he had far better things to do as the Bardswolds’ sexy, signet-ringed farm diversification entrepreneur than chasing her with a glorified, battery-operated Frisbee-cam. She gave it a withering look and mouthed, ‘Go away.’ Gill was right: the ruddy things were as ubiquitous as swallows now. Charlie had been desperate for one last birthday but, like Aleš, quickly tired of it, handing it down to their sons, as he did all old iPods, FitBits and smartphones that went off trend as fast as they were on.
Narrowing her eyes, she looked up at an open attic window, calling, ‘Fitz! If it’s your drone out here perving round the village, can you land it now?’ Brother Ed was already on a warning for flying it over the manor’s walled garden when its owners were sunbathing in the nude, although he’d claimed to be following a hawk in flight.
There was no reply. It hovered closer, dropping lower, its rotor tone changing.
Then, as she tied up the Redhead to untack her and wash her down, the drone whizzed across the road, listing dramatically, and crash-landed on the stable roof.
There was a rose Sellotaped to it, along with a note: From your secret admirer.
As soon as she’d peeled it off, the drone’s rotors started up once more. With great effort, it took off – labouring now, battery at a low ebb – and buzzed away at low altitude.
Petra watched it in wonder, the eighties adverts back with vengeance. Giving her head another Timotei toss, the rose a Jane Seymour Le Jardin sniff and the note a Milk Tray card trick slide between her fingers, she danced back to her house for a Flake advert waterfall moment under the power shower.
*
Carly was grateful to old Mrs Stokes from Lower Bagot Farm: she’d had to manoeuvre her disabled daughter Pam and the wheelchair into the bus, holding it up long enough for Carly to pant up with the buggy, another collapsing-axle inconvenience. Between them, they almost filled the Chipping Hampton service, which was barely bigger than a minibus and ran just twice a week. A large, Edam-cheeked woman, wearing an old quilted gilet over her dress, despite the heat, Mrs Stokes chatted cheerily throughout the journey, admiring Carly’s children, then remembered the big funeral taking place: ‘I won’t speak ill of the dead except to say he wasn’t an easy man, the Captain, not like his dad. Now he was a gent.’ She sighed, then went on to describe the years when Major Frank had hosted open days, village gymkhanas and Pony Club Camp in his home paddocks. ‘Poor nippers have to peg their tents between cow pats up near Micklecote now. My granddaughter Grace is there this week. Don’t let these nippers get the horse bug.’ Mrs Stokes tickled Sienna with rheumatic fingers. ‘Both mine have had it since they was knee high, hey, Pam?’
Pam’s speech was difficult to understand, her muscular tics making her sound as if she was permanently talking through a yawn, but the bright eyes that fixed on Carly’s shared the same passion. ‘Nicer... than people... horses.’
‘You’re not wrong.’
‘And dogs,’ Ellis butted in. ‘We’re visiting Pricey. She’s a dog me and my mum saved the life of.’
Mrs Stokes smiled kindly. ‘What sort of dog is Pricey, my duck?’
‘Pitbull-lurcher,’ Ellis said proudly.
Her mouth disappeared into several whiskery chins, warning eyes on Carly. ‘Not everyone’s cup of tea.’
‘Dad likes lurchers!’ a big yawn of a statement said cheerfully. Pam was beaming at Ellis. ‘People don’t understand them, do they?’
‘Pricey is brave as a lion,’ he told her, as the pair struck up an animated con
versation about dogs, Ellis listing all the breeds featured on Paw Patrol. ‘I like Sky the cockapoo ’cause it has poo in it!’ he announced, amid frantic giggles, which intensified as he said: ‘Dad likes Rocky best. He says that if cockapoos are full of poo, then bulldogs are full of bullshi—’
‘That’s enough, Ellis!’ Carly chided, as Mrs Stokes launched into a story about a particularly naughty collie puppy they’d once owned.
While she kept the children entranced with stories of chewed-up sofas and shoes, Carly texted Ash to remind him he was picking them up in an hour. You out of bed yet, lover?
At the gym. His reply cheered her up. He might have slipped into some bad old habits, but her soldier was still disciplined enough to make his body pay.
Ellis was showing Pam his ’Splorer Stick, which had started to look distinctly bedraggled after being poked into so many hedgerows. ‘It guards me from evil,’ he explained in reverent tones.
‘And dusts awkward crevices,’ Mrs Stokes said approvingly. ‘I love those microfibre ones.’
‘My dad kills people,’ Ellis was telling Pam proudly, brandishing the duster like a Kalashnikov now. ‘He shoots them in the head. There’s blood and everything.’
‘He doesn’t,’ Carly reassured Mrs Stokes and her daughter quickly, ruffling his hair.
‘Yes, he does! On TV.’
‘It’s a game.’ Carly gave a brittle laugh, furious with Ash, who swore he never played his violent shoot-’em-ups in front of the kids. ‘He used to be in the army and he misses the action.’
‘The Captain only ever went into battle with his neighbours, God rest his soul,’ Mrs Stokes observed. ‘But they say only a man who has been to war knows the value of peace, don’t they?’
Carly thought about this for a long time, wondering what price Ash put on it.
There was a bus stop not far from the rescue centre. The last time Carly had visited Pricey, she’d been alone, the dog still weak from an infection she’d picked up after her operation at the orthopaedic specialist’s, dull-eyed and institutionalised. Ellis had badgered her to let him come this time, although she knew the centre staff wouldn’t let him into the run or kennel until the dog had been assessed for rehoming once her health improved. They’d already explained to her that a dog trained as she’d been might find it hard to cope with life as a pet.
Today, the bull-lurcher was a ball of irrepressible energy, bright eyes creasing up with joy to see Carly, lips smiling, entire brindle body wagging in delighted pirouettes, one leg stiff and cumbersome, with its brightly coloured Vet Wrap, like a baseball bat, almost knocking them both off their feet. Watching, Ellis bounced up and down with his little sister outside the enclosure. ‘Can we take her home, Mum? Can we? Can we look after her?’
‘That’s not going to happen right now, love.’ Carly felt her heart crush tight, knowing that Ash was set against it and the cost would cripple them.
Her hands were burning hot again, as though she’d pressed them against a racing car’s bonnet. She cupped Pricey’s smiling face, laughing at the kisses coming up to meet her.
‘She’s still very weak and she’s been through a lot of trauma,’ the kennel maid explained to Ellis kindly. ‘She’s going to need a lot of specialist care.’
‘How long until her leg’s better?’ asked Carly.
‘It’s another four weeks until she starts hydrotherapy. Before that, we’ll keep doing as much as we can to work through her aggression issues.’
Looking at Pricey now, Carly found it hard to believe she was anything but sweet-natured, but the nurse told her in an undertone, out of Ellis’s hearing, that they were seeing more examples of dysfunctional behaviour now she was stronger, especially around other dogs.
‘We’re pretty sure she’s been regularly starved to bring out her fight instinct, probably beaten too. She bites herself when she’s stressed, and she still won’t sleep in her bed, just walks the kennel until she drops on the spot from tiredness. If we knew a bit more about her circumstances, how she was trained and worked, it would be easier. She’s not at all territorial, which is unusual. She’s watchful – she sights and attacks. She’s great with you, best I’ve seen her, but she’s a difficult case. There’s one poor volunteer here, a young lad, we can’t let in here because she just goes for him. Not many want to take one home like that.’
Carly took a photo of that smiling, happy dog face with her mobile. ‘I’ll keep asking round.’
Ellis kicked up a stink when they left, overtired and inconsolable, ’Splorer Stick thwacking against the tarmac. He was still at the noisy end of a tantrum when they clambered into Ash’s truck, ten minutes late. The cab smelt of shower gel and vending-machine coffee as he accepted her perfunctory kiss, his eyes predictably evasive, eager to get going.
The screams and kicks from the back seat demanded otherwise. ‘Why can’t we have the dog, Dad?’
Carly rolled her eyes apologetically at Ash, who was already low-browed and defensive, as though she’d set him up. He’d never taken any interest in Pricey.
‘Just button it, Ellis.’ His voice was an army order, his word always law in the pick-up.
The ’Splorer Stick hit the back seat. Sienna started crying.
‘I’ll burn that bloody thing if you do it again!’ Ash roared. He loathed the ’Splorer Stick.
‘Why can’t we have the dog?’ Ellis repeated defiantly.
‘She’s a big old bitch who eats too much. Plenty of those in the gym.’ He glanced across at Carly. ‘Place is rammed with lard-arses on holiday diets. This time next year, we’re minted.’
Carly gritted her teeth, hating it when he spoke like that. She blamed his Compton mates, the Tinder-swiping bachelor pack, along with the misogynist Turners. Ash had been no sweet-spoken angel in the army, and women were rarely admired for their wit, skill or career success in the mess, but they were admired.
She’d have called him out for macho-bantering in front of the kids, but she didn’t trust his volatility right now, and she needed him sweet while she put Pricey’s case. ‘Could someone else in the family take her on? What about Norm? He lost one recently, didn’t he?’ She wasn’t always sure of Norm’s sobriety or sanity, but he loved his dogs.
‘I can ask.’ He shrugged. ‘At least it’s not a bloody foal.’ He cuffed her shoulder, grinning. ‘You saved much yet?’ Her Spirit tin, kept on top of the fridge, amused him no end, currently amounting to about a fiver in loose change because they were increasingly cash-strapped and constantly had to raid it for phone credit and groceries.
‘I’m working on it. Got the pole-dancing-club job starting next week.’
‘Me too.’ He overtook a Bentley way too fast – another bad habit he’d picked up lately was chicken-running flash cars – making her grip her seatbelt in alarm. His eyes burned into the rear-view mirror as rows of Xenons flashed furiously behind him. ‘Don’t tell me it’s the same place?’
She appreciated the old dry Ash humour, albeit delivered in a snarky voice at twenty miles an hour over the limit. ‘Polo-mint Rhino,’ she dead-panned. ‘It’s a special Cotswolds version.’ Carly thought it was quite witty, but he didn’t laugh.
‘Nah, this one’s called Transaction. The clue’s in there. Lots of big feet in high heels.’
Feeling competitive, she tried not to giggle, but he was too quick-fire to deny, and she let out a snort of amusement. ‘That’s a good one.’
They were soon wisecracking almost like they used to, edgier and darker these days, but the old magic was there. Ash was always at his most communicative after the gym, Carly’s snorts soon turning to laughter. That stopped when they came up behind the funeral hearse crawling towards the stud’s drive.
‘Do not overtake it, Ash.’
‘I wasn’t going to!’ The swaggering attitude doubled as he eyed the coffin in the hearse with its discreet lily wreath. ‘Good riddance to the old bastard. If our lottery numbers come up we’re going to buy his house and I’ll turn it into a tan
k-driving centre. There’s a lot of money in tanks.’
‘And fat women.’ She strained to catch sight of Spirit as they passed his field. ‘Just not in horses.’
*
‘Morning, Mrs Hedges! Sorry I’m late! I saved the best until last! I had to drop my baking off at the stud and brief the caterers first thing, then Mr Thorne had one of his turns, which held me up.’ Pip hurried into the little cottage on Church Lane to find the old lady watching Homes Under the Hammer in the gloom, still in her nightie, her thin white cotton-wool hair over a baby pink scalp, like a Westie’s stomach, a hungry cat curling around each swollen ankle.
‘You’re a welcome sight, dear.’ Mrs Hedges didn’t look away from the screen where rival bidders were winking and nodding to win a Bexhill maisonette.
With her uncomplaining smile, television addiction and unlimited 4G WiFi, the frail old lady was one of Pip’s favourite clients. That her little cottage was opposite the church lichgate meant she’d been looking forward to this call all morning.
‘They’re burying the Captain today,’ Pip reminded her, with a martyred sigh, as she went to open the curtains, poised for the gratifying moment when Mrs H told her what a treasure she had been to the old man, as all her other clients had been saying today, sympathising that she wasn’t attending the ceremony but had instead been asked to oversee the caterers. Still prickling with indignation, Pip had deliberately timed her final Home Comforts call so that she could watch the first guests arrive. ‘The coffin will be at the stud now. They’re going to carry it all the way here. I hope Lester’s remembered to put his inhaler in his pocket.’
But Mrs H just squawked at her to leave the curtains closed so she could see the television better, and waved her towards the kitchen. ‘Put the kettle on, dear. There’s an unrenovated semi in Cheadle coming up.’
Pip glanced at her watch. It was barely eleven, but she could hear the first cars arriving, doors banging and low, earnest voices. In her experience, eager mourners liked to come early and claim a good spot with a handbag on a pew so they could look round the graves. Pip’s aunt had arrived for her sister’s funeral so early that she’d helped arrange altar flowers, then sat through a christening first.