by Fiona Walker
‘I’ve been reading through your oeuvre, as you know. And all the sex is terrific – do keep it coming, them coming – but your heroes miss quite a few tricks. A lot of tricks, in fact.’
‘Go on.’
‘I’d need to demonstrate.’
‘Demonstrate?’ Suddenly feeling hot, Petra fanned herself with the thick cream envelope.
‘Yes, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I think we should arrange a demonstration as soon as possible, don’t you?’
‘What sort of tricks had you planned to demonstrate?’
‘Very hard to describe. Very hard indeed. Can’t put my finger on it without the books and the author in person. But once I have it all at my fingertips, I guarantee it’ll come to me terribly quickly.’ His voice was positively pornographic.
Petra closed her eyes, envelope fanning madly, parcel dropping from her grip with an ominous crack on the gravel. She wasn’t entirely sure all the insinuation wasn’t just in her head, but it was doing things to her body her sixteen-year-old self would have written straight in her diary.
She thought determinedly about her long marriage, about the sexy Italian moves, the need to put the S back in SMC and about her need for writing space. ‘Bay, this has to stop.’
‘What has to stop?’ He laughed incredulously.
‘You know exactly what I mean.’
‘Really, darling, I don’t. Shit! Gotta go. Charlie’s turned up.’
‘Charlie?’
‘Little red chap, not your big—’ The horn sounded close by, the line muffled, and Bay shouted. The next moment the line went dead.
Huffing, Petra picked up the parcel and opened the cream envelope.
Sandy and Vivien Austen cordially invite...
It wasn’t a wedding invitation. It was the sacred stiffy her husband had coveted for so long. The Manor Farm Pheasant Supper, a.k.a. the Well-hung Party, hosted by Bay’s parents at the beginning of November. With it was an invitation to a private shoot on the farm a few days beforehand.
Petra felt her hot cheeks drain to clammy embarrassment, appalled at herself for doing an awkward, bumbling Brief Encounter number on Bay. He’d sounded so surprised.
She looked at the invitation again, knowing Charlie would be beside himself with joy. Her bluster would be forgotten by November. She had a book to draft full of inaccurate sex before then. And if she removed the biscuit tin from her office, she might get down to a size twelve while she was doing it.
Petra dialled Charlie’s mobile, but it was on voicemail. He must already be at chambers, his workload a dull, desk-based slog right now, judging from recent martyred complaints. There, his direct line rang out before diverting from phone to phone, eventually bouncing through to an unfamiliar clerk in Property Law. ‘Has Charles Gunn come in yet, in Commercial Law?’
‘Let me check, madam.’ The clerks always sounded absurdly cheery. There was a pause for Muzak, then, ‘He’s not here this week, madam.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Mr Srivas is here and says Mr Gunn is not expected to come into chambers until next week, and then only on Tuesday.’
‘Put me through to Deepak. Tell him it’s Petra.’ Deepak Srivas – whom Charlie jovially referred to as ‘Deep Rivers’ – was the other junior barrister working under silk Henry Baliol, Charlie’s old-school-tie crony, who had been instrumental in encouraging him into law after he’d left the army. It was Henry who had helped Charlie into pupillage, later taking him along when he and five other silks had set up a new chambers eight years ago. Deepak had joined soon after, a defiantly state-educated over-achiever, and often a probing thorn in Charlie’s side. Petra liked him a lot, sensing common ground.
‘Ah, Petra. Long time!’
‘Am I missing something, Deepak? I didn’t think Charlie was in court this week.’
‘That’s because he’s not – at least, not a legal one.’
‘That sounds very loaded.’
‘Unintended.’
Petra waited for more. She hated adversarial pauses, which played to her overactive imagination. What other courts were there? Courtyard? Courtesan? Earls Court? Escort? The massage parlour bondage tableau flashed back.
‘Squash court,’ he said eventually. ‘Cross-chambers tournament.’
Of course! Charlie and Henry loved bashing small balls around manfully. Did that usually justify being out of the office for so long? She tried to remember if he’d said anything about it, but they shared few details about work, these days, his and her career kept as neatly autonomous as their social media, playlists, politics, and towels.
‘I’d forgotten he’s not in this week,’ she fudged.
‘The official line is working from home.’
Petra picked up an edge in Deepak’s smooth tone. ‘What’s the unofficial line?’
She could hear him typing something in the background through another adversarial pause.
‘I’m his wife, Deepak. You’re not being paid to defend him. Yet.’
He sighed, but she sensed the wry smile. ‘Okay, you didn’t hear it from me but things got a bit hot after he slipped up at the big offshore-trusts trial, so when Charlie came back from annual leave, Henry suggested a lighter load.’
‘Is he being investigated by the Bar Standards Board?’
‘No, no! There was a bit of paperwork, but it’s all sorted. Henry’s got his back, and the clerks are soliciting. They’re looking for a nice straightforward case to ease him back in.’ More background typing and a phone ringing.
Petra tried not to panic. Charlie obviously hadn’t said anything because he was embarrassed. It was like Fitz and the GCSEs. Like father like son. She must try to react with the same sympathy, not the urge to find the nearest blunt instrument and hit him with it. Nor must she give in to the sudden urge to change into her sexiest skinny jeans, jump into her Dubarry boots and rush round to Manor Farm for a bacon sandwich and Demonstration of Tricks behind the pheasant coops.
‘It’s good of Henry to be so supportive,’ she said carefully.
‘Hmm.’ Deepak clearly didn’t think so. ‘Anyway, how are you and the children in the shire? Happy as hobbits?’
‘Indeed.’ She heard whoops from the garden. ‘But we draw the line at second breakfasts.’ She cast a wistful look at the Well-hung invitation before stomping inside to take a shower.
26
Compton Magna Primary School always reopened after the summer break with a day in which only the teachers and new reception children attended.
To help them settle, each child was allowed to bring a favourite toy. This autumn term there were trolls and Olafs, Disney princesses and Buzz Lightyears, plush animals, teddy bears of all description, and a large fluffy duster.
‘Why’d you let him bring it?’ Ash hissed at Carly as they lined up in the playground to shuffle to the classroom door where the reception teacher and her assistant were peeling tearful four-year-olds away from their parents’ legs.
‘He wanted to,’ she said simply. Ellis needed his ’Splorer Stick more than ever today. She’d given it a good wash and tried to puff it up.
Between them, Ellis held it proudly, like a ceremonial sword.
It was rare for the Turner family to have less than a brace of offspring starting each academic year, but this time there was just one, Ellis Peter Turner. Having worked himself up into such an excited state about school that he couldn’t sleep the night before, he was now shaking and overtired. His dad – who’d played console games until the early hours – had been the one to hear the snivelling when he finally came upstairs, storming into the room to find Ellis had wet the bed. Although Ash had got straight on with changing it, Ellis was mortified. Now he was hollow-eyed and mute, clinging to his beloved ’Splorer Stick, staring at his newly fitted Clarks shoes.
Doting parents crowded at the classroom entrance, with eager, stunned charges in oversized uniforms. Carly and Ash formed a protective arch around their firstborn and hung back behind the pushy
middle-classers accustomed to addressing teachers as equals rather than higher beings. There were a lot of four-by-fours double-parked around the Green, Carly had noticed. She and Ash had missed the reception parents’ meeting that week because she’d been working at the restaurant and Ash had forgotten he was supposed to go. She’d imagined she’d find a gaggle of working mums in the same boat. Looking at them now, they were almost all a decade older, a pay scale higher and several social circles wider. They also all seemed to know one another already. Trying to imagine them as Petra, Carly caught a few eyes with a sympathetic smile, but found herself blanked. Ash, by contrast, was being openly gawped at, the triangular gym body and lean hips as hypnotic to yummy-mummies as a copy of Fifty Shades.
His college course started next week and he’d been getting himself in shape, determined to be the most ripped personal trainer in the Bardswolds. Carly hoped college would mean fewer late nights, and regular school drop-offs together. Ellis needed the family team.
When it was his turn to go into class, Ellis set his chin heroically and didn’t look back, waving the ’Splorer Stick at them over his shoulder as he marched inside, determined to show his dad he wasn’t scared.
Carly was too choked to speak, walking back, pushing the double buggy while Ash trudged, head down, alongside. She imagined he felt the same as she did. After a while he sniffed and looked up at the scudding clouds. ‘Got to get rid of that fucking duster.’
‘Let him have the dog,’ she snapped. ‘He’ll surrender it for the dog.’
Passing Upper Bagot Farmhouse, which she’d be cleaning with Janine later, she spotted the Gunns’ teenage son in the garden with his two sisters, hammering coloured balls through hooks on grass so damp with dew they left great snail trails. This appeared to be an intrinsic part of the game. ‘Prudie, if you slam yours this way, we’ll have written a rude word. Look!’
Shrieking with giggles, the girls realised they were about to close the b on ‘bum’.
Accustomed to the older Turners’ kids sharing far worse language, Carly thought it was sweet the way he played with them, bouncing around with Wilf, both barking encouragement as the girls swung mallets wildly, adding a p to ‘bum’ before Mummy saw. She hoped her kids played together like that one day. As she pushed Jackson’s bootie back on and told Sienna to take out her dummy, she prayed Ellis was coping, her small, quiet, brave soldier.
Wilf had bounced up to the garden wall, recognising her and wagging himself in circles. Carly wondered how Pricey was doing, as she did most days. She was about to start hydrotherapy, the sanctuary had told her when she’d last called. But the chances of finding her a permanent home looked increasingly bleak.
‘Come here, you!’ Fitz called, then saw Carly and Ash. She waved and he nodded, suntanned cheeks streaking deep red.
‘You okay?’ she asked.
‘Yo, like, sure.’ He turned away, running a hand through his hair with a shoulder shrug and slouching away across ‘bump’, leaving his sisters wailing in protest. He held a departing hand up to them. ‘I concede. You win. Dumb game, anyway.’
‘Carly!’ Petra bounded out of the house, hair wet from the shower. ‘Just the person! I have Flynn coming this afternoon and I’ve got to take these smalls for shoe fittings and Fitz for his new uniform. Is there any chance you can spare me an extra hour to hold the ponies and the mare for him if I bung you some cash? They’ll probably be fine tied up, but a cup of tea and another pair of hands go a long way.’
‘No worries.’
‘Brilliant! Come back at midday.’ She beamed at her over the wall.
‘This is Ash.’
‘Great to meet you at last! I hear you’re going to be a personal trainer? God knows, I could do with one of those!’
He flashed a half-smile, eyeing her muffin top with professional interest.
‘It’s Ellis’s first day, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘How was he, going in?’
‘Yeah, he’s cool.’ Carly looked at Ash, but he was glaring at the horizon in the opposite direction now.
‘What a star!’ Petra turned back to her children. ‘Now, are you ready for that hack?’
‘We won the game! Fitz said!’
‘So we’re let off riding.’
‘It’s not hard labour.’ Petra pushed her hair back, eyebrows high. ‘I’d have died of happiness as a child to have what you two do. How about coming for a walk with me and Wilf?’
They all pretended not to hear, the girls still competitively croqueting, Fitz reclining on a sunbed, fiddling with his phone.
Petra cast an apologetic smile at Carly. ‘They’re ungrateful brats, but they’re my brats so I love them. See you later.’ She turned back to the children in the garden. ‘Final summer-holiday walk with Wilf and your loving mother? Last chance!’ There were no takers.
Carly wished she could say, ‘I’ll come with you!’ It had to be better than walking home with Ash, who was already swaggering ahead, hands deep in his pockets, head low, scowl lower.
She caught up with the buggy. ‘Petra’s a nice lady. I like her. You should have said hello.’
‘Flynn says she’s a flake.’
‘Then she deserves a farrier who shows her a bit more respect.’
‘Like you with your little hammer and nails?’
‘Don’t take the piss.’ She wished she’d never mentioned it was something she’d like to do. She’d looked it up and been disheartened to find there would be a year at college before she could start as apprentice to a master farrier like Flynn. The nearest City and Guilds course was at an agricultural college in Warwickshire, starting that month. It still had places, but it cost more than they could ever afford on top of Ash’s PT training – her part-time jobs were barely covering costs as it was. Carly wasn’t put off, just resigned to being patient. She would win Ash’s support, save up her college fees and earn Flynn’s trust somehow.
‘Do you think Flynn would take on Pricey? He likes dogs.’
‘He’s certainly shacked up with some ugly bitches in his time. Ask him later.’
She rubbed her throbbing forehead, again trying not to think about Ellis and how he was doing in his big boy’s blazer.
Her phone beeped, its screen showing a selfie of a sleepy-eyed boy with a strange fringe, added to her contacts as Fitz. He’d done that the day she’d first cleaned the farmhouse, she remembered.
Just checking you haven’t deleted me?
Another kid about to start at a new school, Carly thought. Feeling sorry for him, she sent a wink emoticon.
You look very beautiful today by the way, he replied.
Ash turned to tell her to hurry up and she quickly pocketed it. The son of a Gunn was stringier than Where’s Wally, stroppier than Horrid Henry and barely shaving yet, but she didn’t trust Ash not to overreact if he read a message like that. She’d delete him later.
But when her pocket pinged and she checked it again, she knew she wouldn’t have the heart. Could use your wise advice on an open line. Bad stuff going down here. Might need a fairy godmother. (Helps that you’re fairy godmilf.)
*
Pip panted out from the undergrowth of Compton Thorns covert in which she’d half expected Bear Grylls to pop out from behind a bush with a tinderbox and a hammock, telling her she’d never escape. There were ‘Adders Keep Out!’ signs everywhere. Her breathing shallow, hoarse from shouting, she gulped what oxygen she could into burning lungs.
The hounds had long since moved on to the next wood along, riders just visible in the dip beneath the standing stones. Pip was disappointed in Lester, whom she’d thought might help retrieve the stray dog. He was normally such a gentleman, but he’d ridden off at speed as soon as the huntsman called his hounds out. The overexcited stray pointer, far from eager to join them in pursuit of scent, had stayed in deep cover, preferring to anoint himself with it instead, rolling in fox poo between flushing out pheasants. He now reeked.
Pip had finally managed to bribe him onside by laying a H
ansel and Gretel trail with the rest of her cakes. Dragging him back up the hill to the lane, she found a harassed-looking woman in a Puffa waiting by a lop-sided Citroën Cactus, her camcorder trained on the far distance.
‘Fucking foot-followers let down one of my tyres!’ She sounded like a posh Adele, all breathy, well-meaning swearing. ‘I didn’t manage to get anything useful on camera. How about you, bubs?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Shagtastically smart thinking, pretending to be a dog-walker and letting him loose in there. They had a kill, didn’t they? Did you film anything admissible in court, bubs? Fucking bastards.’
‘I saw one of the terrier men taking a wee behind a tree, but I didn’t think to catch it on my phone. Shame, really. I could have sent it to You’ve Been Framed.’
The woman gave her a wide-eyed death stare. ‘You’re not Liz from Evesham, are you?’
‘Pip from the village. I work at the stud,’ she said proudly, waving an expansive hand. ‘This is our land.’
‘Bloody bugger, you’re one of them!’
‘No, I am not.’ She lifted her chin and dragged the pointer through the gate. ‘I’m a cat lover and a pacifist. Are you an AA member? I always get them out if I have a puncture.’
Pip had often seen the hunt monitors when she’d taken the Captain round the lanes in pursuit of action. The old man had delighted in shouting offensively at them from the passenger seat. Pip had always admired the feisty band of middle-aged women standing up to big, burly foot-followers. This one looked remarkably familiar, with her flat nose, close-set cobalt eyes and shock of blonde Boris Johnson hair. ‘I don’t suppose you know who this dog belongs to?’ she asked her, as the liver and white renegade – which really did smell disgusting now they’d stopped moving – started to make strange gulping noises beside her.
‘No shagging idea.’ The woman kept her camera trained on the distance. ‘My aunt has pointers, all bloody loonies.’ Hounds were drawing the covert out of sight, the horn echoing across to encourage them. ‘Bugger blast! I’ll have to try to get there on fucking foot.’ Her phone rang and she answered, reporting breathlessly, ‘At last! Liz. Sue’s waiting down by Long Hollow. I’ve got a shagging flat. They’ve moved on to the edge of the village, holding up again by the looks of it. Nompy bastards. Where are you?... Have you got a fully loaded camera battery?... In that case, you go straight to the church and take the footpath there, and I’ll see if I can get closer from here. Let’s fucking do this!’ She set off along the lane at a jog, then stopped beside Pip’s little blue run-around, spinning back. ‘Is this your car?’