The Country Set

by Fiona Walker

  ‘I’ll have to see if my other half can babysit.’

  ‘Bring your children here, if not. My nanny can look after them.’

  Carly nodded doubtfully, imagining her kids kicking off in the Austens’ luxury barn conversion: Ellis wetting the bed, Sienna lipsticking the walls, and Jackson chewing gummily everything in sight to cut his first teeth.

  ‘Don’t,’ the manageress whispered, after she’d gone. ‘The au pair’s a teenager who speaks no English and is already threatening to walk out because their little monsters run her ragged and Monique never gives her the time off she’s owed. It’s their third nanny in six months. Monique’s a bee-atch.’

  ‘Nobody’s born bad.’ Carly found her hands oddly warm, thinking of Pricey and her snarling, defensive flip-outs. She hoped those weren’t happening now. ‘Maybe she’s had a traumatic experience that makes her like that.’

  ‘Yeah, being married to Bay.’

  *

  An extended family of mice appeared to be the only ones to have used the Old Almshouses since summer, but they’d moved on too. It was so cold, Kit suspected they’d frozen to death. There was no heating oil left in the tank or logs for the wood-burner. He was grateful for the floor-length red berk coat, which reminded him comfortingly of a sleeping bag.

  The Home from Home Comforts service he paid so little for wasn’t quite the bargain he’d taken it to be. The only thing he could see that Pip Edwards had done was finish all the crosswords.

  Kit was profoundly, tearfully grateful. When he’d first walked in, gripping his suitcase, breathing in the family smell and taking in the familiar clutter, he’d turned a ridiculous mannequin circle, an echo of shared laughter in his head. He could hear Hermia’s voice clearly again. She would have crept inside this coat with him to warm him up, ordering him to stop navel-gazing and get his teeth into something more palatable than the bitter little pill he’d brought back. She could never tolerate self-pity, especially after her accident.

  Wide awake, body clock making its first coffee and listening to Morning Edition on WNYC, he’d switched on the immersion and dug several elderly electric heaters out of a store cupboard, which he now arranged in a Stonehenge circle around the Eames chair beneath the arched garden window that they’d both loved sitting in because the light was so good. Settling in it and pulling his reading glasses down from his head, teeth chattering only slightly, he’d flicked on his e-reader, battery flagging after the transatlantic flight. Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man was now a long way down his library list – it had been a year, maybe more, since he’d read it last – but his digital copy was already mosaicked with as many typed-in highlights as his broken-spined paper one.

  ‘A script hasn’t been Kitted until it looks like a Mondrian,’ Hermia had always said.

  As the minutes passed, Kit became too absorbed to notice the space heating up around him, too grateful for warmth and Sassoon’s words to regulate it, the percentage he read racking up alongside the temperature, the mosaic gaining yet more tiled highlights. Forty per cent of the way through the book, his scarf was unwound, at fifty-five per cent the sleeping-bag coat was discarded, followed by his sweater at seventy per cent. At ninety-six per cent, he carried the book to the bathroom to have a pee, grateful for the cool air, stepping out of his trousers and leaving them in a crumpled figure of eight to return to the chair, scuffing off his socks en route. Flexing his toes at one hundred per cent, he peeled off his T-shirt and unscrewed the cap of a bottle of duty-free whisky, lifting it to his lips. He paused, raising it in a toast.

  ‘I miss you.’

  For a moment, blood rushed in his ears, distorting sound, so that the house seemed frantic with voices, kindness and grief once more. The notepad on his lap had filled with his own handwriting, yet he couldn’t remember picking up his pen.

  Scrolling through the downloaded book list, page after page, he found Memoirs of an Infantryman, but its battery died before he’d got beyond the Preface. His own was lagging in sympathy, the heat rendering him soporific. He closed his eyes and reached out to put a hand on the comforting bald head of Shakespeare’s bust, finding it on an unfamiliar hard-edged object instead, metal initials inlaid in the top. His fingers traced them, HA, then stilled.

  What seemed like a second later, he heard a bright voice calling from the door, ‘Mr Donne! It’s Pip. Helloooo!’

  Kit grunted, disoriented, thinking he was in bed in New York, tried to get out of his usual side and found himself pressed up against the windowsill, cold wet condensation on his cheek.

  Her voice chirruped on, footsteps closing in: ‘I wasn’t expecting you until later! I brought your designated cleaning team. This is Shell Turner. It’s lovely and warm in here.’

  Kit rubbed his face, which felt like a cushion that had been sat on too long.

  ‘I don’t want it cleaned.’ He stood up, not realising the whisky bottle was still in his lap. It dropped to the flagstone floor, smashing in a wet explosion of glass, the smell like a punch in the face from a drunk.

  ‘Oh, let us deal with that. Shell! Gosh, you’re in your underpants.’

  ‘Just get out!’ he roared, reaching for the coat, knocking the box off the table where Shakespeare’s bust had been. Envelopes spilled across the whisky and ice lake.

  ‘I’ll come back another time, shall I?’ Pip said brightly. ‘I’ll just leave you with these cakes to welcome you home. Happy Hallowe’en – I mean Salmon Day.’

  ‘Samhain.’ He heard the door close and sat down again with his head in his hands. When he opened his eyes and looked down, the ink was running on a letter that had been left out of its envelope, one of the few Ronnie Percy had sent her friend after the accident.

  The rules of the blame game aren’t always fair, he read, but if one doesn’t play by them, one may never be invited back to the table to win back one’s stake.

  Everything was a game to her, even guilt.

  Animosity curdling, he went in search of a dustpan and brush to sweep everything she’d ever written to Hermia into the bin.

  *

  As soon as Petra stepped out of her riding boots and into her kitchen, Gunny swung round on a barstool with a Bond baddie lift of the eyebrow, immaculate in cream, Liberty scarf artfully arranged, expensive white veneers bared. ‘I can smell horse from here.’

  Petra could smell an interrogation coming on, but managed a return smile and an offer of coffee. ‘Or would you prefer I shower first? The girls are happy playing outside and the boys geeking for now.’

  ‘It’s fine if I sit downwind. I’m surprised Charlie never complains. Always had a very sensitive nose.’

  ‘He and Wilf have that in common.’ Along with overenthusiastic socialising, wanderlust and a strong sex drive. Petra limped to the coffee machine, stiff-legged from clinging on as the Redhead charged around.

  Soon, coffee cup in hand, Gunny was firing questions, like an immaculately coiffed and powdered daytime television presenter given a ten-minute slot to interview Petra about her latest book, Charlie and Me, Our Middle-Aged Marriage.

  Did they go out much, just the two of them, these days? When had they last had a grown-up mini-break? Were they planning to stay in the Cotswolds permanently? What plans did they have for after the children had left home and Charlie retired? ‘I shouldn’t let him leave it too late. Look at his father, heart-attack at sixty-four. He’d only just got his golf handicap down. Nigel and I had grown so far apart by then. It’s not good for a man’s health, a lacklustre marriage. A husband has needs into old age.’ She gave Petra a penetrating look.

  ‘We don’t lack lust,’ Petra insisted, and avoided adding, just not for each other.

  ‘Well, that’s good.’ Gunny gave her a steely wink. ‘I had hoped he’d take a few days off this week, but I gather he’s tied up on a big case.’

  ‘Yes.’ Petra shook her head to dismiss the image of her husband’s massage parlour dominatrix strapping him to a Samsonite. It seemed Charlie had finally been broug
ht in from the cold to head up a dull and lengthy arbitration that would keep him out of trouble until Christmas.

  ‘He works too hard.’ Gunny sighed. ‘High-powered men need lots of stimulation outside the workplace.’

  ‘There’s always things going on round here, the party tomorrow night for a start.’

  Despite Charlie’s sulks after the Austen family shoot, Petra had no doubt that he’d throw himself into the mêlée at the annual pheasant supper, the Well-hung Party. All of the Bardswolds’ movers and shakers would be there, and Charlie wasn’t above photo-bombing the Cotswold Life social pages in his village one-upmanship. The invitation – as stiff as Welsh slate – had been on the mantelpiece since September, Petra’s daily inspiration for Father Willy and motivation to stick to an alcohol-free, biscuit-free diet.

  She thought guiltily about the dress she’d bought especially, the reason she’d barely eaten for the past fortnight. She’d caved into Buy It Now online shopping pressure, egged on by Bridge sending links through the ether, the village’s fashionista insisting Petra wasn’t too old for plunge necks and high splits if she kept everything wobbly taped in.

  Much as Petra wanted to believe that all the vanity planning was for her self-esteem and to ensure Charlie’s approbation, she knew that wasn’t strictly true. Last night she’d caught herself fantasising that his case dragged on until Friday, that Monique Austen was away doing some emergency high-level horse-dancing thing, and that Bay plied her with champagne, then whisked her into one of the farm’s luxury glamping lodges with a roaring wood-burning stove for a stolen night. She’d stopped herself, partly because she knew it was very wrong to think it, and partly because she was a bit woolly on the technical detail: just what was notoriously jealous Monique’s horse thing, how were they going to light the lodge wood-burner off-season, and how would Bay get past all the tit-tape and shape armour under her dress? The Safe Married Crush still worked best in abstract.

  Sitting in front of her mother-in-law with helmet hair and stress spots, smelling of horse, she allowed herself a brief imaginary clinch in the woodland lodge. Gunny’s iPad made a camera-click noise.

  ‘I must say it is very endearing the way you smile when you think about Charlie.’ Gunny typed a caption to the photograph she’d just taken before sharing it. ‘I’m asking my ladies for colour-correcting foundation advice. You have a lot of eye bag and red tone.’

  Petra was spared thinking up a crushing reply by Mitch the postie’s horn sounding from the gates and Wilf barking. She headed gratefully outside.

  The most gossipy postman in Gloucestershire had turned to talk to a passing motorist, a parcel from Petra’s favourite upmarket lingerie website under his arm. Just in time! She perked up, then balked when she realised the motorist was Pip Edwards in her little blue car, her flat-vowel voice carrying across the gravel: ‘...and, of course, there’s the old rumour about Bay and Ronnie giving in to mutual attraction, so that might be why she won’t sell him the—Oh, hi, Petra! Getting sexy new undies, I see!’ she called.

  ‘Lucky fella, that old man of yours.’ Mitch chuckled, fishing for his barcode scanner.

  ‘If they’re intended for his eyes!’ came a giggle from the car.

  ‘Winter thermals.’ Petra snatched up the stylus and signed the screen, doubting the latest high-tech waist-shrinking, bum-lifting miracle pants with built-in-breathability and camel-toe control would impress her husband at close quarters, but it was the overall effect she was aiming for, and they’d had rave reviews for taking inches off one’s silhouette.

  She was twitching to know what Pip had meant about Ronnie and Bay, but Mitch was still clutching her lingerie box, eyebrows at Breaking News angles.

  ‘I’ve heard tell you village ladies who all ride out together are a saucy lot.’ Mitch was chuckling. ‘Barry Dawkins says you get up to all sorts.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ She handed the tablet back.

  ‘Don’t you run a chart of Top Ten Village Men? And you each have a favourite.’

  ‘Gosh, no!’

  ‘Oh, I bet I know who Petra’s is!’ Pip piped up.

  Petra was appalled by her fellow Bags. So much for what’s-said-in-the-saddle-stays-in-the-saddle. She’d long suspected Gill often betrayed them to Paul, but Mo was a turncoat too. Did Barry have any idea that lawless, lurcher-loving Jed Turner was his wife’s secret fantasy?

  ‘Barry said it’s called the SMC League,’ Mitch handed the parcel across. ‘What’s that stand for, then?’

  ‘Small Male Cocks,’ she said lightly.

  He stood up straight, tugging down his fleece.

  ‘We count pheasants,’ Petra explained. Wherever there were pheasants, there were handsome farmers running shoots. She let her mind drift briefly back into the lodge with Bay, safe in the knowledge that nothing too risqué could happen in flesh-tint triple-layer miracle pants. Her phone buzzed, its message lighting the wood-burner by spontaneous combustion, dimming the lodge lights and playing La Bohème on a crackly wind-up gramophone, the pants under threat. Trick-or-treat later? Bagsy me skeleton and you mummy. Bx

  Pip was gossiping breathlessly with Mitch about Kit Donne. Leaving them to it, Petra waved and wandered off to reply: Are you going to village disco? Was that too teenage-sounding? She inserted and Monique. Then, flushed with shame at her duplicity, added and Tilly. Bella keen to know. The SMC needed strength in numbers to keep it pure.

  Regretfully not came the reply almost instantly. He was a demon texter.

  She felt a snub of disappointment and a twist of relief. She must stand behind the yellow line. Dragging her children and Gunny to the village hall just so she could ogle Bay was beneath contempt: she had all tomorrow evening with a husband in tow to do that.

  He sent a GIF of Skeletor twerking that made her snort with laughter. Think of me.

  Hearing a tap on glass and looking up, she saw Gunny and Ed peering out of the tall dining-room windows directly overhead and shuffled guiltily out of sight, then realised they were pointing at the drone, back in the air and hovering over the orchards. She went to lurk by the tall wooden fence panel that divided the farm from its old byre, and replied: Touché. She found a GIF of a sexy Ancient Egyptian and sent it, face prickling at her wickedness.

  Tut-tut, Nefertiti. That’ll keep me up all night ;-) Bx

  Petra checked the GIF she’d sent, waiting for it to load properly this time, and saw that what had looked like a buxomly burlesque goddess Isis opening her wings with a shimmy was a lot more hard-core beneath the feathers. She’d need her reading glasses to tell for certain, but Isis seemed to be demonstrating how she’d conceived Horus. ‘Oh, bloody hell.’ She held it at arm’s length and tilted her head.

  ‘Interesting animation,’ said a voice behind her, making her leap from her lair. ‘I’ve always found Ancient Egypt fascinating. Is that a trailer for the new Mary Beard series?’

  It was Kenneth, the kindly veggie-growing neighbour, holding a plastic bag over the fence, blackcurrant eyes glittering beneath white catkin brows. ‘Two butternut squash and a large marrow for you, my dear.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  Hurrying back into in the house, she dumped everything in the kitchen and went off to pee. Her red-faced reflection in the mirror above the basins gazed furtively back at her. Gunny was right. She needed toning down massively.

  In the kitchen, the big American fridge’s double doors were wide open, radiating light, like the last flaps on an Advent calendar. Fitz’s skinny silhouette was turned away from it, bent over the kitchen island playing with her phone.

  ‘Oy, boundaries!’ She waved her fingers for him to hand it back, horrified that he might have found the sexy Egyptian GIF, worse still her mirror selfies of herself in tomorrow night’s party dress, trying to work out if she looked fat. Not to mention the ones of her in her underwear, attempting to determine the same before she’d ordered control pants online.

  ‘Just checking it out for when you upgrade and I get given this.’
He shrugged, sliding it across the counter top. ‘Dad’s old BlackBerry sucks. I can’t believe you still text. That’s so quaint.’ Oh, God. That meant he’d seen the Bay messages. Not that there was anything terribly incriminating in them, was there? She’d probably read far more into them than there was. Nevertheless, she made a mental note to delete their entire text thread later.

  The fridge alarm was going off, like a car’s seatbelt warning. Fitz turned back to survey it, silhouette lop-sided as he tilted his head to study shelves crammed with Petra’s latest supermarket trawl. ‘You heard from Dad today?’

  ‘His case is a really tough one,’ she fudged, watching him pulling out the big tray of party nibbles she’d been planning to park in front of Gunny on Scary Movie Night. About to protest, she changed her mind. His need was greater. While the other three were healthy chunks, Fitz’s jeans fell straight off his hips although he ate like a horse. Petra was starting to worry he had worms.

  Using the party nibbles as a salver, he loaded on eclairs and a tub of salted caramel cream. ‘You two are cool, though, yeah?’

  ‘Of course! He’s just a bit stressed with work.’ Poor Fitz sparked off Charlie’s politics and zeitgeist. In the past, it was only when on holiday from boarding school that Fitz had found himself dropped from Testosterone Central into a house without a mention of sport all week. The girls were used to their father being away from Monday to Friday, but he clearly craved his dad’s company.

  ‘Cool.’ He sloped off.

  *

  ‘Hi, Bay, it’s Pip!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Pip Edwards? From the stud? We spoke earlier about the tree that was struck by lightning.’

  ‘Oh, yah.’

  ‘You have the go-ahead to clear it. Just watch out for the ghosts!’

  ‘Ha-ha, yah.’

  ‘It’ll be like Sleepy Hollow – you know, when the Tree of Death gushes blood and twisted body parts reach out of its branches, then the trunk splits with lots of gore and the headless horseman gallops out intent on revenge.’