The Country Set

by Fiona Walker

  ‘Well done.’ She stooped beside him. ‘Now, keep your voice down. We’re not supposed to be here. She looks all right, don’t she?’

  The dog was in far better shape than she’d feared. She was a good weight, her brindle coat glossy, her eyes bright. Yet the nervous energy that came off her made Carly’s heart hammer harder, picking up on her distress. She pressed her hands to the fence, palms so hot she half expected the wires to melt like solder. Pricey pushed the dome of her forehead back at her, clearly willing the fence to dissolve.

  The dogs in adjacent runs were barking their heads off, jumping up against the metal fences and making them rattle. Someone would surely come out of Jed’s house soon.

  ‘We can take her home now, Mum!’ Ellis raised his voice above the cacophony.

  ‘Ssh. No, Ellis, we can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She’s not ours to take, love. She belongs to the man whose dogs all these are.’

  ‘That’s not fair! We only want Pricey.’

  His anger upset Pricey, who tried to lick his face again, snaking her muzzle against the metal dividing them.

  In the adjoining run, a huge black bull-lurcher, with a head like a coffin, stopped barking and snarled at the strangers.

  Pricey turned towards him, hackles drawn, that Scooby Doo warble now a deep and threatening warning. The black dog growled back. In an instant, Pricey was charging towards the fence and slammed against it, thirty kilos of hard, angry muscle making the wire mesh bounce and vibrate, like a giant snare drum. Moments later the dogs were trying to kill each other through the wire.

  Terrified by the sudden change in his Pricey, Ellis broke into noisy sobs.

  ‘Oy!’ a gruff voice shouted, from the far side of the run. ‘Quieten down, you lot! If that’s you winding them up again, Tequila, your days are numbered, you mad bitch.’ More bulkhead lights came on.

  ‘We must go,’ Carly hissed, tugging the small, frightened and tearful Batman back along the track, furious with herself for letting him stay long enough to witness the dog turning.

  She was grateful to find Frankenstein’s monster still hanging around in the allotments, now keeping company with several of the undead from the village hall, who pointed out a way of crawling through a gap in the fence at the side of the track to avoid climbing back over the gates.

  ‘Fucking Hounds of the Baskervilles down there,’ they cackled, as she hurried Ellis away, so upset and overtired he handed her his ’Splorer Stick to carry, tripping and scuffing along mutely.

  By the time she’d marched him to his nan’s to fetch Sienna and Jackson, got them all home, washed, changed and in bed, it was almost eight.

  Carly wearily did the washing-up, emptied the overstuffed kitchen bin and carried it outside. An owl was shrieking from the big tree beyond the garden fence. Pricey was howling again. ‘No creature’s born bad,’ she breathed. ‘But some aren’t give a chance to show they can be anything else.’

  *

  The text from Charlie came through first thing in the morning as Petra was tacking up the Redhead to hack out with the Bags. She read it in disbelief.

  ‘Looking forward to tonight?’ was the first thing Bridge asked when she joined them, tagging along at the back to pelt hastily around the ridge loop starting from Bagot, all four women on tight schedules, the lanes too icy to risk venturing further.

  ‘Not going,’ she called across, as they took the track behind the memorial hall, deflating balloons and stray spider’s web string from last night’s disco trapped in the branches overhead. ‘Charlie’s stuck in London with work.’

  ‘Shut... up!’ Bridge howled. ‘Go anyway. That dress is sensational!’

  ‘Yes, leave him tied up in the cellar tonight, Petra love.’ Mo chuckled. ‘We know that’s where you really keep him.’

  Charlie’s text bothered Petra on a great many levels. Foremost, it bothered her because Charlie had lusted after this invitation for so long and now seemed unconcerned that he couldn’t get back. It bothered her that his case must be going very badly and he couldn’t afford to be on the losing side again. It bothered her that his mother was here, blogging her every move and marriage blip, and this would merit at least two thousand words of vitriol, no doubt blaming slovenly housekeeping and inferior party nibbles. It bothered her that she’d miss out on wearing a dress and having a snoop inside Sandy and Viv Austen’s grand farmhouse. A mosaic of Bingham-Percy architectural leftovers, it was rumoured to have oak panelling graffitied by Charles I and carved marble fireplaces from a Russian palace. It bothered her more than she was happy to admit that she wouldn’t get to see Bay. Most of all, it bothered her that she could smell a lie in every word.

  If Petra was being honest with herself – and it was something she hadn’t yet shared with the Bags because she was too ashamed, too uncertain, too frightened and far too proud – she was starting to think Charlie might be having an affair.

  Work didn’t seem to be motivating him at all, yet it was his excuse for being in London so much. He was looking incredibly good for a man who lost more cases than a cheap airline. In recent months, he’d ditched the Prince William side wings and started getting his hair cut in a sharply groomed Jude Law crop. He’d lost weight and was running again. A new suit had appeared, the sharp-cut sort with a coloured lining, not the usual navy-blue conservatism. He’d even changed his aftershave. Petra knew she should be pleased – he’d become increasingly slapdash about the way he presented himself throughout his forties – but she felt excluded from this makeover, its cause unknown. He constantly forgot social dates and parents’ evenings. He was slow to return calls, defensive when he did. Their sex life was abysmal. If she was writing Ten Signs That Your Husband is Having an Affair, Charlie’s behaviour would tick them all.

  If she told the Bags, she knew they’d be supportive and practical. They’d spur her into action to find proof, to check his phone’s call history, surprise him in London while they looked after the children, ring his numbers out of hours and call his bluff. But Petra wasn’t sure she was ready to face proof. Make-believe was much easier, like her fantasies about Bay: harmless in abstract, too scandalous to contemplate in reality. If she just kept telling herself it was all in her imagination, her marriage would be fine.

  ‘You must go tonight!’ Bridge was still lecturing her. ‘You’re like the insider at the Oscars. We need the stories, the fashion low-down, the loo gossip.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think Sandy and Viv Austen’s set are very fashion forward,’ Petra pointed out. ‘It’s all game pie, gout and gabardine.’

  Ahead of them, Gill held up her hand, indicating she was slowing down. ‘Rider fore!’

  ‘What’s that mean again?’ Bridge asked Petra, pony plunging as she tried to brake. Gill used expressions picked up through a lifetime of hunting and Pony Clubbing that her companions rarely understood.

  ‘Someone’s riding towards us,’ Petra explained, hauling on the reins, forced to turn a circle to take the speed out of the mare, while Bridge shot straight past her and disappeared through another hedge.

  Eventually pulling up beside Gill on the brow of a hill and waiting for Mo and the fat cob to catch up, the three leading Saddle Bags watched a rider approach from the opposite direction, unmistakable in his upright posture as he trotted towards them on a tall thoroughbred, leading a glossy liver chestnut cob alongside.

  ‘Good morning, ladies.’ Lester raised his crop to his hat brim as he passed.

  ‘How come he always looks so fricking smart?’ Bridge whistled, as they watched him go, then set off at speed once more.

  ‘Got to admire him,’ Mo panted, kicking her own cob hard to keep up. ‘He must be in his seventies now.’

  ‘I hope I ride that well when I’m his age.’

  ‘Why wait until then?’ Gill muttered, quietly enough for only Petra to hear above pounding hoofs as the mare raced to overtake the bay. ‘Did I hear you say Charlie’s stuck in London tonight?’


  ‘Plus ça change.’

  ‘Worried?’

  ‘Should I be?’

  She sucked her teeth, looking across at Petra, wind whipping grey wisps of hair across her long face. ‘No. If you had any suspicions, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself telling us. I know what you’re like.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Petra pulled out a brave smile. She had to confide in somebody soon or she’d explode.

  *

  That morning Prudie had brought Gunny Les Cinnamon Grahams du Lait avec Cents-et-Milles et sprinkles chocolat and left her with a Euro Disney brochure and a photograph of herself performing a tap-dance from Matilda.

  Fitz placed the sweet tea on the annex breakfast bar along with his BlackBerry. ‘Gunny, I think we have a potential doorstep situation on our hands.’

  ‘When?’

  He showed her the most recent exchange. ‘Tonight. They’re meeting at the flat. Make or break talk. Dad says it’s over. The reply threatens to call Mum and tell her what a shit he is.’

  ‘He always made terrible friendships at school too.’ Gunny waved the phone away, refusing to look, protected by her euphemism army. ‘You must get your mother out of the house tonight and confiscate her phone, William. I’ll keep guard here.’

  40

  It was quite by chance that Pip spotted the horsebox driving past the Bulrushes. She was outside by the bins, disposing of the soiled cat litter during the ad break in Good Morning, looking out across the valley at the frost. Then she saw the driver’s profile slide past, recognising it immediately.

  She hurried inside to throw together the fastest cupcakes of her life.

  *

  Gunny was predictably sour-faced at the news that Charlie wouldn’t be home that day. ‘But I came all the way here from Kent to babysit!’

  ‘I can hardly go on my own,’ Petra pointed out, wondering whether to remind Gunny that she’d invited herself to stay before the Austens had invited them to eat pheasant with a selection of elderly aristos.

  She phoned Manor Farm to explain that they would not be coming, speaking to an answerphone and gushing so many apologies that it timed her out before she made it clear who she was. She texted Bay to make sure the message had got through, their contact history on her phone blank now she’d deleted the thread with its disproportionate number of kisses, and its awful bonking-goddess GIF.

  Come anyway! he replied, a few minutes later. I demand Mrs Gunn comes without her husband. In fact, it’s my mission to make Mrs Gunn come tonight. Bx

  Petra decided to read this in a non-sexual way, but she deleted it none-the-less. Her conscience and her phone in-box were going to remain clean.

  Leaving Gunny and the kids playing Carcassonne in the snug, she devoted herself virtuously to making butternut squash and marrow soup, arranging the vegetables only slightly suggestively to cheer herself up before peeling and chopping. Florence and the Machine were playing rebelliously loudly on the iPhone dock.

  An incoming text beeped across the music. Pip Edwards announced the screen alert. She ignored it, turning as she heard the fridge door sucking open behind her.

  Fitz took out a Coke, pushing the door closed and leaning against it to open the can with a hiss. ‘Hey, you know you said you weren’t going out to this posh old fogeys’ party tonight after all?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She watched him foot-scuffing, sideways hair over his eyes, fingernails bitten down against the shiny red metal.

  ‘What if I’m your plus one?’

  Petra tried to imagine him circulating among the Austens’ stiff-jawed, stiff-upper-lipped and stiff-backed gathering of fossilised landowners, baronets and battle-axes. ‘It would be terribly dull for you.’ It would have been terribly dull for Petra too, if it hadn’t been for the promise of Bay, with his charmingly flirtatious and predatory ways, the cool, controlling wife there to ensure it was all in the mind. She’d been starting to feel enormously relieved that she didn’t have to go.

  ‘I want to take you, Mum. I want you to be my date.’

  ‘That’s terribly sweet, but Gunny’s here. We should make the most of it and have another night all together.’ She felt obliged to make up for Scary Movie Night’s failure to impress, the commentary on her grandchildren’s dumbed-down cultural preferences scathing on @GunnPoint live streams, the big stain still drying on the tartan sofa from Gunny’s red wine going airborne when Ed had done his Scream mask trick.

  Fitz’s mouth twitched into a half-grin, making her suspect Gunny was part of the reason for him wanting to go out. ‘C’mon, Mum, you know you want to wear that new dress. You look beautiful in it. I saw the pictures on your phone. I want to show you off.’

  It was so rare for Fitz to go anywhere voluntarily with his mother, these days, let alone ask to take her out, that Petra was quite choked.

  ‘It could be useful for my future,’ he coaxed. ‘There are going to be some seriously well-connected seniors there. I scrub up. Teenage sons are where it’s at socially – all the coolest parents use us as walkers. I promise I won’t embarrass you.’

  Having thought Fitz would be as much a fish out of water as her, Petra suddenly saw the value in it for him: her clever son, who always looked like he’d only just woken up, read The Times online while she read the Mail, had four times as many Facebook friends and, until the GCSE goof, had gone on skiing holidays with mates from school whose fathers were cabinet ministers and magnates. He was so startlingly tall and dishy nowadays, and teenage sons were indeed the ultimate accessory, if Liz Hurley, Madonna and Posh were anything to go by. Best of all, there was surely no better chastity-belt chaperone to stop one’s extramarital fantasies in their tracks than a puritanical sixteen-year-old.

  ‘You have to do something about the hair.’

  He pushed it out of his eyes, which were blinking anxiously. ‘Have you heard from Dad again today?’

  ‘Not since first thing. He’s in court. Why?’

  ‘No reason.’ He looked down, scuffing his feet again. ‘Gunny’s just tweeted that you’ve abandoned her to a French board game and our fridge needs a good clean.’

  Petra deliberately waited a few beats. ‘It’s lovely that you follow her on Twitter.’ Then she laughed. ‘We definitely have to get out of here tonight.’

  ‘Cool.’ He clicked his tongue, spinning away, saying over his shoulder, ‘I’ll keep her talking later so you have loads of time to get ready.’

  Petra picked up her chopping knife, happily anticipating spending the rest of the day pampering herself while her mother-in-law kept followers enthralled with her daughter-in-law’s poor hostessing and housekeeping.

  Another text buzzed on her phone, this time from Gill: Escape from your mother-in-law, Gunn! Ronnie Percy has been spotted MOVING IN. Let’s walk the dogs past the stud. See you there. Bring binoculars.

  Thinking it a bit sad to line up and watch the Bardswolds Bolter’s arrival, Petra scrolled back to check Pip’s recent unread text. Ronnie is here!!!!! Any minute now there’d be tickertape streaming over the Comptons. She was delighted Ronnie was back, but liked to think their alliance meant she was elevated above spying.

  About to text Gill that she was too busy – face mask, hair wrap, Gunny-baiting – she spotted her lingerie parcel on the kitchen table when she was sure she’d left it at the bottom of the back stairs to carry up. It had also been very neatly repacked whereas she’d left it spewing tissue paper after quickly checking the contents.

  Petra looked up @GunnPoint’s Instagram feed, an activity she’d been trying to wean herself off, like reading one-star book reviews whose creators seemed to have set out to destroy every shred of her self-esteem.

  There in all their splendour, already shared several hundred times, was a picture of her reinforced, waist-pinching, bum-lifting, camel-toe-reducing miracle pants with the caption: Do these live up to the hype, dear followers? Watch this space to see them in action on a mummy muffin top later.

  She had to get out of the house before she
killed the woman.

  *

  When Ronnie swung the horsebox into the arrivals yard at Compton Magna Stud, she ground out the stub of the last cigarette she planned on smoking into the overfilled little ashtray. She stared at it for a long time, reluctant to look up. Her tiny roll-up remainders barely top-dressed its previous owner’s filters. She’d given up Blair today, too. There would be no nicotine and no lovers while she was staying under her late parents’ roof.

  An impatient hoof crashed against the wall of the back of the lorry. Her old box would have rocked on its axis and splintered, but this one was a little armoured penthouse on wheels, built to cross continents.

  In what Ronnie knew to be a rotten deal, she’d just swapped her two promising event horses for a seven-and-a-half-ton luxury horsebox and half a ton of horse trouble. This morning she’d driven away for good from job, home, oldest friend and lover. The lorry was both her pay-off and her fall-back – if this all went wrong, she figured she could live in the horsebox. With the engine still rumbling, she picked up her phone and sent a text to Blair to say she had arrived safely. She then went to her contacts and deleted his number.

  Wincing, because doing it hurt a great deal, she glanced out of the window.

  Lester was already standing guard on the cobbles, predictably dapper in tweed, the disapproving frown lines etched just as deeply in his face as Ronnie remembered. Her father used to joke that Lester was born with more creases than all the cricket grounds in England.

  Infuriated by the lump in her throat, Ronnie’s gaze swept quickly around the frosted stone roofs, golden walls and archways through which corridors of flame-bright sunlight spilled across the cobbles. She’d hoped her daughters might be here, to protect their own interests and bolster Lester, if nothing else. All three children knew she was coming back today.

  Ronnie had a plan. The past month had provided plenty of thinking time while she was dismantling her life in Wiltshire, a process more drawn-out and painful than she’d anticipated. She swallowed a macerating blade of disappointment at her solitary reception committee, the very last person the Bardswolds Bolter would have chosen to greet her return.