by Fiona Walker
‘I bloody knew it.’ Petra had closed her eyes in horror. ‘I’ve no idea what possessed Charlie. I’m spoiling for a fight, but he’s hiding in the annex with his mother, pretending to show her all the Christmas presents he’s bought me. Stay and have a drink.’
‘Just water’s fine. I can’t stay long. I’m desperately sorry about what happened with the stallion. It’s just awful and I take full responsibility. I don’t want Lester involved in any fallout. He was working under my instruction.’
‘What fallout? We’re hardly going to force them to do the decent thing and get married. I think the Redhead rather enjoyed it.’ Petra smiled over her shoulder, stretching for a glass from a cupboard. ‘Gill’s coming to check her over tomorrow, but she assures me that having sex comes quite naturally to horses. Far worse if he’d bored her about his work stress over supper before presenting her with a semi and suggesting they get it on to some porn.’
Ronnie bit back an emerging smile. ‘Would you like me to try to persuade Pip to recuperate at the stud with me? It’s cold and damp and there’s no internet or phone signal. She never lasts in the house more than a couple of hours.’
‘It’s fine. Writers need mad women in their attics. I’ll make Charlie take her home tomorrow.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Some men never come back, they say.’
‘Mum! This came out of the printer in the playroom!’ A mop-haired boy appeared with a piece of paper and grinned at Ronnie. ‘I’m Ed. Are you the Bardswolds Bolter?’
The water dispenser in the fridge door started spouting across the floor as Petra turned round and shushed him.
Ronnie found her smile bedding in more, winking at Ed, who saluted her, took an apple from the fruit bowl and sloped off again.
‘Bloody hell!’ Petra was reading the printout. ‘This is Pip’s list of things she might not manage while she’s recovering. All her clients are on here with lists of their special requirements and favourite cakes. She’s added links to Bake Off recipes. And listen to this: The Old Almshouses is signed up to my Home from Home Comforts platinum package, and I’ve promised the full works next week. Janine Turner’s team are booked to go in on Monday to clean, tidy and launder, plus there’s fuel deliveries to supervise, provision of basic groceries, cooking for the freezer. Mr Donne will be visiting his children and then seeing friends for Christmas and it must be perfect for his return. The key is kept under the boot-scraper.’
‘You’ll have to drug her to get her out of here.’
‘I’ll just turn the WiFi off and unplug the Sky dish. Works for the kids if I want them to have fresh air.’
‘Opposite problem growing up where mine did. Hard to hide all the horses.’
‘That would have been my dream growing up. That and the cast of Robin of Sherwood as neighbours.’
Ronnie picked up the glass of water, so cold it made her rings loosen. Her gaze drank in all the evidence of family life: the abandoned games and tablets on the kitchen table, colourful fleeces hanging off chair backs, the different-sized shoes littered around the boot rack, a small outcrop of Emma Bridgewater by the sink hoping for the Dishwasher Fairy to wave her wand. Feet thundered overhead as two small girls in pyjamas ran in and out of each other’s rooms.
Petra was topping up her own gin and tonic. ‘Will you come out riding with the Saddle Bags between now and Christmas? We’d so love to have you along.’
It would be all too easy to slip briefly back into this shallow, sociable world, but she’d be a ghost in it. She shook her head and laughed. ‘I’m travelling too light to need a bag, Petra.’
‘Bitch-walks, then?’
‘Any time. After mucking out tomorrow. Bring the beard.’ She patted Wilf.
*
In his attic room in the opposite gable to the Gunns’ unexpected house guest, Fitz was stewing furiously. His father was predictably useless, leaving an emotional bomb ticking in London. At some point around lunchtime that day – Fitz suspected it was on the train home – Charlie Gunn had deleted his account on the app, wiping out his son’s surveillance. The final message from Lozzy, sent in the early hours, threatened all manner of vengeance. But Gunny had waved away the idea. Charlie, meanwhile, had stooped so low he was using a human shield, planting his mother’s awful cake door-stepper stalker in the house.
He called Carly. She was waitressing at Le Mill, calling him back during her break.
‘Can I come and buy you a drink after work?’
‘Reasons not: I don’t finish until midnight, you are under age, I’m married, you’re a Liberal Democrat. Do what teenage boys do. Watch a few Game of Thrones episodes, eat, play with yourself, eat more, listen to depressing music, spend mindless hours on social media, pretend Tumblr is social media.’
‘I’ve been doing that all day. I’m rethinking the bisexual thing.’
‘Cool. Whatever makes you happy.’
‘I think you do. My life is pointless without you.’
‘Is this about your father?’
‘There’s a bloody smokescreen going on here. I’m sure Gunny’s double-crossed me.’
‘Who’s Gunny again?’
‘My grandmother. She’s covering for him.’
‘But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? You’re covering for him.’
‘I’m protecting my mother! It’s different.’
‘Oooo-kay. What do you want me to do about it?’
‘Run away with me?’
‘I’ll have to check my diary and get back to you.’
‘Thanks for cheering me up.’
‘Pleasure. Now get back to your depressing music.’
55
Petra realised how fast that long, swinging country stride of Ronnie’s could go when they walked together the following morning. She practically had to run to catch up, the snow crisp as sea salt underfoot, the sky uniform blue.
‘How’s the patient?’ asked Ronnie.
‘Very undemanding, but showing no sign of budging. She said she felt a tiny bit sicky and faint last night so she thinks she needs another day in bed. We’re going to Stratford this afternoon to see the RSC Christmas play, so she’s insisted she’ll be doing us a favour being home to look after the dog and fight off burglars.’
‘She’ll stay till Christmas,’ Ronnie predicted.
‘She’d better not.’
‘It’s her way of hiding from all the poor old souls she’s told she’ll cook Christmas lunch for. Now she’s gone off the idea and can’t face breaking it to them.’
‘Someone has to tell them.’
‘I’ll do it. She invited them to my house, after all. I haven’t blackened my name nearly enough yet.’ She cast across her wicked smile. ‘Lady Windermere’s fan can come back out on the soup run.’
‘I told you, they’ll all be ely relieved, I promise.’
‘Until they try the soup. I’m only doing it because Pip’s worked for nothing on the stud for God knows how long.’
‘The strange thing is, she and Gunny have bonded like besties. I caught them both up there cackling over some dreadful old repeat on the Gold Channel this morning. They have the same taste – all old glamour soaps and reactionary sit-coms that would cause a social-reform march on the Beeb if they were made today.’
She was totally out of breath now, trying to keep up with Ronnie’s relentless pace. They were already deep in Comptons countryside, far behind the stud, skirting along the few hedgerows left in the Sanson estate’s great moonscapes of high-yield farmland, which all looked the same to Petra, covered with white snow. ‘How come you know the way?’
‘I rode these fields a thousand times as a girl. It doesn’t matter that they’re all kept shaved nowadays, like bald men’s heads and women’s pubic hair. You navigate by the horizon.’ She pointed at the different woods and hills, spires and roofs visible. ‘Same with cross-country riding. Don’t look at the fence, line up two points on the horizon and ride for those.’
‘Is it true you rode round Badminton?’<
br />
‘Twice. I might have won it if I wasn’t so rubbish at dressage, but we all said that in those days. We were also terribly naughty. I’ll give you some good stories one day.’
‘Why not now?’
They paused at the brow of the hill on the edge of the woods behind Compton Bagot, looking back across the white vale.
‘Terrible time of year for getting nostalgic and maudlin, like Dickens’s Christmas Carol.’ She set off at speed along the track leading into Compton Bagot. ‘Best not to think back.’
Petra panted after her. ‘The Ghost of Christmas Past was the jolly one.’ She finally caught up as Ronnie held open the kissing gate at the far end of the woods, leading to a path at the side of the Bagot allotments, the roofs of the Orchard Estate just visible over the far fence.
‘That’s what I’m worried about. Lester’s my Bob Cratchit and Pip’s Tiny Tim.’ She clipped on her dogs’ leads. As they walked back along Plum Run to Upper Bagot Farmhouse, Petra sensed Ronnie’s mood had blackened. She’s thinking about her children, she realised.
‘Come in for a coffee.’
‘I’ve got to get back to make soup.’ The big smile came back up, humour and self-deprecation never far away. ‘Sorry you caught me-bitch walking on a black-dog day.’
‘I enjoyed it. Can we do it again?’
‘I’d like that. Enjoy the theatre.’
As Petra watched her go, a taxi pulled up outside the farmhouse, the female driver winding down her window and calling, ‘Passenger left a phone in my car yesterday. Forties, black coat, lots of bags. Been told he lives here?’
Petra reached out to take it. As she did, Fitz hurtled onto the gravel turning circle, around the magnolia tree, and grabbed it out of the driver’s hand. ‘I’ll take that to Dad.’
‘Wish my kid was that helpful.’ The driver grinned, touching her phone screen in its dashboard holster. ‘Which one’s the Old Almshouses?’
‘Opposite the church. Curly chimneys.’
‘Oh, yeah, I remember. The man who went out with Orla Gomez.’
‘Did he?’ Petra was astonished. ‘Can you wait there a minute?’
She dashed inside, reappearing with the red coat and a bottle of champagne. ‘Can you give this to him and say a huge thank-you from Petra for gallantry? I’d drop it off in person, but he probably needs it if he’s going out.’
*
‘This is from Petra for—Hang on, what did she say? For gallivanting with Orla Gomez.’
‘She said that?’ Kit took the red coat and pulled it on over his suit jacket. It smelt of perfume and horse, a combination that made his nerve ends tighten uneasily.
‘That’s what she said. Bottle of champagne back there for you too.’
Kit was grateful that the driver had the radio switched off this time, talking in a Bluetooth headset on her phone as they drove along Plum Run towards the Micklecote road. He kept his eyes averted from Upper Bagot Farmhouse.
‘That’s right. Rang all flipping night. I thought I’d find out whose phone it was if I answered it, but this voice just shouted that my husband was cheating on me. I said, “I know that, love. I divorced him three years ago!”’
Kit watched the white-topped Cotswolds walls slide by as they made their way into Bagot. The banner outside the pub was now boasting a grand New Year opening for the fruit-ale and raw-food enterprise.
‘Stratford-upon-Avon, then?’ His driver had finished her call.
‘Yes.’
‘Seeing a show?’
‘Christmas shopping, then a drink with friends.’
‘Getting in the mood, eh?’ She turned the radio on: Cliff was singing ‘Mistletoe and Wine’.
He supposed he had to accept at some point that Christmas was actually happening.
*
‘No harm done,’ was Gill’s verdict when she checked over the Redhead, still squealing flirtatiously at her devoted Shetland admirer through the stable divide. ‘Looks like she’d go again, in fact.’
‘What are the chances she’s in foal?’
‘Unlikely after just one covering in those circumstances – I’m impressed he got it up in that blizzard – but there’s an outside chance. Do you want me to give her something to make sure it doesn’t happen?’
‘No.’ Petra looked at her beautiful, hormonal chestnut, sympathising with her rampaging mother urge. ‘Let’s leave it to Fate.’
‘I’ll scan her in eighteen days just in case.’
There was an uncomfortable pause in which Petra was expected to offer coffee and didn’t. She was still smarting from the thoughtless way that Gill had broken the news about Bay coming out of Pip’s bungalow, something she was convinced was perfectly innocent but had no right to question either way. She was also embarrassed to be harbouring the bungalow-seduction suspect in her attic, currently watching an old Lovejoy episode with a tray on her lap, eating beans on toast.
‘Right, well, I’m off. See you out with the Bags. Monday, I think we said? Winter solstice.’
‘See you then.’
Gill looked downcast and Petra felt mean-spirited, so she followed her round the drive to open the gates with a peace-offering of news. ‘Did you know Kit Donne had an affair with Orla Gomez?’
Gill’s long face adopted its upside-down smile. ‘Petra, these things happen when you retreat into your imagination. Everyone in the village has known about that for weeks.’
‘They don’t know he’s been your Safe Married Crush for two years.’
‘Longer.’ The upside-down smile straightened. ‘One hardly needs reminding of the cruel truth that men like Kit can have their pick of beautiful young women, whereas old trouts like us rarely ever get tickled.’
‘Any-fin is possible.’
The mouth twitched, the bear-like eyes sparkled. ‘See you Monday.’
Petra hurried upstairs to change for the theatre, then chivvy the children into coats and shoes. Finally, she went to check on Pip. ‘How are you feeling? Are you sure you’re going to be okay?
‘A bit in and out of focus, you know.’ She leaned sideways, trying to see the television around Petra.
‘Oh, God, shall I call a doctor?’
‘I’m sure I’ll be fine. You look nice.’ Pip admired Petra’s long wool dress, which clung to her curves and had beads the colour of cranberries sewn round the neckline. She had lots of lovely clothes. Pip was dying for the Gunns to go out so she could have a good snoop round the house, including Petra’s wardrobe.
‘You can call me if you need me – although obviously we’ll have mobiles switched off for the show,’ she was saying, plumping up the pillows behind Pip’s head distractedly, smelling delicious. ‘Charlie made Fitz give our phones back. He’s going through this weird obsessive thing at the moment. Revision stress, I think.’
‘You are so good with him,’ Pip said sympathetically. She had yet to find out what syndrome the Gunn’s strange son had, but sharing a house with him was a worry.
A few minutes later the mad teenager himself came into her room, making her scrabble back against her recently plumped pillows. He had his hoodie so low she couldn’t see his eyes, just a beautiful Cupid’s-bow mouth, whispering, ‘Swear on your life you won’t repeat to my mum what I’m about to say, because if you do your life won’t be worth living.’
‘I swear.’ She crossed her fingers under the covers.
‘If anybody called Lozzy turns up while we’re out, will you tell them to fuck off for ever?’
‘Yes,’ she squeaked, trying not to think of We Need to Talk About Kevin.
*
Carly and Ash had spent the morning Christmas shopping with the kids in the big retail park near Broadbourne, returning home feeling considerably poorer, grumpier and less festive than they had been when they set out.
‘I still think they’re too young for pets,’ she said, as they unloaded bags from the pick-up outside number three Quince Drive.
‘You like animals, Carl.’
�
�Not rodents.’
They now had three guinea pigs, a hutch and lots of small bales of bedding, hay and feed, the main Christmas presents the kids were getting this year. Ellis, briefly excited at first – they were named after Chuggington trains – was already more interested in the Smyths toy-shop bags, full of cheap stocking fillers. Sienna and Jackson were asleep, the little creatures in the boxes beyond their comprehension.
‘Someone’s been splashing out!’ Janine cruised past with Social Norm, out for his daily constitutional. He was so well wrapped up that he looked like he was in a body-bag, sitting in his wheelchair with an oxygen-tank tube coming out of it. ‘What have you got there, then?’
‘Wilson, Brewster and Koko,’ Carly muttered.
‘Nice one. Let’s hope that mad dog of Jed’s doesn’t eat them, eh, Granddad?’ She laughed, the body-bag chuckling and coughing uproariously.
‘What dog’s that?’ Carly tried to keep her voice casual. She could sense Ash’s eyes on her.
‘One of Jed’s dogs got out last week and killed little Jaden’s rabbit and a couple of Tex’s cats. Savage bastard it is. He’s letting the Brummy boys have it. They don’t care what gets killed as long as it’s on camera. Jed says it’s useless at coursing anyway.’
‘Which dog is it?’ she demanded. ‘Not Tequila?’ That’s what they’d called Pricey. Carly clenched her fists so tightly she heard her knuckles click.
‘They all look the same to me. What’s its name, Granddad?’
The phlegmy wheeze could have been saying anything.
‘Taser, Granddad says.’
Carly breathed out. ‘So he’s still got Tequila?’
‘Just leave it, Carl.’ Ash carried the hutch on his shoulder into the back garden.
Granddad Norm was wheezing away at her. She couldn’t understand any of it.
‘Granddad really rates her,’ Janine explained, ‘but Jed’s still not got her measure. Can’t get her to stay focused on the job. They’re taking her out again next week.’
‘I’d like to come.’
Janine pulled a face. ‘No offence, Carl, but you mucked Jed around before, and now him and Ash have fallen out, it’s not worth asking. You’re too soft for it. Stick to little squeakers, hun.’ She patted her arm and wheeled Norm off.