In much the same way that he had been the first to tackle in a game of rugby, Hamish was the type to throw himself heartily into a job. Brook’s, the East Anglian real ale brewery where he worked, was based in Bury St Edmunds. Like Jay and Eliza’s business, it was suffering. This may partly have been to do with the poor state of the national economy that was affecting businesses across the land. While the country was not in recession, newspapers and other media were painting a picture that it was teetering on the brink. Local ales might sell well when the nation is prospering but once a fad died down, the smaller brewers seldom made much profit. These beers were more expensive than the big nationals, who either bought the brewers out or they went out of business.
Hamish had begged the board to modernise its ancient brewing equipment and introduce new products but the chairman and managing director, both beyond retirement age, had stood firmly against change.
Hamish was quietly looking for a new job. But he was not finding it easy, so for the meanwhile had to remain with Brook’s.
Driving home that evening, Hamish felt the longed-for ‘Friday relief’ that the weekend lay ahead. He and Katie were meeting some friends at the village pub. Looking forward to letting his hair down, he was particularly glad that Jay and Eliza Armstrong were going, particularly Eliza, who was a special woman and one who always cheered him up. He was fond of Jay too, but the man had been such a grumpy chap lately, and didn’t seem to realise how lucky he was to have such a lovely wife, nor to appreciate her as he should.
5
22 June
Eliza heard the crunch of Juliet’s bike wheels on the gravel and knew it was time to stop work. Her daughter would be hot and tired after the train journey from Cambridge and the ride back from Heronsford station, so she gave her a few minutes to get a drink of water and take a breath before joining her in the sitting room.
Juliet was immersed in her laptop on the sofa. Eliza sat down next to her and draped an arm around her shoulders. “Holly is away on a sleepover and we’re joining some mates at the pub this evening. You are very welcome to join us, but since I am sure it will be the last thing you would want to do, there’s a large bowl of Bolognese in the fridge and you know where the spaghetti is.”
“Can I have him over?”
She was seventeen. Eliza accepted that she and her boyfriend were likely to be having sex. She and Jay did not yet allow them to share a bedroom or spend nights together. He was, after all, only seventeen himself and they were both still at school. Juliet was on the pill so there should be no worries there, but her parents didn’t want to make it too easy or cosy – where was the fun in that? Besides, this September Juliet would be off to university and they didn’t want her having to deal with a broken heart before she went. There would likely be enough of that sort of thing once she got there.
Eliza stroked her child’s glossy brown hair.
“Of course. But you know the rules.”
“Great. His mum will bring him over, at least she usually does.” She was already texting with dexterous speed.
“Okay for him to stay until eleven thirty?”
“Fine. Give him some spag bol too. See you later. Have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do…” She gave her daughter an arch wink that Juliet didn’t notice, her head buried in messages winging to and fro.
The hot air was thick with the scent of elderflowers that had won the battle for hedgerow space with a few overshadowed pink and white dog roses. Without speaking, Eliza and Jay strolled along the riverside of the rutted, pot-holed dead-end lane from their house to the village.
Not afraid of silence, they were both relieved to get away from the office. On the other side of the lane, speckled with ox-eye daisies, buttercups, purple knapweed and loosestrife, the verge tumbled down to the river, shallow from the dry, hot weather. Once the rains returned, it would fill up again to get up a proper flow. It was on its way to join the Cam and divided the lane from a broad view of the surrounding countryside stretching into a distance virtually un-punctured by hills. This was the world that Eliza knew gave her safety and contentment.
She crossed over to walk along the river’s edge. Ever since a small girl, she had been interested in wild flowers and learning their names. Their various colours and shapes fascinated her and sometimes she wished she had studied to become a gardener or botanist. She was never happier than when studying the form of a flower head or its manner of spreading its genes. She may have picked this up from her mother or it was simply part of her nature. Being an only child, flowers had been her friends, as had the trees that grew around the farm.
A wonderful old pink chestnut tree on the left of the house spread thick comforting branches low, one that held an ancient swing and a thick rope with a knot in the bottom. Her father had played on it as a child, followed by his daughter Eliza and then, with a replacement swing put up by Jay, Juliet and Holly in their turn. For purely sentimental reasons, the two mothers appreciated this continuity of time.
A long snake uncoiled in front of Eliza’s foot and she shrieked as it slithered its way through the undergrowth to hurtle down into the river and swim a rapid, undulating path through the water. Shuddering with dislike for the creature, she stopped for a moment to regain her composure. As so often these days, Jay, wandering along the middle of the lane, was in some reverie of his own and failed to notice.
In a few minutes, Jay and Eliza reached Mill Road where the main village started and they walked along the long curve that went left again, passing some fine Georgian, Victorian and plaster-painted Tudor houses in the traditional East Anglian hues of warm creams, soft pale pinks, peach and bull’s blood. Further along they turned once more, right down Church Lane where thatched cottages were interspersed with twentieth century private and pre- and post-war brick council houses. They passed the generous village green that included a cricket pitch beyond which sat a small stone church with a solid comforting Norman tower entirely spoiled by the later addition of an out-of-place, too-narrow lead spire, like an upturned ice cream cone had dropped onto it from the sky.
Frowning, Jay suddenly spoke. “Hope Bob doesn’t mention Scotland this evening. It’s usually around this time he puts out the invite.”
“Why don’t you go, Jay? You love it and it’s not much to pay for such a good time.”
“We’re simply not in the position to take holidays at the moment.” He pulled crossly at the collar of his T-shirt. “We’ve had plenty in the past and it really won’t hurt us.”
She noticed his clenched hands.
“Besides, what about you? You need a break too, Eliza.”
Such a change had come over the man once so free with spending his money. It was so sad. Eliza glanced sideways at him. She nudged him.
“The whole situation doesn’t worry me as much as it worries you and, as you also know, I am always happy as Larry simply to be at home. The point is that you, my darling, are in dire need of a break. You’ve been working so hard and I wonder if you realise how tense you are? A week away from all the worry could be the recharge you need. Besides, of course we can afford it.”
The truth is, they both needed a break from work and one another. Jay’s face flushed.
“That’s not the point. I cannot just walk away for a week at the moment. The catalogue is ready for release and I need to oversee it. I cannot take time off until I have done everything to get some sales. I refuse to spend money on my pleasure when I have to think about school fees and university costs for Juliet. I’m not sure you fully realise the trouble we are in, Eliza. We have virtually no capital left and almost nothing coming in.” His voice rose. “We have to start understanding that we can’t go on the way we always have. If things don’t pick up very soon, we may have to consider selling up.”
“Selling up? Never! I won’t… we can’t sell up. What about Mum? She gave us the house, remember? The children can go into state school.” Not so calm now, Eliza added, “In fact, it would be good for them. Giv
e them a dose of reality. I was never in favour of sending them to these expensive schools. And now it has caught up with us. Just because you went to private sch–” she stopped herself.
Unlike most of her local peers, the children of the well-off middle classes who were family friends, at her mother’s insistence, Eliza had been state-educated at an excellent school in a nearby town. This she had never regretted and was proud of.
“At this stage? You can’t be serious?” He looked aghast.
Her tone was shrill. “Why the fuck not? I was at one, let me remind you!” They were nearing the pub. She stopped walking and calmed herself. “Look, Jay, now is really not the time, is it? For this evening shall we try to forget about it and do our best to enjoy ourselves? We can talk about it tomorrow.”
He shrugged and they retreated back into silence. How could she be so immune to what was happening to them? Didn’t she realise that they had invoices to pay, workers to take care of, tax bills to settle? The council tax, the school fees, the problems owning sixty acres brought with it. The worst of it was that having been gifted the farm, they couldn’t really sell it – especially while Annie B. was still alive.
6
22 June
A thick roof of thatch, low ceilings and walls yellowed with the stain of years of nicotine, dark stone floors that had resisted change through the years, its atmosphere and the landlord, were the reasons people drank in the Old Cock. The subject of many ribald jokes, this was an ancient coaching inn. To make any pub pay its way, it had to concede to modern times by producing a small half-hearted menu from which you could choose a ploughman’s, a tuna and mayo or a ham and tomato baguette, a hamburger and chips or a sandwich.
Jay needed to duck as they went through the low front door and up to the bar. Hung along the top with ancient pewter tankards, old oak beams covered the low ceiling in front of a wide inglenook fireplace. Above this, another long, gnarled and darkened beam supported mellow terracotta handmade bricks either side. Old pewter plates and toby mugs were displayed along its top. The landlord looked up from scribbling an order in front of a waiting group of customers. He raised a hand, blew a kiss and mouthed hello.
An old man was perched on a stool beside the bar and a pair of unavoidable watery blue eyes in sagging sacks of old flesh fastened on Jay and Eliza. They belonged to an ex-army widower, the pub’s main fixture and storyteller. Fortunately for other pub-goers, he was long past expecting responses from people. Without the need to listen, the occasional nod from those too stunned to attempt a gap in his cheerful waffle would suffice to keep him happy as he blathered on. When he got on to Aden, it generally proved too much to bear so there was always a horseshoe of space around him. The landlord and other bar staff, apart from fetching him his usual pints, didn’t acknowledge him at all. It may sound cruel, but it wasn’t. It was self-defence on the part of people who otherwise might have lost the will to survive. The old boy simply didn’t notice.
He swivelled his body towards Jay and Eliza and started off on what would be a never-ending tale of his childhood in the Raj. They were only saved by the arrival of Katie and Hamish Nicholson. Homer, their ill-trained manic cocker spaniel was on a lead but tripping everyone up and misbehaving as usual. Bob McKenzie followed a few minutes later and last, as always, but glamorous as ever, Francesca Bianchi.
Hugs and handshakes done between the friends, removing her sunglasses with exaggerated emphasis and planting a huge kiss on the main fixture’s hard, red-veined cheek, Francesca said, “Lovely to see you, darling.”
The monologue ceased for a moment and before the old boy could take up his story again, the friends grabbed the chance and disappeared as fast as possible. They had gone into the unprepossessing triangular garden where, against an old brick wall on one side, a few sad flowers hung their heads between bedraggled weeds that bordered the edge of a patchy lawn so parched it had turned biscuit colour. A low, shabby picket fence bordered the roadside. But it was not for beauty or serenity that people came to this pub. It was for its fine cask ales, its friendly landlord, its atmosphere of age and lack of pretension. The women found a large picnic table with benches attached at its sides and an open parasol slotted through a hole in its middle.
Bob, Jay and Hamish made their orders as fast as they could and Bob carried a tray of bottles of wine and beer to the table, followed by Hamish and Jay carrying the glasses. Realising they weren’t at the bar any more, the main fixture lifted his beer mug in a toast that they neither saw nor heard.
In keeping with his flamboyant personality, Bob was wearing a white baseball cap and a bright Hawaiian short-sleeved-shirt of orange and turquoise that did him absolutely no favours.
But at least, thought Eliza, he has chosen beige shorts. And he’s not wearing socks with sandals. Why, she wondered, did Stella, who had such good taste in clothes, have such a lack of influence over what Bob wore? Didn’t she have any control over him at all?
When he chose to, Bob could be very smartly dressed since he went to Saville Row in London’s West End to have suits, tweed jackets and twill trousers made. But unlike the genuine old suited and booted characters that had always frequented his long-established tailor, Bob chose the most striking fabrics they stocked. His jackets and coats invariably lined in bright coloured silks or satins. And if he wore a striped suit, it would be a chalk stripe as noticeable as he could find with perhaps a yellow or bright purple lining.
In truth, Eliza decided, what let down Bob’s attempts to seem like an upper class gentleman was his lack of subtlety. None of it matters, she thought. That’s what is so silly, as no-one except Bob cared about what impression he gave.
“Stella’s got a cold, so she’s gone to bed,” he said by way of apology for her absence.
“Oh, what bad luck to get a cold in June. That’s really unusual,” said Katie. And everyone murmured appropriate things. Although, in truth, nobody would feel her absence much. Stella often avoided coming to the pub and when she did, she rarely contributed to the conversation or to the group’s fun. Bob was the extrovert and leader of that partnership. He was hugely entertaining and fun to be with while Stella sat around looking beautiful, elegant, soigné and somehow disconnected from them all.
You only had to look at her to guess she might have been a model. She seemed like a fish out of water and it was agreed among these country people, with their gardens that mattered so much to them and their dogs and their love of all things rural, that the poor girl who was not even in her own country, was clearly a city girl at heart, not a bit suited to country life.
Francesca, Eliza and Katie had made continuous efforts to be friendly. But younger than them by a decade, Stella had barely responded to their kind-hearted overtures and so they had more or less given up making them. It wasn’t that they disliked her – there was really nothing about her to dislike. They just didn’t warm to her much as she gave them so little to work with.
It was only Francesca, who chatted to her about London and fashion and shops and restaurants, with whom she had some rapport.
Katie tugged and pushed at Homer’s backside to get him to lie still under the table. The cocker had other things in mind, especially a collie that was lying quietly by its owner’s side while he drank his beer at another table. The dog only ever did as it was told for a maximum of two minutes. The other women wished Katie had left the little blighter at home.
Bob set down the tray on the table. “Here you go, ladies.”
Bob’s slightly obvious attempts to seem middle or even upper class were happily forgiven, as was the fact that he loved to show off his racy cars and extravagantly furnished house. He threw wonderful dinner parties that always ended up in his swimming pool. Then there was tennis in the summer on the immaculately kept grass court. Bob was generous with his money in an ostentatious way.
“Bob insisted on buying us bottles instead of glasses of wine,” said Jay, and Eliza could tell he was put out. He had always hated being upstaged by other
men, calling it bad mannered, although the fact that he minded so deeply said more about his egotism than his comprehension of etiquette. Jay sat down opposite Katie with Hamish between him and Eliza.
There was a chorus of thank yous at which Bob waved an airy hand, “No es nada.”
Eliza and Hamish swapped amused glances. Certainly they were hypocrites since they secretly spoke of their disapproval for Bob’s showy lifestyle but were quick to attend his parties and receive his generosity and hospitality. But for all this insincerity, they never let Bob get an inkling and they did in fact both like and admire the man whose charm could mesmerise and whose wit was quick.
He squashed himself between Francesca and Katie. “Budge up, you beautiful creatures. Make room for your favourite man.”
Francesca, darkly tanned in a low-cut sleeveless yellow dress and highly unsuitable blue stilettos, swished along the bench until she was comfortable. Taking off her large pair of sunglasses again, she puckered her carefully pencilled eyebrows, rolled her heavily kohled dark brown eyes heavenwards and, leaning slightly forwards, addressed the audience. “Ask me who has had,” she deployed a dramatic pause, “the worst fucking week ever?”
They all kept straight faces. Nobody was willing to feed her the line until Hamish took pity. “Okay then, sweetie, who?”
“Me, darling, fucking me. That is who.”
“Fucking you?” said Bob. “I can oblige there, no trouble, sweetie. But when, my little Itie, when? This evening?”
“Oh, Bob, if only it weren’t for Stella, you know I would simply love to, darling.”
The worst week ever turned out to be that Francesca had been distraught because Thai the cat had gone missing for twenty-four hours but returned the next day.
The Decoy Page 3