by Fiona Walker
‘Shall we go now?’ Nico asked with only faint enthusiasm, the prospect of more motion making him look even greener.
Legs checked her watch, realising they’d missed their slot. ‘Let’s lie low here and the coast will be clear soon enough.’
Letting Nico sag back in his seat with his eyes closed, she watched a bantam hen as it strutted up to check out the Honda, head tilting this way and that contemplating the front bumper with a few trial pecks. Soon it was joined by several friends who began circling around the car like prospective buyers clucking and wheel-kicking critically.
Buzzing down her window to shoo them away, Legs breathed in the sweet scent of hay, manure and silage making. It wasn’t quite the brackish sea air for Farcombe that she craved so badly right now, but it was still a heady mix, and reminded her how far she had just come from Ealing to this forgotten corner of Somerset.
Ahead of her, over a low hedge, the Blackdown Hills stretched out in the heat haze like glittering green mosaic. Not as famous as their Somerset companions the Quantocks and Mendips, the Blackdowns were no less stunning, occupying an unspoilt stretch between historic Taunton and the Jurassic coast filled with deep secret valleys and breathtaking hilltops, its undulations scattered with villages of thatched ham stone cottages and smallholdings, its dense green meadows criss-crossed with rabbit run mazes of tiny, high-banked lanes with grass growing down the middle and precious few passing places.
Several miles along one such lane, so narrow and overgrown that it resembled a green bobsleigh tunnel in parts, lay Inkpot Farm, a higgledy-piggledy tawny stone farmhouse spanned by a sagging, mossy roof. It so perfectly resembled a set from a children’s film that one expected to walk around the back only to find it made of cardboard and propped up with wooden supports.
Will and Daisy had fallen for its charms two years earlier on a sunny autumn afternoon, without a thought for practicality. They’d told Legs how they’d walked the sixteen acres of thigh-high meadow pasture and fruit-heavy apple orchards with dreams of baby-making and self-sufficiency, visualising chicken runs, sheep and a house cow in the paddocks, a pig pen, vegetable plots, soft fruit garden and artisan office studios in the outbuildings. Ultimately, both now claimed, they’d bought it on the strength of its name alone. What more perfect address for two writers?
But even though Inkpot Farm was the escape-from-it-all idyll that the couple had dreamed of for so long, they’d done nothing but try to escape again since arriving. It had now been on the market several months, and although it was attracting plenty of couples with roses-around-the-door-tinted spectacles, none had made an offer yet.
On the dashboard, Legs’ new iPhone vibrated, making her jump.
‘That’s a cool mobile.’ Nico managed to lift his head a fraction in acknowledgement. ‘What network are you on?’
‘The net that’s closing in on me,’ she sighed.
It was a message from Kelly.
I now gather from Gordon that you are liaising with the Farcombe Literary Committee shortly. He advises me that you are extremely confident of success. In light of this, please note the list of Gordon’s requirements below:
No cameras apart from pre-approved accredited photojournalists
No questions apart from those pre-approved by Gordon’s management
No public signings
No hand-held microphones
Pet-friendly accommodation to be provided with bath, not shower. Bed-head must face east, room windows west. At least three living plants in room. Large bowl of fresh fruit (Fairtrade only).
Car and driver must be available for Gordon’s sole use at all times. This will be front- or four-wheel drive and have air conditioning. Must not be red.
No nuts to be served to Gordon or near Gordon.
Legs read it with eyebrows raised and quickly typed back.
I will do what I can with this list, although cannot guarantee nuts will not be served as they should be allowed to purchase a drink when they have travelled to North Devon to see their favourite author. Regrettably I cannot offer myself as chauffeur because I drive a red car. Is the bath for the pet? It might make all the difference. Fur or feather?
Knowing that she’d be fired on the spot if Conrad got wind of her impertinence – the ‘pluck off’ was bad enough – she moved her thumb to the ‘Cancel’ button. While Gordon shared her irreverent humour, she had to box clever with Kelly, who was far more hardcore protective, lightning-fast to slam down the portcullis if she sensed a threat to the extraordinary Lapis creativity. Legs guessed that Kelly was a key player behind the genius author, and was consequently very wary of her, as well as being increasingly envious of her job. The gratification and intensity of working alongside Gordon’s lively mind seemed in direct contrast to her daily grind making up for Conrad’s long absences and doing his dirty work for him.
Message Sent, the phone reported cheerfully.
‘What?’ she howled.
‘Benny has an iPhone and it does that all the time,’ Nico sympathised nauseously as she started shouting at her phone and threatening to jettison it out the window.
It buzzed again.
Nuts may be served outside, it read.
Legs let out a breath of relief. She liked Kelly, she decided. She could almost forgive her for being the kind of woman to make Conrad look positively skittish; he’d recently described her as having ‘the balls of a man’.
Beyond the farmhouse a car engine started up then faded away along the lane.
‘Sorry about that!’ Daisy burst out of the back door moments later. ‘That’s the second time they’ve come and I wanted to leave them with a mental image of perfection.’
‘You can’t risk putting buyers off with the blight of a caffeine-deprived best friend and carsick stepson,’ Legs laughed, pocketing her phone and climbing out of the car to hug her.
Pregnant, top-heavy, small and curvy, Daisy was the opposite of Legs, a full-blossoming myrtle alongside a pear-shaped baobab tree. She was dressed in a deep pink smock over black leggings, her cheeks glowing and her dark fringe as always a little too long, making her tilt her head back to look beneath it as though wearing a peaked baseball cap.
‘Not at all – you look as gorgeous as ever, so you’d add value to any property.’ Daisy gave her a squeeze before leaning past her to look into the car. ‘Are you feeling sick, Nico, poor darling?’
‘Legs drives much faster than Dad,’ he groaned.
‘Oh, I know – she nearly killed us both loads of times as students,’ Daisy sympathised, hoofing around to the passenger side to help him out and give him a bolstering hug. ‘Let’s walk and have some fresh air. Daddy will be back any minute – I’ve just called him to say the coast is clear. Is that the new away strip?’
She hooked her arm easily around Nico and steered him towards the orchard, letting him chatter happily about the Gunners and forget his nausea. Legs followed them, allowing the sun to warm her face as she admired how natural Daisy was with her stepson. It was a far cry from Poppy Protheroe’s relationship with the young Francis, she remembered. Legs still recalled the cool cruelty, her deliberate exclusion of her husband’s son from family gatherings and outings, her determination that he would be packed away to boarding school, out of sight and mind.
She was dying to talk to Daisy about her trip to Farcombe, but certain rituals had to be respected first, such as the tour around the farm which looked just as idyllically run down as she remembered, the rusting vintage tractor still covered in ivy, the ‘office studios’ still derelict old stone barns with no roofs, the vegetable patch bursting with spring cabbages long gone to seed and soft fruit beds which remained overgrown nettle patches.
‘Doesn’t it look gorgeous at this time of year?’ Daisy sighed as they leaned against a wooden fence.
Legs steadied herself as the rail swayed on its rotten uprights. ‘So why are you selling up?’
‘We can’t afford to stay,’ Daisy said without self pity, watching indulgen
tly as Nico plunged through the long grass like a hound puppy, heading off to examine his beloved camp by the stream, a wobbly construction of nail-spiked planks and tarpaulin which would give Ros a heart attack if she ever saw it. ‘I managed to keep working when I was pregnant with Ava, but we had mum living here then. We’ll never juggle three.’
‘This baby’s due early September?’
Daisy nodded. ‘Will’s determined to get his novel finished in time, but I can’t see it happening if we find ourselves in the middle of moving house.’ She turned to her friend with a rueful smile.
They had been moving every year or two for as long as they’d been together, batting back and forth between practical London and their impractical West Country dream, unable to settle to either. Each move had cost them dearly, and far from climbing the property ladder, they’d now firmly landed at the bottom with no equity left.
‘Are you coming back to London this time?’
‘We’ll go back to Spycove.’ Daisy grimaced at the irony. When first together they’d holed up in the Foulkeses’ family holiday cottage in Farcombe. ‘Full circle. We should never have left, really. None of my family uses the place any more, and it’s big enough for us all to live. The Spies are so magical. We all love it there.’ The Foulkeses’ holiday house was just along the track from the Norths’ cottage Spywood, the two dwellings separated only by a clifftop coppice.
‘I love it too.’ Legs looked at her excitedly, unable to hold back a moment longer as she pressed her hands together, fingertips to her nose, bursting with anticipation. ‘I’m en route to Farcombe now. Francis wants to meet up.’
‘Ah.’ Daisy checked that Nico was happily occupied preparing his den for renewed occupation and laced her arm through Legs’, steering her towards the house.
‘Is that it?’ Legs snorted in disbelief. ‘Just “ah”?’
Daisy shrugged, squinting up at the farm’s pretty thatched dormers and then tutting as she spotted the peeling paintwork. ‘I guessed it was only a matter of time.’
‘Before what?’ She longed for the answer to be ‘before you two made friends again’, but Daisy was infuriatingly pragmatic, as always.
‘Before you paid the cottage a visit; Spywood is your comfort blanket.’
Legs huffed and followed her inside. She was gasping for some of the freshly brewed coffee she could smell, but Daisy pointed out that it was just a teaspoon full of grinds in the percolator acting as an air freshener for the buyers.
‘Will thought it up – quite brilliant for atmosphere, but totally undrinkable, and we’re down to just a few beans now. We only have herb tea, I’m afraid, although I might have some decaff my sister-in-law left here somewhere.’
‘It’s OK, I’ll pass.’ Legs tried not to foam at the mouth as she inhaled the smell of the buyer-baiting pretend coffee, ‘there’ll be plenty at Spywood; Mum always leaves the cupboards fully loaded for guests.’
Daisy was observing her beadily now, clever brown eyes blinking through her overlong fringe like a wise collie watching a stray sheep and weighing up whether to stay lying low or start rounding her up. ‘Isn’t your mother staying in Farcombe all summer?’
Legs shrugged, helping herself to an apple from a bowl. ‘I’ve tried to call, but you know what reception’s like there; anyway, Ros thinks she’s back in London this week.’
Daisy’s eyebrows disappeared up beyond her fringe.
‘What’s that look for?’ Legs laughed nervously.
‘You don’t want Lucy knowing you’re going to meet up with Francis, do you?’
‘Nonsense. We just don’t chat that often – we’re not like you and your mum.’
Daisy and her mother spoke almost daily, whereas in the past year Legs had drifted ever further apart from her parents, who had adored Francis completely and found the broken engagement difficult to reconcile. The normally sanguine Lucy in particular had reacted to the split with near hysteria – fervid agitation followed by the cold shoulder of disapproval which distanced mother and daughter to this day.
Daisy was still watching her face closely, those clever eyes infused with affection. ‘You should talk to her, Legs. Find out why she’s holed herself up in Spywood all summer painting.’
‘We both know she likes to kick off her shoes – and everything else – when she paints.’ Legs looked away awkwardly. ‘Why, has your mum said something?’
‘They’ve hardly seen each other this year as far as I know. Mum’s not been to Spycove for months. It still feels like it’s a part of Dad somehow. There’s so much history there for all of us. You must feel that. It’s a part of us.’
The North and Foulkes families had been close for over three decades, ever since Lucy North and Babs Foulkes, both heavily pregnant, had met dog-walking on Richmond Common on a sweltering June day and had shared a breather on a bench together.
The two pregnant wives instantly struck it off. While their mutually irreverent sense of humour brought shared delight, for the husbands it was also bromance at first sight, Dorian North’s charm and humour providing the perfect foil for Nigel Foulkes’s ambition and drive. The two became the closest of allies; Dorian the charming Kew antiques dealer whose reupholstered Georgian chairs graced the most fashionable west London drawing rooms, and Nigel, an art dealer known as the ‘City Canvasser’ because of his reputation for selling outlandishly expensive paintings to bankers with deep wallets and no taste. The new fathers shared a love of sport and late-night philosophising over one too many cognacs; they adored good food, travel and adventure. Their circles of friends fused together perfectly.
Before first-borns Rosalind and Freddie were a year old, the dinner parties in Kew and Richmond had already become legendary. By the time second children Daisy and then Allegra came along, the families were taking summer holidays together to remote corners of the West Country, amongst which was an amazing clifftop estate belonging to a client of Nigel’s.
Legs, who had been just four at the time, remembered little of their first trip to Farcombe, although it had been the holiday on which she and Daisy became true summer best friends, bonding over a sandcastle on Fargoe Beach that they decorated with pebbles and shells, photographs of which still rested on both the Spycove and Spywood mantels, shown off by its two little architects in swimming costumes holding buckets and spades. In those days, the families had stayed in a pair of pretty, ivy-clad cottages close to the main hall. Their enigmatic host, Hector Protheroe, hadn’t been in residence, so the girls had enjoyed free range around the amazing Farcombe estate, running through the courtyards, swimming in the pool, pretending they were princesses in a fairytale castle. They imagined Hector must be a king.
Much later, Legs realised that this first summer holiday at Farcombe must have been the year that Hector’s wife Ella died. The Protheroes had been living in America to enable Ella to have the best of cutting-edge treatment in an attempt to turn the tide on the huge tumour growing in her heart. After he was widowed, Hector continued to live between New York and London, and the king of Farcombe eluded his princesses.
The annual holidays at Farcombe continued for the Norths and Foulkes as the go-getting eighties were replaced by the caring nineties and the main Hall fell into increasing disrepair. Allegra and Daisy played in their magical kingdom each summer, their friendship deepening. At six, the two girls had made a friends-for-life pact in the woods above Eascombe Bay, burying their favourite Barbies side by side beneath a beech tree as a symbolic gesture of for ever friendship. As far as Legs knew they were still there, faded little plastic effigies with pert breasts and slim ankles nestling in the deep Devon loam. They knew every nook and cranny around Farcombe, every hiding spot. One summer, they even discovered a way of getting into the big house along the sea passage from Eascombe Cove that tunnelled up through the cellars, marvelling at the tapestries and panelling, the huge oil paintings and furniture all covered with dust sheets. It became their secret play castle.
Then the king came back, an
d that was shattered. Hector had sold his company, Smile Media, to return to Farcombe and renovate the house in honour of his late wife. He would start up a jazz festival in his magical corner of North Devon; Farcombe Festival was going to be pure pleasure, a sabbatical project to enable him to take a much-needed rest from big business and spend time with his only son, Francis, who had been brought up and educated thus far in America.
The North and Foulkes children were told there would be no more holidays at Farcombe. The cottages where the families had stayed each summer for half a decade were earmarked for staff accommodation. Legs and Daisy mourned their lost North Devon palace.
Legs wrote a heartfelt letter to Hector, princess to king, begging him to reconsider his plans. It ran to three pages of lined A5, complete with pencil illustrations and a lucky four leaf clover that she’d found one year at Farcombe and kept pressed in her diary ever since. She Sellotaped it beside her signature – a swirly confection that she’d been perfecting all term, which made ‘Allegra’ indecipherable.
Thus Hector Protheroe’s reply came addressed to Miss Alligator North. In flamboyant, spiky handwriting on beautifully embossed, headed paper, he apologised profusely for interfering with her summer holidays and offered a solution. There was a small farm-holding on the edge of the Farcombe estate for which he had no use, and which he was happy to sell to the two families.
Abandoned for over a decade to seagulls and rats, the small, ugly farmhouse known as Spycove and its neighbouring thatched cob cottage Spywood, were little more than tatty implement sheds perched on a cliff above Eascombe Cove, made from the same bleak grey stone as the distant hall, on the outskirts of the high woods with gardens that literally dropped away into the sea. In the years that followed, Nigel Foulkes had lavished money and attention on Spycove until it resembled a Miami beach house. Spywood Cottage, by contrast, had changed little in the seventeen summers the North family had owned it, still possessing two interlinking bedrooms beneath the eaves upstairs, and one large kitchen/living room downstairs, with a chilly lean-to bathroom jutting out amid the trees behind.