‘Aah, I see. You are migrating to water. You need the pond to be cleared so it can fill up.’ Laura sets to this task with vigour. It is much more satisfying than unpacking clothes, and more necessary. Another frog leaps from a tussock as Laura heaves sedge and old netting from the pond. She hopes he will spread the word.
She is in the kitchen, making a bacon sandwich – the most effective sensory alarm clock for rousing her children – when Hedley arrives.
‘You look the part,’ he says, taking in Laura’s mud-covered jeans, her boots flung across the doorstep. She turns to him, wreathed in smiles.
‘Oh Hedley, it’s so wonderful, thank you for this. It’s going to be so great.’
‘It is a repairing lease,’ says Hedley, feeling that this euphoric moment is the right one to slip in the small print. ‘I’ve got the papers here for you and Inigo to sign.’
‘He’s not here – he had to go to Germany. Anyway, this is my thing, and I want to be the leaseholder.’
Hedley raises his eyebrows. ‘Well, I suppose you can sort that out between you,’ he says. ‘But let’s get it done now.’ He moves to clear a space for his papers. ‘Eugh, there’s a toad on the table. Is it Inigo, here after all, in his country attire?’ Hedley enjoys his own joke hugely, nudging Fred who has appeared, rubbing his eyes.
‘Oh very funny,’ says Laura. ‘Actually it’s one of my frogs. It’s waiting for me to finish cleaning out its pond.’
Hedley groans. ‘It is so typical of you to start managing pondlife, isn’t it?’ he remarks. ‘But you know these aren’t frogs, they’re toads and they don’t need a pond, the drain is fine.’
Laura remains defiant. ‘Well, I want to make them a pond. Anyway, I’m not making it, I’m restoring the one that’s there. How high do you think the water table is here?’
‘Not very high, the soil is too sandy. Now this is what you sign, Laura.’ Hedley flourishes his pen; his sister takes it and is about to sign when a thought occurs to her.
‘Actually, I don’t want to seem untrusting, but can we sort out the goat first?’
Hedley reaches across to the plate of bacon, as does Fred.
‘We’re keeping the goat, Mum,’ says Fred. ‘She’s part of the Gate House furniture.’
Laura senses that she is in a losing position with this argument. ‘Oh all right, we’ll keep her until Inigo comes.’
Dolly appears, tousled in the doorway, clutching her phone.
‘God, do you sleep with that thing glued to your ear?’ Fred asks, pouring cereal into a cup and filling it to the brim with milk before sliding several heaped spoonfuls of sugar in for good measure.
Dolly ignores him. ‘Mum, Dad just called. He’s coming back tomorrow and he’s coming here.’
Hedley groans. ‘I wonder if he’ll want to come too?’ he says half to himself. ‘Laura, I was going to ask you all to come with me to a christening tomorrow, but I don’t think Inigo would like it.’
Laura is quite sure he is right. ‘No, Inigo doesn’t believe in what he calls the bourgeois patina of religion that you get in the Church of England. It’s one of his pet subjects, like farming.’
Hedley gets up to leave. ‘A patina is usually thought to be green,’ he muses, a faraway look in his eyes that Laura recognises as his scholar’s expression.
‘Mmm?’ she says helpfully.
Hedley recalls himself. ‘Anyway. Yes. Well. I’ll keep well out of Inigo’s way tomorrow then, but if you want to come, Laura, or you two –’ he glances towards Fred and Dolly, ‘- Tamsin and I will be here to escort you at eleven-thirty.’
Fred watches him down the path, and turns to Laura. ‘Mum, he may be your brother, but he’s weird.’
‘Yeah, I’m glad I’m not Tamsin,’ agrees Dolly. ‘He’s like from another planet or something.’
Laura isn’t listening. She looks around the kitchen at the debris of breakfast and decides not to do anything about it.
‘I’m going to do gardening until lunch-time, and this afternoon we’ll go and buy some junk to fill this house with. And if either of you can find the nobility of soul to clear up the kitchen I will be grateful for ever,’ she announces, already half out of the door, the toad balanced on a tea cosy on her hand because she remembers reading that human skin burns them.
‘But will you pay us?’ Fred shouts after her with a grin.
Laura decides that to try and turn the house into a palace of civilisation suitable for Inigo in twenty-four hours is not feasible. Beyond purchasing some lamps, bedspreads and a lot of cracked but beautiful pearl pink china, and plonking vases of grape hyacinths and wallflowers on every windowsill, she does nothing. The mould-green walls in the bathroom remain unbrushed, the Rayburn is not scrubbed, but outside, the garden begins to take shape. Laura’s back burns where her muscles have stretched and pulled as she digs and heaves, weeds and chops. Fred finds a rusty lawnmower in the shed next to the goat and, Laura assumes, by making some pact with God or the Devil, manages to make it work. His first circuit around the lawn is witnessed and applauded by Dolly and Laura; then they lean against the fence, eyes closed, drinking in the warm afternoon sun and the smell of cut grass. As she climbs into bed, Laura realises she hasn’t thought about Inigo almost all day and it has been bliss.
Chapter 12
As promised, Hedley is back the next morning, unusually smart in a suit, a red shirt and a tie with sunflowers all over it. Tamsin is with him, also very dolled up, although seemingly for a different, more retro occasion as her outfit consists of a crocheted silver mini-skirt, a purple fluffy coat, and knee-high pink suede boots.
‘Is Inigo back yet?’ Hedley asks nervously.
‘No, he said he wouldn’t be here till this afternoon, so I’ll come to the christening first. Whose is it anyway?’
‘Hedley’s old girlfriend Venetia,’ says Tamsin. Hedley looks at Laura, agonised.
‘Oh yes, of course.’ Laura smiles brightly at him, remembering rumours of a romance when Hedley first came to Crumbly.
‘I’m the godfather,’ he says, wielding a small wrapped package. ‘It’s a Swiss Army knife – what do you think?’
Tamsin, finding this conversation achingly boring, slouches up the narrow stairs to find Dolly. Moments later, music thumps through the ceiling, and Fred, forced out by the sound, appears, rumpled and sleepy but friendly.
‘Mum, can you ask Dolly to play something decent. Her music is so sad, I even prefer yours,’ he mumbles.
‘Your children are always asleep,’ marvels Hedley. ‘And they’re nice to you,’ he adds, as Fred drapes himself over his mother’s shoulders and kisses her cheek as she sits eating toast at the kitchen table. ‘I wish Tamsin was nice to me like that,’ Hedley sighs.
Laura opens her mouth to answer, but leaves it dangling as the doorframe is filled, the sunlight blocked by Inigo. Unshaven, eyes pink-rimmed and bloodshot, skin pallid, he walks straight up to Laura and puts his arms around her, dropping a bunch of lilies onto the table behind her.
‘You’re very early,’ she says, blinking amazement.
‘I was missing you too much,’ he says, bending his head to kiss her.
I hope he isn’t going to spoil things, Laura thinks. Shocked by her own ungenerosity, she pulls herself together and smiles back into Inigo’s ardent gaze, wondering why he always has to be so full on about everything, but amazed that he still makes her heart pound. She is off-balance seeing him here, annoyed in fact; it was such a relief not being affected by him, and now he’s the biggest thing in her new kitchen, and he’s brought the exotic, incongruous waft of hothouse flowers to the country.
Dolly, as excessive as Inigo, bounces into the room, clad in a small strappy top and tiny skirt, waving a selection of fleeces and cardigans, and hurls herself on her father, wrapping her arms around him, nuzzling his coat.
‘Dad, do you like our house? We’ve got a goat – come and see me milk it, quick.’
‘Won’t you be frozen, Dolly? That’s not mu
ch of a skirt for April.’ Laura is ignored.
‘Its name is Grass and it’s a nanny goat,’ adds Fred. ‘It’s got these really gross toggles dangling off its neck and a beard, it’s so cool.’
Correctly interpreting the grossness as the best bit, Inigo follows Fred and Dolly straight outside again without even speaking to Hedley, and round to the shed, accompanied by Tamsin, a little wobbly on her stiletto heels, but uncomplaining, much to Hedley’s surprise.
‘We’ve got a ferret and a pug to confess next,’ Laura whispers to Hedley.
‘Your children have such a good effect on Tamsin, why can’t it stretch to Inigo as well?’ Hedley complains, rising to leave. ‘You can’t come with me to church if he’s only just arrived, but don’t forget the christening lunch at one. It’s in the house at the end of the village on the right.’
Laura, conscious of an almost irresistible urge to escape Inigo and go with her brother now, follows him out and, keen to look busy, begins half-heartedly slashing at some nettles with the bread-knife. Inigo, armed with a small shark-skin sketchpad, and still wearing his long black coat, emerges from the goat shed with a cheerful spring in his step. He stands, pencil poised, watching Laura for a moment, making her feel like a work in progress instead of a person.
‘You can’t do it like that – you need a proper scythe, like the Grim Reaper. I’ll take a shower and then we’ll go into town to get one, shall we?’
Laura puts the bread-knife into his outstretched hand and follows him into the house. ‘There isn’t a shower, I’m afraid, just an ancient cast-iron bath in that room there.’ She points to a room beyond the kitchen. ‘It’s probably the most gruesome room in the house,’ she warns him.
‘Downstairs, how novel,’ says Inigo, fussily shaking the towel he finds on the floor before heading into the dank pit that is the bathroom. Laura’s heart sinks further. She hates it when Inigo decides to make the best of everything; it is so wearing because it is all a front.
The sound of sluicing water in the bathroom reminds her that she hasn’t washed up from breakfast. Filling the sink, she marvels that Inigo is still cheerful. The odds are stacked against it: he loathes the countryside, he hates animals, he finds disorder maddening and dirt repellent. She has rented a cottage, or rather a hovel, without consulting him and moved into it in his absence. It must be a huge blow to his control freakery. Suddenly Laura feels entirely unable to deal with him when he comes out of the bathroom. It will be better if he gets used to the Gate House without her there; that way she can avoid being defensive.
Leaving the washing up to soak, and grabbing Dolly’s pink sequinned cowboy hat and a very unsuitable pair of metallic purple high heels she bought yesterday in a junk shop, she shouts through the bathroom door, ‘I’ve just got to go and help Hedley with something. You go to town for the scythe – Woolworth’s will be open, and I’ll see you later on.’ Then she runs out of the house, putting the shoes on halfway down the path, and hoping that the very old skirt embroidered with mirrors and the faded sage-coloured T-shirt she put on this morning after frog work will be smart enough for a christening lunch.
Hastening through the village, Laura is glad that the early morning sun has been replaced by glowering light and a slicing wind, so no one is out to watch her hobbling in her ridiculous shoes as she passes. She slows down, partly through discomfort as a blister is forming, and partly curiosity.
Little has changed in Crumbly village at first glance; indeed, it is reassuringly identical to her memories. Even the chickens at the pub are the same over-sized and over-friendly breed that used to hop up onto the bench next to you if you chose an outside table for a drink. Laura pauses and stoops, putting out a hand, hoping to entice one of these creatures away from its business scratching up primulas from a tub by the pub door. The hen pauses, and looks at her severely. It groans horribly, perhaps indicating that it doesn’t much like what it sees and struts off to continue with its work in the flower bed by the pub wall. Walking past the creaking sign, Laura realises with irritation how Hampstead life has changed her when she is shocked for a second by the name. The picture is of two chocolate box black kittens, but even so the words ‘The Black Boys’ are startling now. There must have been a politically correct uprising in the village since she was last here: Laura vividly remembers the old sign, admittedly faded and in need of renovation, depicted two small African boys in white shirts and little skullcaps standing in front of a boat.
The first time Guy took her out for a drink on their own they came to The Black Boys. When he summoned the courage to ask her out, they agreed that the village pub was acceptable on the grounds that it was summer and they could sit in the garden, away from the curious eyes of Hedley and the rest of the cricket team, who spent most evenings, no matter how gentle and warm, in the smallest, darkest bar. Laura had hardly ever been to a pub before, and not wishing to let him know this, copied Guy and ordered draught beer. She shudders, remembering the sweet earthy taste, so revolting she almost gagged in front of him. Eyes watering, she asked him to get her something else, and Guy laughed and went back to the bar for wine. Feeding peanuts to the hens, Guy convinced her that they were Chinese Lap Chickens, originally reared alongside Pekineses for the royal household. She had believed him and, fascinated, had taken the story home to Hedley and Uncle Peter. Peter blinked and nodded vague corroboration, but Hedley grinned knowingly and said, ‘Come on, sis, you should never believe anything a man on a date tells you.’
Laura had flushed, felt foolish and protested, ‘But we weren’t on a date, I just went for a drink with him. Is it not true then?’
The next time they saw one another, Laura challenged Guy. ‘They said never believe anything a man on a date tells you, Guy, so what have you got to say to that?’ she teased.
He looked alarmed. ‘Am I accused of lying about chickens or taking you on a date?’ he asked, pulling her towards him so close she could feel his heart beating against her own. ‘Because I’m guilty of both.’ And he bent over her and kissed her on the bridge in the village, where anyone could see them.
She is on the bridge again now, pausing to look down out of almost forgotten habit to see if she can catch a glimpse of a lazy brown trout. It takes a moment to see anything more than her face and the sky reflected in the slow dark water, but then her eyes become accustomed and her focus shifts below the surface to undulating weed and there, beside a flat stone, is a trout, doing the fishy equivalent of treading water as it remains in the shadows, swaying but never moving and facing upstream.
‘Why do they always face upstream?’ she wonders aloud and nearly jumps out of her skin when a voice behind her answers, ‘That’s how they get oxygen into their gills.’
It is Guy. Different from when she saw him in the restaurant, and more as he was long ago, tousled and crumpled in dishevelled jeans and a worn shirt the same faded blue grey as his eyes. He is sitting in a sputtering low-slung car, and is looking more or less up Laura’s skirt as she hangs over the bridge. Red heat creeps up her face; she feels he knows she was thinking about kissing him. Guy rolls a cigarette with one hand. Laura wonders if he always does that or if he is trying to impress her. She finds herself staring at his teeth which are white and even, and his skin, already tanned even though it is April – no, Laura suddenly remembers that it is May the first today,
‘Are you going to the christening?’ Guy asks her. ‘If so, may I drive you the remaining few yards?’ Laura nods and fumbles with the door, glad to be able to sit down as her knees have gone weak.
‘Where’s your wife?’ she asks, now almost horizontal in the sagging passenger seat of Guy’s car.
‘She’s gone to a hunter trial – where’s your husband?’
Guy changes gear and Laura is flung back even further. ‘He’s gone to buy a scythe in Woolworth’s.’
‘A scythe? What for?’ Guy’s voice is full of amusement, and hearing this from an idiotic dentist-chair position enrages Laura. Inigo has as much right to
a scythe as anyone. There is no time to put Guy straight on this one though, or to mention that she has become a neighbour, because they have arrived. Laura is hurled forwards against her seat belt as Guy pulls up.
‘You don’t seem to have much idea how to drive, this car,’ she mutters.
Guy pauses as he is about to get out, looks straight at her and says, ‘I’m sorry, I was nervous.’ He yanks a skateboard out from between the seats, and noticing the astonishment on her face, explains, ‘It’s my christening present. But I think the big boys will have to look after it for a few years until Harry’s old enough.’
‘Oh no,’ Laura gasps. ‘I wasn’t thinking about the skateboard – I mean, I haven’t got a present. I didn’t even know the baby was a boy.’
‘Don’t worry, you can share mine,’ says Guy.
Laura follows him through a gate and into a garden. It is hard to get to the house because a small girl clad in a wetsuit and snorkel is dragging a paddling pool out of the front door, attended by a parrot.
‘Put it over there, put it over there,’ scolds the parrot.’
‘I AM TRYING TO!’ roars the child. ‘And shuddup Gertie or I’ll christen you.’
‘That’s Venetia’s daughter,’ says Guy. ‘She’s obviously taken the wet bit of the christening to heart.’
Relieved that her own clothing cannot possibly seem out of place when the junior hostess is clad in neoprene, Laura enters the cottage, stepping over strewn dolls and cricket bats in the hallway to see into a crowded sitting room. There, behind a huge jugful of white narcissus and moulting pink cherry blossom, Hedley is talking to a majestic woman in purple, holding her glass for her as she lights one cigarette from another.
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